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Zi.
What Elizabeth?
How you doing?
I'm doing pretty well about you? How are you doing? You look good?
Hanging in there, hanging in there?
Listen. You know it's ridiculous.
Oh girl, I'm glad you asked because I asked you. Now, this is ridiculous, right, yes, it is?
What is it?
American elections like this one is? It's ridiculous. It's not like painful tragic. Is the Florida Senate District fifteen special election?
Okay?
So Florida Senate like the local state Senate, sure right, They have a District six fifteen special election on Tuesday, June twenty fourth, right, right now. The people running are replacing a longtime state senator after she passed. Okay. The person who initially announced was named Randolph Bracy.
Yeah.
And then his leading opponent then announced and it was his sister, Lavon Bracy. His sister decided to go against him, and then his mother was there. People are like, well, this is got to be breaking up with the family. She's like, no, I'm going to run my daughter's campaign. So his mother's running his sister's campaign to beat him. It's awesome, and it's like he was like, you know, since he announced first. When his sister announced, he was like,
it was disappointing a little hurtful. And people were like, well are you why are you doing? And they asked her lavon the sister. She says, I'm not, you know, running against any of them. I'm running for the people of Senate District fifteen.
Yeah.
So and the mom was like, you know, you can see why the mom supports her, And I think, uh, I don't know who wins, but I think she's got the advantage because if you if the people here in the local like mom took come.
On, no, your mom's size was you They're like the family hears he's running, it's like we have to do it camp, bringing a team up to absolutely.
She was like, I don't know if they had like a super pack for this Florida State Senate that's all the campaign adds would be about.
That's incredible, and you know what it is ridiculous, ridiculous exactly. You know what else is ridiculous? Consu So, I don't know, this is ridiculous crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free and one h ridiculous. I know you've done I've done her that so many times. We've really delved into the mind of the con artist before. Yes, and there's like
a certain psychology that allows people to manipulate others. What I find really interesting, because I'm the one talking right now, is that there are certain blueprints, like classic structures for the cons and they get used over and over and over again.
Oh okay, yes, like there's con tropes, yes exactly, and so we talk about them in rather quick succession and like the grand scheme of things here, but it never ceases to amaze me the people who fall for the oldest scams in the book.
Oh yeah, you know, and I think that's where like the magnetic personality comes in, right, tru con artists.
Yeah, and they get you too distracted from your reasonable mind.
Yes, yes, because like the con artist overrides all logic and self preservation in the mark in order for like the scheme to really kick it in that momentary gain, and people who are otherwise smart and savvy, they'll fall victims totally.
The smartest possible can fall victims.
And we've said it before that, like a lot of wealthy and or powerful victims, they never come forward because they're embarrassed. So that makes me wonder how many con stories are out there that will never know?
How many drops are in the ocean, Elizabeth, this is.
A really good question. Thank you Elizabeth for asking that. The ones you know, they say, they stay secret, they skirt the law. They've got to be going on right now if you're out.
There, I'm running three four right now the same and.
The situation that you're in mirrors the con stories we tell. Get help Yea.
By the way, I'm not actually a Turkish shrimp merchant. You're not, so if you hear anyone asking about that, just to go.
Fronting your operation for so long. The problem is when a Turkish shrimp merchant comes to you, like it feels like you're in it, and it feels unique to you, and like you tell yourself all these lies in order to have the good story and feel good about this Turkish shrimp merchant.
That's exactly because like.
Dashing comes in and it's like yeah, and so like you know, you see this on various advice subreddits, like when people are so deep into a story they don't
get it. Yeah, Like someone posts about their partner or their spouse or like boyfriend girlfriend and they're like, oh, we have this great relationship except for just this one thing the art room, and no, this is no They'll they'll say, away, this great relationship, there's just one thing, and then they'll detail what sounds like an actual nightmare
of being stuck with his total loser. So like a lot of times a poster finally sees the truth after having written and oh, I saw it in writing or I said it out loud, Others like have to have the red flags pointed to it to him.
So like someone's like.
My husband's really great except for the fact that he like pouts and refuses to eat whenever I make something he's not in the mood for for dinner, and like, yeah, he controls the finances so I can't buy other food. Oh yeah, he also throws the food in the trash and kicks the doors, and he's always like saying really rude things to me and calls me stupid idiot. But we have a great relationships other than that. Yeah, So like those are the.
Three times a day when I feed.
Him, Those are the kind of everyday people who fall for scams, whether it be financial or romantic.
That's the stories you tell yourself exactly.
I'm not victim blaming here, no, No, it's always easy to judge from the sidelines because you don't know how you'll react.
We're all susceptible to this dynamic completely.
So anyway, I need to shift gears for a second, Sarah, let's talk about Edwardy in Britain.
That's quite the downs, Yeah, it is. I like to keep you on your toes totally.
Okay. So this was the period of time from the death of Queen Victoria nineteen o one to like beginning of World War one.
Yeah, the beginning of the nineteen hundreds.
Yeah, very short era, but it had these lasting effects and like people are still captivated, especially with the Coats. Well, it was all about conspicuous consumption and like crazy class stratification. So it's like that this glittering surface, but there's a rigid hierarchy outward. Respectability was a big thing, and so the newspapers at the time were filled with stories of like debutantes, extravagant weddings, heiresses coming into vast.
Yes, look at their special children.
Them and then all the middle class like shopkeepers, bankers, they wanted in on it, not that they could ever achieve it. I'm buying a suit, yeah, but they wanted to be in the orbit of total so they would like fall over themselves to cater to those whims, right, because they wanted long term paye you know, like they'll break for security. Yeah. So meanwhile, there are women of means who did this very like careful dance of social maneuvering.
And so they had the right clothes, their accent was correct, they had the family pedigree, and everything was networking so that the rich stuck together and they'd cut each other a lot of slack. And so then into this world a gal named Violet Charlesworth.
Floated, Wait, what was her name?
Violet Charlesworth.
You know that one of my best friends in life is named charles Worth. They grew up across the street from charles.
Worth, the Charlesworth family.
Yeah, and we used to talk about how rare that name is, like he has to be related to he has.
To be so we're going to have to do a deep dog.
Oh, this one's for you, Jese to Jay.
So she exploited the swells with this astonishing audacity.
I love this.
Yeah, so Jay, I'll be proud love for him, So Violet. She was born May Charlesworth in eighteen eighty four in Stratford Shure, England. She had three older siblings, her mom Miriam, her dad David. He was an insurance agent and a modest like lower.
Local class merchant.
Insurance. I don't know, yeah, so just like every day kind of stuff. But then I've also, here's the problem with this whole thing. For every fact, they're like alternate facts that get finding the truth in. This is difficult on stupid stuff like what's her dad's name? What did he do?
David?
Yeah, it's like he was Richard and he was a tailor. No, he was David, the insurance.
Guy, Taylor insurance guy.
He was like yeah. So violence early years totally average for just a working class kid. By in her teenage years, she was known locally for her beauty, like she has really lovely dark eyes, she had an appealing figure, and she had a gift for conversation. She had it all and so she and her mother they were very, very close. She's the baby and sometimes in like later press reports, they called it unwholesomely dependent.
Oh yeah, so there was that kind of a great gardens thing.
Yeah, yeah, missus Charlesworth. She reinforced Violet's belief that she was destined for high society if you are worth more than this. Yeah. So in nineteen oh seven, Violet, her mom, her dad, her eighteen year old sister Eileen, and then a chauffeur named Watts who sometimes now people think that might have been Violet's husband. Okay, yeah, rolled into a town called Real on the north coast of Wales. It was like a pretty nice seaside resort town back then.
After the chauffeur, I couldn't find anything about this supposedly being the husband, aside from I found this book about like the history of Real, Okay, so there's just like a side note about yeah. And then Violet Charlesworth came rolling through here and it's just but yeah, I was like, oh that's interesting anyway. So they're living at this manor house bod erw Yeah, and so like you, I think
you can actually stay there now. So but she like they captivated and she quickly becomes like this local fashion icon in town, and she toodled around in these super fancy cars, like the nicest ones in the day. She wore this really eye catching red motor cloak. Motorcloak, why are we not all wearing motor cloaks.
I do like all the early cars being convertibles because they're coming out of coaches and wagons and stuff, and so they're like, oh, yeah, of course we'll save money by not putting a top on. It used to that you to need a motor She.
Always had her dogs in the car with her fun I bet she had a cool scarf game. She must have. She must have. So Miriam and Violet, the mom and the daughter, they concocted this backstory that she would then use to infiltrate the upper class. So violence mom people to believe that Violet was the god daughter of General Gordon of Khartum. Oh, that sounds believable, and everyone knew
who he was. He'd been killed in action in eighteen eighty five while defending Khartum from rebel Muslims in Sudan Ah, So he served in Pembrokeshire early in his career, so it kind of made sense that he had like the real in the area. So she has this famous godfather and what's better, she had a one hundred thousand pounds inheritance from him coming to her on her twenty fifth birthday.
That's like fourteen million dollars today. We've seen this before, like people will spot the con artist cash because they truly believe the con artist is about to come into some serious money, and the con has convinced the mark. Look, I'm totally good for it. I'll pay you back double, maybe trouble sometimes because like I'm so honorable, I'm such a good.
I really appreciate you looking out for me now when I don't have it special.
To me because I don't know about you. But I don't lend my like I'll give someone money and be pleasantly surprised when they pay it back, but I always assume I'm never going to see it again.
Do you tell them though, No? No, I mean, like, okay, so you lend them and you go through the active lending, sure, and you just think of it as like like I have to.
Be okay with partying with that amount permanently.
So you do kind of believe it'll come back, but you just don't expect it.
Most of the time, I don't expect it okay, like otherwise, no dice, Like if I can't afford to just let it go, then like forget it.
I just put the sharks on them. If they don't pay me back, the sharks are coming.
I'm gonna be honest with you. Yeah, people don't really ask me for money. Really, I don't have any.
Yeah, you don't hang out with it, but I hang out with people who are poor. And they were like, hey, man, as we take turns barring for each other.
The people of real though, they were fascinated by Violet. Everyone wanted to befriend this beautiful young heiress. So she starts up the con can you spot me? She has all these nice things, diamonds, cars for this manor house. So like you, you're good for it, and what a
person to have owing you a favor, Harris. So she collected money from like a number of suitors and dupes, and then she used like the gifts or the loans to speculate thousands of pounds on the stock exchange, and then she used that to purchase more of the trappings of her luxurious lifestyle.
Oh, I thought she was trying to make up the fourteen mills.
No, she's base but then she props up her con she looks the more she.
Can take and you need a new fer.
It was unusual at that time for a woman to invest in the stock market completely, and one of the money one of the money guys she worked with at the time, said that she had a quote masculine grasp of business compliment. One one of her victims was a former neighbor from before she moved to Wales. This widow named missus Smith. She loaned Violet four hundred pounds, which was pretty much all the money she had in the world, saved up over a life and Violet was like, look,
the money's gonna come back plus some. I just you know, got to turn twenty five.
Yeah, I just hope nothing happens to me in my twenty fourth year.
Another victim was doctor Edward Hughes Jones, and.
She come to Jones Jones.
She cozied up to him. They even became engaged to be married. Oh yeah, he asked her, asked her for her hand before he knew about the twenty five years old.
He really did like her.
Yeah, he really did. He liked her, Yeah, smitten. They were like going together. He liked her so much. That he loaned her five thousand pounds and she promised to pay it back as soon as she turned twenty five and then like today, that'd be like half a million dollars. Oh snap, make sweetheart, can you loan me that's.
More than that's an investment?
Yeah, but then he watches her just spend the money and other funds like water. The average wage at the time was like one pound a week. Oh wow, Violet was spending four thousand pounds a year. Oh yeah, she's just reckless. So he called off the wedding.
I'm going to say, people are going to find that offensive.
Sets there's absolutely no way like saddling with.
This totally, you're going to waste all my money.
You're beautiful, but you're toxic and so but he's like, ps, you still got to pay me back, like my cash, and she comes no surprise that she didn't pay him back, had no intention to do so. She also extorted ten thousand pounds from a London stockbroker and you know, so ten thousand pounds, Wow, it's a lot.
Now is using new suitors to get rid of old suitors, like tell him to go away.
She's like flitting around she's not just in will she goes to London Liverpool. Yeah, so they don't know about each.
Other, but if they do confront her, then she can have somebody perhaps, Oh, dare you go step away?
The lady is mine. So over the next three years, like she expands dramatically, and she had this like really sophisticated system where she had letters from fake lawyer that said that her fortune would be released, and she had references from people that she'd already deceived and used those to dupe the next group Ponzi style. She like would go to these local dances and charity teas and like reinforce this aura of status, like I have to go do all this charity work, always around, always at the
right places. One of the things she'd done was rent a country house near Inverness. It's beautiful up there. The property is like it was pure Highlands Monarch of the Glen stuff like Tartan everything. Wow, she's absolutely gaga over Scotland, but like chirsty version of Scotland. She bought bagpipes.
Yeah, she's like.
She wore traditional Highland dress and I was like, she had a player piano in the home.
What's that game? You run with the log and you try to flip it.
Caber tossing giant hot dog. She had this player piano only played Scottish music on an endless loop and wow, Scotland stuff in your head twenty four sevens. So about those docs.
And they did that in Abu Grabe. I mean that's kind of.
Keep in mind that, like at this time, identity documents totally rare, and there are no credit scores.
Oh yeah, it's hard to confirm. You have to have somebody to go. I know who they are, right.
So a letter that had like respectable letterhead, real or.
Forged, Yeah, exactly, good for credit line.
So by late nineteen oh eight, her scheme is beginning to unravel, Like merchants who had been promised repayment after her birthday realized that like months had gone by and they're like, wait, when is this Galsberd.
Yeah, anybody knows. They're like a big calendar in town.
So people are finding out it's like nineteen oh nine, January nineteen oh nine, she's gonna turn twenty five, and so some of them took out writs for unpaid debts, and like gossip starts to swirl in this upper middle class circles in Edinburgh, uh, London, Liverpool. She's resourceful, she just moves on. But then like the volume of unpaid obligations reached a scale that was just like absolutely impossible to avoid. Okay, and so she's up against all.
This spiders going to the home office, to the home office, but whatever it is.
Yeah, like the and they're all everyone's talking and pretty soon like someone's gonna file exactly, So they have all this pressure. Violet and her mom are like, Okay, we need to come up with a plan. They're desperate, but this this is so crazy. It just let's take a break. Oh, you got to sit through some ads first. Okay, there's some well, there are plenty more than when we come back, we're going to ask and answer the question. Will Violet ever turn twenty five?
Zaren Elizabeth.
Okay, we're in the final days of December nineteen oh eight, oh and.
Everyone's counting them down. Charles Christmas for everybody, Oh buddy Christmas.
She's cornered. She's got this elaborate web of credit that's collapsing.
Around, and is she preparing as cover like a big party for herself because she should be excited. No, she's just she should be like doing a debutante ball. She should be planning like the biggest fever.
But at this point she's like trying to keep her head down.
Yeah, she's like buying tickets America.
Everyone had been charmed by her elegance, you know, merchants and bankers. They're like, no, pay.
Me, yeah exactly, I want to be third in line.
And they're starting to get the real rumblings about court action, bankruptcy petitions. They're like following her from city to city. She's bound. Oh so she's creeping up on nineteen oh nine, the years she's going to turn twenty five. In desperation, Violet, her mother, her sister Eileen, and their chauffeur Watts a ka potentially her actual husband or somebody. They all head up to penn mine war In Uh this like village on the Welsh coast. It's known for its rugged cliffs
bracing sea air. They checked into the penn mine Wir Hotel on the pretext of like we just want to quiet New Year's holiday.
Everybody, Yeah, get away, pill forget about.
I like to use old fashioned Edwardian terms, the old terms, the old Chilaxations. It's I'm going to open a shop Chilaxations, and it's just always closed, like.
That popcorn kettle corn shop and the kettle corn shop.
There's a kettle corn shop in Oakland.
Yeah, it's never opened.
The holidays open, Yeah, two hours exact day.
Why I have a storefront for four days?
Not a lot of store for kettle corn.
I don't know another front. I'm suspicious, Yeah, I know I have.
I'm suspicious about my.
What mob Son fails onn Is this you used to have a kettle corn business?
Yes, exactly. Let's go break in, yeah, and then make an episode about her. Okay. So January second, nineteen oh nine, Violet got herself all dressed up for like a seaside walk. Okay, she's looking good. She had this gray walking suit on, like a dark hat. Pins had a pearl brooch, a broach. She's in a great moody.
Your family can dress.
She was telling people it's my birthday next week. And so she Watts and Eileen, the sister, they were like, let's go for a drive. Why not? Sounds fun?
Why not?
So they wanted to go to Colwan Bay, but the day was absolutely gorgeous, So they just kept going all the way to bangor okay, sure, I don't know what that means.
Just like like the old Bang, they did not go to me old Banger.
Old Banger and mash. So all the way back, Violet was like begging, wants please let me drive, and he's like, well, you know what, you're almost the birthday girl. You go right ahead, and he's like, I'll sit next to you, Eileen backseat. So they like toodled around all day and then they decided to head back and like about nine o'clock that night, tragedy strag Oh yes seven.
Yes, close, Oh, tragedy.
I want you to pickure it.
It's January second, nineteen oh nine, a cold, dark night. You are a sixteen year old boy. You're out for a stroll in the countryside with your dog, a Corgi named Kevin. Of course it's the Welsh spelling ce f i n what. You've worked hard all on your family's farm, and after dinner and arrest, you and Kevin want to take in the night air before you settle down for
the night. You're sensitive type, but you're strong confident. You're wise beyond your years, and your dog is super smart, and when no one's around he.
Talks to you.
As you crust a small rise, you see something in the distance. It's a woman in fancy clothes. She's obviously in distress. She runs up to you and breathlessly tells you there's been an accident. A car almost went off the cliff. She's on her way to the end to go get help. You tell her to head over there and ask for your dad. He's having a pint with his mates. Tell him to come quick, you say. You and Kevin run toward where she said the accident happens.
Your feet are swift on the ground. Kevin houffs along next to you, his little corky legs pumping away. He calls up to you in excitement. How bad do you think it is? You tell him it must be very bad. It sounds like the car left the road at the point everyone around calls the devil's thumb. It's where a jagged piece of rocks spikes up between the roadway and the cliff below the roiling Irish sea. Very bad, indeed, Kevin says. You both sprint on. You reach the roadway
and spot the car. The windshield has been smashed out and lies cracked on the ground. It looked as if the driver lost control of the car and swerved toward a narrow opening in the boundary wall and knock part of the wall down. Jumped through the gaps and came to a rest about eighteen inches from the edge of the cliff. On the ground by the edge of the road is a man in a chauffeur's outfit. You run to him. He's dazed but not bleeding. You ask what happened,
and he tells you he wasn't driving. The lady was the one I saw? You ask him, no, He says it was Violet. He tells you she was thrown from the car. The waves crash on the rocks below, but you see a flat outcropping. Wait here, you tell the man. Then you head for the cliff and begin to scramble down the slope. What are you doing, whispers Kevin. I need to see if I can save the lady. You answer, what's that? The chauffeur asks you, Uh, nothing, you say,
Then you start down the precipice. The water there's only a foot or so deep, and there's a steep drop off. After that, you wade into the shallows and you look around no body. You do find two things. There's one of those tartan Scottish caps, a tam O'Shanter, and then there's a journal. You flip through the pages, reading by the dim light of a full moon on the inside of the covert, says Violet Charlesworth. The pages are in a neat script, notes about road trips made to places
like Sheffield and Edinburgh. You hear someone call your name. It's your dad. He's returned with the other lady. The local police superintendent and a doctor. Get up here, son, your father shouts. You scramble back up the rocks. Anything the policeman ask you, You hand him the hat and the notebook. No sign of the lady, you tell him. He nods grimly. Kevin sits to the side of the scene, taking it all in. You sit on a low, smooth rock next to him. This whole thing is fishy, he
tells you. Oh, that's for sure, you respond. That driver, he tells you he was silent until everyone got here, then he started that moaning again. I don't trust any of them, you tell him. Then the two of you sit silently and ponder the scene, looking out at the moonlight on the rough sea beyond, watching the good people of your town do the best to find the body of a woman taken all too soon. Kevin, Kevin the corky.
What a tragedy on the eve of her birthday, where she's about to get great wealth. She's the only victim of a car, a single car accident, just the classic fell off the.
Clue, don't casket, it's why, God, God, where is your dark sense of humor taking?
Please? Kevin, tell me some answers here? So is there The initial story was that the car almost went over the cliff. Yeah, Violet gets thrown through the windshield into the water. Watts was also thrown thrown through the window. Yeah, that's what they're saying, is that she just burst through.
The top splash, just like that was That's.
What it sounded like. And then Watts he went, he fell through the windshield the same time, and then he went, oh yeah, he he almost went into the water, but he managed to land on the edge of.
The heped the earth. Yeah, she didn't have that.
Willpower, and she's just light as a feather and breezy and just carried on the wind. Aileen safe in the back seat. Yeah, Violet was presumed dead. Now they just had to find her body. So generally when there's this type of accident, the body washes up not too long after, as I've learned, a couple of days, a couple of days at most hers didn't show up.
I thought sharks and like you know, crabs would handle more.
The press was on it. It wasn't even a week after the accident and they were crying feul the Canarvin and Denby Harold. They brought the heat on January for real. Oh yeah, here's the headline. Mystery of the North Wales Coast ladies. Remarkable disappearance, wild rumors, strange stories, fresh clues. So good. The very long article begins quote it is difficult to know what to believe and what to write
about the pennmind mar Motoring mystery. The police offer no explanation of the disappearance of the young lady, and English journalists and photographers have visited the spot and played the part of amateur detectives to very little purpose. In fact, the more one penetrates into the affair, the more problematic the solution becomes. But let the story be related. Oh so I love they're bagging on journalists coming in from
England and playing amateur sleuth. But then they go on and dedicate an incredible number of column inches to playing amateur sleuth and quoting the English papers in their amateur sloothing.
Yeah, they're like, look, I'm going to amateur sloth. Don't get in the way.
Are all amateur sluic? That's okay, Yeah, it's okay, Let go into it. Okay. So the paper details what's known about the accident and how the family was informed, and they were all upset and they left for a home in Reel, but yet they didn't request a search of the water. They mentioned that a reporter from the Liverpool Post interviewed the doctor who said that Eileen and Watts were super upset but not really injured. Okay, And they try and go interview Violet's parents at the manor house
in Reel, but they refused to speak with anyone. Most of the people they talked to in the reporter him or herself say the car didn't really look like it was in that bad of an accident. In fact, a family friend came and drove it home for them.
But it was they hit the front of the car enough to be thrown through the windshield.
But there's no damage.
Works, yeah, and no commensary damage, and the radiator suddenly works.
One just started up driving, just missing a windshield or a windscreen. That's gonna say. So there's a lot of speculation in the article about the body. Where is it? How in the world does it not turned out you.
Got to be at least be willing to flip a cart. You're gonna pull this star.
And you were talking about how everything's a convertible, right, So they talk about how the cap was found, but it didn't add up because a woman out for a drive would securely pin such a hat to her head. It wouldn't fall off like that. Like this is early CSI going deep.
I like it.
And then here's the kicker. There's a section in the middle of the article with the subheading financial affairs. This is when we start to see it.
It's like a Wikipedia page.
Oh I know.
Quote. Thursday's post adds that Miss Violet Charlesworth was to have been the defendant at the Real County Court on the fifteenth of this month, and an action for the recovery of a sum of five hundred pounds in which she was indebted, and that a leading tradesman in the South of England obtained judgment in the High Court against the missing young lady for the sum of one hundred
and ninety four pounds. Inquiries by a correspondent of The Star show that during the last twelve months Miss Violet Charlesworth incurred liabilities running into several thousands of pounds, and that quite recently a London tradesman obtained a judgment against her in the County Court for a considerable sum. It goes on, they're talking about the trail, yeah, and so they also say that one of the tradesmen got telegram seven forty five pm Miss Violet Gordon Charlesworth killed in
motor accident near Conway on Saturday night. That's it. So they're like, you know, sorry, and they they're constantly just like summarizing what all these other papers say. So it's like, well that's you know, it's not us, it's doing this crazy slipping. It's them.
So they're all like pointing at the Daily Mail. Yeah, they're the ones.
Yeah.
So they talk about how like she leased a house, this big hall and she paid and she paid all these people to come and decorate it and they she never paid any of them. So basically she's in huge financial trouble. She also apparently had a big life insurance policy. Really huh, And but there was checked Oh yeah, there were sightings of her all across England into Scotland, Ireland.
With the disappearance back of the christ it was.
Similar, but like no one was buying the story. Everything was hanky. Kevin the Corgy totally correct. Kevin new in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool. Her creditors are like stunned by this because like some were thinking, well, you know, maybe the estate will pay the debts, you know, maybe it'll come through. But like the smart people they're like, this is all a big fraud.
There were no clear witnesses accident Philadelphia. Yeah, the local constables like they saw the where like the hat and the journal were found, and they're like, that's awfully convenient, like just to toss off the edge. It looked like it was placed there, like not really scattered about. Scotland Yards sent detectives to Wales and then there was a break in the case from a beautiful windswept town on
the west coast of Scotland. Let's take a break, fill up on some ads, and when we return will head to the highlands. All right, Saren Elizabeth Zaren, I'm over here. Hey, those ads were good. Huh oh my god, bottomless, bottomless ads so good.
All you can eat.
All you can take. January ninth, nineteen o nine, a telegraph arrived in Real Wales from a village near Oban on the Scottish West Coast.
Okay, I don't know where any of that is.
But seems like well to me. It seems like it'll get there. But the Scots they're not going to be the ones to have a wool pulled over their eyes.
Thank you very That's what I'm thinking.
So here's the Northern Daily Telegram at January eighteenth, nineteen oh nine, quote Miss Violet Charlesworth, the principal figure in the Welsh motorcar mystery, is reported to have been discovered in Oben, the tracing of her whereabouts being due to the clever work of a Scottish policeman with true Sherlock
Holmes instincts. He is stationed at Tomberbory, a remote fishing village with fifteen hundred inhabitants on the northeast coast of the Isle of Mull, which forms part of the County of Argyllshire and is only accessible by steamer A four hours run up the Sound of Mull from open and the story of his essay in real detective work is told in the following letter received by Superintendent Ivor Davies of the flintsher police. I would watch the heck app
on the Isle of Mull like love. Please BritBox Acorn, get on this. I need this.
So.
The letter goes on to detail that the cops saw this lady show up the small village and rent a room at one of the hotels there. He'd read about the crash in Whales. He was suspicious. I think this is Violet, he told the guy who ran the hotel keep an eye on her correspondence. The letter continues, quote she engaged rooms at a farmhouse near this town and was to have taken possession of this the same week.
While engaging these rooms, she asked the farmer's wife if she would be allowed to keep a Saint Bernard dog. She left here yesterday for Oben without paying her bill, saying she'd be back on Saturday. The hotel keeper kept some of her luggage. When she arrived at this hotel, she signed her name in the visitors book as Margaret MacLeod. After she left yesterday, the page was found to have
been cut out of the visitor's book. From the description of this lady and the finding of the telegram in her bedroom, I am fully convinced this is the missing Lady Motorist. Interesting now, the telegram in her bedroom was addressed to Violet Charlesworth. Exactly Lady Motorists. I'm the lady host, the lady host who needs to keep her opinions to herself. I'll never let that review. So anyway, the lady host, Lady Motorist and dear Violet telegram. Okay, So Violet, she
gets picked up at the Palace Hotel in Oben. So she's like, I want to rent a farmhouse on this island. It's beautiful. Can I have a Saint Bernard? But then she's like, I'll be right back, and then she just goes and picks up. I don't know, but I need to talk about how much I love open Please. I've been curious about beautiful. They make fabulous whiskey there. Oh it's the seafood Capital of Scotland, Zeron, is it really?
It really is? In putting together my outline for this story, on my little bullet points, I went on a big, open side quest and it just made me want to go back. I love I love it. If Scotland had more sunny days, I'd move back in a heartbeat. I bet it's really the only reason I left. I mean, I'm a California girl. I need sunshine. I go into seasonal effective destort her very easily. I wonder if they'll take me as an asylum seeker.
You know they have those sun visors. You can just like hook up on the SAT.
I could, I totally could, But I need like real global warming.
Yeah, exactly, it's stuff's moving, It's I don't make the sunlight's changing its latitude, but.
Whatever it might, who's to say, Zaren, I'm not a scientist.
I'm not either.
I just leave it to the experts.
So I just play one in my bedroom.
Your bedroom, sciences, yikes, Why did I put this in that?
And I drink it at the voltage no one can see me. I gotta make a note of my journey invisibility teachers.
Okay, So open Violet, She's going by miss Margaret McLeod and open. The cops come to her, she sticks to her story. They're like, we found this telegram addressed to Violet in your room. She's like, I don't know what that's about. Yeah, who's where am I? Where's my saint?
I'm Maggie McLeod, her sister and Watts.
They go to Glasgow, I mean, because like, hello, why wouldn't you And then they go up to Oben to verify that it's her. So Eileen sits with her, talks to her and goes to the authorities and is like that's not right. Gasps go up across the lands and that's awesome. Yeah, and like.
No one thinks to question the one that's coming in to confirm her, and she goes.
She's like, well, let me talk to her again. They go and have lunch. She goes, actually, like my sister. They kept this up for a few days. Like she and her sister, who she claimed not to know, went back to Glasgow. Then they go to Edinburgh together.
I really wanted to test this.
Each stop she's harassed by journalists looking for confession, Like they get the rooms across the hall right, oh yeah, and they pointed out that Miss McLeod, who claimed to be Scottish, had a Northern English accent, and like she's like whatever, she just kept up through She's like, that's not me. I don't know what you're talking about. She would constantly know it's not me. Then, on January twenty third, the Liverpool Weekly Weekly Mercury ran this heading confession, Oh yeah, quote,
it is no use my denying it any longer. I am Miss Violet Charlesworth of in these words uttered to a special representative of the Daily Chronicle in Edinburgh, Miss Margaret MacLeod, Oben and Tomer Bory finally threw up the game of bluff. She's been playing with such superb assurance during the past few days. I suppose I may take it, Miss Violet. I said that the incident at Pembermer Point was invented in order that you might escape the liabilities
which were pressing upon you. Invented, she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows in astonishment. Nothing of the sort. Do you say that you were in the car when it started on the return journey from Bangor? Was my next question? Of course, I was what my sister and Watts told you was perfectly true, it was a genuine accident, then how came you to disappear wild? When the accident happened, Watts pulled me from the seat, I was at the wheel and
then he slipped down the cliff. My sister Eileen, as she has told you, open the door and was thrown to the ground. And what happened to you, miss Violet? I asked, Ah, you would like to know? I dare say, she replied with a playful nod of the head. All I can tell you is that I got away from the scene of the accident without anyone knowing.
That's all you can tell.
Yeah, So she goes on. She tells the reporter that she realized the crash was like a perfect cover to make a run for it.
Okay, but she didn't go with the whole I hit my head and have any you know.
She's like, she's like everything's collapsing around you. And she said she loved reading the coverage that she generated, just so entertained by it. So her story didn't just take over the UK press?
Would you be entertained by that? I know you would never like fake your death and run away. But if you what's say you did? Do you think you would read the press. Would you be the ted.
I don't know. Maybe, yeah, I think I might know it might how about you?
No, definitely not. I wouldn't. I think we get in my head. I would. I'd maybe have somebody like read it for me and tell me if they have anything key in there that's a giveaway, like, oh no, they've got a very important bit of evidence. I'd have somebody monitoring it, but it wouldn't be mean, like an actor not reading my reviews. This again, Yeah, yeah, I got to keep I need my confidence. How about the run?
The first day would bother me, and then you get used to it totally.
I'm trying to manage my head too much.
What's a good thing to do. I don't. There's no management.
You can't.
We are without Rudder up top. So she's super entertained by the coverage. It's all over the globe because one paper said it was big news anywhere that people spoke English. Oh yeah, sure, but the perspective was a little different. So here's the Detroit Free Press in the US of A telling it as of February seventh.
Let's hear a Detroit.
Headline England upset over one girl, whole country and hysterics, says to Violet Charlesworth, the missing motorist. Newspaper hunt through Great Britain for her discovered in Scotland seventeen days after she quote disappeared to escape creditors. And then here's the opening paragraph, London, February sixth. If the myth of British phlegm had not been exploded long ago, the history of the first eighteen days of January would go far toward
doing it. During that time, the British press and people have devoted themselves with an enthusiasm bordering on the hysterical, to the affairs of a young woman who ran away January second to escape from her creditors and managed more or less to hide herself until January nineteenth.
Wow.
Yeah, they don't have the sand over.
There, flem as in like Calmn September. Yeah.
I was thinking, like the old four temperaments.
Like me, Yeah, what a piece.
They're going to hysterics and I know what that means.
Yeah at that time, like a bunch of ladies. But you're also running the big headline Detroit Free Press like me. Look in the mirror. Okay, guys, everybody think about that, so the papers covered absolutely every development. I do need to point out that someone got cheeky about that time and named a racehorse Violet Charles Ruth, which made for very interesting newspapers dot com perusing. It was just like the like betting lines of like twelve to one.
Okay, you're getting the headlines of like yeah Charles.
So while waiting to go to trial, she made sure to stay in the spotlight. She gave interviews with national papers Daily Mail got to do it. She wrote a song about her faked death called Goodbye Girly what and then had the lyrics printed in the paper Hell.
Yes, rights you do.
Zodiac never did that. There was a stage show written about her, and then she debuted at the London Hippodrome playing herself.
Are you kidding? She did the Jackie Robinson I'll Play Myself.
A silent movie deal in which she was going to play herself.
Yeah, did agree to direct.
Yeah, he was right there.
Well he was in the twenties and Britishilman.
It wasn't him. Now people refer to her as an a Dwardian influencer. Really yeah, because that was basically what she's doing. Well, the police investigation continues. They discovered that she owed a grand total of twelve thousand pounds to people from whom she'd borrowed money, and another twelve thousand in stock market liabilities, and she was eventually declared bankrupt.
I mean naturally obvious physically.
Her social currency was also running out, so she had.
Terrible had any left.
She had a terrible stage fright, and like doing the play that's about her, And then she kept getting booed off stage by audiences night after night.
That would getting booed playing yourself. She was not meant for this, meant for the stageless.
I can see how like that would give you stage right if they're just constantly booing you.
Well, I'll give you more than stage You could play me better.
Than me, dumb dumbs and they're like anyone else.
Stage that's like confirmation stage confirmation. You don't belong here.
You're bad at you. February nineteen ten, she and her mom appeared at Derby Police Court on three separate charges unlawfully incurring a certain debt and liability to Martha Smith, the widow Smith oh Right Good to the amount of four hundred and one pounds by means of fraud other
than false pretenses. They got charged with obtaining by false pretenses in November nineteen oh eight, the same sum of money from Martha Smith with intended to fraud, and the last one fraudulently conspiring to obtain from Martha Smith and Edward Hughes Jones, the Doctor the Bow certain large sums of money. So Miriam the mom was like, you know what, I was the one conned. Violet conned me the mom her mom. Yeah, I think we now know the mom.
Yeah, I think we always knew.
There was a huge care the one who coached. Yeah, I thought she was getting that cartoon money. Yeah. Come on. So there's this huge crowd there. They all want to get in see the circus in the courtroom. Missus charles Worth. She comes in dressed in black and wears like a black.
Bonnet, mourning the loss of her own life, yes.
And of course and the loss of her trust and her daughter who conned her. According to the papers, she seemed very distressed. She had to be assisted to her seat by a police matron. Violet was reported to be like very pale and appeared to be ill, and she just cried the whole time, she wore like a really big black hat, you know, kind of subdued.
Big at okay, yeah, and then a.
White feather boa get it girl, like just go for it.
You need a little bit.
Let's do it, Mama and I guess like they both were like sick in some way, Like the Mom's like I've heard trouble stressed. Violet, it's like I have the Sunday scaries, you know. So February twenty third verdict is in the jury thirty minutes of deliberations. That's bad, found them both guilty of conspiracy and false pretense.
Yeah, that's like we just need enough time to go around the room.
Yeah. So the judge is like, guess what, Mom, I got your number. You were the mastermind. But also Violet, you were a willing participant, so you're both terrible people. They get sense to five years penal servitude. Miriam like literally swooned. The police matron on hand had to tend to her like dab her brow and keep it falling. Oh yeah, Viole. Violets sat there like in a daze, like completely still as the verdict was read and like
kind of staring off into the distance. And then she gets up to leave the courtroom and she sees her sister and like gives like a faint smile and then is escorted out and kind of creeped everyone up. They later had their sentences reduced to three years. They tried to appeal that got denied. They were sent to Aylesbury Prison, which is one of the few ones that was equipped
to hold women for long sentences. The prison registers described Violet as quote healthy, neat in person, reserved in manner, it was good, and that a prison inspector's report said that she quote bears her sentence with unusual calm, engages in no misconduct, but converses little with her fellow inmates and like a lot of people thought she was just relieved because it was so exhausting. Yeah, there's that too.
So records show that she got out after serving two years, likely for like a good behavior, and people don't really know what happened after that. So there are some reports that she went to live on the Isle of Man. Most say she went to Scotland to live out her days because she was so obsessed. But the UK Genealogy Service find My Past they believe that her mother, Miriam died in Lancashire in nineteen twenty and then they pulled a death record for a May Charlesworth in Stoke on
Trent in nineteen fifty seven. So her legacy does live on. Yeah, the spot where she crashed the car is now called Violet's Leap. Wow, there you go, Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
My friend Jay's family's crazy. That's why you know Jay, I had no idea you had it like that. Now. I really enjoyed that. Also, it was the you said earlier, the Edwardian influencer, and I kind of like poop poo died at first. I thought about it while you were telling the story, and I think your spot on in terms of it, she really was like an early influencer. But like she would have been a huge star. She would have been able to have a TV show or some kind of streaming series or like a podcast that
everybody talks about. You don't call her violin.
You know, all the right outfits.
Yeah, you said she was stylist, she said, you know, and she's well trained by her mother. So we see that Kardashian like, oh, like, my mother is a celebrity and she trained me to do this lifestyle.
You know what I mean, she's an a dwarding Kardashian.
Yeah, right, I think she would have been. She's she's okay, the same way that Woody Allen is lucky that he was born when he was born, she's unlucky that she was born and she was born. She just had like another century.
Oh yeah, huge.
She might not have ever even had to do any of this getting married. All this behavior would have been rewarded, and that we would all talk about her marrying one of the most richest people in the world.
Totally good points.
You'res Elizabeth. You see how he did. That's all smooth like it It was really clever. You didn't see it coming.
I know.
I can tell I again go back to my thing about it's the same like blueprint every time. And so again, if someone's like I'm going to come into an inheritance or like my stocks will realize at a certain time, I don't believe them. If it's other people's money too.
Definitely that and also things that don't exist don't exist. Yeah, so someone said tells you it's about to happen, it doesn't exist exactly what it does exist, Then you can do something about it.
Until that point.
I like that.
I'm a simple man, Elizabeth.
I need a talkback. I'm simple, I need a talkback.
Oh God, I love.
Hey's Aaron and Elizabeth listening to the Minor League episode. I couldn't help but remember the minor league team in my hometown, New Orleans. For a long time, they were the Zephyrs, and they had two giant nutrient as their mascots. But now they're the baby Cakes and they have the most scary haunt you in your nightmares mascot. It's a kincake baby that looks like it drove around with chewy meth raccoon.
The Baby Cakes like T shirt. I love that. Oh that's so good. Thank you for that.
Oh.
I do need to mention too that we have a special award, the a Ridiculous Crime Heroes Award, that we don't really ever give out, but something that you know, we talk about the emails, right, We do appreciate that and we greatly We don't no one answers them, but we do read them totally. And so Beth from Western Massachusetts is a ridiculous crime hero. Yes, because Beth started listening to the show a couple of weeks ago and powered through Binge listens yes, all the way through, Like
I'm talking like seventy eight episodes every day. I don't know how I didn't annoy her.
I can't believe voice.
But she she was loving it, and she gave us updates. We got like nine emails from Beth the like daily updates, and it was we we been binge the emails. You know.
We figured if she's going to binge, just we should binge her. It was awesome.
So, Beth, we do read the emails.
You read all your email.
No one ever answers. We read all the emails that come in get read. They just don't get and they.
Don't always get read aloud. But we read allowed to each other.
Oh my gosh, Beth, it was so much fun.
We started looking forward to them. We're like, oh, we got a new one, Beth.
Best crime hero.
There you are.
Let's see. That's it for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous crime dot com. Did you know we just won the American Chemical Society's Garvin Olin Metal for the website.
I'm so proud.
It's for achievement in Women in Chemistry.
I can't wait to tell my mother.
God, she be so excited. She's she loves coding, shes chemistry too. Everything is always like metals, you should.
Learn to chemistry. I'm like, you mean learn to coade. She's like, no, learn to chemistry.
American Chemical Societies, Garvin Olin Metal. I love that's going on my resume. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime, pod Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Please and then leave us at talkback. I think that's my most important part. I want to hit that up the hardest. Leave it Talkback, download the free iHeart app, do It, do It, do
It reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Sarah Burnett, produced and edited by Prince of Wales and Dolphins Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutgers.
Judith.
Research is by Mysterious Heiress Marissa Brown. The theme song is by duped Love Struck, Welshman Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot Mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Bolensworth. And Noel Brownsworth WHI Say It one more Time Ridiquious Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.