Stuff You Should Know - The Mysterious Story of Larry Bader

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Larry Bader disappeared in 1957 and reappeared a few days later with a new identity. Was it a brain injury or a scam? To this day, nobody knows. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And this January, we're going to go on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada, to cover the Consumer Electronics Show, Tech's biggest conference. Better Offline's CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest gadgets or biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025. I'll be joined by David Roth at Defecta and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with guest appearances from Behind the Bastards' Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis,

and a few surprise guests throughout the show. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts from. The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional wellbeing at soundedouttogether.org. That's soundedouttogether.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too and this is Stuff You Should Know. That's right. I don't want to give away what this one contains so let's just say it is the strange tale of a man named Larry Bader. Yes. He went to great lengths to Escape Ohio. Right. Well, you just gave it away.

Not really. This guy, Lawrence Joseph Bader, he was an Akron native. So shout out to my people, my wife's folks, and Akron, Akron, Akron, Akron, as she says, because of that bridge. If you've been through there, you know what I'm talking about. He was born in 1926 to a Catholic, pretty well-to-do Catholic family. His father was a dentist,

and Livia dug up some dirt from a family friend who was like, you know, Larry and his brothers and sisters were spoiled little rich kids. Larry was pretty careless with his money because he could just get more anytime he needed it. My sisters were spoiled little rich kids. Larry was pretty careless with his money because he could just get more anytime he needed it. But he was a pretty funny guy, he's a pretty fun dude, had a lot of personality, and he used to do weird things.

Like one of his party tricks, he would eat a whole chicken, including the bones. Yeah, that's special. Yeah, but put a pin in that. We're not just mentioning that strange fact for no reason. No. So he joined the Navy in 1944. I think he left high school to join the Navy

because the United States was in the grip of World War II and he served for, I think, a little under two years. And when he came back, he graduated from high school and he went to the University of Akron. But school was just not for him and he dropped out after a semester. Apparently he was known for money-making schemes more than he was known for acing tests. I gotta say, if you're known for money-making schemes

after a semester, you must have been doing a lot of money- making, well, highly visible money making schemes. Yeah, or you wear a suit that's got dollar signs printed all over it. It's a green suit with dollar signs. That's another way to become known for money making schemes.

Yeah, that bait, all my suits look like that. You know, hey. Nothing? You threw me off. All right. So he's not lasting in college. He didn't last long in the Navy. But while he was in college, he did accomplish something

because he got married. He met a woman named Mary Lou Knapp with a K. They got married in 1952 and within five years had three kids with a fourth on the way. And he was doing pretty well for himself. He was making the equivalent of about $120,000 a year these days as a cookware salesman. And that was about twice the median income at the time. So he's doing pretty good, but he still had some debts. He had a pretty hefty mortgage, he had a new car, and was about $2,400 in debt.

Basically, you can multiply most stuff from this era by 10 and arrive at our modern conversion rate. So, you know, roughly $24,000 in debt is pretty hefty. Yeah, he also, like he didn't pay his taxes for like five years, I think. Yeah, not good. No, and it was bad enough, he was bad enough with the bills are behind enough

that the milkman apparently said like, I'm not bringing milk anymore until you pay your milk bill. Yeah. So the thing is, is this guy, like you said, family friend from when he was a kid was like he was a rich kid, but he was actually really charming fun to be around rich kid and Apparently as he grew up into an adult he remained essentially the same like basically everyone who Met him or had something to say about him later on

Basically unanimously said this guy was a good guy to say about him later on, basically unanimously said this guy was a good guy. So if he's like cracking under the pressure of these bills and this debt, it's not showing outwardly to anybody who knew him. One of his friends said that he was a red blooded American 30 year old family man who liked hanging out and drinking beer with friends. And his friends liked hanging around him because he was just fun to be around essentially without being like a reckless party animal.

He was just fun to be around. Yeah, just sort of your average fun guy. Exactly. And he was also, and put a pin in this, we just were not mentioning this for no reason, he was also very good at archery, had won some competitions. So he was into archery, he was a pen in this. We just, we're not mentioning this for no reason. He was also very good at archery, had won some competitions. So he was into archery.

He was a fun guy. And everything's swimming along in his life, making a pretty good living, little bit in debt. And then on Wednesday, May 15th, 1957, he had collected some bad payment checks from vendors from his business and said, you know what, I gotta go to Cleveland to kind of clear up these bad checks with these vendors.

