Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 72 - Robert Irwin Part 2 - All Horned Up

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/chilluminatipod BUY OUR MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/ThatOneLazerClown Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com Theme - Matt Proft End song - POWER FAILURE - https://soundcloud.com/powerfailure Video - http://www.twitter.com/digitalmuppet

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So let's just continue. What? I am one of those. Okay. I am joined by two co-hosts, Alex Posseani and Jesse Cock. Hi. No, I finished that sentence and like there was nothing left. That's the easiest first mystery.

Where did it go? I was dead blank in my brain. It happened. Hey, everybody. How's it going? I feel great. I mean, I'm in a great zone. Good.

Great. Excellent. Great. Excellent. Good. Good. You know, Alex, you said you had something exciting to tell us with the top of the podcast. So before we dive into murderage.

Yeah. Okay. So check this out. So what if I just went into a Patreon spiel right now? How funny would that be? Do it. Do it up. I'm ready.

No, you got 10 minutes. So I went camping this weekend to this like dry ass lake bed and my campsite was on the lake bed and this this like noise started happening and I wasn't I wasn't sure what that noise was right away. But then I realized that like it's it's coyotes and Kelly and I were both up and she was like about to go to the bathroom and she like heard the noise and she was like, I think I'm going to step back from the door. But I so the next night we recorded it and I just linked you guys her Instagram post about it. So you guys can see it.

But listen to this and then think about like skin walkers and stuff like that. And then tell me that like you don't see how somebody could like imagine something like a skin walker. It won't load for me. So I'm going to have to something like just go Instagram slash poke kills. I'll leave the I'll drop the link to it. It sounds like a little cute coyotes. Yeah, I'll drop it into the I'll drop it into the the subreddit or the reddit after this. Coyotes in the middle of the night because I have coyotes out in the woods nearby and sometimes

that night you can hear them going off in red foxes red foxes when they scream it sounds like a dying woman. See this this this sounds like an actual coyote in the distance like you can hear it and it's making little chirps. I raise you one. The birds outside my apartment at night birds sound like the Joker. It's crazy. They totally do.

And we discovered the reason why is because they're making babies. Oh, yeah. They're having a good ass time in the spring. If you open the windows at night all you hear is like you're like whoa, what is that? That's the goblin that takes your toys away and that you gas lights you into believing you're not not experiencing anything. Unlike us where we try to take your money away and gas light into believing things are happening

over on Patreon. Isn't that right guys? What a wonderful website Patreon is it enables creators like us to make fantastic top tier content like this that you're listening to right now. And we can do it as our main real jobs at a consistent rate. And you guys if you sign up not only do you get great custom art every month, not only do you get ad free episodes with none except for this ad, which is I think a fan favorite at this point.

Let's be honest. Everybody loves to hear me talk about this. And and and I do it. I know I know my I know math. Many so don't forget me. That's what I'm getting to. If you get to the end of the episode and you're feeling like no, I need just a little bit more chilluminati in my life today.

Good news for the past like 35 episodes. We've been doing a little bonus, a little bonus and you might have noticed them popping up on the feed every once in a while every couple of weeks. But let me tell you, we're so far ahead of where you're at in the minisodes that there's there's a there's a veritable treasures trove of minisodes for you to jump into. So if you feel like you're not getting your chilluminati chill quote of this week, head on down to patreon.com slash chilluminati pod. And we'll set you straight for very little money.

We'll set you straight. We'll set you straight. This is why we brought Alex on this podcast. Thank you, Alex. I very much. I'm the top tier level of Huxter. S plus. Yeah.

Snake oil. I appreciate it. Is my breath. That was your ranking for today's 10 minute pitch. Yeah. S plus. We appreciate it. Except for Jesse.

But that's fine. But Jesse never appreciates it. But that's why we have him around as well. That's all I'm saying today. All right. Jesse doesn't like it when shows sell out to big us, big ourselves. Only corporations. Thank you very much.

All right, boys. Let's dive in episode 72 part two of the murderer known as Robert Irwin. Now, part one, we mostly and by mostly mean almost exclusively covered his father, Benjamin Irwin. And while his father was a deadbeat drunker to abuse his wife and children emotionally until he ditched his family for the affair of a younger woman after dedicating himself to the new Pentecostal movement and becoming a street preacher after his failed attempt at cult leadership as the Apostle of Fire, also known as the Mystic Renegade.

Dear Robert Irwin's early life still had glimpses of potential normalcy. Yes, Jesse. I forgot he was the Mystic Renegade. That's a still. The Mystic Renegade, the Apostle of Fire, a whiskey baptized preacher. This dude is all my comic book, indie comic book OCs from like 2005. Absolutely. It's like really into like Warren Ellis and shit.

Yeah. Today, though, we focus on the childhood and upbringing of dear old Robert, the man who would murder three. During his childhood, while his two brothers were out committing felonies at a regular pace and getting themselves into trouble with the law, Robert typically stayed home with his mother to help with housework. Even if that house was nothing was nothing more than what the boys called a shelter, each one having to rotate who took a turn sleeping on the porch at night,

as there was not enough room for the four of them to sleep in. Their mother, Mary, had given everything to the church and continued to do so, completely ignoring her own children in service of this church. They consistently subsisted on food that they begged from the local bakery every week. So while his father was a zealous cult leader for selfish reasons, his mother was just as fanatical. But what I would call one who truly believed what she was doing was for God. But even among all of that, Robert was seen as exceptionally bright and hardworking.

