Rotten Mango - #126: Mom “Cures” Son With Incest (Murder of Barbara Baekeland)

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

Tony was getting fed up. His friend wasn’t listening to him. “No no no you don’t get it! I’m f***ing my mother!” - he screamed. The restaurant went quiet. Tony came from a strange family, to say the least. His great-grandparents were the creators of plastic. Yes, plastic. His mom was an eccentric aspiring author working on her debut novel about a mom who seduces her son on a yacht - that everyone believed to be more of an autobiography. Strange? Sure. Homicidal? Absolutely. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rambles. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay to description starting at 12.99 per month. Better boom, better bing.

Welcome to this week's main episode of Frontenmingo. I'm your host Stephanie Sue, and we're jumping into this one because it's crazy. Tony begged one of his family friends to take him out to lunch. Please, I just need someone to talk to. They weren't that close, but Jim, the family friend, thought I was strange, but agreed. In the middle of lunch. While eating their little salad, their little soup, Tony goes, can I talk to you? No, can I speak honestly with you, Jim? Sure, I mean, Tony, I would really love to rely on you as a friend.

Jim thought that this was weird. Well, Tony, we don't really know each other that well. Well, Jim, what's happening is that I'm having an affair with my mother. Jim said, oh, well, I mean, I know that you and your mom have an intimate relationship and that's fine. No, no, no, no, you don't get it, Gem. I'm f***ing my mother. Everyone in the restaurant goes quiet. As you can tell, Tony's from a very strange family, a very wealthy, rich, affluent family, but Tony's mom had a dream to become an author. Her debut novel was a romance. When a woman goes on a yacht cruise with her son and her son's

friend. At first, she seduces her own son. Then later, she seduces the son's friend and then she walks in on the son and the friend in bed together. And she screams she soaps at, leave my son alone. He is not a homosexual. He functions very well sexually with me and I'm not going to let you ruin everything. This is the story of a rich, wealthy, socialite mom who tried to cure her son of homosexuality

by sleeping with him and carrying on an insesituous relationship. All of this would lead to murder. As always, full source notes are available at RottenMangoPodcast.com but there's such a good book on this case called Savage Grace by Natalie Robbins and Stephen M.L. Aronson. Now this was also turned into a movie I can't imagine how long that the authors put into this book. They interviewed over 50 people, closest to this crazy crazy family

and yes the story itself is so wild, but the people, I mean, there's something else. To even sit down and have conversations with these people, I can imagine it to be the biggest headache of my life. They really put in their work, they got their facts, they got to the details, and I just, this is a must read. It's straight up a dark twisted at times oddly comedic, almost like a homicidal fiction book. That's the vibe that it gives me, but it's a true story. So who are these crazy people? It all starts with a bakelend family.

Now Leo bakelend was the, really just the guy that started this family, put the family on the map. He was born in Belgium. He was incredibly smart. Academically gifted people said, He was born in Belgium, he was incredibly smart, academically gifted people said, when he went to college, he was the youngest student there. So from there, he immigrates to the US and he immediately starts putting his brain to work.

He creates a quick action photographic printing paper so that he sold the patent for $1 million, which is about $30 million in today's money. Zay! He was said to have been the father of plastic, so he invented the first totally successful plastic. Plastic! So he's the father of ruining the planet?

Yes, exactly. He called it bake light, and he called it the material of a thousand uses. He would be shaking right now to see what we've done with it. The material of disposable one-time use, okay? Leo said that this was not his greatest discovery though. Even though this is what he wouldn't be known for, this is what he would die known for. Leo said his greatest discovery was when he was in college.

He discovered that his professor had a very beautiful daughter, named Celine Swartz, which is odd, because he refused to take care of Celine and their child when he impregnated her, forced her to stay in Belgium for a long time, isolated her, and then finally, he immigrated her to the United States. So they get married, they have kids together, and that they had a very strange tumultuous relationship. It was on and off.

They would have these big lives outside of each other. Celine was an artist. She was very artistic. She would go do these gallery openings, and then at the end of it, she would give her paintings away for free. She's one of those rich ladies where you're like, wow, she's kind of cool, and that terrifies me.

And you're almost even more scared of her because she's so different and strange. Whenever Leo would go on a business trip, Selene would write to him, I love you. We should try to work things out. Leo seemed to love his wife and he would agree. He would always call her a silly woman very affectionately but he was very competitive. So if Selene played the piano, she was amazing at it. Her children and her grandkids loved listening to her play.

Leo would leave the room. He was so upset. There was just this tension. He wanted to compete with his own wife. A lot of people speculate that no matter how successful Leo was, he felt like he wasn't good enough for Selene. Selene came from a super wealthy family. They were very prim, proper.

They were an intellectual family. Not just wealthy. Leo came from an alcoholic father His mom was the breadwinner which you know would make this rags to riches story even more wholesome But this was back in the day where social class was everything So I think he never forgave Celine from being from a good family Which really isn't even our fault so whenever he whenever she played the piano He would always say I can't stand that noise. And with Leaf, which is odd, because her teachers were some of the world famous composers and pianists of the world, like, what are you talking about?

And the minute that Celine's hand lifted off that last key, he would rush the kids. He'd say, come on kids, you guys are done, right? Let's go to the lab, let's do some crazy science experiments, let's blow sh** up! And of course the kids loved it! He wanted to be the favorite parent, the favorite grandparent. Another weird point of contention in their relationship was that Celine loved Belgium. You know, they're both from Belgium. And she would go back any chance that she had. She still had her accent, people thought it was so cute.

It added to her like her whole rich eccentric woman vibe. She called herself Mirsys Bakeland instead of Mrs. Bakeland, right? Leo was the opposite. He never went back. He dropped his accent like a hot potato and he renamed their son George Washington Bakeland George wash. I'm not kidding George Washington George Washington Bakeland the George Washington, George Washington, Bakeland. The couple had three kids. Jenny, she passed away at five years old.

George Washington, Bakeland, and Nina, Bakeland. And they were, they were pretty good parents, I guess. Everyone really liked Leo. If he saw people making out, he would give an in-depth, graphic, gruesome, vivid description of all the bacteria and viruses that we're having a field day slipping and sliding from one person to another person's tongue. So graphic indeed that you probably wouldn't kiss another person for maybe even months.

Is that a good way of teaching your kids not to think so. Not to make up with strangers. Yeah. And they can't even hate you for it. He was kind of fun to be around. But Selene was the one that everybody loved. She was this cute little grandma who was excited about everything. She would go around into stores and she'd see light bulbs. And she would squeal.

Every one of these light bulbs has bake light in it. The plastic. She loved animals, she loved spending time with her grandkids. Now Leo and Celine didn't see eye to eye all the time, but everyone on the outside thought that they were pretty cute. They were like the epitome of the fun, happy go lucky girlfriend and the moody introverted boyfriend trope, do you know what I'm talking about? Leo would say things like, if I could do without inconveniencing my wife, I would go and live somewhere where we could live without servants and live a more simpler natural life, you know? But no, my wife cannot live without some so-called society. What do we want with such a large mansion? Why all the servants? Why all the complicated trash of unnecessary furniture? Ugh. I like him.

Bratman. Meanwhile, he bought Celine whatever she wanted. So he just sounds like the moody, I'm an intellectual soul, I want to live in a college, but no. I got to do what my wife says. So he's kind of like her best. And he had the funds to buy his wife whatever she wanted. It's hard to even imagine how much money

someone like the father of plastic would make, but his kids and his grandkids would say that because of Leo, their whole family had quote, f**k you money. They do not need to please, or seek to please astonish a stound dazzle, or try to be approved by anyone, because that is f**king money. Fun facts, in the atomic bomb, yeah, bombs that literally destroyed lives and cities, one of the most difficult problems in creating a bomb was solved and the solution involved bakelight. I mean, I believe the solution is top secret, but it was leaked that like bakelight was involved.

So they're really bringing in money. They've got this massive house in New York, an even bigger lavish mansion in Florida that had an aquamarine swimming pool in the front, a big rich green garden, or kids all over the place, but Leah was different from rich people of the time. He didn't like to dress formally. He wore white sneakers all the time.

