My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 414 - Weather Influencers

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

This week, Karen covers "The Insulin Killer" and Georgia tells the story of Mother Mandelbaum. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is exactly right. Nachos! Hey, I'll take some. And some Franks Red Hot. Nah. You're just gonna eat these boring nachos with no flavor. Uh... Frank it up!

Frank it up! This guy finally gets it! It's the perfect blend of flavor and heat. Franks Red Hot, I put that sh** on everything. Think about something you're good at. Now think about how you got there. Chances are, you had someone to help you get started. If you're thinking about starting to invest, Questrade's award-winning support team is

here to help you learn how to become a better investor. From placing your first trade to setting up customized stock alerts, we're always by your side. Just a few of the reasons why we are Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. It's podcast time, everybody. Are you ready? What comes next, everyone?

You tell us this time. It's kind of the same thing every time. Yeah. There's no surprises in yet every time. We are. In yet every time, hey, wait a second. Shocked and horrified. Well, the first thing that popped in my head

is boy genius, one and Grammy. Yay! So exciting. Congratulations to boy genius and friend of the podcast, Phoebe Bridgers. And congratulations to Tracy Chapman because all of America realized we love Tracy Chapman and we're in love with Tracy Chapman and what an amazing thing to have her after all these

years go get her cred and her love. Hell yeah. She deserves it. That's cool too. I'm not sure why I'm doing a Grammy's rundown. There's just, those are the two things that popped into my head. Do you see someone tweeted like, hey grocery store, how about you stop playing Tracy Chapman's fast car?

We're all gripping in the groceries. Like the last place, it just hurts your heart every time you hear it. So you're just like shopping for cereal that has enough fiber in it, cause you're old. And it's like Tracy Chapman's fucking fast car comes on, and then you're devastated. You're devastated, and then you look,

and you're like, why is the cereal $12? Ah, yes. Yeah. I've become the lady that's now asking for my receipt. Here's my newest thing that bothers me a lot. This could be just kind of conspiracy, you know, overall, I'm so angry that these companies are just gouging everybody because they can.

I think it's so disgusting. But I've started doing that thing where, you know, they used to have your individual receipt that would run on that little screen where you use your credit card. And they don't put that itemized bill on that screen anymore. At any store that I go to. Oh, so it's like on the computer that the person's ringing up on. The person can see it,

but they have taken it off the credit card screen for what I have observed in where I shop in Los Angeles. To a degree where, because the complaint people have is, there will be a price at the shelf and you're getting charged a different price at the thing, which is a really shitty thing to do to the checkers.

Those companies are putting those checkers in the position to get yelled at or whatever when they have no control. That's so subversive. I hate the subversive things are like, it's the same size bottle, but now if you turn it upside down, it's like hollowed out more on the bottom. Like I think, you know, like a Gatorade. It's like, this is how they're gouging you.

It's not 12 ounces anymore, but it's almost, it looks like the same bottle, but they just changed a couple little indents of it. So you think you're getting as much for more money and you're not. Yeah, it's gross. And it should lead me to talk about something more positive, which is then I see people on TikTok,

the youngsters of today, who are all about thrifting. It's all about estate sales. It's upcycling. Upcycling, buying stuff. Like basically there's a couple things I've seen people doing that are like, this year I'm not gonna buy anything new. Yeah, it's so cool.

It really affected me because the woman who said that on her video She opened a drawer that was just filled with lipstick And I was like, oh no, that's I'm like I need to do that because I don't need anything No to be able to send a message like hey go to hell. Yeah, everybody shouldn't have to pay $12 for cereal That's a ripoffoff. That sucks. On a positive note, on three favorite cereal. One, two, three. Lucky Charms.

Oh, yeah. Wait, did you say yours? I didn't hear it. Oh, I thought I was just asking you. No. I didn't know how the game worked. You said on three favorite cereal. Yeah, not you.

Weird. I know. Kind of controlling. Now you have to say your favorite cereal. I wanted you to get your spotlight moment for Lucky Charms. Thank you. Oh my God, thank you. That's how I should have looked at it. I think mine is real nerdy. It's a Raisin' Nut brand. But we didn't get sweet cereal as a kid, so like I had no chance to...

Like life, that was the most sweetest cereal we were allowed. That was the hippie splurge in life, cereal. I still love it. You'd be like, oh, the wheat, or I'm thinking of checks, but that's an also kind of a hippie, like your mom's pretending you're getting a good cereal, but it's just healthy. Oh yeah, we'd get checks and then we'd secretly pour

heaping spoonfuls of sugar on top of it and then drink the sugar non-fat sugar milk. Because of course it was fucking non-fat milk every time. Get it from somewhere. You have to take it. Whether it's cereal milk, the sugar bowl, whatever, make cinnamon toast. This ADHD isn't going to medicate itself. I need pure granulated sugar. I need a coping mechanism.

I think that's why I do adore Lucky Charms so much is because it was forbidden. Yeah. Like me eating it now is like, I finally made it. Yeah, you can do what you want. I feel that way about Funyuns. Whenever I eat Funyuns, I'm just like, I can do whatever I want.

I'm an adult. Wait, what about on the staff meeting when who was it that was saying there was a new chip that was Funyan flavored? Anna? It's like a chip, like a laze or something, but it's a Funyan flavor. Funyan flavor. Yeah. Who was that? We should give credit. Was it Brian? Was it Brian? I want to say Brian. It was Brian. It was Brian. Yeah. You're right. It's our genius office manager, Brian Schmolt. Because he held up the bag, yeah. He brought the bag to the meeting with him so that everyone could know his favorite, his

favorite Superbolts now. I mean, that's the level of quality control and professionalism we require for anyone to be an employee of exactly right media is bring the chips to the meeting. Yes, show us what you're talking about. Don't just tell us. No. I have an author. Do you want a book? Sure.

Okay, so this is a new to me author named Angie Kim and she wrote a book called Miracle Creek and then more recently a book called Happiness Falls and I've read them both and oh, they're good. They're like murder slash death slash, you know, like explosion mystery. Not in both, but each of those have those themes that you're trying to solve through the case, through the book. It's based on like different perspectives

from different characters, usually a strong female lead who's totally fallible and it's like what happened? It's not what you think it is. It's like it's really it's really smart. It's a smart mystery. Oh cool. Angie Kim, I highly recommend her books. That's great. Yeah, what about you what you got? Well, I just think it's funny that when it's just 60 degrees

in LA, we'll talk about the weather, you know, for 10 minutes at the top of this podcast. But now that it's national news that there is a, this storm front that came in that literally they're saying is like, what was the phrase they were using? It was like- Something river. Atmospheric river, but they were like, it's the warning was like, it was not deadly.

