You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Geesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good evening. At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allen Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene two bodies mummified by the searing heat on the shore of a remote Galapacho's island. For the past four years, Hancock and other American elites had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens
for scientific research. On one trip to the Glapicos, Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans, European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted to a life of isolation that he'd had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures. As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness paradise had turned
into chaos. The three sets of exiles, a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War One veteran and his young family, and an Australian baroness with two adoring paramours, were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The barrenness, wielding a writing crop and pearl handled revolver, staged physical fights between the two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly, with two exiles missing
and two others dead. The survivors purled accusations of murder. Using never before published archives, Abbot Kaylor weaves a chilling, stranger than fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie, set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World War II, with a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galapicos itself. Eden Undone explores the universal and timeless desire to seek utopia and lays bare the human
fallibility that inevitably renders such a quest doomed. The book you were featuring this evening is Eden Undone, a true story of sex Murder and Utopia at the Dawn of World War Two with my special guest, formerly writing as Karen Abbot New York Times bestselling author Abbot Kaylor. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Abbit Kaylor, thanks so much for having me. Dan, thank you so much. And congratulations on this incredible book. Eden Undone, thank.
You so much. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I'm really glad that you enjoyed reading it.
Tell us how you came to be the author of this book.
Well, it's a good question. About twelve years ago, so it's been quite some time. I was looking for another story, just sort of waiting through and looking through old newspaper files, and I came acrossm this came upon this tabloid passage that was so fantastic and absurd that I had to read it about three times just to make sure I really read what I had just read. And it was
a passage. It was, you know, a headline, and it had said quote was doctor Ritter with his steel teeth Poisoned in Paradise was Baroness Eloise, known as Crazy Panties, who ruled the island with a gun in love murdered by one of her love slaves after she had driven the other to his death. And why is Frau Ritter going back to what she once called Hell's Volcano the mystery of the Galapachos Island, which Germany covets to be
solved at last. So I don't know any narrative nonfiction writer who wouldn't start doing a deep dive after that. And I did a deep dive, and after confirming that Crazy Panties more than satisfactorily embodied her nickname, I pivoted from the project I had been thinking about, and I was desperate to write this one instead. But the problem was that my publishers weren't interested. They said, we, you know, you write American history, and we want American history from
you with American characters years past. I went on, you know, I wrote other books, but I never forgot this story, and it sort of remained foremost in my mind and I was obsessed with it. And I finally took the publisher of Crown, which is my division of Penguin Random House. I took him out for drinks and begged him, and I made the argument that you know, this isn't a European story. This isn't an American story. This is a
human story. Now, who among us hasn't dreamt of abandoning our lives and fleeing off to some remote island just to start over where nobody knows who we are? You know, who hasn't wanted to flee the madding crowds and the social media and all the pressures of our daily lives and just find something else that's really simple and seemingly easy. And he got that, and I think as a timeless and universal question and desire. And that's another reason I really wanted to explore this book.
You right, that you spent five unforgettable days on this island of Florinia. Tell us just about this incredible journey.
Briefly, It was really incredible. It took two full days to get there from New York City. You know, plans, trains, autobiles, ferries, a lot of walking, and Floriana For people who aren't familiar with the Galapagos, the Glapacos in general, you know, it's not this sort of shimmering golden beach with lust tropical fruits and this like sort of paradise of lush gardens and it's this lava encrusted islands that are sprung from volcanoes. A lot of the islands are barren and
they don't have fresh water sources. It's really really difficult terrain. So I went there, you know, in twenty twenty two, with all the modern conveniences and still found that how do these people live there? There's about one hundred people who live there now. And I couldn't imagine what these characters in the nineteen thirties, you know, had to go through with absolutely no modern conveniences and nothing clear, no
pathways cleared. They really were starting from scratch on this difficult island.
Now, let's talk about two of the main characters in here, Frederick Ritter, doctor Frederick Ritter and Dora Straus Kirwin. Yeah.
So they are two fascinating people, you know, and they are main character. They were in Germany. So the year is nineteen twenty nine, the Wymar Republic is starting to falter, Hitler is starting to ascend a power, and Friederich is this is this kind of strange man, eccentric doctor who has all of these these ideas, some of them quite progressive and modern about medicine and holistic healing, some of
them quite wacky as well. You know, Dorry came to him in his hospital suffering from multiple sclerosis, and while every other doctor told Dory that her condition was incurable, Frederick tells her that she can cure her condition just through the power of her mind. She can just think her multiple sclerosis away. And he, you know, announced that he wanted to lived to be one hundred and fifty years old. He you know, had ideas that people didn't
really need teeth. They could take all their teeth out and their gums would start substituting for teeth and become harded off his teeth. He you know, wanted to explore all these philosophies, and Dorry was quite frightened with him at first. Wasn't an easy relationship in the start.
You say that they were both married at this time when she was at this hydrotherapeutic institute in Berlin. Tell us about her marriage that she was in at that time.
So Dorry was sort of you know this, this very sensitive child, grew up very close to animals, had all of these lofty ideas, was a bit of a dreamer, and I think, you know, just as women are pressure to do. She felt like she was getting older, she had to get married. She married an older family friend. He was a teacher, he was several years her senior, and she actually, you know, wrote a memoir in which
she talked about how much she detested this marriage. She even talked about how bad he was in bed, and she just took him on as this project. She was going to try to fix him, you know, she wanted to coax him out of his fusty old habits, she wrote, and try to make him this sort of fun, younger person. And he was resistant to this. So, you know, when she went to the hospital, it was a little bit of a respite for her. She was going to be there for a while, and she got away from her husband.
And here comes this strange doctor with all of his ideas and philosophies. And even though he was kind of frightening and scary and intimidating, she was really intrigued by Frederick.
You also say that she was realized that she was a different person and she had more affinity for animals than humans.
Yeah, you know, I think she had a hard time relating to people. I think what her issue was that she didn't relate to people on a one on one personal level. She was sort of just had this large view of humanity and humankind, and it was very abstract to her in a way. You know, she had volunteered during the Revolution and tried to help the you know, the poor classes, and did all this volunteering, but you never hear her talk about any really close personal relationships
with anybody she forged along the way. And I just had the feeling that, you know, she was a person more interested in ideas than in people. And you know, of course that might explain her attraction to Frederick a little bit. Here was this man of man of grand ideas, you this man who read Nietzsche and was obsessed with Nietzsche and the great philosophers, and probably not surprisingly obsessed with Fietzcha because some of his harsh philosophy's transferred to Frederick,
especially with regard to women. But Dory was interested in this man's ideas, and I think in a way Frederick was also an abstraction to her.
He had ideas about raw food and vegetarianism that were well ahead of other people's ideas at that time.
Yeah, that's true. He thought about he thought that eating meat was going to hasten the end of European culture, as he wrote. He wrote about eating raw food. He thought that people could live on nothing but figs. You know, he had all these ideas about what people should and should not do with her bodies. Of course, later on, when he's stuck on Floriana with new great food source, things get a little bit more complicated for him, and in terms of what he's willing to eat.
They once she gets released from this institute, she's still wants to be with Friedrich and enjoyed his company. So they go on these long walks, and what do they talk about specifically, Well, Frederick.
