RedHanded - Episode 160 - The Most Hated Woman in America

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

Madalyn Murray O’Hair, was a woman very not of her time. In buttoned-up 50s America she called herself a militant feminist, a thinker and a drinker and - perhaps most heinous of all: an atheist.  Her provocative ways quickly gained her the illustrious title of "the most hated woman in America". She was so hated in fact that in 1995 when she, her son and her granddaughter went missing no one really seemed to care - that is until in 2001 when their dismembered bodies were found on a ranch in Texas... Sources can be found at www.redhandedpodcast.com   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. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes carbon tax supporter. Oh, yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM,

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And welcome to your sprinkling of red-handed. Kind of sprinkling. It's quite a long one, actually. Yeah, it's a smothering of red-handed. Something like that. It's going to be a good one. But before we get there, I have a question to ask you listeners did you just listen to some ads before you got here to our lovely voices most of you probably

did right well for just two dollars a month you could get access to our main episodes every single week a whole day early and ad free for five dollars a month you could get the early ad free. For $5 a month, you could get the early ad free episodes and a monthly episode of what we call in the news, where we basically discuss like more topical cases. For example, last month, we covered those TikTokers who found that suitcase at the beach with two dead bodies in it, and the case of an incel who blew his hand off trying to build a bomb. You'll also get weekly under the duvet episodes which you may have seen sort of floating about on social media snippets of them. Basically I guess I describe them as a bit like a post-recording after party where Hannah and I just kind of talk shit for a

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as well as a monthly live stream with us, like the one that we did last week on the Madeleine McCann case. Actually, it was really interesting. We sort of just outlined the Madeleine McCann story. And then we just talked theories with everyone who was in the live stream and who submitted them prior to it. I don't want to use the word fun, because that sounds awful. But it was very interesting. And I did enjoy myself. I'm sorry that I did. If any of that sounds like your idea of fun, if you like the sound of any of that, then head on over now to patreon.com slash redhanded and you can check it all out there. The important thing to say is that Red Handed, the show, is always going to be free for everybody. But if you do want to get a bit

more, Patreon's great because it allows us to give you more and for you to get more so you can just go do that if you want to that's it that's all I've got you know it makes sense come on exactly it does the link is in the episode description go check that out that's it that's my announcements for today yeah so let's get on with what got us here in the first place, which is the main show. The main show. Hello. And this week, I was amazed I didn't know about this. I think Americans probably know a lot more about this particular person that we're going to be talking about this week. Spoilers, people outside America probably have no fucking idea until now.

And I found it quite conflicting because the central character of our story, in some ways, I completely love her. Like, in some ways, I'm like, you are, like, the number one OG baddest bitch that has ever existed. But then, simultaneously, like many illustrious leaders, she was quite seriously flawed

and not many people liked her. But, you know, Gandhi was a pervert, so... Oh, and a racist and awful to women and a child rapist. The list goes on. It's just a lesson today in why we shouldn't enable stan culture. Do you mean cancel culture or both? Or both, I don't know. What am I saying?

What are words? You know what I mean. Two sides of the same coin, right? Well, quite. The general public disliked this person so much that when she, her son and her granddaughter went missing, vanished into thin air, no one really gave a shit until a whole five years later. And the first clue that alluded to that disappearance

that no one really cared about came from the body of a white man found in or next to a river, depending on who you believe, near Austin, Texas on the 2nd of October 1995. This body had no head or hands attached to it. The person who the body belonged to had clearly met not the most affable of ends. And to add insult to injury, the body was to had clearly met not the most affable of ends. And to add insult to injury, the body was also totally naked. There was not much blood kicking around in this headless, handless body, which to Detective Robert Bjorklund of the Sheriff's Department meant just one thing. This body had been killed elsewhere and then dumped on the riverbank subsequently.

The Sheriff's Department guessed that the naked man was in his 40s, but nothing else could really be deduced. With no head or hands, no identification could be made. There were no dental records and no fingerprints to help, which I guess was probably the entire point of taking the time to decapitate this man and cut his hands off. I also, I know this is a terrible thing to think, but when I read that, I was like, oh God, what if they found my headless, handless body washed up? How old would they guess I was? Anyway, so back to the naked corpse. Obviously, since they couldn't identify who this person was,

the body was labeled a John Doe and forgotten about pretty quickly. No one showed up to claim the body and the investigation never really got started. And so the body was given a pauper's funeral. Now, we had no idea that pauper's funerals still existed or still exist now, but they absolutely do. And they sound like quite an archaic idea. And they apparently originated in England in the 1580s as part of what were known as the Poor Laws.

So a pauper's funeral, for those of you who don't know, is a state-funded funeral that is given when no one claims a body or the person who died can't afford to pay for their own funeral. So as you can imagine, these funerals are very brisk affairs and usually they are cremations rather than actual burials. I suppose it is like my total privilege talking, but I just never thought about it. I just never thought about what happens to a body that no one comes to get. No, I mean, I assume the government had to take care of it, but yeah, I never really thought about what one looks like.

God, yeah. And as religion is going to be a massive topic in this week's episodes, I did try to find out if any religious words are said at these state-sponsored events. I really wanted to know whether a holy man of any description commits the body to the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, etc. But I couldn't find anything that was concrete to answer this question one way or the other. The idea of Christianity being the default in public affairs, especially in the States, was something that our missing woman, our main character, absolutely hated. Pointing out the unconstitutional nature of the lack of separation between church and state in the USA was this lady's absolute jam. In fact, she made a career

out of it. And if you are in the US, you probably already know who we are talking about. Her name is Madeleine Murray O'Hare. She's also known, quite unflatteringly, but actually I think she quite liked it, as the most hated woman in America. When I saw that, I was like, is this about that Westboro Baptist family? Because they were the most hated family. But no, she's like, very much predates them. And is the opposite to them. Yeah, yeah, you're right. So you might have seen this on your Netflix scrolling. Netflix have released a semi true crime-ish film about Madeline's life. It's called The Most Hated Woman in America. And I'm sure that liberties were taken with the story. I'm sure some of it was conjecture, but it did make for quite an interesting watch. It was just one of those ones where I was

