My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 456 - True & Provable

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

This week, Karen covers the murder of Jeanne Clery and Georgia tells the story of the Cottingley Fairies. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is exactly right. You know, Georgia, the holidays are the perfect time to tell the people in your life just how much you love and appreciate them. That's so true, Karen. So when you need a personal gift, Shutterfly can help you create something meaningful. Shutterfly's custom photo gifts are a great way to capture those big moments from your year. A wedding, a new baby, a new puppy. They make the customization process easy. Just upload photos from your phone or social media to the Shutterfly app and an unforgettable gift will be ready in minutes. No more gifting junk. These are premium items like canvas prints, engraved ornaments, and photo books. Shutterfly can help with stocking stuffers

like travel mugs, puzzles, and magnets. And for the ultimate gifting hack, design any of these gifts once and give them to multiple family members. So I have to say this quietly because he's in the other room. But for Vince, for the holidays, I'm making him a photo book of us from the first 10 years of our relationship. Oh, there are so many photos in our phone. And we always like text them back and forth to each other and like smile at them. But there's like nowhere to look at them.

Yeah, that's right. Put it in his hands. And I use the Shutterfly app to put it together. It's really easy. Anyone can use it. Very sweet. I also love the idea of like you and your friend, like your worst photo that you've ever taken together,

turning that into a puzzle. Yes. And then giving it to them. I mean, come on. That's such a good idea. Explore gifts like blankets, mugs, photo books and calendars at Shutterfly.com. All easy to customize in minutes with your favorite photos.

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With standard 4x4 capability, Broncos keep going up and up. Now get up to $6,000 in rebates on eligible 2024 Bronco family models. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or ford.ca. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's George Hart's start. That's Karen Gilgeriff. This is Thanksgiving.

This comes out on Thanksgiving 2024. 2024, that's right. That's the year that we're dealing with. Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving. Hey, what are you grateful for, Isier? I'm grateful for all the decorations that Asia put up in the studio. If you're watching this on video, you can see that it's super autumnal.

It's gorgeous. It's themed out. It totally is. There's baby gourds. But that also kind of feel like I was looking at this, I'm like, what if you could turn them like this and there's like secret It's one of those you could put your pot in it type of container. I wanted it to be like a kitchen timer Remember those old Tupperware commercials where it would be like something like this

But then there just be a little lock on the front or an advertisements And when I was I was little enough that I used to think that's what Tupperware was It's like a lock to lock your leftovers out. It was like a tomato with a lock on the front of it. Or I'm like, I want a tomato with a lock on it. How about these turkey glasses? Oh yeah. You've got a cornucopia one.

Hey. I mean, never have you looked better. Why does New Year's get all the fun when Thanksgiving's ready for it? Guys. I can't. I'm going to go ahead and put these right there. Oh yeah. How does New Year's get all the fun when Thanksgiving's ready for it? Guys. I can't. I'm going to go ahead and put these right here. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Is it what was meant to be on my head? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh, finally Karen's found her calling. Her look. Did you see there was like a girl who turned her long beautiful hair, she must be a hair influencer, turned it into like a cornucopia?

Really? It's really cool. All these braids and then all these like accessories and stuff. Was there stuff coming out of it? Yeah, she like put a pumpkin in and put this in. Yes. That's cool. You know, that reminds me of just that much hair.

Do you ever see that video where Bob the Drag Queen is doing a live show and he's got this gigantic wig on. So there's the thing where they like take off the wig and it reveals like another wig and it's kind of like a thing. No, I love it. That's sometimes in the drag community they do it's a so there's a I can't remember what the song was but basically like builds builds builds and it goes to do the wig reveal and there's literally like a five-year-old little girl sitting on his head. It is so funny and the go, it is just like the most epic reveal of all time.

It's like a crowd that's primed and ready for something awesome and epic and then it fucking outdoes itself. Then it's just the cutest little girl that's like, mm-hmm. What the fuck? It's so hilarious. I sure was an AI. I mean, I can't even picture it. I feel it might have been pre-AI.

Pre-AI. Not sure. Should we say what we're thankful for? Yes. This year, because there's a theme of what Karen and I are thankful for. And guess what? It's you, listener. Oh, I thought it was us.

Oh. It's us. We're thankful for ourselves. The theme is us, like, once again. No, like, okay. So the theme is that we're thankful for the murderino community. Every day. God, you guys are fucking awesome. And we have a couple cool things going on that we wanted to tell you about regarding you, yourself, the murderino community.

What the murderinos have done in the world. That's right. So a listener named Mandy sent us an article that I hadn't seen at all. Just came out, I think. A listener named Mandy sent us an article that I hadn't seen at all. Just came out, I think. Just came out in People Magazine by Angela Andaloro. It's called, Micro-Premie Mom Didn't Know If She'd Be Writing an Obituary or Birth Announcement When Baby Arrived at 25 Weeks. Oh, God.

And this actually kind of hits me because my dear friend, Carrie Selen Better, just had a preemie at 34 weeks. And I met that baby and it was still in a NICU and it was so tiny. And the thought of a 25 week baby, I just cannot even imagine. Must've been so scary. And so scary and unexpected.

And yeah, like Carrie's baby was three pounds, nine ounces. I mean, little tiny baby. She's doing great. Oh, good. So was Carrie. So basically the mother, Caitlin, gave birth to her daughter prematurely, unexpectedly, at 25 weeks due to complications. The baby named Nora was named Nora.

Hey. Baby Nora. Baby Nora was in the NICU for 118 days. And in the article, Caitlin said she sought help, didn't know, you know, who to talk to about this. So she said she got support by posting to a subgroup for fans of the True Crime Podcast, my favorite murderer on Facebook. And she says, quote, I started posting there every week and it kind of became a thing where I found help that way. Yeah. How fucking beautiful is that?

I mean, truly. Yeah. Because when you have this, like, many listeners, everyone has the experience that you've had somewhere in this weird little thing that we've created. And I think it's the thing, too, of women being given the opportunity to support and help each other around a thing that, of course, it's like, why, first of all, why do you like that? Why are you interested in that?

True crime. Blah, blah, blah. Then it's like, but it's really not about that. Right. And here's actually what it is about, where it's like there's a sisterhood that's actually real in this way. Yeah, that's a good point when they're always like,

why do women like true crime like you guys do so much? And it's like, that's not what it's about. It's about so much bigger than that. And this is like a lovely example of that. It's beautiful. So now, so Nora is now 18 months old, happy and healthy and in a beautiful family. And we're so, so happy for you, Caitlin. Thank you to Mandy for sending that to us.

Should I read her email? Who's? Mandy's? Okay. Let me read Mandy's email. Oh, I thought you meant like her email address. I was like, sure. Yeah. Is it Mandy at Gmail? Just Mandy Moore at Gmail. Mandy says, Hello, hopefully this reaches you. I wanted to share an article written about a fan, her micro-premie daughter, and the community that we have all

because of your podcast. The community was built over our love of MFM and spread into worldwide friendships. I'm in the Facebook subgroup and witnessed Kaitlyn and Nora's journey from birth until now. Baby Nora has so many honorary aunties and uncles because of the community. So I just wanted to share this and say thank you. Thank you for giving us something that we love and the community that has been built around it because of you. Thank you for giving us something that we love and the community that has been built around it because of you. I mean, thank you.

That's such a beautiful. Thank you. Beautiful thing. Yeah, that's nice. It's so lovely and, I don't know. I mean, that's the piece of it that like you and I have just been watching and hearing about, but we're like, it kind of doesn't have anything to do with us in a lot of ways. It's like, it's a true honor to have done something that is, it's essentially, hey, this is what we're interested in, and this thing grew up around it, of people being this

kind of beautiful to each other. Inspired by a true story. Yeah. Hey, let's make it about ourselves and make a donation in the name of murderinos to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. $10,000 were given them. Its mission is to advance cures and means of prevention for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. You can go to stjude.org, S-T-J-U-D-E dot org to donate yourself if you'd like to. And yeah, yay.

Beautiful. Thankful for you all. Yeah. Thanks, you guys, for... I mean, that's just kind of staggering. It's like, it's really lovely. Well, I also have a really beautiful thing to share about a murderina. And TikTok.

I know, you've been building this up, and I'm really fucking excited to see it. Well, I just... Here's the thing, as I've already said this already, which is I'm on TikTok, but I'm also middle-aged, so a lot of time I don't know what's going on. And I don't really want to be in there. I just want to look at stuff and not like normal social media interaction. But of course, there's people that are interacting with me and I talk about it all the time. So people are like, Hey, did you see this? Hey, you would like this. And they also are saying it to you, too, but kind of through me. So I don't really, I don't even know that that inbox is there. Every once in a while I'm like,

what's this over here? And then it'll be like 20 things. I'm like, oh, God. So a while ago, I did that. And if you don't know, I've been doing a thing. I started reviewing sinkholes because it's a true passion of mine. And we called it Sinkhole Saturdays. And it's just like a little fun of mine. And we called it Sinkhole Saturdays. And it's just like a little fun dumb thing. So then I opened the TikTok inbox one day. And there is this TikTok, I think if you look right there. Okay, here we go.

Karen, long time listener, first time caller. I live next door to a very old house. Our house is very old, too. Oh My god flippers came in and there's now a big thing this property sold for $630,000 now listen, I don't have any kind of reference to how deep this is but I have a banana for scale But I have a banana for scale. Banana for scale. Banana for scale, that's huge.

And I'm on the very edge of the precipice to bring you this breaking news. Karen, please rate my sinkhole. That looked like a well, like an old well. Right? It was like you got this house and then suddenly it's like, oh, but then now there's a crevasse on the side. For almost a million dollars. And honestly, it did look bigger once the banana was in it.

Right? Banana for scale, banana for scale. Banana for scale, much needed. So, I just want to say, I don't know that person's name, but their TikTok handle is jessiebufoot, assuming it's a person named Bufoot. And the bio says they're an amateur human. And I just have a couple questions to Jesse Buford, which is, like, how did you discover something that close to your neighbor's house? Like you were clearly snooping in between

the other person moving out and somebody else moving in. Yeah, a little sneaky. In my opinion. Suspish. Like, were you literally trespassing? Please give the full crime details of what you were doing. And then also just how did you get the idea of using a banana for scale? Is that a reference to our show Bananas?

Yeah. And I also love that she had a string around it. She wasn't going to leave it behind. She's not a litterer. No. She wouldn't litter the banana. You can leave it there. In 2024, who can throw a banana down into a hole and never have it returned?

Those aren't cheap. You've got to pull it back out. It's really thoughtful, actually. It's so lovely all the way around. The energy with which that was delivered where it's like, please write this down. I get a tell Karen about my sinkhole. I love it. Love it so much. So I guess if you have a sinkhole in your life, of course, please send it in because I want to know about it. Do not create a sinkhole just to have something to create. You know what I mean? Yeah. Don't be like that lady that was digging the hole in her basement for no reason and then like truly you just kept digging.

No illegal sinkholes. No, you have to observe them in nature. But Jessie Boofoot, I can't thank you enough. It's truly one of my favorite things that I have seen on TikTok. But because I just don't really interact with it, it seemed like, I think I faved it or like said yay, but it meant much more. And I talked about it much more. And I want that person to know how much it meant. And because I want people to send us TikToks like that.

Totally. Send us TikToks like that. Okay, well speaking of the bananas podcast and other podcasts that are on our podcast network. And other fruits and vegetables that we enjoy. Let's get to the exactly right media highlights. This week on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez, Roz is joined by comedian and impressionist James Adomian to talk about spooky things in other people's voices.

And then on That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, Kara and Lisa chat about the ballad of Dwight and Irina from SVU's 22nd season. And comedian Ricky Lindholm joins them to talk about her role in the episode. Very cool. Also, over at the MFM store, we now have signed copies of our book, Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered, if you want to give that book to the super fan in your life for the holidays, or yourself if you're that person. You can head over to www.exactlyrightstore.com to get your copy today.

