My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 415 - Be A Better You

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

On today’s episode, Georgia and Karen cover the mysterious death of Chuck Morgan and WWII spy Virginia Hall. 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, with new episodes every Monday. Follow Yeah, love. Hello. Wow. And welcome. To my favorite murderer. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgarov. We're doing this week what we call aggressive improv. Yeah, like in your face.

Yeah, we don't want any suggestions from you. That's how in your face we are. The suggestion is just there's no suggestion. Go. The suggestion is hell, how's it really doing this February? Oh, is it? Oh, yeah. It's actually the second fucking week of February. Quick check in. Quick check in Valentine's Day, everyone's favorite fucking stupid ass holiday. Everyone loves Valentine's Day. Oh my God.

The people trapped in loveless relationships, the people pining for loveless relationships. There's no one who doesn't want it to be happening. And the best way to tell someone you love them is to tell that person on your social media So everyone sees it. That's love. Yeah, if he's going I L you on snapchat, it's not real. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry in person Gross like then everyone doesn't know if he's doing it during be real just to use you as a be real moment

The only reason I know it be real is I don't know to use you as a be real moment. The only reason I know what be real is is because of Nora. It's like, it's an app. I'm gonna explain this wrong because I only know it through Nora and she kind of doesn't like talking about it because she's fiercely private as well. 14, yeah.

17. No, she's not. Yes, she is. She fucking drives a car and does errands for my sister. I missed a whole chunk of your niece's life. I would have guessed 14 maybe. No, no.

Oh, no, no, no. Holy shit. She has to start preparing for what college she's going to pick because it's the end of junior year. Did you tell her not to bother? Like, anti-caring didn't go. Anti-caring doesn't. You don't have to worry about that. What if I did that like behind my sister's back?

I was just in Nora's ear like, look I tried it, it didn't work for me. And why would it work for you? My nephew, Micah just had his 14th birthday and I took everything in my power not to be like, cool your Auntie Georgia was in rehab for that birthday. Oh, oh, oh. I was like, my brother would be so mad at me

if I said that to him. That's a little bit like, I feel like kids today are advanced in many, many ways, much further past when we were, but not in that way. Yeah, not in like, that means it's not okay, but they don't get that, right? Well, also they don't think kids like,

well, I shouldn't say this, because who knows and everyone's different, but it's like that whole thing of like, hey, be cool and do some drugs over here, it's not as, the parents are so in everything, it feels like. And the drugs are so much worse now. Well, it says the girl who was in rehab for meth at 13. I mean, you can't get much worse than meth. Where the fuck were we?

You were telling me about an app. Oh, I was gonna explain what B Real is, even though I don't really know, and also commenced all of the 15 to 17 year olds giggling behind their hand. What I've seen it to be, is that an alarm goes off on this app on your phone, and you have to take a picture of yourself

doing whatever you're doing right in that moment, hence the name Be Real. Oh, oh please. As if anyone ever fucking has ever been real on the internet. Who wants that? So is it like supposed to be like, what's the anti-influencer thing now? Or it's like, we're not faking what our lives look like anymore. This is like, now it's like the opposite of, it's de-influencing, that's what it's fucking called. Yeah, like no one's getting on that interior set of a private plane to do their B-reels because that's the least real unless you are a Kardashian. Or a Swiftie, no, or Taylor Swift, not a Swiftie.

Careful though, because we don't want to criticize her for doing an international tour. Edit that out, dude, immediately. I mean, Jesus, we don't want to criticize her for doing an international tour edit that out to immediately I mean Jesus we don't want those people on our own. I like her I'm not even criticizing her but I mentioned her without a smile on my face and then and I can get murdered for that That's when the police break down your door This morning I woke up early than earlier

I woke up angry and I was like, you know, I was scrolling really late last night and I saw our new merch on our Instagram. I was like, I don't remember approving that. Like what? I don't know. I don't like that new merch. Like what the fuck? And so this morning I woke up kind of like, this kind of sucks.

Then I scrolled all my like emails to see if I had ever been shown it. And then I was like, hold on a second, go on Instagram to check. It was a dream. All a dream. Aaron Brown, our fucking incredible queen of marketing, Aaron Brown, my longtime friend. Yeah, your longtime friend. So who's on it in the most, I owe her an apology.

Thank God it didn't text her. I'd be like, you know, I really wish you would have included me in this decision. I resent. Yeah, I love that very understandable instinct where it feels like it's all already happened, so you have to talk about it right that second because it's all gone past you. Could you describe the merch you don't like? No, I couldn't.

It was some saying, you know, that we had said and I don't remember and I probably never said it. It was like, be a better you or something like so annoying. And I was like, I don't think I approve that, but you know, and I kind of don't like it. No, I don't. Yeah. I wouldn't have approved that either. Be a better you and like block letters.

Be a better you, it's all your fault. How about that? That makes more sense. And then the back of the shirt, it says, cause it's all your fault. Cause it's all your fault. And then the attribution is your mom. That's what your mom told us.

Do better with clapping emojis. So my apologies to our dear, dear Aaron Brown. To the entire merch team. Yeah Brown. To the entire merch team. Yeah, truly to the entire merch team. Yeah. I've been doing the thing where I'm waking up real, like, bright and early at 3 30 AM every night, which is definitely like hormonal slash cortisol slash

stress, whatever. But I thought I had it beat because that's never been an issue for me before. And I thought it was like a weird COVID thing. And now I'm doing it. I'm just like, well, I'm just going to keep on watching my whatever this series is that I started because I don't know what else to do when it always makes me go back to sleep. It's part A and part B of your sleep cycle. And they don't have to, there can be an in between.

That's how I guess they did it in the olden days. That's what Ben Franklin did. There you go. He invented kites. Did we talk about this already? Does this starting to sound familiar? No, but did he invent kites or did he just fly one to find out about electricity? He flew it.

I forgot the drunk history about that to know exactly how it happened, which is where I get all my history information. That's right. Yeah. I think they're putting drunk history clips on TikTok. Are they? Yeah, I saw one that was so funny the other day, but I didn't know. I didn't recognize the person who was narrating drunk. It was really funny. It's real funny until it's you.

Until it's you. You've done too, right? Yeah. Yeah, girl. Just years long. Shame over. Right there. No. No, it's you. Until it's you. You've done too, right? Yeah, girl. Just years long shame over right there. No. No, it's fine. It was funny. Kill that shame.

Kill it. Yeah. What else? Maybe we take a deep breath. Maybe in through our nose. And sigh it out. And drop those hands. Shake it.

Yeah. We're doing some fucking yoga breathing, bitches. Yeah, I have a slight like a twinge in my back, lower back on the left side. So I'm doing a lot of stuff like that where all of a sudden I'm doing weird bends and stretches and deep breathing. Cause I'm like, where did this come from? And now what am I supposed to do now?

I sit in front of this computer all day long. Baby needs some Ashwagandha, sounds like. Waking up in the middle of the night and lower back pain. Cortisol manager, that shit works. For real? I'm gonna write that down. Did you know that one of the side effects of having ADHD is the inability for time management? Absolutely.

Fuckin' tibley. Oh, I didn't. I, you know, of course these days, TikTok is absolutely convincing me I have had lifelong ADHD. Well, it would make sense to underdiagnose women, especially in our generation, for so long and we, yeah, for sure. We oversimplified it, thought it meant boys that wouldn't sit down and stop talking during class.

Exactly. But there's all these worlds around it and that somebody was talking about it today and they're just like, all the different things, they're naming things that I don't relate to and suddenly it was like an inability to manage time and I'm like, wait a second. Oh, yeah. What a relief that like a mental diagnosis is. And suddenly your entire world makes sense. It's so, it's sort of one of the reasons I fucking highly recommend therapy is you stop hating yourself for doing things that are not in your fucking ability to fix on your own.