just like, I've got an hour to kill. And then I was like, oh shit, we should do this on the show. That's actually a really interesting story. No, it is. And I'm surprised that I didn't know about it before this. We're all familiar with career atheists like Richard Dawkins and they still make waves today. He's probably one of the more inflammatory ones out there. But Madeleine was causing trouble way before Richard Dawkins' time. She was born into a Presbyterian family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1919. And she claimed that she became an atheist the very first time

she actually read the Bible cover to cover and found herself appalled by the vengeful partisan God she found in its pages. And whether you believe that story or not, it is up to you. Madeleine was known for her sensational grip of dramatic effect. She claims that after she read the Bible, Madeleine grew up and married a steel worker, but when the Second World War broke out, she took herself off to Italy with the Women's Army Corps

and met someone else. This someone else was called William Murray. He was also married, and even worse than that, he was a Catholic, so that meant no divorces. Even when Madeleine fell pregnant, he never left his wife. Madeleine divorced her steelworking husband, but added Murray to her name and her son's name. So even though they never got married,

she carried a bit of this man with her forever. And some people speculate, and you do kind of have to wonder a little bit, whether this man getting her pregnant and then abandoning her because of his marriage and his faith, that might have a little bit to do with Madeline's fervent atheism. However, I can understand why people say that, but I do think it's a bit reductive, and I don't think we can really define her whole philosophy

that she carried through her whole life based on one relationship she had when she was really young. And if we did do that, if we did ascribe to that idea, then this episode would fail the Bechdel test, and we just can't be having that. Not in my house. Not on my watch. watch yeah i want to think that it's not but we don't know i'm gonna say because you know we've come across fucking people who have just had one shitty relationship and then made that their defining feature i want to think it's not

with madeline i want to give her the benefit of the doubt that it's about the bible i just think if it was a man then no one would say that but then we have men and being like oh well you know he went on and hated women because of his mother because she you know didn't let him dress up like this or dressed him up like a woman or something i don't know you know what i mean let's hope that it's not but it may well have been i feel like that's quite a compelling story and i'd be fucking pissed. Don't use his name, Madeleine. Leave it. You have to remember, though, what we're talking about here. The context of all of this. This is happening in olden times. Atheism was shocking. A baby out of wedlock was shocking. Refusing to marry was shocking. And Madeleine, well, she loved to shock. After the war, she went to live with her parents in Baltimore and sent her son William off to public school.

We're talking about state school, right? State-sponsored government. State-funded, state-run. Exactly. So even though her parents, who she now lived with, remained staunchly Presbyterian, Madeleine raised her son William as an atheist. Again, remember the time in which this is happening

and how fucking controversial that would have been. She also did the same with his younger brother Garth, who was born in 1952, also out of wedlock. Two different baby daddies and no wedding ring. It's the 50s. Mate, I feel like she is leaning into this. She is like, if this is who I am, this is really who I'm going to fucking be. Which is why I love her yeah I mean she's going for it she's going whole hog that's for sure yeah just to clarify if you do go and read about this in other places Garth is sometimes referred to as John but just for ease because there are a lot of names in this case already we're gonna stick with calling him Garth

so while William was at school Madine was appalled to learn that her son was being forced to pray at school, at a public, state-run, government-funded school. So Madeleine used her law degree that she'd earned after the war and sued the public school system in 1959 to end the mandatory inclusion of classroom prayer and bible readings which to me seems fair enough i feel like yes i agree good use of the suing you know because this school it wasn't a faith school and this is the point we are making about christianity being like a yardstick people measure you by in america yeah if you want to to pray, pray, fine. It's your choice to send your kids to a faith school. That is a choice. The problem here is that I don't think it's really

seen as a faith in this instance. It's seen as the basis. It's seen as the absolute base level of something that you can be and anything else is a bit taboo. No, I agree. And I think that's important to point out. We do often point this out when we do cover topics that are religious, but I think it's really important to point it out here. None of what we're saying today is about attacking people's personal belief systems or personal religions. I genuinely believe in the idea of liberty, of people being able to practice whatever religion they want, believe in whatever they want, do whatever they want in that sense, privately. I guess the challenge becomes how that ties into the public sphere. Except like FGM and stuff. Can't get away with that one, I'm afraid.

Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Don't fucking do FGM and don't do forced marriages and don't do all of that fucking crazy shit. Even if your book tells you to, whatever book it may be. I think the best way to contextualise the situation, because if you take all of your personal feelings out of faith systems, how you personally feel about Christianity, or how you feel about Hinduism or Sikhism or Islam, whatever, imagine if reading the Quran were mandatory in every state school in the US. Because like Christianity, it is an ideology, it is a religion, they are equal in that respect. I think quite a lot of people would have quite a lot to say about that. And I think that the word

unconstitutional and infringement of human rights, I think those statements would get thrown around quite a lot if that was the case. Absolutely. And before we move on, just because we've thrown around some phrases here, I just want to preempt quickly. Some people who may message us after this goes out saying that the literal phrase, separation of church and state, isn't actually in the Constitution. You are right. It isn't. And I am no constitutional scholar. But before you message us about this, when you check out what America's founding fathers said about religious freedom and the US Supreme Court's long history of using the phrase separation of church and state to describe the meaning and the intent of the Constitution's religious freedom clauses,

you can see that while the literal words separation of church and state don't appear in the Constitution, the concept of church and state separation certainly appear in the constitution, the concept of church and state separation certainly does. The problem is the religious right in the US today still uses this idea that because the literal phrase is not in the constitution, America's forefathers never sought, and this is a quote, to evict the church from society. But then they would say that, wouldn't they? This next phrase I'm about to tell you is from a Forbes article that was written in 2011. This person said, Eliminating the very foundations of America's heritage, referring to the church,

would have horrified them, referring to the founding fathers. And while it does appear that when the constitution was first written, the religious freedom clauses that are in the First Amendment were initially established to protect various Christian denominations from being favoured over others. So they weren't necessarily talking about like atheists, they were talking about, you know, Christian A type, Christian B denomination, one not being favoured over the other because, you know, the government shouldn't be picking one over the other, essentially. But like I said, the court's decisions, the Supreme Court's decisions throughout the decades in the US have shown

what the true intent was, that, quote, it is an elemental First Amendment principle, the government may not coerce its citizens to support or participate in any religion or its exercise. And so if people still argue this idea today, because they do, because I googled it and it hurt my eyes, imagine how hard a point it must have been to make in the 50s. But that was the logic that made Madeleine Murray O'Hare famous. Because not only did she get her son out of praying at school, the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And in 1963, mandatory prayer in state schools

was ruled to be unconstitutional by eight votes to one. There was another case involved. Before you all tweet at me that it wasn't just her on her own, I know that. We just don't have time. As you can imagine, people were not particularly happy about this decision, but that did not stop our Madeleine. I just can't get enough.

In this point of the story, I love her. It gets a bit complicated later on, but like young Madeleine, I'm like, fuck yes. She continued to fight. She described herself as a militant feminist, an anarchist, an internationalist and an integrationist. Others described her as foul-mouthed and abrasive. Some people have said that about some other people I know. Many people called Madeleine a communist. There were rumours that

she had attempted to defect to the USSR but hadn't quite managed it. I'm not sure how true that is, but I do think it's important to point out that godlessness and communism were viewed as essentially one in the same back then. And we should remember that the line, one nation under God, was not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1951, when the Cold War was well underway. And by then, everyone had conveniently forgotten about all of the death camps that the USSR liberated at the end of World War II.

Yeah, and I feel like the reason I would take the rumours that she was planning to defect to the USSR with a massive grain of salt is because she's describing herself as an internationalist and an integrationist. I don't think those really chime well with the communist ideology, surely. I really do think that it's just they're like, oh, they don't have God in the USSR. She obviously must have wanted to move there. Exactly. USSR she obviously must have wanted to move there. Exactly it's a ham-fisted attempt to mesh those two ideologies together that like you said godlessness is next to communism. Somebody like please fucking cross-stitch that onto a pillowcase for me. Godlessness is next to communism. The thing

is I think if she was a communist she gave no shit she would have said it but she wasn't she wasn't a communist and she also called herself an anarchist the last thing those commies want is a fucking anarchist exactly so madeline didn't care that people thought she was a communist it was just in 60s america a communist was the worst possible thing one could be and in response to these claims that she was a communist this is is my favourite bit. She called her dogs Marx and Engels. I love that. I want to be her. I can't cope. Can you imagine? I also think they're just such good dog names. They really are, you know. I love it. Should we get one each? Yeah, they could be friends with Marcus Barks. All of these mythical dogs that we are yet to purchase. Sorry, not purchase. Adopt, please.

Anyway, nothing could stop Madeleine. She fought for legalized abortions, to have the words in God we trust removed from the American currency, to stop the Bible being read on the Apollo 8 mission, and she tried to sue the Pope, all in the name of pointing out what she thought was, quote, an irrational reliance on superstitions and supernatural nonsense. In her time, she was thought of by many as a morally

void lunatic. But that doesn't mean she didn't talk some sense. In particular, this quote was one that we thought was very interesting. Quote, there's an going to let that hang in everybody's mind for a hot second. Just have a little think. Maybe rewind. The article I found that in said that that quote was prophetic and she would have fucking hated it if she knew. That's so funny. But she's so right. She's completely right, accurate. Right on the money. Right on the money. All the money. The godless money. So now you've all had a chance to think long and hard about that particular phrase.

Let's move on. So Madeleine, she didn't, you know, keep quiet. She wasn't hiding away in the corners while she was doing all of these campaigns she was championing. She was regular on late night chat shows. She gave interviews in Playboy. Hustler even gave her loads of money. She even wrote presidential bid speeches. And soon, Madeleine had made a career out of being outrageous and pissing people off. But you have to wonder, if she'd have protested quietly, who would have listened? Not a soul, I don't think. No, not a fucking soul. That's why I feel

like there are points when I'm reading these kind of things, especially like with the dogs calling them marks and angles and all of this. I'm like, she's trolling. She's doing it to piss people off. And she hasn't got social media where she can just like retweet a stupid fucking article from wherever to, you know, get, what is it? Rage. It's like a word where you mash up rage and engagement.

Rage-gagement? I don't know. Rage-gagement. That's what it should be. She hasn't got that. So she's just got Playboy and late night chat shows. Yeah, basically. I mean, she can't really just like milo it and just like tweet loads of racism and wait for them to come to her. She's got to get out there. She's got to get in the press. She had to be more creative. Marketing genius. Quite possibly, you know, like I might write a biography or something. I feel like I'm in love. So Madeline, understandably, because she was a wanted woman, essentially,

moved her family around quite a lot before settling in Austin, Texas. She was pretty consistently on the road still. At one point, she embarked on a lecture circuit tour with revival preacher Reverend Bob Harrington. They shouted about their beliefs at each other in front of enthralled crowds and made quite a lot of money. But this money, just like any gothic horror, didn't come without cost. Madeleine's life and that of her family were constantly threatened. She was harassed, people vandalised her home and she was shot at. But still, Madeleine didn't quit. She formed the Society of Separationalists, which later on became American Atheists, whose aim was to, quote, defend the civil rights of non-believers and work for the policy of separation of church and state and address issues of First Amendment public policy. The venture was a success, and at its most successful, Madeleine Murray O'Hare was in control of over $15 million in donations. And this, of course, led to people comparing her to the preachers that run their congregations like MLM schemes.

But as usual, Madeleine didn't seem to care. This gave her even more of a reputation for being unpleasant. She was everything a woman in the 60s should not have been. But criticising women for standing up is just a way of telling them to sit back down. What we're not doing is saying that she was a saint, not least because she would have hated it, but also, like all leaders of movements, she was decidedly imperfect. I do think there's quite a lot of truth

behind the money-grubbing allegations. Quite a lot of the American atheist money ended up in an account in New Zealand, and Madeleine drove a Mercedes, so did her son and her granddaughter drove a Porsche. But I understand why people like equate her with like a deep south preacher that heals people and makes loads of money. I understand that comparison. But she's not claiming to have the word of God.

She's running a non-profit and non-profits pay their staff whatever the fuck they want. Yeah, I think the point, even if you look at it in a broader sense, is the idea that you often see that when overtly atheistic people go on and do immoral things, and I would argue that if there is money-grubbing embezzlement going on from this organisation, that that would be immoral. And when you see that happening with atheistic people, the religious groups within society often like to point to that and say, look, without religion, people are immoral and anarchy lies that way, essentially. But the point is that whatever Madeleine did that was immoral, I don't think was tied to the fact that she was an atheist.

She wasn't doing it because, oh, well, there's no God, so I may as well do this. People do that who believe in God. You know, people lie and embezzle and cheat and murder who believe in God. She wasn't doing the bad thing she did because she was an atheist. She just happened to also be that way whilst championing a belief system that I can get on board with, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, totally. And I think it's even potentially less about, well, I suppose it is about a belief system,

but also just championing First Amendment rights of people who have a right to believe what they want to believe. It's like we're saying, she's not a person to be revered as a person, but the things that she stood for and the things that she did and championed are things that in our modern society are things that I would argue are values and morals that I would want to see upheld. And she was doing them fucking 70 years ago, which is crazy. To begin with, American atheists. Again, I do have to think we're calling her a marketing genius, but I do realize that she first called themselves the Society of Separationalists. Maybe she realized, well, that sounds like the SS. Better

change it to American atheists. Now it's fucking confusing you with Alcoholics Anonymous. So anyway, she's doing her best. So to begin with, American Atheist was a family affair until 1980, that is, when William, her son, after an extended battle with alcoholism, saw a vision of Jesus Christ and decided, on Mother's Day of all days that he was leaving Madeleine and returning to the warm embrace of the church. That's a slap in the face, isn't it, Premier Son? Yeah, but you know, alcoholism causes cirrhosis of the liver, so it's probably not his fault. No, he needs to go back to church and so that's what he does. Unfortunately, in his decision making, again, I don't possibly think that he's thinking that clearly because William left his daughter Robin within the walls of American atheism and in the grasp of his mum. And Madeline

actually went on to adopt the child. In later years, Madeline publicly described his departure and I found this quite a bit distasteful, but she described his departure as a postnatal abortion. This is where she does start to lose me a little bit. I do have to admit, this is the schism for me. This is the turn in the road. Just shh, Madeline. Fuck it out. Quiet.

I think she represents that kind of... I get it. He's her son. No, I don't get it. I'm saying the reason she's so hurt by it is because it's her son. But she kind of starts to tread along that line of Richard Dawkins, who I'm with him for a bit.

And then I'm like, stop telling people they can't believe in anything or they're morons. That's not going to help you win people over. And I feel like her saying him going back to the church was like a postnatal abortion is in that territory. But anyway, by 1993, Garth, Madeline's younger younger son, and his niece Robin, were in charge of American atheists, with Madeleine serving as an autocratic overseer. Even though she was 76 by this point, had diabetes, and was generally pretty unwell. Just like Madeleine and her closest kin, a lot of the other employees at the ever-expanding American Atheists were outsiders as well.

Madeleine could barely go anywhere without being hurled abuse at, so she surrounded herself with people who knew what that felt like. She opened her doors and her payroll to people of all races, sexualities and criminal backgrounds. All she asked was that they were atheists. She did not have particularly nice words to say about them though and I think that we do have to be careful not to paint Madeline as if she's some sort of working class hero. In her diary she wrote quote we can afford lumpen proletariat employees and that's what we get. Floatsome and jetsome, pimps, whores, hopheads, queers, pinkos, drunks, glue sniffers and freaks. I'm absolutely fed up

with all of them. A pinko is somebody with liberal or left-wing views, apparently. Closet liberal. Well, I mean, this is what I mean. She really does start to lose me. Yeah, it's almost like that idea that her basic theology could be akin to like a very liberal ideology the separation of religion from state but then her other beliefs and the way she goes about them become almost very conservative and right-wing in the way she wants to implement them. Yeah on top of her nasty diary entries there were constant problems with the IRS lawsuits of every description and direction and Madeleine constantly claimed that the organization was actually cash poor, despite seeming to have a lot of money herself for fancy clothes, wine, houses and anything else you could imagine. If you want to read the back and forth

about these lawsuits and the millions of dollars that were at stake, you can read them in the references below. But again, we just didn't have time to dissect them here. And I'm not an accountant, so I didn't really understand. All you need to know is that there are a lot of these lawsuits and it is all pretty shady. Essentially, it seemed like Madeleine was funneling money out of the supposedly non-profit organisation to fund her own life and retirement. That does sound unethical, but if you do a little bit of digging into the third sector, you will find out that not-for-profit can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. Do you really think the CEO of Oxfam lives in a cardboard box? They don't. And they've also got

pension plans and retirement schemes. Garth and Robin, so that's her younger son and her granddaughter that she adopted, were not great employers either. Having grown up in Madeline's shadow, it seemed like they really didn't know any other way of operating. They told employees that they were stupid and often loudly argued amongst themselves. Garth was particularly poorly liked. He was known as, quote, a big doofus, always running around the office shouting obscenities. No one in the organization wanted him taking over. So as you can tell, there was unrest inside American atheists. The unsettled ranks knew that change was just around the corner. Madeleine couldn't go on forever, and none of them could stand the idea

of Garth in charge. And change would come, but not in the way that anyone expected. 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 mum'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, 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. 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'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. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life 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+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. The change came with a new employee named David Waters, who was 45 years old. He was originally hired as a typesetter, but rose through the ranks and was soon privy to all of Madeline Murray O'Hare's specific brand of creative accounting. Like many of the American atheist brood, Waters had a criminal past. He had gone to prison at just 17 for beating a fellow teen to death. When he was released, he brutally

assaulted his own mother and urinated on her after he had finished. Soon after, he was promoted to office manager. But when computer equipment went missing from the office, and so did $50,000, Madeleine and her family swiftly pressed charges and, of course, fired Waters. He escaped without prison time and just had to pay back the money. In the July newsletter,

Madeleine wrote a scathing article about Waters revealing his murder conviction, the assault on his mother, and also insinuated that he was gay. Madeleine, Robin and Garth remained at the top of the American atheist tree, but they were utterly friendless, isolated from everyone around them. And I don't think many people would have pissed on them if they were on fire. In August 1995, the terrible trio went on holiday to Virginia. them. And I don't think many people would have pissed on them if they were on fire. In August 1995, the terrible trio went on holiday to Virginia. They bought plane tickets to New York to picket the arrival of the Pope, but they would never make it. On the 28th of August,

employees at American Atheists arrived to work to find a note. It read, The Murray O'Hare family has been called out of town on emergency business. We do not know how long we will be gone at the time of writing this memo american atheists employee spike tyson went to the family home and found an unnerving scene they were certainly gone but they'd left behind vital blood pressure medicine a half-eaten breakfast and most strangely of all they'd left their dogs behind no one called the police. Not a soul. Instead, American Atheists kept calling the Murray O'Hairs. Eventually, days later, Garth picked up his mobile.

He told everyone on the board at the American Atheists that the family were fine, but he didn't give them any real details about where they actually were. These phone calls would continue from both Robin and Garth for a few weeks. They were always sporadic and vague. Sometimes when anyone at the American Atheist called, a strange man's voice would answer the phone and then hand it over to Garth. In late September, Robin sounded distraught on a call. Her last words were, I know you will do the right thing. But still, no one called the police. No one even made a missing persons report until a full year after their disappearance.

The American atheists and the rest of the world were glad to see the back of the Murray O'Hairs, and everyone had their own theories on where they had gone. Most people thought that they'd run off with the American atheist money they had hidden and made their way to New Zealand. Others thought that Madeleine had run off to die in peace and prevent people from treating her as a martyr or worse, praying over her corpse. In October 1995, the new president of the American atheists, Ellen Johnson, released a statement claiming that Madeleine, Garth and Robin were just on an extended business trip in San Antonio and that Madeline especially was, quote, just fine. A year later, Madeline's prodigal son William reported her and his brother and his daughter missing. But he only did this because no one else would.

Some people really seem pretty adamant that only a family member could report someone missing in Austin at the time. But that sounds like bullshit to me. And that's what William claimed too. He says that he made the report because literally nobody at American Atheists wanted to. They were having a great time without the Mario hairs there. But even after William filed this report, nothing much happened. The police decided there was nothing suspicious about the disappearance. And in early 1997, they released the following statement. We've already given it more attention than a case of its type because of her notoriety. But just because the police weren't going to do anything,

that didn't stop the press from sniffing around. In December 1996, San Antonio Express writer John McCormack decided to go through the American Atheist's 1995 tax returns, and he found that $625,000 was missing, and it was believed that Garth Murray had withdrawn the money. He was the only one who could have. His signature was needed. This money was in a trust in New Zealand. Then John McCormack found something even more interesting. On the 5th of September 1995, so about two weeks after he went missing, Garth sold his Mercedes. The couple who bought it paid $15,000 for it in cash, which was well under what the car was worth. The couple reported that Garth seemed like he was in a rush

to sell it. Why would someone with access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in antipodean bank accounts be in a rush to sell their car? What need would Garth have for quick cash? The plot thickens even more. The ad for the car was listed under Garth's cell phone number, but the man who handed the car over was not Garth. Garth was six foot two and dark haired. The man who handed over the keys was five foot nine with light hair. But Garth was the one who signed the title papers for the car. John McCormack was sure that there was more to the disappearance of the Murray O'Hairs than met the eye. So he started to work with a private investigator to get to the bottom of the disappearance of America's most hated woman. A few years later, in June 1998, the break finally came.

McCormack was contacted by a man who claimed he knew what had happened. He said that the family had been held at gunpoint, kidnapped, and taken to a motel in San Antonio by a man named David Waters, or possibly Walters. He said he couldn't remember. But we, the clever lot that we are, already know that the name was Waters. And we know exactly who David Waters is and why he was pissed off with Madeline, her family, and all of the American atheists. How did the anonymous tipster know this though? Well,

he was a friend of a man called Danny Fry, who had gone missing around the same time as the Mario Hares and was a known associate of David Waters. Now let's go back to the start of the show. Remember the dead naked man with no hands or head? Well, you guessed it. That turned out to be none other than Mr Danny Fry. The corpse was only DNA tested after John McCormack made the connection. If he hadn't done this, no one would have ever found out what had happened to Danny Fry. So who was he?

Well, he was a small-time conman who left his home in Florida to help out his friend Waters with a job. It was also confirmed that another man named Gary Carr, who was 47 at the time, was in on this job as well. Carr had only just made it out of prison after serving 21 years on a kidnapping charge. He had shared some of his time with David Waters and by July 1995, both him and Danny Fry had moved in with Waters in his Austin apartment. And he was known for his big mouth. So it's not too difficult to believe

that he must have let some people know where he was going and who with before he ended up without his head, hands or trousers on a riverbank in Texas. When Danny Fry was in one piece, he fit the description of the man who handed over Garth's car to the confused couple who bagged a real bargain. Danny Fry's phone records revealed that he had been in frequent contact with David Waters in the months leading up to his disappearance. The last call that Danny Fry made was to his family, and it was on the 30th of September. It came from a motel in San Antonio, very close to the last place Garth Murray O'Hare was seen alive. David Waters, on the other hand, was still very much alive and vehemently protested his innocence when he was tracked down by John McCormack. But more digging revealed more questionable occurrences. Right

after the $625,000 was withdrawn from the New Zealand Trust Fund by Garth, Garth took himself off to a jeweller's on the 29th of September and bought $500,000 worth of gold coins. He requested an extra $100,000 worth, but the jeweller didn't have that much in stock, so it was agreed that Garth would return at a later date to collect the balance. But he never did, according to the jeweller. Garth looked distinctly worse for wear. Why are you buying gold? This is something I have not been able to get my head around. Which establishments can you go in with like pirate money and be like, can I have a suit, please? I believe what he's doing is it's like money laundering. So he's got all this money if he's taken it. And if he just puts it into his bank account or maybe start spending it,

the IRS are going to ask questions about it. He's going to get taxed on it. But if you just buy some gold with it, gold pretty much continuously appreciates at varying rates. Right now it's going through the fucking roof. So have more money and then he can just keep it stashed somewhere so it's not on a bank account under his name and he can just sell bits of it as and when he needs to. I'm guessing.

But why does Garth need to launder it? It's his money. I don't know. Good question. It gives you better appreciation than interest in a bank account. Possibly. I don't know. It is interesting. I think it just points towards the fact maybe this money has got a different destination than Garth's pocket. But despite these interesting little snippets and leads being found, there was very little interest in the case from the Sheriff's Department or the Austin Police Department. So John McCormack went over their heads, called in the big guns in the shape of the FBI and the IRS. The IRS were the first to track down Walters. They raided his apartment and not only did they find stolen documents from the American Atheist's office,

they also found 119 rounds of ammunition, which of course is bad news for Waters because he was still out on parole. He was sentenced therefore to eight years on the firearms charge and 60 years for violating the terms of his parole. Carr was arrested soon after too, again for parole violations. Then some more information came in, this time from Waters' ex-girlfriend, a lady called Patty Jo Steffens, who was a waitress at a bar called The Poodle Dog. Isn't that great? I'd go there. That is. So 50s. Is the 50s the time when they all had their skirts with like poodles on? Yeah. Nailed it. So Patty claimed that it was no secret that Waters violently

hated Madeline and had his heart set on revenge. She also noticed that in September of 1995, he and his buddies had a lot more money to throw around than they usually did. But it wasn't normal money with, like, presidents on. According to Patty, it was gold coins. These coins were being stored in a facility just across the road from the Poodle Dog. Patty Jo had actually rented this unit herself. On the 29th of September, Waters had gone to see Patty Jo,

smelling strongly of bleach. But then the money seemed to dry up, and things went back to relatively normal. Until, of course, Waters went back to prison. So it seems like the case is adding up. We've got Garth selling his car, the whole family losing contact with American atheists, the gold coins that were bought by Garth

ending up in the possession of David Waters, and Waters definitely had a motive to hurt Madeleine. But unfortunately, this is all circumstantial. But it didn't stay that way for long. While he was in prison, Gary Carr signed an affidavit after 16 hours of FBI questioning, claiming that he had been involved in a kidnapping turned quadruple homicide near Austin in the mid-90s. The murder had involved

decapitation and the severing of hands. He said he knew where the bodies were but refused to say who they belonged to. This information led over 30 officers, FBI and otherwise, to a ranch 100 miles west of San Antonio. But the search was in vain. No bodies were found. And with no bodies, Carr was never charged for murder. He was handed two life sentences for conspiracy and extortion. This didn't deter the investigation too much. Carr could have just got the wrong location.

And there was only one case involving the severing of a head and hands and three potential other murders. And that was the disappearance of the Murray O'Hairs and Danny Fry. So they got to work on the newly incarcerated Waters. He was having a terrible time and he agreed that in return for a transfer to a federal prison and immunity for his part in the entire situation, he would tell everyone the whole story. He did eventually get 20 years for conspiracy charges, but considering what comes next,

I think it's fair to say that that's pretty easy going. And he was already doing 60. It's pretty nickel and dimey at that stage, I think. Yeah. So he promised to reveal how he was involved with the disappearance of the Mario hairs, where all those gold coins had gone, why Garth had sold his car,

and how Danny Fry lost his head and his hands. Not to mention his life, and his pants, and his pants, everything. So here it is. This is what really happened. After Waters was fired and sued by Madeline Murray O'Hare, he swore that he would get revenge. So on the 28th of August 1995, the day the American atheist employees found the notes saying that everything was fine, Waters, Carr and Fry went to their house and abducted the family. They moved them to a hotel called the Warren Inn in San Antonio, the very same one where Danny Fry made the last phone call to his family. The group lived together in this motel for over a month. They drank margaritas, played cards and ate burritos. But this was no holiday.

The Murray O'Hairs were being held hostage until they could release funds from the American atheists and give them to David Waters. This money was, of course, the $625,000 that was taken out of the New Zealand fund by Garth, who was also the only one who could do it. And it took 30 days for the money to arrive. You can't just move that kind of money around willy-nilly. So obviously the

Murray O'Hairs were indispensable until Walter had the money in his pockets. So the family were kept in this hotel room until Garth could wire the money from New Zealand. He sold his car for quick cash to keep his capor sweet for a while. The family were also forced to max out their credit cards with cash advances. When the money finally arrived, Garth went and bought the gold coins that we already know about. He never picked up the remaining $100,000 worth because that day he and his family were moved to a different motel and all three of them were strangled to death with a plastic bag. Then the trio wrapped the family in blankets, put them in the back of a van and drove them back towards Austin. Here they rented another storage unit separate to the one that held the gold coins and Waters dismembered the bodies of the family and put their remains into 55 gallon barrels.

He then cleaned the unit with bleach and drove 150 miles to dispose of the bodies. It's not really clear what happened to Danny Fry, but at some stage during this trip, he was shot in the head. His hands and head were cut off and he was abandoned near the river. The Murray O'Hare body barrels were buried separately on a ranch. After they were buried, waters went on a spending spree, but it was short-lived. The $500,000 worth of gold coins was only protected by a $5 lock on the storage unit. So very ironically, it was stolen. We still don't know what happened to it. So that means that Waters kidnapped three people, kept them hostage for a month,

ate burritos with them, and I'm sure had very boring philosophical debates with Madeline, killed four people, and in the end, it was all for nothing. Oh, fucking hell. What a kick in the dick, eh? Can you imagine? I don't think I've ever experienced

that sort of savage disappointment in my life. Savage disappointment. Just like vengeful universe karma to the max. Oh, that's exactly the word actually. It is karma. It really is. Fuck him. And also, can you imagine robbing a storage unit and being like, oh, I'll probably get like a stereo. I know. And then you open it, it's like a seat, like literally like Scrooge McDuckuck just like jumping into the gold coin. It's so true because I have to admit, to add to my long list of trash TV that I do watch, I really enjoy Storage Wars.

And it's basically just on fucking repeat on like Dave or whatever channel it is. I was watching it the other day because basically I just bought a house at auction. It's a fucking shit show. It needs like so much work, but it has been purchased. I was just like really sort of not regretting it, but really sort of just being like, oh, there are all these problems. I'm going to have to renovate it.

There's issues with the roof, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, we were like, well, we did see it before we bought it. And I was making myself feel better by watching storage walls, where essentially they're just looking at a room full of black plastic bags and then bidding. And I'm like, well, at least I knew I was buying a house these people are just fucking bidding and it could just open it up and it's just a fucking bag full of tin cans like you

don't know you know so yeah like imagine you bid $50 get a fucking storage locker full of gold that's not what I got but someone did I got a house with a broken roof. I'll teach you to so cleverly launder that money. I know. Bet you wish you could track it now, Dave. Oh my God, I was like, please don't accuse me of that because auction houses are apparently like rife breeding grounds for money laundering.

Oh, I bet they are. And we had to like do so many checks and so much proof to prove that I wasn't laundering the money that I was using to buy this place. And I was like, no, if I was, I'd buy a better fucking house state than this one's in. But anyway, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Any good builders out there who work in London and want a job, contact me. Slide into my personal DMs. And honestly, if you can do good work, I'll hire you because I

don't want to interview various other builders. Thank you very much. Instagram, where all of the trustworthy builders can be found. Oh, mate. I don't know. Show me some of your work. That's a question to ask, right? I don't know. Fuck, I'm going to get ripped off. Please bring your portfolio. Please bring your Instagram full of all the work you've done. Oh God. Anyway, where was I? So eventually, Waters told the authorities where the bodies in the barrel could be found. Because remember, he's dumped the Murray O'Hare's in barrels in a ranch. And unlike his accomplice Carr, he got it right. In 2001, exactly where Waters said they would be the remains of Madeline Murray O'Hare, her son Garth and her granddaughter Robin were discovered.

They had all been dismembered. And there was also an extra head and a pair of hands in the barrels too. No points for guessing that they were later identified to belong to Danny Fry. Madeline was identified by the serial number on her replacement tip. So six years after the disappearance of the Murray O'Hare family, they were issued with death certificates. Waters died in 2003 from lung cancer, and his confession was not made public until after he died.

So there is only one Murray O'Hare left, Madeleine's eldest son William, who is now a Christian evangelist and still not a huge fan of his mum, unsurprisingly. He even went on to call her, quote, an evil person who led many to hell. He also hates the Netflix film, claiming large parts of it are total fiction

and the film was based on a Google search rather than the truth. His familial connection to the most hated woman in America has stood him in pretty good stead, to be honest, Google search rather than the truth. His familial connection to the most hated woman in America has stood him in pretty good stead, to be honest, because he went on to found the Religious Freedom Coalition, which is the most powerful right-wing Christian lobbying group in the United States. I couldn't say that not in an ominous voice. There's no way. Someone try to say that sentence in a sing-song. It can't be done. The most powerful right-wing Christian lobbying group in the United States.

That's even more sinister. It sounds like a Disney slogan, like a Mickey Mouse has just been like, don't look at me, I'm definitely not doing a capitalism over here. So when George W. Bush became the governor of Texas, he and William became good mates. You know, just George W., don't worry about it. Who everyone now pretends is like really cute

and forgets that he's a massive fucking war criminal because Trump takes up all of the space and the energy that everyone can hate. Anyway. And William, he often tells his audiences, because yes, he has audiences, quote, I was part of the family that kicked God out of America. All right, fucking chill out. No, you didn't. He continues, I know the truth better than any man in America.

That is why God picked me to tell it. The fucking ego. Little bit of Messiah complex, do you, my friend, Willie? Mate, the ego on that. Someone fucking slap him. Definitely wasn't hallucinating because of his advanced liver cirrhosis. That led him to abandon his daughter and all of that. But he's chill now.

He's fine. He's good with God now. Yeah. He also never forgets to add in that his family were killed by other atheists, not by men of God. Again, not killed by men who were killing them because they were atheists. Just killed by men who were killing them because they were fucking greedy. And, you know, we don't know that much about fry and car they could have been jewish for all we know

they could have been bible lovers jewish they could have been you know praying five times a day and being all muslim we just don't know we just don't know so i know that she was a dickhead i know she was horrible to a lot of people and it does make me feel quite quite sad that a 76-year-old woman goes missing with her son and her granddaughter and no one was actually that bothered. Because there's such a dark cloud over her, because she was just a bit of a nasty person, it's quite difficult to dissect whether she actually left any positive legacy behind. All of her possessions were auctioned off after she was discovered dead. And someone somewhere bought her Christmas decorations,

which does seem a bit funny that she even had them. Was it in a storage? Was it bought on Storage Wars Texas? Fucking maybe, you know. Maybe it was just a black bag. And congratulations, you've got Madeline Mario Hare's nativity scene. Mate, that would be fucking ironic kitsch gold dust. I know.

They probably sold for fucking loads. God damn it. Been at the wrong auctions. Totally. Fuck financial stability. Get your hand on some Madeleines. I know. Where the fuck did I buy myself a house that I now have to renovate completely? I do think it's important though. I really don't think we can say that there is no stigma to being an atheist, especially in the United States. Congress is overwhelmingly Christian. There's currently only one member who is listed as unaffiliated with any religion. Not a single member of Congress is listed as an outright atheist.