He's like the tech bro of sneakers all the time, he's like the tech bro of back in the day, okay? He thought that white sneakers and the same clothes were cheaper, more sensible, he would jump into the pool with all of his clothes on, like a complete mad blood, he would tell his kids, this is better for you, this is how you keep cool, the evaporation keeps you cool. He ate food out of cans, so they had a kitchen staff that cooked fresh, home cooked meals every single day, every single meal, but he would open up a can of just like tomato soup and wouldn't even reheat it up,

just eat it out of the tomato soup can. He just, I mean, it drove Celine mad, but he also kept a painting that Celine did for him of a sleepy hollow cemetery So she had drawn him a cemetery, which I don't know what that means like if I drew you a cemetery But he hung it up in his office. He looked at it every day and he would smile at it and say that's where I'm gonna be buried I don't know what is happening here. So that's the story of the grandparents, the inventor of plastic, and his downfall, and like the way that he connects with his grandkids kind of gets important. He starts getting

dementia in his 70s, like really, really bad dementia, and he invites over his grandson Brooks. Brooks, Bayclint, he's gonna be very important to this story. Brooks, Bayclint, you need to come over to the New York house urgently. I need you at the swiftest, he said. Here's the problem, Brooks. I have these four suitcases, I just got back from Florida, and I thought to lock the first suitcase, put the key in the second suitcase, lock the second suitcase, put the key in the third one, and so on and so forth, so that I'm only traveling with one key instead of four very bulky keys. But the problem is, I've lost that one key. You're kidding me right now. And Brooks is like, well Grandpa, are there any other places that you would put keys in the house?

Well, I don't know, Brooks. So Brooks starts looking in the whole time his grandpa is following him around, not helping him look for keys, but talking about how light is polarized and the principles of a suction cup. So, it works as going a little crazy. He's like, Grandpa, just give me a second. Give me a second. So, he finds a giant ring of keys. Oh, God, I gotta try these all.

So, after many tries, he's finally able to unlock the fourth suitcase. Then the third, then the second, then the first. But he opens the mouth up and he says, Grandpa, oh, this is what you brought from Florida. Well, yes Brooks Grampa it's it's all books and papers and diaries and notebooks and manuscripts You don't have any clothes you forgot to pack your clothes and you didn't leave any clothes in the New York house So you have no clothes grandpa? So he liked to travel light that this man, Leo, he had like three pairs of shirts. He really hated excess clothing.

So he didn't have like a full closet in New York and a full closet in Florida. Like one might expect from such a rich dude. Yeah. He only owned like three shirts at a time. OK. She was a very interesting person. All right, then buy three more shirts.

Yeah, so his three shirts were in Florida, but it was too late to go out and buy clothes. So Brooks is like, oh my god, I gotta look through this house just so at least I can find him something aware, at least some pajamas. But instead of any clothes, Brooks finds 100 checkbooks all to different bank accounts. And he says, grandpa, what is all of this? Well, the banks aren't to be trusted, Brooks. And instead of finding one bank to place

all the money, I've divided it up into, well, I don't know how many. But all the banks! So he wasn't great at keeping track of these things, and he was truly losing his mind. He died three years later of a stroke. Even Leo wrote to his friend, right before his death. If I had to live my life over again, I would not devote it to develop new industrial processes. I would try to add my humble efforts to use science to the betterment of the human race. His friends and family said if he saw the state of the world right

now, littered with plastic cups straws waste, he would have been disgusted with himself. Now let's focus on Leo's grandson. The one that's trying to search for his clothes. His name is Brooks Bakeland. He is the son of George Washington Bakeland, who doesn't seem to be that interesting of a character. Brooks dad George, he worked for the Bakeland Corporation. He did well.

He did so well that Leo was very, very proud of him. He wasn't just there because he was Leo's son. He seemed to have a mind, right? But outside of work George Washington was a He was different from the rest of the family. He was mean. He didn't like anyone. He liked dogs over people He was a bit of a negative Nancy and also a bit of a racist right-wing radical like just really Just really wild. He only hung out with people that were willing to suck his toes, literally and figuratively, like he wanted to be flattered to the point where he would force them to stop,

which was almost never. So Bricks was just not that close with his dad, but he was close with his mom Cornelia. You know, George was super cold, distant, didn't treat his kids warmly, whereas Cornelia, she was a very warm, loving mother. For example, they were rich enough to afford a piece of land that had two houses on the property and a swimming pool in between.

George would go to his house, live with his dogs, and only come to the house with his wife and kids during dinner time, and then go straight back to his house. So the guy is just distant, okay? No. George Washington was also abusive. One time Brooks saw a rat, not a squirrel, a rat, and the rat just jumped from a big sicklemore tree near the bedroom window to the roof of the house. It was climbing up and down the trees, up the roof of the house, and he was shakred,

Brooks is like, oh my god, that's a rat, that's not a squirrel. I can't wait to tell my dad, I know rats could climb trees. This is news to me So he goes and he tells George Washington and George looks at him and says You lying son of a bitch and beat him up with the back of a hairbrush That'll teach you a lesson to lie to me ever again rats climbing trees you think I'm dumb Okay

So Brooks said that George only knew how to be to threaten and take away things. He was just just a really gross dude. So they also had a daughter named Cornelia after the mom, after the wife. And this is Brooke's sister who was beautiful, she was bright. But George stopped supporting her education because, and I quote, she's not worth educating. So Cornelia, I mean, she's slowly getting fed up with this. This is not the man that she fell in love with, and I think like it comes to a point where you're maybe your maternal bone starts coming out.

You're like, at the end of the day, these are my kids, and I'm going to protect my kids. And you are torturing my kids. She's fed up. She decides to take a little mini vacation in Florida with all of her socialite friends, all of her female friends and George said, well what hotel are you staying at? As a disgusting hotel, you've got to stay at this hotel. That's the only way I allow you to go to Florida is if you stay at the hotel of my choosing. Now this is a really weird twist of fate, so he chooses this hotel for her.

He's not going, which is weird. So she's completely isolated in this hotel. She's got to take a cab to get to her friend's hotel, right? So she's staying there and she's supposed to meet her friends for this big, lavish dinner. She's wearing a ball gown and she's coming downstairs to hail a cab and she's walking down the steps in her fancy dress, and without George, because she's alone. And suddenly, she sees this man, staring up at her, at the bottom of the stairs. His name is Penn Hallowell.

He was in love with her at first sight. He had seen her through the crowd coming down the steps. It was a movie. He was in love. Never mind the fact that he's married. Never mind the fact that she's married. They were in love, so he rushes over and asks her to dance. Cornelia fell in love that night. And she's a very honorable person.

Honestly, respect for this woman, okay? Her husband sounds horrible. So she immediately goes home and what does she do? Does she keep on the affair? No, she tells George, I have to leave you. I'm in love with another man. Please let me go. Yeah, yeah, who cares, but you have to give up custody of all the kids. So Fred was seven, Brooks was 14, Cornelia was almost 16, oh and George said you get no money. I will give you $3,000 a year to live on. Cornelia agreed. She was still allowed to see the kids. She actually saw the kids more than George Washington dead because he sucks as a dad and for Years more like decades Penn could not leave his wife. He was a coward and he couldn't give her money because his wife would find out

So she was strapped for cash lived completely broke until she was like in her 60s Literally her life took a 180 after 20 years of being Penn's mistress, Penn's wife finally died and he asked Cornelia to marry him. He was 80. She was 65. Even after getting married, he died five years later. She was absolutely distraught. All of this is more sad because Cornelia had been a wanted woman. It's alleged that five men had taken their lives over Cornelia. Because she had rejected them. She was beautiful, very smart, just people wanted to be with her and she rejected a lot of them and they took their own lives and disbear her. Yeah, so she could have easily had any life with any man that she wanted, but she chose Penn and he was too much of a coward.

Meanwhile, George remarried to all the kids collectively decided to give their new stepmom a very hard time, but she's very nice. So they actually kind of liked her. George died in his 70s, he suffered from dementia just like Leo, and when he passed, he left everything to his second wife. Just a huge f**k you to all of his kids. And Cornelia, his first wife, they all got nothing. Brooks was shocked. Not because he didn't get money, he didn't need money because his grandpa Leo had set up a big trust fund

for all the grandkids. So truly, he didn't need his dad's money. But he just always thought it was weird because his dad always told him, don't ever leave your money to a woman, put it in a trust. Just thought it was weird, but you left it all to a woman. Brooks though was still very, very rich.

And I think that he actually got a lot more money than the rest of the grandkids because Leo and Celine really loved Brooks. Like really loved him. They always thought that he was a monk in a past life, which is a strange thing to say, yes. But Brooks is a very interesting person to say the least. For example, when he was young,

he had an affair with a married woman. Oh yeah, this woman even left her husband to live. Oh yeah, totally mocked in the past life. You know? That's what they do. Exactly, that's what they do. They break up marriages. They just have wild sex all the time.

OK, this woman left her husband to be with Brooks, and they were living together, and they fell into this routine. Brooks said every single day, they would spend two hours grocery shopping, two hours preparing the food, and eating dinner. And then because Brooks didn't want to be a male shavonistic pig, what did he do? He would do the dishes, but it was like 10 plates and 5 pans each time because she liked to cook a crazy dinner. And he just got so sick of the whole thing. He kicked her out and we broke up. Okay, so what do you eat now? Who cooks for you now, Brooks? Simple. On Sundays, I have a full pound of hamburger meat. On Monday, I have a pound of potatoes. Tuesday, I have a pound of spinach.

One dish, one pot, one pan away 8, 8 pair of shorts. I fucking got rid of 5. I like that. Grandpa Leo had only 1 2 3 4 5

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Hanger Chiefs died through a way, eight, eight pair of shorts. I fucking got rid of five. I like that. Grandpa Leo had only one suit for town, but did you know Grandma Selene finally tricked him into abying a new dark blue suit. Oh, the story's good. So Selene had gone shopping one day, and she passed by a men's clothing store, and she saw these beautiful suits imported from the UK from

England. Wow and she just had this feminine urge to dress her man better. Come on some nice clothes won't help. She goes inside. She buys a very very nice expensive suit. Let's say $135. Perfectly in Leo's size. But what she knew is that she couldn't just give a temp so she made a deal with the shop owner Can you tomorrow display the suit in the shop window for let's say $25? Do not sell it to anyone other than Leo and everybody who knew who Leo was in the town, right? So the shop owner says oh, yeah, yeah, of course So that means the total cost of the suit would be $160 or you down for that he said That night, Celine goes home and says,

oh my god, sweetie, I saw this suit imported from England selling for $25. Oh no, Celine, maybe $135, but not $25. You must be mistaken. Oh no, mistaken, Leo. It's $25, dearie. Okay, well, Celine, you must be losing your mind already. How about we make a bet? If it's $25, I will go down and I'll buy it right away. He knew that she had been wanting him to get a new suit, right? So Leo the next day without Selene goes down to the shop. There it is. $25.

Suit. Oh, he rushed us to buy it. He's walking down the street so giddy from this good deal he got any runs into a friend, a lawyer. Hey guess what? I just bought this English imported suit. Oh, it's a great deal right now. I'll sell it to you for $75. No.

The friend says, Oh my god, that's a great deal. Give him $75 in cash. Leo walks all the way back home thinking he just scammed a lawyer. And he made profits off of this $50 when in reality, Celine paid $135, he paid another $25, making it $160, he made $75, meaning he lost $85 and he had no suit. So it seems like Brooks wanted to be like his Gramps, which nothing's wrong with it,

but like the Murdoch boys, like the house of Gucci boys, Brooks had the name, he had the money, he had the privilege, none of the talent or the smarts, like none of it. Brooks was a pseudo intellectual, he liked to use big words, he's the type that always brings up philosophers, mid-conversation, and makes it his whole personality trait. Everyone describes Brooks like this, a brilliant, wealthy man who has never actually done any productive work. He did make an expedition to South America once and wrote an article about it though. He went to Peru to parachute, but he said, and I quote, I spent 89 harrowing days traversing

the wilderness. He went parachuting. He just always did the most. When people asked him about his relationship with his own grandmother, Selene, he said, our minds, hers and mine were intertwined. So were our spirits in both of which was the same Gallic naughtiness and humor, Gallic meaning French. Okay, cute, right?

But he keeps going. She was attracted to me not only as a mother, but as a woman, is to an electric young man. We were like lovers. We met always as man and woman. That was our power and enabled us to instantly see to the hearts of things together. Wait, he's talking about his grandma? Yeah. OK.

Like, saying his grandma was attracted to him as a woman is attracted to an electric young man. And they only met as woman and man, like lovers. What does that mean? OK. He said, I was the young Leo she loved. He Odysseus was gone. I was telemecus. Even as a young man, I was aware of the sexual danger of the transference.

So he's saying that his grandma sees him as the younger version of her own husband and is attracted to him. And he's aware of the danger that type of attraction is this is your grandmother. Calm down. This is not intellectual, sir. This is incestual. When Brooks comes around, you hide your wife, but more importantly, hide your grandma, because he's a weirdo. Anyway, enter into the scene the beautiful Barbara Dele. She was born in Massachusetts to Frank and Nina Dele, and by the time that she was 11, her father Frank had committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. Oddly, this is how a family friend describes the incident. The suicide of Frank Daily Sr. was observed by his own son, Frank Jr. through the window of the locked garage.

Frank Sr. had lost all of his money and the economic crash, and he was gassing himself while pretending to work on his car. He was underneath the car while the engine was running. Frank Jr. paced back and forth in front of the window while he watched his father die. So Frank Jr. Barbara, Nina Daily, each got about $600,000 from the insurance company, and Frank Jr. died a few years later due to suicide. His car had crashed into a tree. So Barbara and Nina, they moved to New York City, and they really shined there, especially

Barbara. She was a natural redhead just like her mother, and she was, oh, she was beautiful. She literally looks like a movie actress, so she turned heads everywhere that she went. She posed for vogue, Harper's Bazaar, even painters wanted her to be their muse. She started hanging out with the socialites of New York, all the richest men in New York wanted to date her, and Nina loved it. She encouraged it. She would always tell her daughter, all the richest men in New York wanted to date her and Nina loved it. She encouraged it. She would always tell her daughter, marry the money. Was she actually told her daughter, marry the man? That's what she called the money.

She had a nickname for it, the man. Okay, so marry the man. Nina knew that her daughter was an attractive candidate for a wealthy man's hand in marriage. Barbara was artistic. She loved to paint. The only issue that really bothered Nina was that Barbara was artistic. She loved to paint the only issue that really bothered Nina. It was that Barbara was left handed. And Nina was just so upset. She was like, that's gonna prevent you from getting married. It's just so weird and unnatural to be left

handed. And Nina was so pressed by this, which I think is oddly comical and bizarre, like what's wrong with this moment? She was just so annoyed, like you're weird because you're left handed. But I guess Nina didn't care that like Nina, Barbara had her share of mental health issues. She was a patient of a psychiatrist by the name of Foster Kennedy, and Barbara was one of those people when you first meet her. You're so swept up by her gorgeous looks, her big personality. She's not scared of anything. She's not like the other girls. She swims deep in the ocean. She loves skiing, water skiing. She thrives off being other girls. She swims deep in the ocean. She loves skiing, water skiing. She thrives off being social. The life of the party. But when you get closer,

you start realizing she's a bit narcissistic, impulsive. She cares a lot about social status. She was just that type of woman. So she tried to date some of the high society men, but it wasn't landing her husband so far. So she went for Hollywood. She went to California, did a couple screen tests to get some acting gigs, and she runs into a woman by the name of Cornelia Bayclend. Not George's Cornelia, but his daughter, so Brooke's sister, and they end up getting a few minor parts together, and even though acting just wasn't for either of them, they liked each other a lot. They became so close. Cornelia started inviting, you know, Barbara over to their house in Connecticut. I want you to meet my brother Brooks. He's an absolute poet and so are you! So they meet in

the Connecticut house and he says this about Barbara. I found a remarkably beautiful and staggeringly selfish young woman whose pretentious tapoetry puzzled me when I plumbed them. She thought it would be wonderful to be a poet, but she had no training in words. I heard her feelings by calling what she showed me, our marmalade. So he looked at her poem and said it's like jam. But I guess Barbara liked to be insulted because at that point they started having some hot steamy sex.

And then Barbara gets pregnant. Brooks, the ever romantic poet, used two dollars to pay the court, ten dollars for a wedding band and made her into Barbara Bakeland. They get married. Barbara was ecstatic. Sure, she doesn't sound like the type that would like a ten dollar wedding band, but this is just the start. This man's got money, he's got status, he's the grandson of Bakelight, are you kidding me?

I heard it's used in bombs! I heard it's the bomb! Brrrr, that was lame. Brooks wasn't the most social like Barbara, but he tried to entertain her. It was clear though that their personalities were just not gonna match. So first of all, Brooks was shocked to find out that Barbara actually wasn't pregnant, and this was her ploy to get him to get married with her. Yeah.

And I quote, I had not married a soulmate, but a powerful and ambitious antagonist. She was far more brilliant, far stronger personality than I ever was or could be. That's what Brooks said about Barbara. Brooks said at that point, he wasn't very conventional, but he did everything he could to try to get rid of Barbara. Brooks said at that point he wasn't very conventional but he did everything he could to try to get rid of Barbara. He ignored her, he mistreated her, this newlywed wife, he did everything that would put a girl off and say, you know what, maybe I'll know this marriage. But he had forgotten her absolute persistence. It oddly disgusted him and attracted him to her. That's what he said. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in them.

Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No. Who's gonna catch us? What a police. It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? 100% I saved my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series, available now

in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy man, but I love being that dirty mother f***er. Even when Brooks joined the Air Force, Barbara followed him and started barking orders at his superiors. Yeah, a The Air Force, like his commanders. She knew how the world works, she knew what made people tick, she was able to get people to listen to her. Brooks was rich, privileged, but this oh so dumb boy had no idea what was coming for him. Barbara was a whole nother level. He was playing checkers. No, he wasn't even playing checkers. The dude was sitting at the table with no pieces in his hand, and Barbara was playing chess with his money. Like, this was, he was not ready for this.

Brooks would end up not just supporting Barbara, but her entire family for the rest of their lives. He was just so shocked. He had no idea, was happening in his life. It just kind of happened. After so many attempts, Barbara soon became pregnant for real this time. And they had their one and only child, Antony Bayclend, which he goes by the name Tony. Soon after he was born, soon after Tony was born, the family moves into an apartment in New York City that Selene had purchased for Brooks before she passed. Barbara loved it, she's living the life, she would wheel her stroller all around Central Park, and she would just plop Tony on onto the dirt, let him play. And her friends would stare at her and shock her, high society friends with their little

gloves and they would say, Barbara, you can't just let him do that, it's awfully dirty, we better get him back into the stroller. Come here, baby Tony. Would you say stop? If you keep him isolated from all kinds of dirt, he will never build up the antibodies to prevent disease that might come a long one day. This was not only progressive during that time,

but women were not as educated as men back then, because you know, sexism. So coming from Barbara, I was like, whoa, this woman not only probably comes from a high class, intellectual family, but she's exposed to these types of ideas and she's progressive. They were all about new age parenting. And honestly, they were very reminiscent of Leo and Celine, probably without the talent, though. For example, Brooks was very dark and cold and Barbara was light and warm.

Yin and Yang is how everybody described them. Barbara was also drop dead glamorous. She loved horseback riding, skiing. She loved wearing full Chanel suits with a fur coat on top. She would get up at six in the morning and just be gone. To start her day, she was a social light at heart. She was the type to go to a costume party, not wearing a costume on purpose, so that she would stand out. They had a painting of Barbara with her hair down full red lips, very, very booby, booby, titty dress, just in the living room where her toddler would just stare at it all day. Barbara had a closet full of just leopard skins, Chanel suits. They had a leopard skin bed. They had servants, a marble for yay, but it wasn't, you know, it's just a wild house.

Barbara was the type to go to dinner parties and ask strange questions like, for a million dollars. Would you sleep with me? No, no. Would you eat a pound of human flesh? Why is this something that I ask? Would you go to the first person you meet after going through that revolving door? For a million dollars would you sleep with them? So you go through that revolving door? First person could be an old person could be a man could be a woman. Would you sleep with them for a million dollars?

Brooks answered yes to that question. Because the minute that they got out of that restaurant, Barbara said, Well, if that's how you feel, I'll just go off with the first man that comes along in a car. She ran out into the middle of the street in New York City, flagged down a car that had four young men in it, jumped in, and took off. Everybody was shocked. This was not only wild, but a very, very dangerous thing to do in a place like New York City. She thankfully made it home safely a few hours later.

But because Tony's parents were always off doing these wild things, Tony spent most of his time in his grandma Nini's care. Nina, right, but they call her Nini. And they loved each other a lot. Tony was a bright kid. He knew how to express himself. He had really advanced thoughts and opinions Even though he was just four years old, he talked like an adult. He was one of those adult-like children

When his parents took him on vacations, he would just sit there and find bugs and sketch them He would sketch praying mantises, birds, and the sketches were really good. Every time Barbara would put Tony to bed She would ask Tony, do you love grandma and mommy more? Mommy, of course. Tony, do you love daddy or mommy more? Mommy, of course. Do you love mommy or your auntie more? Mommy, of course. So unhealthy, so narcissistic, what is this woman doing? She also wanted Tony to be perfect because a lot

of the time narcissists see their children as extensions of themselves. But at the same time, they crave their children's attention, so they want their kids to love them and only them to feed their ego. Barbara would have full blown mature conversations with Tony when he was only 5 or 6 years old. She wanted him to be brilliant. Her proud is Jay, someone who was devoted to her, but also an intellectual. So dad to the rescue, right? You're thinking maybe Barbara's crazy, but maybe Brooks is a little bit better. Maybe Brooks learned from his dad that being cold and distant isn't good, right? No, he

also sets a crazy high expectations for Tony. Okay, so just to give you some context on how hard they are with Tony, when they want to vacation a girl, let's call her Sarah, who's trying to make money by babysitting. And she was told that the baked lens were vacationing there for the summer. Well, this is perfect. They have a young son. This would be good business. She drove to their vacation house and she sees Barbara in the driveway, washing a car, just in a bikini, dropped dead gorgeous. What? The lawn bikini and heels like a movie. Sarah was obsessed, okay, she was like, wow, this woman

is like, hot, what's going on? So Barbara agreed to let Sarah babysit, and she was charmed by him. Sarah was charmed by Tony, he was this cute little freckled five-year-old. His parents let her know that he had a stutter, but when she was around Tony, she never heard him stutter. So that kind of goes to show that Tony was that nervous around his parents. So the point where he was forming a, developing a speech impediment because there was a mental block.

But with Sarah, he felt comfortable. He didn't feel expectations to be this smart, intelligent kid. He just could be a kid. So what did they do instead of realizing, wait, he only stutters around us? We should do something about it. No, they just hire has a babysitter and it's like, make sure he doesn't stutter ever again and goes out on the weekends. Another example is that when Tony was at dinner parties with his parents, they would make him read very, very difficult poems out loud, which is strange, because he didn't read particularly well, but they made him read it. He just wanted to be a kid. Let him be a kid, right? When he was around kids, he would make these rooster noises, he would jump around in the

baked lens, hated it. Oddly, they didn't mind when he would capture flies and pluck off their wings to see what would happen, which is a clear sign of torturing animals, but they liked it. They said it showed how brilliant and scientifically inclined Tony was. The pressure for Tony only got worse when Barbara befriended the Osborns. They were the presidents of the New York Soological Society and the director of the American Museum of Natural History, they were very well connected, culturally, socially, intellectually, this was the a couple. Barbara becomes her friend. They start having dinner parties where they're connected and inviting the princess from Germany.

And when they all met Barbara, they loved her. She was a masterful hostess. She would host the most lavish dinner parties, and it was always buzzing with beautiful, silly, tipsy people, and the intellectuals loved Barbara. She wasn't stuffy. She would come up with these little games. She would have everyone stand behind the curtains. Only their toes showing and the other guests would have to guess who the person behind the curtain is, based on their toes.

People love these games, but before you fall in love with her, just remember that that's what she's good at. Intertaining you, making you feel like you're having the time of your life, but the minute that someone of higher social standing, someone more important walked in, you would drop like a hot potato. She wouldn't even bother to introduce you, she would just go on to have the time of her life, you would be left standing there awkwardly. That's not even the worst part! Barbara also loved a good scene, so if you said the time of her life, you would be left standing there awkwardly. That's not even the worst part. Barbara also loved a good scene,

so if you said something she didn't like, or she disagreed with, she loved to slap people in their face, throw whiskey at them, and rush off into the night. She said she felt morally obligated to. Brooks was just as twisted. He would play this game between Brooks and Barbara, where he would, in the middle of dinner, in public, take little jabs at her. About how she's aging,

how she looks, all her insecurities, until she was on the verge of tears, and the minute she started crying, he would proclaim to the table, look how good my wife looks with tears. Doesn't she look beautiful when she's crying? What in the world is that? They're so weird. I mean, this is the kind of life that their son Tony is living. You might think he's living this lavish life with fun parents, but really in reality, Tony was struggling. At an early age, he started exhibiting signs of schizophrenia with paranoid tendencies and he was never given the help that he needed, even though they had all the money in the world.

I mean, both of his parents saw a psychiatrist, so why wouldn't they send him, right? But Brooks didn't believe in mental illness. He believed that seeing a psychiatrist is just like small talk. Just going to talk to someone, having a moment where you can sit on a couch and have these philosophical thoughts. Not necessarily because something is wrong with you. When Tony was finally able to see a psychiatrist, they said that he had suffered from deprivation of love from both parents

and was exposed to excessive intellectual stimulation beyond his capacity to absorb. They said that the patient's family is a strange and difficult one. His father is a rigid, moody person who is always right about any subject that comes up with no discussions. Patient's mom is a very beautiful talented woman, extremely seductive in a relationship with men, and even with the patient. She alternates between extreme seductiveness and a strange sort of provociveness which drives patient to distraction.

Patients mom speaks of suicide frequently to patient and shows clear indications of a thought disorder. Patient has delusions, some paranoid ideation, and essential diagnosis is paranoid schizophrenia. Psychiatric hospitalization and psychotherapy is recommended, but patient's father is unwilling to pay. The family was described as a lot of, from a lot of experts like psychiatrists. The parents are very two powerful people who have their own fight together and the little boys kind of a puppet in between.

He was trained to these parents to be brilliant. You know, it's easy to teach a kid how to say the Latin word for monkey. It's as easy as you can teach them to say the English word for monkey. He was trained in that way, not necessarily educated. So he's not necessarily learning Latin, but his parents would teach him random words in different languages so that during dinner parties, they can make him say those words. So he's not actually learning. Even till the day that Tony died, he called his parents mummy and papa and daddy. He never called them mom and dad, mother and father, mummy, papa and daddy. I don't know, just strange, okay?

And his life was just not stable. Barbara wanted to see Europe one day, so the whole family moves to Paris France. When Tony's like, hey, she's like, yeah, for school, pull him out, let's go to Paris. Barbara started to be another social butterfly in Paris. She filled their Parisian home with antique furniture beautiful paintings Persian rugs the best of the best. Meanwhile Brooks, according to himself, was so f**king rich he did nothing. He wrote poems in his office but never got unpublished, never did anything with them, just was intellectual. If you had asked Brooks what his job was, he would respond. I could say I have no

more of an occupation than Socrates had when he sat at the shadow of a wall. And I mean no arrogance when I say this. I think of myself as a simple cobbler of the mind, stitching thoughts together. What could be more humbler than that? I don't know, I guess humbler than that would be to not compare yourself to Socrates, but what do I know? I'm just a simple-minded, jobless, humble thinker like the great Aristotle. It's, come on, dude. What are you doing, Brooks? If you asked why Brooks never published his work, he would blame it all on Barbara.

So this guy, I mean, he's saying, because I don't have time. My wife wants to go there and here and there in Italy and Spain and Switzerland. I mean, I just don't have the time. So it seems like, instead of owning up and taking accountability that he is jobless, he's blaming his wife. And he's slowly building this resentment towards her

because in his brain, it's not that he's bad. His wife is bad They moved to Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland. They never settled down. Tony never made friends He was just with his parents and all of their weird lavish dinner parties with these rich people all the time. Tony I delized Barbara his mom. He adored her. He thought that she was brilliant and artist, beautiful, lovable, and she was just a force to be reckoned with. And even when Tony was in his early teens, friends of Barbara's thought that they had a strange relationship. Because like, you know, when you're in your early teens that you don't want to be around

your parents, any kid, doesn't matter, right? So Barbara in front of everyone with her arm around Tony's shoulder, she would say, oh, we just had the most lovely day, didn't we, right? So Barbara in front of everyone with her arm around Tony's shoulder, she would say, Oh, well we just had the most lovely day, didn't we, Tony? We spent the entire morning in bed together. Wink wink. What? Reading the newspaper. But she kept emphasizing bed. Just it was odd.

I mean, it was like there to depend on each other. Everyone's, you know, confused. Tony's friendless and he's confused. But I think the friends were forgiving of all of these weird things because I mean Barbara was just so crazy She would have these periods where she was obsessed with things like she was obsessed with hunting She would go full-camel outfits and she would jump fences to try to shoot down bears Like she was a little bit wild. She was reckless She would love to go skiing in moonlight

So she would sneak into or pay people to letter on to the ski slopes when they're not open with no ski lights on So it's just pitch black and she would ski down the slopes She would end up breaking her legs, but she would still try to do it the next time I mean, it's crazy. So Barbara was just that strange Meanwhile Brooks had his own issues going on Barbara had spent all of her father's insurance money, all $600,000 of it, and then her mother's money, all $600,000 of it, and then two thirds of Brooks money. And then he said, did you know that she was shoplifting too?

So was Tony. So Barbara and Tony were going around shoplifting. Wait, wait, wait, what? Yeah. Because they're running out of money? No. Oh. For the excitement. Yeah, and he was upset by this. Blifting wait wait wait what yeah because they're running out of money. No Oh for the excitement Yeah, and he was upset by this he said I could understand a starving mother trying to feed her children But two home bodies play bodies stealing luxuries for the mere excitement of it. Oh, no

So Barbara's doing weird things broke his upset about money and his poems, and then Tony is getting increasingly strange. Remember how he was ripping off the wings of flies? Well, he started going to the beaches in Italy and ripping baby crabs apart while they were alive, like just grabbing them limb by limb and ripping it off. Smashing them with rocks, I mean, it was creepy, but the parents were like, wow, scientific studies. Is he's going gonna be like his great-grandpa, Leo! He's gonna be a scientific mind, he's gonna change the world. Aren't you, sweetie? When Tony was kicked out of two different private schools in Europe, Barbara would just brush it off. She would say that the schools don't understand him because he's an artist.

Instead of punishing him, trying to find the root of why he got kicked out, they would send Tony to his room and say, we'll talk about this later. But later never really came. They never really talked to him about anything that they needed to talk to him about. Brooks had completely given up on his son. He was so disappointed. He had thought that his son was going to be a great scientist like his grandfather Leo, but instead, Tony's getting kicked out of schools. But it didn't matter. Regardless, because the baked lens had announced to their friends that Tony was on track and wanted to go to Oxford for college.

Which is weird, because the kid doesn't even end up finishing high school. So if you meet Tony, you might think maybe it's feasible. He's got a spectacular vocabulary. He's a walking grammily, but other than that, he was just kind of like his dad, he was a pseudo intellectual. Nothing in his mind actually clicked, he was just saying words that he had heard before. It was a lot more talk than it was real intelligence, and then Tony came out as gay. Well, not really, but it was kind of, quote, obvious that he was. That's what his dad said. Tony was obviously gay. He was not only a homosexual, but a practicing one. That's what his dad said.

Those are terrible shock to his mother who fought against it with him ferociously. Tony allegedly had his first gay experience when he was eight, which they make it sound sinister, but really it was like a puppy love crush thing. Like you just liked a boy. Like you would like anyone when you're eight. But this disgusted his parents. Brooks didn't like his son to begin with, and this just made him hate him more. Barbara, on the other hand,

had believed Tony to be a genius, and felt being gay was the opposite of genius, because he can't be gay and a genius. At the same time, said absolutely nobody. Barbara started renting castles in Italy or Spain, and she would invite the daughters of nice families and tried to set Tony up. She was desperately trying to get him to realize he's actually straight. So Barbara's spending all of her time trying to make sure that Tony becomes straight.

Becomes a heterosexual like her, right? That was her dream. So she starts neglecting her weird marriage with Brooks, which was already on the rocks, and they eventually start drifting apart. He at one point was renting a separate apartment in Paris. He would come to all of her dinner parties pretending. He still lived there, pretending he still loved her, but would leave as the last guest. Sometimes they would try to get back together and Brooks describes one of their fights like this, like they got into wild fights. I remember a fight, both of us naked in the small hotel bathroom. I was holding Barbara down with my foot around her chest area.

And she sank her strong white teeth as deep as she could into my calf. I thought the situation so funny, though I dared not let her go. I enraged her by laughing. I really loved her, you know. This fight was one of the ones that we had every night for the past week, and it was all because I refused to take her to the same restaurant again. For dinner, that night. The only way to calm Barbara down for two seconds is mid-fight Brooks with Tal Barbara. Hey, Barb, I need to go to the Lou. She would instantly calmly sit down, wait for him to finish up,

wash his hands, dry his hands on the towel, and immediately resume screaming the second that he opens the bathroom door. One time the fighting got so bad that Brooks reserved a different hotel room for the night at a different hotel. So like, let's say they're staying at the four seasons, he booked a hotel at the five seasons.

And he's like, I gotta go. It's a step up, you know, extra luxurious. He hops into a cab, gets there, checks into his room, hops into the bed. Oh, God, thank God! Some peace and quiet! An out of the closet pops out Barbara. Diling, I'm here. And they proceeded to have the most fantastic night together.

Funnily enough, okay. All of this was sometimes because Brooks wouldn't take her to a restaurant, but a lot of the times because Brooks was having affairs with young women all over Europe, okay. And Barbara was really upset by this. She had her own side pieces, but their whole existence was just her play to get Brooks riled up in jealous. She claimed that she fell in love with a Spanish man and she was gonna run away with him. But as soon as Brooks said, well, I like this.

I will give you my blessing and a gift. I will give you guys $72,000 a year if you just leave. Go, leave Mary the Spanish guy, please Barbara do it. It'll be my lifelong wedding present to you till the day I die. I'll give you $72,000 a year. Please." Suddenly Barbara said, "'I can't marry that fool. He can't even park a car per-popperly. And his feet are disgusting. I guess I'll just have to wait for the next one."