He tells this to his wife, Mary Lou, who is, keep in mind, four months pregnant. And he said, so I'm going up to Cleveland. It's gonna be the morning, and then I'm gonna probably do a little fishing in the afternoon in Lake Erie. And so I'll be home late. And she said what any partner should say in that situation, which is, maybe you could also come home

and be a father and husband instead of going fishing after you do your work. And he supposedly replied with, yeah, maybe I will, maybe I won't. All right, so I'm not saying he's some really bad guy. It may have been a cheeky response. That may have been how things went in their marriage. But he just was a little vague,

and that will come into play. So one of the things he did was he paid some bills before he left. And one of those bills was a life insurance premium. He had recently adjusted or changed the policy to include a nice payout for an accidental death. And he whistled as he drove off to Cleveland and eventually went to Rocky River, Ohio, which is a little town on the Rocky river, which flows into Lake Erie.

And he rented a boat at Eddie's boat dock, about a half a mile inland from the lake from a guy named Lawrence Cutler. Yeah, Cutler. Yeah, anyway, he paid 15 bucks from a big roll of bills. It's also kind of important. And he said, hey, Lawrence, I want you to put some running lights on this boat because I'm probably going to be out after dark. And Lawrence said, okay, I'll do that, but it's gonna cost you an extra fiver,

I'm presuming here at this time. And Larry Bader paid it. Yeah, he paid it and he was like, all right, whatever buddy. He did notice, and this is stuff that, you know, they interviewed Lawrence afterward for reasons that we still don't know because we're keeping this a secret. Well, we know.

Well, we know. Yeah, sure. But he did notice that he had a suitcase with him. He thought that was a little bit weird. He said, you know, you got a storm coming. You might not want to be out there after Doc. That is not what people in Cleveland tell me. Sure it is.

And like a Stephen King novel about Cleveland, maybe. So people don't go in there, that's why the Browns play. So, he warned them about the storm. He goes out on Lake Erie, the Coast Guard sees him and says, hey, you know, there's a big storm coming in after sunset, and I've noticed you have some running lights, there's a big storm coming in after sunset, and I've noticed you have some running lights, so you clearly plan on being out after dark. And he was like, it's fine.

And so they said, all right, go about your way. Three hours later, that storm does come in. And Larry Bader has disappeared. They find the boat the next day, about five miles away. The life jackets are all on board. There was some scratches like it had hit some rocks. There was a bent propeller. And some accounts say that it was either a gas line

had been disconnected or the gas cans were empty. But either way, and I guess it's the kind where the gas line runs directly into like a gas can that's sitting on the boat. Must've been one of those kind of boats. But basically they were like, but nothing shows the kind of distress where a human would be completely missing,

like it wasn't capsized or sunk or anything like that. No, and the life jacket was in the boat, you said, right? That's right. So that's a really, so that's a big point because the Coast Guard was like, that was one heck of a storm on Lake Erie. There's no way that anybody could have survived this. Even a strong swimmer like Larry Bader was known to be

without a life jacket. Yeah, one of the oars was missing, but just do with that what you will. Right, but the boat was generally in pretty good shape. The thing is, is like this is not an uncommon thing. Like people drown in Lake Erie pretty frequently. It's a great lake, it's a very big lake. And just as a little side anecdote,

when I was a kid we used to vacation on Catawba Island on Lake Erie. And every week, we would go there for a week every summer, and every time we went I would have to wait on the beach the first half of the week because somebody had drowned and And I was convinced that if I went in the water, their dead body would bump up against me. And I just couldn't even bear the thought of that. So finally I would watch the news every night.

And finally when they announced they found the missing person, then I would start to go into the lake. And you thought, I won't run into that body now. I might become one, but it's worth the risk. Right. Yeah, because no one had any business swimming in Lake Erie back when I was a kid. What's Katalba Island like? What do you do there?

Well, you play mini golf and putt-putt. We stayed at this place. It was just like a block of, I guess, little condos or apartments or something like that. And everybody had beach towels drying drying over like the railing. And it was like on the beach, like the sand came up into your little front stoop. And it was just great. It was wonderful.

I remember my oldest sister went on a date with a dude she met there and they went and saw a top secret at the drive-in. Oh, the vacation date. That's always great. Man, that's nice. I love young Josh stories. All right so they look for Larry Bader for a couple of months. The Coast Guard was like no one's gonna survive that storm if they

don't have a life jacket. But they looked anyway and they were also were like well he was a strong swimmer though so it's a little weird that like the boat wasn't that damaged and he's just nowhere to be found. Some people thought, you know, he had this big wad of cash, I don't think we said, but he cashed a $400 check. So if you do the math, you know, that's probably like 4,000 bucks, a lot of dough. So he may have been robbed and murdered or something.