And for all you demonheads, Son of Satan, the latest episode of MFM animated by Nick Terry is now available on youtube.com slash exactly right media. Please follow that as well if you feel like it. Also a little bit of a sad announcement. After 180 thrilling double features, we are saying goodbye to our beloved movie podcast, I Saw What You Did, is closing its cinema doors. We want to thank Danielle Henderson and Millie Dichirico for four years of hilarity and hard work.

You guys did such an amazing job on that podcast and we really, we're really gonna miss you. Definitely. And if you're a listener, please stay tuned because Millie will have exciting news for you in 2025. And until then, please enjoy their last episode where they cover Alien from 1979 and faster pussycat Kill Kill from 1965.

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Everyone's like in the kitchen, like working really hard. And there's a kind of almost like, it's a holiday, but it's the least holidayish of all the holidays because it's a holiday about people just busting ass in the kitchen all day long and trying to time everything out and make it good. I'd rather just go to a Mexican restaurant, honestly. I mean, that's my only option. If my dad and my sister didn't cook, I'd just be like, well.

Ben, he has to have the whole thing and he has to have it a certain way and like I wouldn't do it that way. So he's just like, I'll do it myself and he does it himself. And is it like, is it the like classic Michigan way? Classic Midwest, the whole casserole thing. All of it. It's great. I'm happy. But it's all like, a lot of it's canned stuff and instant that.

So like, I don't, it's not that complicated, but I love it. Also does he do, does he do ocean spray cranberry sauce with the with the can shape? I love that you've got to. That's my favorite. So good. You just get your slices as big as the ripple of the can. Yes it's perfect. I love Thanksgiving.

Well today it is so. Well then let's celebrate with terrible stories. Okay great. Okay cool because it's what we like. Okay. So today I'm going to tell you the story behind a federal law that you might not be familiar with. So it's not really a household name, but it fundamentally changed how colleges and universities

across the U.S. handle safety and transparency on campus. This is the story of the murder of Jean Clary, whose death exposed gaps in the existing system and sparked a push for real change. The sources of this story today are several articles that ran in the Morning Call newspaper in the 1980s, a 1989 Los Angeles Times article by journalist Beverly Byatt, a 1990 People Magazine article by journalist Ken Gross and Andrea Fine, and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So Jean Clary is born in 1966 and grows up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, which is just

outside of Philadelphia. She's raised in a loving home with her parents, Howard and Connie, and her two older brothers, Benjamin and Howard III. Her mom Connie would later say that quote, Jean loved her family with a passion, especially her brothers. She wanted to be just like her brothers. So she grows up, she's a great kid, she has a reputation for being kind and loyal and brave, and she's not afraid to stick up for classmates who are getting bullied or being overlooked. And for a while, Jean proudly rocks a gap in her smile after she lost her front tooth while skating. She's not afraid to be different and she's not afraid to be herself. She's scrappy. Yeah. Her dad Howard would later tell People Magazine,

quote, she was one of the first little girls on the local Little League team. Wow. That's hard. Yeah, back then. Like the early 80s, you're playing little league and people are like, what are you even doing? No girls allowed, go to fucking Helmack and shut up. Yeah. And at that time when you were doing stuff like that, like I wanna play baseball and I'm gonna fight

for my right to play baseball. Guess who didn't help you do that? Other little girls. Like that's the time where people are like, oh no. Stay away. Oh no. But I bet she was really good at baseball because she had two older brothers. Right. Yeah. So later at college, she would reflect on her relationship with her gender and her family in an essay that she called Growing Up in an Androgynous Environment. And in it, she talks about how her parents treated her the same as her brothers and that she

was educated at an all-girls school where she was able to quote hold positions that a male most likely would have held in a public school such as school president, president of the athletic association, and head of the newspaper. That's so interesting. I would have never thought of that but yeah. Yeah. It's all stuff that girls typically didn't do back then. Right. And then you get this you get this sense of like, of course, we can do this. Of course, we should be doing this. And then you graduate from that school and you go out into the world.

And you're like, oh, no, yeah, they hate us. Yeah. But I just love the idea. It's like an early 80s fighter. So with that, Jean is also, she seems aware as a young woman that she's vulnerable in ways that aren't always in her control. So for example, her first choice to go to college was at Tulane University in New Orleans, where her brothers went. She'd actually already applied and been accepted and planned on going there and joining the school's tennis team. But

in the fall of 1984, the Cleary family learned that an 18-year-old Tulane student named Karen Minken was raped and murdered in her off-campus apartment by a man who also lived in the building. Oh my God. So of course this tragedy rattles the Cleary family. Jean's mom Connie later says, quote, we were so shocked, Howard and me, we told Jean we couldn't allow her to go to Tulane. We were too frightened. It was just so far away. So the family decides to take what they believe is the safer path, which is that Jean enrolls at Lehigh University,

which is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It's about 50 miles from her parents' house, about like an hour and a half drive. It's an excellent school with a picturesque university look, complete with Gothic-style buildings, winding walkways, a beautiful canopy of trees. It's like, and Connie says, quote, Jean just loved the campus and I loved the fact that it was an hour and 20 minutes away. Yeah. Yeah. So several months later in late March of 1986, Howard and Connie go to pick Jean up from school and take her back to Bryn Mawr for the Easter holiday weekend. And Connie remembers, quote, she couldn't wait to get back. She loved Lehigh. It was the happiest year of her life.

So she gets back to school. A couple days later, on the night of Friday, April 4th, Jean goes to a frat party, and she stays there until around 3 a.m. when she heads back to her residence hall. So Jean's roommate lost her keys. This is such a like, we've all done this a million times. Jean's roommate loses her keys and she's still out, so Jean leaves their dorm room door open,

unlocked for her, so she can get in when she comes back. Just the wrong night for some fucking reason of all nights. Just like anything that goes on con- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so Jean leaves it open and goes to sleep So this residence hall, you know, it's the mid 80s So it's a residence hall that has the exterior door that you need a key for then there's an two interior doors At least two including the actual dorm room door

But on this night, which is a Friday night the actual dorm room door. But on this night, which is a Friday night, all those doors are jammed open with pizza boxes so that the people in the dorms can have their friends come and go. Very common, just how it is. So sometime between 4 and 6.30 in the morning, an intruder enters Gene's dorm, heads to the laundry room, steals a couple odds and ends, and then goes upstairs, eventually stopping on the third floor. And that's where Gene's dorm room is. And then the intruder just starts trying the doors, looking for one that's unlocked. And he finds one when he gets to Gene's door. He enters while she sleeps, and he grabs a radio, a camera, some jewelry, some cash. But then Jean wakes up and finds a man in her dark room.

He brutally attacks her and rapes her. He mutilates her neck with a broken beer bottle, bites her, he beats her, and then he strangles her to death and then leaves with the valuables he's stolen. So when another student notices that her door has been left open all night, they enter and discover Gene's brutalized body. Hours later, Gene's parents get a knock at their door, and when they open it, they find a policeman standing there. Connie says, quote,

Most Americans saw the space shuttle challenger splinter into a billion pieces. That's what happened to our hearts. Oh, God. Yeah. So, it doesn't take long for investigators to identify Gene's killer. It's another Lehigh student, a 20-year-old sophomore named Joseph Henry. So Joseph had been co-hosting a party that same night at his off-campus apartment with his roommates, and he got very drunk, and his crush left with another guy, and he got really mad.

He kicked down a door in his own apartment, and then later on when his roommates had gone to sleep, he walked basically onto campus to Jean's residence hall. Joseph and Jean had never met. It wasn't like he was going to look for her. So when he gets back home after this attack, only a couple of hours pass and he admits what he did to his roommates. Wow. And they go to police.

He's arrested immediately. So it's important to note Joseph is black, Jean is white. So you can imagine how this case got treated in 1980s media, it's a total circus, and it actually has a real effect on the Lehigh campus. The students of color who go to Lehigh are left to process this horrific crime,

as well as that instant sensationalism around the interracial element of the crime. And there's only about 60 black students in a student body of 6,000. One Lehigh alum will later remember, quote, it was the most horrible crime you can imagine and has also kind of reinforced racial stereotypes. It was very hostile for the students who were there through that period. We didn't necessarily see it directly targeting us, but it sort of lived on through the stories and the dynamic. So you're already definitely experiencing standard racism being 60 out of 6,000.

And suddenly now, you know, it's just like people, if they're going to blame you, whether they do it overtly or it's just like the energy. Yeah. And it's part of the conversation, no matter what. Totally. So, Joseph has tried. It's basically an open and shut case for the prosecution. Police find missing items from Gene's dorm room inside of Joseph's bedroom.

He admitted, of course, to his roommates, the evidence is all there. His defense tries an insanity plea that hinged on the idea, the theory, that Joseph had a rare reaction to alcohol and experienced a personality change while intoxicated, but the jury doesn't buy it and ultimately convicts him. He's currently now serving a life sentence. He has expressed regret for his actions. So meanwhile, the Cleary family is, of course, just inundated in this tragedy. And then they learn something that shocks them.

In the three years preceding Jean's murder, there had been 38 reports of violent offenses on Lehigh's campus, including rapes and robberies. And considering the fact that many crimes, especially rape, don't get reported at all, it's a pretty high number for a school with only 6,000 students. To compare, Penn State has a student body of around 60,000 at that time and there were 24 offenses reported. Wow. Okay. That's a really high rate. Yeah. So the clearies base their decision on what college gene would go to, primarily based on the idea of campus safety. So having access to that information about Lehigh, of

course, would have impacted that decision. At the time, only 4% of colleges and universities in the US track this type of data. Connie says, quote, I knew I was going to have to do something to try to prevent other parents, other students from this eternal nightmare that never goes away. It never goes away. But the Cleary's take their grief and channel it into activism, our favorite kind of story. So they sue Lehigh University for $25 million in damages, and that lawsuit settles out of court for an undisclosed amount.

But then they take that settlement money and their own money, and the entire family starts a watchdog group called Security on Campus, including the dad Howard who quit his job at a middle-order business to join the family and work on this. That's amazing. Yeah. And they basically, as a family and as this business, start collecting data on campus crimes. Wow.

Right? That's so innovative. Yeah. Instead of just throwing money at it, they're like creating this system that's so necessary. Help a solution. Totally. And it's the 80s, so collecting data. Yeah, data is just fucking.

It must have been like, what do you do? You write the government for it or you like call people on the phone? I have no idea. I can hear the dot matrix printer going right in my head. I don't think we're even two fax machines at this point. At the same time, the Clearies launch an aggressive campaign to reform and enhance campus security. They realize that colleges might not choose to publicize this type of data to protect their reputations.

So the Cleary's first move, which is so smart, is to lobby elected officials to pass legislation mandating it. The Cleary's, alongside several survivors who joined them in their mission, begin to quote pound the halls of Congress. And Connie adds, quote, you couldn't have paid me a million dollars to get up and speak before, but Jean's death has freed me. I'm not afraid of anything or anybody anymore.

And those efforts pay off. In 1988, Pennsylvania's then governor, Bob Casey, signs a bill into law that requires all state colleges and universities to regularly publish three years worth of campus crime reports shortly after more than a dozen other states follow suit. Wow. Then in 1990, George H.W. Bush signs the Gene Cleary Act into law at the national level.

And this is described as a federal consumer protection law, and it requires any university that receives federal funding to track and publicize crime statistics on various offenses, including robbery, sexual assault, hate crimes, stalking, homicides, and more. That's amazing. And I love the consumer part of it because it's so true. You are paying to go to this institution. You are, you know, you are a consumer of this institution, especially if they're fucking

federally funded. You wouldn't send your child to a movie theater where you got the information that people punched people randomly in the face. Right, all the time. So you're like, yep, I won't go ahead and spend my money there. I'll take it somewhere else where they care about safety.

And if you don't care about safety and, you know, don't wanna put any effort into it, your numbers will be bad and reflect that. So they'll put more money into it so they don't want to put any effort into it your numbers will be bad and reflect that so they'll put more money into it so they don't have to put those numbers out. Yeah. That's so smart. It's so smart. You gotta force people to fucking behave a lot. Yeah and and I think that idea of like as a family making those kinds of really calculated very smart strategic decisions that it's like let's not stand stand over here and try to get people to like believe or care. It just goes straight to get a law passed.

Let's not ask them politely. Let's just make it that if they don't do it, their bottom line will be affected. Because that's really what they give a shit about. Wow, we're all over colleges and universities. Fuck those schools. It's why we didn't go to college. It's why they kicked us out. Ring ring, Sac State, yes? What? Listen, City College, loved it.

I did. It was a good time. It was a great time. This law also requires schools to publish a report explaining their plans for handling emergencies from national disasters to mass shootings as well as measures taken to secure on-campus buildings. So it's just like what you got, put it together and turn it in. You're going to offer this place and you need to also offer some kind of level of safety. The CLEARY Act goes beyond physical violence.

Students can file CLEARY complaints for anything that threatens their safety on campus and that includes threats to their personal health. And universities that don't comply with the CLEARY Act are fined by the Department of Education and there have been several high-profile examples of those violations. One infamous one is the 2.4 million dollar fine levied against Penn State for not publicly reporting incidents involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky ahead of his 2012 conviction for serial sexual abuse, as well as the $4.5 million fine on Michigan State University for its failure

to protect students from Dr. Larry Nassar, who sexually abused hundreds of female gymnasts before being convicted in 2017. So the stats that universities are required to collect under the CLEARY Act are imperfect, of course. For example, it's well established that sexual assault remains seriously under-reported. The website of the American Association of University Women notes that, quote, despite numerous studies showing that rape is common on campuses, 89% of colleges and universities reported zero incidents of rape. 77% of campuses reported zero incidents of sexual assault, including rape and fondling, domestic violence,

dating violence, and stalking. Zero percent. Can you imagine that world? As fucking if. Like I would go move there immediately. As if. If you get zero percent, you need to be fucking worried because that means you're in a culture that is scaring women and scaring survivors into not reporting. That's all that it means.

Yes, that's right. It doesn't mean it's safe. Right. That's almost scarier. Yes. I had a big cup of coffee before we started. A shocking statistic that speaks to the inadequacy of reporting structures rather than the frequency of events.

I shouldn't let you finish. No, no, no. I think your wording was much clearer and more understandable. But I mean, it is that kind of thing. I feel like that, if that isn't a thing that's threatening to you, then that isn't a thing that's, it's very easy to brush that off if you're some college dean and you're just like, it's fine. See, it's zero. like, it's fine. Right. See? It's zero. Yeah. It's zero. So now the Clery Act has been amended multiple times. It's far more

extensive than it was in the mid-80s, like many significant laws, including Title IX, which deals with sex-based discrimination on campus and overlaps with the Clery Act. It has faced some criticism for becoming overly complex and bogged down by bureaucracy. Yeah. So have they all. Yeah. I'd rather have that than the alternative. Yeah, then nothing. Can we just have something that's complicated rather than nothing that's nothing? Something that's this horrible is going to have complicated solutions.

Right. I'm really on my high horse on this one. It's almost like saying it's like, so it's complicated, so just don't do it. Yeah, it's too complicated. No. It's too complicated. Sorry. Then stop fucking sexually assaulting and raping, fuckers.

Well it's not perfect. The Clare East Crusade is an undeniable huge step towards greater transparency from academic institutions. Meanwhile, their original organization, Security on Campus, is now the Cleary Center, and it continues to advocate for safer campuses by raising awareness around things like hazing and binge drinking. In 2015, on the 25th anniversary of the Gene Cleary Act's passing, Gene's mother Connie says, quote, it took an army and it took my life.

It was worth every single bit. Oh my God, I can't imagine. I know. So November 23rd, which is this week, would have been Jean Cleary's 58th birthday. And here's her as a teenager. Oh, what a bright, beautiful smile. She truly looks like every girl I knew in the 80s.

Totally. Outside of her old residence hall at Lehigh, there's a plaque honoring her, and it says, quote, "'Lest we forget the meaning of her death, we must protect one another so that her life will not have been in vain.'" And that is the story of Jean Cleary and the federal law named in her honor. Oh my god. I did not know about that at all.

Me either. That's incredible. I had no idea. Wow. That was amazing. Great job. Thank you. Great Thanksgiving story.

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Age healthy with one skin. Goodbye. All right, well, let's take a fuckin', what, all the, 180, 360, fuckin'. Let's go from, you know, eating the salad and having our vegetables. Straight into dessert. It's dessert time.

It's dessert time. Okay. I'm going to tell you a very deserty story. It's about a tween and teen cousins getting into mischief together and in doing so, accidentally creating one of the UK's most endearing debates on fantastical, unexplained creatures in the vein of like what you love, fucking Loch Ness or Bigfoot. But this one, this is the story of the Cottingly fairies. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. So, excited. I love this story and I love how far it went. Yeah, it went really far. And we're going to have to talk about why because it's so confounding. Because I'll show you the photos too. I'm sure you've seen them. The main sources for this story are two articles from BBC News and the rest of the sources

can be found in our show notes. All right. Well, let's start in one of your favorite times and places, the late 1800s, early 1900s. Picture it. The Industrial Revolution is starting to take over the world. All these like rural communities are coming into big cities and this is how people are now living and making money and just this is how society is sadly headed. Right? And so this means that our once reliance and connection with nature and traditional lifestyles that relied upon nature is starting to fracture. And it's during this time then of course that people start to romanticize that connection

that we supposedly had, thinking of it as an innocent time and using it kind of as magical escapism. So, it's in this vein that the fairy aesthetic becomes a huge trend in the UK, even being nicknamed fairy fever. And this is for everyone, I don't know, it's these little, it's like Tinkerbell, essentially. That's the fairy idea we're talking about. And actually got huge in Victorian children's literature. So children grew up with fairy art and stories, of course, particularly in the wildly popular Peter Pan, which debuted in 1907. And then it was a massive sensation. And then it was performed as a play consistently for about 25 years. So people were obsessed with this. Every child went and saw the play. I mean, clapping, if

you believe in fairies, that kind of thing. I know. Bring Tinkerbell back. I know. Yeah, I remember. She was kind of cunty and I loved it. Yeah, Tinkerbell's like, it's my way or the highway. But also in Irish culture, like my grandpa grew up believing in fairies and telling us about, like, no, they way or the highway. But also in Irish culture, like, my grandpa grew up believing in fairies and telling us about, like, no, they're real. Like, they're on our property. Oh, yeah, completely. Because it's part of that living with nature.

Totally. Where you're let, you know, a circle of mushrooms is a fairy ring. That kind of stuff where it's like, oh, it's the way people explain what nature's doing and, you know. Makes sense of it. Yeah. Yeah. Or they're real. Or they're real and they planted those mushrooms perfectly with a compass. More than 350 books about fairies are published in the UK between 1920 and 1925. Wow.

That's a fucking lot. And adults are into fairy stuff. But for them, the fascination, it kind of overlaps with spiritualism, which I know you love. This is the same time period when seances are becoming very popular and people attribute this to the grief that adults, of course, felt in the aftermath of World War I. They wanted that connection with the afterlife so that all of their sons who died didn't die in vain and they can still connect with them. And you know, that's understandable. Yeah. And also just a little, the idea of like, this isn't just how life is.

There's more. There's magic out there. Totally. And so people see proof of the existence of fairies as corroboration for other fantastical ideas that they would like to approach with the seriousness of science. A lot of people who are really into the afterlife are pissed off that fairies are lumped in to what they're into, you know,

saying like they don't believe in that and you're making this seem less legit, but other people like see them all as kind of this like fairy tale that is true. I like to just put them all on one shirt. And then that's what decides. What do you mean? You just like, if you want a sweatshirt, you can have some spiritual stuff over, spiritualism

stuff over here and some fairies. And then you're like, I've been reincarnated. I thought you were going to say like when it's like spiritualism and reincarnation and fairies and when it's just all the names. Yeah, like the John Ringo Paul and Judy. She's the fourth Beto. I can't remember. Judy, Judy.

Judy, Judy. Okay. So, here we are in this headspace, and now we're going to travel to the north of England in the summer of 1917. War's just ended. And we're near Leeds in the village of Cottingley, which is part of the city of Bradford. Got it? Sure. We're in the home of the Wright family, which backs up to a little wooded valley. At the bottom of that valley is a small body of water. I mean, it's a fucking novel. You just get it. You're like, I'm going to just go walk out into the woods. Yeah. And Wrights itself, there's just like a stream and it's called the Cottingly Beck.

And a Beck is a regional term for a brook. Okay. So the Wright family is made up of a married couple named Polly and Arthur and their 16-year-old daughter Elsie. Elsie loves to draw. She's a skilled artist. Her father is an amateur photographer with his own darkroom and Elsie has learned a lot about photography from him, which is, oh my God, so cute.

Also living with the family is Elsie's aunt and her nine-year-old cousin, Frances, who recently moved back to England from South Africa, where of course, colonization was rampant. So even though Elsie is a lot older than her cousin, you know, 16 and 9, you wouldn't think they'd be best of friends, but the two girls get along and they love playing together. And in particular, they like to hang out by that beck where they typically get into trouble for getting their clothes and shoes wet and for tracking mud into the house. Sounds like a fucking great childhood. The dream. We got to hang out near a creek growing up. That sounds amazing. Just like there was a creek in our

backyard. You just went down there and it just like hung out. We hung out by that like LA River and joined Cunder Bridges and like. And raced with the pink ladies. Yeah. Smoked cigarettes and. Yeah. Takes all kinds. Yeah it does.

So when the moms yell at them for getting wet, Elsie and Francis. Takes all kinds. It's my new favorite thing. I say it a lot lately. It's really true. Okay, sorry. So when their moms yell at the girls for getting wet, Elsie and Frances like to reply that they were, quote, off to see the fairies. Like that's their excuse, we're off to see the fairies.

It sounds like this is mostly Frances, the nine-year-old's excuse, and it's looked up by the family as like the equivalent of dog eat my homework kind of a jokey thing. But Elsie always backs her up agreeing that there are fairies in the Beck. Of course no one takes them seriously. It's just a cute little thing the girls say when they get in trouble until one day in July of 1917 the girls tromp into the Wright's kitchen after fucking around in the Beck and the mothers are fed up.

This time Elsie says that they really had seen fairies and that she was going to prove it. She borrows one of her father's cameras and she and Francis head back down. And they come back to the house less than an hour later saying that they have irrefutable proof that the fairies are real. Arthur helps Elsie develop the photo, and sure enough, clear as day, there's a photograph of Francis surrounded

by several dainty dancing fairies. This beautiful Victorian photograph, which I'll show you in a minute, but let's keep going for a second. Arthur is suspicious. The dad is like super suspicious. He also knows his daughter does have the artistic chops to fake this, first of all. In fact, Elsie has a job at a photo studio in Bradford

retouching photographic plates, but the image does look incredibly lifelike. And he knows that Elsie didn't tamper with the photo plate, which is like basically the negative, because he helped her develop it. He would have seen it when he was developing it. So he's like, this is so, this is like, I can't explain this. The only other option is that Elsie drew an extremely lifelike fairy, cut it out and post it in the picture.

And listen, let me tell you, that's what she did. Spoiler alert, that's exactly what she did. I hate to spoil it, but you gotta know the whole time. Yeah, if you know the story, you kind of know the ending of the story. So that's exactly what she did. I hate to spoil it, but like you got to know the whole time. Yeah, if you know the story, you kind of know the ending of the story. So that's exactly what they did. She copied pictures from a book of children's stories, added wings, cut out the drawings, and stuck them in hatpins to stand them up. That's why they look real and three-dimensional, and the girls are adamant that the photo isn't faked. And they're committed to their story, you know, at least when it's

just their immediate family. They're just playing along. They're so committed in fact that they take another picture a few months later in September. This one shows Elsie sitting next to a little winged creature, which the girls claim is a gnome. So let me show you the two photos that we have and you tell me what you think. Oh. See, photography is pretty early at this time. So you and I look at this and we're like, that's so stupid. You can tell it's fake. But, you know. But I mean, yeah, right.

These days it would be retouched to high hell, whatever. And if you really want to believe it, then you'll believe it, right? So let's see the other one. So that's Elsie. I mean, it's ethereal looking and very pretty. Hold on, let me see it. Oh, yes. Yes, there it is.

You see it? It's so pretty. Oh, my God. Also, I just kind of love it's like you've got a weird older cousin. Oh, yeah. Super arty. She's the coolest. And then you're like a little nine year old that probably has a big imagination yourself. Yeah. And so

you're kind of like it's the... And Elsie's like playing along even though adults are so fucking boring and shit. Right. Or she's like maybe she's the one that's like what if fairies were real? Like who knows? Or like hey Frances let's play a trick on our family. Like yeah. These are like an arty thing. These girls are bros. Love it. However, I don't think they expected this to go as far as it went. Because in 1919, Elsie's mother, even though she doesn't seem to believe in it,

brings the prints of the girls' photos to a lecture on fairies being held at Bradford's Theosophical Society, which is a group devoted to a New Age religious movement that's popular at the time. So it's all the kind of spiritualism stuff. And the photos are so impressive that the society's president brings them to a meeting in London and gives a series of lectures about them in 1920. As if they're real. Mm-hmm. Like he believes it, it seems like. It's kind of like, finally, the thing we've been like talking about and theorizing about,

there's actually like, because photographs themselves were relatively new. So then it's like, proof. They're like, we have proof finally. Proof. It's all anyone wants. All these fucking, just little girls fucking around. In London, the photos catch the attention of none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

So he is already a famous author and he'd been working on an article about fairies because he had been obsessed and fascinated with spiritualism ever since his own son died in World War I. So it seems like he really wanted to believe this, with his whole being. We all really want to believe something. We really do. We do. And so he viewed the photos as if they were real

and as if they were proof of the legitimacy of not just fairies, but spiritualism in general. Wow. Yeah. Also it's Arthur Conan Doyle who like, when you watch Sherlock Holmes stuff, it's like everything is deduction and logic and fact and all that stuff. So it's kind of very powerful.

It's sad. It makes you think he must have been really heartbroken if he were able, if he just so easily believed these things. Yeah. Or if it's like he lived that life of like logic only for so long and then it's like, but what is that going to get me? Right. Yeah.

Right. More like if I'm brokenhearted, that logic isn't going to help me. Yeah, if that logic is true, then I'm just, I have nothing. It's me here. Yeah. Sad. Yeah. So Conan Doyle writes an article about the fairy photos and says that he has gone through every possible explanation for how they could have been faked and can only come to the conclusion that they're real and that fairies exist. He even gets opinions from several experts in photography, including one from the Kodak

company. The experts all come back with mixed reviews, but Conan Doyle concludes that the results of these opinions show two out of three experts agree that the photos are real. Which is Kim kind of, you know what, like I'm taking this and I'm making it sound like this. He's not lying, but it's not, you know, true. It's just like that thing where Dennis recommends toothpaste. It's like that's not real. No they don't.

They don't even like toothpaste. Also it's just, I think it's also the piece of you take something up and you're like, I believe in this. And then it's like, well then, well then fight for it. And it's like, oh now suddenly there's something, there is a fight or like a I'm on this side kind of thing. It's like... What is it, that confirmation bias? When it's like you already believe in something, you're only gonna see the stuff that supports what you believe in. Absolutely.

And the other stuff seems like bullshit to you. There's magic in the world. It's like, there is. There is. And I don't want to fight someone and be like, no, there isn't. You know, it's like, because if you need that fucking, I mean, it's similar to religion. Like if you need that, have it. And also, who the fuck knows?

Yeah. I think there is a very beautiful thing of like, you got to keep open to it. Yeah. There's no point in being like, there's nothing ever anywhere. Right. It's just like, that's not good. But you also have to be open to the point where like, other people's opinions are just as fucking legitimate as yours because

Why? There's no such thing as Is this new for you or? Prove a negative. I'm sorry. Prove a negative. There's debate, Georgia. I've never met her before.

Oh, yeah. It's really gashous fun. She's ready for Thanksgiving dinner I've never met her before. Oh, yeah. She's ready for Thanksgiving dinner table. Proven negative. I fucking dare you. So Conan Doyle asks Elsie's father for permission to print the photos in the article. And Arthur, the father, is so impressed by this famous author who's like paying attention to this little family all of a sudden that he agrees to letting the photos be published, although he refuses payment for the photos that Conan Doyle wants to give him. And it sounds like he says it's because

he doesn't want to tarnish their genuineness, but it sounds like he maybe knows they're fake and doesn't want to scam the author out of money, which is thoughtful. He's like, I can kind of go along with this a little bit. I can't go that far. Yeah, if I take money, then I'm complicit. So Conan Doyle's article is published in The Strand Magazine in the UK, Australia, and America in the 1920s. The girls are referred to in the article by pseudonyms.

And the article causes a huge sensation, not because everyone believes the photos are real. In fact, most people probably believe they're fake. But the debate over whether or not they are completely real, it's like goes viral, essentially. It's like, what color is this dress? Remember that? Yes. And it's fun to land on a side. Yeah, exactly. And to like find one person to argue the other side is just like what you do at a pub. Yes.

Like what else are you going to do at a pub? But also that dress was so clearly blue that I don't understand. It was blue. Like what were people seeing? Is it something like in your retina or something? Must be. Anyway, you should cover that story. It's a gripping drama. The gripping drama of being on Twitter in like 2011 or whenever it was.

So no one can figure out how the photos have been faked. So that's kind of part of the whole thing. And they don't think two young girls would have the skills necessary to create this kind of illusion. So it's like, fuck you. So after the article comes out, Arthur Conan Doyle buys Francis and Elsie new cameras so that they can try and capture more photos of the fairies. By this point, it's 1921 and the girls are 13 and 20 years old and they really don't know what to do because it's fucking fake. And they never believed that anyone would really fall for it. You know,

they didn't expect that because maybe they didn't know their mom would take them to this lecture and never people would take it seriously. But everyone is so starstruck by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that they're just like, let's just go with it. And he's like put a lot at stake at like his reputation at this point. So they don't want to tell him for that reason as well. It's like, sir, we're big liar. Yeah. I don't know why you believe in us so much.

I gotta keep lying. Yeah. So not knowing what to do and feeling kind of sorry for Conan Doyle, the girls accept the cameras. He also pays them around 20 pounds each, which in today's US dollars. $500? $1,150. He just fucking hands him a fucking 20 quid or whatever. They produced two more photos, one of Frances and one of Elsie, and there's a fairy in each

photo. These photos are also published along with a fifth photo, which just shows the fairies and neither of the girls. And this last photo is called The Fairies and Their Sun Bath. And the fairies do look a little different in this photo, more transparent and ethereal. COLLEEN O'BRIEN Those are the real ones. COLLEEN The idea is that they are dematerializing in front of the camera. And actually to this

day no one's quite sure how they achieve that effect. COLLEEN Because they're the real ones. COLLEEN Right. COLLEEN They're real. COLLEEN So the fairy craze peaks in about 1923. and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dies in 1930. But the debate about whether or not the conningly fairies in those photos are real rages on for decades, with many people believing, rightly, that the fairies are a hoax, others insisting that they are real.

Like, how fun and harmless, except for his heart. I know. I mean, but it didn't affect him. I think he probably really enjoyed it all the way through. Yeah. I mean, it's like a fun thing in the middle of a bunch of fucking horrible shit happening. It's like a fun debate. The sky is filled with ash and smoke. Everybody is like in the workhouse. The poverty is abundant. When television becomes mainstream, there are programs devoted to the tail and lots

of people do investigative deep dives into the subject. But no one officially solves the mystery until the 1980s. I wonder if you watched this. That's when Francis and Elsie, who are now in their late 70s and 80s, come clean in an interview on a show about the paranormal called Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers. Do you remember it? No.

But it was British. It's like somebody can order it for me right now. How do I? You need the time life series. I need to turn away from my job and start watching it immediately. You do. It's like the Spock one. Yes. In search of? Yeah. job and start watching it immediately. You do. It's like the Spock one.

Yes. In search of? Yeah. So Elsie, the older one, finally admits that the whole thing got out of hand when Conan Doyle got a hold of the story and the girls just decided to go along with it. She says, quote, two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle, well, we could only keep quiet, end quote. The girls, now women, say they want to tell the truth.

Not old women. They say they want to tell the truth before they die. They don't want their grandkids wondering, which I love it. It's us always saying, don't leave anything a secret. Yeah, clear it up. Why not? Death, bad confessions for everyone. Yeah. Even if you can make something up.

So for her part, Francis, the younger of the two, has always insisted that that last photo, the one of the fairies in their sun bath, is real. It's like, why would she do that if they're coming clean? And it is like really, it's like spider webby looking and the dew, you know, kind of a thing. Because they're real. You think so? You do? Uh-huh.

Why? I just think there's Uh-huh. You do? Uh-huh. Why? I just think there's things going on. I like that. We have no idea. But also, it's like, it's almost a thing of like whether or not that exact thing is. Here's what's magical. Two girls in a creek in this tiny town get the inventor of Sherlock Holmes to come and

hang out with them and give them money. That's a book. Like, that doesn't happen in real life. It's all like, it's almost like the thing everyone's focusing on isn't the magic, it's the girls and what they're doing and how they do it is the magic. It's a beautiful story and the story's about them. And the mom maybe knew that? Like look what my brilliant daughter and my brilliant niece did. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

And in 2019, the daughter of Francis Griffiths put up a series of prints from the original negatives at auction. Okay, guess how many pounds they sell for. Is it in the millions? No. I don't want to make you guess because it's not as much as... 50 hundred million. 50,000.

It should have got way more than that. I know. But... But still. I know. Maybe I'll get you that for your birthday. Next year for Thanksgiving, I'll get you. You can make it a lithograph.

It doesn't have to be the original. I'm not having you. And that is the story of the Cottingley Fairies. Perfection. I mean, yeah, I really love that. Also, it's just like, Tarraza Conan Doyle, a man who has seen a bunch of shit, gone through a bunch of shit, like, it's suddenly like later in life or maybe end of life, he's like, wait a second, one last chance to actually experience it.

Like, he wanted it so bad because... Fear of his own death, fear of his son's passing, needing there to be more to life than this, the basics. Right. Which is like so human. So human and also kind of like that's a... You don't think it's bad that they tricked him? Well no because it wasn't their intent.

It wasn't like they were like if we make these fair fairies, we can get $1,000 or whatever. It's like they were just having fun and being artistic. And then a little thing they were doing with their family for either attention or just whatever. Or maybe because they were down there and there's like, they say that in Ireland, bogs would release gases that would do this weird sparkling thing. And that's why people were like, oh my God, what's that over there? Like, there's all kinds of shit that's been going on for a long time that we have no explanation for. Yeah. So he's kind of coming and going,

wait a second, is it, you know, do I finally have something true? Or do I have something provable? Yeah. To for this feeling that won't go away? I like that. Well, we have something provable for this feeling that won't go away? I love that. Well, we have something true and provable. What? And that is the listeners here that we're so thankful for. And thank you for spending your Thanksgiving with us or not if you're not listening to it. True. I think it's fine.

Or later if it's 4th of July and you're like, oh, I never caught this one. Yeah. Also, thank you for creating that kind of human magic with your good vibes and your community and your community building because, man, we've seen it in action and it is truly the definition of magic. Totally. So thank you guys. Thanks for listening.

Happy Thanksgiving. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder. Goodbye.