There was a phrase they kept using and like, it's been crazy. It's been raining nonstop, crazy like hurricane level winds, but we're like, that's a classic move of ours where it's like, if you do know about the weather here, we won't talk about it. Right, we refuse. Like if it's trending, you won't hear about it here on my favorite murder.

Like we don't do that. We can't do that, not us. We're not weather trending, you won't hear about it here on my favorite murder. Like we don't do that. We can't do that. Not us. We're not weather influencers, you know? And we've never reported to be. And so, did you know that there's lawn care influencers? No. I don't know that.

This dude goes from like neighborhood to neighborhood and sees a really overgrown lawn where nobody lives there anymore or lives there. He's like, can I cut this lawn? Oh, that's like, that was my first week on TikTok. neighborhood and sees a really overgrown lawn where nobody lives there anymore or lives there. Is that, can I cut this lawn? Oh, that's like, that was my first week on TikTok. That guy pressure washes people's driveways too and then cuts all of like the sidewalk grass and yeah, that guy's amazing. I'm just like, I have mowing influencers, gift wrapping influencers where they just

like gift wrap different things perfectly to show you how to do things. Yeah. Taxidermy influencers. I've just been taking notes for some reason. It's almost like these days, the word influencers just means people. Doing that thing. A couple times. People that do a thing sometimes.

Speaking of doing things, we have a podcast network. It's called exactly right. Here are some highlights. Okay, big news from the world of true a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right. Here are some highlights. Okay, big news from the world of true crime podcasting. Everyone's favorite, season 10 of 10-Fold More Wicked with Kate Winkler-Dawson premieres on Monday, February 12th. It's called Entitled this season and it covers the mysterious deaths of three men

in Colonial Williamsburg. The trailer is out now in the 10- Tenfold More Wicked feed. Please, please, please go follow, rate review, all that stuff for Tenfold More Wicked so you don't miss it and also so she can get her props. I mean, Kate Winkler Dawson, the greatest in the biz. Greatest. Also, if you're looking for a little comedy, you're going to get it over at Lady to Lady because the legendary Laurie Hill-Martin joins Tess Babs and Brandi this week. So go laugh along with them. That's four funny ladies all in a row. Then make sure you don't miss this week's episode of Ghosted by Roz Hernandez because guess who's

the guest? It's Karen Kilgariff. It's me. It's you. And they discuss some new developments in Karen's famous family hauntings. So make sure you check that out. They're infamous. Everyone knows. Everybody knows about it. Also, Lisa Traeger, who's the co-host of That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, joins Chris and me on Do You Need A Ride. We talk about Taylor Swift's impact on the bead market. We talk about how long you need to hang out. Lisa's one of my favorite comedians

and kind of favorite personalities. I really like her style and we have a real good chat on that episode, so check it out. She's incredible. Lastly, the Exactly Right Store has been refreshed with a lot of familiar merchandise that you might remember, that you knew and loved and wanted us to bring back.

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Okay. So, Georgia, this story is truly wild. I had not heard of it before, but it was reminding me of a different story, and I wonder if you will know what I'm talking about as it goes through. But it's a classic serial killer case, classic true crime as we do on the show. This was actually a suggestion from a listener named Cass. She sent an email actually, a real classic way to submit a story idea.

The subject line was my cousin is a serial killer. And it just says, hey ladies, big fan from day one, my third cousin on my dad's side is a serial killer. He's known as the insulin killer. Here's a link for more information. Anyway, he's quite a scandalous character and worth looking into. Cheers, Cass. Nice. So thank you, Cass, for that suggestion. But I'm going to talk to you first a little bit about insulin, the life-saving drug insulin that helps people regulate their blood sugar if they have diabetes.

But when given to a person with no medical need for it, a sudden intake of insulin, I don't know if you know this, can trigger hypoglycemia, which is a dangerous drop in blood sugar levels causing sweating, anxiousness or irritability. Also, shakiness, dizziness, rapid heartbeat. In extreme cases, confusion, coma and death. Yikes, I didn't know that. So, in the 1950s, when this story I'm about to tell you takes place, there are no tests to measure the level of insulin in a person's body outside of basically research institutes. So there's no way if there's insulin in someone's system, especially a victim's, you can test for that. Because of this, insulin was an effective and virtually undetectable means of

killing, making it a very clever weapon of choice for one twisted man with greedy motives to murder. Now I'm going to tell you about Cass' cousin, who is also the first person ever convicted of murder in the United States where the murder weapon was insulin. This is the story of William Archard, the insulin killer. The main sources for today's story are a 2008 article from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine by Vincent Marx and Caroline Richmond and the court case People vs. Archard published on Justia US Laws US website and all the other sources are in our show notes. So take a look at those. So it all starts July 24th, 1956, with the LAPD

getting a call reporting a violent robbery. When police arrive at the scene, 44-year-old William Archer tells Sergeant Harry Andre and his team that two thieves broke into his Los Angeles home, holding he and his wife, Zella, at gunpoint. And then the thieves injected both of them with an unknown substance using a hypodermic needle before making off with $500 in cash. When William's wife, Zella is questioned, she recounts the same story. She adds that she never got a look at the thieves because they put a pillowcase over her head. So investigators examine Zella, she complained she feels dizzy, and the police find she has two

puncture wounds on her butt, basically, that are indicative of hypodermic needle injections, but they don't find those same types of marks on William. So as the police search the crime scene, they find a hypodermic needle in one of the archer's bathroom drawers. crime scene, they find a hypodermic needle in one of the orchards bathroom drawers. And then they also find a partially used vial of long acting insulin in a field nearby. They also observe that while the thieves made off

with $500 cash, they left behind valuable jewelry that was sitting out in plain sight. So shortly after the police leave, Zella's dizziness gets worse, and then she begins convulsing, and then she lapses into a coma. And by the next day, Zella Archer is dead. Wow.

So when the coroner conducts her autopsy, he tests for several different poisons that could have been injected into her bloodstream. All the tests come back negative. So Sergeant Andre mentions the vials of insulin that were found at and near the crime scene, but at the time there are no tests to measure insulin levels outside of research facilities, so the coroner has no way to test for it. Zella's cause of death is ruled as Bronco pneumonia

and Sergeant Andre walks away suspecting foul play but having no way to prove it. How do they find those vials in the field? Like that's so random. I know it feels like in the movie in my mind it went to like some cops with really big hats on that are just going through like a grassy field and like being made to walk arm to arm to look for stuff. Yeah. So we'll talk about William Archer a little bit.

