Futility Closet - 119-Lost in the Taiga

Episode Date: August 29, 2016

In 1978 a team of geologists discovered a family of five living deep in the Siberian forest, 150 miles from the nearest village. Fearing persecution, they had lived entirely on their own since 1936, praying, tending a meager garden, and suffering through winter temperatures of 40 below zero. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll meet the Lykov family, whose religious beliefs committed them to "the greatest solitude on the earth." We'll also learn about Esperanto's role in a Spanish prison break and puzzle over a self-incriminating murderer. Intro: The London Review and Literary Journal of August 1796 records a cricket match "by eleven Greenwich Pensioners with one leg against eleven with one arm, for one thousand guineas, at the new Cricket ground, Montpelier Gardens, Walworth." The British Veterinary Journal of March 1888 reports that a Manchester horse fitted with eyeglasses "now stands all the morning looking over the half-door of his stable with his spectacles on, gazing around him with an air of sedate enjoyment." Sources for our feature on the Lykov family: Vasily Peskov, Lost in the Taiga, 1994. Mike Dash, "For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II," Smithsonian, Jan. 28, 2013. Russia Today, "From Taiga to Kremlin: A Hermit's Gifts for Medvedev," Feb. 24, 2010. Alexis Sostre, "Siberia: Woman Who Lived Her Entire Life in Wilderness Airlifted to Hospital," Sostre News, Jan. 16, 2016. Listener mail: The original article on the 1938 San Cristobál prison break, by Jose Antonio del Barrio, in Esperanto. An article (in Spanish) about the escape on del Barrio's blog. A description (in Spanish) of conditions in San Cristobál, by one of the successful escapees. A description (in Spanish) of the escape plot, from research carried out by Fermín Ezkieta. A documentary film (in Spanish) about the escape. A study (in Esperanto) on the role of Esperanto in the working-class culture in Spain. Del Barrio's presentation (in Esperanto) on the use of Esperanto by socialists in the Basque region. A presentation (in Esperanto) by Ulrich Lins and del Barrio on the use of Esperanto during the Spanish Civil War. Lins is the German author of "La Dangera Lingvo," on the persecutions suffered by esperantists. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was devised by Sharon, who collected these corroborating links (warning: these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from one-legged cricketers to eyeglasses for a horse. This is episode 119. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1936, a small family withdrew deep into the Siberian forest where they lived entirely isolated from civilization for the next 42 years. In today's show, we'll meet the Lykov family, whose religious beliefs committed them

to the greatest solitude on earth. We'll also learn about Esperanto's role in a Spanish prison break and puzzle over a self-incriminating murderer. In February 1982, a Russian journalist named Vasily Peskov received a call from a reader in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, asking whether he might be interested in an extraordinary human interest story. He told Peskov that in a nearly inaccessible mountain region in Caucasia, a group of people had been discovered who had lived completely cut off from the world for 42 years. It was a small family. Two of the children had never seen another person except for their parents

and had no notion of the outside world. This region is called the Taiga. It's 5 million square miles of coniferous forest with only a few thousand people living in it altogether. This family were discovered by accident in the summer of 1978 by geologists who were investigating iron ore deposits that had been spotted from the air. They didn't expect to find any people living there. They just noticed some what looked like a tended field and a hut there as they were trying to find a place to land the helicopter. This is in the upper reaches of the Abakan River. So they did find a place to land and made their way toward the hut,

and a very old man who was approaching 80 came out wearing clothing made of sacking that was covered with patches. He looked very frightened and very attentive. At length, the leader of the geologists said, Greetings, grandfather, we've come to visit. He hesitated for a long time and then said, Well, since you've traveled this far, you might as well come in. So they went into this dim, filthy hut and found two women there, one crying and praying, saying, This is for our sins, our sins. The women were clearly terrified,

so the geologists withdrew. He told them that these women were his daughters. So the geologists, a little to the side, built a fire, and presently the family came out of the hut and approached them. They were clearly still terrified, but no longer hysterical. The geologists offered them jam, teas, and bread, but they rejected them, saying, we are not allowed that, and they put on a cast iron pot of potatoes on a hearth by the hut. Asked whether they had ever eaten bread, the old man said, I have, but they have not. They have never seen it. The old man, it turned out, was named Karp Lykov. He was 78 years old, and his daughters were Natalia and Agafia, ages 41 and 34. The geologists had trouble

understanding the girls' language. They were using old words of uncertain meaning. Asked how they had taken up this remote existence, the old man said he and his wife had moved away from people at God's command. He said, we are not allowed to live with the world. It turned out that they were what are called old believers, which is a conservative sect that split off from the Russian Orthodox Church 350 years ago in what was called the Great Schism. This is just prior to the reforms in the church in the middle of the 17th century. They had been persecuted since the days of Peter the Great, whom they still regarded as an enemy. In fact, as recently as 1935, Karp's brother, Evdokim, had been shot by a pair of armed men, and Karp, fearing the same fate himself,

fled into the forest with his family. That was him, his wife, Akalina, a son named Savin, who was nine years old at the time, and Natalia, who was only two. They lived in a succession of dwellings moving further and further into the forest and finally stopped here, which is 150 miles from the nearest village. A hunter estimates it must have taken the family eight weeks to get that far upriver. And they had survived there for more than 40 years without guns, salt, or metal implements, in a place where the winter temperatures fell to as low as 40 degrees below zero Celsius. They lived basically on the edge of famine, perpetually. Their garden was planted with vegetables whose seeds they had brought there more than 40 years earlier, and they just carefully kept these alive each year

with a new crop, except for the carrot seeds, which eventually lost to mice, which left the whole family with pale skin. They had no domestic animals, though it's not clear why. Possibly there'd been no room in the original ark, the original journey to get here, or perhaps they wanted to make their hiding place less noticeable. So for meat, they would dig pits to catch deer, or they would fish. They had no way to replace metal, so that when their kettles rusted out, they had to fashion containers of birch bark, which could not bear the fire. They could put that on the stove, so they just had a few remaining iron vessels that they could use for this. And as I said, they'd had no salt from 1935 until the geologists befriended them in 1978.

When Peskov, the journalist, asked Karp Osipovich which hardship in the taiga had been the greatest, he said it was going without salt, which he called true torture. On their first encounter with the geologists, they refused all their presents except for salt. And Karp said, ever since that day, we cannot eat unsalted anymore. Apparently, that was the worst part of the whole thing. On the fourth or fifth visit, two more family members appeared, Savin, who is now 51, and Dimitri, who's 35, two sons. They lived separately from the rest of the family, about six kilometers away in their own cabin. But all the family declined to rejoin civilization. The

geologists offered to take them back with them, and they said they believed they were living as true Christians ought to live out here in the forest. Agafia, the youngest of the four, had not encountered any human beings besides her own family and read only the Bible and prayer books and did not taste bread or milk until she was 35 years old. In a lot of ways, their life together was very primitive. They struck fire from flint and lit their hut with a torch. For clothing, they planted hemp, harvested it, spun it into thread on a small spindle and flywheel, and wove it on a loom, which unbelievably they had carted all the way into the forest, apparently on a boat or on poles, and which was still working.

For years, the whole family had made do with a single needle, which they once dropped, unfortunately, inside the hut and then had to find it by threshing the rubbish in the wind. They were given needles as gifts later by other people and treasured them. the wind. They were given needles as gifts later by other people and treasured them. They sewed galoshes from birch bark, stuffing them with swamp grass for warmth and comfort, and those served them year-round. In fact, it wasn't until the 1950s when Dimitri reached manhood that they began to trap and eat animals and use their skins, and that was a big deal when they finally got to make leather boots. They were asked if they ever suffered outright famine and said yes. In 1961, a late snow in June had killed their whole garden and potatoes had been harvested only for seed. That was a very bad year for them.

In the winter, they ate up all their stores from the preceding harvest. And in the spring, they ate straw, leather shoes, bark, birch buds, and the lining from their skis. The mother died of hunger that year just trying to leave enough food for the rest of her family. But after they got past that hard time, things were pretty well back to normal. The potatoes thrived, and pine nuts were plentiful, and they were okay again. And by a miracle, one chance sprout of rye showed up in their pea patch, which they surrounded with a special fence to keep out mice and squirrels, and they gradually tended that single spike of rye back into a full harvest. It took them four years to do this. You might think that it would take a long time to recount all the

many adventures they had in the space of 42 years, but it doesn't. There were only six things that they remembered from that whole time, six things that were notable enough to be worth reminiscing about. Here's a list of those. They had run in with a very aggressive bear one year, which just kept invading their stores and generally menacing them. They eventually learned which paths it followed, and Dmitry rigged up a crossbow to shoot it, and that succeeded. Apparently, he was wounded and left them alone after that. One year, Karp Osipovich, the father, fell from a pine tree without serious consequences. There was the famine of 1961 in which the mother died, which was certainly momentous. There was the building of the hut by the stream for the two brothers.

There was the year they got leather boots, which I mentioned. And then there was the day they panicked when they thought they had lost track of time. This is a little obscure. They reckoned time carefully with books. This was necessary for religious observances. Agafia kept track of time as people did before Peter the Great, but they had to do it sort of day by day, just being very careful to do it assiduously. And one day they feared that they had lost track, which would be disastrous for their prayers. Because there'd be no way to correct course to get back on track.

Yeah, it's a bit murky. And Peskov even says he's not sure he understands this himself. I mean, I'm not sure how good their astronomy was. Perhaps they could have gotten roughly back on track, but for the prayer schedule, they really needed to know this. And they eventually put their heads together, and Agafia, who had the youngest and most resilient memory, was able to get them back on track.

Anyway, those are the six things in 42 years that they remembered as being noteworthy. Peskov writes, this was the sum total of what father and daughter reminisced about together. Of course, the appearance of the geologists themselves of the outside world was equivalent, he says, basically to a landing of flying saucers. It was just this huge cataclysmic event. So that overshadows all the rest of them. He asked, if you spend all your time toiling and praying, how do you entertain yourselves? What do you do in the few spare moments that you have to yourself?

And apparently what they did was recount their dreams to one another. And this was memorable, too. Agafia once dreamed of a pine cone as big as their hut, and she told him about this excitedly as a notable memory. And then in a completely separate conversation, Karp, the father, mentioned Agafia once dreamed of a pine cone as big as their hut. This is a sort of classic dream that was so remarkable that they remembered it and recalled it to each other down through the years. There are other interesting just things about what they knew and remembered and how primitive their understanding was.

They had never heard of World War II, but they noticed the advent of satellites almost immediately as soon as they appeared. They said the stars began to go quickly across the sky. Agafia noticed it. Agafia, by the way, called the Big Dipper the elk. Karp said when they saw the satellites, quote, people have thought up something and are sending out fires that are very like stars. Savan, his elder son, said, you have lost your mind.

Are you saying the unthinkable? But they rejected as untrue the notion that these fires contained people. Karp said he'd been told many times that people had been on the moon, but he doesn't believe it. Quote, the moon was a heavenly body. Who but gods and angels could fly there? Anyway, how could you walk and ride upside down? The journalist Peskov began writing about this in his newspaper, and it became very popular in Russia. People were fascinated with the story and sent in questions.

He said that the thing that people most often wanted to know was how the family reacted to airplanes, helicopters, and television. The first two of them, surprisingly, didn't really amaze them at all. They just said people thought this up. He said the strictness of their faith did not provide for an appropriate attitude toward them. In fact, much later, Agafia had to take a plane journey, and afterwards, they touched down safely, and the pilot came back and asked her, so what do you think of air travel? And she just said, I was praying that we would land soon. But that's all she thought to say about it. She wasn't beside herself with fear. A lot of other people today wish that they'll land soon, you know. I think it was just so far outside her experience

that she couldn't contrive to be afraid of it. It was just an interesting reaction. But at the same time, they shunned matches. It was just, it's very hard to predict how they'll respond to anything. Television is another story. They were fascinated by television and never missed an opportunity to watch it, while at the same time saying it was a sinful business. And they were fascinated by everything they saw on it, a moving train, combines in fields, people on a city street, tall buildings, and a steamship.

At one point, Agafia saw a horse and said, Astide, Papa Astide. She had never actually seen a horse, but she had heard them described in stories and recognized them by that. She and her father would watch television every chance they could, but they would pray afterwards. She would pray while she was watching and he would afterward,

and they said it was sinful. Says a lot about television, I guess. One reader of the newspaper wrote in and asked, how did the Lykovs treat their teeth? Agafia said, by prayer. If prayer did not help, we held our open mouth over a hot potato, which I guess was their only means of storing heat. Peskov interestingly said, I asked about pulling teeth, but it was a question they did not understand.

Why pull teeth? In 42 years, they had never had occasion to do that. The whole business of their health is very interesting. They had lived in the forest without any health care and yet were generally doing pretty well. I mean, given their limited diet, too, you would even more expect that there would have been health issues. Yeah. He asked them about this. He said they get the strain, what they called the strain, which they said is treated by correcting the stomach. He confesses he wasn't sure what to make of that.

He wasn't sure what they were referring to. Interesting, the family went into decline shortly after reestablishing contact with the outside world. In 1981, three of the four children died within a few days, but this wasn't apparently mostly attributable to the reestablishing contact. Savin and Natalia died of kidney failure,

probably a result of their harsh diet. That's what's thought now. But Dimitri died of pneumonia, which may have been the result of an infection acquired from his new friends, the geologists, which makes sense. But at the same time, this whole region of the Taiga, this forest that they lived in,

was marked on the map as harboring encephalitis. In fact, the geologists had all had to been, they were required to get inoculated before they could even travel there. And yet this family had lived in the middle of it for four decades and never had any problem with it. It's just funny how they seem vulnerable in some ways and really hardy in other ways. They were asked repeatedly if they wanted to rejoin civilization, and they would only say, no, we're not allowed that. It is sinful. We have hidden too far away to go back. We are going to die here. In fact, when they touched a person from what they called the world, they

washed their hands. They considered it a sin to have their picture taken. They were very friendly, and they were pleased to see the geologists, but at the same time, they were very convinced that their way of life was the proper one for them, and they didn't want to go back. Peskov once asked the father, Karposipovich, do you have any regrets? Do you think you've lived your life the right way? And he would only say, God will judge us all, or, but what is there to regret? We have lived as Christians. That was the only answer he could get out of him. I think once you've come to regard your life in a certain way that lends it meaning, people are very unwilling to change their minds about that. That's how it seems to me anyway.

Towards the end of his life, Karp, the father, planned to die in the hut, but he grew worried about Agafia, his daughter, who would be the only Peskov, the only, sorry, Lykov, left behind when he was gone. He realized it was impossible to live alone in the forest, but going back to the world seems senseless. He said, by our faith, it is not allowed. to live alone in the forest, but going back to the world seems senseless. He said, by our faith, it is not allowed. He finally did die in 1988, but his dying wish to Agafia, his reigning daughter, was do not go into the world. They did, other people kindly, track down some relatives of theirs who said they would be willing to have her come and live with them, but this was almost a disaster. She said, we're not allowed to live with them. They have a worldly life. She was convinced to go and try it. This is when she took that air journey and moved to live with these relatives,

but it just couldn't work. She thought that cooking with gas was sinful and refused to take water from the tap because she said it is not consecrated. She slept for two nights without undressing and finally just insisted on going back to the forest. She did return there, but by that time the geologists had completed their mission and were shutting down, so she would be entirely alone there. They tried again to talk her into resettling with her family, but by that time, the geologists had completed their mission and were shutting down, so she would be entirely alone there. They tried again to talk her into resettling with her family, but she said, I have many stores. I will live as long as God sees fit. She was just determined to stay there.

So people thought, well, if we can't convince her to come to civilization, maybe we can convince, maybe someone else could go out there and live with her, so at least she won't be alone. Peskov, the journalist, advised against this, but someone did try it and later wrote to him. That was a disaster, too. She wrote, I could kill myself if I didn't listen to your warnings. I'd read them after all. Nothing good ever came of it, nor could it have. Three months have passed since I was in that hell. All that's left of me is skin and bones.

And Peskov says she cursed the daylights out of Agafia. Apparently, Agafia was just what an outsider would see as just suffering under these crippling superstitions and just wouldn't cooperate with her or see things her way, which is understandable. Agafia, now in her 70s, often gets ill and calls for help but won't take the medicine that's given to her. This is sort of an ethical dilemma. They had sort of unwittingly trained her that if she pulled this cord, a helicopter would show up because that's how it had always worked. But a round trip for this helicopter of 150 miles cost 100,000 rubles,

which diverts resources from other people who need it. So it's sort of an ethical dilemma. She's another human being, and if she needs help, we sort of owe it to her to get it to her, but it's incredibly expensive to do it, and no one's sure what to do about this. And she might not even accept the help when it comes.

Yeah. So it's not, and she can't, she's not willing or is unable to bear living here. Right. She didn't choose this life, but she was born into it, and so you can't blame her. It's just, it's a difficult situation.

Anyway, she's been the sole survivor of this family since 1988, a period of 28 years. She was alone for the first nine years after her father died, until 1997, when Yurofei Sedov, one of the original geologists, moved into a cabin down the hill, so she wasn't alone there. She's the only Lykov left, and the only one who sees things that way, but she's not entirely alone. The latest mention I can find of her is just this last January 2016. She was airlifted to a hospital to treat pain in her legs. This turned out to be related to cartilage deterioration. She had contacted the mainland, what they called the mainland, with an emergency satellite telephone. And there the trail sort of ends.

I haven't been able to find out what's happened. She was due to get out of that hospital on January 23rd, I think, and I don't know whether she insisted on going back to the forest or whether it was even permitted to her. She would be in her mid-70s now. So if anyone knows about that, please let us know, or if I'm able to find out any more, I'll give an update here later on. Our podcast is supported primarily by our wonderful patrons.

We just wouldn't be able to keep putting in the amount of time that the show takes if it weren't for the donations and pledges that we get. If you'd like to make a one-time donation to help us out, you can find a donate button in the supporters section of the website at futilitycloset.com. And if you'd like to join our Patreon campaign and pledge a recurring donation to help keep us going, you can get access to our activity feed, where you can find outtakes and learn what's going on behind the scenes of the show, including what Sasha, our show mascot, likes to do besides messing with our microphones. You can check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset

or see the link at the website. And thanks again to everyone who's been helping out. There wouldn't still be a Futility Closet without you. In episode 116, I asked whether anyone knew the details of the San Cristobal prison break that took place in northern Spain in 1938, in which nearly 800 prisoners escaped. One of my correspondents had told me that the leaders had communicated in Esperanto to hide their plans. My note said, this appears to be true, but it's very hard to find sources in English, which is surprising given the size of the exploit. The most detailed article I could

find was itself in Esperanto, and I asked whether anyone could help me with this. Within 24 hours, I got a note from Alejandro Pareja, who I think I've mentioned before on this show. He wrote, Dear Greg, I haven't even had the time to hear the podcast on episode 116, but I wanted to mention right away how thrilled I am that you picked this very little-known subject. Alejandro, as it turns out, is a Spanish Esperantist himself and was aware of the story. Not only that, but he knows Tonio del Barrio, author of the article, who happens to be president of the Spanish Esperanto Federation and was away attending the World Esperanto Congress in Lithuania. So that's a total jackpot. I remember when you did the piece, I said, well, I guess we'll find out if any of my listeners know Esperanto or not. So I have an answer.

And the answer is that basically the story is true. Alejandro was kind enough to translate the article for me, and I'll read part of it here. This is dated May 26, 2013, and I'm bridging it a bit. An Esperantist led an escape from one of Franco's prisons. The attempted escape took place in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War.

Nearly 800 men escaped from the fortress known as San Cristobal on Mount Escaba near the capital of Navarre, Pamplona. Only three, maybe four of them, managed to reach France. The fortress of San Cristobal was a military barracks which was used sometimes as a prison. The prison was very overcrowded, more than 2,500 men clustered in a building for which a fifth of that number would have been too much. The terrible cold, mistreatment, and humiliations were constant. Prisoners hardly received any food, not least due to the corruption of the guards and administrators

who pocketed the money provided for that end. In those conditions, a small group of committed prisoners who saw no other hope began to discuss plans for an escape. The main organizer was a communist leader, Leopoldo Picó, who was born in Cantabria but who had worked since his youth in a shipyard in Biscay. Secrecy was enforced by the use of Esperanto between Leopoldo and several other of the organizers. The testimony of several survivors agrees on this point, among them that of one of the men who reached a foreign country, according to the books recently published

about the escape, and I'll put all these links in the show notes. The organizers took advantage of the reduced number of guards on a Sunday evening, captured and reduced most of them to silence, and threw open the gates of the fortress. Only then the situation was made known to the other prisoners, who used the opportunity to flee en masse. More than 700 men went out through the gates and started to run down the mountain towards the nearby valleys. Unluckily, in those moments, two guards managed to send word to the military stationed in the nearby town, who soon reached the barracks. Many prisoners feared retaliation, and quite a number of the escapees, who were unprepared, weakened by malnutrition and had no adequate clothing, preferred to return to the fortress. Others were soon recaptured, and a part of those were taken back to the prison, but many others, around 200, were killed there and then by the more fanatical captors, members of the Falange, traditionalists, or the military themselves.

Only three men managed to cover the entire route and reach France. Later, they came back to Spain through Catalonia in order to fight for the Republic. They survived the war and went into exile again. Jose Marinero went to Mexico. The other two, Valentin Lorenzo and Jovino Fernandez, stayed in France and only came back to Spain after the death of the dictator. There's a debate going on in recent times about the fate of a fourth man, name unknown, who it is said managed to escape too and reach the USA.

The escape cannot be considered very successful, therefore, but it was a fairly large blow for the prison masters. It's noteworthy that they even had to publish the news of it in the press, even though they altered the details and figures. The authorities took 17 of the organizers to a summary mock trial, and 14 were condemned to death. They were shot in public in the town center of Pamplona in September 1938. Leopoldo Picot was found two days after the escape, hiding in an isolated farmhouse, and he was killed immediately. We have not managed to find any detailed information on Picot's relation with Esperanto when he learned the language or his involvement with any Esperanto club or organization. Nevertheless, it was not

unusual for working men in Spain, especially in the mining and metal industry area around Bilbao, to learn Esperanto. And among his sources, Antonio cites a living witness, Eduardo Laroy from Bilbao, who's now 103 years old and who, Toño says, has been an Esperantist for more than 80 years. Like many others and like the escapees from the Navarri's fortress, he too spoke Esperanto in Franco's prison. So it's true. Toño, when he got back, actually later wrote to Alejandro in Esperanto, and Alejandro translated for me here he says i actually know that futility closet as a website not as a podcast and there was a time when i followed it very closely i just downloaded the podcast but i haven't had time

to hear it yet he provided links to further information including in particular research carried out by fermin esquieta who he says is working on a book about all this with details on it uh and the role in particular played by Esperanto. So when that book is out, I'll try to add a note about it in the show notes to this episode, just sort of close the loop there. One other footnote to all this business, somewhat related, I got from Jesse Onland in Ontario. He says, many sources report that Republican internees and paramilitary prisoners held in Long Kesh during the Troubles in Northern Ireland learned the Irish language both as a way to promote their Irish identity in the face of their British captors, and also as a way to help keep smuggling activities etc. secret.

And he includes to a link to an article that I'll put in the show notes. This is by Germit Maculatrice. Basically, they say it's sort of the same thing there. A variety of the Irish language was used as a tool of resistance at the RAF station at Mays in Northern Ireland from the 1970s to the 1990s. Bobby Sands entered prison without knowing much of the Irish language, but learned it through classes that were offered until 1976, when prisoners were prevented from associating freely, and in the protests that followed, the prisoners found it useful to communicate in Irish, since the wardens largely spoke only English. The prisoners taught one another shouting lessons from cell to cell, and inscribing notes on cell walls using pencil leads smuggled from the outside. They developed an argot known as jail talk that many prisoners relied on to express themselves

and their Irish identity. I'd never thought about it before, but I suppose that must be a problem in any prison. If the prisoners can communicate at all, they don't have a common language that the wardens don't know they can come up with one. That's true. I suppose that must just be a perennial problem in the prison community. I don't know what you could do about it except keeping people entirely separate, which seems almost impossible. Anyway, thanks to Alejandro, Tonio, and Jesse for their contributions.

And if you have any comments, you can send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an intriguing sounding situation and he has to try to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This one was written by me. Oh, good. A man is murdered and the police have no leads. They have no witnesses and no useful physical evidence. Yet the criminal did something that eventually enabled the police to link him to the crime. What did he do? Is this true? This is true.

Is the murderer a human being? Yes. Do I need to know when this happened? No. Do I need to know where? No. You said a man is murdered? Yes.

Meaning deliberately killed? Yes. Okay, so there's the victim and there's the murder. Are there any other people involved besides the police? Nobody important. Okay, do I need to know the method, the means of the killing? Not necessarily. All right.

You say the police weren't getting anywhere with this. Right. But he made some, can you read that again? The criminal did something that eventually enabled the police to link him to the crime. Did something, that's pretty vague. That is pretty vague. Do I need to know his occupation? No.

And do I need to know his specific identity with that help if this really happened? Okay. Okay. Does this involve revealing information? I mean, obviously it does in some broad sense, but... Did... Did he inadvertently reveal some information about himself that led them... I'm going to say no to that.

As opposed to evidence, I guess. It's not evidence. But I'm not going to say yes to the way you phrased the other part either. Okay. Did this thing that he did, did it somehow shed light on his capacity to have committed this particular murder? On his capacity? Well, like if he killed the guy with a knife, say, and then he used a knife later on somehow in some specific way that seems similar. No, not like that.

Nothing like that. Nothing like that. And you say that the actual means of killing isn that seems similar. No, not like that. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. And you say that the actual means of killing isn't really important. Isn't relevant, yeah. Was he communicating at all directly with the police when this happened? Not deliberately. Not deliberately, but he was. No, I don't mean to mislead you.

Was he a suspect at the time? Not for this crime, no. Not necessarily? Not for this crime. Maybe for another one? Possibly. Is that, Jermaine, is that relevant? Um.

I mean, was he in the justice system for some other reason? He was in the justice system for some other reason, yes. When this happened, when he spilled whatever beans they were. He didn't, like, communicate it, like spill beans. Well, okay. I'm going to stop speaking and let you ask questions all right so he killed one person yes and seemed to have gotten away with it yes but then was arrested for some other reason would you say um yeah he was he was actually i think arrested in a string of arrests he was in and out of the justice system. All right. So was he in the justice system at this, whenever this happened? Like physically in it?

Yes. No. No. But he had, it's kind of germane that he had been in the justice system. Because they had some records

on him like fingerprints or something. Yeah, they had some records on him. Was it fingerprints? No. Some identifying records about him.

Yes. Not just his records of his misdeeds, but actually something about him physically? Yes. Something about him physically. Okay.

But that's not what you're referring to when you say he did something that... Well, he did do something, and that ties in with the records that they have of him physically. They tie together. Does this involve medical condition? No. Is it just his physical characteristics, like height or weight or eye color or something like that? Not like that.

But something unusual enough to be identifying about him. Yes, and something that would have led me toward the puzzle is something that he did. Something that he did? Something that he did. It's not like handedness, is it? No, because it's something that he did, and it ties into his physical appearance, and it ties into that he had been in the justice system. He had been arrested for other crimes. Okay.

I know what you're saying, but it's still hard to know what the— Would you say this was a talent? No. A learned behavior? No. So it behavior? No. So it's something like handedness. It's something that's unusual, would you say? Well, it's something that's unusual.

And that he had this characteristic or whatever you want to call it. And when he revealed, and they knew that the murderer must have had this. No. No. No. Oh, that doesn't go anywhere. No. So what do you leave behind when you've been in the justice system?

Like fingerprints, but not fingerprints. They didn't have fingerprints from the crime scene. A mugshot? Similar, yeah. Something along those lines. What else do you leave behind? Well, like that. Let's say mugshots or something similar to that.

The police retain those right right okay and somehow that led a detective almost five years later to link him to the crime scene um okay well if them so the question is what would they have on file that would right and i i worded it as something that he did that enabled the police to link him to the crime scene something that he did that they have a record uh yes and i'm saying that it's like a mugshot like that's the closest thing you've got yeah something along that like that um okay is it a verb is it a behavior as opposed to just some characteristic it's something that you would see if you looked at a photo but i'm also saying it's something he did.

Like a stutter or a stammer or something like that? No, because you can't see that in a photo. No, but I'm saying something... No. No. Something you could see in a photo. But it's not a medical condition. It's not a medical condition.

A psychological condition? No. No. What else could you see in a photo that would be really identifying or distinguishing and might link you to a crime if you were... Anyway. I understand perfectly what you're asking.

I'm just hitting the wall here. It's not... A detective, almost five years after the crime, a detective was looking through pages of photos of suspected criminals and saw something. Is it his identity? Did he murder his twin or something? No, that's clever.

And it's not height or weight or any of these basic characteristics. And I labeled it as something that he did, something that the criminal did, that would show up on a photo. Like a tattoo or? Yes, that's it. It's a tattoo. He actually had a tattoo that depicted the entire crime scene across his chest.

I'm not kidding. I don't feel so bad for not seeing it. The crime was that John Juarez was shot at the Pico Rivera liquor store in Los Angeles County, California in 2004, and the murder was unsolved for almost five years until Detective Sergeant Kevin Lloyd was looking through photos of known gang members while trying to solve another case and saw an elaborate tattoo across the chest of a Rivera 13 gang member named Anthony Garcia, and the tattoo rang a bell for him. member named Anthony Garcia, and the tattoo rang a bell for him. He looked up the file on the Pico Rivera shooting and discovered that Garcia's tattoo was an amazing match to the crime scene. It included the liquor store with the Christmas lights that were hanging on it that night, a bent light post in the store's parking lot, and a convalescent home called the Rivera that's next door to the liquor store. The tattoo was under the words Rivera kills and shows a helicopter or chopper spraying bullets on a Mr. Peanut figure. Garcia's gang nickname was Chopper and the victim

had been in a gang that Garcia's gang called Peanuts. The tattoo was so detailed and accurate that Lloyd called it, quote, a crime scene sketch and a confession. But just in case that wasn't enough, Garcia actually confessed to the crime to police officers posing as gang members in his jail cell when he was arrested for this crime. Garcia was convicted and is serving a sentence of 65 years to life. At his sentencing in 2011, his girlfriend said to him, without that stupid tattoo, you wouldn't have been caught. So there you go. What not to do after committing a crime. If anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try,

please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's our show for today. If you're looking for more quirky entertainment, check out the Futility Closet books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com where you can sample more than 9,000 Extonius Esoterica. At the website, you can see the show notes for the podcast Thank you. Help us out by telling your friends about us or by leaving a review on iTunes or other podcast directories. If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by the inimitable Doug Ross.

Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.