Yeah, it's not your personality. You did not choose it. Yeah. And also, if for some of those things, you just put in a little work, a little analysis, a little talking therapy, and you can lessen the severity of the experience. Maybe it's not, you know, maybe you're in, and I do this, you know, you're in fight, flight,

freeze mode. Yeah. I'm not lazy. I'm in fucking disassociation, freeze mode, half my fucking day, because I'm so overwhelmed by life and shit. Yeah, I'm not lazy. I'm in fucking disassociation, freeze mode half my fucking day because I'm so overwhelmed by life and shit. Yeah, it's just weird. Also these days. Oh, man, there's so much going on. Like watching the Super Bowl and watching the ads in the Super Bowl and everyone's kind of

sitting there with these expectations of like, it's time for the ads on the Super Bowl. Yeah, every single one. I was just like, who cares? No, get away from me. And it's like, it's time for the ads on the Super Bowl. Yeah. And every single one, I was just like, who cares? No, get away from me. And it's like, oh, yeah, this doesn't do it anymore. Right. This, this, we need better and more to distract ourselves from the horrors of reality. Yeah.

The horrors of a truly of an entire population of people being a genocide in front of everybody. And then the politics. Everyone ignoring it a little bit. Yes, or like, mm, it's just the weirdest. Everyone's scared to talk about it, I know. Yes, and also what do you say, what does make a difference?

Just talking about it doesn't make a difference. Like what would make a difference? But you can't not, so just start there. I guess it's just that. You have to, oh, you know what? Did you ever watch Deadlock? Which that? It's a show, it's an Australian show,

it might be New Zealand, sorry. I think it's Australian because they're these two women, Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, which is kind of funny. And they did videos, you've probably seen them, two Australian women, a blonde and a brunette that was taller, and they had a fake morning show and a fake cooking show. Yes, I remember. And they're so funny.

What's it called again? The cooking show was called... I totally remember that. Or what's it called now? Like what's the, the Kate and Kate show? The, I think it's called the catering show was the cooking show. It.

And get crackin' was the morning show and it's crackin' with a K. That's it. They're writing is so good. And they're the ones who made Deadlock. That mystery, that Tasmanian mystery of the lesbian city where all the murders are taking place. Yes.

It's amazing. Long L-O-C-H, Deadlock. Oh my God, that's brilliant, brilliant. So good. Anyway, if you wanna see somebody speaking to it in this amazing way, she just won the Australian Academy Award for, I guess theirs includes television.

So she won for like best comedy. And then she essentially was talking about, it's almost like the point of what the arts do is telling stories and talking about what's happening and cause we are what happens to us, we are what we talk about and what we don't talk about. And it was like such a powerful but simple thing. And then she's like, that's why we need a ceasefire. And the audience goes crazy. She also included the native people of Australia as like that it's all that kind of thing,

like that that whole thing has to change and that we can't stand by and not speak. Like that's the greatest irony of artists not talking because that's what they do to help kind of life situation. I don't know. And it was a really inspiring thing, having been a person who's like, I don't know what to say and this is too important

to fuck up. Right, right. That's the thing, because the stakes seem insanely high. If you're gonna talk about it, and if you say the wrong thing while you talk about it, now you're bad even though you tried to say something. Totally, totally.

Like, yeah, not calling it a genocide, which I didn't when we addressed it originally. And I, you know, wish I had. You learned after that that was a part of it. We're real good at fucking up and taking criticism and incorporating it. Yes, you and me, not people in general. No, no, no. I think you and me, not, not people in general. No, no, no.

I think you and me specifically because of this show. I don't know if I was before as much as I am now. Yeah. Me too. Nine years ago. Nine years ago. Nine. Well, we're in our ninth. So eight.

This is, this is the ninth coming up. We just, we just hit the eighth. Eight years ago, perfect edit. You know what we need is to bring fucking Carl Sagan back. Like, can we all start a go fund me? I don't know. Well, here's the thing though, in this day and age, people would be like, no, that science isn't real.

Like, we need to bring someone back who is maybe a little more along the line of Rod Serling, where it's like a person who understands or historians, people who understand how people's minds are getting fucked with right now to go, oh, science isn't real, reality isn't real, I decide what's real.

That whole thing is what's fucking people up. How funny would it be? I just had a fucking panic attack when I was like, what if I'm not recording one of the most important conversations, like that. I just started sweating immediately. It would be perfect. It would be perfect for us.

Anyway, that woman's name, if you want to look up that speech, her name is Kate Box, that actress's name is Kate Box. And it's her acceptance speech for best actress in a comedy for Australian Academy Awards. Yeah, pretty amazing. Amazing. And while you're there, go follow Celeste Barber. She's one of the fucking funniest people on Instagram, in my opinion. She's the one who does the Celeste challenge,

where she, like, puts up a model, like, modeling a thing all perfectly, and then she recreates it as a normal human being with, like, whatever's around the house. It's very funny. Like the outfit, the outfit she's wearing? The outfit and the way she does it, which is just so ridiculous on a normal human being

as opposed to like a Kardashian doing. Right, right. Hey. Yes. Should we do exactly right corner? Sure. Okay, so this is an exciting thing, especially for a podcast that's going into their ninth

year. Yeah. We were recently nominated for podcast of the year by the I Heart Podcast Awards. Yeah. So apparently you, the listener, can vote online for who you want to win. So if you have a few minutes, you can go to bit.ly slash vote for MFM, I guess specifically, that's all lowercase. And you can go vote for this show and you can do it daily. And we're going to the awards show. So if you could do it, we'd really appreciate you voting.

It's really exciting. It's really fucking cool. Well, it's a true honor. There's some amazing other podcasts nominated with us, but also just for having been around this long, it's like, wow, that's some amazing other podcasts nominated with us, but also just for having been around this long, it's like, wow, that's pretty amazing. But either way, we're gonna go and have a lot of fun and just enjoy ourselves and be out and about as the free independent ladies that we are these days. Hell yeah, and tell everyone how much we love their podcasts

in person. Yeah, Huberman Lab, if he's there, I'm fucking losing it. Okay, on to this week's exactly right podcast news. in person. Yeah, Hooperman Lab. If he's there, I'm fucking losing it. Okay. Onto this week's Exactly Right podcast news. That's messed up and SVU podcast is back with heavy hitting guests. This week, Cara and Lisa are joined by the actor Becky Ann Baker for an amazing conversation. She appeared in the 2002 episode of SVU entitled Juvenile. So definitely check that out.

Also over on 10 fold, more More Wicked season 10 premiere, the episode's called The Virginia Elite, and on it we meet one of Colonial Williamsburg's most respected men, but will he remain respected for the duration of the show? We don't know, you have to go follow the show so you don't miss an episode and you figure out what is going on with Kate Winkler Dawson and

Colonial Williamsburg, which apparently she has said is her favorite time of history. So interesting. Yeah. Lastly, head to the MFM store and grab a koozie, a mug, or an enamel pin for each ring cocaine bear, Mothman, and other classic MFM animated illustrations. The website is exactly right store.com. Go take a look. It's a new store. Yeah. And it's actual merch, not just from my dreams. It's not you do you, merch. Wait, what was it? Do you bet?

No, it was. Yeah, what was it? You do you? No, be a better you. Thank you, Sandra. Be a better you, merch. Be a better you. How in the world would we ever say that to another person?

So insulting. You know, you could you up that a notch? Someone's like, I'm not doing well. And you're like, you know, what would help is if you would just be a better you. Yeah, be a better version of this whole thing we're getting already. We'd like the upgraded version, please. It's giving not the best you. We'd like the upgraded version, please. It's giving not the best, you.

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Rocketmoney.com slash murder. Goodbye. Goodbye. I'm first, right? Yes. Okay. So I have a twisty-tourney story today. It's a, who done it? It is unsolved, I hate to tell you this.

However, I think by the end of it, with all of us together, we'll have figured it out on our own. On the show, you're promising that we're gonna solve a case on this. No, but it could be fun. We could try. Let's get out there and make these promises.