He was born on May 5th, 1912 in Dardanelle, Arkansas, and he grew up dreaming of becoming a doctor, but he didn't have the funds or the self-discipline necessary for medical school. So he finds himself an alternative route and he gets work as a hospital attendant. Then in 1939, at the age of 27, he gets a job at the Camarillo State Hospital here in California as an attendant in the insulin shock ward.

Here he learns how to give insulin shots and glucose injections that bring patients out of shock. It teaches him all the effects of insulin on the body, the danger signs to look out for while patients undergo this treatment. Like he is in this process, in this treatment process, and he is fascinated by it. He's all about it.

So much so that he wants to discuss it with his coworkers all the time, even outside of the ward. And at some point, he actually convinces two coworkers to let him inject them with insulin so they would know what it was like, quote unquote. He leaves that job in 1941, but his fascination remains. So by 1947, Williams married to his first wife, Eleanor, and they live in Fontana, California.

What Eleanor doesn't know though, is that William is cheating on her with a nurse at Kaiser hospital named Dorothea. That'll come up later. So the same year when Williams friend, who's a 34 year old man named William Jones Jr. is arrested for child molestation, William Archard comes up with an idea that could allow Jones to avoid a trial and prison time.

Archard suggests that they stage a car accident where Jones quote gets a head injury. This would pause his legal proceedings and garner him sympathy points. And then Archard says Jones's family will then pay off the victim's family and get them to agree to settle out of court. And of course, Archard will act as the go between for handing

off that payment. Wow. Uh huh. So you can just feel the sinister machinations in this plan. Totally. So to really sell this fake head injury, Archard proposes, you guessed it, that they inject Jones with insulin because the symptoms mimic brain trauma and then the insulin will be undetectable. So Jones agrees to this plan and he convinces his family to raise like several thousand

dollars so that he can pay off the victim's family basically. Meanwhile, Archard convinces his mistress, Dorothea, who works at Kaiser, to get some insulin for him from Kaiser, from where she works. So around midnight on October 10th, 1947, Archard and Jones pick up the insulin from Dorothea's house. They drive out to a remote road and they stage this accident. So they bang up Jones's car and then Archard injects Jones

with the insulin and then positions him on the ground near the quote unquote accident. And once that's all set up, archered places and anonymous call to report the accident. And when the responders get to the scene, they take Jones to the hospital. So everything looks right to the first responders. At the hospital, Jones exhibits nervousness and a headache, both signs of a head injury. Just bad news for me. He's also hungry and he has a low temperature, early signs of hypoglycemia, but those go

unrecognized because no one has any reason to believe that Jones has any problems other than he could possibly have a head injury from this car accident. They're not even looking for hypoglycemia. It doesn't track with what would be happening. So Jones' symptoms grow worse. He's now sweating profusely. He's having muscle spasms. He's having trouble breathing. His pulse becomes irregular. The doctors give him a spinal tap.

They find out that his blood pressure and his blood sugar are low. Over the course of the day, on October 11th, 1947, they give him three separate doses of glucose to bring his blood sugar or low over the course of the day. On October 11th, 1947, they give him three separate doses of glucose to bring his blood sugar back up, but it doesn't work and Joan slips into a coma. Then, Archard comes and pays Joan's a visit and stays by his side in between all of these treatments.

Nothing the doctors do seems to be working. And at 11 a.m. on October 12th, 1947, William Jones passes away. So that could be rationalized as an accidental insulin overdose from a very kind of disgusting scheme, except that when Archer took Jones's quote, several thousand dollars to pay off the victim's family, he only gave them 300 and a used car and he kept the rest several thousand dollars for himself. The whole thing is like so gross.

So gross. Yeah. Horrible. And essentially, because all of that was under the table, William just gets out of the situation unscathed. Right. He has nothing to do with anything. Simultaneously, also he's got other stuff going on in his life.

He leaves his first wife, Eleanor, and he marries his insulin connection and mistress, Dorothea, in August of 1949. But in 1950, William is arrested for a legal possession of morphine and he gets five years probation. But then he's caught with drugs again. So he's sent to Chino. There's a minimum security prison there. He manages to escape in 1951, but authorities find him pretty quickly. And then they send him to San Quentin. So two years later in 1953, Archard is released on parole and he stays out of trouble basically for the next three years,

doesn't seem to have any interactions with the police outside of routine visits to his parole officer. Then on May 14th, 1956, William and Dorothea have their marriage annulled and the day after that he marries his third wife, Zella. So two months later, Archard will interact with the police once again, this time to call in that robbery

that I was telling you about at the beginning that leaves Zella dead. That's a quick turnaround for all these happenings. Well, overall, it's like he was in jail for a little while, this and that, but it's almost like he gets out of jail. And then suddenly he's like, I gotta do this more. Like, you can tell it's a person who has this obsession with a very strange, very strange

thing. So, William Archard moves to Las Vegas, Nevada, and he meets and marries his fourth wife Gladys there on October 4th, 1957. I am sorry to tell you this marriage doesn't last. And after they get divorced, William quickly marries his fifth wife, Juanita Plum, on March 10th. We have some stellar female names in this story.

Oh my God. Like name after name of like classic cool names, older names. Juanita Plum is one of the great names of our time. And also just this turnaround. Like I feel like it's very much pointing towards psychopath where it's like, right? Big energy, big like crazy eyes. They're like, whoa.

Who would play him? Who would play him? So I can get a picture of my head? The Hollywood version of him is John Slattery, because he has white hair. And he just looks like a man that would be complaining about how why can't they just have small, medium, and large at Starbucks or something like that.

He looks like one of those guys. Yeah, yeah. And every day kind of, a work and day, work and day, work and day, yeah. Yeah, okay, Sl every day kind of curmudgeony, curmudgeony. Yeah, okay. It's lattery. That's a good one. So two days after they get married, on March 12th, Juanita Plum falls into a coma. When William calls for help, he tells doctors that she had been drinking and taking barbiturates. She is taken to the hospital. She dies within hours of arrival at three o'clock on March 13th, 1958. And her death is ruled as cardiac failure due

to barbiturate overdose, even though no test for barbiturates in her bloodstream is ever administered. So it's the husband said so, that's what's happening. What doctors do find, however, is that one eat's blood sugar is low, conveniently for William, though, this fact raises no red flags. So within a year of Juanita's death, William reunites with his fourth wife, Gladys, and they get remarried. Yes, they get it back together on May 21st, 1959 1959 in La Habra, California. So Gladys was married to a man named Frank Stewart between her first time being married to William

and her second time being married to him. And they must have left it on good terms because somehow after those guys reunite, Gladys and William, William is able to talk Frank, his new wife's ex, into participating in insurance fraud scheme with him. Oh, shit.