So it's clear she just did this to make Brooks jealous, but it wasn't working. So Brooks wants to get rid of Barbara, but he also wants to get rid of Tony. He says this about his own son. As for Tony, I was sorry for him. Sorry that he was a homosexual. Very sorry indeed. I hate these people, by the way. Like, I don't think that I need to put a disclaimer, but I do hate these people.

Okay, this is your kid. Would drove Brooks even crazier about Tony is that. Tony was about to hit the college age, and he genuinely believed that he was getting into Oxford, one of the best universities in the entire world, without even graduating high school. So he bought 10,000 pounds worth of tailor-made clothes to wear to Oxford. What in the world? Yeah, that didn't end up happening. Instead, Tony just goofed around with his friends.

He started getting so bored, he started doing wild things. One time, he decided to paint his whole body blue. Like the color blue, he died at blue. He came out of greenish color instead. He drove to the beach, put seaweed all over his body, and walked around saying, I'm Neptune. They started traveling more. The family went from Mexico, New York, England, Paris, Switzerland, Greece.

And everywhere Barbara went, it was a scene. more, the family went from Mexico, New York, England, Paris, Switzerland, Greece, and everywhere Barbara went, it was a scene. It was common to see her wandering around at night in just a sheer nightgown. I'm talking nipples out and everything, looking for brooks. Because you'd be off with a young woman in Europe. And God knows he's not at church at that time, right? Sometimes brooks would be sitting in his car because Barbara refused to let him back in after his little affair. Tony wasn't really around to witness this at this time because 20-year-old Tony was having his own relationship struggles. He was in love with a bisexual man by the name of Jake. Jake was, um, Jake was something else. Jake may or may not have liked Tony for his money and he just was a bad person. He loved drugs so much.

He would buy things like hallucinogenic drugs, weed, atropine which is the drug that Jane Topon used to kill their victims. Tony did not care what it was as long as Jake was there or better yet, administering the drug, Tony would do anything. So the point where they had brought home God knows how many kilos of weed and they made just a crazy batch of weed brownies. The bakelins were gone at this point, they were vacationing, but everybody else in the house said it. Yeah, Jake siblings, you know, the maids, the dogs, the servants, everybody had some weed brownies without knowing it was weed brownies. And the bakelins didn't come home until a couple days later and still,

everybody was passed out. Oh. Jake was truly a weird one. He would carry around giant cactus leaves with the like the pricks pulled out, is that what you call it? And everyone thought it was so strange. Why do you have all these cactus leaves?

And he said, oh, I f*** him. You what? And he says yeah, I'll show you he gets a knife slice the bases of the leaves off Oh my god sticks his friends entire wrist down into the cactus pulls it out and does it again see? I think I'm just like that It's like aloe vera. Oh god. Oh Good, okay. It's like it's slippery. How do you know that? It's like, all low. How do you know that?

My grandpa has so many of these plans. What are you doing with cactus leaves? It's good for your skin. Useables cut it off, put it on your face as a face mask. Is that all you did? I guess now I know. There's other uses of it. Barbara obviously hated Jake so much so that she started bringing around a 26 year old

girl by the name of Sylvie. She was hoping that she would be interested in Tony for his money for whatever she didn't care. Barbara didn't care if this was a gold digger, right? She just wanted Tony to not be gay, but the whole plan backfired because Brooks and Sylvie started an affair. So the girl that Barbara brought around for her son started an affair with her husband. Brooks was 47, Sylvie was 26, and once Barbara realized what she had done, she had brought

this woman into Brooks life she was so upset, and she found out that he was planning on leaving her for Sylvie, so that day that she finds out that Brooks was leaving her, she calls her friend Gloria and her husband, and she sounded so strange. She said I'm going to Switzerland. I'm going skiing. I'm gonna ski right off the top of the mountain and float forever. At the bottom. Did you know there's nothing but pure white snow. Pure and white, no evil, no dirt, no filth. Yes, but I have to go. Goodbye. I'm going skiing.

She hung up. The couple was so startled by this, they were like, oh, let's just stop by her place because knowing Barbara, this doesn't sound good. Which by the way, just a little side note, Barbara had tried to take her own life three times prior to this. So I think that's why the friends were really startled. Thankfully, when they get there, Barbara had her apartment door unlocked.

She, they go inside and they freaked out. She was in her sheer nightgown and she looked dead. Oh my god, are we going to call the paramedics? They rushed to the scene. Barbara had no heartbeat. They checked next to her. They found a large aspirin bottle completely empty. A sedative bottle completely empty.

Her heart had stopped. The paramedics told the couple that Barbara would probably not make it and if she did, she would have tremendous brain damage. For 8 days, Barbara was an intensive care hooked up to machines and it was bad. Brooks was actually on vacation with Sylvie when this happened and his banker called him to let him know. Tony didn't even have his number. Brooks told his banker, just call me when she dies, this is her fourth time trying this,

I'm not falling for it this time. Listen, when I met Barbara, she was nothing. She was just this sort of red-headed Irish kid. I practically picked her out of a chorus line. And he hung up. He wasn't the only one with a weird reaction. It's said that some of Barbara's friends were hysterically delighted by this news. What?

Barbara didn't die though. She survived, and her first words were, I want my husband. She started writing letters to her Brooks, but he refused to come see her. She kept begging, I just want to see you once in a while. I will not be able to live if I can't occasionally just look at you. Even after she was discharged with no severe complications, which honestly, that's miracle, Brooks did not go to see her.

He didn't go back to her. He did, however, keep sending money to Barbara and Tony, but it wasn't a lot. Tony and Barbara didn't even have electricity in their house. They had to eat via candlelight. Tony started leaving notes for Brooks at 21 years old, 21. And the notes that he wrote to his dad were, Daddy, Daddy, please, Daddy, come back to mommy. She's so unhappy. Tony despised to Sylvie. He felt that she was the only one that metaphorically killed Barbara, and later when Tony was institutionalized, he wrote about how he would kill Brooks and Sylvie when he got out.

So yeah, sure, that's gonna help you get out. Barbara tried to file for divorce, but Brooks refused. Not because he didn't want to get rid of her, but because Barbara's demands were, and I quote, I want to take every penny that you have you BASTARD. So Barbara was worth it to barring and even stealing from friends. Now this is where things get wild, but bear with me. This is where, allegedly, Barbara and Tony's incest started.

More like Barbara allegedly started raping Tony, all for the purpose of making him straight, and allegedly because of her mental deterioration, her hallucinations, and she was maybe lonely. She even wrote to her husband, sweetie, you know, I could just get Tony over his homosexuality if I just took him to bed once. And I know it sounds crazy, but this is the same woman that hired sex workers for her own son to turn him straight. One of Barbara's friends said that she called him and said, I desperately need to talk to you. I did something. I Slabbed with Tony. She didn't sound guilty or grossed or shamed at all. When Barbara went back to New York City, she took a writing class, a creative writing class.

She started working on a novel about a mother's son in sestuous relationship. It was in the same writing class that one of the students had said, hey, can I come over to work on this writing assignment? And she said, sure. And in the living room, all they saw were pictures of Tony in weird positions. Like, just, it was odd. You would never imagine a mother would not only take these photos

of her son, but hang them in her living room. A lot of people felt her novel about mother son incest was more of an autobiography. Brooks doesn't know for sure, but he said, it's not hard to believe because Barbara was just kind of like that. And Tony loved his mom a lot, maybe too much. Sometimes Barbara would tease Tony over dinner, and he would get up, grab a bottle of wine, smash it up against a wall, and Barbara would laugh.

She loved getting a reaction out of Tony. Fast forward to a little while later, Barbara starts seeing a guy by the name of Rebound Sam. This is her rebound. Wait, that's not the name. No. Okay. Okay. You were like, who names? No, no, his name is Sam, but I'm calling him Rebound Sam. And she had three apartments at this point. Yeah, which it sucks to be poor when you're rich, huh? She had a place in New York, Paris, and London, and she just was using all of them to rent them out, and she was, I don't know, renovating them. It was just so hectic, right? So at one point, she's renovating her London apartment, and the main renovation that she's doing is

taking the banisters off of her staircase, so that it's the most dangerous staircase in the world. So she's in this hotel room with Sam and her son and they get kicked out because Tony tried to stick a pen and Barbara's eye in the hallway. It was also around this time that Tony asked that family friend Jim to go to lunch and he said, you know, I'm f**king my mother, you don't get it and the whole restaurant went quiet. And nobody, that's not all. At one point Barbara and Tony were at a dinner party with all of her friends and Barbara mentioned something about Tony. That wasn't that nice.

Tony got up, grabbed a nice bucket, threw it all over Barbara. She was giggling and then he left to go to his room and came out completely but naked. Just we we dangling helicoptering in the air at the Stena party, Barbara ignored him. It's like he did this, he got naked to get her attention. Meanwhile, Barbara was telling rebound Sam that she was pregnant with his baby. She was almost close to 50 at this point.

