Hey weirdos, it's Ashe.
Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery+.
It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad -free listening and early access to new episodes.
So don't wait, try Wondery +, today.
You can join Wondery +, in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. listening on audible helps your imagination soar whether you listen to stories motivation expert advice any genre you love you can be inspired to imagine new worlds new possibilities and new ways of thinking listening can lead to positive changes in your mood your habits and ultimately your overall well -being audible has an incredible selection of over 1 million audiobooks podcasts, and audible originals all in one easy app.
Find the genres you love and discover new ones.
Explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time.
Right now I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix and I just cannot get enough of it.
I never want to pause it.
I'm literally like loading the dishwasher listening to it, on the treadmill listening to it constantly.
It's so awesome. some.
I love being able to listen anytime, anywhere I want to.
And there's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30 -day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free.
Visit audible .com slash morbid.
You guys, I tried my mochi ice cream the other day, and I was lifted off of this planet into just another galaxy entirely.
It is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.
It's literally like a little sweet sweet ice cream dumpling.
It's pillowy soft, D to the E to the L -I -C -I -O -U -S, and it just feels very indulgent.
I loved it. I tried the cookies and cream flavor, and I still have the mango flavor to try.
I'm so excited to try the mango because if it's half as good as the cookies and cream, I'll probably just like fall on the floor and start crying tears of joy.
My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece.
My mochi is gluten -free, and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
And guess what? MyMochi is the original mochi ice cream.
The founder of MyMochi invented mochi ice cream.
That makes MyMochi the mochi OG.
Feel joyfully chill this summer with every bite of MyMochi ice cream.
Look for the purple box of MyMochi ice cream at Walmart or visit MyMochi .com to find a store near you.
Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this right here folks is Morbid it's Morbid hey we've been getting so wily in the introductions lately we have we've been doing a lot of recordings yeah I think so we're just like Like, ah, got to make it new and fresh.
I know. And I forgot even to tell you guys at the top of the, because this is part two, obviously, of the Gideon family murders.
I forgot to even tell them at the top of part one that it was a two -parter.
Oh, it's a two -parter.
Yeah. By the way, if you're here for part two.
Hey, this is part two.
It's two -parter. I mean, there's a lot.
Yeah. There's a lot going on.
It's like Michaela says, go to part two.
Go to part two. That was good.
That was good. That was good on both ends.
That was real good.
My favorite is when she does her eyeliner and she says, nice and sharp.
That eyeliner could cut a man.
I love it. I love it.
I love it. I love it.
Makeup. Makeup. Mikaela.
I don't know. I feel.
We're wily. So crazy.
It's been a silly day in this pod laboratory.
It has been a silly day.
A good day, if you will.
And people keep seeing doubles of me in my house.
Yeah. That's occurring.
Frequently. So I told this story, like, probably like a month or so ago now that I saw a double of you.
Yeah. But then Mikey admitted to us today that he also saw a double of me.
He seen a double weeks ago, and he didn't even tell us.
He didn't want to scare us.
The man didn't even inform us.
He was scared. That's scary.
What's going on with you?
That's what I'm wondering.
Someone tell me. I think it's because you're spooky.
I liked that reason.
It's like the X -Files of it all.
That explanation worked for me.
Yeah, because Elena was like, well, why isn't anybody seeing tumbles of John in the house?
And I said, because he's not spooky.
Yeah. He's not. He's really not.
You, on the other hand.
Yeah. Spooky as fuck.
So... Spooky as fuck.
And I don't live here.
Yeah. I mean, I spend more time here than I do at my own home, but...
Yeah, I'm just surprised.
I want to know what it means.
What does it mean? Because I'm like, why am I showing up?
Mikey said that it's because I say out loud a lot that I wish there was was more of me to do the things that i need to get done so maybe i wished it i'm a manifesting queen maybe you manifested something um some kind of fuck shit something ominous because i don't love that yeah any thread that i found about like what doppelganger things are is like not good well damn i'm sorry to inform you i didn't i didn't like the feeling i didn't feel threatened and like when i saw she who shan't be named but i felt scared after the experience yeah i don't know and i only saw her very quick i don't she didn't
like me and that's weird because you really like me i've heard yeah so you've heard made a career together and shit yeah it's true i mean i mean ask some people and they'll say different but uh i was like what i was like now you can't argue that you can't argue that but yeah i don't know so i guess we're just gonna ride this uh gonna ride we're gonna ride this train all the way and see what happens see who next sees a doppelganger of me in my own house what if your fucking kids see it though that would bum me out then i'd have something to say to her that's when me and her would come to blows
oh my god what if it's like that episode of buffy though where like he intended to split buffy in half but he split Zander in half but what if somebody actually actually did split you in half and you have to fight to the death and only the week the weaker one dies fuck am I the weaker one I don't know I only saw her for a second she's ominous and she can appear and reappear so me tends to believe but I have to I don't know I think I'm the stronger one I'm the one getting shit done over here she doesn't seem to be doing much so I would not say that out loud I mean she's me she's part of you yeah
she's not you though well she needs to pull her weight around here is what i'm saying so i'm leaving i'm going i'm going elsewhere this weekend she needs to start pulling her weight maybe take some stuff off my hands that would be don't say that oh god i mean like now she's gonna rip your fingerprints and shit i haven't even seen her i have and so is michael ashe's face is like terror because i don't fuck with that kind of shit like i'll talk about that kind of stuff like i i enjoy like talking about like paranormal and stuff and that kind of thing but i don't fuck with it like i don't talk to
it i don't yeah i mean like hey she hasn't bothered me so that's i'm saying i'm trying to say that it's fun like you're not doing anything wrong it's cool you're just gonna i just want to figure out what you're all about.
There you go. Is really what it is.
I'm just trying to figure out where you came from.
Okay. You know? Let's move on before we get this whole dug any further.
We'll move on. Maybe I should.
Why don't I pull a tarot card?
Yeah, do it and see what.
Do you have a deck?
Maybe I could sound bowl after.
Maybe you could just tell us.
It is part two. Will you just tell us?
I'm just going to pull one out at random.
Yeah, like feel what feels right though.
Feel the energy. Energy.
You made me double take it.
Close your eyes and feel the vibes.
What'd you get? Did you get death?
No. What'd you get?
The tower. I fucking hate that card. I don't like it.
Mikey's going to shit himself when he doesn't have noise canceling headphones on.
If you guys know anything about the tower, just try to explain that to us in this situation.
Pray for me, I guess.
Alright, we gotta get into this.
I'm fucking terrified and I'm leaving after this.
