Rotten Mango - #215: The Mistress of Torture - She Chained Victims In Her Attic To Experiment On

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

It’s said that there are a lot of dark spirits in New Orleans. It might be one of the most haunted cities in the entire world and one story that the city can’t seem to escape is that of Madame LaLaurie. The rumors go like this - she tortured her victims and experimented on them. It’s said she liked to drill skulls into victims’ heads and insert spoons inside so she could “stir their brains.” It’s said that she would stick ash, feces, and other vile things into the victim’s mouths, ears, and eyes, and sew them shut. Another disturbing rumor was that she would cut holes into their stomachs, pull out their intestines, and wrap them around their bodies like belts. Whatever the rumors were, the truth was much worse in the haunted LaLaurie mansion in New Orleans. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/rotten and get on your way to being your best self. 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 Bing, better boob. Welcome to this week's main episode of Rotten Mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue.

It's not that there's a lot of dark spirits in New Orleans, that the city is one of the most haunted in the entire country if not the entire world. I think there could be some truth to it I thought it was Savannah. It's one of the most haunted. Yeah, I feel like all these older towns Super haunted super interesting energy. I've never been I've seen through pictures movies shows and new Orleans to me seems like the perfect mixture of beautiful and terrifying all at once. In fact, maybe it is beautiful that you're terrified of a city. Especially the French quarters where a lot of the movies take place and is typically what people think of when they think of new Orleans.

It's one of the oldest parts of the entire city. It feels out of this world. It's heavy on European influenced architecture. It feels like you're on an episode of Vampire Diaries. The closely built older buildings inspired by French and Spanish architecture that's still standing some of them since the 1800s. I mean, there's no way that's on haunted.

Come on. The cast iron balconies, the jazz clubs. Every corner you turn is unexpected, eccentricity, a shop selling oddities, and then on top a new Orleans local just playing jazz from his cast iron balcony. It's what makes the city so alluring, but every town still has their secrets. Or the one that seems to keep haunting New Orleans at least is the story of Madame Lollary, the mistress of torture. Now it's debated exactly what she did, but the rumors they circulate they're here to say

every single Halloween season, every single spooky season I get so many requests to cover this story and I just I didn't want to just cover the urban legend aspect of it. So it's going to be a crazy deep dive. Madam Lollary is set to have been one of the most notorious female serial killers with most of her victims being killed inside of her very home in New Orleans, which is one of the most haunted spots in New Orleans right now. Each victim was killed, but not before they were viciously, continuously, relentlessly tortured. The urban legend goes like this. The men who smashed through her front door were there to save people.

The fire was burning strong. And they're like, okay, we got to get all these people out of here before they perish in the fire. And they saw things that no human should see. They saw enslaved people, naked, chained to the wall. Their eyes gouged all the way out, or sometimes hanging from a single vein through their eye socket, like a thread. Some of their fingernails were pulled out from their roots. Others had their joints skinned.

There were holes in their brains with spoons next to them. It said that the mistress liked to stir their brains. Some of the enslaved people had holes for buttocks where flesh was sliced off. The victims' ears were hanging by shreds. They had feces stuffed into their mouths and then their mouths were sewn shut with needle and thread. If they weren't sewn shut, some of them had their tongues pulled out of their mouth, and then sewn to their chin, as if they're constantly sticking their tongue out of someone. They could never close their mouth nor could their tongue ever retreat back in. Their mouth was just wide open, making it nearly impossible to eat and drink, and

drool was just slipping from the corners of their mouths. There were female victims that were chained up, ashes shoved into their mouth and ears before being sewn up. Some of them were smeared with honey till they were just massive black ants. You would never know. Like you would think that this is the world's largest pile of ants, but in reality it was a human under those ants. Some of the scarier people honey on the person. Yeah, so they did that in the medieval times, remember? They would put honey on a person, drag them out into the middle of the town hall, tie

them up to a pole, and the maggots, the flies, the wild animals, the bears. They would literally rip the person alive. Some of the victims were said to have been found with holes in their stomach. Their intestines pulled out and wrapped around their bodies like belts. Some said, a victim's skin was peeled off in a circular motion, up and down their body as if they were a Christmas ripen, and they looked like a human caterpillar. Another rumor was that a woman had both her arms amputated and reattached in a strange way.

And one of the most persistent rumors was that a victim had all of her bones broken and was forced into these weird castles almost like a cage for her body and then her broken bones had hardened. And when they took the cast off, she was in the shape of a human crab almost. There were allegedly these makeshift operating tables and cages to house victims, and nearby there were buckets filled with human heads, body parts, and organs, and a lot of people whispered that maybe Delphine Lollary, who was married to a doctor, was conducting medical

experiments on her victims. Which is why allegedly some of the victims' bones were grotesquely broken and set in disgusting ways, because her husband was an orthopedic surgeon. That's what they specialize in, bones. Others said, no, it's because she's friends with that woman! Do you know that woman? Okay, side note, I love this woman, but a lot of people didn't like her. Her name is Mary Levo, and she was known as the voodoo queen in New Orleans. She was a kind woman who made money off of being able to tell the future, but you know,

she made money off of a lot of wealthy people who just really liked gossip. So do I blame her for it? No. Why do you love that woman? She honestly was an independent, powerful woman. She was a free woman of color, which was very rare during those days. She was kind. Everyone said that the way that she held herself was, she was in a scam artist. She just was really intuitive. She listened to people and she knew what people wanted and she gave them the answers

that they needed to hear. So I know Ludo Queen makes it sound like she was selling some black magic or something because of all the stereotypes which are honestly toxic, right? A lot of voodoo specialists, they just like to dabble in medicine and all these things which so many people do. Anyway, you get it. A lot of people said, no, it's because she's friends with that voodoo queen.

I bet, I bet that voodoo queen told her that if she tortured these victims, maybe she would get some sort of spiritual safety. Or maybe that's why she's so damn rich. Anyway, her house was littered with bones. Some dead, some barely alive, and almost all of them were being actively eaten by maggots. Even the people that were alive, they were conscious and being eaten alive by maggots. So this is the urban legend portion of what Madam Lollary, the mistress of torture, had done. These are the allegations, the rumors, the stories, and yeah, they're wild, they're fantastical, but that's not really what happened. The truth is actually so much worse. As always, full share notes are available at

rottonminglepodcast.com, but there is an incredible book on this case called Madame Lollary, Mistress of the Haunted House, by Carolyn Merot Long. So, I was really... I wanted to cover this story for a long time now, but I feel like I wanted to read a book that was more in depth on this situation, like on everything that was going on in the time period as well, because I know that there is a lot of, you can YouTube even, so many videos about, ooh, the urban legends of Madame Lollary, but this is going to be essentially a deep dive, and it's so dark. So just trigger warning, this is during a time period where people were

enslaving people in the United States, it was during the slavery period, and most of the victims were enslaved people. All the victims were enslaved people, so just if that's triggering, I'll see you guys for the next episode. But with that being said, I mean, this book is incredible. Considering the nature of this case, like the amount of research, the amount of attention to detail, the other practically searched high and low to find out what the hell happened in that haunted house. Like, what the hell is this mistress of torture doing?

