Influencers. We both love to hate and sometimes hate to love them. But when we hear the word, we tend to think of people with their smartphones and done up good looks on Instagram and social media, making their money from a long line of sponsorships. But all the way back in eighteen forty one, a good old fashioned case of viral marketing took an unexpected turn and ended in tragedy. This is the mysterious Case of Mary Rogers, also known as the Cigar Girl. My name's Ben and.
I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast. Warning the following podcasts and material intended for mature audience listener.
I honestly hate the word influencer. I think there's a fine line between like an influencer and a creator.
Honestly, since influencer became a thing, you always hated that term.
I have because there's influencer gets a bad rap and it can yeah, draws over into the creator world, because people who are creators are like, yeah, I'm just creating cool shit for the fact that I love doing it and I had a lot of people in my corner who support me, And I mean, yeah, I can pop up ads there and that's kind of how how I build revenue. But then influencers are just like, yeah, I'm the boss, I'm the shit by the sponsored ads that I have, and that's about it.
I do think when you're like a creator first and then influencer kind of you're usually like way more successful.
I think so. And it's not to say that all influencers are bad or all creators are bad or all creators are good or whatever. There's bad and good in both both worlds. Yeah, but influencers tend to get the bad rap.
You know. Well, sometimes I think they're just they have more or people think they have more influence than they actually do. Because say, fifty thousand Instagram followers, is it really like if you post something, it's not necessarily going to just make that other person blow up.
No at all, Definitely not. And I learned that a few years ago, because I've talked about this before. I have well over I think one hundred and eighty thousand followers on TikTok. I haven't posted in like over a year if that even more. But yeah, you don't have influence.
Yeah, we almost need to have way more nowadays or something I don't know.
Well, you have to have millions, millions, millions, millions, because everyone out there is becoming influencers, creators and it's a very large ocean. But that's not even my goal anyways. I don't think it's yours either.
Well, yours was just for fun. Yeah, it's just for fun.
I want to do this sort of stuff because I love it. And what's really awesome is we have incredible people in our corner supporting this show, helping us.
It's been a crazy week. I can't believe it. We had. Is this record breaking?
I think so it could be.
We had twelve patrons sign up this week.
Yeah, so holy shit. We have twelve individuals this week to thank. Usually we have like anywhere from like two maybe to five every week sign up, but twelve this week.
So amazing, so much. Yeah, it kind of just like I don't know, we get notifications and it just kind of made her day every time.
It was a kidding. So here we go, long list of patrons to thank, do it. So I'm sorry if I get your name wrong. We're always sorry. We're terrible with that, but we do our best.
It's our charm.
It is right it's the Canadian charm. We'll just say sorry at the end and it's all good. Right. So first off, we have Lauren Maguire, Danny Bagbie, Lisa Johnson, Demi Conway, Gris shout out to Demi local friend of ours, Maddy Horton, Cheryl Means, Gail Galliado, Mandy Rolloffs, Marissa Geese, Diana hurd Rio, and finally Mishma Lou Bobby I hope I said your name right, Mishma.
That's a good list of awesome people.
That is incredible people, So thank you so much for your support. That that means the world to us, it really does. And they also have an exclusive episode dropping today as well overrun.
Patreon yep, last day of the month. There's always an exclusive episode just for.
Those patrons exactly. But if you do sign up, we just want to let you know, make sure you sign up for that all access.
That's how you get the free episode, right.
Our lord's here. That's just behind the scenes content. The all Access gets that ex episode as well, but you still get some cool stuff with the other Tier two. Don't get us wrong. Yeah, we have some other big news.
I think I know what it is, ready, what is it?
Drum roll?
Our second year anniversary is coming.
Up in like a week. Yeah, February eighth is our two year podcast anniversary.
We made it, I mean.
Technically not yet. Technically not yet.
Really, I feel like that's a huge accompliment. Accomplishment because a lot of podcasts don't make it to two years.
No, I think, like I looked it up before, and like the average podcast makes it. I think somewhere between.
Like seven or eight seven or eight episodes.
Yeah, yeah, it could have increased in the last year or so, maybe even up to ten or twelve, but it's definitely not in the hundreds, and we are well on our way to reaching much more.
Than just one hundred in my books.
We made it fair enough. I thought you meant we made it to our second anniversary.
Oh no, Like I just think that's a huge accomplish, is what I know. But we made it.
Yeah, you mean we made a tour second anniversary and well you're like.
No, we didn't.
And I was like, wow, well it's a weird I was thinking, you know.
I was like, way to be positive.
I've got a little bit of whiskey. I got to finish off here still before I dive into my beer.
Actually, my goodness, look at you over there, double fist, and you were drinking the scotch whiskey. I don't know which what it is, but you were drinking that for the pre show.
Yes, just a n f y. I all scotch is whiskey, but not all whiskey is scotch.
Holy shit? Okay, cool? Cool? Yes, So are we diving in?
We're diving in.
I'm kind of excited for this one, actually than I am.
It's a very interesting one. And yeah, our our individual we're talking to to talking about there we go to talking about our individual we're talking about is Mary Rogers bud.
Okay, is this kind of a well known case or not?
Uh? I don't think it's like well known, But I wouldn't say it's like not known. That's kind of like one of those under the radar ones. But some people do know about it.
Okay, okay, okay, right on.
So Mary Rogers, also known as a cigar Girl, was very much so an eighteen hundred 's influencer. I kind of love that, actually, but she wasn't like that typical influencer that we think of that I was describing with that like self righteous attitude that I'm so great. She was very much, so reserved, very nice, and we'll get into that though. Okay, But Mary was born in New York in eighteen twenty awesome. Her father had died when Mary was only five years old. Not awesome, and that
left her and her mother in a very tricky position. Now, her mother's name was Phoebe, and she was doing the best as she could to make sure she could look after her daughter. She had also had a previous marriage, so she had a divorce and then lost her second husband, and she had some children for her first marriage, but I couldn't find any information on those kids, so, as far as I know, we're just talking about Mary and
Phoebe here. But she was doing the best she could look do to look after Mary, and she decided one of the best things she could do to make sure that she was home and could provide was start a boarding house. So that's exactly what she did. She started a boarding house on Nasu Street, where she lived, worked and raised Mary.
Okay, what exactly is a boarding house? Is that just somewhere that people kind of rent, yes, ance or a room or whatever.
Yeah, you rent a room, sort of thing. And you know, it's like you live in this person's house, you know, cook and clean for you or whatever, and provide you a room for a fee. Oh okay, okay, it's kind of like a an inn, like a medieval inn, you think, right, except a little bit more permanent solution. It's not like you go there for a night or two, which I'm sure you could could if you need to.
But they're probably looking for more, so long.
Term renters exactly. Now, long term might mean a month to a year, I don't no, but it's definitely not like by the night. Okay. Now, as Mary grew up, she began entering an age where she could start helping her mother, and she was working around the boarding house and also put more into the public eye by working at the boarding house. People would come in and see Phoebe and her daughter. Now, this is something that I think pretty much everyone today could think of as most
both a blessing and a curse being in the public eye. Right, So Mary didn't actively go looking for the limelight, but being a little more in the public eye, like I mentioned, it sure managed to find her. She became known around town for her immaculate beauty.
Oh okay.
She was tall, had soft features, thick black hair, and whenever she went anywhere, men seemed to follow her.
Oh okay, I was like, what exactly was how is she attracting people here?
Yeah? She she was very beautiful and she was a very kind individual, and it began attracting a lot of attention.
Was anything said about like if her mom was a beauty as well?
Not that I could see.
No, okay, no.
So, when Mary was only twenty years old, a man by the name of John Anderson, was the owner of a large cigar shop on Broadway, offered Mary something that would quite literally change her life. John wanted Mary to come and work for him, and it would be pretty easy work too. All Mary would have to do was stand behind a counter and sell cigars to men who came into the cigar shop. Okay, now, I do want
to preface this. I don't want to get the wrong idea that I'm saying that retail work isn't very hard, Like all you do is stand behind a counter and sell shit. That's not what I'm saying. Trust me.
Okay, I never thought that.
But okay, I have all the respect in the world for retail workers. Trust me on that mountain, I know you.
So that maybe why I didn't go there.
Just transitioning from running a boarding house and tending to all these individuals in the house to just selling some cigars behind a counters that's quite the transition, much less work for her, right, Especially in the eighteen hundreds, retail was a very different world.
Right right, Oh my gosh, yeah, I could only imagine.
No, I think, like, you know, you're working in a cigar shop. You're not like, hey, bring the truck around, we got crates to unload. It's like, oh, hey, my dude is dropping off the weekly box of cigars. Yeah, where there are twenty four cigars this week? Like you know what I mean. It's much more minimum.
And you're not dealing with like probably computers with like transactions and stuff, right, yeah.
Imagine, And I'm pretty sure in the eighteen hundreds there was much more polite activity occurring between transactions too, not where's the manager I needs?
You know, Yes, I actually feel like all around it would just be way more pleasant.
I think. So. So John was kind of onto something though by bringing Marion to work for him, and that something would be what we would now recognize as basically a good bit of marketing. He wanted Mary to be the face of his shop, and it would be a good deal for quite literally any anyone involved. With Mary's good looks and growing reputation around, she'd bring in more men into the shop to buy cigars, which meant more sales, which meant more money for everyone, including Mary.
He was kind of being pretty smart, really he was. He was thinking he was using his nogin.
But Mary was a young woman, and it was eighteen forties. During this era, less than ten percent of women held jobs outside their home. Oh okay, Mary was no different. She'd never left home for work, She never worked anywhere outside of the boarding house she'd helped her mother run it, and now John was proposing that she'd go to work in a shop that didn't exactly have the cleanest reputation. Wasn't so much that the shop itself was like a
bad part of town or anything. It just sold cigars, right, But both Mary and her mother were concerned that the type of men who'd be coming into the shop to see Mary.
Oh okay, I see.
But when Mary figured out how much of a financial success it could be for her, she and her potential new boss. John managed to convince her mom to let her take the job, even though she had her reservations about it, so convinced her that was that, and Mary began working at the shop. Mary's good looks and John's branding made her into quote the cigar girl, and her allure and reputation began to spread. Soon men were flocking
to the store just to see her. Really hey, yes, turning her essentially into an eighteen hundred's equivalent influencer.
Pretty much yes, wow, thought pretty much a celebrity.
Oh yeah, that's pretty much what she was having that title the cigar girl. Yeah like that, that in itself sounds alluring, right, it does, especially for like gentlemen. You know, Oh, I smoke scars, the scotch, the whiskey or the whatever, right, the top hat and the cane down the street. Oh, the illustrious cigar girl.
Well, yeah, as you're smoking this, it can be like I bought this from like this is a.
Cigar girl, right, yeah, I talk to her. She smiled at me like right, like, oh, that's a big deal. So Mary, though she wasn't what you typically think of as you know, the influencer, the negative connotations that we discussed at the beginning. She wasn't larger than life, she wasn't loud or energetic, but she was very sweet. She
was modest and very dignified. She was quick with a smile, but just as quick to shut down any ideas that any of the men at the store may be getting about her, and that only made her reputation grow bigger.
Oh right, man, she was just I don't know, playing this right, but not even necessarily intentionally.
It's not like it's just her. Yeah, she's not playing it right. Yeah, she's just fitting into this perfectly, seamlessly. It's almost like a proverb proverbial proverbial Can I say that proverbial Cinderella's glass slipper. It's just the perfect fit.
Yeah, And it almost just seems like this is like a movie.
To me, I wouldn't be surprised if there was movies actually made from this. Yeah. I mean, Mary literally encompassed the ideals of the perfect woman. For her times, people just literally couldn't get enough of her. She was ideal in every way, so she became an attraction. Men flocked to the store. They bought cigars, postcards, and mementos. With her face on them.
Wow.
Yes, And all the while Mary just focused on being her and focused on her work, making sure that she was a model employee, and not paying much attention to the reputation growing around her and her name.
And she's probably bring in quite a bit of.
Bank, definitely.
Now.
This went so far that one man even wrote a poem inspired by Mary that appeared in the New York Herald. And while I couldn't find the poem itself, I did find a couple quoted lines from it where it refers to her quote heaven like smile end quote star like eyes.
Oh wow, Yes, person's head over heels.
I think a lot of individuals were head over heels for Mary.
Okay, and correct me if I'm wrong. But at that age, probably in the eighteen hundreds, it's probably rare that she wasn't married, right, Probably because I feel like people back then got married quite young.
Yeah, I mean she is twenty and single.
Yeah, so yeah, well I'm kind of digging her. I like it.
She's pretty awesome. Yeah, she sounds honestly like quite a nice individual. She's got a good head on her shoulders, and I mean beauty like that. No one can complain.
Yeah, right, yeah, there's photos.
Of her teen hundred baby.
Well is there anything like?
No, there's like drawings.
What about these things that people were purchasing though.
Like sketches and drawings?
Okay, well I want to see that.
Okay, well I did already post one on Instagram, so.
Oh okay, I didn't see that yet. That's bad.
So after she had been at the shop for about ten months with no problems, things started to change when Mary didn't show up for work one morning and no one knew quite where she was. Her boss, John reached out to Mary's mother, who was just as shocked as he was when she found out that Mary hadn't shown up for work and that she basically disappeared, and the both of them went forward and reported her missing to
the authorities. So with her reported disappearance, newspapers began printing that Mary had disappeared from her home and her mother said that she had found an apparent suicide note.
Oh oh shit.
But this had turned out to be a hoax?
Oh okay, yeah, but honestly, sometimes that's it surprised me, But it didn't surprise me, you.
Know, if that was the case, a suicide note.
Yeah, because sometimes when you're just like in that limelight and you have all this pressure and.
Stuff like, oh, things tend to get to you.
It can. Yeah.
Yeah. So searches in the neighborhood were done. The press published story after story of the missing cigar girl, but it looked like Mary had just disappeared. And the next day Mary just reappeared.
Oh okay, yeah, alive and well yeah okay.
Though she wasn't back at work, and it was the talk of the town and everyone kind of knew. Though some thought that her reappearance could potentially be a hoax because she wasn't at work, no one really saw her. It was just word spreading that she's bad.
Oh a rumor.
Yeah. Anothers thought her disappearance was actually what was the hoax? Did she really disappear? Did she really come back? No one really knew, and some actually blamed John, thinking that maybe this was just another publicity stunt, more marketing.
Actually that kind of crossed my mind. It wouldn't be the worst thing, really, It would only make her more famous, yeah.
And it would only make a cigar shop get more traffic. Yeah, And he's already clearly got that sort of mindset for marketing. Yeah, virality of the eighteen hundreds.
Right, he's pretty creative. Really.
I definite props to that because he is definitely creative for that. So, either way, Mary came back to work six days later.
Okay, she did come back to work, Yeah.
Looking well, but reportedly apparently no longer smiling her usual smile. But she told people she'd just been away visiting relatives in the countryside, and both John and her mother stood by her story, even though they were the ones who reported her missing in the first place.
Yeah. When you said that, I'm like, that's really odd.
Yeah. So there's not a whole lot really known about that or the truth behind it. It was just kind of that's what we went with. That's what we know.
Okay. Yeah, that's confusing the shit out of me. Where the fuck was she?
Trust me? It kind of confuses me too, Okay, but it is what it is. So even though she'd return, though, a lot of people were in that same mindset like what really happened? And they were wondering, and they each tried to kind of come up with their own explanation for what really occurred. Rumors began circulating that Mary had been seen in other parts in New York, not the countryside, during those days that she was reportedly being missing, and that she hadn't been alone.
Oh okay.
The rumors said that Mary had seen was seen, sorry, in the company of a handsome naval officer, and that Mary was actually lying about what she'd been up to during those six days that she had been gone.
You know, I kind of I just hate that because you want to say you want to hide something or keep something quiet, then people just like make it up for you, like there's just no getting out of it. Really pretty much that happens nowadays.
Oh it does all the time. Yeah, yeah, And remember this is eighteen forty one too, right.
Like maybe she just wanted a hot fucking minute.
True. Reputations for individuals in eighteen forty one, especially women, were everything, and Mary's image had been built on her looks, her modesty, and with these rumors going around, Mary's reputation began to literally come into question. And I mean, what if she just couldn't handle it?
Yeah yeah, Like much.
Like influencers today when they're pressured about anything, Maybe it's someone's integrity, their history, what maybe they posted the wrong thing on Instagram? Who knows right. Things can get to an individual, those pressures, those build up.
I mean, you can say the wrong word at times and it's a big fucking deal, so you miss. It's a lot of pressure. It can be a lot of pressure sometimes.
Yeah, and you can literally just misgender someone and it could be an honest mistake. I mean, I've unfortunately misgendered someone, I apologize and continue on. Thankfully they've been receptive and understanding that it was an honest mistake. Yeah, but some people might not be receptive of an apology, right, And that's the world we live in. It is so so
for Mary. She'd been back for only one week and she decided to quit her job at the cigar shop due to all the whispering surrounding her name, and she returned back to a boarding house with her mother.
Okay, well, I mean she had somewhere nice to return, but that sucks.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it was fun while it lasted. She got some extra money out of it. It was time to move on, so she stayed at the boardinghouse as far away from the public eye as she could, living and working the boarding house again. But it was only a month later when there would be another development in Mary's story.
She disappeared again.
She was engaged.
Oh yep, okay, that's good.
She announced an engagement not to a tall, dark and mysterious naval officer, though, but someone else entirely, a man by the name of Daniel Payne ay any okay, yep. He was a young man who was about the same age as Mary, and he also worked as a clerk, and he lived in the boarding house that Mary and her mother ran. Okay, that sounds good, which is how Mary came to meet this individual. And it was within only a month that the two were to get married. Yeah,
so they were engaged within a month. And this sudden engagement didn't help stop rumors that Mary had been up to something when she shouldn't have been to, or what she against what she had said. In fact, it only seemed to make them worse, as whisperings continued behind her back. But Mary at least seemed a little bit more like her old self again. She smiled and just kind of kept.
To herself, waved it off and moved on.
Yeah, exactly, just water off a ducts back, right, And sometimes it's hard to do those things.
M hm.
Social media, you get a negative comment, we get a negative review in the podcast, it can weigh you down, yeah, because someone takes that time just to be a dick to you. You know, it's like fuck you.
Yeah. Honestly, my one friend she does listen, so we'll see if she says something, but she always says bless and release, so just bless them and the release them. And I honestly like, I have to remind myself that sometimes. But it's a really good saying.
And there's a big difference too, between criticism, constructive criticism, and yeah, being a dick you.
Know, oh yeah, because yeah, sometimes it can be like just saying something and really honestly helping you to improve and you're like, oh, okay, I could actually work on that, rather than just be like your personality is shit exactly. It's like, oh wow.
And whisperings behind your back about shit that they don't even know or experience are making up, Like what's the point, right, Yeah, it's just gossip.
But that's good that she was just letting it be kind of thing.
So by the summer, you know, the two of them were still quite not yet married, and despite some of the recent rumors, it was clear that Mary wasn't pregnant.
Oh god, that was one of the rumors.
That's that's one of the rumors that are flowing around, which all to note that might come in a little bit later on.
Okay.
So the day was July twenty fifth, eighteen forty one, and Mary knocked on Daniel's door at the boarding house and told him that she was going to go spend the day with her aunt. Daniel was just as happy that Mary was happy and hoped that she would have a good day out, so he told her that he would come by in the evening and walk her home in the two part of their ways. But the universe works in funny ways sometimes, and it had other plans
for how that evening would play out. As a day went on, a huge rainstorm rolled in and the streets were drenched in tremendous amounts of rain. Daniel had also spent that Sunday out of the boarding house, but when he saw how much it was raining, he decided not to stop by and pick up Mary for a walk home. He figured that she wouldn't want to walk home in a storm, probably unsafe, and that she was, you know,
with her aunt. So we thought she was probably safe at the place where she was currently, and she could probably even stay the night there if necessary, right, which is probably a good call.
Well, and then I was just thinking, it's hard to think differently, right, But I was just like phoner, but like, they don't have phones, No, you can't phone.
I'm just gonna send her a quick text, just.
A Facebook message and let her know. Yeah, oh my gosh.
Maybe give her a can and a string and we can communicate that way. I don't know. Yeah, So he decided not to go pick her up, and he headed home without her. And when he arrived home, he told Mary's mother about his decision, and she agreed. She thought that it would best not to be traveling the storm, that he made the right decision.
Okay, because I was like, is she gonna like this decision? I don't know if I like this decision, because shit's going down. I can already tell.
It was quite the storm outside, and she agreed, best not walk in the storm. Mary's probably just sitting there and the aunt's home and they'll wait it out too.
Yeah.
So the next day, after the storm had passed, Phoebe Mary's mother expected Mary to come home on her home during the day. It was light out, you know, and she can make her way home just fine, especially since she made her way there to begin with. But as the hours ticked by, her mother began to get nervous. By dinner time in the evening, when Daniel had come home from work and Mary still wasn't back, they both knew something might not be right, and Daniel headed back outside.
He went straight to Mary's aunts to see if Mary was still there. There was a chance that she was still there, and maybe she just you know, enjoying herself and enjoying the stay and enjoying the company. Maybe she even got sick, or who knows what. She wasn't able to walk home by herself. So he thought all these things in his head, all these different scenarios.
Let me guess what. She was never there.
Hit the nail on the head, yep.
I knew it. Yeah, you were leading us up to that, yep.
So when he got there, he asked Mary's aunt if she knew where she was, and she said that she was never there at all.
Yeah, yikes, Mary's in some trouble or she's hiding something big here.
What do you think she could be hiding?
I don't know, I think she's in trouble. I think she's in trouble. I'm not entirely sure how, but I think someone is threatening her or I won't want to say, holding her captive. But I don't influencing her in a very bad way.
Influencing the influencer.
Yeah, wow, that's what I'm going with.
That's like influencer inception. Well, I mean, technically, if you think about the influencers really are the one being influenced because their likes and comments and follows are what drives them.
We're getting deep here today.
Wow, you want another therapy session. That's gonna cost you. So, of course Daniel was worried now that Mary had quite literally disappeared again again, so both he and Mary's mother notified authorities. They reported where she was headed, who she was supposed to be with, what she was wearing. And it was summer, mind you, so she had traveled light
and she was wearing lighter clothing as well. She didn't have a bag with her or a coat, and outside her normal clothes, she had only been wearing a bonnet. So nothing extraordinary or anything. Mary's mother, rightfully so was quite worried. Something didn't quite sit right with this. If the plan was to run away or even just run away for a few days, and why didn't Mary pack anything? Why was she just packing light? This most likely meant
she intended to return home. The story of Mary's disappearing again was an even bigger story in Craze in the first time around for the newspaper.
Oh really, see, I would have thought now that she wasn't the Cigar Girl, that it might not have been such a big deal.
She still has that titles. People still know who she is, and they still know her as the cigar Girl, even if she doesn't work there anymore. So the Cigar Girl hadn't just run away once, but twice, and the press and rumors, like I said, I just couldn't get enough. Everyone was talked about what would have made Mary run away this time. Maybe your naval officer would come back from sea and they'd pick things up from where they'd
left off. Or maybe Mary was dumping her respectable clerk boyfriend for a dark and rugged sailor who knows all these whisperings going on.
Or maybe she's in like actual danger and people need to shut the fuck up and just try to find her.
That's true. That. I mean, I'm sure some of those rumors were going on. Authorities were searching. Don't dismiss that.
Yeah, sorry, that was actually me being a little bit. I don't know, I'm getting into this and I just want to know where the fuck Mary is.
Well, several days went by with no news. By this time, Mary didn't just walk back into everyone's life like last time. She did, however, return, but in a much more morbid fashion.
Oh seriously.
It would be fishermen out of the waters near Castle Point. Oh no, they would find near the shore. What they saw was something weird, strange floating out in the water, so they decided to take a small boat to see what it was. And because of who she was, fishermen knew instantly when they approached her that they had found the missing Cigar girl.
Oh my gosh.
And by the time they had returned back to shore with her body in the boat, word had already started to spread like wildfire about her discovery, and a crowd had beg began to form.
Really how earth did it spread like that? Though?
I'm thinking maybe some shouting back and forth, like as they're approaching shore, get the authorities. We found the cigar girls sort of thing maybe, And then people started to gather, That's my thought, because they certainly weren't sitting here calling on their cellphone. I know.
Yeah.
And it was easy for everyone to see when they took a look at Mary that she had been unfortunately beaten badly, and she had also been strangled with a piece of lace from her own clothes. Oh I hate that her wrists and ankles were bound and a weight was tied around her waist by a chord, and there was still more to be, still more to come. Some reports claimed that Mary had also been brutally raped before she was murdered. Oh no, However, to preface that, I
could not confirm that detail. Okay, so I could not find if that was rumor or fact. If she was.
Raped, see someone wash, someone was probably just obsessed with her this. I hope that we know that you get that you're telling us what happened here.
I'm telling you everything I know.
Oh, I hate those kind of answers. Why do you hate those old older case that you probably don't know like a ton about what this should happened.
Well, I'm going to give you everything I know, and you can decide for yourself.
If that's enough, If that's enough, okay, is it going to be enough for me?
You're just gonna have to let me continue to talk about it, and you'll find out. This is the third time I'll tell you what I know. Okay, I'm your titties. So her official death was ruled as a strangulation via an optopsy, and rumors began circuling over who could have done such a terrible thing to someone like Mary, And with her mysterious supposed naval officer nowhere to be seen, the authorities quickly turned to the next man in line,
Mary's fiance Daniel. Of course, they brought him in for questioning, but he was able to give a very detailed account of his whereabouts and movements and was released not long after. He clearly wasn't the culprit. After that, another weeks, sorry, did they also take the boss into I'm sure they talked to the boss, but I don't think he was
really come in for questioning or anything, but okay. It would be another week that went by with no more new developments though, and no new leads, and authorities began to get desperate. They first announced a reward for arrest
and conviction of the murderer. And then they took it a step further when they announced that anyone who knew anything about the crime, including anyone who maybe even took part in it but was actually not the murderer themselves, would be offered a reward and even immunity if they could help capture and convict the person who had actually killed Mary.
Wow. Yes, Wow, they're really trying here.
So it's not like it's just all these rumors and whisperings. Authorities are doing their due diligence.
Yeah, because that's a big reward, real or not reward, But saying that you'll have immunity, that's a big deal.
Immunity, that's a huge deal. It's huge.
Yeah.
So the very next day after the authorities announced this, they received an anonymous letter claiming to be from a man in Hoboken who's seen Mary there on Sunday. He said that he'd seen Mary walking in the sick Sorry, I'm going to try and pronounce this right. Elysian. There we go, Elysian Fields, and she hadn't been alone. Not long after Mary had got there, a boat had apparently pulled up, pulled up to the shore, and six rugged
looking men got off and headed to Mary. Mary had seen to know them, at least, she hadn't seemed uncomfortable around them, as she'd been laughing and talking with them, and then after a while they headed towards the forest together. But then the letter kind of continued. It wasn't long after Mary and the six men disappeared into the forest that another boat sailed up to the shore from New York. Inside the boat, there were three well dressed men, and one of them got out to talk to another couple
of men on the dock. This man had been reportedly asked if anyone had seen a group of six young men and a woman, and the man the dock said that they had seen them, and that even pointed towards the direction of the forest where Mary and the men had gone. But the man from the boat asked another question.
He asked if the men had used force against Mary or if she'd gone with them without a fight, and the man of the dock told her that the group of men hadn't touched her, and the men from the boat then apparently got back in the boat and headed back to New York without asking or saying anything. Else.
Hmm, this is so odd, isn't it. Yeah, Like I'm just my brain's just going wild here, Like what was she up to? Like I don't get this at all.
I don't know. No one came forward either, claiming to be the author of this letter.
Oh okay, they never did.
Hey, no, But it was published in a newspaper, and the very next day after that, another piece of the puzzle fell into place, recognizing the story those two men from the dock who were questioned by these other individuals in the from New York, From New York. Okay, they came forward and said, yes, everything in that letter is true.
But they also said that even though they knew who Mary was, at least what she looked like, they hadn't been too far away from the group and they weren't actually sure if it was Mary who had gone into the fores set. They weren't, so.
If it was her, that adds in level.
It would be another few weeks before there was another break in the case, but this time it came from a stagecoach driver. The driver claimed that he'd seen Mary arrive in a boken on that day, and she pretended to go visit her aunt and that she hadn't been alone. He claimed that Mary was with a tall man with dark hair, and that both of them had gone into an inn near Elysian Fields. The investigators were able to track down the inn and speak with the innkeeper, and
she confirmed this story. She didn't know who either of the visitors had been, but she remembered a man with dark hair and a young woman, and she remembered that they'd gotten something to eat before they headed off into the forest together. Not long after they disappeared in the forest,
the innkeeper remembered hearing a woman scream oh wow. But reportedly the inn's in a bit more rough area, and she said that that kind of thing can sometime times happen, and she hadn't really thought anything of it at the time, especially when she kind of went outside and listened a little bit closely for a second scream and it never came o.
Case. Just two things really quick. One, I just hate that that you're just in a shitty area and a scream is just not alarming when really someone needs help.
Oh, isn't that terrible? I hate that's horrible.
And then I also just kind of like love her too, because I love it when people when if someone came and it's like a big deal and they're like, yeah, I don't know who the fuck that is, Like I just I just love that. I don't know what. It makes me happy and just like smile inside.
Think of that as a modern day influencer situation.
Yeah, Like I don't know someone who thinks that they're a big deal and they're like a rot. Not that I'm saying that Mary thinks she's a big deal, but they're arriving somewhere and this person is expecting like special treatment.
The person just like, yeah, I don't think she was expecting that specially.
No.
But imagine like, okay, an Instagram influencer going to like an ice cream shop on the beach and like San Francisco or something. Yeah, San Francisco's beach is.
Right, yeah, oh yeah yeah.
And they're like, oh, if I post a picture of your ice cream and tagu, would you give me my ice cream for free? Because I have like eighty thousand followers. And then the person's just like, who the fuck are you?
Yeah, I don't know. So this is this little in lady. I just love her for some reason.
Yeah, So it would be though two months later that that very same innkeeper, missus Lawson, would call upon the authorities again, but this time she had something quite different to say.
Oh dang, maybe we don't love her. Was she hiding things?
Well, according to her, her children had been playing in the forest when they found the exact spot where Mary had allegedly been killed.
Really, so this is legitimately a month later that she had found new information. Yes, okay, she didn't have this at that time when they first questioned.
Correct, okay, so our kids apparently found a white petticoat caught in a bush, and they found a silk scarf and a parasol and a handkerchief with the initials m R on it, and Mary's mother confirmed these items to be belonging to Mary. That's sad. Everyone was then on the lookout for a tall man with dark hair, a description that coincidentally closely resembled the naval officer in the rumors from the first time Mary had gone missing, and
only added to the fuel for that rumor. But regardless, no one could find this man, this tall man with the dark hair.
Well, I mean, that's really not very descriptive.
Not really. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of individuals around like that. I'm sure a lot of guys were like, I'm gonna wear my hat today because I don't want to get like suspected of some shit, exactly. I don't want to be that sus So the authorities went back to Mary's mother, hoping that maybe she knew more about him, Maybe she did meet this guy, maybe she knew something.
Maybe she could I don't know, bring some light to the situation, but she said she didn't know, and if she did know who he was, she certainly didn't tell police. Maybe she was in a situation where she was worried that similar fate could be waiting for her. Yeah, hard to say. Daniel unfortunately took Mary's death very hard.
Yeah.
In the months that followed her death, his mental health began to suffer, and once the news broke about the finding of where she was most likely killed, there was no going back for him.
Ah.
Daniel was found deceased in the very same spot only a few weeks later. Seriously, he decided to commit suicide over the loss of his fiance and overdosed on laudanum. I don't even know what that is. I didn't want to look it up. Because I just kind of want to give this guy his space as much as I could. Yeah, you ended up overdosing while heavily intoxicated, and there was a note found with him that read to the world, Here I am on the very spot. May God forgive me for my misspent life.
Oh my gosh. That's terrible, isn't it. Oh? Wow?
Okay, Now some say this maybe ominous words that show he may have played a part in her final days.
Oh, because I was just gonna say, he doesn't even know what the heck happened, Like, he doesn't know anything really, right.
And but most don't suspect him of anything, though there are a few who say that this might point towards him.
Can you read what it said one more time? Sorry?
It says to the world, here I am on the very spot, May God forgive me for my misspent life. And that very spot, just to clarify, is the spot Mary was killed.
Right. Yeah, Like I mean he was heartbroken.
Yep. Now, the tall man with dark hair was never identified or caught, and Mary's case has never been solved.
I was really hoping that wouldn't be the case.
No, though her death remains a mystery, this didn't stop speculation and rumors, just as she endured while she was living, People talked and formed stories just as much while she was passed. One story actually speculates Mary's killer wasn't actually a man with tall, dark hair. This theory suggests that her killer was a woman, a doctor. This alleged doctor named Madan Ristelle was actually quite renowned, and she was renowned for helping women at the time terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Oh yes, damn. Marstelle wasn't a legitimate doctor, mind you, but she still did what she could to help individuals who needed her help. So what if this doctor was helping Mary and her fiance terminate their unwanted pregnancy and things didn't go so well. It's presumed that the doctor would have fled, and Mary's mother and Daniel would have been left with Mary's body, and they've desperately tried to cover up the incident, especially given her positive reputation.
Right, but then, why would she have been seen at the doc or where she was seen with like six men or I guess some people said they weren't even certain it was her right.
Not even certain it was her. H Now, this story could have very well been true except for one very big, glaring issue. Mary's autopsy revealed that she was never pregnant in any way, shape or form, and her cause of death was strangulation and there was nothing to show any sort of abortion or anything that he ever taken place.
Okay, so that just can't be then.
And lastly, that innkeeper, missus Lawson, while on her deathbed years later after an accidental firearm after one of her sons accidentally shot her, oh shit, she made a dying confession.
Uh oh.
She claimed that on that fateful day, that fateful Sunday, July twenty fifth, eighteen forty one, Mary had come to her in with that tall handsome individual, But that tall handsome individual was a doctor, and Mary was with child. From there, her story goes pretty similar to the last one, with an unsuccessful termination and the doctor fleeing from there. It was her and her sons who were left to dispose of Mary's remains, and they ended up planting the
belongings in the forest near their home. Miss Lawson died shortly after this badside confession, and both of her sons deny this story, though the New York Tribune newspaper accepted this confession. The case remains unsolved and the story is chalked up to a dying woman's wild tale.
Huh okay that the two stories that seem to that people seem to be saying and that kind of seem could have happened. But then the autopsy shows that she was never pregnant, so.
Correct, wow wow, But also mind you, and I'm sure an autopsy would find a pregnancy, but I'm not certain on the medical practitioner's expertise on an autopsy in eighteen forty one.
Either that's true, and she would have only been in like her early twenties.
Ay, I believe she was twenty yesh, maybe twenty one, I.
Don't know, but yeah, brutal.
Yeah, So her story is on. However, she does live on in more than one way. Aside from being labeled as the infamous cigar Girl, she lived to inspire one more man, Edgar Allan Poe, who also lived in the eighteen hundreds with Mary, and he based his story The Mystery of Mary Rogue on Mary's life and death, which he published one year after her death in eighteen forty two. In doing so, he made sure that Mary's fame and legacy would live on for many more generations to come.
And here we are, two hundred years later, almost still talking about her story.
Honestly, I love that. That's really cool.
Yeah, so Edgar Allan Poe did change a few details in the story, but that story is very much so based on Mary Rogers. Wow, the cigar girl.
Yeah, I mean it is. I guess one positive is that her story is really living on. But it's too bad that no one knows what happened really.
Right like that.
I hate that.
And she seemed like she was such a nice woman too. Yeah, she was so kind, dignified. She didn't really let this get to her. I mean, sometimes weight gets to an individual, but she kept her her smile and she just lived.
Yeah, and she thought through her decisions and stuff. It seemed like too yeah right, she you know, when things weren't really going quite well, she decided that she'll go back and work with her mom and that would help.
And yeah, I do think that there was an individual that she might have built up a reputation with at the cigar shop who became jealous of her engagement. And I think that she felt she could trust this individual. Maybe they were going out for I don't know, lunch or something like that, right, But.
Why wouldn't she have just told her fiance or.
Maybe she was having an affair with the individual too. For one reason or another, there was something happening where she felt she could trust this individual and they needed to lie or make some something up where they weren't telling what was going on. And I think in this situation, she most likely would have been like, I can't do this. I'm getting engaged, I'm getting married. Sorry, I'm not the
cigar girl anymore. I am moving on from that. And this individual couldn't accept that and wanted her for himself. And I do think this tall man with dark hair was exactly that individual who took her life.
He showed us true colors. Yeah, at some point.
Yeah, I think that there was a lot of anger taken out on her because she would not accept them, hence the beating and the final strangulation.
Yeah, and even just the way the body was disposed to is pretty brutal.
Yeah, that's my theory. Do you have a theory?
Oh my gosh, lots of times when you ask me this at the end, I'm like still processing shit. But I don't think it was the fiance. I don't think the mother of the fiance knew anything, to be honest. Oh, man, I do think someone I also, Okay, I do think
your theory is very valid and makes sense. But I also think someone might have had an obsession with her or something that they were manipulating her of sorts, and that she ended up getting herself in, like too deep to something that she couldn't get out of necessarily, which kind of goes with your theory, I guess, right. So, yeah, but I do think this person. I do think whoever did this had a bit of an obsession with her that she maybe didn't quite realize.
Agreed, Yeah, are cats going wild?
Yeah, it's that time a day.
Yeah, perfect timing. All right, Well, I'm curre some what your guys' theory is. So shoot us a message or something something or thumbing shoot the method to something. Shoot us a message.
We've been talking too much today?
Yeah, Cotton milth, I got a beer here that I've hardly touched. Good job.
This was actually very interesting story. All done.
It's a bit of a tail, but it's an interesting one.
It is.
It's very interesting, and I'm curious on what other people's theories are so shoot us a message on that.
Yeah, let us know what you think or put in the comments or something.
Yep, we got posts on Facebook and Instagram. We've got all our social links down below if you want to check it out. Patreon included website you name it descriptions down there. If you don't want to check them out, you can just hang out with us. Next podcast. That's cool too. Yeah. Are a cat is literally like possessed?
Right? Yeah, we got there's a huge bang. We should probably check that out.
Nicole's eyes just went like massively wide. Yeah, and our dogs are disturbed. Good job week.
Okay, well, honestly, thank you for being here and until next.
Week, stay wicked or should I do the whole long live thing?
Should we do it together?
I don't know if I want to do it together? Okay, stay wicked? Is that good?
That was great?
Okay,