Shares his vision about creating utopia. He had long you know, Frederick was I should mention that he had served in World War One. He suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. He had had liver problems from the gases from from you know, being up in combat battle. He was very I think the war changed him and after that he that's when he really started to get into his more
eccentric philosophies. He started fantasizing about leaving civilization behind. He called civilization quote an impersonal monster, and he believed he had nothing to offer civilization, and civilization had nothing to offer him, and he started thinking about where he would
go to create his own utopia. You know, that's when he and Dorry started talking about the possibilities, and Frederick, being the sort of Nietzschean you know, devotee, wanted to you know, maybe try an island that wasn't idyllic, something that was a Nietschean challenge or something dark, and that would you know, prove that he was an ubermant. You know, everything to Frederick was a challenge and proving that he
was the best that there could possibly be. And so they talked about their plans for running away from Germany and going to this remote island where nobody else lived in the world.
You're right that when they were looking at photos of the of islands maybe to choose from, they saw all kinds of photos of sumptuous islands, but the one that Brewianna didn't look so sumptuous at all.
No, you know, it's it is entirely covered in lava rock except for the highlands. There is an area you know, up towards you know, it's kind of a volcanic island. So if you travel upward a bit inland and upwards a couple hours from the from the bay, you'll find a more lush area. There's one fresh water spring on the island, and today they actually still have that one for USh water spring that they used to pipe water all over the island for people. But they figured they
would settle somewhere near that spring. It would be adequate enough for them to start planning seeds and maybe a garden would grow. And the one thing about Friedrich, you know, he did have some crazy philosophical ideas, but he was very handy in terms of building things, and he was able to build sort of an irrigation system that would pipe water into their makeshift home that would you know, provide shower water and a way for them to water
their garden. But it was a very very difficult climate and he had to do a lot of work clearing brush, moving things around, and just making space for where they might build their home.
Let's go back just a little bit. You write that in nineteen twenty four, American scientist William Biebe visited the Galapagos and wrote a best selling book called The Galapagos. So this led to this interest in the islands itself.
Yeah, so William Bieb was following the footsteps of Charles Darwin, who of course made his famous journey in eighteen thirty five to the Glapcos Islands, which really informed his theory of evolution. So when Biebe went about one hundred years later, he sort of was retracing Darwin's steps and reignited this
fascination with the Glapacos Islands. And after Biebe's book was published, I believe in nineteen twenty six, all sorts of wealthy Americans, whether they had scientific background or not, were something interested in visiting these islands and seeing these rare you know, flora and fauna that were found nowhere else in the world. And they just started, you know, making these trips there
and bringing these animals back to America. Not a good idea, but it was sort of you know, their trophies that they would bring back, but ignited this entire you know, big fascination with oceanic exploration and especially with the Glapaco Silence.
You're right then, in July third, nineteen twenty nine, Frederick and Dory left from Amsterdam and they pulled in to the islands July thirty. First tell us about their arrival on the islands, their impression and just what happens initially on that island.
Yeah, you know, the journey over was very difficult, of course, you know, it's a long journey coming over from Europe all the way to you know, the Pacific, off the coast of Ecuador. As soon as they arrive, almost Dorry starts feeling a sense of foreboding. You know, she had done her research on the Glapagos and she had heard all of these dark stories and lore about the island,
specifically Floriana. Floriana has a really fascinating history. It was the Galapago's first penal colony that was once run by a murderous dictator. And there was a pirate named Patrick Watkins who was actually the first resident of Floriana. And
you know there were reports of him. You know, people would ship whalers and people would stop by, and captains would would encounter Patrick Watkins and he was always just scribe is this terrifying man who was covered in vermin, who just was drunk all the time and would threaten people. And eventually he killed a bunch of captives and escaped Floriana.
But Dorry had read all this. She was terrified of the ghost of Patrick Watkins, and she believed that in one way or another, you know, Floriana might not accept her and Frederick as residence and harm might come to them. So she actually arrives on the island with the idea that maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.
Now Dorry loves animals, what do they experience, what do they find regarding the animals, the exotic animals that are on this island.
You know, they were much more concerned with sort of practical things. They didn't do the really fanciful, you know, complicated exploration that the wealthy Americans did. They were pretty much trying to figure out how they were going to eat, where they were going to sleep, how they were going
to prevent the animals from eating their garden. And that was their biggest problem, because as soon as they started planting seeds and crops started growing, they would just have an invasive you know, a bunch of hordes of animals coming in every night, wild boar, goats, all of these animals that had weren't native to Floriana but had been introduced by people in centuries prior and just sort of
taken over the island and were invasive. So they were basically just worried they were going to starve to death because every time they started getting a crop, going these animals and insects and would just completely destroy everything they had grown. So it was it was quite a concern. And there's a couple funny stories of Frederick trying to sort of battle these wild wild boars one on one, these wild pigs. He called them the devil pigs.
Wow. Now they searched for they know that there was legend has it that there's a spring, so they searching for a spring. And you also note that Frederick had decided not to bring a gun the island.
Yeah, you know, when they were discussing what to bring, and it was quite an interesting exchange. Dory was like, we should bring medicine. What if we get sick, what if we have an infection, what if we are written pain? And Frederick says, no, no, you're forgetting the lessons I've taught you. You can heal anything with the power of
your mind. And you know then, you know, Frederick wants to bring a gun and Dorry says, no, no, you know that that's against our mission of peace and so they don't bring either of those things, much to their regret later, but they had quite a conversation about how they were going to transfer from their gottle, relatively coddled European life to this very strict life in Floriana where they're going to be at bare minimums and just bare minimum and just rely on their own instinct and rely
on their own willpower.
Really this Ecuadorian boy named Hugo, which was their guide. You talk about that. Just a few days later there was an incident or an accident with Hugo and one of the animals on the island.
Yeah, So as soon as they disembark and they're on Floriana, the ship, the captain who had ferried them over to the island says that you can, you know, basically employ this this native Ecuadorian boy, Hugo, to help you for a little bit while, you know, while you're trying to get your bearings and trying to figure out where you're going to live. And Dorry notices that Frederick is jealous
of Hugo. He's very jealous that this boy, this young boy who really knows nothing about you know, philosophy or any of the lofty concerns that Frederick concerns himself with. He was just this boy who instinctively knew how to shoot and hunt and live on the land, and Frederick was envious of this boy's skill. They start getting into battles because Hugo immediately immediately starts killing some of the wild pigs on the island, and Frederick protests, you know,
he's a vegetarian. He doesn't want to kill animal for his own use. This is against all of his philosophy, and so they get into battle about that because Hugo is basically like, you want to eat, don't you. This
is what you have to do. And there's sort of a you know, it gets off to a rocky start right away, and Dory observes, you know, interesting things about Frederick and really what his pride was wounded, and it's something that she sort of notices and holds onto and for future reference with him.
You're right about post Office Bay, which is an important locale on this island. Tell us about post Office Bay and its role.
So in the early nineteenth century and all throughout the nineteenth century, what whalers would pass by in Floriana Florianda became known for this barrel. It was erected on a pole and it was stuck down on the shore on post Office Bay, where people could leave letters in the little barrel and whalers who were passing through and heading, you know, home or to wherever they were going, pick up the letters see if there was anything heading to the area where they were heading, and then they would
deliver them. And this became the way that mail was sent to and from Floriana. And you can imagine it took quite a bit of time for any of these letters to reach their destinations, but it was quite an ingenious way for male system work on a remote island like that. And post Office Bay there's still a barrel there. Of course it's not the original barrel, but it's still there. And when I had visited Floriana, I left a couple letters in there, and I took a couple and delivered them.
So the tradition continues, but Post Office would they would become instrumental to the story, and even undone because Frederick and Dory and all of the other exiles you show up would start sending letters to the Americans that they befriended and keep them abreast of the really interesting developments that were going on in Floriana.
You talk about the sailors that would come to the island, and we talk about the ship of the Manuel j Cobos. Do you talk about that. Fridrick and Dorry really want to be alone, and so they every time that someone comes there, they talk about and have a discussion about not wanting people to come there to visit them. They want to be alone.
Yeah, So, I mean they were alone for quite a few months. They arrived in the fall of nineteen twenty nine. But in January, the first American shows up on Floriana. This is Eugene MacDonald. He was the founder of Zenith Radio. And he arrives in Floriana in his yacht with his scientific crew, you know, intending to just gather some exotic animals, and he encounters Dory and Frederick and he's shocked, you know,
he thought nobody lived there. And so he speaks with them, here's about their mission, here's about their utopia, and reports all of this back on the wire. Reports as soon as he leaves, so words spreads quickly that there's this quote modern day Adam and Eve living on this island in the Galapagos, and this makes worldwide news, and of course, you know, other people want to come and see Frederick and Dorri for themselves.
He also is enthralled with these exotic birds, and so they take some specimens back from this island, don't they.
Yeah, they do. You know. It became a metaphor to me when these you know, Americans would come here on these islands and gather all these exotic animals and bring them back to America and put them in zoos and aquarium and take them out of their natural habitat, and it doesn't go well for the animals. As you can imagine, they had no idea how to care for these exotic animals back in America. And to me, it was the
same situation with the humans in the story. You're taking out out of their natural habitat of Germany or you know, just in civilization in general, and putting them on this island where they really have no business being, and of course it doesn't go well for them either. So it just became sort of it was important to me to include the animal stories because I think it really mirrored the human story.
But Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages, So you talk about that soon as Commander McDonald departed, and he had sent the message that the world found out about Frederick and Dora and their idea of this utopia in this isolation on this island.
Yeah, so as soon as the word gets out, you know, it also spreads to Germany, of course, and there was a family there called the Whitmers. It's actually they're not married. It's Margaret Wilborough Heinz Whitmer hein and Heines has a young son from his first marriage. Both Margaret and Hines are still married to their spouses, much like Dory and
Frederick were also married. They decide to leave their spouses and be together, and they're intrigued by the idea of going to Floriana, where, following in Dori and Frederick's footsteps, Heines's young son was sickly and nearly blindson's birth, and they thought the tropical climate might do him some good. And Hines was also a World War One veteran and had some trouble from that, and he had also been
a high ranking official in the Weimar Republic. And at this point Adolf Hitler is clearly ascending the power, and he really wants to escape that chaotic situation in Germany. So they decide to take a leap of faith and also move to Floriana and figure, well, at least we're going to have two fellow Germans there and we're not going to be entirely alone. Of course, you know, Frederick and Dory are not at all happy when Margaret and
Hines and Harry shows up. And compounding that fact is that Margaret, by the time she arrives, is five months pregnant, which really bothers Frederick because here comes this pregnant woman expecting, you know, to have help with her delivery, you know. And Frederick had left his practice, he had no desire intention to return to medicine, and he really feels put upon by this woman.
And they are not encouraging for these people to house themselves, to build the home anywhere near where they are. But what do they recommend and where do they point them to in terms of on the island.
Well, they point them to Patrick Watkins Cave, you know, the murderous, scary, vermin covered pirate. He had lived in caves up in the highlands in Floriana, and caves were you know, Dorry was terrified to these caves. They're a big part of the Florana lore, where dark spirits and ghosts might lurk. Hugo, the Ecuadorian boy told them not
to live near the caves. When Dorriy and Frederick point the Whitmers to these caves, and the Whitmers, to their great credit, are able to make a comfortable temporary home in these caves much too, you know, Margaret or Dorry and Frederick's surprise, you know, the Whitmers start flourishing and settling in, probably much easier than Doriy and Frederick did themselves.
What did Dori, Dora and Frederick think of the Whittmers. Obviously you mentioned that they weren't welcome, But what did Dorry think of Margaret and Heinz and this family and the idea of them moving to this island at all?
You know, I think Dorry at this point was having some problems with Frederick. The relationship had many many ups and downs. Frederick could be dismissive, even cruel. He you know, sort of belittled Dorry a lot. So she was looking forward to having a female friend. Thought it would be nice to have another woman on the island. Maybe it would be, you know, give her an escape from Frederick once in a while. But she was not at all impressed with Margaret. She thought Margaret was an idiot for
showing up pregnant. You know, she didn't know that Margaret was pregnant when she heard the family is coming, She didn't know. And she she was like, what is this woman thinking, you know, trying to give birth on a remote island. And she just thought she was a dull house frow who didn't understand anything beyond her own experience. You know, this isn't somebody she could discuss philosophy with
and all that. And Margaret, for her part, thought scoffed at Dorriy's philosophical pretensions and her quoting of need and Margaret's basically like, you know, we're on a remote island. Who needs Nietzsche here? You know. So they really just weren't on the same wavelength. And Margaret hit a great first impression of Frederick. She looked at him and she was just like, these steel ventures that he's wearing make his whole head sag. And she did not. She did
not like Frederick either. I think we forgot to mention the steel ventures. I should go back and say that, let's.
Talk about mister Hancock of Los Angeles. January third, nineteen thirty two.
Hancock, George Allen Hancock is probably the most important American explorer who comes to visit these people and comes and meshed in their lives. Really, Hancock was from his family had owned the oil rich Lebrea tarpits in Los Angeles. If anybody's familiar, Hancock Park is named after his family. So he's this very very wealthy man. He had always been interested in science and exploration. He had many interests,
and he was he was quite a centric himself. He was had a terrible fear of being kidnapped, and made his mansion look, you know, unkempt and uninhabited, so nobody would think he was ever in there. And he comes and you know, for hears about the explorers. He had heard the reports from Vincent Astor, who was another American who went there, and Eugene McDonald of course, and shows up there and immediately be friends Frederick and Margaret and Dory and and Hines and all of them, and he
becomes their closest confidant, especially Frederick. Frederick writes to him and says, you know, my soul like nobody else does. And you know, once things start getting very complicated between all of the explorers, they turned to Hancock often and so he really, you know, loses interest in the in the animals, or I should say that his interests becomes secondary, secondary, and he's much more interested in these exotic humans and what's going on with their habitat.
You say that this bruiser, it was worth a million dollars at that time, would be worth thirteen million dollars today. He wanted to enhance scientific exploration and so he had all kinds of latest technology, including cameras they could take photos underneath the sea. He had all kinds of people that he brought with him. Also.
Yeah, it was state of the art. It was really quite modern for its time. As you said, it had the special cameras, it could take pictures underwater. They had heated and irrigated fish tanks to transport exotic fish back to America. He had a full operating room that you could perform surgery in. He had you know, different compartments of the boat for skinning animals, preparing them for transport. It was you know, there was no detail that wasn't considered.
He made quite a bit of progress in terms of discovering animals. There were actually a species named after him, the hancocky lizard, because I think he's the one that discovered it. So it was quite a serious for him, probably more serious than any of the other scientists that had come before him.
You also talk about that Frederick, Frederick and Dora would be invited up onto his yacht and they would have this incredible visit with the crew, and Frederick would talk about his philosophy to Hancock and the others, and that they were even treated to these excellent musicians playing concerts that they knew from their past in Germany.
Yeah, Hancock was a cellist, and several other people the scientists that he brought with him were also accomplished musicians, and they would give concerts and they definitely, you know, played some music that Dory and Frederick could recognize back from home. And one of my favorite anecdotes about one of those scenes is Frederick starts singing along to one of the songs and Dorry at this point is so fed up with him that she just mocks his singing in front of everybody, and it kind of marked a
turning point in the relationship. You know, they had been very concerned about presenting this idyllic relationship. They were so in love, they were uniquely devoted to each other and to their experiment. But the cracks start to form, and Hancock sees that, and it's something that sort of deepens as the time goes on.
In the story, you talk about early on that Dora suffered from multiple sclerosis and had a damaged leg as a result, and that she tolerated Frederick's dismissal of her pain as part of her the process to recreate herself.
You know, it was kind of this mind trickery that Frederick performs on her. It's kind of you know, you know, Dorry, you could be a good woman if only you just put your mind to it. You could heal yourself, if only you put your mind to it. And every time I'm challenging you, and every time I'm belittling you, it's because you're not living up to the ideal that I'm
setting for you. So you know, it's it's he just keeps raising the bar and changing the narrative and making her gaslighting her basically and making her think that it's her fault that she's miserable. It's not It couldn't be that she's suffering from multiple scrosses on this island, being forced to drag around, you know, a cargo that's probably
weighs more than she does. No, it's because you know, she's she's taking Frederick's words personally instead of internalizing them as his aspirations for her, you know, and if only she could just live up to what he's once he knows she can be, then she would be happy. And so this is the kind of mind games he plays on her, and you know something that she starts realizing what he's doing as time goes on and their relationship gets much more complicated.
Let's talk up a little bit about Hinz and Margaret and their sickly once sickly son Harry, and then the birth of their other child.
Yeah. So they were, you know, Hines and Margaret were kind of all of the earth people. They were wholesome, they were I think they were, you know, very pure in their intentions to live on this island. You know, they made they meet Frederick and Dory and they're like, okay,
we get it. You don't want anything to do with us, but of course, is Margaret's birth starts drawing closer, she starts panicking, you know, understandably, like hopes that Frederick might change his mind, and they try to make friends with him, and Hinz brings Frederick, you know, meat, He's bringing the vegetarian meat on a weekly basis, and Frederick is always saying that, oh, this is for my chickens. My chickens like to eat meat, and Margaret and Hines privately are like, oh, sure, sure,
the vegetarian just want's meat for his chicken. Sure. But you know, they really try to cultivate a friendship with Frederick out of necessity, because Margaret does start getting very scared about giving birth by herself on this island, and
it's quite a harrowing birth. It's it was quite a complicated and interesting scene to write in the book because she's so strong and tough, and you just can't even imagine the start ccumstances that she had to give birth basically all alone in the wild brush while you know, wild pigs are circulating and all of the dangers that are in nature like sort of closing in on her and the pitch black midnight. It was really a harrowing scene.
And Margaret was a fascinating character. She was very strong, and I think she, you know, she had a little bit of a streak in her a curious streak. She always knew more than what she let on. And I think she was a gossip, you know, I think that, you know, beneath this sort of house sprow facade, Margaret was a very clever person and you know, always knew, you know, made sure she inserted herself in situations where she knew information that she wanted to know.
But Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Let's talk about now the arrival of Baroness Antonia Wagner vond Verbon Basquette, how she came to, how she came to want to come to the island. Let's talk about her vision, and let's talk about her background.
So this was a fascinating character. I feel like, you know, I like to write about subversive, complicated bearing women in history, and I feel like she was born just for me to write about her. I love this character so much. The Baroness was in Paris when all of this was going on, And just a little bit about our background, you know, people who might have heard of this story, who might have heard of the Galapkos affair. She's always described as a quote unquote so called baroness or self
professed baroness. She actually was a real baroness. I did the research on her lineage. She her grandfather had received the title of baron after his bravery in the Ostra Prussian War, and so she was an authentic baroness. She also her family came from the same dynasty as that also includes Princess William and Harry, so she had a bit of an aristocratic background. She knew seven or eight languages, and she grew up in a wealthy household that was
very well respected. You know. So she also liked to make up stories about herself. You know, she went to a girls school, and she likes to tell people that she escaped from a convent. She always has to embellish. She tells people that most of our family died during the war, and she herself only escaped because she hid herself in a rug and the soldiers missed her. You know, not likely. I think she was working as a cocktail waitress in a bar at that time. So she's in
Paris when this opens. She's married to a French war hero, but she has a habit of seducing everybody, men and women. She takes lovers all the time. Her husband traveled a lot. She was throwing wild parties and orgies Missus Paris in the nineteen twenty so you can imagine quite a bit of interesting the body is going on. And she hears about Frederick and Dorry and Margaret and Hines, and she thinks that, you know, I want to do that. That
is where I need to go. I am going to turn Floriana into the next Miami, and I'm going to cater to American millionaires, and I'm going to build a hotel. Everybody is going to want to visit, and I'm going to own the islands. She claims that God himself told her to go to Floriana and claim the island as her own. And so she departs bringing two of her lovers.
One is Rudolph Lawrence and the other is Robert Phillipson, and she arrives in Floriana and fall of nineteen thirty two announces her plans to turn Floriana into Miami, and basically nobody else is leased it all by this announcement and by the Baroness presidence, and she immediately just begins to antagonize everybody.
You right, that she talks to Heinz and Margaret and tells them of the plans about the hotel. But hein Z and Margaret aren't too anxious for her to live anywhere nearby. But she has her own ideas, doesn't she.
Of course, yeah, she has plenty of for her own ideas. I mean, the first thing she does when she meets Margaret and Hines is she washes her feet in their drinking water, So that was really got things off to a great start. And then she announced that she was going to live near Margaret and Heines because they were close to the fresh water source and why not. Margaret and Hines try to talk her out of this, and she actually threatens them, but there's really nothing they can
do there. You know, they are terrified of her pretty much right away. She actually threatens Hines with her gun, and of course he's concerned with Margaret and the baby and his family and just basically wants to keep the peace and stay away from her as much as he can.
You're right that she comes complete with three dogs, a swarm of bees, twenty one packages and trunks, and a copy of her favorite novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Yeah, I mean she brought that book, The Picture of Dorian Gray with her everywhere. It was kind of her talisman. And it wasn't just the book itself, it was that particular dog Yard copy. And she, you know, arrives with
all of these trunks containing various silks and decorations. And because she's serious about building this hotel, she wants to call it the Hacienda Paridiso, and does start constructing this hotel and drapes it in silk and makes this very secluded and cozy boudoir for herself where she starts entertaining American tourists, one of whom calls her hotel quote a festering sex complex, which sort of gives you the idea of how she was conducting herself of the island where
Margaret and Hines were right nearby with her family.
Now everyone meets these two men that accompany her, Robert Phillips and Rudolph Lorenz, and she says Robert or claims that Robert is her husband. Tell us what the appearance of these two men are and their ages and the impression that Dora and Frederick and Heinz and Margaret had of these two men.
So, Rudolph Lawrence is a blonde, slight man, kind of frail, skinny, and the baroness had been in business with Rudolph in Paris. They owned a lingerie shop together. I believe that's how they met. I also think that they part of the reason they left. Floria left Paris, aside from God's order, is that the lingerie shop had gone out of business. She had been cooking the books. Lawrence lost a lot of his investment, if not all of his investment, and
really had no choice but to go with her. He kind of was ruined there as a businessman and was like, well, you know, I guess I'm going with her. And he loved her, you know, he actually loved her. So that was Rudolph Lawrence. And Robert Phillipson was this larger, sort of hunky, dark, dark haired man. Both of them were several years her junior. She was in her late thirties at this point, and they were, you know, ten eight years younger, and she sort of preferred Robert. He was
the more attractive lover to her. And she eventually starts pitting these two men against each other. And you know, Dori and Margaret and Hines and Friedrich would observe the dynamic of the Baroness with these two men and grow increasingly concerned for Rudolph Lawrence, the smaller one, because it seemed that he was being terribly abused by the Baroness
and would show up on their doorsteps. And of course they risked, you know, the Baroness's wrath if they did anything to help him or assist him, or took them in, took him in under the roof, the Baroness might might seek revenge. And so it just was the sort of you know, cauldron of something terrible waiting to happen. As these tensions grew among all of them.
Let's talk about some of the gifts that the ships when they arrived would be given to these people, and they would gratefully accept these gifts, but not all the gifts went to where they were supposed to.
Yeah, I mean, this is this is something that you know here the Americans believe they're helping these these exiles. They're giving them seed, they're giving them food, they're giving them ammunition, they're giving them guns, they're giving them clothing. You know, they gave Frederick got steel polish floor polish from from who was it was, you Gee McDonald, and he made the joke, what is he going to do
with floor polish except the polish's steel dentures. But so the Americans thought that they were hoping the exiles, but really they were just creating this this really stiff competition. The baroness would steal items that were intended for Hines and Margaret, even stealing milk that was supposed to go to their brand new baby. You know, there were you know, items would go missing. Everybody would have started accusing one another of stealing. And with Frederick, I think it really
highlighted his hypocrisy. You know, here he was I want to live alone, I can be self sufficient. I am the ubermench And suddenly he's so dependent on the largest of these American explorers that he really can't live without their gifts. And it's really just exposing what a hypocrite he is and what a weak man he was in some ways. And the competition just you know, fuels their hatred for each other as it goes on.
Let's talk about this confrontation with about rice and the Baroness and what happens as a result of this action by the baroness.
Yeah, so this is early on when the Baroness meets Heines and Margaret. Heines had bought some rice from a passing ship. The Baroness says, oh, I'm heading down to the bay. I will get the rice for you and i'll bring it back up to you when we start bringing my cargo up and Hines says, great, that's really nice of you, Thank you. So the Baroness of course goes down she's transporting her belonging. She gets Hines's bag
of rice and she brings it up to him. She says, oh, you know, that'll be you know, ten dollars or whatever sukers or whatever the amount was in money in the could wear in money. And Heine is like, wait a minute, I already paid for this. I paid the captain for my rice. Well, she's like, well, if you want the rice, you're going to have to pay me for it. Now it's in my possession. And Heines is like, get out
of here. And by the way, you don't leave, but I don't want you living anywhere near me, and That's when the Baroness threatens him with a gun and says, I'm surrounded by these strong men. You know, she had Robert Phillipson and Rudolph Lawrence, and I can count as a third man if need be. And she puts her hand on a revolver and basically threatens to murder Hines if he causes any trouble with her, and Heines is just like, I'm just going to stay away from this lady.
She's crazy and there was no telling what she was going to do. And you know, it gets so bad that Heines and Frederick actually start putting their differences aside and band work together to try to quell the Baroness's impulses in her dangerous ways.
You had said that Frederick had considered Commander Hancock as one of his closest confidants. He begins writing Hancock talking about his grievances and his complaints, doesn't.
He Yeah, So as soon as Heines and Margaret show up, he writes to Hancock and says, well, our you know, solitude is no more. We have family from Germany came and this woman is having a baby, and this is the last thing we wanted and then of course when the baroness comes, he's like, oh, and there's this woman calling herself a baroness. She's tyranni, tyrannizing doll, young man, he said, and she's acting the part of a princess
even though she's a lady of low moral character. You know, he starts getting increasingly worried about this and sending Hancock notes about I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, I don't know what I'm going to do with this woman. And you can you know, Frederick tried to remain sort of formal and always, you know, a stude and intelligent in his writing, but you can really
just feel the panic in his words. And I remember, you know, in some places in the archives when I was looking at his letters, you know you could see where the pencil had broken, where he was writing so hard. I think, just you could see the emotion behind the words he was writing a Hancock because he really started getting terrified of what this woman might do.
You read about November ninth, nineteen thirty two, a person named Arthur Estamba, a Norwegian man, a thirty two year old and a good friend of Vincent Astor, brought two Ecuadorians, a German scientist and a writer Paul Frankie to the island. Tell us what happens.
Soon after, So a stampa shows up on the island on Floriana and he's intending the hunt people often did. They would come and hunt for the day and bring their you know, cargoes back down to the ship and leave. He arrives at post Office Bay, he docks his boat and what does he see but this woman carrying a gun on her hip, surrounded by men, her two men, and also she had an Ecuadorian contractor with her to
help build a hotel. So he's surrounded by three men and she basically says who are you and what are you doing here? And he was like, hi, lady, I'm you know, a stampa and I'm here to hunt, as is my right. And she says, you don't have the right. You know, I own Floriana and everything on it, and if you're going to hunt, you have to get my permission. And he's like, basically tell her to you know, you know,
go away, and he ignores her. Get away from me, and he you know, proceeds to start going to hunt, and the baroness sits her men after him, especially the Ecuadorian contractor you know, is Stampa is taken. He is held captive against his will for quite some time, and he escapes in the middle of the night and arrives at Dorian Frederick's home bloodied, you know, his clothes and tatters from running in the brush all night, terrified that
this woman is going to kill him. And I think that's when Frederick really realized that, you know, it's not just this woman fancying herself a baroness and you know, sort of a great making these bold declarations that she's going to take over the island. She's actually doing what she's threatening to do. She's actually causing physical harm. She's
actually getting close to really hurting people. And Frederick panics, and that's when he not only starts to write to Hancock about her, or continues to write to Hancock about her, but starts writing to the Ecuadorian authorities and basically saying, this woman needs to be medically examined. She belongs in a sanitarium. Please come and investigate. There's an untenable situation here in Floriana.
You're right that Dora had had suspected that the barrenness was nothing but pure evil, or at least no good, and had expressed that to Frederick, and he was hesitant to consider what she had said for quite a while.
Yeah, you know, I think Dorry saw the writing on the wall much earlier, and she was like, Frederick, this woman is going to bring harm to us. This woman is one way or another going to force us off the island. This is not a good situation. And I think part of it with Frederick, his resistance of that was, you know, he's listening to a woman tell him this number one Dory, and it's a woman who's the threatening figure.
So Frederick being Frederick, was like, oh, it's just some silly ladies chattering and one woman's running around threatening things. But she's not going to be harmed, you know, she's not really all bark, no bite. And here Dorry is overreacting and being over and emotional just like a woman would. And I'm not going to listen or pay attention to either of this. And he didn't dismiss story over and over until finally he couldn't dismiss it anymore.
Let's talk about the nineteen thirty four January trip by Commander Hancock to the island again and speaking to Frederick and Dora again.
Yeah, at this point, things are really coming to a head. You know, dur and Frederick are dire straits, and so Margaret and Hines, they really don't know what they're going to do. Rudolph, Lawrence and Robert Phillipson had been fighting each other violently at the behest of the Baroness. She would stage fights, and she basically demoted Lawrence because he kept losing the fights. Lawrence was terrified for his life and he started begging Margaret and begging Dory to live
with them. Margaret took him in for a while, but you know, she had a young family, and she was really terrified that the Baroness was going to show up at our doorstep and kill her for helping Rudolph. And so, you know, Hank Hawka arrives in the midst of this situation that's just looks like it's going to explode at any minute.
You talk about March nineteen thirty four and Dora hears a scream.
Yeah, this is an interesting part of the story because I should say Dory claims to have heard a scream. You know, it's to me, there's always a question about whether or not she really did. But shortly after this scream was or was not or uttered, two people on the island go missing, the Baroness and Robert Phillipson, her
preferred lover. And you know, things start getting very complicated from that point, because where did they go, Who knows where they went, what happened to them, who's lying, who's telling the truth, who's hiding something, and so everybody just starts looking at each other with suspicion, and everybody's really terrified of their own lives at this point.
What is the story from someone close to these people, Rudolph Lorenz? They have this relatetionationship where he has been telling them things about the Baroness, and they know that the Baroness is forbading him, forbidding him to speak to them about anything regarding her. What's the story Rudolph Lorenz tells them?
Well, he says that, oh, don't worry about it. A passing ship came and the Baroness and Robert decided to get on the ship and move on. She won that abandoned a hotel. It wasn't working out for they just decided to go to Tahiti or somewhere else exotic with some friends on this boat. That's the story he tells. You know, people are a little suspicious. I didn't see
a boat go by. I didn't hear of any boat coming, because usually, you know, the island as people would small enough that word would get out if a ship was coming, and you know, somebody would have heard something or seen something. But nobody heard or saw anything about this boat.
Now what does Dora think about this story and what are her suspicions at that time?
Well, Dorry immediately thinks that Rudolf is lying, you know, she says, of course there was no boat. This is an obvious lie. What did Rudolph do to the Baroness and Phillipson. She can only imagine that Rudolf hiblled the Baroness and Phillipson and possibly had the Whitmers helping him, you know, they were either covering it up, or maybe Hines shot them and helped Rudolf dispose of the bodies, or Rudolf shot them and Hines helped dispose the bodies.
But she starts creating a scenario where the Baroness and Phillipson are dead and of course the other family, the Whitmers, are the ones who know what happened.
What is the What do they do in terms of reaching out to people you said that they had Frederick had originally or previously contacted the Ecuadorian authorities about his complaints. What do they do in light of this panicked feeling that they have about their life on this island.
Well, I think they were, you know, Dory and Friederich, according to Dora said they tried to lay low and keep it themselves. Frederick meanwhile was writing fevers letters to Hancock, saying, I heard something happened. I have no proof and I can't put it in writing, But the next time you come to the island, I will tell you what I know. And so he writes this sort of you know, tantalizing cliffhanger of a letter to Hancock about what he suspects
and what he knows, and sends it off to Hancock. Basically, everybody's just waiting for the next shoot to drop.
But Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. Now you talk about that, Rudolph is still with Frederick and Dora, and he's helping them but they are very suspicious of Rudolph, aren't they?
They are they? You know, Dori had been good friends with Rudolph. She had grown very fond of him over his time on the island. She had become very sympathetic to what he was enduring with the baroness. She tried to encourage him, She tried to give him food and shelter when she could. But she started looking at and saying, this is a man with blood on his hands. This is somebody who murdered and I cannot as much as I despise a baroness, I can't condone what he's done.
And she starts thinking, you know, what if what if he kills me and Frederick because he needs to hide any witnesses to his crime or kill people who are suspicious of his crime. So, you know, she starts becoming paranoid about what might happen her because she believes Rudolph Lawrence is a murderer.
Let's talk about Thomas Howell and his arrival on the island.
So Thomas Howe is an American, just a basic American tourist, not an explorer. But he shows up on a chartered yacht. I should stop and say that. You know, at this point, these European exiles are so famous on Floriana that they become a name stop on cruises. You know, people would charter these these cruises to stop at the Glapachos, and one of the featured attractions was going to Floriana to see these these settlers on the island. And so Americans
would come just specifically to see the European settlers. So Thomas House shows up on Floriana with his cruise ship and decides to go pay a visit to Frederick and Dorry, and he wants to know what happened to the Baroness. He sees that she's not there, and he wants to know what happened, and he keeps questioning Frederick about it, and Frederick keeps changing his story. Frederick would once say, oh, he heard the Baroness and Phillips had decided to drown
themselves in the ocean. We heard that they went on a boat to Tahiti, just like Rudolf Florence had said. He heard this and that and this and that, and so he kept changing his story, which of course only aroused Thomas's suspicions.
You're right about that Dory writes to Commander Hancock, but also Heinz also writes to Commander Hancock.
Hines also was reaching out to Hancock. He had made a list of complaints about about the Baroness. He talked about the incident where she stole his rice. He talked about an incident where the Baroness stole milk that it was intended for his newborn baby. And he basically echoes Frederick's concerns that the Baroness is unstable, that she's going to she's a destructive force in Floriana and she's going to bring harm to all of them. And so you know,
Hancock is getting these letters. You know he's over in Los Angeles, how many miles away, and you know he's he decides to come and investigate. That's what he was doing in January of nineteen thirty four.
Let's talk about Ralph Blomberg as well, and him coming to the island and what some of the questions he has.
Well, he had come from another Equadorian island. He was a writer. He actually became a very well known writer. Off Blomberg wanted to meet the Baroness. He wanted to interview her for a magazine. He shows up on Floriana, realizes that the baroness is missing, and starts conducting his own investigation. And again, you know, he gets just like the American tourist tom As how starts getting the run around from Frieder about different stories that are being told.
But meanwhile, rumors are circulating on the mainland, on the other islands that you know, maybe Frederick had something to do with it.
Let's talk about the departure of Rudolph Lorenz and the circumstances in which he was able to leave.
Yeah, so Rudolph had been desperate for quite some time to get off the island. He had written to his family in Germany basically begging them to help him and get off. I don't know if they you know, they did get His family wrote back and you know, was trying to help him. But he had been you know, past notice posted notices down a post office bay saying you know, hi, I'm a German Man living in the inland.
Please passing ship, please come take me off. And he was going to get a ride with one one ship, but they discovered that he was suffering from tuberculosis and so they did not want Rudolf Lawrence with his tuberculosis on their ship. So he was stuck again on Floriana and had a really hard time getting off.
There are reports that he leaves with some bunks, some baggage, and it was reported that they were a heavy trunk he left with.
Yes, Margaret notices when he leaves that he seems to be having, you know, taking some very heavy cargo along with him, and she can only imagine that possibly it contained the bodies of the Baroness Robert Phillipson. You know, I think at this point everybody's imaginations were running away with them and they were seeing, you know, sinister things and every even mundane incidence in mundane encounters. Everything had turned very sinister and dark.
And Frederick continues his writing, doesn't he.
He does, you know, Frederick never lost his verve for his philosophy. He also kept a diary that I think really contained more of his true feeling than his philosophical posturings. But he still had the goal of of becoming a world renowned philosopher and spreading his ideas around the world. And I think that as things got dark in the island, he started retreating into himself and focusing on his writing, and maybe it was away for him to escape the owned demons in his mind, and he.
Was had his theories about what had happened to the Baroness and Robert Phillipson as well.
Yeah, I mean, as he was telling the American tourists, you know, maybe she killed herself, died by suicide. I should say, there was a whole story that somebody overheard the Baroness at Robert Phillipson saying, you know, one night, we're going to have one last drink of whiskey and we're just going to walk into the ocean and we're going to go out in that blaze of glory and die that way together. So this was one of the stories that he was sticking to. And aside from the
passing yacht story that nobody seemed to believe. Everybody had suspicions about that story because there also had been no log of any passing ship at that time period, which certainly it would have been recorded had there been.
You write about. In Los Angeles, Captain Hancock prepares for his next expedition, but he has the letters from Frederick and the other inhabitants of Ruviana, so what happens, what does he do? What are his concerns? And tell us about this last visit planned.
So you know, this is at the time period when he gets Frederick had written his note saying, I have suspect something has happened. I have no proof of it. Please come, I will tell you more in person. And so Hancock, you know, heed's the call. He heads over to Floriana, but on the way he hears a report of two dead bodies, not on Floriana, but on Marchena, which is another Glapagos island in the northern part. This island is even more barren and sterile than Floriana. There's
absolutely no source of fresh water. It is all lava rock. There's no way any life that can be sustained on there, and two bodies were found there.
What happens in terms of any questioning of these people, Frederick, Dora, Hines, Margaret tell us about that.
Well, Hancock shows up on Floriana and of course naturally wants to question everybody. You know, he wants to try to figure out what happened to the baroness and Phillipson. And interestingly, you know, when Margaret, Frederick and Dorry give a statement. It doesn't contain any any mention of this scream that Dorry said she heard, so she sort of, you know, seems to have forgotten the scream that she allegedly heard. He just starts interrogating and trying to get
to the bottom of it. And I remember reading in the archive much later one of Hancock's scientist friends said that we believe he's the only one who knew exactly what happened on that island, and he took it to his grave. I happen to believe that a couple other people know, but they also took it to their graves too.
What did they say regarding Lorenzo's guilt in all of this?
You know, they basically said, Lawrence rud of Lawrence. If he's you know, guilty, he will get his comeuppance. He will get what he deserved. You know, they were just really trying to get to the bottom of it.
The idea that Frederick and Dora had gone to this island to issue modern technology and the I guess, the confines of society, and despite his public showing of his philosophy, that hadn't changed. Dora was very familiar with how he had gone off the rails, and what he said publicly was not what actually how they had conducted themselves on that island.
Yeah, you know, in the beginning, it was very important for them both to present the sort of enified front. They were in love, they were peaceful, you know. The American explorers, especially Eugie MacDonald, courted back. He had never seen two people so in love. It was such a pure and gentle connection between the two of them, and it had been very important for Frederick in the wordy to maintain this facade of this you know, completely listful relationship.
There was always always an underlying tension, as I mentioned, and crack started to show. And at the end, you know, it's kind of that they didn't care at all anymore. They just sort of allowed their true selves to be exposed, because I think that at that point they had much greater concerns, possibly you know, losing their lives. They really couldn't be concerned with how they were presenting their lives any longer.
In concluding, in this investigation, there was no fingers pointed at Dora or Frederick, or Hines or Margaret or son Harry in all of this whatsoever.
That's correct, Ecuadoran authorities did eventually investigate, and of course Hancocked investigated, and nobody ever concluded what happened exactly to the baroness and Phillipson, and nobody was implicated. It sort of was left a murder mystery and burner mystery that's still indoors today.
What was the story, unlike the story of this couple had gone to this utopia and been successful, what was the story now overall about this experiment on this island.
You know, people were basically, you know, drawing the coming to the conclusion that you know, utopia is impossible as long as human beings are fallible, utopia is impossible. And utopia is also subjective. Everybody came to this island with a different idea of what utopia was, and you really can't create a cohesive utopia with a group of people with disparate ideas about what utopia is. And to me, it just really brought to mind the William Golden quote,
Lord of the flies. You know, maybe there is a beast, maybe it's only us. There's never going to be utopia as long as human beings are human beings. Hell is other people basically, and I think that's the overall conclusion that people came to, and I think it's a correct one.
What about Dora, what was her conclusions after this? She had sacrificed her life for these principles of doctor Ritter overall, what was her conclusions over this experiment that she had endeavored her and Frederick?
You know, I think she was a part of her still being an idealist and somebody who was attracted to ideas, was desperate to continue the idea that Frederick was going to be the important person and is the world would Noah's name, and it was still she still felt duty bound in him in some way to help him spread
his philosophies around the world. And I think I think that really tortured Harper for at the you know, when all was said and done, I think she was still tortured by her failure, her perceived failure on the island.
What about this seeming craze for people visiting the island? Did that debate?
Yeah, I mean, as soon as word got out that, you know, people were abandoning their lives to go to Floriana, it became kind of a fad. Groups sprung up. Frederick even commented about the Galapagos craze in Germany. It seemed to everybody, you know, decided it would be a very good idea, especially during the Great Depression. You know, you
have to remember the collapse of global economy. People were suffering greatly unemployment, starving, sort of dire circumstances, and the fantasy of being able to abandon all that and go somewhere and start over was a very very attractive one. Of course, that unttainable, but a very attractive fantasy.
Frederick Heinz and Dora all did extensive writing. You got to experience that writing some of that writing. So tell us about the writings of these three individuals.
Yeah, I was really lucky with the amount of archival material I had. Dory and Margaret both wrote memoirs, and interestingly, and probably not surprisingly, they had very conflicting accounts of many incidents that occurred on the island, and so it was a lot of fun to sort of sip through. And you know, I think that what people choose to lie about and what they choose to a bit is just as telling as they you know, what they the
truth that they tell. There was also archive at University of Seven, California, that contained all of the letters to Hancock that these people wrote, and there was a brand new archive only donated back in twenty twenty by this man named Lorenzo di Stefano who had been a screenwriter and was trying to write a screenplay in the nineteen seventies about the story and interviewed a lot of the
scientists that had gone. Some of them were very, very old at that point, but he was able to get these last interviews with them, and to have access to those conversations and those and those theories and those musings was really invaluable.
You're right at the very end that even though that originally Frederick and Dora were the people that wanted to live alone on this island, that heinz and Margaret and Harry and their daughter were the ones that ended up staying at this island and Dora left Laurin.
Yeah, so Margaret was really the you know, the gangster and all of this. You know, she was the one who really figured out how to conquer Floriana. You know, there is a hotel down there now called the Whitmer Hotel. She had. Margaret's daughter is still there, Flora Anita Whitmer she's now an older lady in her eighties or nineties. I met her when I went down there, and Margaret's granddaughters, Floriinita, his daughters also are involved in the hospitality business down there.
You know, people would go to Margaret for years and years and say, tell me what happened, Tell me what happened, and she, of course would just serve them a bit of wine and smile at them and say, a closed mouth admits no flies, which was such a fascinating thing I think for her to say, you know, basically, she knows exactly what happened, and she wasn't going to tell anybody. And I think she really enjoyed that. She enjoyed being the keeper of Florana secrets.
You write that in the seventies, author and playwright Lorenzo di Stefano researched the Galapago's affair in hope of writing a script. He contacted surviving participants on Earth invaluable primary source material and donated all to the University of Southern California. You also talk about that thanks to Lorenzo's passion and generous gift, Eden Undone contains a It benefits from a rich seam of never published before material.
Yeah, so Lorenzo is the archive I mentioned where he he was able to interview a lot of the explorers when they were very old, and some of them had had conversations with these players and that they recounted to Lorenzo, and so it was sort of recollections that hadn't made any newspapers or letters or anybody's memoir bits and pieces that Lorenzo been able to gather over the years. And I was so grateful that he donated that in twenty twenty,
because nobody else has even gone through these archives. I believe I was the first one. And afterward he was also very helpful to me, you know, resumed a couple times, and he talked about his research and his passion and his own theories about what happened on the island, and really just helped inform my thinking on the book in some ways.
You also write that George Allen Hancock's great granddaughter shared his private papers and correspondence with you as well.
Yeah, so she was wonderful. I found her and reached out, and she was very recept and very excited by the idea that people would still remember her. Happy as she called him as she called Hancock. There were as there was a diary, a brief diary that one of Hancock's scientists had kept that she had the only copy to, and several pictures I hadn't seen before, and just her
recollections of him in general. You know, even though she was a very young girl, she was able to just sort of, you know, have me give me a little more appreciation, appreciation for his character and why he was so driven to Floriana and to you know, enmeshing himselfs in these exiles lives.
You write about so many people's conclusions of what this story represents. What did this story say to you? More than anything else?
To me, it just was it goes back to that timeless and universal idea that we just want to wait, even if it's not possible, even if we're going to fail, the idea that we were going to be able to go somewhere and flee our lives, that there's always a way to set start over. You know, I think a lot of my books in the past have dealt with reinvention in one way or another, and I've always been fascinated by the concept, you know, reinvention and varying degrees.
What is more extreme sort of reinvention than actually upping your roots, abandoning your life entirely and starting over with literally nothing. These people had nothing. I just think it was the most extreme version of self reinvention you could possibly do. And I was so interested in looking into the repercussions of that. I think it's it's just, you know, one of my favorite writers, Pete Dexter and novelist Pete Dexter says that writers never start playing a different record.
You know, the record is always the same, but where the needle hits on the record is always different. And you know, I'm always playing this record of sort of wild historical stories and true crime from history, but the needle is reset a little bit each time. And this one, the reinvention just happened to be a little bit more dream than others.
Absolutely before I let you go, tell us about the film adaptation of this Eden.
Undone, So you know, I have to back up and say that I had barely finished a draft of this story. This is you know, spring of this year in March, and I discovered that Ron Howard, the famous director and actor, is doing a movie on this exact same story, and it was filming, and it was starring the star Sutt had cast. Jude Law plays Frederick Ritter, Vanessa Kirby plays story Strausch, the Baroness is played by Anna de Armis,
and Sidney Sweeney plays a margaret. And of course all of the real life characters got quite a Hollywood glow up with these actors. But it was a panic. I was panicked. Here he is telling the story. It's his exact same story. I didn't know when the film was going to come out. I figured, you know, he's going to be an Oscar push for him. He would want to have it out in theaters by the end of the year. And I had to crash this book. You know,
I barely finished the draft. I had to edit, rewrite, edit, copy edit, gather seventy pages worth of citations, which I have in the back of the book. Everything is cited, and gather pictures and do all of that. And the book was just published last week. And I don't recommend doing this, you know. I think one of the things is hardly anybody has had time to read it, because it's usually the process is so prolonged and even slow,
and this has been a crash course. But Ron Howard's movie just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival recently, and I'm really looking forward to trying to, you know, sink some book events and things with when the movie gets a wider theatrical release, and I'm not quite sure when
that's happening yet. But his movie is titled Eden. The book is even undone, and I really hope that people read this incredible, stranger than fiction true story before they seeing before they see Ron Howard's fictionalized version in Eden.
Absolutely for those that might want to find out more about this book, but also the other book that you have written. Do you have a website that they might refer to? And do you do any social media?
I do. My website is Abbot Taylor dot com ab b O T T K A H L e er dot com. That's also my Instagram handle, my Twitter handle, my Facebook handle. And I don't know if anybody out there knows I used to write books under the name Karen Abbot and I changed my name. It's actually ten years ago. It was quite a strange story. A reader wrote to me in twenty thirteen and said, do you know if you google yourself it says you died in twenty ten, and it was quite creepy. She sent me
a picture. Sure enough, there was a picture of me. It said die twenty ten. There's why I'm a mater, and I was like, what, you know? Have I been weekend at Burning for a few years? It was really creepy. So at that time, I was working on a fiction and I was thinking of changing my name anyway for the fiction. And I was also about to turn forty, so I was right for a midlife crisis, and I decided to change my name legally and I changed it
to Abbot Kaylor. All of my friends had called me Abbot anyway, so it was kind of a natural transition for me. But you know, I had written under Abbot Karen Abbott for quite some time. My books under that name are still out under that name, but from now on I'll be writing as Abbot Taylor.
Thank you so much, Abbot Taylor for coming on and talking about the extraordinary Eden Undone, a true story of sex, murder and utopia at the dawn of World War Two.
Thanks so much for having me, Dan, that was a great conversation.
Thank you so much for this interview, and you have a great evening and good night.
Thank you, thank you,