And also the suitcase was gone, so that could also explain that. But either way, they said, we just got to put this one to rest. And so in 1960, he was declared dead. And his wife got that $40,000 insurance policy and Social Security started rolling in. She went kaching. That's right. And I believe that's where we should take a break and see what happened to Larry Bader. Inside you, two wolves are locked in battle. One thrives on fear and anger and doubt.

The other? Courage, wisdom, and love. Every decision, every moment feeds one of them. Which wolf are you feeding? I'm Eric Zimmer, host of The One You Feed. I've been there, homeless, addicted, and lost. I know the power of small choices to turn your life around. On this podcast, I sit down with thinkers, leaders,

and survivors to uncover what it takes to feed the good wolf. This podcast saved me. It's like having a guide for the hardest parts of life. The wolves are hungry. What will you feed them? Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be.

Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional well-being at soundedouttogether.org. That's soundedouttogether.org, brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. This is S-Y-S-K. We purpose it, that's right. Here's to them. We purpose it. Okay, Chuck, where we last left off, Larry Bader's missing. He's disappeared, but enough years have gone by, I think roughly three, that he's officially

declared dead. His insurance policy has come in. His wife has said, this is what you get for telling me maybe I will, maybe I won't when I tell you not to go fishing. And if we rewind just a little bit to the day that Larry Bader went out on the lake and add usually people say about three days and zoom on over from Lake Erie over to Omaha, Nebraska, and we sit down at a little bar called the Round Table Bar in Omaha. What we will see on May 18th, 1957 is a guy walk in and his name is John Johnson.

Take it, Chuck. That's right. Oh, I was so busy trying to work up a Saturn joke about that 800 miles, but I couldn't do it in time. We'll wait. If you can, I'll give you an hour. 800 miles between Omaha and Akron, roughly one third the size of the distance between, and then I couldn't remember what it was on Saturday.

The Cassini division? That Cassini division. So that's not a joke. That's making fun of my hard work. I know. So here's not a joke, that's making fun of my hard work. I know. So here's what happens. Three days after Larry Bader disappears, 800 miles away, a dude shows up in Omaha

at the Round Table bar. You said his name was John Johnson. He said, I got this driver's license here. It's got my name on it. I was a 14 year veteran of the Navy. It's a Navy license, as you'll see. I got out because of a bad back. And I go by the name Fritz. And there was a bartender there named Betty who said he was a really well-dressed guy. He clearly had money. He was really sort of fascinating and charming. He asked me out like the second

he met me, which is I assume what you do if you, three days after you have left your wife and soon to be four kids. You'd probably ask out the first woman you see. Well, we haven't said it yet, but okay. John Johnson bore a really striking resemblance to Larry Bader also. Yeah, I mean, didn't people see that coming? I don't know, I mean, now they do.

Okay, so this guy John Johnson, AKA Fritz, gets a job, not there, but at Ross's Steakhouse. And basically it was like, hey, I came from an orphanage in Boston. There were 22 boys in this orphanage. They named us all John Johnson and gave us all nicknames so they could tell us apart instead of just naming us different things.

It's very strange. But they called me Fritz because I reminded them of a character from a comic, the Cats and Jammer comic, Cats and Jammer Kids comic. Different times during that period, he also would say that his Navy buddies thought his haircut made him look like a German soldier, so he went by Fritz. But either way, this is some new dude in town, and he was like, all of a sudden, the talk of Omaha. Yeah, Betty Johnson's impression was not isolated.

Apparently, people who met Fritz Johnson felt essentially the same way that she did. Like, he was a cool dude that you wanted to be around. Debonair, you could say. But he also was a bit of a character. And by a bit, let me just say that he bought a hearse and rearranged the back so that it was like a little lounge area for him when he picked up women

on dates and I saw one place, but it was a legitimate source, like a contemporary newspaper article, that said that he had somehow gotten it licensed with the city as a hunting vehicle. Can you imagine anything more 1957 than that, 1957 Bachelor? Yeah, I mean, he was an avid hunter. That is not what he was going for. You think, I mean, I don't know

Yes, you don't put a lounge area in the back of your hearse for dead deer. No, no, no, I know But do you think he had it licensed as a hunting vehicle? Because like he was hunting ladies and he just want to be able to tell people that yes, I do I Don't agree. Okay, that's fine. We'll take it up with UPI, buddy. He's an eccentric dude.

He wears a leather beret. His apartment apparently was just a bunch of like bean bags and throw pillows. He had champagne parties. He had Siamese fighting fish. He was an archer. He said, you know, I hurt my back, and so archery really helps strengthen the back.

