Morbid - Episode 695: Linda Hazzard & Starvation Heights (Part 1)
Episode Date: August 4, 2025At the dawn of the twentieth-century, major advances in science and technology brought incredible change to the field of medicine, enhancing and extending the lives of millions. Yet at the sa...me time, a lax regulations and minimal oversight made it possible for countless medical grifters to get rich offering quack medical solutions to everything from whooping cough to cancer, sometimes at the expense of their patient’s lives.When Linda Hazzard opened her sanitarium, the Institute of Natural Therapeutics at Wilderness Heights, in Olalla, Washington in the first decade of the 1900s, she claimed her rigid fasting and elimination approach to dieting was a miracle cure for a variety of illnesses, both trivial and serious. For years, Hazzard operated what amounted to a health retreat for the wealthy, without any oversight from the state or federal agencies. In the end, Hazzard’s starvation cure resulted in the deaths of over a dozen people and her arrest and trial for manslaughter, but through all of it, she maintained it was a viable treatment—standing by her methods up until they ended her own life.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesHines, Terrence. 1997. "Starvation Heights." Skeptical Inquirer. Lovejoy, Bess. 2014. "The doctor who starved her patients to death." Smithsonian Magazine, October 28.Olsen, Gregg. 2005. Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest. New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group.Seattle Daily Times. 1911. "Erdman diary tells method of treatment." Seattle Daily Times, August 14.Seattle Star. 1908. "Charged with starving eight-months-old baby." Seattle Star, January 30: 1.—. 1911. "Denies she 'fasted' 2 girls." Seattle Star, August 9: 3.—. 1911. "'Fast cure' woman is arrested." Seattle Star, August 7: 3.—. 1909. "Prosecutors think they can put a stop to starvation cure." Seattle Star, June 26: 1.—. 1908. "Sign doesn't make a doctor." Seattle Star, June 8: 6.—. 1909. "Woman starves to death under care of Dr. L.B. Hazzard." Seattle Star, June 24: 1.—. 1908. "WQeeden case leads to Dr. Hazzard's arrest." Seattle Star, January 31: 1.Tacoma Daily Ledger. 1912. "Dr. Hazzard has her first inning." Tacoma Daily Ledger, Janaury 28: 1.—. 1912. "Dr. Hazzard's trial begins." Tacoma Daily Ledger, January 16: 1.—. 1912. "Final arguments in Hazzard case." Tacoma Daily Ledger, February 3: 2.—. 1912. "Heiress testifies against Dr. Hazzard." Tacoma Daily Ledger, January 20: 1.—. 1912. "Mrs. Hazzard breaks down, and is attended by a dcevoted follower." Tacoma Daily Ledger, February 5: 1.—. 1904. "Samuel Hazzard sent to Minnesota prison." Tacoma Daily Ledger, March 16: 3.—. 1912. "Witnesses deny state's charges." Tacoma Daily Ledger, January 30: 1.—. 1912. "Woman bathed by young men." Tacoma Daily Ledger, January 23: 1.—. 1911. "Woman meet before judge." Tacoma Daily Ledger, October 22: 1. Stay in the know - wondery.fm/morbid-wondery.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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Searchlight Pictures presents The Roses, only in theaters August 29th from the
director of meet the parents and the writer of poor things comes the roses
starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman Academy Award nominee Benedict
Cumberbatch Andy Samberg Kate McKinnon and Alison Janney a hilarious new comedy
filled with drama, excitement,
and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage
isn't always a bed of roses.
See The Roses, only in theaters August 29th. Hey Weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is Morbid. Whoa! That sounded a little like the mini-morbid thing. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah, it did, sort of.
It sure did. I know.
That was like a throwback.
I know, sometimes I want to sing that song and sometimes I don't.
Maybe someday you will.
Maybe.
Again.
I don't know.
Maybe. Who knows?
Not me.
Who can be sure? Not you, you know? No one.
It's so fucking hot! It is, it's hot. I hate summer, you know.
It's a cruel, cruel summer.
It's the same old feeling for me.
Ready for fall.
But there are some there's a lot of exciting things happening. Tell us. Monday is the Ghost Concert in Boston.
Ooh.
Super excited about that.
I'm excited for you.
Very excited to go.
I can't wait to hear how it was.
Ooh, I can't wait.
I like to that.
I'm so excited.
Ugh.
And we...
You should do that there.
Ugh.
Tobias!
I'm gonna do that.
Do it.
Do it, you won't.
Do it, you won't. Do it, you won't.
Challenge accepted.
I am doing a book event at Unlikely Story.
I'm excited.
August 13th at 7 p.m. We're going to be posting a link.
I'll be posting one on my Instagram.
We'll post it on Morbids.
I think Xanda will probably put it on theirs.
Unlikely Story will have it up.
All that good stuff.
Maybe I'll put it up. Maybe Ash, because Ash is back on Instagram, so she can put it on there's unlikely story. We'll have it up all that good stuff Maybe I'll put it up at maybe ash cuz ash is back on Instagram. So she can put it up
I know I was gonna say who knows how long for now, but she's there. So maybe she'll post it and
And you can get tickets and bring your book. I'm doing a live signing this time
Not signing ahead of time. So I'll be doing like a little signing line afterwards
Can't wait to meet you guys. Hey. Very excited about it. Very excite about it. And excited. I know how to speak.
We all, I mean, we do it professionally. We have some really fun stuff with this one too. Yeah,
we actually had a meeting about it today. Yeah. So we're going to be doing fun drinks at this one
that are themed and before it. And before it's like,
oh, that doesn't really apply to me or something.
Listen, I'm hitting everybody.
I'm hitting everyone. We're doing a themed coffee drink.
We're doing a themed mocktail.
And we're doing a themed cocktail.
And if you don't like that, you can have a themed water.
Exactly. Whatever your persuasion,
you will have something that you can drink. It water. Exactly. Whatever your persuasion, you will have something
that you can drink. It's going to be really fun. And they're going to be themed for, for
Detective LaRue, for Jeremy Rose and for my girl, Dr. Ram Mullah. And there's actually
no themed water. I lied. There isn't, but there's water that we can, we'll name the
water. Okay. Cause we're naming the drinks. We're naming the drinks. I won't tell you what the drinks are named yet
because that'll be like a fun surprise that will, who knows?
It'll probably be released by the time this comes out.
But I don't know. Who really knows?
We'll know soon.
But it was fun to come up with them.
It was very fun to come up with them.
And I think you guys are going to have a lot of fun with them.
I'm very excited. They're very yummy drinks.
Unlikely story is awesome.
We just love them. The amount of books we bought there today was ungodly. Yeah, I can very excited. They're very yummy drinks. Unlikely Story's awesome. We just fucking love it there.