So this is how this one goes. And it's so funny, I think today, the idea, I'm sure people still try it or do it or whatever, but to me, insurance fraud seems like the craziest idea. Like there's people that their whole job is to look into whether or not those claims are real. And it's like, it's federal, it's a federal offense too, right?

Isn't it? I would assume. I would assume I have no idea. You're just fucking yourself so hard if you get caught and you'll probably get caught, right? Probably, I mean, it feels like it. Yeah. Okay, so here's it. Yeah. Okay. So here's William's plan.

And then you can actually just apply that to this and be like, would they get caught if this is the plan? So check it out. Okay. William has Frank take out two airport accident insurance policies. So now they're involving the airport. Jesus. So there's a little more feds for you.

Okay. So the first policy is for $62,500. That's worth around, do you want to guess how much that's worth today? What year is it? 50? 59. 59, 68,000. Is that what you said? Yeah, it's 62.5. 62.5 and 58 today would be 550. 650. Very close. Okay. All right. So close. Good one. Yeah, just tack it. Tack a zero at the end of that.

So crazy. So Gladys is listed as the beneficiary, but it has instructions for her to divide the payment between her daughter and Frank's two daughters. And then the second policy is for $18,750, which is worth around almost 200,000 today. And that one lists William's mother, Jenny Archard, as the beneficiary. So on March 16th, 1960, Frank and William go to the Las Vegas airport

under the guise of being on a business trip. And then once they're there, they stage a fall in the men's bathroom where Frank slips on, you guessed it, a banana peel. No. Yes. And hits his head. Oh my God.

Was that a thing? Yeah. It hadn't gotten to the degree of international hilarity yet. I don't know. Maybe not, maybe not. Seems a little hacky. So Frank hits the ground or like they stage it, then William gives Frank an insulin injection

to mimic the symptoms of a head injury. So when Frank arrives at the hospital at 1230 on March 17th, he's conscious with just a small cut on his head, but he has one dilated pupil, which is actually an indication of possible brain injury. So because of this, doctors keep him for a 24 hour observation period. And throughout that, William remains at his bedside.

So by 4 p.m., Frank's convulsions begin and at 10 30 p.m. that night, Frank Stewart dies. Shit, was that his plan the whole time? Was for them to die probably, right? It starts to feel like it after a couple. Yes, I believe so. So Frank had been diagnosed with hardening of his arteries earlier that year. So then the autopsy just concludes

that that was Frank's cause of death. Wow. Not the fall. Or supposed to fall. Not the fall at all. No, in fact, the circumstances around the fall. Or suppose not the fall at all. No, in fact, the circumstances around that fall are so fishy that the insurance company refuses to pay out either of those policies.

Wow. So the whole plan doesn't work anyway. And then nobody, including the coroner, believes it or the investigator. So meanwhile, back in California, Sergeant Harry Andre, who first investigated the robbery at the Archard's house, he's following this case because he could never shake his suspicion

of William Archard since Zella's death in 1956. He hears about Juanita and Frank's deaths, both of those. So he reaches out to Nevada police and he tells them all about William Archard's suspicious history. He makes it very clear that everything points to the fact that Williams using insulin as a potential, you know, murder weapon in all of these cases, but he doesn't have evidence and the Nevada police don't have evidence, nothing except for circumstantial. So there's kind of nothing they can do about it. So we'll go back just a tiny bit before Frank Stewart's death. William Archard's brother Everett had died in an accident at work and Everett's only son and

William's nephew, 15-year-old Bernie Archard, receives his father's workman's comp payout of $7,000, which is worth $70,000 today. And that leaves Bernie under the guardianship of his grandmother, Jenny Archer, and his uncle William. Yeah. So fast forward from there a year and a half to August 22, 1961. William's insurance scheme cost Frank Stewart his life, but did not pay him any money. So around 4 p.m. on that day in August, William picks up his nephew, Bernie, from Bernie's grandmother's house in Long Beach.

And Bernie's neatly dressed and completely healthy when he drives off with his uncle. By five o'clock that day, Bernie's in the hospital. And the story that William has to tell the police is odd. He claims Bernie told him that he was walking home from a nearby neighborhood, the Lakewood neighborhood, when he crossed an intersection and got hit by a red truck. So I guess it was supposed to be a hit and run.

So Bernie then basically gets himself over to the curb. He's hurt, but he's still conscious. And he scribbles the truck's license plate and the words red truck onto a piece of paper. And then, which totally tracks, he gets up and walks four miles back to his grandmother's house and then his grandmother calls William for help. Okay.

So at the hospital, doctors find that Bernie has a chipped hip bone and a very dilated left pupil. And they suspect that there's a possible brain injury from this hit and run. So they decide to keep Bernie overnight for observation. And aside from complaining about being hungry, Bernie doesn't seem to be sick or hurt. But by the evening, he becomes much more irritable and his temperature

drops. And then the next morning, which is August 23rd, 1961, William returns to the hospital to visit Bernie. And he stays there, you know, basically visits him off and on throughout that day. And he stays there, you know, basically visits him off and on throughout that day. His last visit is at 6 p.m. and at 10 p.m. Bernie falls into a coma. So the doctors can find no hemorrhaging or bruising in his brain, no blood clots, no other apparent reason for this comatose state. They do notice that Bernie's blood sugar is low. Now at the same time, police are following up on William's story to try to track down the driver who allegedly hit Bernie.

And they find the red truck with the same license plate that Bernie had written down parked in a used car lot that is visible from the scene of the supposed accident. The only problem is that truck is an old clunker and it makes a ton of noise when it's running. So anyone in the houses or the offices in that area would have known if it was being driven. And when they're questioned, nobody reports seeing

or hearing that truck at any time on that day that Bernie was allegedly hit. Plus the truck has no exterior damage indicating that was involved in an accident. Back at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, the doctors give Bernie glucose trying to bring his blood sugar levels back to normal to revive him. And incredibly in the middle of this ordeal, William's mother, Jenny Archard, passes away. What? There's no information on the details of her death,

but that's just something to know in the background. So now William is the sole guardian of his nephew, Bernie. And also that makes him the sole heir of both his mother, Jenny's estate, and the money Bernie got from his father's payout. On August 26, 1961, Bernie's transferred from the intensive care surgical unit where he was basically constantly surrounded by nurses

and sometimes doctors most of the time to a private intensive care room. And then for the next several days, William visits Bernie. Ten days later, Bernie Archer dies on September 2, 1961. He was 15 years old. Because Bernie Archer's death takes place in California, the story hits local newspapers, and the LAPD, Sergeant Andre, sees William Archer's name in relation to a suspicious death once again, only now this is back in Sergeant Andre's jurisdiction. So Andre reaches out to a Sergeant White in the homicide unit who investigates fatal road

accidents and Sergeant White finds evidence or the lack thereof that points to Bernie's hit and run being a fake. And Sergeant Andre, again, suspects that William Archer had injected his nephew with insulin and the possibility of insulin rejection also crosses the mind of the pathologist that's conducting Bernie's autopsy, given his low glucose levels. But again, there's no way to prove the presence of insulin.