In his entrance exam to school, he did so well that he actually skipped second grade entirely, while also being an avid reader, tearing through whatever books you could get his grubby little mits on, including Plutarch's Lives, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and his personal favorite, Francois, I'm going to put you this last name, Guizot's A Popular History of France from the earliest times. Love to read. So far, we're exactly the same. Yeah, no, he's relatively, you know, normal.

But it wouldn't be long before he too became, quote, more unruly and less attentive and developed a tendency for truancy, which he later in life blamed on a growing realization that he and the other children were different. He was dirty, had old torn clothing and had no shoes whatsoever and no lunch, while all the other children within his classroom did. And children being children, they were cruel and made fun of him for it. His bad behavior carried over to home where he began to start fighting with his mother,

more and more, over the religion, telling her to, quote, stop stuffing the Bible down his throat. And in July 1919, Robert Irwin's mother filed with the court for the state to take custody of her then only 11-year-old child, claiming an inability to take charge for his care. And soon after, just after turning 12 years old a week later, Robert was taken by the state and put in a juvenile hall before being sent to Strickland Home for Boys, where he would join his youngest brother, Pember, who had been there for some time already. I forgot his brother's name was Pember.

And Vindolin, his oldest brother. That's the best name. I love that name. Vindolin? Again, for everybody who was enjoying, who enjoys a story and you want more, I'm leaving a ton out about their brothers. So if you want to go do your research, do some reading, the Mad Sculptors, the main source for here, for this research project.

But there's a lot about their brothers. They were doing all kinds of stuff. However, they wouldn't be like killer stuff. Not killer stuff for their brothers. Other more like just kind of criminal acts on the street, and it's covered more if you do some more research, but we're just ignoring the brothers for the most part. We're kind of putting them off to the side.

Sorry, history. Yeah, sorry, Pember. Not today, brothers. Otherwise, it will be a seven-part series. If you are doing a tabletop Star Wars RPG, though. Right. You've got some killer Imperial officer names in Pember and Vindolin. Vindolin is definitely an ISB officer.

That's what my nerves out there. That's what my nerves out there. They're like, ISB? Of course, he would. He said ISB. Yeah! But you know what would have helped that ISB agent, Jesse? Therapy.

That's why we would like to thank today's sponsor of the episode, Talkspace. It's not easy to prioritize yourself. Just look at all of the Imperial agents. They definitely prioritize the Emperor and the Death Star over themselves. So it's not easy to prioritize yourself when there's a lot on your plate. And the world is kind of, well, it's 2020. But investing in your own mental health has long-term benefits. And with Talkspace, it's actually affordable.

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and make sure you use the code CHILL to get that $100 off your first month, and show your support to the show. That's CHILL, C-H-I-L-L, and Talkspace.com. Well, that's all the people who read it. The ones who were staying at this place for long, the Strickland home for boys for long, it was here that he actually received his first full medical examination of his entire life.

And it's here where he learned at the age of 12 that he had congenital syphilis. As their mother had moved to Portland to join a congregation meeting that lasted seven months, it would be in this place with his brother where he had to come to grips with this. Now also, as they're doing a little bit of digging, it seems like the likely place where the syphilis came from was his father.

However, all the boys had it. Vindolin, Pember, he did, they all had syphilis. And as I said, during this time, when Robert was put into the home for boys, his mother ended up moving again over to Portland to join a congregation meeting of the Pentecostal Movement, a meeting that lasted seven entire months before she finally decided that she was just going to stay

in Portland permanently and moved in with one of her others, one of the others within her religious congregation. From there, she sent for her two youngest boys at the behest of the woman she moved in with. And Pember and Robert were then released from state care, back into Mary's custody, and they moved to Portland and rejoined normal school up that way.

And early on, even through his difficult times, Robert showed promising signs within visual arts. He devoured more books, renting them from the library and ripping out pages of sculptors and other pieces of art that he liked, saving up as much money as he could so that he eventually could buy his first set of modeling clay, and he did.

However, home life continued to be difficult, as his mother continued to give as much of her little petty income as she could to the church. Eventually, Robert ended up with a job at the age of 14, stocking shelves at a department store in downtown Portland. But in something that would become a massive pattern, he lasted just under six months before he, quote, savagely assaulted a co-worker for a perceived slight,

the owner of the store saying, quote, he was crazy mad, end quote. We don't know what that thing was, though. Insulted my guess from what the going pattern is, is that he, Robert Irwin, had a massive thing being seen as gay. And any time he was seen as, quote, a fairy, queer, anything that would lean toward him being perceived as gay, he flew off the handle and beat the shit out of whoever said it.

He never would have made it through middle school in the 2000s. Not at all. Not at all. But before Robert would lose that job, our dear boy would have his first epiphany, one that began to indicate something much more wrong with the boy. During one shift at the department store, he and a co-worker were in the back room folding polka dot fabric.

