RedHanded - Episode 378 - The Mystery of the Isdal Woman

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

In this episode, we unravel the mystery of the Isdal Woman, Norway’s most notorious cold case. Was it murder, suicide, or something even more sinister? With whispers of Cold War espionage, coded notes, fake identities - and the persistent smell of garlic - this bizarre tale will leave you questioning everything. Wrap up warm: it’s time to enter the Ice Valley.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee 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 a very cold, December-y, icy, death-y. Very. Valley-y. Cold and Christmas-y. Atmospheric. It's all of the things. I just realised, if you are listening to this a week early on Amazon Music, because you

are a Wondery Plus subscriber, plug, plug, plug. This is an anniversary episode for you. One day out. Don't tell them that. No one's looking at the date. Everyone's just like, how many fucking paychecks till Christmas? I'm going to bankrupt myself. Anyway.

On the 29th of November, 1970, a partially burned female corpse was found in the icy, desolate terrain of the Isdal Valley near Bergen, Norway. Police had no name, no identifying clues, just a mountain of questions. A search was launched to uncover who this woman was, to give her a name, a story. But the deeper the investigators dug, the weirder things got. And a story emerged that's straight from a Scandi noir drama.

A story of a mysterious woman travelling through Europe with a series of fake names, coded notes and disguises. Was she a Cold War spy? A member of an international criminal ring? Or just a desperate woman hiding from unknown forces? And how, if this lady was any of those things, had she met her fate amid the jagged rocks of the so-called Death Valley without a soul knowing her name?

In 1970, with each new clue melting away like footprints in the snow, it seemed like the Isdal Woman was always one step ahead of those chasing her. And what began as a quest for justice turned into something a little more complicated. So come with us as we attempt to follow in the footsteps of the Isdal Woman, the enigmatic figure at the heart of Norway's most infamous cold case. Let's start by taking you to where her body was found, Istalen, or the Isdal Valley. It's near Mount Ulriken, about a two-hour walk from the city of Bergen.

Ulriken sounds like a Klingon. I was just thinking, what's her name? Ulrika? Ulrika Johnson. Ulrika Johnson. Ulrika Johnson. The landscape there is unforgiving, with harsh winds, a cold climate, and only a few hours of daylight in the winter. The area is often dubbed Ice Valley,

because, well, take a guess. But locals know it by a darker name. Dodd-Stalin, meaning Death Valley. For centuries, it's been a place where people have been known to go to end their lives, dating back to medieval times. And as well as the region's notorious history of suicides, its sheer cliffs make it the site of many fatal climbing accidents. As recently as the 1960s, a group of hikers had fallen to their deaths in the thick fog. On the 29th of November 1970, Death Valley was about to write another

dark chapter for itself. On that ordinary Sunday morning, a local professor and his two young daughters, who were 10 and 12, had no idea that another chapter was about to begin. As we said, the Isdall Valley isn't a particularly easy hiking route, but Scandi's bloody love nothing more than an extraordinarily difficult walk. And foraging, but it's winter. So it was, by all accounts, an ordinary dad and daughter stroll around the valley's lake and rocky hills. Until the girls, who had gone ahead of their dad, noticed a strange burning smell in the air, which was strange because it wasn't exactly barbecue season in wintry Norway. Curious, the sisters ran ahead even more and saw what looked like a shop mannequin,

it's never a mannequin, lying in a small clearing amongst the rocks. The figure was on its back, its head facing down towards the valley. As the girls got closer, they realised it wasn't a mannequin at all. It was the charred and blackened body of a woman. Her front was severely burned, though her back, which she lay on, was less affected. This woman had been clothed, but the mostly synthetic fabrics had largely melted away because of the fire, making her appear naked. Her hands were tightly clenched in front of her chest, as if she was trying to protect herself from the flames. And this, which is known as the boxer stance, is actually a common reaction in people who have been burned alive, as the heat causes the arm muscles to contract into this ghoulish pose.

Wish I didn't know that. Yep. Happy Christmas. The woman's hair was also all burned off, apart from a ponytail at the back that secured her dark brown locks in a pretty light blue bow. And so, over the howling winds of the Isdal Valley that fateful Sunday, you might have been able to hear two little girls screaming. But this was 1970. There were no mobile phones for the family to call for help. So they had to trek all the way back to Lakes Flartedyket and into town. It was a two-hour journey so it was two whole hours before they could alert the authorities.

The discovery of the woman left the sisters scarred for life and to this day they have never been able to speak publicly about their gruesome discovery. Later that day Bergen police trekked to the scene to examine the body for themselves given the area's reputation as a notorious suicide spot they assumed this would be a routine Jane Doe or as she would be called in Norway a Kari Nordman but the Isdal woman as she would soon become known was no ordinary Kari Nordman and as it turns out, she most likely wasn't even Norwegian.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Because on that grim Sunday afternoon, the police and forensic staff at the scene could only work with what was right in front of them. And calling the scene strange really doesn't even begin to cover it. Look, I know it's Christmas, I know it's December, everybody's winding down, nobody's paying attention, but pay attention to me right now, because there is a lot to run through here. On and around the corpse, the investigators found the following.

There was a pair of burnt, partially melted rubber boots with white soles near the woman's knees, with a clear outline of one boot visible in the ash. Plastic remnants of a bag or purse were found near her left thigh. Scraps of unidentifiable synthetic fabrics had been melted down in the fire. By the woman's left knee, there was a steel lady's watch with the insignia SOLO, and it was set to exactly 1010, the factory setting, suggesting that it had neither been used nor worn. Near the watch was some neatly laid out jewellery, two silver-coated brass earrings with turquoise-coloured glass stones and a large oval ring with a yellowy-white stone.

Two white plastic bottles containing water also lay near her feet. One warped and partially empty, the other intact and full. An almost empty bottle of klosterliquor, a generic Norwegian herbal liqueur, was also discovered a bit further away. Sounds disgusting. It does, doesn't it? Sounds like an off-brand Jägabomb.

