RedHanded - Episode 120 - Kermit Gosnell: Doctor Death

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

In a filthy clinic in West Philadelphia that had been left uninspected for years, despite a sizeable drugs bust, Dr Kermit Gosnell was exploiting poor, desperate women seeking to terminate their pregnancies after the legal limit of 24 weeks.  His absolute callous recklessness makes this one of the more grisly crimes that RedHanded has delved into - given the subject matter, listener discretion is advised. Get your spooky bitch merch (international shipping available): redhandedshop.com References:  https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/29/abortion-doctor-kermit-gosnell-the-trial-of-americas-biggest-serial-killer-release https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/10/05/the-true-story-of-kermit-gosnell-and-his-victims/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/activists-rally-to-bury-the-bodies-from-gosnell-abortion-trial_n_3405039 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/breda-o-brien-ireland-should-not-aspire-to-providing-legalised-killing-1.2429140 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2013/05/13/b4444bdc-bbda-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/us/kermit-gosnell-abortion-doctor-found-guilty-of-murder.html?_r=1 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/us-abortion-doctor-found-guilty-of-murder-1.1392098 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/us-media-storm-over-murder-trial-of-abortionist-kermit-gosnell-1.1366130 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/ann-mcelhinney-abortion-campaigners-should-be-careful-about-what-they-wish-for-1.2423209 https://www.inquirer.com/philly/business/real_estate/residential/kermit-gosnells-abortion-clinic-is-likely-headed-for-sheriffs-sale-but-can-it-overcome-its-house-of-horrors-past-20181025.html https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-willie-parker-kermit-gosnell-abortion-movie_n_5bc62cd3e4b0d38b587268e1 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the show today, just a very quick announcement. If you are a $10 plus patron, obviously you know that you get a bonus monthly episode, obviously every month, on the first Monday of every month in fact.

And your one is already out for November it is on the case of Heather Teague she disappeared in 1995 very mysteriously in Kentucky she was laying on the shores of a river when suddenly she was dragged into the woods by a mystery bearded man and she has never been seen again so if you are not yet a $10 plus patron and you would like to get your hands on a whole extra episode of Red Handed every month, head over to patreon.com slash redhanded now and you can sign up and you've got quite a few episodes there to back catalogue, binge and loads more coming out every month. Now on with the show. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. There is absolutely no two ways about this one.

This is absolutely savage this week and we really thought for a very long time about whether we were going to cover it or not because it's a bit of a political minefield. But I just couldn't think of a reason not to do it. You know, like my reasoning was very much just like, oh, someone might get upset. And this is the thing. we are a true crime podcast. The person who is involved at the heart of this episode today committed crimes. And I just think this has been covered by the podcast and there's documentaries and stuff out there. So we just felt like, is it a good enough reason to shy away from this because it is politically charged? When we talk about issues around racism, we talk about

issues around homophobia, we cover those cases. And so this isn't something we want to shy away from. But first and foremost, we want to tell you guys that we're not here to push our opinions on anybody. That is not the purpose of today's show. It is about telling you the story of a man who committed horrendous crimes. So if you haven't already guessed from the title, I mean, this case is so famous, I think really been at the forefront of people's minds. It's very recent as well. So we're going to be talking about abortion a lot this week, the termination of pregnancies and specifically abortions in later pregnancies. So if that is something you find difficult to hear about or think about, maybe this week isn't for you.

But it is happening, so we should talk about it. And just like Cerise said, the guy, the central person of this case, committed crimes, and that's what we're here to talk about. But there are very few issues that are more overrun with propaganda than abortion. I'm not telling you what to think. I'm just asking that you be incredibly careful where you get your information from. A lot of the sort of air quotes, facts that you find out there are at best emotive and at

worst false. This is definitely going to be a polarising episode, but one in four women will have an abortion before they are 45. So please remember to be kind to each other. And we've obviously got our own views, but this is our best attempt at a balanced look at this case. And I've learned so much while reading for this one. For a start, the phrase late-term abortion is actually completely medically insignificant. It has no medical meaning. Late-term pregnancy refers to a pregnancy that has extended beyond the usual 39 to 40 weeks. So when the phrase late-term abortion is used, they usually mean after sort of 20 to 24 weeks. And you will hear people say that um

that 24 weeks is six months uh gestation time it's not it's five and a week ish because not all months are four weeks long thank you for clarifying that because i was like why isn't it yeah yeah no i because when i first read it i just didn't really question it but then i was reading a particular article where one sort of of anti-abortion lady was talking about it like it was this huge deal. And I was like, wait a minute. So I double checked and it is five months and a week. But people who are anti-abortion tend to round that up to six months because it sounds more significant and threatening than five in a week, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.

We're not going to start out our story with pregnancy terminations. We're going to start it with the illicit acquisition of prescription drugs. If you were in West Philadelphia in the late 90s and 2000s and you wanted to get hold of some OxyContin, there was one place that could sort you out and everyone knew about it. Did you know how difficult it was to not say West Philadelphia born and raised? I really had to hold off because I just don't think this is the show. I didn't anticipate a completely missed the Fresh Prince reference. Prescribe that here do we? I think you can. I think we probably call it something different.

Yeah and I think here it's like a much higher level of something before you would get prescribed that I mean all our drugs like you could I whenever I go to America I always buy like a shit ton of Advil because it's so much stronger than anything you can get here over the counter like we just have much stricter laws I mean I had two operations and I recovered off both of them with just paracetamol i'm like that was it over the counter i don't get that man i'm just like fucking give me the drugs man i think i have a very like low tolerance for drugs like good luck having a natural birth my friend oh my god absolutely fucking not i think at that point it will be the psychological fear

just come in and bash me over the head with a frying pan until it's out but anyway so this place that where you could get hold of your octocontin it was called the women's medical society and it was run by a man called dr kermit gosnell he'd been around for a long time everybody knew him real sort of pillar of society it would seem what a name as well kermit gosnell i know who i didn't realize i thought kermit was a made-up name for sesame street i didn't realize there were actual humans called kermit sometimes when you would text me about this case in the like course of this week um i'd be like what is she on about when you'd be like kermit is almost ready i'd be like sorry what oh god i think it's because in my head it was just like i was just thinking of him as