And so I took up archery, and then five weeks later, he's won a state championship in Nebraska, and then won 13, I believe 12 more, 13 total archery titles in the state. And at parties would do the eat the whole chicken, including the bone trick. And the last three listeners went, oh. That's right, so he's working at the bar,

but he buddies up with a guy that works at a radio station, KBON. And he lets him come in there to kind of just monkey around because he was interested in broadcasting and He's monkeying around enough to where he figures it out and dears himself like he seems to be doing to everybody Gets a job as a DJ Reading the news. Yeah, I want to just backtrack a little bit and specifically say there was nobody in any interview or any article that I wrote about this who seemed to think that Fritz Johnson was a creep or like a jerk

or like a sicko or anything like that. I know we've kind of painted him a little questionably, but there doesn't seem to be anybody who had any kind of weird vibes from him at all. He was just a fun guy to be around. And just living up the bachelor life, apparently he was saying, I spent my youth in an orphanage

having to listen to the people who ran the place tell me what to do. I spent 14 years in the Navy listening to them tell me what to do and now I'm finally free and I'm living it up. So that's essentially, I think, the best way to paint his character is that he was living it up, his newfound freedom.

Yeah, for sure. He, I mean, we can talk about some more of his flamboyance just because it's simply really funny and interesting. When he wrote a personal check to someone, he would sign it Fritz only, and then he wouldn't put it in a date. I don't know why I love this so much He wouldn't put a date. He would just put a season so he would write a check to someone on the date of you know autumn and

Then he would just sign it Fritz. Isn't that weird that they would catch I think it's I Well, it's a 1950s. I guess stuff like that would happen It was also the 1950s so you could collect your tip money as a bartender in a milk bottle and then just go hand that milk bottle to the uncounted, to the person working at the bank and fill out the deposit slip, one quart of money. And I'm sure they thought, oh, he's such a character, but like, now I got to count on this stuff. Thanks a lot, dude.

Every time he made that deposit, he'd think to himself, are you gonna withhold the milk deliveries, huh? Yeah, exactly. So one of the other things that he was known for is being a little unkind to friends who were engaged or married or about to get married. He was like, marriage is just another way to trap a fella.

Whoever gets married is a sap, probably said something along those lines. That old thing. And then a few years after he appeared in Omaha in 1961, he got married. Yeah. Uh, he got married to a model named Nancy Zimmer, who was 21 at the time. And she had a daughter from her first marriage. She said later that they were just too young. And not only did Fritz Johnson

adopt her daughter, they also had their own son. So he had a family all of a sudden within just a couple of years. Yeah. So he's working part time at the radio station, eventually works full time there and then transfers over to TV when he got a job at KETV, the local affiliate there, eventually getting promoted up to sports director. And also on the side, he was advising, like consulting, I guess, for archery companies because he was just so good at it.

He's like, well, maybe consider making the arrows straight. I did some archery at the camp. We took a big family trip with a bunch of families and I got the archery set out and it was quite fun. And I'm a pretty good shot. Oh yeah, any bullseyes? Yeah, I was hitting some bullseyes on the rag and I've never even done much archery.

I just, it just seems intuitive, you know, just kind of hold it steady and aim at the thing and then let it go. You're like, I'm just as surprised as any of you. I really was. How far away though? Are we talking like five feet? I mean, I don't know what standard archery is.

I was shooting, I bet from about, probably from about 35 feet would be my guess. Oh, that is good, man. I don't know what standard is, but everyone's like, oh yeah, you can come up here all the time and do this. I was like, I actually never do this. I'm just good at it. Yeah, you just come up here all the time and do this. I was like, I actually never do this. I'm just good at it. Yeah. You just have to say that out loud with every shot.

I know. Like, don't compliment me because you think I've worked at this. Right. This is all blind luck. That's right. Speaking of blind luck, one of the other things that kind of made Fritz Johnson a noted character around town... Hey, look at you. Is that he ended up donning an eye patch. And he was one of those eye patch wearers who really needed one because they found a tumor behind his eye, I think his left eye.

And to remove the tumor, they had to permanently remove his left eye. So he wore an eye patch, rather jauntily from what I can tell. And that just made his legend even more. So like one of the local beloved TV announcers now wears an eye patch with his little pencil thin mustache, and everybody just loves this guy so much. Let me ask you something. Are you saying that there are people who wear eye patches just for attention that don't need them?

Yeah, I mean, I've never met one, but yes, I'm sure those people are out there. Are they out there? I mean, they're the same people who wear glasses. That's how they start. It's the gateway drug is like wearing glasses that don't actually work. You know that I did that.

I know, are you drawing shade? Well, you're just an eye patch wearer waiting to happen. Oh man, I hope someone writes in that knows somebody You know that I did that. I know, are you drawing shade? Well, you're just an iPad to where we're waiting to happen. Oh man, I hope someone writes in that knows somebody, or maybe that even did that for a time. If you did this in middle school, you get a pass. Like it seems like something John Hodgman might've done in middle school.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. But yeah, also, not as a pirate. You can't be dressed as a pirate at the time. No, no, no, just- It has to be like normal street clothes. Yeah. Amazing. That's the rules.