So he rules Bernie's cause of death to be injuries sustained from that alleged car accident. On April 18th, 1965, William Archard uses a fake name, James Lynn Arden, to marry his seventh wife, Mary Brinker Post, who is a fairly successful romance novelist. So Mary has a pretty large savings account and William, who is unemployed

and I think has been unemployed for a while, he takes advantage of this. So between May of 1965 and October of 1966, William spends $21,600 of Mary's money, which is about $200,000 in today's money. And by October 20th, 1966, Mary has to file for bankruptcy. And as a result, William leaves her. So he just basically comes in, lives off of her,

parasites off of her, parasites off of her and then leaves. And she writes letters to him every day for the next eight days, begging him to come back to her. He does not. And then on October 28th, 1966, Mary actually gets into a real car accident. She goes to the doctor.

She only had cuts and bruises. She sent home. William hears about this car accident. She goes to the doctor. She only had cuts and bruises. She sent home. William hears about this car accident. Oh no. And he goes back to Mary on Halloween, October 31st of 1966. So the next day, Mary's feeling fine. She's no longer experiencing any of the pain or discomfort that she was feeling from her minor accident injuries. But that night, Mary's neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Field, noticed that the lights are on in Mary's house

and they stay on until the early morning hours. Mrs. Field actually woke up between three and four a.m., my favorite time to wake up in the middle of the night, and noticed Mary's lights were still on, which is very unusual. The next morning around 8 a.m. on November 2nd, William knocks on the fields door, dressed in a suit saying Mary isn't waking up

and asking them to come over and help. When they do, they find Mary lying comatose in her bed, her face is swollen, her tongue's hanging out, she's salivating, it's bad. So she's rushed to the hospital. William tells the doctors there that Mary had taken sleeping pills and they find barbiturates in her system, but they also find that her glucose levels are low. Dude, this guy won't quit. Like, what the fuck? It's wild. And you know what I'm like, we've heard of the Angel of Death stories where there's like nurses in hospitals that do this, but it's like he couldn't get into the hospital, he's doing it from the outside.

Totally. Or like getting them into the hospital and then doing it while they're there. It's such a weird backwards version of those types of serial killers. So Mary Brinker Post dies the next day on November 3rd, 1966. Now, coincidentally, Sergeant White, who was the homicide detective, who Sergeant Andre had consulted about Bernie Archer's fatal car accident in 61,

he has since been promoted to lieutenant and he is now assigned to investigate Mary Brinker Post's death. Oh, good. Yes. Finally. So he knows all about William Archer's history and he's determined to not let him get away with a sixth murder.

So at this point, enough time has passed that an effective method for measuring insulin levels has actually been established. But Lieutenant White has never heard of like the standard way of doing it, but he does find a doctor named Dr. Edward Arkea, who's developed his own insulin measuring test. So Lieutenant White asks Dr. Arkea to test tissue from both Mary and Bernie's bodies. And while he waits for results, he starts painstakingly conducting over 400 witness interviews with everyone, ranging from archers, former girlfriends to his old boss at the state hospital. And in one of the most compelling interviews, talking to his second wife, Dorothea, Dorothea for the first time ever,

talks about William Jones Jr.'s death. And that's the man accused of molesting a child that they tried to fake a car accident. And Dorothea confirms that she acquired the insulin that William used to fake Jones head injury symptoms. So finally, the police now have actual concrete evidence, and they don't even need Dr. Arquia's final test results. They arrest William Dale Archard

for the first degree murders of Zella Archard, Bernie Archard, and Mary Brinker Post on July 27th, 1967. So his trial begins on December 4th of that year, and he pleads not guilty to all three murder counts. He also waives his right to a jury trial and instead opts to have the judge make the final ruling on his guilt. The good news is that just in time for the trial, Dr. Arkea is able to prove that there were high amounts of insulin in both Mary's and Bernie's bodies. And because of these test results, the causes of death for all six suspected victims are

reexamined by expert witnesses. And in each case, even if the exact insulin levels in the body couldn't be determined, the symptoms each person experienced and the timing of William's visits and their sudden declines point to a high likelihood that these victims were given large doses of insulin by William Archer. And of course, Williams motives are revealed during the trial, which is all monetary gain. It's just insane.

Like I'm laughing, but in that way of like, it sounds so stupid, you're just killing members of your family. Yeah, psychopath, total psychopath. Just nuts. And each case of murder or suspected murder, Williams stood to make a large sum of money. He made a couple thousand off of Williams Jones Jr.

He stood to gain moderate inheritances from Zella and Mary's deaths. And although William already had access to the workers comp payout that Bernie got after his father's death, William was able to assume total control over all of that money once Bernie died himself. So that one, even it was like,

he just was knocking off anyone who was slightly in the way. You didn't even need to kill your nephew, but you fucking did it anyway. And then that to me pulls back in his own mother's death. Right. Because she was the other name on that. Absolutely. And if you're just killing everybody for money,

I mean, why wouldn't he? Anyway, that's my own personal theory, a legend. So his wife Juanita actually had an estate that was valued around $40,000 at the time, which would be worth $420,000 today. The only thing was, after her death, they read the will, she left him $1. So he was not the executor of her estate or anything like that. He had already gotten a bunch of money out of her, but it is kind of nice to know that she, like he didn't get what he wanted. He could have lived off of that money

for a long time, I think. And she was like, no, no. So March 5th, 1968, the judge of course, finds William Dale Archard guilty of murder in the first degree for the deaths of Zella Archard, Bernie Archard, and Mary Brinker Post. So the next day, he is sentenced to death in San Quentin's gas chamber. Although four years later in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court outlaws the death penalty, calling it cruel and unusual punishment. So William's sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.