I feel like it shed so much light on not just what it was like to live in a world like this, but also on Madame Lollary herself, because a lot of people speculate that she was mentally unhinged. Personally, I think she was, but I do think that she was just a raging angry racist bitch honestly and so much has come to light throughout this book the author went through and sorted through all the court files she went through the city archives I mean honestly I cannot recommend it enough so with that being said let's get into it so the urban legends actually very much real then right? Yeah, this was a real person. There were real victims I think through time though because this is like in the 1800s, you know through time

People added more details and more details and more details and so the extent of the torture is unclear But the story is so dark even without it because I'm gonna really take you to that time period And I hope you can feel it because the amount of like suffocation and the pain is just okay so the haunted house everyone talks about this haunted house in New Orleans the most haunted spot you go there and you hear this eight year old crying because she jumped her death from the roof and it's this whole thing right? Oh yeah apparently there's-olds? Oh, yeah. Apparently, there's an eight-year-old who cries and on-stop

when you walk into the house. And there was a real eight-year-old victim who jumped to her death from the roof to escape the torture. Is the house owned by somewhere right now? Oh, okay. So the house is cursed. That's what they say. Everyone says it's haunted, you know,

because dozens of victims were found tortured and ultimately died in the house. This is a fact. There were victims that were tortured in this house. So a lot of people say you feel their heavy spirits, you feel their screams. Some people even report hearing chains scrape around the floor because they were in chain. They say that you hear this little girl who jumped to her death off the roof to escape the horrendous torture that she was put through, but other said, the house is cursed. Forget the ghost. There's just something about that house.

Every new owner, since Lallory, seems to have problems with the house. Sometimes it's small problems like they were facing vandalism and they couldn't really pinpoint who was doing it. Nobody, none of the locals fessed up to it. Nobody could find any clues. Some people would say things go missing. But a lot of the times, they were found in financial distress or other things. So for the most notable ones, Dr. Albright bought the haunted mansion in New Orleans in 2000. And one day he went to this famous restaurant, ate his dinner, and before heading back home,

I don't know if this was like, he fell out of his pocket, it fell out of his hand, but for some reason, as he's walking out, he tossed a mint onto another party's table. So imagine you're eating dinner and some old dude drops a mint on your table. I feel like I'd be like, okay. Are you the server?

And no, no, no, yeah, you'd be like, what? Who are you? Do you work here? But that table happened to be a group of Dallas businessmen who were offended by this mint. They were like, what are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that my breath is stinky? Is that what you're trying to say right now?

So one of them, Anthony, gets up and punches the elderly doctor in the face and he's like, how dare you give me a mint? And the elderly doctor hates the back of his head on the pavement. And afterwards, this guy that punched him just wipes his hands on his pants and walks back to his table to resume meeting. Dr. Albright, the owner of the haunted house, had suffered permanent brain damage and had to move to live an assisted living for the rest of his life. Okay, but why did he drop the mint? Nobody knows. It might have just been like an accident.

Yeah, he was severely. That's our story. Yeah, severely impaired after the attack. Then in 2006, Nicholas Cage, yeah, the actor, Nicholas Cage bought the haunted mansion for $3.4 million. He added this house to his massive collection of homes. He would only visit once in a while, but according to everyone that was close to him, they said

that he loved this house. This was like his favorite freaking house, right? He would bring his wife and kids anytime he could, and then boom. Hit with financial difficulties. All the films that he started to be box office flops. He was spending so much money, he was living lavish, he was behind on taxes by the millions of dollars, and finally, the house foreclosed.

And sure, it sounds not related at all. You know, one man was attacked for no reason, another one had biodefinancial planning, but it's just every owner seems to have some sort of weird little life experience after owning that house. I guess it all goes back to the fire though, the original owner of the house. Because she was one of the most notorious female serial killers in the US, and she got caught because her house went up in flames literally.

The fire happened the morning of April 10th, 1834, so we're taking it way back. Okay, it was a normal Thursday for everyone in the French quarters of New Orleans. And this is around the time when nobody had social media, nobody had YouTube videos and podcasts and TikTok and the Kardashians. So when a fire broke out in one of the most luxurious, wealthy residential streets, everybody's Russian. They're running. They're lifting up their skirts, showing their ankles so fricking scandalous, but they're booking it. They're running, they're lifting up their skirts,

showing their ankles so fricking scandalous, but they're booking it. They're like, I wanna know, I wanna know who's gonna die in this fire. So they show up to the home of Delphine Lallerie, one of the wealthiest established women in the whole city, and her husband, Dr. Lallerie. So, neighbors, townspeople.

They're like, oh my God, the Lallerie mansion is a place we got to go we got to go see what's going on So they're standing outside and this is the most unsettling thing ever I mean when you see a house on fire. What do you expect to see a people running screaming people like trying to dump buckets of water onto the house Right, they said that they just saw the Lollary a couple and they're enslaved people bringing out all of their valuables Almost in like a casual manner a lot of people in their enslaved people, bringing out all of their valuables. Almost in like a casual manner. Just like in a single file line, shuffling out of the house with painting and furniture

and trinkets, it was weird. And in the crowd was a local judge and he's like, okay, I can't be the only one. I mean, I get it, we're all evil people. And we live in a time where we have so many human victims living in our houses because I don't know slavery, right he goes up to a lullaby and he's like like Delphine Mrs. Lullaby do you mind if we go in and make sure that we get all the you know people out first not the valuables you know we'll you can bring the valuables we'll go in and

look for extra people like are you sure all you enslaved people are accounted for? It's a valid question. And she took one look at the judge and told him, Hey, um, your honor. Mind your own goddamn business and stay in your lane. She probably set it a little bit more classy and fancy because, you know, she was rich like that. But, um, she pretty much was like, worry about your own house and stormed off. Then the fire started burning more and faster because you know, back in the day, a lot of houses were just made out of purely wood and they would just burn like a freaking matchstick. New Orleans actually was wiped out multiple times

because of fires, like the whole city was wiped out, just gone. So when the fires started getting out of control, the judge ordered that they break into the house and look for anybody that was trapped in the flames. And that was when just horror. New Orleans was traumatized. Body after body was pulled out of the fire and it was clear that everybody was tortured. There were mutilated bodies that were being dragged out of the fire and they weren't mutilated because of

the fire. Most of them looked like they were on the brink of death. One person said, I almost fainted. I mean, I saw one of the victims being pulled out, and he had this large holiness head, and he was covered head to toe with scars and worms. It said many times that the firefighters ran out of the house after what they saw and projected a vomited throughout the streets. So while the townspeople, the firefighters, their dragging bodies barely alive out of this burning house. They're trying to put out the fire in case there's others trapped inside. While they're doing that, Delphine is just standing on the side. Calm is always, hair perfect, makeup perfect, posture perfect, watching everyone scream and shock as another mangled body is pulled out of her house, out of her attic.