The amount of books we bought there today was ungodly.
Yeah, I can't stop.
You know, shop your local bookstores.
I was just gonna say that.
They're awesome.
We've been saying the same thing a lot.
Indie booksellers are the best.
Local bookstores are so good.
We love them.
They're just iconic.
But yeah, so come to that.
That'll be fun.
What else do we got going on?
Oh, fun game thing that just happened.
We got sent Sam and Colby's new collab with Hunt a Killer.
It's called The Haunting at Wicker Ridge.
We're very excited.
We're already coming up with a game plan to play it
with Dave and Mikey at Mikey's house
for our next movie night.
We're going to make it a game night now.
So excited.
It's I love Hunter color shit.
This is like not an ad by the way guys.
No, we just literally are excited about this.
Like this is just right now.
We got excited about it.
There's a plan chat on it.
There's a fucking plan chat included in it.
I think like it looks like on the back.
I'm excited.
It looks like there's a lot of like like, mysticism and shit in it.
I'm just excited about this. I love a good Hunt a Killer game.
I want a Hunt a Killer game.
I want a Hunt a Killer game too.
We should have a morbid Hunt a Killer game.
They were one of our first sponsors.
I think actually they were our first sponsor.
Yeah, they've always been a supporter.
And I've always supported them. I loved them from the beginning.
When it was just the black plain boxes that you would get full of shit.
Yeah. I remember when you lost them and I loved them. So yeah,
I want a morbid, haunted killer game. Put it out to the universe.
Putting it out into the universe manifestation. But yeah,
pick it up. The salmon Colby one. It's the haunting at Wicker Ridge.
Sam and Colby are lovely humans. We love them.
I hope to see them soon.
Hopefully we get to see them soon.
Manifest that too.
Yeah, we'll throw it out there.
Hey, hey.
Ha ha ha.
Hey, hey.
What if I laughed like that?
I definitely don't laugh like that, so don't tell me that.
I don't.
Whenever I say, oh, what if I laughed like that?
Everybody's always like, Ash, you do laugh like that.
That I don't laugh like, and I know it, okay?
I know it.
So don't tell me that. All right.
Let's get into it. I have a tupada. A tupada. And it's brutal. Oh, but in a different manner.
Okay. I think we've really covered before. Okay. It's definitely morbid. Yeah, definitely morbid.
But definitely true crime. Super true crime. Yep. Convictions happen. Yeah. This is not spooky.
This is true crime. It's a little spooky. little spooky spooky but not in the paranormal way. No, uh, but no, I it's a very very awful case
And I can't believe I had never heard of it before I have heard of this one
I do not know like the detailed details i'm gonna give you're about to which I know I say sometimes but it's true
I see a lot of cases. I just don't look into them deeply
It's pretty fair to say things that are true. Yeah, it's fair to say things in general
It's just fair. It's just fair
So let's get into it. We're gonna be talking about Linda hazard and what was known as starvation Heights
Which is one of the most horrifying names it tells you everything you need to know
Yeah, and that's a nickname, by the way.
So who the fuck was Linda Hazard?
Who the fuck was she?
Well, first, before she was Linda Hazard, she was Linda Laura Burfield, and she was born
December 18th, 1867 in Carver, Minnesota.
Hate to break it to you, she's a Capricorn.
That's not great.
I think she is, right?
Hold on.
Oh, fuck.
She's a Sagittarius.
Ha! Which actually, like... She's not a. I think she is, right? Hold on. Oh, fuck. She's a Sagittarius.
Ha!
Which actually, like, she's not a Capricorn.
I'm not going to say it makes sense, but you know.
But she's not a Capricorn.
She's not a Capricorn.
That's important.
That's all that matters here.
Anyways, she was the oldest of seven children born to Susanna and Montgomery Barfield.
Susanna and Montgomery?
You can't say Montgomery any other way.
No.
Montgomery had been a corporal in the Civil War and when the war ended, he and his wife
moved west and started a life of homesteading in Star Lake Township.
Oh, that sounds beautiful.
I know.
From the moment that she could walk and talk, Linda was super curious.
She was super outgoing.
She was a very happy child.
She was much more interested in nature than she was playing dolls
or whatever else little girls did in the 1800s.
Yeah.
Her parents had been vegetarian for years,
so she ate a vegetarian diet as well.
But beyond being simply vegetarians,
Montgomery and Susanna Burfield held very particular views
on health and diet and exercise that, remember, kids are like little
sponges. Oh, they take in everything. So this would all have a pretty profound influence on
Linda's future. Looking back, she traced her eventual interest in natural therapies to her
childhood, and in particular to the family, who she said would visit the family
to provide annual checkups.
She said, no one was sick, but he had brought the idea
that the medical men of the day could ward off
potential problems with their black bag of tricks.
Okay.
So it's like, you don't necessarily need to see a doctor
if you're not sick with something.
Like you want annual checkup?
Totally.
Do that in fact.
Yes, absolutely.
That's very important. Go to all your, but like, you'll see whatup? Totally. Do that, in fact. Yes, absolutely. That's very important.
Go to all your...
But like, you'll see what I mean in a second.
So Linda's father in particular held a firm belief in the abilities of the county doctor
and his strange approach to medicine that according to Linda, yielded absolutely nothing
but terrible, terrible results.
During one visit, the doctor insisted that the kids had some kind of intestinal
parasite and he prescribed a quote blue mass pill for all of them, which is a very outdated
cure all that contained among other things, mercury, like a high level of mercury. I don't
see the problem here. Yeah. As a result of taking the pills, multiple kids in the family
started having this is kind of gross, sorry, frequent and very severe bouts
of vomiting and diarrhea that at the time weren't immediately
connected to the pills.
So the cycle just kind of repeated itself over and over again
because he thinks this pill is some kind of cure-all.
So he's like, oh, keep taking it.
Eventually, you'll stop yakking and shitting.
And it's like, no, but if we're still puking and shitting,
it's obviously not curing and shitting, it's obviously
not curing all. Like there's obviously a problem here. Yeah. Linda wrote, and this was a quote,
I now know what, of course, I could not then suspect that this powerful poison did a reprehensible
injury to my intestines, retarding and preventing their development and growth to such a degree
that even to this day, I am compelled to resort to the enema daily.
A daily enema?
A daily enema is diabolical.
A once in a lifetime enema is diabolical.
Thank the Lord's, I've talked about many of us,
stomach issue on this podcast.
I've never had to have an enema.
Daily?
I can't imagine, again, I can't imagine ever having an enema.
No.
Daily?
No.
Huh?
No, that's bad.
That's really bad.
Ow.
So after the family's treatment from the local doctor,
Linda and her siblings all really sadly spent years
in poor health.
They all had chronic stomach problems
and inability to keep most food down.
And because of that, they ended up losing teeth and hair
for malnourishment.
Holy shit.
Yeah, very intense.
At the same time, Linda, or I should really say Linda's parents,
were looking for a suitable man to marry Linda off to
when she turned 18.
Because the 1800s of it all.
Yes, of course.
That man turned out to be Erwin Perry,
the son of a well-off farmer who was 14 years older than her. Very close. For the 1800s.
Later, Linda said she didn't really have the heart for their relationship because she was
pretty much just solely focused on finding the real cure for what was ailing her, her siblings,
and many other people like her. Yeah. But it's also possible that whatever potential their marriage
had was
almost completely undermined by the death of Linda's father just one month after the
marriage. I'll say it for real this time. Montgomery had been taking an order of logs
to the local mill when the strap holding them together broke. And in all the chaos, he was
dragged under the mass of logs and crushed to death." Holy shit. That is the most
1800s way to die. It really is. Like, I'm not even saying that to be funny. No, it literally is. I
can't think of a much more 1800s way to die. Or final destination way to die. Yeah. Awful. Holy
shit. Yeah. And this is really sad. A lot of times the grief of losing her father left Linda just straight up depressed.
She couldn't get out of bed.
She wasn't really focused on anything.
Because you lost your father, but to lose him in that way too must be just...
Yeah.
Because you think that's a brutal way for someone to die.
And she's young, which means her father probably wasn't that old, you know?
So it consumed any kind of bandwidth that maybe she would have had
to focus on her new marriage.
As far as Linda was concerned, Montgomery, her father,
was the ideal man and husband,
and nobody was ever going to live up to that standard.
Definitely not Erwin or any of the men that she was with later in her life.
I mean, have high standards, girl.
Yeah. But still, she did her best to settle into married life.
In 1889, she gave birth to their first child, a son they named,
I think it's Roland.
Yeah.
I think it could be Roland.
But I like Roland with the homies better.
Yeah, like that.
Yeah.
They also had a daughter named Nina who came along two years later.
Sadly, Nina wasn't a big part of her mother's life.
Author of Starvation Heights, Greg Olson, who we've talked about
before, wrote, as far as most O'Lallans are concerned, Nina Floyd Perry was non-existent.
No one had ever seen her and years later, only one out of all the old timers could recall Dr.
Hazard talking about a daughter. What the fuck? In fact, by all accounts, Linda, who would become
known as Dr. Hazard, and her daughter never had much of a relationship at all,
and when Linda died, all she left Nina in her will was one dollar.
That is...
Like, what the fuck?
It was like, obviously some shit happened there.
And it sounds like, though, that she never had had a thing, like she never talked about this child.
Yeah, never talked about her or anything.
So it's like what could have child have done to deserve that kind of shit?
Yeah, there was I put that on her.
Oh, that's on her completely.
Oh, no, I know you were.
I just mean like what the fuck?
Yeah, a dollar.
Like a dollar and then like that's being a dick.
That's being a complete dick.
Yeah.
Like what the hell?
But apparently she was much closer to her son.
According to Greg Olson, nobody actually really knows
what happened to end Linda and Erwin's marriage,
which eventually did end.
But in April of 1898, she filed divorce papers
claiming that her husband had abandoned her
and the children and without many,
he left them without any means of support,
and she hadn't heard a word from him since.
SONIA DARA GERMES Damn, Erwin.
ERIN I know. Well, it took some time, but in 1902,
the court did agree to dissolve the marriage, and they allowed Linda to return to using her maiden
name rather than, you know, using the man's last name who abandoned her.
SONIA DARA Yeah, I get that.
ERIN Once the divorce was finalized, Linda made
arrangements for her children to live with
her mother in Star Lake.
And now free of her familial obligations, she was finally able to turn her attention
back to what she always wanted to pursue, a career as a fasting specialist.
Greg Olson wrote that Linda just couldn't be bothered by motherhood, and that she, quote,
rationalized her decision.
She would become a healing authority
such as the world had ever known.
Wow.
Yeah.
So to those who knew her best,
her story about Irwin abandoning her
without any kind of notice never felt quite right.
No one could really say where Irwin had gone off to,
but people suspected that it was really Linda
who had abandoned him and not the other way around. People who knew her best all remembered that what she was
solely focused on was her desire to get rid of her husband and her family because she
felt like they were basically preventing her from becoming the woman she knew she was destined
to become.
Damn.
Yeah. She was what she herself referred to as a quote, woman with a greater purpose and, and she would not deny the world the innovations in health care she knew existed in her mind.
I wish she would have.
I wish she would have denied the world that.
Retweet.
Yeah.
According to Linda, she discovered the miraculous healing powers of fasting in 1898 when she was looking for relief from the stomach problems that had plagued her for most of her life.
I want to just say this.
I... I'm not, like, against fasting,
like, intermittent fasting or anything like that.
Like, the healthy, like...
I'm not, like, making a stance on fasting at all,
so, like, don't come at me for that.
This is not fasting.
Yeah, what she's doing is not the fasting that they, like...
Yeah.
...that people do now to, like...
If you want to fast, by all means,
you can fast.
I don't care. Do your thing.
Like, you're an adult, you can do what you want to do.
So, like, please don't come at me.
This is not fasting.
Yeah, this method is not okay.
Just to be clear, if you're doing this, it won't end well.
I'm not going after, like, the intermittent fasting
or anything like that, whatever.
This is different.
Yeah, I just wanted to get that.
Just wanted to get that off the way.
That's why I was about to be like, I'm not saying shit.
No, I think this just isn't fasting. No, it's not.
This is cruel and unusual.
That's why it's on morbid.
It's being told as a true crime story.
Exactly. Like, it's not good if it's being told as part of a true crime story.
No. So she's she said she discovered the healing powers of fasting in 1898, blah, blah,
blah. It's possible that she did discover it back then, but it's also more likely that she probably
came across the practice in the early 1900s while she was studying osteopathy while trying to get a
nursing job. Around that time, Linda came across The Gospel of Health, a book by Dr. Edward Dewey,
who at the time was a very vocal proponent of using fasting
as a cure for various ailments across the board.
According to his book, he discovered
the supposed miracle cure while he was treating a patient
for typhus in 1877.
He said that the patient hadn't responded
to any kind of traditional treatment.
So as a last resort, he turned to fasting as a treatment.
And he said that just a little over a month later, the patient was fully cured of a disease that would have killed them.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Yeah, I'm sure there was probably other things involved. Anyway, the gospel of health as well as another one of Dewey's books, the No Breakfast Plan. In my opinion, breakfast is the most important thing of the day.
The Always Breakfast Plan. I love breakfast.
Eating breakfast has changed my life. I love breakfast. Eating breakfast has changed my life.
I love breakfast.
Eating breakfast has changed my life.
You can do whatever the fuck you want.
Again, that's for me.
That's my thing.
I don't care what you do.
My thing is that breakfast rules.
You don't want to eat breakfast?
Don't.
I also grew up with a dad who makes fucking bomb breakfast.
Yeah.
My grandpa, Elena's dad, worked as a cook back in the Navy on the submarine service,
and that motherfucker learned how to make a French toast, a hash brown, a fucking scramble
like no other.
When he says, I'm gonna get a little breakfast.
I want a little breakfast.
When I go over there and I say, oh my, I don't care what time of the day it is, I'm like,
let's go, girls.
He makes bomb shit. Breakfast for life.
His hash browns.
Nothing beats them.
Nothing.
Oh my God, I want that.
That I will take a stance on.
Nobody beats those.
No one.
I'll fight you.
So the no breakfast plan, essentially became the healthcare Bible, and that other book too,
both became the healthcare Bible for Linda.
And she reached out to Dewey, expressing her support
and making a pitch for herself as the reached out to Dewey expressing her support and making
a pitch for herself as the ideal candidate to continue on his work. Her appeal to his
vanity worked and he accepted Linda as an apprentice. And their relationship was probably
one of the most important relationships she had in her life. But they didn't always see
eye to eye on treatment plans. For example, when it came to the treatment for chronic stomach problems, Linda insisted that quote, the internal bath, aka the enema was the best
course.
What a name for that. The internal bath goes crazy. That goes bonkers. Internal bath is
out of this world. I love that she's just like enemas. The internal bath. Ever heard
of them? This bitch loves an enema. You ever heard of the internal bath?
This bitch's like dying words are probably internal bath.
Enemas rock.
I love enemas, she said.
Anyway, she insisted it was a quote,
necessary hygienic accessory of the fast.
Oh.
Like if you're fasting, what the fuck do you have to enema?
I was gonna say, what are you,
there's nothing in there.
I don't even really understand
like the whole concept of enemas.
It's really just to flush things out, correct?
Yeah, and it's just, it's the internal bath, you know?
Anyway, so she was all about that life.
Dewey, on the other hand, strongly disagreed.
And he told his patients, quote,
"'The bowel should be allowed to function naturally.'"
I mean, I gotta say, that sounds like the better course. He didn't have a lot of great ideas when it comes to no breakfast but I'm with this man that the
bowel should be allowed to function naturally. Although sometimes they don't which I understand.
Sometimes. I guess is is a thing. Yeah. The hot girls. We know. The hot girls have IBS. So by
I have a shirt that says that. By 1903, Linda, nurse assistant, had refashioned herself
as Dr. Linda Burfield, even though she had literally
not a medical degree to be found.
Hate this already.
Yeah.
But, and this is similar to the story
that I told with the Crescent Hotel about Dr. Norman Baker.
Oh, man.
Because of a loophole in Washington state laws
at this time, Linda was approved to practice medicine
as a practitioner of alternative medicine.
So that's how she got that doctor in there.
And soon she was promoting her belief
that her method of strict fasting
was a revolutionary cure-all for any and all medical ailments.
That's not correct.
I'm like, maybe if you have worms.
Otherwise, I don't think so.
Yeah. So while she was establishing her medical practice in Washington, she started seeing
a man's named Sam Hazard.
That's a cool last name.
It is.
And it becomes her last name.
Not for a doctor.
I would never go.
You could be the most acclaimed doctor in the world.
If your last name is Hazard.
Dr. Hazard.
It's a no for me.
There used to be a dentist named Dr.
Payne when I was little. Oh yeah, I know. And I was like, no, I'm not going there. And then my mom was like, you don't have to go there.
So yeah, she started seeing this guy, Sam Hazard, and by November 11th, 1903, they had known each
other long enough to get married, and they were married in a small ceremony that took place in
her medical office in Minneapolis.
She took this medical shit seriously. Kinda.
Then, though, to Linda's confusion, her husband of only a few hours disappeared on their wedding night. Huh. Yeah. What Linda didn't know at the time and would go on to deny until the day that
she died was that her new husband already had a wife,
Viva Fitzpatrick.
Ah.
Yeah.
And the two had a home in Iowa.
So Sam went on to spend the next four days in Iowa with Viva
before finally returning to Minnesota to be with his other wife, Linda.
Huh.
I bet you didn't see that coming.
I did not.
We were talking about Fasten.
Now we're talking about Flandering. I was like, wait a second. See what I did there. I see you didn't see that coming. I did not. We were talking about fasting. Now we're talking about philandering.
I was like, wait a second.
No.
See what I did there.
I see what you did there.
So he marries Linda in Minneapolis.
Then he goes to Iowa to be with Viva for some unknown reason.
Then he goes back to Minnesota.
And then a few days later, he goes back to Iowa again, this time to tell Viva she's not
his wife in any biblical or legal sense,
only in common law.
What the fuck?
He said, Viva, you are not the wife.
Viva, you're gone.
Viva, dead.
So he offered her no other explanation
other than to tell her he was in fact
married to Dr. Linda Burfield.
Wow.
And with that, he quit his job in Iowa and went back to Minnesota to be with his new bride Linda.
Wow.
A little bit about Sam. Sam Hazard.
A little bit about this guy.
A little bit about Sam for you. Sam Hazard had always been and would always be known as a con man.
Cool.
He was actually like a pretty smart guy, smart enough that he would have been able to make his
way in any kind of industry he really wanted to, but he really didn't like to work
and he just kind of drifted from one place to another.
And when he walked out of his and Viva's apartment after telling her that she wasn't his wife
anymore, he probably assumed that would be the last time he ever saw her.
But he didn't consider that regardless of what he said about common law, Viva had absolutely
no fucking intention of being cast aside for some new bitch in Minnesota
No way and for the first time in his life Sam Hazard was about to face some consequences good
He also fucked over the wrong girl because um Viva's father
Senator Joseph Fitzpatrick, Fitzpatrick Oh
Used his influence to pull some strings and he convinced the Hennepin County District
Attorney to file charges against Sam for bigamy.
So by Thanksgiving that year, Sam found himself standing before a judge in a packed courtroom.
Damn!
He had a lawyer to assist in his case, but it ended up being Dr. Linda, who did most
of the research and legal work.
Not only was she there to provide moral support for her husband,
but she also spent a ton of time interviewing witnesses
and trying to track down documentation to refute Viva's claims
that she and Sam are married.
You would think.
A little bit.
You would think.
According to Greg Olson, this wasn't just a matter of getting her new husband
out of a legal jam.
He wrote, Dr. Hazard wanted Viva indicted for perjury. So she got like a vendetta.
Oh yeah.
Yeah. Throughout the trial, Sam's attorney, George Leonard, spent a lot of his time just vilifying
and slandering Viva as a woman of dubious moral character. That's a quote.
Honestly, wear it as badge of honor Viva.
I love it.
Especially this dude saying it.
I'm obsessed.
A woman of dubious moral character.
He said she was attempting to trap an honest man in an illegitimate marriage.
I'm like, yeah, he's honest.
For Viva's family, who obviously was a pretty fucking prominent family, the accusations
being made against her were not only slanderous, they were outrageous.
And they understood that while it was Sam's
lawyer making the comments, it was very clearly Linda who fabricated the entire defense. It seemed
like while Viva may not have been able to find direct evidence of a formal marriage, Linda had
gone out of her way to fabricate evidence of a long-standing relationship between Sam and herself,
which only undermined Viva's claims.
In the end, all of Linda's scheming proved to be for nothing, though. The prosecutor
proved himself to be more than adept, and Viva, the wronged woman, was a very sympathetic
victim to the jury. In digging through Sam Hazard's past, the district attorney uncovered
a criminal history that included convictions and sentences for burglary, robbery, among other things,
that made Sam much less sympathetic to the jury. And to make matters worse, after he was released
from jail on one of the robbery convictions, he racked up a huge number of debts in Tacoma
and just skipped town without paying them. So he's just a butt. Yeah. And they just keep finding
evidence after evidence, fact after fact, that makes him look like the shitbag he is.
Yeah, they're just like, look.
Yeah, so the jury was like, um, what the fuck?
Kind of sounds like you're an asshole.
Yeah. But in the end, it was one of Linda's schemes
that was his undoing.
Nice.
And her attempts to protect her husband in slander, Viva,
Linda sent telegrams to Sam's first wife, Agnes Hadley, in New York.
Apparently, when Sam married Viva, he was still married to Agnes Hadley.
Oh no!
This motherfucker is making bigamy his job of choice.
His full-time job.
Literally. Completely aware of this fact, though, Linda, or somebody writing on her
behalf, I'm pretty sure
it was Linda, sent threatening messages to Agnes warning her not to testify or to contact the
prosecutor. But sympathetic, which is crazy, sympathetic to the situation that Viva was in,
because Viva is also the other woman. That's a girl's girl. That's a girl's girl. Agnes sent
the threatening telegrams to Viva's dad, Senator Fitch Patrick, who in turn handed
them right over to the district attorney.
That is the ultimate girl's girl.
She could have been so petty and been like, well, you get what you, you know, you reap
what you sow, it's coming.
But she's like, no, now I feel bad that you're having the same shit done to you.
Because also she might sit there and be like, well, maybe Viva didn't know.
Maybe she didn't know.
And like, I'm, you know, whatever. She's a she's a devil's advocating, you know, girls girl. She is.
All in all, the telegrams were proof that Sam Hazard had 100% committed bigamy, just not with
the woman that the jury had originally assumed. So on the afternoon of February 4, 1904, they
deliberated for five hours and found Sam Hazard guilty of bigamy and he was sentenced to two and a half years in
prison. By Sam? You would think. What followed was a very bizarre tug of war between Viva and Linda,
who were both unwilling to give up this man for some reason. I got to Google a picture I didn't,
he had to have been like real hot or like had something going for him. But like he lied to both
of them and they're both still after this man's.
For months, the Minnesota Press published stories about the frequent visits Sam was getting in prison by both women.
And in the end, it seemed Viva had won out. Not Linda.
Really?
Yeah. Linda, who literally, like, went to bat threatening people and, basically doing his like coming up with his
defense on her own. Yeah. Then he lands himself in jail and is after Viva again. Yeah, I just
that's him. I wish you guys could see my face. That's an artist's rendering. But uh, maybe
it's the mustache. Here I am. I don't see it.
It's not for me.
You know?
Yeah.
It's, you know, sometimes it's the personality.
Sometimes it is.
He didn't have a great one, but maybe he was a smooth talker.
I was going to say it doesn't sound like he had that go for me there, but.
We've all been wronged by a man though that we were like, damn.
That you look back and you're like, what the fuck was I doing?
Yeah.
But anyway, so they're both going to visit him in prison.
Yeah.
And like I said, in the end,
it seems like Viva won him out.
After her promise that her father would do his best
to get Sam pardoned, he agreed to Viva's demand
that Sam tell Linda he was no longer welcome.
She was no longer welcome to visit him at the prison.
Damn.
So she's like, I got this nice little thing for you.
Holy shit. Later, he told a reporter, this nice little thing for you. Holy shit.
Later, he told a reporter, we didn't want a scene. I have made up my mind. In fact,
I made it up some time ago as to where my duty and love lie. And it might as well be
thoroughly understood for now and all of time. His love lied with Viva.
His love lied.
His love lied. True to his cowardly form though, Sam never told Linda to her face
that he was done with the relationship.
Instead, she found out about his affair with Viva
when she went to visit him at the jail
and found a stack of letters from Viva
in his jail cell one afternoon
when he was away in a meeting.
What the fuck?
Yeah, which like, I didn't even know
that you went to meetings in jail.
I was gonna say, what meeting?
Maybe with an attorney or something.
But the next day, she received word from the prison
that she was no longer welcome there.
Like, they said, you've been removed from the list.
You've been taken off the visitor list, girl.
In the wake of the scandal and Sam's imprisonment,
Dr. Linda Hazard got herself together, though,
and despite the humiliation, declared publicly
that her affair with Hazard had come to an end and she was moving on to do more important things. She was still
focused. Okay. Behind closed doors she was very much devastated and she held out hope that Sam
would come to his senses and return to her which like why would you even want him back at that
point? Yeah. And her friends were like girl you're being foolish as hell to keep this hope alive and
to even want this man's. But if there was one thing that could be said for Linda Hazard, it's that she almost always got what
she wanted. Almost always. Almost always. Sam Hazard might have had two desperately devoted
women fighting over him publicly, but despite that, it's really hard to describe him as anything
more than a greedy grifter, which is a really good band name. Greedy Grifter. We are Greedy Grifter.
Given how easily Sam was willing to toss one thing over for another when it suited his interest,
it should come as no surprise that once he was released from prison a year and a half later,
it wasn't Viva he returned to. It was Linda.
Ah.
So he fucks, first he fucks Viva over for Linda, then he fucks Linda over for Viva,
and now he's fucking Viva over for Linda all over again.
And it's like, yeah, just kick him to the curb everybody.
It's a vicious cycle everybody.
But, so he's back with Linda now.
At that time in 1906, he found Linda Burfield
living and working in Minneapolis,
advertising herself as a specialist of fasting,
physical culture, and health home.
Oh. And they reunited, and health home. Oh.
And they reunited, and Sam became manager
of Linda's health home.
But one year later, the Minneapolis telephone book
listed the couple as suddenly moving to Seattle, Washington.
Nobody really knows what happened
during that year in Minneapolis
or what caused them to relocate to Washington.
Suspicious.
Yeah, very suspicious. Years later though, in an interview,
all Linda would say was that she was called
to the Pacific coast.
The coast, actually.
Okay, girl.
Rang me on the phone.
And said, hello, Linda?
Come to me.
This is the coast.
This is the Pacific coast.
This is the coast, Colin.
Whatever the case, though.
You know what to do.
You know what to do.
I'm just picturing like a wave on the
coast. The coast is like, Linda, where the hell you been? In my mind's eye, the coast has sunglasses
on. Absolutely. He's like a blue wave. Absolutely. The Pacific coast has sunglasses on. He's smoking
a cigarette. Yeah. So whatever the case, once they were settled in Washington in the spring of 1906,
Linda opened up her new practice operating officially now as Dr. Linda Hazard. There were
critics, obviously. What? Can you imagine? Shut up. Critics. Critics. You start something new.
Critics ensue? Critics. I don't know what happened there, but it also at the same time, her business was
thriving in Washington, even as her relationship with Sam slowly deteriorated,
mostly due to his inability to remain faithful. Oh, shocking.
Also, like you kind of should have. Yeah, you should have seen that one,
Gavin. But still, as Linda had already proven, she had no intention of letting him
go. So she just tolerated his infidelity as long as he continued to come home at night. Okay. Yeah, teach their own. Yeah, that's not the life I want. But
you go girl. So in Seattle, Linda continued treating patients with her miracle cure, despite
having zero evidence that fasting or any of her other treatments were going to provide any relief.
Yeah, just throw spaghetti at a wall, you know, she wouldn't even give you spaghetti. No, she
wouldn't. That's way too much food, actually.
Yeah.
In fact, it wasn't long after establishing the new practice that she attracted a pretty
good amount of negative attention when one of her patients, Lenora Wilcox, died while
under her care.
And the fall of 1907, Lenora Wilcox's death by starvation made headlines in Seattle, in
large part because
of the supposed doctor who was treating her was not a doctor at all. Lenora's death
turned out to be just the first of many pieces of bad publicity for Linda, but it's a significant
part of the story because it happened right around the same time that they decided to
relocate to Alala, Washington, a small village on the coast.
And it was there that Linda's dream would finally be realized. The opening of her quote unquote revolutionary fasting clinic, Wilderness Heights. That's in when you think of dying by starvation,
it's slow. I don't think anyone including me can conceive, can conceive of how painful and horrifying that death must
be.
I can't imagine.
Like I can't even grasp it in my wildest dreams.
And you lose so much, like you lose like cognitive ability.
You lose, like your mind goes as your body withers away.
It's awful. It's awful.
It's awful what happened to these people.
So while she continued to treat individual patients in an outpatient capacity, Wilderness Heights, which the locals usually referred to as Starvation Heights,
offered Linda the opportunity to put her full treatment regimen into practice
with those who visited the clinic and would stay for weeks at a time.
So before she's just kind of like going to people out like,
and like they're coming and taking her advice
and doing it at home.
Now people are coming and staying there under her care.
Yeah.
While there, patients were put on a strict diet.
Most only ate very small amounts of food
while otherwise fasting for as many as 30 days.
Yeah, and I'm sorry, I don't, that doesn't make any sense to me.
No.
30 days?
30 days.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Obviously, it's close to impossible for somebody to go that long without eating.
So patients were allowed small amounts of food every few days.
But to call them meals would be a massive understatement. In most cases, patients on a fasting plan would be given a piece of fruit every few
days.
Not like every day.
Every few days they would get a piece of fruit or a dinner of, I don't even want to call
it tomato soup because it was really just like the juice or water extracted from the tomato
or they would get broth but that was really just water like extracted from
oh my god that makes me gag just thinking about it yeah I also fucking
hate tomatoes and the juice of a tomato to me sounds like the most diabolical
thing because I don't I wanted to say to you like not tomato juice because that
has other shit no and like like, like the actual, like, water from it.
Yeah, tomato water.
I can't even think of that.
So this practice, according to Linda, allowed the body to purify itself of toxins.
Shut the fuck up.
We're not even going to get into why that's wrong, but it is.
Oh, my Lord.
Thereby ridding the patient of any ailments or diseases.
That's not how that works.
No. And when they weren't fasting, patients were subjected to other forms of supposedly
natural treatments that included enemas, of course. Internal baths. Yeah, internal baths.
Or other hydrotherapies or quote unquote aggressive massages given by Linda herself or one of the
other nurses, which author Terrence Hines describes as more closely resembling beatings
What there's like punch the toxins out of them what like slap the toxins out of them this isn't working
It's horrible. I know that it's horrible. What I can't imagine
I know that. It's horrible what happened.
That's horrifying.
I can't imagine the shit that lingers on that land to this day.
Seriously.
Because you also have to think of, like, if you don't eat for, like, a few hours during
the day, you know what I mean?
Like, sometimes you'll be busy and you don't eat and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm
so hungry.
And your stomach feels so empty.
And you just, like, don't feel well.
And sometimes you feel, like, nauseous if you don't eat and then sometimes you do eat after that.
And you like don't feel good then because it's been so long since you've gone over the point
of being hungry. So then you don't even know what you want to eat because you're so hungry.
It's like that that which is the most privileged form of being hungry,
like just forgetting to eat and not being able to, you know what I mean?
Like just being busy.
That is gross and a horrible, horrible feeling.
Like, I hate that feeling.
It can trigger a migraine. It can do all this stuff.
So like thinking of anything past that or it being out of my control
to feel that way is beyond the bounds of my imagination.
Like, just thinking about this, I'm like,
and these people thinking it's going to cure them
because they're just being told that by a doctor,
someone with a doctor in front of their name.
And I think one thing that we have to point out
and I will continue to point out is how desperate these people were
to feel better. These people already had things
that they were struggling with, like stomach problems, chronic inflammation,
like this, that, and the other thing
that they'd been struggling with forever.
So when they're sitting there having a conversation
with someone they think is a doctor
and she's telling them this is going to work.
They're desperate.
They're desperate and they want to see this through.
And if you live in like chronic pain
or you have like chronic stomach issues
or anything like that, you know the desperation.
Yeah, absolutely.
So given the criticism that she received
since opening her practice,
it's no surprise that Linda was vague
and very secretive about the treatments at her sanitarium.
But thanks to a detailed diary kept by one of her patients,
Earl Erdman, there is some insight into what life was like
at Wilderness Heights in the very early days.
And I would assume in the early days,
it was probably a little better, which is crazy.
Holy shit.
In his diary, he describes the process of fasting
under her direction, Linda's direction,
and how it made him feel.
His diary starts February 1st.
He said,
"'Saw Dr. Hazard and began treatment this date.
No breakfast, mashed soup, dinner, mashed soup, supper.
But I think dinner must have been kind of like lunch and supper was dinner.
February 5th through 7th.
That is two days.
So two full days.
Two full days.
One orange breakfast, mashed soup, dinner, mashed soup, supper.
Two days.
February 8th, one orange breakfast, mashed soup, dinner, mashed soup supper. Two days. February 8th, one orange breakfast, mash soup dinner,
mash soup supper. The 9th through the 11th, two days, or really three days, excuse me.
One orange breakfast, strained soup dinner, strained soup supper.
So that's just liquid.
It goes on like that for a while. And then February 16th, he says, one cup hot strained
tomato soup, a.m. and p.m. slept better last night head
quite dizzy eyes yellow and streaked red what the fuck February 17th ate three oranges today that's
it February 19th called on dr. Dawson today at his home slept well Saturday night February 20th
eight strange juice of two small oranges at 10 a.m.
So not even eating an actual orange, just the juice strained dizzy all day. I wonder why
eight strange juice of two small oranges at 5 p.m. So just juice. Yep. February 21st,
ate one cup settled and strained tomato broth backache today just below ribs. Just below ribs.
How's your kidneys? Yep. Shutting down.
February 22nd, ate two small oranges at 10 a.m.
backache today and right side just below ribs.
I'm worried about your kidneys, sir.
February 23rd, slept but little last night.
Ate two small oranges at 9 a.m.
went after milk and felt very bad.
So now it's like he tried something heavier and his stomach probably can't even handle that.
Ate two small oranges 6 p.m.
February 24th, slept better Wednesday night,
kind of frontal headache in the a.m.
Ate two small oranges 10 a.m.
Ate one and a half cups hot tomato soup 6 p.m.
Heart hit up to 95 minutes and sweat considerable.
I don't think it's working, babe.
No.
February 25th, we're nearing the end here by the way.
February 25th, slept pretty well Thursday night,
ate one and a half cups tomato broth 11 a.m.
Think about one and a half cups.
I want you to think about your measuring.
Yeah, like think about like,
look at a thing of one cup.
One and a half cups for a full day.
Of broth.
And then one and a half cups tomato broth at 6 p.m.
Pain in right below ribs.
February 26th did not sleep so very well Friday night.
Pain in right side just below ribs and back.
Pain quit in the night.
Ate one and a half cups tomato broth at 10.45 a.m.
Ate two and a half pump small oranges at 4.30 p.m.
Felt better noon than for
the last week. About one month after that last entry, on March 28th, Earl Erdman was
hospitalized for malnutrition and died a few hours later.
I am not surprised and that is awful.
That's almost a full month of what that man ate.
And it was orange juice and broth.
I ate more this entire week than that man ate in a month.
I'm not being funny, like I'm being serious.
Literally, I ate more today than I'm pretty sure
that guy ate almost that entire month.
Yeah, like it's, he ate liquid.
So hard to conceive of.
Like, and his kidneys absolutely shut down.
Oh my God, your kidneys are screaming.
Yeah.
So it turned out that the deaths of Lenora Wilcox and Earl Erdman were to be just two
of many patients who died under the care of Linda Hazard.
But there was not much the authorities could do because these patients gave their consent
to be treated.
Yeah.
In 1908, for example, Dr. Dee Dee Weeden and his wife had their
eight-month-old baby removed from the home by the Humane Society when it was learned
that, at the direction of quote-unquote Dr. Hazard, the couple had been starving their
baby. fucking fight all of those people. Every single last one of them. That's not even slightly okay. Not even a little bit.
According to the press,
the conduct of the Whedon family
in following the directions of the physician
annoyed the neighbors.
And in the belief that the baby girl
was being starved to death,
the Humane Society was notified.
Good.
It turned out.
I don't care, you're an adult.
You can make your own decisions
with what you wanna do with your own body. Doing that to an eight month old baby. What the fuck is that going to do?
And like, what are you giving a baby? Oh, all three of them should have been because
an eight month old baby. I'm like, you're not giving him broth and shit. What are you
doing? That's the thing. Like at that age, babies can't even have a ton of water. So
what are you getting this thing? So it turned out that Mrs. Whedon had been seeing Dr. Hazard
for treatment of an unknown illness at that time,
and she mentioned that her daughter also seemed unwell.
And Linda Hazard then recommended the same fasting treatment,
regardless of the child's age.
What the fuck?
The baby was obviously placed in foster care,
and there's no mention of her after, so hopefully she lived.
But when the police arrived to remove her from the home,
Mrs. Whedon pulled a gun from a desk drawer
and aimed it at one of the police officers
before he was able to wrestle it out of her hand.
The entire incident, including the attempted shooting
of an officer, as far as everyone saw it,
was because, quote, the woman, because of the hazard
treatment, had become insane.
Wow.
She's not in her right mind at all.
So the public complained loudly about Linda Hazard's clinic
in the past, usually with no effect.
But the incident with the weed and baby
was a new level of concern among the public.
According to press accounts, had no one intervened,
it was speculated this girl wouldn't
have lived more than a few days longer,
this baby. On January 30th, 1908, Linda was arrested, finally, and charged with practicing
medicine without a license. To those who were most concerned about reform, this seemed like a
giant step towards stopping the spread of quack medical practitioners. But by the time she went
to trial in March, the most the judge could do was find
her $50 for practicing without a license. Wow. An eight month old baby almost died, was in, was on
death's doorstep. It would have. And would have died. Had people not intervened. And she got fined
50 bucks. Wow. Which I'm sure was easy to pay because remember, all of these people are coming to her paying
her money for this quote-unquote cure-all.
Desperately wanting a cure-all.
Yeah.
Despite the court's ruling against her, Linda continued to promote herself as a doctor and
again found herself before a judge in June of 1908 for violating that same order.
The judge said Linda Burfield Hazard can put all the doctors before her name that she wishes to, but this does not imply she's a physician. Nope. Sure doesn't. But it's like,
yeah, but nobody knows that. Yeah. And again, these people are desperate. They're seeing a doctor.
It's not like back then you could go check their credentials on Google and WebMD or whatever the
fuck you want to check it on. It's like you just see doctor.
Someone says they're doctor, you believe them.
They have a whole ass clinic.
Yeah, why would you think anything else?
Why would you think that they aren't?
Exactly.
While acting in her own defense this time,
Linda argued that despite what the sign said,
she was not in fact practicing medicine.
She was acting as a fasting specialist
for those who gave their expressed consent
to receive her services.
LILIANA But except for an eight-month-old baby
and a little girl who couldn't have given their consent, you dumb bitch.
AMTHAE Judges, the local police, and reform activists
may have disagreed with Linda and they would continue to challenge her arguments,
but there wasn't a lot they could do to stop her from continuing to promote her treatment.
Aside from misrepresenting herself as a medical doctor, which like I just said only resulted in a fucking $50 fine, there weren't any laws at that
time against what she was doing, especially where people gave their consent. So in the years that
followed, she continued to promote Wilderness Heights and herself as a leading expert in the
revolutionary practice of medicine. And as a result, people continued to die.
Yeah.
In the summer of 1909, Blanche Tyndall died of starvation
while under Linda's care.
And on the death certificate, Dr. Charles Ford listed
the cause of death as starvation with toxemia and pregnancy.
Wow.
She was pregnant and she was starved to death.
My God.
You need so much when you're pregnant. Holy shit. And she was starved to death. My God.
You need so much when you're pregnant.
Oh my God.
You're eating for two is not hyperbolic.
You're eating for two.
That's like this.
It's like your whole body needs so much extra of everything because you are just running.
Yeah, you're creating a human.
In her own statement, Linda strongly rejected the cause of death listed on the certificate
and said, instead, Mrs. Tindall died
of organic imperfection.
I have nothing more to say.
You're a cunt.
Died of organic imperfection?
You're a cunt.
Yeah, that's the cuntiest thing I've ever heard.
And a murderer.
Yeah, straight up.
The death, yeah, unreal. The death of Blanche Tindall inspired That's the cuntiest thing I've ever heard. And a murderer. Yeah. Straight up. Straight up. Yeah.
Unreal.
The death of Blanche Tindall inspired a new round of calls
for Linda's arrest, because one, she was pregnant.
And then a few weeks later, the husband of another patient,
Viola Heaton, filed a complaint of manslaughter
with the district attorney when his wife died.
According to Linda, the claims were simply incorrect
and a result of the mainstream medical industry attempting to smear her and her treatments.
In a statement to the press she said, Mrs. Heaton first called upon me Monday, March
22, and told me she had for years been a sufferer of indigestion and other ailments.
She said, in fact, it was Mr. Heaton who suggested that his wife visit Linda's sanitarium in
the first place, having read about her successful treatment
of a similar patient a year earlier.
So she literally, this guy is suing her,
and she's like, it's actually your fault
because you sent her my way.
Wow, she's diabolical.
She's an asshole.
Like truly diabolical.
And then in the end, she placed the ultimate blame
on Viola Heaton herself, who had died, remember?
Oh yeah. Saying Viola Heaton herself, who had died, remember? Oh yeah.
Saying Viola had intentionally skipped the small meals that Hazard had prescribed between
the fasts.
Wow.
I'm so sure.
Yeah, and it's like, yeah, because she can't defend herself now.
She's not here to say whatever you want.
But again, the problem was that the state penal codes were not designed to deal with
such radical changes to the medical industry, and there weren't laws to protect people from quacks like this woman. No one had actually really ever imagined
that a person might practice medicine without the proper training or licensure, so nobody
thought to establish a law against it in the first place.
Yeah, I mean, why would you think of that?
So Wilderness Heights remained open, and despite the hits to her reputation, she kept attracting
new patients. Typically desperate individuals willing to try anything to relieve themselves of,
like I said, their chronic pain and fatal disease.
Holy shit.
Yeah. Between 1909 and 1911, as Linda and Sam continued building the Institute at
Wilderness Heights, there were many more deaths, including that of Eugene Wakelin,
a patient who actually came all the
way to Washington from New Zealand to stay after reading one of Linda's books. In November
1909, while still under the care of Hazard, he actually shot himself in the head on the
property. The death ended up being ruled a suicide, but there were many in the area who
questioned if he actually had ended his own life or there was something more there.
It was certainly in the realm of possibility that he had ended his own life, but suspicions
still fell on Linda Hazard when investigators learned that just prior to his death, Eugene
had given Linda power of attorney, leaving her in charge of his estate upon his death.
And although she somehow managed to avoid arrest or prosecution for that death,
for the first time, the authorities started to wonder if there was something more nefarious than
mere neglect, arrogance, and medical malpractice going on at Starvation Heights.
There's some shit on that property.
And that's where we're going to wrap for part one.
When we come back for part two, I where we're gonna wrap for part one. Holy shit.
When we come back for part two,
I think you're gonna be with me and everybody else,
like the authorities and the judges and the police
and everybody else that thinks there was definitely
something more to this.
Some nefarious shit happened.
I mean, we already know nefarious shit is happening,
but even more nefarious shit.
Even more nefarious shit. Yeah.
I think maybe, maybe she went into this wanting to help people and fucking lost herself
along the way when she realized what she could get.
Holy shit.
Cause I do think she thought fasting worked
in the beginning.
But then when you hear about like, you know,
organic imperfection kind of shit.
Yeah, she lost her.
That's all I'll say about it.
She lost her shit.
And again, like I just said, like she became very arrogant.
And then I think, yeah, there were there were things she saw
that she could get away with.
And after standing before a judge multiple times and realizing
that she was getting away with them, she got bolder and bolder.
She was just like, well, I can keep getting this shit.
Yeah, keep making a name for myself. And maybe was just like, well, I can keep getting this shit. Yeah. Keep making a name for myself.
And maybe I can get more.
And maybe I can get more.
Because now she's got people signing over Power of Attorney.
Oh yeah.
That's huge.
Power is coming, getting to her head.
And that's where we're gonna pick up in part two.
Power of Attorney is gonna be a big theme.
This is a brutal, brutal case.
Yeah, it's awful.
Holy shit.
So with that, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird.
But not so weird as Linda Hazard because that bitch is crazy.
She's a bitch and a murderer. I'm sorry. Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus
in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com
slash survey.
I'm John Robbins and joining me on How Do You Cope this week is the actor and comedian
Tom Rosenthal.
My girlfriend and I conceived a child and we had a miscarriage, right? I had no idea
that that had really affected me until
I went on this pilgrimage and it took me 12 days to work it out. We're in a church and
a guy was just doing a sort of standard prayer and like I really lost it.
So that's How Do You Cope with me, John Robbins. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.