Let's get into this.
this gets wily you thought this discussion at the top was wily part two was wily it's real wily so in part one we got familiar with the dynamic of the gideon family and unfortunately found out that two of the four of them veronica ronnie and her mother mary had been murdered along with a boarder in their apartment frank burns the police were pretty stumped because there was no sign of forced entry no one had alarmed the otherwise territorial dog tucci and every suspect or person of interest they had so far including the father of the family joe gideon whom they beat mercilessly yeah uh had not panned
out but taking a closer look at ronnie's diary and the man who she simply referred to as b eventually gave them the lead that they needed at the end of part one we found out that a possible suspect for the b mentioned was bob erwin who had actually been pretty obsessed with ronnie's sister ethel and was a previous boarder at their home yeah that's home.
Not the apartment that they lived in currently, the one where they were killed, but the bigger one.
Now, it's actually pretty unclear why no one had thought to mention Bob Irwin when the diary was discovered, and investigators were seeking a man with a B initial, but anyone with even the slightest familiarity with Bob Irwin probably would have thought he made a good suspect.
Born in 1906 in Pasadena, California, Bob's life had been really really difficult from the start his father benjamin erwin was the founder of i shit you not fire baptized holiness church you didn't just put that into like a random generator online that came out fire baptized holiness church which was not a church i didn't i was like please tell me that it's not real no it was a fanatical christian cult operating out of northern this is Southern California Benjamin the dad eventually abandoned the family it was when Bob was still very young leaving him and his two brothers in the sole custody of their
mother Mary who was equally fanatical and put her religion before literally everything else in her life including the care of her children oh yeah that's sad it's his story Bob's story I will tell you right off the bat it's very sad oh that's terrible but left to their own devices Bob and his brothers ran completely wild uh i think it's the vidalin or vidalin and pember irwin they were bob's older and younger brothers they quickly fell into a life just filled with a ton of criminal activity they would spend nearly the rest of their lives in and out of reform schools jails and prisons and bob too
had his own run -ins with the law and spent a few years in a reform school but unlike his brothers he had a natural talent for art and sculpture ah which earned him some sympathy with adults.
I had a feeling. But unfortunately, while he did indeed prove to be actually an immensely talented artist, by the time he reached his late teens, Bob was also beginning to show signs of very severe mental illness and delusional thinking.
In his late teens and early 20s, his talent had actually earned him the admiration of several influential people in the art world.
And he actually earned apprenticeships with some pretty notable artists of the time.
But due to his paranoia and explosive anger tendencies, those opportunities almost always fell apart not long after they started.
Like he just had these big outbursts.
He just couldn't handle it.
Now, in 1932, he was sent to the Burke Foundation, which was a voluntary psychiatric facility in White Plains, New York.
And after nine months at the facility, he left the clinic, claiming that he, quote, left to get away from a couple of female employees who began to make life miserable for him after he rebuffed their sexual demands but in truth a social worker later clarified that bob had left the facility because he had gotten into quote so many violent quarrels with other patients that he feared his behavior would lead to serious consequences so bob moved into mary gideon's boarding house on east 53rd street in october of 1932 so that's five years before the murders.
Coincidentally, also right around the time that Ronnie started her diary that the police had found in 1937.
But it was there that he met and quickly became enamored with Ethel Gideon.
In many ways, Ethel reminded Bob of his last girlfriend, Alice Ryan, who he was still very obsessed with.
Once he'd settled in at the boarding house, Bob tried to resume his art, but he found that his thoughts of Alice and preoccupation with sex politics dominated his mind day and night preventing him from producing any kind of work so i want to give you a little bit of a trigger warning for self -harm here finally after a week of torment and no productivity bob decided to try to rid himself of these sexual preoccupations once and for all according to bob on wednesday october 27th he went into the bathroom at the boarding and put a rubber band around his penis and went for a walk around town in order
to numb the area. When he got back to the boarding house, he then went into the bathroom and attempted to remove his penis with a Gillette razor.
He got about halfway there, but obviously that was incredibly painful even having numbed the area, so he was not able to finish.
But he managed to to get himself from the house to the Bellevue Hospital with the rubber band actually kind of acting as a tourniquet to keep him from bleeding out.
He checked in under the name James Adamson and calmly asked the night intern to finish the job.
Oh, boy. The intern simply bandaged him up and told him to come back during the daytime when the surgeon would be on.
So Bob came back several hours later, still insisting that they remove his penis completely but instead the surgeon applied antiseptic and sutured the very serious wound and then admitted bob to the psychiatric ward where he remained for nearly five months and after that after his stint there he was transferred to rockland state hospital in upstate new york oh that is rough yeah and that is very very sick yeah he this man is very very sick severely mentally yeah and it's it's sad that like not much was able to be done about it to keep him in a safe place and from like to to keep him one from hurting
himself because obviously he's inclined to do that and to keep him from hurting anyone else like this man is not somebody who should have lived on his own and like been on on the streets, unfortunately.
No, absolutely not.
Like there needed to be some serious help happening here.
And the system, obviously, I mean, it's the 30s.
Like there's not a lot in the way of mental health.
Not at all. Like anything, so.
I mean, we were just talking about, you know, the Miriam Parker case, which was in the 20s.
But it's like we're not far off from there, and they were still treating it in a very different way than they treat it now.
And it's interesting, actually, because like when we get to the trial part of this it's we were like talking about it in the maryann parker case and how william uh william edward hickman how he was like very clearly trying yeah he was making a valiant effort to seem insane yeah to act like he was in this case he's not trying he just is like yeah this is very clear this is coming from a very genuine place of yeah not sane so we're literally like taking your trial that we just discussed and turning it on his head yeah how it would go if he really was yeah it's interesting that we end up doing these
back to back because we don't usually tell each other about our cases until they happen yeah but anyway during his time at rockland uh rockland excuse me bob proved an unruly patient he made several escape attempts including one incident when he made it all the way to downtown manhattan holy Holy shit.
To the apartment of his previous psychiatrist from Bellevue.
Oh, fuck that. Luckily, he was able to be apprehended and return to Rockland before anything happened.
You know what time it is?
It's time for a fresh approach to dog food.
And that's where the farmer's dog comes in.
Developed by board -certified nutritionists, which is pretty impressive.
The Farmer's Dog is human -grade dog food that's made with real meat and veggies and gently cooked to preserve those nutrients.
Traditional pet food is highly processed and difficult to portion correctly, but the Farmer's Dog, it's changed that with their freshly made food.
They take the guesswork out of serving sizes by precisely portioning your dog's food based on their very unique nutritional needs.
Sydney and Blanche are eating the Farmer's Dog right now, and we absolutely love it.
What's really fun is each packet has their name on it, so it says Blanche's food, Sydney's food, which is just fun.
They love it. They can't read, but I kind of pretend that they do.
Maybe they can. Maybe they can.
Who am I to say? Get 50 % off your first box of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
Plus, you get free shipping.
Just go to thefarmersdog .com slash morbid to get 50 % off.
That's thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
Smallwoodhome .com turns your favorite photos into gallery -quality framed prints or wrapped canvases, all handcrafted in the USA, shipped in days and priced to make your whole home smile.
It's nice to have something on the wall that's not just design -y, but it's personal.
They sell custom -framed prints that are made just for you.
Pick your favorite photo, and they're going to turn it into a beautifully framed piece, handcrafted with care.
Every single piece is made to order, so there's no assembly lines or robots involved.
And you can choose from natural wood finishes for the frames, like stained, almond, black, or white, and if you want a little more, you can even add an acrylic front for a little polished touch. I love that option.
There are also more than just frames.
Wrapped canvas options give you even more ways to elegantly customize your space.
It's big style without the big price.
There are high quality prints that bring warmth and personality to your home, but it's not going to break the bank.
And there's a fast turnaround, which I absolutely love.
These prints are made to order in just a few days and are are shipped straight to your door.
Right now, get 30 % off when you use code MORBID at smallwoodhome .com.
That's promo code MORBID to get 30 % off your first order at smallwoodhome .com.
Give your memories the showcase that they deserve.
At Rockland, that was the place where he received his first official diagnosis of of hebephrania it was a subtype of schizophrenia which the psychiatrist at the time described as being characterized quote by foolish mannerisms senseless laughter delusions and regressive behavior this diagnosis actually no longer appears in the diagnostic i was gonna say yeah not it's not in the dsm the diagnostic statistical manual of mental disorders now we would just classify it as simple schizophrenia yeah i was gonna say because Because I've never heard of that.
Yeah. That's interesting.
It's dated. But the symptoms of delusional and disordered thinking and distorted reality, among others, are still acknowledged in the schizophrenia diagnosis.
So now he would just be called schizophrenic or treated as such. So after a few years of bouncing around from one boarding house to another, Bob reappeared at the door of Mary Gideon's boarding house in the early summer of 1934, just a few months months after Ethel's marriage to her first husband was annulled?
Because remember, she had a teen marriage of her own.
Yeah, that was like a thing.
Yeah. I think it was a thing to get out of the house.
Yeah. Because I think the house was very dysfunctional.
Yeah, for sure. So now that he was once again in Ethel's presence, Bob felt particularly inspired, actually, because she was, like I said, she was beautiful.
And he began sculpting again.
He was devoted to Ethel from the moment that he returned to the house.
But while she liked the the attention and the adoration that she received from him, she was never actually willing to commit to a relationship with him.
For her, it was just kind of like a fun thing.
Yeah, just like flirting with this guy.
She found him to be like an attractive man.
Yeah, so she's just like - A lot of people actually did.
Yeah, so she's just like, you know what?
Yeah. We're just having a flirtation.
It's a fun thing, but she never saw it seriously.
And actually, by that time, she had already started dating Joe Kudner, who she ended up marrying and who was obviously far more stable than Bob Yeah.
Yeah. And somebody that she could see a future with.
Yeah. But despite her intention to marry Joe, she still indulged Bob, flirting with him and actually allowing him to sculpt her.
Yeah. So it was while he was living with the Gideons that Bob began experiencing delusional thinking and started believing strongly in what he called visualization, which he believed was the ability to manifest things purely by mental power and focus.
Okay. he believed that through the process of visual visualization he could obtain everything he wanted for himself and he became very frustrated when things didn't appear to be going his way which i imagine happened a lot yes absolutely he was absolutely desperate to be with ethel but no matter what he did or how he tried to prove his love for her she was resistant because she loved joe yeah after several months in the house mary the mother who had always been actually Actually pretty fond of Bob.
Took him aside and very gently expressed her concerns that for the sake of her daughter's future, she was, quote, anxious that Ethel have nothing to do with Bob.
Ooh. Which I think she put it gentler than that.
Yeah. But that was essentially the message.
That's what he took from it.
And she said she wanted her daughter to marry a wealthy man and not have to struggle like she had in her own marriage.
So I think she was saying to Bob, like, I want something better for Ethel.
And also, like, I want you to move on.
Yeah. Yeah, because she's like Tim, too.
She's not going to marry you.
She's not going to be with you.
Like, you need to move on.
Yeah. And it sounds like she went about it in, like, the kindest way that she could have. That she possibly could, exactly.
You know? But, undeterred by Mary's words, Bob continued to pursue Ethel romantically.
And a few months later, while the two were out for a walk along the pier, he insisted that they should get married.
Oh, boy. Now, at that point, having grown tired of Bob's relentless advances and, honestly, his increasingly bizarre talk of visualization, visualization i can never say that and other strange beliefs ethel finally explained that while she hoped they could remain friends she had accepted joe kudner's proposal and they were going to get married in the coming months bob later told a reporter i just went crazy in the weeks that followed he spiraled into depression and heavily contemplated suicide as he bounced from one boarding house to another and then he was dealt another serious blow in october
when After putting up with his poor attitude and sullenness for months, his boss let him go from the production factory he was working at.
In response, Bob grabbed a nearby meat cleaver and threatened to, quote, split his boss's head right down the middle.
Holy shit. So, now out of work and desperate, Bob actually returned to Rockland Hospital, where he voluntarily committed himself for treatment.
That's interesting.
It is interesting that he does, like, obviously know enough.
He recognizes. It seems like he has these periods where he's good, where he's like lucid, lucid, exactly.
And like realizes like, Oh, no, I need to get some kind of help.
And he goes to get the help.
And it's like, I wish that they would have just recognized that he needed to stay there.
yeah because it's like because i think this is like it was just like before medication before any of the advances of understanding what these things are how you can deal with them tools that you can use to get through these things psychiatrists helping you like be like okay when you feel this way this is what i want you to do or this is what i want you to try or visualize this like like coping appeal to his visualization thing but like make it more of a tool that he can use to To, like, get himself out of these really intense emotional situations.
Yeah. And it's like they just didn't have that.
And just offer him a safe space to stay while he is going through it.
Is going through all that.
Yeah, exactly. Oof.
So, based on everything that they learned about him, detectives became convinced that Bob Irwin was most definitely their suspect.
Sounds like it. Yes.
But the only problem was they had no idea where he was.
A police spokesperson told reporters on April 5th, we've been looking for him since the murders we think he's the man i hope he hasn't committed suicide in response to a city -wide alert bob's former landlord who had actually been renting him a room directly across the street from the police precinct contacted police but by the time they arrived at the boarding house bob had packed his belongings and fled oh damn and the landlady the landlady had no idea where he had gone but she did remember that bob had two suitcases with him and one of them had a distinct looking strap wrapped around it with a large
buckle to keep it closed.
So that was a pretty key detail to remember.
So the news about the manhunt for Bob came as a shock to very few people who knew him well, but among those who found it hard to believe was actually Ethel Gideon.
On April 6, she told reporters, I cannot believe Irwin is the man who killed my mother and sister.
While she provided investigators with everything she knew about Bob, more than 18 000 officers mobilized across the city in search of the suspected killer at rockland hospital detectives learned that bob had actually been discharged the previous october and since then had just been kind of bopping around to various boarding houses across the city and during his time at rockland his most recent time they informed investigators that his religious delusions had worsened and he'd actually started studying religion like almost exclusively exclusively, completely casting aside his sculpting and his art.
And it's like that's the only outlet that man has.
And where he was raised in such a place where like religion was not a place of comfort or a place of solace or something to believe in.
It was like probably a punishment.
It's like that's probably not a good place to be going.
Yeah, it wasn't great.
So on a hunch, investigators went to Grand Central Station and asked the baggage check attendant whether anyone had checked luggage resembling that which had been described by bob's landlady as luck would have it somebody matching bob's description actually had checked that very bag they were looking for and that person had not been back to retrieve it in days so presented with the suitcase held closed with the strap and the buckle investigators searched its contents and found inside them that small alarm clock that ethel said was missing from her her sister's dressing table at the apartment.
So this piece of evidence only further confirmed their suspicion that Bob was the killer.
The hunt for Bob Irwin was the largest since the hunt for the Lindbergh kidnapper five years earlier.
Wow. But despite their best efforts, it was not the NYPD who ultimately found Irwin, but a tip from a reader of True Detective magazine.
You could not write this you literally couldn't you could not write this just as they had done before the editors of true detective remained committed to helping find ronnie's killer because remember she worked for them she posed for the covers and yeah she was friends with them yeah they got to know her they loved her so to that end they offered a thousand dollar um reward for information leading to an arrest today that would be 20 over 21 000 wow it was huge in late june of 1937 an employee at the I think it's Statler Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio, happened to be flipping through her copy of True Detective on her
break. And she noticed a police photograph of Bob Irwin.
And she thought, huh, that actually looks a lot like the new bar back Bob Murray.
Stop this motherfucker.
Amused by the resemblance showed the photo to Bob.
And from the look on his face, she could tell that it was way more than a mere coincidence.
Yeah. So Bob fled the hotel that day.
Why would you do that?
Why would you show him until like, oh, this guy looks like you.
Come on. That's a dumbass move.
I'm sorry. So, he fled the hotel.
And by the time detectives made it there, he was gone again.
Awesome. So, by the summer of 1937 now, Bob Irwin's photo was plastered across billboards, magazines, newspapers all around the country at this point.
And it was only a matter of time before they caught up with him.
Wanting to get ahead of the story, Bob ended up placing a call to the Chicago Tribune with With an offer he knew they would not be able to resist. He told the operator, I'm a friend of Robert Irwin, who is wanted in New York for the Gideon murders.
He wants to give himself up.
What kind of deal can you make with him?
Now, after getting through - And this is him.
This is him. This is actually him just pretending to be a friend.
He's like, I have a friend.
After getting through to the right person, he offered the paper a complete exclusive confession in exchange for $5 ,000 cash, a white linen suit and a Panama hat stop given what they were being offered the tribune jumped at the opportunity of course they did and agreed to meet him at the office of managing editor John Deinhart where Bob sat down and told his story the man who did it is sitting pretending to be a friend telling the story if this doesn't tell you that oh at this point he wasn't even pretending to me a friend he was oh he now he's saying it's actually him yeah it was the friend who called
and set all this up but was like i can get bob to you so bob sat down with them wow yeah i'm without i'm speechless now at that time it was actually pretty common for the press to pay criminals for their exclusive rights to their stories or any kind of other information that they deemed valuable as As news reporters.
But this was the first time a newspaper had knowingly and deliberately shielded a murderer from the law in order to get a story.
Fucked. He murdered three people.
He came in this place and said, I'll tell you the story.
And they were like, yeah, let's just let him do that.
And not call the police.
Like what the fuck is wrong with you?
I'm so surprised that they weren't charged with obstruction of justice.
truly i think this it got so sensational and like it got so beyond that that probably once he does eventually get convicted so once it once it ended there they were like whatever but i'm like what the fuck kind of precedent does that yeah that's really fucked up now there's no fucking way ever no that that could happen no but this happened i'm shook by that and the fact that Is that his name?
Because you've been saying Bob, so I forgot that his name was Robert.
And I think Steve Irwin's son is named Robert Irwin.
Yeah, you're right.
And he's a lovely, lovely guy.
He is lovely. I follow that whole family on TikTok.
He's very much a Steve Irwin.
And it's bumming me out so much to hear that name in conjunction with something so terrible.
It's weird that we started this with doppelgangers.
Whoa. That's weird. A little strange.
This is really just the same name.
Robert Irwin, of Steve Irwin DNA, seems lovely.
Oh, yeah, seems a stand -up guy.
But the Chicago Tribune at the time, not a stand -up newspaper.
So they were like, yeah, let's do it.
They were like, yeah, sure.
Because essentially they just wanted to secure the exclusive rights to have advantage over every paper in the world, which honestly is hilarious because, spoiler alert, it didn't end up working out for them.
I can't imagine why.
No, but they were the first to technically get to the story.
On the evening of June 26, 1937, Bob Irwin sat down with reporters and photographers from the Tribune wearing a suit at the Morrison Hotel and just started his story.
Wow. This is so bizarre.
I've never heard of another case like this.
He told them, that night I said to myself, I'm going up there and killing Ethel.
I never intended to get anybody but her.
I thought that after killing Ethel, then they would kill me in the chair, but I didn't care.
He continued on that he had indeed been in love with Ethel and that when she rejected him, he became so obsessed that he was just not able to focus on anything else.
And after several months of hospitalization, he decided the only way to regain his focus was to rid himself of Ethel.
And that's why he was resolved to kill her.
But not wanting to mar her beauty, he said he decided to stab her in the back of the neck with an ice pick from his apartment.
that is so chilling and it's such disordered thinking i don't want to ruin her beauty but i want to end her life what the fuck i feel like that just goes to show you like that something was not connecting upstairs Hey there, my weird weirdos.
I want to take a minute to recommend another podcast called Who Took Misty Copsey?
In September of 1992, 14 -year -old Misty Copsey leaves the Washington State Fair with her best friend and is never seen again.
Her body is never found.
At the time, Western Washington is home to prolific serial killers like the Green River Killer, which leads to different theories on who's responsible for what happened to Misty.