She also told Brooks that she was pregnant with Sam's baby and she told her friends list, everybody thought that she was losing it. And so was Tony. His mom finally admitted him into a psychiatric clinic where he was told that he never emotionally recovered from his parent separation. He has an unhealthy relationship with his mom, he has paranoid schizophrenia, and he needed help, but she immediately discharged him, which is weird because she's the one that

admitted him in the first place. So he's obviously going through it. I mean, literally, a doctor is like, he needs help, he needs an ASAP, but Barbara doesn't care. And maybe it has to do with the fact that she needed help. So Barbara's incestuous novel should give it to rebound Sam to review, and he was brutal. He said, of course, you can publish this. You have my best wishes.

If you can find a publisher that is, I very much doubt that you will be able to. My impression is that not only is this a first draft, but you didn't even reread it after it was typed. There are so many imperfections and redundancies in almost every page, and as for the content, I cannot think of anyone who would be interested in the self-indulgent rant of a mad international waste of life. I'm referring to the last portion of the book, as you realize, the first segments are very lovely, interesting, beautifully written, and polished. There is such a deterioration in style between the first part and the last part. It's difficult to believe the same person had a hand in both.

I think this goes to show how bad Barbara was deteriorating mentally. Near the end of her book, she was walking around Central Park barefoot at like two in the morning. Sometimes she would sleep outside, rebound Sam's hallway, and when he would open the door to his apartment, like he would open the door, she's outside in the hallway. She would get up and she would say, stop it! Get out of my house, I have to get up in the morning, I have a very important meeting, just go home, here's $5, take a taxi. What the heck? Another time Tony's friends came over, Barbara answered the door, and she said, Tony will be home soon.

Come sit, sit on the couch. She gave them all glasses of wine. They started having small talk, and in the middle of it, out of nowhere. Barbara took her glass of wine, threw it into the fireplace, and it shattered, bursting into flames. She threw her hair back dramatically, and she looked at the friends. They're sweating, they're nervous, they don't know what's going on. So they try changing the subject and they point at a lighter on her coffee. Well, it's a beautiful lighter.

What is it made out of? Yes, yes it is. Eat it, eat it. God damn you, you eat it right now. Eat it. They're screaming. And I'm not laughing because mental health is no joke, but like, that was a really weird impersonation stuff and you don't ever do that again.

Okay, that's why I'm laughing. Anyways, back to Barbara's book. The theme of her book, like I said, is she's running around the world, this mom, going on a yacht cruise with her son, and seduces both of them. And then gets mad when they have sex with each other. What the fork, Barbara, what's going on? And it wasn't just Barbara deteriorating. Tony was slowly getting worse and worse.

One night, Barbara had called her attorney. Another guy named Sam. We're gonna call him attorney Sam. And she said, you have to come immediately. My son is beating up my mom. Your mother? Yeah, she's trying to kill him. He's trying to kill her?

Yeah, he's trying to kill her. So attorney Sam to kill her? Yeah, he's trying to kill her. So Attorney Sam shows up and Barbara said that I'm so scared to death of him. I don't know what to do. Okay, okay. Well, why don't we get him out of the house? Maybe we can get him to a psychiatrist. Can I use your bathroom first? So Attorney Sam goes into the bathroom, Tony and Barbara outside alone and he comes out,

opens the door, Barbara's knocked out cold on the ground. She's knocked out. Tony's standing there with a strange grimace on his face. And he screams, Tony, we have to call a doctor. Tony smacks a Tony's Sam across the nose with a cane, and a Tony Sam is knocked out. When he comes to, he realizes his nose is broken, and Tony is standing over them, quote, veering over them, menacingly. He was so scared.

I mean, literally, barb is still out cold, so he starts wrestling Tony and eventually calms him down and the cops take Tony away. He was admitted into the hospital for six weeks, Sam did not press charges. Barb started losing her friends too. She would invite them over for dinner and then randomly demand that they get out of her house and then write them the most beautiful beautiful eloquent apology letters the next day and would repeat the process. It was just a trip and when she wasn't freaking out with them, sometimes it was Tony. One time all of our friends were sitting around the fireplace and Barbara sharing a very normal story of her day.

They went like this. I woke up this morning and I started burning all of my furniture in the fireplace. Yes, very normal day. Tony left out of his chair, lunged at his mom with the look of absolute hatred, and for some reason stopped midway. Conley backed up back into his chair and sat down. Barb acted like nothing happened, no reaction, just casually went back to her furniture burning conversation.

Sometimes they would get into arguments about random things like European architecture, Tony would smash eggs onto his mom's face. Sometimes you would grab a kitchen knife and taunt her with it and she would throw her chest into the air and say, do it, do it, I dare you! Sometimes he would use his bare hands to choke out Barb and one time a friend saved Barbara from being choked and Barbara showed her gratitude by slapping her friend across the face and screaming, I hate you. Once Tony was arrested, because Barbara was found lying on the pavement with a large chunk of her hair missing knocked out cold in New York City. Tony was in the window of Barbara's friend's house screaming that he will kill anybody who comes near him.

He had a knife in his hand. Turns out, Tony had caught Barbara going to her friend's house, dragged her by the hair through her in front of cars, took her hand, slammed it into a gate over and over, her finger was broken in three different places, and the police arrested him, but he was released when Barb placed him in a private hospital. When Barb's friends try to get Brooks to come take care of the family because the psychiatrist at the private hospital and a lot of different psychiatrists told Barb straight up your son's gonna kill you one day You need to get him help she did not listen to it

Brooks did not either when they tried to talk to Brooks He said oh, you know how my wife and my kid are it's just funny games with them Tony started displaying his paintings of his mom all over the house They were of her decapitated with serpents around her neck During dinner parties he would run around the place with nothing but his underwear on in a kitchen knife, and Barbara was super casual about it, but everyone else was terrified. Another way that her friends felt like she was deteriorating was that she stopped wearing her Chanel and her coat of scot for bed. She looked very uncapped, she was incredibly self-conscious about her aging

looks, because Brooks had left her for a younger woman. So she wrote a letter to him. I've been to the doctor. He finds me amazing! He thinks I have the body of a 30-year-old. So Friday of November, I believe, 17th, rolls around. Barbara had a lunch date with an old friend from Spain. They had a very bougie, like a filet mignon, wrapped in bacon, and Spanish red wine on the side.

And during lunch, Barbara talked on and about how great Tony was, how he was so talented. And then 3.30 p.m. she said, buy to her friends and went home. When she gets home, Tony tells her, hey, your friend called and asked if she could come over. So he said, yes, Barb was pissed. Barb was like, why did you tell her to come so early? And Tony threw something at her. So she runs into the kitchen and she writes on a piece of paper to the maid who was ironing.

And for whatever she wrote, whatever reason, Tony goes over, reads the note, gets so mad, he tears it up, and Barbara is terrified. She runs into the bedroom. Tony runs after her, is hitting her, and then Barbara runs into the kitchen. Tony chases her there, grabs the kitchen knife off the table, and stabs Barbara. She did not fight back. She fell onto the floor, calmly dying. The maid, nope, died of their so quick rant to get help.

Tony then turned Barbara's face and asked, what is your name? Who are you? Barbara refused to say anything or look at him, and she died. Tony called an ambulance. He said he was in complete shock. For days he didn't know where he was. He felt like past memories were flooding his brain, and he was just reenacting old memories.

He wishes desperately he could remember what she wrote on that piece of paper. She said, you know, I loved, and I still love and adore my mother more than anyone in the world. The police said I was strange when they came into the apartment they found Tony in the bedroom sitting on the bed ordering Chinese takeout. He was taken to the police station and he said this. This all started because I fell off my pogo stick when I was five years old.

Now, even though Barbara's death and murder was strange and her personality was strange. She had alienated herself from a lot of people before she was murdered. People took the news of her death very differently. Apparently, Barbara's mom's first words when Barbara died were, send Barbara's jewels from London so that sylvy doesn't wear them. A lot of people weren't surprised to hear that Tony murdered his mom. A lot of Barbara's friends thought it was only a matter of time. Brooks took the news pretty hard though. The day that Barbara passed was their 30th wedding anniversary. He listened to cassettes of all of her thoughts when she was writing her incestuous novel because

the police gave a timon was like, hey, this could be very damaging for your family if it ever got out. So he started re-listening to those, he would say, my poor Barbara. She was in so many ways a marvelous woman, and the world knew it. I always felt that I was not great enough men for her, what she needed was a Henry VIII. But of course, she finally had him in her son,

and he chopped off her head, so to speak. That's what he said, that's what Brooks said. Strangely after Barb died, Brooks forced Sylvie to come to every apartment that he and Barb had rented previously, living together, just adding insult to injury, but within two months of Barb's death, Brooks and Sylvie tied the knot. They got married. But she said after marrying Brooks, she didn't have a husband instead she had a widower.