We'll solve it within a half an hour. Definitely. Let's do this thing. Okay. So today I'm gonna cover a story about a 1977 death that left behind more questions than answers. I'm not going to give you too many details. It could be the mob. It could be the FBI.

It could be like a government coverup, all these things. This is the mysterious death of Chuck Morgan. And the main sources I use for today's story include an article from the Arizona Daily Star written by Kimberly Mattis. And episode nine from season three of the original Unsolved Mysteries TV show. Nice.

And you can watch that on Peacock. Okay, so this dude, Charles Chuck Morgan, he's a middle-aged escrow agent living in Tucson, Arizona in the 1970s. Tucson, Arizona in the 1970s. Tucson, Arizona. He and his wife Ruth Morgan have four school-aged daughters and the family lives a fairly quiet, really normal suburban life. Over time, Chuck's success at work earns him the opportunity to become the president of

the company. And so things are looking good for the Morgans. It appears that they're just doing normal fucking suburban life stuff. But that's just on the surface. So outside of its suburban bubble, Dark Forces actually loom in Arizona at this time. And we've done some old-timey Arizona like hometowns. And the mob was present back then, more so than you would ever imagine them being.

Yeah, to a degree where you're like, oh, these are people who ran away from New York, Chicago, wherever, to a place where they thought they'd never be found. Right, well here I'll tell you why. The state is favored by criminals for its mild weather, of course. It's proximity to the US-Mexican border

and its corrupt state justice system. Oh. So in the 1970s, multiple crime organizations established Arizona as a drug trafficking corridor. Oh. Corridor? Corridor. Mm-hmm.

Tucson, Arizona in particular, is dubbed the nation's, quote, smuggling capital by the press. And due to its unique real estate laws, it's a prime location to launder money. Wow. Unlike most states in the US at the time, Arizona allows for land to be purchased through blind trusts. And this means people can purchase land and property anonymously. And so if no one knows who you are,

no one can question where your money's coming from. So it's a money launderers dream scenario. Joseph Bonanno, who's of course a New York crime boss we've all heard about, he has a lot of money to buy. where your money's coming from. So it's a money launderers dream scenario. Joseph Bonanno, who's of course a New York crime boss we've all heard about, he helps more than 500 racketeers move their operations to Arizona bringing their financial crimes

and sweeping violence to the area. So infiltrating it. Yeah. Can I just pitch a TV show to you right now real quick? Is it gonna be My Blue Heaven? It's like, it's a My Blue Heaven situation where Sopranos meets Better Call Saul. Oh, yeah. Because that would be, I'm sure,

if there were people that got sent out to Tucson, Arizona. I won't stop saying it, but... What's that from? It's from what we do in the shadows. Oh, Tucson, Arizona. Yes, I can hear it. Tucson, I don't know why the first time I said Tucson, but it's Tucson, Arizona.

And he does this weird thing. Oh, just the idea that if you're living out in Tucson, you probably wear Wrangler jeans and a Lee button down shirt. It's a little cowboy aesthetic, but also desert-y, everyone's a little dry, or you're just like a golfer, right? You're a retiree.

Then here come some mob bosses, like moving into the house next door. What was that like? Yeah. Did they blend? Were they just like, don't worry about us, we're fun and don't worry about it? Yeah, right. That's a good question.

Like, yeah, did they have dogs? Were they trying to live like a suburban normal life too? Yeah. Did they buy a bunch of Lee shirts and try to blend and then it clearly didn't work and nobody was buying it? Right. That's a good question. Here's who comes in is our boy Chuck Morgan,

live in his normal suburban life. OK. He works as a top tier escrow agent. So he's obviously someone they're gonna go to, whether he wants to or not. So either he falls prey to these mob bosses or he willingly steps foot into their world of dirty money. So he's kind of in the line of fire there.

So the morning of March 22nd, 1977, like any other day for Chuck Morgan, he wakes up in the morning, he gets dressed, drives his daughters to school, goes to work. But after he drops his kids off, he vanishes into thin air, leaving his family worried and confused. That's until three days later, on March 25th, 1977, at about 2am,m., Chuck's wife, Ruth, is home in bed when the dog starts barking. She gets up to investigate and hears a thump at the back door and when she opens it to her surprise, after three days, Chuck comes barreling in.

One of his shoes is missing. His hands are zip tied together and another plastic zip tie hangs around his ankle like he had just gotten out of it. But you know what the fuck happened? Ruth of course hits check with the flurry of questions and he just points to his throat. He's unable to speak. Ruth asks if he can write, he nods, so she grabs a pen and a pad of paper and hands it to him and he writes that his throat's been quote, painted with a hallucinogenic drug and that if he talks, the substance could drive him irreparably insane or destroy his nervous system and kill him. What is that real?

I don't fucking know. I doubt it. Do you mind if I do some Wikipedia while you continue? Because that sounds like either humongous lie he made up in the car on the way there. Right. Or a deep state CIA, right? Totally. Trick to get people to... It just seems unlikely.

Yeah. Or maybe his captors just told him that and he believed it too. That could be other thing. Yes. Right. Yeah, yeah. They were very convincing. Yeah.

And it's the 70s and he's just a fucking dude who lives in the suburbs. Like, what does he know from hallucinogenics? And also, I don't think that can kill you. He thinks having it in his system is going to drive him insane. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense scientifically. So either he knows or doesn't know that it's not true, let's guess. OK, everything's still on the table as possible.

Exactly. So he tells Ruth to take his keys and move his car to the backyard immediately, so whoever's not true, let's guess. Okay, everything's still on the table as possible. Exactly. Okay. So he tells Ruth to take his keys and move his car to the backyard immediately so whoever's looking for him doesn't see that he's there. Smart. Ruth wants to call the police or at least an ambulance, but he says no.

He says that they, so some they will come after her and the kids, and so she just does as he says. Ruth spends the next week nursing Chuck back to health, feeding him water with an eyedropper. Before his voice returns, he uses the pen and paper to relay to Ruth that he's been working as a federal agent for the national treasury for about the last two to three years.

Hmm, this is the first she's ever heard about this, but considering how bizarre the situation is, she's inclined to believe him. He goes on to say that they, whoever kidnapped him, took his treasury credentials, but he's careful not to give Ruth too many details beyond that. So it does seem a little fishy, right? From this angle. Yes.

Well, only because, like, why would he have to keep working for the treasury a secret and wouldn't it need to be a little more involved? Like, wouldn't you be working for the CIA covering the Treasury or something like, it seems like the Treasury is pretty straightforward. Right, and there's not a lot of details, which he says the less she knows the saver she is, but it's also like, that's a great way to not

have to tell someone a whole made up lie. That you then get caught in later, because they go, wait, I thought you said your office was over here at the treasury. That's how you can tell a lie is they're really, really, overly detailed in a way that they don't need to be, right? That's what they always say. So Chuck regains the ability to speak,

makes a full recovery, but he is a tough time healing his mental wounds. He starts getting super paranoid, never leaving the house without wearing a bulletproof vest. He insists on driving his girls to and from school each day and instructs the school not to let anyone else pick them up but him. Unfortunately, it turns out Chuck's paranoia

is not unwarranted. So a little over two months later, on the morning of June 7th, 1977, he drives up to his parents' house and tells his dad that if anything happens to him, he will leave behind a letter, quote, explaining why, how, and who would be responsible. And after his visit, he heads to work.

That afternoon, he leaves for lunch, calls the office real quick from a pay phone in downtown Tucson to say he'll be back in a half an hour, but he never shows up. So he disappears again. And it would be nine days before anyone gets any sort of clue as to whether or not Chuck is alive. It comes in the form of a phone call on June 16th, 1977.

The Morgan's home phone rings. And when Ruth answers, she hears the voice of an anonymous woman. The mysterious woman simply says, Ruthie, Chuck is all right. Okay, hold on, I'm gonna fuck this up. Ecclesis, what's the Bible verse? Ecclesiastes.

Thank you. This Jew right here. I knew the Catholic would fuck it now. She says Ecclesiastes 12, 1-8. And then she hangs up. So that's obviously a Bible verse. Yeah. So Ruth finds the passage in the Bible and she reads it out loud.

I could absolutely read this long ass fucking Bible verse to you, but it doesn't make any sense. But instead, I'm going to recite it to you. It said, So sayeth the Lord. Oh my God, if you knew a word for a word, I would just close my computer and walk away. It'd be the only valuable thing that came out of my Catholic school education,

but now I just know how to pronounce Ecclesiastes. That's amazing. I don't need to read it. If people want to read it to help them figure out the puzzle, fine, but like it doesn't give us that many. It's just, it's the Bible. It's fucking confusing. As you'll find with many Bible quotes, not a lot of there there.

There's some greats. Proverbs kicks ass, but I don't know if Ecclesiastes really got the job done the way we want it to. But was there any kind of like, was it directive? Like God told some so and so to do this or that? Or is there anything? It's just so, it's vague. Let me look for it.

Was it more of a vibe of do better? Maybe that's where the- Was it one of those do better things? It just starts to remember your creator in the days of your youth, blah, blah, blah, before the days of trouble come. When people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets,

when the almond trees blossom, it's very, it's a little ominous, right? Flowery, okay. Remember him before the silver cord is severed and the golden bull is broken. And then the last line is meaningless. Meaningless says the teacher, everything is meaningless. Wow. So it's vague and weird and creepy as fuck.

I'm sorry. If I was in theology one in freshman year of high school and they were reading that and they were like, and it ends with everything is meaningless. I'd be like, thank you, thank you. That's our new merch. That sounds more like- Everything is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes one through eight. Right, do better. Everything is meaningless, but be a better you if you can, if not, it's fine. Yeah, just to torture yourself, be a better you, but it doesn't matter because it's meaningless anyway. Obviously, there's no matter how many times she reads it, she can't understand the significance. But she, you know, she in her mind, that means Chuck is all right because of this random woman's call, but she doesn't know where he is. But unfortunately, two days after this mysterious phone call on June 18th, 1977, Chuck's body

is found off a dirt road in the desert 40 miles west of Tucson, lying beside his car. He's got his bulletproof vest on, but he was shot in the back of his head with a single bullet from his own gun, a 375 caliber magnum found next to him on the ground. And the bullet is fired from close range. It pierced the back of his skull

and wound up in his mouth between his fucking teeth. Oh, God. Isn't that awful? Yeah. Gunshot residue is found on Chuck's left hand, but there are no fingerprints on the gun whatsoever. So that's weird. Inside his car, police find more weapons and ammunition.

They also find one of Chuck's teeth wrapped in a tissue sitting next to a pair of sunglasses that appear to have belonged to someone else, but they're definitely not Chuck's. So like, what the fuck, right? Yep. There's also a piece of paper with a map drawn on it in Chuck's handwriting, leading to the murder site. So basically the location in the desert where his body was found.

So it's someone saying, meet us out there. Here's how you get there. Exactly. Essentially. Yeah. Time before a map quest. Even more puzzling is a clue found clipped inside Chuck's underwear. Like he was definitely trying to hide this thing. A two dollar bill with various like writings on it. On the face of the bill along the left side are a list of seven Spanish names each beginning

with the letters A through G in alphabetical order. It's written above the list of names is the Bible chapter Ecclesiastes 12. He wrote that down, the Bible chapter. The same one mentioned by the woman with arrows pointing to the one and eight in the bill's serial number to indicate that the verses the one through eight, the same fucking Bible chapter. On the back of the bill where the signing of the Declaration of Independence is illustrated, the Declaration signers are numbered one through seven. There are also three lines drawn, a rough map of sorts referencing three roads that are actually in Tucson that run between Tucson and the Mexican border and their real roads.

One leads to a place called Robles Junction and another town called Sosoby, and they're believed to be a landing site for smugglers traveling by plane. So there are, it's very confusing, but things like do make sense a little bit. Yeah, there's some nefarious activities happening out there. Exactly. It ain't nothing. Despite all these strange clues, the Pima County Sheriff's Department rules Chuck's death a suicide. Claiming he shot himself in the back of the head. It's, of course, a near impossible angle for him to have reached, even more curious by the fact that he was wearing a bulletproof vest,

like why would he have done that? Right. Chuck's father reports that his son had come by and said about his disappearance. And he tells him about how Chuck told him that there was a letter that would explain what happened to him, but the letter never surfaces, and the self-inflicted cause of death sticks.

But that's crooked, right? That somebody's paid off. Right. There's no way you would, Yeah. You can't shoot yourself in the back of death sticks. But that's crooked, right? That somebody's paid off. There's no way you would, you can't shoot yourself in the back of the head. I mean, I don't understand how you can have gun residue on your hand and then no fingerprints on the gun. Right.

Doesn't make sense, obviously. And I don't know how many times the gun was shot. It's another thing, like, did he try to shoot his gun? Someone got it away from him. Right, at someone, yeah. Right? And then it got put into his hand, wiped someone with a gloved hand

is the one that actually picks it up and uses it. And wiped it clean, including wiping Chuck's prints off of it. Right. So there's no fucking person. Yeah, that would make sense, yeah. Also, I'm sorry to interject, but. No, no, that we're solving this. It seems like somebody going around, because also it's like, in 1977, I'd be interested

to know how heavy bulletproof vests are, because I don't know, but has Kevlar been developed at that point, it seems early. That's a person who, whether or not he's right, believes that he is in danger, because it would be such a pain in the ass to wear that every day and to be that scared. And then the idea that you're wearing it and you get murdered like that, if it is in fact murder, is like that's, he clearly wasn't something new, he was in it and was trying to prevent exactly what happened to him from happening. Right, it's not paranoia if it actually then happens.

Yes, that's right. Yep, exactly. Two days after Chuck's body is found on June 20th, a woman who only identifies herself as Green Eyes calls the Pima County Sheriff's Office. It's the same woman who called Ruth Morgan two days before Chuck was found dead, and she tells them that she and Chuck met up at a motel just before his death. He had been using the motel as a hideout, so remember he was missing for a bunch of days.

She claims he had a briefcase filled with about 60 grand and told her that there was a hit-out on him, and his plan allegedly was to pay off the hitman to let him live. I don't know who this woman is, what her partner is, she doesn't say. If what she says is true, then it's conceivable that a gang or crime family took a hit out on Chuck. Maybe the hit man warned Chuck to try to get money out of him.

Chuck agreed to pay him off, but of course in this case, the hit man was scamming him and they met up in the desert, late on the night of Chuck's murder and the hit man took Chuck's money and killed him anyways. So that's the thought. But why would a gang wanna take a hit out on Chuck? Maybe what he told Ruth was true

and he really was working as an agent for the US Treasury to capture mob backed money launderers. Like maybe back then the Treasury had a lot more going after this kind of thing more like mobs. Yeah, maybe. But why would they go get a escrow real estate man to do that? Because houses are being used as money laundering sites. So he's like in the middle of it, knows the players,

knows the business. That was the case though, and it's covered with somehow blown. The mob surely would want to take him out. Or maybe Chuck wasn't working with the treasury, but was coerced into committing land fraud to wash mobsters money and threatened to rat them out. So that means you could buy a house without using your real name so the government couldn't come after you and your money.

He was an escrow agent. He's in that line of people that they need to buy the house. Yeah. So perhaps they forced him, or maybe even worse, he was a willing participant in the money laundering scheme, wanting some extra cash, and maybe he got in over his head. No matter the case, there's a strong possibility that Chuck knew more than he should have,

and someone had a lot to lose if he spoke out. One night in July of 1977, three weeks after Chuck's death, Ruth gets a visit at her home from two men claiming to be FBI agents. They flash her their bags super quick so she doesn't see anything. They barge into her house without a search warrant. They like search the whole house. The house is in shambles and they don't seem to find what they're looking for. They leave and Ruth never hears from the authorities about Chuck's death again.

