Morbid - The Murder of Kitty Genovese

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

In the early hours of March 13, 1964, twenty-eight-year-old Kitty Genovese returned home from work and parked her car in a lot near her Queens apartment, completely unaware that someone was following her. As she approached the door to her apartment building, Kitty’s stalker ran up behind her and stabbed her in the back twice before being scared off by a neighbor who yelled from his window. Wounded, Kitty managed to get to the back of the building, but her attacker soon returned and brutally assaulted her. By the time an ambulance arrived an hour later, it was too late; Kitty Genovese died before she reached the hospital.Kitty’s murder and the arrest of her killer, Winston Moseley, were quickly overshadowed by what were believed to be the facts of the attack, primarily the widely held belief that at least thirty-eight neighbors had seen the assault or heard Kitty’s cries for help and did nothing. Despite there having been no evidence to support that belief, the narrative quickly became about urban apathy, with the death of a Queens bartender merely a footnote. The murder of Kitty Genovese is one of the most notorious violent crimes in modern American history—not because of the details or circumstances of the crime, but because of the legend and mythology that has built up around it.ReferencesCook, Kevin. 2014. Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.Gallo, Marcia M. 2014. "The Parable of Kitty Genovese, the New York Times, and the Erasure of Lesbianism." Journal of the Hisotry of Sexuality 273.Gansberg, Martin. 1964. "37 who saw murder didn't call the police." New York Times, March 27: 1.New York Times. 1964. "Queens man seized in death of 2 women." New York Times, March 20: 21.Pearlman, Jeff. 2004. "'64 murder lives in heart of woman's 'friend'." Chicago Tribune, March 12: 4.Peltz, Jennifer. 2015. Kitty Genovese Killer Denied Parole in Notorious 1964 Case . November 17. Accessed January 9, 2026. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/kitty-genovese-killer-denied-parole-notorious-1964-stabbing-new-york-city/1274332/.Roberts, Sam. 2020. "Sophia Farrar dies at 92; belied indifference to Kitty Genovese." New York Times, September 10.Rosenthal, Abe. 1964. "Apathy is puzzle in queens killing." New York Times, March 28: 21. —. 1964. "Study of the Sickness called apathy." New York Times, May 3: 24.Simon, Scott. 2016. The Witness' Tells A Different Story About The Kitty Genovese Murder. May 28. Accessed January 9, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2016/05/28/479824705/-the-witness-tells-a-different-story-about-the-kitty-genovese-murder. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alina. And this is morbid. It's morbid. It's morbid in the new year. 2024 is upon us. Some of them probably have come out in the new year, but it hasn't been the new year. And we never know when episodes come out. No. I think you know this, we know this. We all know it. We all know. I think this one comes out in like two weeks from now is my assumption. So you know what? You guys are well into the year and I hope it's going great. Tell us how it's going. Yeah, our new, our last year ended just, just perfectly for what the year was. A crescendo of shit, but you know, literally, 2024 is going to be great. It's going to be so much better. Everybody's walking into 24. I think everyone's walking into it in their villain era, which is like, I like that. I like that. I've seen a lot of people that I love and

respect doing this. So I'm like, I'm glad we're all just walking in hand in hand here. I like that. Do you know something about me? I don't think I am going to have a villain era. I don't think you are either. But I don't think you should. I don't think I want to. So like it makes sense. I think I'm just walking into like maybe like, how about a hot girl era? I like that. I feel like you've been in your hot girl era. I want to continue my hot girl era better and like I need to get more steps in. Yeah. So I can really be amongst these hot girls. There you go. I just need to start moving. again. Well, that's what they're a little. We're a little bit centaurie. Little centauri.

We did buy walking pads, but they're still over there. Oops. Right under my couch right now. Well, I ring in the New Year watching Married at First Night, Australia. And might I say, American Married at First Site, take a couple fucking notes. Wow. Married at First Night Australia, Drew and I binged almost the entire season yesterday. Damn. It is so good. If you have Hulu, you can watch it. I don't know what else it's on, but the drums. Well, I mean, Australia, I love Australia.

I love Australian people. Yeah. Our Australian listeners have always been lovely as fuck. And they say the best things. Have you ever heard, I'm not trying to fuck spiders? No, but I agree with that sentiment. Or they say, like, I'm not going to fuck spite. Surrey doesn't know how to respond to that.

She said, I, like, I don't understand that. I also am not going to fuck spiders. It means like I'm not trying to mess around. I'm not trying to fuck spiders. That's what they say. Like I'm not going to fuck spiders. They're like I'm not here to fuck spiders. Oh, I'm.

Australian listeners, is it okay if I use that? Yeah. Because that's fun. I will give you credit. Lindel, who is my favorite on this season. I'm watching season 10 of Marriott at First Night. She said that during her wedding vows. And I was like, that's a queen right there.

Wow. That's a queen. That's just, that's an elite person. It's so good. And they have, have you ever seen like the Marriott at first site? like American version? I think, yeah, I've seen like that one, that one episode that everyone's seen, or that one season that everyone's seen.

I think, is that, I don't know if that's season one or not. It's one of the very early ones. Jamie and Doug, right? Yes. Well, this one, they like, they do like dinner parties and they get them all together. And then they have a commitment ceremony every single week where like everybody gets fucking aired like out in front of everybody. You have to like recommit or not.

You have to recommit or you have to stay or leave. And if one person writes stay in the couple and the other person writes leave, you have to stay another week to work on your marriage. As long as you're like, are you going to do it? This person's like, I'd like to leave and you're like, too bad. No. I know. When I first saw that, I was like, shit.

But, damn. It's wild. Yeah. And there's a cheating scandal. Oh, my God. It's reality TV fucking on everything. It's so good. I just went to Disney on ice this weekend.

So that's different. It's different. That's different for you, especially. Was that triggering? It was a little bit, but I will tell you the girls' faces. Oh, yeah, the cutest thing I've ever seen. Like, it was by far the best part of the weekend. I also think that's just like as soon as you become a parent, you just do that.

Yeah. Like Disney on, parent, Disney on Ice. Yeah, absolutely. Everyone I know or follow on Instagram that as a parent has been to Disney on Ice in the past two weeks. The kids love it. And they do a great job with it. I can't wait to go. It's wonderful.

I mean, I love ice skaters. I think ice skaters are like, really, like, I just love watching them. Oh, yeah. That was always my favorite part of the Olympics. Me too. All right. So that was fun. I'm so happy.

So it was a nice, wholesome moment in an otherwise stressful end of the year. Yeah. My God. But very wholesome. At the end of the year, it just keeps flashing through my brain. I got food poisoning, so we'll just leave it at that. Yeah. But it's, you know, fun, fun, fun, fun for everyone.

But 2024, we're all here. It's going to be great. Let's all just like, you know, I think. Just like everybody's resolution should be just don't be an asshole and worry about yourself and stop worrying about everybody else. Mine should be that's mine. Like mine is, there you go. See, mine is just like worry about the ones who matter. I like that.

Don't worry about the ones who don't. Hell yeah. You're not gone, brother. You know, just take care of your own. I'm into it. That's what I'm saying. I think we'd all be happier. I think that's a theme of this story is take care of your own.

but that was not their resolution. No? I mean, no. This is just a very tragic, sad story, but it has high society, and you know I'm a sucker for that. I mean, I love listening to your stories

about high society. I am a great Gatsby fan girl, so, like, I do love just, like, sitting, sitting and watching society. Yeah, from the outside. Oh, just on a quick note of high society, have you watched Saltburn yet?

No, but I've heard many, many things about it. You have to be in the right headspace to watch that movie. Let me tell you. And you know what? You have to be in the right head space and you will never be in the right head space all at the same time. Okay. It's also very long. It's a commitment.

Yeah, I don't know when I'm going to be ready for that. Cinematically, it's beautiful. I've heard great things. I've heard interesting things. But oh my God. Yeah. Who knows? Maybe I'll have time for that at some point.

It's cuckoonuts bananas. But I said high society, so I thought of it. But anyway, sorry, let's go back to the story. High society. My story today, much like Saltburn, is highly tragic, but other than that, it doesn't really have any correlation. We're going to be talking about Anne and Billy Woodward today. And if you know anything about Truman Capote and that new show, that new Ryan Murphy show,

feud that's coming out, then you will probably know about this a little bit. Because that's what it is, right? It's feud. Is it a new season of feud? Because it's like an anthology, like American Horror Story, where it's a new feud every season. Okay. And this new one, which I thought was a very interesting. concept and I'm excited for it.

This feud with Truman Capote's women that he ended up beuding with. So this lady was like never friends with him at all, but he ended up doing her so dirty. Like real bad. But before all of that came, we got to go back to the beginning. So Anne Woodward, we're going to focus on her and Billy Woodward. But we'll start with Anne. To say that Anne Woodward came from humble beginnings would be the profoundest of understatements. Oh, boy.

She was born Angeline Lucille Crowell on December 12th, 1915 in Pittsburgh, Kansas. Her early life was a very far cry from New York High Society, like the farthest possible. The farthest cry. Yes. Her father, Jesse Claude Crowell, he was an occasional farmer and railway driver who spent more of his time looking for money than he did actually trying to earn it. He was just looking for quick, easy money. Yeah.

But her mom, Ethel Crowell couldn't have been any different from her husband. She was an incredibly hard worker, and she had a very stubborn personality. Not only did she take care of her and Jessie's two small children, she took care of his parents, and really for all intents and purposes, took care of him too. Oh, Ethel. Ethel had a lot on her shoulders. And at the time, she was also taking correspondence courses in teaching through the state manual training normal school. Look at this badass.

She's just doing it all. Yeah. Now, Ethel and Jesse's marriage in 1913 had gotten off to, kind of a rocky start. They were married in an age, and this is going to blow your mind, where school teachers were expected to be single women. So Ethel had to keep her marriage to Jessie a secret for years, so as not to affect their income.

So I feel like you can't win. No. Because you're either single and a spinster, or you're married and shunned anyways because you're not supposed to be married? Isn't that strange? That's dumb. That's dumb. That's dumb.

That's dumb. school teacher, you weren't supposed to be married? That's incredibly dumb. Yeah, 1913, man. Don't get that. But despite her work ethic and commitment to providing for others, Ethel Crowell believed that Kansas was just a desert, and she wanted way more for her children than what they were going to have working the family's already struggling farm. I love Ethel. I do, too. And she didn't know it at the time, unfortunately, but her near obsession with self-improvement and disdain for poverty would have a considerable

influence specifically on her daughter, Anne. Ah. Now, unfortunately, tragedy struck the family in 1918 when a five-year-old Jesse Jr. died in the middle of the night. He choked to death on his own fluids, is what they said. Oh, my God. But today, most likely, we would assume that he probably had pneumonia and didn't have, like, the proper treatment at the time.

That's horrific. But the death of her child caused Ethel to turn away from her family, first emotionally and then physically. she was just distraught after losing a child and she just had this unrelenting guilt that she thought her child's death was her fault in some way. Yeah, I mean, I can understand. Like, it absolutely wasn't, but I can understand why she thought that.

And she convinced herself that if she had the money to take her son to a hospital, his death could have been prevented. That's so sad. It is. And that line of thinking eventually grew into the belief that the whole thing could have been avoided if she was able to get out of Kansas and had never married a poor. farmer. So she... The guilt she put on herself.

She had so much guilt and then because of that guilt, she just started resenting everything and everybody around her. Of course. And despite friends and family urging her to, you know, think of her husband, think of her daughter, think of what you do still have, and they desperately need you. She was like, I can't do this. And that's when she enrolled in the normal school and moved several hours away to pursue her education.

Oh, wow. She just needed to get away from it all. Damn. And maybe it was like the best thing for her at that point, because I don't know that she was going to be great at home. I think she needed to take that break, but at the same time, it's like, you kind of can't. Yeah, it's a tough one. It's a catch-22 either way. Now, the extreme poverty and emotional tumult of the early days, or the early years, sadly didn't improve much as as Anne grew older. By the time she was 10, her parents' relationship had just completely deteriorated,

to the point that Jessie finally did ask Ethel for a divorce, which back then was huge. Yeah. Like, Nobody got divorced back then. But at that point, there had been so many affairs and emotional betrayals that respectability didn't matter much. And Ethel was like, yeah, sign me up. Yeah. I'm good. Like, bye.

So she packed up her daughter in their few belongings and moved back to Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Kansas. In the years that followed, Ethel met and married another man, whom she also divorced not long after. And she and Anne relocated again this time to Kansas City, where Ethel actually opened her own taxi business that grew to employ several drivers. and a ton of company-owned cars. Damn. So she's taken hit after hit, but she's still chugging along.

She's getting back up. The move to Kansas City got them out of the crushing poverty of Kansas farm life, but it did little to improve Anne or Ethel's lives, like, emotionally. Ethel was away working day and night to comfort or to support herself and her daughter. So Anne found an escape in the movie houses and film magazines of the day, all presenting this glamorous life in Hollywood. Hollywood? Hollywood.

That now she was just determined to find for herself. She wanted to be on the big screen. She wanted to get out of Kansas. She wants to be a star. She wanted to be a star. See a name and lights. Yes. Now that determination to find her way out of poverty

was only strengthened then by the hardships and just terrible time that she saw her mother go through every single day. Yeah. As a single woman and a female business owner, Ethel was subject to all kinds of misogyny and harassment. Oh, I'm sure. And most of which came from her male employees.

Her employees? Her employees because they resented having to work for a woman and just didn't have any reservations about showing it. That's absurd. It's like, cool, you're fired. You're tiny. Bye. Now, by the time she reached her 21st birthday, Angie Crowell had reinvented herself as Anne Crowell, aspiring model and movie star. Ooh.

No longer content with the impoverished life in Kansas City that she was living. She took a move and decided to go to Denver to stay with. her aunt and cousins. And while she lived in Denver, she actually managed to secure a few jobs modeling for catalogs before she eventually returned to Kansas City, now more restless than ever. Because she had a small taste of what she had been dreaming of. Yeah. She wasn't content to just dream of wealth and fame anymore. She was like, I got to make this happen. Yeah. So she finally made the decision at this point to move to New York City just a few months later. The New York City. The big city. The Big Apple. And she figured, you know, I did make some connections in

Denver, maybe those will pay off once I get to New York. And Ethel obviously hated to see her daughter go, but at the same time, this was what she wanted for Anne to get out of Kansas and to experience big things and have the life that Ethel didn't get to have. So she talked to Anne before she left and told her, never talk to strange men, never look at them past daylight in the street. I mean, that's good advice. Sound advice. And with that advice dispense, she gave Anne. I love this because I just picture it's like a movie thing. she gave Anne this bag of $5 bills that totaled out to about $400. Oh my gosh.

And one of the cars from the taxi company and she watched as Anne drove out of Kansas. So she just handed her daughter this bag of cash that she'd been saving. Yep. And one of her taxi cabs. That's some mom shit. Right?

Just like... That's a mom shit, Ethel. Here you go. Take care of yourself. Take this big bag of cash that I've been saving. Oh my God. I love that. I know.

So when she arrived in New York in August of 1937, Anne was 22 years old now, unemployed, and homeless. She literally had nowhere to go at this point. But she had that drive that her mother had instilled in her, and it was only intensified now by her fear of having to go back to Kansas being like, yeah, I didn't make it. Yeah. So she found a cheap hotel room using some of the money that Ethel had given her. And the next day, I love this too. This story is awesome. She went straight to the powers agency.

which was a modeling agency on Park Ave. She didn't make like any contacts there. It's like a famous modeling agency. It is, yeah. Nobody was expecting her at the agency. She didn't have like an appointment or anything like that. She was walking. Good for her.

And the secretary was like, okay, like why don't you take a seat until somebody's, you know, available to speak with you. But by 630 that night, everyone had left for the day. And Anne was like, she was asked to leave. So she sat there the whole day? And no one was like coming out to talk to her. But she was committed. So she returned the next day

And the next day And the next day And the next day And the same thing She arrived right when they opened Take a seat Someone will be able to talk to you Like when they can

No one And then finally on the fourth day Of sitting and waiting John Powers agreed to see Anne John Powers Like head dude He didn't refuse to hire her But he did tell her

That she would need a nose job In order to succeed With his agency He was like The rest of you is fine But your nose is a little off Oh what a little off an awful world.

Truly. But you know what? Anne said, bet. And she borrowed some money from a friend and paid $500 for her nose job. Wow. Which also like great friends. I was just going to say, what a friend you made. Now, she figured she'd be able to pay the money back to her friend when she saved up some of her earnings from a new job that she got at the Saks Fifth Avenue hat counter.

The hat counter. So that was like her little side hustle. Or I guess modeling was her side hustle. Yeah, that was her main job. She never really did manage to get the big glenact. glamorous modeling jobs that she hoped for, but she did manage to find success at the Powers Agency as one of the more popular models for soaps, toothpaste, and like home and beauty products kind of thing.

Yeah. Between the money she made from her modeling job and her job at SACC, she was able to move into her own small apartment on East 50th Street, which she wallpapered, quote, with menus from chic nightclubs and restaurants such as El Morocco 21 and the Stork Club. That is so cool sounding. Isn't I just like you're making it in the big city You're going to these nightclubs and you're like you know what I have an idea Just a DIY queen like and it just sounds so like it sounds so like bohemian and cool you know doesn't it? It also reminds me of like when we would put like Abercrombie bags on our walls and be like this is fashion

This is the height of luxury We really thought We all thought we really did during the day and she modeled of course she worked the counter at sacks and she took acting and dance classes. Damn, she is hustling. Hossiling and she had to. We love to see it. And then at night, she dined at the city's most popular restaurants and night clubs. Hell yeah, she did. And it was all paid for by the powers agency. And it was because she was one of their more popular models in the space that she was. So they wanted to promote her more and more. So she got to go to these fancy places. Her hard work finally paid off in November of 1938 when she

landed a role as a chorus girl and a new musical review called Set To Me. music. Set to music. Set to music. The Broadway show and then subsequent national tour put Anne in contact with some of the idols that she worshipped as a teenager in her room back in Kansas, but she still wanted more. Ethel's daughter, baby. I was just going to say that's the Ethel. She wanted more recognition, more fame, more wealth, more everything. She was she was tenacious. Yeah. But unfortunately, just as she was really coming into her own, things back in Kansas took return. Oh, no. One morning, Ethel woke up with a really bad sore throat, and over the course of the next few weeks, it worsened into a cough and eventually respiratory problems that landed her in the hospital.

Eventually, Anne paid to have her mother transferred to a hospital in St. Louis, St. Louis, I don't know, where she would have access to a specialist, but it did little good. According to the doctors, Ethel had, quote, developed a rare lung disease that was common in cattle. And sadly, they didn't have much hope that her condition was going to improve. If anything, she was just going to slowly get worse. Ethel. And what a, like, what? A disease that is common in cattle?

That's awful. And probably because of all her work on the farm. I was going to say, yeah. So Anne called her mother regularly to check in, wondering if she should leave the show and go be by her side. But each time, Ethel insisted, nope, you do not leave the show, you finish it out. She's just mom until the end. She's like, you're going to get something better than I did.

Exactly. And like, don't mess it up for me. That's some true mom shit. Like, don't worry about me. I'm fine. I want you to succeed and do what you want to do. But you feel bad for Anne to be in that position because that's your mom. Of course you want to.

I can't imagine. Like, you would feel so selfish being away from her. But then she's telling you no, like, you got to do what you got to do. It's a near impossible choice to me. It is. But she did finish it out. And when this tour of set to music came to an end, Anne caught a ride from New York to Missouri to be by her mother's side. By September of 1940,

she was covering all of Ethel's medical bills and hospital bills. And she was spending almost all of her time by her mom's side to make up, I think, for the time that she was away. A mother-daughter duo right now. I know. Like, I'm loving it. But the sad thing was because she was spending all this time by Ethel's side, all the progress she had made in New York and all the connections that she had were slowly slipping away. Oh, geez. And now she was faced with a decision to stay in Kansas with her mom or return to New York.

And Anne was like, I can't stay in Kansas. Like, this is not what I want for myself. I've made too much progress. I've made too much progress. This isn't what my mom wants for me. So she borrowed money from a friend again. And she had Ethel transferred to a special unit at the New York Hospital. Oh my goodness.

And also these friends. I know. Damn. Which makes you think, like, obviously Anne had to be like somewhat of a good person. Yeah. At least at this point. You said at least at this point. Maybe she was the whole way through.

I don't know. Who knows? But again, like you said, having friends like that does tell you who. who you are as a person. Yeah, you'd think so. See you. Right. So in the short amount of time that she'd been away,

unfortunately, like I said, things in New York had changed for Anne. The medical bills had taken a serious financial toll, which forced her to give up her penthouse apartment on East 50th Street and moved to a studio apartment on East 56th Street. Man, oh man. And most of the personal and professional connections that she had made during her time and set to music had either moved on to other productions

or gone out to Hollywood to try. Hollywood to try their luck in the film industry, which is what she really wanted to do. By the end of 1940, Anne she still hadn't found any steady work, and her expenses, mostly due to paying Ethel's medical bills, were threatening to send her back to Kansas if she didn't find something reliable soon. I smell a little desperation here. Well, as luck would have it, in December of 1942, Anne heard that the Monte Carlo, the Monte Carlo. The Monte Carlo, a small exclusive nightclub just a few blocks from her. her apartment so convenient. They were looking for chorus girls and dancers. Hell yeah. Don't we know? Anne is a dancer. She is. The work would be obviously a step down from the glamorous Broadway stage and

the tour that she had just been on in the past, but it was steady work and the evening hours meant that she would have her days free to spend with that. Oh, that's ideal. So through tenacity and the few connections that she did have left in the city and managed to land the job as a dancing girl at the Monte Carlo, which would pay her $50 a week. Look at her. Back then, that's pretty good income. Also, I love that like her having to leave to take care of her ailing mother was like, yeah, sorry, you're just going to lose your connections. Like no one was willing to be like, yeah, she's just taking care of for like dying mother. Mm-hmm.

Like, humans need to get better. Humans need to get better. We all need to get better. That's such a, that's so industry. You know what I mean? And it's just so cold. It's like, all right, you do have to realize people are humans. But people don't give a fuck.

Nope. Now, working at the Monte Carlo was a far cry from the dreams of stardom that, Anne had for herself. But as one of the premier nightclubs in New York, it did. I was going to say that. I was like the nightclub. It was. And of course, because it was, it attracted a good amount of stars from stage and screen. Oh yeah. So she was still within that circle, even though she wasn't quite one of them. Kind of just hanging on the fringes a little bit, but you were almost in there. That's a perfect way to describe it. Now, it was during one of these late night floor shows that Anne caught the eye of a man called William Woodward Sr. He was a wealthy banker and racehorse

enthusiast. I recognize that last name. Race horses just keep making an appearance in my story. You love a racehorse. Yeah, I do. You're living in a place of racehorse. I really do, except I don't, I don't, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't fucks with that, but we'll talk about it. But yeah, I feel like it's just part of high society. Oh, 100%. Especially back then when everybody's just like smoking cigars. Oh, yeah. Of course. I love, you're just holding a giant bagel right now and you're just like, walking cigals. Just like wagging your bagels. Eating bagels. That was great. You know, fancy high society stuff. It's an Asiago bagel.

Oh, Asiago. That's high society right there. It is high society. So Anne, Anne knew just who Mr. Woodward was. Mr. Woodward. Because she had read about him in the society pages, which bring back the society pages, motherfuckers. I want to read them. William, he kept coming back at least several times to see Anne,

form she really caught his eye and one night he asked her hey baby you want to see one of my horses run come down to the racetrack with me romance you know you want to see my racehorse yes i would think probably that's deeply upsetting when you put it that way it's deeply upsetting either way to be honest but it's really upsetting the other way it's very upsetting when you really think hard about it Yeah, so don't. But you're probably doing it now. Just romance, romance, romance. And, of course, knew that Woodward was married.

Oh. But so were a lot of the men who bought her drinks and sent her jewelry. So she should not be asking her to come see his fucking racehorse if you are married. Sorry. Not in a euphemistic way. Not in the real way. Not in a physical way. Oh, come on.

No. Keep your racehorse to yourself. That's right. Ew. Keep it in its thing. Track. What is it? The stall?

Stay. Keep it in stable. There you go. Stahl? I think you were correct. Okay. I don't know. Anyways.

Go with yours. But the thing was a lot of the men who, you know, made advances on Anna or got her nice things. They were married. So she didn't see anything wrong with just going to the track to have a date. Anne, I think there's something wrong. I think there is something wrong. Definitely. When she was like, let me have those nice things.

Oh, man. So one afternoon in March 1941, Anne was visiting with her mother in her room at a New York hospital to celebrate Ethel's 45. birthday, which she's only, only 45? Yeah, only 45 at this point. She had lived such a life that even I at this point, I was like, she's not like 70 something. I thought she was 70. Forty-five. Damn. Yeah. And the weeks. Holy shit. Exactly. That just blew my mind. Same. It blew mine too. But in the weeks leading up to the visit, Ethel's condition had gotten worse. Oh no. And on that afternoon, Ethel didn't even really recognize Anne, it seemed.

And after a brief visit, Ethel's doctor suggested to Anne that maybe she should go and come back when her mom was feeling a little better. So Anne was like, okay, and she made her way home. And climbing up the stairs to her apartment, she heard the phone ringing. And she ran to answer it before the caller hung up. And it was a nurse from the New York Hospital calling to tell her that Ethel had died peacefully 10 minutes earlier. After she had left. Right after she had left. Like she probably died while Ann was on her way home.

Oh. Which like I understand why that doctor thought that she should rest. Nobody could ever know. But it's like, fuck. And it's also that that's why it's like don't even tell people to go home and rest because you just don't know. Yeah. That's the thing. So on March 20th, Anne boarded a train back to Kansas for her mother's funeral.

The drab landscape and poverty of her hometown felt it always felt suffocating to Anne. But this time specifically, it was just. just overwhelmingly suffocating. Oh, I'm sure. And it wasn't that she didn't love her family, her aunts, and her cousins and everything, but being in their presence reminded her of where she had come from

and where she desperately didn't want to return. This really is like a movie. It is, I know. Or like some kind of like miniseries. Honestly, and it will be. Oh, there you go. But she ended up spending a total of 48 hours in Kansas. She went to the funeral.

She gave her mother's eulogy, visited with family and friends, the whole deal. But then she got the hell out of there. And before leaving, she asked her cousin Paul to keep an eye on Ethel's grave for her. Make sure it was like neat and tidy all the time. You're 45. Damn. I know.

And Paul said, well, won't you be coming back, Ann? Like, are you coming back? And she said, I'll be back soon. But that afternoon, she boarded a train for New York and she never, ever came back to Kansas. Yeah, I could have told you that. There was nothing in Kansas for Anne after that. And what a terrible last memory to have marrying your mom. Exactly.

Like, you already pretty much hated this place. so much and then that's what you have to go back for. And her mom believed in her. Yeah. And, like, supported her. And, like, really was just like a cheerleader for. Yeah. Exactly.

That's really sad. And she should have had many, many years of that. Oh, my God, I know. Her mom should have been able to see her success. Yeah. You know. But back in New York, Anne resumed her routine of performing at the Monte Carlo in the evenings and auditioning during the day.

And eventually, she landed a recurring role as a nurse on an afternoon radio called Joyce Jordan, girl intern. I love that. Girl intern. Girl intern. Not boy intern. Girl intern. And that led to other roles on other radio programs like Lincoln Highway. Radio programs. You know, just tune into the radio. You just gather around the radio, folks. Turn that up, pop, I can't hear.

So in time. Drink your Ovalteen. Oh, Marble teen. That's adorable. Adorable. Adorable. Now, in time, Anne's relationship with William Woodward, Sr. there, grew from this harmless crush to something more serious. He's married, Anne. Yeah, and he's a married high society, man. Yeah, it's a scandal. The fact that this, exactly, you were on the right chat.

The fact that this was getting a little more hot and heavy threatened a serious scandal to the wealthy family if anyone were to find out. And it was one thing for a man of Woodward status to, you know, have an occasional dalliance with a showgirl. I love that that was just, I love that it's like, that shit happens, you know? Of course. Of course guys are going to fuck showgirls when they're married. I have your quiet little affair with a showgirl.

But don't actually give a shit about someone. Don't be in public with it. Stop. Stop. That's the thing. But an ongoing secret romance, it was something else entirely. And it would not have been tolerated by New York's high society. High society is a wild bitch.

But it also definitely wouldn't have been tolerated by Woodward's wife, Elsie. Yeah, no. I'm with Elsie here. I also wouldn't tolerate that. Retweet. But not wanting, this is where. shit is going to get, you're not even going to be able to stay on track with this

at this point because it gets wildly fucked in here. Uh-oh. Okay? I'm here. I'm strapped in. I'm glad. Hold on to your butt. So not wanting to give up his relationship with Anne, but knowing that the two couldn't carry on as they had been, Woodward Senior devised a wild-ass plan.

Uh-oh. Where Anne would make the acquaintance of and start a relationship with his son, Billy. I'm sorry. Why, you might ask? I did. I didn't. I don't even want it. What? One might ask why. Well, this would allow Anne and Woodward Senior to go on spending time together under the guise of a strictly potonic relationship between a father and his son's girlfriend. This is so fucked up. I can't even begin. In what world is that

going to work, motherfucker? You two are having an affair and because you want to keep having an affair, you have her date your son? You're going to bring your son into this? So now you're going to fuck your son's girlfriend? That's fucked. That's even weirder, my gosh. Like, just have the straight-up affair. That's the thing. Honestly, I'd much, in the society papers, that's going to look better than you fucking your son's girlfriend. But they figured, or he figured, I should say, that it wouldn't get into the society

papers that he was fucking his son's girlfriend because that would be behind closed doors. Because now she'd have an excuse to be in his home, I think, was the thought. Oh, yeah, of course. That's the thought process. Because it's like, oh, she can be around. We can still see each other. Oh, yeah. So just fuck up your son's life so that you can get your rocks.

off. That's good. That's the thing because I'm like, are you going to let your son in on this? Or is he just going to be allowed to potentially be heartbroken? Well, you just wait, my dear. Oh, boy. You just wait. Oh, boy. For fucking some reason or another, I don't know which one and agreed. Oh, like, I don't know. I've never had an affair with a high society man personally. Never checked that off my bingo card. But I could, I could imagine that if I did and he suggested, you know, like my wife and everything. So just hang out with my son. I'd be like, are you, are you a looney team?

Like, I did. You lost it completely. I understand that there's a power dynamic here that is much imbalanced. Totally. Come on, man. But I'm like, keep dancing at the Monty Carl. There's plenty of rich men. There's plenty of rich older guys that I'm sure you can dab.

That are not going to ask you to date their sons. I mean, she's beautiful. Yeah, gorgeous. She's tenacious. She's, you know, she's like a hard worker. She's checking all the boxes. Yeah. So it's like, honey, you can find someone better.

You don't need this one. You don't need this one that's already taken. Taken. And is now wanting to you to date his son. Like, that's just messed up on a whole slew of levels. That's when you go, you know what? This has been fun. This has been a great time.

I don't want to get you into trouble. I definitely don't want to get your son wrapped up in this. So I'm going to keep dancing and meet some other cool guy. Give L. See my regards. See you later. Yeah, honestly. Yeah, man. When Anne agreed, it set into motion a chain of events that would forever alter the lives of literally every single person involved in this family.

I can imagine. All of them. Yeah, I didn't think this was going to go smooth. No, it doesn't. But it goes way different, but I think you would imagine. Probably, because I'm not even wrapping my brain around it. Because I was like, oh, this is going to end and like knock down, drag out fight. Not really.

No. I mean, it ends horribly, but. In a different way. Yeah. So in March of 1942, while Billy was home. for a visit during his break from Harvard, Billy being from Harvard. Woodward's son.

So Billy will be the young Woodward. Yes. He is William Jr., but we refer to him as Billy. And I think I'm pretty sure they did too. That makes sense. So he was on a break from Harvard and his father asked him, do you have a regular girl? Which meant like, are you dating someone?

You got a regular girl. Normal. Like are you dating someone like consistently? Not are you dating someone normal? Not just someone regular. His son was like, no, pop, I don't. And Billy Woodward's extremely limited experience with women was of particular concern to his father, mostly because it had become the source of rumors amongst his peers.

And I think that was a whole other. I think Woodward Sr. thought he was killing two birds with one stone here. Yeah, he was taking away that whole, the rumor mill there and also getting his cake to. Exactly. And it's like, again, I ask, I'm always going to ask this, who the fuck cares that much about somebody's romantic life? High society. It's like his peers are all upset about his limited experience with women.

What the fuck do you care? What does it have to do with you? What does that matter? Worry about your own goddamn lawn. Why are you worrying about his? Worry about your lawn. Like, damn. They were all bored.

I think that's what it all comes down to. Damn. And bored and gossipy. Yeah, that's when that's when shit pops off. Which people are bored with nothing to do. I love a good gossip. But like, don't be a bitch about it. And it's like, I don't care about things like that.

Oh, no. I don't care about shit like this. Like, can you imagine worrying about. worrying about like who somebody's dating or like or not dating or if they haven't dated you're like why yeah that's stupid that's not my fucking business yeah like rumors should be fun worry about susy shitty pie that she brought to the potluck last week that's the kind of shit i want to talk about inconsequential shit right but the thing was billy was a really handsome guy he came like we know from a respectable wealthy family so as far as everybody saw it he shouldn't have any trouble

meeting women but it seemed to many around him that he just wasn't interested in them so that of course led many to speculate whether or not he was gay, which deeply troubled his parents because whole. That's everybody's problem and everyone's business. Of course. It makes total sense. And the thing was, like many high society rumors, speculation about Billy Woodward's sexuality actually persisted long after his death. That's sad. It's unclear whether or not he was gay and it actually has no bearing on the story, so we're going to move on. Because who cares? Like everybody else should have. But regardless of his orientation, William Woodward's senior suggested, while he was home for break, Billy might look up Anne Crowell.

Yeah. You know? He said, I met her out at the Monte Carlo a few months earlier. And I don't know. I think, why don't you take her for a date? She's cute. Yeah, he's like, you know what? I've been having an affair with her for a while.

So I can tell you, she's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. You love her. To be clear, though, this was less of a suggestion than a command. Yeah. So Billy was like, okay, I will do that. He's like, you will ask this girl out.

He's like, all righty, pop, cool. I don't know what my thing is with pop, but it just feels right. You're my pop. I'm a pop. So a few nights later, Billy took Anne to a dinner at 21, which was a popular speakeasy-turned restaurant. My goodness, I love it. On West, on West 52nd Street. Anne was on a diet, and Billy was quote-unquote too nervous to eat.

Guys, dinner. Guys, eat up. But they still ordered an extravagant meal in a bottle of champagne. Billy was obviously completely unaware of Anne's relationship with his father, so he didn't know anything about this strategic setup. Oh my God, this is so fucked. But Anne was well aware of the plan for her to date Billy, and having to go through the motions, kind of made her impatient and short with Billy. Which I'm like, honey.

It's not his fault. He doesn't know. This poor guy. So a few glasses of champagne, it luckily did help soften her attitude. I guess luckily I don't even know I said that. But eventually she started to find his shy and experience somewhat charming. Oh. Billy, on the other hand, he didn't need any champagne in order to enjoy Anne's company.

He thought she was confident, forward, exciting. She was nothing like the society girls that his parents had steered him toward in the past. And he was like, damn, like, why did my dad set me up with you? You're awesome. Yeah, he's like, shit. This is great. So what started as kind of a sham relationship orchestrated by William Woodward Sr. Soon actually developed into something real.

Oh. He did not see this coming. I was just going to say, well, shit. That wasn't part of the plan. And much to his chagrin, you can imagine. Yeah. Billy, like we said, was instantly taken with Annie. He found her beautiful.

He loved her assertive personality. He thought she lived her life without reservation. It was great. She, for, and for Anne, excuse me, Billy was an entry into high society and their respectability and status that came with it. And at the same time, she also was kind of charmed by his affection and devotion to her. Ah. So one of, they're each getting things out of it.

One is a bit more self-centered than the other. I'm going to go out on a limb and say. They're getting different things out of it, but you know. But, you know, they like each other. They do. So the early days of their romance, spent at New York's finest restaurants, nightclubs, theaters, or with Anne just cooking meals for them at Billy's apartment. They were literally dating. Just like anybody else would have.

Straight up dating. So the fantasy of Anne's extravagant and carefree relationship with Billy eventually collided with reality, as you can imagine. Yeah. And that happened in August of 1942 when Billy invited her to the races in Saratoga, where she was to quote unquote meet his parents and extended family. I think she had already met one of his parents. That's going to get weird. Yeah. So when Ray's Day finally arrived,

Billy and Anne drove the 150 miles to Saratoga Springs in his Packard, stopping for breakfast along the way. And stopping for breakfast made them late to meet William and Elsie, which instantly got the day off on the wrong foot. You are not late to hot society functions. Absolutely not. You can fuck show girls, but don't you dare be late? Exactly.

So things didn't get much better when they finally. made their way inside the clubhouse at the racetrack where they were surrounded by some of the wealthiest people in the country. Elsie Woodward shook Anne's hand politely, but she was barely able to hide her disapproval. Yeah, I just feel for, I'm like, Elsie just happened to shake her hand. Yeah, and she's onto her. I was going to say, I don't know if she knows or not, or you can always get a vibe. She knew. That's tough. And she didn't, she felt like Anne seemed to disregard nearly every convention of high society that Elsie had been raised in so held dear to her heart yeah I was gonna say so she you know when you're raised in it you hold it pretty yeah hi and William senior when he was greeting

Anne was like over the top and like very like oh hi so nice to meet you for the first time ever oh my god never met you before in my life what I'm so great to meet you dude so yeah elsie was like be cool don't be all like uncool yeah to cut to to Quote the countess. But so Elsie's like, so y'all've met before. Like, you guys did a real good job. Yeah, and of course, people had been talking. Yeah, of course. You're not going to get away with that stuff.

You had a full-blown affair. So the way he was acting basically effectively confirmed Elsie's suspicions that they had indeed met before this. Oh, man. Years later, she would tell her bridge friends, one look at Anne and I knew the whole story. Oh, boy. So you don't want to fuck with a lady like this. Eak. to the Woodward family matriarch, Anne was a gold-digging interloper who was trying to force

her way into a world that, one, never welcomed her, and two, a world where Elsie didn't think she belonged. Damn. And that was exactly how she felt the moment she met her that day in Saratoga Springs, and it is precisely how she would treat Anne until the day she died. Now, here's the thing. I understand she's got a vibe here, and she's like, I'm pretty sure you have met my husband before, and there's something here. So I would be like, you're an asshole, too.

In that sense. Yup. But the whole like you don't belong here because you are raised in poverty is stupid. It's so dumb because also I know that Anne is trying to climb the ladder here. Of course. Clearly that was the way back then. Yeah. People do it now.

Like it's not changing. But it's also like it's not like she hasn't worked her tail off to get at least. I mean, she was paying her mother's medical bills up until the end. Like she was really working her ass off here. And it's just such a weird way to look at things to be like, because you were born into poverty, you don't deserve to make it anywhere else. Even though you worked harder than I did to land here. But they look at it as like you didn't work as hard as I did because you don't know all the

interworking of this world. It's just a bizarre line of thinking and it's one that still exists. So it's just so weird. It's just very exclusive. Yeah, it's just strange and bizarre. But the thing was Elsie wasn't entirely wrong. Anne's relationship with both Woodward men. Yeah.

I mean, that's where the black mark comes. from her relationship with senior and junior were a calculated attempt to climb that ladder into high society. So from Elsie's point of view, she's like, not only did you try to use my husband, but now you're using my son. So like maybe stop infiltrating my family. I can see and I can see that frustration for sure. It's a mess. Yeah. But none of this matter to Billy, who absolutely reveled in aunt's ability to get under his mother's skin.

He thought it was great. That's some high society rebellion right there. Truly. But regardless of how Billy felt about the impression. and made on his mother and herself was and would remain deeply self-conscious around her future mother-in-law. Yeah, I'm sure. Which I might feel self-conscious too if I had, you know.

Slept with her husband? I'm not even going to like, yeah. Yeah. That's fucked up. You honestly should feel a little self-conscious if you sleep with someone's husband. Definitely. And then date their son. And then date their son and have to be around them at family dinners.

Yeah, that's just like a wild. I feel like that's pretty natural. That's cray-cray. Yeah. Now, it seems that no matter what she did, though. always managed to transgress some unknown social convention of the elite. She was, she didn't get it. She was too loud.

She dressed inappropriately, according to them, smoked in public. And worst of all, as far as Elsie was concerned, she was vulgar and her empowered sexuality. I mean, to me, you look at that part of it, and you're like, she sounds pretty cool. I would hang with her. Like, I would tell her to stop smoking, but like, you know, back then they didn't know. Yeah. Back then they were like, that's the cure to everything. You seem pretty awesome.

other than the sleeping with a married man? Or, we don't even know of sleeping, but other than hanging out with a married man. Yeah. Not great. But other than that, all those things that, like, pissed Elsie off, I'm like, no, that makes her kind of cool. But nevertheless, that race day was when Anne decided, quote,

Billy was the main catch of their crowd. And she was determined that no matter what Elsie Woodward thought, she would become a proper society woman, no matter what it took. Damn. It's like, whof. Uh-oh. What an enemy to make. Yeah.

So as Anne and Billy's relationship continued, to develop into something serious, Elsie Woodward hired a private detective to look into Anne's background. Damn. Also a common theme about my story lately. Oh, yes. Now, she didn't really learn much about Anne's past in Kansas because Anne really hadn't revealed any clues to that.

But the detective nonetheless confirmed Elsie's suspicions that Anne had a rich sexual history that was hardly befitting for a woman of class. But what made Elsie truly irate was learning that Billy had given Anne. Anne a gold bracelet passed down from his grandmother. Oof. More than the affairs with multiple men or her past as a showgirl, this gifted family heirloom was the thing that caused Elsie to demand that her son stop seeing Anne immediately. Oh, boy.

Of course, that demand only made Billy want to see Anne way more. That's a good way to get your kid to do something more is to forbid. Exactly. It just drove the two of them closer together. His mother could yell and scream. She could threaten disinheritance all she want, and she very much did. Oh, damn.

But Billy was undeterred in his all-consuming passion for A.N. Nothing that Elsie said was going to change that. Damn. So in January of 1943, Anne arrived at Billy's apartment, where rather than landing about in his pajamas like he usually would be, he was dressed in his Navy uniform. The U.S. had just entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor over a year earlier, and the fighting had been really intensifying ever since,

so it was going to require additional troops. Billy had graduated from Harvard a few weeks earlier, so now he was eligible for the draft, and he had got emergency orders to report for gunnery school in Washington immediately. So the idea of Billy leaving to fight and possibly even die in the war made Anne, of course, completely despond him

because they're like fully in love at this point. Now, what started as a scheme to gain entry into high society had actually grown into something real, so the thought of losing him was something she couldn't bear and also something that seemed pretty likely because of how bad this war was. But this wasn't a modeling job or a wealthy patron at the Monte Carlo. It wasn't a decision Anne could just overcome

with sheer willpower and tenacity. As she had done before. As she had done before. As far as she was concerned, though, there was only one thing to be done. She told Billy, and this is a quote, marry me now or go away forever. This sounds like a movie.

Marry me now or go away forever. Like you can just see. somebody overacting that marry me now or go away forever and then just like slamming the door just go that's wild and also like so not romantic no you're just giving them a straight up ultimately marry me or go away forever that's it like she's my only two options okay luckily billy knew that anne could be stubborn and um had a flare for the dramatic dramatic but he also sensed that she did mean what she said So he told her, I'm going to think about it while I'm away and I'll let you know. Oh, no.

He hit her with a maybe. He hit her with a I'll think about it. Yeah. Wow. That's rough. Marry me now and go away forever. I'll think about it. Let me think about it.

I don't know. Wolf. So a few weeks after he left for Tacoma and called Billy at the base and was like, hey, really sorry for that ultimatum. I would actually just be happy to live with you. whether we're married or not. Wow, she really took that down a notch. She was like, I think I might have fucked up. I got upset.

Yeah. Billy responded by asking whether, and I was like, aw, he was like, is there someone in your family who I can ask for permission to marry you? And she's like, so you're saying there's a chance. She's like, so you're trying to marry my ass. Which like, you might, you might want to know that if you're getting to the point where you're going to marry someone? That's also the thing. Like, is there someone in your family?

I should, like, do you have a family? I'd like to ask one of them if I could marry you. And it's like you haven't asked her this before. You don't know if she has a family. Like there was no discussion where you were like, what's your family like? Like who's, you know, do you get along with your parents? Yeah. What's your name?

Who's your daddy? What did you guys talk about? That's the thing. So terrified of Billy or anybody else, especially in his circle, learning of her impoverished upbringing in Kansas. That's so sad. Oh no. Oh no.

You can't be born into poverty. How are you? And lied and told Billy that her father was dead. She told him, I'm an orphan, just ask me. Woof. So what that? She wasn't. She wasn't.

She had dad. But I mean, he was off somewhere. Yeah. I don't really know if he would have been able to track down. Yeah. So the announcement, they did get engaged. And the announcement of Billy and Anne's engagement came as a shock to William Sr. Who initially assumed that there was some sort of emergency, aka pregnancy.

Oh, he thought she was like, oh, fuck. He's like, oh, shit. Elsie, on the other hand, was outraged. She told Billy, this was a quote, it's a matter of money. That's what she's really after. This had been her position all along. Although she wasn't entirely wrong,

Billy was now 21 years old, and he was able to access his trust fund at $4,000 a month, which today would be like receiving $69,000 per month. Holy shit, out of a trust fund? Out of a trust fund. You're just like, ching.

Ding, ding. Damn. So her threats really carried little weight with Billy at that point because he has access to his own money. Yeah, so he's like, I mean, not really his own money. I was just going to say the money that was held to his trust.

But she couldn't stop the wedding from going forward. But she could stop the rest of the family from attending. Oh, no. And Elsie did just that. Oh, shit. She was like, that's fine. You want to get married? We won't be there.

Elsie. Yeah, which I... Elsie's in her villain era right now. That's mean. Like, I get her distrust. Of course. I get that. She, she...

She sent. She had Anne's number. William there kind of gave up the ghost there. So nice to meet you. You're lovely. Oh my, wow. I hope you guys stay together forever. Great to meet for the first time.

This is the first time I've ever seen you. I've never seen a woman before else. He's the only woman I've ever seen. Wow, there's other women on the planet. What? I don't think. What's your name again? I understand that she's like,

pretty sure you had something going with my husband and now you're just going to marry my son. Like I understand that. Yes. Vibe not being great. Yes. And that is a level of petty that most strive to achieve. I think she thought she was going to stop it by not going. Like, find them.

We're not going to go to your wedding. I think she thought Billy was going to be like, oh my God, okay. Then I can't do this if you're not going to be there. But he was like, okay. He was like, okay, don't go. He was like, I don't really like you that much. And it sounds like regardless of how this all started that Ann and Billy, did love each other. Yeah. Like at this point, I don't, honestly, I don't know this story, which I'm sad to say.

I mean, it's honestly just a matter of opinion, like, based on what we know. Just seeing what we know. At this point, it at least seems like they are enjoying each other's company. I mean, like we said, like, it would have been nice for them to know whether, you know, things about each other, like, whether she had a family or not. Yeah, that would have been good. Or maybe for him to know that she had dated his father and this had all started as a lie. You know, that would have been nice to have. pretty good. I don't know how I feel about this. It's all very reckless. That's the thing. You think you feel one way and then you look at the facts again and you're like, fuck. Because I just talked myself through that and then was like, I don't know. I have no idea how to feel.

This is reckless. You won't. You won't know how to feel even at the end. Yeah. And I get it. Elsie. Yeah. I get it. But the week of March 8th, 1943, Anne arrived in Tacoma, Washington where Billy was stationed and where the wedding was to be held. The wedding was to be a small affair with just a few friends and Billy's father in attendance. Oh, wow. So William went. Oh, of course he did. Anne bought her dress at a Seattle department store, and on March 14th, Anne Crowell married William Woodward Jr. at a Lutheran chapel in Tacoma with a small reception that followed

at the Tacoma Hotel. Wow. It's a small affair. Small affair. After their wedding. That's how this all started. A small affair. A small affair.

After their wedding, Anne and Billy moved into a five-bedroom tutor-style house overlooking Washington's, I think it's Puget Sound. which was furnished with the finest furniture and luxuries that money could buy. But what should have been a time of celebration and elation was almost immediately undermined by tension and conflict. Elsie refused to publish a marriage announcement in the New York Times, the paper of record, signaling to her society friends exactly how she felt about the marriage. And to make matters worse, a few days after the wedding, Anne had casually mentioned that she had seen one of William's horses Johnston run at the races before they had met.

Oh. The comments seemed innocuous at the time, but when Billy pressed Anne for details, she was forced to explain that she knew his father longer than he or virtually anyone else in the family had known for fact. Oh, no. You knew this was going to come forward. Anne swore to Billy that her relationship with his father had been totally innocent.

But you're lying! And at the same time, he was still he knew. humiliated by this revelation. Anne immediately recognized her mistake and told her grandmother, I really am the luckiest girl in the world to have gotten such a truly wonderful husband. Now I feel like it's up to me to make it work. Oh boy. Yeah. This is messy. So from the house in Washington Anne quickly got to work making the self-improvements that she felt were necessary to be a proper society woman. She planned menus and dinner parties. She researched antiques and facts about horse racing. She studied etiquette books. She just wanted to remake her

into somebody that Elsie would welcome into the family. Oh boy, I think that ship is sailed, girl. Oh, that ship is on the opposite coastline at this point. That ship has turned into a spaceship and it's gone out into orbit. Exactly. You never seen that ship again. Humanly possible. The problem, however, was that Anne was too much her mother's daughter to ever be considered a proper society woman. That's so sad. I know. She could certainly learn to be refined, poised, and cultured, but all the qualities that had so attracted Billy to her, her passion, sexuality, her bold personality were too ingrained in her to be repressed in the way that was required for proper society women.

Yeah, you got to be boring as fuck. Exactly. Pinky's up, baby. And she's like, I can't do that. I'm not boring. And as a married woman, those qualities now seemed less attractive to Billy than they had in the past, which like, fuck you. Yeah, that's not cool.

No, you can't decide that you love those things and then you get married and you're embarrassed of them. Now you need to stifle them all. Right. It's like as long as she, I mean, like, you don't want her like cheating on you and having affairs. Like, I understand that. No, of course not.

You got to trust that you love each other and trust each other and she can still be bold and who she is. And she's trying. Yeah. Like she's trying to be what your world requires of her. Yeah. But he resented the way that she carried herself at dinner parties and the quote, spell she cast on his friends in her dramatic declatage.

What? So he was like, you have a sexy neckline and it makes me angry. yelling about her fucking clavicle. I think she wore low-cut dresses a lot. It's like, what the fuck? You're just like, come on. It's like you liked that about her. And now all of a sudden she got to put her tithies away since you're married.

She's got great boobs. It's like she's not. Leave me alone. My titty's going nowhere. Like I'm married you. That's the thing. Like you're the one who gets the whole. The whole deal.

It's just a little something. It just feels like it's a little judgy. It is a little judgy. It's a little. It's a little. bait and switch to like be like I love these things about you and then be like now stop all of them right because that's the thing prior to getting married he found her assertiveness her brazen sexuality a refreshing change from the society girls that his mom was constantly pushing him towards she was

fun she was exciting she spoke her mind and at the time he found that all alluring but after the wedding those qualities seemed to be diminished by her intense desire to fit in with the crowd of new York's elite. He was like, no. He felt that her, quote, eagerness for self-improvement betrayed exasperating insecurities. So in simple terms, her desperation felt obvious and it was embarrassing to Billy, who now often made fun of her in public and behind closed doors for her attempts to gain acceptance with his friends and family. What the fuck happened here? That really was like a bait and switch with him. It's like, I thought you were nice. I think he was going through this rebellious phase where he was like, fuck my family.

Like this is great. Fuck you, mom. Yeah, literally like, you don't understand. It's not just a phase, mom. And then it really was in a phase. And mom was like, this girl's not for you. And she knew that like, this wasn't going to work because you are who you are at the end of the day.

And now he's flipping the switch. And now he realizes like, fuck, this really isn't what I. Because he was raised to want a certain kind of girl. Yeah. And then he was like, no, that's not what I want. And then that's, he went for something completely opposite and was like, well, I want the girl that I was raised to have. And it's like, but no, you can't have both ways, man.

But the thing was worse, while Anne toned her personality down to fit in, she still had an incredible sex appeal that was never lost on the other men in the room. I mean, that's not her fault. Which incited jealousy in Billy that hadn't shown itself prior to the marriage. So shit is just getting toxic as fuck up in here. I'm sorry that I'm hot. And you're not. Top that.

No, I'm not saying Billy wasn't hot there. No, he's actually, they're all beautiful. He's very handsome. Yeah, he's handsome, she's beautiful. Yeah. Everybody in this story is gorgeous. Yeah, they're all just beautiful. But it's tragic as hell.

So to cope with the growing tension between them, Anne and Billy started drinking more heavily, which is, you know. That's a great solution. Always the best solution. You know what? I think everything's going to be fine now. Yeah, it's totally going to be fine.

He frequently criticized her for her drinking at home and in front of their friends, but when she and Billy weren't locked in some frustrating argument and spent most of her time trying to win over Elsie Woodward, which was just impossible. It's not going to happen. No. While they were still living in Washington, the two women exchanged polite correspondence, you know, asking about the health of family members and exchanging pleasantries that were really nothing more than transparent attempts to keep up appearances. Man, imagine watching those interactions at a party.

Standing there with your dirty martini just sitting there watching this and people like, these two girls fucking hate each other. Love it. Well, hate it because it's sad, but, you know, the drama of it all. But the drama here. So in hindsight, the small struggles, the personal digs, and the ongoing rejections led to an explosive conclusion. Uh-oh.

But she really thought that she was somebody at this point because of the money and the luxury, but really her heart is broken. Yeah, it's not of substance. And it's only going to get worse with this next incident that we were going to talk about. So on Thanksgiving morning, 1943, Billy was temporarily in charge. on the USS Lisgum Bay, an aircraft carrier that was stationed in the South Pacific. He was in charge while the captain slept.

Okay. To Billy, this opportunity felt like an enormous achievement and also a chance to prove his masculinity to those who criticized him or were spreading rumors behind his back because that was a common theme throughout his whole life. Of course. He had a wife at this point and people were still talking shit.

Yeah. Now, around 5 a.m., a torpedo from an enemy U-boat slammed into the side of the ship and that ripped open the hold and it caused a series of explosions from one end of the boat to the other. For nearly half an hour, this boat that they were on slowly sank as explosions just ripped the interior apart and flung the injured and dead from the boat to the water below. This was beyond tragedy.

That's awful. Billy, who was still in charge at the time, was in a state of shock and could do little more than stare at the chaos as his own body was thrown around by the repeated explosions. Wow. Luckily, Lieutenant Commander Oliver Ames stepped into action, grabbed Billy and dragged him into the safety of a lifeboat. If it weren't for Commander Oliver Ames, Billy most likely would have been among the two-thirds on board to die that day.

Oh my God. In just a short 30 minutes, Billy's chance to prove himself as something more than a soft-handed trust kid or trust fund kid had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean with nearly 550 officers and enlisted men. 550 died? Yeah. Wow. Two-thirds on board. The survivors were quickly rescued by a nearby ship and Billy was treated for minor burn injuries and shock. And a month later, he was awarded several purple ribbons or excuse me, several ribbons and a purple heart in a ceremony decorating him for his bravery and heroism.

The ceremony only seemed to compound the shame that he felt for not only failing to avoid the attack by steering the ship away from the area, but also failing to show any type of leadership. that could have maybe saved the lives of any number of his crewmates. But he was going through all of this and like blaming himself for not doing what he thought was the right thing. Exactly. It was all survivor's guilt because in his defense, a report published many years later actually found that the USS Liscombe was a poorly designed ship that was not properly designed to safely carry the amount of ammunition on board at the time of the attack. So this really wasn't his fault. It was that bad design and poorly secured cargo. rather than poorer and experienced leadership that was the main cause of the disaster.

Oh, geez. But Billy wouldn't live to see that publication of the report, and he carried the weight of those deaths with him until the day he died. Oh, that's awful. And it really, really changed him, which... Yeah, I can't imagine. Of course it would. I can't even begin to fathom that. He was obviously suffering from some kind of PTSD.

Absolutely. Which only pretty recently became part of a national discussion, and now we recognize the effects of combat and what it can do to people. But back then, for Billy and the countless soldiers coming home from all of those horrors on the battlefields of World War II, there was this implicit expectation that they would just come home and settle back into domestic life. Yeah, just get back into your lives. As though their realities hadn't been dramatically and horrifically interrupted. Yeah. Just like, come on, business as usual.

Let's go, boys. Yeah, and like we kind of still do that. Yeah, we do. Absolutely. We're just like get back to work. Like I said, only recently are we starting to talk about it and giving resources. Yeah. Right.

But for Billy, that meant returning to a life of partying and, you know, partying to excess because of the society life that he lived. And it also must be strange. Like, I've not, I haven't been in the military, nor have I ever been in the military. But it's so regulated and routine. Yeah. And, you know, like strict that I feel like going back to a life where it's just loosey-goosey. And you can do what you want. Whatever you want to do would almost would be so jarring.

It's almost how like when people get out of prison after spending a long time in prison how like they can't be in these big spaces. Yeah. And it's just you're, you become used to and comforted by that. Yeah, you have trouble. And you don't even realize it. Adjusting to a new environment. Yeah. So it's so different.

I feel like that must have been tough. Yeah, definitely. Even though it's like you're going back to partying and like luxury and shit. Like it sounds great. Yeah, but I feel like you don't know. You don't know. And then I'm sure all he was thinking was like, wow, I get to return to this like what most people think. Yeah.

died. And what most people think is like this incredible life, but like she was probably looking at it all from the outside. Yeah. From the sounds of it just drowning his sorrow. Yeah. Psychologically, it must have been horrific. That's the thing. So after that disaster, he returned to the U.S. and spent the remainder of the war years working as an aide to Admiral Patrick Bellinger in Norfolk, Virginia. I can't speak. Norfolk Virginia. Norfolk Virginia Naval office. The new position also meant a change of pace for Anne who moved from their house in Tacoma to the home of Woodward family friend Joe Hartford Douglas. Joe had known Billy almost all her life, and had always been incredibly fond of him. But she found Anne to be cold at times, and at times also an unfriendly presence in the house. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. I think this is when Anne really starts to go through it too, because they're both going through it in their marriage, and then they're both going through these big personal things of, like, doubting who they are and where they come from and, you know, all of it. And it didn't take long for Anne and Billy to fall back into their routine of arguments that ranged from petty sniping to full-on shouting matches. And somebody else is home, which it's like, come on guys. In many cases, the arguments were brought on intentionally by Billy,

who always seemed to be trying to get a rise out of Anne for one reason or another, which inevitably led to a major disruption in the Douglas household. In later years, the tumult of their relationship would be mostly pinned on Anne, but Joe remained sympathetic when it came to Anne, which I do feel like speaks volumes when she's like, yeah, she wasn't the warmest person. She was kind of unfriendly. She was kind of unfriendly, but like I did feel bad for her.

Yeah. She told Friends years after Anne's death, she was a little girl who had not many opportunities in life. She was not the kind of calculating women we've all seen around New York. She was obviously crazy about Billy Woodward and dying to break into his world. Wow. That's just somebody like looking from the outside in. And who really has the whole picture to a T.

Yeah. And that's just tragic. That's all sad. So despite the constant arguing between Billy and Anne, on July 27, 1944, Anne gave birth to their first son, William Woodward III. Billy was stationed in Philadelphia at the time, so Anne moved into Billy's parents' house in Manhattan, where a staff of maids and domestic workers helped tend to the baby. Now that he was out of the Navy, William Woodward Sr. started urging his son to take a position with the bank, but Billy had little interest in working, and he really didn't have to. dude, he's a trust fund kid. Yeah.

Even though he had experienced significant trauma just a few years earlier and had all the intense responsibilities of becoming a new parent, he seemed intent on recapturing the fun and excitement and excitement that he had had when he was young. You got to grow up, dude. Not Billy. He stayed up late drinking and carrying on with friends and then would sleep until about 11 a.m. most days. Ew.

And it's like, dude, you're a new father. What are you doing? And this was all while Anne spent her days caring for their son and tending to her duties as a society wife. He just spent his days getting drunk with his lifelong best friend, Grenville Bean Barker, who was probably the only person in Billy's life

who did understand the traumas of World War II combat. So I think... That is a very specific... Trauma. Kind of trauma. And I think they were very much trauma bonded. Yeah.

And of course I understand that Billy was not getting help for the PTSD that he was suffering. But at the same time, it's like, you have to try to help your wife if you can. Yeah, at least try. You know, and it doesn't sound like he was really making any effort.

So from time to time, Anne would try to join them for lunch or a drink, but she would always be told, sorry, men only. And also, gross. Yeah. Like, I can understand he's going through PTSD and all that. I can't, I don't know what that's like. I can't even fathom it, so I will never speak on that. And it's like, but, and I can even understand that, like, becoming a new father during

that is probably a whole different thing. Oh, my God. But, like, the men only thing. And like before that, before the disaster, he was even being a dick to Anne and like kind of making fun of her and like being this little boy. Right. You know, it's like grow up. Right. Like that's, he's sounding very Peter Pan here.

And it's like the sorry men only thing. I'm like sorry. No. No. I can give you a lot here. But that's men only grow up. That's stupid. So although Billy refused to take up a formal position at his father's bank, he did find other ways to occupy his time other than just day drinking with Bean Barker.

Baker. He sat on the board of directors for two large companies, Turner Halsey, which was a textiles company, and United Shoe Machinery. And he also started taking an interest in the breeding of racehorses, which was a passion that he and his father shared together. And also one that would bring Billy a certain amount of fame for the number of highly successful racehorses bred by the family-owned stables. Wow. And most ominously, he took an interest in guns and sport shooting. Very high society. Yes. While Billy carried on pretty much a bachelor lifestyle and focused on raising her son and keeping up with the expectations of society women. Like any dedicated student, she studied the latest fashions from Paris and Milan. She took elocution lessons. She continued her fruitless attempts to impress Elsie Woodward. She's still trying.

All of it. She's really trying. Billy and Anne continued to be seen in public together at salons and parties, thrown by all their equally wealthy friends. but behind the scenes their marriage was slowly crumbling. And perhaps sensing that her husband was slipping away and found a renewed interest in keeping her husband entertained. But by the end of 1946, his eye had begun to wander, seemingly searching for literally anybody other than Anne.

Oh, my God, nobody can just be content. No. Why bother getting married, everybody? Yeah. So in January 1947, Anne gave birth to the couple's second son, James, amongst all this. But the birth of a second child did nothing to heal the rift between Anne and Billy. It usually doesn't. Yeah.

By then he had taken the position as the president of Hanover Bank, which occupied his days. And in the evenings, he would drink with Bean or find another activity away from the house and away from Anne more often than not. And he would spend his weekends away from his entire family, usually with his mistress. Oh, boy. Princess Marina Torlonia, I believe is it, how you say it? She is Brooke Shields' grandmother. Oh, damn. Yeah.

And she's a straight up princess? She's a whole ass princess. A whole ass princess. A whole ass princess. Wow. Yeah, he started having an affair with her more than a year earlier. She was an Italian socialite and Billy had met her at a party and just immediately was infatuated by her. Like Anne in her younger years, Marina was bold, exciting, and most importantly to Billy, she was a woman of his class.

Oh, okay. So you literally like basically teased that those traits out of her. Yep. And shamed them out of her. Yep. And now you're like, this woman has what you used to have. And it's like, bitch, she had those still, but you shamed her out of them. Because she was never going to belong.

No. Because she was a woman that is the princess. She didn't have a title. She's from class. Right. Oof. Yeah. That's sad. It's really sad.

Like I told you this whole story is just fucking tragic. And also Princess Marina, you know he's married. Yeah, that's not cool girl. Like they've been around all over the place. They got two kids. That's the thing. I mean, it's high society. Everybody knows everybody's fucking business.

Yeah, come on, Princess Marina. So Billy's affair with Marina was hardly a secret and only made Anne try harder to please her husband. How humiliating. Oh, my God, I can't imagine. One evening late in 1946, they went to a party at Joe Hartford Douglas' house where they used to live. As the evening started winding down, Anne asked Billy to take her home, which he did be grudgingly, as he wanted to stay. at the party. So he dropped her back at the hotel where they were staying and she tried to entice him to stay, but he had every intention of returning back to the party. And when she tried to stop him at the

door, allegedly, Billy raised his hand in a threatening manner. And Anne screamed at him, go ahead, hit me. But Billy dropped his hand, sighed heavily and just went back to the Douglas' house. Wow. A violent scene was avoided that night, but the same could not be said for subsequent and usually drunken fights where violence from one or the other would eventually become a common feature. They started getting violent with each other. And you have two kids. Yeah.

And it's just like even if you don't, like, that's never the answer. Obviously, that's never okay anyways, but it's like, my goodness. Get divorced. I think it's a lot less embarrassing than hitting each other. And in Billy's marriage continued, as we know, to deteriorate in the years that followed. When he wasn't at the stables or on a weekend getaway with Princess Marina, he retreated to his work or spent evenings, you guessed it, drinking with Bean. Jeez, Bean.

Bean is something. But Anne, meanwhile, recommitted herself to keeping up appearances and meeting the expectations of a New York socialite. I mean, it's not worth it. She was trying basically up until her dying day. Shortly after James was born, Anne found a large five-story townhouse on East 73rd Street in Manhattan, and she convinced Billy to buy it. She filled the home with antique furniture, silk tapestries, crystals.

She hoped that the house would be the perfect opportunity to show Elsie, like, look, I can do it. Yeah, like, look at this beautiful house I've put together. And I decorated it like you would have. Yeah. But Elsie found Anne's taste more gauche than classic. I was like, mm, did it wrong. Good thing you don't have to live there. Exactly.

So lost in all the chaos of the extramarital affairs, society expectations, and drunken fights, were young William, aka Woody and James, who were usually left in the care of tutors, maids, and other domestic workers while their parents' marriage just continued to spiral downwards. Oh, this is so gross. It's awful. To the public at large, Anne and Billy lived a charm, typical life of the nation's wealthiest families, but everybody in their inner circle knew that their marriage was in shambles, and people were worried.

By 1955, after years of lies and drunken abuse to each other, they mostly seemed to hate each other, and they really made no secret of it. In public, they sniped at each other with Billy mocking Anne's desperate attempt. to fit in with his friends and family, and Anne frequently now accusing him of having more interest in men than women. And in private, their fights, like I mentioned before, continued to escalate to violence. By summer of 1955, they started sleeping in separate bedrooms, and Anne was now requiring several drinks and a couple of sacconal or... Sechanol or Thorazine pills to get to sleep every night, which were basically just like

tranquilizers. Several of the staff in the house also started to notice a dark turn in her personality. They thought that she had become erratic and at times paranoid. But nobody dared say anything to her or Billy because that was a good way to lose your job. Damn. But things were starting to get really, really bad. That fall when the children's governess, which is like a nanny, in Jabord Sorensen had implied that something might be wrong and fired her immediately and had the maid take over the

care of the children. It's like, meanwhile, this lady just like cares about your family. Yeah. And it's like something's awry here. Exactly. Later, that same nanny would tell the police she thought Anne was either, quote, sick or mentally ill because of the way that she was starting to treat Billy. Oh, boy.

Which I think she was at this point. Yeah, it sounds like this is just a fucking mess. And now she, I don't, it's unclear to me whether the pills that she was taking to go to sleep or prescribed or not. But one, you're taking those interchangeably. Yeah. And then you're drinking on them. And it's like, yeah.

This is just a recipe for disaster. Yeah, this is reckless all the way around. And for like a mental break. Yeah. So for the previous several years, the family had been splitting their time between the townhouse on East Seventy 3rd Street and their vacation home in Oyster Bay, which is my favorite wine. And also a small town on the eastern edge of Long Island, very popular with New York's elite, kind of like the Hamptons. Yeah. In the fall of 1950.

Yeah. I love for you said that. Yeah. Or like West Egg. Yeah. Oh, I love it. In the fall of 1955, though, a rash of break-ins and petty bourdie. burglaries in Oyster Bay had put the wealthy residents on edge, particularly Anne Woodward,

whose alcohol and drug abuse had already caused her to become more paranoid and impulsive. In response, she began sleeping with a loaded 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun beside her bed. Okay. Like I said, they had an interest in shooting game and stuff like that, so they had guns that were intense like this. Damn. In the years since their marriage, both Anne and Billy, like I said, had taken an interest in big game hunting, and they'd gone to India several times where they hunted large cats,

which is absolutely horrible. That's gross. And as a result of their interest in hunting, both became very proficient with small and large guns. So Anne was confident that she could protect herself should anybody break into the home with this wild-ass gun. If you can shoot a giant wild animal who is just minding their own business, then you're probably pretty good shooting anything.

So gross. I hate that stuff. I hate that stuff so much. On the evening of October 28th, police were actually searching Oyster Bay after getting another call about a suspected prowler when they were tipped off by the night watchman at the cinorama, which was actually on the Woodward's property, that the man on the grounds was supposedly carrying a shotgun. After a search of the property, police actually found no evidence of the prowler, but the suggestion alone was enough to convince Anne that there was real danger. Yeah, that would scare the crap out of me. Yeah, and you know, you have two kids and just in general, you're going to want to protect your home. And also, by the way, with the hunting thing, I was talking about those big game hunters who go to, like, these countries and, like, shoot a giraffe.

No, that's fine. It's like, fuck you. Exactly. It's, that's just gross. It's wild. So two nights later, Billy and Anne attended a dinner party at the home of Wallace Simpson and Edward the, hold on. Five, six, seven. The eighth, yes.

I was like, I was counting the one one's there. It was like five, six. And if you'll remember, they were in the Marguerite Allie Bear story. Oh, shit. Yes. Okay. Or case, I should say, not story. So that's where they were.

Just hanging out with royalty, essentially. Of course. And all anybody was talking about that night was the neighborhood prowler because fucking intense. So throughout the evening, Billy made sure that everybody knew he was ready should the prowler show up. And he flashed a pistol that had been holstered beneath his jacket. Anne also told several guests about the gun that she was keeping beside her bed.

To several of the couples at the party, Anne and Billy specifically seemed obsessed with the prowler. Everybody was worried about it and just like talking generally. Yeah. But they seemed to like bring it up in every single conversation that they could. Oh, damn. And Anne, they thought, seemed more paranoid than anything. And people viewed Billy as eager to prove his manlyhood.

So that's nice. That's nice. But the party wound down a little after midnight. And Anne and Billy both sufficiently drunk at that point, said their goodbyes and began the drive back home, where they retreated to their respective bedrooms. According to Anne, she hadn't been asleep long when she was awoken by the sound of footsteps on the roof above her bedroom, followed shortly by a crash in the upstairs hallway,

then the barking of the family dog. She had taken a sleeping pill as soon as they got home that night, so she was groggy as she got out of bed and reached for the shotgun in the chair nearby. Oh, no. She walked slowly to the door, and when she opened it, she saw the shadow of a man in the hallway. And with the door half open,

she raised the shotgun and fired into the dark, knocking the intruder to the floor. She slowly approached the body on the floor, and it was immediately horrified to find that it was not a prowler. It was the naked body of her husband. In a moment of panic and impulsive action, she had shot and killed Billy Woodward. Oh, boy. So the investigation into the death of Billy Woodward was surprisingly short for someone of his wealth and status, but Anne's version of events was pretty much exactly what I described. She told the police in her initial interview, and this was a quote,

it was all done in one movement. It was so quick. I heard the noise, opened the door, and I fired. As far as the police at the scene could tell and fired the shotgun from her bedroom doorway, the first shot had missed and struck the wall, but the second shot, quote, ricocheted off his bedroom door and hit Billy, making superficial wounds on the right side of his face and neck. Oh, man. And then another piece of buckshot stuck him in the head, sending a small pellet into his

brain. Holy shit. That blast knocked him backwards into the bedroom where he landed on his stomach and blood to death within 10 minutes. Oh my God. That's brutal. Brutal way to go. Once she realized what she had done and claimed that she ran downstairs and threw

the remaining ammunition into the back cabinet, quote, fearing that if she had any ammunition at all, she would shoot herself because she was so upset and distraught at this point. As Nassau County Sheriff's deputy surveyed the scene at the Woodward House, there was little to contradict Anne's story. Nothing was missing. There was no sign of a break-in. There was no sign of a struggle.

In a press conference held later that morning, Nassau County Chief of Detective's stuvesant-pinnell, I believe, is the name. Wow, what a name. Quite a name. Told investigators that the sheriff's office would continue their investigation, but he expected the case was, quote, more likely to be accidental than homicide. Wow.

While police updated the press on the events in the Woodward House, the children had been taken to Manhattan to stay with William and Elsie, while Anne, who was supposedly in a state of severe shock and hysteria, was taken to a doctor's hospital on Park Avenue, where she was sedated. Days later, Elsie Woodward hired Ingeborg Sorensen, whom Anne had recently fired to watch the boys. Wow. Yeah, a big fuck you. It was a big fuck you, but it was also like, the boys are used to this woman.

That's the thing. And they're going through like a shit ton of trauma right now. And it was honestly stupid of Anne. to fire this woman just for being like, I'm concerned about your family. Right. Like, you could have just told her mind your business. Like, you didn't need to fire her. And it's like your boys, you got to think of your kids.

Absolutely. Your kids are comfortable with her. She, if you kept her on, she must be good with your children. Right. And it's like, so Elsie's probably being like, I'm just going to put, you know, you know there was shade involved. I was going to say. But you know that part of it was like they know this woman and this woman knows

them. That's the thing. Why hire a stranger while they're going through this? Right. And like you said, they know her, so they're going to be comfortable. But despite their own shock over the death of their only son, Elsie and William sprang into action, taking control of the story and instructing those within their circle as to how they should respond. The day after the shooting, the story was the headline in most metropolitan papers, but the story was surprisingly light on the details. Some articles focused more on Billy's ownership of the celebrated horse Nashua than they did on the fact that his wife had shot him to death.

That's pretty big. Other outlets, meanwhile, printed a carefully crafted and highly suspect story about the Woodward's storybook romance. Oh, yeah. The L.A. Times claimed no one in top-level society had more fun than Anne. Oh. Like, I think many people did. According to the L.A. Times article, Elsie Woodward was, quote, unable to go to Tacoma when Bill and Ann were married there. But she did everything after they arrived in New York to launch Anne socially, and she cherished their two little sons.

which I believe part of that, but she definitely didn't try to launch her in socially. The report goes on to say, having interviewed all the guests at the party that evening, as well as the Woodward's family and friends, police found no evidence of discord between the Woodward's and that they were in love. Oh.

You sure about that? You sure about that? I'm like, everybody else after, like, not talking to the LA Times, but talking amongst each other was like, wow, they fucking hated each other in the end. Now, while some news outlets were content to except the obviously fabricated stories of a happy marriage and domestic bliss,

others dug deeper into the story. On November 1st, the Buffalo Evening News included among their reporting, a brief news note on Anne's father, Jesse Crowell, whom she claimed was dead. After he was shown a photo of his daughter, he told the paper, it could very well be her. I used to hear about her sometimes in a roundabout way. I thought she was married to somebody out in California. Wow.

It's like, yikes. But they're just embarrassing her at this point, like publicly. Yeah. I mean, she claimed he was dead. Yeah. So I guess, like, they're all kind of just sniping at each other at this point. Yeah, exactly. Other reports of odd or unsavory behavior soon followed,

including quotes from the recently fired governess, Ingeborg Sorenson there, who told reporters, Miss Woodward would sometimes get up in the middle of the night and pound on his door screaming for him to open up. She was a very suspicious woman. Oh man. Like I said, I think in the end, they both just lost it. I mean, with all the stress and drinking and drugs and all everything, I think she was at a, she had a mental break.

I definitely think so. It sounds like. That's what it sounds like. And despite the Woodward's family, the Woodward family's best efforts to control the story, rumors about Anne and Billy managed to find their way into the news. Of course. While papers in and around New York City stuck with Elsie's version of the story, because they knew what was good for them. Yeah.

The press and other parts of the country published way more salacious details. The San Francisco examiner wrote, for the last six years, the married life of Bill and Ann Woodward was marked with quarrels, threats of divorce, long separation, and sudden reconciliation. And even worse, the papers were digging more and more into Anne's background in early life in Kansas, threatening to expose everything she had worked to cover up into her adulthood. This is so bizarre. It's just such a bizarre way to exist.

It really is. As the press continued to spend the story every which way they could, Anne remained in a private room at the doctor's hospital, supposedly being treated for shock, but also to avoid uncomfortable questions from the press and police. While Anne convales, Elsie dispatched a team of lawyers and private investigators to clean up the mess. First and foremost, she wanted to know if there was any proof of Anne's guilt, and if so, wanted to know could she be convicted if there were to be a trial. Elsie was mourning the loss of her son, but she was still a member of the New York's Old Guard aristocracy, and as such, her primary directive in the wake of the killing was to control this story and protect the reputation of her family. Yeah, I mean, that's what they're built to do. Literally.

They're built to protect reputation. That's all it is. So a week after Billy's death, 22-year-old Paul Wirthes, an occasional bricklayer and known felon, was arrested on prowling and burglary charges in Oyster Bay. So he was the guy that was, there really was a prowler. The arrest cast Anne's claims in a new light, causing many to wonder whether the arrest of an actual prowler exonerated her of any wrongdoing. And in a suspicious and conveniently timed confession, Worth's admitted to being on the Woodward's property at the time of the shooting, which gave credence to Anne's story of shooting Billy only after she heard the sounds of a prowler. Yeah. He told the detectives of hearing the shotgun blast that killed Billy.

I slammed the door and ran like hell. So he was saying I really was there that way. Now, given the influence of old money and high society power on the political systems of small towns like Oyster Bay, it really shouldn't come as any surprise that Paul Worth seemed to have all the answers and details that would allow the detectives to wrap up that case neatly and very quickly. He actually only came forward to confess after he was visited by a detective who, quote, urged him to shed any light he could on the shooting of William Woodward Jr.

Only after that visit, he was prodded by his conscience into changing his story. Oh, you don't say. He had told a different story at first. Now, two weeks after his confession, a grand jury convened in a Nassau County courthouse to determine whether Anne was at fault for her husband's death. In total, 31 witnesses were called to testify, including nearly all the attendees of Wallace Simpson's party, those in the house at the time of the shooting, and of course, Paul Wirthes. Among the more significant witnesses called was Dr. Jane Alden, a psychiatrist who evaluated Anne just right after the shooting occurred.

This doctor told the jury that, quote, the shooting was an accident based on Anne's unconscious impulse. Anne had no center. She only leave to please Billy. I don't buy her shooting him as a conscious decision. I can see that. I see it. Yeah. During the hearing, the assistant district attorney, Edward Robinson, was careful to remind the jury that the question before them was simple. Is there evidence of a homicide? That is criminal homicide. And the answer was no. Yeah. He said.

After listening to the testimony, the jury unanimously agreed with Robinson, and they found no evidence of a crime having been committed by Anne. They did, however, find Paul Wirth's guilty of burglary. And three months later, a judge sentenced him to 10 to 20 years in prison, after which his lawyer announced they would, quote, seek a pardon in Albany so that Worth's can be deported without serving the sentence. So that was all big mess. Yeah.

But although she'd been cleared of the murder of her husband in court, to say that Anne never paid a price for Billy's death would be wildly inaccurate. I can imagine. She sequestered herself in that private room in a doctor's hospital in Manhattan, while Elsie Woodward was pulling every string and leveraging every single connection she had, not only to force Anne out of the family, but to ensure that she took nothing with her when she left, including her two children. Oh, damn. Yeah. Within days of their father's death, both Woodward boys were assigned a special guardian. Manhattan lawyer Harold Corbyn. According to the family spokesperson, Williams Collins,

Corbyn was assigned as the boy's special guardian to protect their, quote, large financial interest in the estates of their father and grandfather. In reality, that guardian was really put in place to keep the kids away from Anne, while Elsie came up with a more long-term strategy to deal with her unwanted daughter-in-law. Oh boy. Yeah. Just days before the grand jury was to convene, Elsie called Anne to the Woodward House to discuss Billy's will. It seemed that he had made a handful of changes in 1948 during the height of his affair with Marina.

Oh, no. That affected Anne's inheritance. And it was important that the details be imparted to her before the trial, Elsie thought. Among the changes, Anne was now to receive $2,500 in cash and, quote, a lifetime income of one-third of Billy's estate, which was far less than she had been expecting. Oh, boy. The remaining two-thirds would go to the children. But then Elsie made Anne a hideous proposition. The Woodward's would not challenge her inheritance,

and they would forgive the $100,000 loan that they made to Anne for some additional property in Oyster Bay. And in exchange, she would not object to her boys being sent to the Lee Rosie, a boarding school in Switzerland. Whoa. So they are like, we're not going to challenge your inheritance. And we'll let that loan go. And we'll let that loan go.

but in turn you're going to really not have sent away. Your children are being sent away and you're not really getting any of the money that you're entitled to. Wow. In hindsight, Anne would obviously regret accepting Elsie's proposition at the time she felt like she didn't really have a choice. She was still young, but she had no practical marketable skills to speak of at this point. And so without the inheritance from Billy's estate, she would be destitute. She would at least... And they would challenge it if she didn't accept it.

If she didn't accept it. It's true that she would have still had her children, but they were. wouldn't have been able to access the money from their father's estate for many years, meaning that not only she, but the boys would have been destitute. Yeah, so she was trying to think what's best for them. Yeah, she did the best thing for her kids. And faced with those two terrible choices, she did what she thought was best. She believed that they would at least be taken care of materially, if not emotionally.

But making matters worse, Elsie also suggested that Anne, quote, would be better off for at least four years if she made her home abroad. So she was like, get the fuck out of here. Oh, yeah. Damn. Anne had little choice but agreed to the terms. And by the end of the year, the boys were shipped off to Switzerland and she relocated to Europe. Elsie is powerful.

She is very powerful. Like, damn. She's very. I didn't see this coming for Elsie, especially with a name like Elsie. I love the name Elsie. I think it's adorable. But that's what I think it is. I think it's adorable.

I don't see Elsie sitting there like just straight up, just being like you're going to move to Europe and your boys are going to Switzerland and we're not going to challenge the little amount that my son left you and is well. Exactly. Like, I don't see that of an Elsie. But I think she was like, you killed my son. Yeah. And like, I believe you did it on purpose.

I think she's looking from the beginning and she's going, I'm pretty sure you had an affair with my husband. Yep. And then that all set it all off. Not saying it's right at all. Oh, absolutely. But I'm saying that's why Elsie's being so ruthless. Exactly.

seeing this as validation. And at the end of the day, even had all of that not happened, she killed her son. Yeah. You know? Whether intentional or not, she did. So she's... So Elsie is... Elsie is out for blood. Yeah.

Exactly. Now, initially, Anne planned to resist Elsie's suggestion that she relocate herself and instead continue her life in Manhattan as Mrs. William Woodward Jr. but she underestimated Elsie's influence in New York. I think we all did.

So she tried to stay in New York, and it seemed that everywhere she went, people were sympathetic to her situation, but were unable to accommodate or unwilling to socialize with her, particularly her former friend Cholly Knickerbocker, who had reported the details of Anne's parenting failures to the New York Times. Oh, no. Everyone turned on her. By 1956, she saw no reason to remain in New York, and she did leave. the country. In the years

and eventually decades that followed Billy's death and floated around Europe and the United States becoming increasingly dependent on the fleeting, and this is a quote, the fleeting kindness of Lotharios, Gigalos, Good Samaritans, oddballs, and con men. Oh boy, this is very sad. It's awful. Her

life was a shadow of what it once was. And most among New York society had forgotten all about Anne, but not Trubin Capote and he had an axe to grind. Oh no. Yeah. And you don't want to be on his axe that's getting ground. I was just going to say, I don't want him having any access to grind with me. No. So the following is all alleged and based on an account of

Roseanne Montillo. She recalled that Capote had run into Anne Woodward in 1956 while she was out dining at a restaurant in St. Moritz with her companion for the evening, a man named Claus van Bulow. His name might sound familiar because he tried to poison his wife allegedly. Oh, that guy. Yeah, you know. But Capote glared at Anne from his table, finding her being in the presence of a man so soon after her husband's death to be in very poor taste. Eventually, Capote wandered over to the table and made a crude remark to which Anne responded by calling Capote a little F slur. Oh, yeah. The exchange was very nasty, but brief and hardly an unfamiliar insult to Capote. but it was one that he would hold on to for three decades before getting some kind of payback. Damn.

At the time of their unpleasant exchange in St. Moritz, Anne was an exiled socialite, and Truman Capotee was a promising young writer. In the years that followed, Anne celebrity continued to decline while Capote's rose. Yeah, that's not great for him. Primarily through the publication of wildly popular novels, like in Cold Blood, which we've talked about. And his widely covered society parties like the notorious black and white. ball. By the mid-1970s, though, he had been in a year's long slump, and the novel that he had been promising to his publisher answered prayers amounted to not really much more than a few chapters of high society gossip. In fact, Truman surprised nearly everybody when, without permission

from his editor, he actually published one of the stories from a forthcoming manuscript in the November issue of Esquire. Oh, shit. Yes. You're going to get in trouble for that. So the short story, La Cote Basque, I think is how you say it. It sounds really bad if you're American. It's French. It focuses on a gossipy conversation between two New York socialites over lunch, during which they trade rumors and secrets about other ladies in their social circle, until they eventually get around to one of the more scandalous stories, that of Anne Hopkins, quote unquote, a once poor social climber who sleeps and schemes her way into New York society before ultimately shooting her husband to death. Oh shit. Quote unquote, claiming that she mistook him for an

intruder. Oh, shut the fuck up. Yeah. He just was like, boom. He was like, I'm not talking about you. Yeah. The characters in this story were a thinly disguised portrayals of actual, actual society women at the time, including Gloria Vanderbilt. Oh, shit. Babe Pally, I think it is, Paley?

Babe Paley, and of course, Anne Woodward. Oh, no. Yeah. Yet, while many of the women in the story are portrayed in a somewhat unflattering light, the real target of his cutting wit was Anne Woodward. While the other women in the story are gossipy and unkind, quote unquote, Ann Hopkins is portrayed as a gold-digging, sexually promiscuous social climber and murderer, which effectively reignited the rumors and slander surrounding Billy Woodward's death. Shit. Now, perhaps it was coincidence, or maybe she somehow received an advanced reader's copy of Capote's story. But on October 10, 1975, just days before the story was published.

published an Esquire and took her own life by ingesting cyanide. I had no idea that's how this ended. Yeah. Holy shit. When the news of her death hit the papers, Elsie Woodward is reported as having said, well, that's it. She shot my son and Truman murdered her. Which obviously Truman did not murder her.

That's what Elsie said. But Elsie said that. Well, that's that. Yeah. She shot my son. And Truman Capote murdered her. To say Truman Capote is responsible for the death of Anne, and many people have said it, would be wrong and unfair. But it's not unreasonable to assume that after decades of heartbreak, mistreatment and disappointment,

the news of the book coming out was the final disappointment that did probably send Anne over the edge. Whether or not it was the main thing that contributed to her suicide or not is unknown. But the story was met with very hostile criticism for its cruelty and vulgarity. and it not only ended Capote's writing career, but also many of his close relationships with the women unflatteringly portrayed in the story. And I think that's what that new show is about. Exactly, which now I want to watch that.

Yeah. I'm very intrigued. Knowing this, because I'm like, wow. Yeah. Now, the book that the story was to be included in answered prayers was actually never published. And in the years that followed Capote's alcoholism and drug abuse worsened until he finally died of liver disease and drug intoxication.

on August 25th, 1984. Wow. Yeah. Unfortunately, though, the tragedy of the Woodward family did not end with the death of Ann Woodward. In 1976, after years of struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues, Anne and Billy's youngest son, James, also died by suicide when he threw himself from his hotel window. Oh, geez. Both boys had struggled considerably in the wake of their father's death, but William, Woody Woodward,

the third, managed to see. succeed. In the decades after his parents' death, he became a successful journalist. He ran for political office. He actually even served as New York State's deputy superintendent of the banks. Wow. And then he just left the public eye to live a quiet life. Good for him. By all accounts, he managed to avoid the effects of generational trauma that ended the lives of his three immediate family members. But then something went entirely wrong. No. On May 2nd, 1999, he too threw himself out the kitchen window of his 14th floor New York apartment dying obviously as soon as he hit the ground.

What the fuck? Isn't that so dark? Oh, that's horrifying. Like, both of their children died the same way. By throwing themselves from a building? Like, that's really horrifying. Oh, I feel that's really sad. Yeah.

Because they didn't ask. No, they did not ask. In the midst of all this bullshit. At all. And they should have just been left alone. Yeah. After all this. Now, obviously, we'll never know whether the death of Billy Woodward truly was

an accident or something more nefarious. But Roseanne Montillo's 22 book, Deliberate Cruelty, suggests that there was some truth to the rumors that Anne murdered Billy. According to Montillo, shortly before his death, Billy had traveled to Pittsburgh, Kansas to buy a small prop plane from a private seller, and he ran into somebody who recognized him as Anne's husband. That individual, through that individual and a number of others, Billy learned that Anne's entire history, as she had explained it to him, was a lie, and he was eager to return to New York to confront his wife. Now, the revelation that she'd been so deeply untruthful would have been grounds not only to divorce

Anne, but also to obtain sole custody of the kids and leave her with no financial resources. So simply put, according to this story, he was going to undo everything that Anne had worked so hard to achieve and deliver her back to the thing that she feared more than anything, a life of poverty and insignificance. So some people wonder, is that what happened? Is that why she shot him? Yeah. But we won't know. But when you strip away all the money, the jewelry, and the privilege, what Anne really wanted was security and to be accepted and valued by those around her. And she never really got that. No. And she really had no idea that the length she was willing to go to to achieve those things. would have very wide and long repercussions that would end the lives of every single member of her

immediate family. I am speechless at how horrifyingly that all ended up. What a tragic. Everyone in that family. Tragic tale. Three out of four by suicide and one from murder. Possible murder, but like unintentional or unintentional is. Right.

Wow. How fucked up. That's really. And it's so sad. Like that whole, you, and it's not all that glitters is gold. No. That shows you, you look at, it's the same thing as looking at, like, social media or something. We've seen it happen again and again.

Everything looks hunky-dory. The grass is not always greener. You don't know what's happening behind closed doors. It's like, damn. Isn't that so sad? When you live your life for, you know, material things and everybody else's opinions and everybody else's, you know, judgment of you. Yep.

And, oh, man, that's just, like, really sad all the way around. The most tragic story. It was sad in this story. I know. From beginning to end. That's the thing. I want to look up when that Truman Capote show is coming out. Yeah, holy shit.

That's a wild, wild story. A wild story. In one, I'd heard the names before, but I'd never heard the whole story. I just ever looked into it. I had heard the, like you just said, I'd heard the names before. Yeah. But then I was like, wait, I want to look more into this. And Dave was like, oh, I know this story.

Dave was like, girls so down. So Dave obviously helped, like, so much with, like, the research on this. And especially putting, like, the context, contextual things into certain parts of it. And actually, Dave was the one to tell us about the show that's coming out. It's called Feud Capote versus the Swans. The Swans. I'm trying to see when it comes out. Oh, I want to watch this shit.

I know. Because I'm like, damn, what's the tone and start watching this? Seriously. It looks like it's going to be really good. Yeah. And Woodward. Let me see. I think you're right.

And I think Molly Ringwald is in it. She's playing one. It's a lot of heavy hitters. Yeah, Tom Hollander is playing Truman Capote. Naomi Watts is playing Barbara Paley. Diane Lane is playing Slim Keith. Oh, Chloe Savini's going to be in it. Damn.

I don't see anything about Demi, but I think you're right. Yeah, I think she's. playing in Woodward. January 31st. January 30, 30, 24th. Oh, the day after the Vanderpump rules. Wow. Oh, man. What a week. I just sounded really old there. After the Vanderpump rules. After the Vanderpump rules. After my programs are on. Wow. I'm excited. January 31st. It's only going to be eight episodes on Wednesdays. I love that. I love a mini-series. I do too. And especially one as scandalous as this one. Yeah, and there's going to be even more scandalous. Because there's like a bunch of other women. Damn Capote.

real. Wow. Thank you for telling what such a compelling and horrifying story. You're welcome so much and thanks today for helping me with it. And we hope that you keep listening. And we hope you. Keep it weird. But not so weird that all of this happens because, oh my God, that's so tragic.

Just love people and accept them for who they are, even if they don't come from your society. Worry about your own shit. Yeah, the grass not always greener. Bye.