My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 290 - Full Metal Recovery

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

On this week's episode, Karen and Georgia cover the stories of Nazi resistance fighter Irena Sendler and the Welsh crate man, Brian Robson.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. We're back. We're back. Vacations over Georgia. Hiatus vacation, whatever you want to call it. It's done. It's over. It's done. We did it. We did it hard. That's it. And so we're gonna do one episode and then take another three months off. Yeah, we thought we would go to the Bahamas. The Maldives. The Maldives. The Maldives. We thought we might go down to where the water is filled with Jimmy

Buffett fans. Where's that? I don't know. Not a mask in sight. No, where people are pretending things aren't bad. That's where we're gonna go. That's right. But until then, we're right here with you podcasting again. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, I'm a little bit rusty. I'll meet you. The weird thing is that we're actually like face to face in your house for the first time in all of quarantine. Guys breaking news. Yeah, we joined a pod. I joined a pod. I now live with Karen. And this pod has nothing to do with podcasting, which is fascinating. It's a separate type. Yeah, we're like, we were just like, you know what, let's make this happen. Let's podcast together. It's like a different vibe than over Zoom. We haven't podcasted together in a year and a half.

Yeah. We haven't. Now this is part of that thing where time makes no sense anymore. But think of a year and a half. Thinking of it. How long that is since we've been in our offices, which we don't even have anymore. Oh my God. They're gone. So don't worry. Stephen is on Zoom. We're both sharing a computer looking at him because we don't want to risk Stephen getting whatever we probably have. Could be anything. So here we are. How does it feel to be back? I'm really excited. I really missed it. It's one of those things where you're like summer vacation and then toward the end, you're like, okay, I'm bored. Yeah, it was long. I mean, it was long. It was long. I didn't pick up any hobbies, even though I know I should. But everything involves

like a cat attacking whatever I'd be hobbying at. So I can't, there's no hobbies that. Well, I think your cats are your hobby slash life. You're right. Yeah. Collecting pets is my hobby. Yeah. And I'm good at it. And meanwhile, let me just say, my dog Frank has tricked Georgia into petting him right now when he clearly was not invited into this podcast area. So please stop. I mean, you don't have to stop. But when you want to stop, don't feel guilty. You're not obligated. In his defense, I will say that there's no clear borders. That's right. About where the area of podcasting ends and stops. There's just some big blankets hung for sound. So he didn't see a door. He doesn't know. But the thing about Frank is he gets

petted all the time. And then he comes up like an abandoned street dog. Like he's begging for love and no one can resist him. Yeah. Maybe that's the same thing as like arms for the pork. Like, please pet me. Never one ignores me. Yeah. It's like no girl. You get actually more attention than anyone in the fucking house. That I constantly am saying to both of these dogs, you do know dogs don't live like this. Like you do know that you this is a cut above the average dog's life. You asshole. Truly. Well, actually petting a dog or an animal soothes me and like calms my anxiety. So having a dog just standing next to me getting slobber on me while I scratch it is so satisfying. You're relaxing to me. I heard the message that they're slobber. Got it. What

we're going to do is get Frank a little blue jacket. And he's going to be your service dog in the house. Can I get a thunder jacket too while we're at it? Because I think we'll wrap you up in a thunder shirt. Yeah, that'd be great. Absolutely. Frank, your act gets old real fast. He's like mezzling me. It's really sweet. You know what's very weird and you may have found this about just all of quarantine kind of ending but not really and everything being it's like when I have done things like this feels bizarre. Yeah. Because I don't have like people in my house almost at all. It's it feels special. It feels like an event. Yes, it really is. It's like we're I'm kind of nervous and I know that like this is definitely going to be a recordier version

of what we normally do. Yeah, it's going to be weird. It was weird not having like I had to be ready 20 minutes before we record to drive somewhere not just to walk downstairs and sit in a lazy boy and like fucking record with you. Yeah. And I put makeup on for you too by the way which is back at you right here like the sixth time during quarantine I've worn makeup and I was like just don't look like a piece of trash when you go see her maybe. Same. I was blow drawing my hair and I was just like what are you trying to do? What's this about? This is in a video podcast. But it is you know it is kind of a it's a big deal to us that we get that that we're back. Yeah. It's the first day of school. Yeah. But I do have that kind of like

uh will I remember my locker combination? Nervousness. Nervousness, flutter, we're back, we're vaxxed, we're fucking. We're ready to attack. We're ready to attack. That was great. Come on. Yeah. Frank, you're not invited. This isn't your area. I thought it would be here's something interesting. I thought it would be fun if we talked about some of the true crime events that happened while we were on vacation. Love it. And then when I was talking to Jay about this he said that's funny Georgia just called me and said the same thing. I that minute before that you like told me about that I had sent him an article and was like hey before we record please just give me this article I've been saving it on my computer for three months or whatever how long

it's been. What you got let's talk about it. Okay essentially this article is about this I got it from the Washington Post. Kidner Garner's questions helped get them off hijack school bus when driver the kidnapping driver said enough already. This is your fucking hijack's a school bus with a rifle. He was like let's get the fuck out of town. All these 18 children and their driver are on the on the bus still the man moved all the students up to the front of the bus. For they were an element like a bunch of little kids then the kids start peppering the fucking hijacker with questions as children do. Was he a soldier. Why was he doing this. Was he going to hurt them. What about our driver you're gonna hurt them to six minutes after

boarding the bus the hijacker ordered everyone off because he was like this is annoying. Fuck this shit. I'm sorry I'm so confused as to what what he thought what was going to happen getting on a school bus like what now I have where I want to pepper him with questions like did he want to be on a school bus with children. Yes it seems like he was going to hold them hostage. Like if you if he got on there and wasn't like get off he wasn't just stealing a fucking school bus. What was the plan and then just the power of children forced him to release them. Yeah that's unbelievable. I mean it's great that they're safe but it's to me just this like oh yeah like the kids just saved the day by being mere barely by being children. By just being themselves

that's the thing guys. Yeah you gotta be yourself. Just be yourself in the face of violence. Yeah and the face of threat. Yeah. Be a child like I mean that is so horrifying. Yeah. But I bet that school bus driver is like fucking tell me about it dude I have to deal with this every day. I've thought about why I'm kicking them all off before too. Okay what's yours. Well mine are you know like the highlights one of which is the dating game killer Rodney Alcala died in prison. Right. Which lots of people talked about. Yeah. He was on death row for killing the five known victims were Jill Barcombe who was 18, Georgia Wichstead who was 27, Charlotte Lamb was 32, Jill Parenteau who was 21 and Robin Sampson who was 12. But those are only his known victims and police

suspect that he could have had upwards of 130. Holy shit. Really truly so evil and really kind of infamous. Yeah. Because then he ended up being on the dating game. It's so creepy that whole episode is so creepy and Jensen and Holes did a good episode about that too. Yes. Yeah so that's some good news. Yeah. And then of course our friend Robert Durst is on trial. Yeah. It got delayed a bunch and so it finally started up. And he admitted to lying right. Yes. Yes. Let's see. He well the confession that they kind of based it on was from the documentary which was very edited of course because it's a documentary. So they they the courtroom got to hear the unedited audio which I think is fascinating. Yeah. He

said he would he did lie under oath and he'd do it again to keep himself out of trouble. Great. Way to go in front of the jury. Just go ahead and tell them. It's it's insane. And I think the weirdest thing is that original SNL cast member Lorraine Newman is is one of the witnesses because she was friends with Susan Berman who was one of his alleged victims. Wow. Yeah. Weird. Yes. I am. It's so I mean why would you put him on the stand. That's just like fucking law school 101. Why you wouldn't or would what you would like he's clearly a fucking deranged person like why would you allow him to talk. He's not insane though. Deranged. Right. But he's not insane. So he can he can speak for himself. Yeah. Yeah. But usually they won't let them

like if it's a it's an unsavory character that they're trying to defend they're like you're going to dig yourself into a hole so he's not going to testify. Yeah. I wonder maybe they just want him to get up there because he looks so he looks horrible. Yeah. Especially compared it's not like it was that long ago that that documentary came out. Right. Six years probably. He looks way worse. Yeah. Way worse. The only other thing is it's almost kind of in that same timeline. Your best friend Elizabeth Holmes went on trial. Best days forever. This past Tuesday. The CEO of Theranos blood testing company. Just one drop. Our machines could take one tiny drop of blood in all the Walgreens and all the United States. That's right. And they were like give us

your money and all the rich fucking dudes were like OK. And then just gave all the money. They and all the money and all the legal power and all the everything to the point where they couldn't be stopped. And what I love is that she so in that trial apparently Henry Kissinger is is supposed to perhaps show up as a witness. He's so rude. That's what I mean. He is. He is. Holy shit. That man is a historical figure. He is. He's supposed to be there and Rupert Murdoch of all people. All these people that gave that were involved or backers. Like the one time we give a woman money and this is what happens. The one time we believe in one of these gals. That'll show us suffrage suffragettes. Oh I was just going to say I was thinking about this

day when I was because I was like it's kind of satisfying because that one's been a really long yeah a really long time since that since the trial. And so if you haven't read the book Bad Blood by John Kerry Rue you have to it's I listen to it on audiobook and it was like this endless podcast like just endless. I mean you know that's how audiobooks work but I didn't discover that audiobooks they're like an endless podcast. It's unbelievable. It's like a podcast by just one person that actually did some work. But Bad Blood you have to listen to it because the story is mind boggling. The way that Elizabeth Holmes tricked all those old white men into giving her money and then not admitting it when it was completely exposed as being if a fake spray

painted box that could not test blood not one drop or 500 drops they still wouldn't give in. Narcissists who double down on their lies I'm just then like fascinated by because it's like just give up. But also the people that get sucked in by those lies then they have too much pride to go oh I just got scammed. So they just they just keep they won't give up either. I'm watching Vincent and I are watching Succession again because we've gotten to the end of TV and haven't fucking nothing else to watch in our entire lives. So we're starting Succession again and you know you get in this like mindset of like everything's a con and everyone everything's evil and he advertised when I see him like that's evil. You know it's like he's that fucking bag

of Haribo sour sketchy you just gave me is evil and it's the man and it's fun. It's a fun place to live. So you're becoming like the TV show that you're watching. I'm not. I'm fucking peace man and I'm sorry that's directly contradicts what you just said. I'm saying everyone else's. I'm the lens through which. Yeah man I'm like a fucking punk anarchy. You know look at a pal's bookstore fucking shirt on how can I be how can I be the man if I have a pal's bookstore shirt. Oh you're the more you the more you protest the more I worried I get calling me Elizabeth. What's your face. I guess I am. I guess I guess I've been backed into it to be proud of it then. Just keep just keep wearing those black turtlenecks.