I was going to say the only herbal liquor I can think of is Jägermeister. What? But like, how strong is Jägermeister? It must be like, over 20, would you say? Let's look it up because this alcohol exceeded 4.75% but that meant that it could only be sold in specialist state run stores Vimundpollen in Norway, that seems very

low. It is very low Norway has funny laws don't they? Because it's fucking dark all the time and everyone's depressed and drinks themselves to death that's why but yes Jägermeister is a heady 35% oh okay okay stronger than i thought so yeah let's get back to the established woman though so back at her feet there was a charred matchbox as well as what looked like remnants of burnt bread or crackers

small amounts of burnt paper-like material was also found under her thighs and hidden underneath her body they found a less damaged dark brown fur hat that carried the unmistakable stink of petrol. Before we go on I would like to clarify I do not think that every person in Norway is drinking themselves to death. Just to be clear. Just to be clear. But 4.75% and it's got to be in a specialist shop is pretty bonkers. Yeah.

That's just over a beer. Wow. Yeah, I think most of the Scandi countries are quite similar and you can only go to special shops and they're all shut on Sundays and they stop at 11 or something like that. As we mentioned earlier, the Isdal woman's body was positioned between large rocks. Draped over one of these rocks was a woolly jumper,

along with a burnt blue nylon umbrella and a green checked wool scarf. Its fringes singed nearer the body. On that same stone sat a warped plastic cup, thought to be the kind from a thermos-style flask, but no flask was ever found, and a melted plastic spoon. There was also a partially melted plastic lid that didn't seem to fit anything. Searching for a match for this lid, police dug into the loose rocks under the body. And that's where they found what looked like a melted plastic-like material, which seemed to have trickled down through the rocks from the surface.

And they also discovered lots of yellowish material that looked like fat at the bottom of the scree. There was also blackened stone about a metre deep, which indicates that the fire got quite far down. But no wood or other materials that you might use to sustain an open flame were found. This reminds me of when we were in new zealand and sam pulled out that fucking murder mystery oh my god so hannah and i after the tour we spent a couple of weeks in new zealand sam came out to join us and we were there

with his parents as well and i I think we were in Wanaka. And he was like, I've got this thing. And he pulls it out. But he pulls it out at like 10 o'clock. And everybody's been drinking. We're knackered. And we get it all out. And it was one of the most complicated things.

I did not think it was going to be that hard and complicated. I think we overcomplicated it. We did also do that. You're right. I mean, his heart was in the right oh absolutely it was like one of those murder mystery packs you get to like do as a group and it was wild and that's what this feels like yes I mean we got we got our man we did get our man but at what cost also Sam's dad used to be a fucking Bobby so he's obviously taking it all extremely seriously I'm trying extraordinarily

hard not to be one of those people that only talks about adhd but one of the things i find extraordinarily hard is when a lot of people talk at once yes which was happening oh yeah so i was like i'm just going to look at this newspaper article and highlight things very quietly and then there was a video bit and i was i'm just gonna watch this until something at least you watched it sam was watching the video it was like four hours long right the video clip that they give you and it's like awesome CCTV footage and this is like what actual police officers do except it's 50 million hours instead of four and you're meant to watch it to see something happen and Sam was like looking at it on his phone and skipping it by 10 seconds at a time and I was like

we're gonna miss the thing that's happening and he he was like, I can't watch all of it. It's fucking boring. And then Hannah was like, found it, found it. There's a face in it. And we'd finished the whole thing and we hadn't seen the face because obviously we were skipping 15 seconds at a time. Sacked. From the number one ladies detective agency.

Yeah, exactly. Death duty for you. Anyway. He was hip hop's biggest mogul. The man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up.

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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. Yes, it was a very similar lots of information, but I will tell you, you, my co-host, and you, the listener, you don't really need

to be that bothered about the stuff that is found with her, in my opinion. Red herrings. Possibly. But for now, at least, it seemed like the Isdal Woman hadn't probably been hanging out in Death Valley

enjoying the world's weirdest fucking campfire picnic when she went up in flames all of a sudden. Somehow, she had been doused with accelerant. Or at least her hat had. And she, it looked, had deliberately been set ablaze. But one niggling piece of evidence, or rather the lack of it, has troubled those involved in investigating this case ever since that day in 1970. Even if the Isdal woman had committed a particularly brutal kind of suicide by setting fire to herself, why can't we find any container for the accelerant? She must have carried it there somehow. Could it be that someone, a figure even more shadowy than the Isdal woman herself,

had taken it with them as they left her to burn on the hillside? And so the stage was set for an even darker alternative. There's been a murder. That was a terrible... I don't even know what accent that was. Let's call it Norwegian and call it a day. And I don't want to fucking hear about it Norwegians. Are they the ones with the Moomins? Yeah. Yeah.

They've got licorice in the Moomins. Yeah. They seem like a harmless bunch. I reckon we can do all sorts of accents and they'll blast off. They seemed like a laugh when we went to Norway. The Moomins are Finnish. Oh, no. And they're not scandy so uh well the norwegians definitely have all that horrible licorice sure do anyway i know i've already sort of scoffed at it but i'm not going to retract my scoffs because i think i'm right but for my own theory you're going to have to keep listening

you may think that all of the evidence that was found around the body would go some way to helping the police figure out who this woman was. But actually, this is where things really start to get weird. Not only were there no clues to suggest the deceased woman's identity, but also anything that might have provided an indication had been deliberately, even painstakingly, removed. It's like a Northern Hemisphere Somerton man. Yeah.

It's all so, so weird. Tags had been cut out of her clothing, and labels were scrubbed off the plastic water bottles to hide their brands, one would assume. So somebody, it would seem, had taken a significant amount of trouble to prevent the Isdal Woman from being identified. But whether that person had been the Isdal Woman herself or a third party that vanished into the mist remained unclear. For now, all the police wanted was a name. But the Isdal Woman, from beyond the grave, was having absolutely none of it. Investigators were stumped.

Despite the area's sombre reputation for suicides, something about this case just seemed off. For a start, no one matching the deceased's description had been reported missing in the Bergen area, making it even more difficult to believe that she could have been one of the wretched souls hoping to end it all in the Isdal Valley. It's not the sort of place outsiders would even know about, let alone traverse alone.

