A Motion Picture Mystery

is joining us on the show. Yeah, that's right. I mean, people keep turning up dead in history of the Motion picture so we thought we'd bring bring in somebody extra to help us out with the heavy lifting on this one. Scott loves murder and he's really great at talking about it, and uh, I think it's gonna be so much fun.

So let's go right to our talk with Scott. Hey, So, if you have been listening to this show for a while, and if you have made it to the little koda we tend to do at the end of every episode when we when we do our outro music, we you've probably heard us mention Scott Benjamin, who helps with research on this and we've got such a treat for you. Scott Benjamin is joining us in studio today. Scott. It is a pleasure to have you. Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it. But what should people know about you? Well, I've been around here for a long time. I've been a podcaster with How Stuff Works originally, uh, for about eleven years now, um taken the last couple of years off off air, I guess, um as I do research and writing for some other shows and true crime stuff. In fact, I've got an all new true crime podcast coming out pretty soon of my own. I can't really give you too many more details about it right now,

but but it's it's on its way. But this is one this is key to while we're having you on here now, because you've been helping us with the invention research and then suddenly we ran across a little bit of true crime, but potentially true crime, or at least a mystery that's kind of embedded in the research for the invention of the motion picture exactly. Yeah, And I thought this was just a little bit too juicy to let it go, you know, without without investigating this just

a little bit more. And uh, to be honest with you, it's about a hundred and one nine year old cold case now, so I don't think we're gonna you know, be you know, solving anything. I don't. I don't think so, but well we we could try at least we can at least, uh, you know, let people know what's happening and let them investigate it for themselves and see what they think, because there's a few theories about what happened. Alright,

So here's what here's what's going on. Um. We tend to credit the invention of the motion picture camera to either Edison or the Lumier brothers. And you know, we we've got kind of know the history behind that and the timing. It's all kind of strange timing. It all ties in very very closely. Well, it appears that there was somebody that was filming motion of filming scenes long time prior to that, six seven years prior to that. And the earliest film that we have on record anything

that remains still is from eighteen eighty eight October. As a matter of fact, UM we know the date because of a specific reason. I'll tell you in a minute. But it's called the Roundhay Garden scene and that was shot by um a man named Louis la Prince, and Louis la Prince of course French born French born um inventor. He had a lot of other things that he had had developed. A lot of them had to do with cinematography, the early days of cinematography. Um. He filmed this scene.

It was just it's just like two point one seconds, I think, very quick, but it does show motion. And he was using you know, a type of film that was it the early days of film that the um paperbacked, and you know it had a very complex way of getting this, you know, down and captured. Now, this one, the Rounday garden scene, is this before the celluloid film? It is just before the celluloid film, right, so that was just just after this he had not yet really

quite kind of experimented with that yet. UM. They know the date of this film because specifically, ten days later, one of the people appeared in the film died, So it was like, you know, this is film in October fourteenth, but on October his mother in law who was shown in the film passed away. So they know specifically that it was prior to this date. In in it's it's approvable.

But by that UM, he did another scene it was like this, I think it was a traffic crossing leeds Bridge in eight as well, and there's a few other early films that have survived, but they're all from right in this in this timeframe, the stuff from Edison and from the Lumire Brothers are in you know, the well the early UM eighteen nineties UM. And then the patents came later. But that's part of the story that we're

getting too here. You know, the patents, right, so we know that Edison was was very much like a patent talk or is that the right word. I mean, I think there's a little bit of over demonization of Edison

that maybe goes on on the internet today. A few years back, what was it, There was something like popular comic strip where it was basically like Tesla is great, Edison sucks, which, which, of course it's it's you know, it's, it's, it's It's probably a flawed idea to really go all in on on either individual as being like you know this this this angelic figure of invention or this demonic adversary. Yeah.

Maybe actually it over sells Tesla instead of underselling Edison. Well, you know, one of the problems I guess is that Edison. Edison had a huge laboratory that he worked in where he employed many many inventors, and then of course anything that was invented under that umbrella, he would then take the credit for it. He would say, you know this Edison's invention. It's just like any other major corporation does. Now.

The automotive companies do it all the time. You know, people invent features, functions, you know, uh, parts, components, and they may get the patent, but uh you know, uh, I don't know a Ford or GM owns that product, they own that that that the patent, they get the

royalties from all that. Well, this is something we've seen over and over again just looking at the history, photography, and and now the motion picture is that you know, we want to think about the inventor ter as this uh this you know, this this individual this just out there figuring out stuff on their own. And a lot of a lot of inventors do fall into that category.

But increasingly there's no closer to get into the modern era the more you see this uh industrialization of invention, the corporate um use of invention, and so you know, Edison is just a part of that growing trend. I mean already talked about Kodak on the show. Yeah, I mean we tend to think of inventors as or we like to think of inventors as like like Victor Frankenstein, right, like, you know, the independent scientist working on a problem in

solitude with their own mad genius. But more often it's true that inventors need to be part of a system that's like providing infrastructure that makes their invention possible at the same time that they're working on the invention. And the movie camera is a perfect example of this, because you couldn't really have the kind of movie cameras that even Edison's people came up with, like William Dixon came up with, until you had celluloid film and that was

what you know, other people were working on. What would Frankenstein have been, like the novel had it been Frankenstein inc. Right, Yeah, Edison's likes you know, he gets one of his little lab assistants like resurrect the dead, you know, and then I'll get the patent. Yeah, this and this stuff is happening on separate continents as well, so you know, it's just one of those times in history where you know that they're working on the same thing hundreds if not

thousands of miles apart. And they don't quite know it yet. They don't each each doesn't know what the other one is doing right at that moment, unless you know, there's some talk within the community of scientists, you know, inventors of what they're working on. And uh, and likely they would have kept that pretty you know, close to the vest. They wouldn't have really said, hay, I'm working on this new camera and here's in fact, here's a drawing off

how it works. Why don't you, Uh, I haven't see if you can perfect that now it doesn't work that way. They keep them really really tight, um until of course, the you know, the goal is the patent, of course, you know, to make their royalties from this invention. And uh, apparently it looks like La Prince beat Edison to the you know, to the mark there on the one. So he made all the money, right, No, no, didn't make

any money on it. In fact, I guess maybe we should jump right into the story here at this point right now, tell us about the mystery. All right, so you know he's he's working on a stuff. He actually successfully films these scenes, the round Hey Garden scene, you know, the traffic crossing leeds Bridge, etcetera. And he's got this device. It's a it's a single lens camera, and this is an improvement over a camera that he had just prior to that, which was like a sixteen lens camera that

shot there's actually two banks of eight lenses. I think that we're that would quickly take images and then you could put those together and then show them in rapid succession and make, you know, make a moving image out of them. This is a single lens camera that would record continuous motion. Right, so this is quite different, less

laborious editing. Yes, yes, exactly right. And again and this is the old paperback film at this point, you know, it's not the not the cleloid at this at this point, um, but he has this invention. He's ready to uh find he's finally after you know, showing it to friends and family and you know, projecting these on on screens and his his laboratory or wherever you know, these private showings.

He's ready to go with you to the public with this, to to show it publicly and then file for a patent in New York City here in the United States. And this is all going to happen in I believe in October of eighteen ninety, that's when it's supposed to happen.

And so prior to that, you know, he's he's still kind of touring around and he's got his family trying to get things together in New York City, trying to get things like a place to do this, you know, a proper venue, etcetera, and uh, and they're working on

the they've got it. He's still in France and he makes a trip to see his brother, which is expected at this point because I guess his his mother had just passed just prior to this, so his brother is in charge of the estate and kind of breaking up the estate and you know the will, I guess, you know, executing the will. So he makes a trip to Dijon, France, and he is he spends like three days as his brother, and who knows, you know, what's going on there, whether

it's you know, they're talking about finances or whatever. I'm sure there's a lot to discuss at that point. But then his brother takes him to the train platform, you know, the other train um station there in town in Dijon, and it's a Dijon to Paris Express trains, so it's not gonna stop anywhere. It's gonna go straight from there, right to Paris, and he's back where he has to be. And then I think he's going to head to England and then to New York for this, for this, you know,

the showing this patent awarding or whatever. Um. His brother says that he put him on the train on the platform, and that's the last anybody ever saw of the prince. He just disappears somewhere in between Dijon and in Paris on a NonStop train, on a NonStop train, he completely

disappears and his luggage disappears. There's no paper record of him being on the train really, Um, other than his brother's word that he put him on the train, no one can remember seeing him on the train, Like he didn't share a cabin with anybody or anything like that. And this is a pretty notable guy. And aside front, the guy was six ft four, so he kind of

stands out today. Yeah, he would, he's a tall guy. UM. I don't know how well how well known he was at that point, if anybody could really recognize him, I don't think that he was. Um, but there's really no sighting of him on the train. Itself, and certainly not in Paris when when it arrived. So obviously that seems suspicious like that. People don't normally disappear from trains. But uh so, so the question would be, are there any reasons people had to suspect foul play related to his invention?

Other and just the fact that he was about to debut a hotly contested invention for which people would be competing for patents. Well, the timing is extremely convenient for anybody else who might be working on this a similar invention. I mean, so think about who that might be, and we'll talk about them in just a moment. All of this is going down on September sixteenth, eighteen ninety He's

what forty nine years old at this point. Um, And again, just two months later, or even one month later, I believe he was supposed to be in New York to debut this this and this would have uh clearly, it would have revolutionized the industry. I mean, it was something that was going to make him a lot of money, no doubt about it. All Right, so he vanishes, But then what's the follow up. Who's looking for him? Well, of course there's going to be an investigation right, I

mean his brother. His brother's word is that, you know, he put him on this train and and now he's just suddenly gone into thin air. Right. So Scotland Yard is on the case, and you would think Scotland Yard would do a pretty good decent, you know, examination of what's going on here an investigation. The French police are also looking and his family of course is searching for him as well, in addition to the other two agencies.

So um, I don't know who they hired or how they went about that, the family themselves, but you've got three separate groups looking for him for years. Really, I mean they're they're they're trying to track him down, trying to figure out exactly what happened, because again, it doesn't just happen like this. So um, it's just a real strange occurrence. So if he disappeared, could you tell initially what the predominant theory was like at the time. Did they think he was dead or did they think he

had run off for what? You know, I don't know if there was a predominant theory at that time. I think there were just so many different thoughts going through everybody's head, like what could have happened to this guy. You know, there's a lot a lot of these came up later in time. I mean, some of them are like, you know, discussed in the nineteen sixties. You know, so we're still talking about this guy seventy five plus years later with a new theory about what might have happened.

But there are there are three or four main theories that have been tossed around for the last in twenty nine years now. The more recent theories are going to you know, pertain to our our our modern interpretations and

really why we remember this guy. But but at the time, I'm thinking it's like, surely they probably approached this in the same way one might approach a modern disappearance, and they would look too, They would looked to family, they would look to you know, connections and major stressors in their personal life. I mean, this is a guy who recently lost a loved one, may have been involved in something, and I mean was definitely involved in some sort of

a state, uh situation. Sure yeah, um, And uh you know, I guess we can just talk about the very first theory, which was of course suicide. They thought maybe he had jumped from the train on his own somewhere between Dijon and Paris. But they searched, you know, track side that whole distance, didn't find anything. Didn't find of course, you know,

why would he take his luggage with him? If he did that and all that, it would make it even more visible if you know there's the body and luggage somewhere, you know, in the woods in between or something like that, or you've jumped off a bridge or right. Okay, So I guess I'd have two questions about that. Number One, if anybody thinks that suicide, is there any physical evidence

to indicate that. No physical evidence. That's the thing. All of this is just circumstantial evidence because there's nobody there's there's no proof of anything. No one saw him, there's no witnesses. But the theory, I think that one of the theories behind the suicide thought is that um, he was he was in a significant amount of debt when he died. That was the other thing I was gonna ask. Yeah,

so he's you know, he's an eventuorre. He's probably borrowing, taking loans some people to get these inventions off the ground, these fledgling inventions. And I have seen numbers around and you know, these numbers are suspect because they come from a lot of different places and you read different numbers everywhere. But they said that he was somewhere around eighty four thousand dollars in debt at the time of his death.

That would have been a lot of money, and it still has a lot of money, I guess, but it would be so much more in you know what kind of an unheard of amount. And um, he I guess he didn't really know the um the true success of his of his new invention. He wouldn't know exactly what that would have brought him, the windfall that that would have meant. I mean, I knew he he thought it was big, and of course he was trying to patent it.

But um, I don't think he had any comprehension of the type of money that that would have brought in had that been the fact. It's it's not very likely that he committed suicide either, because he did have this. He had a loving family. He there were a lot of letters that were shared between um, you know later on that were shown between him and his wife and other members of his family, and you know, his whole family was behind him. They were all supportive. It wasn't like,

you know, he was um, I don't know. It wasn't like he was ostracized in some way, you know, he was. He was definitely a tight part of this, this close knit family. So the suicide theory is rather unlikely for a few reasons. All Right, we need to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more. All right, we're back now. I know. Another one of the theories, which I guess maybe we can get to next, is the one that involves some kind of industrial escapade or

do should we do that next? Or why? It's another very popular one, right, So I do think we want to be careful not to just blithely throw out historical murder accusations. But we wouldn't be doing this from out another out of nowhere like other people have sort of alleged this based on just circumstances, right, sure, Yeah, it's all circumstantial. Everything is in this in this case again,

there's nothing really concrete here to hold onto. Yeah, alright, So the theory if you if you want me to just jump right into it, you get to jump right in. So it's the timing is so suspecting this, and we we mentioned, you know, there's somebody else involved, and Thomas Edizen's name gets thrown into the mix quite often when we're talking about this, that that Thomas Edison actually had um Louis La Prince assassinated on that train or somewhere

near that train. Now, was this something that was alleged by anyone at the time or was it only an accusation that was alleged like historically as an interpretation many years later. I believe that the family thought initially that that's what this was all about, because and I don't think initially I don't think they initially came up with

this theory. I think that later we will find out, you know, there's some other things that go on to that that kind of they kind of demonized Thomas Yson a little bit um um in the way that the patent was eventually handled. We'll get to it. Well, I do know I read right, Am I wrong in saying that at some point um Louis La Prince's wife said that he had left New York because he was trying

to escape being pursued by industrial spies. Yeah, so there's some background there, a little bit you know that there is there, there is a little bit of that intrigue that you know, there could be something going on there that's a little more nefarious than we would like to to think now of this person, you know, Thomas Edison. Um. But then again that's like secondhand hearsay, right exactly, Yeah,

that's right. Now. A lot of this is I mean a lot of it is you know, you know, this person said this to this agency and they reported that, and you know, it's just it gets kind of distributed or passed down and it changes a little bit along

the way. Right. And then also like if someone is you know, allegedly speaking to paranoia about industrial spies following them around like that, also, I mean you could interpret that as being a sign of of you know, some form of you know, not conspiracy, but perhaps you know, mental illness. Oh sure, that's also possible. And we're not we're stress. We should say this right now. I guess we haven't even said this. But but Thomas Edison wouldn't

have been you know, the hit man. He wouldn't have been the guy, you know, the guy pulling the cord tight around the other guy's neck or anything. It would have been hinchman. Or if if it was you know something of that you were thinking of from Russia with love as well. We can't help to think of all the cinemat tin, piano wire and all that Thomas Edison

played by what's his name? Quint Oh, yeah, Robert Shaw come up all right, So I mean it's it's fascinating the timing of all of when all this happens, and the way that Edison then benefited from the death of Louis la prince Um via the patent. So remind us

again exactly of the timing here. Okay, So the timing is that in I guess it would be September sixteenth of eighteen nineties when Louis the Prince went went missing, and again Edison was simultaneously working on his own camera, but it wasn't ready yet at the time, very very

close now that they got their patents in. Yeah, that's right, and he was supposed to have the showing are the the public viewing of his device is is his camera the Prince was the Prince was in October of eighteen ninety So the timing is just far too convenient for Edison. It raised a lot of eyebrows, that's supposed to say, because he benefited in such a tremendous way from this because his name is now tied in with the birth

of cinematography, the birth of motion pictures. Really, um as our Loomier brothers who came about just a little bit later, I believe, right. Um, so nobody's alleged, I mean, even if there's not much to these allegations, nobody's alleged that the loomi Are brothers were involved. No, absolutely not, No,

it's all it's all focused on. Yeah, that's right, because well, the Lomiere brothers, I think like one of the things there is that a lot of the interpretations are that they they didn't necessarily see the long term future of this technology themselves, so they don't seem to have the character of like, you know, viciously plotting for their their you know, their their takeover of the culture via there at this new tech that they've developed. No, no, absolutely not.

It's yeah, that shouldn't their names shouldn't really come into the assassination. Um I'm theory at all. I mean, but we'll stick with Edison being the scapegoat on that one. And you know, as funny as as reading this, you'll come across so many different versions of this in the way that this all went down. And and Joe, you and I had a discussion earlier in the office about about some of the stuff that's very very misleading. Oh, yes,

that's right. Well, I mean, so there is one I was looking for good like, you know, articles in journals, like journals that would cover the history of photography and stuff like that, peer reviewed kind of things. And there's one article that is widely cited around the Internet that alleges the discovery of a diary entry by Thomas Edison from where he essentially confesses to the murder. Do you have the exact words? If you do, I want to

be clear. We're gonna heavily caveat this in a second. Yeah, yeah, okay. So supposedly, should I tell where this letter came from or do you want the exact note? Yeah? Go ahead,

all right. So this supposedly comes from a graduate student at the University of New York UM named Alexis Bedford, And in two thousand and eight it was it was said that he was he was studying uh chemistry and photography and was conducting research into history of motion pictures for about a year and a half prior to this discovery.

And the search leads him to what they called the inner Forgotten Archives of the New York Library's hysterious already, right, it's probably room full of dusty books and all that. So he's finding, um, you know, these journals, these notes, these pages, and you know that that are actually the work of Thomas Citizen. And he stumbles across this book that's just kind of fallen apart. It's a leather bound book. It's very dusty and old, but it's a journal of

Thomas Edizen. That would be fantastic to find something like that. That was, you know, at this point undiscovered. Really, it was just put in on the shelf and left um in the journal. You know, of course he jotted, and he was known to keep journals like this where jot down ideas and thoughts and sketches. All most inventors do that, all of them do, probably. But he finds the following note and it's got the date of September nine, which is four days after the Prince went missing. And the

note says exactly, Eric called me today from Dijon. It has been done. Prince is no more. This is good news. But I flinched when he told me murder is not my thing. I'm an inventor, and my inventions for moving images can now move forward. That's the end of the entry. So I have seen this cited all over in like blog posts and even in books I looked at. This has been cited in books as evidence of Edison's involvement in this supposed murder. I am ninety nine point nine

nine certain that this is a work of fiction. And I don't mean a work of fraud. I don't mean like a something that is trying to be passed off as nonfiction. I believe that this article is intentionally published as a work of fiction that has been misinterpreted as a as like a straightforward report of a real event. What led you to believe it? And there are a bunch of things. I mean, number one, it's well never

why it's if this were true. This is just a straight up murder confession, yes, you know, or at least conspiracy to murder. Well, I mean, the the language of it is somewhat an achronistic. It is not my thing. Uh uh Well, I mean, on one hand, I want to say, as a work of fiction, I think this isn't that bad, it's it's it's kind of interesting. But so I tried to look up the names that are cited in this article, like of the student who discovered this,

and of another historian who's named in this article. I can't find evidence of these people. They don't appear to me to be real people. Um, there's of course that problem. One thing that I noticed is that it says Edison says in his confession from eighteen ninety and his diaries that he says Eric called me today from Dijon. So in eighteen ninety he received a transatlantic phone call. That is not possible. I do not think there were transatlantic

phone calls in eighteen ninety. I know when the first one was made. Oh yeah, yeah, I was January seven, So thirty seven years after this call was supposedly made. Is when is when he claims this? This note claims that he received a phone call. I think we've had a problem here of just mislabeling an article from a journal that should have been clearly noted as a piece of fiction but has confused a lot of people, right, And it could have been more clearly labeled in the

print version, but was then digitized that's possible. Yeah, correctly you said earlier as well, Robert, that you know, there have been pieces of fiction that have been passed off as scientific well, or at least have been published in scientific journals, not even necessarily passed right, just like presenting like hey, like Peter Watts was the example came up. Peter Watts former marine biologists uh turned sci fi writer, and some of his works of short fiction have appeared

in scientific journals. Um, but but they were they were they were not presented as a science. But then again, if if the scie can well imagine where of a journal were digitized, I wouldn't even say incorrectly, but without like sufficient u uh, you know, metadata, metadata or branding, like you could have something that is that that his fiction would show up and be like, oh, well, here's this, here's this murder confession, uh just shows up out of nowhere.

Al Right. It seems completely implausible, doesn't it you. No, I do not think this happened. I don't. I don't think so. No. No, I just I don't put a whole lot of stock behind it. But I think a lot of people do. A lot of people like the intrigue of of thinking that you know Edison was really that bad that he would have somebody off over an invention. He did kill Topsy the elephant and horses, and yeah, yeah he was. He liked to experiment with electricity, didn't he.

I mean, Tom, I'm not saying I think it's impossible that Thomas Edison had something to do with this, but I definitely ly think that this thing about his murder confession in the diary is a work of fiction that has been misinterpreted as a real factual article. And number two, I don't know we should be careful about making historical accusations of murder just based on circumstantial evidence because remind us again, there is no physical evidence of this whatsoever,

No nothing concrete at all of it. But but there is often this this this tendency I think to want to see the past in movie form, and you know, and which is around iven we're talking about motion pictures. We want to see it dramaticized, you know, we want to think it more along the lines of the prestige you know, with with it had a villainous Edison and a right who did send Henchman to like hack up testlas stuff. Yeah, it's great well, okay, maybe maybe it's possible,

but not not really then likely, Yeah, I'd go with that. Okay, all right, So that was that was a second one. There's a there's actually three. They're five here total if you want, because I'm kind of all right. So number three would be the disappearance. That was a disappearance that was ordered by the family. Now, again pretty unlikely in this case because it was a tight knit family. We do know that from notes that were passed between family members.

It was a loving, tight knit group. His brother is the last one to see him alive, and there's this whole state business. Yeah that's right. Well that's yeah exactly, So that's a that's a possibility. The the disappearance that was ordered by the family was something that was born out of the idea that La Prince could have been a closeted homosexual that you know, he had a family,

had kids. However, he was carrying on these these other relationships that were homosexual in nature, and the family was at the time embarrassed by this and sent him away to live somewhere else without them. You know that he was kind of the shame of the family at this point. So like they banished him into some kind of exile because he was gay exactly. Yea, that's the thought, that's the theory. And you know, I think that this is

one of the ones that comes about much later. I think this is like from a nineteen sixty six French film history book where the guy Jacques I'll mess up the last name here, but the Land I'll say that's it's probably his name close to it anyway. Um, he

suggested that his disappearance was because of his family. They disapproved of his homosexuality, so they think that he fled to Chicago, where he died in nineteen I'm sorry, naturally, And again, I know these numbers are coming out of nowhere, and there's not a shred of you know, evidence or proof that that's what happened. But it's just a theory. It's another theory that and I don't know why the

Land thinks that, but he does. I mean in much in the same way that it's possible that Edison, you know, orchestrated and murder. I mean, certainly we could imagine that this being the case. I mean, it certainly lines up with you know, with homophobia at the during that time period. And um, but I would, well, like, what's the actual it? And so I think I've read a critique of this theory that said that there's really no evidence that he

was gay. Now there's no there's no evidence of any of this, Yeah, none of it, I mean, and not that he lived in Chicago, not that he died in Um. When I say there's no proof of that, there's no, there's really nothing to this. It's just another theory that was thrown out there again as late as nineteen sixty six, so we're talking, uh, seventy six years later after the guy has gone. It's just a theory that was posited by somebody that you know, you could grab onto and

say like, well it's possible. You know. This reminds me a lot of you know, Jack the Ripper theories. So it's except more limited in scope, I guess. But you know, Alan Moore's whole uh evaluation of that is that it ultimately is this uh, this couch snowflake scenario, the whole like Freemason conspiracy with the what the surgeon to the

Queen Victoria? Oh yeah, I mean, there there's so many different version but ultimately, like his argument was, there's we only know so much and we will only ever know so much, and uh, you know, it's just kind of an exercise and how many a little uh a little you know, blank spaces we can fill in. I think actual historians of the period think that, like that whole theory is like definitely wrong for Jack the Ripper, right,

at least that's what I've read. Yeah, well, sure, I mean it's all possible, right, Deep Cooper is another one, right, you can ever talk about clue in the face, and and of course there's always it seems like there's every couple of years as someone who's making a deathbed confession that they are dB Cooper or their father was dB. And it's kind of safe to do that. In the same way it's safe to to continue to make a lot of ultimately kind of like crazy ideas because we

don't know and we probably never will know. That's exactly the scenario with this here. And so what you're telling us is that Thomas Edison wrote the Dear Boss Letter like he was the Ripper. That's right. He did the White Chapel murders because, let's see, because he was afraid that they would get ahead of him on some kind of knife patent. That's good theory, good theory, very likely to back back to this case, though, what are some

more of our theories? Alright, So the the other one and this is really one of the last ones that you'll hear about. But then I've got another one I want to throw in there too, um for retricide, which is his brother killed him. Oh well, again coming back to his brother, and exactly right, I mean it could it have been over money, you know, his mother's will. You know that. Did his brother get greedy and want to take his share as well? And that's a that's

an entirely possible scenario. I mean, the only prince, the only person that saw the prince at the Dijon station was his brother. No one else saw him on the train, no one else really, I don't even don't know if there's a report of him being seen on the platform even but his brother swears that that's the last place that he saw him. He put him on the train with his luggage and that was it. Then he just,

you know, disappears into the midst somewhere. Well, I guess a suspicion very often does fall when somebody disappears on the last person to have seen them, right. Yeah. And the other thing is, you know, of course, you know, Scotland Yard and the French police and even the people that were invest getting for the family, they all eventually

interviewed everybody that was on that train that night. There was no uh you sense that anything aggressive was happening, you know next door in the cabin or you know that they they heard or saw anybody being thrown from the train or jumping from the train or anything unusual. And there was nothing really out of place on that whole thing. It's just it's almost it's it's like he was never there. And I think that's the idea, is that he really was never there, never exactly the thought

behind this is that his brother had him disappear. To put it politely, one more theory, Okay, I'll let it go. There's there's other people that kind of throw this around and talk about it, and um in a way that doesn't make sense with a lot of what we've just told you. So that's they all have some kind of

hole in the in the story. But um, there's a theory that he actually did make it to Paris and he was on the train, took his luggage off the train, but somehow wasn't seen by anybody the whole time, and you know, had to take a cab from the train station, which with the train I think would have arrived around eleven pm, so very late. He was going to go to a lab or you know, somewhere to work, maybe

a study or something in the house. And the theory is that, you know, the the coach that he took from the train station to wherever he was going to, the person who was driving the coach likely just you know, knocked him over the head stoleg'e luggage, you know, which probably had some cameras and things and you are, some devices, photographic devices and uh, and simply dumped him in the river. And that was happening, I guess quite a bit at

that time. If you go back and investigate um, you know, murders, at the time, it was not all that uncommon for someone just to be kind of off quickly overnight like that, um dumped in the river, never to be seen again or found as a supposed drowned victim. And there's kind of an interesting twist to that too, is that in two thousand three, uh, someone's going through the Paris Police archives and found a photograph of a drowning victim from

that looked a lot like Ui Le Prince. Really, yeah, so there is a photograph of a drowning victim that does match his description, that does look like him. Um, and that's a possibility that he did drown or somebody you know often made it look like a drowning and that's when he was discovered. Well, this is this whole idea, just the basic idea that maybe he did make it

to Paris. Like that opens it up tremendously because there are only so many ways to die on an express train to Paris, but there are hundreds of ways to die in metropolitan Paris. But how does a six ft four man, you know, blend in and not even make his appearance, you know, known on any of the cabins, you know, if it's a full train, I don't know. So why why do they think he didn't arrive in Paris? Like, who who would have seen him there? Well? He was gosh,

you know what, I don't know. He was scheduled to go there to meet with friends I think, and then a return trip to England. So maybe maybe people were supposed to meet him in Paris and didn't, or maybe he was supposed to meet them after, you know, I mean, I guess picking up a friend at eleven o'clock at the train station. That's kind of like it is now, you know, picking up a friend at eleven o'clock at the airport. It's not not a great favor to ask

of somebody, you know that sometimes you have to. But maybe maybe they didn't they maybe they said you can catch a cab, you know, meet me at this hotel in the morning or something like that. This is all again just theory. I don't really know that the surrounding story about what was supposed to happen in Paris when when he made it there. Um, But yeah, maybe he did make it, maybe he didn't, We don't know. But he's the theory again, the predominating or predominant theory is

that he went missing somewhere between Dijon and Paris. He never really made it there. There's a lot of different you know, ideas tossed about, and I'm sure you can come up with five more you know, scenarios that that might make sense. But the timing is just all very very strange. Because again, this this this whole thing comes back to this, this patent that never really happened, but then Edison kind of swooped in and took the patent the family. I guess you would think the family could

patent his devices. Um. I read somewhere that there is like a seven year waiting period between when somebody goes missing and you can I don't know if this is a U. S. Patent law or what, but you're not able to patent the family members item until after the person is officially declared dead. And I think he was declared dead in even so that was seven years later.

But in that time for in that window of time, that's when Edison came in with his his new camera and patented that device, and of course made a fortune on the royalties. So just interesting timing with all this. And of course you know they're that's sparked many patent wars. We know they're patent wars that were happening at the

time over many many different things. I mean, the Right Blood Right Brothers, they fought patent wars for about eleven years, and the same thing with Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone. It took something like eleven years and like six hundred lawsuits. I think there was a huge over the telephone. There's a huge patent fight just over celluloid film, because it was apparent first developed in a sort of vague way with a kind of poorly worded patent by uh, by

an episcopalian minister from New Jersey named Hannibal Goodwin. I think that's right, hannibals right, yeah, I just looked it up. That's right, Hannibal Goodwin. Um. But then also that he was in competition with the patent fond celluloid film that belong to the Eastman company. Uh and so they fought over that. Of course, Eastman was producing you know, celluloid film at at at bulk like enough to sell it to Edison, and Goodwin was not. This still happens today.

I mean, Sony and Kodak were in a patent war that lasted until two thousand seven over digital cameras. So it's you know, newer technology, but you know they're still fighting these same type of type of wars. You know, it happened with radio, it happened with cars, airplanes, name any big invention in light bulbs, it all, you know, went through the courts in some way, many many different times, and you know, there was always a addle over who who invented it first and who has the rights to

it and gets the money from it. And then here can then come to the patent trolls. Uh that's right. Yeah, there are people that are pat controls, that's right, who just kinda scoop up the patents from other people that are more deserve are they're completely deserving of that patent um and they take a course the credit for it. And and I guess maybe medicine would you know, would he count as possibly a pat control? I mean, he

had a different scenario. We talked about his labs and you know how he had, you know, lots of inventors working under his umbrella of Edison Labs, and that was something different maybe, But um, yeah, he's well, I do think Edison was not above pouncing on somebody else's idea if he thought he could get there first. I think so too, you know, I don't I don't know if you would think that this would all kind of play

out smoothly in the courts, and it certainly didn't. I mean, it wasn't wasn't as as cut and dry as you might think, Um La Prince, La Prince's son ate. His name is Adolph Um. He appeared in court, I guess as a witness for the defense in a case that was brought by Thomas Edison against a company called the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. That is an interesting and interesting thing about that is that company was founded in by William Kennedy Dixon, who was the guy that worked

under Edison at his lab to create the camera. He developed a camera. He's the one who really did all you know, the um the photographic work on it, against the lenses and you know the film and all that, you know, the technology that made that work. Really, yes, so he's the one. He's the founder of that company. So Edison is suing him. But La Prince, Uh, Adolph La Prince his son again comes in and and testifies Um as a witness for the defense in this court case.

And he claims in that court case that La Prince was the first and only inventor of cinematography. So he kind of throws in this bombshell into the into the proceedings, and he says, of course because of that family, UM, my dad had been you know, his dad had been declared dead the year prior is then, um, they should be getting receiving the royalties for this award for this uh, this device, and of course the patent that goes along

with it, you know, the whole process, right. Well, he was unable to submit his dad's cameras as evidence in that court case. For some reason. The judge said, no, you can't. You can't show me these cameras. He wasn't able to put it into um, into the cases as evidence. And so the court ruled in favor of Edison in that particular case. But a couple of years later they overturned that and you know that the direction was reversed

or the decision was versed rather. But this is another interesting twist in the story is that Adolph was he's a young man at this time. He's twenty nine years old. Um, like two I think it's two years later it was, and I'm sorry, three years later. It was a nineteen o one. So he's twenty nine. He's out hunting, duck hunting near his family cottage which is on fire eye into New York State, and he ends up being shot to death. And I don't know if he was hunting alone.

If he was hunting with somebody, you would think that all this would have been a little bit more um, you know, public knowledge, you know what happened. But but the the recording of this is that he was just simply found dead after he was out duck hunting, with his his own rifle at his side. They don't know if it was suicide, if it was an accident, of course,

it could have been either one of those. Right, But the mother, you know, the widow now La Prince, uh, you know, the mother of Adolph, says that she thinks that it's the second murder, that you know, the kid simply knew too much and because he had testified in court, everybody else knew what he knew now and and that was the reason for another merger. So there's another murder mystery at the end of that. One that's never really

been solved either. Is that, you know, the sun turns up dead at a young age just two years later, three years later. So obviously the Edison villainists are yeah, but they think he was involved in that too. Well, you know, that's again that's another thing. Yeah, that's a

possibility of what happened. But then on the same hand, you can see why murder does not need to actually be involved for one to for especially with this family, to um to have you know, some degree of hatred or distrust of Edison, of course, and therefore it's not

that much more of elite than given. You know, if you especially if you're distraught over you know, yet another untimely death slash disappearance in the family, to do you know, jump to this uh this next uh you know level of accusation for sure, and they're going to point to the villain that they already know. Yeah, he's already established as the villain of the piece, the villain of the family.

And so yeah, yeah, yeah, So I mean again, I think this is just a fascinating part of history and something that I never expected to come across when we're talking about motion picture cameras. Yeah, I mean, it's strange how you know that this story just I don't know. It captivated me right from the beginning, but it's strange the twists and turns that this story tastes all right. Time to take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Alright, we're back. So on the disappearance of La prince Um.

If you you you're someone who I think you've got a good sense for for crime and and on cold cases and all that. If you had to go with your gut feeling, what do you think you'd say is most likely to you, what feels most right to you, What feels most right to me is that his brother

killed him. Yeah, yeah, And if he means having to do with the inheritance or I do, and I think that it's uh, Um, I think because of money is just such a strong factor in a lot of these cases, and especially you know when you're talking about among family members where they're supposedly tight, but money does come between people like that, and it's unfortunate, but it happens. And maybe he didn't have the he didn't have the the foresight to know that. You know, his brother would have

been so much better off. He wouldn't have been you know, I don't know, burden, I don't know. I don't know how better to put that. Maybe I'm saying that wrong that you know, he wasn't really a burden. It's just that he stood to make twice the amount of money from the inheritance as he would if his brother was still around. Um, he could take his share and um, you know it's just downright greed. Yeah yeah, I mean I but ultimately, again this is just a circumstantial hunt,

right yeah, yeah, exactly right. I mean, any of them, any of these theories are are possible, not very likely some of them. But but I think that the the frighter side is probably the one that is closest to you know, but correct. I think. Yeah, so what about either of you and he gut feelings on on what it might be. I mean, on one level, we I mean we already we talked about my Bridge, who definitely

commurdered somebody. There's no question about that. Yeah. So there's so so the idea that there there are you know, there there might be a murder in a photographic motion picture history. You know, I'm I'm already on board with that reality. Um, I guess. I mean I like your argument though, I mean, when you come down to, like,

what are the reasons that homicides are committed? Uh, you know, generally it's going to be some sort of you know, a family connection or you know, somebody the victim knew, uh not some shadowy organization that was plotting against them. So it seems like that that that and Also it removes the whole mystery of where how do they disappear on the train? Uh? You know? And if he if he, you know, jumped to his death, why did he take his luggage with him? And then why was that body

and or that luggage never found? So h yeah, I like your argument on this. Okay, alright, fair enough? What about you, jel, I don't know. I'm not good at things like this. I I think sometimes of what people say, and I know I don't want to malign you guys because I asked the question, but I think of what One time, somebody asked Carl Sagan, uh, you know, do you think there are aliens out there? Or something like that? And he said, I don't know, And they said, well,

what's your gut feeling? And he said, I try not to think with my gut. Um, So I don't know. I mean, I may have gut feelings, but I feel like maybe it's better or not to say them. Uh. I guess I probably have a gut feeling that agrees with you. Maybe I tend to think. You know, it's when people are pointing outside of the inner circle, it very often is something inside the inner circle. And then again you know, a random crime could have possibly explained it.

I'm not very convinced by the by the Edison thing. Yeah, I think I think like the Parisian argument, Yeah, that that also is kind of convincing, the idea that like, all right, maybe made it to Paris and they're just people didn't notice him on the train. And then once he gets to Paris, there's you know, any number of ways that he could have met his untimely a robbery murder which then resulted in the corpse that they found in the river. That I see. That's I don't know

why he wouldn't have been discovered at that point. Why you know, um, I think you wouldn't. They even like publish photos of people that were drowning victims that you know, the unidentified bodies, so that people where they could place them on view in some of the morgues there in town. I know, um, because drowning was such a common thing and these unknowns, they wanted to figure out who they

were and you know, where they came from. At least get them a proper burial, you know, allow their family to take the remains and you know, do with them what they want. But um, I don't know. It just seems like it's it's a very possible scenario that yeah, he didn't make it to Paris, and yeah he did get off by some you know, cab driver. It's it's like the least cinematic theory, to which I feel like it's often like a way to try and judge the past,

like which which is the least interesting story? Um, then you know that there's a chance that that's the way to go. Sure, yeah, that's a very good point. If it makes a good story, you should be inherently skeptical, all right, But I mean the bottom line is is we don't know. We probably will never know. Um. So you know, obviously, listeners out there, you may have some some theories you want to chime in, You want to

share your uh, your solution to this mystery. Well, here's one thing I will say if you if you're one of those people who likes to stick it to Edison, and I can sympathize, I understand sticking it to Edison. Um, you don't have to resort to saying I think he's a murderer based on no physical evidence whatsoever, or you know, or referring to like a fictional story about about a diary entry. But you can say he didn't get there first.

In fact, he didn't get there first in multiple ways, like la Prince had the movie camera before Edison definitely, and even Edison's own kinetograph and kinetoscope. You know, it looks like the heavy lifting was done by Dixon, not by the Edison. Yeah. At this point we're just arguing over when the patent was filed. Yeah, I mean that's all it really comes down to, and that and that, you know, then it begets the money, right, I mean,

that's the whole goal behind all of this really. For them, it was that, you know, I think maybe la Prince had more of an altruistic view of this that you know, he just simply wanted to make make it better, make photography better by bringing motion to the screen in front of people. And maybe Edison I think was more money driven. Yeah, I think that's the way it comes down, and fame and credit driven. Yeah exactly right now. Um, you know, of course that would have been great if that had

come for the Prince as well, but it never did. Well, maybe it will now maybe posthumously, right, Yeah, Well, I don't gosh, I wonder how much how much of the family still exists, you know, are there any princes out there still that that might benefit from something like that, or how how would they even benefit from something like that? Every film now made must give fifty of profits to

his family. Yeah, they could charge per minute, right, Yeah, and I'm exorbitan and cost I'm sure you alright, Scott, Well, thanks for coming on the show here to murder my Well, I hope I didn't leave you with more questions and answers. But but that's not your fault. That's what history does. Yeah, I guess. So we're at least kind of reopening the books on this one and letting people know what happened.

And um, I don't know. I like when you can kind of spark someone's interest in something and get them to search on their own and maybe kind of you know, figure out alternate theories or you know, chime in with what they think may have happened. That's that's always fun for me. Yeah, certainly everybody loves a good murder mystery. So if if we have, if this has helped make the history of the motion picture more engaging for podcast listeners than that, I'm in favor of great I hope

I hope it has. I hope it has. And and thank you again for inviting me here. I really appreciate the offer. And uh I'd love to sit in with you anytime. Absolutely, thanks so much for coming. So it's been fun. All right, Well, there you have it. Thanks once more to Scott Benjman for taking time out of his day, out of his research to join us on the show to discuss a little invention and indeed a little um potential murder, potential murder, potential suicide, potential runaway

and hide in Chicago potential. Were there any others do we have? Like a beast morph situation and it was potential hidden away by the family, And we didn't even get into like any just crazy speculator. We didn't get ato aliens, no abductions, no right off became Sasquat or Langoliers. I mean, is it possible for Lango leers on a train? You don't need an aviation technology for that to happen. I don't know, but uh at anyway, we cover the

realistic ideas. That was the Jules Verne Novelt. Yeah, length Langoliers on a train? Alright? Uh? Thanks again to Scott coming on the show, and yeah, I think this this is wrap it up for motion pictures or there gonna be more motion picture episodes. I think we got one more motion picture episode in us. All right, all right, we'll stay tuned for that, stay tuned for future inventions. We have some non photographic cinema cinematography episodes coming up.

Uh that are that are in the works. We've been on the photographic history train and who knows if we'll ever get off. Yes, we'll reach the destination. We will reach the destination. In the meantime, if you want to listen to other episodes of Invention, check out what the shows all about. Head on over to invention pod dot com. That's the website. That's where you'll find all these episodes. But you can also find us anywhere you find a podcast.

Wherever you get your podcasts, go there, find us, subscribe to us, rate and review the show, give us a whole bunch of stars, say nice things about it about us. That's the best thing we can do to support the show and help us moving forward. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Try Harrison. We've already thanked

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