Then two years later in 74, the death penalty is reinstated and William's death sentence is reconfirmed. But in 1977, he actually dies of pneumonia at the age of 65. William was only ever convicted of Zella, Bernie, and Mary's murders, but the evidence surrounding William Jones, Juanita Plum Archard, and Frank Stewart's deaths were ruled as admissible in court. And all six of these deaths established a clear pattern of circumstances pointing to the guilt of William Archard

and his use of insulin as a murder weapon. Jesus. And that is the story of William Dale Archard and his use of insulin as a murder weapon. Jesus. And that is the story of William Dale Archard, the insulin killer. Wow, I really hate him. I mean, he's just like a feral animal. Yeah, useless piece of shit. But also the idea that he would go and sit by their bedside,

like as they're in a coma and give them more insulin or doing whatever he was doing. That's the idea probably, he just kept injecting them. I mean, who's to say, but they stayed in those comas and then they died. So where did he get that insulin from after the one next? I mean, I don't know, but he was arrested with like drugs on him.

So he clearly was getting other connections. Yeah, I wonder. Cause that was his passion. Yeah. Wow, great job. Never heard of that one. Same, and thank you, Cass, for suggesting it. Cause that was a really a fascinating story.

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of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash murder. Goodbye. We're gonna go to a staunch woman. Yay, staunch. The family didn't know they were dealing with the staunch woman. Everyone watch Grey Gardens if you haven't.

And then go watch the documentary now version that they made. It's so fucking hilarious. So good. Oh my God, the first season of documentary now is so incredible. It is. It is incredible.

I don't think it gets talked about enough. No, I totally agree. I'm just thinking of Bill Hader and fucking sweatpants on me, Ted. Yeah. Okay, stop it. Quit it, stop it. Stop it now.

Today I'm gonna be covering a story about a scrappy immigrant woman who used her street savvy and determination to feed her family at all costs to turn her petty crimes into a multi-million dollar criminal operation, making her one of the most infamous names in the New York organized criminal underworld of the 1860s until she was captured in the 1880s.

This is the story of Mother Mandelbaum. The main sources I used in today's story include an article from Smithsonian magazine titled The Life and Crimes of Old Mother Mandelbaum by Karen Abbott and an article from Tablet Magazine written by Alan Levine. All the other sources are listed in our show notes. So here's a little background on Miss Mother Mandelbaum. She's born in Hanover Prussia, which is now Castle Germany on March 25th, 1825. Her name is Frederica Henrietta Augusta Winsner.

And she grows up in a Jewish family. So she's like a Jewish to boot. Other than that, not much is known about her upbringing, but in 1848 at the age of 23, she marries a peddler, which is a door-to-door salesman. Did we all know that? I don't know. A peddler?

Oh, yeah, I guess so. Peddling goods, but I didn't know door-to-door. Yeah, they bring it to you. Yeah, I guess, like, yeah, you're pushing your cart down the street. His name is Wolf Mandelbaum. She takes up the same work to help pay the bills for their home in Germany until 1850 when the pair immigrate to America. And they settle in the little Germany section of New York's Lower East Side. The neighborhood is a cramped home to German immigrants

with as many as 15 people squeezing into small apartments that were as little as 325 square feet. Having done the Tenement Museum tour in New York City, 15 people in that little space sounds like a nightmare. It makes me think, well, that's why those like old pictures in the day, there's just kids out in the street. You just can't have people inside the house until they absolutely have to be, like eating and sleeping. Yeah, until you have to sleep or eat,

that's you don't come home. Now you just go outside to walk around to five-year-old. Yeah. So in New York, Fredrika and Wolf work as street vendors, reselling anything and everything they can get their hands on. It almost sounds like a kind of dumpster-diving lifestyle. They sell items like broken timepieces, silk scraps,

and small pieces of coal, anything they can scavenge that's worth even the tiniest bit of money. And they work 14 hours a day and only bring home about $6 per week. And that is in the 1850s. So $6 a week is the equivalent of how much money a week they brought home in today's money. $100? 186's money. A hundred dollars?

186. Oh. A week. Yeah. That's not enough. It's barely enough for the two of them to survive on, so when they end up having four children, Frederica realizes she needs to come up with a better way to make money. So then in August of 1857, this thing called the Panic of 1857 begins when the management

of a large Ohio and New York-based bank called the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company makes fraudulent investments that bankrupt the company. So it's very similar to the crash and the Great Depression of the 30s, but this happens in 1857. This triggers a global economic crisis, hundreds of other banks and businesses fold, and thousands of Americans lose their job. But Frederica, being the savvy business woman that she is, sees an opportunity in the chaos.

The kids of New York City, the little street urchins that are sent out of their house, have found their families in a new level of poverty and they're resorting to pickpocketing and looting and then selling those stolen goods to make money. And that practice is known as fencing. So these are two great skills for Frederica to capitalize on. She befriends the young thieves.

They range in age from eight to 15 years old and encourages their behavior, offering to buy their stolen goods in bulk for pennies and then flipping the goods at a fifth of their wholesale price and still turning a heavy profit. So instead of the kid selling piece by piece, she fucking offers to buy the whole bag for pennies on the dollar and then is able to sell them at a higher price. Yeah. But the thing is, she is a very loving and matronly woman,

so she earns their trust. They love her. They love the positive feedback she gives them, like, great job today, kids. They love the attention, of course, and that money. They need all those things. And as a result, she earns herself the nickname Mother Mambal Bomb or Marm.

The only likeness I saw of her was like a sketch drawing and it looks like, you know, those in the back of the magazine and sway back when it's like, can you draw this? You can get into art school. It looks like a little old lady, like silhouette drawing. One of those things. Yeah, she's a standard little old lady. I don't know who played her in the movies.

I don't know what she looks like. And she's probably like, someone do bathroom. If she was born in 1825 and it's like the 1850s, she's not that old. No. So it's like. She's in her late thirties. Yeah. She's been stressing about fencing and reselling stolen shit.

So it's been aging her face and hair. And four children and you are in poverty, like that's gonna age. I get the vibe of like a Kathy Bates energy where it's like she can be bad and good at the same, she's good to the kids and bad in terms of the law I guess. Savvy, yeah, she sounds really smart. Kathy Bates is a great idea.

By 1865, Marm is moving so much stolen product that she and Wolf have to lease out a storefront at Clinton Street and Ribbington Street to legitimize her operation. So she basically, they get a storefront to sell their stolen goods. They live in the apartment above the store. Like life's getting better.