They were kept in the attic, chained up in the attic, so they couldn't even escape the fire unless the judge had stormed the house. They would have died. They would have all perished in the fire. And she's standing there, watching with boredom. Is like, she was watching traffic light, just watching cars go and stop.

There was no emotion, no panic, nothing. I mean, her crimes were being exposed and she felt nothing because she had gotten away with torturing people before, so. And once everyone was pulled out of the fire, she walked back into the house as if her energy was very much, nothing to see here, pack it up and go home losers. That really pissed off onlookers.

You're like, why are they pissed off, right? Because I mean, we are talking about a different time period, and all of her neighbors are also wealthy residents who own a ton of people. They're human traffickers. That's the word. They own a lot of victims. They keep them hostage.

Why are they so freaking shocked? And they too beat their enslaved victims. But if you know, I feel like every time period still has woke people. So all the neighbors were like, I do beat my enslaved victims. I do beat them if they don't work hard enough. I make sure that they eat next to nothing so that I don't waste any more money on them.

I do all of those things, but I would never. I would never get to, let it get this bad. That's essentially what they're saying. It was so ridiculous. So they're like, wow, this is so tasteless and so unclassy unlike us. So they waited, gathered around whispering about how Delphine Lallerie was an evil bitch.

They waited for that climactic moment where the sheriff would show up and he would have rest her. Honestly, they didn't even care about the enslaved victims. They didn't even care about the torture victims. They didn't even care about the torture victims. They just wanted to see a social like go down, like it was entertainment, if I'm being honest with you. So the crowd is getting pissed, because the sheriff's not coming up,

and they're getting increasingly angry with every second that passes, and sweat is just tickling the back of their necks. Well, they whisper about how evil and how wretched Madame Lollaree is, and the whisper has eventually grew into these loud conversations and screams. And eventually they're like, you know what? We need to come up with a game plan.

We gotta storm this place and drag her out and do what she did to the enslaved victims and do it to her! Again, hypocrites, because you guys all have dozens of enslaved victims in your house right now. But they're like, yeah, we gotta do that. And as they're coming up with this impromptu game plan, the angry mob looks up to see Madame Lollary just getting into her carriage with one of her enslaved men ready to take her to safety.

Choosefully. Everyone is so shocked. They went into a fight or flight and they just froze. They didn't know how to react. First of all, the audacity of a woman like this, I mean, so evil, second of all, I mean, really the audacity. How does someone look and remain so calm as if there isn't an angry mob in front of her, as if she didn't do anything wrong, as if this was another Thursday? I guess they were so stunned to stop Madame Larry, because she rode off into the

night, and the rest of them, they went into the house and trashed the entire place, ripped everything off the walls, axed the furniture, destroyed every fixture, every wall, every door, and that is where a lot of the rumors start. And a lot of them I'm sure are true, but apparently the rumors are that more than a hundred people, hundred victims are found. I really hate to say that just because someone has money or a good socioeconomic standing that their life is easy. I think their life is easier, right? But everyone has their own struggles and demons. But being a McCarthy back in the day, being part of the McCarthy family was pretty fucking

easy. Everyone knows as Delphine Lollary today, the mistress of torture, she was actually born Marie Delphine McCarthy. And the McCarthy clan was like being a Kennedy back in they clan was like being a Kennedy back in the day. Was like being a Kardashian back in the day. Like we get it. You have problems, but you're a part of this large, wealthy, socially, economically powerful family that is filled with high ranking officials, plantation owners and merchants.

And you have a ton of real estate. What men and women are both allowed to own real estate in this family. So like, I don't know what you're really complaining about right now. There are literally enslaved people going, you know, hanging out. So a lot of the family members married for more influence. They were straight up Louisiana royalty back then. They had immigrated from Ireland to France, and then eventually they worked their way up in France

in the military and they gained power and money, and then they were stationed in New Orleans. And you're like, why? So this was before the Louisiana purchase. This was when Louisiana was still a part of France. I know, US history is so weird and so whack for so many different reasons, but yeah, the French were like, that's our shit.

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Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. 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.

I would suit up in my uniform and we're gonna want some drug dealers, and I know how to suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers. And I know how to do it really well. 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. So the Macartee family, they went. Oh yeah, they dominated. I mean, the place was dominated by the Macartes. For example, the town only had like 4,800 people at the time and the Macartee family each unit, each nuclear family. So like one of the Macartee men and his wife, they would have like 11 kids. So they're like really populating the city. I'm not good at math but that's a lot of freaking

kids in a small town. So they're living the dream under less strict supervision from France and the McCarthy men end up getting close to 172 acres of land in New Orleans. Which is, I mean, that's, and that's a whole lot of land. I don't even know how to comprehend it. Like I can't even compute it in my head. And they only got wealthier because as they started getting married, they only married strategically. So one of the McCarty men, which was Delphine's dad, married Delphine's mom, who was a wealthy widow. She was wealthy in her own right. Her family had this indigo plantation near the Mississippi River, so she had a ton of assets.

And I know these days, everyone's like, oh, like how much crypto do you have? How much stunx? Well, maybe not crypto, but you get it. How many how much crypto do you have? How much stunks? Well, maybe not crypto, but you get it. How many stunks do you have? Like, how much is in your bank account? You know, that TikTok, that's like, how much money do you have in your bank account? Back then, it was like, how many horses and donkeys do you have? And, darkly, how many enslaved people do you have?

They were literally listed as assets. Okay, I know that we went over the slavery period in school, but just like if you do extra research outside of school, especially as an adult, it is the most mind blowing thing. And I'm not going to go over everything, but the fact was in the law, they didn't know how to refer to enslaved people. They didn't want to call them people because they didn't think they were people, but they also didn't want to call them people because they didn't think they were people, but they also didn't want to call them things. So they called them passive beings as if they existed with no emotions, no thoughts.

So yeah, enslaved people were listed as assets like you would list off your car and your house. So it was a convenient marriage that made the two of them even more powerful in New Orleans and they started buying more plantations and one of the plantations was so big it had its own in-house hospital. I don't even know what that means. Like you can't even drive to the hospital because it's so big, your land is so big, you're like, oh it's going to take me an hour to get out of my property. So I got a what? What does that even mean? Four cabins on the property, not including the main mansion, a chicken coop, 12 cows, two bowls, and 24 enslaved people.

That's literally how they listed their assets. So what was life like for the Macarties? Was obviously very different from the lives of the enslaved. The Macarties lived a full life. So the freedom and joy. Delphine's cousin was the mayor of New Orleans for a while, so they really had a lot of power. Especially Delphine's mom. She lived the best life.

She was a widow, and I guess she had seen some shit, and she was ready to just live it up with her second husband. She would invite all of their friends over during the summertime to go frallicking in the lake on her plantation. Just imagine this, a bunch of people for funzies, frolicking in a lake and 24 enslaved people just waiting around the lake at attention, holding towels could be beaten in any moment if they don't bring the towel fast enough to one of these women who literally has got nothing in her mind, ridiculous.

