Morbid - Episode 433: Candy Mossler
Episode Date: February 22, 2023Candy Mossler was a wild woman. She'd always dreamed of a bold and glamorous life outside of the small town she came from. Little did she know she would spend a good portion of her ...adult life and afterlife in that spotlight- just for all the wrong reasons. After Candy discovered her husband murdered in their vacation home she and her nephew Melvin would find themselves on trial for his murder, and worse, their relationship as nephew and aunt would be revealed as much much more. REFERENCES:Associated Press. 1957. "New life open for youngsters after tragedy." Odessa American, February 5: 12.—. 1964. "Mossler slaying probe goes deeper." Tampa Bay Times, July 10: 20.Boston Globe. 1966. "State claims Candy is 'most guilty' in Mossler slaying." Boston Globe, March 2: 44.Davis, Miller. 1964. "Millionaire banker slain on Key Biscayne." Miami News, June 30: 1.Hollandsworth, Skip. 2021. "The Notorious Mrs. Mossler." Texas Monthly, December.Jones, Victor O. 1966. "Is nation bored with Candy Mossler murder trial?" Boston Globe, February 18.Miller, Gene. 1966. "Mossler witness tells of intimacy." Miami Herald, February 10: 1.New York Times. 1964. "Banker in Miami stabbed to death." New York Times, July 1: 70.Smith, Ron. 2021. No One is Perfect: The True Story Of Candace Mossler And America's Strangest Murder Trial. Houston, TX: Independent.United Press International. 1976. "Candace Mossler Garrison dies, was tried in murder of husband." New York Times, October 27: 42.—. 1964. "Letters tie widow, Powers." Orlando Evening Star, July 8: 38.—. 1964. "Police hunt clues in banker's death." Orlando Evening Star, July 1: 3.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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You're listening to Immorbid Network Podcast.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondries Podcast American Scandal.
Our newest series looks at the Kids for Cash Scandal, a story about two judges who stood
accused of making millions of dollars in a brazen scheme that shattered the lives of countless children.
Listen to American scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, weirdos, I'm Alina.
I'm Ash.
And this is Morvid. It do be, my voice is like almost back. I don't think it sounds too bad. It doesn be.
My voice is almost back.
I don't think it sounds too bad.
It doesn't.
Okay, good.
No, it sounds worse to me.
No, she might wince a few times throughout this though.
Yeah.
I heard a rib coughing cracked.
Cracked a rib.
I believe like a hairline fracture.
Who the fuck gets a hairline fracture coughing?
How violently do you cough?
This was a, I don't know if any of you out there,
no, I know some of you out there are experiencing this
because everyone is.
Everyone's fucking sick.
And it's, so we've had this like fucking illness
that just spread around my fam, bam.
And it was for weeks.
Spread around my fam, bam, you know?
And it was literally like four weeks straight
of all of us just not being able to get over this.
A girly girl, I don't know why you're talking
in the past tense.
It sounds like a TB ward up in here.
It does.
And now you're part of it, you're coughing up in here.
Yeah.
I mean, everybody is, we're taking everybody down with us.
I feel fine though.
I feel I've been on antibiotics.
I'm like, I'm good to go.
Do you have pneumonia right now?
No, I had pneumonia.
Oh, okay.
But I got, yeah, that's the thing.
This whole thing started with these weird little,
these, that's the thing with these things, you know?
And they all started with these weird colds.
And then we all got like some kind of respiratory thing.
I got pneumonia.
And then we all got secondary infections with it. I got a sinus infection. I have been taking, I don't of respiratory thing. I got pneumonia. And then we all got secondary infections with it.
I got a sinus infection.
I have been taking, I don't know about you,
well hopefully, I have been taking so many COVID tests.
Oh, we've been COVID testing like it's going out of style.
Yeah.
Because we've also been going to the doctors.
Yeah, I'm too.
Yeah.
It's been wild up in here, but my nose hurts.
We're close to being like knocking on wood here.
We're close to being, we're all feeling like decent.
Okay.
So I'm like, let's please just keep this going,
but my goodness does my rib hurt.
Yeah, that's rough.
It's not great, but that's not fun.
But I'll get through it.
We'll be fine together.
You'll survive.
You know, we'll be fine.
I think the other day, I just like,
manically bought ghost merch about it.
I love that for you.
I'm manically bought a new pair of,
well, I shouldn't even say a new pair
because it's a first pair for me.
I bought my first pair of Jordan's guys.
Look at you.
And they're proud of you.
They're purple and they're velvet.
Oh, you showed me a picture of those.
I can't wait to buy them, and I also
manically bought those.
I love it.
We love a manic purchase.
Yeah, I think I was just like really frustrated
being sick, and I was like, I'm gonna buy a bunch
of ghost merch.
I think I was just in my brain, and it said,
bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye,
thanks to Make You Happy.
It'll work until it doesn't just buy things
until you're happy. Yeah.
Woo. Make that a TikTok sound. I like that. I think it's a little too fast for a TikTok sound.
It might be. But 30 second clip.
Okay. Yeah. You know, here we are. I don't know if you guys can tell, but it is more
bid late night. It sure is. It do be. It is. But it's my case this week. It's ash centric. It's an ash centric case.
I don't want to claim her. Oh, yeah.
Even this case is not ash centric. I don't want to claim this.
I don't claim this. I could hear you while you were like writing this one.
And I was like, huh? What's what's going to happen here? Yeah.
Well, nervous. Yeah. I wrote a few things and I was like,
Oh, look what I just wrote and she was like,
what the fuck is this case?
That's like what's going on.
Yeah, this is the case of Candy Mosler and Melvin Powers.
Uh-oh.
They were fucking.
Yeah.
They were all so related.
Eek.
Bad news, bears.com.
That's forward news.
That's forward news.
Yucky. Dot org. Thank you. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so it all starts on June 29th,
1960 fall. Oh, we're in the 60s. Of course, I love it. It's groovy, man. This is very groovy.
And we so on June 29th, 1964, wealthy Florida banker, Jacques Mosler was stabbed to death in his home in Keybes,
Biscayne.
I didn't look up how to say that, and I'm sorry.
That sounds good.
Thank you, I hope you're welcome.
I did.
So at the time, he was actually separated from his wife Candace.
She actually had moved to Houston, and she was just living a life of luxury on Jacques's
dime, which like, get a girl, but like don't.
But like, oh, like yeah, like live a life of luxury,
but like on your own dime.
Yeah, you know, and already I'm like,
oh, yeah, Candace, Candace.
He provided her with a very generous monthly allowance.
It was to support the children,
but it definitely wasn't just going to the children.
I think she was like giving herself a lot of that.
But now, because Jacques's murder was so brutal,
police actually believed that it was a crime of passion,
which made his wife one of the primary suspects.
And it really didn't take long for the detectives
hunch to be proven right.
Candice Mosler was responsible for the death.
But as I love to say, that was just the beginning.
It was only the beginning.
It was only the beginning.
The scandalous and sensational trial
of Candice Candy-Mosler and her nephew turned lover.
What is it? I hate that.
Yeah, Melvin Powers was one of those trials of the century.
It was filled with money, power, lurid stories of incestuous sex. And Jux murder didn't
necessarily start like American tabloid journalism, but it dragged it into its modern era.
It makes sense. Many tabloids were written about this and readers were devouring every fucking
detail. All of the details were outrageous,
and they were page turners.
Oh, yeah, it was like a blind item.
Yep, so Jacques.
He was born Jacques Moscavici.
I did look that up, and I gave myself a phonetic key.
Oh, look at that.
He was born on May 5, 1896 in Galat's Romania
to Jacob and Sophie Moskvici.
When Romanian society became more and more hostile toward Jews at the end of the 19th century,
Jacob and Sophie were like, you know what?
I think we're going to take these three children that we have and get the fuck out of here.
I think that was a great choice.
I do agree.
They wanted to move to the US because back then people wanted to do that,
and they decided to settle in Buffalo, New York.
Oh, yeah, look at that.
And that was in January of 1901.
Now years later when he was about 12 years old,
Jacques's parents actually ended up separating.
And he moved in with his mom and his siblings to Chicago.
And his father moved away and kind of like did his own thing in the Bronx.
Just like dipped. Yeah, sort of. Wow. I know. That's that's not great.
No, it's not. Wow. Okay, yeah, I just love no, it's not. No, it's not great.
That's not great. I'll make a video later. Can't argue that point.
Yeah, sad when your dad leaves. It's interesting. It's not too.
No, no, no. I'm like thrilled.
I'm not a bad lady to trust me. It's not true.
No, no.
I'm like, trust me.
Just kidding.
Yeah, but yeah.
So now that he didn't have the luxury of being supported by two incomes, Jacques actually
decided to drop out of school pretty much just after they arrived in Chicago.
And he started selling newspapers and candy, not his like, soon to be wife, but actual
candy.
But like actual num num num candy.
Num num num candy. Precisely.
He would sell the newspapers in candy on the city street corners and he was just like trying to
help support his family. That's cute. It really is. So in 1915 when he was 19 years old,
he decided he was going to change his last name because he wanted it to be like a little more
American. You know, I think he just wanted that. Yeah, who doesn't mean me.
He changed it to Malsler and he moved again.
And this time he moved to New Orleans and he found work as a loan manager for a local
car dealership.
Pretty good job.
And it was the first of many jobs for him in the finance industry.
With the success that he ended up having as a loan manager, he felt pretty confident in
his abilities after a couple of years, and he actually made the leap and started his own business
that he named Mosler Motor Exchange. I shopped there. Yeah, I love it in alliteration. I do too.
So let's go. Yeah, he opened it in 1918 with the help of a small loan from people that he had back in Chicago some business associates.
Those people, you know, those friends.
I associate. Absolutely. Yeah. And not saying, yeah, he married his GF Evelyn Kaiser. Look at Evelyn.
Just like, they're just killing it. They are, you know, like new business, new new lady. Let's go.
Now, Jacques and Evelyn worked side by side at Mosler Motor Exchange, and they were able
to grow the company more and more, especially as automobiles became more accessible to people.
The auto industry at that point was like kind of really just coming into fruition.
Cars weren't necessarily new, but it was becoming more and more mainstream.
And along with that came repossession of cars.
Uh-oh.
On owners that couldn't pay for the loans
they had taken out to buy said cars.
repo the genetic opera.
Yes, yes, exactly.
You know?
So Jacques could have chosen to see that as a risk.
But like the businessman that he was,
he saw an opportunity there.
And he opened one of the first car rental agencies
in the American South.
Look at him, okay.
Now, by 1930, Jacques's business smarts allowed him
an Evelyn to move to a way bigger home in New Orleans,
and just after they moved in,
Evelyn gave birth to a daughter
who would be followed by three more girls
by the end of 1935.
It's a lot of gals, so many kids.
He actually ends up with a lot of fucking kids
by the end of this, and I just realized that. A lot of fucking kids. No, like a lot of gals, so many kids. He actually ends up with a lot of fucking kids by the end of this. I just realized that.
A lot of fucking kids.
No, like a lot of fucking kids.
Wow.
Like, one, two, three, four, seven, maybe I don't know a lot.
You know, he's a fan of procreation.
Loves it.
Loves to procreate.
And adopting.
There you go.
So by all accounts, his story was like kind of like the,
not even kind of, by all accounts it was,
the quintessential
American story of somebody who came to America with nothing but used their street smarts
and their fucking power and their gumption and turned it into boatloads of success.
The American drum.
The American drum, I feel all.
So by the, by the 1950s, the Mausler brand if you will, had expanded, and they now offered a
ton of different lending products and services in Louisiana and in Florida.
But unfortunately, Jacques's success was built at least in part on the failure and misfortune
of others, because his company would offer high-interest loans to borrowers with low credit ratings
who were more than likely to default on those loans.
And actually, this happened so frequently, which it's not funny, I'm just nervous laughing,
it happened so frequently that one of his former business partners referred to him as brutal
inhuman, ruthless, in decent and cold blooded.
Here I am being like, you know what, Jack?
Look at you, get it, Jack.
Go, Jack, Jack.
And then it's like, no, he was like fucking monster.
And it's like, oh.
Yeah, well, that's just like one person's account.
Yeah, it's just one person.
Other people liked him.
Other people drove bummer.
Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily think
you should go into business knowing full well
that like promising people a good amount of money
and then saying like, I know you're probably not gonna be good.
It's not great.
It's just, it's mean business.
It is.
It's not nice business, you know?
I don't know Jacques though.
And me either.
I never bought a car for him, so I don't know.
Me either.
I did buy a car from a lot of shady people though.
There you go at one point.
I haven't we all.
And I never defaulted on my loans though.
So there's not.
Yeah. I was gonna say and I defunded.
And I was like, no, I didn't do that.
No, I did not.
That's a feather in your cap.
Never did.
So like Jacques's kind of, you know, grim upbringing
in business, the early years of our girl,
not our girl really, but for the sake of story,
our girl, Candy Mosler's life,
they were a far cry from the Southern High Society
in which her life
wouldn't. Oh really? Yes, Candace Weatherby, her maiden name. She was born in the
tiny Georgia town of Buchanan. Oh, I love the name Buchanan. I also do because of
the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. Yeah. So she was born on February 18th, 1920. She was the fifth of nine children born to Lizzy and Lonnie,
whether by drop.
Like Lizzy and Lonnie, can we just?
Lizzy and Lonnie.
So freaking cute.
I love her.
But sadly, life was kind of hard for this family.
First of all, it's a huge fucking family.
Yeah.
There are rural family.
And everybody in this family was expected to work on
and help out with the family.
The farm.
The farm.
You ever realized how much you write one word?
World juror.
World family.
Now, yeah, so like everybody had to help out on the farm.
Even the kids, they had jobs like picking cotton,
collecting all the eggs, that the whole nine.
Now, tragically in 1932, when
Candy was 12, this is really sad. Her mom gave birth to a stillborn baby girl.
Oh, that's awful. And not only that, she also ended up dying two days later,
her mom, because of the complications from the deliverable. Yeah, because remember,
this is like in the 30s, you know. So this meant that candy's father was going to have to be the sole
caregiver and the only financial support for the six remaining children in the house.
Well, according to candy, the strain of being solely responsible for so much in the wake of such
an incredible tragedy really caused her to have a nervous breakdown. And so he had to just like
get out of there. He loved the kids and the care of their maternal grandparents who were
William and Priscilla Brandon. And he moved away to a nearby town and just kind
of like started over. But I don't even think he started over. I think it was
more like he just went there. He just was deeper into a whole.
Yeah, exactly like was alone.
Oh, yeah. But I'm sure that caused like a lot of abandonment,
abandonment issues for the kids, you know?
Of course.
So any hope that candy had that life with her grandparents
would be any kind of improvement to the life that she had on the farm,
quickly evaporated.
Oh, no.
Pretty much as soon as she moved in with them,
she realized that this was like at best a lateral move.
Oh.
Yeah, to escape the really shitty reality that had become her life, though.
When she was a teenager, she spent as much time as she could reading tabloid magazines,
fashion magazines. She was just dreaming of the day when she could leave this small Georgia
town and just go do like glamorous shit. That's all she wanted to do. Classic. Yeah. But
unfortunately for her, her grandfather, who was a Mormon bishop, had other plans for her.
Oh. He wanted to marry her off, and he had already chosen the man that was gonna make that all happen.
Come on.
In 1937, when she was in 11th grade, Candy had to drop out of high school, and she started dating Albert Norman Johnson.
He was 11 years older than her.
Ew.
And he had been handpicked for her by her grandfather.
And I'm saying you because normally that's like 11 years
is not crazy in the grand scheme of things,
but when one of you is in high school,
that's too much.
That's way too many years.
And that's you.
And it's like, I don't want to be set up by my grandpa.
No, no.
I don't want my grandpa, but I like not even finished
with high school yet. Like, thank you. This is the man you're to marry. No, thank you. Albert. And they did get married.
They got married in 1939 and they ended up moving to Alabama. Okay. So random, right? That's very random.
Yeah. But Norman got work there as a superintendent for a concrete company. He brought in like a little
more than $1,300 a year, which today would be about $27,000 a year.
So like not like the best, but not the worst.
But things were so different that it's like,
yeah, I don't even really know how to like compare that.
Yeah, exactly.
So three years later, Candy gave birth to a son
and they named him Norman after Diodd.
And at 20 years old in 1940,
she was a married mom living at a rented house in
small town, Alabama. She didn't have a lot of friends. She was worlds away from where
she had pictured herself so many years earlier. And this was a far cry from what she'd been
hoping for. Yeah. Like she wanted to live a glamorous life. She wanted to be fashionable
and all that stuff. Get out of the small town living kind of thing. Yeah.
Yeah. It just sucked.
And then between the age gap and how different they both were, Norman and Candy also just
really didn't have a lot to talk about.
Yeah.
They didn't share anything in common, really.
And all they really had together was a kid.
So they'd be like, hey, how's the kid?
But that can only go so far.
Mm-hmm.
And on top of that, Candy didn't have really any social outlet,
so she felt completely isolated.
And kind of like her life was just passing before her eyes,
went at the same time, it really hadn't started.
It was just dragon, you know?
Yeah.
But her opportunity for escape finally presented itself
in the winter of 1942.
You don't say?
Yes, she was volunteering as a hostess
for the United States organization, the USO.
She had joined this USO a few months earlier,
and this was when the US entered into World War I.
And in March of 1942,
she and about a hundred other young ladies,
they were shuttled off to Alabama
to entertain the troops at a USO dance at Fort Benning.
This is all very forties.
I love it so fucking much.
I can picture it.
It's literally the beginning of Memphis Bell.
I love that.
Memphis Bell is my shit.
Such a good movie.
I love that movie.
Such a good movie.
Matthew Maudine in that movie.
Chef's kiss.
I haven't seen that movie in so long.
Me neither.
Damn it.
I want to watch that movie.
I want to watch that movie so bad. Me and Drew have already committed, I wanna watch that movie. I wanna watch that movie so bad.
Me and Drew have already committed to disassociating
this weekend.
We have a lot of that going on.
Yeah, so maybe I'll show him that movie.
I love that.
I always tell him what a good movie that is.
I always tell John what a good movie that is.
Have you never showed a show?
I don't think I've ever showed a tune.
Maybe we should both do that this weekend.
I think we should do that.
But I love you, but like separately,
because we're absolutely.
We're absolutely.
And I'm for that as well, so.
Rock on.
I know every time I think of something like this,
like a 40s, USO dance, like, you know,
with the troops and all that shit,
I think of that song that always plays on those kind of things
that's like, don't sit under the apple tree
with anyone else but me.
Oh my god.
Anyone else but me.
I love that.
I don't know if I know that song.
It's a very like three sisters are always singing it in harmony
Together, so we just need one more guy. I'll see that
Debdup and it's very forties
I like don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else with me and then it's like
So it's like like a treat. I love that like a treat like a no you should have seen a hand motion
She did like a treat that signified yeah, like a treat coming home. Yeah funny. It's key. Um, it also reminds me of the episode of Gilmore
Girls where they have to do the dance. That's literally exactly what I think of and I think they
Are singing that song at that dance. Oh shit. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Okay full circle. Yeah, there we are.
Well, it was there that candy mat a man named Winthrop Win Rockefeller.
Yeah, yeah, she did.
And she said, work man, I'll fall,
pray so the hour.
She said Winthrop, she said, win!
Count me in.
He was a US Army, huh?
That was funny.
He was a US Army surgeon, and he was air
to a Rockefeller fortune.
Oh yeah, you hear Rockefeller?
It's like, oh, fuck it.
I don't even care what you look like. I'm in. Just kidding. And as luck would have it, he was stationed at Fort Benning. Oh my God. So
Candy claimed that the two carried on in a lucid affair. She visited Fort Benning every chance she
could. And she did end up becoming pregnant. That's an affair. That's an affair. And she eventually gave birth to a daughter
who she named Candace Rita Johnson.
I don't know if Norman knew.
I don't know if he was like,
I don't know if he thought that Rita was like his child.
Oh no.
Yeah, that's shitty.
Yeah, yeah.
That's really shitty Candace.
It is.
She also, Laura like Gilmordit.
Yeah. She named her daughter Candace after you saw her. Oh right. Yeah, so much really shitty canvas. It is. She also on Laura like Gilmour did. Yeah, she named her daughter Candace after you.
Right.
Yeah.
So much Gilmour girl.
I think it might come up later too.
Whoa.
Now there is some speculation on whether this affair actually happened or not
because like Rockefeller like yeah, everybody says they fucked a Rockefeller, you
know.
I you can't throw a stone outside without hitting somebody that's like, I fucked
a Rockefeller, you know, that's what I'm saying. It's always been my problem. Yeah. Every time I bump into someone that's like, I fucked a Rockefeller, you know? That's what I'm saying.
That's always been my problem.
Yeah.
Every time I bump into someone, they're like,
I fucked a Rockefeller and I'm like,
fuck.
Fuck me.
I'm the only one.
Like, fuck.
No, I never did.
All right, cool.
But, you know, who knows if it happened?
Because everybody's saying that.
Who does know?
Pretty either way, Candy and Win would have had to part ways
in January of 1944, because at that point he was shipped off to the Pacific
to actually serve and combat.
So in 1945, Candy and Norman, who she was now stuck with,
and who definitely thought that the newest pregnancy
was something that he was a part of.
Yeah, they relocated to New Orleans,
but after a year or so, their marriage finally crumbled.
I could see that.
Yeah, you know.
Candy later told reporters,
Norman's a fine man, but he was much older than me.
And we really had nothing in common.
So it's really just like,
nah, yeah, it was just kind of lame.
Yeah, she's like, you win some, you lose some.
And he's just like, all right.
And he's like, okay, okay.
Yeah, I am old, so.
Yeah, there's like that.
We actually have nothing in common
and you're kind of a lot, so.
Yeah, bye.
You're a lot to handle.
Mm-hmm.
What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times or fell in love with a vampire
or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week
later, paralyzed.
What would you do?
I'm Whit Missildine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry
that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people
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So after the divorce, Norman ended up moving to Colorado and Candy and the children's
state in New Orleans where she was determined to make a career for herself as a fashion
model.
Oh, look at that.
And she did actually start appearing in ads for local clothing stores.
So like, she started doing the thing.
And then she went to New York on like a, just a little trip and she got super inspired
when she was there inspired when she was there
because while she was there, she was able to take some classes at the Barbazon School of
modeling.
Oh, we've had that one before.
She makes an appearance again.
So then she comes home and she's like, okay, idea.
And then she just opened the Candace modeling and self-improvement school in New Orleans.
wealthy garden district.
Dip.
The garden district.
Do you know what I'm saying?
The garden district is like,
that's where all those beautiful houses are.
Oh really?
I think that's where the like,
AHS Cabin houses.
Oh, really?
That's where Lafayette's cemetery is like,
oh, okay, so.
Garden District.
She did that.
Mm-hmm, she did that.
Hell yeah, she did.
Also like copy paste much. Yeah, you know, no, it's true.
TM. It's like a year old idea. Exactly. But I mean, there's lots of modeling school. So whatever.
That's true. But in local ads. I'm just mad at her because I feel like she did something wrong.
Yeah, she fucked her enough. Oh, yeah, I forgot that one. I feel like she did something like eat else wrong though.
Perhaps. But that's bad enough. I'll take that as the wrong thing. There you go.
So yeah, fuck that.
You're talking about your face.
Yeah, I'm talking about your face.
But in local ads, the school claimed to quote,
"'advise young ladies on makeup and hair styling,
provide tips on maintaining a streamlined figure,
prepare them to model in fashion shows,
and imbue them with self-confidence,
grace, poise, and the elegance of speech that will make you
a person of real distinction.
Yeah, let's imbue some confidence by making your figure streamlined.
I like how they wrote that.
Like, maintain a streamlined figure.
What is that even like a streamlined figure?
We want them to be walking sticks, I get it.
That's fucked.
Yeah, that's it.
I mean, back then for sure.
Oh, definitely. But it's like, girl, that's it, I mean back then for sure. Oh definitely.
But it's like, girl, that's not confidence.
It's not confidence.
Your body can look however the fuck you want your body to look.
Yeah, you're just gonna make these gals feel bad.
Yeah.
You're gonna beat them down so they think
that they're confident.
Yeah, not cool.
Not cool at all.
I see right fucking through you, Candy.
Fuck you, Casey.
Fuck you, man.
She's dead now, so we should be careful.
Oh, you know, like cons.
You know, like rise her from the nose.
No, I do not.
I'm good.
Now, the school appeared to be successful
and it did provide enough income
to support candy and her kids.
But there were also rumors that it wasn't doing that well
and that she was actually working as an escort
or like a sex worker to make ends meet.
Okay. But but like whatever.
If that's what she wanted to do, then great.
Yeah.
Now in an effort to enter New Orleans upper echelon,
maybe because she was tired of almost starting.
Oh, you hit that, Lila.
Thank you.
She started volunteering with the New Orleans Opera in 1947.
And she offered to meet with the prominent businessman
and wanted to like arrange donations for the
organization. And that's where she met our guy, Jacques.
Oh, there it is. Like candy, he also had recently been divorced
from his wife. And despite the 25 year age gap, the two
began dating. And they were adults at this point. So who
gives a fuck? But I love how she's like, you know, this 11, he's 11 years older than me. We don't have
anything in common because he's an old, rounded bag of flesh. Yeah. And then she's like,
this guy though, that's 25 years older than me, I think, I think we got way more in common.
The problem with Norman was, um, he wasn't rich. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't matter. The age difference
didn't matter. It was just that he wasn't rich. There was that.
Because the thing was immediately candy got access to the lifestyle that she had been dreaming of
since she was a small kid on that rural family farm where she had a big cotton and collect eggs.
There you go. You know, so they got married in 1949. They got married while he was on a business trip
to Fort Lauderdale. Like just really just really made a little quick time to get married.
I'm like, huh, romantic.
Yeah.
So upon returning to New Orleans,
Jacques made the decision that he wanted to relocate the headquarters of his company,
along with his new family,
and he wanted all of that to go to Houston,
because business was booming down in Texas between the finance and the oil industries.
So it was a good move. Now New Orleans, Candy had doubled in high society for sure. She had rubbed elbows with the wealthy people out there.
Hell yeah.
But Houston, Houston baby, my girl Meg's place, hometown, was different. It was different all together.
I bet it was. You know, you didn't know hometown, was different. It was different all together.
I bet it was.
You know, you didn't know where I was from.
I did not.
Well, it was different.
Shhh.
Jacques had purchased a lot of land in the city's
River Oaks neighborhood, and they built a brand new
three-story red brick mansion.
Ooh, my fucking dream.
I love a brick. I love a brick. It's a love brick house. I love a brick mansion. Ooh, my fucking dream. I love a brick.
I love a brick.
It's a love brick house.
I love a brick house.
It was fully staffed.
Candy had maids, cooks, butlers,
any worker she could have ever imagined or desired.
Jacques even hired a show four to drive them around
and drive him in particular to and from the office.
Like the Durandran song.
Yes, great song.
Yeah, that is a great song.
Oh, the heart.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,
We listen to that today, didn't we?
We did. Yeah, good song.
But this driver slash show four
would be able to use one of the seven luxury cars
that sat in the driveway.
What the heck?
Take your pick, baby.
Take your pick.
And in the evening, after Jacques was done with work,
the chauffeur would bring him and Candy
to any of the city's most exclusive restaurants
and nightclubs.
Damn.
He would be wearing a perfectly tailored suit
and she would be wearing expensive dresses and firsts.
Of course.
I fucking love Glamour.
Not a kid to be seen.
No.
Not in this life.
Never that.
They have a full staff.
Yeah, exactly. Get out of, except for that up here.
Get out of here.
Upon arriving in Houston, Candie's priority
was definitely to establish herself
amongst the city's upper echelon.
She had done it in New Orleans,
but now she really wanted to go for it here.
So she started writing checks with Jacques's money
to the more notable charities.
And she was throwing fun razors and her newly built home,
where she quote,
strolled from room to room in stilettos,
greeting her guests with a kiss on the cheek.
Okay, look at her.
I love it.
She's moving.
I wish that it didn't end the way that it did,
because I'm like,
you guys could add such a fucking awesome life together.
Yeah, you mean like with her fucking enough, you know?
Yeah, I wish it didn't end the way.
I wish it did not end that way there.
Most of us around here would feel the same.
But the thing was, she was like an enigma
to the society women of Houston.
Like, all of them were like, what the fuck is she?
Like, what did she go for?
She just really popped off and came to town.
But they all also agreed that she was charismatic.
She was flirty and fun.
But she was also kind and generous, they said.
Oh, look at that.
Yeah.
And even when the rumors of
her seeding New Orleans past started circulating among the Houston peers, it didn't damage her
reputation like it probably would have if somebody who was like less charming or well liked came along.
But unlike many of Houston's high society, Candie's philanthropy. Her philanthropy. Her Phil and Throppy.
Her Phil and Throppy.
Her Phil and Throppy.
Phil and Throppy.
I don't want to know.
Phil and Throppy.
It's more fun.
Phil and Throppy sounds like Phil and Throppy.
I don't know.
It sounds like something's floppy and it freaks me out.
You know, like flops?
I don't know.
I just found them about it.
Flip flop.
Anonymous.
Flip flop.
Flip flop anonymous.
Phil and Throppy. Phil and Throp. Phil and Throp.
Throp anonymous. There you go.
Um, yeah, yeah. Her Phil and Thropy.
Did they get it?
Did they get it?
Her philanthropy and generosity.
It really wasn't just for show.
No. No. No. It really, it really wasn't.
One night in 1957, while he was in Chicago on a business trip,
Jacques called Candy to tell her about this fucking awful story
that he read in the local paper.
About four children who'd recently been orphaned,
their father shot their mother,
and stabbed their baby brother to death.
Oh my God.
And they had no one.
So he shit.
Yeah.
And that's what Jacques is saying to Candy.
He's like, what the fuck?
Oh my God. Like I can't believe this happened. saying to Candy. He's like, what the fuck? Oh my God.
Like, I can't believe this happened.
So this like actually really moved her, it seemed.
Like, she was really affected by this.
And almost immediately, she got on a plane, went to Chicago,
and she and Jacques signed temporary custody papers
for God's sake.
All four of those kids and brought them back to Houston.
Holy shit.
And the story was picked up by the Associated Press
and it was reported in papers across the country.
And Candy told the reporters,
we have nothing temporary in mind, only permanent adoption.
But she really wanted to give these kids a good life.
Man, which is nuts.
That makes me sad.
I hate this shit.
I do too.
It's weird.
When it's like they do stuff like this and you're like,
oh, you had a chance to be a decent human.
And you were a decent human.
Like God damn it.
You know, like where did it trail off?
Where'd it go?
Where do we go from here?
Where did you leave it?
Who'd you give it to?
Yeah for you.
Oh fuck, yeah.
God.
Now, you know, whether it was a true act of generosity
or something more calculating excuse me,
the adoption story made Candy and Jock
one of the most famous and celebrated couples in Houston.
I do think it came from a good place.
I don't want it to.
These are human beings.
They've adopted.
I really hope it wasn't for anything other than
to make their lives better.
No.
It did win Candy a seat on the board of directors
from some of the city's most prestigious organizations.
Yeah, I mean, the reality of the situation
is as much as we want to sit here and say,
no, I never want to believe that somebody would do that,
like adopt human being children
that have gone through one of the most traumatic events
that I could ever fucking fathom for their
own personal gain instead of just to make their lives
better. The unfortunate reality is there are shit people
that will do that stuff. It's true. So I don't know. I don't
think any of us will know from real what their intentions were,
but no, I'm gonna hope it was pure. I think from shock, it was
probably pure. I feel like it was from Jacques.
And I think from Candy, I think at least part of it
came from a pure place.
Yeah.
But I think she was somebody who was always closing.
I was just gonna say she's, you know?
She's like somebody who would do anything
to get what she wants.
Yeah, and she wants to climb those ranks.
But at the same time, it's like you're welcoming
these kids into your home,
you're giving them a better life
than they ever could have imagined.
Like, they have a driver who can take them anywhere they have.
But I just hope that you're giving them the emotional.
Yeah.
And, you know what I mean?
Like, the material stuff is great,
but it's like, especially what they've gone through,
they need it, they need it, they need it.
They need it, they need it, somebody who's there.
Yeah.
And it's giving them a hug and telling them,
like, I'm just really sorry for these kids.
Yeah, I know, exactly.
I know if they were happy.
So I hope they were.
Now, despite the tragic circumstances,
that brought them to their new home,
the four newest famers of the Mosler family,
they seemed to take easily to their new lives in Texas.
Norman and Rita, candy's children
from her previous marriage,
they were in their teens at this point
when the kids were adopted.
They loved the kids and they found them super charming.
According to Skip Holland's worth
who wrote a really good article about this case
for Texas Monthly, I'm gonna link it in my resources.
The expansion of the family actually prompted
a bit of reorientation of the Mosler household
and in a good way.
Candy transformed their massive ballroom into a playroom
for the kids and regularly had the show for Drive the Family
to drive in movies together.
Yep, had the show for Drive them to the bowling alley.
The family took vacation a lot in Galveston.
They had a vacation host there.
And Candy even had Jacques build a baseball field
in an empty lot from across
from their mansion in River Oaks.
Okay, so it least seems like they were trying to give them.
It does, you know.
And one of Jacques's employees taught the family how to play baseball.
That's adorable.
It does sound like they gave to their lives.
They put emotion in it.
It seems like they were doing things to at least try to brighten them up.
I think so. So as the 1950s came to a close, it seems like they were doing things to at least try to brighten them up. I think so.
So as the 1950s came to a close, it seems like Candy had finally achieved her dream life,
the life of Walth and privilege that she'd always wanted.
And it seems like she was happy to share it with others.
But then in 1961, a phone call from her sister Elizabeth,
said in motion a series of events that would turn candy's entire world inside out and change absolutely fucking everything in the most irreversible of ways.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
So, Candy's older sister Elizabeth who is better known as Babe.
Her nickname was Babe.
Babe.
And I'm pissed that my nickname's not Babe.
I mean, nobody can be Babe.
It's a, it's a, what?
It's a, for sinister Palm Babe. That's true. That's true. It's given dark side
It's given dark side and if you haven't followed that go follow it given dark side head
Yeah
Yeah, but they called her babe and her last name was powers
So she called her sister candy that day because she needed her help
Her 20 your 20-year-old son, had been arrested and convicted of fraud in Michigan.
Because he had, quote, pursued an 89-year-old man to buy $20,000 worth of worthless stock
in a fake magazine subscription firm.
So he's a piece of shit.
100.
52-gillion percent.
Cool, cool.
Yes.
He'd been sentenced only to 90 days in jail.
That's stupid.
But now he was out and Babe really didn't know what to do with him.
She knew that he needed to be pushed onto a better path
and she figured that candy would definitely
be able to help with that.
Which is when you think about it so sad,
because Babe Elizabeth only wanted the best for her son
and she wanted to steer him onto a right path.
And this one phone call changed his entire life
and candies because of decisions that they made
in this fucking way.
And this is her sister.
Yes.
Like her sister called her and was like, I need help.
That's the thing.
It's not even like a case where it's like an in-law and she's not related to her
enough.
You, she's full blown related to it.
Oh my.
Yeah.
And like, to do that anyways, like, goodbye.
But to your sister, like that's fucking with your sister too, like, like, oh, absolutely.
Like what?
No, but we're not there yet.
We're not there yet.
We're not there yet.
We're not there yet. So Babe was hoping that Mel could go stay
with Candy and Jock for a while.
While he got back on his feet, found a job,
that kind of thing.
And Candy was always generous with what she had.
So she said, of course, I'm always willing
to help family like send them on over.
And it's interesting, because I'm like,
did she already have feelings for him
or is this something that happened when he moved in?
Like, I'll never know.
But Melvin, what's his deal?
What is his deal?
He's a dickbag.
He'd been born on January 13th, 1942,
and Birmingham, Alabama, to Garrett and Elizabeth Bay Powers.
A few years after he was born,
his father moved the family from,
excuse me, moved the family to Phoenix, Arizona, and his father
owned and operated powers aviation.
It's kind of funny because it reminds me of Del Millard.
Yeah, I was just thinking that.
Yeah, it was a business that, quote, fueled, repaired, and sold small private aircrafts.
Now if Garrett's work was impressive, worth ethic, and commitment to his business ever left any impression on Mel,
it was almost certainly gone by the time that Mel wasn't high school.
Just gone so.
Awesome.
Throughout most of his high school career, he was lazy,
he was grumpy, he was disrespectful, he sucked.
Yeah, sounds like it.
Yeah, I just, he also, he was bully.
Oh, fuck this guy.
He was six foot four inches tall
He had like a really athletic build and a lot of people said that he used his you know, like kind of menacing presence to terrorize people
Like he thought were weak or vulnerable or just so he could have fun. Awesome. Yeah, sounds great. A collective boom
Mel
Thank you. So when Garrett closed the airport business in 1960,
Mel used the separation from the family business
as an opportunity to get away and see the country, you know.
He just wanted to go travel around the world.
Yeah, he's earned it.
No.
He joined a quote,
Roving Band of dubious characters.
Wow.
Yeah.
A Roving Band of dubious characters.
Yeah. Do you like that? I love that. I love that a lot. A roving band of dubious characters.
Do you like that?
I love that a lot.
I'm gonna start referring to a lot of groups of people
as I can, I have it like that.
I had exactly who you think is a dubious character.
Yep, yep, yep.
But a roving band of dubious fucking characters.
Yeah.
Yep, yeah, there it is.
Yep, yep, yep.
But he joined them in a door-to-door magazine subscription service that was not real.
I was going to say that that must be nefarious.
Yeah.
That sounds not nefarious.
It's very nefarious.
It was a scam operated by a career criminal named Arthur Grimsley.
Well, the last name like Grimsley, I'm sorry, you have to be a criminal.
I was like, you are a career criminal.
You just, you are born.
A career criminal.
They handed you the card the day you were born.
But these young men would sign up unsuspecting customers for magazine subscriptions
and then take the money before the customer
realized that the magazines were never coming.
That's nice.
Like, okay, Jen Shaw.
Calm down.
Real housewife's reference.
It was during one of these Dordarder sales that Mel was actually caught for the fraudulent
stock sale in 1971, Jesus.
And that led him first to jail.
Not you, by the way, I'm in Mel.
Oh, I know.
I just realized that I was right after.
Yeah, you know, that's written down somewhere.
Like you made it.
But he first went to jail like we know.
And then also like we know, to Candy and Jock's front
door.
I'm really worried about where this starts.
You should.
You should definitely worry about it.
You should absolutely be worried.
Yeah, I'm not going to even lie to you.
From the moment he arrived in Houston, Candy was taken with her nephew.
I don't want to be here anymore.
Yeah.
He had the body and the confidence swagger
of a movie star of your sister's child. Yep. That's what he has. Oh, gross. Yeah.
Hate it. Yeah. She happily welcomed him into their home. She gave him his own room,
gave him a car to drive whenever he wanted. But however, if he was really going to fit into
her lifestyle, he would have to make a few physical changes.
So not long after he arrived in Houston, he did visit a plastic surgeon for four procedures.
A Tom selectomy, a procedure to make his ears closer to his head, a procedure in which
his face was actually sanded in order to minimize his acne scars.
And for some reason, he got circumcised.
Okay.
Like why? I'm not going to ask you. I'm not going to ask you. I'm not going to ask you. I'm not going to ask you. I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you.
I'm not going to ask you. I'm not going to ask you. I'm not going to ask you. I'm not going to ask you but I didn't need to know that. No, I would have stopped. No, stop there.
That's not for my knowledge.
So I can't use request to Jacques Hyard Mel
for a position as a repossessor for one of his auto lenders.
A repo man.
A repo man.
We love those.
It was actually the perfect job for him, though,
because of his unpleasant attitude and menacing figure.
Yeah, he sounds like a repo man.
Yeah, finally, he was an asset.
But not for long, because by late 1963,
about a year and a half after he'd gotten to Houston,
Jacques had mel fired and then had him escort it off
of their property in River Oaks.
Oh.
And he forbade him from ever returning.
Holy shit.
And then he himself, Jacques, immediately left
for his condo in Florida.
He was like, I'm getting the fuck out of here.
Whoa.
He was pissed about something.
What the fuck happened?
But when anybody asked, Candy would just say
that Jacques had found out that Mel was leaving the company
to start his own business and he was really pissed off about that.
I don't think that's it.
No.
Me, I don't think that would piss Jacques off
as much as that did.
I think you might be on to something.
By George, we've cracked the code.
Something about it just doesn't ring true.
Do you know that I just found out that the expression is by George?
What did you think it was?
By God.
I mean, you could say by God.
In that movie, did they say by God, we've cracked the code?
No, by George, I think we've got it.
What about cracking the code? I don't know where that came from. Oh, by George, I think he's got it.
Why is it George? I don't know. Oh, but probably the king.
George, like King George, like by George, I think he's got it. Who's King George?
Like King George, which one? Like, look, I'm gonna look up there. Like, look at it.
It feels like it would be like, you know,
instead of saying like, by God,
you'd be talking about the monarch.
Oh.
The origin of the life of by George.
By George, we've cracked the code.
Da-da-da-da.
An old English oath invoked immediately before charging into battle as late as World
War One.
And it's, oh, and you know what?
You can say, well, you can say like, by God, George, or by Saint George.
Huh.
So there's that.
Well, I just found out that it's not just by God.
The whole time I thought it was by God.
Yeah.
Crazy. It's like a Shakespearean as well. I like George better. You know, by's not just by God. The whole time I thought it was by God. Yeah. Crazy.
It's also like a Shakespearean as well.
I like George better.
You know, by George.
Well, anyway, so yeah, so Jacques was like,
by George, I'm out of here.
By George.
I'm out of here.
By George.
I cracked myself up.
But as for why he'd left on an unplanned trip to Florida,
everybody was like, where's George?
Why, first George?
I don't know George. I don't mean to say that. Where's Jacques? Like, what happened? Candy was like, oh, he just went to
oversee the opening of a new bank in the Miami area. We're going to be joining him there in the coming
weeks. Yeah, I don't think you are. They did. Oh, so it seems like Candy may have been trying to put
off any speculation about marital issues between her and jock. Seems like it. But she did, and she brought the children with her. They actually did join
jock in Florida. It was just several months later in June of 1964.
All right. Now, as far as the kids were concerned, their trip to Florida was like any other
summer vacation. They went to the beach, they spent days at the pool at jock's condo building,
and they didn't even seem to mind the frequent trips
to the emergency room in the evenings,
where candy would receive injections
to control the sometimes overwhelming migraines
that she suffered with for most of her adult life.
Oh, yeah, that sucks.
Yeah, but I'm like, why can't Jock just watch them?
Like, why do you gotta bring the kids to that?
Yeah, damn, I feel like you're doing something else.
Huh, in my opinion, in my opinion.
I'm old.
Now, the last of the ER visits occurred on the evening of June 30th.
Candy piled all the kids in the car and they drove to the hospital.
But along the way, she had to stop to mail some letters at a nearby hotel.
And then she had to stop again because she had to get dinner for the kids.
And then finally, they got to the hospital a little before midnight. What? It's just all weird. That's strange. After waiting several hours
to be seen, she finally was seen and given her injection. And she and the kids finally made it back
to Jacques's apartment around 4.45 a.m. She needs some excendron migraine. She certainly does. Like, he's that's too much. That's the ticket.
Yeah.
So they get back at 4.45 in the morning.
Oh.
And it was then that candy made a horrifying discovery.
When candy and the kids entered the apartment, they found Jacques lying dead in a huge pool
of his own blood on the living room floor.
Oh my God.
His black lab puppy Rocky was unharmed, but helplessly leashed to the balcony door
and barking for help.
So Jacques had been bludgeoned over the head
with a very, very large, heavy object
and had been stabbed 39 times.
Holy shit.
In the heart and the lungs,
were they, quote, thin, bladed knife,
something like a stiletto.
Ooh.
Rather than call the police,
Candy ran to the neighbor Irene Durr,
who called a local physician, Dr. John Handwerker,
but only reached his answering service.
So when Dr. Handwerker finally did reach
somebody in the Mosler family,
it was 20-year-old Rita, and she explained the situation.
She was basically panicking, and she told the doctor,
someone's were going into the apartment and I think my father is dead.
He's lying on the floor, he's covered with blood.
So the doctor had been actually a close associate of jocks for many years
and he knew him really well.
But he was like, why the fuck did you guys call me?
And not like, you got to call the police.
So Rita told him, mother is in hysterics,
she asked me to call you first.
So he told her he was about a half hour away,
but that they needed to call the police.
Oh, fucking police.
And then he was like, you know what,
I'm gonna call the police for you.
And then he started making his way to the apartment.
So nobody there called the police.
And he's like on his waving, like,
I don't know, I'm not at the scene,
but like, I'll call them there.
Yeah.
So in deputy James Dorgensen
of the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Department arrived
at the governor's large apartments,
he was meant at the apartment door
by the one the only candy.
And she looked more annoyed or impatient
rather than upset or traumatized.
And she just told him there's been some trouble.
There's been some trouble.
Like that's one way to put it, Candace.
Wow.
So inside the apartment, it was more or less what Rita had described to Dr. Handwerker.
Jacques was lying on the floor.
They had actually covered him at this point with a light orange blanket.
One of his legs was exposed and his hand was still clutching the drapes.
Oh, mm-hmm. When George and Sen removed the blanket, he noted that Jack was nude other than a white
undershirt, which was now almost completely soaked in blood. Yeah. And from the doorway, which was
like several feet away, candy screamed, oh Jack, Jack, what have you done? What? What have you done?
She said to her dead husband.
What the fuck?
So the comment seems strange to us.
Also seems strange to the deputy.
And he was like, is this lady implying
that like her husband somehow responsible
for his own death?
Stabbed himself 39 times.
Like what in legend himself?
What have you done?
Yeah, so weird.
So several days later when the autopsy was conducted,
Dr. Joseph Davis's report would confirm
that Jacques had sustained two significant blows to his head.
And they only ever identified like that,
the blows to the head is coming from a blunt object,
but they never found what the object was.
That's interesting.
The first was to the back of his head, and it crushed his skull on his back.
He passed.
Which would have caused significant brain damage or death.
And hopefully he was unconscious.
You would think I definitely would think so.
Now while the other blow was to the side of the face, and that one shattered his cheek
bone.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
The stab wounds to the chest, again, 39 in total,
were about two inches deep. Holy shit. So Dr. Davis concluded that it would have required
considerable force. And not alone indicated that this killer, whoever this was, was a strong
individual. Maybe a big guy. I was just going to say, he indicated that the stab wounds to the left lung and the heart
were the cause of death. But he also indicated that, like I said, that initial blow to the
back of the head would have likely been fatal, which meant that the stabs to the torso were
entirely unnecessary. And they were really just like complete overkill.
Yeah. So now that they're like, okay, murder, duh.
The officers do a door to door canvas of the building,
hoping that maybe somebody caught a glimpse
of the killer as they flood the building.
But nobody really saw anything
in the early hours of the morning.
But some people did hear things.
Irene Der, that neighbor who actually called the doctor,
she told the police that she didn't hear any struggle.
She did hear the dog frantically barking around 2am.
And she later told reporters,
that's all I could hear was incessant barking.
I did not hear any screams or any voices,
which if you're not hearing any screams,
I think that first blow did not come out.
Yeah, absolutely.
Probably kill him.
Yeah.
Another neighbor Peggy Fletcher also heard
what she now believed was the murderer.
Telling officers, she was awoken around 2 a.m. and she heard a man's voice yell, don't,
don't do that to me. Followed by the dogs in Cesson Barking. So the noise prompted her to go to the
door and she heard someone close the door to the Mosler's apartment and then heard heavy footsteps
down the concrete stairway,
which led her to believe that the killer must have been a man
based on these footsteps.
And then another neighbor told the police
that he had seen a man and a woman
leaving the parking lot in a yellow 1959 Dodge
with a date County tag just after 2 a.m.
Huh.
So given the man's wealth and status
in the banking industry, Jacques,
police initially suspected that the death
was the result of a robbery gun wrong.
But then at the same time,
something about that didn't really feel quite right to them.
A robbery gun wrong never feels quite right.
No, people, of course, are sometimes killed
like during a robbery.
Yeah.
But they're not beaten over the head
and brutally stabbed almost 40 times.
No, it just doesn't work.
Not you, not anything that I've ever seen.
And also, the case lacked the telltale signs of robbery.
Nothing was obviously missing.
There wasn't really any sign.
Like the robbery part?
Yeah, the robbery part.
There didn't really seem to be any kind of sign
of a struggle and there was no indication
whatsoever of forced entry. Yeah. So shortly before 3am on the morning actually that shock was murdered,
officers had taken a man into custody who was discovered walking along the road with blood smeared
all over his shirt. Wow. Yeah. The man said that he had been assaulted by three teenagers who
stole his car. So the officers took him to the hospital for treatment.
But now in light of the murder,
the sheriff's office was like,
oh shit, like is that the guy that's responsible
for Mosler's death?
So they brought him in for questioning,
but they eventually released him
because it was apparent that he had no connection
with the murder.
Oh wow.
Red herring.
What a coincidence.
I know, isn't that crazy?
And also sad because that's probably true.
Like he actually got, that's really sad.
Yeah, I know.
So they were running short on leads.
They really didn't have any evidence to work from and they were like, shit.
But detectives Jerry Evans and Pat Gallagher returned to Candy Mosler in the hope that she
might have some kind of idea about her husband, her husband's enemies, like anybody that might
want to kill him or might want him
dead.
So from the moment they sat down with her, she really defied the expectations of what
one would assume was a newly widowed woman.
Yeah.
But again, we can't judge a book by its cover.
It's never good to judge grieving.
It's not.
But she wasn't packably dressed.
She did not have a hair out of place,
not even a piece of jewelry was out of place.
But you know whatever,
Evan and Gallagher were put off by her calm demeanor though,
and like just that she looked perfect.
I mean, yeah, you do have to take some kind of cue from it.
Yeah, it just didn't align with what they expected
of somebody who just lost their husband
in a fucking shocking act of violence.
I don't know that if I found my husband,
just where am I seen to be husband?
Like that on the floor that my hair would look great.
Yeah, I don't think so, but.
Holly not, but it's me.
Different strokes for different folks.
So the detectives new Mosler was a high profile man
in finance, and if the murder was not the result
of some kind of robbery gone wrong,
they thought maybe it had something to do with shady business dealings. in finance, and if the murder was not the result of some kind of robbery gone wrong, they
thought maybe it had something to do with shady business dealings.
And Candy was like, oh my God, yes, you're right.
She was like, oh shit, you nailed it.
That's a great motive.
Thank you for telling me that.
She said, you know what?
It could have been one of the many, many former employees.
It could have been rival bankers.
It could have been customers who defaulted on a loan,
or it could be this.
Oh, and this was something that the detectives were not expecting.
According to Candy, when Jacques would take solo trips to Florida, he would often use
the opportunity to quote, entertain young men that he had met on the beach.
Oh, we don't know if this is true at all.
I think this might just be candy telling stories.
Sounds to me like it might be.
Yeah.
She said, in fact, just a few days earlier,
she was visiting the apartment,
and Jacques had gotten several phone calls from a man
who, according to her, quote,
spoken feminine tones.
Wow, candy.
Fuck off, candy.
Wow, candy.
And she said, you know, I'm suspecting that he's leading a gay life out here in Florida
Okay, like
That's I love how she's taking this as an opportunity to be like, yeah, you know what?
Let me just like let me just like let me spin this yarn. I'm either gonna lie or I'm just gonna out him
Yeah, out him entirely. Like that's fucked.
If that was true, you just outed him to like so many people.
That's fucked.
And if that's not true, why are you making up stories?
Yeah, especially why are you making up stories in a time where that is damaging.
That's the thing.
Like come on.
You know, that's not cool.
So it was entirely unexpected, this whole angle, but it did fit a crime scene that
porn pointed toward a crime of passion. But then at the same time, detectives were like,
I don't know. I think she's trying to sell us a story that she wants us to believe,
not revealing some kind of like embarrassing detail about their personal lives.
And years later, Jerry Evans, one of those detectives, would tell the jury that he
felt as though she was acting during the interview. He said she was speaking softly to the two of them
to like, theatrically imply that she was so shame. She's like, I think he might be one of those
gays. One of those gay men, like, fuck off, Candy. Yeah, honestly, fuck right off, Candy.
Kate. So among the more interesting bits of information,
Gleens from the dual to dual canvas, was that a few of the neighbors had also seen a white
Chevy sedan leaving the parking lot in the hours just before the body was discovered.
And when detectives did a little digging into candy's alibi, they learned that she had
indeed been with the children at the hospital that morning before she'd found Jacques, and that they had driven there in her red Pontiac convertible.
But for this particular trip, she had also requested a white 1960 Chevy sedan.
Oh, you don't say.
A Bel Air.
Look at that.
From Jacques's company, Alan Parker, which had been delivered to the Key Biscayne Hotel
and Villa on June 26th, where the family was staying
while they were in Florida.
Oh.
The family, including Mel.
Oh.
Mm-hmm.
So when they checked with the staff at Alan Parker,
they were able to confirm that this car
had been checked back into the garage
by a tall, dark-haired man at exactly 5.19 AM,
which was just a few hours after the murder happened.
So when Evans and Gallagher returned to speak with Candy
on the morning of July 1st,
they found her in the company of her personal lawyer,
TM Doyle, who was a family friend
that for some reason she introduced as Vincent Caltogrone. That doesn't fit. No, his name is T.M. Doyle. I was just gonna say T.M. Doyle.
Vincent Caltogrone. Yeah, I don't know about that. Like, okay, candy, take several seats.
And they also found her, so in the company of her lawyer, but also two bodyguards
that she'd hired to protect the family from whoever had killed her husband because she had no idea who it was.
She had no idea.
Once again, she pushed the whole theory of a burglary gone wrong and told the detectives
that thousands and thousands of dollars worth of jewelry was missing from her apartment.
And they were like, yeah, like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.
Like, could you make us a list of everything missing so that we can circulate it to the pawn shops
and, you know, keep this whole thing going?
And her lawyer was like, no, she's too distraught
to do that right now.
Absolutely not.
She could never take a proper inventory at this time.
She's not.
She could never.
She could never.
You're done.
You're done.
You're done. So it done. You're done.
So it was obvious now that the burglar story wasn't an option.
So she returned to the story about Jacques's secret gay life.
Yeah, of course.
She said that she'd actually got an additional calls from a myriad of other men, but neither
detective took the bait.
They were like, we see what you're doing here, lady.
Absolutely.
Instead, they told her that the white Chevy that she had rented had been located and it
was discovered to have blood inside of it.
Ooh.
Yeah.
So she responded and told them she knew nothing about it and she had asked a porter to
return the car when she realized that she wouldn't need it after all.
She'd never even driven it.
Wow.
Sure.
Okay.
Maybe not.
Yeah.
But a break in the case finally came that afternoon
when the technician's working on that car ran a fingerprint
and they had found that in jock's apartment
and it came back as belonging to one Melvin Lane powers.
Oh, boom. So a few hours later, six more fingerprints belonging to him were discovered inside of that
car.
Oh, damn.
Six more fingerprints.
So seven in total.
Explain that.
Given that the car had been returned to the Allen Parker lot
at the airport, the detectives were like,
oh, good, our killer dropped off the car
and immediately flew out of state.
Right.
Great.
Yeah.
But they had to obviously check in on this.
And when they did, they found out
that the passenger list for the 710 AM flight from Miami
to Houston on June 30, was boarded by a man by the name of M.
Powers Mosler.
Who's that?
M. Powers Mosler?
I don't know that.
I don't know that.
That's not anybody's name that I know.
Yeah, it doesn't sound familiar.
Your last name's not Mosler?
No, it's not.
So within a day or two of Jacques Smirter, Jacques, excuse me, and it had been pretty obvious
that he was not killed in a robbery gone wrong.
Yeah. Then the detectives put no stock in candy
theory about him carrying on some kind of secret gay life. And in fact,
between the fingerprints found at the apartment and in the Belair and the
passenger manifest for the flight from Miami to Houston, they were pretty
sure that they found their killer or at least knew his name. Ding ding ding.
Now they just needed to know why he had killed Jacques. Yeah, I would like to know.
Yeah. So on Friday, July 3rd, the Houston police arrested Melvin Powers at the Mobile
Homesales company that he recently opened with money from Mosler.
Wow. Like how fucked is that? That's really fucked.
Yeah. And based on evidence that had been collected from the scene and at the
airport, he was charged with the murder of Jacques Mawzler.
Damn.
Yep. He was held at Harris County Jail over the weekend.
And during that time, investigators searched his home and his business for additional evidence.
Mm-hmm.
Additional. I don't know if I said that right.
Are you kidding?
Okay, good.
We're really hitting a wall here.
You know, he arts late.
It is.
So excuse us if we're like,
You know, he arts late. It is so excuse us if we're like,
no, no, no, no.
So on Monday, July 6th, a grand jury convened
in Harris County, Texas,
and they were considering whether or not
to indict Melvin.
So they did take a recess on Tuesday
because detectives announced
that they had discovered potentially significant evidence
during their search of the mobile home company.
Ooh, you don't say.
I do say.
On Tuesday, July 7th, they located letters
addressed to Melvin Powers,
signed only with the letter C.
And with a return address of C. Mosler,
Continental Holtz in Hotel Mexico.
I hate this.
Mm-hmm.
Just so you know.
Yeah, the letters addressed. My darling.
Appeared to be romantic in nature and they included statements like, I love you, need you,
you are everything to me darling, and I could not think of life without you.
I really hate those.
Two hundred years you guys!
Please make it stop.
Her nephew.
I hate it.
Fucking gross.
And by that time, actually,
Candy had also returned to Texas
and responded to the discovery
by accusing Harris County district attorney,
Frank Briscoe of being out to get her.
Okay.
And she said he was out to get her
because of some kind of negative remarks she made about him
while she was serving on a grand jury.
Years earlier, it was stupid.
That checks.
So, Briscoe was like,
you haven't been accused of anything yet,
but like thanks.
And also, I don't have the power to convene a grand jury.
And even if I did have a grand jury against you,
I don't, but none of the actions taken against him,
like your nephew could have come from me.
Yeah.
Like, he's like stand down.
Like candy. Shut up He's like stand down. Like candy.
Shut up.
Yeah, stand down.
Basically said via the press, candy takes several seats.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So Melvin's mother and candy sister babe also traveled to Houston at this point over
the weekend to see her son.
And she told the press that her son was innocent.
And she said, and this breaks my heart.
She said, nobody knows like a mother.
He was always such a tender boy. He had no hate for no one. Oh, that's sad.
That's like really sad. So within a day or two, the scandalous news of the love letters
between candy, auntie, and Melvin, nephew, had been reported in papers around the fucking
country. I hate it. But it was not the first detectives in Florida,
we're hearing of this potential love affair between the two. Actually, as investigators chased
down the burglary and gay lover theories, one of Candy's own relatives had informed Evans
that Melvin had actually been kicked out of the house when Jacques discovered Melvin and Candy, quote unquote, canoe-dling.
I don't want that.
The two were seen canoe-dling at Chris's Halloween party.
Oh my God, thank you.
I don't know if it's Chris.
I just like, I think I might have made up the name.
I think it was.
It was a first name last name.
The two were seen canoe-dling at Chris Evans Halloween party.
Wasn't it like the cousin?
The cousin?
The cousin that like,, that, that,
Amanda C. Safery's character is like,
Seth?
Yeah, Seth was a Kowski.
Is that what was named?
The two were seen canoe-doling last week at Seth.
No, it's not.
I need to know.
I don't know.
You should go like that.
But I'm just like, the two were seen,
the two, the two, the two.
I think you were right with Chris.
I think it's Chris Isles.
Isles. The two were seen canoe-dol. I think it's Chris Isles. Isles.
The two were seeing Canutling last week at Chris Isles Halloween
parties.
Like why did that right?
Why does Mr. Devall, why does he know that?
Yep, he knows.
Back to the story.
As the stories of their incestuous romance
made their way around Houston's Stunt High Society,
Candy had fled the city at this point.
I mean, what else do you do at that point?
She's a high society lady and it comes out
that she's fucking her nephew.
That's bad.
The real fucking bad for the daughter
of the American Revolution.
Certainly is.
Emily Gilmore would read her to fill.
Emily Gilmore would ruin her fucking life forever.
She would get the last tea.
Oh, absolutely.
She always gets the first one.
I never get the first one.
I fucking love Emily Gilmore, who doesn't.
But at this point, Candy.
It's true.
It's her.
No, she, she love.
At the end, she does.
Always, she love.
Yeah.
Just no life.
Different love.
It does not like.
Yeah.
So Candy, she flood the city.
She had to disgrace on her name and her family.
And she sequestered herself at St. Luke's Hospital
and she claimed she was suffering from a form of battle fatigue.
Like the drama, mama, a form of battle fatigue.
Like, ma'am, you don't even know.
You performed for the US, at the USO, for the troops.
Like, you're gonna sit there and say,
you are experiencing battle fatigue?
Yeah.
Ooh, she sure did.
She did that.
Just say it's been rough.
She's saying exhaustion, at the least.
It's been a shit week.
She's like, I'm sorry if the thing.
I'm here because everything sucks.
Yeah, crying.
But the door to her door to her door.
Door to her door.
The door to her room at St. Luke's
was monitored by a private security guard.
But that actually didn't stop her
from allowing many, many reporters
to crowd around her bedside as she suffered from battle fatigue.
And she just had an impromptu press conference.
She's a lot.
While suffering from battle fatigue,
what an, I have such admiration.
She's a lot, like fucking ridiculous.
She flatly denied any romance between her and her nephew.
And she said, that's the most ridiculous thing
I've ever heard.
If an atomic bomb were to fall,
now would have been the first one to drag Jack
and the children out of the wreckage.
I don't think so, but what about an atomic blonde candy?
Oh!
But um, there it is.
She was blonde.
She was.
Regardless of what she said to the press,
excerpts of the letters continued to be printed
and a number of photographs of them together
at nightclubs were now circulating.
It was like Perez Hilton before Perez Hilton, you know?
After a few days at St. Luke's,
the pressure from the press and the public
became way too much,
much, and she actually fleed again.
This time she went to Rochester, Minnesota.
She rented a joining hotel rooms, and she spent a ton of time at the Mayo Clinic.
Okay, you know?
Oh, I do, yeah, I know.
Brando know all about that.
So while she hid from the press in Minnesota, Melvin and his lawyers were actively fighting
his extradition to Florida to stand
trial for murder.
And in the weeks after his arrest, his lawyer had actually petitioned the court for bond
that was quickly denied, though, by a judge.
So, meanwhile, the Harris County Grand jury, they continued their exploration, excuse me,
of a possible alternative explanation for Jacques Smirter, including a conspiracy which involved shady business dealings.
They were still like,
me know that kind of happened.
Yes, absolutely.
You're innocent until proven guilty.
Yes.
By June of 1965, though,
as police continued their investigation
into Melon Candy's romance
and Candy's connection to her husband's death,
she and the kids visited Arlington National Cemetery
on the anniversary of the murder
to laboroses on Jock's grave. She hired a professional photographer to document this event.
Okay. And then she circulated those photos to the wire services for publication in any
and all newspapers. Why is she the way she is?
I don't know, childhood trauma, maybe.
Probably.
According to her, doctors had advised her
that she was too weak for trouble,
but she insisted she had to get to all
into national cemetery,
and she told them that she wanted to signal to the world
that Jacques Mosler is never forgotten.
That's what you signals.
Mm-hmm, that's it.
Yeah.
Now, it's to the outside world.
It appeared that the Miami-Dade investigation of the murder
was kind of actually running out of steam.
And a lot of people thought that it was doomed to fail.
But just one month after the scene at Jacques Craveside,
a Miami-Dade grand jury and indicted Melvin and Candy.
Oh.
For the murder of Jacques.
Oh, Jacques.
Jacques, so just a Jacques Mosler,
based on information and new evidence that they uncovered,
which suggested that the two had actually been plotting
to kill Candy's husband for a couple of years
at this point.
What the fuck?
A couple of goddamn years.
Couple of years.
For the first time in a year,
Candy Mosler and Mel stood side by side. Ugh the first time in a year, Candy Maws learned Mell's to side by side.
This time before a circuit judge, though.
Circuit judge George.
By George, I think he's got it.
By George, Sholes.
And he read the charges of first a remurder
and they both pleaded not guilty.
But Judge Sholes, Sholes, excuse me,
said in August 16th trial date.
And during that, the state would have to make their case
as to why they arrested Candy for murder,
and if she was going to like, really,
yeah, do this.
I'm curious.
And in the meantime, Candace and Mel were bonded
and released, actually, and they both returned
to Houston to a wait trial.
So initially, the trial was supposed to start
on November 15th, 1965, but it was delayed
a numerous amount of times. Wow, I'm tired. I like the eyes. Cool. It was delayed numerous
times. It was delayed a bunch. Yeah, you know, attorneys on both sides were arguing over whether
the two should be tried separately, whether they should be tried together, the prosecution preferred
the latter. They were just arguing up and down the wazoo.
So tired.
Up and down that wazoo.
You know, but the delays in multiple pre-trial hearings
really provided additional opportunities
for Candie to grab the spotlight.
And she never missed a single opportunity.
Of course she did.
She was a stunk queen without a crown.
Now during the pre-child hearing in October,
she arrived at the courthouse,
accompanied by her 11 year old son, Eddie.
And at her own urging, he told reporters that he was there
so they won't take my mommy and put her in jail.
Oh my God, kill me.
Like don't use your child for fucking performative.
What?
It's like fucking up your kid.? Yeah, that's really sad.
That's fucking up your kid.
But similarly, when Jerry Selection finally got underway on January 22, 1966, Candy actually
invited a large number of reporters into the apartment that she started renting in Florida.
So they could just, I don't know, witness her in all her domestic glory and just report
it back to the nation.
And she claimed that she had been given the wrong idea,
like they had all been given the wrong idea about her.
Oh, her statement to the press during that event
would set the stage for the entire defense.
She said, I wasn't perfect.
My husband wasn't perfect, but it was our personal life.
Just like you have one, just like everyone has one.
If everybody's private life was laid bare
and was brought forth into the open,
how many of us could stand the exposure?
I don't think that's the issue here.
No, the issue is that you might have killed your husband.
And at the same time, you were fucking your nephew.
Yeah, I think those two things are really like what we're,
what we're really worried about here. You might have had your nephew lover kill your nephew. Yeah, I think those two things are really like what we're, yeah, what we're really worried about here.
Like you might have had your nephew lover kill your house.
Yeah, like I don't give a shit about anything else in your life.
I just care that you might have killed your husband
with your boyfriend nephew.
What?
I don't like it.
And you know, like sure, that's a solid point.
Like if your life was brought into the exponential,
100% true.
But like don't be a murderous and
incestuous human being and then you're like that's not the issue at hand here. Well then your life won't
get brought into the forefront. Yeah. And also your life was always in the fucking forefront because
you wanted it to be yourself. Like the pictures of you at his grave. You know, Zellith invited all
of the people that you were telling this to hear. Like, so this is not beyond your control.
You're inviting it, exactly.
But anyways, the trial finally began at 9 a.m. promptly
on February 1st, Rabbit Rabbit, 1966.
And Richard Gerstain was arguing for the state,
Clyde Woody and Marion Rose, and were arguing
in candy's defense, and Percy Foreman and William Walsh
were arguing on behalf of
Melvin Powers. Because of the scandalous and taboo nature of the relationship between the defendants,
the jury and everybody else in the room probably expected sensational opening remarks from the prosecution.
Yeah. Yeah. Probably fucking ready for it. But in his opening statement, assistant state attorney Richard Hudo made
no mention of incest or any of the salacious details that were reported in the press. And
he said only that the state would prove that an illicit affair was just one of the motives
for murder. Whoa. I'm like, I don't know if we can boil that down to an illicit affair.
Yeah. I'd call it just call it um, incestuous. Yeah.
His straightforward approach was a little different than Percy Foreman's theatrical presentation
to the jury in his opening remarks.
Foreman and Clyde Woodie would eventually present evidence and testimony that they claimed
would prove their client's innocence.
But before doing so, they said, you know what?
Let's muddy the waters a little
bit here and remind the jury that there were more than a few people who would have wanted
Jacques Mosler dead. Eek.
Forman told the jury, the state has told you that Jacques Mosler was stabbed in excess
of 39 times. If each one of those 39 knife wounds on Mosler's body was inflicted by
a different person, there would still be many times
that number of persons left with justification.
Wow.
That's fucked.
That is a lot to say.
You're talking about a man that was brutally murdered.
Yeah.
Holy cow.
Holy cow is right.
Like, whoa.
Yeah.
If I was in the jury, I'd be like,
you're a piece of shit.
Yeah, I'd be like, that was real shitty Yeah, I'd be like that was real shitty the same
I don't believe anything you say for me for obvious
Yeah, like I'm ideally excuse me. I'm out. Excuse me. I'm gonna disagree with everything. He says excuse me
I don't like that guy. He could show me evidence and I'll give a shit because he's an asshole judge
That guy's a dick that guy's a dick. I'm out. Gotta go. Yeah, sorry to delay your trial
Guys, the dick. That guy's the dick about.
Gotta go.
Yeah.
Sorry to delay your trial.
But from there, he launched into a dramatic character,
assassination that included accusing Jacques of many things.
He said that he was accusing him of,
I don't even want to say this,
he was accusing him of like awful, awful things.
Oh, really?
Yeah, just like,
and like not even,
no, I shouldn't even say awful things. Awful things for back then.
Okay.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Basically saying that he was like, voyeuristic.
He was a gay man.
He, you know, all these terrible things.
But they're making him into this like creepy criminal.
Yes.
Element.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And he assured them that if Jacques Shady business feelings hadn't gotten him killed, then surely his
sexually deviant life did. Being gay. Yeah. To which I say,
get fucked, sir. Exactly. And I wrote that in my notes with one
of those old hearts that we used to write with like the
with the real pointing left and then the three. Yeah, get fucked, sir.
Heart. That's right. Heart. Yeah. Just like, I hate that back
then. It was like, he was gay.
So we got murdered because he was gay and that's yucky. It was probably just being gay. Like, shut up. Yep.
So by the time the prosecution was finally able to call their witnesses, the defense had put on
such a performance that anything a witness had to say would have been bland as fuck by comparison.
But the witnesses for the prosecution,
they did make a compelling case.
On the 10th day of trial, a handyman
who had actually worked at the Mosler home,
told the jury about how on more than one occasion,
he caught, quote, Miss Candy and Mel, a Hogan and a Kissin.
A Hogan and a Kissin?
A direct quote.
Oh, Hogan and a Kissin.
Oh, I hate it. I hate it so much every now and again. It gets worse every time. Yeah. Yeah.
Now among the other witnesses called by the prosecution to testify as to the romantic
relationship between aunt and nephew was just young who was a private detective from Texas.
Young had actually known powers in another context and told the court that he and
his wife had run into Mel and Candy at a motel in Nassau Bay in Texas where powers introduced
Candy as his wife. Remember powers as Mel introduces Candy as his wife and called her Mrs. Powers.
called her Mrs. Powers. Oh my God.
And then referred to Candy's son, Eddie, as their child.
What the fuck?
He said that it was his wife's son by a former marriage,
but like now it was their child together.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Gross.
According to young powers described himself as very much in love,
and the two took frequent vacations together to
Sun Valley and Mexico and in his cross-examination. Foreman though pointed out
that this guy young and his wife had met Mel when they purchased a mobile home
from him sometime earlier and then that later that home was repossessed. So it
poked a hole in the story. Repo Manel. Yep. He said, it didn't make you happy to have powers come
and take your trailer you didn't pay for, did it?
Ooh.
So that essentially just implicated to the jury that this,
this is not credible.
It was retaliation.
Yeah, exactly.
So that just poked a hole in that.
Now the trials 10th day turned out to be
what the Miami Herald referred to as, quote,
the most unsavory days of the long and bitter courtroom spectacle.
Whoa.
The defense took every fucking opportunity they could to imply or accuse any of the prosecution's
witnesses of everything from petty retaliation and ignorance to infidelity and of course homosexuality. All without evidence,
always with objection, but still it was devastating to the state's case against Mel and Candy.
So the court romantics and theatrics almost entirely on the part of the defense were
no doubt exhausting for the judge, the jury, the prosecution, fucking everybody except for
the reporters in the room, especially
the tabloid reporters.
It was all what Dave so perfectly called Journalistic Catnip.
Oh my God.
And that's our friend Dave who helps us with research.
Dave is hilarious.
He called it Journalistic Catnip.
That's a great way to describe that.
I love him a lot.
Reporters from all over the country had actually arrived in Miami, like traveling from everywhere. And they wanted to provide daily updates on the case and like whatever
paper they were waiting for. Actually, the Houston Chronicle referred to it as overflowing
with quote, love, heat, greed, savage past passion, incest and perversion. And all of those
things should not go together. No, not really any of those things should.
And the Chicago Tribune said that it was,
quote, lubricated by sex, nourished by sex,
and varnished with sex.
This trial, this trial, lubricated.
What was the second one?
Lubricated, nourished, and varnished with sex.
And lubricated, nourished, and varnished.
I'm honestly, sorry, I just swallowed in your ear, but I'm honestly shocked that they were able to,
like, publish things like that back then.
Yeah, they didn't give a fuck.
Lubricated by sex and the fucking shit
hoggicide.
And the Chicago Tribune, like,
damn.
The fucking newspaper.
To eat your breakfast,
you just kick your feet up,
your dad just opens the paper and is like,
well, fuck, that case is barnished by sex.
Yeah, that'll change you. Damn well fuck, that case is barnished by sex.
Yeah, that'll change you.
Damn, yeah, yeah.
And the trial's glamorous and titillating air
was only fed into by this.
Titillating.
Main star, candy mausler.
Oh boy.
She arrived to the courthouse every fucking day,
dressed in fur's, skin tight dresses and stilettos.
It was like, she was attending a fucking Hollywood premiere
rather than a murder trial in which she was the accused.
She's the defendant in a murder trial of her husband,
possibly by her and her nephew lover.
Yep.
And she's like, I better wear the best shit ever.
Yeah.
She's like, let me just offend Pita while I'm at it
Yeah, absolutely, you know, so meanwhile the real victim Jacques Mosler was being fucking crucified by the defense teams
And they were handily turning the public against him because I mean all they had to say really was like he was gay
And it was like oh god gross. He asked for it. Yeah literally isn't that so fucked? Oh, it's very fucked. And the thing was to putting the victim on trial was actually a very typical approach for this guy
Foreman to like he did that in almost every trial. And in this trial, it would be no different. He took every opportunity to remind the jury.
He said, quote, thousands of people hated the banker. Jacques was ruthless in business as any pirate who ever sailed the Seventh Seas.
A man who received so many threats against his life that he kept an axe by his bedside
and frequently summoned thugs and gangsters into his home, employing them to deal with
the blackmailers.
Wow.
Go them a pirate.
You're so weird, dude.
Yeah.
Like, get fucked into the sun.
He's like this guy who was murdered in his own home
in the middle of the night, asked for it was a pirate.
He's also like thugs, gangsters, gay people.
I don't know, oh god.
Get some fucking culture.
Get some culture, my friends.
You're like, good travel, okay?
But, you know, all good things must come to an end.
Yes, it does.
And of course, by the time that the Mosler trial reached
its conclusion, it seemed as though many people,
journalists and readers alike,
had consumed more than their fill of the story.
I think by the end of this people were like,
I'm done.
Yeah, I like too much.
Yeah.
As the jury readied for deliberation,
the Associated Press wrote, quote,
the trial story is one of the more sensational for some time.
But with war and death on grand scale, it appears the public doesn't care for crime news the way they once did.
Yeah, it's like a whole ass war.
Yeah, you know, like people should have focused on.
So testimony ended on March 1st with as much flair in theatrics as it had opened with.
There were numerous demands for a mistrial,
there were emotions to dismiss from the defense,
all of them were denied.
And over the course of 31 days,
the prosecution presented the jury with evidence
and with testimony that very strongly implicated
candy musler and melvin powers in the murder of Jacques.
Oh, damn.
There was forensic evidence of mel having been at the scene,
multiple witnesses confirming candy and Mel's romantic
and sexual relationship,
as well as their years-long desire
to have candy's husband murdered
or murder him themselves.
About the defense, like we know,
hurled wild allegations, unsupported theories,
possible alternative killers,
bogus claims all intended
to slander the victim.
They just wanted to obscure excuse me the prosecution's case.
And his closing arguments, Arthur Hutto pointed a finger at Candy though and declared her
most guilty.
He told the jury, even though she didn't strike the fatal blow, the evidence shows she is
more guilty than this man.
Whoa. And with that, he shifted his filter to Mel.
He said she's more guilty.
Unfortunately, despite his best efforts,
though, to make a compelling argument
in the final hours, how do I prove to be a rather
unengaging speaker?
Eq quote, one of the defense attorneys,
a secretary and at least one courtroom spectator
appeared to have fallen asleep
During his 80 minute closing statement. Oh damn 80 fucking minutes
Damn and meanwhile the defense reminded the jury that you know despite the salacious details and apparent preoccupation
Preoccupation with sex
This was a murder case. They said it's not lubricated or varn, with sex. This was a murder case.
They said it's not lubricated or varnished by sex.
No, they said we're trying them
for first degree murder here.
We're not trying a hug and a kiss in case.
Wow.
Direct whip.
So the jury deliberated for three days
before returning to announce that candy and Mel were not guilty.
I knew it.
Not guilty of the murder of Jacques.
Candy collapsed in her chair and started convulsively solving.
And Mel leaned back in his chair, like kind of seemed relaxed,
probably for the first time in months.
Even one of the jurors actually threw tears.
It seemed like he was very relieved, but he was crying and he told candy,
God bless you, ma'am.
What?
He didn't think she was guilty.
Oh, fuck.
Or he probably was like, oh my God,
this poor woman was married to a gay man.
Yeah, honestly.
How terrible.
And as they left the courthouse,
candy was met by a mob of adoring fans
who were elated with the verdict
and shouting,
Candace, we love you!
I can't.
Are you kidding me?
No.
Are you kidding me?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Or are you kidding me?
The District Attorney's Office,
they did make a strong case
even if they didn't have a murder weapon.
But from the moment the trial started,
it was clear that this had nothing to do with justice.
The prosecution didn't lose the case because they lacked evidence.
They had plenty of fucking evidence.
They lost because they were boring.
Wow.
That's all this comes down to.
So this is really just all tabloid shit.
That's exactly what it is.
The defense teams per se form and in particular spent almost the entire trial just making a mockery
of this man.
And the people fell for it.
Wow.
That's really sad.
It's so fucked.
So 10 days after the verdict was read, a book was published about the murder.
10 days.
10 days.
10 days.
And it was supposed to be adapted into a Hollywood film after.
Of course.
Candy told the press that she had no interest in having a movie made about this, but I
think that was a big fat lie. Yeah.
When it comes right down to it, she'd be like, where do I sign?
She referred to it as that unfortunate Miami episode. Oh, yeah. The brutal murder of a fucking husband as the father of his children.
That unfortunate Miami episode. Are you fucking getting me fortunate?
And she returned to River Oaks, but if she was expecting like fans like she had in Miami,
she was fucking mistaken. One of the ladies in high society said after standing next to her at an
event and moving her place, please, I wasn't about to be about to be seen standing next to a
hedonist. She was a murderer. She had sex with her sister's son. I don't know which is worse. Oh, Jesus.
Right.
Did she say headness?
Yeah.
She did.
Yeah, she did.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's what I said.
What did I say?
Had a best.
Had a best.
Goodbye.
Phil and Thrappie.
Phil and Thrappie, that one was intentional.
I love that.
The had a nist wasn't.
Heed a nist?
Heed a nist.
Okay, thank you.
You know quotes.
That's fine.
Regardless of how she was received back in Houston, though, having been found not guilty
meant that she was free to inherit Jacques's huge fortune.
Of course.
Yep.
She also got to take over the majority control of multiple banking institutions.
Holy shit.
Because he's a fun banker.
And she was installed as chairman of the board on some of those.
Chairman of the board.
So with the inheritance,
she purchased multiple properties.
She invested in arts and theater projects.
She also founded a music publishing company.
And she wanted to publish and promote love songs
that she'd been writing for years.
Ew.
She claimed that Judy Garland had expressed interest
in recording her songs.
There's no evidence of that being true. I don't know if you'll say.
But the press did report that as fact.
Of course.
No fucking evidence whatsoever though.
Judy.
Yeah.
Now after the case had ended,
Candy and Mel kind of went their separate ways
after a little bit.
He stayed in Houston and they rarely saw each other
because he focused on like a new business
and real estate and she decided to stop fucking her nephews.
Oh, but they did have a relationship for a little bit.
Yeah.
In the months, in the last months of that relationship,
things got so bad that they would get into loud arguments
in public and there was one incident
where Candy actually called the police
and demanded that Mel be arrested for physically assaulting her.
Not the fuck.
There was no evidence that he had assaulted her though.
Whoa.
I was through my phone at her because I was trying to show her a picture of them.
That's them.
That's them, like holding hands.
Being incestuous.
That's really gross.
Yeah.
You want to know something crazy?
I don't know.
Candy got remarried in 1971. What?
And wait until you hear what happened with this.
She married a man named Barnet Garrison. He was a self-employed electrical contractor
and he also owned a nightclub and he was also 20 years younger than Candy. So now at first
she really loved the older guys, but then she loved the younger guys.
Oh yeah she's cool again though. She's cool again though.
TM. So she gets married in 1971 to this man, Barnett. But a year later police were called to her
mansion and they found him face down on the patio in a pool of blood with a nine millimeter pistol by his side.
Whoa.
He suffered brain damage,
a collapsed lung broken ribs, sorry, for the trigger and multiple
lacerations, but he was still alive.
He lived barely holy shit.
Detectives eventually determined that he had fallen 40 feet from their roof.
Oh my god.
And had landed on that concrete.
And when they interviewed Candy, she said she had no idea what he was doing on the roof.
But then blurted out that she had shot him.
Oh, what?
But that confused the investigators because he didn't appear to have been shot.
I'm so confused.
Me as well, them as well.
Everyone.
So they said that they chalked it up
to her being heavily medicated at the time of this fall.
And the fall was officially determined
to have been accidental.
Whoa.
That's not accidental.
Yeah, there's something's up there.
Unefficiently, rumours circulated that he may have gotten drunk and become abusive one night.
So she jumped or she excuse me she jammed an ice pick in his here in his ear.
Again, this is all speculation.
And she had a relative help her drag him up to the roof and they threw him off together.
That was the rumors spreading.
Oh my shit.
They're like, you remember that pitch candy
that used to fuck her enough, you?
High society rumors are fucking brutal.
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
That's ruthless.
Absolutely.
So he lay in a coma for like six months,
but he eventually regained consciousness,
but he had no memory of what happened to him.
Oh, of course.
And no memory of being married to candy whatsoever.
Oh, that's wild.
Yeah, blesses heart.
Yeah.
In a real way, like truly bless him.
She filed for divorce in 1974,
and she told the reporters that she did still love him,
but that their relationship just wasn't going to work out.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't see it working out after that.
Yeah.
And her relationship with most of her children
was also deeply affected by all of her antics
in the years after Jacques Steph
in
1973 two of her sons actually filed a lawsuit against her
They claimed that she had transferred huge portions of their inheritances to herself
That's fucked up and that she only left them with
$350 a month for living expenses. That's fucked up. Yep
So obviously this lawsuit created a big old rift between them
and she actually eventually wrote them out of her will.
Wow.
Is that fucked?
Wow.
No matter what my kids do, I don't think I could write them
out of my will.
I mean, I don't know.
But I feel like I don't know.
I don't know.
In October of 1977, Candy flew to Miami.
She was planning to attend a board of directors meeting
for one of the banks that she inherited from Jacques
and after checking into her hotel, she called the doctor that she saw when she was in Miami and she told them she was getting another one of her violent migraines
and that she was going to need one of those injections. So he came by and he injected her with Demarol and Fenergan, I believe it's, excuse me, Fenergan,
which is a pain killer and a sedative.
But what he didn't know was that she had already taken
another pain pill prior to his arrival and injection.
So the next day, October 6th, 1977,
her secretary found her lying face down on the bed,
dead from what would have been ruled
a incautious self overdose. her lying face down on the bed, dead from what would have been ruled a
incautious self overdose.
Damn. Mm-hmm. She's found her whole fucking life trying to make it
and then to stay in the spotlight. And then she ended up like that.
Oh my god. Isn't that fucking crazy?
Wow. Absolutely.
Fucking nuts. That's bonkers.
That's the end of it.
And that's the end of candy.
Quite literally.
And where it's like the mel just off he went.
She spent her whole life just trying to get in the spotlight
and like she did, but then in the worst way.
In the worst possible way.
And then spent the rest of her life trying to get out of it but
never could. Isn't it like weirdly ironic? Yeah, it's that's, oof. That story is
just bad. Bad. That's bad shit.
Fucking bad. I've heard it like a ton of times but I think every single time I
just like rummage it out of my brain like I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I
actually I knew like the name. I did not know the whole it out of my brain. Like I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I actually, I knew like the name.
I did not know the whole story at all.
Crazy.
So that's wild.
Crazy.
Damn.
Yeah, so like, don't do any of that.
Definitely don't, but do keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird.
But that's so weird that you invite your nephew
to your home to give him a better life
And then you start doing the nasty with him
Because that's illegal and you should never do that
Definitely don't also murder your husband cuz that's also incredibly illegal by yeah, I don't do any of that
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