And the absence of the accelerant container remained a persistent sticking point against the theory that she had taken her own life. Bergen Police Chief, Oskar Hordnes, said in a press conference that this strange case was most likely a suicide. But young police lawyer carl halver ass carl has a what ass has since claimed that he and many of his colleagues at the time

felt from the start that this was a murder but in those early days of the investigation there were still more routes to be explored. Notably, the toxicology and autopsy reports were still to come in. Could the truth of what had happened to the Isdal woman be hiding inside her body? Police sure hope so. And they were really banking on science providing some answers. But, as will become a running theme in this episode, the toxicology and autopsy reports just gave us more questions than answers.

The basic details of the autopsy revealed that the body was of an adult woman, thought to be of European heritage, with a tanned complexion and dark eyes and hair. She had never been pregnant or given birth. She had a bruise on her neck indicating a fall or blow sometime before she died, although this wasn't thought to have contributed to her death. And establishing how the Isdal woman met her maker would prove to be less straightforward than the investigators had expected.

Smoke particles were found in her lungs, proving that she had been alive when the fire started, but there was another unexpected guest in her system. They found around 50 to 80 sleeping tablets. According to some reports, around 12 of these pills were also present at the scene near her body, which she hadn't ingested yet. A toxicology report indicated that these pills had been taken in several phases, with her first dose occurring several hours before her death, and later doses not yet absorbed into her bloodstream.

So that means that she would have been drowsy, but not fully incapacitated or unconscious. Unconscious, maybe not. In control of her faculties, I would argue, unlikely. Could she walk? Maybe. Could she pick something up? Probably. Would she have looked like she was absolutely blackout drunk? Absolutely, 100%. So her cause of death was found to be a combination of the barbiturates in her system and carbon monoxide poisoning.

To put it simply, she would have died from the overdose sometime later anyway, but the fire sped up that process quite a bit. But if you look blackout drunk in death valley and no one sees you are you a tree the main question at the heart of this story this discovery added a whole new layer of confusion to the already baffling case of the astol woman if this woman had intended to commit suicide by taking a fatal overdose why would she then go to the trouble of setting herself on fire? And conversely, if it was murder,

how could the assailant have forced their victim to take up to 80 sleeping pills? Neither one of those options seemed to make sense. Along with the bizarre removal of any identifying clues on the items found at the scene, the Bergen police were, frankly, in quite dire need of a breakthrough. And unexpectedly, just a few days later, they got one. Albeit one that was more by luck than design.

On the 2nd of December, with the mysterious Isdal Woman now a major news story, staff at the left luggage kiosk at Bergen's main railway station found two large suitcases. And these pieces of luggage had been left there for over a week, since the 23rd of November to be precise. But nobody had turned up to claim them. So having heard the police's public pleas for any potential leads, the staff submitted the cases for investigation. It is astonishing to me,

and maybe an ode to the efficiency of the Norwegians that it's only a week and they're the only cases and they're like it's got to be these send them off boys

that's mental to me. No, I think it's incredibly good, good work by the people at the left luggage kiosk at Bergen train station. And the Norwegian population for being punctual

with your effects. And miraculously when these cases were sent to the police and they were analysed, a fingerprint found on a pair of sunglasses inside one of the cases was a perfect match to the corpse now laying in the police morgue. This was indeed the Isdal Woman's luggage. Forensic technician? Tormod Bones? Stop it.

It's spelt B-O with a slash through it, N-E-S, right? So in my head, his name is Tormod Bones. I believe that is the correct pronunciation. That's much better. He's a forensic technician. Sure is. At least it's not as on the nose as that fucking show. Do you remember that show?

And it was like, I'm a forensic anthropologist and I look at bones and my name is Bones. Was that her actual name? Temperance Bones? Or was the show just called Bones? I don't. Zooey Deschanel's sister. Yes. I have to know now.

What was her name? Because if it isn't Bones, then I take it back. I'm pretty sure the show is called bones the show is definitely called bones what's her name it just says temperance bones oh no brennan okay fine okay dr temperance bones brennan oh he just calls her bones because they're having that office romance even though i totally don't believe it anyway tormund buerns recalls the initial excitement at police hq when the discovery was made of the luggage obviously it looked like the case was sure to be cracked any minute so officers opened up the luggage and found a note explaining exactly who the Isdal woman was, where she was from, why she'd gone on a bit of a mad one to the mountainside

and tried to obliterate any traces of who she was. And the police crew were all back at home in time for their herring dinners. Uh, no, sorry, that's not quite how it went. We wish it were that easy. At first glance, the suitcases seemed like they would be a goldmine of clues. Inside, among other items, were clothing, shoes, makeup, cosmetics, maps, timetables, a notepad, and even currency from Germany, Belgium, the UK and Switzerland. But here's the real kicker.

Just like the stuff that had been found near the Isdal woman's body, any and all identifying markers had been meticulously removed. Clothes had their labels cut out of them, makeup and toiletries had had their brands rubbed off the bottles, and a tube of prescription eczema cream even had the prescriber and patient names scrubbed off with a key or other sharp object. Look, I ain't scrubbing stuff off medicine or toothpaste or whatever. But we all know how I feel about labels. If any of my clothes were discovered, they would be like, oh man, Soviet spy. But actually, I'm probably just autistic. And inside these suitcases, because this is all pretty unsettling they found something else that

just made it all even weirder the police found several wigs and pairs of non-prescription glasses which seemed to suggest that this mysterious woman had been disguising her identity even before her death in that moment the isdol woman transformed from a mere victim to an antagonist in her own investigation. Because, in spite of the detective's ambitions to give her a name and a story, now they realised the Isdal Woman herself had never wanted to be known dead or alive.

So the cat and mouse chase began, a mystery that's kept people guessing for over 50 years, all the way up to right now. And not to blue ball you, but I think I'm going to blow it right open. I'm just going to wait until the end. For now, in our story, at least, the Isdal woman was in the lead and the Bergen police department were trailing behind. But the police weren't going to give up without a fight. They seized on one of the most promising leads to come out of the suitcase, a carrier bag from a shoe shop in the city of Stavanger, a breezy five-hour ferry ride across the fjords

from Bergen. No, thank you. It was exactly the sort of place that the Isar woman might have bought the trendy rubber boots, known in Norway as sailor stovl, i.e. sailor boots. And these boots were of course the ones that had melted in the flames around her body. So, it was all they could do to follow in her ghostly footsteps. At Oskar Rottweil's family-owned shoe shop, close to the harbour in Stavanger, the owner's son, Rolf, had exciting news for the police. Not only could he remember serving the customer thought to be the Estab woman around three weeks earlier, but she had made quite an impression on him.

Describing the woman as a stranger, which actually just means not from Norway, with her olive skin, dark hair and brown eyes, as well as speaking heavily accented English, Rolf and his colleagues recalled that she was well-dressed and seemed vaguely glamorous. Rolf said she had pretty legs and also wider hips than her slim figure might have suggested, which is something that is commented on quite a lot by various witnesses. I don't think we need to look in on, I just think men are dogs. A taxi driver would describe the Isdal woman as sexy, which does feel a little bit awkward when you say it about someone who ended up as a corpse on a hill, but whatever. Rolfe went on to say that the woman was reserved

and quiet and incredibly indecisive when it came to which boots she wanted to buy. Ultimately, she returned to the shop a day later to purchase a blue pair from the Celebrity Line, which at the time were the most popular style in Norway, maybe Kate Moss wore them to Glastonbury. Although it was perhaps unusual for a female tourist to go on a solo shopping trip in a city like Stavanger in the early 70s, overall Rolf's recollections aren't too strange. That is, except for the smell. Even at the time, Rolf and his colleagues made a note of the unpleasant, pungent smell that seemed to follow this new customer around the shop, although they couldn't quite place it at the time.

It was only a few years later when Scandinavia opened up to foreigners and started to experiment with seasoning, that Rolf realised that the smell reminded him of garlic. No way. What the fuck?

What? I think I have read this before about how they didn't have garlic for so long. Yeah, well, that's why everything's got fucking dill in it. I'm sorry. Also, look, I had a great time in Norway. Lovely. But Scandi food, not for me. Gonna say.

All this raw fucking pickled herring shit. The herring I could handle. You can keep it. The herring I could handle, big fan of the meatballs. But I like bread that doesn't tear my mouth to shreds. And I can't eat dill anymore. No, I want garlic all over everything. Please.

Anyway, we're gonna stop riding your dick, Norway. You're fine. You don't need us. You've got all that oil. But no seasoning. Work harder on that. Anyway, on the positive side, at least investigators could now be pretty sure,

because of her garlicky whiffs, that the Isdal woman wasn't a vampire. But that's basically the only thing they could rule out. Determined not to let her trail go cold, investigators decided to check out local hotels for sightings of their woman. But a few yards from the shoe shop they hit gold at the hotel since fithen where the staff remembered the isdahl woman staying for a few nights as the concierge brought out the visitor registration cards which is a legal requirement for any foreign guests to fill out when they're staying somewhere

new the excitement was palpable finally they were on the verge of getting a name. And from there, they could put this whole strange, garlic-scented matter to bed at last. At the hotel, the Estelle woman had given her name as Fenella Lorch, which sounds like some sort of posh nymphomaniac character from a Julie Cooper novel. She claimed that her country of origin was Belgium, though she filled out the form in German. I would add, though, there, that my understanding is that to even get a job in a shop in Belgium,

you need to be able to speak German, Flemish and French fluently, and I think English as well. But it's interesting because she must have been speaking English. Yes, true. Who knows? She's up to all sorts. And she is covering her tracks. You know, I think English as well. But it's interesting because she must have been speaking English. Yes, true. Who knows? She's up to all sorts. And she is covering her tracks. You know, I think we can't look for too many clues in like what she does or doesn't do because she's actively trying to throw you off her track.

But what was even stranger was that later handwriting analysis suggested that this woman was more likely to have been educated in France. Aha! The garlic. And this was because they pointed out telltale signs like a double-crossed T and underlining her signature. But that's another story, one that we'll get into in a bit. For now, let's stick with our new friend, Fenella,

if that was her real name. Which it most likely wasn't. Now given how meticulous the Isdal woman had been in removing any trace of her identity from clues in her luggage, police had good reason to be sceptical on that front. But at least they now had a reliable sample of her handwriting, as well as an idea of where else she might have been, thanks to the notepad that they found in her luggage.

This notepad contained several neat letters and numbers in rows of blue ink. At first glance, these notes seemed to be some sort of code, immediately gripping the investigators. But it turned out to be not a code at all, rather a sort of shorthand log of all of the places that she'd been over the past several months. The numbers and letters referred to dates and cities that she traveled to. For example, 20M and 23MO would mean she spent March the 20th to the 23rd in a city starting with O, like Oslo. So not exactly the Enigma Code. 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 Laney 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.

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and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Using the notepad as a guide, police were able to retrace her steps across various cities in Norway and beyond, confirming details about her striking appearance and behavior and smell, and comparing visitor forms from hotels. It turned out that the Isdal woman had been a bit of a globetrotter. She had travelled through Norway twice in 1970 alone, first in the spring and then in the autumn, staying at hotels in Oslo, Trondheim, Stavanger and Bergen. They were also able to trace her to hotels in Geneva and in Paris. Unsurprisingly, it turned out that Fernella was just one of many aliases she used during her travels.

Other than the handwriting on the visitor cards, the woman visiting each hotel was different every time. Claudia Tielt, Vera Jarle, Alexia Zana-Merchez, Claudia Nielsen, Genevieve Lancier, Elizabeth Lienhauer, and Vera Schlosseneck, which she particularly liked because it was a rare repeated alias that she used at two different Paris hotels. All in all, the Isdal woman had at least eight distinct identities, and possibly more. She wrote in German, although some of the words she used were misspelt

and didn't seem to make sense for a native speaker. Once, she called the issuing passport authority Brussels-Chrysler-Tang, translating to Brussels District Office, an expression which was only used during the time of the Nazi occupation. She also gave various dates of birth, usually in 1943 or 1945, making her around 25 years old, and she usually claimed that her country of origin was Belgium, but on one occasion Slovenia, with home addresses in these places. Every single name the Izdar woman used was proven to be made up, and none of the addresses, except for one, likely a fluke, actually existed. She'd been floating around Europe, like some kind of disenfranchised, garlicky ghost.

Her last confirmed stop was the Hotel Hordaheimen, near the fish market in Bergen. She stayed there from the 19th to the 23rd of November, under Elisabeth Lienhauer. She claimed to be from Ostend, Belgium. That same day, we know that she left her bags at the railway's left luggage kiosk. But it wasn't until six days later that her burned body was found. To this day, nobody knows where she went or what she did during those six days.

By this point in the investigation, a thrilling theory was starting to present itself to those on the tail of the enigmatic Isdal Woman, an international woman of mystery moving from hotel to hotel under various aliases, concealing her appearance, covering her tracks. Could the Isdal Woman be Hannah Maguire? An actual, factual, real-life Cold War spy? And if she was, could it be that the Isdal Woman's espionage activities landed her in hot water in the Ice Valley? Now look, she could be a spy. We're going to talk about it. I am.

But my only thing is, I don't know. There's a lot of people who take notice of her right say she's glamorous say she's attractive that's not something you want when someone's a spy no you want a gray man gray woman somebody who just blends into the background somebody who doesn't draw any attention to themselves so her being vaguely glamorous smelling smelling of garlic, you know, making people take a look at her shapely hips, doesn't seem very spy-like. No. Just put Matt out there.

I'm catching it and agreeing with you. But, remember, them thinking that she was a spy was not that far-fetched, because this was, after all, the Cold War era. Particularly in central and eastern parts of Europe. Pretty close to Russia, that's the fuck why. Uh-huh.

Everyone and their mother seemed to be spying on each other. So the theory that the Isdal Woman might have been in on the game isn't that wild. But if she was a super secret spy agent, the real question is, who was she working for? Her multiple passports and shifting identities whilst travelling through Europe point to some kind of sustained and covert operation. But her allegiances are still very muddy. Was she a Soviet agent, a NATO spy, or even a rogue freelancer caught between intelligence agencies. No one can say for certain. But her travels and mysterious contacts certainly make it tempting to think that she was playing some sort of high

stakes game on behalf of higher powers. Perhaps the most compelling theory out there links the Isdal Woman to top secret military testing going on in Norway at the time she was discovered, which was the NATO-backed Penguin missile. And despite its adorable name, this was a serious Cold War project that was designed to enable the USA and its allies to strike fast-moving enemy targets in coastal areas. Critically, the Isdal Woman's travels seem to have matched confidential tests conducted by Norway's 25th Missile Boat Squadron held near Bergen on 24 March 1970, and in Stavanger between 29 October and 9 November the same year. a fisherman named Burton Rott was utterly convinced he had seen someone matching the Isdal Woman's description talking to a naval officer at the docks in Tananga

which was one of the key testing locations at the time probably fuelled this theory I also think it's very funny that his name is Burton Rott and all they eat is rotten fish He sounds like a Roald Dahl character He certainly does Again, too many people taking notice of her Should be somebody that Mrton rott would not have

even paid a little blink of an eye at but if the isdahl woman was involved in the penguin missile program was she there to monitor progress for nato or leak information to those sneaky soviets and could what she found out have been enough for someone to eliminate her? But it wasn't just the Cold War beef between NATO and the Soviets that was brewing. From early on, whispers have persisted that Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, could be connected to the mystery of the Isdal Woman. Now from the outside that might sound a bit random. What could Israeli spies possibly be doing in Norway of all places? But in July 1973 Mossad agents assassinated a Moroccan waiter

Ahmed Boucheki in broad daylight on the streets of Lillehammer. It was a bungled case of mistaken identity. The agents believed that they were targeting Ali Hassan Samal, chief of operations for Black September, the Palestinian group behind the murders of 12 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. The Lillehammer incident proved that Mossad agents were active in Norway in the 1970s, and they were involved in shady business.

It's a lead that the 2016 BBC and NRK podcast Death in Ice Valley tried very hard to pursue. Presumably Death in Death Valley was a bit too on the nose. Yes. A listener to this podcast, Cicely, said that her grandfather had been one of the original investigators in the Bergen police force and he was told that the investigation ground to a halt because of an apparent connection with Israeli intelligence. In 2023, the NZZ, one of Switzerland's major newspapers, published a mammoth article arguing that the Isdal Woman's movements appeared to shadow a Swiss banker named François Grenot. He also happened to have well-known Nazi affiliations and a vendetta against Israel. It made sense why he was in Switzerland, then. Could she have been a Mossad agent assigned to tail this dangerous enemy?

These spy theories, as exciting as they are, for the most part, seem to be based in wishful thinking and jumping to conclusions, rather than any cold, hard facts at all. Unfortunately back in 1970 there weren't a whole lot of cold hard facts to go around. Scientific technology was pretty limited when it came to identifying unidentifiable victims. Luckily for us, that is no longer the case. In 2016, the podcast series Death in Death Valley pushed for DNA testing on organ tissue kept in storage from the Isdal Woman's body, as well as her preserved jaw and teeth. What the DNA analysis found was the clearest evidence that we're ever likely going to get. The flesh and blood of who the Isdal woman really was

was of course hidden in her genetic code like it is in all of us. DNA analysis revealed that she was of European descent with the maternal haplogroup H24 suggesting that her ancient foremothers migrated through Europe possibly from Southeast Europe or Southwest Asia. H24 is primarily found in romance-speaking countries like France, Spain, but also a bit in Germany and the UK and in Ireland. These findings could weaken the theory about the Isdal woman being an Israeli spy because none of those things that were found in her DNA indicate her being Jewish.

Now, DNA can only tell us so much about a person's origins. But it turns out you can find out a hell of a lot more than you might think about a person from their teeth. The Norwegian Criminal Investigation Service, KRIPOS, and researchers from the University of Bergen conducted something called isotope testing on the Isdal woman's teeth in 2016. And the results were fascinating. Before we get to that, though, let's have a quick look at what isotope testing actually is.

Now, without getting too technical, because we honestly don't think we could. I can. I did Chernobyl. It basically means looking at the chemical signature left on a person's teeth as the enamel is formed during their lifetime. Which is there because isotopes are probably unstable and therefore absorb things from their environments. So oxygen isotope analysis can reveal the type of water a person drank as they were growing up and crucially where that water came from. And strontium isotope analysis can reflect the foods that a person ate whilst they were growing up as well as the type of soil in the area where they lived.

And all this data can narrow things down to a surprisingly small dot on a map. Researchers were able to confirm with a pretty high degree of accuracy that the Isdal woman most likely spent her early childhood years somewhere near the France-Germany border. That's so cool. It's quite a big border. It's quite a big stretch of space there. But anyway, that would corroborate some of the witness testimony

because quite a lot of the people who said they encountered the Isdal woman reported that she did seem French. I that what rude seemed french oh my god and as we said her handwriting did seem to suggest french schooling indirect evidence also suggested that she entered norway on a french passport how they don't know that for sure is mad anyway apparently a passenger log of an international flight that we think this lady did take mentioned one unidentified french traveler who is getting on a plane unidentified i don't know look i want to say this is 1970 this is like a long time ago you know everyone was probably just like whatever even fucking before 9-11 was pretty whatever but it's also the cold war era so it's like kind of two things that i

can't quite square in my mind i agree never mind though because presumably the isdell woman had other fake passports with her at all times that she was using to check into hotels across europe so i wouldn't hold onto it too much to be honest. And not to mention the fact that investigators had a strong feeling that the passports this lady may have carried with her were most likely destroyed in the fire that ravaged her body on Isoldon. But the story didn't just start and end in France. Associate Professor Hurrian Hugelwerf from the University of Canberra drew up an isotope map of all of the hotspots where it's felt the Isda woman travelled in her youth and adolescence. And just like she'd had itchy feet as an adult, the map suggested that

the Isda woman moved around a lot in her early years. Specific hotspots glowed brightly on the map, from Nuremberg, Rome, northern Spain, the Balkans and even Wales. Had this mysterious woman been a nomad from the start? And if so, why? Carbon dating tests have offered a fresh perspective on the Isdal Woman's case. They indicate that she was most likely born around 1930, significantly earlier than the dates of birth she listed on her visitor cards, which were between 1943 and 1945, and probably explains why she was like referring to the Nazi

passport sorting office. Anyway, that carbon dating would put her closer to 40 years old than 25 which is the age the witnesses seemed willing to believe that she was though it's a pretty big difference really big difference i wouldn't even put on a visitor card that i was 25 no but have you looked up the korean woman who was 65 years old no there is a 65 year old korean woman who looks about 12 i believe you but those koreans man they've got good skincare but they've also got a lot of plastic surgery what's the deal i want to know did you see that story of the man who they're both korean he gets married to her and then they have children he's like why are my kids so ugly and then he finds out she had loads of plastic surgery and he sues her yeah nope i am very aware of that also if you look up the contestants

for miss korea they all look exactly the fucking same. This is the problem with just like rampant plastic surgery is that everyone just ends up. Like I watch a lot of dating reality TV shows and I just started to watch them. And maybe it's because I'm still jet lagged, but I'm like, everyone looks the fucking same. You all have the same exact face. It's quite unsettling, actually. Mm hmm. exact face it's quite unsettling actually anyway maybe our isdal woman had a very very extremely good garlic based skincare routine perhaps or quite possibly and i'm only saying this because

everyone describes her as being a foreigner and how obvious it was she was foreign maybe they just didn't know what a 40 year old-old not-Norwegian looked like. But more importantly than that, if the Isdal Woman was in fact born in 1930, that would put her childhood and adolescence squarely in the peak of the Second World War, which was, as I don't need to explain to you, a period of significant upheaval in Europe, especially for certain societal groups and especially children. Now the Death in Ice Valley podcast latched onto the theory that the Izdal woman might have been a Jewish refugee child, relocated from Nuremberg, known to be a hotbed of dangerous Nazi activity, to safely further west. And it is a fascinating theory, which could

explain her gradual migration into Western Europe. But there are some big gaps with this theory. For one, like we said, her DNA doesn't suggest Jewish ancestry. Which, okay, fine, but it wasn't just the Jewish children that were evacuated out of London. Yeah. And secondly, it feels like another case for us wanting to weave a narrative from so many disconnected threads. For example, the podcast journalist fixated on a metal teaspoon found in her luggage, believing it could have been a personalised heirloom with Jewish cultural significance.

But in the end, it was literally just a spoon, likely picked up from one of the many hotels that she'd stayed in, with its heart-shaped engraving traced back to a standard manufacturer. Now look, we don't blame those guys for getting excited about it. It's all part of the infuriating rabbit hole with this case of the Azzar woman. Because there are just enough clues to make you want to sink your teeth into each and every new theory, only to end up chewing until it's lost all its flavour, like a piece of pickled herring. And you have to reluctantly spit it out.

But maybe we've just got teeth on the brain. Because the Isdal Woman's teeth could well be the gift that keeps on giving. Because she had very distinctive dental work. Her gold teeth and crowns weren't a common sight in Scandinavia or Western Europe, suggesting that she could have seen a dentist in Eastern Europe or even in South America. Fun tooth fact, gold crowns and fillings are much, much better for you than the ones that we have now because gold is a natural antiseptic. So as long as you don't mind looking like a total fucking gangster.

Added bonus. Just go get all of that. Anyway, the gold teeth could support the theory of the Isdal Woman being an international spy because in the 1970s, very few people would have both the need to travel so widely and the means to afford

such extensive sparkly dental work. But just like everything else, all this tooth chat was quite empty in the end. Because it's not as if we don't know where the Isdal Woman had been. Her tracks are actually pretty easy to follow in purely geographic terms. Multiple witnesses saw her comings and goings around Norway and Europe in 1970 and they all reported her distinct appearance and goings around Norway and Europe in 1970 and they all reported her distinct appearance and quirks. The thing we don't know is what the Isdal woman was doing in each of the

locations she showed up in on that strange road trip in 1970. And we also have no idea who she might have been dealing with. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that wherever she went, the Isdal woman couldn't help but stand out. Firstly, in a physical sense, with her dark features giving her a very foreign look compared to the blue-eyed blondes of Scandinavia. She had a marked gap between her front teeth, with several gold fillings glinting when she opened her mouth. Again, uncommon for the time and place.

Her style of dress was said to be fashionably Italian, with some elements that seemed Russian, like the fur hat found under her body. But it was partly also how she acted that drew attention. Witnesses reported her speaking broken English and other languages, thought to be French, German, or even bits of Flemish. Hotel staff noted a pattern of odd behaviour, such as requesting to move rooms and always putting a chair in the hallway when she went out, only to drag it back inside on her return. She was quiet and largely kept to herself, but nonetheless made a curious impression in her limited interactions with others. And then there was that unusual spicy odour, something charitably

described as an exotic oriental type of perfume, while at other times, just a horrible stink. To top it off, she was often seen wearing wigs and fake glasses to conceal her appearance, which naturally only caught people's attention all the more. If the Isdal Woman was a spy, it hardly sounds like she was a very good one. But, with that said, we're here recording a podcast over 50 years later speculating about who she was, because we still don't know. So maybe she gets a last laugh on that one.

For now, let's consider the main case against the Isdal woman being a spy. It's boring, soz, but it's our show and we can do what we want. In a press conference held in 1970, police chief Oskar Hordnes said that they could reasonably rule out the possibility of the dead woman being involved in any type of espionage. And Norway's former top spy catcher, Olnoth Tofte, agrees. In his experience,

any Cold War spy worth their salt would have had a maximum of two or three false identities that they would memorise a detailed legend for. The key would be convincing those they met that they were, in in fact a real person, just not the person they actually were.

In contrast, the Isdal Woman had at least eight flimsy identities that went no deeper than a made-up name and an even more made-up address. According to Spycatcher Extraordinaire, it's unlikely that any major player in the cold war would equip their spy with such shoddy false identities and i really don't think they were any minor players in the cold war no i mean on top of my favorite thing to do was watch those you know historians take apart like movies and be like how unrealistic this looks i also recently watched one of those with the cia's former master of disguise.

Oh, cool. Which is really good. And she basically goes through lots of different spy films and talks about how realistic it is, how unrealistic it is. And this is exactly what she says. You don't have like a box of passports and disguises just sat around the CIA office. You get given maximum two. And they are very, very specifically researched, very well crafted, and you learn it. It's not like, oh, I fucked that one. Can I have a new one, please?

It just feels so unprofessional. Yes, and spies were everywhere in the Cold War. That's fine. But as Saru said, they probably would have been lined up with better and less identities. And a lot of them would have taken their secrets to the grave. So maybe could the Isdal Woman have been an agent for a smaller organisation or a developing country that wasn't as sophisticated in its methods? Maybe. Doubt it, but whatever.

Or perhaps a member of an organised criminal gang, or maybe sex trafficking ring, someone who doesn't have as much of an espionage budget. Or, more pertinently, was the Estab woman acting like an ordinary person would think a spy would act? Without trying to stick a diagnosis label on the Estab woman, since we're A, not remotely qualified, and B, she's been dead for over 50 years and we have no idea, it's still worth considering that if she had been suffering from some sort of mental health condition like schizophrenia,

this could account for many of the weirder elements in the story. Research suggests that up to 70% of individuals in their first episode of psychosis report persecutory delusions, the belief that someone or something is out to get them. You might believe that you're being monitored by the government, hunted for a crime you didn't commit, or are otherwise at the centre of some sort of grand conspiracy. It can be incredibly frightening, and cause people who are going through this to behave in a way that doesn't make sense to other people. Could this have been what happened to the established woman?

When we look at a woman travelling from place to place with an array of false identities and disguises, it's human nature to try and come up with a rational explanation. In this case, she must have been a spy. What if she simply believed that she was on the run from darker forces? It turns out that there's actually a historical basis for this theory. Deinstitutionalisation. In the first half of the 20th century, it was common for those diagnosed with mental health issues

or developmental disabilities to be kept in long-stay psychiatric hospitals largely hidden away from society like Pennhurst Asylum. But in the 50s and the 60s, the Western world was going off that idea a bit. But they didn't really come up with a great alternative either. The facilities were just shut down and patients were booted into the real world. Some of the patients made it to halfway houses, group homes, clinics or ordinary hospitals, but some of them didn't. And in areas where deinstitutionalisation was not conducted properly or well or at all, patients with high needs were released into the community with no support and they struggled to integrate, obviously. The idea that the Isdal woman could have been institutionalized in her youth might explain why she was moved around so much and why

the trail goes cold before her solo European tour in 1970. The mental illness theory also sadly increases the chances that she might have taken her own life in the valley. A study published by the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in 2020 indicates that suicide risk for people with schizophrenia is over 20 times higher than for the general population. And if she was experiencing persecutory delusions, this could answer the prevailing question in this story of why would a suicidal person go to such lengths to erase their identity? But that's if this was a suicide. Continuing on this train of thought, the Isdal woman would have been far more vulnerable to foul play at the hands of a third party. Again, research suggests that schizophrenic people are

about 14 times more likely to become a victim of violent crime than to be the perpetrator of it, and they're at a considerably higher risk of being victimized than those who don't have the condition. In Bergen, three separate witnesses claim to have seen her meeting with an unknown man in those final days. Can't be confirmed if this was the same man each time, but one description says that they dined in silence at the hotel restaurant with the atmosphere decidedly icy. To be fair, every hotel restaurant I have ever eaten in has one of those couples. I agree.

Now, some speculate that a local could have lured her into the Isdal Valley, an area difficult for most foreigners to navigate. And then this person perhaps played a role in her death. But we are doing it again, jumping to conclusions without any solid proof, just some half-assed eyewitnesses. Maybe we're so fascinated with the Isdal Woman

because we're desperate to solve it, to find the sense of closure that keeps eluding us at every turn. And in 1970, there was no satisfying closure either. The Isdal Woman was given a small Catholic funeral. Authorities assumed she was Catholic, because the false names she used often belonged to saints. The funeral was attended only by police personnel who somberly placed tulips and carnations on the Isdal Woman's grave.