And then suddenly, I know, right? And then suddenly, without warning, Robert described the following happening to him. The polka dot materials seemed to leave my hands and without any human effort, moved straight up to my face. His legs went weak, suddenly slamming himself up against the nearby doorway to hold himself up. The co-worker, also his boss, was there watching the whole thing go down. When he watched Robert stumble into the door,

he asked if something was wrong. And that's when the full realization hit Robert, saying, quote, that's when the whole thing came to me in full force. The reason people have so much difficulty in doing things is that they have such a hard time getting things in their head. You have to visualize first. Before a sculptor can make a statue, he has to make a mental statue. And the reason that even the greatest sculptor

has such a difficult time making a statue is because he doesn't get it clearly in his mind first. That first, they must create a mental prototype. And it's this visualization theory that Robert proclaimed so openly as something so new and groundbreaking that he would obsess over this for the rest of his life to the point of his own detriment. This is like super villain origin story vibes right now.

Except, you know, something that's not all that revelatory in terms of like, you know, doing any art, thinking about the piece. You kind of just have to to make it, right? Yeah, you know, it's typical. However, the revelations didn't stop there and they continued, quote, I expect someday to be able to form an absolutely clear and perfect image in my mind to be able to actually project it into the air before me so that I can actually see it there

with my material eyes, just as I see material objects. I expect to be able to hold it and make other people see it, end quote. And that's where he crosses the line into delusion, where he truly begins to believe that if he can just visualize this thing strong enough, he'll be able to make it pop into existence before him and everybody will be able to see it. I've been trying to research while you were talking about his ability

to transmorphicate things in front of him. We call it visualization, Jesse. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. I can't, so I know that congenital syphilis is a thing and I know that eventually if untreated syphilis can lead to like massive brain damage. So I'm trying to figure out if congenital syphilis can lead to brain damage. I don't, I don't know. It's definitely worth thinking about

and something we're going to explore in the final episode next week. All right, yeah, because I'm looking up and I have no, you know, the internet breaks everything down to like syphilis and secondary syphilis and latent syphilis, but there is no like connectors between anything. It's like, well, all these can happen and then children can be born with syphilis if you've got syphilis, but they don't say like, is it all the same? I don't know, I'm researching and doing diving.

Back in the 1920s too, where medicine is like extremely basic. So he's, he's truly believing he can visualize and what it's also important to keep in mind too, Vindaline and Pember didn't get to this great level of like breakdown, you know, but anyway, and with this new obsession of visualization, he immediately attempted to put it into practice. Robert would go in his room, take all the pictures that he had ripped out of his art books to initially, initially rather for the purpose of inspiration, and then continued to lay them all out before him.

He would then spend hours staring at them in excruciating detail, attempting to mesmerize every single aspect of each painting. Then after studying them, he would turn out all the lights, sit in his bed, and attempt to imagine those pictures so vividly that his brain could project them into the darkness. He just got like hype on remembering shit. Yeah, he would sit there and like bring them super close up in like every minute stroke, color, detail of the paintings. And he would just try to memorize them all as, as, as like perfectly as he could.

And unsurprisingly and unfortunately for our dear Robert, none of this worked. With him saying quote, anybody can concentrate entirely on a thing for a moment or two. But after that, it gets to be a strain. Frustrated, but not deterred, he decided to develop a new tactic. He went on to hire a local boy to call him out any time he broke focus and to keep track of the time he could focus before he ended up breaking his concentration and looking away. A local boy? What?

Yeah, a local boy. He just, a local nearby boy that was younger than he was, he was just paying to sit there and watch him. He'd be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, look at the painting. Yep. No, but that's exactly it. That was exactly what he was doing. Get the boy, sit there and watch him and time him.

And he'd be like, hey, you broke your concentration. And then, and then Rob be like, all right, how long did I focus for? And he'd be like, 29 seconds. And he tried to do better the next time and do better the next time. What is that game that we played on Scary Game Squad with the painter? Oh, um, Layers of Fear? Layers of Fear, yeah. Dude, this is like creepy.

Like this is like that. Creepy. Like this is like that very much that. And it gets even worse and weirder. It does. So the boy's father, however, was not aware of what his boy was doing with Robert every day and was worried that he was engaging in, quote, something queer and immediately stopped the boy from helping Robert,

stealing away his concentration coach. But Robert continued to take books from the library and steal pictures from them. Eventually his picture is numbered in the thousands. And in 1924, a public librarian finally filed a complaint charges against Robert and he was convicted as a delinquent minor while being given a suspended sentence under the condition that he paid $53.88 in restitution money or in today's cash, a bit over a hundred bucks. I, I almost pre pre murder or I almost like, I feel bad for this kid because

it seems like there's a lot about his backstory so far that he just kind of either wants to feel love or to love someone or something. And he's got none of that. And anytime he shows to anyone, his dad's like, what are you queer? And he's like pretty much as. And I mean, we, well, we don't get into it too much in this episode, but like he also didn't lose his virginity until the age of 20. And when he lost it, it was to a prostitute and initially for him.

And we're not talking, I'm just going to go over it real quickly. But initially, like it was, he paid for her and they just did their, their thing. But then she hung out and they slept together a few more times and they had a good night together and they kind of started seeing one another. And then one day she was arrested and she disappeared. And she never saw her again. And then the way he kind of saw women after that and the way he treated women after that kind of all tumbled downhill.

She disappeared. She was arrested and then disappeared off the streets, likely maybe moving to work a different place because he would go, he would meet her where she would work. He would meet her on the street. So if she moved to different streets and she couldn't find him, he couldn't find her again. I mean, 1920s, he had no beeper, no way of reaching out if she ain't there. God, I mean, how far away from like normal human interaction is that? That is so depressing.

