This episode maintained content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised.
Hi. I'm Shannon. Hi I'm Tanya, and we are Crimes and Consequences, a hardcore true crime podcast. Hey Shannon, Hey Tanya. How you doing.
I'm doing pretty good for this day after our long holiday weekend.
Yes, and it's hard. I'm not going to complain. I'm just going to state that it's hard to know what day it is with a two week old. And I say that with much glee, even though you don't hear it in my voice because of how extremely tired I am. But yes, it was a nice holiday. This weather was great. What did you guys do? Did you barbecue? What'd you do? Cute?
Yes, we spend some time outside barrens just I spent a lot of time outside because the weather was so beautiful.
Yes, yeah, you have to when it's like that. Oh we've been waiting. We've been waiting since gosh what September for these nice sunny days to come back. So I am here.
For it, like mild times, beautiful sun. So yeah, it was a little hard getting up this morning. And people were crazy today at my job. No, not driving, but like people sending in complaints and whatever, and like people be wild and out there. I don't know, like you think it was a full moon. That's how crazy it was.
It's just the weather. It's something people. It takes so little nowadays you think it was the moon. But now, jeez, what time is it? Did the wind blow?
I was a little tired tape. By ten thirty, I was done. I'm like, I am done with these people.
Yeah, I like to take some personal time.
Yeah, bring my coffee creamer because I ran out. I didn't bring my.
Resale and I was like, oh my god, I need caffeine. I can't get your post to my assistant and like she's working from home today and she's like, I have some in the fridge in my under my desk, And I was like, oh God, bless you.
I was able to have a cup of coffee this morning.
Oh that's nice. So what do you bring into the table this week for us?
Oh? I have a crazy ass story. Do you know who Frank Lloyd Wright is?
The name is familiar. Is he an architect?
He's an architect and he used to design homes and he had like a movement and everything. Yeah, this center's around him. So before I get into it, just would like to remind everyone to hit subscribe or follow on whatever app you're listening to. And as I mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright, he was a pioneer of what came to
be known as the Prairie School movement of architecture. This model of home was to have one or two stories, an open floor plan, low pitched roofs, strong horizontal lines, ribbons of windows, and integration into the surrounding landscape with the use of natural materials. The first iteration that he did was a home that he called Talleison one and that was his personal home and studio and it was
located in spring Green, Wisconsin. It was built to epitomize the characteristics of the Prairie School home in his own vision, and he built his home. He ended up sharing it with his mistress, Ms. Mayma Bouton Bothwick, and it was a one story, thirty seven thousand square feet wow. It was an L shaped complex and it was made of partially detached structures. The sprawling estate included a residential wing,
an agricultural wing, and an office wing. And it had a courtyard, stables, servants quarters, and a garage on the thirty one acres.
It was built on Tanya. That sounds a place where I want to live.
Right, thirty seven thousand square feet with a fucking stable and servants quarters and.
Duns, and I make a movie room, geology room.
This I know.
So, as I mentioned Mayma, she is Frank Lloyd Wright's mistress at the time of the story. And our story takes place on Saturday, August fifteenth, nineteen fourteen. And on that day, Mama sat down on the terrace just outside the family dining room of the Talleison estate with her children, twelve year old John and eight year old Martha. And these are not Frank Lloyd Wright's children, Maima and that's her nickname. I believe her name was Martha as well.
But Mayma was married prior to having this affair with Frank Lloyd Wright, and Frank Lloyd Wright was also married.
FYI.
So she's out on the terrace of the Teleisin estate with her kids, and there were servants on the property. There was Julian Carlton and his wife Gertrude, and Gertrude was the cook she had prepared the soup that Julian would be serving for lunch that day. Laborers and draftsmen working for Frank Lloyd Wright were also on the property waiting for Julian to bring their lunch into the workmen's dining room, which was about eighty feet from the terrace
where Mayma was and was being served. So they're like in a different wing.
Yeah.
Gertrude finished up the food preparation and handed the soup she'd made off to Julian, who walked up to the terrace to serve the family first. After ladling the soup into the bowls, the family began to eat. Julian was standing off to the side of Mama in his white jacket, where he produced a hatchet. And this is where the terror. My gosh, yeah, Mama took the first hit. The hatchet hit her with such rage and intensity that her head nearly split in two as she fell forward onto the
table and slunk to the floor. Julian had already taken the weapons to young John, who was killed with a quick blow to his forehead. Little Martha, eight years old, having witnessed the end of her mother and her brother, ran through the dining room and entryway and out into the driveway, where Juliane caught up with her. He would beat her as if with a hammer, repeatedly in the head,
like with this axe this hatchet. When she collapsed, her attacker would assume that she was dead, but unfortunately for her, she was not. Around this time, Gertrude, Julian's wife, who had heard the commotion of what was happening, began to work on an escape. After she gathered her things, she began to look for an exit, initially trying a basement door, but she couldn't get it to budge. Eventually, she dove
through a window and began to run. The men waiting to be served in the workmen's dining room had no idea what was taking place. So they're sitting around a table, and like I said, this is a separate wing, so they don't know what's going on. So they're sitting around a table discussing the work of the day, and Julian walks into the dining room to dish out the soup.
Once he was done ladling the soup into their bulls, he walked out of the door and he bolted the outside locks to prevent the man from escaping, so he leaves the room and he bolts the doors. Then he pulled a pipe out of his pocket and he lit it, taking a few puffs, after which he bent down and picked up the cans of gasoline that he had gathered that morning, and he began pouring the liquid out onto the floor, where it silently flowed into the workmen's dining room.
Herbert Fritz, a young twenty something draftsman from Chicago, saw the steam flow toward the table, thinking the servants must have spilled, you know, maybe his mop bucket. And it wasn't until he recognized the smell of gasoline that he opened his mouth to begin to warn the others. But in that same moment, Julian dropped the match used to lightest pipe, and the room the men were in just burst into flames at once. The men rose to their feet,
howling and flailing their arms trying to exit. They threw themselves against the door that Julian had bolted shut. As their struggle continued. The one who caused all the happenings that afternoon was waiting just outside with.
The hatchet in hand.
For the sixth he had trapped to break down the door and come running to escape somehow Herbert's he gathered the presence of mind to remember that there was a creek just down the hill from where Julian had locked him in. He threw his body against one low window and fell a story and a half, breaking his arm before he rolled down a steep, rocky incline attempting to reach the water. Julian spotted Herbert rolling down the hill on the other side of the house, tipping his gaze
to the lower south window Herbert had broken through. There, Julian spotted a mill Brodell, attempting to make the same exit. Of all the people in the home at the time, a mill wasn't going to be able to dodge the fate that Julian had created for all of them. Driven to seal a mill's doom, Julian bolted from his watch over the door and ran to the ground below to
the broken window. He reached it just as Brodell squeezed through, and he swung the hatchet, catching his victim at the hairline just above his left ear, slicing through his brain. Herbert Fritz had paused making his way down to the creek just in time to witness this entire grizzly scene. Then he watched Julian run back to his place monitoring the door of the workmen's dining room. Fritz's clothes were no longer on fire, but he was thoroughly burned and
had his broken arm. He decided to begin hiking back up to tally Icon. The killer reached the door that he'd been guarding just as the other men he trapped began to break through. He was there in time, but he'd been put off by the temporary lapse and his plan. By the time carpenter Billy Weston broke through the doors, the rattled Julian hit him in the head twice with the blunt end of the hatchet instead of its blade.
Then came Tom Brunker, who received a glancing blow but was able to avoid serious injury from the weapon as well, and he began running. Billy Weston's young son, Ernest, followed, and Julian by then had regained his bearings. He hit the boy right on the head, leading him to stagger away, collapsing in the fountain, where his charred remains stayed. Last came David Lindblom, who was savagely burned and fell upon
being struck on the back of the head. Only after all the workers were out of the room did Julian begin chasing down Tom Brunker, who he was able to hit with such a thump that his skull opened and his brains protruded through the gap. By this time, Herbert Fritz had reached Tellyson after his clon and he hobbled his burned body around the corner in time to witness Tom Bunker's demise at Julian's hands. After all the exertion and shot, he fainted among the bodies, poor Herbert.
No kidding.
Seeing no one left standing, Julian grabbed the gasoline and began dousing Mama and her son John with the liquid before they burst into flames. Young Martha, still alive, caught fire due to the burning bodies inflaming gasoline around her. She would not survive to the next day, found with three hatchet wounds to the back of her head, one of which had gone completely through her skull. A fourth hatchet wound got her in the face, just under her
right eye. In the end, seven of the nine victims who had been at the estate that day would die the survivors would be Herbert Fritz and Billy Weston. The estate that Lloyd Wright had imagined for his beloved mistress sat on a hill in the Helena Valley that day in nineteen fourteen. Anyone looking in the direction of that hell would have seen smoke billowing from where Talley Ison sat. The smoke is what brought farm hand Jack Ferris onto
the scene. Julian, taking stock of his surroundings and seeing that residents were curious and would come to check it out, decided it wasn't a good idea for a black man to be found living among all the dead white people.
Right.
He dug in his pocket for a vial of a said and he went to see got a place to hide, hatchet in hand. Twenty five years before the death of Mama Borthwick, Frank Lloyd Wright had met and married a tall, suitably virginal redhead named Catherine Kitty Lee Tobin, with both families unsure of the union. Kitty was shipped off to northern Michigan for several months, and Frank's mother actively was
attempting to sabotage the nuptials. Frank had always been banned with money taking that trait from his father, and Kitty was moneyed and sat a bit higher on the social spectrum than the struggling architect that was wooing her. The two were married on June first, eighteen eighty nine, and Frank was twenty two and Catherine was barely eighteen. Catherine's father cried through the entire ceremony and Frank's mother, Anne fainted.
A lot of reactions.
Nuptials, right, it's supposed to be a happy day, so happy.
Yes.
Over the course of their marriage, Anna, Frank's mother, would continue to be adversarial toward her son's wife, and he did little to nothing to stop this treatment of poor Kitty. Ever, the dutiful daughter in law, she took the abuse with remarkable competence. It's been said between the years of eighteen ninety to nineteen oh five the couple was relatively happy outside of Anna's torment, and Kitty gave birth to Frank's
six children, and there were some rumored infidelities. Frank seemed to be an active and happy parent, his son John saying quote, there were parties somewhere all of the time and everywhere some of the time. It was just fun to have him about end, but there seems to have been a shift in his attitude toward domesticity and family life. Around nineteen oh five, Frank began feeling his home life was frustratingly restrictive and Kitty, having become a mature woman
and mother, was no longer the girl he married. She had been taken over by raising children, attending social clubs, and other aspects of family life. He felt she had deteriorated intellectually simply being content with her successful husband, healthy children, and beautiful home.
What a dick. And I was gonna say, don't blame her, trying to make her sound like she's dumb down? Are you kidding me? You just want some new tale. Yeah, so don't put it on her.
Don't put it on her. But you know so, I'm guessing he's restless, right, sure. So It's believed that Frank met mister and missus Edwin Cheney, who was Maema Borthwick's married name, Cheni Okay, through Kitty's membership in the Oak Park's nineteenth century women's club, having been mentioned together within the social pages of the town newspaper. Mayma who was born in Iowa in eighteen sixty nine, moved to Oak Park when her father, who was a machinist for the railroads,
was promoted to superintendent of the repair department. She would attend the University of Michigan, where she would meet her future husband, Edwin Cheney. He was majoring in electrical engineering while she took classes and languages in literature. Edwin would pursue her tirelessly for nearly a decade while she continued her education, receiving a master's degree in teaching. She would become a librarian in Port Huron, Michigan for five years.
Wow.
Yeah, Port Huron's gorgeous. Sorry off, Lake Huron. Yeah, Lake Huron is gorgeous. It wasn't until she was approaching her thirtieth birthday around the time of her mother's death, that she conceded to marrying mister Cheney. After the birth of their son John in nineteen oh two, the couple decided it was time to build a house. They commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build the family home for the family unit he was about to destroy.
Yes, he was what.
The assumed timeline for the development of their relationship begins around the time that he was commissioned for the Cheney family Home Park were attempting to dissuade the man from continuing to persist in his disastrous relationship with Missus Cheney. Mima did give birth to her daughter by Edwin, named Martha, in nineteen oh six. However, by nineteen oh nine, both Frank and Mema were asking their respective spouses for divorce. For Edwin, although his pursuit of Mama was long and
hard one, he didn't seem the least bit ruffled. Described as charming and gracious by his neighbors, he was not ever known to have an enemy or even who have raised his voice. On the other hand, Kitty was shocked. Not one to give up her marriage without attempting to save it, she told Frank she would like one year of grace, and if he still desired the divorce, she would grant it to him. She was confident that he
would return and that they would reconcile. Ellen Key Kay, she was known by Kate, was a Swedish writer and feminist of the era during the time of Wright's struggle with deserting his family. Her writings were the ones Mamma was tesked with translating in her ideas. Frank found comfort in his choices if not expressed permission to abandon his
wife and children. He believed his desertion of his family showed the pursuit of loftier goals, including devotion to his ethical principles, which I find to.
Be a sorry early ethical principles and desertion of family. Never thought I'd hear those two things as yeah, because that's some bullshit.
Frank, thank you. So Kay supported this belief, stating quote, marriage not mutual is worse than slavery end quote, and described it as barbaric. With these thoughts in mind, in nineteen oh nine, Frank was offered an opportunity to go to Berlin. This trip would allow a German born Harvard professor to oversee the publishing of a portfolio of Frank Lloyd Wright's collected work. With the excitement of this opportunity, he sent his draftsman to prepare for the trip and
visited Mama to tell her all about it. Later that year, Mama took her children to Boulder, Colorado, to quote unquote visit a pregnant friend. While there, she eventually messaged Edwin to come pick the children up, and by the time
he arrived Mama was gone. Shortly thereafter, Frank Lloyd Wright hurriedly sold his architectural firm, practically giving it away to an architect with a vastly different style who worked mostly on conventional church buildings rather than Frank's prairie style residential homes. Soon after, he said goodbye to Kitty and his kids, telling his thirteen year old son David, who was the third of his six kids, that he was now man of the house and leaving him with a nine hundred
dollars grocery bill. About yeah. About seventy years later, David was interviewed and questioned about it, still appearing to be vexed about the whole situation in which his father had left him. After Frank had thoroughly cut his ties, he boarded a train to New York to meet up with Mama and set sail for Europe. They're going to go gallivanting off to Berlin. When they first reached Europe, Mamma took a job as a teacher and rented an apartment in Berlin while Frank went to Florence to work on
his portfolio. When he needed to stay in Berlin, he would stay at mama's apartment with her. When the exhibition was completed, he brought her to Florence, where he seemed utterly content. It was here that he saw Villa Medici, the inspiration upon which he would design Talley Iison. However, within the year nineteen ten, mister Wright was back in
Oak Park with Kitty with his wife. He had written his wife and given her the conditions upon which he would return, the most substantial of which being that they would no longer share normal marital relations, but they would put up a front for the kids. In return, he would give up Mama, though he couldn't stop loving her, But he told Kitty that he was afraid if he stayed in Italy with her, he would start to hate her. So I'm not sure that what went down.
I would like to point out real quick because I did look up his birthday. Frank was a Gemini. Okay, that speaks fucking volumes on this flip flop, flip flop. I bet this, I want this, I want this. No, I don't want this, So.
I put it out God, bless our, why.
Please absolutely, I am married to Yeah, my best friend in high school was a Gemini, which was her husband.
That's how I met she, so I took his friend away from him.
That's right.
Oh that makes a lot of sense, totally, And I love you geminis. Some of the life have been geminized absolutely, ever the dutiful son. After sending out his letter to his wife, he also sent a letter to his mother with a copy of what he sent to Kitty. So Frank not only wrote his wife, he tells his mom
what he told her. In his correspondence with Anna, he defended his actions, telling her that his behavior should be excused because his family hadn't given him quote emotional support in his time of need.
And oh no, that sounds Oh I can't be mean, I'm not Can I even say anything? It sounds like sounds like some Gemini male bullshit.
After sending the letters, he took Mama to Paris and left her there before he boarded the next ship sailing back to the US. Upon his return, Kitty, feeling reasonably sorry for herself, wrote a friend saying, womankind seems to be so moveable, a feast easily sold and easily bought, and passed around and tossed away, and no mercy except from outsiders end quote preach, yes, yeah, girl oak Park was alarmed when Frank arrived on October eighth, nineteen ten.
Frank was equally alarmed by the town's cold reception. Women would turn away from him in the street. Former friends would cross the road to avoid walking past him. Ministers across town were preparing sermons educating on the sins of adultery, and he became a social outcast. In nineteen eleven, Frank approached his mother about a thirty one acre parcel of land in Helena Valley, Wisconsin. Knowing the plot of land had a hill similar to that which Villa Medici sat
up han. He immediately got to work right after, mentioning to friends that he was thinking about building a small house for his mother there. So he did this all under the guy's like, oh, this is a house for my mom.
It sounds like his mother was a bit intrusive. Sounds like she was okay with really anything Frank did. Yeah, right, like, which is not yeah, even though it's shitty decisions, very selfish. Yeah, I agree with you.
In the meantime, Mama came back to oak Park, having been gone the requisite two years, to sue for divorce. After establishing desertion Mamma gave the custody of the children to Edwin. One of her finer qualities, according to Frank, was her quote relative indifference toward her son and daughter end quote.
That's real nice. It is great parenting.
Yeah, great parenting, mamma. So Mamma, in contrast to Kitty, had exchanged her children for pursuing the world of ideas, thoughts, and dreams. A choice, mister Wright, he greatly respected that.
Well, I'm sure I just looked her up. Another Gemini Olympics blind leading the blind. Here, MEM's a Gemini. He's June ninth, I believe June eighth or ninth, and she's June nineteenth. So pretty volatile. It makes sense. Yeah, everything's okay. You know they can and I know it seems aggressive, but you love geminis. Yes, yes, you can call me a cry baby because I'm a cancer. Yes, and I cry. So there you go. You're so fucking emotional girl, always
on the verge tears. But yes, okay, now back to Mayma. Yeah.
When the work on Telly Iison began, the ruse was up. Frank had come home in nineteen ten under conditions to his wife. He had bought a parcel of land to build his mother a home on. Shortly after Mayma arrives in town, though asking for a divorce from when that was granted. When the construction on the estate had gotten far enough along, Frank took her on a tour of their home. She moved in as soon as she could, and Frank would join her there permanently in December nineteen eleven.
Telly Son was a beautiful home, meant to house elegant residents, and yet the people of the town saw merely a house where Frank and Mema were shacking up. The locals were openly hostile, and the room or mill moved at a furious pace. Kitty would be shaking with tears in her eyes as she denied the stories to the press, which poor Kitty.
Oh humiliating at the time, I'm sure, oh my, But.
For Frank's part, her husband would invite the Chicago Tribune to tally Icon shortly after moving in, feeling it was time to explain his side of the story. The reporter came and sat while Frank provided his report of the events leading to that day. After finishing his prepared statement, he was fully ready for the rest of the people in the town to see things his way. He blamed the marital struggles on his and Kitty's parents, saying the
two were much too young to marry. When they did, he conveniently forgot that neither of the families supported them, you know, supported the marriage in way. He also explained that his abandon or to develop into their individual selves outside of the influence of his quote dominant personality unquote uh yeah, Gemini. Among all the words he shared that day,
the biggest mistake he made was in this statement. He said, quote as for the general aspect of things, I want to say this, laws and rules are made for the average. The ordinary man cannot live without rules to guide his conduct. It is infinitely more difficult to live without rules. But that is what the really honest, sincere thinking man is
compelled to do. And I think when a man has displayed some spiritual power has given concrete evident of his ability to see and to feel the higher and better things in life, we ought to go slow in deciding he has acted badly end quote wow, yeah, wow, fucking narcissist. Honestly, I have to tell you, the Midwest did not look kindly on his elitism.
Oh yeah, yeah, this house aude.
He's in the heartland of the United States, and he's going to be like, oh, I'm the exception.
Yes it's again.
It's you know, rules are for the pooh poo pooh, for.
The ordinary and the average. Right you see, I'm not ordinary. Look at my work.
I'm fucking fabulous and therefore the rules.
Wow, that sounds like a Leo rising.
The bewildered and angry residents reached out to the sheriffs to evict the couple. When the sheriffs let the people know that he didn't have any charges that had been brought, nor any warrant filed, so he really had no legal authority to act. People of the town began to speak about vigilante justice.
They're pissed about this. Whoa I know.
Over time, with some humility in silence from Frank, the couple was able to settle into Teleisin with limited scandal, allowing locals to adapt over the course of time. Although Kitty, who had promised Franka divorce during their discussions in nineteen oh nine after a year of grace, had never followed through, the couple was still married all these years later.
Wow.
In the fall of nineteen thirteen, Frank was approached by real estate developer Edward C. Waller Junior to build a grand scale, open air urban resort like Beer Garden, open year round, with a sophisticated entertainment like orchestra and fine dining. The site was chosen, they merely needed an architect to make it unique. After reaching an agreement on cost and timeline, the project began. But even though the Midway Garden project was agreed to be completed on May first, nineteen fourteen,
things still ran behind. Even after the gardens were open, Frank and his son John, who had gone into business with his father, were still working on it in August, when Frank received the worst news of his life. Julian and Gertrude Carleton had come to work for Frank and Mama in mid June that year. It's unknown if the two originally came to the US from Barbados, Cuba, the West Indies, or anywhere of that sort, but they arrived in the area from Chicago, having been recommended by a
restaurant tour known to Frank. The gentleman said that they had worked as house servants for his father and it had done a good job, but he didn't know much else about them. Time has not changed that fact. We still don't know much about them. It was known that Julian was about five eight, one hundred and forty five pounds, dark skin, thin lipped, and handsome in the average sense
of the word. The couple said they had been married about two years and they were both around thirty years old when the offer to work at telly Ison came through, for Gertrude to cook and for Julian to work as a butler and handyman. The couple boarded the first train to spring Green. Within two weeks, Julian was ready to go back to Chicago. By late July, Billy Weston and David Lindblom were overheard at the tavern talking about Julian
in an ominous and threatening way. Around that same time, Julian told Gertrude he needed to go to Madison to see Adnis, but when she received a telegram on August first, he had gone to Chicago instead. When Julian returned, Martha and John Cheeney had arrived to visit their mother. Edwin had to go on a business trip, and Mehma accepted her children for periods over the summer. On Friday, August seventh, Julian went into Spring Green to purchase a bottle of
acid quote unquote for the farm stores at Tellison. On August eleventh, Frank left for Chicago to work at Midway Gardens. The following day, the confrontation between a mill Broadell and Julian took place. For a reason unknown to us, Julian had refused to saddle Brodel's horse. In anger, Brodell called him a black son of a bitch. If Brodell had any chance of surviving the day of the attack, what he said to Julian that day solidifying his face, sure
for sure. On the morning of the attack, Julian approached Billy Weston to ask where Frank kept the gasoline. He said that there was a soiled rug and he needed gas to clean it, even though I've never heard of gas being used to clean anything, not ever.
Not ever.
But apparently Billy Weston told him where the gas was, and around noon the attack began. Maema's children didn't enjoy being at tally Icon. The home was not constructed for the entertainment of children, so there was very little for them to do. Being that they spent most time with
their father. They didn't have many playmates in the area either. However, when she arrived at the estate, Martha reached out to a local girl, and that fateful day Edna Kritz had mounted her horse named Beauty to ride the three miles and invite John and Martha to watch the threshing at her farm, which is about as exciting as it sounds from a real farm girl. From the road she was approaching telly Son from the little girl likely would have been the first to hear the screams and see the
horror unfold. She would reach telly Son around twelve forty five. In the aftermath of the attack, Billy Weston rose to his feet, surrounded with bodies, not the least of which that of his young son Ernest. He roused David Lindblom and the two ran to the best of their ability. After having been hatcheted and burned alive, they ran to the Reader home, which was the closest place that they knew, with a phone to call for help. Resolutely, Billy Weston
ran back to telly Son, with Lindblaum limping behind. Upon reaching the estate, he grabbed the hose in the garden wall and he began to spray the flames. Within thirty minutes, the residential wing of the home had burned to the ground. All that was left was the workmen's wing, and Billy Weston saved that part. Soon locals began to arrive, farmers with their farm hands, wives and children, and the hundreds
filled the road. A bucket mcgrade was established to continue working on the fire, but Posse's also formed to scour the fields for Julian and Carleton, and someone was going to have to call Frank. After about an hour after the fire started, a stenographer at Midway Gardens answered the phone and called Frank into the office to take the call. When he returned to his workstation next to his son John, the young man could tell something was wrong, hearing labor
breathing and groaning. John asked what had happened, and Frank told him the only information that he had. Talley Son was on fire. Mayma, the children, the students, what if they're hurt?
Why did I leave them? What? He was lamenting.
John summoned a taxi to take them to the train station immediately. Once there, they learned that the next train headed to Spring Green would be a slow train whose route was meant to make several stops. That train wouldn't leave until early evening, and it would take hours to get to where it was going. And then, as fate would have it, who would show up to the very same train station at the very same time, but Edwin Geneye's ex husband, My Frank approached him and shook his hand.
During this exchange, there was a silent understanding reached. The train pulled in, Reporters began to approach, and John took it upon himself to shove both men into the same train. Card Edwin was silent the entire way to spring Green, while Frank was making his way home. Doctors had made it to talley Son to treat the injured. Sheets covered the victims that didn't make it. There would be no sheet for young John, who was burned so thoroughly there
was really nothing but ash and bone. The boy wouldn't even be issued a death certificate. At five point thirty that evening, one of the searchers hurriedly ran to find the sheriff. The man had the thought to open the door to the furnace, and inside he found Julian Carlton by the time the sheriff returned, Julian had drank the vial of acid when it became clear that he was going to be captured. In pain and half conscious, the man moaned as he was pulled from his hiding spot,
still holding onto the hatchet. Seeing the hundreds of residents noticed that the murderer had been found, and noting that they were likely looking to form a lynch, Moob Carlton stated, quote, they'd better let me live if they expect to find out something end quote. The train bearing Frank, John and Edwin pulled in about ten ten pm. It had been an unbearable trip. During the long train ride, at every stop, the men had heard unwanted news. Newsboys were shouting at
every station, tally Icon burning to the ground, seven slain. Finally, when they arrived, Frank made a short statement to the press. He said Julian and Gertrude were the best servants he had ever seen, and that the couple was only temporarily planning on working at telly Son. The day of the fire was to have been their last day. They were to pick up their wages that afternoon. That night, Staring blankly from the car, Frank approached the ruins of his
beloved Tally Icon. Quote thirty six hours earlier, I had left Tally Icon, leaving all living, friendly and happy. Now the blow had fallen like a lightning stroke, violently swept down and away in a madman's nightmare of flame and murder end quote. Edwin and Frank had a whispered conversation about what to do regarding the disposition of the bodies. Edwin remarked that Mamma had said that if anything happened to the children, she would like to have them cremated
with unintended redundancy. Edwin stated he would take the remains and fulfill her wishes. The box he carried with the remains was painfully small, easily carried in one hand. He would not hold a funeral for them. He made no remarks regarding intentions from Mema. That would be Frank's responsibility alone, to which he said he would bury her at Talley Icon. The two men shook hands, said their goodbyes respectfully, and
Edwin drove away without a second glance. Julian Carleton only lived for seven and a half weeks after his arrest. He made three short court appearances before succumbing to starvation on October seventh, at one in the afternoon. It is not thought that the drink of the acid affected his ability to eat, and this would be starvation by willpower alone. He weighed a scant ninety pounds at the end of his life. He never admitted to any particular motive for
the crime. However, the most likely possibility is simply that he was emotionally violatile. Maybe he had some sort.
Of mentals break who you can't come with the this is why I did it? Yeah, right right, Chalk it up to mental mm hmm.
Gertrude Carlton, Julian's wife had been found hiding in the brush off the road to spring Green shortly after the attack. She was taken to the jail in town overnight and transferred to the Iowa County Jail in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. She was detained under suspicion for two weeks, where she had much to say about her husband. Before even leaving Chicago, his mental issues were evident, reported by African American neighbors as erratic and bizarre.
He was a very nervous person.
He would fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, and was constantly worried about money. Gertrude sought refuge with a neighbor of their former employer. In any event where her husband began to terrify her, her neighbor relayed what Gertrude had said, saying, quote, he would get these spells where he was wild eyed and dous, strange things.
That she feared for her life. End quote.
When the couple moved to tele Ison, he became even more unstable. Billy Weston and David Lindblaum were overheard at the tavern saying quote, he's polite and smart, but he's the most desperate, hot headed fellow I ever saw. Don't ever contradict him. He'll fly off the handle any minute.
End quote.
When she was detained by the deputy, she told him this quote. My husband had the notion that he.
Was being pursued.
He recently got to waking me up in the night at our quarters in the bungalow to listen for noises. They're trying to get me, he kept saying. Then sometimes he would choke me and threaten to knock my brains out. He took that hatchet to bed with him.
End quote.
Wow, on the morning of Saturday, August twenty ninth, Gertrude was released outright. The deputies put her on a train headed for Chicago with seven dollars in her pocket, and she vanished from the historical record. Frank Lloyd Wright would go on to rebuild telly Ison. The next structure, dubbed tell Ison Too, would also burn down, this time due to faulty wiring. Much as before. The residential wing was destroyed, but the working wing remained. Frank took it as a
sign that he should try again. Tally Son three is the version still standing today, open to the public as a tourist attraction and googling it tally Son East. It's thirty seven dollars and ten cents for the tour.
Oh yeah, so.
If you're ever in that part of Wisconsin, check it out.
I would, I will. I do love architecture. I know.
Kitty granted Frank his divorce in nineteen twenty two. He would go on to marry two more times. Upon his death in nineteen fifty nine, he was buried at tally Son next to Mama. Edwin Cheney wasted no time and was remarried within a year of his nineteen eleven divorce from Meyma. He would have three more children with his new wife, Elizabeth. Kitty remarried in nineteen thirty to a retired Chicago businessman, Benjamin And that's the end of today's story.
Tanya, that is so crazy. I had no idea such horror befell him.
I know, like it's never brought to me. I feel like it's never brought up.
Never.
There is some Frank Lloyd Wright homes here locally. I want to say they're probably I don't know for sure, so don't quote me, but I want to say, like Birmingham West Bloomfield, like somewhere in that area. I'm pretty sure there's a house or two that he designed, and so that I think our residential homes, like people actually still live there. I had no idea that this is a crazy story, right.
It's so separate from him and his legacy as an architect. Yes, because when I was living in Buffalo, there's a street I lived nearby, Delaware Delaware Avenue, and it used to be called I believe Millionaire's Row something because Millionaire lived on this street and Frank Lloyd Webber has I think ten structures, and I'm sorry, thank you Frank Loyd Webber
the composer, is that, yeah, thank you. Frank Lloyd Right does have I think ten buildings in Buffalo, so he has a connection there, and I do love his architecture, like what I've seen and the gorgeous so yeah, he's It's just amazing that it doesn't go hand in hand.
You know, you think this tragedy would be something that would never like it would be Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress who was murdered at Telly Yson.
You know what I mean? How that is never brought You're right, it's never brought up. I'm so impressed with this story. I'm not impressed with what happened. I'm impressed that it's been not told. Yeah, this is my first time hearing it. Thank you so much for bringing it. I'm gonna do I you know, I'm always looking up people's birthdays to understand or they come in at and his mother Anna, so she's she's also one to her sign Aquarius. You know, it's an Aquarius supporting a gemini'sed
delusion of danger. No, that's so cool, Tanya, thank you so much for bringing this. I do feel smarter now. No Ie about.
Crazy American I know. So thank you Shannon for listening to this week's story, and thank you everyone for listening to this week's story as well. Before you go, please hit the subscriber follow button on whatever app you're listening to. If you haven't done so well ready and if you enjoy the stories that Shannon and I tell, you can join our Patreon. You can find it at patreon dot com slash t nt crimes, or you can also join through the Apple podcast app. And what you'll get what
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And I think that's all the business. Sounds like it, my friends, sounds like good business.
Yeah. Well, thank you again and I will see you soon. So until our next episode, bye bye.