True Crime All The Time - Harry Thaw

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

On June 25th, 1906 Harry Kendall Thaw fatally shot renowned architect Stanford White on a rooftop in New York City. The trial that followed was deemed the trial of the century and revealed numerous scandals that had been kept behind closed doors for years. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Harry Thaw. Both Thaw and White fell in love with a girl named Evelyn Nesbit. Nesbit was called by some the Marilyn Monroe of her time. The feud between Harry Thaw and Stanford White escalated and ultimately ended in Thaw shooting White to death. The trials that followed introduced the public to a lot of information that was extremely scandalous in the early 1900s. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 283 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Give me, how are you? Hey man, I'm doing good. How about yourself? I am doing very well. It is 90 plus degrees here today. It is.

Out of nowhere. I know. You know, it was like 40 something the other day. Yeah. And so you and I are both in shorts and a t-shirt. It's nice. It's what you always wear. Well, yeah.

But that's because I don't leave the house. Yeah. We just finished up our weekly Patreon episode. We talked about the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders being declared officially solved. We also did a little movie trivia, a little fun. I nailed it. You did not. You were horrible. I know.

It was based off a book we got in that I'll talk about in the mailback. Let's go ahead and speaking of Patreon, give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Oliver Elliott jump out to our highest level. Hey, thanks, Oliver. Jessica Walton. What's going on, Jessica? Harley Angel jumped out higher than our highest level. Wow, thank you, Harley.

Hannah Turner. Hey, Hannah. Brandy Warden jumped out at our highest level. What's going on, Brandy? We had Daniel Peters. Hey, thanks, Daniel. Susan Mum. Well, thank you, Susan.

Heather Talent jumped out of our highest level. Well, got to have some talent. Haley. Just Haley? Just Haley. Okay. Is that not enough? That's always enough.

Lisa Fulcard. Hey, Lisa. All Hallow. Well, thank you all. Hallows. Carol Calloway. Hey, Carol. Jennifer Kroovich.

What's going on, Kroovich? Jenna Hall. Hey, thank you, Jenna. Vanessa Spencer. What's up, Spencer? And last but not least, Jason Valancourt. Hey, there's Jason.

So we appreciate all that new support. And then if we go back into the vault, this week, we selected Christy Adcock. Well, thanks, Atcock. So we appreciate all the support we get. We had some great PayPal donations from Constance, Newbold. A lab in the air. Well, you have a lab in the air. What can go wrong? Nothing. Nothing. And Richard Lawrence. Hey, Richard. So thanks for that as well. You know, Gibbs, we have an episode right now out on Unsolved on the Jameson family disappearance.

You know, it was in October of 2009 that the Jameson family left home and went to a remote area of Red Oak, Oklahoma and disappeared. They were never seen alive again. Yeah. And we're diving to some of the many rabbit holes. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time? I'm ready. We are heading back to the early 1900s to talk about Harry Thaw. It was on June 25th, 1906, that Harry Kendall Thaw fatally shot renowned architect Stanford White on a rooftop in New York City. The trial that followed was deemed the trial of the century. And it revealed a number of scandals that were kept behind closed doors

for years. Harry Kendall Thaw was born on February 12th, 1871. He was the son of William Thaw, a Pittsburgh coal and railroad baron. Man, Gibbs, that's always been my dream in life to be called a baron, to be a baron. Or to be the son of a baron. A baron. And, you know, or to be, you know, I always think about that. What would it be like to be born into kind of this wealthy, ultra rich family? Be interesting. It would be, obviously, people don't want to change their lives, right? I don't want to give up the life that I have.

And if I had been born into this ultra richy rich family, my life wouldn't be the same. You wouldn't meet the same people. I probably would have never met you. Oh, you would have met me. Or if I would have, I would have scoffed at you and look down my nose at you. Probably would have been your driver. Because I was so rich. Yeah.

Right. Well, you already scoffed down on me anyway. I don't know. Scoff down. Okay. But I do think about that sometimes. You know, what would it be like? And then, you know, the other thing I think of is, you know, sometimes when you're born into a family like that,

you either have the drive to do something with it yourself or you're full. satisfied with just kind of Billy Madison and it. I'm using that as a verb. Right. Just living off the interest of your inheritance. Right. And picking up your nudie magazines at the mailbox. Yeah. There's always that. Harry was described as a violent and paranoid child. A lot of people, Gibbs said that he had what they called like this wild-eyed stare. Okay. You know, if you're that kid in class. Right. The wild-eyed stare is, um, it's not going to make you a lot of friends. No. People aren't going to gravitate towards you at the, uh, at the lunch table. Are we sitting by yourself? Probably. It was said that he moved from one school to another due to

bad behavior. He never got good grades. And his teachers described him as unintelligible and a troublemaker. Unintelligible. Something that nobody has ever said about you. Never. Never. Now, troublemaker, that's a different story. Yeah, I got that a lot. But because of who his father was, Thaw was accepted into the University of Pittsburgh to study law. And then just a few years later, he used his family name and social status to transfer to Harvard. When you donate enough money to certain schools. They'll let you in. They'll let you in.

But I just got done saying, you know, extremely bad behavior. Never got good grades. Well, now he's at Harvard. Well, they found a way to reward him

for his behavior. Well, they let you in too. So, I mean, you know, it does kind of cut both ways. But I earned it.

Allegedly. Yeah. So he's at Harvard. What's he going to do, Gibbs? He's not a good student. He didn't spend a lot of time studying.

What was said about him was that, you know, he went on drinking binges, which, okay, granted I did some of that in college as well. Right. He attended cockfights, which I've never done. I've never been involved in a cockfight either. He spent a lot of his time with women. He was expelled after being arrested for chasing a cab driver through the streets of Cambridge with a shotgun. So that's the key, right? I mean, probably wouldn't been expelled.

who's just chasing the cab driver, but you tossing the shotgun, there becomes the problem. Though that's a much bigger issue, right? So can I legally chase someone down the street? Well, first of all, why are they running from me? Right. Usually when there's a chase involved,

there's some action before the chase that precipitates the need for one person to run away from the other. That's true. So in this case, obviously it's because one person has a shotgun. Yeah. But what I found funny was that his defense was that, well, the shotgun was not loaded. Like the person he's chasing knows that the shotgun's empty.

Well, I think most people, rightfully so, if they saw someone coming towards them with the shotgun, would naturally assume that it's loaded. Always. You're not going to just think, well, there's really no need for me to worry or run away because I'm sure it's unloaded. Nobody thinks that way. Also, why are you carrying an unloaded shotgun through the streets of Cambridge?

It's Cambridge. So then Thaw bounced around between Pennsylvania and New York City. He began using morphine and cocaine quite a bit. He attended a lot of Broadway shows, which he referred to as studying. And I'm using my air quotes here.

He said he'd like to study the chorus girls, which is how he met Stanford White. So obviously this guy had a thing for the ladies. Sure. He obviously had a thing for chorus girls. Now, studying them, I really don't know what that means. I take it to mean he's attending Broadway shows to figure out which of these chorus girls he wants to try to date or, you know, become involved with or something like that. And Just don't forget, he's enjoying the morphine cocaine mix. Which is pretty powerful. Yes, it would be.

I like the way you said that as if you didn't know. I'm just trying to keep it, you know. 100? 100. So I mentioned Stanford White. He was one of the most famous architects in New York City. White was born on November 9th, 1853. He grew up in New York City.

He spent time in Europe studying historic architecture. This guy gives Des. designed Madison Square Garden. Impressive. Tiffany's. Oh, yeah. The Washington Square Arch. Impressive. Cornelius Vanderbilt's mansion. Some of us been there and that's impressive on its own. And a lot of other homes for, you know, really, really wealthy people.

I mean, when you hear the name Vanderbilt, you might as well just put a dollar sign next to it. Absolutely. And really a lot of the homes and structures that white designed still stand today. Yeah. So pretty famous. famous if you think about it in the world of architecture yeah yeah he's up there with the tops white married 22 year old bessie spring smith in 1884 they had a son named lawrence in 1887 in 1888 white joined with some other prominent new yorkers to found what was called the sewer

club basically you know a bunch of men got together they rented a room in an apartment building for themselves. According to the New Yorker, one member described their activities as, quote, scenes of mirth and physiological interest and investigations. Okay. I don't even know what the hell that means.

Sounds like a cover to me. But historians are almost certain that the sewer club was really a sex club. And Stanford White was known for his preferences for young girls and wild sex. So it sounds. to me like the sewer club was a bunch of men getting together for debauchery, wild sex parties, whatever they wanted to sound like eyes wide open, whatever you want to call it.

And the thing about white that I found very interesting was that he operated in the highest of social circles, but also in very, very low social circles. Meaning right, he hung out with the the wealthiest people in New York City. But then he also hung out with some people that those individuals would have thought were like the dregs of society. Yeah. He was heavily involved in the arts and Broadway. I mean,

so much so that it was said about white that, you know, just one word from him could get a girl the lead role in a show. So he probably used that to his advantage. Oh, if the guy's into wild sex, sex parties. Not too hard to make the leap, right, that he would use his influence to get these girls, these women, what they wanted most, right? The lead role in the show, but there's a quid pro

quo there. He's not doing it out of the goodness of his heart or because he wants to help someone out. Right. The old, uh, I'll do this for you. What are you going to do for me? Yeah, that's kind of the quid pro quo part, part of it. So I mentioned it, right? Thaw and White they met kind of in the Broadway scene. What at some point, White made some disparaging remarks about Harry Thaw to a group of these chorus girls. And, you know, it was a group of girls that Thaw was trying to romance, right? He was trying to, you know, get things going. And whatever these remarks were, they caused these girls to snub him. And he blamed that on Stanford White. And so from that point forward,

White became the target of Harry's rage. When Thaw learned that White had been paying attention to a woman named Evelyn Nesbit, who was a chorus girl from the play Flora, Thaw arranged to meet her at a party. So Evelyn Nesbit, pretty important to the story. Paula Arubu, associate professor and chair of the English department at Hofster University, wrote the biography American Eve about Eve in this case. She provides a lot of insight into just who Evelyn Nesbitt was. Florence Evelyn Nesbit was born on December 25th, 1884. Her father, Winfield Scott Nesbitt, was a lawyer.

He died when she was about 11 or 12. his wife realized that they could not live off of the estate. And so they were going to have to work. And it was Evelyn who became the primary earner in the family. And I don't think that was all that uncommon back in the day. When I say back in the day, I'm talking about back during this time frame, early 1900s, where kids at a very young age, an age much younger than we would think today kids would go out and try to earn. for the family would basically be thrust into that role.

I mean, Evelyn was only 14 years old when she was discovered in Philadelphia, basically within a few days of her arrival in Pennsylvania. One of New York's most famous painters, James Carroll Beckwith, hired her to pose twice a week at his studio. He called her a perfectly formed nymph. A nymph. Yeah.

There's a term you haven't. don't hear very often. And I had to look it up just to make sure I understood what the word meant. And one definition I saw was a mythological spirit of nature imagined as a beautiful maiden inhabiting rivers, woods, or other locations. There you go. Beautiful maiden. Something that would never be used to describe myself. Either one of us. So Evelyn was soon in demand for modeling jobs, for portrait artists and photographers. She was dubbed the Little Sphinx and appeared in magazines like Cosmo, Vandy Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and the Ladies Home Journal.

So big deal, right? Oh, the big magazines. Yeah, these are magazines. Some of these still very, very prominent today. But back then, you know, just what a big deal to be featured in all these magazines and to be making money. So she started off as a model for painters and sculptors. Then she began posing for advertisements, magazines, and photographers.

In early December 1900, Evelyn was 15 years old when she arrived in New York City to begin her modeling career. So it really gives when you think about it, she became an overnight sensation. She's in New York City. She generated a lot of newspaper sales and really became a celebrity of sorts. of swords. According to Urubu on the PBS show Murder of the Century, much like Marilyn Monroe later on, Evelyn Nesbit was an icon of her age, created and consumed by the public sensationalable appetite for private sin and public scandal. She was America's first bona fide sex goddess.

That's what this woman said on the show. And we know sex sells. Well, there's no doubt about that, Right or wrong. It does. Now, Evelyn wanted to break into the theater industry. And in 1901, she earned a role as a chorus girl in the play, Floridora. So she was modeling during the day and then performing, you know, in this play at night. And she was earning more than enough money to pay for all of her family's expenses. I mean, that's impressive, right?

A girl that's 15, 16 years old. making enough money to take care of her family. Yeah, basically being the head of the household. Yeah. Bringing home, you know, all the money. It was in August 1901 that Evelyn met 46-year-old Stanford White. He saw her perform in this play, Florida, and he basically became her benefactor. He gave her an allowance, an apartment, and gifts.

And I think benefactor is such a strange word. right you hear that used a lot of times but when I hear it I think of someone trying to do something good right for someone else now I'm not saying Stanford white wasn't doing something good for Evelyn Nesbid but you know he's what 30 years older than her right she was 16 and so I think for me that's why benefactor sounds like such a strange word because he's giving her money basically paying for her apartment, lavishing her with gifts, but for what?

Right? Again, going back to the quid pro quo, there's something on the other end of that. Sure. You're not, he wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart. Well,

I was going to say that she was a kept woman, but really she was a kept girl. In October 1901, Stanford White convinced Evelyn's mother to visit friends in Pittsburgh, which gave him the, perfect opportunity to be alone with Evelyn. Stanford White got Evelyn drunk and he raped her while she was unconscious in his studio apartment. But it was reported Gibbs that for the next six months,

they saw each other almost every day. So what a strange relationship. It was very strange. It basically starts out with a rape. But he was a very powerful man. And he was providing her with a lot of things, right? Money and apartment, expensive gifts. So we don't really know exactly what the relationship was. But I think the fact that they saw each other every day for the next six months, it just sounds strange after saying that he took advantage of her raped her while she was unconscious. And the one thing that that is impossible to get away from when you research this case is the infamous red velvet swing. There's a 1955 film about this case.

It's even titled, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. So basically, Stanford White had a room in his apartment with a red velvet swing hanging from the ceiling. And it was reported that Evelyn often rode on the swing, sometimes clothed, sometimes not. To me, just the fact that a man has a red velvet swing hanging in a, in a room in his apartment paints a very disturbing picture to me. Definitely strange.

Hey, is that a red velvet swing in the corner of your room there? Well, as a 46-year-old man, you're not swinging, I wouldn't think. Yeah. You're not just sitting on the swing going we, you know, the swing was bought, installed for a very specific reason. Sure. He probably had some type of fetish. I think this guy probably had a number of different fetishes.

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In 2021, good RX users saved 81% on retail prescription prices. On December 23rd, 1901, white gifted Evelyn, a pearl necklace, three diamond rings and a set of white fox furs. Okay, that's quite a haul. That is. But at the very same time, you had Harry Thaw, who still was trying to woo Evelyn Nesbitt, and he was sending gifts anonymously, flowers, silk stockings, he even sent her a piano. It's kind of hard to ignore the piano.

It's like the elephant in the room, right? I mean, you send someone a piano, you're not going to miss it. Well, so I was thinking, okay, somebody sends you flowers. You don't like that person. Okay, flowers are easily disposed up. Right. You can't just get rid of a big freaking piano that people show up with and I guess put inside your apartment or whatever. Yeah. So in January of 1902, Florida closed and Evelyn earned a new role in a play called The Wild Rose. Later that summer, White headed off to Europe. And, And Evelyn began an affair with actor John Barrymore. When White got back to the States, he confronted Barrymore. There's a big name in the world of acting Barrymore. Yeah. Yeah.

And John Barrymore was a big actor back in the day. Obviously, he's the grandfather of Drew Barrymore. But the whole family or a lot of that family acted or does still act or was involved in the movie business. in October 1902, Stanford White and Evelyn Nesbit ended their relationship. White arranged for her to leave New York and attend boarding school in New Jersey. So again, I think it, you know, it just kind of underscores how young this girl really was. Yeah. During this time, while all of this is going on, Evelyn remained in boarding school until April 1903.

She was forced to leave to be treated for acute appendicitis. According to the PBS program murder of the century, Harry Thaw was the one who sent the doctor to perform the surgery. So I think that right there tells you that she never left his mind. He was keeping track of her because when he learned that Evelyn was in the hospital for appendicitis, he visited, he showered her with gifts. And this impressed not only Evelyn, but her mother and the headmistress at the boarding school. So everybody was impressed. And Stanford White had warned Evelyn about Harry.

And I think at first Evelyn tried to avoid Harry's attention, but Thaw was relentless. He just was not going to give up. Persistent. That's a great word. At some point, Stanford White ordered Evelyn to move on to a sanatorium in upstate New York. And both he and Thaw visited Evelyn. and frequently, but never together. How do you order somebody?

Hey, I order you to go. Well, I go back to the allowance, the apartment, the gifts, you know, does that play into it? Was he still, you know, giving her some of that stuff? Did he have dominion over her in some way, hold some type of sway with her? Obviously, he must have. Yeah, of course. But eventually, White moved on. he turned his attention to other girls, but Harry didn't. He continued visiting Evelyn.

When she was released from the sanatorium, he invited Evelyn and her mother to Paris. Obviously, Gibbs, this guy had quite a bit of money, right? His dad was extremely wealthy. He spent a ton of money on Evelyn and her mother and eventually proposed Evelyn. Now, she didn't outright reject him, but she didn't say yes either. He kind of, it sounded to me as though she just kind of put him off. Yeah, which, you know, when you propose to somebody and they don't say yes, anything after that is never good. It's not, it's not really a great sign. Yeah. The no would be better than, uh, I'm not really sure right now. Let's revisit this in six months and just see where we're at. But this guy, Harry Thaw,

he couldn't be deterred, right? He just kept proposing to Evelyn. In May, 1903, the two set sail for Europe. And they took Evelyn's mother as a chaperone. While in Paris, Evelyn told Thaw about her sexual encounters with Stanford White. She admitted that she wasn't a virgin and told Harry that she wasn't worthy to be his wife. And this sent him into a rage. But even knowing all that, he still wanted to marry Evelyn. he arranged for Evelyn's mother to return to New York and he took Evelyn to a castle in Austria.

But in the late summer of 1903, Thaw attacked and raped Evelyn inside this castle in Austria. And it was reported that he was hopped up on cocaine and morphine and just kind of, you know, went into a frenzy. Yeah. He's going to use him taking those drugs as his excuse for what he did, but that's not an excuse. There's never an excuse for doing what he did. No, but here's the thing that I will say, Gibbs. You and I have talked about rape and the crime of rape throughout the years, 50s, 60, 70s, and how perpetrators were caught. Right. And did so little time for a rape conviction. Now, we're in the early

in 1900s. So you have to think it was so much worse back then. Oh, yeah. You've seen some of the stories back then where sometimes they made it seem like it was the woman's fault. Yeah, it's sickening, right? I think for you and I to think about that type of act and a man doing that, but for me, it's sickening to think about the system and what it's been like through the years. really kind of shameful if you think about it. Of course. Now, Evelyn stayed with thought, probably more out of fear than anything. She eventually convinced him to let her go home. Evelyn's friends arranged a ship passage for her when they found out what happened. On October 24th, 1903, Evelyn arrived back in New York. In late fall that year, Stanford

White's attorneys brought a suit against Harry. Thaw for kidnapping. Evelyn went into hiding because she was so scared of Harry. So I said that White moved on. Right. But obviously he couldn't have completely moved on because as soon as he found out about this, he went after Harry Thaw, but Thaw wasn't going to just take it lying down. No, he's going to push back.

Yeah. He had his lawyers go after White for having sex with Evelyn when she was underage. But this is such a strange kind of love triangle, right? And it's why we had to talk about Evelyn Nesbitt so much. You know, she's at the center of kind of everything that is happening now and, and what is going to happen in the future. There's no doubt that Harry Thaw was obsessed with Evelyn. He spent the next year trying to convince her to marry him.

One day his mother showed up at Evelyn's house and told her, her that she wanted her to marry Harry. She said that she believed settling down would help her son's eccentricities. So this is a woman who shows up at this girl's house and says, you know what, I think you should marry my son. But this is a girl who by her own account was afraid of him because of what he had done to her. But her tactic must have worked. Well, I did. You know, Evelyn at some point did accept the proposal. because they married. And they moved into Harry's mansion in Pittsburgh.

But as soon as they got married, his obsession with her stopped. Harry traveled to Europe a lot. He didn't come home for days at a time. You know, this is something that is really not that uncommon. You know, people love the chase. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. And then once they finally get their prize or what they feel is though is the prize. Yeah, and they fear, well, okay, now I've got it.

They don't want it. Yeah. It's very strange, though. It is. It's like they wanted it so bad. And once they got it, they're like, you know what? Okay. Yeah, but you're right. I think it happens quite frequently. In the spring of 1906, Thaw and Evelyn went on a tour of Europe in New York,

which ended in the fatal shooting of Stanford White. It happened on June 25th of that year. Harry Thaw shot and killed Stanford White. in front of hundreds of witnesses during a performance of a play at the roof garden restaurant and theater at Madison Square Garden. Shot him in the own house that he built or designed, essentially. Harry Thaw wrote about the events of the night from his perspective in his book, The Trader. He said that he, Evelyn and two friends had dinner at Cafe Martin. Evelyn had what he called a tremor. He asked her if she was okay.

She said no. Evelyn asked for a piece of paper and she wrote a note on the paper for only Harry to see. And it said the B, which stood for Stanford White, because from what I understand Gibbs, at some point, Harry had told Evelyn to only refer to Stanford White as the Beast. So she's writing on this paper. The B was here a minute ago, but went out again. So from Harry's retelling of the story, Evelyn sees Stanford White. She becomes physically ill.

And she writes a secret message that only he can see. They finished dinner. Harry didn't want to go to the play, but Evelyn did. After dinner, he took Evelyn back to the hotel, but he left. Now, he did get back in time to take her to the show. He wore a black overcoat, despite the fact that it was very hot. in New York at that time. When they arrived at the rooftop theater,

the hat girl tried to take Harry's coat, but he refused to give it to her. Employees later reported that Thaw had appeared agitated all night and was walking from one table to another until he finally took a seat near the stage. They said he was hidden from view, but he could still watch the entrance. Stanford White didn't enter the rooftop until 10.55 p.m.

He had spent the evening with his son, Lawrence White, and a friend. The boys came to New York from Harvard. They ate dinner at Cafe Martin. White was going to travel to Philadelphia that night, but at the last minute, decided to stay with his son. Harry spent some of the time watching the play and some of the time kind of walking around to the tables, speaking to people. He wondered through the crowd during the show.

he would approach Stanford White's table, but then he would back away before making contact. Sounds to me almost like he's trying to work up his nerve. Right. Building it up. Building it up. Eventually Evelyn wanted to leave during the play's finale. Harry Evelyn and his two male friends headed out from the rooftop. But as they were leaving, Thaw approached White and pulled

out a gun and fired three shots at close range. Gibbs, it was said that there was almost a thousand people in this place that saw it. And from what I understand, they even thought it was as part of the play. Like, this couldn't be real. And I get that, right? You're at a performance. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what the end of the play is. So I think your mind might go there initially, but at some point they realized, hey, something's wrong here. This is real. The New York Times wrote, Thaw left his seat near the stage, passed between a number of tables, and in full view of the players and scores of people, shot white through the head. Then Thaw with the gun still raised in the air, walked through the crowd, and met Evelyn

at the elevator. When she asked him what he had done, he said, probably saved your life. And this was one of the things that really jumped out at me about this case. You know, I mentioned it, right? Kind of this quasi love triangle. I think both of these men were enamored with Evelyn Nesbitt. Yeah. But Gibbs, I also believe both of them thought they were trying to save them from the other guy. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. I think Thal said, I'm going to take care of her. I'm going to get you away from this monster, this beast. Beast. Right? But then you had white at one. point thinking the same thing, right? I'm going to get you away from this weirdo Thaw and keep you out of harm his way. To the point where he had his attorneys file or, you know, try to get him for

kidnap. Yeah. Thaw wrote in his book, I had looked at the stage and now I looked to my left to see if there were any I knew a thing I always did. I saw the beat and I said, excuse me, to Michaela, which I guess is one of the guys with him. The others being ahead some yards. I saw a path from the stage to his table. Going directly, he would not have seen me. I walked to the stage and turned towards him so that he must see me coming. So that's interesting.

He could have, by his own admission, walked up to White without White seeing him. But he wanted to be seen. He wanted this guy to see him coming at him. Yeah. He wanted him to see him raise the gun and fire the shots. That's interesting to hear him say that. I think he wanted White to know who was doing this.

Yeah, I absolutely do. He continued by saying, There I saw him 30 feet in front of me. And as he watched the stage, he saw me. I walked towards him and about 15 feet away. I took out my revolver. He knew me. And he was rising and held his right hand.

towards, I think, his gun. And I wanted to let him try. But who was next? A man, a dozen men might have maimed me, cut off the light, allowed him to escape, and rape more American girls as he had. Too many. Too many as he ruined Evelyn. Okay.

So got to dissect this part of the writing, too. Sure. It almost takes me back to the old West. like he was going to wait for this guy to retrieve his gun before he fired. But then he thought, well, if I do that, he might get away. I might not get the chance to kill him. And I can't take that chance because he's going to go on to rape many more girls as he did with Evelyn. But we just talked about it, Gibbs.

Harry Thaw raped Evelyn. He sure did. So, you know, this thinking of each one of these guys that the, other is such a bad guy when they both were. Yeah, neither one was better than the other. But I think each of them saw themselves as better than the other, right? I'm the savior. He's the bad guy. I think Thaw was just really upset because White took Evelyn's virginity. Yeah. I don't know that he ever came out and said that, but that could be a part of it. He goes on to write half rising, he gazed at me malignantly. I shot him 12 feet away. I felt sure he was dead,

but I wanted to take no chances. I walked towards him and fired two more shots. He dropped. I looked to see if any fool should attack me. There were two bullets left if needed. Instead, all the people moved and moved so far surging to the end of the roof that I feared some might be forced to fall. Topling to the street, 80 feet, below, so I slowly raised the gun above my head and turned rather fast, yet not enough to alarm anyone and went back the same way as I had taken. Some men observing that they were safe, I walked and handed the pistol to one of them. Then straight to Evelyn. She uttered a cry, my God, Harry, what have you done? I held her close and told her, it's all right, dearie,

I have probably saved your life. Then I kissed her. And I believe he believed that. Oh, I believe, yeah, that you're correct. In his heart, he believed he was doing something noble. You know, I'm picturing Fabio on, you know, one of these, what do you call him? Romance novels. Like you don't know. You read them all the time.

You know, I know you posed for some of them, but Fabio's the one that comes to my mind. Well, you just like Fabio's hair. he comes in you know he's the white knight on the horse and he saves the the damsel in distress i i think this is what harry thaw thought he was doing i think this is the way he saw himself but you know go back to some of his writing he walks to some guy and hands the pistol to him he's like here here you go i'm done you can have this my job's done here yeah according to witness al beltstone white probably saw Thaw approaching but made no move. Thaw put the pistol close to his head and fired three quick shots.

So obviously this witness recounted something completely different than the Fabio romance novel that Thaw wrote in his book. Right. And let's face it, Gibbs. If you're a killer and you're going to write a book recounting what you did, do you think there's not going to be a little bit of embellish? that goes in your favor? Are you just going to go cold hard facts?

Are you going to, you know, bend it just a bit or quite a bit to make you look like the hero that you think you are? Yeah, well, in his case, he definitely bent it. He did, like Beckham. Yeah, bent it like Beckham. 12 feet away versus right to the head. Yeah. And it's almost like he romanticized it, right?

To go back to the gunfighter aspect of it. When in reality, this was close. to Michael Corleone, right, walking up to the guys in the Italian restaurant. Right. This was even closer. The police chief. Yeah. According to the New York Times, another witness reported that after shooting white,

Thaw said, you'll never go out with that woman again. Well, obviously. He's not. If he's dead. He's not going to go out with anyone again because you killed him. It was said that the crowd went silent. for a moment as everyone just kind of stared at the scene. This witness went on to say the crowd went silent for a moment.

As everyone stared at the scene before them, Thaw lifted his pistol over his head, but kept the barrel pointing downwards to show that he wasn't going to shoot anyone else. And again, the crowd going silent. I can see it playing out two ways. You know, the crowd is silent because they can't believe what they just saw. or I could see the crowd going wild and screaming and everybody running. But apparently this was more of a what in the hell just happened kind of moment as they took it in.

But we mentioned it. I think some people at first, they weren't sure. Is this part of the play? Is this real? Obviously, they did figure out that it was real. As he walked out, people began screaming. That's when the panic sets in, right? Yeah.

At some point, I think everybody. realizes, hey, this guy just killed someone. The manager of the play, this guy named Lawrence trying to get the musicians to play and the girls to sing, but they couldn't. They were too terrified. They're like, no, man, we just saw somebody murdered. We're out of here. Well, this reminds me of Titanic. Yeah. Them asking those guys to play while the ship is going down to try to kind of keep everybody calm. The manager then tried to evacuate patrons as quickly as possible. Thaw was arrested.

I mean, not long after the shooting. A fireman took his pistol at the elevator entrance, but didn't arrest him. It was a police officer named Debbis who arrested him on a lower floor. Thaw told him he deserved it. I can prove it. He ruined my life and then deserted the girl. Another witness, though, said that Thaw said wife, not life. I'm thinking he might have said wife as well, because I know he wasn't happy that

White took her virginity. I think he might have thought both, right? He ruined my wife and my life. So the policemen escorted Thaw to the police station. When they got there, Thaw told the police sergeant, his name was John Smith from Philadelphia. and said he was a student. But it didn't take long gives for detectives to search him. They found some cards with his real name.

Harry made no comment. No charges were filed against him that night because detectives had not yet completed their investigation. But after police spent the night interviewing witnesses, Thaw was charged with murder and booked into jail in the morning. Thaw would later justify the murder by writing that White had been a attempting to court a 17-year-old girl in the cast named Maude Fulton. He was trying to debauch her and another young girl.

So now he's not even talking about Evelyn, right? He's saying he was trying to prevent White from, and I'm kind of putting words in here, doing to these two girls what he had done to Evelyn is the way I take it. The coroner found three wounds on Stanford White's body. The fatal shot entered his left eye. The other shots grazed his shoulders. He had a head injury from hitting his head on the table as he fell to the floor. On January 23rd, 1907, Harry Thaw's murder trial began.

The prosecution was led by William Jerome and the defense was led by Delphin Michael Delmas. John B. Gleason, Clifford, Hartridge, Hugh McPyke, and George Peabody. Yeah, that's a big defense team. Well, you have an individual who has quite a bit of money. This is like an OJ type of dream team, I'm assuming, that he put together. The presiding judge was James Fitzgerald. The prosecution and defense gave their opening statements on February 4th, 1907.

Jerome originally wanted to have Thaw declared legally insane and sentenced to. to an asylum. This would save the state a bunch of money, right? And he felt he could win the case with this argument, which I think to us is very strange. And normally you don't have the prosecution trying to declare a defendant legally insane. Right.

It's the other way around, right? The defense is trying to make that argument. And the defense will. Yeah, because they also wanted to have him declare. legally insane because they didn't want him to be executed. But Thaw was insulted by the mere thought of that. And he called one of his original attorneys a traitor. He fired this one guy about three weeks after he took on the case.

Thaw said he wanted to expose men like Stanford White, who he believed were perverts that preyed on young girls. He thought the jury would believe that the murder was justified just to just, just based on this argument. And it was after he fired this original attorney that he hired the dream team, you know, all the people that I listed. The prosecution argued that Thaw murdered White because of jealousy, not because, you know, he was this savior. Like he kept trying to tell everybody he was. The defense argued that the defendant killed White under the delusion, that he was the agent of Providence. Defense attorney Gleason said his client suffered from a disease of the brain which

culminated in the killing. A disease of the brain. Obviously they talked a little differently. They did back then. Harry's mother told Evelyn that if she testified that Stanford White abused her and Harry tried to protect her, she could divorce Harry and get $1 million in compensation. Which is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. now if you told somebody i'll give you a million dollars there's a lot of things that people would do for a million dollars in 2022 right we're talking about 1907 so you have to do that calculation for me gives people people people be what would a million dollars be worth today 78.2 million dollars 78.2 yeah all right i'm going to go out on a limb and say you're way low

Yeah. I don't know why, but again, mensa. Yeah. Versus non-menza. I'm, I'm thinking that it might be low. But we'll see. People always write in and tell us after they look it up. But the other thing that I want to talk about is you have a mother who is willing to do anything. Right.

At this point, whether it's legal or not to keep her son out of jail or from being executed, I think it also shows you just exactly how much money this family had. If they're willing to give Evelyn a million dollars, how much money were they worth? Boatloaded. Evelyn testified on February 8th. She testified about the night of the shooting and her relationships with both Faw and White. She described the day she told Harry about the time that Stanford White raped her when she

was unconscious. She said, when I came to myself, I was greatly frightened and started to scream. Mr. White came and tried to quiet me. As I set up, I saw mirrors all over. I began to scream again. And Mr. White asked me to keep quiet, saying that it was all over. When he threw the kimono over me, he left the room. I screamed harder than ever. I don't remember much of anything after that. He took me home, and I set up all night crying. He made me swear that I would never tell my mother about it. He said that it was all right, that there was nothing so nice as young girls and nothing so loathsome as fat ones.

You must never get fat. Wow. All that was said, huh? Well, and it shocked the jury. I bet it did. I mean, that kind of testimony would be, I think, pretty shocking today. in 1907, I think it was extremely shocking. The prosecution, they went after Evelyn.

They tried to attack her character, really tried to make her seem like an unreliable witness. The defense presented their argument on February 12th. They argued that Thaw suffered from a disease called dementia Americana. A doctor named Britton Evans testified, I observed that Harry Thaw, exhibited a peculiar facial expression, a glaring of the eyes, a restlessness of the eyes, a suspicious viewing of the surroundings. And me, watching every movement of me, I observed a nervous

agitation and restlessness, such as comes from a severe brainstorm and is common in persons who have recently gone through an explosive or fulminating condition of mental unsoundness. I observed in him a peculiar condition known as logorea. You ever heard of Loggeria, Gibbs? I have not. I had never heard of it either. Apparently, it's an excessive flow of words. And it's a common symptom of mania.

Now, I hadn't heard of it. I had to look it up. But the first thing I thought of was that, wow, this is one thing that Gibby definitely doesn't have. No, I have shorter rea. The opposite of Lageria. Yeah. It's not Langeria. It's Lagerie.

But I also thought that the word brainstorm, a severe brainstorm, as though a storm is going on inside your brain. I thought that was such a strange use of that word. But I feel like I have a storm going inside my head constantly. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I see little lightning bolts kind of shooting out of your earhols. holes like that right there. But it also illustrates, you know, the fact that they just didn't really know that much about mental illness, about how the brain worked. And I think people knew that

something wasn't right in certain individuals, but the science hadn't really, you know, developed, obviously at that point. Another doctor named Charles Wagner testified for the defense. And he said that brainstorm was a good way. to describe Thaw's mind before and after the murder. Defense attorney Delmus said in a summation on April 9th, gentlemen, if you desire a name for this species of insanity, let me suggest it. Call it dementia Americana. That is the species of insanity, which makes every American man believe his home to be

sacred. That is the species of insanity, which makes him believe the honor of his daughter is sacred. that is the species of insanity which makes him believe the honor of his wife is sacred. That is the species of insanity which makes him believe that whosoever invades his home, that whosoever stains the virtue of this threshold has violated the highest of human laws and must appeal to the mercy of God if mercy there be for him anywhere in the universe. Okay, that's a lot to take in.

That is. I sometimes Gibbs don't understand everything that attorneys say. I think even less so. I understand what they were saying, you know, back in the early 1900s. But what I boil it down to be is that they're saying in the mind of Harry thought he felt as though Stanford White had violated his wife's honor. right is what i'm taking from that and therefore he was justified in his mind to take the actions

that he did on april 11th the jury announced they were unable to reach a verdict seven voted guilty and five voted not guilty by reason of insanity on april 12th the judge dismissed the jury after 48 hours of deliberation so basically it was a hung jury sure on january 6th of the next year Harry Thaw's second murder trial began. He had a different defense team, but he had a bunch of attorneys, new ones. He had a new judge. This time, the defense focused on Thaw's mental illness instead of attacking Stanford White's character. Evelyn testified again, but this time she talked more about her husband's mental illness. She told the jury that a few weeks after telling her husband about the day white raped her, he attempted to poison himself with laudanum.

Gibbs, I don't actually know what laudanum is, but I know it's something that a lot of people took back in the day. You hear it in a lot of Westerns. Sure do. Mess you up. I know it was a powerful, very powerful drug. Evelyn said that this fact was omitted from her testimony in the previous trial because the defense attorney insisted it would make Thaw look. crazy. And what I thought was interesting was that, you know, this time around the prosecution argued

that Thaw was not insane. He knew exactly what he was doing when he shot Stanford White. on February 1st, the jury found Harry Thaw not guilty by reason of insanity for the murder. He was sent to an asylum for the criminally insane in Fishkill, New York. So we mentioned it up front, right? Trial of the century, trials of the century, whatever you want to call it. Granted, we're only seven, eight years into the, into the century. And there are going to be some bigger trials that come, obviously, after this. But I think you can see why.

You have two very prominent individuals, Stanford White being this kind of famous architect, Harry Thaw being extremely wealthy himself. And you have the love triangle aspect, you know, the sex angle that came out in court, you could see why people would be very intrigued by this trial. Scandalous? Yeah. There's scandal for sure. On top of the murder, in 1910, Evelyn gave birth to a son.

Russell thaw and said he was Harry's child, conceived during a conjugal visit at the asylum. But Harry never accepted Russell as his son. Harry was released in 1915. He and Evelyn divorced that same year. the next year, Evelyn married her dance partner, Jack Clifford. So he was only in there for, what, seven years? But two years later, Harry Thaw was arrested again. After kidnapping and whipping, a 19-year-old boy named Fred Gump Jr.

And they sent him to an asylum in Pennsylvania, where he remained until he was released in 1924. So again, another seven years. seven years for the murder, another seven years for kidnapping and whipping a 19 year old boy. After his second release, Harry Thaw bought a historic home in Clearbrook, a farming county in Virginia, and apparently gives the locals loved him. He joined the fire company. He marched in parades.

And by all accounts, he seemed to stay out of trouble. Well, he did his time. Oh, he did his time. Now, you could argue, was it enough time? Was it just? Was it fair? You can always argue that. And we often do. In the late 1920s, Thaw joined the film production industry. He attempted to make short comedies about fake spiritualists. In 1927, he partnered with a couple of guys for a batch of scenarios continuing this fake spiritualist theme. The partnership, though, ended in a lawsuit. These two guys, sued thaw because he didn't pay them for their work, he claimed that he had switched the emphasis of his stories to his own life. So he didn't owe them anything. The suit wasn't resolved until 1935 and resulted in Harry having to pay about $7,000. In 1944, Harry sold his home and moved to Florida. He passed away from a heart attack on February 22nd, 1947. I read Gibbs that he left $10,000,

which at that point was less than 1% of his estate to Evelyn Nesbitt. It's a little rough. Yeah, I get that. I mean, they had been divorced at that time for what, 32 years? They had been divorced for a very long time. Yeah, but he did put her through what she kind of went through. I mean, both of them did. But he made sure that when he thought he was doing the right thing,

it impacted her life as well. Oh, I actually think this woman went through hell at the very least at the hands of these two guys. Who knows what else she endured at the hands of other men? I don't know. I didn't see anything else in the research. But just what she went through at the hands of these two guys was very brutal. But I want to go back to that figure, $10,000 less than 1% of his estate. So he was still a very rich, yeah, wealthy individual.

Evelyn Nesbitt died on January 17th, 1967 of natural causes. She spent her final years working as a sculptor in Los Angeles. So Gibbs, as we wrap up this case, you know, the trial of Harry Thaw was called the trial of the century for a number of reasons, right?

We talked about him. It exposed a sex scandal, lies, jealousy, kind of to the entire country. And I think even overseas, they were really paying attention to this case. Now, if you had these type of things come up today in 2022, would it really get that much attention? Probably not.

No. I don't think it would shock people the way that it did in, you know, the early 1900s. But the one thing for sure is that. that neither Evelyn nor Harry Thaw ever escaped the stain that the trial left on their reputations. Because I don't think she came away from the trials looking very good. Back then? Back then. No, of course not. And I'm not saying that's the way it should have been. I'm saying that's the way it was. I just found it to be a strange and interesting case. I go back to the dynamic between these two individuals, Harry Thaw and Stanford White, both prominent figures, they both have money, and they fall in love with this girl.

And she was a girl. Yeah. In some ways, they were very good to her. And in other ways, they were horrible to her. They committed crimes against her. They did. I think they justified it by lavishing her with gifts and apartment. and Broadway rolls.

But then Harry ends up marrying Evelyn. You know, we talked about it, the chase, the chase, the chase. And then it was like, okay, he wasn't as into her. After they got married was the way that the research kind of portrayed it. But the one thing that didn't go away was his loathing for this guy, Stanford White. Yeah.

The grudge never died down. Oh, really? kind of just escalated once he found out what White did to Evelyn. Oh, you're right. Yeah, once he found that out, then I think that's kind of what set everything into motion. I'm not blaming her. She, I don't think she could have known that he was going to kill this guy. No, no. But, you know, go back to the kind of this individual violated the, the sacred, the sanctity, whatever, you want to call it of marriage, my wife. And at some point he made the decision that I'm going to kill this guy. He's never going to do that to another girl again, even though I did the very same thing

to her. And that's the part that just blows me away. He kind of forgets about what he did in that mansion. The castle in Austria. Right. Yeah, the thinking and granted, was this guy, you know, really experiencing some type of mental illness. Maybe he was. Right. You know, they described it in terms that we don't really understand in today's world. But they did say they thought he had some type of disease of the brain.

So maybe he really did have some type of mental illness or something. Anyway, that's it for our case on Harry Thaw. We got some voicemails. Gibbs. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear him. Hi, Mike.

Hi, Gibby. This is Cheryl from Preston, Arizona. I'm so glad you guys liked your candy. My husband thought I was crazy until he took a bite, and he was like, oh, my God, this is so good. But I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. Giddy now you can say you've had potato candy. So it was great to meet you guys. I just was like over the moon, excited that I got to meet you in person, even though I watch you on the videos all the time.

It's just so different in person. and I got to give y'all a hug. Well, you guys are doing great. Keep it up. I'm proud to be a supporter of your podcast. Have been for years. Love y'all. And you have a great day.

Keep your head on the swivel. And keep your own time of ticking. Bye. Well, we really enjoyed that potato candy. We did. And I'm glad she called in because last week when I talked about it, I couldn't remember her name and I felt back. Right.

Also enjoyed the containers at that potato candy. Those were fancy. They were. It was heavy. Yeah. I mean, you talk about it was a mass of potato candy. It was pretty heavy. Yeah.

Thanks for the support. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Candace from New Mexico, the wooden chair lady. I just wanted to call and tell you how much. Oh, first I need to tell you, I don't have an interesting way of talking. I don't have an accent. I guess I don't anyway. I don't have anything totally worth saying except that I love you guys.

Your podcast has definitely got me through some rough times lately. I suffer from depression and anxiety and I've spent a lot of time at home because of it. And your podcast keep my mind off of my problems and make me feel happy when Gibby makes a joke or you make a joke about Gibby. So keep up the good work. And I love all the episodes and just stay safe and keep your own time ticking. Bye. Thank you very much for the voicemount.

And like we always say, Gibbs, always happy to hear that the podcast can help somebody in some way. We appreciate it. We really do. Hey, guys, I'll go by Joey D. And I'm from San Diego. I just retired for my police. department after 21 years and seven months. I started listening to you guys about a year and a half ago

after a fellow officer told me about you guys for a while there I was listening to you guys to and from work and sometimes during work. I have two daughters like you Mike and some of the stories you guys report on probably made me more fearful for them and probably more paranoid. I went to a de-escalation class not too long ago and the instructor recommended to me and fellow officers to listen to music more in order to decompress. Well, I took that advice and I only listened to you guys on the way home now for a while. Now that I'm retired, I'll be getting my fill of you two crazy guys and finally getting caught up on the episodes.

I have one case suggestion, and that is the case of Craig Pire and Karenaut. Pire was a CHP officer in San Diego who was convicted in a murder of Karenot. The case was a huge black guy for law enforcement, but just like all professions and groups, we have bad apples as well. Anyways, I love the show. Keep up the great work and keep your own time. time taking. That's a great way to say that. You know, all professions have a bad apple, but doesn't mean everybody's a bad apple. Yeah, and I think you and I have talked about that quite a bit,

right? When we talk about there are bad police officers, there's bad nurses. Hell, we just did, you know, an episode on one last week. And by the way, it happened to be National Nurse Week. And I didn't know that. And I felt bad once I found out, it's not like I was trying to do a case that coincided with National Nurse Week. I felt bad once I found that out. You never look at a calendar. No, I don't. But we appreciate the voicemail and we'll definitely look into that suggestion.

Gibbs. We had some stuff in the mail bag Gibbs. Mark Steber, Stiber sent me a cool Harley T-shirt and sent you a movie trivia book. And we did a little trivia on this week's Patreon episode. Which I nailed. You did not. Dave Rooney sent some very cool Harley stickers.

I'm thinking that there was probably a Harley chip in. there, but it looked like it wiggled its way out the side of the envelope on its way from Canada. That darn postal service. Those chips have a way of scooting out the side of envelopes. There's a lot of chips somewhere. There's a pile of Harley chips, yeah. But we appreciate it very much. That's it, buddy, for another episode of True Crime all the time.

So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.