It's, yeah, a lot of his, like Jesse said, a lot of his childhood is super depressing. And a lot of killers end up being like this. I wouldn't call him a serial killer. He's more of a spree killer or rage killer. He did it once. He just gets brought to the brink and he snaps once. But you can, you can understand that, like based on everything going on with his life so far, you can understand how he's not a meticulous like, and then after I chop the bodies up,

I then, he's not that guy. You can clearly see that he is a dude who's like, I have stuff inside of me and my entire life people been beating me down and I'm going to unleash a beast. Like you can, you can just see it. You just take that anger and you mix it with cult like upbringings and bizarre, bizarre, like fantasy delusions of, of like visualization and eventually teleportation. And you have a mess for, you know, ahead of you. Yeah.

Oh, we will continue. So we had to pay a little over $800 in today's money in restitution for all the pictures that he ripped out of the local public libraries. So he needed to pay it off and he decided no, he needed another job. So finding another job as a stock boy to attempt to help pay off that now debt. That only lasted a few short weeks before he once again flew off into a rage at a supervisor viciously beating him at the store. He was fired, but he was not arrested.

And his mother moved away once again with her religion, leaving her two boys alone in Portland. And at the age of 18, Robert committed himself to the domestic relations court, asking them asking to be taken into reform school. His request was granted. And he once again joined Pember at the Oregon State Training School for boys. And this whole time he was still doing the painting thing? Well, he was, yeah, he was still like he enjoyed doing art. And now he was doing that as his own like little hobby.

And it's also important like him going to the domestic relations court as an adult and asking to be taken in doesn't actually surprise me all that much because during his time as a young kid at the other school with Pember during those seven months, it was the time he actually speaks and talks about that time way more fondly because they gave him clothes and they gave him hot food and he had, you know, he was treated like a normal kid and he had really fond memories of it. So he just wasn't abused by the people taking care of him. Exactly.

But at this point at 18 years old, too much had happened to him. And going into the Oregon State Training School for boys while maybe a smart initially didn't end up working out like it did the last time. Unlike the last time where he seemed to enjoy his stay, this time around, Robert had to become much more violent in the interim. Sure. Those who who knew him said he would be the sweetest and happiest guy around smiling always. And then in an instant become a monstrous animal if provoked to anger.

And one guy named Danny really had it out for him consistently poking fun at his quote manhood. One day while having lunch, there was only a small heel of bread left as well as one larger normal piece. While Danny was reaching for the normal piece, Robert reached out and snatched it away before he could grab it, prompting Danny to throw a curse his way. This sent Robert into a frenzy and he jumped up and began to fight Danny. However, it didn't last too long before the two were separated. But it wouldn't be before long before they crossed paths again with Robert once again

prompting a fight saying, quote, if he wanted to scrap, he'd be happy to give him one. And Danny once again cursed him out. And this time, Robert went in hard. It took the better part of it. You know times are rough when a piece of bread causes this. Dude, yeah, no shit causes like I will kill you. You know times are tough. It took people the better part of an hour before they could pull Robert off of Danny

while while Danny ended up breaking his fingers and his whole ear had been completely cauliflowered. In 1927, at the age of 22, he beat on for an hour. Oh, for a better part of an hour, poor people could get him off of him. Damn. He was just on his just like an animal. That is stamina too. Yeah, that is. Yeah, that's just pure rage.

Pure rage and adrenaline. I'm never being like violently angry for 45 minutes. That's like, right? That's I would. I would wager based on all the descriptions of people talking about him, how he was nice. Then I imagine it's one of those like Hulk things where he's like he's always angry, but he puts on a good show. Yeah, I have a feeling that's what it is.

Truthfully. He is just pure rage all the time. Yeah. He just smiles. He's been in this house for boys for four years. And in 1927, at the age of 22, Robert was paroled where he attempted once again to go live with his mother. It's there that he learned of his father's passing at the age of 70 at the age of 71,

where his father passed in the home of a 40 year old widow and violent fights with his mother began almost immediately before he packed his bags and left Portland completely, heading for where else but the land of dreams, baby. L.A. Ah, got another one. This guy's going to turn out to be like my dad or something. On the way, Robert would work a variety of jobs specifically in San Francisco, from docking to lumberjack, fruit picker, cannery worker,

all while he hitched hike his way to L.A. And finally he arrived and he looked like shit. He desperately needed a haircut. And so he strode into a local barber shop and sat in the chair while one of the two barbers immediately quote, took him for a ferry. And as he was cutting his hair, some have fallen on. What is happening to him? What?

Like that's what. But this is Robert's words. He this is what he said. He said they took him for a ferry. You got to take it at Robert's words whether this actually happened or not. Again, this is Robert talking about himself. Robert talking about how the barbers perceived him. He walked into a barbershop because he was dirty as hell, needed a haircut.

And he said the barbers took him for a ferry. I think, man, this guy needs to like, I don't know. He is dealing with this. He's dealing with some things. He's dealing with some things. Supposedly this happened though. So as he was cutting, how this hair was getting cut, some of his hair fell into his mouth.

And the barber made a comment saying it looked like he had been sucking someone off. I can't. I know. What? What? What? What? How did this keep happening to him?