They're like dry-humping each other in the river. Yeah, apparently her parties got really wild. People would just start making out. It sounds scandalous, and this is the environment that Delphine and her brother were born into. I don't know if they saw these parties take place, but both of them would grow up to really love parties of their own, like extravagant, wealth-flexing parties. It said that during these parties, the rich, wealthy socialites would talk about their troubles in life. And the biggest one had been all the insurrections by enslaved people all over the world recently. And New Orleans was a town with more enslaved people than free people.

So of course, in the sense of numbers, they were terrified, even though it's all they're doing, but I digress. So they sat around talking in front of the McCarthy's own enslaved people, so they would say things like, and I'm gonna try to make it not sound as vulgar, but you can imagine. But they would say things like, did you hear about the other owner? His two enslaved people had killed him. Shot him dead. Yeah, and the two enslaved, they were caught, of course, and they were dragged from a carriage led by horses.

Their skin was coming off on the rough road. So they're talking about it as if it's nothing, right? But these enslaved people, whether they did kill the quote, man of the house or not, they were tied up to a car, like a carriage, led by horses and dragged on the rough pavement. So their skin was falling off and then there was someone called the town cryer which is like the town messenger and they would stand on top of the carriage

and scream their crimes as they drove through the town as a warning to all the other enslaved people. And then the victims, their bodies were left on a pole to be fully consumed by the elements, by bodies were left on a pole to be fully consumed by the elements, by wild animals and insects, and the townspeople they cut off their hands to nail up on the public road as a gruesome warning to all the enslaved victims that this could be you. The other socialites whispered, you know, but it was worse than that. They were all planning it.

It wasn't just the two of them working against the man of the house Quote the man of the house. There were more the the enslaved quote killers Had girlfriends. They were accomplices So what happened to those women those victims you ask their ears were cut off and they received 200 lashes of a whip until their backs were shredded and it was just shredded pieces of flesh just hanging off. And then they were sent back to their hostage takers, their kidnappers. They were sent back to the plantations. And another uprising, 23 enslaved people were hung and their severed heads were displayed on

pikes along the Mississippi River. And this is a problem for the McCarthy family. The socialites are talking about this as if this is their problem. Like, I don't even know where to begin. The McCarthy's were set to have spoken about their enslaved victims as if they were annoying burdens. As if they never wanted enslaved victims to begin with, they talked about how annoying it was

to be responsible for so many people. They were saying that, you know, it's just so exhausting and they never listen and they run away all the time. They also complained that they would get sick often. Meanwhile, you are the one responsible for how sanitary their living conditions are, so like the call is coming from inside the house.

You are the dirty one. The Macarties would complain, and all their friends would comfort them, and they'd say, you know, it's just crazy! Why would they want one, Ray? I mean, sure, we beat them in inch of their lives, just for bringing breakfast late. But, I mean, what on earth was running through their mind

to make them want to leave you in this beautiful home that you have? Literally what? So this is like what Delphine is hearing. And I'm only repeating these conversations because this is what Delphine is hearing. Right. So just imagine how evil she's going to get. If this is her parents, I feel like she's just going to get worse. It's that the McCarthy has had a very particular way of dealing with recaptured runaway and slave to people.

They would cut off their ears, and they would brag to their friends and say, and I quote, my friend, this is the way to treat a runaway enslaved person. So this is the environment that Delphine grew up in, and this is how her family treats enslaved people. So she grows up in this environment, and when she's 14, she falls in love, is she even capable of love? We don't know. But she seems to be really digging this guy named Ramon Lopez Angulo. And so as much 14 year olds, you're just, you have a crush. You're writing your names together on your little journal. You're doodling about how you guys are going to get married. But there's two problems about this childish crush.

The first being that Ramon was 35 years old and she was 14. Whoa. Yeah, and the bigger problem, the second problem is that that was completely normal. So the two were gonna get married. Yeah. Uh-huh, so at just 14 years old, Delphine married 35 year old Ramon

and this guy was the top of the food chain. So there's a lot going on in Louisiana but just picture it like this. The French had Louisiana and then Spain was the top of the food chain. So there's a lot going on in Louisiana, but just picture it like this. The French had Louisiana and then Spain was like, mm, I don't think so, that's mine. Spain took over. Ramon was like top of the food chain. He was sent by the Spanish government

to make sure everybody was doing okay. Everybody was following the law, nobody was being too French, which like, I don't know how that's a thing, right? They're like, nobody can be French. We're all Spanish now. So Ramon had so much power in the city. He was the right-hand man to the governor. He handled all business matters, including police business, everything to do with the economy of New Orleans, everything.

So maybe Delphine didn't fall in love. Maybe her parents fell in love. Maybe her parents fell in love with the power. The McCarthy's love strategic marriages, so I wouldn't be surprised. So they get married. Their marriage would actually end in Ramon being, well, dead. I was gonna say murdered, but just dead. Ramon was weird.

So Ramon was sent from Spain to New Orleans to make sure that nobody was acting up. He was gonna be like a little spy. He wanted to make sure that none of the locals were staging a coup. We're staging an uprising to make it French again, you know? So it would be pretty not a good idea if he married a local who had ties to the French government. Because the McCarthy's had ties to the French government. Because then it's like wait a minute, then you can't be unbiased now. Are you actually on our side or are you on the French side? We don't

know. What's going on? And in Spain, things were different. If you worked for the Spanish government, you had to ask the court if you were allowed to get married. So you would submit like a, hey, can I marry this person? This is what this person does. And they would send you an approval in like five business years. Five years, really?

Yeah, like it would take years sometimes because the king is busy. He's busy colonizing too, you know? So he doesn't really have time to be, okay, Joe, let me see if you should marry Christine. Yeah. So he sent the request, but of course it wasn't going to get approved anytime soon. So he's thinking, you know what, I might as well just get married. You're like, why didn't he just wait? This is a different time.

People were dropping dead like flies, like yellow fever, and there were so many plagues. You were not guaranteed another day in your life, no matter how wealthy you were. Like, people were literally just walking down the street, and then they would plop dead, and black vomit would seep out of their mouths. It was a very scary time. So he was like, who knows if you're dead, or I'm dead tomorrow, let's get married. So they get married. I guess he felt like, you know, I gave my life to the courts. I literally lost, so Ramon lost his first wife

because he was working so hard for the Spanish government. So he felt like he was a widow where because of the Spanish government. So surely someone would sympathize with him. They did not. He would actually die because of this mistake later. He wasn't murdered, but they did um They did send him to Cuba. They were like no, you're not gonna be in New Orleans anymore

You're gonna be sent to Cuba away from your wife and then finally after a few years of exile in Cuba They were like fine. You can go back to your wife and on the boat back he died What happened? The boat capsized and it said that he either drowned or he was injured or he died from shock, but his corpse was preserved in salt so that Delphine could bury him in Cuba. Which you're like, what does that even mean? It's so fascinating and it's so fascinating that humans do this because in the world you never really see any other animals do this.

They just let their loved ones die and return back to the earth and mother nature and decompose you get it, right? But humans are obsessed with preserving things. So even back then when we didn't have embalming, you would pour salt mixture into all the cavities of a human so that, um, yeah, you could wait to bury them. Because there was no like, Del took flight back home with your corpse in the storage. It was very interesting. And Delphine actually ended up being pregnant with her first child when Ramon died and she decided to name the daughter Borja Lopez, Y Angulo de Candelaria. This was after Ramon's first wife. So her

dead husband's dead first wife and you're like wow, wow, she's so sweet. She must have really loved her amount. No, no. It's just a thing back then. You just do that. So she's a widow, she's got this baby. She moves back in with her parents and she's trying to raise this child. Or rather, she's ordering enslaved victims to raise her child because, I mean, this girl has like never lifted a finger in her entire freaking life. Like ever. She doesn't even brush her own hair, like that type of energy. And life just feels super unstable because New Orleans was sold to the United States. The Louisiana purchase went through and for the first two years, it was pure and absolute chaos. The US sent troops to Louisiana to be like, Hey, we're going to point our weapons at you to make sure that you're like a part of us now.

Well, like we're gonna be friends, right? But there were still Spanish and French officials in military just hanging around New Orleans. So the US troops are like, um, can you get out? We literally bought this land. And they're just like, well, you just don't know. We don't know if we're gonna get it back. Maybe we'll buy it back. Maybe we'll get a refund.

You just, you know, so it's just a lot of troops, a lot of stress, a lot of tension, and a lot of different culture clashes. So there were a lot of Americans that were migrating into New Orleans, which they were nothing like the people that were already there. I don't want to call them locals because that would be a slap in the face to the indigenous groups that were more or less chased out or killed for this land. But they were the ones that were sent by the Spanish government, the French government. They were very different from the Americans.

So there's like this huge culture clash and you can tell who's who and they behaved differently. Americans thought the long-term residents of New Orleans were almost childlike. That's what they said. They said they're child-like because they don't lack business acumen. They're addicted to having fun. And they worship statues of Mother Mary to the point where it's almost comedic. So they were literally making fun of them for being strong about Catholics. And then the Europeans, slashing immigrants were like,

the Americans are loud, obnoxious, classless, and very aggressive. And all they care about is money. Delfine is like, I can't survive in a world like this, are you freaking kidding me? There's no way. So within a year of her first husband dying, she gets remarried to a nether French man.

Well, no, she gets married to a French man by the name of Jean-Paul Blanc. She was 19, he was 43. Wow, I love it. Yeah, another one. Yeah, all of her marriages have really big age gaps. So, a lot of people kind of hint that Jean was a better match for Delphine than her first husband Ramone and you're like, why? He's older than Ramone. Well that's not why. People said that Ramon was weak.

He was a bit of a whiner, a little complainer, not really a strong stubborn man. He's the type that was like, please, king of Spain, forgive me for I have sinned. Like, let me go back to New Orleans. Like, he sent letter after letter just pleading for forgiveness. Whereas Jean Paul was straight up evil.

He would never beg for forgiveness. In fact, he would take forgiveness. He would take and take and take and take. So I feel like that says something about Delphine. No. Jean was a ruthless merchant and on paper, he was a lawyer and banker that was heavily involved in politics. But in real life, he was a human trafficker.

There was a term for it. It was like essentially enslaved people smuggler. But it's a human trafficker. Like, a term for it. It was like essentially enslaved people smuggler. But it's a human trafficker. Like, call it what it is. It's a human trafficker. So whether he was just a human trafficker slash creep that fell in love with a 19-year-old girl or he was an opportunist and he knew that the McCarthy's had money and he wanted more money or maybe the two evil people that had no souls fell in love with each other. It's really hard to say. Maybe it's all of them. Delphine was really rich though. At just 19 years old, her mom had just recently died, so she inherited a ton of property, livestock, farm equipment, and tell me how you can even inherit

this like disgusting, but 26 enslaved people, as if they were property. I mean, that's technically what they were considered back then because I don't know, humans are messed up in that. Delphine got close to $2 million after her mom died, and that was just part of her inheritance. So the couple, they start living large, they start popping out babies non-stop.

Delphine had one kid from her first marriage and four more was Jean Paul, and most days she stayed home to watch her kids, or rather she stayed home to bark orders at her enslaved victims to watch her kids because she never even watched her kids. Meanwhile her husband was out there being an absolute f**king menace in the world. Jean is described as a genius but not in a good way, like too smart for his own good. Like the way that people describe him is that he's so evil and so smart that he's actually a force to be reckoned with.

Because most evil people are kind of dumb. That's what they're saying. I don't know the statistics on that, okay? He was not only book smart, but he was street smart. He had a high EQ. He was able to weasel himself into all the right places and to all the right conversations, and he could be incredibly charming if he wanted to. So he was a member of the city council director

of the Louisiana Bank, a member of the House of Representatives. He was even named a potential state senator. And literally nobody liked him other than his other politically well-connected friends. They all considered him a dangerous, dangerous man. So they're living the dream together, never lifting a finger, because the family of six had 30 enslaved victims to cater to their every need and whim. And then their finances got a lot better. Because the US banned the import of people, aka, they banned human trafficking

to New Orleans. And the city was up in arms about it. All the rich people in New Orleans were like, how am I going to make money without free labor and human trafficking? How do they expect me to put food on the table, man? Which sounds like it would have been bad for Jean and Delphi and right, because they own plantations and they have a lot of enslaved people. But it's actually good for them because remember, he's a human trafficker. So he was selling people. Yeah, illegally. Yeah. So he brought in men, women and children from all over the world and sold them into slavery for approximately $550 each. And I don't know what this guy was doing with the money, but he was making a lot of money.

But by the time that he died at the age of 50, so just not even a decade into being married to Delphine. 28-year-old Delphine was now a widow of five young kids, and Jean-Paul had $2.5 million in debt when he died. What? You lost it all? I don't know. I think he just spent it all.

He spent more than he made. The guy managed to be the most fucked up human alive and still almost had $3 million in debt. I don't even, and because they essentially had an old-and-day version of a pre-knop, Delphine was able to keep all of her assets, including literal victims, literally enslaved people, because they were considered assets.

Are you kidding me? And she moved on from the marriage. She did have to sell a few things, but she'll be fine because nobody should be crying tears for Delphine's socioeconomic status. But after Jean-Paul died, some weird things started to happen. A lot of deaths were reported in the Delphine House. Eight of Delphines enslaved victims had died. Most of them were women or children

of childbearing age, but it's just a lot, and it's very suspicious, and the fact that they were a lot of women and children that died in Delphine's house, there's some theories. So don't get me wrong, enslaved victims have a much higher percentage of dying early than free people did, because they weren't in control of their environment. They were malnourished, they didn't have sanitary living conditions, so they did get more illnesses and they did die from that, or sometimes they died straight

up from torture and abuse. Well, a lot of the times they did. But it was weird. Like even neighbors started to kind of take notice. It was after these two marriages, Delphine started to seem violent with her enslaved victims. And people say it's her true colors were coming out because after these two marriages, both of her parents were dead. So her mom had died earlier and then her father eventually passed away, and Delphine really

started to become her own. She no longer was this young girl who had to listen to her dad or her husband. She was an independently wealthy woman, a millionaire and a socialite, and surprisingly at the time, she was not the worst with her money. She was able to make more money with her inheritance. And regardless of the fact that she was aging, she's still said to look very useful and pretty. And that is when she meets her third husband, she's still said to look very useful and pretty. And that is when she meets her third husband, Dr. Louis LaLaurie.

Leonard Louis Nicholas LaLaurie. Yeah, that's a really long name, like imagine saying that, okay. Louis was a French immigrant who was a doctor. He was an orthopedic doctor. He was very smart. He went to med school in Paris. He practiced a bit of medicine in France But he thought you know, I he I keep hearing these whispers. I keep hearing these talks about a dream

Everybody's got the same dream. Yeah, and apparently you get on this boat in this dream and you sail to America And you find your dream. It's called the American dream. Yeah, so he's like I'm gonna go to America And I'm gonna find the dream. So he immigrates to Louisiana just 22 years old and he runs into Delphine. Now this is important but Louis is an orthopedic surgeon which New Orleans really did not have a lot of doctors. They had 20 pharmacists and 12 general practitioners at the time. They did not have a single orthopedic surgeon. You say he's 22? Yeah. Delphine is 40. What? Yeah, so Louis is this young, attractive man who claims that he can fix any sort of bone, quote, abnormality, or quote, disfigurement.

And Delphine had a daughter who, and I quote, was a hunchback. Meaning I just think that she had a curved spine, maybe scoliosis, but everybody called her a hunchback, which is so freaking rude. So 38-year-old Delphine goes to 22- year old Louie and is like, you need to help my daughter. Because back in the day, listen, it was a big deal. Like women's posture was everything. It was like part of the whole package, I guess. Like, how is she going to find

a suitor? How is she going to get married? Oh my God. And so she's like, you need to help my daughter. And of course, Dr. Lollary is not turning down new patients, especially not one like Delphine. She is one of the richest, wealthiest, most powerful women in all of New Orleans. Imagine he fixes her beloved daughter's condition. Imagine all the new patients that are going to be lining up outside his door. All the rich social lights of New Orleans. Are you kidding? This is the most valuable connection you could make in the city.

So he's taken this patient very seriously. And the tools to fix curved spines back in the day, they look like straight up torture devices, which is why I think more and more was added to the urban legend. Because I'm sure a lot of these devices were found in the Lollary House or under their possession. And they're like straight up serial killer torture boards.

Like you get on to this board and tied up and they will ram screws into you and you're wearing like a steel corset and they're trying to fix you. There's one that essentially stretches you like you get tied up and they start tying ropes around your arms and your legs and they just stretch you. They're trying to stretch your spine. So it's like a full body braces. Yes. Oh my gosh.

And they look like cages. They straight up look like torture devices. So back in the day it was common. In fact, back in the day, they were considered ingenious. Yeah, but now, now it's creepy. So, um, while Louis is set to fix Delphine's daughter's back, he is blowing Delphine's back out. And I'm not sure that they would have said it like that back then, but it might have

sounded fancier. But essentially, they were doing it everywhere and anywhere, there were like two horny teens that couldn't keep their hands off of each other. And very quickly, Delphine falls pregnant with Louis baby. Now, some rumors say that Dr. Lallerie trapped Delphine falls pregnant with Louise Baby. Now, some rumors say that Dr. Lallerie trapped Elphine. He was like, you know what? I do want a wealthy woman. I want to marry this woman. She's not going to marry me. But if I marry her, my life is set.

My practice is set imagine the connections, so he impregnated her. Some say that it was Delphine who wanted to trap this young hunk. She was like, don't worry, Louise. I'm so old. I can't get pregnant. And then now you're stuck. So either way, both variations, it's like predator and prey. It seems like one was trapping the other. So the two move in together and if they were ever happy together, it didn't last long. Neighbors reported non-stop fighting in the Lollary plantation. And like, you would really have to fight loud for a nearby plantation to hear you fighting, so just keep that in

mind. They would fight and Dr. Lollary would storm out of the house, never to come back until a few days later where he changed his mind. And he would come back, tail tucked between his legs, and it was this vicious cycle, and everyone assumed that eventually one of them would drop dead from the stress. So at first, they lived on one of Delphine's plantations, but she really wanted to live in a mansion. Like a town home, if you will.

It was more Parisian. It was more, you know, upper class. Plantations are for having, for people to work on. But, you know, you want to live in a mansion. So she started having this huge house commission, and that's the house that went into flames literally and figuratively. It was a huge house by the way There was a parlor dining room bed. I mean everything. Well, so this is not the house that the urban legend legends based on Oh, this one is yes the one that went in flames. Mm-hmm. Okay, so they fixed it. Yeah, they fixed it and they added more and more. So right now it's even bigger than what it used to be.

Because back then, houses were not as big as they are now. Right now, I believe it's owned by a Texas business owner who is trying to make it into like this freaking 20,000 square foot behemoth. No, home. Oh, just a home, man. Like a second home, I think. Insane, yeah.

Everything in the La La Rie House was of the finest material, the finest best quality decor, extravagant art, the finest furnishings, and yes, there was a quarter for the enslaved victims and an attic, which a lot of them would be chained to in Helltow stitch and tortured. So the outside, it looked more like a Parisian colonial mansion, if that makes sense, and it had a beautiful enclosed courtyard with its own well. And it was the talk of the town, other families were jealous of this house. It was refined, news sophisticated, it felt modern. So the La La Rie couple they move in.

And they were too busy fighting to even appreciate how beautiful their house is. The only time that they stop fighting is when they throw these lavish parties to show off their wealth and shove it down their friends' throats. And at this point, Dr. Lollary, he's still practicing, but his practice isn't doing great. So he's not even making money from his work. He just didn't seem that passionate anymore. He's gotten comfortable spending his wife's money. And around this time, Dphine is deteriorating mentally. I mean, it seemed like she had always been somewhat mentally unhinged, but with age, maybe

stress, I don't know what kind of stress she has, but maybe stress, maybe it got worse. She was so unhinged that Dr. Lallorie would wake up in the morning, super early, leave the house, and it would just push her into this deeper cycle of being pissed off because she's like, why are you leaving the house so early? Are you cheating on me with some younger bitch? It was a vicious cycle, is what I'm trying to say. Some people speculate that she's fully crazy, or maybe he drove her crazy by being an enslaved victim. It was common for white men to rape enslaved women of color.

I mean, I guess in some situations, people try to argue that it was love because both for white men to rape enslaved women of color. I mean, I guess in some situations, people try to argue that it was love because both parties formed emotional connections, but that was incredibly rare. And I wouldn't even call that love just based on the intensive year power dynamic. I think rape is a safer umbrella word for what happened.

White men raped enslaved women as well as free women of color, regardless of their marriage status. So in the beginning beginning it started with a lot of men being like, hey, so I don't want to go and rape white women, so this is what I'm doing. And everyone just turned a blind eye. They were just like, okay, make sense. It resulted in a ton of mixed children being born. And it was common for married men to have, quote, concubines in the form of black women. So in the McCarthy family, there were a ton of children born from these relationships,

which, side note, the racism behind this is shocking, like the mental cartwheels that these men tried to go through to try to justify what they were doing, it is just so disgusting. So they believed that black women were more sexual by nature, more promiscuous by nature, and white women were more virtuous by nature. Yeah, the racism is dripping.

Like, what are you even saying? Okay, that doesn't even make sense. And the men tried to justify that their ability to act out these six sexual fantasies with black women was in benefit of the pure white woman because they didn't want to taint them. Yeah. So what the fuck?

So a lot of people speculated that this pissed off delphine that she had half black, half siblings and nieces and nephews and she had this anger towards them. And then maybe Dr. LaLaurie had written enslaved victims and this just really center over the edge. And remember how I said that most of her enslaved victims that were tortured and killed, there were a lot of women and children involved. So it is speculated that she did have a strong jealousy towards her enslaved victims. She did not see them as victims, but she saw them as competition almost.

Now I do think that it is part of the reason. I don't think it's the only reason, though, because she's just a really horrible person. So I feel like there's a lot of other things going on. She just was a power-tripping evil person. And here's an interesting tidbit. I know when we look back at history and we're like, oh my god, you know, women have no freedom back then, even if they were free women, they didn't really have freedom because do we even have freedom now for the uterus, right? were for you women, they didn't really have freedom because do we even have freedom now for you the uterus, right? But um, kind of true, kind of not. So mistresses of the house were the house kept enslaved victims. Um, a lot of the mistresses of the house would be some of the most ruthless

punishers to have exist. You're like, why is it because women are just secretly more sadistic? There was a bit of handmaid's tail environment going on. And I don't blame the women for this necessarily. I mean, I do. Don't get me wrong. It's like definitely. But it's kind of almost a benefit to the patriarchy that this happened.

So the first thing, that the mistresses of the house would interact more with the enslaved victims. So most enslaved men were out in the fields. And there was supervision, but never really the man of the house supervising. If that makes sense, it was like another worker or another enslaved victim. And meanwhile the mistress of the house, she constantly bumped into enslaved woman because they would be cooking cleaning, doing her hair, running her bath inside the house.

So there might have just been a lot more opportunity for them to get upset at the enslaved victims. Or, more often than not, they were incredibly jealous. Because more often than not, their husbands and sons would rip the enslaved victims. And instead of taking problem with her husband or her sons, she was taught to take problem with the enslaved victims. So she might have taken her ingrat on them. And there are some crazy stories like mistresses with whip pregnant victims. They would even dig a hole into the ground for the pregnant victims belly to go into and they would force the pregnant victim to lay

down on the ground and whip her senselessly. And it speculated that a lot of pregnant enslaved women were the most victimized because there was a lot of speculation that the children were born from men of the house. And it's said that if you ever, oh, also, here's the thing with that type of situation. The pregnant enslaved woman would give birth and that child would immediately become enslaved. And as soon as they were old enough, they were put to work. And everyone neighbors,, other enslaved victims,

the members of the family, they all knew that this child looked very much like a specific man of the house, but they would turn a blind eye. So most people never acknowledged it. There were some families who would free those children out of, I don't know, love, right? Some of them would even give money and land, but more of not, the children would just be enslaved.

And you're like, how did this even start? Our woman just really that evil? It's so crazy. So girls back in the day, free women were often gifted enslaved victims as gifts. I don't even know how to make sense of that. So let's say you're like a free girl in a really rich family and you turn five.

They're like a free girl in a really rich family and you turn five. They're like, Happy Birthday! Kendra, here's an enslaved victim. Like I don't even, sometimes a girl's appeal when looking to get married. The one thing that people would ask is how many enslaved victims do you have? And that was like her bargaining chip to marry better and better. So honestly a lot of women back better and better. So honestly, a lot of women back in the day economically benefited from having a lot of enslaved victims. Stephanie Jones-Rodger actually has a really good book on this whole social dynamic called They Were Her Property, which I highly recommend checking it out. She actually wrote the book after researching Madame Lullary. She's like, whoa, this is crazy. And so many of the stories told during this era,

it's, she said it's very masculine oriented. It's a lot of men's stories. But there's so many stories of the female power dynamic between free mistresses and enslaved women and children. And they would just be so cruel, Stephanie said that she learned of a story of a young enslaved girl who was kept near starvation. I mean, she was about to die from starvation and hunger, and the mistress would leave a piece of candy on her bedroom nightstand

every day to tempt the little girl while she cleaned her room. Oh wow. And one day the little girl couldn't do it anymore, and she ate it. She ate the piece of candy and the mistress dragged her out, placed her head under a rocking chair, and sat down to rock back and forth on this little girl's head, while her own daughter whipped the little girl.

When they were done, she was irreparably disfigured. She could never eat solid food again because her jaw would slide to the other side of her face. And when she was an adult, have her teeth never grew on one side of the face. And this is going to make your blood boil. But the mistress of the house gave her away. I mean, just think about that sentencing. Gave her away to a friend because she didn't want to look at her disfigured face anymore. It was also common for mistresses to facilitate the rape of enslaved woman.

So when a mistress got pregnant, she would typically facilitate the rape of multiple enslaved woman so that at least one of them would give birth the same time that she gave birth. Why you ask? It had nothing to do with the enslaved woman's child or another life being brought into the world. It had to do with the fact that that enslaved woman could now produce milk. She would be ripped away from her newborn baby

and would be forced to feed the mistresses baby. Literally moms were being ripped away from their babies so that these mistresses could be comfortable. One mistress even said to her friend that continuously having children and taking care of that made her feel like, and I quote, a slave. I can't even imagine what Delphine's victims went through. At one point, she had 72 people that she kept hostage, men, women, and children. And even before the house fire, everyone knew that Delphine was a little messed up in the head.

It's said that she liked to starve her enslaved victims for no reason at all. Sometimes she would chain them up in the attic and only visit them to torture them. Literally, kept them alive to smack them around. It was so bad that her two daughters would sometimes sneak food to the enslaved victims, which mind you, the two daughters were not great people. They too believed slavery was the way to life, but even amongst the freaking ugly monsters, Delphine was super evil, super ugly. But the minute that anyone else came around, members of society, politicians, police officers, Delphine had this switch that she could just turn on, and she became

graceful and accomplished. People described her as incredibly charming and hospitable. I mean, they said you would never believe that she was actively torturing people for fun. That is, till a little girl jumped off the lullary roof. She was eight years old. She was enslaved. And there are different reports to what happened. Delphine would claim that the little girl was playing, frallicking around, and felt her death. But most people believe that Delelfine was punishing her. So much so that the little girl either ran off the roof, trying to escape her torment, or Delfine pushed her.

We don't know which version is true, but we do know that a neighbor reported seeing the little girl with limbs hanging off her bones, and the body of the little girl was just buried in a shallow hole in the corner of the plantation. And the day moved on as if nothing had happened. But was crazy is that there were laws that were put into place so that you can't senselessly torture an enslaved person. And it's weird because none of it made sense. It was essentially fake laws, if you will.

There was a French code that forbade any human trafficker from killing or mutilating their enslaved people. So that's great, but you were allowed to put them in irons and whip them if you wanted. So I don't know what that means. And then later the US created laws that you cannot be cruel to your enslaved victims, and if you are, you will be fined. Or worst case scenario, they will take your enslaved victim, a literal human being, and they will resell them to someone else. Now, if you medallate or kill an enslaved victim, that's a different story.

You could go to court and jail for that, but there's always a catch there, isn't there? It's the fact that enslaved victims and people of color were not allowed to testify against white people. So you couldn't testify that you were being abused, and anyone who else witnessed this, which most of the time were fellow enslaved victims, they wanted a lot to testify. So it was just their very powerful word against yours. And yeah, practically nobody went to jail for these crimes.

So it was basically a pretty little law that did absolutely nothing, but I guess it made some people feel good about themselves and progress, I guess. So none of these enslaved victims could testify against what Delphine was doing, which was actively torturing them nearly to death. It said that she would take sharp objects and stab them with it. She created these iron collars, and on the inside,

it had sharpened points, and she would chain people, these victims to the wall, in different positions. So sometimes they were on their knees, sometimes they were standing, sometimes they were standing on one leg, and if they moved their neck even a little bit, they would stab themselves in the neck. She would chain people up from months feeding them only some porridge and barely any water until they were distal skin and bone, and in their frail, weak and state, she would abuse them, she would stab them, she would cut holes into their skulls and

break their bones, she would sew their mouths shut and cut off their ears. Most of them were so weak when the fire happened, they couldn't even walk. They couldn't even stand on their own. They were barely alive. One of the oldest victims was 70 years old, an elderly woman, and she was chained to the kitchen stove. She was malnourished, if she literally was watched like a hawk to make sure she never ate any scraps of food. Flies were laying eggs in the victim's wounds while

they were being devoured by maggots while they were still alive. Most of the victims later found were said to have been unrecognizable. It was hard to tell that they were even humans. That's how mutilated they had been. Bones were sticking out of their skin in unnatural ways, and apparently Delphine loved to have a morning routine. So, her morning routine was that she would wake up, eat a hearty breakfast or breakfast for champs, and then she would go up into the attic and beat her enslaved victims for as long as she could

until she was exhausted. And the next day, it would start all over again. A big question was, was Dr. Lallory involved? Were all of her husbands involved? I mean, how many people really died at her hands? How many victims were there? Dr. Lallory was never questioned about the crimes. I mean, everyone just assumed that he did know about it,

but was he involved? I guess a lot of people still speculate that he used the enslaved victims for a medical experimentation, but we'll never really know, because after the fire, they both fled and ended up in France. Yeah, it's really inviereating, but she got away with it. They would separate, but they lived good lives in France, and even the news of what she did was so horrific that everyone in France knew, but she didn't care.

She lived in one of the richest parts in Paris. She spent money on luxury goods, going to parties with friends, convinced a ton of family members to move to France, which I wonder if they did it out of love or more so financial obligations because it's been reported that her kids even hated her. That she was so scary, so terrifying, and she had these crazy mood swings. But what's crazy is in France a lot of the members of high society accepted Delphine into their circle. Because the torture and the stories and the rumors that followed her

just made her more eccentric. And when her brother died, she inherited $5 million. And continued to live the rest of her life, rich, careless, and free, till she died of health problems. Now, it is rumored that after Delphine fled the town, people went in to dig up the area behind her house

and they found piles of corpses. Many of them were found in all sorts of terrifying positions. Their bodies were distorted even after death. Some barely had any bones, some skulls had these giant holes in them. It's that there were scratch marks and some baseboards near the buried bodies, indicating that people were buried alive in the back of the mansion. Now we don't know if this is true because there are rumors that the new owner of the house, the immediate new owner, wiped the records because they didn't want the value of the house

to go down. The new owner actually would claim, no this house was built on an old cemetery, so it's not that she killed people, it's not like the house is haunted. A lot of places are built on old cemeteries. Please don't decrease my property value. Some argue that none of this ever happened and that Delphine only killed 20 people, which 20 is 22 many.

But a lot of people do speculate it's a lot more than that. Later, Delphine's friends and families would try to repair her reputation. I mean, someone higher than for your PR team because they pulled out all the stops. They were like, no! But we must be sympathetic towards Delphine because the only reason that she tortured these victims

was because her mother was killed by an enslaved person. So they said, of course, it sent Delphine spiraling over the edge into madness. And out of love for her mother, she made a few mistakes. Yeah, it cost 20 people their lives. That's what they said. I don't even know what to respond to that. Another friend said, this is a takedown job. It's a smear campaign. Do you know how nice Delphine was? I'll tell you how nice.

She was so kind to her enslaved people. He used the people that she kept enslaved against their will, beaten into submission, given no pain, no livable wages, horrible living conditions, no basic right to freedom, they were treated subhuman. Yes, those people, she was so nice to them. They would raid around while she ate dinner, and when she was done, she would have still half her wine left in her glass, and she would hold it in the air and let one of the enslaved victims grab it. To drink it, can you believe it? What an angel. Delphine was one of the most kind and gracious of ladies enslaved victims grabbed it. To drink it, can you believe it? What an angel.

Delfine was one of the most kind and gracious of ladies I've ever met. That's what they said. They even tried to spin the story about that little girl that was killed on the roof. They said, don't be silly. Those are nothing but haunted tales. The little girl was simply playing.

Delfine let her enslaved victims play. She was a wonderful woman. I tell you, someone get her a Nobel Peace Prize. The little girl was playing and she was running down the stairs and excitement and fell three stories. Tardath, it was tragic. Delphine was quite sad about it, you know, because her marble was stained with blood. Many of Delphine's friends straight up claimed that she was the victim of salacious rumors.

But let's be clear, something happened behind those mansion walls and the victims were enslaved So why did Madame LaLaurie torture them? Some say she was jealous that her husband's had brought enslaved girls into their bed to rape them Some said that she felt a rival rivalry with the enslaved Some say that she was using them as an outlet. She was this angry woman that felt chained in society despite her socioeconomic and racial status And someone had to face her wrath and some say she was just pure evil woman that felt chained in society despite her socioeconomic and racial status, and someone had to face her wrath. And some say she was just pure evil.

Some say that with every whip and every act of torture she felt pure ecstasy, she felt excitement, fulfillment, and ultimately she felt freedom, something that her victims would never get to feel. And that is the story of Mistress Lallorie, the Mistress of Torture. I feel like this story comes up a lot as an urban legend and around Halloween time, which I didn't want to cover it during October because it felt very Halloweeny. If that makes any sense, because you know, there's like ghost tours that you can go on to talk about it. And yeah, you can go see the haunted house.

You can't go inside because it's a private residence, but you can drive past it. They do ghost tours, but it's just so dark. It's so much darker than that. Yeah. What are your thoughts? And please stay safe, and I'll see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye!