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Hey, weirdos. I'm Alayna.
I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but for you, it's probably June.
I was like Nope Nope I was like I'm going somewhere with this I'm going somewhere with this Me and Mikey both were like No Oh Nope Nope It's not that I was like For me it is Give me a moment Just let me live Yeah It's literally Almost Kermis for us We're five days out It's the new year For you It's 2025 What's it like in the future It's been the new year for you Yeah Is it cool there I hope so Is everything better What are the drones doing Oh my god I was just gonna say that uh they could abduct me it's fine it's not aliens i was gonna say they won't because it's not aliens it's the government
so i don't want them to abduct me no i'm not saying the government i want i would like aliens to come through and pick me up because i'm scared because i'm scared can you pick me up i'm just kind of complacent now that's like scary for you though yeah i'm like numb to it i'm just like well it is what it is i got that too it's so funny i had like welcome to my therapy sessions i had like the worst end of the world anxiety for a long time like especially this year yeah i think just like the mental state that i was in really fed to that yeah fed that but now i'm just like i feel like one people have always
thought the world was ending and that helps me immensely it's fine and then can't do anything about it yeah so like why my therapist like really did some great fucking work on my mind she did yeah shout out to her shout out to her shout out to all my therapists out there years.
There's been like eight of them.
Pour one out for each of them.
Each one of them. Each one.
Each one. Well, I have an interesting case for us today that has nothing to do with therapy and everything to do with robbery.
Well, there we go. We told you we were going to give you a little palate cleanser -y kind of thing.
Yeah, it's definitely palate cleanser -y.
This has just like, put them up, fella.
She's got a transatlantic accent.
Yes, A hundred percent.
She's got the Bob haircut.
Yeah, there's so many quotes throughout this, and I don't know if I'm great at a transatlantic accent, but I'm definitely going to try.
That one was interesting, but I have faith in you.
No, that's fair. I'm also really tired.
Mikey also... No, it wasn't good.
It was... Honestly, it was...
Oh, Mikey's worried that everyone's going to come after me, probably.
Listen, he left me, so you better...
No, it was awesome.
That was such a good trans...
Oh, now they're really going to come after you because that was fake as fuck.
no but i wish everybody saw the the finger guns that went along with it because it really added to it i liked it yeah i was you know i do what i can yeah i'm gonna punch ash in the face after this guys she hits me a lot all the time it's crazy um i don't know how to transition out of i was like where do we go from here leave all the lights on please all right all right all right so robbery transatlantic accent and ladies and what what is this case called it has a fun name it's called and you already know because you pressed the episode but for those of you who didn't read it the bobbed haired
bandit see that's that's what i'm talking about bobbed haired bandit that's what we need after the blackout ripper and you know know what i have a fuck -ass bob right now you do have a fuck -ass so i feel seen and my hairdresser just had her baby so i'm gonna have a fuck -ass bob for longer than i thought which is totally fine welcome to the world t um but i it was the perfect time to do this story absolutely cementing in my fuck -ass bobdom and let's go fuck -ass bobdom i like that bobdom i like our Hashtag still a thing use that Let's go I'm old All right a little past 9 30 on the evening of January
5th 1924 One Lester Loudon That's his name Lester Lester isn't that a cute name Like Lester Holt I love him Lester Loudon Lester Loudon He was working at the Thomas Ruleston Grocery in Park Slope Brooklyn That night had been pretty quiet And as the evening was going on Fewer and fewer customers were coming in The store was completely empty When a young woman entered And let me tell you baby baby she was serving luke's she was wearing a seal fur coat over a beautifully beaded dress it looked like she was on her way to a party oh damn he said who's that girl in her fuck ass bob he didn't even know
who madonna was yet so it was crazy but the woman approached the counter where he was standing and she had her hands in her coat pockets and she just said hello can i have a dozen eggs i can't do transatlanticism so hashtag death cab for cutie it's a great song it really is it gets you crying oh it does oh all right well as loudon was wrapping up the eggs for this beautiful young woman she took a few steps back from the counter and pulled out a 25 automatic pistol from that seal fur coat and she shouted at him stick him up quick she did like a may west style that was my best shirt impressive bitch
she said i'm happy to see you and it's a gun wait you're good at it don't do that this is my episode and not yours but he immediately threw them hands in the air like hell yeah like he did care he cared very much in that moment he deeply cared he was uh he was obviously focused on the woman in front of him with a giant pistol but he also noticed that in the time it had taken him to get the ass what i was just gonna say eggs but then my mouth went to say ass the ass i don't know it's a romantic it's a romantic vibe in this fucking low scrooge tree store it's the end of the year i'm so tired i'm
like but did she get the eggs she didn't want the eggs i want the eggs and the time it takes to get the eggs i'm getting eggs today happy eggs yay me too a man had entered the store and was now corralling the other clerks to the back of a store like he was like everybody back here another woman everybody back here now yes the woman motioned for loudon to join the other clerks she was like go on get back there and she held her gun on all of them and the man shouted to her hold him back as he started rifling through the register stuffing bills and handfuls of coins into his pocket that night also one
of the clerks hadn't pushed the cash envelope all all the way into the safe so they were also able to get that as well once they grabbed all the cash in the store 680 dollars in total back then which doesn't sound like a ton that would be 12 545 dollars today holy shit because this is 1924 the roaring 20s they get all that money and they started backing away in the direction of the door and the man yelled don't make a move if you want your head blown off just try to follow us out oh i liked that one yeah i liked that doing that there There was also some more finger guns.
Because he's backing up with guns.
They said, if you want your head blown off, just try to follow us out.
Don't make a move. Don't make any moves.
Outside, they jumped into their car that was parked across the street, and they drove off, leaving the six clerks just huddled in the back of the store like, what the fuck just happened here?
Damn. And probably traumatized.
Probably. So to the police and the public, the robbery of the grocery store wasn't that shocking.
It wasn't that surprising.
uprising the economy was trending downward in new york at the time we're entering the great depression it was pretty jazzy it was you know yeah shit was popping off a lot of men were out of work it was also the time of prohibition so crime in general was on the rise between bootleggers and organized crime rings it was it was fucking wild the new york streets yeah in new york the press dubbed 1923 the gunman's year noting that 270 murders had been committed with guns that year, many in the commission of armed robbery.
So this unfortunately wasn't like a new concept to anybody.
Yeah. Yeah. And all of this culminated in a culture of criminality that New Yorkers simply came to accept as a reality of life in the city at this point.
On a smaller level, it kind of reminds me of what you were talking about with the blackouts in the Blackout River story.
It's like the setting really, the setting and the time period really add to the vibe of the overall story.
Yeah, absolutely. So while most people weren't super interested in the news of the robbery, what did catch people's attention was the fact that one of the robbers and the one who seemed to take the lead was a woman.
And not just a woman, but she was young and she was fashionable.
She was hot. She was hot.
She was a hot girl.
She was smoking. She did hot shit, like robbing grocery stores.
Yeah, hot girl shit.
Don't do that. Yeah, don't do that.
But for many New Yorkers, especially the older residents, the woman's clothing and specifically her hairstyle were very symbolic of this youth culture that was emerging during this specific period you know who i'm talking i'm talking flappers flappers flappers were young sexually liberated women especially compared to generations before them and they just didn't give a shit when it came to things like dancing drinking and mixed gender socialization oh my goodness they were We're talking to boys.
She's committing capers over here.
It's crazy. According to author Stephen Duncombe, older generations came to view the bobbed hairstyle as a, quote, are you ready, symptom of the mentally defective.
I'm obsessed with that.
The bobbed hairstyle was a symptom of the mentally defective.
And they even blamed this hairstyle for, quote, unquote, breaking up marriages.
Absolutely. And then I wrote in my notes, today we call it a fuck -ass bomb.
A fuck -ass bomb. And I got one.
So the outrages over flappers and supposedly loose women was pretty much just like a moral panic, very similar to Satanic panic.
It's when the older generations are like, oh my God, the youth is crazy.
It's always happened.
Yeah. But the fact that one of these robbers appeared to fall into that category of crazy youth only strengthened the belief among many that young people were heading in a very dangerous and even criminal direction.
correction so already under pressure fuck ass bops fuck ass bops thank you so already under pressure to do something about the about street crime in the city brooklyn police acted very quickly and within a week they arrested 22 year old helen quigley a former burlesque dancer oh come on she was just living with her father in brooklyn a few days earlier her boyfriend friend vincent apples kowalski i this is a this is such a case what a time to be alive what a time i'm dating apples kowalski that's right who isn't you you know you know what yes you know so a few days before she had been arrested
apples there had been picked up on suspicion of robbery and wasted no time in confessing and also implicating helen as his accomplice wow loyalty I know, seriously.
They did bear a slight resemblance to the two who had robbed the Rolston grocery.
And they were actually even picked out of a photo lineup by Lester Loden.
But Helen Quigley insisted that she had nothing to do with the robbery or any of the other holdups in the area.
She said, you got me wrong.
Why I'm so afraid of a gun?
I can hardly look at one.
I like that. I try.
I'm really, really trying.
Yeah, you're really you're starting to embody it.
Thank you. I automatically go Southern when I try to do an accent.
accent. It's I mean, transatlantic accents have like a hint of southern to it.
So you're you're on there.
All right. Thank you.
I like it. But she said you got me wrong.
You got me wrong. Now, despite her declaration of innocence, she was the embodiment of the 1920s flapper, right down to her very casual demeanor when she was faced with arrest. When police went to her dad's house to arrest her, she quote, calmly asked if she could finish drying the supper dishes before they brought her in for questioning priorities.
You know, they said, Ma 'am, you're You're under arrest for robbery.
And she said, my dad's going to get pissed if I don't clean up dinner.
Yeah, she's like, you think I want to leave that in the sink?
Fair enough. You think we want rodents in here?
You know, it is New York.
But according to Helen, she did have a date with Apples Kowalski on the night of the murder, but he never showed up.
That's so like Apples.
You had his number from the very beginning.
Of course I did. Apples Kowalski, come on.
She even, Helen knew.
Yeah. So she was like, whatever, she didn't give a fuck.
She was like, I just stayed home that night.
Other than that, she called Kowalski a dirty rat and a squealer.
That's right. But she didn't say much else during the hours -long interrogation.
Damn. The press and the police were completely certain that she was the bobbed -haired bandit who had robbed several stores in South Brooklyn neighborhoods.
But that was certainly shaken just a few days later when another store was robbed.
This time it was a Weinstein's drugstore.
According to Lewis Hecht, the clerk who was at the Weinstein's that night, this is rude, A, quote, chunky, bobbed -haired girl and her boyfriend entered the store and immediately pointed the gun at him, demanding the cash in the register.
After pocketing the cash and looting the store, the girl handed him a note and told him to give it to Captain Carey of the Detective Bureau.
Oh, my God. They're, like, going, they're, like, let's communicate with the cops.
Full send. Yes. Hey there, my weird weirdos.
I want to take a minute to recommend another podcast called Who Took Misty Copsey?
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Over the course of eight episodes, host and cold case investigator Sarah Kalin speaks with Misty's friends and family, looks at police records and different anonymous tips to try to figure out if Misty's disappearance is the work of a serial killer or someone who knew her.
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After 33 years, Sarah Kalin hopes to answer the question, who took Misty?
You guys are going to love this.
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The note read, you dirty fish peddling bums, leave this innocent girl, all, Helen Quigley, alone, and get the right ones, which is nobody but us.
And we are gonna give Mr. Hogan, the manager of Rolston's, on 7 -Ave another visit, as we got two checks we couldn't cash.
And also ask Bohack's manager did I ruin his cash register?
Also, I will visit him again, as I broke a perfectly good automatic on it.
We defy you fellows to catch us.
I'm so obsessed. The fact that she was like, you fucking bums. No, no, no, she didn't say that.
innocent girl. You dirty fish peddling bums. Dirty fish peddling bums. You got the wrong girl in there.
Looks like you got the wrong girl.
I beg of us to do better and to speak like this again.
To speak better. Call people dirty fish peddling bums. Honestly, that's a great insult.
It's chef's, like I can't think of something better.
You know, I was looking up 1920s slang because I'm going to try to throw it in here as we go.
I love you. To go on a drinking spree on a toot.
On a toot. Just, oh, you know, he's a, you know where apples is.
He's just out on a toot.
On a toot. That's what your kids call a fart, so it makes it even funnier.
It's so funny. Like everything was funnier.
It really was. Like I know life was not funnier because, like, you know, the depression looping and all that shit.
They added so much to it to make it worthwhile.
I was going to say it was the stuff like this, like the linguistics of the time.
It's so good. So good.
So the note was signed, the bobbed haired bandit and companion.
I love that she called herself the bobbed haired bandit.
Yeah, I think they had already dubbed her at that point.
And she was like, I love that she was like, I'll take it.
She said, and companion.
And my companion. Lucky he's not.
Yeah, my man. Companion.
That egg over there.
I love it. So this note seemed to have been written explicitly for the purpose of proving the innocence of Helen Quigley and her man Apples there.
Good for her. She's trying to get that girl out.
She's like, it's me.
At that point, those Apples and Helen Quigley had been arraigned on robbery and assault charges.
So they're like headed for the big house.
Oh, damn. But by the time they received the note, Captains Carey and Sullivan had actually started to question whether Helen was actually guilty.
And the latest robbery at the Weinsteins seemed to indicate that she probably wasn't the bandit.
Yeah. So after Helen Quigley and Apple Kowalski's arraignment, I keep wanting to say arrangement.
You can say that. it's arranged it's arranged their arraignment and the announcement that they would be held on twenty thousand dollars bond another letter arrived for the police and this one was more forceful than the last the writer said why don't you see that helen quigley is let go you cops are rotten as she ain't guilty if you can't find the guilty party you grab the first one you get a hold of if you hold a grudge against them wow she said you guys are filthy and fake she said wow you're real dumb pretty much unfortunately the note had the opposite effect that the writer intended the judge
actually doubled quigley and kowalski's bond damn and was pretty certain that the writer was just a third accomplice trying to weaken their case against the pair but as the robberies continued so did the letters to the police and to members of the press on january 22nd the editor of the standard union received a note that read i must say we have a wonderful police force they They must all be asleep.
Cold nights are the best to stick people up.
The cops and bulls have hangouts and are always in on cold, wet nights.
I passed two cops and bulls standing on Fulton Street and Bedford Avenue Saturday night.
I asked one of them where Keeney's Theater was, and they directed me.
I almost laughed in their faces to think they were talking to the one they were looking for and can plainly see they blind or asleep.
I'm not condoning anything that she has done.
No. It's kind of iconic.
No, it's truly iconic.
It's kind of iconic.
She said. She's like, I was right in your face.
She said, L -O -L. And you got the wrong person.
I'm telling you, you got the wrong person and you're still not letting her go.
Yeah. Like, damn. I love what she's doing.
Damn. So by late January, store clerks and residents were seeing the bandit and her companion all over Brooklyn.
On January 21st, a grocer in Brooklyn claimed he'd been robbed of $600 by the pair who escaped in a car that they had parked around the corner.
which obviously like that part is not great because you're like these grocers do not deserve to be terrorizing their their work you know i mean like they're you know what they use to put food on their tables and like the clerks being scared to go to work exactly none of that is cool her notes are hilarious to the cops just to clarify yeah but that same night uh that the other robbery happened four quote boy bandits ranging in age from boy bandits boy bandits ranging in age from 14 to 18 held up several stores in the bronx and took more than 700 dollars which would be 13 000 in today's get it together
everyone i'm like how did you hide that from your parents damn now even though there was no apparent connection between these and the other holdups the press still subtly implied that there was definitely an epidemic of violence and robberies yeah being perpetrated by young people across the city damn it's kind of just a fact yeah one journalist wrote every other night or so the frightened proprietor of a chain grocery store would back away from a crouching snarling little demon whose eyes blazed over the sights of an ugly automatic a foul -mouthed fury who but a moment before had seemed in the background
wow why can't we do better why can't we talk like this why can't we they used to call policemen and elbows shut the fuck why i need an explanation on that one is call them elbows i love that yeah i love that so much yeah well with each new bandit letter published in the paper the public had new material to inform the growing mockery and the jokes aimed at the police who were unable to catch the pair after a run of particularly rainy days in late january the standard union joked if If this weather keeps up, the girl with the bobbed hair may try her luck in getting away with a red -hot stove.
Whoa. They said, the cops don't really work well during the rain, so she's going nuts.
The increase in public criticism was very clearly starting to irritate city officials.
In an article published in the New York Herald, Mayor John F.
Hyland angrily told a reporter, there isn't any bobbed -haired bandit.
That's only a myth.
You're just flimflamming us.
I'm like, sir? She's been seen?
She's been... She's been witnessed by several people who have been held up at these stores.
Like, is everybody just making this up?
Yeah, they just don't want to admit that.
It's a hoax. You know what this is?
There's a lady that's making us run for our money here, and we're not happy with it.
Yeah, she should stay in the kitchen where she belongs.
Whether he genuinely believed that or not, there was indeed a bobbed -haired bandit.
And the failure to capture her was definitely starting to make that NYPD look like a bunch of idiots.
They were so mad. and they were pissed they're so mad so on the night of january 26th the contingent of 200 police officers picture that 200 scattered across neighborhoods all over brooklyn intent on capturing the bob -taired bandit and her companion i love companion believing that they the pair were sure to strike that night as they had the previous five saturdays officers stood watch outside of grocery stores drug stores and even delis around the city just waiting for that bandit to make a mistake and at that same time another large group of officers were assigned to watch over the home of nypd
commissioner richard enright after one of the bandits notes referenced making a visit to the man's home oh damn but by the time the police had spread out their net the bandit had already robbed eight businesses of nearly two thousand dollars holy shit which would be thirty 37 thousand dollars in today's cash and showed no signs of slowing down or even losing any kind of confidence because why why slow down they're not catching you it's raining i gotta go yeah it's raining however despite that large -scale effort there was no sign of the bandit that january 26th night and the next day the press
reported on yet another failure by the police in the meantime john highland expressed his complete support and commissioner enright and And the NYPD writing, it has always seemed to me a very regrettable feature of life in New York that some of the newspapers, consciously or unconsciously, aid in attempts to dislodge a fearless police commissioner.
Wow. She's like, it's the newspaper's fault.
It's, yeah, obviously.
That we can't catch this person who doesn't exist. Obviously it's the newspaper.
It's like, you're the one who's saying that she doesn't even exist. Exactly.
But now, as far as he was concerned, the bobbed -haired bandit wasn't the problem.
The press was. was he already said that he did he thought she was a myth created by the press to sell papers and he later said true occasionally a girl may commit a larceny but there's surely no occasion for the scare heads about girl bandits the scare the scare heads nor for moralists to say that the town is infested with them he's like girl bandits aren't real that's that is exactly the energy that he is delivering girl bandits are fake girl bandits have cooties no there's only boy bandits bandits you can't be a girl bandit no oh you're stupid that's so funny but he said he was confident that if they
could crack down on the press and prevent them from fueling this public hysteria the bobbed haired bandit would just disappear and people would go on with their lives yeah because the press had no interest or reason to stop reporting on the bandit as long as she continued to pull off these robberies around the city and as long as readers were interested in her antics they were going to keep publishing the stories to sell those papers yeah and they didn't give a shit how it made the police look they're like make yourselves look better by early february the local papers honed in on a new theory detectives had
been developing and it was that despite all reports the bobbed -haired bandit was not a woman at all but perhaps a young man disguising himself by wearing young woman's clothing because once again there's no way that this is a girl bandit?
They said a girl is not defying us like this.
It must be a man. Yeah.
While some may have found the theory more credible than others, just as many dismissed it as nonsense.
Noting that many of the witnesses, quote, described the bandit's feet and shoes as typically feminine and her walk as characteristic of a member of the weaker sex. Adorable.
It makes me think of in Scream 1 when Stu is like nah, there's no way a girl could have killed him.
And Randy's like, it takes a man to do something Oh my God, it's so true.
That's the perfect quote for this.
That's the vibe that I'm getting.
It takes a man to do something like that.
I love it. That's exactly what this is giving.
That's the vibe. Now, the bandit and her companion, they did lay low for a few weeks.
And that was until early February when they were back at it again.
Hell yeah. With the fuck -ass bob.
Hell yeah. She's getting out there with her glad rags.
What's a glad rag? Tell us all about it.
Oh my God, her glad rags.
She's going to go commit a caper.
Is that a crime? Yeah.
A robbery? A crime.
I love it. Yeah. Well, they were back on the job and they landed themselves right back on the front pages of the New York papers.
A little after 10 p .m. on the evening of February 3rd, the bobbed haired bandit entered an H .C.
Bohat grocery store on Lafayette Street and approached the counter wearing what the press described as a saucy turban trimmed with fur.
Oh. I love a saucy turban.
A saucy turban. Now, despite the late hour, there were still several store clerks behind the counter and actually three customers waiting in line.
When she reached the counter, the bandit asked the butcher, Peter Crossman, for a whole chicken.
She said, one whole chicken, please.
Me too. Same. He disappeared into the deli and when he returned with the chicken, the bandit pulled a revolver from her coat pocket and said, one peep and you're a dead butcher.
She said, hey, grab a little air.
That's also slang. What does that mean?
That means put your hands up.
Grab a little air. I just love that she made like a chicken joke.
Yeah, I love that. I love it.
And you're a dead butcher.
So the butcher dropped the chicken on the floor and threw his hands up in the air because again, he did care.
Yeah, he grabbed a little air.
The bandit then whistled and within seconds her companion was by her side pistol in hand.
And I just picture her doing the like the pinkies in the mouth kind of whistle.
Hell yeah. I wish I could do that kind of whistle.
She then directed Kosman and the other clerks to the back of the store.
While the bandit kept everybody at the back of the store, the man went through the cash register, stuffing bills into his pockets.
$150 in total that night.
Today, that'd be about $2 ,700.
Once they emptied the registers, they backed their way out of the store, loudly declaring that they would shoot anybody who made a move or yelled for the police.
And once they got outside, they just jumped in their car and they sped off.
And they said bye. A few days later, police arrested 19 -year -old Mary Cody for this robbery, and they declared they had finally got her.
This was their bobbed -haired bandit.
Doubt it. They claimed Moore wasn't acting alone, but rather, she was the leader of a gang of bandits that included her boyfriend, Matthew Boyd.
Boyd. Boyd. That's you, my girl.
I love a boy. And me, my girl.
And a man by the name of Richard Gibbons.
Mary Cody and the two men were accused of several taxicab holdups in the area, but the only evidence connecting her to the bandit robberies was the fact that she owned a seal fur coat and wore her hair in a bobbed style.
Yeah, seems a little hinky to me.
She had a coat and a bob.
I just want you to let that sink in.
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Unfortunately, when their robbery victims were shown photographs of this woman and her two accomplices, quote unquote, they all denied that she was the bandit.
They said, no, that's not the girl.
They said, no, she's just got a coat.
and they said okay fine and they arrested uh another young woman just one day later they said all right mario it's not you but i think it's rose moore yeah me too we're gonna go arrest her yeah and they arrested her after her mother reported her missing to the police when a detective caught up with rose she was wearing a sealskin coat and a pink hat over her bobbed ass hair over her bobbed over her bobbed ass hair the arresting detective told the brooklyn eagle he was quote satisfied in his own mind that rose moore and the notorious bobbed haired bandit wily and defiant were one in the same but the next
day it was clear she had nothing to do with the holdups and she was released from custody her brother edward who actually was the one to report his suspicions of her to the police damn later said rose is a good girl but fond of fun and i suppose i was too strict with her my sister had no record of any kind against her of course and it was really my fault that she received this unpleasant publicity wow fond of fun you're a shitbag he was like you're having too much fun i'm gonna make them think you're a bandit you have a fuck -ass bob i'm gonna put you in the big house men suck like you're the worst
are you kidding he's like and it's like her brother it's like shut the fuck up yeah shut the fuck up shut the fuck up sibling like get the fuck out of here yeah she's having too much fun i gotta throw in the big house you're not my dad yeah get the fuck out of here well by this point Helen Quigley and Mary Cody were actually still in custody of uh on suspicion of poor people they're just like they're arresting more people while they have all the bobbed hair girls in little holes themselves all of them police were arresting or detaining anybody who fit the description of the bandit and her companion desperate
to close the case and her companion they were just desperate to close the case they wanted to end all the public criticism meanwhile as detectives interrogated rose moore the real bandit continued writing notes just taunting the police and condemning the press for printing lies about her after an interview with the supposed bandit appeared in the brooklyn eagle the editor received a note that read dear sir the interview you printed about the bobbed haired bandit was a fake and you ought to be exposed it seems to me that you would have more to do than sit down and just make things up personally
I think you are a bum I have never been interviewed as a matter of a fact and I defy you p .s I also defy the police a photographic copy of this letter has been turned over to the police of the popular street station I I think you are a bum yeah I we need to start calling people bums again we do bring it back we have to call people bums 2025 yeah 2025 we're bringing him back, calling people bums. Personally, I think you are a bum.
Yeah. It should be said that while the bobbed -haired bandit did write a lot of notes to the police and the press, there were countless other fake notes.
Oh, I'm sure. Written by anonymous, uh, senders.
It's not always known which is which, but But all of them are, they have such zest and flair.
They do have such zest and flair.
What else do they have?
They're very hotsy -totsy.
They are very hotsy -totsy.
And you know what? We got a lot of bob -haired patsies sitting in the big house right now tell me everything they're bob -haired patsies yeah patsies are people who are set up a fool a chump a chump they're sitting in the big house in jail this is too much i love it so much i wish we were dressed like swanky i know i'm wearing sweatpants oh we need to do a listener tale that's 1920s themed so we can go literally yesterday i don't know how we do that but we'll figure it out we could just read regular tales and just just decided to be 1920s i love it i like it well regardless the letters became so popular
with readers that the brooklyn eagle just continued collecting them and publishing them now on a weekly basis damn much to the irritation of the police i imagine because not only did the letters make detectives look foolish for their inability to catch the bandit but they also reminded new yorkers that crime was still a big problem in the city and that that fact reflected very poorly on police commissioner enright after a few weeks of downtime the bandit popped up again in late february this time wielding a pistol in each hand she got one too oh damn and this was when she and her companion robbed
the james butler grocery in brooklyn by that point the public had started mistakenly seeing the bandit everywhere so when the woman entered the store wearing her quote quote, three -quarter length seal skin coat and her black turban.
One of the customers shouted, The bobhead bandit!
She's arrived! Here she is!
The pair went through their usual routine, corralling the customers and the clerks to the back of the store while one of them went through the registers and then they backed out of the store with their guns drawn and said, Don't tell anybody.
And they said, Oh my God, it's really a skirt.
What does that one mean?
She's a real skirt.
She's a real skirt?
What's it mean? A woman.
A woman? Oh, my God, it's a woman.
It's a skirt bandit.
As they made their way out of the door, the bandits shouted, Give us ten minutes to get away or you'll be sorry.
This time, the total takeaway was less than $60, but still a good sum of money.
That'd be about a thousand bucks today.
The latest string of robberies led the police to devise a new strategy, though, casting an even wider net and questioning nearly anyone who met even one of the bandits' descriptors.
However, while this strategy was intended to catch the criminal, it had the unintended effect of scaring or just straight up inconveniencing the female members of the public.
By the end of February, detectives had put so much emphasis on the bandit's hair and clothing that women all over the city started altering their appearances so that they wouldn't be mistaken for the bandit.
Oh, damn. Yeah. One hairstylist told a reporter, girls won't bob their hair anymore, and the ones who have theirs already bobbed are letting it grow as fast as they can.
and they're just encouraging their hair to grow like please every night they're like please grow faster that's how that works they're using rosemary oil biology the sentiment was shared by others in the beauty industry and only led to more criticism of the police and of course their inability to catch this bobbed haired bandit i love her another stylist told reporters it's a shame the way the police are playing hide and seek with the girl and letting her out with them all the time i love this a police force of bobbed haired girls would catch her soon enough she said fuck that why don't we take
all these bobbed haired arrestees and make them the police yeah they're out here they're tooting the wrong ringer yeah you know it's not like barking up the wrong tree asking the wrong person i love it tooting up the wrong ringer fortunately for the nypd it would not come to that but i do love the image that conjures i immediately thought of a bunch of fuck ass bob haired flappers just walking in flashing a badge i love it i love it oh i want to be one the robberies continued into march and of course so did the sensational press coverage soon enough the bandit was being celebrated by most as a kind
of anti -hero and obviously an early feminist figure pushing back on the suffocating norms and restrictions imposed by a world ruled of stinky stupid men there you go one journalist wrote for the brooklyn eagle brooklyn's girl bandit is merely part of the great world revolt against authority and correct principles using her energies on the only plane open to her in which she can revolt whoa they said she's got a bob and she's robbing people and fuck men yeah she's an weak sister no love it by the end of march commissioner commissioner enright was fucking pissed and the NYPD in him had become so frustrated
with the situation that he started to speak out to the press about how he might have to step into the investigation and bring the bandit in himself he said I had about reached the conclusion that I would have to go out and get her myself I'm not so sure that she is not a short head man oh see we can't we can't just give it it's a skirt I'm like no she's a skirt and she's getting the best to you commissioner and you're just upset about it his comments were aimed at the critics of the police but it's also clear from his statement that the bandit's gender was at least some degree of a threat to him
oh otherwise he would have never called it into question exactly asshole i'm saying for months the bandit and her companion had been holding up drugstores my favorite part to be honest her companion and groceries around the city all without firing a single shot or harming anybody no shots had been fired up to this point which thankful for that but that all changed on april first when the pair attempted to rob the payroll department of the national biscuit company whoa which is a company that i would love to support i was gonna say that place is near and dear to my heart same now the heist was to
be the biggest of their career thus far not only because it was the biggest supposed to be the biggest payout but also because it occurred in broad daylight while a number a large number of clerks were present that morning the couple actually hired a car to To take them to the biscuit company, which I'm going to do that too.
And I'm not going to rob them.
I'm just going to buy a lot of biscuits.
I'm getting a car to go to the biscuit company right now.
Nabisco. National Biscuit Company.
Nabisco. Oh, my God.
I never knew that. Mikey just told us Nabisco.
Mikey just cracked the code.
I never knew that. Biscuit Company.
What the fuck? I'm going to support them.
Boom. Well, when they arrived to Nabisco, Nabisco the man pointed a gun at the driver Arthur West and told him to get in the back of the car once West had been tied up and placed on the floor in the back seat the bandit took over the wheel and they continued to down the street to the National Biscuit Warehouse Nabisco once they reached their destination they parked on the street outside the warehouse and entered through the front door and climbed the stairs straight to the administrative offices so on the On the second floor, the young woman walked to the caged -in payroll office, and she stepped
up to the desk and handed the clerk, Nathan Mazzo, an envelope.
Mazzo opened the envelope and took out the paper inside, but it appeared to be blank.
When he looked up, prepared to question the woman in front of him, he found himself staring into the barrel of the bobbed -haired bandit's pistol.
Seconds later, the bandit's male companion appeared at her side with pistols in both hands and a handkerchief covering his face.
Oh. The payroll office erupted into chaos as the clerks and secretaries started running, trying to escape the gunman.
But the bandit kept focused on Mazzo, and the other man corralled the employees and forced them into a smaller office just adjacent to the payroll cage.
Now, as the staff began filing into the small office, Mazzo was last in line, and he appeared to make a move for the bandit's gun, grabbing her arm when he passed by her.
the bandit fell back away from mazzo tumbling over a chair a chair and falling to the floor seeing what was happening her companion fired two shots hitting mazzo in the arm causing the man obviously to scream and then the scene to erupt just erupted yeah fire has now been you've now heard gunshots exactly with everything having gone awry the pair fled down the stairs and out to the car with several National Biscuit drivers following behind them now.
You know, they were doing these little ones that were going well at night, and they got two they were putting on the Ritz.
They were high hatting.
I know what that's all about.
High hatting. They were getting swelled.
They were going on side, acting high -toned.
Acting high -toned. Gotta keep it chill.
You gotta chill out.
How do you say chill out in 1920s?
I think it's like, hold on, You know, simmer down You gotta cool your jets Hold your horses, keep your shirt on I like keep your shirt on Take it easy, pipe down, keep your hair on Keep your hair on Why do I feel like your ma right now?
She doesn't really talk like that But like, kind of She has a 1920's vibe about her When she gets going Why don't you be a papa lupus buddy?
She does She does the I just like the like high hat getting swelled and swelled getting too big for your breast Keep your hair on Keep your hair on Well nobody's hair was on everybody was fucking terrified They were getting swelled They were getting rightfully swelled They were acting way too high toned An ambulance and police arrived at the scene a short time later and Nathan Mazza was taken to the hospital for treatment A few blocks away a patrolman came upon the Packard that the pair had arrived in and the driver In the driver, Arthur West was still tied up on the floor in the back.
The patrolman took the car and the driver to the nearest precinct where he explained that he had picked up the couple at a hotel near Prospect Park and had driven them down to where the car had been found.
At which point, he was jumped by the couple and thrown into the back of the car.
Oh, damn. He said he had not seen either passenger's face, but according to the press, quote, his description of both the girl and her companion tallied perfectly with that of the bobbed haired bandit.
and her companion. Oh.
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After 17 successful robberies, 17, 17, we just did the highlights here.
Holy shit. The holdup of the National Biscuit Company, Nabisco, changed everything for the bandit and her companion.
Wow. Where she was spoken of as an anti -hero, now the papers were accusing her and her companion as attempted murderers and announcing quite inaccurately that mazo's wounds will quote probably prove fatal they didn't okay he was shot which is very wrong absolutely he was shot in the arm he's not gonna die a few days later he himself would capitalize on the spotlight giving interviews where he heroically claimed that he'd been reaching for the gun not trying to remove the bandits veil as had been suggested by the police and the press he told a reporter believe me if i I got that gun, I would have saved
the police a lot of trouble.
I'd have killed them both.
That's what I'm going to do next time.
I'm going to get the gun and I'm going to shoot her.
Honestly, I probably would have been as insufferable.
Oh, you shoot me in the arm.
I would have come out and I would have been like, next time I'm getting that gun.
I'm getting you. Yeah.
You shoot me in the arm.
You're done. Yeah. But if Nathan Mazzo was fantasizing about a second visit from the bandit and her companion, he would be sadly disappointed.
After months of robberies and obviously very intense press coverage, the bobbed haired bandit and her companion seemingly disappeared wow for weeks nypd officers and detectives spread out across the city in search of the bobbed haired bandit and her companion but the robberies had stopped altogether and there was no sign of the infamous duo anywhere wow finally in mid -april investigators got a break when they learned that the parkers who were the couple that hired the car and the driver that took them to the biscuit company were 20 year old celia cooney 20 20 year old celia cooney and her 25 year
old husband ed ed ed honestly yeah her companion is this the couple lived in brooklyn until recently when they gave up their apartment and told their landlord that they were moving down to florida nypd detectives contacted authorities in florida who put out an alert across the state and in the early hours of april 21st celia and ed cooney were arrested at a rooming house in jacksonville damn is that her yeah the bobbed -haired bandit she does look 20 she looks younger than that to be honest wow so now who exactly were celia and ed cooney were they well celia was born into extreme poverty and raised
along with seven brothers and sisters by a single mother who relied on her children to beg for money in the street that's how bad things were ah so she kind of this was in her in her bones already uh for most of her younger years the family lived in a coal cellar until celia was taken in by an aunt in brooklyn when she was 14 in 1918 she moved out on her own and a few years later in 1923 she met her now husband ed at a vaudeville theater on fulton street i love that that's so 1920s like that's so of the the time and it's a beautiful love story to be honest she later remembered that night saying
i thought i'd blow 30 cents taking in a show and hoping to run into some friends but by the end of the night she struck up a conversation with the man next to her and as the picture came to an end she had fallen in love with ed's quote -unquote wonderful smile oh my god right that's actually really sweet they dated for a few months before they decided to get married on may 18th 1923 and And Celia said, I'd never been so happy in my life, but we weren't saving a cent.
Ed kept insisting on me buying myself some nice clothes.
It seemed so wonderful to me to be loved and worried about.
So we spent our money that summer almost as fast as we made it.
Wow. At the same time, Ed was working as a welder for a small garage in Brooklyn.
And while the salary wasn't great, it was enough to pay a small rent on the small room that they shared in a rooming house.
But in September, Celia learned that she was pregnant.
And that news changed everything.
She told Ed, I'm not going to have my baby raised in a little 2x4 hole like I was.
Insisting that they needed to find a more suitable home for their family, and Ed promised that he would find a way to make it happen.
This was how. That sounds like such a sweet story at first. You're just like you root for them.
Yeah. And then they just said, you know how we could do that?
Robbing a lot of places.
Yeah, and you said, oh no. This was how Celia and Ed Cooney became the bobbed -haired bandit and her companion.
Wow. and her companion ed first it all seems like this strange fantasy to the young couple celia said i had been reading magazines and books about girl girl crooks and bandits girl crooks girl crooks and bandits and it began to seem like a game or play acting after i'd really came home with the guns it was more exciting than anything i'd ever thought i'd do wow the couple said they never intended to hurt anybody and they never wanted to the shooting at the biscuit company was completely completely unexpected and it was an unconscious reaction from ed when he thought his pregnant wife was in danger
he told the police and in that sense you're like ah like you put like obviously putting your being in the position of robbing people whilst pregnant already you're you lose that argument like you know i mean like that's it but now you you almost believe her when she says like we didn't intend to hurt anybody you know i don't think they've ever tried to before no you know like it seemed like the intimidation tactic was what they were going with and it seemed to work yes which is wrong and throwing people off kilter with her being the first one going in there with the gun i think was their intention like
throwing them off completely at first yep and then ed can saunter in all tall and like you know get everything done get everything done yeah and i think his reaction was a somewhat natural instinct i guess he was just trying Trying to protect his pregnant wife.
But it's not OK. They had put themselves in that position to begin with.
So it's like. Precisely.
Your argument falls flat.
Precisely. He told police, I thought she had been struck or maybe cut.
And I fired through the door at Mazzo, who fell.
My girl was down and I had to rush in.
I picked her up and carried her out.
And if they hadn't already planned to go to Florida after one final heist, the reports in the papers the next day certainly would have prompted them to run.
Among the details of the holdup and the shooting were detailed descriptions of both Celia and ned along with orders from the uh from commissioner enright to quote shoot her on site if necessary damn which is like i don't think that's a lot necessary but yeah without the money from the biscuit holdup life in florida wasn't much better than what they had in new york when they first got married after spending most of their money on train and boat fares to get to jacksonville the two had run out of money and they vowed not to commit any more holdups celia said we had less less than $50 left and my
baby was coming soon, which would cost money.
The bandit stuff was over.
We never even thought of trying that again.
So Ed set out to find work as a mechanic in Jacksonville.
But by then, their descriptions had made it to the papers up and down the East Coast and then would be followed by their actual names.
So they knew it was only a matter of time before law enforcement caught up with them.
A few days after their arrest, Ed and Celia were brought back to New York, much to the delight of the New York press, who were happy to have their main story back in the city the pair were quickly arranged arraigned on charges of armed robbery and assault where they indicated their willingness to plead guilty to as many as 10 robberies but they both maintained that they only started robbing stores in order to afford their baby and give ed to find a better paying job give them some time to do that celia proudly told the court that the world owed them a living and she said we did not want our baby born
in an unfinished room we needed money to get furniture and get set up on our and set up our own home and ed said i had been reading in the newspapers of numerous robberies and i decided i might get enough money that way to fix us up damn although enthusiasm for the couple had waned slightly once they were identified celia and ed still had a fair share of fans and more than a little sympathy when they arrived to new york from florida their train was met by a mob of onlookers hundreds of people rushed the train stores just in an effort to get a look at the commit the bandit and her companion oh
i believe it and more than a few of them were saddened to hear that just a few days before being brought back to new york celia had given birth to her baby and the baby unfortunately passed away a few days later oh that's sad yeah the baby was buried in florida detectives meanwhile had a hard time believing that celia cooney was the bobbed haired bandit who had plagued them for months if you see her she's just this tiny little so little friends and neighbors reported to investigators that ed also was one of the nicest guys they knew and they never would have suspected him to be an armed robber
but celia on the other hand received uh fewer glowing reviews from people who actually knew her oh according to one of her former land ladies celia would quote lay in a filthy bed in a filthy room until noon every day reading detective and true crime magazines and watching boxing matches damn yeah wow there's a lot to unpack there and an anonymous source interviewed by the press also had questionable things to say about celia they said she would talk to men on the phone who had italian names and i had the suspicion then that she was talking to members of the underworld that's the way she struck
me these men had italian names like maybe she's just friends with italians say jesus christ i love how it's just like automatically like that is the wildest story like she's talking to joe bonino these men with italian names they're definitely part of the underworld they have to be in the days after the arraignment a new narrative was emerging in the press now that she had been unmasked the bobbed haired bandit was no longer a symbol of the feminist revolution now people just thought she was a low a low class degenerate who had duped husband into being her criminal accomplice damn how they might have fallen
wow we didn't plan that no a few days after their arraignment judge uh george martin announced that he wanted the pair to be evaluated by psychiatrists after receiving concerning letters from members of ed's family according to the letters ed had quote shown signs of a disordered mentality since childhood and he displayed apparent inability to grasp a situation oh which is interesting that is is interesting celia on the other hand was described in dismissive and scathing terms the press claimed that she quote had begun to visualize the unwritten part of the detective stories of which she is so fond
of she looks forward to the sentencing in court its dramatic possibilities appeal to her oh man so there's like she's wrapped up in this crime fantasy world really the images of her is is falling slowly yeah now now a little faster actually they're making an example of her tit in the skids the psychiatrist opinions of celia were no kinder than the press had been celia he claimed was the head of the operation while ed was quote usually in the background and his function was to smash the cash registers and gather in the loot while his wife took center stage the psychiatrist told a reporter there
was something abnormal and not womanly about her actions she was acting under an impulse that was apparently unnatural and in In every case, she dominated the man who was with her.
She was the director, and he was simply a tool.
I love that they're like, that's not womanly.
I'm like, yeah. Excuse me?
I'm like, I should reevaluate my lifetime, I guess.
A few weeks later, on May 6th, Celia and Ed appeared before Judge Martin, where they pleaded guilty to charges of robbery and assault.
Each was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Ed went to Sing Sing, and Celia went to Auburn Correctional Facility.
And they both had the opportunity for parole after seven years.
Before leaving the courtroom, Celia wrote one last note.
This went to the judge in the hopes that he would share it with the press.
And the New York Times shared it.
She wrote, To those girls who think they would like to see their names in the paper as mine has been, or think they would like to do what I have done, let me just say, don't try to do it.
You don't know what you will suffer.
While I smile, my heart is breaking in me.
Oh. She was just lost. She was very lost. She was very lost. And what she did was wrong.
Very bad choices. Very bad choices.
Very bad choices. but i do have this weird sympathy for her because you think she i mean she obviously grew up with nothing rough yeah with nothing and it's like she clearly fell into these like you know detective magazines and all that she thought it was gonna be this glamorous like yeah yeah but what she again the moral of the story is what she did was wrong yeah because while she was obviously lost and like thought it was gonna be this whole glamorous thing she also wasn't than thinking about the people whose lives she was completely destroying.
And putting at risk.
That kind of money, taking that from somebody like a grocer or somebody who owns a business.
That's their whole livelihood.
That's it. It's like and they have families too that they need to take care of.
So it's like, yeah, you may be pregnant.
You may be trying to like feed your kid.
Right. Taking it out of somebody else's mouth who's working hard for it is not the way to do it.
There's other ways.
Now, in late October 1931, Celia and Ed Cooney were each granted parole on the condition that they find suitable employment.
unfortunately for ed that was going to be pretty difficult uh he'd had an accident in the prison machine shop and that had resulted in his arm being amputated oh damn he sadly died from tuberculosis just five years later oh poor ed i know celia did manage to find work as a typist and she remarried in the mid 1940s and just kind of did her best to stay out of the public eye she relocated to florida and she died from natural causes in 1992 damn am i crazy holy shit yeah she lived a long life yeah that was that was a swell a jake a nifty the cat's meow the cat's pajamas the bee's knees i was having
a ball it was a whoopee and with all that being said we sure hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird i don't know that was my best not so weird that you try a transatlantic accent and you really feel miserably at that Thank you.
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