She positions herself as a dry good saleswoman saying that's what the store is for and like has a bunch of dry goods bullshit, but all her illicit fencing business does go on there. So she's got lentils and stuff on the shelves, but then she's like, are you looking for, you know, this man's wallet or whatever. Exactly. That's for a second, I honestly thought it was like a store with stolen goods on the shelves where I'm like, well, people are going to go in there and recognize their stuff and get mad. Not that reason. Yeah. About her business,

Marma is a woman of few words, but one regular phrase of hers cements itself in New Yorkers minds, which is, quote, it takes brains to be a real lady. Hey. Her husband, Wolf, on the other hand, is what New York City police chief George Washington Wallings calls a non-entity, meaning it's clear that Marm is in charge of the fucking operation. Cool. She seems quiet but brash, and he's kind of along for the ride. But he dies in 1875.

Marm wastes no time mourning her loss, but instead markets her business even further. She's like, I'm on my own here now, expanding her pool of customers. She visits synagogues, beer halls, and the Bowery's eighth Ward Thieves Exchange, which is an entire flea market for fencers, where authorities tend to look the other way, like, oh my god, take me there. Oh my god, please. If you had stuff stolen, you'd be so mad. But to go in there and actually be able to shop and just be like, oh my God, I love this ring. The Instagram haul video that you would make after that, it would be epic.

The best. So she goes there and she establishes herself as a fencing mainstay and soon Marm's operation outgrows her little storefront. And she has to lease out several warehouses across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Albany, New York, and Pisaic, New Jersey to store her goods. That's how much looting and thieving they're doing. But also in this moment,

should we maybe discuss the possibility that Marm is a hoarder only because it's like, these items are hot, get rid of it. Don't get a warehouse. Have a fucking fire cell. Bring those prices down. Turn over. Do something.

We want turnover. Yeah, I know what you mean. Melt it down. I also couldn't tell exactly. I think they broke into houses and just stole all their shit. I think it was more than pickpocketing. So I think there was actually a lot of stuff. Like large items.

I thought everything was pocket sized. No, I think it's looting, essentially. a lot of stuff. Okay. Like large items. I thought everything was pocket-sized. No. I think it's like looting. Got you. Essentially. So, the other thing she has to do, other than just get more customers, is make nice with the local police. And that's exactly what she does.

She not only makes friends with Cricket cops, of course, writing them to let her operations run freely, but she also establishes friendly relationships with several judges at the Fifth District Court and Tammany Hall politicians. So you know Tammany Hall back then. It's a faction of immigrant Democrats, particularly Irish Catholics, who gained control of the party in New York in the 1850s. So there's all kinds of movies that you can watch involving Tammany Hall.

I think Gangs of New York. Gangs of New York, yeah. So the politicians tap Marm's influence to sway what they really need, which is the local Jewish vote. So she's able to go around and like get everyone to vote for them during election years and exchange no one hassles her about her business. Wow. So she's got cloud.

Yeah. She often hosts lavish dinner parties for all her closest associates, putting cops, crooks and politicians together at the same table. Again, take me there, my God. Make that movie, please. Ugh, the canopies. As Marm's business improves, so does the quality of her product. She's no longer hawking things like scraps, you know, and hunks of coal. She's moving things like silk, like full fucking reams of silk and lace, diamonds, horses,

carriages, and all sorts of precious metals, all of which are stolen. She's careful to only handle one heist at a time with just a handful of crooks working each job beneath her, and she keeps her own hands clean, of course, as all good criminals do, never doing any of the thieving herself. Yeah, she's the face of the business. Exactly. She's the front. Right. The thieves aren't the only crooks working under Marm Mandelbaum. She also got engravers to change stolen jewelry so they wouldn't be traceable anymore. She gets handsome cab drivers to help her thieves make quick escapes from their heists and powerful defense attorneys on retainer for five grand a year who fend off any and all

theft accusations that come her way. You want to guess five grand a year? Five grand a year in 1850 or 75? Around, yeah, 60s, 70s. I'm now trying to do math based on the last story, but yeah. Yeah. Is it two million a year? It's 136,500. So no. Oh, that's not even close. No.

It's way over. I've gone way over. I just know lawyers are expensive. They are. Okay. Dr. Muncher and her own kids are now teenagers. They accompany her during business deals to keep watch for undercover cops

for the few she isn't bribing. And then she hires this guy to be her muscle. His name's Herman Stoud, who serves as security and handler. And I'm gonna hope also her secret lover, that is totally made up, but in my mind that'd be great. Because she isn't that fucking old.

And he moves purchase goods as well around in the warehouses. So that's her little team. In 1880, after about 15 years of fencing, Marm has thieves working for her in cities up and down the East Coast, even up through Eastern Canada and into Mexico, moving product across state and county lines. She is such a pro at recruiting and training thieves that she allegedly opens up an underground school teaching the art to these little street urchins of pickpocketing, picking locks and burglary

and safe blowing teaches these kids these things. Holy shit. And for the smarter ones, she allegedly teaches them about blackmail and confidence schemes as well. So she's got a little organization, chair-faced, like, you know, dirty little kids. It's perfect.

In the street. It is. Yes. Sophie Lyons, who goes on to become one of the most infamous con women in American history, she even trains her as a kid. Oh. And she is a feminist at heart. She takes special care to train women, thieves, in particular,

because she's frustrated that so many women are, quote, wasting life being housekeepers. So with her intricate network of these underlings helping her move millions of dollars with her stolen goods, Marm Fredrica Mandelbaum establishes herself, according to The New York Times in 1884, as, quote, the nucleus and center of the whole organization of crime in New York City.

Amazing. Yeah. As such, it would only be a matter of time before someone tries to stop her, of course. Yeah. So that time comes in the spring of 1884 when a cohort of disgruntled silk merchants approached New York District attorney Peter Olney.

Marms marked down prices are causing the legal merchants to lose as much as six grand a year in revenue, which is equivalent to about 181,000 a year. And Marms crimes while nonviolent in nature are still causing harm to honest business people. So this is not the first time Peter Olney has heard about Marm Mandelbaum. An anti-Taminy Democrat,

he's been battling Marm's Tamminy political friends in the political sphere for years, so he's super anti. He can't stand Marm and her operations, and he hates her influence over the NYPD and their corruption. So he hires the renowned private detective agency, the Pinkertons. Pinkertons. To try and take mother Mandelbaum down. So Pinkerton detective Gustav Frank is a sign of the case. He meets with a legitimate silk seller and expert and spends three weeks learning the silk trade business, as well as how to identify top quality silk.

Then he gets to work befriending a man on the inside, one of Marm's trusted thieves over a period of months. So this is like deep undercover for him. Yeah. So while Detective Frank is infiltrating Marm's inner circle as a silk trader naming himself Stein, other Pinkerton detectives are working with a local silk shop placing these like really discrete markers on bolts of silk. And that way, if any of Marm's thieves steal the shop silk, the detective will be able to identify it. And of course, as expected,

her thieves steal the mark bolts. So at this point, this detective Frank, under the name of Stein, convinces Marm to sell him 12,000 yards of silk. And so on July 21st, 1884, she, as her standard procedure, waits until she has his payment in hand, and then she gives him the silk, much of which

has the secret markings on it. She's screwed. It's enough evidence to earn authorities a search warrant on her store, which Detective Frank serves her the next morning. She's in her carriage right out front of the store when the man she thought she knew as Stein hands her the warrant and reveals his true identity. And in a rage, she shouts, quote,

you wretch you before punching Detective Frank in the face. The sick. Police searched the store to find a wealth of stolen goods, including silk, jewelry, precious gems, silverware, fine clothing, antique furniture and more. The stash they find marvels one journalist who comments, quote, it did not seem possible that so much wealth could be assembled in one spot.

So she was fucking rhyming and thieving. Kind of love it. I just would love to see the difference between it's all that wealth and then like, did she still just live in that apartment over her fake shop? Like keeping it real low key? Totally, I don't know about how she spent the money

or what she did with it, but sounds like she enjoyed her life. Well, and also it sounds like she kept her cover well. Right, right. So Mar-Mandelbaum, her son Julius Mandelbaum and her muscle Herman Stout are all placed under arrest for possession of stolen silk. Marl declares her innocence.

She denies any of it. She seems very offended that one would even say such a thing about her. Right. That's what you do. That's the only move you have left when you get caught. She posts bail for herself, her son and and her muscle. And her lawyers push the trial back as much as they can, meanwhile, because she's clearly at flight risk, Pinkerton detectives surveil her house around the clock,

but Marm outsmarts them. She has a number of her house staff dress up like her to fool the detectives. And as they're following that lookalike, they slip away. And by the time the trial date rolls around, Marm, Julius and Herman have all made their escape. Ooh, by December 5th, 1884, they end up crossing the border into Canada

and because their crimes are not extraditable. Extraditable, that's a word. Yeah. The NYPD are powerless and unless they decide to return to the US on their own, there's nothing the authorities can do to bring them back. Wow. Yeah.

So, Marm, Julius and Herman settled down in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. After that, Marm goes on to live an apparently crime-free life in Hamilton, Ontario. She joins the local Jewish congregation, opens an honest law-abiding hat shop. There's rumors about her maybe having some crime going on still, but there's no proof. The biggest allegation, though, in her later life is that Mar manages to secretly return to the United States one last time in 1885 to attend the funeral of her youngest daughter, Anna, who was 18 when she died. She dons a disguise and alternating between train rides and a private carriage.

She allegedly slips back into New York for just a quick moment to watch the procession of her daughter's funeral from afar. So she left her four kids behind and escaped. Yeah, she took one kid. The only other kid who was facing charges. So the other kids were fine. You know what I mean?

Oh, got it. So they could do that, yeah. Yeah. The story's unconfirmed, but what is confirmed is her undeniable level of success. Throughout the entirety of her fencing career, Marm is said to have moved anywhere from 150 to 300 million in today's money.

Yeah. from 150 to 300 million in today's money. Yeah. Her lifetime take home profit is estimated at anywhere between 15 to 30 million in today's money. Holy shit. So that's her take home. So hopefully she was living a little bit high life over in Canada. You're up there with the curtains closed

in your apartment above your shop, but inside it's just tiled in gold and diamonds. Yeah, opulence. It looks like Jeanne's bottle from I Dream of Jeanne. Yeah. In the Smithsonian article, it says one journalist puts it, she was the person who quote, first put crime in America on a syndicated basis.

So she was the first one to like make it a fucking, like a- A machine kind of. Yeah, using small children. Not great today. Not great. We don't love it. Interestingly, if you don't love that,

then you shouldn't love the rollbacks of child labor laws that they're doing right now. But- That's right. I was gonna say, unless there's something we don't know about, and I actually now, definitely wanna read a book about this woman for sure to get all the details. But like, it sounds like she did that

without abusing the children. Like making them love her was what made that business go. That's what the story goes. Yeah, and I hope it's true. I do too. Yeah. At age 69, Marm catches a long drawn out sickness that ultimately takes her life on February

26, 1894. Although it is said that she faked her death and put rocks in the coffin. Like, there is a rumor that that's not true too, that she's fucking lived. Yeah. That would make sense. Cause so she could go back to New York. Yeah. Because it says, even though she dies a free woman, she allegedly passes away missing her

life as a criminal legend in the Lower East Side. Yeah, so maybe she faked it and fucking went back home. Who knows? She made it in New York City to the degree where she was running shit. As a Jewish immigrant woman in the fucking 1800s. And a widow. And a widow, eventually.

Yes, right. Unreal, unreal. She must have had that sparkle in the eye. Oh. And a widow. And a widow eventually. Yes. Unreal. Unreal. She must have had that sparkle in the eye. Oh, that she did. And that is the story of Mother Mandelbaum. Wow. Full props to Mother Mandelbaum.

That's right. It's like the Oliver Twist story. But the kids aren't abused or it's not bad. I just need it to be that. I need it to be the flip side of that story. Right. And like, look, if you get mad at these people getting their stuff stolen, everyone had insurance back then. Don't, you know, calm down. Right? You ensure your art and your antiques and your fucking horses. I mean, there's just a big warehouse in Pisaic that's got a horse in it. I love that idea. Well, can't move that right now.

Just put it out in Pisaic. Yeah. This diet's first so that you can't tell whose horse it is. Well, we did it again. We really did. That was a delightful episode I found. Yeah. I feel.

I feel the same way. Send us your story suggestions at myfavoritmurder.com or your hometowns. We always love your hometowns, whatever they may be. You love your hometowns for sure. Yeah, any story, if you know about an anti-hero, an inspiring story, is that even possible? A true crime story that's got a little kick on the side

of inspiration. I love it. We love a kicky story. What am I say? I don't know if it's raining really bad so it's not your fault. We love a kiki story. It's all I've ever wanted to say.

Why won't you let me say it? It's raining. Let us do what we want. We're in Los Angeles. Let us. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Come on.

Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. Come on. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalache. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Ali Elkin.

Email your hometowns to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye!