Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, producer Dave Interns did go to voicemail. We have to change the outgoing message from something other than just the sound of a truck backing up.
Listen.
We got caught again. The resort boys ran a pit maneuver on us on a country road and we flipped the airport shuttle. We're okay, We're okay, but they've taken us to a black site and an abandoned red roof in this place is dismal bleak. There's no HBO or MAX or whatever they're calling it. Now. We're gonna bust out tonight. We've been collecting bed sheets, tearing them into strips, braiding and weaving them like the ancients of the York.
We have a really elaborate rope ladder built. I wanted to die in a fun color with some fruit punch crystal light in the bathtub from mustash. I keep in my shoe, But zaren say, we don't have time for the so we won't be in today, but.
We should know the sweet taste of freedom.
Very soon, and an action next week. In the meantime, remember that guy in Engram A long time Ago who escaped from jail a lot? Can you run that episode as inspiration for us? Appreciate you doing.
Zaren Burnette.
Yo, Elizabeth Dutton, what's up, Claude?
Not much? How are you doing today?
Doing pretty well? Doing pretty well? Thanks for asking? How are you?
I'm great as always. I'm just scurvat so happy to hear that. Listen. You know it's ridiculous. Yes, I do give it to me.
Okay, Elizabeth, all right, I'm not I want to preface this. I'm not making fun of the front part. I'm making part of the back part. Okay. Last year, there's this news story about this guy, Christian Montenegro okay, and he married a rag doll. Like not, that's not I'm not casting aspersions on this person. No, no, like his wife, Natalia is a rag doll, and uh, he broke up with his ex girlfriend, right, And so then he started dating Natalia, the rag doll, And then he decided, well,
I'm happy with her. We can make a good life of this. So then he got married to the rag doll. And people are like this, this is not not right. People are like, no, no, he's it's fine. So they're debating, right, Anyway. This is the part that it gets me because I don't whatever you've been marry what bridge, marry a building out? Okay, Right. There was a video last year of him going to the doctors in which he's called paramedics because he was
worried that his rag doll had fallen. Ill. Now keep in mind they have three rag doll children, so he was worried he was going to be a single rag doll father to their rag doll kiss.
Where where is this?
And it goes long enough that I do not think it's a prank. I have to believe that this is a compulsion. It is into South America. Why are you being like, what does it matter where he is?
I want to go down there and slap them.
It takes place in the land of magical realism.
Colombia, Oh, Colombia, Oh, Columbia. So there you go, ridiculous, right, and spark three guess what three things ridiculous?
Three rag doll kids, a rag doll wife. You know, when he gets sick, he goes to a people a people hospital, Elizabeth, I need to go to a rag doll hospital.
I'm a progressive. Where is the.
Fine taking a rag doll to a human hospital. It's like taking me to a vent that we come on, do you want to save your wife or not?
Because we got the cops on her tail.
That's why that I recommend it.
I'm not going to be like, you know, if he wants to love ad No.
Three or something, I think we can afford another conversation. He sewed another kid.
You don't get to do that kind of like, come on, now, come on now, that is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Do you know what else is ridiculous? No, but I'm here for it, escaping and then escaping and then escaping some more.
I like the spirit.
This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heycin Cuns. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Note you heard that.
You've talked about escape artists before.
Once or twice. Yes, I'm a fan.
Those who break out of lock up and make it an absolute art.
Yes, a statement, multiple attempts.
A commentary on man's isolation amid the masses and desperate need for liberation. You know something high falutine like that that talk. I like that you focused on more recent ridiculous escapermen.
Yes, and the ridiculousness of the artist.
A postmodern analysis completely. I want to take us back. You heard I want to take his way back. Hey, I got two ogs for you to Oh wow, oh geez, all right, let's start in the seventeen hundred. This is like you starting everything going back to Dracula. Dracula.
I'm always yeah, like when memed the second could have killed Dracula, Draca could have killed second goes back to the second and then he failed. Yeah, I glad Paler failed to kill Memod the second. You get America, that's when you're.
Like, what caused the Cuban missile crisis? You're like, well, okay, well.
It starts with me, you know, the second in the Fall of Constantinople in fourteen fifty three.
Now every time, so I'm taking to the seventeen hundreds, and I'm not going to mangle any French or Italian pronunciations.
Oh man.
Not because I've worked hard on my diction and my focus. No, it's because there aren't any nice hoorah. Okay, So the first dude is a fellow named Jack Shepherd. I can say that nice. You got that Jack Shepherds. Now I'm gonna screw hard. He's known as the eighteenth century's most notorious robber and thief. That's saying a lot. Is it purely in his home country of England, likely because he wasn't a global phenom, kind of a highwayman. Not really,
you'll see, okay. He was also referred to as the most glamorous rogue in London.
One of those kind of guy glamours ar yes, m a jigglow with deep pockets. He drops things in.
He was born. He was born on March fourth? Yes, did you ever when when I was in high school we used to say to the nuns that he'd raise your hand and be like, what's today's date, and they'd say March fourth, and we'd all get up and walk forward.
You're making that up. He did not really do that, Did you guys actually get up out of your seats? You really did? Multiple kids?
Yeah, just one time, one March wow. And then we looked at each other and we're like, oh God, I love.