Oh, wow. So we don't even know if they were real FBI agents. Oh, god damn. Right? I mean, this seems like the kind of thing that could only happen in Tucson, Arizona, because it seems like not that anybody would know FBI agents like on site, but it would be less likely. It's like you're from the Tucson office of the FBI or something.

It would be very easy to dress up like those people. Absolutely. Right. Right. And convince someone. Yeah. It's got no countries for old men vibes kind of, doesn't it? Like a normal dude got caught up in a thing that was too big and he couldn't escape it.

And you could see where, if you got caught up being like, this is the blind trust, but you're making it for me and I'm from the blankety blank crime family. And then he has no choice and everybody gets threatened. And then here comes the FBI. No, you have to turn on them. And he's like, I can't turn on the mob. Are you crazy?

It's just, yeah. So, okay, it gets fucking weirder. Meanwhile, there's an investigative reporter out of Phoenix named Don Devereux. He gets wind of Chuck Morgan's case while looking for his next story. He had been drawn to the area to cover another mysterious death,

the car bombing murder of another Phoenix-based journalist named Don Bolas in 1976. So this guy, Don Devereaux, decides to stick around. He hears about the bizarre details surrounding Chuck Morgan's death and he immediately takes an interest. And after speaking with Ruth, Don puts in a Freedom of Information Act request for details on Chuck's case. And it's clear from previous interactions with FBI agents that they've opened an investigation into Chuck Morgan's death. They even interviewed Chuck's attorney at one point, but now oddly the FBI claims to not even know

who Chuck Morgan is. So they're like silent. That's kind of a dead giveaway, isn't it? Yeah. Don realizes that if he's going to learn anything more about what happened to Chuck, he's gonna have to figure it out on his own. I mean, it could be a case too of like, yeah, we accidentally got this guy killed, let's

pretend it never happened because that means we're on the line for it. But like we've done a story where informants get killed because they were put in shitty situations by the authorities. It's like the late 70s where a lot of the process wasn't set up. God, that's, mm, okay. Who in the fuck knows? So while they have their theories about how and why Chuck died, neither Ruth Morgan nor Don Devereaux

can make heads or tails of the cryptic clues he left behind. For years, Ruth ruminates on the Bible passage and just tries to find anything in there, of course, and she can't find a fucking thing. Don, the journalist focuses on the $2 bill. His hunch is that there must be a missing companion document that would help decode the scrawling on the bill, like Chuck told his dad. But if that document exists, it's never found.

And maybe that's what those two quote FBI agents came over to find, like maybe he had hidden it somewhere. Oh, right. So then the episode of Unsolved Mysteries covering Chuck Morgan's case airs on February 7, 1990, and features both Ruth Morgan and Don Devereaux. And the episode generates hundreds of leads from viewers calling in on the show's hotline.

And Don Devereaux uses these leads to continue his investigation, which many of them proved to be useful, surprisingly. Through these tips, Don finds that Chuck was named a potential witness in a 1977 state land fraud case involving a known organized crime boss. So he searches through Chuck's work files and finds copies of escrow documents dating as far back as 1973, conducted through a blind trust, in which tons of money exchanged his hands in the form of gold bullion and platinum.

Like who the fuck buys a house? You know what I mean? With a suitcase full of platinum. Yeah. Is that just from your hit records that you're now using to trade? Do you guys accept platinum records? Can I pay in pop hits?

70s disco pop hits? The total sum of this gold bullion in platinum that he had to help with these blind trusts is near a billion dollars. Oh, shit. Yeah, we're talking like high end criminals. A billions in 77? I think so, yeah.

Shit. Right? Like did that number even exist then? I mean, not when I was seven. Like, did that number even exist then? I mean, not when I was seven. Did I ever hear about a billion anything? Right. Then through more clever sleuthing,

Don is able to connect many of these deals to the Bonanno Crime Family. But this isn't the only organization potentially involved in the dirty dealings. Don finds connections from the escrow money laundering scam to our friends, the Pima County Sheriff's Department, and the FBI, and the Treasury Department, and exiled Vietnamese government officials and rogue CIA operatives.

It's like fucking pick one. It's like who's who of ya fuck? And it's almost like it's all high level crime dealings out in Tucson, Arizona, sorry. And like the unlikeliest place, and it's not just one, it's almost like it justifies his seemingly crazy like behavior and storylines. Cause it's like, if this person,

if this crime family isn't trying to kill me, the, you know, the treasury insiders that know I'm working for them are trying to kill me. Absolutely. There's multiple people. Okay. Then one more weird death for everyone. On May 14th, 1990, about three months after the episode airs on Unsull Mysteries, another mysterious death rattles dawn the journalist.

At 11 p.m. on May 14, 1990, 35-year-old graphic designer Doug Johnson arrives for his night shift at a Phoenix computer company. He's a young husband and father. He left his former job as a forklift driver, graduated with a degree in graphic design, got this great new job at the computer company to better support his family, another normal Saroan dude. An hour after his arrival to his new job, Doug is found dead in his car in the office parking lot. He'd been shot once behind the left ear

with a 24 caliber gun. According to ballistics experts, the gun is believed to have been fired for more than 12 inches away. I had to hold my hands up to get 12. The sense of it. That's a foot. Yeah, that's a foot. A bullet casing is found at the scene. No gun is found. And despite that, and having no gunshot residue on his hands and the fact that he was shot again behind his left ear, but he's right-handed and from a foot away, police initially rule his death a suicide.

Crooked. There's no gun there. I mean, well, that's like, and I only learned this from the beginning of your story. So not trying to say this shit about Tucson, but that's a crooked, that's a bad coroner's report, right? That's a lie. And look, today everything might be fine

in Tucson, Arizona. Arizona. So no, this is not an indictment on the current people. Let us know in the comments how they're doing, but yeah, this is 1970s something, 90. It would be kind of cool to learn that like part of the population of Tucson are the descendants of the people

who moved there to get their blind trust or to get there or to escape from their Government all these things where it's like well my grandfather was a criminal. I'm just here hanging out. It's no big deal I'm an elementary school teacher. I don't know what the fuck. I just work at Panera Bread. Okay, what do you want? Can you please place your order my grandfather? What do you want? Can you please place your order? My grandfather fucking, but not O, you know? I mean, that's kind of how this entire country was built. The people just like slowly escaping West

to get away from the fucked up shit they did East. They did or had done to them. Yes, had done to them is a big part of it. Yeah. It's thankfully later changed to be inconclusive. It could have been self inflicted or it could have been a homicide. They'll give him that, I guess. But if it is a homicide, Doug's killer still has not been found.

But not so coincidentally, this guy, Doug's new office, is located right across the street from Don Devereaux, the journalist's office. And the car he drives is very similar to Don's. Mistaken identity? Yeah. Don thinks that that was a botched hit and he was the intended target. Contacts of Don's in the CIA and the intelligence field at large confirm his suspicion

and they tell him that there is still an outstanding target on his back. Oh my God. So like, can you imagine getting that information? Oh my God. I mean, journalists never have it easy, but that kind of shit where you're just trying to figure out what the truth is and it's like,

oh no, we're just, you're going down, that's wild. And what a scary thing. Like the idea that that man sitting in his car waiting to go to his new job. Yeah, so sad. That's that, it's horrible. So senseless, yeah. The next year, 1991, Don is contacted by a journalist

out of Washington, DC named Danny Casalaro. Danny is working on an expose about a potential government conspiracy, believes, and he thinks Chuck Morgan's case is part of the conspiracy. So Don and Danny, the journalists, they start to talk. He asked Don to send him all of the information he has with regards to Chuck's shady business dealings and his whole case. And Don agrees to send it before he can mail the documents out.