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.
No suspects are ruled out.
After 33 three years Sarah Kalin hopes to answer the question who took Misty?
You guys are going to love this if you listen to Morbid we know that you love a cold case and we always tell you a cold case is never cold so definitely give this a listen definitely look into the case listen to who took Misty Copsey wherever you get your podcasts.
Life doesn't happen bi -weekly so why should payday?
The money that you earn can be in your hands today with Earnin.
Earnin is an app that gives you access to your pay as you work, up to $150 per day with a max of $750 between paydays.
Just download the Earnin app and verify your paycheck, then access up to $150 a day as you work and leave an optional tip.
Any money you access plus tips are automatically repaid from your next paycheck.
I feel like you should have your money as you earn it and Earnin makes that possible.
You want to go out for a little date night and spend your money.
You know, sometimes things pop up unexpectedly.
I would hate this for you, but you might have to go to the vet and drop some cash there.
You need the cash when you need the cash.
Download Earnin today, spelled E -A -R -N -I -N, in the Google Play or Apple App Store.
When you download the Earnin app, type in Morbid under podcast when you sign up.
It will really help the show.
Morbid under podcast. Earnin is a financial technology company, not a bank.
Cashouts are based on your available earnings.
Standard cashouts take one to two business days with no mandatory fees.
Option to expedite your transfer for free.
Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service.
See the The cash -out user agreement for details service is not available in all states.
On the night of March 28th, he went to the apartment on East 50th Street and rang the bell.
Having always liked Bob, Mary happily let him into the apartment where she was prepping for Easter dinner the following day.
He told the reporter, Mrs. Gideon did not want me to have anything to do with Ethel.
Outside of that, she was always very friendly to me.
They chatted pleasantly in the kitchen for a short time.
Mary even introduced Bob to her newest boarder, Frank Burns.
But eventually, Bob started becoming impatient and asking when Ethel would be home.
Confused, Mary explained that Ethel had moved out of the house years earlier because she was now married to Joe.
But according to Harold, I think it's Schechter.
Yeah, we've done a couple of his books.
I think you used his book for the Ed Gein case.
Yes. He wrote a book about this case called the mad sculptor ah and according to him the last time bob had visited the apartment ethel had actually been staying with her mother temporarily and quote bob had gotten it into his head that she and joe kudner were separated oh wow yeah so after a few hours mary became impatient and somewhat bluntly explained that ethel wasn't going to show up and since it was getting late she wanted to go to bed but undeterred bob insisted he was going to stay until he saw ethel which prompted mary to yell get out of here or i'll call the englishman referring to frank
burns who was now asleep in the next room oh no the threat caused bob to become completely irate and he rushed toward mary he recalled at that moment i hit her with everything i had she fell back on the floor with her legs back over her head i grabbed her by the neck she scratched my face like nobody's business good good for her i know he said he then choked her for nearly 20 minutes until she was is dead what and then he simply sat back down at the kitchen table and continued on waiting for ethel he said she was the one i felt i must kill i simply had to finish what i planned and remember frank
burns is asleep in the next room but he didn't hear anything because he was deaf in one ear on yeah and he was asleep on his good ear oh man as he waited it occurred to bob that ronnie might return home before ethel which presented a serious problem he told the interviewer she was beautiful and i hate to destroy beauty what the fuck he's an artist in that moment bob was reminded of something that he'd read recently about how a bar of soap wrapped in a towel could make an effective blackjack that he could use to stun ronnie and nothing more so he went to the kitchen and grabbed the bar of soap
from the sink that's why that's soap that's why it was there which he wrapped in a dish towel and then returned to his hiding place in the bedroom a little after After 3 a .m., Bob heard Ronnie returning from her night out, which lined up perfectly with what Steve and Butter had told them.
And after saying goodbye to Butter, she entered the apartment and went straight to the bathroom, where she started her little nightly routine, removing her makeup, just getting ready for bed.
He said, she stayed in there the longest time.
I thought she would never come out.
But finally, just before 4 a .m., Ronnie entered the bedroom and Bob swung the soap bar as hard as he could, striking her on the head.
He said, it didn't have the slightest effect, which, like, obviously.
But in his mind, that was totally going to work.
So with his blackjack having crumbled to the floor and Ronnie having now seen his face, he grabbed her by the throat and started choking her, demanding to know where Ethel was.
And she just came home to her house.
Yeah. Just in the middle of the night.
How many times does everybody else in the world do that?
This is BTK behavior of, like, waiting in someone's closet until they come home.
Yes, it is. Like, until the middle of the night.
like that's scary now when ronnie explained that her sister was at home with her husband bob lost all control and started strangling her he told the reporter i wanted to let ronnie live if i could we were always pals i suppose she thought i was going to rape her she said please don't touch me i just had an operation and the doctor said if i have intercourse i could die bob estimated that he held on tightly around ronnie's throat for nearly two hours what the the fuck but he couldn't say for certain he said when you get in a mix -up like that you don't think about what you're doing and time means
nothing i i'm like without words it's beyond so once he had choked all the life out of her he ripped off her slip and left her body on the bed and then stuffed mary's body under the bed he never said why he did that yeah maybe just so i don't know the only only thing i can think of is she wouldn't be immediately found i guess but or i like why he ripped off her slip i mean ronnie slip like why he left her naked on the bed yeah i mean strange but he was about to leave the room when he noticed the small this is really interesting and just strange he was about to leave the room when he noticed the small
green alarm clock sitting on the dresser still and to him he said the glowing green clock resembled an eye that had had been watching him while he murdered both women so he grabbed it and stuffed it into his pocket as he left the room wow right I mean that tells you some things he's not of same here I mean this is absolutely fucking horrific absolutely this is brutal so Bob was about to leave the apartment and go back to his boarding house when he remembered Frank Burns the boarder had been in the apartment the entire time but like i said never woke up because of his hearing so when burns had
come in several hours earlier mary introduced bob by name so bob felt that if he left frank alive there was a good chance that he would be able to identify him so he crept into frank burns's room using the ice pick that he intended to use to kill ethel and stabbed burns in the head.
But doesn't that point to not wanting to be caught?
Yeah. And to making pretty logical moves to make sure that you are not identified?
That's the thing. I think he, I mean, he's a diagnosed schizophrenic.
Absolutely. But I mean, like in this moment, I'm like, because you can be a diagnosed schizophrenic, commit a crime like this, and they can still say you're guilty because Because you were sane in the moment, in the action of committing the crime.
Yeah. He's sane. Well, just wait.
That's sane behavior.
You are not the only one that thinks that.
Yeah, I fully believe that.
So, and we'll get to it because you're not alone there.
He said, I struck him the first time in the temple, so far as it would go.
The poor fellow lay there twitching, but did not bleed.
I had to hit him 11 times.
Holy shit. With all three occupants dead, Bob grabbed his coat and left the apartment a little after 6 a .m. He finished by telling his audience from the Tribune, I'm certainly sorry I killed all three of them.
There was only the one I was after, and that was Ethel.
I don't know whether it was hate or love that made me want to kill her.
If she had come in first, I probably would have killed her and nobody else.
Wow. Imagine being Ethel here.
I can't imagine. There's so many layers to it of knowing that if you had walked in, you were the one that was getting this, but also then to know that three people died in place of you.
and two of them being your sister and mother yeah like and by no fault of your own no but the survivor's guilt oh you would already have survivor's guilt anyway like no matter who but then learning that you're the intended victim like yeah I yeah that would ruin me yeah but before ending the interview the reporter asked what Bob was expecting to happen to him now that he had confessed and would be apprehended and he answered whatever's coming to me I'll take wow so it wasn't until after the evening edition of the herald and examiner at the newsstands that investigators learned bob had confessed
to killing ronnie mary and frank the front page article had scooped the competition and been the first to report the news that's fucked up the chicago tribune literally just obstructed the fuck out of justice to get this interview to get that front page scoop and they didn't even get it it ended up getting scooped by the competition somehow just like word of mouth i think but detectives naturally thought it was them and not the chicago tribune who had done the interview and it was only when they reached the offices of the herald and examiner that they learned bob was still holed up at the morrison hotel
with the staff from the tribune what the fuck yup this is so bizarre so on june 28th 1937 bob was transported back to new york after voluntarily waiving extradition and declaring his willingness this to take responsibility for the gideon murders according to the new york times bob's bob was jaunty giggling at times and without the slightest trace of remorse as he repeatedly confessed the murders to the new york detectives who'd been sent to retrieve him from chicago once they arrived back in new york bob was taken to police headquarters and questioned until just before 3 a .m a police spokesperson told
reporters he stated that he had made a statement to lieutenant Lieutenant Owens and Detective Crimmins confessing to the murders in the plane en route from Chicago to New York and that that statement was true.
Wow. According to investigators, he was fully cooperative from the moment that he was picked up in Chicago and actually even seemed eager to get back to New York and face his penalty.
One reporter wrote, he boasted to them that he was willing to plead guilty to the murders and that he was not afraid of death in the electric chair.
Okay, buddy. He doesn't even plead guilty, so I'm like, what?
So this is all just shit.
So Bob appeared before the Court of General Sessions on July 1st, where his lawyer, Samuel Leibovitz, entered a plea of not guilty.
According to the New York Times, the courtroom was packed with, quote, an admiring crowd of middle -aged women hoping to glimpse Erwin.
Get it together. Like what?
Get it together. Just like in part one and every other fucking part we do of any case, people are gonna people.
People are gonna people.
Like what is that? Like, come on, man.
First of all you want to catch a glimpse of a man Who was intending to kill a woman That he was romantically obsessed with And because she wasn't there he killed her mother's sister In a border at the house That like gets you going That's the problem It's like I understand being curious And like being interested in the case And wanting to see who this guy is that did this Absolutely but they were like romantically Interested Wow It's like the girls that showed up to see Ted Bundy And were like please marry me and literally parted their hair the same way died their hair the way that he liked because that's
what he liked or like Charlie Manson's girls yeah it's such a fucking weird pathology it's a strange yeah I don't care people are weird but after entering his plea Bob was removed from the court and returned to his cell to await trial which was tentatively scheduled for the fall in a statement to the press Leibowitz said this is the most interesting case I have ever had due to the social implications you cannot tell me how many more Irwins are running around loose i hope that society will learning a lesson from the erwin case make a more logical insane approach to the problem dealing with the criminal
insane which like for a defense attorney to say like yeah like he's wrong but i think he's insane and the way that he said it like hopefully society will figure their shit out yeah it's a very this is a lesson for sure for the time i'm like wow mildly progressive yeah like a pretty progressive You.
That's the word I was looking for.
Now, in early September, before Bob's trial was to begin, Samuel Leibowitz arranged a press conference in which he promised his client would be on hand to answer questions for the press.
However, when Bob was brought to the interview room in the courthouse, he was, quote, wild eyed, unshaved and unkempt and appeared to have no idea what was going on.
once he settled in the chair beside lewis bob unprompted blurted out for two weeks they had doctors staring and leering at me their eyes they bothered me i couldn't stand it they beat me from behind with black with a blackjack six men with blackjacks i couldn't fight six men with blackjacks just talking nonsense all right which maybe is because he's in a state yeah of whatever he deals with or maybe is pointed yeah i mean it seems to me like he he's obviously clinically there's something wrong yes but i think the thing that they're gonna have to prove here is that he was seen at the time of the murders
the time of the murders so bob said little more to the reporters before being returned to his cell but it was clear that to the reporters that the entire press press conference was part of the defense attorney's trial strategy, whether it was true or not, it was genuine or not.
It was strategic. Absolutely.
Because it's like, they can use it no matter what.
Exactly. Like they're just like, okay, this happened.
Great. Like throw them out in front of some cameras and show everybody that he's clearly not, you know, he's not all with it right now.
It's going to sway public opinion no matter what.
Of course it is. And according to the New York Times, Mr. Leibowitz, who is apparently laying laying the groundwork for a defense based on a plea of insanity, told reporters he thought Erwin was a dual personality.
Lebowitz himself told the reporters that he had seen his client just one day earlier and he seemed calm and collected, but then added, you saw how he acted today, like a raving maniac.
It's wild how they talked.
You're like, yikes.
After several months of delays, Bob finally went before the Court of General Sessions on March 24, 1938.
Because he had already confessed, the only issues being considered were, quote, the mental condition of the defendant, Robert Irwin, at the time of the commission of each of the alleged crimes, whether he is now capable of understanding the proceeding and making his defense on the trial of the indictments.
Yeah. So, essentially, exactly what happened with your trial.
Yeah. With your last episode.
But unlike a traditional trial, in this case, the jury was presented with testimony taken from 20 sessions of the Lunacy Commission.
The Lunacy Commission?
That was a legit thing.
I've never heard that.
The Lunacy Commission.
Wow. And transcripts from the 28 witness interviews, as well as physical and documentary evidence.
In support of his client's compromised mental state, Leibowitz presented testimony from Dr. Leland Hinze, Assistant Director of the New York Psychiatric Institute, and Dr. Bernard Glueck, I think it is, the former director of the psychiatric clinic at Sing Sing, both of whom had actually evaluated Bob.
In total, both men spent nearly 70 hours interviewing Bob.
So this was a dedicated process.
And during that time, Hintze said Bob's behavior would sometimes become frightening and erratic.
He said he would begin by excessive talking and would be considerably upset when he was interrupted for some explanations on some point he had raised.
according to Hintze these interruptions often prompted Bob to quote stare at the examiner grit his teeth pound on the table viciously with his fist and yell that he would not suffer any interruptions that would be terrifying even just writing it and like picturing it yeah was a terrifying experience I can't imagine being there stare at the examiner and grit his teeth and yell and like pound his foot like that's a lot that's scary Summer is in full swing.
Whether you're traveling, taking kids to summer camp, or heading to the pool, we are all looking for ways to stay healthy and save money this summer.
With GoToRx, you can save up to 80 % on prescriptions for you and your family.
Pets, too. Check GoToRx before every single trip to the pharmacy for big savings on both brand and and generic medications.
GoodRx is free and it's easy to use.
Just search for your prescription on the website or the app, compare prices, and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use GoodRx to save at over 70 ,000 local pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CBS, Publix, Kroger, and many more.
And now you can enroll in GoodRx rewards and earn points every time that you use a coupon at the pharmacy.
Remember, GoodRx is not insurance, but it works whether you have insurance or not, and it could even beat your insurance copay price.
Today, I saved $5 on a prescription for my grandpa because I pulled up the GoodRx app, and I said, look at this.
So you could save too.
Save at the pharmacy this summer with GoodRx.
Go to GoodRx .com slash morbid.
That's GoodRx .com slash morbid.
Now, one subject which Bob would talk at length about was his spiritual beliefs.
griefs. Harold Schechter wrote, Irwin worked himself into a pitch of near -frenzied exultation while discoursing on his current efforts to transform his body through the power of electricity.
Bob told the psychiatrist, there is no limit to the extent that I can build myself mentally and physically through electricity.
I can stop the action of my heartbeat, prevent my lungs from expanding and contracting, control the passage of food through my body, all of this done by by electricity false incorrect wow but arguing that bob was sane when he committed the murders and knew what he was doing was both morally wrong and illegal was the district attorney william don D or dode excuse me and elena and he pointed to several instances in which erwin appeared to be concealing information upon his arrest for example bob was reluctant to disclose information about the crimes, which implied a certain level of awareness of what he
had done. And similarly, when he was asked about the fee that he received for his confession, Bob explained that he planned to use a small portion for himself, saying, if I find myself in an institution for life or something like that, I would like to get a small amount of money so that I can hire some one of my fellow patients or prisoners, whatever you want to call them.
In such an institution, for $1 a week, you can get people to do many things for you.
I mean, that is some high level of planning and planning.
Yes. Like, damn. Right.
Yeah. This is such an interesting case because it's very clear that this man is insane.
Like you can't argue.
He is a very ill man.
I mean, his actions before this and you know what he did, the self harm that he did to himself and all that stuff is there is something wrong there.
But I see what you're saying and I see what the DA is saying here with by criminal definition not so much. He like when you pointed it out that he killed Frank Burns because he knew somebody could identify him.
Yeah he was like he's been introduced to me by name and he saw my face and even Ronnie.
Yeah. Ronnie turned around and saw his face after she didn't get knocked out with the quote unquote blackjack made out of soap and so he and he was like I had to kill her.
like that's that's criminal thinking that's sane thinking that's ordered thinking exactly and it's like that's i'm like criminal definition you can have you can be extraordinarily mentally ill but if your moment of lucidity is when you murder someone with your fucking bare hands and you know it's wrong to jail you go like you're guilty yeah that's the way it is like you can't get off off of that if you were lucid while you did it and you know what you did and you still did it and then you made steps to cover it up and to make sure you didn't get identified there's really no arguing that but then
there's the whole issue of can you be institutionalized or can you be sent to prison when really you should be institutionalized he should absolutely be institutionalized exactly yeah i think you should still and i think that's where the problem lies because a lot of times figuring out whether somebody's quote unquote insane or not a criminal insane is to sentence them yeah and usually it's like if you're not insane then straight to prison you go yeah but in this case this man this man is not going to like prison's not going to do anything for him no and not that prison is like necessarily meant
to do anything for anybody but it kind of is like it's rehabilitation it's supposed to be whereas somebody like this is not necessarily going to be able to be rehabilitated but you also look at an institution and especially especially at this time, might be worse.
Oh, it might be, absolutely.
It might be even worse.
It's like, I don't think he's going to come out of there, you know, ready to take on the world either.
No, but then you think of the danger in which you're putting the other prisoners.
So it's like, there's this whole gray area, I feel like, where it's...
Like, I feel like the definition of criminal insanity is so hard. Yeah, it's hard. There's a lot of...
Because there's so many different variables.
Gray areas. And gray areas.
But this one, I'm like, he was sane when he committed those murders in my opinion.
And that's the thing.
I think I agree with that.
I think he was when he committed the murders.
But then I feel like it's a whole different story of, okay, well, like, what the fuck do we do with him now?
You know? Yeah. So Dodge argued that this was evidence that Irwin had already contemplated his options upon arrest. And that, quote, Irwin contemplated the possibility of a trial which would terminate by committing him to an institution for the insane.
according to the prosecution the facts of erwin's voluntary surrender in chicago and the shrewd bargain struck with the chicago herald examiner which erwin initiated and accomplished by himself indicates a mentality of keenness and comprehension which yeah it does yeah and i also like i mean i don't i don't put a whole lot of stock in diagnoses that happened in the 30s so it's like i don't even know if he's schizophrenic i don't know what his diagnosis would be now i don't know what it would be now and that's the thing i don't know i mean again i'm not gonna i'm chair diagnose him because i don't
know enough about him and his life and what he's done i just know that there's moments where he is showing criminal cunning and that's not you know like that's not i don't know it's just there's a lot it's a tough one this is there's a lot of gray area within this case he is completely right when he says that that deal deal that he struck with the the newspaper is cunning for sure cunning deal and it was for his benefit and it's like but it's also shows like a lack of I don't even know like an over overinflated sense of self almost that like or an ego of some kind like a hubris here that like
he thought he could do that and then it's like then what did you think would happen like even he could barely answer that yeah I don't think he I don't think he went from A to C I think he went from A to B with that plan.
So there's that part of it.
That's like that's a disjointed thought.
That's the thing. So there is a lot of different details that are confusing.
And I don't know a lot about schizophrenia, but what I do know is that there are periods of clarity and then there are periods of, you know, like struggle.
Which that happens with a lot of diagnoses.
A lot of mental illnesses and diagnoses, yeah.
So after weighing the evidence, the jury determined that Robert Bob Irwin was in fact sane at the time of the murders.
Wow. Because of that, his case went to criminal trial on November 7th, 1938, where Samuel Leibowitz did everything in his power to stall the trial, objecting to jurors and repeatedly filing motions to postpone the trial, which honestly, that's a tough case.
I feel like he would need all the time in the world to prepare for that.
out. But then, on November 15th, the press reported the surprising news that Bob had accepted a plea deal from the prosecution, where he would plead guilty to second -degree murder on all three charges, and they would remove the death penalty.
The district attorney told the press, because of Irwin's previous record of insanity, there was a possibility that the jury might have held him legally insane, in which case he might finally have been released from confinement.
And see, That's where my issue comes with the whole like, if he's found insane during that, you know, quote unquote, then they'll put him somewhere and then they'll release him.
And it's like, that's no, like a lot of times that's not gonna work.
A lot of times that's where we have another string of horrible crimes that people pay the ultimate price for because this person was let out and deemed to not be sane during this whole thing.
and it's like he would do it again and I think that's where it's like a problem with the justice system and a problem within like hospital like hospitalization yeah and that kind of thing like there I feel like the whole system then and even now is just yeah it needs to be revisited well and it makes the the jury's job even worse because they're sitting here having to say okay okay, if we find this person not legally sane during this and he gets committed to an institution, is he going to be walking out of there in a year?
Exactly. You know, like less than that sometimes.
Because you would have to think of that.
Yeah. So, yeah, it's tough.
Yeah. So instead, the prosecution intended to recommend a sentence of 90 years to life on each count to be served consecutively.
Okay. On November 28th, Bob appeared before Judge James Wallace, who I'm almost 99 % sure we have covered before.
Like he's been in cases that we've covered.
Just sounds very familiar.
That was in the court of general sessions.
And he was sentenced to 139 years in prison.
99 years for the murder of Burns and 20 years for each of the murders of Mary and Veronica Gideon.
Wow. When asked if he had anything to say on his own behalf, Bob said, Ordinarily this business of asking a prisoner if he has anything to say is a mere formality.
The man is generally guilty of willful aggression against society or he is too ignorant to speak for himself.
I'm not guilty of any willful aggression against society.
Then he wasn't done yet.
But Judge Wallace interrupted and said, But Bob ignored the judge and continued, No, I think you just killed three people pretty brutally.
Yeah. And then made great effort to hide it.
Great effort. So, I think that's the problem, Bob.
Yep. So, after managing to get Bob under control, Judge Wallace reread the charges and the sentence, and then turned to the district attorney to make it clear that he had accepted the guilty pleas on the recommendation of the district attorney's office, but he had done so with reservations.
The judge. He said, there is no question the defendant is mentally unsound.
In my opinion, the state has lost nothing in accepting these pleas, except possibly the execution of this defendant, and that would bring no credit to the state.
Yeah. So, he's like, I don't really know if what we're doing here is great.
Yeah. But he was like, but I guess we're not executing him, which like, woo for us.
But it turned out that Judge Wallace was not the only one who questioned whether sending Irwin to prison was the right decision or not.
A little more than a week into his sentence at Sing Sing, Bob was transferred to Dannemora State Hospital for the criminally insane.
after two Sing Sing psychiatrists evaluated him and deemed him very definitely insane, quote -unquote.
While at Dannemora, he studied foreign languages and eventually taught himself French, German, Latin, Polish, Italian, and, quote, also invented an international language of his own.
Wow. Yeah. Damn. When he wasn't spending time on his education, he wrote letters to his former psychiatrist, Frederick Wortham, and even began a long -distance correspondence with a woman in Cuba.
Wow. However, within a year, his anger got the better of him and he became one of the more unruly patients at the hospital who most often required solitary confinement.
He's aggressive. He is aggressive and dangerous.
In 1975, he died at the Mateowin, I think it is, State Hospital for the Criminally Insane after an eight -year battle with cancer, and he was 67 years old when he died.
Wow. The fact that he lived until 1975, it's so strange to wrap your brain around that time frame.
That's a wild one. And it's just so, his life was sad when he was a child, so you feel bad for the child.
Absolutely. You feel so bad for Ethel Gideon.
Oh my goodness. For having to live the rest of her life knowing that she was the intended victim and that her mother and sister and an innocent boarder at the house.
That they just became collateral damage.
Exactly. In his whole thing.
And then for the victims, it's like, Frank is just sleeping in his bed.
Just a border in that house.
Just wrong place, wrong time entirely.
The mom was always good to him.
That's the thing. Ronnie was always good to him.
The whole family was good to this man.
They did nothing to deserve that, except he just couldn't have Ethel and he couldn't handle it.
He just became obsessed.
Yeah. Scary. Scary, scary obsessed.
Wow. but it's such a wild case and it was handled so wild on so many different levels by the press first with publishing fake details about the murders when nobody even knew anything yet yeah that's gnarly exploiting ronnie and like all the photographers that had worked with her but then like true detective being like they came out look at smelling like roses here yeah like the one that you say like oh man those detective magazines they're the ones who come out and And they're like, we actually give a shit about her.
Like, that's crazy.
And then the fucking Chicago Tribune.
That. Like, way back when, of course.
Yeah, way back when.
I was like, oh, my God.
You guys wouldn't do that now, right?
You would never do that now.
You would never do that now.
They couldn't do that now.
No, they could not.
There's no fucking way.
Of course not. I'm like, how did this, how was this allowed?
That's wily behavior.
Insane. So, yeah. Yeah.
Wow. That is part two for you.
And that wraps it up.
Damn. Veronica Guinean and the Easter Sunday Murders.
Wow. Well, thanks for that.
You're welcome. With that, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't turn into what I'm pretty sure next is a listener tale.
Yeah. Party. Thank you.
I have the breath of a woman who just ate a salad gin salad that's going to the end of that because i had a little salad with a little garlic little gorlic gorlic and vinegar make for stankiest breath breath hell yeah okay let's do this if you like morbid you can listen early and ad free right now by joining wondery plus in the wondery app or on apple podcasts prime members can listen ad free on amazon music before you go tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery .com slash survey.
Hey weirdos, you know Ash and I have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong.
Oh yeah, there are so many cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that.
Well, get ready for a love story that's gonna blow your minds, because this one is happening right now.
And get this, it's hosted by our friends Hannah and Saruti from Red Handed.
Meet Travis. He falls head over heels for Lily Rose.
She's gorgeous, she's understanding, and she's literally perfect and she's not human that's right Lily Rose is an AI companion a computer program designed to be Travis's dream woman and at first it seems like a perfect relationship but when Lily Rose's behavior starts getting strange this love story takes a dark and twisted turn that no one saw coming follow Flesh and Code on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts you can binge all episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery Plus