And I think that in the same way that we don't allow the enormous budgets for political parties to make campaigns, people's religion is not necessarily a part of their campaign. I mean, apart from everyone was pissed off that Sadiq Khan's Muslim. So maybe I'm talking around in circles, but I never heard a politician be like, vote for me because I'm a Christian. Yeah, I don't feel like we are as at risk of it here in the UK. But I definitely think in the US, as you said, the stats speak for themselves. I just think statistically, it is impossible to not have more atheists than just one. Statistically, it just doesn't make any sense. And also there was a survey, which I will dig out. I haven't looked at it in quite a while. But the bottom line of this survey that was done in the US found that people would more willingly

vote for a woman, a black person, a gay person before they would vote for an atheist to be president. That is interesting. Isn't it just? Because I think we just cannot get away from this archaic idea that atheism equals immorality. I think that is the problem. And we're not fucking standing for it. We're not gonna take it. What I always come back to is that if the only thing stopping you from being a terrible person, from murdering people, from raping people, from robbing people, if the only thing stopping you is the fear of hell, you're a shitty person. Oh, for sure. I am of the opinion that, surprise, atheism does not equal morally bankrupt. Moral codes come from all sorts of places and just because it's not the Bible doesn't mean that it isn't valid.

No, absolutely. So many people claim that Madeleine got the burial she wanted with no religious ceremony or prayer, but that's only half true. Madeleine wanted a gravestone and she wanted it to read woman, atheist, anarchist, which I think I might nick. But because of the fear of vandalism, all three of the Mario hairs were buried in unmarked graves, surely desecrating a grave because you don't like what someone thinks.

It's not really a good Samaritan move, is it? It's not really a marching forth of the Christian soldiers. No, but I think when religion, especially in this day and age, gets meshed together with far-right political beliefs, it no longer, in my opinion at least, reflects what people are preaching that religion is about anymore. And that's what we see here. What I did want to add on to this, actually, let's just keep everything super political. Because, guys, when we're talking about, you know, voting, we bang on about this this all the time like why it's so important to vote because yes in this case that we've discussed madeline mario hair was able to get the prayers stopped

in schools right but who you vote for who we vote for as our prime ministers presidents etc they have a huge impact on what happens in the legal system within our country, specifically within the US. So the president picks the Supreme Court judges, and they stay until they die, until they literally die. So if somebody gets put there in their 60s, they're going to be there for a long fucking time, possibly an entire generation. And if you allow extremely far right wing candidates to select the Supreme Court, your justice system is going to reflect that. So I just wanted to point out that there was a case much more recently than the one we've discussed today. It actually happened in 2014. It went all the way to Supreme Court and

it was between the town of Greece in New York and Galloway. So it's called Town of Greece v. Galloway if you want to go look it up. And basically, a couple of people from this town were suing, I guess they were suing the town, they were suing somebody about saying prayer before town meetings. So they were saying there's no place for Christian prayer before our town meetings. But it went all the way to Supreme Court, and it was found that it did not violate the religious freedom clauses in the Constitution. And it was ruled five to four, so it was very, very close, that their prayers could carry on. With one of the justices saying that the town's practice did not amount to religious coercion,

which is what we said at the start, which is what is not allowed, but merely what he called offence. Saying that offence does not equate coercion. Yeah, I think you're just starting to see a dismantling of that separation of church and state if more and more right-wing justices are able to permeate the legal system. So that's all I'll say.

I think the Church of Satan got involved with that. If not with that particular one, certainly elsewhere, where they were saying, OK, fine, if we're all praying before town meetings, then we should alternate which religion prays at the top. So they got other religions in and they're like, oh, and now we're going to pray to Satan. And obviously that flipped everyone out. But that's what I love about the Church of Satan. Oh, maybe it was the Satanic Temple. Sorry. I think it might have been the Satanic Temple. So if you go look into other rulings that have taken place at the Supreme Court level that have favoured it the other way, the points that have been raised and used to justify

rulings in which they have said this is coercion, is saying that the power of the legislation, the power of the government cannot use their position, the state cannot use its position to advance one religion or inhibit another. So I think, you know, yes, then you could argue, why is Christianity favoured over others? Why not just have Islamic prayer before prayer meetings? I don't know. That's an argument I don't want to be a part of right now. But it's a question worth raising. Good job we just spoke about it for an hour and a half and said really inflammatory things. Time to turn off our phones.

Yeah. That's it, guys. I thought it was a really, really interesting episode. Hopefully you did too. I know when we talk about very controversial cases like this, lots of people have lots of opinions.

If you have opinions, please share them with us in a constructive way. That's that. So thanks for listening and also engage with each other nicely too, please. Someone on the Facebook group said they wanted to throw an egg at me today. Oh, I's that. So thanks for listening and also engage with each other nicely too, please. Someone on the Facebook group said they wanted to throw an egg at me today.

Oh, I saw that. I was like, oh, ouch. A whole egg? Yeah. Thank you so much. Here are some wonderful patrons who have supported the show and we're kicking off with Phoebe Gibson, Kelly Lee, Jasmine Hanson, Francis Ulmer, Mindy Swan-Carlos, Nuesha Kaviani, Amy Doherty, Melissa, Elizabeth Skonlau, Kitty McIntyre, Jacinta, I think, Laura Werdley, Nikki Lee, Amanda Lynn, Patricia Snook, Amanda Sharp, Cassandra Kennedy, Holly Harris, Ellen McKenning, Eve, the winter melon that has good abilities. Fine.

Is that like some sort of, I don't know, what's that Japanese thing called? I'm going to get destroyed for this. You know, what's that Japanese thing everyone loves called? I've totally forgotten. Give me a little bit more. Anime. Oh my God. You know, the one Japanese export,

the one thing that Japan has. Sushi. Is it sushi? No, it's the other one. It's anime. Guys, I need to lie down. I'm very hot. I don't know

what the winter melon is. Savinda Myers, Elle Mercedes Carrington, Jasmine Sadler-Liddell, Natalie Ralph, April Scarrow, Sophia Farrell-Reed, Molly Craig, Elizabeth Chatter forgot to tag myself in. I'll go. I'm so busy laughing at anime.

Anyway. Thank you guys so much. Justin Gentle, Gentile something, Laura Rokowski, and Tiffany Gushway. Thank you guys so much. Thanks, guys. And we'll see you in, well, maybe you have already listened to Under the Duvet, and if you've done that, it's your own fault

and you've got nowhere to go. But if you haven't, jump on over to Patreon. It's probably quite good. It is. I'll see you guys then. Goodbye. Bye. 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. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite 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. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA 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.