This journalist, Danny Castellaro, is found dead in his hotel bathtub. There are a dozen razor blade cuts on both his forearms, eight on the left and four on the right, and his death is ruled a suicide. But his family and friends are like, there's absolutely no way. And he's like, why are you starting a new case? If you're like, you know, it's just-

Yeah, that's right. It doesn't add up for everyone. Oh God, just imagine your Don Devereux, and you get that phone call that your connection, the other reporter is now dead also. Like that's so scary. So, so scary. And his friends and families who are like, he didn't do it.

He knew he was on the verge of breaking a big story, but they didn't know what it was about. Yeah. So obviously it's possible, very possible that he was silenced. Then out of an abundance of caution, Dawn's investigation into Chuck Morgan's death comes to a halt. He's like, steps away. Yeah.

He's an animal. He would be next. I mean, like, there would be no question. Absolutely. Good God. So he relocates to Northern California, where he continues his investigative work today, though he appears to have set Chuck Morgan's case down

for good. And then in 2006, Ruth Morgan passes away from cancer, never knowing the truth about what happened to her husband, Chuck. His four daughters still believe he was murdered. And one of his daughters, Megan, said that quote, he had a lot of information about people here in Tucson that could have been very detrimental,

information about politicians, people who are still alive that work in our government, and they wanted to silence him. So imagine still you're hurt and you still live in Tucson and you just walk around every day. There's people still in the government from back then who are still in power from back then. Who could be responsible. Yeah.

And also just the idea of it you very unknowingly You just wanted to be like the escrow entitled guy. You just wanted to be a real estate mogul And all of a sudden you get pulled into stuff that's so beyond Or maybe it went in slightly willingly of like, oh, this is a good way to yeah That you know, but with the obviously a sense of innocence of like I didn't realize this would result in my violent death. I mean, oh man, so awful. And then worrying about your wife and daughters too, like somehow they're gonna be pulled in. And the daughters all mourn their father's untimely death,

of course, but they continue to hold out hope that one day the truth will come out. And that is the story of the mysterious death of Chuck Morgan. God. I know. Wild. That would be the most satisfying unsolved mysteries update ever, like on this, on the new series, if they went back into that,

I feel like they'd have to arrest like two dozen people though. Well, and also, I think we all know by this point that the government doesn't even work the way the government thinks it works. Like, that kind of stuff and what they're hiding and, ugh, good lord. I know. So scary. Wow. That was amazing.

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Okay, here's the thing. That was a true unsolved mystery and went in that direction of the type of crime that we like to talk about. And now I'm gonna take us left turn. A lot of left turn. All the way into a biographical history, a story we know exactly the beginning, the middle,

and end of, that also is a story of heroism. And it's a story of a brave and legendary American spy who played a crucial role in the French resistance movement against Nazi Germany. NPR has called her, quote, one of the most important American spies people have never heard of. And author Sonia Purnell writes, quote, controversy still rages about women fighting alongside men on the front line, but nearly eight decades ago, Virginia Hall was already commanding men

deep in enemy territory. She gambled again and again with her own life, not out of fervent nationalism for her own country, but out of love and respect for the freedoms of another. She blew up bridges and tunnels and tricked, traded, and like 007 had a license to kill, but her goals were noble. She wanted to protect rather than destroy,

to restore liberty rather than remove it. She neither pursued fame or glory, nor was she really granted it. This is the heroic story of Virginia Hall, a woman who defied both sexist and ableist stereotypes and helped deliver the Allied powers victory during World War II. Holy shit. Right? So the main sources of today's story are a book called A Woman of No Importance, the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II by Sonia Pernell, who I

will be quoting a lot, the writer Sonia Pernell, and then a write-up on the Home of Heroes website called Virginia Hall, An Extraordinary Woman and an Except exceptional spy by a writer named James G. Fassone. And then a Smithsonian article called Wanted the Limping Lady by Kate Lineberry. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes, so go check those out. So Marin made a note for me saying that Sonia Purnell's book, A Woman of No Importance,

is like this is obviously the super shortened version of Virginia Hall's life. But, and so anybody that's slightly interested in this story should definitely read Sonia Pernell's book because it's really good. You always love it when a researcher's like, read this book, you'll like it, it's good. Hell yeah. When Hannah sent me this one, she was like, holy shit, what happened? Yeah. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. It's like, oh, that's a good pick. Okay, so Virginia Hall's born in April of 1906 to a wealthy family in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Edwin's a banker. Her mother, Barbara, was his former secretary who transcended social class to become a member of Baltimore's elite after she married him. And so by all accounts, Virginia has a happy childhood.

She adores her parents, although it's often noted that her mother was intentionally raising her daughter to marry and marry well. That was pretty standard for parenting at the time. It's like roughly the 1920s. So like, yeah, that's for a very long time, very recently, it's all women were expected to do.

It was the late 70s when people got it, like the whole ERA thing happened and people started fighting that societally. Yeah, you couldn't get a bank account without your husband's permission. Permissions held very recently. Yeah, marrying a wealthy man shouldn't be difficult for Virginia. She is from a very respectable, well-off family. She's also very beautiful. But she's not your typical girl.

Author Sonia Purnell writes about Virginia's reputation at her swanky private high school saying that she would, quote, assert her independence by wearing tomboy trousers and checked shirts whenever she could. Wow. Check shirts, are you kidding me? What's this world coming to? I mean, for real. So, but I'm sure that was an insane standout

where like when you were really edgy back then, I think you bobbed your hair. That was like that long ago. Hands for women were like not okay. Yeah. So as Virginia's personality develops and her really her like personhood develops, her parents and especially her father begin to cater to her more unique interests,

even the ones that would be considered too masculine for girls at the time. Sonia Purnell writes that as a teen, Virginia quote, hunted with a rifle, skin rabbits, rode horses bareback and once wore a bracelet of live snakes into school. What the fuck? Which is awesome. Oh my God. She's like in your face, everybody. So after high school, she does actually get engaged,

but she ends up breaking it off with the guy and going to college instead. She studies at several prestigious American universities. And then in 1926, when she's 20 years old, Virginia convinces her parents to let her study abroad. And while she's in Europe, she learns to speak German, French, Spanish, Russian, and Italian. And BD.

Yeah. So clearly she should have gone to college. Like she was being a total rebel, I'm sure, by not marrying that guy. Meanwhile, she's like super smart. The most important thing she learns from her time in Europe is that she's absolutely in love with France. She goes to Paris and the artist, the nightlife,

the rich Bohemian culture awakened something in her. She's inspired by the art and the intellectualism and the overall sense of freedom that that city makes her feel when she's living there. But she also notices those things being threatened by the right-wing extremism taking root throughout the continent. By the late 1920s, Virginia's immersed in European politics, and she knows all about Adolf Hitler's rise to prominence in Germany and Benito Mussolini's in Italy. So when 23-year-old Virginia returns to Baltimore in July of 1929, she's worried about what those nationalist European leaders

and political groups could mean for the future of France. Now at the same time, she returns in 1929, the Great Depression has wiped out the bulk of her family's fortune. So her family lost it all in the Great Depression in the stock market crash. Oh, man. My brain just made a like a chugging noise that I could hear.

Stock market crash. Okay, so now Virginia has to go get a job to support her struggling family. So she wants to go into basically political diplomacy and work with the State Department. She has the perfect skill set to do it, right? And she knows all those languages. She's been over there.

She knows her stuff. But the odds are severely stacked against her simply because she's a woman. Pernell writes that quote, the fact that only six of 1500 foreign service officers were women should have been due warning. Wow. The rejection was quick and brutal. So Virginia's forced to put her dreams of working in diplomacy on hold for two years until August of

1931 when she's 25 years old. And that's when she finally gets her foot in the door with the State Department. She's hired to work as a secretary in Warsaw, Poland. She's objectively overqualified for this job, but it isn't a bad gig. She gets to go back to Europe and she gets to earn she gets to go back to Europe and she gets to earn a $2,000 salary, which is worth around $40,000 today, which Sonia Pernell writes is quote, "'A third higher than the median household income "'of mid-depression America'

"'when many families were on the bread line." So the majority of people back in America would kill for this job and this salary. So she's not gonna complain. Warsaw, I don't know why I got it. Well, my family's from Warsaw, but also it's like, oh no, don't go there right now, please.

