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Elizabeth Dunton. Hey, Saron, I missed you.
I missed you too. I've been great.
Okay, I got a question for you. Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you know what's ridiculous?
I do? I knew you would Ikea bags?
They are ridiculous.
Nice, I love them.
You want more?
Yeah? I have a bunch of Ikea bags, very handy. Yeah.
Do you know that they make like really cool new bags like backpacks and other types of stuff out of them. People will take them and they've converted them. I saw them at a flea market.
Oh really, Oh cool. So you know I do a lot of mashups, and so think of the iconic Ikea bag.
What if I don't if id and you.
Just think about two iconic paintings.
Okay, you've got me. Unfortunately, go on, hold on.
Hold on this just in This is not a mashup. What this is? This is an update. This is a Ridiculous Crime update.
Oh hell yeah.
Okay, So you know how I was. You're so relieved. So remember I told you about the Van Go Van painting that was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum. Yeah, the parsonage garden. It's been recovered. The Laughing Boys and that's that still hasn't been recovered, right, But the parsonage is back. Baby. There's a Dutch art sleuth. His name is Arthur Brand and he like had this unnamed contact. They met up. Dude gave him a Ikia bag with something wrapped in an old pillow case and inside the
van go whoa, And so it's it. It's the real one. It's basically you can track it down to that Nil's m the guy that I told you about. We pretty much knew he did it, and so yeah, right, I was right here it is. They they still have to go through like you know, all these you know, looking it over and double and triple checking and what have you. They're going to hand it over to the museum soon. But yeah, so it's been recovered. We got that news. The first person got it from a bunch of people.
But the first person did let us know, is Mary Tarantino on Instagram. You Mary looking looking out So yeah, that's ridiculous.
If you got a second, do you have a second? Are you in the mood to hear something ridiculous?
Because I got one for you, girl, I am Yeah.
Okay, imagine two hundred and ninety nine rare tropical.
Birds, Okay, all in one room.
Exactly, and now they're all covered in bright plumage. It's a rainbow of feathers, just a riot of color. Now imagine these birds and their feathers are on display in a British museum.
I can see that.
Okay, right, totally fitting. Now, Next, try to imagine the twenty two year old American who would steal those rare bird feathers.
Oh.
Now, last, try to picture that same young American man who's in your imagination as he sells the stolen rare bird feathers on the black market in order to make a small fortune so that he could buy a golden flute.
Is this a Hans Christian?
And this is ridiculous crime? A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's all with ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous ridiculous. All right, Elizabeth, I have an extra wild one for you today.
I'm so glad I need it.
Nice that shot.
In the arm.
Okay, I got a lift for you. This story has a little bit of everything. He's got rare birds. It's got British naturalists, he's got one of the wealthiest men in the world. It's got an American music lover. He's got a thing for golden flutes. Sign me up, right, Okay, let's just take an element by element first, one rare birds.
Yeah right.
You know how it's not easy to save nature from the ever rushing onslaught of humanity. I hate to have that job. Enter the naturalist. That's pretty much their job, right. I mean, this is also the reason why we have zoos and zoo keepers, same reason, right, and nature preserves open the last resort naturalist museums, because if we can't save the animal from disappearing from the natural world, at least we can still look at it behind glass, at
memories right there it was. Now, can you imagine what must feel like to be a modern naturalist like today? I mean, they live a good life on one level, right, Like they get a scrabble over rocks, they get to climb around ravines, they're clambering up boreal footpaths. They have a great life in that they're stalking across meadow hill and dale just to see an animal.
I mean, how awesome is that it's pretty good job. That's a good job for you, but it does sound like a job for me.
Honestly, I don't think I could be one of them, and I just want to be as a I told I was one of the kids. I want to be a marine biologist, right, I was that kid?
Dude? How many marine biologists are there in the world, because I think every person in like fifth and sixth grade, Yes, it was HiT's on marine biologist. But then it continues. Then you got people all the way into how many are there?
Three thousand, two hundred and eighty four.
Okay, good to know, Yeah, ok question, probably have better odds of being an MLB Baseball player than being a marine, but has no idea. I know you made that up, and I love you for that.
I'm sure that you know it's close.
Yeah, let's just say. I'm just going to go out here on the limb and say it. You have a better chance of becoming a professional athlete than a marine biologists.
Wow, that's just kind of humbling, don't you think? I think? Maybe?
Right, I don't know, I know, I'm right.
Well, if you're a naturalist these days, you know you're living through the anthroposscene mega extinction event. Yeah, right, so you're documenting. Yeah, that's fun for you as a naturalist. Now I found this one guy's a naturalist. I was doing research for this story. Right. I find him. He's down there in Mexico trying to track down a rare bird. Right.
What he was all about was the Imperial woodpecker. Now, this is a huge, two foot tall striking bird, right, with majestic plumage, has this really bright red crop on top of its head, right, and it's believed to be extinct or nearing extinction.
They don't really know two foot tall woodpeckers, yeah.
And the mountains of Mexico, and it was it's circling in the drain of life on earth right now. Right, So this naturalist tramps out into the wilderness. He's just to find the last imperial woodpecker. He's convinced there's been spottings. So what does he find, Elizabeth. He doesn't find the bird. Instead, he finds a truck driver. Now this truck driver, yeah, real close. He was a little bit taller than two feet, but he had seen the Imperial woodpecker. He'd been crossing
the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains down in Mexico. That mountainous region is the home to the presumed last remaining Imperial woodpeckers. So this truck driver he spots one. So when he saw that brightly plumage bird perch on the Durango pine tree branch high above him, it's the truck driver gazes up at her right there resting feet that red feather crop. I told you about catching the sunlight. He slowly pulled out a gun and shot the woodpecker. Get then he
ate it. The truck driver told the naturalists this story of his Imperial woodpecker encounter. He added that the bird was on the car, which are in American English. This says the bird was a one great piece of meat. So his truck driver's meal may have been the last Imperial woodpecker we'll ever see.
But what kind of gun did he shoot? It was?
I didn't. That was not in any of the stories.
So I'm thinking, like, that's not a big bird, and you're going to do a lot of damn.
I think like a twenty two rifle, something that a truck driver would have in their trucks.
Anyway, I mean, I know you're hungry.
But come on to tell a hungry man not to eat.
Yeah, but of all the birds he doesn't know he's liked. Well, that one's the easiest to see.
It was just right near him. He figures out it's in the trees. You know, we got plenty of birds. Now, this more naturalist listening to this story of the truck, he's just losing. He's been dying to see this bird. Right, it's possibly the last imperial woodpecker. And now this guy they could be extend like we still don't know. We still haven't seen one since this truck driver. Yeah, oh, the life of the modern naturalist. But let's talk about the lucky ones, the ones that got to quote, discover
everything and go around naming everything. The eighteenth and nineteenth century naturalists, right, you know some of the big names, Carlneis, John James Audubon, Alexander von Humboldt, and al.
Wallace, the greats, all the greats.
Yeah. Well that last guy, that's just what Paul Simon and I call him. We call him al Oh god hinterned. Nineteenth century British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace. Hey. Now, Wallace was a collector, extraordinariy. He dreamed of gathering up from nature a storehouse and cataloging at all like a library of Mother Nature. That's what he wanted, the greatest hits of mothers, Nature's greatest works, but all of them really now the scientists. He thought, I can put this collection
together for the benefit of all humanity. That's how this cat talked to He's like all humanity, that's what I'm doing this for now. He's super high mind, did very noble view of himself and what he aimed to do. But he was also very effective. Now, when I say very effective, I mean like, after one trip down to the Melee Archipelago that is at now Malaysia and Indonesia, Wallace walked out of the jungles after harvesting get this, one hundred and twenty five thousand specimens.
So he doesn't wait until they just the great Creator takes him.
No, no, no no.
For guys, anthology is the hand of God.
Harvesting. Yes, So primarily he was gathering up butterflies, beetles, birds. Now, Elizabeth, you may be wondering, Saren, why did he need one hundred and twenty five thousand specimens? Why basically in the wings of a butterfly, Wallace saw world peace.
Oh God, I told you, you're trying to give me a headache.
Nineteenth century. Yeah. So there's this book called Beauty Obsession and the Natural History Heist of the Century. It's by this author, Kirk Wallace Johnson. And in his book he documents in great detail the story that I'm about to tell you, and I will be quoting some of various interviews he gave hyping his book. And in his book The Writer Kirk Johnson, he concluded that the naturalist Wallace believed that nature had written and I quote letters in
the volume of the Earth's Deep History. And if we allow these things to disappear, we're essentially blinding ourselves to these records. So real, high minded language. Right, it's a heavy trip, but it got dude, ain't wrong, right. I'm a big believer in biomimicry. You know this. I fully agree with al. I mean, like, yeah, we gotta look at nature as our place, not as something we exploit.
Sure.
Anyway, this naturalist ol Wallace, he goes tramp on off to the South Pacific to study nature and birds and whatnot. As I told you, for one of our big early trips, he went down to the Melee Archipelago. While he was there, he collected all these creatures he found undud you know, fascinating or pretty or whatever. He ends up writing some papers for science journals. He's particularly smitten with the birds
of Paradise. You know, the birds of Paradise. Really okay, so those are his birds, not the flower, the bird obviously he loves it right. In one paper that was published in eighteen fifty five, Wallace wrote that quote, every species has come into existence coincident, both in space and time, with pre existing closely allied species. So basically what he had concluded is that each species came into being through
a divergence with apparent species. And this natural progression, if you or if you prefer this evolution, was how new animals came into being. In other words, he came up with Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest on his own, and three or four years before Darwin published it. So he sent his ideas to Darwin in eighteen fifty eight. Yes, and Darwin was so struck by them and how similar they were to his own ideas, which he had been
developing independently. That he showed, you know, he showed his buddies Wallace's ideas, right, and he was like, look, homies, look what this cat came up with. Do I need to be worried about this? And his buddies, right, Darwin's close homies. They're also scientists, right, So once a geologist and other dudes a botanist. Now they considered this question earnest and they come back to Darwin and they're like, look, my dude, d we got to be straight up with
you about this. This guy he's got all the same stuff as you. So we're thinking this, it's better to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And he's like, ooh, Darwin's like, my geez, I like that, that's what's up. I'm going to do that. So I'm going to invite him to publish a piece with me in my journal, but I'll position it so that my ideas are up front and his ideas are just like further confirmation of mine. Think that'll play. They're like, that's what's up.
Right, So, and that is what was up.
And that's what was up, Elizabeth. That was the move. So Darwin, he does exactly that. He publishes his landmark book on the Origin of Species very next year, eighteen fifty nine, a year after Wallace's entem his work. So now to seal the deal for his scientific fame, Darwin came up with a presentation that featured extracts from his work, two previous books of his, and some of Wallace's papers. So then he presents them to the Linnaean Society, which
is basically the leading naturalist organization of the day. He's now backseatd his brother forever. Right, So the paper that Darwin presents and publishes is called on the Tendency of Species to form varieties, and on the Perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection. Quite a banger, sure, yeah right, it has it's his name, right, just just liquid words, right, But Wallace's name is on the paper, so it was Darwin's. But everyone still treats it like
it's Darwin's paper. So boom, Darwin and seals the deal in the science community, and we all know it now as Darwin's theory of evolution. Wallace gets sidetracked for all times. Sorry, now right now, Darwin, he was a little decent about this he made sure that Wallace won a couple awards.
He gets some medals, and also when later when Wallace was aged and poor because he did not get the scientific glory, Darwin also made sure you know that Wallace is watching himself be lost to history while he's still alive. Darwin got him a stipend of funds to live on, so he was decent in that regard. But anyway, that's pretty much how gangster Darwin iced out this guy Wallace. So what about Wallace? Like, why should we not cry for Wallace.
Argentina, don't cry for him because.
His story isn't over, Elizabeth. He later on became buddy buddy with one of the richest men in the world. Yeah, who offered him his entire naturalist collection and create a great museum to display at all. That was a good outcome.
Right, Okay.
However, he wasn't the only one in England who zealously coveted the feathers of rare tropical birds, so that led to a negative outcome, which was okay. There was this fashion trend going on the time, bright tropical feathers that these guys in these naturalists have been collecting. Suddenly became all the rage in eighteen seventies London society, right, anyone who was anyone had to have some eye catching plumage, something to decorate their high hat. Basically, the ladies of
London were like pimps. They needed all the feathers they could get. They're like, give them to me, right, So the fashion training creates a crime wave because they need a black market to supply the ladies with the feathers that they're willing to pay top dollar for. Us his crime wave right and fashion trend synergy. It leads to a creation of a network of feather getters m HM and boom. Unscrupulous Europeans come rushing into the South Pacific
following Wallace, taking the same birds he's trying to take. Right, they're taking him in such large numbers. They're just scouring the jungles for rare feathers that are now basically worth more than gold. That there are so many feather hunters, and they resulted in a mass slaughter that was nicknamed by the press at the time the slaughter of the Innocence.
That's how many birds they were taking, right. The wanton bird killing got so bloody, so brutal that they eventually animal rights activists, they didn't have that name with the ti time. They formed the first early animal conservation societies just to stop the feather trade. So this effort leads to legislation in the UK. The UK bans the feather trade entirely. Right. So now these same groups would go on to form animal rights and conservation groups that we
know of. This was their first success, really, right, your people, Elizabeth, So we don't have.
A lot of these birds anymore. So that Henrietta Baxter Chonkington could walk down the street.
And look super flea and incredible, yes exactly, so she could feel some kind of way.
Well, it's also like, you know, it's not new to have the beautiful feathers and items like the Chinese Kingfisher headdress, which are now in bits and pieces all over Western gift shops in like China, Chinatown.
Yeah, you have.
Broken up into Vancouver to which is so heartbreaking that you know.
Anyway, So the thing is is that the eighteen seventies allowed them to be able to get at an industrial scale and harvest all this stuff. As before pe have been getting it. They just couldn't go take steamships down there and gingle tramping off and everything they could, much like the gold Rush. Just imagine it for feathers. Yeah right, yeah, okay, Well next up in our next element, the richest man in the world. But first let's take a break and we'll be back in two and two. All right, Elizabeth,
we're back. I got more nuts for you. Yeah ready, Enter Lord lionel Walter Rothschild, the second Baron Rothschild. Is he an you could say so? I mean, I'm not. I'm not. I just meant the story itself. I got I got a whole bag of nuts.
I thought you had a bunch of bozos for me to learn about.
I do that too. I got a I got a hole. I got a bag of nuts and a bucket load of bozos. This guy, he was the son of the first Baron Rothschild aka Nathan, and his father was a Nate magnate you know who he was. Father was an international financier. This man, he'd founded the banking fortune that we all still influences our world today. Right. His boy, lionel Or Walter, as he was known to the fam and to history, was the eldest of three kids. So that means he stood in line to inherit everything and
become the next sigh On and so forth. But he was kind of a delicate boy. So because of his rather porcelain nature, he was homeschooled. And then that's where he came up with his true life's ambition, which was not running the family's banking empire. Instead, like Matt Damon, he would buy a zoo.
Does he have soft hands?
No, he was a big dude. He's like six y three and all that. Oh no, yeah, he had definitely soft like butter soft hands, damp hands, moist, clammy hands. Yes, I imagine that. So being the son of fabulous wealthies, I'm building a zoo and he can build a zoo, So a tremendousuo fabulous zoo. He would have everything. And you know he because as I said, he's a you know, child of wealth and privilege. He doesn't have to give
up this seven year old's dream. He can make it actually happen, right, he has to wade out his family's resistance to it. So eventually the family they buy him the zoo, but not till he was forty years old. By then, he had made it clear to everybody and in every possible way that he had no head for finance.
And so Daddy says, I want a zoo exactly.
Daddy's like, Okay, give him the goddamn zoo. So they bought him the zoo. Now, Walter he builds a zoo right there on the family homes property at Tring Park. And that's got to be fun. Like, you're one of the richest men in the world. You live above the lion cage that your son has created. You're like when the wind shifts and you're like, we're gonna have to change rooms, guys. So Walter Roschau he starts collecting animals. He's like, this is like having a job, right. So,
but he's good to his word. His aim is to become like Moses two point zero, just without the flood, right. So he starts collecting everything butterflies. Mosah, what I say, Moses, I'm sorry, Noah, come with me animals And then sorry, You're right, Noah, not Moses.
I was trying to save you from like.
The Instagram comments when I have like yeah flub yeah, So thank you.
I appreciate that I spend my life trying to avoid those.
Yeah, clearly I do not corrections.
You know again keep swimming.
But anyway, I like that about you. Yeah, good looking at huh, you know I'm back. So butterflies, moths, lizards, rabbits, squirrels, tigers, kangaroos, giraffes, you name it. He wants them in London, right, He's like, what do you got? I'll take two. So you've likely actually seen an image of this guy. You wouldn't think, you know, Baron rothschildt off of site, but I'd be
willing to bet you you've seen him. He's the British cat who used to drive around Victorian and later Edwardian England in a carriage pulled by a team of zebras. You ever seeing the photo of a team of zebras, perhaps, well, he had this team of floor zebras and they'd pull his coach to like Buckingham Palace, and there's all these pictures of that, you know, which is kind of striking. But there's also images of him riding zebras like he's a British cowboy, which are just kind of silly. And
he was real big on domesticating zebras. For some reason, he bred them. He crossbred them with horse says he called the resulting creature he created a zebroid. So anyway, due to his aforementioned delicate constitution, Old Walter Rothschild, he didn't leave the UK much, not as much as he would like to. He couldn't go on the adventures that he craved. So instead, what did he do?
Elizabeth brings everyone to a very incompatible climate.
Yes, and he hires teams of men to bring him the world. He hires all these hunters, he sends them out into the wilderness of the world to collect samples from everything from his animal wish list. Right, so he paid also roomfuls of taxidermists to prepare his collection, because remember talking in the thousands for these animals, he had librarians and scientists on his payroll. He had paid a team of naturalists to organize and label his collections. He's
like a one man industry. Eventually, Walter Rothschild he had two hundred thousand bird eggs in his collection, ten one hundred thousand.
Think of the storage space exactly.
Just moving him around, and you had to label them all anyway, and these.
Are just like unfertilized bird egg.
Yeah, just like imagine like an Ostrich museum, just but all the eggs. So he had thirty thousand beatles. He had two million, two hundred and fifty thousand butterflies. It was the largest private collection in the world at the time by far, and thanks to my man Al Wallace's collection, he also had three hundred thousand rare birds to display eighty one hundred thousand. Yes. So in eighteen ninety two he opens up his family's private parking museum collection to
the public. It becomes a wonder of its age. The crowds love it. But just to make this long story short, in nineteen thirty two, he gets blackmailed by a mistress and he loses the zoo. So it wait plays out like this. She was the third mistress to blackmail one. Right, So this guy his first mistress had found out about his second mistress and both of them were furious because it turns out he had met his first two mistresses at the exact same party. It was a hell of
a swanky affair hosted by King Edward the seventh. So Walter rothschild. He starts canodling with Bogrim at the time. Then they find out all hell.
Breaks these are mistresses, so he has one.
He's not married, he's unmarried.
Oh, they are just girlfriends.
Yes, but they're called mistresses and all the press because at no point intending to marry them. They're not. Clearly, you're not taking them.
I don't think they use the term girlfriend at the time.
No, but they're not girlfriends because he's not planning on marryland. There's no future.
Fellows have a girlfriend, they have no intention of murder.
Yeah, we're just little more delicate. I guess these days started calling girlfriends. They're mistress. Oh this is your mistress. No, I'm not married. I know I know somebody.
We all know where be real, honey, don't get your hopes.
So eventually threats get made by these two mistresses. Now remember I said that, Uh, he's Walter's kind of delicate. Well, his brother, his younger brother, has to step in and settle the royaling embarrassment to the family. He bribes both women with land and money for them to go away. So then now unmarried Walter rothschild. He finds himself a new mistress to blackmail.
This man can like dip his wick all over the place, but he can't settle up, like.
Come on, he's yeah, delicata. He doesn't deal with people like he doesn't like game.
Thing you tell me about this man makes me loathe him more and more.
Just wait. So his mistress of decades, she eventually blackmailed him. He has a mistress he's with for four decades, the same one during all of this, right, but she was married, so she's married. He's not her husband and her conspire to start blackmailing them. They blackmailed him for the four decades. They just work them.
They blackmailed him.
For four decades, and at the very end they're like, we need to cash out. So they cash out at the casino and they go, we're gonna go big man. He's like, oh, come on, guys, and they make him sell his bird collection to pay off their ransom. So he has to sell it off. He sells the Tring Museum. He sells the museum and then on his death it goes and gets transferred to the crown and the people of the UK.
The magnitude of like the maronitude in this we were like, he has three hundred thousand birds. I'm like, my mind exposed. He was blackmailed for four decades.
And then he loses it to this married couple that've been working there for He loses his whole collection. Right the museum goes to the UK. It gets called in nineteen thirty seven the Natural History Museum at Train. Now in two thousand and nine, some random twenty something American breaks into this museum, rifles through the collection and steals the long prize fortune of Wallace and Rothschild and you know the affair couple. This all the ultra rare birds.
This thief, what is he after? Elizabeth Feathers us say yes so even talking rare bird Feathers British naturalists, one of the wealthiest men in the world. Before I introduce you to the criminal today, I do need to tell you one more thing. You ready? You ever tie a fly?
Oh like fishing fly?
Yes? Good call. Yeah, I mean someone tried.
To teach me in the past and I go, oh, yeah, totally, you've seen it done. I've seen it done. Actually my father used to tie them.
You used tod type fly. Okay, there you go. It turns out there's another group in this story who also covet rare bird feathers. The dudes and Dudets who tie flies for fly fishing. They like to use the feathers for all sorts of imitations of nature designed a trick fish into thinking it's a flying insect. Right, So the New York Times they once documented this salmon fly fishing expert dude tie his own flies. He ties flies professionally for others. He's a master tie flyer or fly tire anyway,
whichever the case may be. His name is Paul Schmuckl, and this cat Paul Schmukel. He was quoted in a nineteen ninety profile wherein he tells the Paper of Record that quote, we will use up to one hundred and fifty different materials, ranging from polar bear and mink fur to the feathers of wild turkeys, golden and reeves, pheasants, the African speckled buzzard, and the Brazilian blue chatterer. I'm sorry, that's just a fun list to say. I don't get it.
How often do you say the Brazilian blue chatterer.
Well, it seems like they're like, you know, wild turkeys, they're all over the place, and we got him walking.
All over the African speckled buzzard.
Polar bears like please tell me you just went and snipped a little off the side.
You didn't. I'm hoping he went to the zoo. He's like, do you guys just cleaned up? Like sleep up?
Trying to get disappointed in fly fisher people, just we I always admired it because it's a very contemplative activity. And not only just in the tying of the flies.
I've been where a river runs through it.
Exactly. You just stand there, just a little quiet, keeping yourself.
Imitating legs, like imitating imagine.
That people are yes, and I take every opportunity to say someone's peeing their pants.
Yes, that's good anyway.
But yeah, I know it's very contemplative and I appreciate that. But now that they're just as craven and disgusting, Oh yeah, they're all breaking my main credo in life, which is let wild be wild. I like your main that's my big thing, Let wild be wild.
You have a Mary Oliver, I'm telling it. You always about it.
Love her. But yeah, like, come on, guys.
Well you're gonna hate this next part. Chief among the chosen natural materials of these fly fishermen is rare bird feathers, right, and they are integral to a number of different fly what they call recipes that you'll find in all these manuals that are available. But get this, Elizabeth, most of the flies these folks tie, they never actually get used for fly fishing. So at this point they're just it's it's a whole art of tie.
They're in a shadow box on someone's walls exactly.
So these ties are works of art. These beauties create. They never touch water. I mean, would you throw Van gos Storry night into a rushing creek, Elizabeth, No, you would not.
I needed to teach a man to fish.
So these flies also at this point they can cost thousands of dollars. Would you throw thousands of dollars into a rocky bottom stream, Elizabeth? You would not. Anyway, you probably would also anywhere whole festivals dedicated just to tying flies, not to fishing, right, just to tying.
Probably find festivals dedicated to pretty much.
Yeah, it's kind of rule thirty four. On the Internet, people either gather or yeah anyway, So there are conventions, there are meetups, There are groups rife with folks who are all they all covet the feather, right, yeah, especially birds, And just like remember those Victorian feather hunters of the past. They also kind of get into a craze and a mania out of this all, right now, So naturally these folks will pay high dollar for these rare feathers that
they desire. Like addicts or junkies or funko pop collectors. They're willing to ruin their lives in pursuit of rare bird feathers. Yeah, and you know what that means, Elizabeth, that means crime. So meet Edwin Risk. Yes, two year old American floutist and fly.
Tying and daddiest on top of it all.
Dude was born in New York City. Later his family moved upstate to Hudson Valley area. That's where he was homeschooled. At a rage around ten years old, young ed Woim's home. He's sitting there, he's, you know, schooling it up. He sees a video about tying flies. He starts watching. A kid is in fraud, right, He's he's also he's watch he wants him to watch another video and another one. He got no friends and he's got nothing to do, and so he's hooked. He runs around his home gathering
up all these materials. He immediately begins imitating what he's watching on the screen. He ties his very first fly. That moment, moment changes the entire course of his life. That one fly tying video did he happen to see? Is wild? Like a one random us have those.
One moments exactly, you know, change the course of everything.
I think every kink is based on that one moment. No, I mean, seriously, how much of a life anyway, So his obsession with tie flying it grabs hold of him. He starts focusing on trout flies as a kid. No, trout flies, they're kind of easy for a kid to tie because they're supposed to look like an ugly insect and not like a beautiful yeah may fly or something.
So it's supposed to look like a bug. Right, So he's able to do those and he starts to learn as young and when risks, he starts learning all the techniques, the history of tie flying. He spreads his own little wings. He begins to compete. He travels to fly tying contests one and two states away, mostly in New England. Right, and at a convention, he sees someone who's tying salmon flies.
This is like Gwernica to his young eyes. He's like, oh so young boy, thighs are now drawn to all this bright, strange, rare bird feathers that this person used for this salmon fly. And there he asks, and he finds out there were twelve different types of bird feathers used for just this one salmon fly. They're all delicately wrapped and braided around the eyelid of the fish hook. And he stares long and hard at this salmon fly right the colors, and he just transfix them. It's like
a magic spell gets cast. He just has to be about this to pare for his Netchere, Elizabeth, he stared into the salmon fly, and the salmon flies stared into him. Now evan to risk, he's got a new obsession, right, so he books lessons with masters of salmon fly tying. Turns out this kid's a natural. He had a god given gift for making imitation insects out of bird feathers and some mink fur or whatever. Rights having to drive
like all around these different states. Let's go get you those fly like you can't watch them, Like when you have a kid who's like good at gymnastics, at least you can watch some fun stuff.
You're like, oh, oh, man, I would take driving around to fly tying over a gymnastics meet any day.
Okay, well that's the difference between you and I. Jim's stink, the competition, the action, there's something going on instead of like get out the ziplock turkey bag and find that really feather.
Yeah, I would go for the feather thing.
Yeah. Anyway, so guys, this is not a huge surprise that this guy's good. Had all of this to be, I said, he's a natural. I remember also this, I said, he is a floutest. He was a virtuos too floutest. This kid Edwin is like he could play a tune on a flute to make a grown man cry. I mean he's like as a kid. Apparently he also could play metallic on his flute. I mean he was just about it, right.
I like to hear all of those. I like how high minded his games and activities. Kind of like a sixty year old man in a child wants to tie flies and he wants to play the floor.
Yeah, and you know from Metallica.
Yeah, hey, he's ste year old man.
It makes you believe in reincarnation. Anyway, as I said, he's got to get for artistic expressions. His obsession with time flies continues to hold over him. There's one problem, though. If vund Wrist wants to recreate the recipes he's finding in these nineteenth centuries masters of tie flyings recipe books, he would need the materials that they had. Super rare materials, the sort of materials that are now illegal to purchase laws would not stop him. Elizabeth, he had flies to tie.
Years later, he moves to England. He finds himself not far from one of the greatest collections of rare bird feathers known to humanity. The idea of us come to him one day. He was just like, you know, I must break into the British National History Museum. So he decides he's going to steal Lord Rothschild's display of Wallace's rare birds, and if he was successful, he would sell the feathers to all of his fellow fly tying officionados. He would free the feathers, because you know, that's what
he was really after, Elizabeth. He wanted to buy himself that solid gold flute. So he's planning a move in these feathers.
So are these birds actually on display?
Taxidermy birds.
They're not just in the storerooms.
Taxidermy birds on display, last case, his cabinets, the whole bit. Sometimes feathers like attached to a wing.
Because I'm trying to decide how mad I get because I'm thinking, like, if they're just in a storage space and no one can see them, well, maybe they get repurposed and people can see it because they're not using these for actual fly fishing. They're for display purposes. Wait, oh my goodness.
So he is now next to the greatest temptation that you could possibly conceive for this kid, the Natural History Museum at Tring. They're in South Kensington, Soliz, Yes, can you feel them, just like the anticipation, the anxiety this kid must have, like, how can I get those feathers? Huh? I want you to stay right there with that feeling, cause we're gonna take a break afterwards. We're gonna bust into that museum. Yeah all right, Elizabeth, Yes, you're ready
to bust into this baby. We're gonna free some feathers. Okay. Now, this museum, it boasted, the is at this point the second largest ornithological collection on the planet. I think the Smithsonian has passed it or the Naturalisty Museum in New York. I cannot remember. I did not look up what was number one. But it was criminally unguarded or underguarded. Yeah, it did have guards, but it was a rather easy target, even for an amateur cat burglar. So Edwin brist he
does it the smart way. He cases the joint. He visits the museum pretending to be a student photographer. That gives him cover, right, so he's able to photograph everything. He takes photos of all the cases, the cabinets, every rare bird he wants to on his shopping list. He of course, you know, he takes photos of the entrances, the exists, all the info he'd need for his eventual break in plan right for the next seven or eight months, He creates his master plan, and like you, he created
a word document. He titled it Plan for a Museum Invasion. Yes, in the document, he typed out his shopping list of burglary tools and birds he wanted, and his wish list, you know, just everything that could go right. And he keeps visiting the Tring Museum working on his plan. We're working up the nerve. One day he feels good to go. He's like, all my ducks are in a row. So finally, on a fateful summer day in June, edwind Wrist sets his hest plan into motion. It was the night of
June twenty third, two thousand and nine. Edwind Wrist scheduled to perform in a concert in London. He brought his flute with him. He turned that concert hall out. Then he took a train up to Tring Park. That I discovered his estimated to be about a forty five minute long train. Right, Okay, I haven't taken it. I don't know. Don't jump on me if I'm wrong. Yeah, But whatever it is, I do know this, Elizabeth. I'm not gonna
just tell you about that night. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to picture as a close You are a Victorian era ghost, yes I am. You haunt the former home of the Baron Rothschild. You were one of the Rothschild's domestic servants, but you died in a tragic hunting accident. So now you stalk the grounds of Trink Park, specifically the spot where you were shot, which happens to be the Natural History Museum at Tring. It's nighttime you're doing your thing, haunting the hallways of
the museum. You hear a noise. You float directly through the brick walls of the building and pass through into the alley that runs behind the museum. You spy a young man dragging a suitcase behind him. You watch as he climbs up the backside of the museum. He cuts the barbed wire meant to keep someone like him out. With one good snip, the barbed wire springs away with the tension of the wires. The young man climbs up
to a window. He goes up with his suitcase. Once he's situated, he pulls out a diamond tip glass cutter. You watch with curious relish. He tries to use the glass cutter like you see in a movie, like a cat burglar would do, or to his mind, like a superspied James Bond guy would do. But the glass cutter he bought online doesn't work. It fails him in that critical moment, so you float over closer to see what he's up to. He doesn't sense you, though. Instead he
hops back down to the ground. He pulls a loose brick, then he climbs back up and smashes the glass of the window. Then he reaches in. He opens the window, swings it open, shoves his luggage into the window. The suitcase lands inside the museum with a leathery slap. Meanwhile, you float there wondering if you have a new roommate in the museum. You float back through the brick wall and catch up with a cat burglar. You watch him as he quietly opens the glass faced cabinets and cases.
They barely creak with noise. Then he shoves Taxi dermy bird after Taxi dermy bird into his suitcase. You know there's a security guard working that night. You saw him earlier, a droll fellow of little imagination. He's not even worth haunting, but you know he's there. Later on, that same security guard will say that an alarm did go off that night, but in a different one of the six gallery of the museum. But you, you are here, you know what
really happened. As best as you can count. The young man steals two hundred and ninety nine rare birds from the collection. Then he exits the same way he came in. It just takes him a second or two to shove his suitcase back through the open window and like that he's gone. So Edwin Risk gets away with it.
He successfully steals three birds, a suitcase.
Full of birds. So I don't know, like why that worked for him, that was his first big bus, but it works. So the amateur cat burglar. He goes to a train station. His plan is then could take the last train back to London. But he took so long shopping for birds. He was like, you know those grocery store shopping spree TV shows. Now was him in the museum, right, It's bird after bird in the suitcase. He's dragging it around, more birds, more birds, takes he gets so many birds.
When he gets to the train station, he's missed the last train. So what's he gonna do now? Now he's sitting there with basically about a million dollars worth of birds in a suitcase at a train station somewhere in the like suburbs of London. So he sits there at a train station, all by himself, just a few miles away from the museum. He's just burgled. And uh, luckily though he's not in a part of England where someone would think to steal his suitcase. That's the only thing that works out for him.
Right, they'd be disappointed, dude, the flute player.
Right, imagine you steal suitcase. It's kind of heavy. You think elders is coming here, get home. It's just a bunch of tropical dead birds.
No, not my suitcase. There's a million dollars with the stuff in there. You're like, oh yeah, what kind of money?
Python sketch him I in anyway, the dude, he's safely this, this flute player safely spends the night in the train station. No cops come up to him, No strangers walk up and say his full name at him, No one punks him for his suitcase. He makes it all the way to dawn, He catches the first morning train, makes it back to London. He goes back to you know his place. Now. It's the next day, June twenty four to two thousand and nine. Police are called out to the Natural History Museum.
Governort has been a break in. It's a train right. The staffed and administrators of the train museum are on it. The quickly tabulate Elizabeth the damage and lost items. Doesn't take them long. Not coincidentally, it was all male birds that were stolen. Why is that?
Aren't they the showier one.
Yes, he's not some kind of bird sexiest. Turns out that in the bird world, magnificent plumage and regal feathers are the male's domain, right They females, they get the show, they get to decide. So the juvenile males, though, they are too young for all that, so they're still drab looking like the females. So this guy on his wish list a bunch of male birds with bright feathers. Right, so the birds he took, right, these you haven't asked me, So I'm just going to tell you.
I was waiting. I think give me an accounting of what the flute tutor took.
There you are they rare katangas, the oh not the rare yes, rare katangas, and the quetzals from South America.
Yeah, that's new social media.
Bower birds from New Guinea.
Oh, now, there's so much good footage of birds building their collections of Yeah, it's fantastic.
Now the Indian crows and the ever striking birds of Paradise previously mentioned, also from New Guinea. He collected a bunch of them. He's all about the tropical birds, and all of them had been collected by al my Man al Wallace back in the nineteenth century. So these birds are irreplaceable, right, Yeah. The then director of science at the museum, Richard Lane, he tells the press quote, these birds are extremely scarce. They are scarce in collections, even
more scarce in the wild. Our utmost priority is working with police to return these specimens to the national collection so that they can be used by future generations of scientists. Kind of a dusty statement. Yeah, To put it in perspective, the collection was three hundred and fifty years old, the specimens had been taken. This is basically you know, these birds are literally priceless, like they The museum's collection represented ninety five percent of all known living species of birds,
and he's just rifling through it. So he's damaging some, taking others. Anyway, Oh my god, nothing else they had been stolen except for these tropical birds. So the police are baffled. The Interdetective Inspector Fraser Wiley, this is a very unusual crime and we are keen to recover the bird skins, which are part of a national heritage. Because the British keep calling them birds skins because they're taxidermied birds, there's no bones inside, yeah, exact. So the police asked
the pub look for help or assistance that they can provide. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, and by the ranch, I mean student housing at the Royal Academy of Music. Cut to the rare bird feathers, all right, stolen by this random twenty two year old American from the Hudson Valley. So, dude, Edwin wrist Right, what's he doing at this point in his little weird criminal fairy tale that he's living in where he's gonna trade bird feathers for a golden flute?
Does he have a roommate?
No, he doesn't have a roommates. Yeah, right, But like, why a golden flute? I'm so glad you asked to lose.
I was wondering why a golden I look this up.
Golden flutes or gold flutes, they are a thing. There's apparently some benefit to buying and playing a solid gold flute. So so it's not just solid gold. Yeah, So, to quote the instrument maker Suzuki, gold lends a special glitter to a flute, and the lustrous tombre of a gold flute has an unerring, far reaching carry even when the
instrument is played pianissimo. It's allure probably makes it the last word in flutes, so he wants that last word, right, So how much would the last word and flutes cost?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I look this up for you. They range between twenty five thousand and one hundred grand.
Wow. And it's not just to be flashy.
No, there's also solid platinum flutes. They're even more expensive, which makes no sense because I can't imagine solid platinum sounds better than gold AND's gold like atomically makes more sense as a perfect element.
But whatever, Well, people love the platinum.
I know it just seems like you get platinum because it's pretentious, not because he's going to do anything music. But whatever, what do I know? I'm not a floutist. So the time of the theft, Edwin Rist was twenty years old. Now it's fifteen months later, he's twenty two years old. I know you're wondering, how could that be. It's because we missed a birthday or two.
We missed two birthdays.
Right, So he's studying flute at the London Royal Academy of Music. Did he have his golden flute? Well, he was trying to get that amount saved up. Right after he'd successfully robbed the train museum, he took all they told you, the two hundred and ninety nine bird skins. He starts processing them. He's clipping off the identification tags, decoupling the birds from all that inventory, like that indexing system. So all the scientific research is now null and void.
And when he went to where he could sell bird feathers on the black market, he knew where he could find and connect with what I'm going to call the feather underground. So that's my generalized nickname for the modern feather hunters, collectors, dealers. Did anyone who buys, sells, or covets rare bird feathers? Elizabeth?
Well?
Anyway, this black market, the feather underground, primarily it's composed of fly tying fishermen.
Yeah.
Yeah, the folks who desired the brightly colored tropical feathers, they were the ones who paid top dollars, so they really moved the market, right, So they are also willing to pay on something that's either extinct or endangered or stolen or why not two of three? Yeah, So Edwin the now twenty two year old flute virtuoso. He's studying at the London Royal Academy of Music, so real, like, you know, congrats to his parents. Yeah, he spends his
nights tying flies made from his stolen bird feathers. And get this, Elizabeth, you were to drop Edwin in a stream with a rod and some flies, he'd have no idea what to do. He doesn't know how to fly fish. He's never been fly fishing. He doesn't fly. He doesn't fish period. Right, apparently this is very common for expert tie flyers or fly tires rather, especially amongst the salmon
fly tying community. Anyway, so no fishing, Edwin. He's down there spending all of his night's tying flies, and it's tossing him into large ziplock bags. He crammed ziplock bags filled with thousands of flies that he ties in this twelve or fifteen month period.
Right.
So, anyway, kids, who's sitting down that day happened to see a fly tying video has now shaped his life. Or he's sitting there alone in London tying flies every night, dreaming of his golden flute. Right, and he's plucking feathers from this rare bird collection and so he does this for more than a year. I said, he's plucking, he's tye in, he's plucking some more. Edwin's sitting there alone. Boom. It was like, also, I forgot to mention when he's
not doing that, he's ritualistically playing flute. So he's just either playing flute because he's you know, virtuoso, or he's tying flies. That's all he's doing. He's just obsessed, all right. So he stuffs multiple ziplock bags filled with thousands of delicate salmon flies. He manages to sell some online mini In fact, he makes money, a bunch of money for sure. And now where do you think he was selling these stolen feathers? I told you who you're selling them to
and in the feather underground. But where do you think that?
Where do you think he found geographically?
We'tre's go with where? Online?
eBay?
Yes, he was selling them on eBay. He was just listing and selling the rare bird feathers all out in the open as whole skins or tide flies on eBay, also in fly tying forums. It worked for a while. He was able to he found four buyers. He moved about seventeen thousand dollars worth of bird skins and flies. Then things went awry. Someone got suspicious, someone went to the police. They reported him. Didn't take long for the bobbies to find him because he hadn't hidden his IP address.
He's just using eBay, so they just went right to his student housing apartment. Knock, knock, knock. He gets arrested November twelve, twenty ten. When the police search his apartment, what do they find? They find one hundred and seventy four of the two hundred and ninety nine stolen birds. They're like, how many ties have you been tying?
Man?
So up about one hundred and seventy four. Only one hundred and two were still tagged and labeled. The remaining seventy two weren't there. Just all out. The museum puts out a request and they asked in anyone who bought one of his stolen birds please return them. No questions asked, We just really want the birds, bask Can you guess how many of these outstanding birds were sent back?
I'm gonna say zero nineteen, oh wow, which calculates out to be six percent of the missing birds from the Train Museum.
So they got six. Yeah, so there's a few good people or maybe one who bought a lot, I don't know. Nineteen So anyway, guys, with the number of birds that were returned into flies and stuffed into zip lock bags, can we guess how many that was? The police estimated it as sixty four birds returned into flies.
Sixty birds birds.
Yeah, So he gets arrested, interrogated, and because he's not a hardened criminal, Edwin Wrist he confesses to everything and that just leaves his trial now because he is me right. So his defense attorney, admittedly though, just still wanted to fight something. He doesn't have much to work with, but he still decides to try to like get something. So the defense attorney works his butt off and the dude's sharp.
He argued that his client, Edwin Risk, engaged in impulsive and amateurish actions, to be sure, in a vain attempt at living out his James Bond fantasies. Blah blah blah. Then the attorney he argued that his client had spent a few weeks, just to me, a few weeks planning this job, and he was a boy playing at cat burglar. The lawyer tried to downplay the value of the stolen rare bird Feather's what science can be done with three
hundred and fifty year old feathers? Right? So Risk, at some point he's like really proud of his lawyer for just going after the court. Right. He tells Kirk Johnson, the author of the book, quote, my lawyer said, let's face it, the tring is a dusty old dump, and he was exactly right. What Yeah, so they just go on the attack. Right.
So he's got James Bond. Yeah, there's nothing, says James Bond, more than tying flies and playing the flute by yourself.
To break a window.
Very James Bond, Yeah, exactly, it's just one Bond woman after another.
He just needs a Bond woman and then boom birds. Oh wow. So his lawyer, rather solicitor, argued in court that the purported scientific value of the feather had been lost to the dustiness of the tring. Right, and Risk tells the court all the scientific data that can be extracted from the skins it has been extracted. So Risk is on the attack right now. Remember this dude's an amateur bird lover, no scientist, just a flute player. But
he's out there talking about scientific value. Anyway, prosecution, they countery story. They go after him and they show that Eben Risk has been planning his burglary for fifteen months. They showed that he contacted the museum by posing to someone else in emails. Then there was his purchase record. They showed in the months or the month rather before they break in, Van Rist bought a glass cutter. Then they showed the box of moth balls that he bought.
Then also he bought, oh, by the way, fifteen hundred ziplock bags. So finally he also bought a lock I'm guessing a padlock that he planned to secure his door with because he had his you know, fortune and rare bird feathers he wanted to secure and he didn't want some punk twenty two year old to come along and steel his feather forteen Yeah, So as the scientific value of the stolen bird skins and rare bird feathers, the
collection had been used for climate research. So these feathers from seabirds had been documented a rise in heavy metal pollutants. They used it to prove the DDT was on the rise. Basically, some real science was done. The naturalists. My man al Wallace. He would have been happy about that. Yeah, probably, you know, much happier than at Lisa's collection being turned into flies. Anyway, So Edwin Risks, he pleads guilty on charges of burglary
money laundering. Then comes sentencing oh Man. Sentencing, the defense attorney introduced their star expert witness as psychologists who happened to be Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin. So yeah, so they have this psychologists evaluate Edwind Risk, and Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin convinces the court that's a lot of seas that Edwin Rist had Asperger syndrome and his James Bond fantasies. He's got him carried away, and believe it or not, the court goes for it. They sentenced Edwin Risk to
time served in a fine. He's out free. As for the Asperger syndrome diagnosis, Elizabeth, Yeah, the author Kirk Johnson called him out on it. He asked Edwin Risk point blank about this diagnosis and the only interview this dude has done this, you know, about the burglary. Kirk Johnson recalled, and I quote, around the five or six hour mark of my interview with Edwin I said, I don't want to sound like a jerk, and I'm not an expert in it. You don't seem like you have asked Bergers.
You're not avoiding eye contact. You're clearly reading the subtext of my questions. I'm paraphrasing what he told me that he became what he needed to become during that phase in his life, that he'd never had any issues with eye contact before since, but that all of a sudden he couldn't look in people's eyes, started rocking back and forth and hiked his voice up in octave. To me,
it was clear that he had gained the system. He never spent a night in jail, graduated from the Royal Academy, and today plays the flute with orchestras throughout Germany, albeit under a different name. Now, wow, he did have to pay one hundred and twenty five and one hundred and fifty pounds. That's how much he made in total once they tabulated it all from selling rare birds on eBay and the fly fishing forums, a lot of money. And then also his fine was thirteen thousand, three hundred and
seventy one pounds. He had to pay that in six months time, or else he'd have to turn himself in for his totally restored twelve months sentence, and he'd had to do the full twelve months. Of course he paid the fine. Yeah, served no time. But did he get that golden flute? Did he get what he was after, Elizabeth? No, he didn't enough rare birds to buy his golden float, thank god. But that said, if you check YouTube, which I did, you can find him jamming out on what
looks like a golden flute. But I don't know. I'm not a golden floutist. I do know this, Elizabeth. He has a new name, and unlike the author, I'll tell you what it is. His new name is Edwin Reinhardt and he has that YouTube Jamli told you about where if you want, you can find him playing his heavy metal flute rendition of Metallica's Master of Puppets. He pulls the strings baby, yeah right, So go to at heavy metal flute on YouTube. There are five videos on his page.
One is of a Game of Thrones theme song cover. There's a Lord of the Rings cover. I think it's a misty mountain cold yeah, but he's not very active there. The last video he posted was five years ago, so don't expect new content. So Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous takeaway after all of that?
That wild be wild? That's my takeaway, you know, I mean, that's like I can see if you're sort of scavenging things that in nature that have already passed and don't have that like you're saying the scientific value. I mean, once these guys have in the past stolen all the birds, we can't go back and unsteal and then kill the
birds today. Like if you're building these these flies first of all, to be a poser and not actually know how to fly fish, Like, wouldn't you need to know somehow, like how you would anticipate them sort of dancing on.
The decontextualize it to the point that it is its own standalone elements.
That's idiotic. But like I mean, I used to have a in my house, a mantle piece that I called my mantle Piece of Curiosities. It's just all stuff that I found like on walks and like you know, dead dragonflies and like feathers, girl skulls. Yeah yeah, but you know those are the kinds of things like cool shells, and but it's always something that you take and you're not damaging your environment to take.
It away, and you're just acting as an animal.
Yeah exactly, but.
Much like a bower bird, you're just it was my power.
Let wild be wild.
Well, my ridiculus take away once again, and thank you for asking I anyway, I'll just tell it to you. Unlike most of the burglars would get away with it. I don't like this cat.
Yeah, no, I don't like him because he.
Steals birds and he stole science and he didn't he didn't steal it from money or for diamonds. If he would have stole money of diamonds, would have been cool with it, like I would have had no problem. But he stole science, he stole birds, and I'm just ain't cool with it. I don't know.
My instinct is like whack, he blew it. Man. He could have been like every parent's dream of, like a kid who just like does really well and has these great you know, and then he goes off to a music conservatory school, Like come on, I don't like him.
Well that's all I got for you.
As always like it.
Find us ever after online, ridiculous Crime, Twitter, Instagram, sometimes the Reds. I don't know, We have a website, Ridiculous Crime dot com. That's fun. We also like your talkbacks on the iHeart app. We listened to those. We dig those We drive around the car listening to him bumping them. Make the neighbors listen to him anyway. He emails if you want Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. As always, type You're Elizabeth and write your email YEP, thanks for listening,
See you next Crime. Hidko's Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Brunette, produced and edited by the seventh Baron of Houston, Dave Couston. Researches by Marissa do Not Give Me a cute Royalty Name Brown and Andrea Samesey's for Me song sharpened here. Our theme song is by Thomas, the fourth Duke of Lee and Travis the sixth and one third Earl of Dutton. The host wardrobe provided by Bonny five hundred. Executive producers are Ben of Paradise Bowlin
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