That for you know, do you actually have that? That's so precious and dear? He was, but this was March forth, Oh wow, coming back, mourning, coming back.
Well, it's like better than when May the fourth, when people do the hell no, no, no, March fourth. So his family was terribly poor. They lived in Spittlefields in London in the east endeld Well know. The location gets its name from the fact that many of the original inhabitants had both poorly formed dentician and severe allergies. I
don't leading them. Well, no, it led them to like produce abnormally large quantities of saliva, and those were expelled as they yelled at outsiders who crossed the area's large open meadow.
Thus Spittlefields, the pollen rich meadow, the gas in their teeth and they yelled.
At And you think this is funny?
Do you think this is funny.
Because it's not true. The land actually belonged to Saint Mary's Spittle, a hospital built in eleven ninety seven. Yeah, so spittle is a corruption of the word hospital. Okay, but I think my explanation is way better.
Oh yeah, I told so much better. So they dropped the hoe and made spittle.
Yeah, drop the hoe. Okay, So an earlier name for the area was Lallsworth. Lol, like laugh out loud. You did not you made It's true that's true. So in Jack Shepherd's time, it was an area notorious for highwaymen, as you said, bad men, yes, and prostitutes and so Jack he stayed away from all that. When he was fifteen he got an apprenticeship with a carpenter. Five years later, he's twenty years old. Because I can do math, and I also had to be hooked on phonics. He was
an accomplished craftsman, of course, twenty years old. He was a small fellow.
They don't have TV.
No, he was all the time in the world. He was too poor for it. Everyone else had it.
I was on your candle light. You can be working, kid.
He was a litland. He was five four spine bone slight. But he had like this dazzling smile. He didn't have the Spittlefields dentician. He had a dazzling smile and a magnetic personality, and so that made him really popular in the neighborhood, especially in the pubs. And it was in those taverns that he fell in with the wrong crowd, the shady underbelly of Spittlefields. And so most notably was a prostitute named Elizabeth Lyon aka Edgeworth. Best Edgeworth, Edgeworth,
Bestka District. Best. Best was a big, beautiful mama whole lot of ros, very popular with the fellas and Jack was sprung hubba hubba. And so the more time and money he spent with Best, the deeper into that dark side of things. He got. Lots of drinking, lots of carousing. Yeah, this wasn't good for woodworkings.
Are no will be selling his tools?
Yeah? Well, as a one time man of the train, you know that you have to be able to focus and show up on time and get the work done.
Oh yeah, and you have to have your tools.
You can't send things just you can't like send things to voicemail and ignore the inbox. So his income took a dip and he wasn't getting the work he once was because he was spending all this money on booze and on the Best. Yeah, and so he had to make ends meet. He needed cash. He started stealing. In the spring of seventeen twenty three, he got busted for the first time shoplifting.
Taking other people's tools.
Shoplifters of the world unite and takeover, he yelled, Did he really that's no, that's a Smith's lyric.
Oh, I thought they pulled it from him, like it's an old British story.
I just have never heard he had. He was spinall over the I'm not going to believe anything. So soon enough he starts hanging out with a very bad ombre named Joseph Blake aka Blueskin.
William Blake's little brother, Blueskin. Are you kidding me?
No, one's really sure how he got that name.
Colloidal silver, that's how he got that name.
He had like a really swarthy complexion. He was also blue, super hairy, Okay, especially in the facial region. So maybe that was it. This is what they're speculating. Some thought maybe had a port wine birthmark.
Okay, maybe more sense.
He could have been part smurf.
That's I'm going with that one. From the waist down, okay, like a mermaid or something. You know, it's like fish for the waist down, he's Smurf. From the waist down, Blueskin.
Some of he doesn't wear pants a lot because everyone can see.
Okay, well I thought his feet he can't. Yeah, his legs, they see his ankles. They go, they go out, they go all the way up.
Blueskin. He shows Jack Shepherd the ropes takes him from an amateur shoplifter to a professional thief. He's good at it, but he's also not good at it.
He was an interesting line there, professional thief amateur SHOPLIFTERA when someone else pays you enough, you.
Get you get sponsorships.
Okay, there your factory riders exactly.
So he gets arrested and imprisoned five times between seventeen twenty three and seventeen twenty four. Of those five arrests, he got out four times. The poor folks in Spittlefields loved this, of course they loved it. They had no TV Cairo, they had no TV. The rich people intown did. So let's take a look at his first escape. Seventeen twenty three. He got sent to Saint Anne's Roundhouse for pickpocketing. That's where they invented the roundhouse.
They had the roundhouse just for.
Pickpocket It's where they invented it.
Like all the cut pursons go here.
Yeah, Bess came to visit him, and that was a bad idea because the jailers recognized her as a lady of the night and then she gets arrested. No, it's just in some position. Yeah, she wasn't out. I think she had like warrants. And so she and Jack they're sent together to new prison in Clerkenwell, and it was there that they were locked in a cell known as the newgate Ward.
Okay, I think I've heard it.
Yeah, somehow Jack gets a hold of a file these things. Yeah, and so the couple they'd only been locked up overnight, but it was too much for Jack. He's like, I can't take this with Jack, he filed his way through his shackles. Then he used the file to gouge a hole in the wall right under the window, Not like a big hole that went all the way through, just one that like was placed as such that he could loosen one of the iron bars that blocked the wi window and wiggle it out of place. So they got
the window open. Bess and Jack tied sheets and blankets together and did the old cliche rope out of the window escape. They lowered themselves to the ground and then they climbed over a twenty two foot high wall. Wow, freedom, how are you going to do that? They did it twenty twenty two feet.
If they're standing on one shoulder and you get one up, the other one has to pull the other one.
Five ft four. She's a she's.
A big lady. Yeah.
I don't know how they did it.
She threw them over and rope back over.
Let's say that's how it happened, right, let me just say it. I'm going to go ahead and say it. Said she threw him over the wall.
I like it.
I like that wrote back over exactly.
She climbed up, and she's got a baby.
They went imprisoned. No more.
That's a lot of filing too, and that you ever tried to file through metal?
Can we just say cute couple alerts? Oh my god, I had a jail together.
Oh dude, ship them forever.
Seventeen twenty four. A year later, Jack's twenty two. He was still on his thieving bs. He gets caught. He was convicted of burglary and sentenced to death. It seems like a lot for theft. Yeah, So back to Newgate.
What did he steal?
I don't know. He stole the Declaration of Independence before it was written. The cell for the condemned at Newgate was at the end of a dark passage, and to get to the passage you had to go through this hatch that was like ringed with huge iron spikes.
Are you kidding?
No, that's August thirtieth, seventeen twenty four. Jack filed away at one of the spikes so that with a little push it would just snap right off. Okay, he got it almost through, and once again Bess comes to visit nice and I'm guessing she didn't have warrants this time, just like I'm good, and she brought the rope, and then she brought another prostitute with her, a gal named Mal Maggot, mall maggot, m o l l oh mall
like Molly Maggot. Okay, And now I'm not of that world, but I would imagine that's not a name that drums up a lot of business.
It depends very specific type of business. Maybe she's like going for the goth guys and she wants them to know, like.
Perhaps you know a dead girl. Oh be sick. Okay, So Bess and Mal they waltzen to visit Jack on death Row, and they managed to distract the guard. How okay, magic trick, I you know, I can't imagine how. And so while the guard was otherwise occupied, Jack snapped off the spike and then he was able to squeeze through the space and make a break for it, and the girls helped him run off, and then they all went
together bag at time magot so. But he only tasted freedom for a couple months then he gets locked up. His last escape was his most famous one. It was October fifteenth, seventeen twenty four, and there's a lot of footage of the escape available online. Keep doing that, you know. So the location was once again Newgate Prison. The jailers cuffed him while he was in the cell, hoping that would prevent him from getting out. Sometimes with cheese with
he just always rope like loosely woven hemp rope. So at some point he managed to get his thin wrists out of the shackles, and then he pulled a loose nail out of the wall, which is why maintenance is important.
Important things. Yeah, broken window, I'm telling you.
So he used the nail to pick the lock on the chain that connected his ankle to the floor, and then he used the nail to pick the lock on the door. Yes, And then he used the nail to pick the lock in the area outside the block where he was kept, and then another lock and another lot.
This is like the TV shows I watched like The Musketeers, Like this is so escape plane, totally get a nail, work it out of something.
You know. He's on the roof of the prison. I love he still had a shackle around his ankle. Oh oh, I forgot And then he's like, oh, man, I forgot something. So he runs back to the cell and he grabs a blanket.
He breaks back into the prison.
Where's the staff? Where's the staff? Anyway, he runs back up to the roof with the blanket and he uses it to slide over to the roof next door, and then he pops into a top floor window. This place was someone's helm, okay, and snuck around and then out the front door. And he waited until the morning, and he went to a cobbler. Smart so being the local folk here. Yeah, well, he was able to convince the
collbler to cut off the leg. Iron I feel like I would have gone to a blacksmith, but like you know, any.
Port tools, they got similar tools.
So he swanned around for two weeks just partying it up, and then the law caught up with him and when they went to make to get out of the oh, they went to arrest him dude was hammered. What Yeah, he was wasted, so he didn't run, he didn't resist, he's just all how dry Jack. Of course, he gets arrested, he's convicted, and once again sends to death. I told you he was a folk hero.
Yes.
When it was time to take him to the gallows, the road leading there was lined with women crying and like wailing and throwing flowers at his fee. Ladies man to the end. You know. Daniel Dafoe, author of Robinson Cruiser, not personally, but yes, big fan of Jack's. Earlier in the year, Jack Shepherd had written an autobiography, what a narrative of all the robbery's escapes, et cetera of John Shepherd. That was his book, except Jack didn't write it. Daniel
Dafoe did. Yeah. They're pals called Ghost Road Book. Yeah so, and they were such pals that Daniel Dafoe and his publisher came up with a plan to wait fifteen minutes after Jack got the rope and then grabbed the body, and they wanted to revive him, which they heard had worked a couple of times.
Yeah, back then, sometimes hangings you'd hear about this.
It's the old equival of like one hack. They don't want you to know, like you can wait fifteen minutes. Well sometimes next Yeah, my cousin knows a guy who knows a guy who brought a handman back to life. That kind of thing totally works. They saw it on the hit ABC show nine one ps nine one one got even campier after moving from Fox to ABC. It's amazing and I love it, but I don't watch TV anyway. Jack, he didn't make it, and Daniel Dafoe is unsuccessful. This
is like my one percent where it's murdered by the state. Yeah, it's up for debate anyway, Rip to that man. Plays were written about Jack and performed after his death. In eighteen forty, William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel called Jack Shepherd and it was crazy popular, and the authorities didn't care for that, so much so that they refused to license any plays in London with Jack Sheppard in a
title for forty years after the publication. That takes it to one hundred and fifty year years after his damn Yeah, let's take a break, dude.
Wait before we take a break, Harry Styles, get on this. You can get back from Timothy shallow May all the riz He's stolen from you. This is it? Yeah, now get it? And also a David Bowie soundtrack.
You got It's perfect. When we come back, I'm going to tell you about a guy who was often compared to old Jack. Yeah, escaper boys, Yes.
I'm digging this dude, That Jack Sheppard was dope.
What else you got, Well, we're having a lot of fun, Yes we are. And I've already killed a man off.
You tap with the state, no less.
So this new Henry Moorese Smith is his name, Henry Morrisemith m o r E. Like just how much Smith Morse? Yeah, Henry More Smith. He was the North American Jack Shepherd, an escape artist, sort of a folk hero. This all goes down about like one hundred years after Jack Shephard eighteen thirties, twenties eighteen early eighteen teens. Okay, Smith is a con man, horse thief, burglar, and most importantly and escape artist. He had a bunch of aliases Frederick, Henry Moore,
Henry J. Moon, William Newman. You know whatever those.
Are good forgettable it sounding really.
Good names exactly. So eighteen twelve, he arrives in Halifax, Nova, Scotia Canadian. He was vague about where he'd come from or like where he was born. There are no records of him prior to this time. He was well dressed and polite in his mid twenties. He said he was a tailor and then he'd just arrived from England.
So one local, pretty good story, because there's a lot of makes sense.
Yeah, a local said quote. He was perfectly inoffensive, gentle and obliging, used no intoxicating liquors, refrained from idle conversation in all improper language, and was apparently free from every evil habit.
That's weird, Correct me if I'm wrong, But you describing me?
Oh, I know, you've never said a bad word in your life.
No, I mean, is that weird? We're reading it?
You no intoxicating liquors, wild, doesn't smoke weed. Yeah, never like the zaren Burnette story.
I never bad language.
Elizabeth Smith though. He said he went to Cambridge and so just like you. Of course, fancy is what I'm trying to He also said he said he could speak five languages. It's basically the zaren Burnettes. He said he had a small fortune held in the Bank of England, bingo. Here's where it's like I was reading this and I was like, is this Zaren or is this this Smith? Because he carried a Bible with him all the time, and he could recite whole chapters of scripture.
Oh yeah, you want to ruth, I'll tell you right now, lays the ruth, the whole thing. Lay up some kings to next maybe judges, what do you got how much time you would?
They would ask this guy about his spiritual past, like tell us about your spiritual that's a question, right, I'm going to start asking. And he said he ran a Methodist prayer meeting back in England just like this. Here's one that actually I could see you doing.
Okay.
One time someone asked him where he was from, and he just laughed and pointed at the full moon.
That's very like that's going in the act.
And so you know, all these people like they're kind of captivated by him. One person was John Bond, not John Bond, Jovie John Bond, John Bond exactly double O six. He thought that Smith was the beasknees. So we hired him to work on his farm near Windsor, just northwest of Halifax, and Smith he fit right in with the family. He joined them for meals and prayers. He was like, hold on, I need to pray before I eat this scrule.
So he also romance to the daughter. There are a lot of Elizabeths going on here today.
God's a big fan of.
And so ministers. As was the custom of the day, Smith married Elizabeth. Within the year. There you go, hey, quick, dude.
It happened.
The couple moved out and Smith started his own tailor shop. He's like, you know what, I'm just going to go out on my own.
Here.
Things were blissful, and until they weren't. In Halifax, at the big fancy mansions, things started going missing. Someone was slipping in during the night and stealing silver, jewelry, anything else of values, virtues. And it wasn't just palatial homes. Offices and stores got it, and it wasn't just expected high ticket items. The Chief Justice of the British Colony of Nova Scotia Samson Salter Blowers. Samson Salter Blowers or Salter Blowers. Yeah, he had three law books taken from
his chambers. So the judge He's like, I kind of need those, you guys. He offered a reward for their return and a few days later, Henry Moore Smith shows up. He's like, I'm here to take the reward. He heard the book. He's like, I bought these from a stranger, you know, as you do, don't. I don't practice the law, but I'd like these expensive law books please.
You know.
He's like sitting minding his own business, sitting on a bench reading the Bible, just like sunning himself. Dude comes up. You look like you're into big books. You want to buy some lawbooks. So the townsfolk weren't fools, so like where Smith is living in Windsor, they start thinking, like, hold on a second. He he goes to Halifax a lot, and he leaves early in the morning, and he doesn't come back to like the next day he returned those books. Why would he buy them when he comes back to.
Law before?
And he always has stuff with him when he gets back from Halifax, like random stuff and sometimes a lot of cash. And then there was a break in the case. A Halifax man got pinched for stealing a coat, but he swore up and down that he'd bought the coat from Smith, so the authorities issued an arrest warrant. They headed out to pick Smith up in Windsor, but he was already in the wind That was his first escape, with many more to come. He disappeared for almost two years.
There you go, yeah, and so what of Elizabeth, right, She's just probably go back to the farm. I feel for the Elizabeths of.
The world, Yes, you do. So.
Two years later, eighteen fourteen, he popped back up in Saint John, New Brunswick, and he was making friends. So he budied up with an officer of a local regiment, Colonel Daniel, and Old Danny wanted a horse, but not just Danny horse. He wanted a black horse that would match the team that pulled his carriage. Was all about the aesthetics of it. You know, you know, you might as well.
Be get the horse you can get.
So his new pal Smith is like, look at me, I'm coming to the rescue. I know exactly where you can get one. That's exactly what you want. So Daniel gives him the money go buy the horse for me, like you know, orders him around. That's your new friend, you make him go to your chores military and so Smith gets the money and you can guess what happened. He took off never see him again. He took the money and ran no horse, no horse, So he still
wanted a horse for himself though. Smith, he got it in my head when someone's like, you know, they suggest something, you know, do.
You want a burrito? And you're like, I didn't, but now you do.
Now I think I could go from.
Now I've got the money for a burrito exactly.
So he wants a horse. But at the same time, he didn't want to use all this cash that he had, so he stole one that belonged to Will's Frederick Knox, a magistrate, and he likes sticking it to the legal establishment.
Yeah, so why not right to the man who's going to bust you.
Will's Frederick not rob from him. Yeah, the magistrate, he was the son of a British Undersecretary of State and he really loved his horse and he wanted him back. So he gets word of this and like a description of Smith, and he chased after Smith for four days trying to catch him and get the horse back. Like he wanted justice. He cold justice.
I'm surprised you didn't hire like some Scottish klan to hunt him down or something.
He found Smith four days later, three hundred miles away and picked two Nova Scotiah and.
I will take old Nova scost Oh not pick two? Yeah, I thought I just take any two novascosts you were offering.
Sorry, go on, So they he gets arrested. He tries to escape a handful of times from this, but he's eventually brought back to New Brunswick for trial. So while he's locked up, Smith meets a guy who will change his life. And the man was named Walter Bates, and he was the county sheriff. They actually wind up changing each other's lives. Bates became obsessed with Smith. Wait what the sheriff. The sheriff fascinated.
But he's not behind bars. He's not a dirty sheriff. He's running the person running the prison.
He's like a straight ahead. He later wrote about Smith quote as a character singular and unprecedented. He was just fascinated by him. Really yeah. So as the trial approached Smith, he keeps moaning about a pain in his side. Real bad. He said, like, real bad, I got big bad booboo. Bates is like, how did that happen? That's how he talked.
We've heard tapes, I've.
Seen video He's like, how did that happen? And Smith told him that when Knox caught him, he hit Smith in the side with the butt of his pistol and that whether he broke a rib or damaged an oregon, who knows, but he's just in complete agony. Baits is like, oh my god, that's terrible.
You got guts man.
Yeah, So he gets worse and worse, and they Bates brings in a bunch of different doctors to look at him, but they couldn't seem to make it any better. And when it got to the point where he could like hardly lift his head, he asked for someone to come and take down his will as he was going to dictate it to sure. So Bates he wrote to call on Smith's lawyer. He said, quote, I fear we shall be disappointed in our expectations of the trial of the
prisoner more Smith at the approaching court. I presume from his appearance he will be removed by death before that time.
Death is a coming on a coling.
Yeah, he's not going to make it to trial. And that afternoon Smith screams out in pain and he asks the guard to heat up a brick and bring it to warm his feet. Okay, brick you know, yeah?
Can they put it in like a blanket, And.
Like the tender hearted guard, he's like, oh my god. Of course he ran to get him the brick, and then he accidentally left the cell door open, and like the guy can barely move. You're not thinking, you know, his eyes are rolled back in his He's on his stepbed. The guard comes back with the brick and Smith is gone. He played the long game. Yeah that was a long
so Bates and the brick Toning Guard. They wound up facing charges of negligence for allowing the prisoner to escape, and New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Wetmore, he put up a reward for Smith's capture. It wasn't like he was laying low and hiding out there. He started burgling on the regular. He lifted a silver watch, cash, like a bunch of other stuff from a house near the jail. Off again, he's like, I know where I need to go.
I'm going west to Maine. Oh right, So he's like, he stopped for food at a tavern and while he was there, he stole a bunch of silver teaspoons. I just can't control himself. He stayed at an inn near Fredericton, the colony's capital, of course, and stole a bunch of expensive clothes out of someone else's luggage. Like he went into their roominsze.
My hands, everything sticky.
Like the fellow travelers. They didn't suspect him of anything. They he told him he was a businessman, one of them. He's like, I'm a bounty hunter chasing an army deserter. Here's the best. He's like, I'm a law man on the trail of a notorious horse thief who broke out of Kingston jail, chasing myself. All of his tall tails and small steps caught up with him. He was busted just as he was about to enter the United States. They locked him up ankles and wrists, and they sent
him back to Kingston to stand trial. The whole wrists and ankle thing wasn't enough, though, because like once again, he slips the shackles and he finds sweet sweet freedom. He'd only been in custody a few hours when he took off into the night. So he heads back to Fredericton, and once he's there he steals choice. He steals another horse. Okay, it's like the hot wire of to day, Like he steals them from stables at night. But it'd be funnier if he horse jacked him. Like you know, someone's riding
up and like get a stop. He shoves off the saddle and rides off, but there's no plates to So remember New Brunswick's Attorney General, Thomas Wetmore, the one who announced the rewards leading to his capture. So on the run. This time Smith broke into his house and while Wetmore was having a dinner party.
Yes early dinner gang energy.
Completely and so he didn't crap on the drapes like that. Instead he grabbed a bunch of the guests coats and scurried away, like that'll show up.
I love in Canada stealing coats the.
Like. This time the cops found him, they hauled them away. Where was he hiding in a barn? Okay, I think he was probably All his loot, including the coats, was hidden under the hay in the lost and so you know they like, he's like, fine, fine, you got me, you got me. Let's take a break, we come back. I'm going to tell you about his next adventure. And it's a doozy Elizabeth Zarin, Hey, hey, I got I got first time you did you gave in first? Good job. So Henry Moore Smith? How much Smith?
More Smith? R?
Smith? They brought him back to Kingston, the one in Canada, not in Jamaica. Ah, and they locked him up.
Yeah that one has not as good as music.
Yeah, the Jamaica. So back with he's back with Sheriff Bates. He loves him and Bates. Yeah, Bates is fooling around this time though. They well, they gave Smith the full body, sirch and then they chained him to the floor by the leg. So it wasn't long before a sound was heard. Not Smith crying in agony over a created ailment. It was the sound of filing.
Metal, of course.
So the guards run to the cell and they find him halfway out the window, just like.
Find Baker working for him. Let me get that for.
You, baits baits Baker. So they find him hanging halfway out the window. They grab his legs, they ink him back into the cell. They demanded that he hand over the tools that he'd used, and so he passes them this little saw that he made out of a knife blade. He's like and I don't know how he got that one in there, but he didn't want to know. I don't want to know. Like maybe he started sporting a
huge pompadour. Probably probably, So the guards they got a new chain and they locked him up again, and then they heard a noise, the same metal filing noise. Now you and I have learned that modern day bank employees would probably assume it was rats or a short in the candles corners. Yeah, they'd shrug it off and then they get cleaned out.
Yea, that can't be filed the file.
So luckily these guards were on it. So they dashed back to the cell and they find Smith sitting there kind of like a kid who was just doing something and then ran back to the bed to sit on it like a good, god fearing child when.
Absolutely nothing, absolutely just sitting there staring back at you.
Totally. So the guards tell him stripped down. Oh and so he's like, what is this? Three doors? So he obeyed, and the guards discovered a ten inch saw blade tied to his thigh with a string. Wow that's comfortable, Yeah sounds wow. Okay, Sheriff Bates outraged. He's just livid.
I thought, I could trust he's always been through.
He's like, I'm not about to be embarrassed again. So he calls a blacksmith and he orders the guy to craft an eye in collar for Smith and leg irons and handcuffs, and then he wants each of those chained to the floor. The whole get up wound up weighing forty six pounds. Wow, can you imagine that?
I know who hired the kinkster to run the prison?
Like? Ca can you picture it? Zarren?
No, I don't think I can.
To close your eyes. Oh, I'm gonna have you picture it. You are a jailer at the lock up in Kingston, New Brunswick. You're sitting in your quiet opposite the jail, reading the paper and softly whistling to yourself. You started a couple of weeks ago, and it's not a bad gig. You've heard lots of stories though about Henry Moore Smith. He's a thief, but more importantly, he's an escape artist. He really got Sheriff Bates good last time, and the
sheriff didn't take kindly to that. But you've also noticed that the sheriff talks about Smith in weirdly reverential tones. He's kind of in awe of him, and is for sure fascinated by him, and is desperate to know what makes the sky tick. Smith is back now, and you've been told to keep a tight eye on him. Yesterday, the blacksmith came and locked it up like you've never seen before. Chains, shackles, cups. He looks afright, and you can't imagine what it would feel like to be bound
like that. Last night they had to call the locksmith back to shorten the chains after he tried to wrap the ones he had around his neck. Suddenly you hear a commotion. It's Smith, for sure, and he's shouting chains rattle. Smith calls out Bible verses in between screeches and moans. He's off his rocker, you think to yourself as you run to the cell. He's in the cell, bashing his hand against the walls, slamming the chain into the bricks. With a clink, the chain snaps, Smith stops and you
stare at each other in silence. The broken link clatters to the ground. You tell Smith to stay right there while you shout down the hall for someone to get the blacksmith again. You're thankful for the four other chains that hold Smith there against his will. Although no one would get hurt if he escaped again, just Sheriff bates his pride in your career. You walk into the cell and you sit on the floor beside Smith. His hands and ankles are bloody. He has a crazed look in
his eye. You've seen that before. Once you were walking in the woods with your father and you came upon a wolf with its leg caught in a trap. The wolf snarled at you, but its eyes showed deep terror. You asked your dad if he was going to shoot the wolf put it out of his misery. He assessed the beautiful beast's leg from afar and determine it was something that could heal if it were free. He got
a big stick and approached the wolf. The wolf lashed out and snarled some more, but its eyes just showed desperation. Your father was able to ledge the stick into the trap and free the wolf. It sprinted away from you without a second glance, no limp or yelp. As pained as it was, it wasn't interested in hurting you. It just wanted to be free, even if it meant to die in the woods on its own terms. That's what
you see as you look into Henry Smith's eyes. He is raving, he is shouting, he is quoting the Bible and flailing against his shackles. But his eyes showed terror. He just wants to be free. You go to the corner of the cell and you get a wet rag from a bucket. You softly wipe the blood from his arms, from his neck. He writhes against you, but you can see in his eyes that he knows you mean him no harm and you don't fear him. You have nothing
but compassion for him. Society and circumstance have driven him to this state, just like the wolf. So Smith's horse theft trial kicked off May eighteen fifty.
That was beautiful. I mean, I gotta say honestly, normally they're pretty darn funny, but that one was beautiful. I loved my father.
The wolf, Oh, I.
Was deep, and the snow I was there, Yes, I was there.
And then I had.
Compassion for my fellow human. I mean, it's just amazing.
But threw a lot together.
I'm a better person. That was a journey.
He is human. So Smith's horse Trial, Yes, May eighteen fifteen, He gets brought into the per's dock for trial, and he kept up this wild behavior. He like, rip it his shirt and snap his fingers.
Like I've waited on people like that before. I have had vibe.
Yeah so, and he like At one point he kicked at the wooden railing until they had to bring leg irons and bind him up again, just flailing around. The prosecutor was Attorney General Wetmore, the guy whose dinner party guests said their coat still totally. I will not recuse your honor. I have a personal interest in this. I don't think they had an insanity defense.
Then that's what I was just about asking when that comes.
I don't know, and I was too lazy to look it up.
I don't really know if they even would acknowledge it. It's the same thing we recognized it as.
Then I looked it up and I wondered to myself today did they have it? And I thought, should you look it up? And I thought, yeah I should. Am I going to know?
You know what?
Who knows? Who cares? If you want to find it out, there's Google exactly exactly, said.
Burnett, typing, okay, is it the cheese?
So but the lawyer, he's like, I've got it. He points out that when Smith was arrested, he wasn't on the horse. He was just so there's no way to prove possession. He's just near it. It seems like a sound argument worked out exactly. So it went to the jury and they discussed it for two hours, and then they came back guilty and they him to be hanged. Damn right. So Attorney General Wetmore he asked for a report on Smith's state of mind and behavior before he
could set a date for the execution. Not the century to be stealing horses, No, and so Bates he goes to Smith's cell to try to talk to him about the whole situation. But apparently Bates said quote he paid no attention, patted his hands, saying and acted the fool as usual.
Bits is real hard after all the time. To him, he plays.
And he's just slapping himself. In what were to be his final days, he made a bunch of puppets using fabric from his clothes, puppets straw from his bedding, and then he called them his family man. He would put on puppet shows for the staff or like any visitors, that would come in.
Did he marry one of them because.
He's very and then he was, oh, my wife. So by August things are looking bleak that they're looking and then they weren't. His lawyer had been working around the clock to save him and it worked. He was pardoned. He was crazy, but maistrate was like, yeah, they were like, look at this behavior. He does not know anything about what's going on.
So they would rather feed him than put him in the rope.
Yeah, I suppose.
I just don't understand it. That type of morality sometimes, like what you're gonna punish him this way? Like keep him alive.
They took pity on him and compassion. Bates goes to Smith in the cell and is like, homie, you've been pardoned. Smith doesn't understand or care. He's just like what he said something about wanting potatoes for dinner. So one condition and they're not going to actually have to pay for his upkeep, because one condition of the release was that he had to get the h double hockey sticks out of wondering about someone else's.
Go be crazy down in Newfoundland.
Yeah, to go to the United States. They got a lot of you guys down there, so baits Bates was sad to see him. Bates is like, we've spent a year together. Of course I feel bad really like Bates is like trying so hard to connect with him that he can't. So he buys Smith a whole brand new outfit, like a first day of school outfit, and buys him a ticket on a ship headed for Nova Scotia. Wow, and like he mumbles and shuffles. Smith mumbles and shuffles, and he looks all dazed as he gets on the boat.
And like Bates stands there and watches the boat sail away with his little wounded wolf on board, and I'm sure he is like a hanky. So the boat docks in Nova Scotia, and Smith made like Kaiser, so say, and lost the limp on his way off the boat walked off a fully seen man.
Oh yeah, I was Kaiser.
When straighten up, it straightens out at Nova Scotia. The act worked. He weaseled his way to Yeah. A few years went by. He really is willing to commit long, long game every time.
Incredible.
He a few years later, he's going by the name William Newman. He gets arrested in new Haven, Connecticut for stealing jewelry silver. Oh yeah, he's like stealing from innkeepers at this point. And then he worked the oh my side is killing me con there for a bit, but like striking out with that gambit. He then decided to saw his way through the cell door. He gets recaptured.
He was convicted of burglary at trial and he got three years of hard labor and investigators discovered his previous identity and contacted Sheriff Bates, and Bates rushed, Yeah, he goes down there. Bates goes to his cell and Smith acts like he's never seen Baits before in his life. Wow, He's like, who are you?
Would you love to see like Matt Damon and Philip Seymour Hoffman play that same right, I know we can't get that.
But would oh god? Yeah. So Bates he's baffled, but he's like a little crushed and so after doing devastated. So he you know, Smith does his time and he gets sort of lost in the shuffle. He's hard to track in this era, but that didn't stop Bates. He spent the rest of his days trying to track Smith down. He said that he could connect Smith to thefts in
Boston New York, Connecticut, Ontario, Canada. Bates heard about a preacher named Henry Hopkins in the South who got arrested in eighteen twenty seven and was sentenced to seven years in prison. He was sure that that was Smith, but he couldn't make it down there, and he wasn't able to physically confirm it. But basically, any time there was a report of a clever thief, Bates was like, it's Smith. It's my boy, It's there. He goes, there's that beautiful boy.
I want to buy him another suit, and Smith sous eye. Smith so captivating him that Bates joined the Ridiculous Crime Book Club, and he really a corker of all time. Called The Mysterious Stranger, or Memoirs of the Noted Henry Moore Smith Guess what.
You're Getting for your Birthday?
It was published in Connecticut, then it gets republished in England. The Halifax newspaper, The Acadian Recorder.
A great Acadian paper.
Serialized it in eighteen seventeen and they sold the book for a shilling a copy. And The Mysterious Stranger had seven printings.
I bet it did.
The last one was in It appeared in nineteen twelve. That was one hundred years after Smith.
Got to a chin of money.
Christ's Cloud Story certified hit. The combined sales at that time topped forty thousand copies.
Oh yeah, I can make this.
That's a lot even today.
Yeah, you can make this into a movie. And how immediately a new.
Edition of it was published in nineteen seventy nine. Wow. So. At the end of The Mysterious Stranger, Bates wrote, quote, in all the adventures, we are not called upon to witness any acts of violence and blood. And it is perhaps owing to the absence of this repulsive trait, that we do not behold him in a more relentless light. So basically, he didn't hurt nobody. Yeah, yeah, so, and that's what makes him a ridiculous criminal, perfect, ridiculous, totally.
The only person you heard was Baits, really, my man, Bait? Yeah, yes, he just bruised it repeatedly.
What's your ridiculous takeaway? Oh man?
I okay, I gotta admit I think we should dip our toes more into the Canadian waters because some of those crimes up there are just so filled with a bizarre passion. You know, it's like it's not like that. I don't. I'm not trying to like fall into like the oh it's the Great White North and they're cold
and lonely. But I think they're cold and lonely up there in the Great White North, Elizabeth, because we always hear that these stories of like couples going across the country, people being committed to like in Canada is always he's very big and grand and long lasting and like this guy commits to the bit. There's something about it that has like a Texas quality of bigger than life, but but but the old but humble. You know, it's like a humble and kind version of the we're bigger than
life but Canada. So anyway, that's mine. What's yours? Elizabeth? What's your ridiculous takeaway? Thank you for asking of course every time you know why I got your back.
For once you asked me. I I'm just into the long game of it all, Like I think, if you're gonna do it, commit like wow, And that's that's putting a lot of trust in your your your long game.
Totally and that all things would go out but work out your benefit. Also, he didn't take the moment to like when the boat's pulling away to break then and kind of wave because then someone could chase the boat down. He waited until the boat got to the next nation. Then he's like, Okay, I think I'm free.
I respect that. I know you too. All right, that's what I have. Oh oh you know what we do need I talk about?
Oh yeah, when you queue that up?
Oh my god, I want.
Heyes, Erin and Elizabeth. I wanted to update you on something totally ridiculous going on on the internet right now. If you need any industrial glarade glycine, uh dong Hua gene Long is your man. You see, there is a manufacturer of industrial grade glycine in China that made a TikTok advertising their product and it has gone absolutely viral. And I think that's ridiculous.
Okay, okay, I don't have the TikTok no, but glycine.
That is this is I like that someone can go viral pushing glycine.
I know, right.
That's now I want to know what that.
Is ridiculous, that is certified. I gotta find the video. Don't send us the video, the interns will find it.
Video.
That's all I have for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com. You can find us on social media, but not TikTok. Do you have TikTok?
I'm trying to get rid of all of them, one at a time. One or two I think I've gotten I think I still have accounts, but I only look at like.
Yeah, I don't have the TikTok. Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, but most importantly, leave us a talk back on the iHeart app reach out BIBBI. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Traveling Shackle salesman Dave Cousten. Research is by Horse Borrower, Marissa Brown and Horse A Jason Andrea song Sharpened Hear. The theme song is by Fired prison guards Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by
Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andrea. Executive producers are Coatless Dinner guests Ben Boleen and Noel Brown.
Disquime Say It One More Times Crime. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,