Right, she's going kind of right into the heart of everything. So two years later in 1933, Virginia's transferred to the historic port city of Smyrna, Turkey, which today is called Izmir. And in December of that same year, Virginia organizes a hunting trip with her friends. And then in a freak accident, she stumbles while she's holding her shotgun and the safety's off. So she accidentally shoots her left foot.

Oh, God. Doctors do their best to treat her, but she develops gangrene, she nearly dies. So to save her life, her left leg is amputated below the knee on Christmas day. After she recovers, she is given a wooden leg that is as writer James G. Fassone describes, quote, crude and heavy.

Hall's prosthetic leg would have been made of wood and leather with an aluminum foot. The prosthetic weighed more than seven pounds. It was attached by leather belts wrapped around Virginia's waist. Even if fitted properly, the leg would have caused pressure, sores, and chafing. Oh, God, how awful. So it's a traumatic and life-changing injury, but Virginia is resilient and she learns to adapt. She even ends up giving her wooden leg a nickname.

She calls it Cuthbert. So this is a different kind of person that we're dealing with. Tenacity. This is somebody that's like, yes, exactly. She's gonna kick life's ass and there's kind of, there's gonna be no other way. Of course, her injury has real repercussions on her career path.

It's already moving at a glacial pace because she's a woman. Eventually, she's still working as a secretary. She's denied yet another diplomacy job, but this time it's because of an old State Department rule that explicitly disqualifies people with disabilities from becoming diplomats. Oh my God. Like stated.

Wow. And it would take 55 years for America to pass federal laws protecting people with disabilities from discrimination in the workplace, which is the Americans with Disabilities Act that was passed in 1990. I remember that. Wow. That's insane. It's one of those things where the change happens.

And I'm sure it's because I don't have a disability so it doesn't directly impact me. But like that idea that for all those years, there was no, nothing ensured. You could just be like, oh, I don't know. I'm not gonna hire you. Yeah. Wild.

1990, oh my God. 1990. So by the late 1930s, Virginia is dejected. She's frustrated by her inability to be promoted beyond secretarial work, despite being extremely qualified and obviously very, very smart. So she leaves the State Department altogether, but she doesn't want to go back to the United States yet, especially now that the political situation in Europe is clearly barreling towards the Second World War. Virginia wants to stay and fight for the freedoms that she loves. So she heads back to Paris and she joins the French Army. Holy shit. Right? And unlike the American State Department, the French don't care that Virginia is a woman

or that she has a prosthetic leg. They recognize her professionalism and her courage and she gets a job as an ambulance driver in the early days of the German invasion in France. Yeah. And she gets right in it. She's like, yeah, I'll do that. Amazing.

But when France falls to the Nazis in June of 1940, she's forced to flee to England in a real twist of fate. She meets a man on her trip to England who, unbeknownst to her at the time, is a member of Britain's secret spy group, the Special Operations Executive Organization, or the SOE. So this agent is so impressed with Virginia when he meets her on like the trip back.

He recruits her to join the SOE as one of its 13,000 agents. Wow. She gets recruited to be a spy anyway. What the fuck fate, man? Yeah, it's like what's coming for you is coming for you. Yeah, wow. And unlike their American counterparts, the Brits running the SOE can see how valuable

Virginia is to their mission. The fact that she's a woman with a disability is actually an asset. And that along with her professional background, her bravery, her passion for European freedom, give her the makings of being a perfect spy. So in 1941, Virginia eagerly accepts a role with the SOE and at 35 years old, she becomes the first female SOE agent to work in France. Holy shit. Yeah.

So she's sent to Lyon, which at the time is in the unoccupied part of France, but it is under the jurisdiction of the authoritarian Vichy regime. The Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis. The national government of France led by Charles de Gaulle went into exile after rejecting the Vichy's legitimacy. So it's that weird, and I never knew this about France. It was like they were occupied to align. And then there was supposed to be this unoccupied area where people got out of like Paris and went down into the central and southern parts of

France. Eventually though, the Nazis took over all of it. And it was, you know, the Vichy government thought that they were going to have an even trade with the Nazis and then they learned their lesson. So in Lyon, Virginia goes undercover as a reporter for the New York Post. She's there to get all the hot goss in Vichy France. This allows her to ask anyone, including Nazi soldiers and Vichy officials, lots of questions without raising much suspicion. That's smart. And then she sends the intel back to the SOE.

She spends the next year setting up a vast network of resistance fighters. She works with the local nuns to create a safe house in their convent. She befriends sex workers and local brothels who pass on Intel along to her after they have their visits with their Nazi soldier patrons. And she even sets up rescue operations for airmen and agents who are injured in Vichy Run France. So it's all of course extremely dangerous work. The writer James G. Fassone reports that quote,

of the more than 400 SOE agents ultimately sent to France, 25% did not survive. Wow. And 40% of female SOE agents in France did not survive, either being executed or sent to die in Nazi concentration camps. Holy shit. Every month that Virginia Hall stayed in Vichy,

the risk of identification and capture increased exponentially. Every night she slept wondering if it would be her last. Wow. That's insane. So Virginia has everything to lose. Captured female spies are particularly brutalized, often at the hands of a sociopathic

Nazi named Klaus Barbie. He was known as the Butcher of Lyon, and he was stationed in Vichy, where he personally tortured countless Jews and members of the French resistance. We're not going to go into the detail of Klaus Barbie's methods here because they are so brutal and so horrifying. But to give you a sense of how high the stakes are for Virginia, the other women captured by the Nazis were raped, physically and mentally tortured, forced to witness violence against their family members, including young children, and were subjected to perverse sexual humiliation and degradation.

If you wanna read at the insane risk that Virginia was under and the details of what people were going through, and it is a good idea to get a sense of exactly what people were put through in this time, and by fucking Nazis, read Sonia Pernell's book to get the kind of the sense of what Virginia was under. But you should also just know that in the fact that people these days

around America casually calling themselves members of the Nazi party, exactly what they're attributing to and perhaps hoping for is a good thing to know because it's incredibly fucked up. This is really the high wire act of what Virginia Hall was doing. We've all seen movies, documentaries about World War II, about the Nazis, about how truly evil they were. Imagine having an inkling of that danger and getting up every day and risking your life and risking just being put in the hands of those people. Yeah. She knew. It wasn't like it was a secret. That's so scary.

And so scary. To be that brave is incredible. Well, on top of that, by the early 1940s, the Nazis are starting to hear rumors about Virginia and her espionage work. They don't know her name. They don't know her nationality. She's only identified by them as the quote, limping lady, but there is a sketch of her face plastered on wanted posters and beneath that image, it says, quote, the enemy's most dangerous spy, we must find and destroy her.

Do you think she took one home and like kind of kept it for a keepsake? How cool would that be? Actually, at one point, Klaus Barbie reportedly says, quote, I would give anything to get my hands on that limping Canadian bitch, because he thought she was Canadian. Holy shit, I'd be like, goodbye. You specifically pissed off the most psychopathic Nazi. So as her colleagues are captured,

as her colleagues are murdered, as her colleagues are murdered, Virginia continues working in this job. It's insane. But by the time America joins the war, there's too much heat on Virginia, and she's kind of forced to accept that she has to leave France, at least for a little while. But getting out of the country isn't easy.

The safest way out is through the Pyrenees Mountains and into Spain, which at the time was technically a neutral country, although they did work with the Nazis to an extent, but they never joined the Axis powers. So Virginia is forced to make a grueling 50 mile hike through the Pyrenees Mountains with her leg and in bad weather. So there was rain and snow. It would have been a painful, uncomfortable and extremely risky journey for the soldiers that were trying to get out for most people, much less a person with a prosthetic leg. Virginia never spoke publicly about what she

went through on that hike through the Pyrenees. We don't know anything about it, except for that she got to Spain safely and she made it out. Wow. Then in 1943, with the war still raging, England's King George VI, thank God, it's VI, and then Marin wrote the sixth in parentheses, thank God. So I didn't miss a beat.

Whew. Whew. King George VI awards Virginia Thank God. So I didn't miss a beat. King George VI awards Virginia a member of the Order of the British Empire or MBE, which recognizes, quote, outstanding achievement of service in and to the community, end quote. But at her request, the award is besowed in total secrecy to ensure that she can continue working in espionage. Mm, smart. And it's only now that the United States government has a change of heart and offers Virginia a position with the US Office of Strategic Services,

also called the OSS. This is basically the precursor to the CIA, so the OSS only existed for a little while. Interesting. But Virginia is recruited by them at the rank of second lieutenant, way beneath her experience level. Come on guys. Of course. But she accepts the job because she's the shit and because they're going to send her back to central France.

This time as a radio operator where she'll be expected to transmit intel back to the OSS as she continues organizing spy networks. But because the Nazis now know Virginia's face, before returning to France, she consults with a Hollywood makeup artist to learn the tricks of the trade because she figures she's gonna need a few disguises to avoid being captured. How genius is this?

Yeah, I thought you were going to say a plastic surgeon and I was like, oh my God. Oh no. Among her most famous disguises is that of an old French milkmaid. It turns out very convincing. She dyes her hair kind of a mousy gray. She paints wrinkles on her face.

She has a dentist file her teeth down. No, no, don't do that. Yeah, she does it. She even walks with a new gate to throw off the Nazis who are looking for quote, the limping lady. And because she learned to make cheese as a child, Virginia starts producing and selling cheeses to Nazi soldiers in order to gain. So she's got the outfit.

Yeah. Now she's making the cheese for real. And she starts selling to Nazi soldiers to gain proximity and to collect intel. That's so terrifying. But it's so smart because what's the one luxury that you give up in wartime? Cheese, beautiful, no one's making cheese.

And she's in there like, oh, is this, hey, I can hook you up. And then she's just an old lady that no one's paying attention to, so they're saying all kinds of shit in front of her. So Virginia and her fellow operatives are also tasked with preparing for the upcoming Allied invasion at Normandy. So she once again recruits, trains,

and organizes resistance fighters who carry out all kinds of crucial demolitions and other acts of sabotage against the Nazis stationed in France. In a two-month period of early 1944 alone, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency website credits Virginia with quote, sending 37 intelligence reports. This is just two months. Overseeing, 27 parachute drops of material for the French resistance, coordinating the efforts of 1500 resistance fighters,

overseeing innumerable attacks, resulting in more than 170 Nazi soldiers killed and captured, managing dozens of acts of sabotage that disrupted German logistics and reinforcements, and integrating a joint SOE, OSS operational team into her area of operations. Holy shit. These acts of resistance that Virginia

and her fellow agents execute, especially in these critical weeks before D-Day, are absolutely crucial. By the end of the summer of 1944, Paris is liberated and the war will officially end in September of 1945. Wow. And it's in no small part to her, dressed up like an old milkmaid

and all the other costumes that she figured out. I mean, like, it's almost like she found her calling in the truest way. She was pursuing it like a passion. She was striving in this environment where most people I think are so scared. Yes, rightfully so. Yeah, totally.

It's amazing. So after her mission in France is completed, she returns to the United States. Her boss at the OSS, General Bill Donovan, sends a telegram to President Harry Truman saying that Virginia needs to be awarded for her service overseas. The president wholeheartedly agrees. And then Virginia is notified she will receive a Distinguished Service Cross, which is the second highest honor from the US military. And she will receive it from the sitting president

of the United States at the White House in a public ceremony. Virginia rejects the offer. According to Sonia Pernell, quote, "'She was not only ambivalent about honors, but she did not think it advisable for a secret agent to be the focus of a public occasion.'" It's kind of like, duh.

Yeah, she's the only one with her eye on the ball. For her, fighting the good fight had become a calling, not just any job. And perhaps she was also wary of her disability once again becoming an issue under the glare of the media." End quote, which is, yes, of course. Totally. So eventually, Virginia compromises

and she accepts the award in a private ceremony from General Donovan directly, not President Truman. The only other person in attendance is her mother Barbara. Virginia is the only female civilian to receive a distinguished service cross during World War II, the only one. Wow. Despite her heroism, Virginia still faces disability and gender discrimination in the workplace. When the CIA is formed, she's offered a job and is one of the first women hired by the agency. However, she is quote,

relegated to office and analytic work for the remainder of her career. End quote. It's the fucking CIA. This woman hasn't proved to you that she can do it times 25. Like what are you talking about? Like she killed Nazis and she fucking blew up bridges

and she fucking figured shit out. What do you want? She organized it. She climbed the Pyrenees with a prosthetic leg. What more must I do for you? Okay, right. It's not about me. Virginia Hall retires from the CIA in 1966,

when she's 60 years old, afterwards she and her husband, who actually is a fellow OSS agent named Paul Gayo, and they fell in love during the war. So she was truly living her best life in every way. She was doing it. So her and Paul moved to a farm in Maryland after she retires and in July of 1982,

Virginia Hall dies at the age of 77. So throughout her later life, she rarely talked about her heroism during World War II. Her niece, Lorna Catling has said, quote, she always avoided publicity. She would say, it was just six years of my life. Like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about?

Ugh, like I have seen, because you know my dad and I watched World War II movies during the holidays, it's like the one subject we can agree on. So I watched a World War II movie that was true story about soldiers escaping over the Pyrenees. And it was all horrifying for them and incredibly difficult. The idea that she, it was just six years of my life. It's like, ma'am, how do you do it?

I think it's like in war years, it's actually, you can double it at least. That's right. But the world disagrees with Virginia. In the last several years, there's been a ton of interest in her life story. Several books have been written about her. A movie is reportedly in the works.

And despite Virginia's commitment to discretion, privacy, and humility, her story of strength and bravery has resonated widely. And as James Fossone points out, quote, Virginia Hall left no memoir, granted no interviews, and spoke little about her overseas life, even with relatives. She left behind no daughters, but she changed perceptions about what everyone's daughters could accomplish. Her life is a roadmap of how to raise a strong and independent woman." Wow. And that's the life story of the incredible World War II spy and resistance fighter,

Virginia Hall. Oh my God, like chills. How come she's not in any history books that we read about in school? Who would play her in the movie? Gwyneth? Gwyneth. When you think of resilience, you think of Goop.

Wow. Who would play her? Francis McDormand. A young Francis McDormand. Yeah, we'll do flashbacks with like a younger actress, newer actress, but Francis McDormand could be the. It's Frances puttering around the CIA. Yeah. Just kind of smiling and being nice.

And then someone's like, did you hear about Virginia? Right, or like she's making cheese. She saved this country. Like, guys, I brought in cheese curds for everybody again. That was amazing. That was inspiring. Let's all just like be a little more like Virginia. for everybody again. That was amazing. That was inspiring. Let's all just like be a little more like Virginia.

Let's all be and do better. What was that? Be better people. Be a better you. Why do I keep forgetting that? Because it's awful and stupid. No, I refuse to be a better me. I'm doing my fucking best.

Like what more? This is as good as it gets bitch. Everyone be yourself, be your whatever self instead of a better you. Be you but like tweak it every once in a while, just change it up and see what happens. Yeah, make it worse so that it seems like, so when you're normal it seems like you're better,

but you're not. That's right, right. Do it that way. We when you're normal, it seems like you're better, but you're not. That's right, right. Do it that way. Weaponized incompetence, it works. It works if you work it. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening everybody. Hey, we're in our ninth year.

Oh my God, we're deep in our ninth year. We appreciate you guys sticking for around for all the things. For all these things. Yeah, there's been so many. And for podcasting in general. Yeah. Thanks for supporting podcasting.

Yeah, good, look at you, go. Good job for having an interest. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Go away. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. ["Sing Your Producer"]

This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. 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 at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder.

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