Should we take our break now? Yeah, I think there's no other place to take our second break from this. All right, we got another big reveal coming up right after this. Inside you, two wolves are locked in battle. One thrives on fear and anger and doubt. The other, courage, wisdom and love. Every decision, every moment feeds one of them. Which wolf are you

feeding? I'm Eric Zimmer, host of The One You Feed. I've been there, homeless, addicted, and lost. I know the power of small choices to turn your life around. On this podcast, I sit down with thinkers, leaders, and survivors to uncover what it takes to feed the good wolf. This podcast saved me. It's like having a guide for the hardest parts of life. The wolves are hungry. What will you feed them?

Listen to the one you feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The more you listen to your kids, the closer you'll be. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional wellbeing at soundedouttogether.org. That's soundedouttogether.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. This is S-Y-S-K. We are the Symmetric. Yesterday. We are the Symmetric.

All right, so I promised a big reveal. Things are going great for old Fritzie. He's in a town. He's scoring with the ladies in the back of a hearse. He's eating chickens through the bone and people think it's the best thing they've ever seen. He's on TV for goodness sakes with an eye patch. Can I say one more thing about the chicken eating thing?

Yeah, like how do you eat bones? No, I mean, I can get that. If you cook a chicken enough, like it can be. Just dissolve it sort of? Yeah, essentially. Okay. The thing is this. That's not a party trick that you do quickly. People have it sort of? Yeah, essentially. The thing is this,

that's not a party trick that you do quickly. People have to stand around you for possibly dozens of minutes while you do this trick. So it really takes. Everybody watch this. Right. Stop what you're doing and come over and quietly watch me.

Like it takes a real showman to hold people's interest while you're eating a whole chicken. Yeah, I mean the only party trick I ever did is that thing with the hat against the wall and that takes like two seconds. I don't know what that is. You put a baseball cap on backwards and then you kind of get up against a wall

and then you act like you're blowing your cheeks out and what you're doing is putting the brim against the wall such that the hat kind of levitates off your head like you're blowing it cheeks out, and what you're doing is putting the brim against the wall such that the hat kinda levitates off your head, like you're blowing it off your head. Oh, I wanna see that. Why have you never done that for me? Hey buddy, next time I see you,

the only, I mean I haven't done it for years because I refuse to put a baseball cap on backwards because I'm a human adult, but I'll do it for you. Okay, thank you. Okay, the guys out there with their hat on backwards right now are like, what's wrong, is that not cool? It's like, no, it's not. My only party trick was holding my breath until I fainted.

Did you ever do that? Yeah, we used to do that where you'd hold your breath, like you bend over and hyperventilate yourself and take that last breath, cross your hands over your chest and your friend would just push as hard as they could on your chest and you'd just faint. I did it once and this is something you should not do. It's dangerous. No.

Yeah, I shouldn't have that tone of voice right now. Like it was super fun? Yeah. It is very dangerous. Did you ever actually pass out? Yeah. Yeah, I did one time and that was the only time I had ever passed out up into that point.

And it was very, very strange. It was very strange. I remember feeling like I was dropping in on a half pipe on a skateboard as I went down. That's when I was kinda like, this is all right. We didn't do it for very long. Yeah, do not try this. It is such a bad idea.

I can't believe we were even talking about it. Yeah, we should probably edit this out. I'm sure Jerry will with her responsibleness. All right, so like I said, he's living his best life. Then on February 2nd, 1965, a guy who knew John Bader, disappeared man, saw Fritzi at an archery demonstration at a sporting good show in Chicago and was like, that's Larry Bader. Like I would bet my life on it. And his niece lives nearby and I know this. So I'm gonna call her. She's 21 years old.

Her name is Susanna. She drives over and she's like, Uncle Larry, basically. Pretty much. Yeah, her quote was, pardon me, but aren't you my uncle Larry Bader who disappeared seven years ago? Yeah. And he was like, ho, ho, ho, no, I'm not, go away.

Actually, supposedly he was super polite, but was quite insistent that they had the wrong person. He said, would you like to see my hearse? But the, right. But the resemblance was enough that then Susanna turned around and called her uncles, Larry's brothers.

And they, I think, got on the phone with this guy and his voice enough convinced them that they should fly out to Chicago. They flew out to Chicago. Suddenly this guy's like, man, I wish I didn't have to work this convention. People are surrounding me and telling me I'm another person. And so to kind of settle the whole thing, he's like, how about this? Well, let's go get my fingerprints taken.