I'm just going to say it feels like this is an obsession of his. That's probably a deep seated. Like if this is the only thing you're taking away from this entire conversation. Robert might have wanted to put a penis in his mouth at some point. It might be deeply, deeply buried. He has deep seated issues. And it's just like, dude. I now, now here's a moment in Robert's life where I wonder how much of this is actually

instant and how much of this is playing because of course this triggered Robert. But unlike before, Robert waited patiently for the haircut to finish. And as soon as the haircut was finished, he sprung to his feet and began to beat the barber mercilessly before the other barber came over and tried to get him off failing. So he ran over, grabbed a nearby bottle and smashed it over Robert's head, causing Robert to stumble off of the other barber. There was a beat cop on the sidewalk, but Robert ended up blasting out through the front door with his hand covered and running down the street.

The beat cop went into the barber shop and Robert got away scot-free. So, I mean, how much of it is, is like uncontrollable rage? If you're going to be able to sit there and finish your haircut, planning being like, when I'm done, I'm going to beat the fuck out of this guy. I think it goes back to the idea that he is always raging and he hides it well and he knows when to unleash it and when not to, or at least he's learning to. He's learning when he can get away with it and when he can't. And so he's making judgment calls like, well, I don't want half a haircut.

So I'll wait to keep these guys up. Which makes them more dangerous. Yeah. I think. That seems a little bit more like serial killery actually to me. Yeah, that's, that's, you know, and I still don't necessarily believe as a serial killer, but the minute you can stop yourself from, you know, holding back your anger and being like, I will beat you when you get what I want from you first, then it's like, okay,

are you starting to embrace this, this violent side of you? I think maybe that's closer to what you have to imagine that once you initiate your first hour long beat down, you learn a lot of valuable lessons about that. And how much you like it. Yeah, you learn. And also you learn like when it is appropriate to do that. And when you can get, you know, there's a lot of things that you learn from. They always say like, even though I have no experience with it, you know,

I've watched enough movies and documentaries to know that like, if you ever kill a person, it always gets a little bit easier every time you do it. Yeah. I mean, I guess escalation, right? Escalation. Serial killer escalation. Yeah, like you just, and so I have to imagine that there's something akin to that here where he's like, look, I'm escalating everything I'm doing.

I'm being smarter about it. I don't know. I'm going to show you boys a picture real quick. And for anybody who's out there and wants to look at them, this is important just going into like, how does he keep getting these things? You have to understand Robert was actually a pretty good looking dude. So I'm going to show you a picture of Robert on the camera here. That's a, that's Robert there.

I don't know if you can kind of see him all that well. All right, let's stress. He was a good looking dude for the 1920s. The 20s. He's a, he's a 20s typical, like decent looking. Although on that same page. On this. It does look like Andrew Ryan.

Holy shit. On the same page. If you go on mucknash. Is a, uh, like just a young naked woman. Is that from the story? Should we know her? Yes. Uh, the people he killed, the naked models that he ended up falling in love.

We'll get to in a part three. I didn't know that's what he was doing. Oh, yeah. He gets into sculpting later. This guy is lit. This guy has to be studied in psychology classes. Everything about him is like peak psych one-on-one. Everything from like dating the prostitute.

She vanishing to him, focusing on like naked models. Like everything to his dad and the way he treated him to like, he's obsessed with that being called parody, cliche version. Yeah. Yeah. Everything about it. You're like, what the? It's so quintessential.

No. So while Robert ran off bleeding from the head, the years continued and Robert was still quite presentable. Now that he had gotten to where he was going, bathed the haircut, and he spent the rest of his money on what good clothes he could. And while he wasn't losing his mind, it was actually able to land. He was actually able to land a job being hired on the spot at the studio of Carlo Rominelli,

which worked in prop making for Hollywood at the time in the 1920s. Hollywood, California. Exactly. This is also the point where he stops doing jobs that are kind of just like stocking shelves and he truly starts to explore his art, the artistic side of himself. And he would hold onto that job for a year for honing his craft and proving his works while he fervently and with, and while, I'll try that again,

while he fervent with a passion, while he fervently with a passion obsessed over visualization and that obsession only continued to grow spewing his beliefs to anyone at the studio who could bear to listen with to his proclamations like, quote, I mean, to be able to get my mental picture clear, that then I'll be able to do things that no sculptor ever dreamed of. I'll be able to make a bust of somebody I haven't seen for years, just by copying my mental picture of that person.

My mental picture. And I'll do it so fast that Michelangelo himself would say to me, quote, how the hell did you do that? It's so weird that like being efficient with his sculpting is like important to him as an artist. It's, it's less about the sculpting and more about this visualization. The idea of like a mind palace library of everything he's ever seen. He thinks he has one. He thinks he can do it.

Does he? Is it possible that he has a, what's it called? No, he does not have. Well, he doesn't have like an edictic memory or a photographic memory or any of that shit. He definitely does not. But he's still extremely talented and clearly has a lot of skill. And eventually though, after about a year of this, his coworkers eventually got sick of his ramblings. And one of them told him to his face that they were annoyed of hearing about his visualizations.

And as you might have guessed, he thought it sent him into a violent rage as he beat the person down, forcing the studio to let him go and fire him. But they did not arrest him. But it's from this, finally freed from this job, and having recently read about the captivating accounts of Laredo Taft in Chicago at his Midway studio, Robert packed his bags and hopped on a train headed for Chicago. And in May, 1929, walking through the gates of the studio that he was hoping to work at, to his right serendipitously, a door swung open.

Members of the studio walked out and a stranger calling over to Robert, asked for a little help and moving something. What? There he walked over and helped. And he was told that he would be brought face to face with the Midway studio owner Taft himself. And so being brought to a movie, he present. What was that? It's like a movie moment.

It's, it's, it's, it gets even crazier because there he was, he was presented with him and how hoping that he'd get a chance to show off his art to somebody at the studio to get a shot, he was now faced with the owner of the studio and Robert Erdogan presented him with his art pieces. And he also declared that he had come over 2000 miles to study under Taft. And with a year of experience at the Romanella studio under his belt, his artwork was instantly impressive and from there he was welcomed to the studio, offered a one week living situation, which would then turn into a permanent one. But this too would end just as everything else had ended with a fight.

You see Taft had actually brought Robert Erwin into his own home, where he had housed a few different students to under tutelage under him. And one of those housemates one day had saw Bob in the, in the kitchen. And later on that day challenged Bob to a little sparring wrestling match for fun, not, not for anger. It was like, I see that guy who's been beating the shit out of everybody who calls you gay. Let's fight. No, he hadn't beaten anybody up yet.

It just, he just wanted to wrestle. He just thought it would be fun. So he ended up wrestling him and he agreed. In the first round, the roommate won. So when the second round started, he was surprised when Robert came out with a Furian violence that he hadn't had in the first round, hitting him square in the jaw and knocking him right to the ground. Robert threw his hands up and declared himself the winner,

but the housemate asked for just one more round and Robert accepted. This time around, the housemate went in just as hard and with a flurry of blows summarily beat down Robert. Robert then after standing up asked for a rematch, but was then declined. He was furious. A few days later, in the kitchen of the home that the both of them were staying, Robert was there drying his dirty socks on a kitchen counter where people ate. What the f-

That same housemate that he had just lost wrestling match to entered the kitchen and raised concern with this. And without a word, after raising his concern, the following happened by his, the housemate's own, uh, his own word. Quote, without any commoner word of warning, Robert suddenly attacked me. He leaned over the table and hit me some hard, stunning blows. I was trapped and almost helpless. By the time I could wiggle my way out, I was badly hurt.

He was often a fury. To me, the situation was very, very bad. I was trying to push him off, but then I saw it was hopeless and tried to fight, but I was already beaten. I was bleeding so much from the nose and mouth that the floor became slick with my blood. I wanted to end this. I tried to pick up a milk bottle and was going to hit him on the head, but I didn't have the strength to do it.

He just kept beating me on and on and on. By then, a man from next door came running in and tried to stop him, tried to stop him, but he was too little. He couldn't pull him off. Somebody called the police and suddenly Erwin slipped on my blood. I seized the opportunity to run downstairs. I ran down and he ran after me. We struggled a while again, but I got away.

I went next door to our friends and spent the night. The next day I moved to a hotel nearby. I believe he would have killed me there. Over his fucking socks? His socks? Yeah. Well, the deep seated, he got beaten in a wrestling match, and I think he just held on to that.

And then this was just his reason to beat the person up that beat him in a wrestling match. And whose idea was the wrestling match again? That guy, the guy that he just beat up. Like it was just a few days before he got beat up and he was like, Hey, you want to wrestle? Like, let's wrestle. It'll be fun. And so they did because that's what you do in the 20s.

And then he lost and he got mad and he held on to it for days. And then when he got a perceived slight about drying his socks on a nearby counter, he flipped out. Good Lord. Yeah, it's rough. It's extremely rough. And again, this is another moment where I'm like, has the flip as the switch in his head turned, has he flipped the switch where now he's waiting days to beat somebody up.

He's waiting for a reason that in his mind, he can justify it. But I don't know. It's not. This, of course, lost him as a position at the studio. And by 1930, completely out of jobs and after a failed self-plaster bust business, which, by the way, he attempted to start a whole self-business where he created miniature plaster busts of celebrities in the 20s. Like just like unlicensed like knick-knack.

Yep. And you want to know a really fun story? It's not in this. He called out, he rang Al Capone. He rang Capone to make a bust about him. He had just gotten out of prison for the first time after like a few months stints for like, you know, some some small charges. And he reached out and Capone actually reached back.

But he was in the moment laying low and hiding and had no interest in having a bust made of him. Just two cases of syphilis talking to each other on the phone. It really is. What's up, dude? You crazy? Hell yeah, me too, man. And so completely out of jobs and after a failed self-business, Robert ended up almost prophetically carving tombstones for a living.

Good lord. However, no, he was desperate to put his talents to use. And his obsession with visualization had begun to stretch beyond the boundaries of sculpting beyond the boundaries of sculpting and art as his grip on reality slowly began to slip and true depression, I think, began to sink in. And so in his desperation to be something more, Robert packed up and moved again one last final time off to New York City. And this guy got like the whole great American novel on him.

Yeah, he really didn't. It's like Gatsby. But it's here. It's here. His violence would explode and further would begin to seep into his fantasies. At one of his lowest points, debating, committing suicide, he decided that he wouldn't do it by his own hand, but by murdering the old woman who had taken him in New York,

getting caught and then being sent to the electric chair to die. What? He wouldn't even. Yeah, his own. That's what he's visualized. We're like, that's what he was visualizing constantly. He wanted to murder the old lady. He was keeping him and then go to the electric chair and die that way.

He was disturbed, however, by his own violent fantasies. And he presented himself to the Winifred Masterson Burke Relief Foundation. And it's from his time spent here. We truly learned the Robert Irwin is a deeply disturbed man, and that his violent fantasies and bizarre obsession with magical power of visualization began to mesh with his out of control sex drive. During his nine month stay, he became close friends with a man named Chuck Smith.

And Chuck had this to say about his friend's fanatical theorizing, quote, he has ideas about his ideas that are more obtuse than I'm sorry. It was an accent coming up. He has ideas about it. No, you're in it now to the accent. Now, there's ideas that are more obtuse than Einstein's, who at the time was privy to Bob's newest obsession, his determination to funnel all of his libido into his visualization work.

So we're at this moment. He's trying to take all sexual energy and somehow funnel it into, into concentrating. But if there's anything I know about being horny, you cannot concentrate on anything other than wanting to fuck. Strongly disagree. I've been doing a lot of work the last year. Been putting a lot of effort doing great.

Chuck continued saying that Bob continually talked about bottling up his sexual urges. And at the same time, couldn't stop talking about women's breasts. It is one of the only things that Bob would talk about beyond his visualization obsession. He enjoyed every aspect of a woman's breast. Even going wild. It's like weird, like specifically focused on a boob. I love boobs.

I just want to say, Alex, you may remember this, but to everyone out there, if you've never seen a movie called Frankenhooker. Oh my God. I have never seen Frankenhook. By the way, Bill Murray says is, Bill Murray says is one of the best movies ever made. Um, he's not wrong.

Here's what I'll say during that movie, there's a scene in which the crazy mad scientist is like raiding boobs. And he pokes this one woman's nipple. And as Alex said, he goes, awesome, utterly awesome. And now that's all I can think about with his dude. Is this is being like, utterly awesome. This dude is this dude. Okay.

So this guy's reputation around town is. He beats the shit out of everybody that he's. This is his reputation in the psych ward. He admitted himself to. Right. God, I mean, in life, this is his. Oh, in life. Yes.

Is he is the guy who goes around beating the shit out of people who disagree with him. And he just like loves talking about titties all the time. No, I, I don't know. That's accurate. I feel like his reputation is everyone is kind of like, oh, that's the guy who definitely has some deep seated issue. Like everyone, everyone like makes fun of the dude constantly. And so I feel like he's that guy who always has to stand up like for his manhood.

He's the joker. Can't handle it. You're, you're, you're exactly correct. Not to cut you off, but like, again, I left out a bunch of, there's a bunch of stories where he just sent into a violent rage because he's perceived or somebody made a comment to him that immediately made him think like that had to do with his, with the manhood or being gay. And it was, that was his trigger point.

Yeah. And it seems like every time he's gone off the handle, it seems like it's because someone questioned him as a man, which is like, oh, that is my, my dude reflects on our, our, our culture a little bit too. Doesn't it? Yes. Oh, I agree. And I, it is 100%.

It's a little crazy to think like that's his, it's kind of like when everyone would be like, what are you, Marty McFly? Yella? He's like, I'm going to get a car crash. Yeah. Let it go, McFly. Go home. Just, just think of your family, just think of your family, McFly.

Your Irish great, great, great grandfather was right. Just walk away, you idiot. The real, the real, the real mystery of that is why does his relative in the old West look like Michael J. Fox instead of a Crispin Glover? Because it, you know, it messes, it messes everything up. Why would, why would his mom be with him in the past? It doesn't make sense. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

But that's right. Robert Irwin is Marty McFly of the 1920s. It's fine. Yeah. In some aspects. Continuing on though. In some aspects. In some aspects, correct.

But Chuck continued to say some of this about Robert's dallian sees within the mental hospital. Quote, there was a woman at Burke Foundation. She said she was 32, but she looked older because her hair was gray. She was a waitress. She got to monkeying around with, with Robert one night down in the basement. She just began to act kidnish and he grabbed hold of her breasts and she started giggling. He took her out one night and we saw, and they saw Greta Garbo and Matahari.

Is this a must be a movie? Were you right? You're right. You're right there. Doug, I'm just like, I'm just like, how does that work? I'm just, I'm just picturing the situation and I'm like, how is this guy like knocking him out? Like getting hit in homers with this, with these moves.

Cause he's such a, cause he's such a man. Don't you get it? He is. He's such a me. His masculinity. Don't question it. Alex. All right.

So, all right. You got me. So we took her out one night and they went to go see Greta Garbo and Matahari. And then they had a chicken sandwich and coffee. And after they had a milkshake and she paid for everything. Right. Oh, cause she wanted to get something. I get it.

Exactly. Cause then when they got back to the Burke Foundation, they went to the dining room and they had, they fucked right there on the table. In the dining room? In the dining room. Afterward, however, Robert was deeply ashamed saying, quote, I was so damned ashamed of myself for taking such an old looking bitch. Wow.

And he let her pay money. Like, what is this guy's masculinity defined by? She treated him, they went out and they banged and then he's like, ah, fuck her. She was old. I can't imagine some toxic man being like, yeah, damn right. I paid for my dinner. Yeah, right.

It's not, dude. And then he's like, she was old as hell. Dude, this guy. He was ashamed because he fucked an old girl, an old woman away. If this guy lived today, he would own a shirt that said stop being offended. He would, you know what? If he was alive today, he'd say meninist. He'd have like a controversial podcast that like nobody likes,

but like somehow it has like 300,000 listeners. Oh my God. Well, Chuck said that Bob's ideas had gotten so odd ball that he began to simply dismiss them. But Bob had told Chuck that he decided the best way, because keep in mind too, Robert hated how horny he was. This is very important. He despised it.

He wished that he wasn't horny so we could focus on the stuff that he wanted, but his own sexual urges were distracting him and he hated it. So Bob told Chuck that he decided the best way to deal with his unwanted sexual energy for the sake of his visualization is to chop off his own penis. I knew it was fucking coming. I figured that's where we're going. He was fucking coming. However, he wouldn't chop off his penis in the Burke Center.

And Bob eventually left the Burke Center, moving to Manhattan. And the reason he left the Burke Center were supposedly because two women kept putting sexual advances on him and it infuriated him. So he left to get away from the women who kept trying to sleep with him. However, this final decision to move to Manhattan would set him down a path that would see his wildest fantasies and theories spin out of control and become so dangerous. He kills three people in the pursuit of his own art and visualization abilities. That's where we'll pick up next.

This is the most American story I've ever heard in my life. Believe this story. I can't even handle it. He went to New York to cut his balls off. This is. Well, he was already in New York. That's where the center was. And then he moved to Manhattan to get away from the women who were desperately trying

to jump on his dick. Literally, he left the mental facility because two women were trying to bang him constantly. He thought about so many boobies that he decided to cut his penis. Too many boobies, dude. Have you ever thought about boobies so much you wanted to cut your own dick off? I do. I do wonder, though, if even with like not having a dick, does the thought of boobies stop? Yeah, you know, I don't know.

I just I don't feel like I don't think that's how it works. Yeah, I don't think so either. But it depends on why you care about the movies. I can't help myself. I just I love the boobies. God damn it. Yeah, I just. I get it.

Well, okay. That's it. Yeah, we'll finish up Robert Irwin. Next part three, the finale, his murders, the scene, his attempted escape. He tries to get away and his trial there. It's his fucking nuts. This is a wild crime in the olden days. True crime stories are wild, man.

It always seems like it's like a little bit impossible with the olden ones, like how far along everything gets. But I'm sure it's just true. I will. I will say the just going back to true crime and all that stuff and thinking about, you know, the olden days of the 1920s, you know, 100 years ago. Yeah, I was watching if you're ever, you know, it's I don't know if it's Sunday night and you're just around on a lot of cable shows.

They rebroadcast all those old murder mystery shows that used to be on like the mid 2000s or like, you know, the 2010s or like snapped shit like that. Yeah. Like date lied. Like, you know, like this. So I was watching one and it was about a woman here in LA who was murdered and the whole premise was like, was she working with the CIA? She, her body was found in the back of a car, but she was a CIA operative.

Like no one, it was, it was crazy. But on the crime scene, the body was discovered in I think 2002, something like that. And at the, or maybe it was like the early late, I'm sorry, late 90s. It was in that like, you know, 99, 2002 range, but they found like a drop of blood. And because DNA testing was not as good as it was, they were like, well, we don't know what to do with this. And then cut to 12 years later, they're like, yeah, let's test it. And so they go through the process of testing it.

And so even in 12 years time, technology and the things that they used to forward. Yeah. Yeah. Zooms forward. And so they cracked the case. They solved everything based on that. It's crazy how much crimes people just got away with. The thing that will get Robert Erwin, the thing that puts him behind bars

is something that he's been doing since day one. It's his ripped picture obsession. That will be the crux of his crime. And you'll see how all that falls together. That's how it worked with most old and like older. Most crime back in the day was sort of like, all right, we can't get them in all the murders, but we can't get them for tax evasion. The freaking dude, the vampire guy that I was talking about at episode 69.

Like, oh yeah, blood on the scene, spit on the body, jizz on the body. Like everything is just there. And if it was just later, he would have been like done for, but he could just like do whatever the fuck he wants, leave a mess. And he's like, yep. He done. It doesn't matter. It's another day.

You know what would have stopped him? If he had just cut off his own penis, he would have been fine. Maybe. Maybe. That's what would have stopped all those urges. And he could have had, he could have discovered the power of visualization. It's like, I'm visualizing us going to do a mini-soad. Right after this?

Now, so we're going to go. And where can you get it? If you want to hear it. Oh no. I think you can get it at patreon.com slash to Luminati pod at the $15 tier in a ball. Oh my God, look at that. You get that mini-soad. $20 to your art.

$5 to your ad free episodes. $10 to your behind the scenes scripts. But no, all kinds of fun. If I was already a host of this show, I would sign up for that right away. Because I don't want to miss a minute of this. Not a minute. Not 10 minutes. Not even 15.

Thank you so much for listening, everybody. If you want to reach out to us, you can hit us all on Twitter, to Luminati pod for the show. Mathis games for myself. Jesse Cox for Jesse Fosse on AA for Alex. And over at the subreddit where there's more stories every goddamn day. And I can't get through all of them. So if you want to hear more stories,

we're going to start reading a couple here and there over on the mini-soads. And coyotes. Go to the subreddit to hear the coyotes. And the coyotes. Exactly. Thank you guys so much for listening. We love you. We appreciate you.

And we will see you next week. Goodbye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside. And after a few moments, I hear my wife go, holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dash back outside. She's looking up at the sky in the fall.

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