What I love is she really did straight up copy Steve Jobs and then just get a bunch of pictures of herself taken. It's so modern. It's so it's such of this age. It's like well I'm really photogenic. Yeah I'm a classic blue eyed blonde in America and thin give me a shit ton of money and old white men are just like where do I sign up. I believe in you. She got a bunch of those photos taken with the arms crossed like in the on it in a really bad TV series it'd be like this is the cover of working people and it's like here's the successful blonde arms crossed with that smirky smile of knowing on her face what's up turtleneck. And yet she's 27. Yeah 27 you guys 28. Don't don't try anything yet. And the whole thing was fake. It was fake. It was fake.

Walgreens had 40 blood testing stations built in their stores for a box that was spray painted silver and empty. You're a little impressed with her. It sounds like a little bit like you're like I hate her. I hate her. I'm impressed. You're not impressed with what money does. Oh the audacity of money. You get your money and then you get all your lawyers lined up and then you're set and then you do what you want and if anybody goes oh sorry that's a silver spray painted box you're like I will end you. I will sue you. Yeah I will ruin your life. Yeah that's basically the plot of succession right there. Right. Yeah this is the world we live in. It's like fake shit covered in silver spray paint. Yeah it's life man. Yeah it is. But not this podcast. What? I don't know. I tried

to change the subject. Here's what I'm bummed out about. These dogs that won't let me not have them in the room are in the room snoring loudly. Look listen it's a bit of a distraction and a comment on. Yeah but I don't appreciate it. Okay but we're not the man. We're just like fucking mom and mom podcast in your bedroom not this isn't your bedroom in your office of your house with dog snoring. Like we're not you know. Guys it's so real. Yeah like we have towel shirts on. Karen has one too now. That's for ten. Just like that. Karen has a towel shirt on. She just keeps saying I didn't realize how much you were identified with your shirts. Oh yeah. Like this is who I am. It's who I am. Get to know me. Get to know me. I mean it's just a little gnome holding a book that says

shut but I bought it at Powell's. Hey I bought it at Powell's. Uh this episode. Anything else? What else we're gonna. I don't know like nothing has happened yet. I feel like I I've been like not thinking about podcasting for so long that I didn't like take notes of things to you know like weekly I'll be like that's something to talk about. I like tell you what I'm reading who cares like I don't have anything. Well I started Game of Thrones. Oh shit. Um because I was like I had been saving I'd been putting that one off and re-watching things and doing all trying all kinds of new stuff but um finally the other night I was just like I think I'm ready to go back in. I don't think I'll ever be ready. What do you think? I love it. I just think it's really um

um it's like a soap opera but with it I like watching right I like watching and thinking about how hard it was to write. Oh. So like when the Dothraki scenes are on and there are four people speaking a fake language. Oh. First of all I respect it and also I'm like what everyone kind of put it a certain almost like a Greek accent on it where it's like this is a made-up country so yeah it doesn't have an accent and then I was thinking I bet you this show would have been considered not as good if they were having to do accents of recognizable places instead of just pre- because they're just going. That doesn't sound like a viral accent. That doesn't sound like a viral accent. You need to be out there. Right? You don't know. It sounds official. They made up accents and they

made up accents. They made up accents and they made up languages. Well I'm just saying they aren't going like they don't have like British accents on the fake Dothraki language. Okay. There's a kind of there's like a bunch of extra interesting stuff that might be Castilian Spanish it might be Greek it could be Middle Eastern somehow but it's not they're trying to represent like how it's from over there as opposed so all the people that are Scottish and British are from like the you know Kings Landing or whatever. The White Plains of Dover. That kind of thing. So you've never watched it. No I'm never going to watch it. I'm never going to watch it. I'm never going to watch it. Why? I just don't care. I don't like soap operas first of all. I also don't like fantasy. I like sci-fi.

Fantasy is not my fucking jam. How do you feel about historical fiction based on something that isn't real? That's fiction. That's fiction fiction. That's shit. I like historical fiction based on actual fiction actual history. Me too. I'm so confused. But there's something about this that doesn't feel like fantasy in that way where it's like a you know dragon. Yeah like it's it's not like a Rush album that some guys making you listen to which is what what I understand why you would feel that way on the approach. Yeah that's exactly how I feel. That was a great like honestly that's exactly how I feel. I don't want to hear. There's some really good characters. There's unbelievably great dialogue and situations of course. How many how many episodes do you challenge me to watch

before I say fuck this shit? Three could do three. Could you do three? I'll try three with events because if I get to two and go fuck this shit then you would you're gonna go if you only got to three you know you don't like this. It's my fault and I want it to be your fault. I understand and I you know what I'll tell you this right now it is my fault. I accept it entirely. I'm asking you to go against your taste and try a thing that's like this is everybody when I'm like I actually don't eat fish and they're like try this. Did you try this? You're like it's from this scene. I literally I cannot eat it. I don't want fish. Yeah okay so I'll try three episodes. I'll force events. This is gonna be gone this weekend so I'll do it myself. Give it a pass and what I'm gonna tell you

is this if you don't get past the first episode having just recently rewatched it it's so good like they make it so that you want to come back. All right so if you don't then that's not for you and and we can part as friends. All right so do one if I'm like I'll do three then I'll never admit if I like it and watch the whole thing. Just see yeah and then you don't we do not have to come back to this ever. Never talk about Game of Thrones again. Yeah I mean because here's the thing I know that feeling a feeling like you got to the end of TV and and it is because I could spend my evenings driving around in my car or I don't know online. What else is there? Supporting people through our time. Is that called Reddit baby check it out. Is there a is there a

website where you can just go support people? Yeah Reddit. Honestly Reddit's actually gotten me through some quarantine show with some really fucking ridiculous subreddits like there's one called Peeling and there's one just called Pop and then there's one I was looking at. Explain to what both of those are. Fucking just videos of people peeling stuff like oh look at this sunburn I peeled. Is it always body? It's not always body it's like look at this like wallpaper I peeled in one piece like look at this look at my feet shedding after using baby feet like it's just gross. Truly the subject of peeling. Yes it's almost like it's like a subcategory of zip popping yeah which I also look at all the time and got lightheaded recently because of video

something's wrong with me. Do you want to describe it? No. Do you want to talk it through? It was dermatologists I think that's what they make the real money off of now is videotaping themselves. Extract. When they look at a blackhead and they're like oh sorry I have to go get my yeah Reddit's gonna love this. Let me get my ring light on your. There's a Reddit called Stupid Food Stupid Food. It's just stupid food when people get like look at this $10 burger I just saw an ad for and it's just this one is a burger with like a can of corn no that's a can of fucking corn on a burger literally a can of corn I swear to god. That's like the frozen corn my mom used to serve us with Minut rice and like an overbaked chicken breast every night. Oh delicious. Wait why

would you put canned corn on a burger? That's exactly right it's because it's stupid food. Did someone think they were being like a super chef? I don't know here's one did you know Branches the candy company? Brocks. Thank you there's no end in there anywhere to be found and it's called Brocks have made a fucking candy corn a turkey dinner an apple pie and coffee candy corn. What all in one? I guess so. That's some Willy Wonka shit you put it all in one. That's stupid food. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries. It's just like oh oh they're little things shaped like those things. Oh they're not they are not that flavor oh I'm the stupid food after all. You're the stupid food it's candy corn flavored shaped like turkey dinner. Well you know what that makes a

whole lot more motherfucking sense. You're like oh it's a little piece of gravy with the kisses. You know how they make like gravy soda like it's like what's it called not variety what's the word peanut colada flavor cheese right there? No. Yeah dude Pringle Wendy's spicy chicken Pringles it's just stupid food. You know how much I love looking at photos of food. Yes for sure. Especially when it's fucking stupid. I want to keep on looking at that burger with corn corn kernel kernel corn on it. If it's frozen even better let's start a new podcast. Still frozen. Tear me out. Still frozen. Or just laugh at stupid food. Love it. Okay. And it's all possible. Yeah. Should we do murders? Yeah let's get into it. Oh just in passing let's just mention that if you

have been interested in merch at all but maybe you didn't didn't have the scratch for it. We were putting a bunch of merch on sale as a thank you to our listeners for being so patient while we were on vacation. And so supportive. There were so many messages of people just being like yes go get the fuck out of town. Yeah okay. So should we get into it? Yeah am I first? I think you are first yes. Okay great. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning shopping and prepping handled Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop

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Goodbye. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths, and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton serial killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details. Share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico. Answer some killer trivia and even host virtual Q&As where I'll

answer your burning questions. Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast Killer Psyche Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Okay. You ready for my first story back? I am ready. It's a heavy duty, doozy. This is the story of Irina Sennler, a Nazi resistance fighter. Wow. Yeah. Something light. The sources used today are IrinaSennler.org, a humanities article by Jack Mayer, and articles from Biography.com, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Iad Vashem.org, and Auschwitz.dk, and a TED Talk by Megan Felt. So we began in 1999, not in the Holocaust yet. We'll get there. When three students in Union Town, Kansas,

a rural town with a population of like 200 something, so teeny tiny, they began working on a National History Day project. The school had a lack of diversity, and so their teacher, Norman Kennard, he tasked the kids with finding an unsung hero of diversity to teach them about respect and understanding of all cultures. So the girls, Liz, Megan, and Sabrina, happened upon a 1994 US News and World Report article entitled The Other Sennlers. And of course, it detailed people who like the well-known Oscar Sennler saved children from the Nazis. Yeah. The article said simply that this woman, Irina Sennler, saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between 1942 and 43. So they were like, what the fuck? That has to be a typo.

That's more children than Sennler saved. And how have we never heard about her? Like, this is impossible. So the students told their teacher about Irina, and he was like, well, keep digging, do some research, go to like libraries and shit. So the students only were able to find one other mention of Irina. From 1965, when Israel's Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem honored Irina as righteous among the nations, which is like a title you get. But other than that, they could not find a fucking thing about her despite her having done so much. And even the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, like with all the Holocaust experts and everything, they didn't have much more on her either. In fact, they had her birth year wrong,

and they didn't know that, in fact, she was still alive. No. Yes. I just got a weird chill. Yeah. You never hear about this anymore in the age of like the internet and stuff. We've been in the internet age for so long that it feels like there isn't a story like this. It's like actual research that you have to do to get information. This was from 1994, is that right? 99. Oh, 99. The article was from 94. 99. So these, they're just figuring out Google. They went on Google. There was one hit

for Irina Sandler. Whoa. And she was still alive. And in fact, they didn't know about that. They contact the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous and found that Irina was still alive, and she was in her 90s, still residing in Warsaw. She lived in obscurity. No one knew anything about her, lived in poverty with her daughter-in-law at 90. Oh, in her 90s. So they are able to put each other in touch. The girls can't believe she's still alive. They write her a letter and send her like money for postage to write her back. And they're like, there's no way she's interested in these like three teenage girls from fucking rural Kansas, right? And they got the letter back

from her seven pages. They're so excited. They open it. It's in Polish, of course. And they were like, oh, shit. So they had to get it translated. Because they wrote in English, right? That's right. I mean, it's like, here you go. Well, here we go. Here's my response. Irina was so touched and, you know, was so excited to hear from them. So the foundation, they put her in touch with Irina. And in 2001, the three young students make plans to travel to Poland to meet Sendler. So they're like, how can we do this? Here's an idea. We're teenagers. Let's raise money by selling candy. Sure. And so they get the huge sum of $81 by doing that. And then so a philanthropist, they had written a play about

called Life in a Jar about Irina's life, because that was part of the school project. And so they showed it at like a, or they did the play. They started at a Jewish like community center and this philanthropist and whose family were Holocaust survivors were like, let's go to lunch. Let me take care of this for you. And was able to get a bunch of other Holocaust survivors from the local Jewish communities. And they offered to cover the trip. I am loving this story in a way that is, I can't even describe. By the way, not one of these girls is Jewish. Like it's not like they or because that's the point of the assignment. Yeah. Oh, okay. So like, it's just like, it's even more so about, you know,

not it makes any difference, like whatever, but well, but it's the beautiful thing of like when, when kids are teachable and they get an assignment like this, and it actually really has an effect and leads them somewhere and does something. Because it sounds like they didn't know much about the Holocaust before they started, which is why they chose it. And, you know, whatever they can find on it as up their project. And this is what they learn. And they're like, we need to know more about this. And the teacher was like, keep researching, keep looking into it. Right, fucking teachers, man. So the girls fly to Warsaw. It was their first trip out of the country and one of the girls first time on a plane. I know. And finally,

meet Irina at her Warsaw home in 2001. But they didn't speak Polish. So they didn't say word. Okay, I'll just high five. And that's the end of my story. And that is the story. They're like, can you sign this paper so our teacher knows we made it here? We can get the credit for this class. During the next few years, the students build a friendship with Irina and they compile more than 4,000 documents about her and the work she did to save the Jewish people. Also, by the way, she's not Jewish. Irina's not Jewish. No, Irina's not Jewish. Let me tell you her story. So here's her story. On February 15, 1910, Irina is born in Poland to Roman Catholic parents, Stanisław and Janina. She grows up

as an only child in Otwok, Poland. Irina's father Stanisław is a physician whose patients are mostly poor Jewish people. When a typhus outbreak occurs, Stanisław is the only physician who will treat patients. All of his colleagues refuse because they're scared of contracting the infectious disease. So they're like, fuck the Jewish people, we're not treating them. And it is a deadly disease. So he actually does contract it. So in February of 1917, when Irina's just seven years old, her father dies from typhus. But before he passes and they were very close, he said to Irina, if you see someone drowning, you must rescue them even if you cannot swim. Whoa. And he also says, there are only two kinds of people in the world, good and bad,

regardless of race, religion or creed, and most people are good. We're only halfway through. You're getting me. You're getting me. As an adult, Irina starts working as a social worker for the welfare department of the Warsaw municipality. Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland, also where my grandma and my dad side is from. Wow. Yeah. But they left after World War I. I've been there. You have. That's right. On my high school trip. That's right. Yeah. I loved Poland. I loved it so much. It was so beautiful. It was so fun to be in. And the people were cool and chill. It was great. Great. Awesome. First hand, everyone. You heard it here.

Travel Breaks. That's my new podcast. Okay. The elegant architecture, grandeur, you remember this, grandeur of the extensive boulevards or in the Warsaw, the nickname of Paris of the North prior to the Second World War. Just wanted to give some info. And then they fucking leveled it in the war. They leveled it. Shit. Killed all the Jewish people. Horrifying. Irina's in charge of the city's canteens, basically, which help people in need of assistance with meals, financial aid, and other necessities, you know, because she's a social worker. In 1939, when Irina was 29 years old, the Nazis invade Poland, which leads to World War II. And at this time, Poland has the largest

Jewish population in the world with over 3 million Jewish people. Even though they face torture or death, Irina and the welfare department continue to care for the Jewish people. Irina keeps up with the canteens. She now adds items like clothing, medicine, and money to be given out. And she starts putting together a rescue network. She registers Jewish people under fake Christian names and finds families who will hide them. And then in November 1940, the Nazis forced more than 35,000 Jewish residents to live in an area that will become known as the Warsaw ghetto. So it's a 16 square block area, which is around the size of Central Park. It's fenced in and locked and has guards on all sides. So that's 35,000 people in that tiny fucking area. So of course,

there's squalor. Everyone's living in squalor. No one has enough supplies to live. I mean, there's a lot of videos on YouTube of just dead bodies on the street and people walking by. I mean, it's just like a common occurrence. Everyone is literally starving to death. Yeah. So now that the Jewish people are behind locked gates, it's virtually impossible for the welfare department to continue helping. So in the ghetto, there isn't enough food or medical supplies in the areas too crowded, which leads to epidemics and higher death rates with thousands of people dying from disease and starvation every month. And month by month, the conditions inside the ghetto worsen. And basically the Jewish people are just waiting to be forced into freight trains

and taken to gas chambers. So dark. Yeah. Irina is determined to get into the ghetto and help more people because the Nazis are scared of infectious diseases like typhus and tuberculosis. They're afraid that it's going to catch in the Warsaw ghetto and then spread out to the Arians. Irina is able to convince them to give her a permit from Warsaw's epidemic control department that lets her go into the ghetto to, quote, inspect the sanitary conditions. So she's like, wink, wink. What I'm really doing is fuck you. For almost two years, Irina goes into the ghetto every day and smuggles in food, medicine and clothing. In the fall of 1942, liquidation of the ghetto begins and 2,800,000 Jewish people are deported from Warsaw to the Treblinka extermination

camps. More Jews will be killed at Treblinka during World War II than any other Nazi extermination camp aside from Auschwitz-Birkenau between July 1942 and October 1943. It's the deadliest phase of the select final solution. And it's estimated that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were killed in its gas chambers. It's this time that the council for aid to- Sorry, really quick. Just 900,000 for the million people in just that one, in just Treblinka. Yeah. You hear those numbers and it kind of like, I think when I was a lot younger, it just like kind of glossed. You can't picture that number of human beings. It's kind of unfathomable. Just, you know, but then the older you get, the more you start to understand that every single

one of those numbers were a human life and it's overwhelming. So when we were on this trip, we stopped at Auschwitz and took the tour and it was like, I think there were probably 30 of us kids, maybe 40 or 40, a group of 40 total high school kids and there was a part and it's so powerful when you walk through that let's say, museum of the camp, you walk down this one hallway and it's just behind glass. It's just these kind of walled off spaces that are filled with children's shoes or spectacles, suitcases. So it's just all the stuff that was taken away and piled up and there's so many of them. It starts to give you the sense of what exactly was happening

and it was so bewildering, even though we all knew it factually, but very distantly and to stand there in front of it and to understand that what it took, the violence and the absolute, almost like a psychosis that it took to build a machine like this, to build a system like this, to exterminate a certain group of people. Even just beginning to sink in is so mind-blowing and so upsetting. When we got back on that tour bus that day, it was dead silent. No one spoke for the rest of the ride until we got to the hotel. Everyone was just rocked and that's why it is so fucked. When you see those people that are at Auschwitz, but they're taking selfies, that shit is so gross, especially when you know what's there.

You're so narcissistic that you're taking pictures of yourself and you're not looking around at where you are and absorbing what happened where you are. It's crazy, but anyway, yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt and sorry to make it about me, but it's just to even absorb a piece of that. That was one of the many. It's really hard to do, but I feel like every single person needs to watch five minutes of a fucking holocaust documentary just to get a sense of and then to see these people. The problem too is that these people are so emaciated and so sickly looking that you almost can't even imagine that they were ever human beings who lived normal lives.

But I think there is a little bit of footage of the Warsaw ghetto, right? Yes, there is. You can totally, if you look up Irina Sennler, there's some footage of it too in that video. If you can see them walking around, you can see what's going on. It's awful. The graphic novel, Mouse by Art Spiegelman. It somehow, it's a graphic novel using animals as people and somehow it hit me harder than a lot of the books I've read about World War II and the Holocaust did. It's so powerful and so moving. I highly recommend it. Mouse is incredible because it's about, also it's about the generational effect of that. That isn't just something that happened and then World War II and the Allies won and so it's okay.

It's like the generational effect of this kind of devastation. My grandparents just wouldn't talk about it. You just didn't talk about it. What would they say to you? What would they say? I'm Jewish. They did not talk about it because they weren't Jewish. It'd be funny if they were just like, we're Catholic. Why don't we talk about that? They're actually Jewish and from Eastern Europe. We do not know Georgia. For you noobs out there. So it's this time that the Council for Aid to Jews, organized by the Polish Underground

Resistance Movement, which was codenamed Zagoda, is formed. Around two dozen people, including Irina, joined the secret underground network founded by psychologist Adolf Berman and other prominent scholars and religious leaders and stuff. Zagoda focuses on getting as many people out of the ghetto as possible before they're all sent to die in the camps. And so Irina, who's using the underground name Yolanta, focuses on saving Jewish children and they're like, they know how she's been able to get into the ghetto already and help children. So they're like, this is your fucking, this is you. Your assignment. Here's what you're going to do.

Here you go. So she is disguised as an infectious control nurse. She knocks on doors in the ghetto asking parents and grandparents to please give up their children and grandchildren so she can smuggle them out. Oh, can you imagine? She started with orphans because she didn't have to ask permission from parents and then had to move on to actually saying to parents, you need to give me your children. She has a difficult job of convincing people in the ghetto to give up their kid. They're like, can you guarantee me that they will survive and they'll be okay? And she's like, I can't guarantee you, I can even get them out of the ghetto alive

because we might get caught and they'll be killed and I will too. But I can guarantee that they will die if they stay. That's the only guarantee I can make is Treblinka. And so these parents make this impossible decision. They're smuggled out of the ghetto in multiple ways. The main ways are hiding children under the structure and an ambulance, hiding them in a sack and a trunk and a suitcase or something like that and place them in a trolley under the seat as if they're just a box of whatever.

And they also escaped through the courthouse and also a church, a Catholic church, had an entrance in the ghetto and then out into the Aryan section. So out of the ghetto, so they'd smuggle them out through the Aryan section where they'd go through the sewer pipes or secret underground passages. So sometimes if a child can pretend to be sick or is actually sick, she can legally take them out via the ambulance without hiding them. But one of the things is that a lot of the kids had, especially the really young infants, had to be sedated.

So they would just have a fucking sack with potatoes in it with a fucking sedated kid and that's the only way to get them out without them crying. Right, of course. It's horrible. I mean, but then it definitely is horrible, but then I just think about how many parents, grandparents, I think I'm maybe one generation away from when babies would cry because they were teething, but it just didn't, the suburbs here in America and they would just stick whiskey on their gums. I mean, kids have been being sedated. Or been a drill on a plane. For way dumber reasons. Yes, exactly where it's just like,

you know, yeah. Do you want one more tablespoon of cough syrup so we can wrap this? Mommy and daddy have a key party to attend, go to bed. Why don't you have a little coating cough syrup and watch some cartoons. So yeah, I mean, to me, it's like, yes, God, because they get them into a sack of potatoes and then make sure that nothing puts them at risk now. Totally. So yeah, so the children will enter the church or the courthouse and leave as Christians with new fake identities. Each child was given a new Polish name, and Irina uses her contacts to place them with families or in orphanages and convents.

Their children who are old enough to talk are taught Christian prayers and how to make the sign of the cross so they can convincingly pass as Aryan, which I didn't even cross my mind. Yeah. That's like, yeah, you can't just be like, hey, you're Catholic, do a fucking spectacle testicles while I watch right now and you can't do it. You're fucked. Right. Yep. You'd have to be like, I, or if somebody asks you, you're like, I'm sorry, I haven't had my first communion yet, so I don't know that. Look, they would just need to be able to speak the cultural language of like what it's like. Yeah. She focuses on making sure anyone hiding a child understands that the child must be returned to

their Jewish relatives when the war is over. So that was her like fucking thing is I'm going to make sure that if I'm able to, I will reunite the children with the parents. And that's what she promised them to get them to give the kids over. Yeah. So once she has places to put the children, Irina goes to work creating fake identities for them. So, so you working with other people from the social welfare department who are in on the fucking underground secret society, they make identities with false documents and forged signatures. And she's the, Irina, that was the only person who knows the identities of the kids and where they're placed. So she writes down in code the children's real names, fake names and their locations.

And then she writes this information on thin tissue paper and puts them in all the papers in jars and then buries the jars beneath an apple tree in the backyard of one of her co-conspirators which is why the high school girls named their play life in a jar. Whoa. Are you dying right now? We didn't even talk about the fact that they wrote a play in the midst of all this. Yes, great. We could talk about it now. I mean, I want to talk about, I also want to talk about buried treasure like what if you

lived in a house and suddenly you were digging and all of a sudden there's these jars. This is why I don't ever want to live in a new fangled house. Like I want to find a fucking secret wall or door or ghost or hidden treasure in the backyard. Well, you know what? Next week, we're going to have to talk about all the hidden treasure things we got over vacation because there was a lot. Oh my God, we did get a lot of stuff. We did get a lot. Okay.

We didn't even think about that. Oh my God. Look, we've been on vacation. Okay. Inevitably, the Gestapo find out what Irina's been doing, of course. After a Zagoda member gives up info on the members while he's being tortured. And on October 20th, 1943, Irina is arrested and sent to Pawak prison, which is the most notorious prison in the ghetto from which almost no one

comes out alive or escapes and she's held for eight weeks. There, she's constantly questioned about the Zagoda. The Nazis trying to get her to give up the names of all the leaders, their addresses, and the names of everyone involved. During questioning, she's tortured and her legs and feet are fractured. She's straight up misery style. Yeah. The fucking legs are broken and fractured.

Yeah. She doesn't give up a fucking single bit of information. She gives answers that she and the Zagoda members had prepared and she sentenced to death. However, before she can be executed, the members of Zagoda, they bribe the German executioner who helps her escape. But actually, a few days later, he is executed by his Nazi comrades for not executing Sendler. Oh, my God. Yeah.

This is like twists and turns. And the executioner gets her out. Yeah. That's mind blown. Yeah. Okay. And I think he like put up false things saying she had been killed and they found out that she hadn't. Whoa.

So they fucking are looking for her for the rest of the war. And for the rest of the war, she lives in hiding, even though she knows the Nazis are looking for her, she continues helping the Jewish people. Oh, my God. I know. In 1945, when the war is over, she digs up the bottles in the backyard and starts trying to find the children and their parents. But of course, unfortunately, almost all of the parents were killed in Treblinka as less than 1%

of the Jewish people inside the ghetto survived the war. Oh, God. Karen, 1.5 million children were murdered in the Holocaust. 1.5 million children. It's estimated that Irina and her network of 10 compatriots saved around 2,500 children. But despite there being so few survivors, Irina doesn't give up. She gives her coded list to the go to officers and copies are made and people try to find relatives and parents.

Sure. After the war, she marries, raises two children on her own and continued her career as a social worker in Warsaw. Through the late 1940s, Irina and the go to members continued trying to find the children. Like so you can't find the parents. You can't find the children. They all have different names. They've moved all over the world.

Yeah. One of the children that Irina and her network of 10 compatriots saved was a woman who in the 2011 book Life in a Jar written by Jack Mayer, who had found out about the play and the teenagers. So he wrote the book about it is a woman named Elzbita Fitzelska, who was rescued as a five month old infant. Sandler had taken her out of the Warsaw ghetto by sedating her and putting her in a carpenters box. Oh, just a tiny baby.

Five months old. Oh, her parents, when they were saying goodbye to her left, like insisted on leaving her with a small spoon with her first name inscribed on one side because if she put her last name, they'd know who she was and her birth date on the other side. And it's the only memento of her parents who were murdered in Treblinka that Elzbita has. She became one of Irene's caregivers later in her life and the chairperson of the Association of Children of the Holocaust in Poland. Yeah.

Another person after seeing Irina's picture when she starts to finally get this notoriety sees her picture in the paper and calls her and says, this man says to her, I remember your face. It was you who took me out of the ghetto. No. Yeah. I can't. Yeah. And we'll put photos on the Instagram app or she's just.

Oh, my God. Although the wars over things are still not easy for Irina and other Jewish people and Zagoda members. Communists take over Poland and the Zagoda members are labeled as fascists. They're harassed and interrogated in prison and even executed still. Oh, my God. Yeah. Stories of what Irina and Zagoda did during the war became secret even when communism falls

in Poland in 1989. The stories stay a secret because Irina's elderly and she's like her story has already been secret for long enough. Why fucking shout it from the rooftops? Well, right. She'd have to do it herself, right? Yeah. Or like. Yeah. What is she going to be like?

Look at me. You know, that's not the point of so. That doesn't seem like her story. No, it does not. No. Aside from being honored as Righteous Among the Nations, which is a title in 1965 and one other article written about Irina, no one hears about Irina's story until 1999 when the Kansas high school students discover her.

I can't deal. I know. So after getting to know her, the girls who are named Elizabeth Cambers Hutton, Sabrina Coons Murphy, and Megan Felt, who I mentioned the TED talk earlier. I almost cried watching it. Oh, I have to watch it. So they write a play about Irina called Life in a Jar. So through the play, other people find out about Irina and then articles are written about her.

Other people are sharing the bravery of her life and Irina's story. It's shared throughout the world, leading millions to finally hear her story. Life in a Jar has been performed almost 400 times worldwide. Oftentimes, the teenagers would act in it. And then when the girls, as I told you, when the girls first googled her in 1999, there was one hit and now there are over 400 to 800,000 hits. Oh, wow. Yeah.

And a movie was made in 2009 called The Courageous Heart of Irina Sennler starring Anna Paklin. Wow. It's like perfect for that. Yes. Yes. When asked how she felt about the Kansas students tracking her down, Irina said, I was stunned and fascinated, very, very surprised. She said, my emotion is being shadowed by the fact that no one from the circle of my faithful

co-workers who constantly risked their lives could live long enough to enjoy all the honors that are now falling upon me. I can't find the words to thank you, my dear girls. Oh, I know. She was like, as we say in Yiddish, compelling. Like she couldn't fucking believe it when she found out that they were interested in her. Yeah. In 2003, Irina is awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of the White Eagle.

Cool. In the same year, she is the winner of the Jan Karski Award for Valor and Courage. And later, Poland names Irina a national hero. And there are now schools named after Irina Sennler in Poland, Germany, France, and England, as well as an annual Irina Sennler Day established in Europe and the United States. However, despite saving so many and almost being executed herself in the process, Irina never believed she did enough to help. When Jack Mayer, who wrote the book, Life in a Jar, asked Sennler why she put herself in her family at such risk, she said,

it was a need of my heart. I only did what any decent person would do. It was the parents and grandparents who gave up their children. They were the true heroes. Irina Sennler passed away on May 12, 2008. She was 98 years old. Unbelievable. I had never heard of this before.

I feel like her name sounds familiar, but I've never heard this story before. Unsung heroes, you guys. Let's go find them. Yeah, wow. Amazing. Yeah. Nice. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. What you got for me? Well, I have a very strange story for you. I'm already in. Are you in? I'm so in. I read this article that, and I first learned about this person a couple months ago,

I think it was probably back in April. And it was so mind blowing that I was like, mind blowing, it's kind of a survival story. It's just weird. And I thought this will be a fun kind of like interesting way to get back in. Cool. So I just wanted to, I wanted to know this story myself. And then once I was learning it, I was like, all right, this is a great kind of a kickoff

back from vacation. First day of school. Yeah. You know, the first day of school, you don't immediately get in there and like start writing a report on Abraham Lincoln. Crack your books and fucking. You got to do a little painting. You got to do a little, maybe make an astray out of clay that you roll out into snakes.

Yeah. You know, start slow. So, and the other way this ties in is, of course, on social media and everywhere, we keep seeing these horrifying stories of what traveling is like, especially on airlines during the pandemic. And we're kind of probably all getting used to it because it's like we're now getting very, it's a really bad horrifying behavior is getting normalized to all of us where we're just kind of watching it now.

Yeah. And we should remember that there are people, especially on these stories about like people losing their shit on airplanes, there are there are staffs of like flight attendants and people that work on those airlines that have to deal with those people every day. Yes. Because not every story is a they got duct taped to their seat because they were so out of control. Yeah. Although that's very common now.

Yeah. But people are just aggressive, rude, strangely angry. Like a lot of people dealing with with deep seated issues and they don't know how they're not getting help. So they're just taking a flight. Totally. To the point where Southwest just made a public like wrote a letter of public apology to their own staff because things are getting so bad in like in air travel.

And apparently, but but of course these companies are excited because air travel is picking up. Right. And it because it would slow down so much during the quarantine that they thought they were going to add a whole bunch of flights for the holiday, you know, this upcoming holiday season and both the flight attendants union and the pilots union got together and said, we will strike if you add these extra flights because it's already out of control in the air. Barely fucking hanging on right now.

Yeah. You can't add more and you we can't act like this is an okay way for things to go. Yeah. Which I love. Great. It's very responsible of Southwest to apologize and to they say they're considering changing that schedule. So yeah, unions.

We want to please be supportive, kind and caring to any flight attendant or especially like a person that's working at one of those desks at the airport. The gate. You imagine gatekeepers. The gatekeepers, the level they get yelled at. Oh my God. I don't understand it. People think suddenly.

Yeah. The fucking five guys burger person like at the airport. Don't be a dick. Don't be a dick to anybody in an airport or in a store or in public. Yeah. Like you can do that to your family if that's if you're fucked up. Yeah.

But don't bring it outside. No one else needs it. Everyone's having a hard time. You think people want to be working during a fucking global pandemic? No, they have to. No. And also, do you think people want to be fighting with anti-maskers who want who just basically are screaming at the top of their lungs?

I need therapy, but I'm afraid. Toddlers. They're having a fucking tantrum. They're they cannot cope. Their coping mechanisms are not working. Never have probably. So they're like, I'm going to take a flight to Sacramento. Yeah.

That'll solve it. So let me yell at this person at their job. Please, please do the good work of helping out these people. Anyway, the point being. Yeah. We're back, baby. I read this. We're back and we are off topic.

Yeah, we are. I read this article. So this is a man whose travel horror story kind of has everyone's beat. Okay. Except for that kid that got drunk, felt up some flight attendants and then got duct taped to his seat while bragging that his parents were rich and that he was going to make everyone pay. No, no. That was an episode of succession.

Okay. This guy, his travel horror story has everyone's beat and he did it to himself. So he has kind of nowhere. He has nowhere to send that email. So today I'm going to tell you the story about Brian Robson and his unbelievable, almost jackass level survival story. So sources for this, what I'm about to tell you are from a book called The Crate Adventure by Brian Robson.

The Crate Adventure. Uh-huh. Oh, no. Yeah. An article in The Washington Post by writer Kathy Free, an article in The New York Times by writer Heather Murphy, CNN and the Canadian Broadcasting Company, aka CBC. So we begin this story on May 17th, 1965 at the Los Angeles International Airport. Look around you.

Everything is mid-century modern because it's mid-century right now. It's a little later. 65. It's 65. That's 65. Numbers, people. How do they work? So cargo handler Gary Hatch and his coworker, they're working in the cargo shed.

His name is Gary Hatch and he works in the cargo. That's right. Beautiful. That's why I got that job. Beautiful. They're working in the cargo shed at LAX and they're organizing the cargo that's just come off the plane from Sydney, Australia. So as they're walking through the shed, they notice that there is a light coming from inside

one of the larger cargo crates. So they're confused. They go over, they check the packing slip to see what's inside and they say that the slip says that the crate contains mainframe computer parts for repair. So they figure one of the parts must have turned on during the flight. So Gary checks the crate and he's looking for like a knot holes in the wood so he can see inside to see what's actually going on. But when he finds one and puts his eye up to it, he jumps back and holds it.

Back and horror and yells, there's a body in there. So Gary and his coworker, they run to get their supervisor and then of course they, in telling the supervisor the story, everybody around hears that there's a dead body in a crate. So a whole group of curious cargo handlers follow along with the supervisor and Gary and his coworker and they all go back and one by one, they take turns looking into the crate to try to see that if it's a dead body and to look and then one handler puts his eye up and he sees an eye and then the eye moves and that guy yells, it's not a body. He's alive.

So this is where the story actually ends. So let's now go to the beginning. Here we go. And it begins in Cardiff, Wales in 1945. Oh, that glyphs of Job. So, okay. So born on June 4th, 1945, Brian Robson grows up in a working class area of Cardiff. He lives with his sister and his mother until his father, who was a soldier in World War II.

Hey. Slightly related. Oh my God. He returns from fighting as the family kind of reunites and grows though. The father resents his son's presence. He wants to be the only man in the house and by Brian's own account, his father had an anger problem, which was made worse by a drinking problem. So there's constant fighting.

And then on top of that, Brian finds Cardiff and life in Cardiff incredibly boring. I thought he was right. It rains all the time. The pubs are closed on Sundays and the only other entertainment there for young people is a movie theater or a dance hall. But both of those require money, which few people have and Brian doesn't have. So on June 4th, 1963, it's Brian's 18th birthday and he gets a job as a bus conductor for the Western Welsh Omnibus Company.

He likes it. It gets him out of the house. It pays more than his last job. He went from making four pounds to 10 pounds a week. But still that isn't enough money for him to move out of his parents' house, which he really wants to do. So one morning in March of 1964, he's flipping through the newspaper and the classified section and he sees an ad for a job opening with the railway in Victoria, Australia.

So this job pays even more money than his current job and not only does it get him out of his parents' house, but out of Cardiff entirely. Amen. So leave your hometown, everyone. You got to. Even if it's beautiful fucking whales. Yeah, exactly. Just go see other beautiful places and then come back so you can appreciate the beauty of

whales and serenity. So that same afternoon, Brian goes on his midday break from work down to Queen Street Railway Station because they're holding walk-in interviews for these jobs. So he has experience in public transit and he passes the medical exam for general health clearance. So he's offered a job on the spot. Sure. Sure.

So he has to wait another three months until his 19th birthday to be actually eligible. But so in the meantime, the Australian government mails him paperwork to be filled out before he leaves. And that's when he finds out this job has perks. It includes housing and airfare. So he doesn't have to worry about paying for his plane ticket or paying for a place to live once he gets there. And they're going to be issuing Brian a one-time international travel pass

so he doesn't even need to get a passport. So he's like, I'm set. The job requires Brian to stay in Australia for at least two years. That's like the exchange. Then after that, he's free to return to the UK if he wants to. So if he decides to leave Australia before that, he has to reimburse the government for his plane ticket and pay for his own way back home. So basically he has to pay for two tickets if he bails early.

So when the day finally arrives in June of 1964, his brother-in-law takes him to the London airport because it's so long ago, it wasn't even called Heathrow yet. And there he checks in with the Australian Consulate. They give him his little brown ID travel card. He checks his bag and he boards Qantas Airlines to fly to Sydney. And then he catches a connecting flight from Sydney to Melbourne. In all, the journey takes, how long would you say, Georgia? 18 hours.

It's a little bit longer. 26. 59 hours is the whole trip. Why? I don't know. That's not an amount of time for traveling. I thought, I assumed England would be closer than we are. So I don't know if it's they had a bunch of layovers.

That's what's gotta be. He bought like a red eye and they're like, we're stopping in Germany. We're stopping in Italy. We're stopping. I don't know. No, that's not okay. 59 hours. No.

Okay. So he gets there. He's understandably exhausted. And associates of the Victoria Railway meet Brian and the other new hires at the airport. And they take them to their new living space. But when they get there, Brian's horrified because it is a dismal rat infested hostel. Oh, shit. That houses 100 railway workers. Everyone sleeps two to a room.

A common communal bathroom that's all concrete. Oh, someone lied to you. Right. They have a canteen, which sounds like it's the same as a cafeteria. Yeah. They have a common area that has a TV and that's it. No, no. It's dirty and dingy and Brian immediately hates it.

Yes. Now we might be able to discern from this that Brian doesn't like a ton of stuff. You know what? Brian is the negative Nancy, I think. I think he has a very fancy taste. Yes. But yeah, so he's bumming on arrival, on arrival. Okay.

So his, luckily his roommate works on a rail line that travels across state lines. So that guy's usually gone for weeks at a time. So Brian has the room to himself usually. And he makes two friends on the plane ride over and those two end up being roommates. So in his free time, Brian has these two buddies hanging out with. Yeah. They all agree that it sucks where they are living, but they don't. Yeah, misery, love's company, man.

Yeah, right. They can all bitch and they're all from the UK. But none of them know their way around Melbourne. So they don't even know where they could go if they did have plans. Sorry. What's going on with you? When I print on both sides of the paper, I'm destroyed. Like I can't figure it out and I have these numbered.

You just turned those over that over four or five times. It's like, is it on the third side? Okay, there it is. Okay. Oh my God, you did it again. I stopped on the wrong one. Okay. So they decide that they're just going to stay at the hostel and work that railway

job until they learn the area better. So the first week of work is all training. Brian's one of the 20 new hires. They all need to learn the rail lines, the stations and what their duties are. He's glad to find out that the station where the training's held has its own canteen slash cafeteria where the food is way better because the food at the hostel is gelatinous, greasy and has unidentifiable chunks floating in it. Cool.

So one of his fellow new hires is a local who agrees to show Brian and his two new friends around town. So that night after work, they go to the downtown area and they look around the shops and the restaurants and the pubs. And that's when Brian notices that all the pubs are closed. And that's when Brian learns that all pubs there close at six o'clock by law. And they're all closed on Sunday entirely, just like in Cardiff. So he starts to feel like maybe he's in a worse situation than he was when he started.

That's what happens when you're in your 19, 20 year old phase. It's almost like the name of the game when you're in your like early 20s. Things just kind of like, they just suck. Everything sucks and you're a brat about it. No one cares or feels bad for you because you're being a brat. But you're right, everything sucks. You're right. But when you get older, you start learning that like, I got to bring a little something

to this and my expectations have to be, why did you think you were going to go? Why would they pay for your ticket if it was great? Think it through. Yeah. Okay. So just before they were supposed to start work on the railway, Brian's only two friends find themselves a new job in Dandenong, working at a General Motors factory. So they, his friends leave and they have better places to live over there.

So they come back for Brian saying there's still openings at the factory. So Brian jumps at the chance to do anything else. But when he gets there for an interview, the company says he needs to be at least 20 years old to work there and he's nine months shy of his 20th birthday. So about six or seven months into his stay. So it's basically at this time, it's between November and December of 1964. One of Brian's co-worker friends, who's a local named Bob, shows up late for work. And apparently this was Bob's last warning.

So the supervisor fires him and this pisses Brian off. So he decides enough is enough and he quits on the spot and leaves with Bob. Fuckin 19 year olds. Right. Because part of him is like, you know what, fuck this shit. Like it's the perfect excuse, but then it's also a very noble excuse. You can't do that to Bob, his last name I've never learned. So now Brian's attempt is determined to get the hell out of Australia and get back home

to Wales as quickly as possible. But of course he's screwed, right? He hasn't finished his two year contract. So the cost for reimbursing them for his plane ticket there and the cost of buying a ticket home would run him between seven and 800 pounds. He makes 30 pounds a week. No, no, no, too much money. So it would be impossible for him to wait around and save up to do it.

So on top of that, because he traveled to Australia on a one-time travel pass, he doesn't have a passport to leave. Oh my God. So also never do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't go like, oh, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what. Don't go like, oh, I'll take your separate ID. Yeah, I'll take your word for that.

Okay. So now he's desperate to leave and he gets this idea. He and his fired friend Bob, he's also interested in getting out of Australia, are going to stow away on a ship heading for the UK. All right, I'm on board. I can't do that wasn't on purpose. Oh, did you do it on purpose? No, but I loved it.

Okay, so using stolen checks, Brian and Bob make their way up to nearby Sydney from Melbourne. Okay. And then because Brian thought that if they got up to the city of Darwin, which is 2,500 miles to the north, that there would be ships going, leaving for the UK out of Darwin. So they hitchhike across the fucking Australian outback. Cool.

2,500 miles from Sydney up to Darwin. So if Australia is a clock, Darwin is noon, Sydney is four, and Melbourne is about five-ish, five-thirty. So when they get there, they learn that boats for the UK leave from Sydney. Guys, little research, little background. I mean, ask one guy. Ask, yeah. Ask one dude.

Ask Bob to ask a different local. Yeah. But no. So now they have to get back down to Sydney. Oh my God, can you imagine? So the phrase that Jay used in this research says, Brian makes his way back first, which of course made me laugh out loud because I was like,

those bitches got into a big fight about whose fault it was. They split up. And they were like, bye. So Brian basically makes his way back down first. And because there was no information super high way back then, as we know in the 60s, what there was was long lost ants. And Brian's got one in the area. Thank God, man, ants fucking saved the day again.

Up all the way. Praise them all the way up. Can we get some fucking credit for once? We do it. Yeah. Especially when we're long and lost because that's how we like it. It's like, oh, you're my relative, but I don't have to deal with you that much. Of course, I'll help you out here in Sydney, Australia.

I don't even know you, but I'll help you because I'm a long lost ant. Because that's what long lost ants do, honey. Now leave my apartment. Don't steal my nice jewelry. So, okay, so Brian's long lost ant who lives in the area has a friend named Jack who agrees to help Brian. Jack has a ticket for a ship headed for the UK. And with that ticket, he got several visitors' passes that allow visitors on board the ship

while it's docked to come and see him. Oh, shit. So Jack says he'll get them on board using those passes and then hide them and their luggage away in his cabin for the journey. So when Bob hears this plan, he's like, dude, I was there for your Darwin plan and that went so poorly that I'm not going to do this. What? This is foolproof.

No, Bob is not having any. So he backs out, but Brian's like, I need to get out of here, please. He boards the ship successfully and they take off for the UK. Time to rest and relax, right? No, you mean another, there's yet another wrinkle in the plan. Okay, it turns out that once the men are at sea, Jack finds Brian and says he didn't know there would be so many people in his cabin. Eight people to a cabin.

No, there's too many people again. You thought you were going to be alone and you get there and there's seven other motherfuckers in the cabin? Everyone needs to do more research on this story. Except for you. Guys, except for Jay, actually, if we're going to be fair. So he basically says, I can't keep you in the room. But they're already at sea?

They're already at sea. So Brian gets left out on the deck just to kind of fend for himself. Get a sunburn and fight with the pelicans? What he gets is, could be, depending on who you are, could be worse. He gets seasick. Oh no, not good. Yeah. He gets so seasick that one of the crew members actually takes him to the infirmary.

Yeah, stay there. It's that bad, right? Yes, except for in his like, he's dazed by his vomiting. He tells them his real name and they immediately find out he's not on the ship's register. He's not a real passenger. He could have given the long lost uncle's name. Exactly. But he was too throw upy.

You know how it is when you're so, you're like, you're open and you're upset. Oh, I made Brian and I'm sick. I can't handle barfing. OK, so the captain sympathizes with Brian's situation enough to not charge him for a crime. OK. Pretty nice. But he does have to leave him at the next port they go to, which is New Zealand. So he basically just gets one country over.

So he gets off the ship and Brian then calls his friend Bob who bailed. Yeah, yeah. And luckily Bob's family is able to loan Brian the money for a plane ticket back to Australia. No. No. So he's back at square one. That's the only place you get to. But once he's back, it is a good thing to do.

When he's back, it isn't long before the police catch up to him for the check stolen checks. Oh, yeah. And now he has to go serve 60 days in jail in Brisbane. Oh, no. He did the crime and now he has to do the time. Sure does. So, but then he gets excited because Brian's like, this is awesome. They're going to deport me because I committed this crime.

Brilliant. Instead, he just has to serve his 60 days and they release him in Brisbane with no money, nowhere to go. He's, he's just kind of lost and alone. This is like going on our tour that we went on in Australia, Brisbane and Melbourne. He did. Right. The Gold Coast.

They didn't go to Darwin, but next time. Next time we're up in Darwin, we'll take a ship. Okay. So Brian makes his way to Melbourne. He finds a cheap place to stay in a suburb called St. Kilda. And there he starts working in a paper mill, but he, he thinks it's incredibly boring. Oh my God, dude. Have you learned nothing?

Grow the fuck up. He just won't, he won't admit that he's boring and the jobs are just regular. All I could think of is like, that someone's kid who's like, I wanted a child and I want, they were the apple of my eye. I thought they would be this one. And then it's Brian. And you're just like, why did I have kids? Wait.

But see, the beginning part of the story is all kind of about Brian under the gun. Brian in not the greatest of situations. Maybe Brian's a little, maybe, maybe Brian has some luck. Well, I was going to say, you know, sure, he doesn't like stuff. And maybe he's a little bit of a tough customer. But, and that's what gets him into this in the first place where it's just like, here's the thing, Brian, once you land at this place, yes, it has a shitty communal bathroom. Yes, the TV and the food sucks.

But just wind out your time. You know what he needs to do is learn mindfulness. He needs to learn the rain process. Download an app, a meditation app and learn. Do feel those feelings, Brian. Feel those feelings. Be mindful of your situation. Hey, look, there's this thing.

This is my situation I'm in. Gonna make the best of it. Hey, what's that smell? A paper mill? Yeah. Interesting. You know, don't always be negative. Yeah.

Have you ever smelled a paper mill? No, they've discussed it. And they're really, that's really bad for your lungs, right? I think it's bad for everybody and everything. I think that's why Portland is fucked, right? Well, is it fucked? Yeah. What do you mean?

Like the air quality is horrible. Oh, because of that? I do know there's one that's like on the way to right at Washington, right up over the thing. Correct. Listen, everyone who works at Powell's bookstore, correct me if I'm wrong. Hey, hey, you know what? Powell's bookstore isn't going to say shit because that paper mill is making those books that make their life possible.

Shit. Let's say thank you to paper mill. It goes all the way to the top. To the top of the paper mill. That's right. Big paper. So, all right. Now, at least he's got a job in a city in common.

And then I wrote here, I just like to note that Brian's problem with finding things boring has created some serious problems in his life. That's a good observation. Karen, it's very mindful of you. And then I put read a fucking book or learn to play the piano. Stop being boring. Okay. He's been in Australia now for 10 months.

It's April 1965. So, one day he decides to go visit the old hostel where his Australian adventure began because it's only a 20 minute walk from his new job, his boring new job. So, he ventures over, looks around. It's the same as when he left it, except this time he meets two Irishmen, Paul and John. And they're working for the railway now, as Brian once did. And they also don't like Australia that much. So, they all once again bond on the mutual dislike of Australia.

And they become fast friends and they start hanging out all the time. Paul tells the group about a British trade exhibition that's happening at the Melbourne Showground. So, they all decide to go. And while they're there, they walk past a booth for a UK based moving company called Pickford's. And Pickford's slogan is, we can move anything anywhere. And so, Brian cracks a joke saying, maybe they can move us. And they all laugh about it.

But then later on, Brian finds himself thinking about it more and more. So, the next day, he goes down to the local Qantas airline office. And he asks them about their overseas shipping services. Oh, no. He finds out the size and weight requirements for the largest box they allow. And he, and what paperwork is necessary for it. And he finds out that the payment for the freight can be made upon delivery. So, he doesn't have to pay anything up front.

And Brian's hilarious joke is becoming more real by the moment. He convinces John and Paul to help him. And now, what would be great is if it turned out that this was the origin story for the Beatles. It's Brian, John and Paul, and then Jordan Ringo, or Longshoreman that are going to unpack it in Liverpool. Oh, my God. Good one. This is too late in the timeline. I made all that up.

Okay. It takes some searching, but Brian finally finds himself the perfect traveling box. Okay. It's a wooden crate measuring 30 inches by 26 inches by 38 inches, which is the maximum shipping size at Qantas. That's two and a half feet by a little over two feet by a little over three feet. So, think of it three feet high, two feet wide, and then two feet like two feet this way and then two and a half feet that way.

So, you could sit crisscross applesauce. Yes. Comfortably. With a suitcase, apparently. Oh, right. Yes. Okay. So, because Brian's 5'7", but he comes in at a slender 120 pounds.

So, he's going to be able to fit in this thing with his suitcase without going over the shipping weight limit. Damn, Brian hasn't figured out. I'm sorry. I talk so much shit on you. Look, we really, we rake Brian over the coals. But this is how it is in modern society. Okay.

So, the Irishman Paul and John come over to Brian's place after work to help him rig the crate for travel. They make a thin rope from pieces of string. They nail the ends to the inside of the crate and they kind of make like a seat belt for him to keep him kind of like in place in case the crate gets tossed around. This is some Pinterest shit. Oh yeah, they get in there. Like they're fucking crafting.

Yeah, they make a real plan of it. They fasten two bottles, one for water and one for pee. Don't mix them up. And a flashlight. They fasten all of those inside the crate. And then his plan is to sit upright in the crate with his knees to his chest and a pillow behind him for support while his suitcase stands upright kind of like right next to him. Oh, like a side table.

But real tall. Okay, like a tall side table. He gets in to test it out and everything fits just as planned. He's like, I could live here. Yes. He's like, I'm loving this. I'm loving this. So along with the bottles of flashlight, the pillows and the suitcase, Brian packs himself

a book of Beatles song lyrics. I swear to God, I didn't know about that. You swear. When I did the first research pass, I did not know about that part was coming. Remember when you said, hey Brian, read a book, figure something out. That's the book. Like clearly he's not listening to you. He's reading song lyrics.

Let me tell you something. Can't buy me love. Can't buy me love. Ooh, can't buy me love. Hey Brian, those are the lyrics. Here's why you're bored. You're reading songs. You listen to them, they're better.

And it's not like a punk rock song where you can't understand the lyrics. It's fucking Beatles, which could not be clearer. Okay. Along with all that stuff I said, Brian packs himself a book of lyrics, did it, and for entertainment, it says, and a hammer so he can break out of the crate once he arrives. I mean, that's kind of smart. In London. It's like going to bust out of it like a birthday cake party.

Like a stripper in a big cake. He decides not to bring any food because he doesn't want to have to do anything more than pee on this trip. Sure. Smart. It's estimated to be a 48 hour trip. Oh my God. Yeah.

There, oh, he's rolling the dice here in many ways. So John, one of the Irishman steals letterhead from the Victoria Railway and drafts up a phony paperwork. He makes two copies of the way bill that says what's inside the box. And the guys settle on, quote, mainframe computer parts for repair. Right. Because it seems official enough that probably none of the cargo handlers are going to know about computers to care enough to poke around inside.

And kind of boring so no one's going to try to steal the contents. Yeah, it's like it's just a bunch of like real to real ribbons. Yeah, yeah. And beep boop ops. So he makes, then he makes an invoice saying the bill will be paid upon pickup in London. So Brian then makes two signs that say fragile handle with care. And this side up nails into the outside of the crate. And then he calls Qantas and schedules a drop off any time before noon on Wednesday,

May 12th, 1965. And then they arrange for a taxi truck to come and pick the crate up off of his lawn. So basically this taxi truck is going to take this crate to the airport and then drop it off. All right, guys. So when the taxi truck arrives, the driver uses a small forklift to pick up the crate with Brian inside and load it onto the truck bed. So before he pulls away, oh, sorry, skipped a paragraph. That's basically the Irishman call in sick to work so they can nail him into the crate.

And then they get caught by Brian's neighbor who's like, what do you guys do it? And then they just, they all start just talking and like, don't like ignore her and she walks away. Okay. So basically as the truck, as they load them into the truck, John leans in and whispers good luck to the crate. And with that, Brian's on his way to the Melbourne airport. So the taxi truck takes Brian to the Qantas Airlines freight shed as expected. And he later will say, the first 10 minutes was fine, but your knees start to cramp up

when they're stuck to your chest. The first 10 minutes and you have 48 hours bro so like, what are you doing? How long, I mean, like, how long could you, my knees are cracking already. So Brian distracts himself by watching the cargo handlers work through the small slits in the crate. He hears one of them say that Brian's box is headed for Sydney, the connecting flight before going to London. And then everything goes dark and quiet after Brian's loaded into the cargo hold.

10 minutes later, he hears the engines roar through the darkness. Soon he's in the air. The first leg is about 90 minutes and Brian's excited as excited as he is nervous. But there's another complication he hadn't thought of, the lack of oxygen in the cargo hold. Yeah, bro. Yeah. So because this part of the plane isn't pressurized, there's very little oxygen. Oh, God, your ears.

And he has to breathe hard just to kind of keep breathing. So once he arrives in Sydney, things take a turn for the worse. Literally, a careless cargo handler fails to read the this side up sign. Or doesn't give a five. And Brian's crate winds up upside down. Up upside down. So now he's on his head and neck upset and in pain. But he doesn't want to blow his cover because he's made it this far. So he keeps quiet as an intense headache sets in.

Wait, so he was strapped in? He was like strapped in by his little weird ropes. So, okay. So now he's stuck upside down. He's stuck upside. This is one of my nightmares. How old you'll die? They'll die that way.

Yes, and what a terrible way to go. Just like the worst. I hate it. And also, God forbid, you have any kind of a claustrophobia issue listening to this podcast. Because this is a true nightmare. But he did it to himself. Yeah, he did it to himself.

If it were you, you could get out at any time. And he clearly doesn't have that problem. So that's good. Let's start talking about all the positive sides. Be mindful. Here we go. Okay. Okay, so he's stuck in this position for minutes, then hours.

No. He feels like his neck is about to snap. He hopes whoever loads him onto the plane for London pays attention to the signs on the box and flips him over. Then night comes, he's still sitting upside down on the tarmac. And he doesn't know why. His flight to London should have left by now, and he should be on it.

And not only that, but it's a cold night. The wind is whipping through the crate slats, and he's chilled to the bone. It isn't until the next day that a forklift finally comes along and flips Brian right side up the next day. So he does his best to massage his neck with his hands, but he of course can barely move. As he later recalls, he was upside down for about 22 to 24 hours.

What the fuck? Horrifying. Soon after, Brian feels himself being moved onto another plane. There's lots of noises, voices, shuffling, and then there's not. The cargo hold goes dark, the engine of this plane fires up, and Brian is once again in the air for the second leg of his journey. So again, he has very little oxygen. He uses a breathing method involving short, sharp gulps

to take in as much air as possible, but the pains in his neck, back, and knees are getting worse and worse and worse. He hasn't been able to stretch out in about a day and a half at this point, and it's getting harder to ignore. He doesn't have any way to stretch his legs unless he breaks out of the box. So he opts for pulling his knees in even tighter and then pushing his feet against the side of the crate and then periodically releasing from that position,

just to like get a little bit of movement going. I don't know if there's any point where he was like, this was a mistake. Yes, I think I was one of upside down. But he had so many options to escape at that point before getting on the second flight and he didn't do it. No, I mean, that's the one thing that makes this not a panic-inducing torture story is he is making these choices and he has the hammer in his hand the whole time.

He could break out anytime. He could, yeah. So the pain from doing this is actually worse, but then the relief he feels from releasing the tighter hold is an improvement. And hey, at least it's not boring. So as time wears on, Brian feels his body temperature changing drastically. One moment he's boiling hot, the next he's freezing cold.

He doesn't know if it's because the actual temperature is changing in the plane or if his temperature regulation inside his body is on the fritz. And to make matters worse, he starts having wild hallucinations. Oh my God. And he's unable to tell what's real and what's not. Dude. Okay, so here's an example of one. He imagines that the captain's making an announcement that the plane is going to crash

unless they lighten the load. So then the captain asks for volunteers to leap out of the plane to save the rest of the passengers. And when no one volunteers, the crew starts storing packages and suitcases off the flight. They make their way to Brian's crate. And he screams saying he's inside and he tries to stop them. And he can see this several thousand foot drop through the crate slit. Oh my God.

And he knows he's about to die. And then boom, he's back to reality, stuck inside a dark crate in the plane's cargo hold, imagining things. I think you got a chance to read that lyric book at any point. Oh, turn on that little flashlight. Oh my God. Okay, so the hours drag on like this with Brian suffering intense physical pain and paranoia. At one point, his muscles completely seize up and he can't even wiggle his feet anymore.

Eventually, he just assumes he's dying. He wishes it would just happen. So he could get it over with already. Oh my God. But at long last, after four days in the air, the plane finally lands. Four days in that crate. Yes. That is stupid. I mean, it's so beyond.

So he, so it lands. He must have been so thrilled. Yeah. He can tell the cargo hold is opening. And then he hears the familiar sound of the handlers kind of shuffling around. He's the, the crate gets taken out of the plane, transferred to the cargo holding shed along with the rest of the packages. And so once he's settled there and he's the outside noise begins to recede,

his excitement starts to set in. He's made it. Now all he has to do is break out of the box and find a way home. So I can't believe he didn't die. I can't either. I mean, he probably should have died, but if he weren't like a dumb teenage boy, it's right. He has that dumb teenage boy left.

Yeah. He figures he'll grab his hammer, break out and try to make his way to a passenger heavy area with his suitcase. So just like blend in amongst the crowd and then, and then just find his way out. Worst case scenario, he gets caught, explains the situation. He's already made it to London. So surely no one will send him back to Australia if he's caught. So Brian decides it'll be best to leave that night, but he has no idea what time it is.

So he reaches for his flashlight so he can check the time on his watch, but his hands won't move. Any attempt he makes to move them just, just hits him with searing pain. It takes several excruciating attempts to reach forward for the flashlight. So he has to just like by tiny, tiny micro movements, try to get this flashlight. Destroyed yourself. Yeah. So finally he reaches it, he turns it on.

But he's lost the strength to hold it and it drops to the bottom of the crate, shining its light out through the slits. Oh no. And now he has to muster up the strength to reach down and pick it up. He sits there for a few minutes trying to gather the strength when he hears footsteps approaching. It's two cargo handlers shuffling around and talking to each other, but the voices Brian's hearing don't have English accents. No.

And now he's worried. He has no idea where he's landed. He listens closer and realizes the workers' accents are American. Little did Brian know his intended flight for London had been canceled and he'd been rerouted to Los Angeles. Oh my goodness. So once again, Brian's traveled thousands of miles in the complete opposite direction of where he wants to be.

Oh, foiled again. Okay, so when the cargo handlers are on the ground, the cargo handlers at LAX finally pry open the crate. They find a very dazed and barely still alive Brian inside. He is so stiff from being cramped up in that crate for so long that he can't stretch his limbs out on his own. No way. He can't move his body at all.

They have to help him unbend his arms and legs to lift him out of the crate. Was it worth it, dude? Brian later remembers that he, quote, had no control over his body at all. Yeah. He tries to speak to his rescuers. No sound comes out. He had just one bottle of water for nearly five days. Oh my god.

He's dehydrated and he's starving. Okay, so soon crowds of first responders and other people pour onto the scene. FBI agents, the LAPD, the airport police, airline workers who have heard about it, and then, of course, news photographers. Once his body's straightened out, Brian has rushed to the hospital where he's examined by several doctors. He's given oxygen. He's placed in an aerated hot water bath to help relax his muscles and regain

feeling in his limbs. That sounds nice. It does, actually. They feed him cold water and ice cream to moisten and soothe his dry throat. It takes at least six days in the hospital for Brian to make a full recovery. Doctors inform him that if he had continued on the flight to London, he would not have survived. Yeah.

So almost immediately, reporters and news cameras roll into the hospital. They want to talk to the man who mailed himself across the planet. Back in Cardiff, a Welsh news crew shows up at Brian's parents' house and tell them about their son's crazy journey. You're in trouble. So literally, one news channel interviews Brian and broadcasts it on the BBC. The other one interviews his parents and broadcasts it in the States. The media blitz rages on for the next few days, causing visitors to show up at the

hospital to see Brian. They wish him well. They bring him gifts. Some people even give him cash to try to help him out. But once he's healthy enough to finally leave the hospital, he's taken directly to the FBI. Yeah, dude. Yeah.

Because you don't mess around on planes in any form. No, that's some federal shit. Don't tamper with mail. That's right. It's fucking a federal offense. OK. So a few Australian lawmakers consider pressing charges as do the American authorities. One lawmaker calls Brian a, quote, apparently useless young man,

which, hey, we've been mean to Brian on this podcast, but this is that's a bit much. That is such an insult. Like that is... Because also putting apparently in the beginning is kind of like you're not even bothering to worry about what you're saying about him. I don't even care. Whatever. Oh my God, that's hilarious.

OK, so once the FBI confirms that Brian is indeed a citizen of Wales and his whole story checks out, they decide to let it go. No legal charges are filed and Brian's given a first class seat on a Pan Am flight back to the UK for free. No, that is bullshit. They figure he'd been through enough and it was time for him to get back home. Don't reward bad behavior, everyone. It was the 60s, the whites did whatever they wanted.

That's true. So when Brian's flight lands, he's greeted by another media blitz, of course. Oh my God. After some photographs and interviews, he makes his way back to his parents' home and later remembers that when he finally got there, his family was, quote, happy to see me but weren't happy about what I'd done. Yeah, you shite. You little shite.

Fame actually follows Brian Robson for a little while longer. Good. He does not like it. It makes him very uncomfortable. Are you mad? So he's made a full metal recovery. Yes, he has made a full metal recovery. He rocked the entire time.

Devil horns above his head. Okay, he's made a full medical recovery but the nightmare of the experience continues to haunt him, obviously, but slowly he goes back to living a normal life. He eventually marries, has a family of his own, has a job, a very nice, quiet job that he works at and until he's 60 years old and then he retires. So he's learned his lesson about being, you know, wishy-washy. Okay, he becomes norm core and everything's fine. He gets norm core in the 70s, which was the coolest time to do it.

But of course, he can never shake the experience of being trapped in that crate. He says, quote, it's a part of my life that in all honesty, I'd like to forget, but in all practicality, I could never forget. Yeah, because of my favorite murder. Yeah, for real. Brian Robinson is now 76 years old and he's written an autobiography about his experience called The Crate Escape, right? Member?

Yes. It's all coming together. That is beautiful. It came out in April of this year. Well, the name alone makes me not mad at him. The Crate Escape. The Crate Escape. It's the best.

So he took all that PTSD and terrible, I mean, horrifying after effects of an experience that traumatic. And he wrote himself a book about it, which is genius. In the years since his adventure, Brian's traveled to other parts of the world, but he has no desire to return to Australia. He has... It's not their fault. No, it really isn't.

And, you know, Australia is really beautiful and fun. And all of the food is fresh and the people have gorgeous skin. I would just say don't do it in a crate. Not don't go to Australia. You've crossed wire somewhere around there. Don't take a random job that you don't know any of the true details of. You've missed the entire moral of your own story. Never give anyone your passport.

Was that in there? He has been trying to locate his two Irish friends. Oh, John and Paul, who helped him out. But so far, he hasn't had any luck. There are rumors of a documentary being made about this. And so maybe they will find those two Irish men. I want to talk to Bob, too. Bob should definitely be in this documentary.

Oh, and fucking classy aunt, long lost aunt. Oh, the long lost aunt. Well, I bet she's long lost at this point. I bet she is. He's 76 unless he is an aunt that's 130 and in this doc. When asked what his preferred method of travel is these days, he replied, let's just put it this way. I will never get into another crate again.

Oh, shit. And that is the bizarre and never boring survival story of Brian Robson, the Welsh crate man. Amazing. I see you have a photo back there. Let me see. Oh, I got a couple photos. I've been waiting this whole time.

This is Brian when he landed in London after everything was over. Hey. Right? Yeah. Doesn't he look like a pure head? He looks like a pure hipster. Pure British hipster. This is a picture of Gary Hatch, the LAX cargo handler who got into the crate

to show like news people what it looked like when they opened the crate. Look at that dream boat. Hello, governor. I don't know where that came from. This isn't England. Damn. Right? But look at that's all the room he had.

Oh, that's what you meant. I thought he was hot. No, no, I did mean he was hot. OK. Wow. That plus space. You didn't need that suitcase. I bet there was nothing in it you really needed

because that would have been some leg room right there. For real? That's not OK. It's insanity. It's surely insanity. We'll put those up on our Instagram and socials and all that shit. My favorite murder or whatever. Yes.

Maybe a photo of the hamburger with corn on it. Dude, we just hit two hours and 20 minutes. Shut up. Enough talking. I mean truly. Listen, OK. In the future, we're going to want to start doing a fucking raise again.

So please start sending those in. You can comment on our social medias, which is my favorite murder on Instagram, my fave murder. On Twitter. And we did have. I had a whole batch of fucking raise for this one, but we simply can't keep going. We can't keep doing this.

It's not going to turn out to be that long though because Steven's definitely going to pull out a lot of the blips and blops at the beginning of this fucking thing. With ads and shit. That's a two, a two Z hour guy right there. That thing. That thing. Guys.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for fucking being so awesome and being so understanding of us needing our mental health break after five and a half years. And thank you for telling us how much you've missed us. Yeah. It's really lovely. It means the world.

It means a lot to us that you care. We were so excited to come back because we missed this. And I am very excited to see you in person. I know. Look at your face. And record with you in person. Yeah. This is really exciting.

It makes a huge fucking difference. It does. Oh my god. It's happening. We're doing it. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Associate producer Alejandra Keck. Engineer and mixer Steven. Ray Morris. Researchers J. Elias and Haley Gray.

Send us your hometowns and your fucking arrays at myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch, or to join the fan cult, go to myfavoritmurder.com. Rate, review, and subscribe.