Hey, Weirdos, before we unleash today's macabre mystery, we were wondering, have you ever heard of Wondery Plus?
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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alina. And this is Morbid.
This is morbid. I don't know.
We had to run out of the...
We literally just ran out of the house.
We had to run out for a minute.
And when we came back, Mikey had cleaned the entire studio and lit candles.
And the vibe in here is just a million times better.
So right. It was like the greatest thing in the entire world.
I feel so relaxed. No, I feel so much better.
I'm ordering Panera.
as we speak and this vibe today is about to go crazy.
It's immaculate. Immaculate.
I'm also feeling...
I'm feeling very much in the slasher summer vibe.
Me too because I want to live in it.
I think it's been so like gloomy and a little bit chilly which is nice.
Oh yeah. And we've all been wearing comfy sweatshirts and yeggings.
Yup. Yeggings. We put our yegs in our yeggings and it just feels spooky.
Yeah. And I keep getting, I mean, TikTok's always feeding me my, my vibes.
The halfway to Halloween.
The halfway to Halloween and like Slasher Summer kind of shit.
I'm getting a lot of that, I think because you keep saying it in my presence, but I'm It's getting me in such a mood for it.
Yeah. Like I need it.
Yeah. I'm craving it.
And now I want to watch all the things like the summer Slasher things.
I want to read all the summer Slasher things.
I just watched a pretty good one actually at your recommendation.
For Scream. Scream.
We're gonna be recording it today so it'll be out in like a couple of weeks but um it's called Hell of a Summer.
It was really good.
It's a 2025 one. I think there's a couple movies that are called Hell of a Summer.
It's brand new but it just came out in April.
It was funny. It was I thought it was fun.
It looked fun when I saw it that's why I haven't watched it yet but it like that's why I suggested it to you because when I saw it I was like that's got the vibes.
It feels like it's like campy.
Literally. It is campy in every sense of the word. Can't be like fun slasher where you can laugh and also just kind of like bop along to it.
I love those kind of things.
Yeah, I suggest it.
Definitely go to scream and listen to our episode to get our full opinion.
Yeah. Okay. I'm excited to watch it.
Let's go girl. Um, but yeah, I'm trying to think if there's any more fun if you're looking to pre -order the Butcher Game and paperback because paperbacks are great.
Who doesn't fucking love a paperback?
You know what I mean?
You can put that shit anywhere.
You can put it in your back pocket.
I love when you say that you can put a paper back anywhere.
I don't know. It's just a crazy sentence.
You can literally put it anywhere.
You're not wrong. It's easier sometimes to carry in like a bag or...
People love to shove a book in their back pocket.
Do they? Yeah, I've seen it a lot.
Jess Mariano used to do it in Gilmore Girls.
They just moved. I think that really laid the groundwork for me that people do that.
I think that imprinted on your soul.
I don't think anyone else does that.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone put a book in their back pocket.
and actually I feel like that would make you pretty angry.
Yeah, I wouldn't do it.
I can't even dog ear a page without you dogging on me.
Well I'm also, I'm a hardcover girl.
Oh okay. So it's like this, honestly, I have no business commenting on a paperback conversation.
But you can comment on your own paperback.
But I can give you a paperback that I wrote, so like there you go.
There you go, take it.
And you should definitely pre order it and grab it.
You can pre order it anywhere you want to, you feel in your soul that you want to buy a book.
Whatever bookstore or book outlet feels right to you and feels lovely to you, do that.
I support it, especially smaller indie bookstores.
They're like the best, butchers.
I love a small indie bookstore.
And if you need like a list of them you can go to thebutchergame .com and there's like a little list of, it'll bring you to different places.
But yeah, go do that because you really want to catch up the story because who knows why.
Who knows what's coming down the pike?
Who knows why you might want to catch up on this story.
I don't. I don't know anything.
Who can be sure? Who knows question mark?
I don't know. Maybe hang on to that information.
Maybe. You know. I don't know.
But go catch up on it and a paperback is a great way to do that.
It's true. So let's go, girls.
Let's G O O O O O O O.
Boop boop boop boop boop.
So today we're gonna be, we're gonna do a two -parter here.
Two -parter. And it's just because there's like a lot going on.
This is a wild one, this is the Mad Bomber of New York.
Okay. It did happen in the 1940s, but just because it happened in the 1940s doesn't mean it's not an insane story.
In fact it might make it more insane.
It might make it and I think it does.
Uh, this is a very interesting one.
Any New Yorkers, I wonder if you guys like know about this, have heard about it, maybe family members told you about it, it seems like New York was really put through it during this.
Oh man. So this started, it was in the fall of 1940 when an employee of the Consolidated Edison Company in Manhattan discovered a bomb in the company's main offices.
Shit. Along with a note that said, Khan Edison Crooks, this is for you.
Oh damn. The bomb was discovered before it detonated, and no one was harmed.
But a year later, the company received a second bomb followed by a note to the NYPD where the bomber announced that he was going to make no more bombs for the duration of World War II, but then he would begin again after the war ended.
So this motherfucker's playing a long game.
Oh yeah. You don't call him the mad bomber for nothing.
No. the mad bombers it was literally a reign of terror on New York it lasted for a long time remember this is the fall of 1940 he was not he ends up being captured luckily so don't worry New York good news but he was captured in 1957 oh wow it was a lot and when they finally got him he him as a person and his motives didn't make a lot of sense to New York it's always interesting when that happens.
Yeah they'd lived in fear of what was going on here.
So in the early afternoon of November 18th, 1940 the desk sergeant at the 20th squad of the NYPD received a call from a very anxious employee of like we mentioned before the consolidated Edison Company, Con Ed, we'll call it.
Oh no. On West 64th Street.
According to the caller one of the con ed employees was on a when he noticed a little, you know, wooden toolbox just sitting unattended on a window ledge on the second floor.
I'm glad he thought this was a little weird because if he had just ignored it it would have been a big problem.
Can you imagine finding a fucking bomb on your break?
No, you're just on lunch. You're just on lunch, man.
And you're just trying to get away from everybody.
Yeah, you're just trying to take a minute away from your fucking job.
And then you have a bomb on your shoulders.
And then you're like, now I have to report a bomb.
Yeah, that's a lot.
I just wanted to have my egg salad sandwich, you know?
Oh, that sounds good.
It does. So when the man approached the toolbox, he saw that it contained a four and a half piece of iron pipe, which was capped in both ends, which like immediately not good.
And when he looked closer at it, he found a small piece of paper wrapped around it.
So this person unwrapped the paper.
Damn, that's brave as fuck.
Pretty brave and like...
Ballsy? Don't do that.
Don't do that. If ever you find a strange looking wooden box.
And found on that piece of paper, he found that it was a note written in neat block print that read con Edison crooks this is for you a second line of text underneath it It was written in a coarse grey substance Apparently and it read there is no shortage of powder boys and the note was simply signed fp So it was easing powder boys or was he saying boys there's no shortage of powder powder I think powder boys.
Powder boys. So I think he's calling these bombs maybe powder boys.
Ohhhh. It's like a pipe bomb.
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
The implications of the note obviously sent the employee into a full panic and he carefully set the toolbox down on the windowsill because remember this man is now holding this pipe bomb.
And he ran it, luckily, it didn't detonate, and he ran to the phone and called the police.
Later when the note was tested, it was discovered that the second line of text was written in gunpowder.
Ohh! which was the same substance that was packed into the pipe hate that powder boys at the time though the NYPD officers who responded to the call had no idea what they were actually dealing with here although bombings or threats of bombings had kind of increased across the city throughout the first half of the 20th century just would like advancement of people knowing how to make these things yeah those matters were handled by the bomb and forgery squad obviously there's like a specialized thing so it's like when you have a group that's specially trained to do this stuff the regular patrol
officers are like i don't really know what to do with this bomb yeah call in the special guys yeah they had so when they were called in they had to report this explosive device to that specialized squad and they had to wait hours for the bomb and forgery squad to arrive which i'm like i feel like that squad should be a bit more prompt that's the thing that's how i feel i feel like they should be maybe those like you gotta have one foot out the door at all times kind of squad You're an emergency responder pretty much so.
And you're very, I feel like timeliness is next to godliness in that scenario.
When it comes to bombs I'd say so.
Um, when it comes to bombs, you know?
Because you don't know when that's gonna go off.
You don't. You wanna get there before it does.
Yeah, so waiting hours feels risky.
Hours? Risky. I'd be pissed if it took them like 25 minutes.
Hours? Yeah! Yeah, I'd be pissed that just the regular patrol officer showed up I'd be like, I did say this is a bomb.
When it's like obviously you can evacuate and like hopefully they did.
But then you also have a whole building on your hands.
And then that if that does explode and the building falls down, you got a whole mess to clean up and people could get hurt, Like so many things could happen.
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So when they did finally arrive at the Con Ed building, the lead detective on the bomb squad confirmed that what they found was indeed a quote infernal machine, which was a homemade explosive device, quote, maliciously designed to explode and destroy life or property, but And it still hadn't gone off yet.
It still hadn't gone off.
Now unlike more sophisticated devices that you know, use electronic components, the, a bomb that you're probably thinking in your head right now, with the wires and shit.
The Infernal Machine, which is one of the scariest names for something.
Great band name. I literally was just going to say the, there has to be.
I'm going to Google it.
Infernal Machine has to be a band name.
It is a very crude, very volatile explosive that could be triggered by a number of things, like this is not an electronic explosive so it's not like somebody's just waiting or they set it to go off at a certain point, it's like, it gets triggered by random things.
It's a band. It I knew it had to be.
Yeah, it's a band. Good on you for making that because that's a great band name.
Yeah, absolutely. um also the pipe bomb couldn't be deactivated in like a traditional sense like a regular bomb but instead it had to be just detonated in a controlled setting like they just had to explode the bomb in a controlled area so far because in like a regular bomb there's a way to detonate it or to like deactivate it with like electronically in the shit yeah yeah this This one's just like a very crude, fucking infernal machine.
So where do you go?
So I don't really know.
I think they go to like clearings to do these things.
So sometimes it still has to be done.
Like they have to find places to do these things.
So they really have to go to like places, obviously where there's absolutely no chance that somebody could be hurt by this.
The squad knew that the bomb had already been handled by the employee who had reported it.
So they knew it wasn't triggered by, you know, moving it from its position, and after clearing the building one of the squad members donned a suit of body armor and used a 5 foot grabbing pole and he turned the device over looking for any kind of timing device or other potential triggers.
That's so scary he didn't find anything and getting no result from poking at it and you know handling the device they were fairly certain it was not triggered by movement and the pipe was retrieved, placed inside a bag.
The bag was made of woven steel cable because that like, that's how they transport bombs.
Yeah. And it was taken out to the containment truck and taken to a secluded area where it was inspected and ultimately submerged in motor oil.
Why? Apparently, and this is very interesting, motor oil was believed to clog up any moving parts that might trigger the device.
Oh. Which I'm like, how did you guys figure that out?
Yeah, that's interesting.
What was the test that made that thing?
I mean it is very thick, so I guess that makes sense, viscous.
It is. So once they were confident that the bomb was a dud, investigators transported it back to headquarters for analysis.
Now inside the pipe, technicians found a large amount of gunpowder in several typical bomb components including a flashlight bulb, a battery and a steel spring, as well as a cough drop.
What? which no one could explain why that cough drop was used or I don't know if that was wrapped up.
I don't know if they can tell if that was a huge cough drop or not, but yeah, a cough drop.
Why no one knows to this day that's bizarre.
Despite having all the right parts and a cough drop to boot, it was clear a little bit of something extra, a little spice.
Maybe they wanted it to like smell good.
Yeah, I guess. I don't know.
I have no idea. But despite having all the right parts, it was clear to experts that the bomb had been incorrectly assembled by a very amateur person.
It was never in danger of exploding at all.
Well, that's good news.
Yeah. But while there may have not been any imminent danger, the threat was very real and investigators needed to identify the maker of the device before he improved on his technique.
I was just going to say before he got better.
Yeah. And, and struck again?
Yeah. Because if they do it once of course they can do it again one especially if he knows it didn't go off.
Yeah now he's gonna be pissed.
Now in 1940 consolidated Edison was one of the largest employers in Manhattan with thousands of employees many of whom worked in the building where the bomb was found.
Also as the primary supplier of electricity for the whole region the company served millions of customers.
That's basically it was clear that whoever left the bomb had clearly a grudge with this company.
But that fact alone didn't narrow the pool of suspects down at all.
Because remember, we got thousands of employees and millions of customers.
Now further complicating the whole thing was the fact that Con Ed was a conglomerate of several smaller companies operating under like one umbrella, all operating in different parts of the city.
okay that means that even if police did want to take the time to comb through all their administrative records it could have been literally years before they found anything that could help them if they found anything at all right um so because of that the incident report was written up and filed and no one really gave it a thought the bomb incident report yeah they were just like well that happened now in late september 1941 nearly a year after this first bomb was discovered at Con Ed building, passersby noticed something strange lying in the road a few blocks away from the Con Ed building at 4
Irving place. It was stuffed inside a red wool sock with a 4 inch length of pipe with both ends capped.
Just as they'd done before, police officers called the bomb squad and the device was removed and determined to be a dud.
Then it was taken back to headquarters for analysis.
There was no note with this one, but to the members of the bomb squad, the device was immediately recognizable as being the work of whoever had left the bomb at Con Ed the previous year.
Was there another cough -drop?
Inside, they found the same ingredients as the previous bomb, all assembled in the same way, and another cough drop.
Called it. Cough drop.
What? Cough drop number two.
Does he ever say why?
We're at a loss. God damn.
Now given that the bomb was assembled the same exact way as the previous one, including the weird fucking cough drop.
I was gonna say random ingredients and all.
Like that's the thing that's really nailing it and then it was discovered around the corner of the Con Ed building.
Investigators were like, yeah, this is the same guy.
Equally disturbing was the fact that a year had passed and the bomber still appeared intent on bombing the Con Ed building.
That's commitment. This time though they theorized that he had been on his way to the building and was interrupted or maybe diverted and chose to drop the explosive in the street and abandoned his plan.
Within days of finding the explosive in the street, letters started arriving at the Con Ed headquarters, as well as newspaper editorial desks, hotels, and department stores around the city.
The letters were pretty short, pretty vague, mostly alluding to, you know, quote, dastardly deeds and ghoulish acts that The Power Company had committed, and demanding, quote, justice for wrongs perpetrated against the writer of the notes and others.
These notes were mostly hand -printed in that same, like, very blocky handwriting.
But some were typewritten, though.
Like, it wasn't consistent throughout.
Okay. And the clauses were all separated by dashes rather than commas or periods.
Okay. All the notes were written on the same plain white paper.
There was no identifying information about the sender other than the initials FP.
And many contained allusions to or outright threats of another bomb coming.
A few months later on December 7th 1941, the Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor military base in Honolulu, Hawaii.
I'm sure we all know about that.
This effectively drew the American military into World War II.
Not long after that attack on Pearl Harbor, the usual round of recipients of FP letters received a new note.
Although the latest letter included the usual vague threats and, you know, claims of injustice, the sender also seemed to understand that with the entire country preoccupied with the nation's, you know, now forceful entry into a World War, there was very little chance that he was gonna get the kind of attention that he was so craving here.
So he was, like, you know what?
I'm gonna let somebody else have their moment right now." He said, I will make no more bomb units for the duration of the war.
My patriotic feelings have made me decide this.
Later, I will bring the Con Ed to justice.
They will pay for their dastardly deeds.
Like that doesn't feel very patriotic.
Yeah, that feels pretty rough.
It's killing your fellow man.
To everyone's surprise though, he remained true to his word. And there were no other bombs or letters from FP in the years that followed. Interesting!
the war raged on across Europe and the nation's attention was obviously he was right they were consumed by fighting yeah and New York forgot kind of all about FP and his grudge against you know the whole the Con Ed building and employees and company as a whole but FP he was not giving up on this mission he was lurking yeah and he did not have any intention of being forgotten just Just before 5 30pm on the afternoon of March 29th, 1951, the peak of rush hour at Grand Central Station, an explosive device detonated and a cigarette urn placed outside the entrance to the Grand Central Oyster Bar.
It sent sand, cigarette butts, and other debris flying in all directions.
Despite being placed on one of the lower levels by track 27, there were no passer -bys when the bomb went off.
Wow. Wow, that's lucky.
And no one was hit.
That's amazing. Inside this pipe bomb, he had packed nuts and bolts in there too.
Oh wow. Which is what some of these fuckers do, like the Boston bombing.
That's what I was just going to say.
It's one of the ones that obviously sticks out to us.
They put all this fucking horrific shrapnel in it to get the most damage.
To do extra damage, yeah.
So, since the bomb had already detonated by the time the police came to Grand Central Station, there was no need for the bomb squad.
But investigators still had little evidence to work with and initially attributed the incident to boys or pranksters.
Y 'all. I'm sorry. I know… A pipe bomb is not pranksters.
Yeah, I was, I don't know about all that.
Yeah. The remains of the device were turned over to the bomb squad for analysis, but nearly a decade had passed since the bombs were discovered at the Con Ed building at this point.
And this time, no one recognized the pipes and their various components because it had kinda gone out of everyone's minds.
Even if someone had recalled the bomb discoveries back in 1941 it's unlikely they would have made you know the connection here because this latest bomb one it went off right.
It also contained no gunpowder but instead contained just one 25 caliber round that was rigged to a mechanism that would discharged at a predetermined time and it would send the shrapnel out in all So he has obviously upped his game.
Right, it is remarkable that nobody was walking by.
Yes, especially like you said, peak traffic time at Grand Central Station.
It's amazing, right next to track 27, I can't believe that nobody was hit.
Veterans on the bomb squad, however, would likely have recognized one thing.
A cough drop. One cough drop contained in the pipe.
Bitch I just Googled it and I couldn't find anything about why he did that.
Why? No one knows. Why??
But by that time, it had been disintegrated with the rest of the internal components.
So they wouldn't have been able to see it anyways.
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But we know that it was there because we know it's the same guy.
Yeah. So the bomb at Grand Central failed to achieve much notice by the police or the press because they were kind of chalking it up to like which I'm like what kind of fucking teams were running the New York bathroom.
And the second bomb that detonated after this one, because there was another one, didn't receive a lot of attention either.
It detonated inside a phone booth in the basement of the New York Public Library.
I would call that a big deal.
Like the one at Grand Central Station, the second bomb caused no injuries, luckily, and barely registered with anyone, earning a few paragraphs pretty deep in the pages of The New York Times that day.
But wouldn't everybody be like hey it seems like.
why are the bombings like could be related but still this time the bombings were different they didn't cause much damage or harm to anyone that was only because no one had been unfortunate enough to be around when they went off that's just were it would cause massive damage had anyone been near either when they detonated they would have i don't think they would have survived i really don't they would it would be very lethal that meant that although the police didn't know it at the time, FP had become, like we were just talking about, more skilled and sophisticated as a bomb maker in the decade
since he had started doing this.
Which makes sense, he's obviously been studying how to do this for years.
Which, like, why the fuck is he still doing this?
And in August, FP struck again, with another bomb at Grand Central Station.
A little past 9 p .m. on the night of August 27th, a bomb went off in a phone booth on the West Concourse.
like the earlier bombs this one caused some damage but no injuries Wow I know this is remarkable it is remarkable the Grand Central bomb was followed a few weeks later by another bomb this one placed in a phone booth in the lobby of the Con Ed offices at for Irving place if that doesn't worry some eyebrows yeah the bomb exploded and caused some damage to the lobby but because it was detonated at 615 am the only person in the building was a Watchmen, and he wasn't in the lobby when it went off, so it's missing like any purpose, it's like really remarkable.
Because it's not like he's doing that on purpose, like you were, the first one when he came back again yeah was high traffic time he's putting them in phone booths, like yeah it's not like he's going out of his way, to yeah, and then he's also putting shrapnel in them so obviously he does want to cause damage, and and like you said he's putting them in places where people would be, yeah they just happen to not be there, it's was like really wild.
So yeah, in fact, the damage had been so minimal and mostly confined to the phone booth.
The nightwatchmen didn't even bother to call the police right away and waited several hours before even reporting it.
Okay, that's a bad plan because there could be more.
Yeah, that's wild. Where there's one bomb as we find out there's many.
So the bombs all were pretty similar in their construction.
So one investigator or a few investigators were believing that they probably were constructed in place by the same individual.
But because the bombs at Grand Central, the public library and Con Ed appeared to have been detonated at the time, at a time when they were like, cause that's the thing.
It's like he put them in places where people would be, but he detonates them at times where people won't be there or not a lot of people will be there like 615am.
But what about the high traffic one?
That's the one that it's like that one, you know, that stands out.
yeah that one stands out but a few of the other ones it almost looked like they were almost put to cause...
because it they there's like conflicting ideas here because it's like there's shrapnel in them it looks like there's clearly a they're wanting to hurt someone but then the times that a lot of them are placed or are detonated I should say are interesting okay you know yeah because it's it is crazy that they're not getting anyone right like they're not hurting anyone.
Investigators assumed because of this that maybe it was like a prank and they were detonating it on purpose when people wouldn't be there to cause damage and like chaos, but not hurt anyone.
So they were so convinced that the bombs were the work of an, quote, addled prankster that they were reluctant to provide any details to the press saying it would just build up the ego of the nut who did it.
Okay. I guess I sort of get that.
kind of see where they're coming from.
And again, this is like the 1950s.
So like, you know. Yeah.
A little different.
Regardless of what they told the press, in private investigators on the bomb squad were at least somewhat concerned of the bombs.
Like the investigators are kind of like, they're at odds a little bit of what this actually is.
In each case, the bombs did get slightly larger and more sophisticated.
So again, this is kind of showing or suggesting that like the bomber who is doing this is really learning as he goes.
And he's like keeping up with his, you know...
...interest. ...of trying to figure out how to do this better and better.
And he's getting better at it.
And in the report on the second bomb at Grand Central Station, the technician wrote, quote, marriage of a well -constructed mechanism.
It shows considerable advance in technique as compared with the earlier bombs.
Also, because the bombs were clearly created and placed by the same person, it was impossible for the bomb squad to ignore the reality that they were dealing with a serial bomber.
And it was only a matter of time before someone was going to get hurt.
Regardless of whether that's the intention or not, it's gonna happen.
Just the way that this all like works.
A month later on October 22nd, the bomber struck again.
This time in a bathroom at the Paramount theater.
Fortunately the bomb was discovered before it was detonated.
Oh that's good. And the bomb squad was able to disassemble it without much trouble.
but that right there that there was in feels like there was well once you realize who he is you're like okay like the other devices the bomb was constructed with a roughly four inch long pipe containing a 25 caliber shell with that mechanism small amount of gunpowder at the time roughly 3500 patrons were in the theater one floor above watching a show wow so this would have caused Massive casualties or at least massive damage.
And so like that one was like, oh shit.
So just as police were investigating the scene at the Paramount, the editor of the New York Herald Tribune received a letter by special delivery.
Inside was a letter written in block lettering that said, Bombs will continue until the Consolidated Edison Company is brought to justice for their dastardly acts against me.
I have exhausted all other means.
I intend with bombs to cause others to cry out for justice for me.
But you're not telling anybody what happened.
You're not telling anyone what happened.
You're gonna hurt someone.
So no one's gonna speak for you.
And now you want these people that you're trying to harm or inconvenience at the very least to cry out for you.
That's what I mean when...
Your thinking is a little scattered.
Motive isn't making a lot of sense.
The note confirmed that FP had planted the bomb at the Paramount, but it also made reference to a second bomb in a telephone booth at Penn Station.
Oh shit. It said, if I don't get justice, I will continue, but with bigger bombs.
Police spent hours searching Penn Station but found no sign of a bomb anywhere on the premises and eventually abandoned the search in the early morning hours.
While they may not have discovered a second bomb, the bomber had made their intentions and motivation pretty clear in the letter, which was published in the Herald Tribune the next day.
With the publication of the letter, the NYPD had to end that whole theory of like, maybe they're just pranksters and we don't want to feed their ego.
Like they had that in that whole thing.
The city, the city clearly had a serial bomber on their hands, and he was clear that he intended to continue this reign of terror until he got what he wanted, which no one really knows how to give him that.
Cause nobody knows what happened.
Like, I want them held.
I want justice for their dastardly deeds against me.
Which were what? And you're like, cool, cool, cool.
Can you tell us what those were so we can, uh, bring them to justice for it?
Name em. Name em. Name em.
Name em. Uh, so the letter made clear, at least, that the bomber had some connection to ComEd, but again, who the fuck are you?
Right? Like, it didn't help to identify the sender.
If anything, police found themselves right back to where they were a decade earlier, with a suspect list of millions of employees, former employees and customers.
In the absence of facts, evidence, anything concrete that they could use, wild theories started to emerge, including the suggestion that the bomber was operating on a lunar calendar, which led the NYPD to increase manpower during the full moon.
They said, it's witches.
They said, it's werewolves.
they said them, them witches be out here.
The werewolves are who in Holland.
They said, Oh, that's just Jacob Black.
Don't worry about that.
They said, Bella, where you been?
They said, Bella, where the hell you been?
Loca that is one of the most diabolical lines in literary history.
Or is it the most genius?
I said diabolical, I didn't say bad, I just said diabolical.
Also, there is just a quick little side because we are who we are and that reminded me of it.
If you're looking for a really funny TikTok to watch, let me bring it up.
Have you told me about this?
No, I haven't. That's fake as fuck.
You're telling the masses before you tell your sister?
You should all follow this person because she is very, very funny and what she's doing is she does recreations of what it's like to be in the boardroom during the making of all the Twilight movies.
Oh my god that's iconic.
Her name is Ellie Collins following right now and it's uh her like thing on TikTok is E -L -L -I -E Collins like C -O -L -L -I -N with four S's.
She is so fucking funny and all the things that they go through with those movies you you will just sit there and be like what the fuck were we doing i just followed her i love it i love it so much so go check her out she's really funny um she also did a whole series of all of taylor swift's exes listening to her new songs as they came out oh i think those have come up on my filming page before she did look familiar real funny yeah uh but yeah so bella where the hell you've been, Loca.
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So well, they put more people on on the full moon because you got to try everything you know?
You should just have more people on the full moon all the time.
It'd just be crazy.
People be wild in a full moon.
We're a huge percent water.
It's true. There you go.
We're a huge percent water.
We're a huge percent water.
It's like 86 or something.
It's pretty impressive.
It's huge. It's pretty impressive how water we are, you know?
We do be a lot of water.
Are we the ocean? I don't know.
The tides are within.
While they seemed willing to entertain any theory, regardless of how serious it seemed, investigators in the NYPD and on the bomb squad knew the type of panic that a serial bomber was going to instill in the public, and they just wanted to stop him.
Because now people are - It's going to be hard for people to live their lives normally here, especially in New York City.
And they didn't care what the method was.
They just wanted to stop this guy.
That's not great. In early November, police arrested 56 year old former Con Ed employee, Frederick Eberhardt, in connection with a hoax bomb that was sent to Con Ed a few weeks earlier.
Okay. Based on his employee file, um, Frederick fit the profile of the man investigators were looking for.
Uh, the district attorney told reporters he had been sending simulated bombs around the city the past few months.
Rude. Yeah. During his arraignment on November 7th the prosecution alleged that Frederick had sent a package to Edwin Jennings, the head of personnel at Con Ed, which contained what Jennings believed was another pipe bomb.
But when they inspected it, the pipe contained nothing more than white sugar.
According to company records Frederick Frederick was fired by Con Ed in 1948 for, quote, stealing material and was tried and ultimately acquitted.
Following his acquittal, Frederick sued Con Ed for $75 ,000 in damages, alleging false arrest, and the case was still pending trial at the time.
Despite him being a very strong suspect, his wife loudly protested his arrest and was very against him being admitted to Bellevue for evaluation, saying, quote, this arrest is outrage he never sent those things he couldn't hurt a fly.
Oh. If the NYPD hoped Frederic's arrest would put an end to the bomb threats of the recent months they were very disappointed very quickly.
Were they scapegoating him a bit?
Just a few days after Frederic's arrest was announced in the papers the bomb squad received an anonymous call reporting that bombs had been planted at the capital theater on broadway and a roman catholic church on East 28th street.
Oh no. While the bomb squad found no bombs in either location, later that evening, a pipe bomb was detonated at the IRT subway station in Union Square, sending shrapnel through a row of metal lockers.
Once again, no one was hurt.
This is bizarre. Isn't it bizarre as fuck?
It's incredible. Wonderfully bizarre that no one's getting hurt here, but bizarre.
The hell, wild! and FP?
He wasted no time claiming credit, sending a letter to the editor of the Herald Tribune.
He said, to Herald Tribune editors, have you noticed the bombs in your city?
If you are worried, I am sorry.
And also if anyone is injured, but it cannot be helped for justice will be served.
I am not well. And for this, I will make the Con Edison sorry.
Yes, they will regret their dastardly deeds.
I will bring them before the bar of justice public opinion will condemn them, for beware, I will place more units under theater seats in the near future.
Oh. It was clear from the recent bombings that Frederick Eberhard was not the bomber, and on May 15th, 1952, a court dismissed the charges against him, which forced the NYPD to admit that there was still very much a serial bomber loose somewhere in the city.
Mm -hmm. So, the bomber struck three times in 1952, once in a phone booth at the Port Authority bus terminal and twice at the Lexington theater.
At the Lexington theater, it was bombs left under random seats.
It was in the second bombing at the Lexington on December 8th that someone was finally injured.
Oh no. A woman sitting in the same row where the bombs were placed during a showing of everything I have is yours, was struck by flying shards of metal shrapnel and it caused several lacerations on her feet and legs.
Ah, but she did live.
That's good. But what a horrible thing to happen.
You're just sitting in a movie theater?" During this period, the NYPD and the investigators on the bomb squad were releasing little, if any, information to the public about the bombings.
So it's like, maybe they should have, and maybe people wouldn't have gone to the movies.
Exactly. So the details of the bombings between 1952 and 1954 are kind of limited.
Okay. On March 10th, 1953, smack dab in the middle, a bomb was planted in one of the seat cushions in the 16, 6 ,000 seat Radio City Music Hall.
Oh shit. Ever heard of it?
Yeah, Paige and Hannah sold that shit out, bitch. Yeah, the same one.
The spectators were about halfway through the movie when the bomb went off, causing panic and chaos among this very large crowd.
At the request of the NYPD, the incident was minimized by the press the following day, with several papers ignoring it altogether.
Radio City Musical.
The fuck? How do you ignore that?
The Herald Tribune, who had received many of the bomber's letters, referred to the as, quote, the work of a psychopath.
Well, others use, like, very dismissive language to kind of minimize the danger.
I would say that was pretty fucking dangerous.
A few months later, when a bomb exploded in a luggage locker at Grand Central Station in early May, a police spokesperson was similarly dismissive, telling the press, quote, the culprit was a mental case in search of publicity.
It's like, yeah, but bombs keep going off in various locations, so maybe we should do something and find that person?
it's like my friends i'm not here debating what's happening in his noggin yeah i'm here saying that like he's setting off bombs around the city so like maybe just stop that right instead of just being like oh it's just a nut just cry cry yeah he's he's a fucking brilliant nut he's making scary dangerous bombs that have hurt at least one person right and it's shocking that they haven't hurt anybody else the minimal press coverage was an offense to the bomber too and it's like they should have thought of that, that this guy is looking for attention clearly.
And I know that it's like, it's a hard line to walk, that's the thing, it's kind of like, Zodiac and Jack the Ripper.
It's like, when they're looking for the attention, you don't want to give it to them.
But you also don't want to set it off anymore, so it's like, I can't say that I would know how to handle this, as an investigator and what to tell the press.
And especially, again, during this time period.
Exactly. This is a very new type of mind that they're dealing with.
Yeah, exactly. And he, so he started sending outraged letters to the editorial departments of the city's major papers.
That's scary. And a letter to the editor and staff of New York Herald Tribune, and less sloppy or no reporting is corrected about bombings.
Public will get information by way of Moscow.
Get this into your heads.
The Consolidated Edison Company will be brought to justice.
All of my physical, mental, and financial sufferings will be paid for and full.
You know that bombs are getting bigger.
So far the hand of God has spared everyone from death or serious injury.
Believe me, I know.
In the press, now and then I am called a bad name.
Just what name fits you people who denied me the purchase of space to tell my story?
You who are too yellow to print the facts which concern the safety of so many?
I'm bewildered by your attitude.
I can only respond with more and larger bombs.
every day that passes means a day closer to another bomb.
Yikes. He's scary. Very scary.
And upping the ante.
And again, is not telling anyone what the fuck happened and how they can fix it.
Yeah. And he's literally saying, like, the hand of God has spared people from not getting hurt, like, not me.
Which like he was kind of alluding not to that before, but now he's just being like, oh that's just happenstance.
which is scary. And it almost sounds like he like he went to them and tried to get his story about what happened at the con place out and they said no yeah which is like strange cuz I'm like what the fuck how do we find out what happened to him?
We find out that so we'll find well we'll find out more in part two we're actually gonna stop there because if there's gonna be butthead after that that letter to the New York Tribune there the Herald Tribune it's another year that passes without any new bombs interesting yeah and then it does return oh no so we're gonna talk about that in part two all right yeah and this is an interesting case very interesting heard anything about this one before yeah this is a very very interesting it's strange and yeah it's so strange like and it's like it almost seems like the plot of a movie instead of a real
thing that happened.
But I really am curious if any of you are from New York or are like Native New Yorkers who have family that were around at this time.
I'd be curious to hear if they tell you what it was like to be around.
Because it's like my mom was living in Boston with girlfriends when the Boston Strangler was tooting around in an apartment together.
On his route. And they had things in place.
I think we talked about it in the episode too.
deter him like tin cans like aluminum cans on top of each other in front of the door so that if it opened it would fall over and alert them because their apartment door she said you could open with like a credit card, yeah it was like that janky.
It's crazy so I'm curious to see if any of you can get any like cool stories out of my family members let us know.
Yeah and if you want to write them in we would love to share them so just let us know if we have permission.
Yeah definitely. Wow I'm very interested to hear part two.
Very interesting story.
So with that being said, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. That's where you don't write in your stories if you have them because now I'm so interessante.
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