gosnell and i was like oh okay i see what's going on yeah now his name is in fact but we're all on the same page now guys so the women's medical society was first and foremost an abortion clinic but it was their underground pill peddling that actually first attracted the attention of the authorities, specifically the DEA in October of 2009. So the DEA sent in a snitch to the Women's Medical Society with the intention of busting a dirty doctor who was selling prescriptions to people. So a bit of a classic pill mill situation. So Kermit Gosnell was absolutely doing that,

but he was doing a lot more too. And the DEA had absolutely no idea what they were in for the DEA's eyes who were only referred to as TJ would buy prescriptions from a woman who worked at the front desk her name was Latosha Lewis and she would get a $30 commission for every drug deal that she set up. Apparently she was only getting paid like $10 an hour so like it was a real money spinner. Yeah. A nice little bonus for her on the side. So this guy TJ who was the snitch for the DEA would write down his order that would then be placed in an envelope and later on Kermit Gosnell would fill out the appropriate prescription.

Apparently he was never in the clinic during the daytime. He only came at night. So in the day, it's all of his staff that are there dealing with all of the orders, and then he comes in late at night and sits writing these prescriptions. What a fucking gig, right? Yeah, it's good work if you can get it. Exactly.

If you can force a vulnerable and impoverished society into it. If you can make your way through medical school and be able to write prescriptions. Exactly. And then take advantage of desperate people in a poor community. Use good work if you can get it. So Kermit Gosnell, he was dealing in prescription narcotics. So Oxycontin, Percocet, Xanax, and codeine cough syrup. And in the height of his dealings, Gosnell was writing an unbelievable 200 prescriptions a night. I had to go to my doctor the other day because when we went away for my birthday, I accidentally left a month's worth of my pill there. Oh no. And I was like, fuck. And it's okay, we get the pill for free. Hallelujah. But I was like like I have to take it

back to back because I have endometriosis so I was like shit I need to get more like immediately I went to the doctor and it took him fucking three days to write that prescription for me really because the woman was like you according to our records you've still got a month's worth of prescription and I was like oh no and I was like my bag got stolen but yeah i did get it in the end but 200 prescriptions fuck me this guy tj would write it out he'd get his prescription written and then he would go back later to collect all of these prescriptions which totaled a street value of $10,000. Fucking hell. That's a lot. It's a lot.

That is a lot. So the DEA, they know about this, obviously. They're keeping their eyes on TJ very closely. And on the 18th of February, 2010, the Women's Medical Society was raided by the DEA and the building was described in the report as, quote, filthy, deplorable and disgusting. Cats were wandering around all over the place, leaving their feces behind them.

There was blood spattered all over chairs and also a heavily sedated woman waiting to undergo an abortion. Those are maybe the worst sentences we've ever said on this show. I fucking hate the idea of cats just wandering around like feces blood splattered oh my god i can't it's a lot and it wasn't long before the law enforcement found uh baby's feet preserved in jars what is it with preserving baby body bits apparently it's normal for a sample of the aborted fetus's DNA to be kept as a record, but not like a foot, like a scraping. Yeah, I was going to say, that can, like a bit of DNA can fit on a fucking slide. You don't need a foot. It was like that guy they found earlier this year, I think just in like October or maybe even just before that in Illinois. He'd like been a doctor who carried out abortions and

he died and his family were going through his stuff it was in illinois and in his garage they found in his garage they found something like over 2 000 preserved fetuses in like plastic bags oh i read about that yeah coppola or something i think his name was coppola eric coppola something like that what the fuck why so bizarre 2000 fucking hell god imagine being like imagine being the kids you'd be like i'll go into the garage maybe there'll be some like old memories maybe we'll find like dad's old something or we can sell it like it'll be like what was that show garage invaders i don't know storage invaders storage storage wars storage wars that's it and then instead they just find 2 000 like baby like 2 000 fetuses in plastic bags what oh god and then they had to out their

own dead dad oh god and baby feet as it turns, are really not in the DEA's wheelhouse. So it was quite a few months before the police returned for raid number two. Isn't that shocking? Why does it take the months to come when they've seen the cats, the blood, the baby feet, everything? I think, I mean, it depends who you believe. Like quite a lot of people being like, oh, nobody in office or in the State Department wanted to go anywhere near it. They didn't want to be seen to be casting abortion in a negative light because that means they will lose left wing vote or like whatever. So a lot of paperwork bullshit for getting a search warrant and because it would have been for different things rather than the drug bust they would have had to do the whole process again i see i feel like i believe that more i i feel like yeah it seems it seems

crazy though but yeah just to clarify that that was a long time before they came and a lot of departments dropped the ball significantly on this one. Sort of like all across all sorts of law enforcement and councils and state departments. That's very, very true. The medical board. That's very true. There's a lot of like institutional, I think I can say like institutional negligence. This summertime raid uncovered a lot more than foetal feet. 47 sets of foetal remains were taken from the Women's Medical Society.

They were being kept in cat litter boxes, water jugs and juice cartons in a freezer. There is a book about this case. It's written by Steve Volk and it's called Gosnell's Babies. And apparently in this book, there's tells the story of a plumber cleaning the toilet in the Women's Medical Society with a plunger, and a limb came out of the toilet, allegedly. There was also a dead cat, totally infested with fleas. There was equipment that was broken, outdated and blood-stained. Single-use instruments had clearly been used on multiple patients without sterilisation.

Kermit Gosnell himself seemed totally unfazed by the authorities ransacking his clinic. All he said was, how about I play you a little Chopin? So again women were found to be heavily sedated, waiting to be seen wrapped in blankets. They had not been sedated by the only licensed doctor on the premises, however, Kermit Gosnell. They had been administered medication by Gosnell's completely non-certified staff. So let's meet them. First off, we have Sherry West, in her 50s, who had started working for Gosnell

after she had contracted Hep C while working as a medical assistant at a veterans hospital. That's a fucking shocking luck, isn't it? That's terrible. That's... When we first read first read that i was like that broke my heart like imagine just working in a hospital and then getting hep c like but then i knew someone who is it her pale hep c that she got from eating on a food market in peru which one do you it'll be the one that's poo there's only there's one that you can contract by eating poo i think think. I think it might have been A. Oh, God. So tragic.

Yeah. I think, like, doctors who work in, especially A&E doctors, have to have HIV tests all the time because they get, like, pinprick injuries. There's a first aid trainer guy who came to my old work to do, like, a first aid course, and he used to be a policeman. He's, like, this guy who's like very well known to the police like uh had substance abuse problems whatever blah blah he had been stabbed and this guy was trying to stop the bleeding so he's like covered in his blood and then the

ambulance turns up and they know the guy who has been stabbed by name because he has hiv and hepatitis c and a and this policeman like, I'm covered in his blood. Because now, obviously, you can get an HIV test that sort of is instant. But back then you had to wait for months. And he was like, I was sure. But apparently he was like, your skin is just, your skin is really good. It does its job. Fucking hell.

That is absolutely terrifying. So thank you very much to all of our frontline police officers, all the doctors and nurses who work on A&E, everyone who does all that, because that's absolutely fucking terrifying. So you're incredibly brave people like them. Sherry West, as we said, she had contracted Hep C and she had been waiting for her disability payments to be approved. And during that time, she worked for Gosnell to make extra money. And then next we have a lady called Adrienne Motten, who was 36. She had been sent to actually work at this clinic through a careers programme

because she was training to be a medical assistant. Do these careers programmes not check the places they're sending people? I mean, evidently fucking not. No one's sending the careers advisor round to the abortion clinic, are they? Oh, God. Oh, my God. I remember when we did work experience in like year 11, that the school had to go like do health and safety checks he's an actor, but when he was at school, he was very naughty. And the careers advisor said to him, like, you know, what are you good at? And he was like, well, I'm good at drama and I'm good at football. And this careers advisor goes, have you ever thought about being a children's TV presenter?

And Ben was like, I would be a sick TV children's presenter. At least they tried. They were like, what do you want to be? And I was like, I don't know, maybe I want to go into medicine. Maybe I want to become a lawyer some classic Indian parenting right there and they were like great you're going to go do your work experience at Bay Trading Company in Stevenage stop completely forgotten about that shop it's fucking shit that's what it even still exists I don't actually know I don't know but all I remember is I worked there during the summer and I would basically spend all of my time untangling strappy sundresses. And I was like, how is this a fucking good use of my time? I've got my GCSEs. Like what? That's so funny.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm clearly totally over it. Thank you very much. Yeah, it really hasn't left any lasting impressions on you at all. What a fucking shit school I went to. But anyway, anyway. So, yeah, we've got Sherry and then we've got Adrian and then we've got another lady called Elizabeth Hampton, who was in her 50s. Now, all of the staff that worked for Kermit Gosnell had mental health issues, bipolar, anxiety and depression. And a lot of people, when you read about this case, use that as a reason for them not being fit to work. But I don't think that this is fair at all.

I think much more that it's proof that Kermit Gosnell took advantage of vulnerable women. It made me feel very uncomfortable when I was reading about that. And it's not like, I think one of them has bipolar and then the other two suffer with anxiety and depression. And people do use it as a reason for them not they shouldn't have been working there. And I don't think that's fair at all. No, as if to imply that people with mental health challenges or bipolar or depression or anxiety can't work or can't work in the medical field or can't do that. Like what? No, he's gone after and found these women who are vulnerable not even down to because they have mental health problems but because

fucking sherry's got hep c she's like waiting for a disability here's extra money like and they're also in quite a poor area he's paying them you know like latosha he was giving her fucking 30 dollars for every prescription she turned around. Like, of course people are going to go work there. They're desperate. Yeah, but it's filters through to the law enforcement, unfortunately. Detective on the case, who's called Jim Wood, rather unkindly said, quote, you wouldn't let them mow your lawn, let alone give people anesthesia. I mean, that's a weird, like, link to make.

The only people I want giving me anesthesia are fucking doctors who have been to medical school for years and years and years yeah not oh can you mow my lawn oh you can okay great then you're good enough to do this like do you not have bipolar or depression or anxiety oh great let me just roll my sleeve up what the fuck sort of a comparison is that on edge like uncomfortable i feel you kermit gosnall convinced his staff that it was totally fine for them to administer anesthesia even when he wasn't there. Everything was done by Kermit Gosnell's rules, not the law. He convinced everyone who worked with him that performing abortions after the legal

limit of 24 weeks was ethical, achievable and a necessary service. I know that we're all sort of itching to dive headfirst into the abortion debate but before we get there we have some other things to get through first. I mean Gosnell's just like complete flagrant disregard for the law is one of the things that sort of rings the loudest throughout this case for me, because I do think the subject matter of abortion obviously gets people very, you know, emotional, emotive. Of course it does, because what he was doing was abortions. A lot of the other stuff gets to sort of side-swiped, side-swiped, you know what I mean, like swept away, because really what we're talking about is a man here

who had absolutely no regard for human safety for anything that he was doing he was just like whatever we'll just do it you can do it you can administer anesthetic while i'm not here that's completely fine it's unbelievable the callousness and recklessness with which he conducts himself it's shocking where were people meant to go turn they were turning to this man because unlike some sort of back alley abortion peddlers, he actually had a medical degree, which he could have done it in a more safe way. That's the thing that really fucks me off. Same. He could have done this in a safe way.

And what he says that this was an ethical, achievable and necessary service, providing safe abortions, in my opinion, is those things. But he wasn't doing it in a safe way he was taking advantage of poor desperate people and money grubbing essentially exactly exactly that and i think because what he says he argues he's like you know people need abortions and i'm providing a service i can get on board with that but not when there's cat shit on the floor actually exactly and not when you don't know better. You're not like some random person that's just like, let's just do it. You have been to medical school. You are a doctor.

You know better than this and you just don't care. So Gosnell, apart from these three women that he had working for him, or four women actually, he also had a medical student who worked for him called Stephen Massoff. Now Massoff had actually also graduated medical school but had failed to actually become a doctor. Working for Gosnell was his fallback plan but it was one that would put him in prison. Imagine going to medical school and becoming a doctor and then your fallback plan is just to go to prison. Yeah well he doesn't even become a doctor like he passes the exams but he doesn't get the like you have to I think I mean this is based solely on Grey's Anatomy and scrubs but I think like once you get through medical school you have to go and

be an intern at a hospital and then you have to do all of those things and that's when you're a doctor it's nothing to do with the exams. No that's true like go do a residency. Exactly. So despite all of the stuff that Kermit Gosnell was up to, as Hannah mentioned earlier, he was a very well respected man in the community of West Philadelphia. If you had a problem, you would go to him because he would fix it for you. And he had graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1966 and moved to New York to learn abortion techniques years before it was legalized nationwide in 1973. And then he took his knowledge back to Philadelphia. And he was known for pushing the boundaries. He would perform abortions on women who had been pregnant for longer than 24 weeks. And he told Volk, the guy who wrote the book, that, quote, I did not choose abortion. Abortions chose me. He claimed to perform abortions on women who could not afford to have another child. In the 70s, Gosnell was taken under the wing of illegal abortionist Harvey Karman.

Harvey Karman is not a doctor, but he developed an abortion technique called the super coil that he believed would make second trimester abortions easier and therefore they could be performed by people with little training. So he's basically just trying to mechanise the system a bit. I'm just like, is that a necessary service? Well, probably. Making them safer and quicker and cleaner. Oh, do we think, okay, makes it safe.

Okay, I was just like... I think that's what he was trying to do. He was trying to make it safer. He didn't, but that was the attempt. Gosnell took this super coil technology home with him to Philadelphia and on the 13th and 14th of May in 1972, he used the technique on 15 pregnant women in front of a television crew. Nine of the women had complications

and three of the women had severe complications from this procedure. And the right-wing press ran away with this and they call it the mother's day massacre that is just so tasteless it is tasteless it's absolutely that and also when i kept reading about mother's day massacre i was like oh like they must there must be this like massive death of but it's obviously they're obviously talking about the fetuses but like it's uh very inflammatory so the super coil never did catch on and gosnell continues to perform abortions later in pregnancy which may not seem like too terrible a thing the problem is that that i have with kermit and well people in general is the way he was performing these abortions past the 24 week mark usually what happens in an abortion procedure after the 20

to 24 weeks sort of area is that a drug called digoxin is injected through the stomach of the woman carrying the fetus directly into the fetal heart and this drug stops the heart from beating and then the cervix is dilated and the fetus is evacuated. But sometimes the injection doesn't work. In these cases the fetus is given what is called comfort and care, which according to obstetrician Dr. Karen Faisalin, is essentially just keeping the fetus warm until it eventually passes. Now the viability of a fetus at 24 weeks of gestation is estimated to be between 20 and 35%. That is of course assuming that the fetus had nothing else wrong with it.

Now, depending on who you believe, Kermit Gosnell didn't know how to administer digoxin, or he wasn't very good at it. According to his staff, it was almost routine for fetuses to be evacuated from the womb without having their heart stopped. And when this happened, Gosnell himself or his staff would use a pair of surgical scissors to cut the spinal cord of the fetus

and then they would either dispose of the remains or preserve them. Now how you react to that information really depends on when you think that life begins. It's also important to say that terminations of pregnancy after 21 weeks are incredibly rare. This is a US case, so looking at the statistics there, terminations of fetuses of pregnancies after 21 weeks make up less than 1.3% of procedures in the United States. According to Dr. Jennifer Conte,

who's an assistant professor at stanford um medicine and she also has a podcast called the v word which looks uh looks really good actually it's like her and another gynecologist like talking about women's stuff it's great big up dr conti her name sounds really familiar i feel like yeah i think she is sort of like one of those sort of like poppy gynecologists like yeah yeah So she's done an interview on CNN, so you might have seen that. So according to Dr. Conti, there are loads of reasons

why women need access to abortions later in pregnancy. There could be wrong with the women or there could be something wrong with the fetus. And I 100% agree with Dr. Conti when she says that nobody arrives at the decision to have an abortion

later in pregnancy easily. And I do find this idea quite difficult of this like mythical woman who just treats abortion like contraception like i don't think those people exist abortions are traumatic and i don't think anyone takes them lightly especially when they are later in pregnancy and i just can't shake this feeling that anyone who is looking for an abortion past the legal limit of 24 weeks is desperate there's so many reasons for why it would have taken that long. Like in the States, maybe they had problems with their insurance policy and they couldn't get to the right place at the right time. Maybe they had to travel really far, maybe they had to work,

etc. Like there's so many reasons. There could be any number of reasons of why they would have been turned away by other clinics maybe. And they may not have found out that there was a risk to their health or a risk to the baby's found out that there was a risk to their health or a risk to the baby's health or that there was something really wrong with the baby that was going to affect, you know, potentially quality of life or maybe it wasn't going to survive after it was born. So it's better to terminate it at that point. You might not discover those things until past 24 weeks. So yeah, there are just a multitude of reasons why it's waited that long. And I think you're right. No woman that I've ever met or heard about or read about is like, I'm just gonna wait

until it's the most traumatic it can possibly be for me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I really just haven't topped up on my trauma this week. So and that's how women end up going to people like Kermit Gosnell because they can't get it anywhere else. In England, Scotland and Wales, a woman can receive an abortion up to the 24-week limit as well. Obviously, in Northern Ireland, abortions have just been decriminalised. Determinations after the 24-week point can occur, but only in cases where the woman's life is in danger or there is a severe fetal abnormality or the woman is at risk of grave physical and mental injury. In the US, the limit varies from state to state, but fetal viability is usually the key thing that is considered. It's difficult because I think people want to be like, oh, this is the point up until which it is acceptable. And after that point, I have a problem with it. But there's a map you

can look at where it says like the abortion limits in every state in America. And some of them just say viability. But I just think outlawing it after a certain point totally puts people's lives in danger. This is the thing. I think it's important to have a guideline like we have of, you know, 24 weeks, whatever that might be. But I do think cases need to be looked at individually on a case-by-case basis. I just think, okay, what happens? Fine, you ban all abortion. What happens? Nothing happens. I was looking at the World Health Organization and an article that was written in the Atlantic,

and I thought the statistics there were quite interesting because they talk about the fact that obviously, if you criminalize abortion, it doesn't stop abortion. Take, for example, a country like El Salvador, which has some of the strictest abortion laws in the world. Still in El Salvador today, one in three pregnancies end in abortion. You can't get rid of abortions. You can just get rid of safe ones. Exactly. So what are we proving? That if you criminalize abortion, if you make it illegal, it will not stop because a third of pregnancies in El Salvador are still ending in termination. And what's tragic about that is exactly what Hannah said. All you will do is remove the option for women to have million abortions took place between 2010 and 2014, according to the World Health Organization. In cases where unsafe abortions are carried out on expectant mothers, the maternal death rate is up to 13%. You're achieving absolutely nothing by criminalizing it.

That's all we'll say on the matter apart from the rest of the show but anyway i'm jake warren and in our first season of finding i set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life you can listen to finding natasha right now exclusively on wondery plus in season two i found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone i've never even met but a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me.

And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud.

In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.

Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the film called The Silent Scream. Now the film shows a fetus in the early stages of development

and the suction device that is used to abort the fetus and we've watched it it just feels pretty manipulative because there is a lot of suggestion that the fetus is actually a fully formed, fully developed baby which at that stage it's just not. He's literally the guy who's like narrating it literally like holds up a like a baby doll

and like this is there. And I'm like, well, not really, though, is it? Now, the film claims that when the suction device connects with the fetus, its mouth opens in a silent scream. This disturbed Gosnell and he developed his snipping method instead. Gosnell always maintained that he would never regret performing abortions because the loss of the women's potential was a greater crime. And this is it, guys. This is the abortion debate moment. In our opinion, you cannot give the fetus greater rights than the woman carrying it. So if we put the underqualified staff in the disgusting clinic to one side for just a second, if we're just looking at the technique that Kermit gosmal was using there are two things that upset me about it and i'm sure upset quite a

lot of people including you firstly the thing is that the the demise of the fetus happens outside the womb and effectively this is very emotive language and i'm not sure i should really be using it but like essentially what you want to say is you're like the baby is born and it's out here in the world with the rest of us like for seconds but it you know it is and secondly the what like he just sticks with you about it is the snipping of the spinal cord I think that gives you a more emotional response than a needle stopping a heartbeat and I think that's because we can imagine pain like we know where our spinal cord is we know it's important for feeling and we can remember being in pain. So the big question is, can the foetus feel pain?

There is actually no medical consensus on this. But in Georgia and Arkansas, the doctor is required by law to inform the woman seeking the abortion that the foetus will feel pain and administer anaesthesia to the fetus. At 20 weeks, a fetus will pull away from a pinprick or a noxious stimulus, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are in pain. It could just be a reflex. One study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association stated that a fetus cannot experience pain until 28 to 30 weeks gestation because that's when the nerves that communicate painful stimuli have fully developed.

Anything before that is a reflex and nothing to do with consciousness or pain, therefore. And a quote from the study says that fetal anaesthetic or analgesia should not be recommended or routinely offered for abortion because current experimental techniques provide unknown fetal benefit and may increase risks for the woman so not everyone agrees with this there are some people that say that so everyone is agreed that the fetus will like move away from a pin or whatever what they're not just agreed on is whether that denotes a feeling of pain and a consciousness or whether it's just a reflex like that's where people are disagreeing but there

is no like hard fact on it like there's no consensus and like definitely 28 to 30 weeks definitely then but before then it's all a bit muddy really the fox news mini documentary that i watched on this uses um the 20 week mark as absolutely factually being the moment that a fetus will experience pain. But just like when they said Birmingham was a no-go area for any non-Muslims, I think they've got it wrong. Yeah, I mean, they've done it before and they'll do it again. So, yeah, I think it's like we just said at the start of this episode. Everyone has their own opinions on this case. We should all just seek to inform ourselves as well as we possibly can so that our opinions are well formed. And just be really careful about where you

get your facts because who are the people that are writing it? What is their agenda? You know, it's year nine history. What's the agenda by the person who's writing this what is the source and i think that's the only thing that we can say about it two women died as a result of their visits to gosnell's clinics in 2000 shamika shaw died from infection and sepsis two days after gosnell perforated her uterus and cervix during an abortion procedure, according to a grand jury report. But there was no investigation into her death. The theory behind this being in medical clinics, some people will obviously inevitably die. But Shamika Shaw was not the only one. In 2009, Karnamaya Monga died of an overdose of Demerol administered by one of Gosnell's uncertified assistants.

And again, there was no investigation into her death. It wasn't until Gosnell pissed off the DEA that anybody looked into what was happening at the Women's Medical Society. It's important to point out at this point that Shamika was African American and Karnamaya was a refugee from Bhutan. And clearly no one was bothered by their deaths, given the lack of investigation. The war on drugs was the thing that blew this wide open, not the deaths of two young women of colour. And the grand jury agreed. There were no investigations because, quote,

the women in question were poor and of colour, because the victims were infants without identities and because the subject was the political football of abortion. What do they mean by political football? Is it just like no one wants to hold on to it? They just want that term it just reminds me of the thick of it Ollie in the thick of it says like it's a political football and Malcolm Tucker just looks at him and says do you only speak in political buzzwords and I just think it is a very very like politically buzzword term but I think it just means an issue that just it's like immigration whatever just gets kicked around from left to right yeah essentially uh the argument is this that a total failing of the pennsylvania state department the health department and the board of medicine to shut gosnell down even though he was malpracticing

and not even remotely trying to hide it they're afraid of casting a bad light on abortion so they stay at steer clear and it's incredibly irresponsible and i kind of buy that argument to a certain extent it reminds me of the closest thing i could uh like a pull it alongside is you know when you have crimes committed by um like here when we had the bradford grooming gangs and they knew the police knew that they were being committed by asian men in the north and nobody wanted to touch it nobody wanted to touch it. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Nobody wanted to investigate it because they were afraid of being accused of racially profiling and appearing racist. And they were just like, so they let loads and loads of people get hurt because of it.

And it's like, it's kind of the same thing with this, you know? This is too sensitive. Let's not talk about it. But you're leaving people's lives at risk when you don't. Because, some people argue, the State Department and the Medical Board didn't want to be seen to be obstructing abortion in any way. They didn't inspect the Women's Medical Society for 17 years. Even though there are red flags as early as 1989, nothing really happened. And I think that is inexcusable. Of course, abortion clinics should be regulated as closely as any other medical facility.

The fact that they weren't is just, it's frankly unacceptable. And the less safe and clean abortion clinics there are, the more vulnerable women will be forced into the hands of people like Gosnell. So Gosnell finally stood trial in November of 2011. He had eight co-defendants, including his former staff and his wife Pearl. But almost all of them testified against Gosnell in return for a plea deal. Gosnell was represented by Jack McMohan, and he did not take the stand once. McMohan's argument was essentially that Gosnell did inject all fetuses with digoxin, and that all deliveries were stillbirths, and that Shamika and Kahnemeyer died as a result of unforeseen complications rather than outright malpractice and negligence. And the defence did not call a

single witness. The prosecution, on the other hand, had an absolute field day. Each member of Gosnell's former staff had harrowing stories about the goings-on within the walls of the Women's Medical Society. All of them pled guilty to their charges that ranged from murder in the third degree to negligence. Now, I don't think we've covered murder in the third degree before, and that's probably because it only exists in Florida, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. The concept is that the perpetrator only meant to inflict bodily harm and not death. So I think when I was reading about it, I think when I was like doing the Hello Kitty murder of Fan Man Yee, and if we'd have had degrees of murder in Hong Kong,

that could have been possibly what they were convicted of. Because I think it's like physical harm, mental harm, but we didn't mean to kill this person. Yeah. I'm not sure it particularly fits this, really. I'm not sure. It's so complicated. Stephen Massoff actually avoided a first-degree murder charge with his plea deal and gave a detailed description of Gosnell's snipping technique. And he admitted to conducting the procedure himself at least a hundred times, thinking that it was standard practice.

He has been to medical school. Like, come on. I was going to say, like, you have been to medical school. You just didn't do the residency. Like, how could you think that was standard practice? Adrienne Moten described the termination of a fetus that in the court documents is described as baby A. And she told the court that she'd been so upset

that she'd taken a picture which was shown to the courtroom and met with gasps. I've seen this picture and you can find it if you want to but I really wouldn't recommend it. It really, really looks like a baby. No, I didn't bring myself to Google it.

Gosnell joked that this particular foetus was big enough to walk to the bus stop. Oh my God. Adriana also described a delivery that happened in a toilet while they waited for Gosnell joked that this particular fetus was big enough to walk to the bus stop. Oh my God. Adriana also described a delivery that happened in a toilet while they waited for Gosnell to arrive. Clinic workers described hearing the fetuses make noises and move their limbs, but these were all explained away by Gosnell as involuntary movements. Are they? I don't know.

It depends. Not all of the abortions that he did were 24 weeks. Some of them were 30 weeks. Some of them were really quite far along. Gosnell was originally charged with seven counts of first degree murder. But the judge threw out the cases of baby B, F and G because there was no proof that they were born alive. The prosecution called an abortion expert to the stand to prove that Gosnell's practices were not the norm. His name was Charles David Benjamin, and he worked for Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia.

Benjamin told the court that over his 30 years of practice, he had performed 40,000 abortions. There had been one death on his watch. But according to him, even that death was the fault of another doctor and not his own. According to Benjamin, the doses of digoxin, detailed in Gosnell's notes, were over 500 times the recommended amount. But he also recognized that there was evidence that digoxin was not even used at all. So basically, Benjamin thought that the information on the patient's charts were false, that Gosnell never actually administered digoxin, and he just wrote

that down in case he was ever pulled up on it. At first, the trial was only really seen by local media and competing abortion activist blogs. National News was criticised heavily for a media blackout. And the reason being, of of course this is what the anti-abortion people argue is that liberal newspapers don't want to say anything negative about abortion that is what the right-wing papers have to say and I've never done it where I've seen more outright hatred of feminism like hatred this is what the feminists want like you can't the feminists have their way like really shocking but this media blackout jibe did work. After this accusation, the case was widely covered in the national press and on TV news stations.

The Washington Post actually gave a sort of kind of apology in which they basically said it would be great if they could be everywhere all the time, but they can't. Apparently, they did send a reporter, but then the bombing of the Boston Marathon happened the next day. And sometimes that happens. Sometimes not everything can be covered all the time. Like, someone's always looking for the front Marathon happened the next day. And sometimes that happens. Sometimes not everything can be covered all the time. Like someone's always looking for the front page, you know? Yeah, definitely. So Gosnell was charged with 395 criminal counts that included first-degree murder of seven babies,

three of which were thrown out by the judge. Yeah, so he's charged with seven and then the judge is like, actually, these ones you can't have. Yeah, because there was no evidence that they had been born alive. Exactly that, yeah. Annie was charged with the third degree murder of Karnamaya and with 33 counts of illegal abortions and 310 counts of informed consent violations.

They also threw in solicitation of murder, drug violations, obstruction, operating a corrupt organization, fraud, and tampering with evidence, all for good measure. After a two-month trial and ten days of deliberation, a jury of seven women and five men concluded that in the cases of baby A, baby C and baby D, they were born alive and therefore their demises were infanticide and not abortion. And so Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of three counts of murder in the first degree. He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of Karnamaya Moga and acquitted of the death of baby E.

He was found guilty on 211 counts of not waiting the legally required 24-hour waiting period between consultation and termination of pregnancy. At 72 years old, Kermit was sentenced to life in prison. He narrowly avoided the death penalty because he agreed to waive his right to appeal and he will die behind bars. Stephen Massoff was found guilty of two counts of murder in the third degree of the babies that had been born alive and received a sentence of six to twelve years inside. All other members of staff received much lighter sentences.

This case has been the subject of a few documentaries and one dramatisation. It's called Gosnell, America's Biggest Serial Killer. It's made by husband and wife team, Phelan A'Kalir, I think, and Anne McLeany. Those are hard names. They're hard names, yeah, yeah, yeah. Their other works include anti-environmentalist documentary, I've put documentary in air quotes there,

called Not Evil, Just Wrong, which claims to debunk Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Wow. So I think that tells you quite a lot about what you need to know about them. Anti-environmental. I find, yeah. It's like basically I've not watched it because I've already watched one of their films and that's quite enough for me. But like I read about it and it's essentially making the argument that like

what the liberal lefties want is to instill sanctions on the human race that will be bad for them in return for saving the planet basically they're saying it's all a conspiracy and that there's nothing wrong with the planet and people just want to like control us okay okay so they're like um too much government control and it's all just a conspiracy to try control us i yeah i mean i haven't i haven't watched it but that's what i imagine it to be. Interesting because I wish that the government would actually do more about environmental issues. Yeah that's one of the things I don't think is overly regulated. No she loves talking about big government and the terrors that that rains down upon people.

She's a real character. The other thing about this film before I rip it to shreds is that Dean Cain is in it. And this is the Gosnell America's Biggest Serial Killer one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He plays Jim Wood. He plays the detective who said that thing about lawnmowers. And I was watching it and I was like, that's never Superman. There's no way that is Superman. But it is. The guy who played Superman with Terry Hatcher as his Lois Lane is in this film. That blows my mind. That blows my mind. Why? Why, Dean?

Well, maybe Dean's got an agenda because the film was crowdfunded and it was made on a budget of around $2 million. So God knows how they afforded Dean Cain. His net worth's about $6 million. Yeah. I mean, I don't know Dean Cain, but I feel like you don't just accidentally walk onto the set of a film like that. You've read the script you know what the deal is. He's obviously on board with whatever the hell it was trying to say. And to be fair to him like he is pretty good in it but

that can't be said for everyone. There is some truly shocking acting like really quite appalling. So you can go and watch it. It's on YouTube. Don't give them any money if you can help it. And I've read an interview with Anne about the film and she says that she told the story in a fair way. I don't think that's true. There's no focus in the film on the desperation and exploitation of the women who needed Gosnell's services. And the title is inflammatory to say the least. Yeah. America's

biggest serial killer. Are you joking? Yeah. It's very clear what point you're trying to make with that title. Yeah, exactly. I mean, she is very much advocating with that sentence that the woman's life is less important than the fetuses. It's a lot. It's a lot. So Dr. Willie J. Parker, an obstetrician and the board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health, called the film's title and the film itself

as being an attempt to exploit the pain and suffering of women and this is dr willie j parker an obstetrician versus fucking ann anti-environmentalist ann yeah yeah like who even is she like i'm just think about where the quotes and the facts are coming from that's it and he And he goes on to say that, quote, it was designed to arouse outrage against doctors who provide safe and legal abortion care. And I believe it creates a safety risk for physicians, clinicians, clinical staff, clinical escorts, and my patients. Dr. Parker, just like the rest of us, is glad that Kermit Gosnell was convicted. But anti-choice opponents across the country have exploited the criminality of his actions to stigmatize abortion and intimidate abortion providers. You cannot look at outliers like Kermit Gosnell, someone who is

exploiting people, exploiting the system, to be indicative of the way in which you legislate or you create rules or you create laws or you form opinions. He is an outlier. What he was doing was wrong. He isn't America's biggest serial killer, but he is a fucking killer because he was so reckless with people's lives. Just remember that he is an outlier. And in an interview that we read with Anne, which is posted below in the show notes, and so you can read it yourself, she says things like, quote, if you like abortion, then let's talk about it. Did you know that you can get an abortion at 40 weeks in this country? contents of Gosnell's clinic to the Holocaust. And I think we only have one thing to respond to Anne on that is that nobody likes abortion, Anne. No one's getting one for fun, are they? Like, it's just such a weird thing to say. If you like abortion, then let's talk about it. Okay, Anne, like, jeez.

I heart abortions. What? At what point? That's our next merch line that's coming out what the fuck man like nobody likes abortions nobody likes any of this if you are getting an abortion in very late pregnancy something is seriously wrong it's not like someone just like rocks up and is like actually i've changed my mind that doesn't I just don't believe that happens and I just think that it's like we keep saying this is incredibly emotive topic but just think about like just try I think the biggest thing missing in society not just now forever is an inability to look at things from other people's perspectives this is not a black and white issue this is a big pile of gray and that's the only thing that you can take away from

this is that no one is 100% right and being angry in your convictions is not going to help move the conversation in any meaningful way but Anne is not being helpful she is not a helpful person in the bin with you an anti-environmentalist Anne so according to the book Gosnell's Babies which is written by Steve Volk Gosnell still has no regrets he's quoted to the book gosnell's babies which is written by steve volk gosnell still has no regrets he's quoted in the book as saying i believed my deeds were in a war against discrimination disenfranchisement under education and poverty and he seems to be having a pretty okay time in prison he's learning spanish and doing yoga and applying for jobs he's applied to work for the gates foundation and a job training young doctors

that he saw in The Economist. And he's incredibly surprised that he never gets these jobs. He thinks it's because he's notorious, but I think it's because he's in actual prison. Yeah, Gosnell, you're in prison and you're in your fucking 70s. Why? What are you doing? What? He's the arrogance of it. I know. And I love the arrogance of like the type of jobs he's the arrogance of it i know and i love the um arrogance of like the type of jobs he's even like the gates foundation jobs he sees in the economist i'm like just fucking chill and he's like oh on his cv learning yoga learning spanish like shut the fuck up dedicated physician currently learning spanish at conversational level oh god be quiet now obviously

this case you'll be unsurprised to hear was of course jumped all over by politicians of all shapes and sizes and we will spare you the specifics because essentially it can be argued in two ways and the far right wing way of all abortion is barbaric and it should be stopped. And then the left-wing way, that if there are more sanctions placed on legal abortions, then you will just push more and more desperate women towards men like Gosnell. I think one of the things that we can say very safely is that you will never get rid of abortions. Just think about those stats. I mean, just go on to the World Health Organization.

I was on that this morning and I was blown away. Of course, making abortion illegal does not get rid of abortion. It will always happen. But you can absolutely get rid of safe abortions if you try hard enough. And that's what we don't want. Exactly. And the more I sort of go around in circles in this, the thing I keep coming back to is that

I can't get behind a fetus having more rights than the woman that carries it. After the trial, the Catholic Church claimed the 47 sets of remains that had been found in Gosnell's clinic and buried them in a mass grave. Was there any evidence that all of his victims were Catholic? No. Why did that happen?

Catholics are just like very on it with the abortion argument though, aren't they? Is that slightly, am I being cynical or is that slightly, not even slightly, is that a fucking political move by the Catholic Church? Of course it is. Of course it is. But apparently loads of people wanted them. Loads of people like wrote to the police and were like, can we bury them please? And the Catholic Church like just like won the lot so if there is one thing that we can all agree on is that kermit cosnell should absolutely be in prison if he hadn't botched the abortions and if he hadn't got on the wrong side of the dea there would never have been a trial at all though and that's the

thing he thinks that he was providing a necessary service that was unavailable to the women who needed it. Because remember, at the time, abortion was illegal, but he was not doing it safely. He was putting vulnerable women at incredible risk. And he capitalised on shame and desperation that the current healthcare system at the time was responsible for. And we're going to leave you with another Dr. Willie J. Parker quote. He said that all women who have a right to respectful, affordable and accessible health care and abortion is medical care. And the further it's pushed out of mainstream medical care, the riper conditions become for exploitative bad actors like Gosnell. And I don't think I can say it better than that.

No, I think that's all that needs to be said really. Please don't rip each other to shreds over this. Like please do not make this the week that we close the Facebook group. Just be kind to each other. That's it. I hope you're all still with us. I'm not sure I am. Yeah, no, that was a tough one

and it's like we said at the start. We did think a lot about whether we should cover this or not but we never shied away from other issues because they could be inflammatory or controversial and I just hope that as Hannah said you guys will all respect each other as much as we have tried to do that in this case and remember that first and foremost this is a story about a man who recklessly put the lives of so many women in danger by not doing things safely. So anyway, quick, quick pivot, shall we, into something else. Spooky Bitch merch is still available. It is like, oh my god, it's like something in November right

now. The Spooky Bitch merch shop will be going away at the end of November. I hear they make great Christmas presents. If you know a person, a sister, a mom, a brother, a dad, somebody, a best friend who wants a spooky bitch hoodie, now is your chance to put in orders for Christmas and make sure you get them before then. Commercialism, capitalism, etc, etc. But yeah, go do that. And then apart from that, you can also follow us on Red Handed the Pod at all the social medias. If you'd like to go that one stage further and help support the show with some cold hard cash, you can do that on patreon.com slash red handed. And here are some lovely people who have done so.

Oh my God, there's so many. Okay. Yeah, like we haven't even scratched the surface, honestly. I know. We're getting to you guys. We are getting to you. We just don't want to put like loads and loads of names in each episode because you just will get lost. So here we go.

Lauren Jackson. Scarlett Clark. Philip Soberg. Dina. Yeah. Dina Bohog. Amy Harris. Erin Ward.

Penny Three. That's a great name. Alison Hothnagle. Ryan Clausen. Abby. Gianna Group. Shelley Holbrook. Jen Fraserzier, Vanessa Solomon, Lauren Dwyer, Caroline Manny, Rebecca Meridia, Jillian Gagne, Amy Junow, Michelle Valient, Kate Cotman. Kate Cottom, even. Perry Dawn.

Melanie Ruel. Kate Neary. Juliette Hoare. Josie Pickens. How? Sarah Everett. Erin Swallow. You know, I'm an incredibly good reader, actually.

I don't want this to mass everybody's opinions of me. You know when you had to like read those little books like C-Spot Run or whatever? I never did that. I did one book and they were like, okay, you're a free reader. Get out of my sight. So I can read. I just find this very difficult. These names are so complicated. Emeline Bautista Thorsday Adams

Brackets MPC Joanne Edna Iser Jessica Miles Jill Budd Louisa Shipston Joanna Lowe Tricia Duffy Stacey McQueenie

Andrea White Nina Oh my god, why didn't I stop there? Sue Antakinen And then you can go. Montez, Ashley Wellington, Olivia Marsh, Sarah Elizabeth Murray, Lindsay Cain, Tasha Young, Liz Clay, Jillian S, Caroline Mangan, Macy Price, Holly Fox, Jessica Hudson, Morag, Emily Davis, Taylor Balding, Alex Reichman, Kelly Spence, Jenny Amonette, Alana Clock, Annie M,

Catherine Knox, Leanne Dooley, Niamh Dixon, Carrie Hagey, Kelly Spence, Jenny Amonette, Alana Clock, Annie M, Catherine Knox, Leanne Dooley, Niamh Dixon, Carrie Hagey, Ingrid Edge, Libby Zellers, Cara Marie Wilson, Hannah, Stephanie Roach, Catherine Rule, Antigone Salsis, Hannah Reese, Elle Clifford, Summer Hurtado, Janelle Alters, Carol Fairburn, Sarah or Sarah Autry, I'm not sure. Erin, Vita Shepard, Larissa Solovnya, Laura Robertson, Katie Conyers, Ellen Wright, Tamara Kathleen, Sarah Alice, Maya McKenzie, Rosabelle Seguilero, Emma Eogan, Jill Ostro, Christy, Jane Heath, Liz Lineski, Thanks, guys. And that's how you do it. Fuck off. Whatever.

Masterclass from Hannah in reading names. Appreciate it. Thanks so much, guys. It means the world. And yeah, we will be back next week. See you next week. Bye. Be nice to everyone. And yeah, we will be back next week. See you next week. Bye. Be nice to everyone.

Yes, please. Please be nice to everybody. Okay. And us. Thanks. Bye. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution.

I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't.

I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained.

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