Tony was placed in prison and he wrote to Brooks a lot, but he didn't really respond. Brooks wrote about how he felt about the loss of his wife by his own son, and he said this. Bob's murder by her own son was kind of grotesque. An inartistic accident. She should have not have died the way that she died. They were both genetic defectives, and he was also my son, and I fought against that in him all his life and failed. I wish I could do anything to have been able to help him, but I never could.

Tony's trial began six and a half months after stabbing his mom. He was found guilty of manslaughter under diminished responsibility and he was institutionalized at Broadmore Hospital. Broadmore, this is in the UK, was built in 1863, originally eloquently so nicely named, Broadmore Criminal Lunatic Cylan. More than a quarter of the patients inside Broadmore have committed murder or attempted murder and some of the most dangerous criminals are there. There's over 20 attempted suicides there a year. It's estimated that Broadmoor houses some of the most dangerous people in the United Kingdom and Tony's life was

pretty miserable there. He shared a room with 60 men at a time. The beds were jam-packed. Only inches between them. The lights were never turned off. You couldn't use the toilet at night. You had to use the pot under the bed, but it's not even dark, so you're just doing it in front of 60 people. You never have toilet paper. You shower once a week. Tony was forced to take four different tranquilizers every single day, but he only saw a psychiatrist

once a month. So at the time, there were 750 patients and only four psychiatrists that worked one day a week. Tony was completely alone. His grandma would visit, which is this is what they noted about her in the hospital, at Broadmore. They said, maternal grandmother seems less disturbed by her own daughter's death than by the fact that her dear little Tony is in trouble.

She seems just as mad as the rest of the family. Eventually, Brooks and Tony started riding to each other, Brooks told Tony that you were expecting a half-brother. Sylvie is pregnant and Tony was so excited that he shipped over some new toys that he made in the hospital. Apparently the toys were so grotesque and grew some immorbit that Brooks threw them away immediately. In the hospital, Tony kept talking about his mom. On one hand, he absolutely despised her, hated her, and probably was assaulted by her. On the other hand, he adored her. There was nobody in the world that could ever be like his mom ever again.

After eight years, Tony was released. Brooks was firmly against the decision. He thought that this was a great place to keep wounded citizens and felt like Tony should stay there. But Bromart Salty was ready to go and they released him horribly. They cut him off all his meds like cold turkey. They didn't even give him like a pill bottle to go. They were like, not you're done. You're no longer in our care so we're not giving you meds. Bye. So he left off his meds to New York City. He's 33. He's going to go live with his grandma who's 87 years old. Now she was hallucinating too.

She's 87 going through dementia. She would set the table and call her sister to eat. Her sister's gone. But she would say no, no, she is not coming to eat right now because she's hiding under the bed. Will you go get her from under the bed? Tony Hay did it there. He said it's a tiny apartment.

There's pictures of Barbara everywhere. Her ashes. Barbara's ashes are on the mantle piece I'm going crazy even Nini confided in her friends. I'm terrified of my grandson and six days after he was released Around 9 a.m. Nini's nurse comes knocking on the door Tony takes his time answering the door But when he did he said very quickly. Lena quick get the police. I just stabbed grandma So the nurse is like, what? He just stood there staring at her.

She's too terrified. She's not going inside. She runs downstairs. She calls the cops. And when the cops come, they heard Mimi scream. Tony runs out of the bedroom screaming. She won't die. She won't die. The knife won't go in. She just won't die. She keeps screaming. I don't get it. Who screamed me? Tony. And Nini. So Tony was taken in. And he said, my grandmother helped me. Who's screaming? Tony. Oh. And Nini.

So Tony was taken in and he said, my grandmother helped me. She brought me back to New York. I spent one week with her, but I had a very difficult time. I was up all night. I couldn't eat. Where is Nini the grandma? Yeah, he stopped his grandma. Oh, okay, okay.

But she survived. Oh, she's not dead. Yeah, okay. She keeps saying she won't die. I don't get it. Okay. You know, and he says, I felt like I was being denied physical and I contact with my grandmother. There is something in my eye that stops me from meeting other people's face to face.

I suppose if I just had sex with my grandmother, I might have wanted to have sex with her. And at the end of that week, I knew that I would be unhappy with her. I kept hearing voices, including my grandmother, talking in my head. Because I couldn't hear her clearly, there were other noises and voices who bothering me. The voices told me I'm a savior, I'm a Satan, I'm angel, I'm royalty. Sometimes they say that I'm a dirty little man, or a bad woman, or a dog. They also give me helpful messages. I hear them all the time, I hear music and music list my soul.

Anyway, I wanted to leave, and my grandmother tried to stop me. So I threw the phone at her, and she fell down. When she fell down, I felt so bad. I didn't want her to go to the hospital with broken bones. Because she was only going to suffer more. So in order to help her, I brushed to the kitchen. It took a little knife from the drawer. And I stabbed her in the chest. I wanted to kill her so I could liberate her.

Not because I was angry. All of this happened because I was angry. All of this happened because I was denied physical contact with my grandmother and homosexual relations with anybody else. He had stabbed his grandma eight times. She ended up surviving, but he said, I stabbed her like five times. It was eight. But anyways, I digress. I wanted her to die fast, but she wouldn't die. It was horrible. I hate when this happens. He also stated he wanted to have sex with his grandmother. So there's that. Tony was admitted to Riker's prison. And there he was found lying on his bed with his feet and his hand exposed. He was not responding to his name. The guards

opened the door, pulled the covers off. He had suffocated himself to death with a plastic bag. What? So foul play was rolled out. He didn't leave a note Brooks believed it was murder since Tony didn't leave a note But Riker's apparently says that 10% of suicides they leave a note But I mean I agree Tony does seem like the type to leave a note But also isn't suffocating yourself extremely difficult? Yeah, but I guess in those types of conditions, right? But Brooks, ever the poet, said this about his son's death. Remember, this is the father of Plastic's family.

It was a beautiful ending in Plastic, too, at that, because they are the family of plastic. He was killed by plastic. Yeah, plastic pack. This guy is truly something. Brooks and Sylvie split, by the way. Oh, Nini ended up passing away of natural causes. She was terrified of her grandson after that. Never really went to go see him.

Don't really want to connect with him. Didn't want to drop the charges that she was pressing. I get it. Brooks and Sylvie split up at this point. Sylvie left him for a young American sculptor that Brooks had introduced her to, so I guess that's karma. Brooks moved into a small room with a terrace overlooking water and Maine. Sylvie was just over being not his wife. Sylvie said that one time she had gifted him a beautiful silver frame, and he ran upstairs to put Barbara's picture in there. And Sylvie was devastated, she was pregnant and Brooks told her, how can you be jealous of someone who's dead? Brooks said that he loves to be single,

because, oh, you're gonna love this. He can travel the world now, do whatever he wants. That's easy, unwifed. It is women, those nesters, those decorators, those competitions for status symbols that take us naked men out of the jungle and civilize us. I have lost brain cells on this one. And Maine isn't the jungle, but that is the story of Barbara Begland and Tony Begland.

And oddly, the creation of plastic is somehow intertwined. This one was a doozy. This one was so bizarre. It was heartbreaking and just what? I think the problem with this one is... See, I wonder, right? If they had just made two choices, two very easy choices of accepting their son and also getting him some mental health help, none of this would have happened. Truly.

I feel like a lot of problems come from Brooke. sort of happened, truly. I feel like a lot of problems come from Brooke, because it seems like the wife is a little crazy about the husband, right, Brooke. But Brooke is really like selfish. Yeah, very selfish. Seems like the wife constantly try to get back with him, but he never, I mean, I don't know.

He seems like he just kind of ditched the wife and the son. Yeah, and he was like, not my problem. Yeah. And then they kind of spiral into this crazy show. And then afterwards, he's like, oh, I miss my day of life. Yeah, so bizarre. And like, I think it's like that want to be poet in him. Yeah.

That like wants to miss his wife. I don't even think he misses Barbara. He's just like, I need to have this tragedy in my life to be a poet. I do think Barbara did probably assault her son, which that's on her. I genuinely think Barbara needed help. Yeah. It doesn't excuse anything, but they both needed help. And Brooks seemed to be someone that could have gotten them both help. Yes. And he didn't, because he selfish. Yeah. And he thinks we're nesters and decorators, so.

I'm going to go nest and decorate now. I hope you guys enjoyed this week's main episode. And I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye.