MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Hit

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Today’s podcast features 3 crazy stories about political assassinations and professional hits. And today’s podcast features 3 stories that demonstrate that. The audio for all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#3 -- "Bug Bite" -- A reporter feels a pain in his leg and assumes its just a bug bite (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/ny_s07D-LT8?feature=shared)#2 -- "Professional Job" -- This needs to be a movie (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/phJD8mb0Tfs?feature=shared)#1 -- "Dispatch" -- One of Japan's darkest moments, caught on live TV (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/vj_auGTlcLA?feature=shared)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast features three crazy stories about political assassinations and professional hits. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Bug Bite,

and it's about a reporter who feels a pain in his leg and assumes it's just a bug bite. But the truth was much worse. The second story you'll hear is called Professional Job, and the series of events in this story are so crazy, it really should be made into a movie. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Dispatch, and it's about one of Japan's darkest moments caught on live TV. But before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the Amazon Music Follow button a nice hot cup of coffee when they wake up, but then proceed to make them an extremely weak cup of coffee with too much milk and way too much Splenda. Okay, let's get into our first story called Bug Bite. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone.

Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time time somebody who's had a huge impact on me who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent the audacity of her message if I was a first year at university the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message it totally floored me and the truth and pain and mess listen to her and engage with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across

is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round-the-world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before.

Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever

you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. In 1978, 49-year-old Georgi Markov, who was originally from Bulgaria, was living in London and working as a reporter for the British Broadcasting Company, or BBC for short. Georgi had moved to London six years earlier, and in the early days of him being in the UK, he would always take a cab or a bus to work, but over the last couple of years, he had taken to walking to work. Not only was it great exercise, but he also just loved the scenery. In particular, he liked on his commute to stop on the Waterloo Bridge, this very famous bridge in London, where from that position, he had a beautiful view of the Westminster Palace on one side,

and he had the iconic London Eye on the other, which is a very famous Ferris wheel. So on the morning of September 7th of that year, Georgie got up and he left his flat, and he began his typical commute into work. However, by the time he reached the Waterloo Bridge and was getting ready to take in the sights, it had started to rain, and Georgie did not have an umbrella. And so instead of sightseeing, he just kept on walking as quickly as he could to try to get to his office before he got completely soaked. But by the time he was just on the other side of the Waterloo Bridge and still had quite a distance to cover to get to work, the skies had completely opened up. And so as much as

Georgie wanted to walk, because this was something he really enjoyed, he decided it was not worth it. And so he began looking for a bus stop, and he found one pretty quickly, and he rushed over to it. There was an awning that the commuters could stand underneath, and so he ran underneath this awning, getting out from under the rain, and then he proceeded to wait for the next bus to take him the rest of the way. As he stood there waiting, he suddenly felt a shooting pain in the back of his right thigh. And instinctively, without even knowing what it was, he just reached down and grabbed his leg, but he couldn't feel anything. And then he tried to kind of look around and look down at his leg, but it was just too crowded around him, so he really couldn't do it. And so

he's standing there puzzled, still grabbing at his leg, wondering what could have caused this pain. And the only things he could think of were, you know, maybe someone near him had a pen or a pencil out and they accidentally poked him. Or maybe it's some sort of bug that bit him, a spider or a bee or something. He didn't know, but there weren't that many scenarios that made sense to him. But before he could spend very much time dwelling on what had caused this, the bus arrived and Georgie turned around, he hopped on board, and by the time the bus pulled up in front of his office building and he had gone through the doors of the BBC, Georgie had effectively forgotten about this pain in his leg. But when he got up to his actual desk and sat down on his chair when the underside of his thigh made contact with his chair it sent that shooting pain into his leg and immediately he noticed it it was almost like he

had a splinter stuck in the back of his thigh and by pressing it down on the seat it was driving that splinter deeper into his leg and so george he stood up immediately and he's grabbing at the back of his leg and he's kind of craning his head to look down at the back of his leg. But, you know, he doesn't see anything there. And so he's standing there wondering what he should do. He's got a really busy day ahead of him and he's thinking, you know, should I maybe go to the bathroom and see what this is? But then he tells himself, you're overthinking it. This has got to be something minor.

You know, I need to get to work. And so he sat back down in his chair, being very careful with his right leg when he placed it down, so as not to press too hard on the spot that hurt, and then he just got to work. And over the course of several hours, even though he knew there was kind of a dull, aching pain in the back of his leg, he mostly forgot about it. He was just doing his job. But by the second half of the day, in the early afternoon, but by the second half of the day in the early afternoon, the pain in his leg had become so excruciating that Georgie was literally gritting his teeth

and sweating profusely in order to try to ignore the pain, but at some point, it just became too much. He couldn't focus on work, and so he stood up, he left his desk, and he walked down the hall, and he went into the single-stall bathroom, and once he went inside and he shut the door behind him, he pulled his pants down and turned around and looked in the mirror to use the reflection to look at the back of his leg. And right away, there was a little bit of a relief there,

because what he saw was a little bit of redness, a little bit of swelling, but nothing significant. It looked very much like someone must have hit him with a pencil by accident, or maybe it was a bee sting or a spider bite or something, but whatever it was, it was definitely minor, at least in Georgie's mind. And so he pulls his pants back up, he tucks his shirt back in, he leaves the bathroom and goes back to his desk,

and then he sits down, and despite this intense pain in his leg, he's convinced himself it's no big deal, and so he just kind of grits his way through the rest of his workday. When he finally got home again and walked through the door, Georgie's wife looked at him and was like, what's wrong with you? He was so pale. He was sweating profusely. He looked awful. And so he told her about what had happened with his leg, and he was still trying to kind of write it off.

But she told him, Georgie, you are sick. There's something wrong. We have to go to the hospital right now. And so at this point, Georgie was miserable. And so he agreed to go. And so the pair, they made their way over to the emergency room at the hospital. They go inside and a doctor pulled Georgie into an exam room and said, OK, you know, tell me what's going on. Why are you here? And Georgie would explain how in his morning commute he had stopped at this bus stop

and then felt this shooting pain and then he told the doctor you know i'm pretty convinced this is someone who might have accidentally jabbed me with a pen or a pencil or it's a bug bite a spider bite i don't know what it is but i'm convinced it's something minor and so the doctor he hears this and he asked georgie to stand up pull his pants down so the doctor can get a look at the site and so georgie does he gets up he drops pants, and then as the doctor bends down and begins looking at the back of his thigh, Georgie kind of turns around and looks down, and he's shocked at what he sees. Even though he does not have a full view of the back of his leg, it's obvious that the swelling and redness on the back of his leg has grown exponentially. It looks totally horrible.

And so after a couple of minutes of the doctor looking at the back of his leg, the doctor stands up and looks puzzled and tells Georgie, hold on a minute, I need somebody else to get a look at this. And so the doctor goes out into the main hall, he comes back with another doctor, and that doctor comes over, he bends down, and he looks at the back of Georgie's leg as well. And after the two of them kind of talk to each other, and they're looking at the back of georgie's leg as well and after the two of them kind of talk to each other and they're looking at the back of his leg they stand up and they walk around and they're facing georgie now and they say okay this is gonna sound totally weird but when you were at the bus stop before you felt the pain in your leg was anyone around you holding a snake or a reptile i know that sounds crazy but the mark on the back of your leg looks exactly like a venomous bite. So Georgie's like, no, I didn't see anyone with snakes or reptiles. There was

nothing out of the ordinary about what was happening around me when I felt this pain in my leg. We were all just standing there and then I felt it in my leg. That was it. And so the doctors would tell Georgie that, you know, they didn't really know what was going on with his leg. And so the best thing to do here is just to admit him to the hospital and monitor him and, you know, try to run some tests on him and try to make him comfortable. And so that night, Georgie was admitted to the hospital. He was set up in his own hospital room. And right away, the nurses and doctors began administering different combinations of medicines and treatments to try to lower the

swelling and the pain in his leg, but it just seemed like nothing was working, and so all night his condition seemed to get worse, not better, and then the next day when he woke up, his leg was much, much worse. It was extremely swollen, it almost looked like a balloon that had been completely filled, it was very red, and Georgie himself was also beginning to lose touch with reality. He had become convinced that someone had tried to kill him. And that was why he was so sick. And this delusion of his got so extreme that he was afraid of his doctors and nurses. And so it became a big challenge trying to help him because he was effectively fighting them off.

By the next day, Georgie's condition overall had become critical. He was very clearly on the brink of death and his mind was effectively gone. But the doctors and the nurses really had no idea what was going on with him and so there was nothing they could do to help him. And then on the last day he was in the hospital, the third day, Georgie would die. His body just shut down. Given the strangeness of Georgie's death, his body was sent for an autopsy to try to figure out what had caused that leg pain because that seemed to be the trigger that ultimately killed him. And sure enough, during the the autopsy the coroner made a surprising discovery buried in the back of his right leg right underneath the site that was where

he felt the pain was this little piece of metal it was so small the coroner actually almost didn't see it but when he did see it he put it under the microscope and what he saw was this obviously man-made metallic disk that had these two small reservoirs drilled into it and so they sent this disc off for further testing and what they discovered was there was ricin residue inside of those two reservoirs ricin is an extremely powerful poison it is more more lethal than cyanide, and it has no antidote. And the symptoms of ricin poisoning often look like the symptoms of other diseases or illnesses, and so it's very difficult to diagnose. And so as a result of these factors, ricin is a very popular poison for assassinations.

And the belief is that that is exactly what happened to Georgi. He was assassinated. But to this day, we don't actually know who assassinated him. However, the running theory is that Georgi, who was a reporter for the BBC, he covered politics and he often spoke very critically about the Soviet Union. And so this theory goes that the Soviet Union's intelligence agency, known as the KGB, they assassinated Georgi for what he was writing about. Adding credence to this theory, a former KGB officer named Oleg Kaligan,

who was exiled to the United States in 1991 he claimed that he oversaw the assassination program that targeted Georgie Markov he said what they did is they put this little tiny disk that metal disk with the ricin inside of it they put that at the tip of an umbrella and they made sure the disk itself was fairly sharp and then the KGB assassin with this umbrella simply followed Georgie on his typical morning commute, and then when he stopped at that bus stop, the assassin jabbed him in the back of the leg,

and then faded into the crowd. According to Oleg, those little metallic discs that had the ricin inside of them, they were actually covered with a thin layer of wax, and only when this disc had been placed inside of them they were actually covered with a thin layer of wax and only when this disc had been placed inside of the target's body would their body heat melt that wax layer off exposing the poison and then their target would die several days later as georgie did however oleg's story despite being as compelling as it was didn't have any hard proof to back it up. And so to this day,

there has been no one officially charged with Georgie Markov's murder. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No?

Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all.

But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Hey, Mr. Ballin' fans. Did you know you can listen to episodes of this very show ad-free and one month early on Amazon Music with your Prime membership? That's right. All your favorite Mr. Ballin episodes can be heard on Amazon Music ad-free, and you'll always be the first one to catch our new episodes.

But that's not all. You get access to other amazing shows like Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Morbid, 48 Hours, and 2020, all ad-free too. And you know what that means, uninterrupted listening, so no more cliffhangers. Amazon Music is your home for all things true crime and offers the most ad-free top podcasts, so we definitely have something for you. And it's already included in your Prime membership. To listen now, all you need to do is go to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash ballin or download the free Amazon Music app. It's just that easy. Our next story is called Professional Job. In 2000, Mary Lou Morris was a 48-year-old loan officer at a

Chase Bank in Houston, Texas. On the morning of October 12th, Mary Lou said goodbye to her husband, Jay, and she headed off to work. That afternoon, Jay gave his wife a phone call, but she didn't pick up. He left her a message, and she never got back to him. This was very unlike Mary Lou, and so Jay was a little bit concerned. At 5 p.m., when he still hadn't heard from her, Jay called her back, but again she didn't pick up. So Jay called Mary Lou's supervisor, who informed Jay that Mary Lou had actually not come to work that day, and they couldn't get in touch with her either. Jay immediately knew something was wrong, and he called the police. The police had not even begun searching for her when a call came into the station from an ATV rider that happened to be on a road about three miles away from Mary Lou's house.

And he said he spotted a smoldering car, and it looks like there's someone in the driver's seat that's obviously deceased. Earlier that day at about 10 a.m., the fire department had gotten a call about smoke in that area, but they assumed it was a controlled burn, so they didn't investigate. When the police arrived on scene, it was impossible to tell who the person was that was sitting in the driver's seat, but they were able to find a tooth fragment, and they used that to confirm that it was in fact Mary Lou Morris. It was quickly determined that this was most likely a homicide, and her attacker had probably set this up to make it appear like it could have been self-inflicted.

Gasoline had been poured all over Mary Lou and all over the vehicle. However, because of how badly damaged the car and she was, they couldn't determine a cause of death, so they weren't sure if she was deceased when she was placed in the car and it was lit on fire, or if she was in the car and the fire was the cause of death. A number of Mary Lou's valuables were still inside of the car, but her wedding ring was not on her finger. Marylou's family and the community at large were shocked. They just could not understand why anybody would want to target such a nice person that had no enemies. The day after Marylou's death, a local Houston newspaper received an anonymous call from a guy who just said Marylou's death was an accident. And the newspaper tried to get more information,

but the person hung up and they couldn't trace the call. At the same time this drama was unfolding for Mary Lou Morris, another drama was unfolding for another Houston woman with the same name. 39-year-old Mary McGinnis Morris was a successful nurse practitioner who by and large got along with all of her co-workers with one exception. A new employee at the clinic, a male nurse named Dwayne Young, was making her feel really uncomfortable. One day when Mary McGinnis got back to her desk, she found all of her pictures of her family had been flipped onto their faces and in the middle of her desk was a piece of paper that just said death to her. And she knew right away this had to be

Dwayne, but she had no way to prove it. And so that night when she went home, she told her husband, Mike, about this guy Dwayne. And she said, I don't feel safe at work. Can you teach me how to shoot a gun? And so he did. He taught her how to shoot a gun. And then he went out and got a pistol and she tucked it under her driver's seat in her car just in case. On October 16th, so four days after Mary Lou Morris was found dead and three days after that anonymous phone call to the newspaper, Mary McGinnis Morris was at a drugstore after work. And as soon as she went inside, she noticed there was this strange man on the other side of the store

that was just watching her. She called her best friend Lori to tell her that there was this strange guy and wanted to know what to do. And Lori said, you know, wait for him to leave. But the guy didn't leave. He just stayed in the store and stared at Mary. And so eventually Mary said, you know what, I'm just going to pay for my stuff and get out of here. I got to stop by the office, but I'll be home in just a few minutes. I'll be totally fine. And so Mary hangs up. She buys what she needs. She leaves the store, and then 12 minutes later, she places a frantic 911 call saying someone's trying to kill her. And this 911 call was not

made public because apparently on the tape you can actually hear her being attacked. Mary McGinnis was found later that night in her car. She was deceased, she had a single gunshot wound to the head. It was clear from her 911 call that she had been attacked, and so this was almost certainly a homicide. However, her attacker tried to stage it so it looked like it was self-inflicted. The murder weapon, which was actually her pistol that was tucked underneath her seat, had been placed next to her hand on the seat next to her. None of Mary McGinnis's valuables were stolen. However, her wedding ring was missing from her finger. After Mary McGinnis Morris's death, people began to speculate that her death and Mary Lou Morris's death were connected. Specifically, this was a

professional hit gone wrong. The reasoning for this theory is there was just too many coincidences. They shared the same name, they lived in the same city, they were killed within days of each other, and both of their deaths were staged to look like they were self-inflicted. And each woman was missing their wedding ring, which apparently is a common way for professional hitmen to let their clients know that the job was done. The people that subscribe to this theory believe Mary McGinnis Morris was the intended target and Mary Lou Morris was just an accident. And in fact, after killing Mary Lou Morris, the hitman must have realized, whoops, I made a mistake, and they called the newspaper to say, literally, that was a mistake.

And then a couple of days later, the hit was successfully carried out on Mary McGinnis Morris. The police looked into this theory and they discovered that Mary McGinnis' husband, Mike, had recently accused her of cheating on him and he was really, really upset about it. He also refused to take a polygraph test and would not allow his daughter to talk to the police. And Mary McGinnis had a $700,000 life insurance policy that Mike was in line to receive. And so immediately everybody's like, okay, obviously Mike put a hit out on his wife and that's what started this whole thing. But when they dug into it, they realized that no matter how upset Mike was, there wasn't any evidence that tied him to the killing of his wife or to Mary Lou Morris. And so he was ruled out as a suspect.

As for Mary McGinnis's coworker, Dwayne Young, who wrote death to her on her desk, it was clear that he did not like Mary, but he was ruled out as a suspect as well. And unfortunately, that's where both of these cases go cold. To date, no one's ever been charged in either murder. The next and final story of today's episode is called Dispatch. Early on the afternoon of October 12, 1960, a 17-year-old high school student named Otoya Yamaguchi stood alone in his brother's house in the city of Tokyo, Japan, waiting for a tea kettle of water to boil. It was a Wednesday, so Otoya should have been at school, but that day he had gone to school and then snuck out a side door during lunch. More and more often these days,

Otoya was feeling like school was kind of meaningless. It was hard for him to sit in history class and watch all of his classmates diligently take notes when, in Otoya's mind, he felt like all the real history was happening outside of the classroom. Just then, the kettle on the stove began to whistle, which meant the water was boiling,

and so Otoya grabbed the kettle, he took it off the burner, and he poured it over a tea bag and a cup. And as Otoya began to stir his tea, he began to go over what he was going to do later that day. It was undeniable that Otoya had a very difficult afternoon in store. He had a meeting with a person who was very important, and during this meeting, Otoya would have to deliver some very bad news. In fact, this news was so bad that Otoya had decided what he was going to do was literally write down this bad news and hand deliver it. Now, Otoya had not quite figured out what he was going to write, Now, Otoya had not quite figured out what he was going to write, but he knew whatever it was, it would have to be perfect. For months now, Otoya had been trying to articulate this bad news that was really weighing heavily on him to his peers and to adults and to anybody who would listen, but nobody took Otoya seriously.

Adults would look at Otoya and think, oh, that's just some kid. What he's talking about can't be serious. And when Otoya would talk to classmates, they would just kind of laugh at him. Otoya frowned and he looked out the window and he thought to himself, you know, maybe this whole time I've been coming off as too angry when I talk about this bad news. Maybe I need to change the way I talk about it to sound more sincere. And as Otoya was thinking about this, he suddenly thought, oh my goodness, I know exactly what to write. And so Otoya abandoned his tea and ran over to his brother's desk. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and he started writing. Over the last year, Otoya had felt like he had really grown up and really started to find his true self. He had been raised in a very strict household. His father was a colonel in the Japanese military,

and he expected Otoya to be obedient and polite, and so that was what Otoya had done. But a couple of years earlier, Otoya had managed to secure a spot in a high school in Tokyo, far from where he had grown up, far from his father, and Otoya was really excited. He felt like going to this high school in Tokyo would finally allow him to kind of get out from under his dad's strict authoritarian rule. And his father had let him go to the high school in Tokyo, but after only a couple of weeks, it turned out Otoya's father had decided, nope nope i don't want you to go there and he had insisted that otoya come back home and go to a catholic school closer to their hometown and it was at this point that otoya for the first time really in his whole life

he decided to push back against his dad and so even though otoya did come home he did go to this catholic school as soon as he was home, he began constantly begging his dad to let him return to Tokyo, let him go back and live with his brother who lived in Tokyo, and let him go to the high school that he loved. And eventually, surprisingly, Otoya's father relented and said, okay, fine, you can go to Tokyo, you can do what you want. And so Otoya had been totally overjoyed. He had returned to Tokyo, gotten re-enrolled in the high school, but after only a couple of months, Otoya had kind of lost interest in the school, and instead his focus had now shifted to politics. Otoya's brother, who Otoya

lived with in Tokyo, was very into politics, and he was always taking Otoya to speeches and rallies, and very quickly, Otoya had gotten into it. And eventually, Otoya began to think that his purpose in life was in politics, and he just didn't like the idea of having to wait until he graduated from high school to pursue that career ambition. But when Otoya brought these ambitions up to anyone who would listen, no one took him seriously. They looked at him as a skinny, scrawny, kind of meek little guy who was not going to make a difference in the world. But Otoya begged to differ.

By now, Otoya was almost done with this note he was writing, and so he looked up and he checked the clock. He saw it was 2 p.m., which meant he really needed to get going soon. He was going to go to a political debate at the Habea Public Hall in downtown Tokyo, and the very important person he was going to meet and deliver this bad news to was going to be at this debate. Otoya took one more look down at the note he had just written, and he read it over a couple of times, and he realized he was missing one more line at the bottom. And so he leaned down and he wrote, quote, I can't forgive you. Feeling like he was done, he folded up the note, put it in his pocket. He stood up, he grabbed his school uniform jacket and put it on.

And then he grabbed this package that he had got from his father's house and he put it under his arm, and then he headed out the front door. Otoya always loved the walk downtown. The hall where this debate was going to take place was near the Imperial Palace, and it was this big imposing building with a terracotta and stone facade that always inspired Otoya every time he saw it. When Otoya arrived at the hall, he saw loads of people streaming in through the front doors for this debate, and so Otoya joined them and made his way inside, and he moved towards the back of the auditorium, and then he began scanning the audience, and he saw there was at least 2,000 people inside happily chatting and laughing and waiting for this thing to start. But all Otoya

could think about was where this person was that he was going to be meeting, because as he was looking around, he didn't see them. At around 2.45 p.m., the moderator of this debate walked up onto the stage down in front, he went to the podium, he grabbed the mic, and he began telling the audience to take their seats and to be quiet, and then he began to explain the rules for this debate otoya at this point was really only half listening because he was still looking all around the inside of this hall for this person he was going to meet you know where are they they're not here 15 minutes later at around 3 pm the moderator left the podium and a new speaker came out on stage. He was a politician named Inajiro Asanuma, and he was the chairman of the Japan Socialist Party. But when he began to

speak and all the thousands of people in attendance leaned in to listen, Otoya was totally not listening because he could now see the person he was going to meet had arrived. Careful not to cause a disturbance, Otoya moved from the back of the auditorium over to the side of the building, and he began walking up a side aisle, only stopping briefly near a trash can, where he pulled out that package he had brought from his father's house, and he unwrapped it, and he threw the wrapping away, and held on to what was inside of the package. And then Otoya

looked down at what he was holding, he took a deep breath, and then he looked up and broke into a run. What happened next was broadcast live on television all across Japan, and by that evening the footage had gone so viral that it was basically all over the world. A photographer who happened to be in the crowd of people watching this debate also happened to take a very iconic photo of what happened next involving Otoya, and that photo would actually go on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The Pulitzer Prize is a really big deal. It's the most prestigious award for journalism. It would turn out the very important person that Otoya was supposed to meet inside of this hall during this debate was in fact

the speaker on stage at 3 p.m., Inajiro Asanuma, the chairman of the Japan Socialist Party. And the package that Otoya had brought from his father's house to this meeting was a samurai sword. And so after Otoya unwrapped the sword, he took a deep breath and then ran up on stage, charged to the podium, pulled back the sword and plunged it into Asanuma's torso before he could do anything. and the photographer out in the crowd who would win the Pulitzer happened to snap a photo right as Otoya was pulling the sword out of Asanuma and getting ready to stab him again. Onlookers would immediately rush the stage and tackle Otoya, but the damage was already done. Asanuma would pass away from his injuries within the hour.

It would turn out, Otoya, ever since moving to Tokyo, had become a radical right-wing ultranationalist. The note that Otoya had carefully penned and then folded up and put in his pocket before carrying out this assassination, basically

just said that Otoya did not hate Asanuma personally, but Asanuma was slowly transforming Japan into a communist country, and so Otoya could not forgive him for that. And so Otoya decided he needed to act. Otoya was immediately arrested, but two weeks later, while he was in prison, he would take his own life. be sure to check out all of our other studios' podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, and Run Full. Just search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to watch hundreds more stories like the ones you heard today,

head to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed

really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder decades later what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott. From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener.

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