And they were like, that's a capital idea because our brother was in the Navy too, so his records, his fingerprints will be on record. So they went to the local police department, they took his fingerprints, they handed them over to the FBI. The FBI compared them to the Navy fingerprints on record of Larry Bader. And the FBI looked up and said, this is a perfect match. That's right. So Fritzi said it

came as a literal physical shock. He said, I don't know anything about that other fellow. And he said, why would I have volunteered to give my fingerprint if I was trying to get some scam, new double life and new identity? Like I wouldn't have gotten fingerprinted. It seemed genuinely like he didn't know and didn't realize this. He's like, I've got all these memories.

I remember the orphanage. I remember growing up as Fritz Johnson. That you're saying these memories are all fake and this is really starting to bum me out, to be quite honest. Yeah. Like, if he knew he was hiding from his family, and he was found at this sporting goods convention, he would have shot, like, a smoke bomb tipped arrow at the floor, and then it vanished

as the smoke just choked everyone out. and then it vanished as the smoke just choked everyone out. Oh, I could literally smell that. I was so in that scene. But he didn't do that. And that is a really significant thing. So not only, remember, if he was Larry Bader, who had assumed a new identity, to agree to fingerprints is a dumb move to begin with, but he could have been

calling a bluff or something like that. Who knows? Maybe, but he also didn't have, wasn't like he had some awful family life. Like everyone, by all accounts, he liked his wife and kids and enjoyed being around them as much as any dad did in the 1950s. I'm not saying he was doting, but he wasn't like, oh God, I hate these kids and my wife's a real drag. Yeah, it didn't make sense at all. Yeah, he's a little bit in debt,

but it wasn't like his world was crumbling down around him such that he had to escape. It was all debt that he could get out of with a little bit of work. So none of this was making any sense. No, plus also one other thing, Chuck. If you're on the run with a new identity, usually the last thing you do is become a local TV personality in a largish city in the United States. Yeah. Let me see if I... The largest city? Omaha?

I said a largish. Oh. I was like, oh man, this is not what I know. The largest city in Nebraska. Yeah, so none of this is adding up. He, yeah, you would want to keep a low profile, so it doesn't make sense. Yes, well put. I think that was much more succinct than my whole jam.

No, I liked it. The whole Omaha thing was great. So he hires an attorney, a guy named Harry Farnham. This attorney gets a team of psychologists on board. They examine Larry and test him along with the neurologists over about a week and a half. They used hypnosis on him. They were like, we can't see anything

medically wrong with this guy. It doesn't seem like a scam. Back home, Mary is, or I'm sorry, Mary Lou, is she gets this news and she was like, oh, I mean, I'd'm sorry, Mary Lou is, she gets this news. And she was like, Oh, I mean, I'd kind of moved on with my life. I'm, I'm engaged to somebody new who I've been, I've been dating for a few years. Uh, but I can't like, I'm a good Catholic. I'm not gonna like divorce Larry, uh, who is, seems to be back in my life now. Yeah.

And initially she said that she wished he'd never been, he'd never turned up again, that they had gotten used to life without him, they'd accepted that he died and yes, she moved on and now all of a sudden her life to say it was complicated is a real understatement. Like a handful of people's lives were ruined when that guy, the acquaintance of Bader saw Fritz Johnson at that sporting goods convention. Like, ruined. Not only do you have like Mary Lou, Fritz slash Larry,

Larry's wife Nancy, their kids. You also have like the nameless fiance that was engaged to Mary Lou. Like, people's lives were completely upended by the news of this. And apparently the whole time, Fritz Johnson is like, this makes zero sense to me, but the FBI said that my fingerprints match this other guy

and everybody else from Akron is telling me that I'm this other guy. I think I'm Fritz Johnson. But he was resigned, he resigned himself to be like, maybe this is right, maybe they're right. He wasn't just, he didn't deny it the whole time and he did not seem fishy at any point. He was also more than willing to talk to the press as this was going on, but he was not an attention hound.

Yeah, no, not at all. So Mary, all of a sudden, her life has upended with every regional news outlet is banging on her door. The insurance company was like that 40 grand, which will be $400,000 in 2024. Basically life-changing money. We're gonna need that back. All those social security payments,

we're gonna need that back. Even Eddie and his boat rental company, it's like you owe us for boat damages. Johnson, Fritzie, he loses that job, the TV station fires him, he gets that marriage annulled, he moves into a YMCA, starts working at the bar again, making 100 bucks a week, and he's sending money to Mary Lou and Nancy,

and I think keeping about, what, like 70, or 30 bucks for himself to live on. And it's just, it's upheaval everywhere you look. Yeah, for sure. So a few months later, it's funny, she waited a few months, Mary Lou took her four kids, and they went to meet him in Chicago, I guess like a neutral city.

And they spent the weekend together and she told the press later that she was like, he's a great guy, good with the kids, but we're strangers to him. So it was a bit of an awkward weekend essentially. The thing is, is she didn't really have a choice now. Like she was a Catholic, like you said, she didn't believe in divorce

and now her husband was all of a sudden back. So she has to figure out how to work him back into her life and their kids' lives as minimally disruptive as possible. And she's just completely just lost. By this time, Nancy also, she was saying, you know, I'm going to stand by my husband, Fritz. So she was saying, you know, I'm gonna stand by my husband Fritz. At some point she even said, I'm willing to go back to work to help pay Mary Lou child support if he's gonna stay with me, but it just didn't work out as well. So Nancy took her kids and kind of went back into the background to leave Fritz to deal with this whole Akron thing. Yeah, the whole Akron thing. Yeah, I mean, and his kids, I don't think we mentioned their ages. They were two, four, six and unborn when he disappeared. So maybe that

six-year-old has a memory. The others probably had not even any memory of former dad. Right. So again, he's not denying this. He's saying, I don't get this. This doesn't make sense to me, but he's not like, he stopped denying it after the fingerprint thing, but not like a, oh, you caught me kind of thing. He seemed genuinely baffled by this. There's a really good kind of like one of the authoritative articles on this whole thing that was written by the Akron Beakron Journal in September of 1965. Beacon?

Beacon, what'd I say? Akron Beakron. Oh. The Akron Beakron Journal. I say it like a local. Yeah, sure. And it's funny because the journalist who wrote this clearly had just read Hells Angels by Hunter Thompson.

Oh really? He was trying his hand at it. Oh no. So like the whole, the whole thing starts unless this jet flight that he's on on his way to Omaha. It ends on the jet flight too. And like he's talking about them walking through the town, the YMCA. It's just like he, he wrote himself into this, this article. It was just kind of funny to see.

The drugs started to kick in around Barstow. Right. But, um. What are you doing in Barstow? But there was a quote in there that stood out to me that Fritz Johnson told this guy. He said, I've begun to think that God might solve the problem. And it turns out he was right because a year later he died from cancer. Wow. I did not see that quote. Here's just the tip. I'm not a big superstitious guy, but if you believe stuff like that, don't say it out loud.

Right. You don't want to tempt God to kill you. No, because he'll do it just for laughs. Just to show you who's boss. September 16, 1966 is when he died. Did you say it was the tumor? No, I said cancer. It moved to his liver. I think yeah that tumor came back Passed away first Methodist Omaha had a memorial for him then he was transported back to Akron buried in his family plot and now

How many of these explanations do you want to over? Because I almost feel like we should just skip to the one that you dug up. That sounds the most plausible to me. I agree, wholeheartedly. There's just one other thing I wanna say about is two funerals. In Omaha, the funeral was given for Fritz Johnson. In Akron, the funeral was given for Larry Bader,

but it was the same body they moved from one city to the other. Yeah. I think that's cool. That is super cool. And a nice little footnote. Um, but like we said, there were, there were some, some theories that don't seem to hold water about different kinds of amnesia, uh, but then you did some digging. And then I went back and did some further digging once you gave me what you dug.

And it seems like a lot of people on the internet. Uh, and of course these are internet people, so it's not like science isn't studying this. It's just sort of one of those things that's left to smart people on Reddit. But what the general consensus seems to be on the internet is that he suffered from what is known as a disassociative fugue, which is a very strange syndrome in which you can have very, very sudden, really significant retrograde memory loss that can't be attributed to like being hit on the head really hard or something. Like other kinds of amnesia can be explained away in other ways, and this one can't. Right, yeah, fugue state, I mean,

it's basically like they are describing what happened to them. But essentially what happens is you have this amnesia, but it wipes out your episodic memory, your biographical memory, and to the point where you accidentally, inadvertently move away from home, depending on how long it lasts, you're going to travel fairly far away from home.

When you get to where you're going, you're going to set up a new life, the new identity, make new relationships, and you're not going to have any memory whatsoever of the life that came before this. That's a fugue state. And apparently it is actually real. I looked all over for like, like fake, this is made up. This is not correct. Like this is a crackpot theory that some psychologists came up with.

No dissociative fugue is a widely accepted, very, very rare medical condition that they do not know how to explain. There's a struggle between neurology and psychology or psychiatry. Like is it brain-based or is it like a break from some traumatic experience? And apparently it usually is prompted by some negative experience, but it's not something like seeing your family killed. It can be something like being $2,400 in 1957 dollars in debt and stressed out from that. Or, I mean, here's what I think.

I think it could, that whole boat trip and fishing expedition was just on the level and that's really just what he was doing. He had all that cash and the briefcase, the suitcase, because maybe he just didn't want to keep that stuff in the car. And he went out in a really bad storm and had a traumatic event happen out there, like maybe being tossed overboard. I think that could have been the stressful event.

So that's one thing. Another thing too is when this dissociative fugue ends, you will probably remember your real life, but you're not going to remember what happened in the fugue state. My explanation there is that he died of a tumor, so that might have happened to him given enough time, and he just died before that memory of the real life came back to him. So I guess kind of what you're saying

is he died in a fugue state, like he never emerged from the fugue state, huh? Yeah, that's my theory. Okay, I think that's a pretty good theory actually. I mean, it does seem like he was not malingering, he was not faking, this was not a con. It's a just genuine mystery. Because also, like he just checks so many boxes

for a fugue state, but it's just, it usually goes on for what, weeks or months, right? Not years. I don't, that's what I don't know. That's what I saw. Oh really? Yeah. But in that time, you're so convinced of your new identity that you can form relationships that now all of a sudden

are jeopardized around the rocks because you don't remember these people anymore. And you're like, what am I doing in Omaha? Yeah, well, when did he die? 1966 and when, uh... 1965. Yeah, so it was only like a year. Right. I mean, that seems plausible

for what little I know about it. Yeah, hopefully we figure out more about fugue states because then we'll understand a little more about Larry Bader and if we don't, then we're never going to know what happened. Like it's just a mystery. Yeah, I was wondering if this could be a movie, if there's enough there.

And then I decided it probably couldn't be a movie, but it could be like probably like a 10 part Netflix show. A 10 hour long movie. Yeah. With tons and tons of archery montages. Oh man, so many. So you got anything else about Larry Bader? I got nothing else, thanks to Olivia.

This is an interesting one. Yeah, thanks a lot. How'd you hear about this? I meant to ask you that. I am convinced, I know that this came from a listener, but I could not find it anywhere in email, so I don't think it did actually. I think I might've just been searching

for like, you know, kind of crazy stories or something. Or it came to you in a fugue state. Hmm, maybe. Maybe I'm not even Chuck Bryant. Well, Chuck seems like he's having an autobiographical crisis right now, and that of course unlocks listener mail. I'm going to call this Rare Shoutout. We don't really give shout outs on listener mail

Because we get inundated with people saying like hi. Can you say my sister's name? But we're gonna grant this one because it is for a Nana and we like to honor the Nana's of the world. Hey guys, hope this message find you well. I'm reaching out to request a shout out for Nana my Nana She's such a huge fan of you both every Every time I call, she always mentions your show and you would think you guys are family members. If you get into her car, the Bluetooth speaker automatically starts playing an episode. Your show has brought her so much joy over the years

and kept her sharp at the age of 81 and has given us something to connect over. Cause Nana's high praise has got me hooked as well. That's awesome. For the last few years, she's always dreamed of going to one of your live shows, but it's never worked out. Now with her age, it would be difficult for her

to travel to any future potential shows. My Nana is the most important person in my life, and I know it would mean the world to hear a message from you guys. It might be a shot in the dark, but I thought I would try. Thanks for your time and for considering the request. And that is from Nore Schaal's or Schalus, I'm not sure how you pronounce it, but Nana we just want to say

thank you and you're great and we appreciate you and I'm not sure where you live maybe either you or your or Nori can write in and we can find out kind of how close you are and and get you to a show somehow. Maybe we'll go do one at your house or something. Yeah I was gonna say the same thing, a show in Nana's living room. That'd be fun. Especially if it's in Omaha. I've always wanted to see beautiful Omaha. Wouldn't that be something? Well thanks a lot Nana, thank you very much for not only listening to us all this time, but also for turning Nori on to us.

That's pretty great stuff. And if you want to be like Nori and tell us about your awesome grandparent, we want to hear about them. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off via email to stuffpodcastsatihartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, myHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast.

And this January, we're going to go on the road to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada to cover the Consumer Electronics Show, Tech's biggest conference. Better Offline CES coverage won't be the usual rundown of the hottest gadgets or biggest trends, but an unvarnished look at what the tech industry plans to sell or do to you in 2025. I'll be joined by David Roth at Defecta and the writer Edward Ongweiso Jr. with guest appearances from Behind the Bastards' Robert Evans, It Could Happen Here's Gare Davis, and a few surprise guests throughout the show. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app's Gare Davis, and a few surprise guests throughout the show.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts from.