She was interred in a zinc-lined coffin so that if her true identity were ever to be discovered, she could be exhumed and relocated to a more fitting resting place. The real truth about the Isdal Woman's identity could lie inside that zinc box. Whilst her DNA profile was put into the Interpol database, there's been no match. And as yet, her genes have not been entered into a public genealogy database that may yield matches for potential living relatives. This could be huge. Imagine if the Isdal Woman pinged as somebody's missing aunt, and the story unraveled from there.

It's a technological advancement that we've covered many times before, and one that's making significant waves in the field of crime, especially in the US. And you guys know this, Joseph James D'Angelo, the notorious Golden State Killer, was finally caught in 2018 after investigators connected DNA from a series of cold case rapes and murders from the 70s and 80s to a distant relative in the public GEDmatch DNA database. However, there are strict Norwegian regulations regarding the use of genealogy sites to solve crimes. So, until those rules change, we're unlikely to get a definitive answer anytime soon. But if we sit ourselves down

and take a long hard look at ourselves and be really honest, are we really ready to get an unequivocal answer about the Isdal Woman? In 2022, Australian academics revealed that after 74 years, they had at last found the name for the so-called Somerton Man.

We've done a bonus episode, go find it. But if you haven't, a brief rundown. This is a man who was found slumped by the seawall in Adelaide back in 1948 with a cryptic note saying Taman Shud, which is the Persian word for finished, and it was found in his pocket. It was like ripped out of some Iranian poetry book or something like that. Like the Isdal woman though, the Somerton Man didn't have that many identifying markers, and the labels were cut out of his clothes. A flurry of speculation ensued that lasted over half a century, with theories swirling about jilted lovers and Cold War spies and ballet dancers,

and ears and tiny teeth, do you remember that? And it does sound quite familiar, doesn't it? But now, the Somerton Man has been reunited with his real name Charles Carl Webb a 43 year old electronic engineer from Melbourne not the dangerous maverick Russian spy that people were expecting filmmaker Carolyn Billsborough who directed documentary on the Somerton man said that to find out that he was actually just an ordinary Australian man whose disappearance nobody had followed up on made the case particularly kind of tragic. And this is what could so easily happen with the establishment. People have spent countless hours

grappling with theories involving espionage and criminality. Would they perhaps feel cheated out of their spy thriller if it turned out that the truth was something far simpler and sadder? The case has echoes of the Elisa Lam story, which is of course that of the young Canadian student who was found dead in a septic tank on the roof of the Hotel Cecil in LA. We've all seen the video of her acting bizarrely in the hotel's lift as if she's hiding from something we can't see. People were keen to insist there must have been an explanation, even perhaps a supernatural one. But the reality is,

people's behaviour doesn't necessarily have to make sense to outsiders. It just has to make sense to them. Would you like my theory? Absolutely. Okay. Nuremberg, 1930. A spotlight descends on Hannah Maguire. I think that she's born in 1930 in Nuremberg. Most people are like, oh, this is a bad time.

Get the children out. Maybe she was an orphan. Maybe there was some kind of underground railroad situation. They're like, get her the fuck away. And wherever she ends up as a child, let's say Wales for fun, because it was the last one on the list she's put into some sort of orphanage institution which is really fucking horrible right and then she comes of age and she escapes she's very very very unwell and de-institutionalization as we were talking about yes horrific not necessarily just mental hospitals even today care leavers have a really hard time because you know how are you gonna pay for driving lessons if you've got no parents to give you the money you know it's all of that sort of thing so I think child out of Nuremberg

institution of some description horrible very unwell I do think she thought people were after her I think that she was constantly trying to disguise herself. For some reason, thought scraping brand names off things would help that because she's in a severe paranoid delusion. And I think the reason there is no receptacle for the accelerant that she's covered in at the site is because she poured it onto her hat before she went. Maybe she did that more than once. maybe that's why she smelled weird because if garlic wasn't in norway until x amount of years later who's to know i don't know what old petrol smells like anyway so she goes there she's like i've had it i'm ending it all i'll go to this like very symbolic place of suicide and she says i'm

going to take all of these pills if that doesn't work last resort hat on fire and i think that's what she does i think she takes all the pills she's like this isn't fast enough i'm done they're coming for me yeah and she sets herself on fire yeah and i can totally believe the fact that she wasn't very well being the reason for a lot of this because so much of it just doesn't make sense the whole thing of like scraping brand names off like cosmetics and stuff okay sure cutting labels out of clothes maybe but like that is down to a level that doesn't really give away who you are anyway yes exactly so it speaks to somebody who is going through some sort of persecutorial breakdown and i think it probably is just a really sad story i

don't think she was a spy she drew way too much attention to herself and i think it probably is just a really sad story I don't think she was a spy she drew way too much attention to herself and I think that probably makes the most sense I agree so ultimately it probably isn't that exciting or complicated or sensational but the reason so many people are obsessed with this case is because it is unsolved and has remained so for quite some time. Until we absolutely know whether she was a Cold War agent or just in the throes of a really tragic and uncontrollable mental health episode, the Isdal Woman can be whoever we want her to be. Maybe we'll catch up to her eventually, but for at least she is winning and i for one i'm kind of rooting for her to stay hidden me too let's leave her be she didn't want to be found

no i think it's one of those cases where it's like with the somerton man yes some people may have been disappointed but i think it's kind of the same thing of like when people find out that somebody was like some sort of horrible pedophile like, oh, you've ruined my childhood. I'm like, it's not about you. I think it's nice that Charles Carl Webb got his name back. I agree. But this doll lady didn't want to be found. Maybe it's best we leave her that way.

Exactly. So, be good. If you haven't done your Christmas presents, you should do that. Because it's only going to get worse. You should. And you might want to think about maybe if you've been really lazy or you're just a great person,

gifting a Red Handed Patreon membership to your beloved friends, family, co-workers, dog, I don't know. For more details on that, check out the show notes and we will be back for our last two episodes of Red Handed for the year 2024 starting next week. It's a two-parter.

It is. I should probably start it. And on that note, goodbye. Bye. 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+. 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 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. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts.