Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That lovely face on the
Speaker 1: other side of the zoom call is the one and
Speaker 1: only super producer, Max Williams. They called me Ben, mostly
Speaker 1: because that's that's the name I go by, and uh, Noel,
Speaker 1: we're you know. I was thinking this. I heard one
Speaker 1: of our older episodes right when the pandemic was hitting
Speaker 1: and we were such a sweet summer children. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: weren't we? I did? I didn't I sound pensive just
Speaker 1: then when you said my name, METICS went because today's
Speaker 1: a serious episode. Uh no, it's true, man, we've we've
Speaker 1: been through it, at least in terms of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and also you know, we're right there alongside the rest
Speaker 1: of humanity. But yeah, it was weird going from like
Speaker 1: hanging out in person to just like being a little
Speaker 1: floating faces on a screen. But thankfully we're both fully vaccinated,
Speaker 1: and despite some of the weirdness and trepidation, we're having
Speaker 1: to approach this whole new variant with I think maybe
Speaker 1: one day we'll be back to doing it in person again.
Speaker 1: At least, you know, occasionally, but um, we've definitely throughout
Speaker 1: the pandemic. You know, we've seen a lot of stories
Speaker 1: we've talked about that have parallels, and the Spanish flu
Speaker 1: is one that keeps coming up because there was even
Speaker 1: like an anti masker kind of sentiments wrapped up in
Speaker 1: the Spanish flu. There were a lot of interesting parallels
Speaker 1: to the way it was handled and the way it
Speaker 1: was kind of politicized. We also recently did a story
Speaker 1: on stuff that I want you to know about some
Speaker 1: folks that were taking advantage of the rolling out of
Speaker 1: vaccines in India, I think specifically by setting up these
Speaker 1: kind of fake vaccine clinics and charging you know, people
Speaker 1: who were very desperate to get vaccinated in a country
Speaker 1: where it wasn't particularly available. Um, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: giving them something approaching like a saline you know injection, right,
Speaker 1: remember that one? Then? Yeah, yeah, I do know, And
Speaker 1: that was definitely not the vaccine they were supposed to
Speaker 1: be giving these people. Today's episode makes me think of
Speaker 1: the millions of medical professionals who were doing hazardous, sometimes
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous, always incredibly tiring work and continue to do
Speaker 1: so during this pandemic and civilization this is not hyperbolic.
Speaker 1: Civilization depends on these people. Uh. And when you see
Speaker 1: a bad one, they get a lot of press, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned and uh, that piece on those incredibly dishonest
Speaker 1: folks in India. UM. I believe there was someone in
Speaker 1: Central Europe as well, maybe Germany or Austria who is
Speaker 1: also behaving poorly. And today's story is about someone who
Speaker 1: frankly blows those folks out of the water. Uh felt ridiculous. Historians.
Speaker 1: We are going to introduce you to a quote unquote nurse,
Speaker 1: a con artist that you may have never heard of,
Speaker 1: but one who was infamous in her time for being
Speaker 1: just they'll say it the worst, Yeah, the absolute worst. Um.
Speaker 1: Her name was Julia Lyons. She was twenty three years
Speaker 1: old at the height of her crimes. She's definitely like
Speaker 1: a early bloomer. And essentially what she did was take
Speaker 1: advantage of people suffering from the Spanish flu epidemic by
Speaker 1: posing as a flu nurse during this time where there
Speaker 1: were a lot of folks that were in quarantine and
Speaker 1: there was a real and like you said, Ben, this
Speaker 1: need you know for these medical professionals, probably to such
Speaker 1: an alarming degree that maybe there wasn't as much vetting
Speaker 1: as maybe should have been going on, and folks who
Speaker 1: were maybe volunteering say, oh, I have nursing experience, would
Speaker 1: maybe just be all please help us. We will take
Speaker 1: all the help we can get, and Lions absolutely capitalized
Speaker 1: on that. Her crimes took place in Chicago around nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: or at least that was when she was arrested kind
Speaker 1: of again like at the at the peak of these scams,
Speaker 1: and she'd you know, run various scams in the past,
Speaker 1: but looked at this, you know, absolute nightmare scenario, not
Speaker 1: as what it was or even like as something that
Speaker 1: she herself should fear, weirdly enough, but as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to rob people blind as they were maybe dying at
Speaker 1: the very least suffering horribly. Evidently, Yeah, she had some
Speaker 1: big chaos as a ladder little finger vibes, and she
Speaker 1: also had a rap sheet before this. By the way,
Speaker 1: she didn't just suddenly go from a jackal to a
Speaker 1: hide in September of nineteen eighteen, as the Chicago Tribune
Speaker 1: shows us, and as is later cited extensively in a
Speaker 1: wonderful little article by Mental Flaws, lens is, as you said,
Speaker 1: twenty three and she is the perfect miscreant for a
Speaker 1: crime reporter, because crime reporting the newspapers of this day
Speaker 1: were a little more the language was a little more stylized.
Speaker 1: Chicago Tribune called her twenty three year old woman of
Speaker 1: marvelous gowns and haughty men, and she she was accused
Speaker 1: of performing various miracles at getting ready money. This this
Speaker 1: was when she was arrested, is when Chicago Tribune was
Speaker 1: publishing this article about her. And eventually she escaped from
Speaker 1: the police station, so she never went to trial for
Speaker 1: the first crimes she's on record as being arrested for.
Speaker 1: And I can only imagine that it must have been
Speaker 1: easier to escape the long arm of the law back then,
Speaker 1: because this is also not gonna not gonna be her
Speaker 1: first escape. Uh. And she that close call did not
Speaker 1: put her on the straight and narrow. She had a
Speaker 1: couple of other aliases that she would that she would
Speaker 1: use depending on the situation. And after she escaped. She's
Speaker 1: a petty criminal. She has decided that, like you said,
Speaker 1: the flu epidemic is an excellent opportunity to make a
Speaker 1: ton of money. And it really is a chaotic time
Speaker 1: for the US and the world. I think at this point, uh,
Speaker 1: we should acknowledge the flu was monstrous. It was a
Speaker 1: disastrous event where how many people were How many people
Speaker 1: died in the US alone? Yeah, it was around six
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five thousand people in the United States alone,
Speaker 1: And this number staggers me fifty million people worldwide, so
Speaker 1: that quite a borderline dwarfs the Corona pandemic that we're
Speaker 1: dealing with right now. Yeah. Yeah, this is insane because
Speaker 1: the estimates of death for the flu pandemic of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighteen are still they still vary widely, but we know
Speaker 1: about two years into it, almost a third of the
Speaker 1: population across the planet had been infected. So this was
Speaker 1: this was dangerous. This was getting everywhere. And I love
Speaker 1: the point you made earlier about desperation. This was a
Speaker 1: crucial piece of the con because you may hear a
Speaker 1: lot of reports in your neck of the global woods,
Speaker 1: very true and tragic and frightening stories about hospitals being overcrowded,
Speaker 1: medical professionals literally running out of supplies and beds. This
Speaker 1: is happening in Chicago in night, and people are desperate
Speaker 1: for in home care to have a nurse come visit you,
Speaker 1: administer medicine, pick up your prescriptions for you. That's a
Speaker 1: big thing, and help you avoid the crush of going
Speaker 1: to a hospital, right which could be a dangerous place
Speaker 1: infection wise. So she said, this is so simple, but
Speaker 1: it works. She said, you know what, nobody's really gonna
Speaker 1: have time to check whether I went to nursing school.
Speaker 1: I'll just say I've got a different name. I'll call
Speaker 1: myself something like Ruth Hicks or Mary Walker or Mrs
Speaker 1: h J. Baron's or you know, whatever name feels good,
Speaker 1: very wholesome sounding names, no doubt. But yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 1: I mean they were just in such desperate need of
Speaker 1: personality to like help out that they absolutely weren't going
Speaker 1: to look much further than the registry that she signed
Speaker 1: up for. This was like this nursing kind of volunteer registry.
Speaker 1: So she gets placed in these various homes with with
Speaker 1: individuals that are suffering from the pandemic, and she would
Speaker 1: do some very interesting things. I mean, this is like
Speaker 1: borderline like mafia kind of like construction grift kind of
Speaker 1: stuff where it's like you you you charge like three
Speaker 1: times the price for like a chair or like a
Speaker 1: piece of building materials and you build it, you know,
Speaker 1: in a way where you're you're kind of hiding the
Speaker 1: money by like overcharging for like toilets and fixtures and
Speaker 1: things that I came in with the exact name of
Speaker 1: that con But she's doing something like that, but like more,
Speaker 1: instead of builking insurance companies, she's builking individuals. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's really just brazen. So she'll get the prescription filled,
Speaker 1: she'll pay for it herself, and then shield charge the patient,
Speaker 1: uh an exorbitant amount for whatever the you know, the
Speaker 1: prescription might be. For example, she charged one patient sixty
Speaker 1: three dollars for like a dose of oxygen that actually
Speaker 1: costs five five dollars out um. Yeah, Mental Flaws has
Speaker 1: a fantastic article about this whole situation, and they ran
Speaker 1: the numbers on the inflation calculator so we won't have to.
Speaker 1: But we can still say, boop, okay, man, Max, you
Speaker 1: got a strong boop, my friend. It's such a goth boop.
Speaker 1: But yes, the sixty three dollars to five dollars, you know,
Speaker 1: which is what it actually costs today, would be the
Speaker 1: equivalent of charging someone one thousand and seventy seven dollars
Speaker 1: for an eight five dollar item. So I mean, I
Speaker 1: gotta wonder if she's if she's being placed in these
Speaker 1: homes through this registry, Like I don't know that she
Speaker 1: would have the luxury of being able to pick her marks,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like in terms of like
Speaker 1: them being more wealthy, that that would be easier to
Speaker 1: kind of builk in this way, because, as we'll get
Speaker 1: into it, another part of this was just outright theft.
Speaker 1: So she started to develop a few nicknames again after
Speaker 1: she got caught. Chicago Tribune really kind of chronicled this
Speaker 1: whole thing in this very absorbing and like you said,
Speaker 1: then hyper stylized way of the time. The writing will
Speaker 1: get into a few more quotes. Um as we go.
Speaker 1: They're they're really great. But they dubbed her flu Julia
Speaker 1: or I believe slick Julia was one of them. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there might have been a few other nicknames.
Speaker 1: Those are the two that that stand out. Uh. And
Speaker 1: apparently one of the grifts that she would do. Um.
Speaker 1: She she had a lot of co conspirators, and one
Speaker 1: of them was someone that police had identified after the
Speaker 1: fact as a known narcotic supplier, uh and quote dope seller. Um.
Speaker 1: But apparently one of the ways she would do this
Speaker 1: whole prescription grift is she would actually have this person
Speaker 1: forged prescriptions for her. Then she'd pick them up and
Speaker 1: sell them back to the patients for like more money.
Speaker 1: It's a little confusing because they also gotta wonder like,
Speaker 1: was she just telling the patient that she had prescribing power? Ben,
Speaker 1: do you think, yeah, yeah, it's a little unclear at
Speaker 1: this point, but it does. It does seem that to
Speaker 1: get the actual drugs, the actual medications, she was going
Speaker 1: to a legitimate pharmacy, so she needed some kind of
Speaker 1: prescription to actually pick something up. So she was definitely
Speaker 1: lying to her marks and she was definitely lying to
Speaker 1: the drug store. And I am really interested in this
Speaker 1: part of the story stood out to me. It was
Speaker 1: really interested to see how the dope boy on the corner, uh, like,
Speaker 1: what does his doctor's impression look like? And we'll find out,
Speaker 1: by the way, a little bit more about how why
Speaker 1: it was so easy for these folks to impersonate medical
Speaker 1: professionals at this time, Like if you went into a
Speaker 1: hospital back then, even if you were hanging with legitimate
Speaker 1: doctors and nurses. They might often be in playing clothes,
Speaker 1: you know, and they might not have sad a terry gear,
Speaker 1: but at least not the kind you would expect today,
Speaker 1: which we would call ppe personal protective equipment. So she
Speaker 1: would forge these prescriptions, and when the grift was starting
Speaker 1: to go a little south, she would ditch town or
Speaker 1: she ditched the house, not Chicago, and on the way
Speaker 1: she would commit straight up theft, like you said, she
Speaker 1: would take cash and in clothing that caught her eye,
Speaker 1: any jewelry. She was a bit of a magpie, anything
Speaker 1: that wasn't tied down and that she could carry. And
Speaker 1: she was known for uh. She was known for especially
Speaker 1: loving flashy clothes. And the Tribune writes about these specific
Speaker 1: incidences because she does this more than once, and if
Speaker 1: we want to peek into her mind, you might say, Okay,
Speaker 1: she is. Maybe you may be tempted to say she's
Speaker 1: not as bad as some of those folks who were
Speaker 1: giving away fake vaccines in because she was actually giving
Speaker 1: people medicine, even though she had no no qualifications upon
Speaker 1: which to recommend treatment. The thing is, though she didn't
Speaker 1: care about these people at all, no, in fact, I think,
Speaker 1: I think I've cleared this up a little bit. Ben.
Speaker 1: It looks like this dope dealer guy was actually coming
Speaker 1: into the home dressed as like a fake m D.
Speaker 1: And like writing the prescription, so you know, but then
Speaker 1: she would I think she would like make sure that
Speaker 1: it looked legit, but oftentimes she would be selling the
Speaker 1: or charging the patient, uh for a placebo. They weren't
Speaker 1: forging the prescription and then going and getting them the
Speaker 1: actual drugs they need. She was like making me these
Speaker 1: fake drugs out of something called cheriola, which is like
Speaker 1: an early kind of form of lip tent, like almost
Speaker 1: like a lip bomb, but like with you know, it's
Speaker 1: meant to be like a lip color, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: come into tube. It comes in a little like a
Speaker 1: like a tint and you'd maybe like put your finger
Speaker 1: on it or use a brush or something. But I
Speaker 1: guess you would use that to die, you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of liquid, because I would imagine that the the
Speaker 1: medication of the time would have been some form of
Speaker 1: like laudanum laced cough syrup or something like that, right
Speaker 1: to help with the pain of the coughing and also,
Speaker 1: you know, help with the symptoms but you'd think it
Speaker 1: would also that would just be treating the symptoms and
Speaker 1: not actually, but they didn't have a cure. It was
Speaker 1: just about treatment, kind of sweating it out right. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is the thing. Let me let me correct this
Speaker 1: because I misspoke here. I don't think they're going to
Speaker 1: she nor her doctor friends are going to the pharmacy
Speaker 1: and picking up heavy hitting drugs like morphine or something.
Speaker 1: I think they're I think they're doing what you did,
Speaker 1: what you're describing. Most of the time, they're getting placebos
Speaker 1: and they're saying, hey, you know, like things that won't
Speaker 1: hurt you, but aren't going to cure the flu, right, right,
Speaker 1: Like oxygen is not going to hurt you in the
Speaker 1: amounts that they're administering it, but it's not going to
Speaker 1: magically cure the flu. And we see moments where she
Speaker 1: seemed pretty cold. She actually spoke with a nine year old,
Speaker 1: an unfortunate kid named Eddie Rogan, who said, hey, come
Speaker 1: please help my older brother George. He's quote and this
Speaker 1: is from the Washington Post, he's out of his head
Speaker 1: with illness. And then Lyon says, oh, let him rave.
Speaker 1: He's used to raving. And you know what, happened to George.
Speaker 1: He died, Yeah, he sure did, out of his head
Speaker 1: with um illness. Makes me think he was just like
Speaker 1: deliriously feverish maybe, you know, I think I think that's
Speaker 1: probably and that certainly would cause you to, you know,
Speaker 1: rave or like to just not be have your wits
Speaker 1: about you. So no, not only did she not even
Speaker 1: care emotionally in any way, shape or form, and she
Speaker 1: was actively you know, her part of her grift was
Speaker 1: keeping these people sick and finding vulnerable people. Finding very
Speaker 1: vulnerable people are probably made the easier to grift. And
Speaker 1: she was really good at like building this fake narrative
Speaker 1: that made her more appealing. Um, she was absolute master
Speaker 1: con artist. I mean, that's essentially what what she was.
Speaker 1: There's a story that The Tribune tells of The Chicago
Speaker 1: Tribune tells of this elderly gentleman that she was helping
Speaker 1: and when she came and saw for the first time,
Speaker 1: she really wanted to get her hooks. Since she starts
Speaker 1: with this story about like, oh my gosh, Mr So
Speaker 1: and so, do you remember me, I'm I'm Julia or
Speaker 1: whatever pseudonym she's using. I I knew you when I
Speaker 1: was a little girl, I used to hitch on your wagons,
Speaker 1: And I imagine this is just what like hopping on
Speaker 1: the back and catching a ride, you know, for frenzies.
Speaker 1: Like that's something a cute little kid would do that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be annoying if you were like an old grizzled farmer. Sure,
Speaker 1: and so many decades have passed. This is such a
Speaker 1: vague statement. It's based on the fact that this guy
Speaker 1: had wagons in the past, and so he's literally thinking, well,
Speaker 1: I must have had some some children. Indeed, I gotta
Speaker 1: mean that did she know that? Was she just doing
Speaker 1: a shot in the dark like she had researched this guy,
Speaker 1: I mean she must have. Um, really fascinating And yeah,
Speaker 1: and he, uh, he began like you said. At first,
Speaker 1: he was a little like what, I don't specifically remember you,
Speaker 1: but sure, why not? Um, you're here to help me
Speaker 1: after all, And now I feel closer to you and
Speaker 1: less likely to be suspicious of any you know, stuff
Speaker 1: that goes missing or weird unreasonable charges for things like
Speaker 1: oxygen um and you know, cherry tinted liquid. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it turns out that when the police came and interviewed
Speaker 1: this man, uh, he actually defended her. You know, say no, no,
Speaker 1: there's no way, there's no way I knew her. She
Speaker 1: used to hitch on my wagons, you know when she
Speaker 1: wishing little girls, she hitched on my wagons. I'm certain wagons, detective, now,
Speaker 1: thank you to watch your tone. And then the next
Speaker 1: I don't know why I turned British at the end.
Speaker 1: But the next the next night, or like within a
Speaker 1: few hours actually that night flew Julia vanishes and on
Speaker 1: the way she makes off with a wrist watch. She
Speaker 1: takes some cash and some other household items. And so
Speaker 1: come the next day, this victim tells the detectives by golly,
Speaker 1: I guess I was wrong, and she's gone, she's grifted,
Speaker 1: she's got a new name, she's burned that other identity.
Speaker 1: So this was all coming to a head, and the
Speaker 1: hunt for her is on. Law enforcement realizes there's one
Speaker 1: person doing these crimes. So in November of the same year,
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighteen, the cops are able to get a
Speaker 1: lead on Julia through a friend of hers named Eva Jacobs.
Speaker 1: And Eva Jacobs this is where we get our like
Speaker 1: crime board with the red stringing and the little photographs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Eva Jacobs lived in an apartment with another carn artist
Speaker 1: named Suicide Best Davis. According to the Tribune. Again, the
Speaker 1: writers the Tribune are having are making a meal of
Speaker 1: this for sure. The Tribune says this house is a
Speaker 1: known hangout for thieves, and police do a wire tap.
Speaker 1: They tapped the phone, and from those conversations that are
Speaker 1: listening into, they learned Julia lives pretty much in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and so they start trailing her. And one day she
Speaker 1: is setting off to marry a guy. This is so
Speaker 1: of the time, to marry a guy called Charlie the Greek.
Speaker 1: Charlie the Greek runs a restaurant on West Madison Avenue.
Speaker 1: And before they can get married, before they can exchange
Speaker 1: their I dues and their official kiss, the cops apprehender.
Speaker 1: They arrest her. They handcuffed her, and then she says,
Speaker 1: apparently she's shouting at the detectives. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is pure style
Speaker 1: and embellishment, and how much of this is a verbatim quote,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, but she says, the weddings all
Speaker 1: bust up. You got me, It's all bust up. Um.
Speaker 1: She says, like a gun mall or something, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I mean, I guess that would have
Speaker 1: been she She wasn't too far from that. I mean,
Speaker 1: she didn't really use guns, and she didn't murder anybody directly,
Speaker 1: but she essentially was a member of organized crime. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was all these grifts were very methodically planned. She
Speaker 1: had other confidence that she worked with. You know that
Speaker 1: we'll we'll hear a little bit more about later. That
Speaker 1: did didn't come out right away, um, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating the level of callousness this woman exhibited
Speaker 1: towards these like super super vulnerable people. I just, you know,
Speaker 1: can't wrap my head around it. But I guess that's
Speaker 1: why you and I are not sociopathic grifters. Would you
Speaker 1: consider this woman and we're not psychologists either, but she
Speaker 1: seemed more of a sociopath to you or she inching
Speaker 1: into psychopath territory? Yeah, it's an interesting question. Not a
Speaker 1: psychologist or profiler by trade, but she's definitely not exhibiting
Speaker 1: a ton of empathy for other people, including the guy
Speaker 1: she was going to marry apparently with a couple got arrested,
Speaker 1: both of them, not just Julia and Charlie the Greek
Speaker 1: is in jail and one of the detectives says, so
Speaker 1: how long have you how how long have you known her? Well,
Speaker 1: according to the Washington Post, they said how long have
Speaker 1: you known this dame? And then Charlie says ten days?
Speaker 1: That is I thought I knew so yes, even though
Speaker 1: this guy you know was a crook unto himself. Uh,
Speaker 1: she even kind of put one over on him. Um.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that she, you know, was in
Speaker 1: league with uh, this woman Ava who she was found with. UM.
Speaker 1: So when she was hauled into the police station, she
Speaker 1: actually ran into physically the widow of one of the
Speaker 1: patients that she had, you know, left for dead, essentially
Speaker 1: because you know, again that the need is so great,
Speaker 1: there's so much chaos going on that there's not necessarily
Speaker 1: going to be a social worker or anybody else checking
Speaker 1: in on you to make sure that this nurse was legitimate.
Speaker 1: And she would essentially just you know, give these people
Speaker 1: fake medicine, uh, take all their valuables, and then leave
Speaker 1: them for dead. And that's exactly what she did to
Speaker 1: her husband who died. Who died, and she screams at him,
Speaker 1: you killed my husband, there's no punishment too terrible for you.
Speaker 1: And Julia was brought up on charges of larceny, running
Speaker 1: a confidence game, and obtaining money under false pretenses. And
Speaker 1: this guy named John Hickey, who was a deputy sheriff. Um,
Speaker 1: he volunteered to take her. On the ride to the
Speaker 1: courthouse from the county jail, he was warned by the
Speaker 1: chief bailiff of the court, John C. Ryan, telling her
Speaker 1: to let her get away. Um, she is pretty slick,
Speaker 1: which I imagine is where the name slick Julia came
Speaker 1: from the paper gave to her. Uh. And he's like, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's fine, I've got this. Um, she won't be able
Speaker 1: to get away from me. Yeah. And the detectives who
Speaker 1: had been running point on the case even said, look,
Speaker 1: she'll go if she gets a chance. Better put the
Speaker 1: irons on, meaning better put the handcuffs on. Don't justice
Speaker 1: scort her. I'm sure there was some Oh she's just
Speaker 1: a woman, you know. Yeah. And let's also keep in
Speaker 1: mind Chicago at this time is kind of corrupt. We
Speaker 1: can say that. So here's what happens. There's a patrol
Speaker 1: wagon that would typically be used to transport someone like
Speaker 1: Julia to the courthouse. Instead, this deputy sheriff takes her
Speaker 1: in a street car, and he does, he does at
Speaker 1: this point and get her to court, the street car
Speaker 1: being like a trolley or like something of public transit,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Yeah, And so in court there's a field day.
Speaker 1: It's pandem amonium. There are somewhere around fifty victims who
Speaker 1: testify about her dastardly deeds. She is slapped with a
Speaker 1: thirteen thousand dollar bond. Thanks to Washington Post for the
Speaker 1: inflation calculator here. But Max, if you still want to
Speaker 1: do the honors poetry, Yes, So thirteen dollars back then
Speaker 1: was more than a hundred and ninety grand today. So
Speaker 1: this courthouse proceeding takes about an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: In this Deputy Hickey takes Lions back and he's gonna
Speaker 1: put her back in the clink, but the police get
Speaker 1: a phone call from him while he's supposed to be
Speaker 1: in route, and Noel First he says, O MG, you guys, Lions,
Speaker 1: Julia Lions flew. Julia has leapt out of the vehicle
Speaker 1: and she climbed into a getaway car and it's sped
Speaker 1: away way too fast for me to chase it. Down
Speaker 1: the his bosses are like, really, dude, Yeah, it's crazy
Speaker 1: that she had this much foresight to have the getaway
Speaker 1: car ready, Like she must have communicated their position and like,
Speaker 1: you know when she was gonna bail out. And it's
Speaker 1: also just a really bold move to jump out of
Speaker 1: a moving street car. But it would have been easy
Speaker 1: enough to do and certainly would have been harder to
Speaker 1: do in the back of a proper police car with
Speaker 1: handcuffs on. But instead, this guy is a real dope. Um,
Speaker 1: let's you kind of had it coming here. But still,
Speaker 1: the coordination is the thing that impresses me. Like she
Speaker 1: would have had to dive out of the street car,
Speaker 1: hit the ground rolling and then jump right into this
Speaker 1: car and then it was able to speed away. And
Speaker 1: the guy didn't even have his own wheels, right, he
Speaker 1: was on a public transportation vehicles. He wouldn't have even
Speaker 1: been able to Like, I guess it could have commandered,
Speaker 1: but if it's a street car, I mean those are
Speaker 1: on tracks, right. Yeah, well, if this story is true,
Speaker 1: it's the thing because he has another version of this story.
Speaker 1: When his bosses think this doesn't add up, he says, okay, okay, okay, sorry, hey,
Speaker 1: let me, let me get my head straight. Julia said
Speaker 1: she wanted to go to a bank to withdraw some
Speaker 1: cash on the way back to jail. So I took
Speaker 1: her there and then I turned around for just a second,
Speaker 1: and then she was gone. That's what actually happened. Hand
Speaker 1: to God, guys, and then his bosses. His bosses are
Speaker 1: looking at Hickey. They're increasingly skeptical because his story has
Speaker 1: kept changing, and they think, you know, we live in
Speaker 1: early twentie century Chicago. It's not it's not an uncorrupt place. Hicky,
Speaker 1: Did you accept a bribe from flu? Julia? Also? Why
Speaker 1: are you so far away from the jail you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be taking her to? And one guy, one of
Speaker 1: the detectives, concludes, if they were all the way out
Speaker 1: where they were found, then Hickey and flew Julia must
Speaker 1: have been get this little cabaretting together? Was I mean
Speaker 1: like gallivanting around town like Tom Caton around was cabaret
Speaker 1: ng It's like going to a cabaret hall. I guess
Speaker 1: it's like going clubbing, like going hitting the hitting the town,
Speaker 1: painting the town red. I guess that's what that means.
Speaker 1: And she resting, So they were so brazenly, like unconcerned
Speaker 1: that they were just like out having a good old time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it must have, like you know, the way I picture
Speaker 1: it is. We know that this person had a lot
Speaker 1: of charm. It was tremendously manipulative. So it's quite possible that,
Speaker 1: you know, while they were en route from the courthouse
Speaker 1: to the jail, she turned on the charm and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I might be going a while away for
Speaker 1: a while. Um, can we just can I just have
Speaker 1: one last hurrah? Can we just go somewhere and hang
Speaker 1: out for a second, you know, let's dance. Nobody dances anymore,
Speaker 1: officer or whatever. Uh, And maybe it must have worked,
Speaker 1: or maybe she us paid him off. And then another
Speaker 1: one of her friends shows up because she had a network,
Speaker 1: someone named Pearl Aldridge, who says, actually, we arranged this
Speaker 1: entire caper with Hickey in advance. She confesses that he
Speaker 1: is an inside man for her escape. And when that
Speaker 1: news hits, Hickey is suspended. And then he actually goes
Speaker 1: to jail that night, or at least he spends the
Speaker 1: night in jail. And this is exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: They resumed their search for and this is where she
Speaker 1: gets that nickname slick Julia. Yes, it's a little more
Speaker 1: universal than flew Julia. You know, she doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be tied down to one period in her criminal career. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, like like we said, like when we at
Speaker 1: the top of the show, I actually misspoke a little
Speaker 1: bit too. I staid at the top of the show
Speaker 1: and she was I think twenty three as when she
Speaker 1: had the peak of her grifting career. That's not true.
Speaker 1: That was just where she was at that time before
Speaker 1: the Spanish flu griff really, you know, became her focus.
Speaker 1: But just to reiterate, she had been like hiding checks
Speaker 1: and um impersonating members of the Justice Department, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken. Uh And and then went again back to
Speaker 1: some amazing Chicago Tribune quotes, they're performing various miracles at
Speaker 1: getting ready money, which is very much what she continued
Speaker 1: to do and perfect and also clearly something of a
Speaker 1: master escape artist. But it's not like she was gonna
Speaker 1: take any lessons learned from any of these brushes with
Speaker 1: the law. She No, she just continued to double down
Speaker 1: because that's what people like that do. And in March
Speaker 1: of nineteen nineteen, after you know, examining all of those
Speaker 1: nurses registries, okay, which would have been, you know, just
Speaker 1: an insane amount of paperwork to go through. Detectives were
Speaker 1: finally able to find her and she was operating under
Speaker 1: the name Mrs James, running her con at a house
Speaker 1: on Fullerton Boulevard where she was looking after a patient
Speaker 1: name to Mrs White and again highly recommend reading all
Speaker 1: of this mental fluss. Article about flu Julia by Ellen
Speaker 1: Gutowski uh called slick Julia Lyons, the con artist who
Speaker 1: posed as a nurse during the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic
Speaker 1: then robbed her patients. Who that's a doozy of a headline.
Speaker 1: And at this point when the detectives come to confront
Speaker 1: her again, she's operating under the name just for the
Speaker 1: full name M. S. James. Um, they were able to
Speaker 1: find her. And then there's another amazing bit of reporting
Speaker 1: from the Chicago Tribune. Mrs m S. James is kind
Speaker 1: of funny because it's like, Mrs Ms James, I wonder
Speaker 1: if that was a little wink wink not or something
Speaker 1: like that, or just her you know, keeping it keeping
Speaker 1: it fresh, keeping herself amused. Mrs m S. James Nay
Speaker 1: flew Julia Nay Slicker Julia WHOA, She's now not just
Speaker 1: slick Julia, She's slicker because she's final form. For she's
Speaker 1: just a little greasier than she was the last time
Speaker 1: she got in trouble. Slicker Julia who walked away from
Speaker 1: former Deputy Sheriff John Hickey. By the way, let's just
Speaker 1: really quickly remind all of ourselves that he was in
Speaker 1: on it. She had paid him off when I was
Speaker 1: like getting so weirded out earlier. But like, how did
Speaker 1: she manage to pull this off? It was because she
Speaker 1: had cooperation and he was so foolish with his handling
Speaker 1: of her pretty much like on purpose. Can keep your
Speaker 1: story straight and got keep stuff totally absolute, rookie, Like
Speaker 1: pick one story you just stick to stick with no
Speaker 1: matter how all the rails it goes. As soon as
Speaker 1: you change stories, you're copped total. Yeah. Absolutely, you gotta
Speaker 1: take it simple, keep it simple. Um so again, former
Speaker 1: Deputy Sheriff John Hickey walked back into Because it's Julia.
Speaker 1: She walked back into custody involuntarily last night. Um yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: she did. It's weird reporting. Uh, she got charged Max
Speaker 1: we've been going on easy audeing with the sound cuse.
Speaker 1: But can we get like a like a you know
Speaker 1: on late night variety shows or talk shows where they
Speaker 1: do the drum bits during like a joker top ten?
Speaker 1: Can we get one or something like this? Okay? In
Speaker 1: addition to her nineteen previous scounts of larceny, but um,
Speaker 1: she also gets not She also gets charged with obtaining
Speaker 1: money by false pretenses. But I'm thumb conducting a confidence game.
Speaker 1: But I'm and then one other slightly unexpected charge bigamy. No,
Speaker 1: we know what bigamy is? Yeah? Wait, bigamy is just
Speaker 1: the active in beginning oneself. Bigamy is it's sort of
Speaker 1: like cheating, or is having multiple partners, double marriage, getting
Speaker 1: married while you're still married, even if that's polygamy, polygamy
Speaker 1: is just a more like an escalation of bigamy, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Polygamy is having more or the one wife or a
Speaker 1: husband at the same time. Bigamy is when you are
Speaker 1: marrying someone while you're already married. So in order to
Speaker 1: experience polygamy, you have to commit bigamy. But bigamy has
Speaker 1: the connotation of being a crime. Culturally, it's okay to
Speaker 1: be polygamous in many parts of the world. So I
Speaker 1: guess that just means that she had a previous marriage. Um,
Speaker 1: they didn't actually dissolve it properly, and then, in order
Speaker 1: likely to to keep up certain grifts, she married again,
Speaker 1: probably under false pretenses. Now remember she married Charlie the
Speaker 1: Greek after ten days, so they must have signed the
Speaker 1: paperwork and she just got arrested at the ceremony. And
Speaker 1: then she had taken she had taken on a new partner,
Speaker 1: a soldier by the name of E. M. James, which
Speaker 1: is probably where she got miss James from. She had
Speaker 1: she had known this guy for four days. She has
Speaker 1: one sweet talking Grifton lady right there. Um. She She
Speaker 1: actually says in an interview on the record, uh that
Speaker 1: she met him while working at a deli on the
Speaker 1: South side of Chicago, and she described it as being
Speaker 1: like love at first sight, said it was so romantic.
Speaker 1: We only knew each other four days. When I became
Speaker 1: his bride. We went to Papa's farm on our honeymoon.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, wait, who's Papa. I don't I don't recall
Speaker 1: hearing anything about Papa. It's probably the drug dealer from earlier,
Speaker 1: Big Papa. I like it. I like the idea of
Speaker 1: all the all the dude grifters or all the dude
Speaker 1: she mentioned also be the same guy. So what if
Speaker 1: this guy is like also Hickey. Yeah, so about Charlie
Speaker 1: the Greek and and and the weird dope dealer doctor guy. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, what if it's all him? No, I'd be great.
Speaker 1: I love that idea. And it's interesting because we talked
Speaker 1: about I think earlier, like there was this like club
Speaker 1: that they would hang out at, like in Chicago or
Speaker 1: like all of the con artists like kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, uh gathered I guess the apartment lock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. Yeah, it wasn't a club, but it
Speaker 1: was like a you know, an area where it was
Speaker 1: common for a lot of these folks in this game,
Speaker 1: you know, which is so specific, right, they're not selling drugs,
Speaker 1: they're not doing hits for the mafia or anything, they're
Speaker 1: not in organized crime at a high level. This would
Speaker 1: have been I mean, this is in Chicago, so this
Speaker 1: would have been before like right before prohibition, so this
Speaker 1: actually would have been before the Coasta Nostra and like
Speaker 1: organized crime really made it to the United States. So
Speaker 1: this may have been the highest level of this kind
Speaker 1: of larceny. It was much less organized and much more
Speaker 1: like small groups doing it. But essentially, you know, not
Speaker 1: that far off from the kind of cons that mobsters run. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a very good point, because this is like everybody
Speaker 1: knows prohibitions on the way, but it hasn't really come
Speaker 1: into effect yet, I believe. So she's she hasn't been
Speaker 1: able to escape forever. She is actually going to go
Speaker 1: to court and she tries her best to get out
Speaker 1: of it all through the trial. First, she alleges a
Speaker 1: grand conspiracy. She throws herself at the mercy of the
Speaker 1: court saying say something to the effect of like capitalizing
Speaker 1: on charm and perceived innocence and saying, you know, I've
Speaker 1: I've been forced to do these terrible things by a
Speaker 1: band of thieves and ne'er do wells. And that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So then she pleads insanity and she's like, oh, psych
Speaker 1: actually I'm crazy, and to prove it, I'm gonna faint
Speaker 1: exactly so wound. Yes, it kind of goes back to
Speaker 1: like one of our our previous podcast when we're talking
Speaker 1: about the Crazy Crazy Dom, whereas like no one knew
Speaker 1: what insanity like kind of was I guess, so she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm insane, look at me faintly seems like something completely different.
Speaker 1: Bro is the for outside? Yeah? By the way, does
Speaker 1: this make a crime quadrilogy? Mhmm, you know what, let's
Speaker 1: make this part three of our two part series. I
Speaker 1: think that's right. That's great, that's you know what. I
Speaker 1: love that and old because that also, uh that that
Speaker 1: means that we're not just covering stories about dudes. That's fair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we saved the gaudy bros for another time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's you know what, they may become our next rescipute
Speaker 1: because we still have never done an episode on that guy.
Speaker 1: And he is the protagonist of this show. If you
Speaker 1: look at the logo, he is. He really is. He's
Speaker 1: like our big bad. But if I'm not mistaken, Uh,
Speaker 1: there is a project in the works by um I
Speaker 1: think David Egger's the guy that did The Witch and uh,
Speaker 1: you know the Lighthouse, and it's one of these amazing
Speaker 1: probably one of the most amazing filmmakers working right now,
Speaker 1: and he has had a longstanding interest in making a
Speaker 1: resputant film which other than Anastasia I can't really think
Speaker 1: of any really great personifications of rest Sputan and film,
Speaker 1: can you. Uh, there's some great comic book uh depictions,
Speaker 1: and there there are some novels he is going to be.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Uh, Eggers is gonna do Robert
Speaker 1: Egger's right, is gonna do it? Got a mini series
Speaker 1: I think about resputing and then I saw the trailer
Speaker 1: for do you remember the Kingsman series, Yes, the one
Speaker 1: that's kind of like almost like uh oh Cloak and Dagger,
Speaker 1: kind of like like James Bondie spy stuff. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's another Uh, there's another iteration in that franchise
Speaker 1: coming out, and Rasputin I believe is one of the villains.
Speaker 1: But that is not I I assume it is not
Speaker 1: to be mistaken for an historically accurate rescput And probably
Speaker 1: sets the probably snippets of history is so interesting. I
Speaker 1: we've talked about ridiculous historians. The one of the big
Speaker 1: reasons speak behind the curtain that we go back and
Speaker 1: forth on resciput And is because we honestly cannot figure
Speaker 1: out if it is if he is a better subject
Speaker 1: for ridiculous history or a better subject for stuff They
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. He's like right there in
Speaker 1: the Venn diagram. You do a crossover? Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: do is get Madden pollen here and then we're good.
Speaker 1: We can do a crossover with ourselves. Dug, that's fun,
Speaker 1: all right? Are you think about the Venn diagram? Already
Speaker 1: got two of the five? So well? I think we
Speaker 1: should we should sleep on that, and I think we
Speaker 1: should probably glad we didn't sleep on this story. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, Bet, is there anything to add for? Uh?
Speaker 1: Did did what? What happened? Ultimately with our our anti
Speaker 1: heroin lost track of her? It ends a little bit
Speaker 1: mysteriously because she gets ultimately convicted. She is sentenced to
Speaker 1: serve one to ten years, and after that she kind
Speaker 1: of fades off the map, which means that, you know,
Speaker 1: if she did get out of prison successfully, she may
Speaker 1: have just take get up a new name and lit
Speaker 1: off for a new town. But there ends the story
Speaker 1: of flu Julia, who, as we said at the beginning,
Speaker 1: was infamous in her time and infamous in Chicago. And
Speaker 1: with this we again want to thank all of the
Speaker 1: all of the nurses, all of the doctors, all of
Speaker 1: the m T s. All the healthcare professionals that have
Speaker 1: been working around the clock for more than almost two years. Now,
Speaker 1: can we say that, yeah, even before the pandemic hits.
Speaker 1: So thank you for for spending some time with us today.
Speaker 1: Stay safe, and I don't think we need to say
Speaker 1: it no, but just just just to cover ourselves. Don't
Speaker 1: commit crimes, even if they seem like fun griffs. And
Speaker 1: nothing seemed particularly fun about these I mean, these were
Speaker 1: all that kind of you know, there's no robbing from
Speaker 1: the rich and getting the pore scenario. And this is
Speaker 1: literally I mean, you know, maybe some of these folks
Speaker 1: were wealthy, but it is literally robbing from the vulnerable
Speaker 1: and you know, keeping it um. So yeah, not not
Speaker 1: a good person. It's like Julia, And again, a lot
Speaker 1: easier to disappear back in these days. We hear about
Speaker 1: this kind of thing happening, um, and it's just because
Speaker 1: they just didn't have the level of like surveillance and
Speaker 1: digital footprints and tracking bank records and stuff. Would have
Speaker 1: been much more easy to disappear or to fake one's
Speaker 1: own death back in these days. So if someone shows
Speaker 1: up at your house, first off, it's people shouldn't be
Speaker 1: showing up at your house unannounced. Right, So if someone
Speaker 1: shows up at your house and they say, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: a doctor and or a nurse. What can I help
Speaker 1: you with? Just close the door, totally vampire rules. Phone,
Speaker 1: envitamin there, it is there, it is. Thank you as
Speaker 1: always to Max Williams. Thank you to Casey Pegram, thank
Speaker 1: you too. Let's see who else do we have on
Speaker 1: the docket today, Mr Brown? Oh, obviously Jonathan's trick on
Speaker 1: the quiz through. We need to get him back or
Speaker 1: you know, just have him, uh come at us. It's
Speaker 1: definitely something that we're do for um. Christopher hasciotes here
Speaker 1: in spirit, Alex Williams, who composed our theme Maxim and
Speaker 1: thank you again, Ben already dead you we we couldn't
Speaker 1: do it with that, you buddy, well, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: and with that joined us for our next episode, which
Speaker 1: may also be a continuation of our two part Dumb
Speaker 1: Criminals episode. But I don't you know what this. She's
Speaker 1: not dumb though, Oh no, she's not dumb. She's definitely
Speaker 1: not dumb, but quite a terrible, terrible person. And for
Speaker 1: those of you who say we go to ham on
Speaker 1: the thank you's, I I see you and I hear you,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't disagree more. Thank you for the note.
Speaker 1: We will not take it in our advisement because we
Speaker 1: like to give thanks. That's just who we are. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.