RedHanded - Episode 16 - The Drag Queen & Her Costume Cupboard Corpse

Episode Date: October 12, 2017

Dorian Corey, drag queen superstar, was the queen of queens in life - but when she died, a bizarre and horrifying mystery was revealed. What her friends found hidden in the back of her costume cupboard, zipped up in a dress bag, shocked the world. We still don't know exactly what happened, but join the girls this episode as they try unravel this confusing case.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.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 Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. Thank you very much to everyone who has reviewed us as we've had even more five stars reviews. So we'd like to give a little shout out to R. Lely, who says that we are awesome. Thank you very much. That's very affirming. And also, we'd like to say thank you very much to Sing It Back, who left us a five star review.

Said that we moved the episodes along at the right pace and that we are now a no-brainer in that person's podcast lineup. And a big thank you to Karen Olden who said she just discovered us and it's a good mix of storytelling and comedy. It's a tough balance. It is but no we really really appreciate it so thank you guys for for continuing to take the time to do that. Yeah, absolutely. And today we have a totally unsolved mystery. And for reasons that will become clear, this case has never gone to trial. We're telling the story today of Dorian Corey, who was a drag superstar, pivotal to the evolution of the underground drag ball scene in Harlem in the 60s, 70s and 80s and the first few years of the 90s. A little bit of a disclaimer, we will be referring to Dorian Corey using female pronouns because it's the right thing to do and we're not going to misgender people, that's not what we're about.

Dorian was very much at the forefront of the really highly acclaimed 1991 documentary Paris is Burning, which was made by Jenny Livingston. I didn't know that she, I think this is right, she was a student when she made it and it's this incredible feature documentary wow Paris is Burning explores all of the pioneering drag balls of New York City and Dorian Corey just comes across as the most regal like almost a little bit retired like are these young children I don't understand yeah she really just comes across as someone who has been there and done it my favorite favorite quote from her ever, if you have on a label, it means you've got wealth. When it doesn't really, because any shoplifter can get a label. There was a time when you could spend a great deal of time making outfits and preparing for something. Now they come very quickly and the moods change very quickly. But I come from the

old school of big costumes, feathers and beads, and they don't have that anymore. Now it's all about designers, but it's not about what you create. It's about what you can acquire. If you haven't seen Paris is Burning, do yourself a favour and watch it because it's on YouTube. And not only is it heart wrenching and like, it's really informative. It really showed me how much of pop culture now stems from the drag queens of that area. honestly like every single word that has ever come out of tyra banks's mouth a drag queen said it first don't know how to follow on from that i'm just gonna go straight to it oh but hannah's right paris is burning is a fantastic documentary but it isn't without its controversy and it was attacked by african-american scholar bell hooks as being

exploitative and the immediate prospect of poor black men who want to be wealthy and famous white women suggests a sort of subculture of acute maladjustment. And Dorian had an esteemed career as a drag performer. She was and truly is a legend. Dorian gave her last performance on the 8th of May 1993 and died on the 23rd of August the same year from complications from the AIDS virus at the age of 56. When she died, the New York Times ran a picture of her in drag. It was the first time they had ever done this. This was a true testament to just how influential Dorian was in New York in the 1970s, 80s and the early 90s. This is really something for a person from such a marginalized community. I mean, she was black, she was gay, and she was a drag queen.

Dorian was a true performer. She would lip sync, dance with a boa constrictor. Hello, Britney. Like, this is what I mean. Like, anything, anything that someone famous does now, I have a theory that a drag queen fucking did it first. And she would also act as the mistress of ceremonies in clubs all over the States, with her cabaret show The Pearl Review. She was most regularly a fixture of Sally's Club on Times

Square. She coupled elegance, glamour and a razor sharp wit. Isn't that what we all want Hannah? Absolutely. I would love it if somebody described me as elegant glamorous with razor sharp wit. Maybe we need to appropriate some of this 1980s drag queen into our everyday personas. Literally, that's all I'm trying to do. And also, Corey was a headliner long before Paris was burning. She was what people came to see. Dorian was loved by all who knew her. Many fellow drag queens noted that if you were ever in any trouble, she would take you in in a heartbeat. But Dorian could also be very cruel behind people's backs. Off stage Dorian was absolutely not someone when you wanted to mess with. Jesse Torres who

managed Sally's in the 90s was a close friend of Dorian. Jesse said that Dorian lived in a hardcore neighborhood and had to take care of herself and it is important to note here like I really don't feel like we can stress enough that being openly gay, let alone being a drag queen in New York at that time, was not safe at all. That's actually where the term realness comes from. Like, you'll hear, if you watch RuPaul's Drag Race, they say it all the time. Like, serving executive realness. And it comes from, if you could get home from a ball dressed as a woman without getting beaten up, you were serving realness. It's like, people don't question whether you're a man or a woman, like you're pulling it off. Paris is Burning illustrates

that much more eloquently than I ever could. Because of this, not only was Doreen Corey a sensational performer and drag legend, she was a tough queen who could absolutely handle herself living in a rough fucking neighbourhood. Dorian was born Fred Legg in Buffalo, New York, but moved to New York City and was in very infrequent touch with her family. But this is not incredibly unusual for the circles that Dorian ran in, so it wasn't seen as by anyone as particularly out of the ordinary. I think she wrote letters to her mum, but other than that she didn't keep in touch. It was in Buffalo that Dorian started to do drag and she moved to New York in the 50s to study art at Parsons School of Design. Dorian's apartment, where she

lived for the last year of her life, was on West 140th Street in Harlem. It was small, but a treasure trove of her elaborate, intricate costumes that Dorian created herself and was famous for. One of her costumes was a cape that covered the entire room. Like, they really are just the most outlandish things that she would make herself, and she would sell them to other people as well. She would supplement her income doing that. So all of these costumes remained in her apartment after her death, along with the belongings of her boyfriend, who was called Leon, and Leon's brother, who lived with them for a bit.

Think clutter and triple it. Like I really get the impression that it's just brimming over. I think I read that someone was like, oh, you could lose a small child in there. And it really makes me think of, do you know about the Collier brothers? I was thinking of hoarders. Have you ever watched that show? Well, that's what it's like. The Collier brothers are like the original hoarders. They also lived in Harlem in like the early 1900s. They had 14 grand pianos in their house and like a canoe and like all of this stuff. And they would dig tunnels through all of this stuff and they would dig tunnels oh god

through all of the stuff and they would set traps for people it's bonkers read about it so that's what i imagine it like like just tunnels of newspapers what better place to find a halloween costume this is what two nameless straight men on the hunt for a cape of a for a vampire costume so basic this is what they thought they went with lois Taylor, a fellow drag queen who had been a dear friend of Dorian's while she was alive on the hunt for a show-stopping Halloween drag extravaganza. Now, Lois Taylor had been entrusted by Dorian Corey to sell all of her costumes, but what she couldn't sell, she had been instructed to just give away. After trawling through gown after gown and drawer after drawer,

they just couldn't find what they were looking for. Nothing felt quite right. Until they saw a garment bag at the bottom of one of the wardrobes. This had to be it, right? The crowning glory. A garment so delicate and gorgeous that it had to be kept in a suit bag to protect it. I mean, you would be excited if this is what you stumbled across at this point. So Lois Taylor tried to pick up the bag, but found that it was far too heavy. This was not a surprise though, considering one of Dorian's most famous costumes was a full Marie Antoinette affair which I love complete with guillotine. Isn't that just amazing? Like that puts any costume I've ever done to shame. Brilliant. Taylor told one of these nameless straight men that she had brought with her to Dorian's apartment to cut open

the bag suspecting that it was one of Dorian's beaded gowns. It would have been heavy, but surely not that heavy. But nothing could prepare them for what they found inside. Inside this dusty garment bag was a mummified corpse, curled up in the fetal position, wrapped in plastic bags and fake leather, with a single bullet wound to the back of their head. I mean, can you even imagine?

You go in for a fancy dress costume for Halloween, and you come out with a single bullet wound to the back of their head. I mean, can you even imagine? You go in for a fancy dress costume for Halloween, and you come out with a dead body. Ugh, I know. This is when one of our anonymous straight men revealed that he was a police officer, and decided it was probably time to call the precinct. There is no statute of limitations on murder, so the investigation went ahead as if the body was discovered yesterday.

The lead investigators on the case were detectives John Rowe and Alfred Travers. And in all the interviews with them that we read, they're really just not very forthcoming and they constantly are citing that it's an active investigation and they can't discuss anything in detail. The forensics expert, however, Raoul Figueroa, loves it. Like he would, he'll talk about it for days because he was very proud of his work. He was also a licensed mortician and detective for the New York City Missing Persons Squad. They discovered that the body was that of a black male who was 5'10 and 140 pounds. He was wearing just blue and white boxer shorts. The body was purple when they found it and the skin had shrunk revealing a slight overbite and the ears were nothing but spiky cartilage points. Figueroa explained that men are oftentimes much harder to identify than women

because women usually have at least one strong attachment to someone, whereas men are much more likely to cut all ties. To make things even more difficult, hospitals don't tend to keep medical or dental records for more than six years. So, to identify the body, they were going to have to get creative. What Figueroa did was he cut the fingers of the corpse below the second joint in the hope of being able to identify the body using fingerprints but he did run into some issues maybe if you're eating at this point it's gross it's

really gross it might be it might be an idea to just to stop eating or to come back to us once you finished eating because the body that they found had been partially mummified. The plastic that it had been wrapped in had stopped any of the moisture escaping. So it had just sat in its own juices for decades. And the cleaning off all the muck was an absolutely painstaking process. They had to go so slowly and carefully because they didn't want to damage the body. As once the skin is gone, it's gone forever. Now Figueroa was working with secondary skin

a few layers deep because the first few layers were totally lost due to what he described as slippage it's similar to what you might lose if you had a really horrible sunburn he also said that when he's he's describing slippage in this interview he's like oh it's he's he just talks about it in such a casual way he's like oh you know it's like when you pull a body out of the water that's been there for three days and the hands, the skin of the hands just comes off like gloves. That's slippage. Oh my God. And also there was another issue with the body, which is even more gross.

So microorganisms live on everybody's skin. And when you die, they start to eat through your skin, creating microscopic holes. And the body obviously can't regenerate as if you were alive so they're like they're eating you all the time anyway but when you're alive you're just regenerating yeah absolutely so you can't regenerate it as if you were alive meaning that fingerprinting ink would leak through the holes making a usable fingerprint impossible figueroa managed it though and he's really secretive about his technique. You can tell this is a man who takes a lot of pride. He holds this information back but we read that he soaked the fingers in a solution to block the microscopic holes but I don't know how sure we are

about how credible that is because well it might give you a partial print though. Whatever he did he's plugged he had plugged the hole somehow. Yeah and definitely not the best situation but you know something for them to start with. I was actually reading something today about how you probably you probably heard about this about how ears are actually a much better identifier for people than fingerprints are. I have read about that yeah. They're better identifiers because they were saying that if people work in tough jobs, you can form calluses over your fingerprints. They can disappear sometimes because of things like that. But your ears will always be like a perfect identifier for you.

And they even said that even better than facial recognition software is ear recognition software, which is crazy. And they're genuinely working on this right now. My only issue with that as a crime scene, like ear prints, is like, why are you leaving your ear prints around a crime scene like ear prints it's like why are you leaving your ear prints around a crime scene that's what i was gonna say like it seems very weird that like someone just touching their ear against the wall it really is interesting though but um that they're working on ear recognition software so well maybe for you know uh missing persons or like unidentified bodies it would probably be really good i think that's that's what it is like to see video and like do that rather than trying to do facial recognition so either way though back to the

story after he worked some kind of you know his mortician magic on these fingers and drying them out with acetone he was able to get the prints from all 10 fingers and they ran the prints and they got a hit isn't that incredible that he got full prints from all 10 fingers of this this body that has been in a wardrobe for god knows how long that is absolutely remarkable you can tell why he wants to keep it slightly secretive so the man in the bag in the wardrobe was one robert wells born in 1938 in north carolina he had a sister still living in north carolina and she told the police that his real name was actually robert warley and everyone called him bob. Worley also had a brother living in Harlem who informed the police

that he had not seen his brother since 1968 when they lived together in the Bronx and Robert Worley had just vanished. His sister said he just fell off the face of the earth. Robert used to drink vodka from the bottle and it was an everyday thing. So he was known for public drunkenness. He fathered a child while he was living in the Bronx. But I don't think he was very involved. This is an example of Robert Worley not being particularly good news, in my opinion.

His brother Fred had said that Robert had become attracted to a woman who lived nearby. When she refused his advances, Robert roughed up her seven-year-old child. That's so fucked up. Oh my god, what an absolute piece of shit. You won't sleep with me so I'm gonna rough up your child. Oh yeah that'll do it. Now let's go. Yeah. In the yeah exactly like in the interview like the journalist really tries to press Fred for like what do you mean by rough up like what actually happened but he doesn't give anything away. So this lady uh she threatened to call the police didn't actually do it but robert warley was never seen by his family

again so they his family just assumed that he'd just gone on the run just at the mention of the police the only reason the prince ran a match was because in 1963 warley had been arrested of rape and isn't it so weird to think that if he had no criminal past, they never would have identified him. His family would never have known what happened to him. And he would just be this John Doe in a wardrobe. Do you know what I find really weird? When people are like, oh, he's got dental. He's got, we found his teeth, you know, we found his head and it's got teeth in it. Let's do dental match. But if you don't know who the person is, how do you know who their dentist is? Is that, how do you, what? Like,'s do dental match but if you don't know who the person is how do you know who their

dentist is is that how do you what like how do dental records get matched that is a really good point like i genuinely don't know is there like a database where all of our teeth records get put onto maybe but maybe if the family is looking like the family is gonna know but no you found a body and you have no idea who this body is who the family is and they'll be like let's run the dental records where do they find these dental records to run against you if you if you're listening and you do know that then let us know because that's weird let us know about the national teeth database no it's interesting because you like you said the only reason they matched him

was because he had a criminal record and they found they got his fingerprints but like i don't have a criminal record but i have teeth and i have a dentist but how would they know who my dentist was if they don't even know who i am uh we're just like blowing our minds here now somebody so what was wardy convicted of he was convicted of this is makes me so angry he was convicted of abducting and having intercourse and this is a quote

with a female not his wife against her will and without her consent forcing sex with your wife wasn't illegal at the time

and it wasn't even outlawed in the UK until 1990 what the fuck I mean I knew that that was a thing that for a long

time, obviously, in law it was that you couldn't possibly rape your wife. But 1990? Yeah. I was already born by that point. What the fuck? That is disgusting. That's absolutely outrageous. It is disgusting. And I just hate the wording of it as well.

Oh, yeah. Oh, we've had sex with a woman. Oh, don't worry. It's not his wife. Yeah, it's like, oh, you had sex with a woman. Oh, and it's not your wife, so we can press charges against it. And it was against her will and without her consent. Why? And again, this annoys me in so many things when we just don't use the

word rape. When we talk about things and it'll be like molested or sexually assaulted. Yes, of course there's a difference between being assaulted and being raped penetratively but like when children particularly it happens to them it's like in society we can't bring ourselves to say what really happened and we'll be like that child was sexually abused that child was molested why don't we just say what actually happened that child was raped we never say it it's so true and this is another piece of like a piece of the puzzle of

how how black people would were treated in it at this time because on his on his court documents his race is listed as c for colored oh i really i really really hate that term i'm not overly pc in any sense i don't take offense like the other day we were at the pub and somebody described someone as black and then looked at me like oh I don't and I was like why are you stammering like to describe someone as black it is not make you a racist if you say that guy was black

and I don't like those people that's racist there's a difference between being race related and being racist but coloured is such an offensive term but what's worse than that is things like half-caste oh my god what that's such a horrendous word I guess it's a sad indictment of the times though in South Africa coloured is the preferred term apparently for someone who's mixed race the thing is though it is just a word and word only has a word or a phrase

only has the power that we give it and it only has the acceptability that we also give it so if the community as a whole feels like that's our preferred term then that's the preferred term because they haven't taken they haven't allied like sort of negative connotations towards it but here I felt like if somebody called me coloured I it's already pre already preconceived in my notions and in the wider community that that's a negative term. It would make them seem ignorant. But if somebody called me a person of colour,

it's just because we've accepted that that is the right phrase to use. There is no right or wrong answer. It's only right or wrong within the context of the society in which you live and what has been determined to be acceptable by a certain community. Yeah, like I have South African friends and I was talking to them about it and it just it really made me uncomfortable but it's you're so right though it's it's a cultural cultural clash so

anyway wally was sentenced to two to four years in prison and his brother said that he served almost the full term i've also read that he was in prison for three years so i think that's a good a good estimate so he raped someone and he got three years for it. So Wally then had left North Carolina to escape a girlfriend who accused him of quote unquote doing something to her. Yeah, I think we can all use our imagination to guess what he did to her. And he was also involved in a number of petty crimes in North Carolina. Things like public drunkenness, theft, but nothing huge.

He also fathered a child who he never met. Now if Corey killed Wally 15 years before 1993, there would have been roughly about 25,000 unsolved homicides in New York City. If he was killed in 1968, which seems probably the most likely, there would have been around 40,000 unsolved homicides in New York City. So it's unsurprising that his disappearance remained unsolved until his body was identified in 1993. So how long had he been there? In truth, there's just no way of knowing. Figueroa, however, does have a theory.

Inside the bag and the wrapping were like old school pull-off tabs from beer cans, which were most common in the US during the 1960s and 1970s. They literally look like tins of beans. I think we've got some pictures we can put on Instagram. Now Figueroa claimed that the discovery of this places the murder during the 60s or 70s meaning that it was at least 20 years before the body was discovered. I think it is most likely that Worley was murdered in 1968 when he went missing, but I'm just not sure how convinced I am by the beer can tab theory. Surely they could have been in the bag beforehand,

they could have been dropped in later. Really don't think it's a definitive proof of time of death, but it was just basically the best they could do. I know what you mean because they if they had been in there from the 1960s or 70s the biz he could have still been killed later and placed in a bag where they were already in there but it is an interesting way to at least have a theory to start to narrow this down. I can understand clutching at straws because how long a person has been dead is normally determined by forensics by the rate of decomposition and this was by no means

a normal decomposition. It's extremely difficult, basically impossible, to get an exact date or even a year of death. Obviously with a case like this, I think especially because it hasn't gone to trial, there are a lot of rumours and a lot of hearsay which we have sifted through for you. But there are three main theories of how that man ended up in a drag queen's cupboard. So firstly, the first theory was that Dorian was trying to protect the real killer. So if we buy the beer pull tab dating system to figure out when this body might have been placed in there and therefore when he was probably killed, which we're not sure we necessarily agree with, but this would put the body having been there since the late 60s, early 70s. Dorian, she only moved into her 140th street

apartment where the body was found in the late 80s. Would she have dragged a body in a bag through busy Manhattan? That seems quite unlikely. So was the body already there when Dorian moved in? Did Dorian know the person who she took the apartment from and agreed to house this terrible secret? I think this is the least favourite of both of our theories. Like, you have to accept two things. Either the body was there already, or someone, not necessarily Dorian,

someone moved it. If they're going to go with that dating system, it places the body being killed and placed there in the 60s, 70s, but Dorian wasn't there so but then would you do that I'd just be like okay I'm not going to tell anybody about your horrible secret but get that fucking body out of here why would you just be like yeah leave it there and I'll cover for you my least favorite of the theories yeah me too I'm not a fan of that theory but it's important to cover especially if we're going to go with that beer can dating. 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 Combs. 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 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. 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. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. 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 Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Now, theory number two was given by Chi Chi Valenti, who was a good friend and fellow drag queen of Dorian. She gave the theory that Wally had ended up in the suit bag because he had broken into Dorian's house, attempted to rob her and she had shot him in self-defense. Chi Chi thought that Dorian had simply been too busy to get rid of the body because she was getting really for the show. I do quite like, obviously like murder's a horrible thing, like that's not what I'm saying, but I do quite like this image of this gorgeous

drag queen who shoots someone and is like, oh my god, I'm just gonna have to deal with that later, I've gotta go. You know, he was caught for theft and things like that before, so it wouldn't be beyond the rounds of possibility that he had tried to break into her apartment and she had killed him. But he was shot in the back of the head. Does that... that doesn't... That doesn't scream home invasion, does it? And it doesn't scream self-defense. Like, how are you shooting someone in the back of the head in self-defense?

You shoot someone in the heart, you shoot someone in the head from front on. In the back of the head, that's execution style. The image in a very like cinematic sense of her being too busy to get rid of the body. But like, I don't rate this theory. I don't think that this was self-defense. This seems execution style to me. And keeping the body feels like, I just don't want to deal with this. I don't want to deal with this thing.

I'm just going to hide it. I'm going to put it off. Like when you have, remember I was at uni, I've got these overdue library books. I just, I'm just going to hide them under my bed because I know I need to get rid of them. It's a very different situation, obviously. But if she did this, she killed somebody and that's fucking horrible. But I don't feel like this is self-defense at this point. But let's carry on. Chi Chi and many others were convinced that whatever had happened though, Dorian must have been significantly provoked, saying that Dorian was not a violent person,

but excuse my expression, she was not to be fucked with. She grew up in a rough neighbourhood, like we said before, she could handle herself. But what was she handling herself against? Is the question here? Now, Livingston, who was the director of Paris is Burning, was in shock also when the body was discovered. She remembered Dorian as an incredibly balanced person who was never director of Paris is Burning, was in shock also when the body was discovered. She remembered Dorian as an incredibly balanced person who was never out of control. And once while filming the documentary,

a gun battle broke out in front of Dorian's apartment in 1987. Livingston said in an interview, I don't know if she had a gun, but if I lived in that building, I would have had a gun. So, okay, I guess that's like a bit more credence to the fact that it was in a rough neighbourhood. Breaking and entering, particularly, you know, armed breaking and entering, probably wasn't out of the ordinary.

But still, I don't know, what do you think? I'm with you on the back of the head doesn't, it doesn't make me think it's a crime of passion or a home invasion. No, and we also talked about this and I think it's an important thing to bring up because we talked about it before we were recording this fact. Well, fine, if it was self-defence, why didn't she just call the police and you were absolutely right in what you said come on because she'd be from a more marginalized community or more marginalized group this is a this is a big issue with this case it's like because i can understand

if something happened so hypothetically let's let's say hypothetically something has happened she's killed this man because he was threatening her or he was abusive. She could not call the police. The gun probably wasn't licensed. They're just not going to help her. No, I would agree. So I think had the gunshot wound to me seemed more like it was a self-defense wound, or like a self-defense gunshot wound,

I would be inclined to believe that that could have happened but it is just the placement of it that really makes me think is that self-defense I can buy why she wouldn't have called the police I can buy why she would have even just hidden the body in the back of her wardrobe and just been like let me just move on with my life but back of the head shot How does that come about? Did Dorian even have a gun? Dorian definitely did have a gun. Jessie Torres confirmed it. Dorian had been just about to go on stage one night and she handed Jessie her handbag and it was so heavy that Jessie was like, what the fuck have you got in here? And Dorian said, just a little 22, someone's going to mess with me. I'm going to shoot them up with lead. And apparently they

had a running joke that the gun was so rusty it would never work because she was so well loved all of the interviews you read with people that knew her it's kind of i have this hard time with a portrayal of almost unblemished innocence like she was known to have a temper when she was drinking and you know nobody's perfect no definitely and i have i have a real issue with with people giving anybody a totally unblemished aura of innocence like i think let's be real about it let's not idealize anybody let's not talk about any groups any individuals like that everybody is deeply deeply flawed does no one a service to talk about anybody as if they were perfect and like in Paris is burning she does seem very in

control and almost resigned but she was an actress she was a performer absolutely so that doesn't surprise me that everyone had this impression of her of being incredibly together when perhaps behind closed doors maybe that wasn't the case no definitely and I'm also wondering how is everybody saying oh she was so together she was just no violence she's making jokes carrying a gun around saying that if anyone's gonna mess with me i'm gonna shoot them up with lead like i would tell people that you're a together person but if you said that to me i'd stop saying that you were a together person yeah but i'm not a black drag queen living in harlem i get that's in it's all in context but

then let's be real about it. Let's not say she was an incredibly gentle soul and all this. Like, let's say it for what she was, exactly what she said about herself. If somebody messes with me, I'm going to fucking shoot them. That's what she said. So I think this idea of like, well, then let's let's paper over that and say that she couldn't possibly have done this unless it was self-defense. What is somebody's definition of messing with me well exactly her friend was like uh you know she would never have done this unless she was provoked significantly i wouldn't shoot somebody unless they were actually going to murder me but what would it

take for somebody else to do it and with jenny livingston on the sort of like if i lived in that building i would have had a gun no i don't disagree with that quick point before um like back to the other theory about like home invasion or what could have possibly happened why was he just in his boxers so either that's how he was which doesn't seem like breaking into someone's house yeah breaking into someone's house or it's possible that that they were taken off the removed taken somewhere else and it was just his body in the bag. But I feel like if you're going to remove the clothes, why are you not taking his pants off as well? His, like his underwear, sorry. And also, why would you remove the clothes?

Yeah. I wonder whether, could they have rotted away? But no, I suppose the boxers would have done as well. Clothes wouldn't rot away like that, no. That's quite weird because that's okay if we say the theory of the kind of home invasion very unusual for somebody to break into your house in just their underwear, secondly

why would you take his clothes off that's getting very up close and personal with a dead body, like if you've shot somebody in self defence there is no way I could ever go near that dead body, let alone strip his clothes off, was he there as an invited person for things of a sexual nature he starts to try to rough her up she's like are you messing with me shoots him

in the head i can buy that and this is where it gets really interesting while dorian was dying she would call jesse's drag mother sally of sally is on times square whose health was also failing jesse would listen in on these calls at Sally's request. Dorian confessed to Sally that she had a secret. What was said word for word isn't 100% clear, but this is Jesse's account and this is a direct quote. In Harlem, there are guys we would call take-off artists. They would come around and just want to take from the queens the little

bit you have. From what I'm told, this is the situation. He had robbed her before. He was known in the neighborhood as a junkie. If he knew you had a little bit of money, he would come around here, come around there with the attitude, fuck you, you're all faggots, fuck you, bitch. Seeing that society frowns on junkies, they feel like they, you know, they could frown on us. He had taken things from her a couple of times and she was fed up with it. She was not having it. I feel like they definitely did know each other. I feel like that could be a reasonable explanation. We know that he's a crook. We know that he's a thief. We know that he's violent. I wouldn't put this past him. Why was he in his boxers? That is the only

thing. And I don't doubt that I reckon Dorian could have handled herself and got him down and shot him in the back of the head. I think that absolutely, if he was strung out, come around there just with his attitude and his violence. But why is he in his boxers? Why did she take his clothes off? That's the thing that's quite, that leaves it a bit weird for me we do have to remember though with regards to the confession that when cory gave that she was dying she was suffering from the neurological impairment caused by her aids medication and she was recalling an event that potentially happened 25 years ago jesse torres says when she was listening into these calls she was talking to sally and she's like there's no way. Like, that AZT has just fucked her brain up.

She's just chatting nonsense. And then they find the fucking body three months later. So, again, I think everybody is looking at her through the best possible light, which, of course, you want to do, especially when somebody you love is suffering like that. But she did say it and they did find the body. So, yes, obviouslyesse feels that way but so were these phone calls a deathbed confession or just a product of a mind ravaged by azt in its last days now even if this is what happened that dorian had been robbed multiple times by a homophobic junkie and finally snapped she was still a black drag queen with a cadaver in her closet

and it's like we said before even if he had come around there and attacked her and she had shot him in self-defense how much compassion do we think that she would have received from the police if this at this time in new york absolutely none so i can understand why she wouldn't have wouldn't have followed up on this wouldn't have admitted to what had happened. But it's clearly something that played on her mind for her to make a deathbed confession about it. There's a lot of gossip around this case.

And gossip columnist John Livingston wrote at the time that a close friend of Dorian's told him that Dorian Corey had left a note saying, This poor man broke into my home. He was trying to rob me. The column, however, cited that the body was found in a suitcase. Yeah, so I don't buy it. Like, anything that John Livingston says in that column, I'm just like, well, you have the basic facts wrong,

so I really don't think I believe anything you say. If you want the same thing, basically, go read the Daily Mail. So I think whatever happened here, the one thing I will say that I feel like Dorian Corey did kill this man, and, you know know she played it right though whatever the reason was she left the body alone she left it in that wardrobe and she left it alone until she was not around to be arrested for this case and I mean that purely in the sense of she played it right for herself killing somebody and hiding them in your wardrobe is not

the right thing to do just in case anyone wants to write to me and say that I'm okay with people murdering them and putting them in their wardrobes as long as they don't get caught. I am not. Thanks for that clarification, Saru. Do you know what? We have to be so careful. So the third theory is that Dorian Corey and Robert Worley not only knew each other, but that they were lovers. The doorman of Dorian Corey's building told Edward Conlon, who wrote an incredible essay on this case called The Drag Queen and the Mummy. So this doorman says to Edward Conlon, Robert Worley had been a lover of Dorian's

and that he was a really shady guy. He came around all the time and he used to beat her up. And he'd been dead for two to three years. But then when Conlon said that the body has been in the wardrobe for potentially three times that length of time the doorman didn't really seem shaken in his account and just sort of shrugged it off so I don't really think it's the most credible story but then also obviously the doorman of your building is going to know more than anyone who's coming and going that completely

makes sense but that seems a big timeline to be wrong he's been dead for two or three years but that body had been in there for like at least what 25 i don't know that doesn't make sense to me and fred warley robert's brother was convinced that robert was was definitely in some kind of sexual relationship with dorian he told journalist journalist Jeannie Russell Cassendorf, who wrote another essay called The Drag Queen, had a mummy in her closet. Good titles. All strong titles.

They're great, aren't they? The Drag Queen had a mummy in her closet. I literally, I've been trying to think of like a play on words of like the skeleton in the closet. And then I read that and I was like, well, fuck, she beat me to it. I was totally being sarcastic. I think they're great titles oh man so Fred says that Robert had come home one night absolutely steaming drunk and he actually thought that he was at his transvestite friend's house I've put

that in air quotes I'm not using that word so he was talking to his brother about this transvestite friend of his and he kept mentioning the name dorian however pepe la beija who is my favorite drag queen of all time just putting that out there i like that you have a favorite drag queen of all time that's god i am so into drag queens like i just i love it i love all of it pepe LaBeija's also in Paris is burning so yeah so Pepe LaBeija, Chi Chi Valentini and Jesse Torres all maintained that Dorian never spoke about anyone called Robert or Bobby at any point and they they were very much part of the same group over those those decades Lois Taylor however claims that Dorian had written a short story about a transsexual woman with an abusive partner who kept pressuring her to have a sex change. And the story was very focused on revenge and murder.

This one page handwritten story, however, has never surfaced. We have our own theory, though. Could Dorian possibly have been framed by her friend lois taylor moving the body from 150th street to 140th street in the late 80s doesn't make a huge amount of sense leon dorian's boyfriend who lived in the 140th street apartment had a dog that never smelt the body i think we just find it really hard to believe that a dog wouldn't have found it, even if humans didn't. I can buy that it's a small apartment

full of loads of stuff, like it probably just smells a bit musty anyway. I can buy that a human would... And also when they discovered the body, they said they couldn't smell it until they opened the bag because it was wrapped in plastic. But I just don't believe

that a dog wouldn't have found it. But maybe the dog, it's like if it's always been in there with the apartment, it's not triggering to a smell because it's just part of the background smell. I don't know. I don't know. It is weird. I do agree that that is very strange.

And also, it wasn't just the dog. Like, I know we said that humans couldn't sell it. Like, you just said Pepper LaBeija lived with Dorian in her old apartment on 150th Street and also never smelled it. Did Lois plant the body after Dorian in her old apartment on 150th street and also never smelled it. Did Lois plant the body after Dorian died? She seems to be the only one with access to the apartment and she spent a lot of time there selling Dorian's possessions after her death and she was also very careful that someone else was the one to actually open the bag when it was discovered and she was very careful

to tell everyone that she couldn't lift it. Could this have been an attempt to prove that she couldn't have moved it? That she couldn't have planted it? In literally every interview with her, the first thing she says is, I only weigh 135 pounds. There was no way I could lift it. That's why we thought it was a really heavy gown. Oh, but come on.

We all know people that are like, oh, I only weigh a hundred pounds I can't possibly do this like for no be like what's that got to do with anything that seems very I don't know extra what extra extra they're drag queens they are extra are extra but realistically though could she have even moved it or if she just keeps saying I couldn't have moved it because she really couldn't lift it or have moved it why it's important to note that i think it's just because it's the first thing she says that is weird but okay whether we think it's like feasible or doable or not why why would she frame her friend because she's dead but she's not

gonna get in trouble for it she's dead no but why where did she get this so she killed this person and then framed her friend like it's just i mean it's just a theory continuing with that theory though she must have killed that person about x number of years before because even if we say when the body was found 25 it was already dead for 25 years at least she killed that person 25 years before she's kept it safe somewhere all that time without getting caught why now take the huge risk of moving a body potentially getting caught with it and hiding in dorian's cupboard it's getting rid of it it's like it's the it's the opportunity to get rid of it forever if it's found in dorian's apartment she's dead she's not going to get in

trouble she's not going to mind but she didn't get rid of it because then they open the wardrobe find it and then an investigation starts that's the last thing I'd want because even if I could say oh but you found it in Dorian's cupboard I wouldn't feel confident enough that they wouldn't just trace it back to me somehow anyway who knows what you've left on there that to me feels like you're opening a huge heap of like a huge hell of a can of worms and taking a massive risk firstly you've got to get the body there get it into the wardrobe and then they've got to find it and not trace it into the wardrobe and then they've got to find it and not trace it back to you why wouldn't you just leave it alone because we said the perfect ploy that dorian could have done as if she was the murderer was to hide the body in her wardrobe

and leave it alone until she was dead why wouldn't that have worked for lois taylor after that she didn't even look at the body when when the body was found in the interview she's just like and then i just i i had nothing else to do with it i just left and when questioned by kazandorf taylor responded the boy's gone right she's gone right nobody knows what happened but her and the boy so if they want to find out they better do a seance and have them come down and ask him and pepper labasia openly stated that she thought it was lois tay Taylor and she didn't trust her as far as she could shove her. And I know this is me being biased, but like if Pepper LaBeija doesn't trust her, I don't trust her. Also, the only person who knows about this short story, which

suggests that Wally and Corey knew each other and were like lovers, the only person to have ever read it is Lois Taylor. and i think if she did frame dorian it is kind of the perfect crime like if she so let's say she has it in her own house she moves it and then it's pinned on dorian and she totally gets away with it if that is what happened and the way that it's transpired since then it is the perfect crime but it could have so easily have gone the other way. She could have left anything in there. The people working on this, by all accounts, seemed to be very good at

what they were doing. The forensics experts, everyone. So all it would have taken was to find one piece of evidence that led it back to Lois Taylor. And then this would have been the opposite of a perfect crime. This would have been the stupidest fucking thing you could have done. If it's true and she's getting away with it and has got away with it,

then it's the perfect crime. But it so easily could have not been. Yeah. The problem remains, like, the only people who know what happened are dead. What are you most convinced by? Firstly, I think that Dorian killed the man that was in the cupboard. Wally. She killed him.

I don't know. There's between, were they in a relationship that was abusive, she had enough and she shot him and then hid the body in there, or it was a home invasion and she killed him. The reason I don't think it's a home invasion was because of being shot in the back of the head, but saying that, if he had done it multiple times and she was ready for him, she ambushes him, gets him down, shoots him in the back of the head, that could also be possible. It was just not in a, oh my god, you're in my house i'm gonna shoot you that's not what happened but the fact of the matter is i think she did it especially given her

deathbed confession saying that she had this secret i think it was her i think i like very reluctantly agree with you like what i'm torn between is whether they just knew each other from like around and it was a robbery or whether they were like together together and the only thing that makes me think together together was the fact that he was in his boxes my problem with it is the evidence to suggest that apart from the boxes is literally just a short story that no one's ever seen and he got drunk one night and said the name dorian at his brother's house that's quite a thing to do and his own brother was like i think he was in a relationship with her i don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that they were in a relationship or at least engaging in some sort of like sexual acts and he was abusive

because we already know that he's abusive towards towards women why did nobody know about him then good question that's the thing that i don, doesn't totally convince me of that theory is that literally nobody knows. But wasn't she with Leon? But she was with Leon when she died. Oh, okay. If she knew Robert Worley, it would have been in the 60s.

Oh, okay. Haven't we all dated the guy that you just hide from everybody because you're kind of like, he's a bit of a prick? Maybe that's what it was. So if we're going to take this short story like if you're in a relationship with someone enough for them to be wanting you to have a full sex

change that's quite a significant person that's not someone you're just screwing around with my thing is with the short story yes it's a real shame that we can't see it that it hasn't sort of surfaced if it is true but imagine if it was there and you could date it that this was at the same time as when he died then i would feel like that was really convincing proof that he was an abusive partner but without that evidence without the short story even if we believe those who said that they've read it we don't know when it was written it could have been written any time in her life because any one of her partners could have said that thing said that to her.

So we don't even know that that abusive partner was Robert Worley. So, yeah, it's really hard to say. And I think this case will have to remain a mystery, sadly, unless anything else surfaces. But from my point of view, I think, yes, Dorian killed him. But under what circumstances, I can't say. Yeah, I think I'm with you on that. Like, please let us know what you think.

What you think. Excellent. Thanks very much for listening, guys. You know the drill. Yeah, I think I'm with you on that. Like, please let us know what you think. What you think. Excellent. Thanks very much for listening, guys. You know the drill. Rate, review, subscribe. Leave us some more five-star reviews, maybe? Yeah, and follow us on all of the things at Red Handed The Pod. Thanks.

See you next time. See you later. Bye. Bye. Bye. 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. 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. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite.

Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.