Transcript of Tillie Klimek: Mrs. Bluebeard of Chicago New

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna and this is Morbid. This is Morbid. Hi everybody, here we are. How's it hanging? It's hump day everybody. Hump day?

Remember when that was like an office culture thing?

There was like a commercial. Yeah. That had a camel, I think.

It was a man who turned into a camel, I believe. Oh, it was? Maybe my brain is bad.

I didn't know the dark history of that. I thought it was just a camel.

I think the man became a camel because he kept saying humbuh. No?

Deb is shaking her head too. I don't know. I don't know about that. I'm going to look it up. I think it was just him being like, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike.

Wow.

Yeah, I think he just became a camel. I thought we both were like, what? There's dark history behind this commercial?

I didn't think it was dark history.

I just thought it was a man becoming a camel.

That's a bit.

That's, that's dark.

It's a bit.

It's dark, man. I don't want to be a camel.

It's a dark bit.

You know? Exactly.

I thought.

I didn't know. You thought. I guess.

I don't know. There's, there's a lot that I thought that's not real. I think there's a lot that I thought.

I think the thought that I thought Any thunk? All right, so now that we figured that out, everybody.

Yeah, I guess he began the commercial as a camel. He began and ended as a camel. Yeah, we can get into what I do now.

Oh man.

Which is this case.

Which is this case.

I do know about this case.

Also buy tickets to the Radio City Music Hall show.

Oh, honey.

Do that.

Honey.

Just got to remind you, you know.

Debbie's teaching us a tap.

It's one night only.

You're not going to want to miss that.

You're not going to want to miss that. I'm telling you.

Tippity tap tap tap.

It's one night only, babes.

Got merch.

One night only.

Exclusive to the event.

Do it.

I thought you were going to say one night only again.

One.

I thought you were just everything I said, even all the way through the case. You're like, one night only.

Only.

Oh my God.

Oh my God. But yeah, I had to get that in. And now we can get to our case. We're going to— everybody who gives the minute marker for when we shut the fuck up and start talking about the case. This one's an easy one.

This one was quick. It's right now.

This one's quick.

So we're talking about Tillie Klimek today. She is referred to as Mrs. Bluebeard of Chicago.

Oh, excuse me.

You do remember when we covered Mr. Bluebeard, correct?

Himself.

Yeah, he was killing all his brides.

He sure was.

But you can guess what Tillie was doing.

She was killing all her men.

Maybe.

I feel.

Well, here's the thing. We don't actually know much about Tillie Klimek's early life before she started killing all her men.

Before she started the murdering.

Yeah, with the murdering that made her famous. But before all that, she was born By the way, there's a lot of Polish pronunciations in this. I'm literally married to a Polish man who has a Polish last name, so I'm gonna do my best. And I did look all these up, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna slay.

I have complete faith in you.

That's so nice, she says with a devilish grin.

I have complete—

lol, I really do.

I meant that.

Thank you. Okay, well, she was— thank you, I appreciate it. She was born Otilia Giebork. Ooh, I like it.

And she just, I wish you could have seen the oop face she did.

Like, I hope I did it. She was born in Poland in 1876, some time ago. And she immigrated to the US with her parents, Michael and Michaelina Giebork, when she was about 4 years old. So she ended up being raised in an area of Chicago known as Little Poland, where obviously a lot of other Polish immigrants were living. And because of that, she really didn't have to learn English for a long time. So when she did eventually learn English, it wasn't like— obviously it's not her first language, so it wasn't like super strong. Uh, just keep that in mind for later.

Imagine knowing several languages like well enough to have a conversation.

I wish that I was better than I am because I'd like to be like genuinely fluent in another language.

I thought you meant just in general.

I was like, can I talk to you? Can I just let something off my chest? I wish I was a better—

I just wish I was better than I am. I was like, whoa, I'm looking at the woman in the mirror.

I'm asking her to change her ways.

I love it.

And learn another language.

And learn another, become bilingual. That's what we want.

So in 1890, when she was just 14 years old, Tilly married 17-year-old Józef Mieczewicz, another Polish immigrant who had come to the US right around the same time as her family. 5 years later, Tillie gave birth to a son that they named Joseph Jr. and her husband found work with the Illinois Central Railroad. Her first marriage is kind of mysterious. It's not as publicized as the ones that came next. And for whatever reason, it also lasted considerably longer than her following marriages. But the relationship did come to an end with Joseph's unexpected death in January of 1914.

Here it is.

The coroner said heart trouble.

Oh.

But his death allowed Tillie to cash in on a $1,000 life insurance policy.

Look at that.

Once she did that, she wasted no time finding a new husband.

Hmm.

Now, at the time, his death didn't seem super suspicious. Chicago was a very fast-paced environment and he was just kind of a day-to-day guy. So his death really didn't make it onto that many people's radar. He also worked in a dangerous and stressful industry. So it wasn't that crazy that he died from heart trouble.

Okay.

And at that time, it wouldn't have been that unusual for Tillie to move on so quickly. She didn't have a job. She was a widow now with a child to care for.

Yeah.

So grief was a luxury that she could not afford for very long.

Yeah, that is the— that's the truth of the time.

It is. Now, in February of 1914, just one month after Joseph's death, Tillie married Joseph Ruszkowski. But that marriage proved to be very short-lived. By May, he was dead.

Oh, yeah.

January, February, March, April. 3 months.

Holy shit.

Dead. Until he inherited his $1,200 in savings and $722 from an insurance policy. Altogether today, that would be like $63,000.

Damn.

A good chunk of change. Now, just like she had with her first husband's death, she did not waste much time on grieving. And within a few months, she had started up a new relationship using some of her latest inheritance to fund a vacation to Milwaukee. Oh, such a luxurious place.

Okay, isn't that Cream City? It's that.

I think that's Cream City.

Wow.

Yeah, sports, you know. So we— it actually fucked me up the first time I saw that on their basketball court. It fucked me up, but I don't think it's always there. I think it was a special thing.

It was just special, I guess. It was a special moment.

So yeah, she went to Cream City with her new boyfriend, and that's not a euphemism. Holy shit. So it was pretty clear that her intention was to quickly win a marriage proposal from this man.

Yeah. But unfortunately, you bring him there.

Yeah. Bring your man to Cream City. You're looking for a ring.

Secure that marriage proposal, baby.

Now, unfortunately, though, when she raised the subject of marriage, he laughed at her proposal of marriage, which is not nice.

Very rude.

And she was enraged.

I would be.

She said, take me seriously. By the way, Contrary to popular belief, my previous two husbands didn't die of natural causes. I fucking poisoned them. So don't mess with me.

Whoa.

Like, I don't think that's going to help your case. Getting a man to marry you?

Has that worked with anyone? Getting a marriage proposal?

Let us know.

Yeah, write it.

We won't submit you to the authorities. No, not at all. So she immediately realized that she had made a serious mistake in confessing to murder. Yeah. Not only was he now highly unlikely to marry her, but he was also likely to dial 911 and report an emergency.

Yeah, about that. Yeah.

So hoping to prevent the inevitable, Tillie threatened to report him to the authorities for violating the Mann Act, which was a 1910 U.S. law that criminalized the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes. Oh, I think they just call that sex trafficking now.

Yeah. Yeah.

Gaskowski, in response, told her if she did that, he would tell the authorities that she was a murderess.

And they're like, you know what, let's go our separate ways.

Yeah, the argument just kind of ended there. But a few days after they returned home to Chicago, he died unexpectedly.

Sir, did you eat something that she served?

Might have.

Because that's wild work.

He might have.

That's wild work. Yeah.

Holy shit. So after the death of Guskowski, Tilly didn't head straight out to find a new man this time. Instead, she just lived with a man known only by the last name of Myers. During their time together, she would usually introduce herself as Mrs. Myers, even though they were not officially married. And she seemed to just be living off the money from the inheritances and all the insurance policies of her old husbands. But neighbors did recall a man living with her for at least some amount of time until he just vanished at the end of 1918.

Maybe it was Michael Myers.

Maybe.

That's why he's pissed.

He peaced out.

Yeah, that's why he's mad.

He said, I have a girl named Lori back home.

I got to go.

Maybe. Maybe. So this period of living as Mrs. Myers came to an end when Michael left. And in March of 1919, when Tillie married her third husband, Frank Koopchick. But if the marriage was ever a happy one, it did not last very long. So by this time, the money from the inheritances and the insurances had probably run out. And that meant that Tillie had to get her ass a job. So she started working at a local tailoring shop in order to support herself and her husband, her new husband. At the same time, neighbors started to notice that every day after her husband Frank went to work, another man that she only referred to as John would stop by the apartment to, quote, smooch Tilly on the porch.

Oh, you don't say.

She was side smooching.

This is scandaloso.

Yeah, bitch.

Just stopping by for a smooch on the porch.

Right after Frank leaves for work. Right on his porch.

Damn.

Fucked up. So things carried on that way between Frank and Tilly.

Just smooching.

And apparently John.

Yeah.

Yeah. For 2 years until one day. In 1921 when Frank became seriously ill. Now, to their neighbors, it seemed that his condition was dire, but Tillie was chilling. She did not seem alarmed in the slightest.

It's a red flag.

In fact, as far as they could tell, she almost seemed lighthearted about his illness.

Wow.

Years later, during her trial, her landlady Martha Weselek recalled one afternoon when Tillie, quote, came out in the yard with a piece of newspaper all about a fine coffin for $30 that she was going to get for Frank.

Holy shit.

Can you imagine?

No.

She's just like advertising to the townspeople like, this is the coffin I'm going to get.

I'll give you this $30 coffin.

Not dead yet, but he will be. Damn. So Weselek was horrified by how cavalier that she was being about Frank's very serious illness. According to the landlady, this was only one of many suspicions and callous statements made by Tilly at the time. Other neighbors also recalled her knitting a hat for herself that she said she was going to wear to Frank's funeral.

She is planning for this like you plan for Coachella.

Yeah.

She's going to have the whole fit ready.

Nice coffin.

A place to stay. Yep. Holy shit.

Yeah.

I can't stop saying holy shit.

Holy shit.

She just doesn't give a shit.

Some people also remembered that she would just casually talk about how Frank only had, quote, 2 inches to live, implying that he was going to be dead soon.

I think it was— That metric of measurement sounds— Like it doesn't fit here.

It doesn't. I think that might have been a language barrier thing.

Oh, perhaps.

So she was like, 2 seconds to live?

I don't know. Yeah, who knows? I mean, but maybe, maybe she made up a new saying.

Either way, not, not a lot of time to live.

No, not a lot.

So whether she was joking or not, it turned out that she was in fact correct about Frank's future. A few days later, on April 25th, 1921, Frank Kupchick died in their apartment.

Oh, boy.

During the funeral a few days later, with Frank's body on display for mourners, for mourners, Tilly played upbeat dance music on a record player. Holy shit. Holy shit.

One night only.

One night only, she said.

That's really fucked up.

Yeah. One mourner recalled later that at one point during the funeral, Tilly reached into the coffin and grabbed Frank's ear, shouting, "You devil! You won't get up anymore!" Oh my God. Yeah, she's nuts.

I just can't imagine being— I would be like, what do you do? What are you to do? What are you meant to do in this?

I think you just leave. I think you leave your well-respects with Frank. And you say you deserved better.

Grab his ear and be like, you devil, you're dead. Like, that's crazy.

It is. It is, in fact.

That's crazy work.

They were like, is she drunk?

Holy shit.

So the next day after assaulting her husband's dead body, she collected $675, which would be like $11,000 today.

Wow.

Just about from his life insurance policy. And she set out to find herself a new husband.

Yeah, because like she said, you won't get up anymore.

No.

Like, my goodness.

Tilly.

I know, poor Frank.

So everybody who knew her to that point knew that she was a very brash woman with a, uh, unusual sense of humor, you could say. But even to those who knew her well, they had to admit that her attitude around Frank's death was suspicious and crass. Yeah, yeah. To the more superstitious among them too, the fact that she seemed to have the ability to predict her husband's death was evidence of strong psychic abilities.

Oh yeah, what's Let's call her a witch. They said she seems psychic or murderous.

That's the thing. Others quietly gossiped about her potential involvement. Yeah, the realists among us.

Could be a psychic, could be homicidal, could be psychic, could be a murderess. Real toss-up here. Yeah, especially with the way she's acting. Real toss-up.

Yeah, you know. Yeah, crazy gal. So when it came to the neighborhood gossip, she provided more than enough material in the wake of Frank's death. When her previous relationships ended with the quote unquote untimely deaths of her husbands, she waited at least a few weeks before looking for a new man to get together with.

Oh, good.

This time she didn't actually even wait until the end of the funeral before cozying up to the recently widowed Joseph Klimek, who was also a friend of Frank's and at the funeral.

So this man was at the funeral where she grabbed Frank's ear in the coffin and was like, you devil, you're not getting up anymore.

Yeah.

And was playing like, Uns, uns, uns. And he's like, yeah, this will be fun. Well, my goodness.

That afternoon.

My goodness, Joseph.

I'm not sure what happened because that afternoon their interaction was said to be casual and short. So maybe he stopped in after all the madness.

Maybe.

He said, because he recalled later, she felt too bad to see people. Yeah. So maybe she had already left after causing that spectacle. They were like, somebody was like, we should get her out of here.

Somebody was like, you should go home.

And Joseph was like, I don't know, he had to have seen her at some point.

Yeah, I guess.

Because he was like, she felt too bad to see people, but she did allow herself to be pursued by him for a few weeks before agreeing to marry him. Wow. So they got to chatting at the funeral and then they were like, let's get married in a few weeks.

This sounds great.

He later said that he married her for a nice home because she was a good cook and kept a clean space.

At least there's that.

Men are simple creatures.

Yep.

By the time they were married, he had already heard some of the rumors and gossip about her past with men and just her in general, but he didn't care and he didn't believe any of it. He said, as soon as we married, she burned all the photographs of her husbands and her man friends, and she tore up all her letters. She had my picture on the mantle. That was all.

She said, no more man friends.

No more man friends. Just me on the mantle, babe.

I'm your only man friend.

One man friend for you, girl.

Yeah.

So he might have believed that Tillie had changed her ways and was committed to him since his picture was on the mantel and all.

Yeah.

But survey said that was a lie. Within a few months, Tillie was openly complaining about her marriage, especially to her cousin Nellie Kulik. According to Nellie, when she suggested that Tillie get a divorce if she was so unhappy, Tillie said, no, I'll get rid of him some other way.

Or just divorce him.

You could just divorce him, but you won't get the life insurance in that case.

Why the murder?

Well, at the end of the year, Tillie learned that Joseph had a $1,000 life insurance policy with the Catholic Order of Foresters. I don't know if that means that they're like Catholic tree people.

I was going to say that, you know what? They're known to have pretty solid life insurance policies, I think.

Like oak. Yeah. Solid like bull. So she insisted that this was not enough money. And she said, you need to increase that and also make me the beneficiary. I'm your wife now.

Of course.

And she said it was also important because she was in fact psychic, like the townspeople had said, and she'd had a premonition that Joseph was gonna die soon. And if he did, she didn't want to be poor with him being gone.

Imagine your, your spouse saying that to you.

Also, like, your new spouse.

Yeah, then they're like, you know, everybody thinks I'm psychic, and I, I did have a vision.

I think you're gonna die.

Or you die. Oh, and I would like your money if that's the case. Like, what do you do? Yeah.

In the days that followed, she would just walk around their house telling him, you're pretty near dead now.

Oh my God.

And then she'd say, didn't I tell you? You're not going to live long. Scary. Scary.

He is the origin story of I think I'm going to die in this house. That's where that came from. Yeah.

But guess what? He was brave. He declined to add any more coverage to his shit.

He said, I'm not dying in this house.

And no, he said, I don't think I'm going to die in this house. And he also made his son the beneficiary of the policy, which then caused Tilly to take out two life insurance policies on him and accident insurance, all in his name.

The red flags are piling up.

They're flagging.

Yeah.

The flags are flagging.

They're blankets.

So once the new policies were in place, Joseph's mysterious illnesses quickly followed.

Oh.

It started with, quote, shooting pains in his arms and legs. And then his arms and legs became stiff and eventually numb. So he was basically paralyzed. Holy shit. His breath also started to smell strongly of garlic, even though he wasn't eating very garlicky foods. Within a few days, his symptoms became so severe that he was paralyzed from the waist down. Oh my. And trigger warning for animal death. At the same time, two of his dogs also died from a mysterious illness after eating food scraps from his plate at the table. Oh no.

Is this arsenic?

Could be. Okay. Good call. Was it the jarlik?

It's the jarlik.

So Joseph had been seen by Tilly's doctor and had been given multiple prescriptions, but nothing seemed to be helping the pain or the numbness that he was experiencing. After Joseph suffered for several days, his brother John—

I just feel bad.

I know. Me too. After he was suffering, his brother John insisted that he needed to see a different doctor. He needed a second opinion. Until he was like, no, it's fine. She said, my doctor is the tits and I'm more than capable of caring for my husband. And she said, I don't need help from a stranger.

No way.

And John said, hey, that's cool, but I'm not a stranger because he's my brother. Yeah. What, girl? Huh? So he was like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm arranging for a physician to look him over of my choosing. So he hired Dr. P.T. Burns to check in on his brother. Burns took one look at Joseph and immediately, like Elena, recognized the telltale signs of arsenic poisoning. According to Burns, Klimek showed every evidence of a slow poison. But to be sure, he returned later that afternoon to double check the symptoms, and that only convinced him further. So Dr. Burns had Joseph taken to the hospital where the other doctors predicted that he had, quote, this is wild, about an equal chance to live or die.

That's literally the worst thing I can imagine hearing at a doctor's office.

No, like, imagine.

Even though that's kind of like life.

Yeah, that does happen. I'm sure many people have heard that.

But like, why? Why did you need a medical degree to tell me that? I feel like that's just every day. We roll the dice.

Do you know about coin tosses?

Yeah.

Pick heads or tails.

He said, that's basically where you are.

Your life is a penny.

Like, isn't that where all of us are? Yeah, equal chances to live or die.

Yeah, pretty much. So once he'd been removed from the house, Dr. Burns checked in with the attending doctor and got a list of all the prescriptions that Joseph had been given, because medicine did contain arsenic back then. Yeah, remember, arsenic was everywhere. Literally, it was in cosmetics, like all that shit. So he was like, okay, maybe that's the case here. Like, maybe one of your medicines has arsenic in it and you're like overdoing it or something like that. So he took all of the medications to a chemist, Dr. William McNally, who tested each individual medication and confirmed that all of them showed evidence of arsenic. Oh, but they weren't supposed to. Oh, they weren't, they weren't medicines that were supposed to have arsenic included amongst the ingredients. So that meant that somebody had intentionally poisoned him.

My, how the turns have tabled.

Yeah, it's so crazy. We didn't see this coming.

What? I can't believe she, she was putting arsenic in his medication. I think probably because she knows they're all getting suspicious of eating her food.

Yeah, probably.

So she's like, well, they're not going to be suspicious of their meds.

I think it may have been a mixture of both, to be honest with you. So Burns reported his findings and all of the results of the chemical analysis to police, conveying to them that he suspected Tilly of poisoning her husband. Wow. They reviewed the evidence and everything that they had already started to hear about Tilly in years past. On October 26th, 1922, detectives not only arrested Tillie, but her 26-year-old son Joseph at their home. The announcement of Tillie's arrest in the newspapers seemed to kind of break a dam on local gossip.

Oh no.

And within hours, investigators were receiving anonymous letters just like in tons. So they were like, please exhume all of the bodies of her previous husbands and examine them for signs of poisoning.

Shit's going down for real.

It's going down for real, time to dig. In their search of her apartment, or their apartment together, investigators discovered a bottle of arsenic labeled "Rough on Rats." Rough on rats. And Tilly's son said, "That belonged to a former nurse who lived with us the previous year. Like, that's, that's not ours.

It's just here." I also love that it's like, it's rat poison essentially. And he's like, "Oh no, a nurse lived here." And that was hers. "Because nurses use arsenic." And you're like, babe, that's rat poison. Like, you didn't need to throw the nurse in there. No. Just say that belonged to a previous owner.

Or just say like, yeah, we have that because we had a rat problem.

It's a rat poison. Like, he's like, no, that was a nurse.

He's like, not ours, wasn't me, definitely medical. At the station, Tilly was relentlessly questioned by detectives and now the state's attorney, who suspected her not just of attempted murder but of multiple murders at this point.

Oh my God.

They demanded to know how it was that the two dogs who had eaten from Joseph's plate also came to die.

Yeah.

And she insisted They just fell over and died. You can't make me a poisoner. I'll show you that my first husband had an infection in his throat.

I'll show you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Do you have his throat, man?

Like, what is that?

Like, what is going on?

I don't know if she just meant like, I'll take you to the doctor, that I'll show you. But also, her first husband died of heart problems. Oops.

Yeah, so what?

What was that, baby? She's like, did you lose track of husbands?

He's throwing her too.

So while she was at the police station claiming innocence, Joseph, her husband, was at the hospital telling police a very different story. According to him, he had been examined by a doctor a few weeks earlier after his wife took out a new life insurance policy, and he immediately fell ill. He said, a week or two later after the examination, I found I couldn't smoke anymore.

Oh no.

One day my soup tasted strange, another time the coffee was funny, then I began to get sick. I seem to be burning up. I'm afraid someone poisoned me in a plot.

In a plot?

In a plot they poisoned me.

In a plot.

He wouldn't name Tilly outright, but it was pretty clear to the detectives that if anybody had poisoned this guy, it would have to be somebody who had access to his food. Yeah, like his personal belongings. Yeah, there was nobody else in the house who stood to gain more from Joseph's death either than his wife, and she did seem to have a history of men dying around her not long after getting married and acted crazy at their funerals. Yeah, that was, that was pretty violent stuff. That was her. That's, that's just Tilly.

Yeah, that's just Tilly things.

So at the precinct, investigators confronted Tilly with all of the evidence and their theory. They're like, hey, you know how like you have this string of husbands that turns up dead, and now like your current husband is on the precipice of death, you know, 50/50 give or take?

It's weird.

We think you might have something to do with that.

Yeah, strange.

And she broke down and confessed that she tried to poison Joseph because he was, quote, fooling around with other women.

Oh no.

I was like, baby, even if that's the case, you can't try to kill him. And like, they're not gonna understand that.

Yeah, just let him, let him be a fool.

Now, to add even more salaciousness to this, according to Tillie, she received the poison from her cousin Nellie. Oh, and she said she started putting it in her husband's food after he was examined for the life insurance policy. Oh. A few days later, the coroner exhumed Fred Koopchick's body for analysis. I think— I believe that was her first husband— and discovered that his remains still contained arsenic enough to kill 4 men. Holy shit.

Yeah, it hadn't even degraded. That's how much it was. Damn.

Which also, like, obviously some of it probably had degraded and there was still enough. It was still that high to kill 4 men.

Yeah.

At the same time, the case appeared to expand with the arrest now of Tilly's cousin Nellie. Yeah, who was also suspected of murder.

Nellie and Tilly.

Just like her cousin Tilly, a surprising number of people around Nellie seemed to have fallen ill or died from mysterious causes, including her late husband, who was, uh, Wojcik Stermer.

I would never suspect Nellie and Tilly.

I know, murdering people. Well, that's the thing, nobody did for a while until— you can only murder so many people. Yeah, until people start to like—

it literally— people that you are really connected to. Yeah, constantly, like the most connected to, and that you stand to gain financially from murdering.

Yeah, you gotta— it's good that they weren't undercover.

You keep doing that, that's gonna catch up with you.

And it did. One of the notes that police received after Tillie's arrest indicated that Nellie's husband had in fact been poisoned by her. Oh boy. And initially the note wasn't given a lot of attention, but once they learned that Tillie got the poison from her cousin, that's when they started to look at her as an accomplice.

Like, wait a minute.

So the arrest of Nellie caused a sensation among the press, who immediately started to speculate about her being a second Mrs. Bluebeard.

Oh my God.

In 1920s Chicago, it wouldn't have been that surprising for a woman to kill her husband, which is crazy, especially if she thought he was— I know, especially if she thought he was cheating on her with another woman. Apparently that was like an epidemic.

Dang.

But two women seemingly working together to murder their husbands for money, that was a good story.

That is a good story as far as the press were concerned. That's a—

that's good shit. It's gonna pay the bills, sell the tapes. So each day the story seemed to get more and more sensationalized. Just one day after Nellie's arrest, investigators announced that they were exhuming the bodies of each woman's first husband to search for signs of poisoning.

This is very salacious. It is.

And since Nellie's husband died one year before Tillie's first husband, the press speculated that Tillie, quote, may have been a student of Miss Stirmer.

Oh my goodness.

So they were like, fuck, is Nellie like the OG Mrs. Bluebeard?

And then the student surpasses the teacher? Yeah. Damn.

In a series of events that we really Yeah, we're not reading.

Very unfortunate events.

Lemony Snick.

Yeah.

So the discovery of arsenic in the remains of two now of Tilly's dead husbands prompted police to expand their potential victim pool, and they started taking the claims and assertions previously regarded as gossip seriously.

Now you have to.

For example, Harry Sweeta, one of Tilly's cousins, told the Attorney General that his sister, who also would have been Tilly's cousin, Uh, his sister Rose died mysteriously after attending a dinner at Tilly's apartment.

And here I am overcooking my chicken. Yeah, to hell, because I'm scared of giving someone a tummy ache.

I know, I know. You take chicken precautions.

I take chicken so seriously. And this woman, you come to her house, you might die.

You might in fact die, especially if she doesn't like you. Damn. Uh, another cousin, Elizabeth Vinciusi, Kaski told investigators about the unexpected death of two of her sisters and a brother, all of whom had dined with Tilly shortly before they died.

What the actual fuck? Yeah, how many people has she murdered?

The thing is, we're not sure.

The limit does not exist, period.

Yeah, yeah, there's actually no period as far as Tilly's concerned.

It's an ellipsis. Many.

Yeah, there's a series of ellipses.

Yeah.

With each new claim came a new order to exhume another body, and soon Dr. McNally, the coroner, was completely overwhelmed by requests for analysis of so many different remains.

So many.

So despite their strong suspicions that there were in fact other victims, The state attorney's office only had Tilly's confession to the attempted poisoning of her current husband, which obviously, obviously was not a murder because he's still alive. But there was a strong enough case to prosecute her for the murder of— I was incorrect— her third husband. Originally I thought that was her first. Oh my goodness, there's so many of them. Her third husband, Frank Kupchick.

Damn.

So he was the one who she had put enough arsenic to kill for— kill four men at least. Now, on November 11th, 1922, Tillie was formally charged with Frank's murder, and she pleaded not guilty. At the same time, Nellie was charged with the murder of her husband, Wojciech Stermer. In the meantime, investigators just continued to dig into their past, looking for even more potential victims. After their arraignment, the Mrs. Bluebeard story seemed to grow even larger, at least as far as the press was concerned. Just one day after Tillie and Nellie appeared in court, The papers were announcing the discovery of even more potential victims, including Tilly's former husband Joseph Roszkowski. And this is horrible— two of Nellie's children, both of whom died in infancy.

Holy shit.

Yeah. Now, there was no evidence of foul play, but the press did imply that six of Nellie's children had died under mysterious circumstances.

What?

And they started comparing her and Tilly to Belle Gunness.

Oh my God. I was, I was wondering if that was going to be a comparison. Yeah, we haven't done— I think, is it Gunness or Gunness?

It might be Gunness.

I think it might be Gunness. I'm not positive, but yeah, well, we will cover that, I think, eventually, because a lot of people know about that case and it is highly requested. It's a terrible one.

She just kills like all of her children, right? And like legit babies.

Yeah, she's pretty terrible. Yeah, but she— but her story is That's unbelievable in the worst way.

Do you remember that old show? I don't know if it was on ID, Killer Women. Yeah, that was the first time I ever saw that.

Oh really?

Yeah, that saw that case.

Damn.

Um, so she was famous because she had been arrested a decade earlier, which is crazy to think that was a decade before all of this. Now the claims were given credibility when Nellie's husband's body was exhumed and his remains were found to contain traces of arsenic.

Oh damn.

So she's in on this.

She's in on it.

With each day that passed, Tillie and Nellie's suspected body count just continued to increase and came to include former husbands, family members, neighbors, pretty much anyone who died while under their care, or anyone who had been recently in the company of either woman.

Holy shit.

By mid-November, the suspected number of victims had risen to 20 people, and that was just as they were indicted by a grand jury.

Wow.

Their trial was scheduled for winter 1923, and in the meantime, investigators just continued to build their case, and the press continued their daily coverage of every sensational aspect of the story that they could come up with, which they didn't even really have to come up with much. It was all just there.

It was all there.

The intense press coverage made Tilly kind of a celebrity, and she gave interviews from her jail cell. I know, I hate that part of murder investigations and trials and everything.

I know, that they're like giving interviews and shit.

The accused definitely do start to become like weird celebrities. Yeah, but she commented on everything from previous relationships with men to her opinions on young people and even the rising popularity of flappers.

Babe, no one should hear your opinion on young people or your opinion on flappers or your relationships with men. Yeah, I definitely don't want to hear that. No, we know your relationships with men.

Exactly. She told one reporter, me, I came to this country when I was a year old from Germany. 'No foolishness with us, we work.' Basically indicating that she didn't think young people worked anymore.

Damn.

Okay, I know she was mad. However, when it came to the actual charges against her, she didn't really say very much, and she just wasn't interested in talking about it. Just super like, whatever. Yeah, very superficial about it all. Now, if she appeared calm and collected when it came to the press, Nellie was the exact opposite. Uh-oh. Whenever she gave statements to the press, she seemed very anxious, very overly emotional, She once begged a reporter, write to my children, write to my people, tell them not to believe all they hear. Now, to spectators following the case, Tillie was exactly the type of woman who seemed as at home in a jail cell as she did in her own apartment. She didn't give a fuck.

Tillie was made for this life.

She literally was. But Nellie was out of place. Like, she was losing her mind.

Yeah.

By the end of November, investigators announced that they were searching for a third potential conspirator in the case.

My goodness.

Nellie's current friend and former boarder, Mary Wojcicki. According to the press, Wojcicki's husband and his brother both died, quote, after drinking beer at a party at which Miss Kulik was present, and they believe the death was due to arsenic.

How much arsenic did these women have?

Arsenic was just like— I think like CVS had arsenic back then. Goddamn, it was just like, go down the street and grab some arsenic.

Yeah.

And also, I guess you could just buy rat poison.

Yeah, there's that.

Now additional arrests were made. Nellie's sister was arrested and her niece was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Just a group of gals.

The press started referring to the women as the Bluebeard clique.

Whoa.

And they called Tilly the high priestess of the group.

Get the fuck out of here.

I was like, don't call her the high priestess. That's so like— fuck you.

And also, you're mixing your references here. It just doesn't make sense. Yeah.

Don't over-egg the point.

Yeah.

Tilly finally went on trial in early March of 1923 with Assistant State Attorney William McLaughlin prosecuting. I always think of John when I hear that name. By then, they all as a group had been indicted on 6 murders.

Wow.

In his opening statement, McLaughlin presented the case— the state's case— in simple terms. He said the 2 women had planned and carried out a wholesale poison plot which claimed at least 6 lives and caused serious illness to nearly score more. Wow. And he said they did this through a series of poison parties.

Poison parties.

And that their motives ranged from financial gain to ridding themselves of anyone they disliked.

Poison parties.

Poison parties, like, like a Tupperware party.

Holy shit.

Or a Botox party.

Wow. Yeah.

After listing out all the names of those believed to have been killed by the pair and those also made ill, McLaughlin announced that if convicted, they would be seeking the death penalty.

Damn.

Which was not— that didn't happen all that often.

And especially with women.

No. So over the course of the week-long trial, witnesses included 6 physicians, a chemist, 4 nurses, and several insurance agents, as you can imagine, who all testified against the accused. By far the most entertaining were a trio of gravediggers and an undertaker who were all neighbors of Tillie and her husband around the time of his death.

What?

One of the undertakers told the jury, Frank used to leave for work every day at 6, and I'd often see John Kowski come over to visit Tillie. Once I seen him kiss her.

So they're like, here we go, talking about John coming for the smooches.

They said she's a trollop.

They said she'd be smooching.

One thing about Tillie, she stays smooching John.

She's a smooching bandit. It's always John.

It's always John. She's got a thing for him. Now, the most compelling evidence came from the doctors and nurses who were actively still treating Joseph, uh, Klimek, who was still too ill to testify against his wife at that point.

Yeah, did we all forget he's still alive?

He's still alive. According to nurse Mildred Scully—

yep—

who I would trust with my fucking life—

yep—

and who had been treating Joseph while he was still in the home, Tillie routinely made tasteless jokes about her husband's impending death and on one occasion told the nurse If he makes any trouble for you, take a 2x4 board and hit him over the head with it.

So here's the thing. That's a little bit funny as hell. Yeah. And if she wasn't a mass murderer. Yeah. That like a serial killer, I'd be like, that's just regular. Like you've been married and you're trying to be funny when your husband's like, no, it really is.

But then you look at it in context, but then you look at it like she's a serial killer and actually does harm people.

You're like, oh, that's the scariest thing I've ever heard because she's actually telling you to do that. Yeah, but like, you could see some like, you know, feisty lady just being like, oh, he's giving you trouble, just hit him with a 2x4. Like, that would be funny.

I guarantee you at least 14 people listening, their nanas have said that about 100% as like a total joke.

But you're looking at it here and you're like, oh, oh shit, she meant it. That's dork side.

She meant it. And she said the 2x4 is right there.

Yeah, that's sinister.

She said do it. You won't miss her. So apparently she smiled too during the trial when Mildred was testifying about that. And everybody in the jury was She's smiling.

She's sitting there being like, that was a good joke.

She's like, she's like me. She finds— but yeah, this is the only way we're similar. She finds— she cracks herself up. Yeah, no one finds Tilly funnier than Tilly, and no one finds Ash funnier than Ash. I crack myself up.

She does.

I love it. So for the most part, Tilly sat emotionless behind the defendant's table while each witness, as they came one by one, testified against her. She did become emotional when the chemist, Dr. William McNally, took the stand, interestingly. When he entered the witness box, the press noted that Tilly, quote, jammed her stocky body well back in the chair and swung her feet in incessant circles as she tried to understand the testimony.

Love how they had to throw in stocky there.

Not only— if you actually, like, let me read that for you one more time. Jammed her stocky body well into the chair and swung her feet in incessant circles as she tried to understand the testimony. They said that bitch is stocky and dumb.

She's blocky and dumb.

That's really fucking rude.

They said she's a Minecraft character and she's dumb.

Not a Minecraft character.

Like, whoa.

Now, she seemed anxious when she was a Minecraft character as the chemist explained in plain detail all of the symptoms about arsenic poisoning and confirmed that all three of Tilly's dead husbands had in fact been poisoned. Despite the compelling body of evidence and all the testimony against her, she still proved to be a pretty strong witness when she took the stand in her own defense.

That's wild.

Which is much like, um, Joseph's— he could live or he could die. Yeah, taking your own— taking the stand in your own defense, you could live or you could die.

A gamble.

Dressed in plain black attire with a translator by her side, she strongly and repeatedly denied killing anyone, including her husband Frank Kupchick. When asked directly whether she was responsible for Frank's death, she replied, I certainly was not. He died by moonshine. Oh, I don't know if she meant the drink.

The drink. I'm assuming she meant the drink because she—

that was the one where she said his throat too. Yeah, so who knows. Now, as for any marital troubles or affairs, she dismissed that as nothing more than gossip. She told the jury, I loved them, they loved me, they just died same as other people. I'm not responsible for that. I could not help if they wanted to die.

I Why are we assuming they wanted to die?

That's the thing. I was like, why would they? Like, they weren't old. Yeah. And like, they didn't die by like, you know, like that suicide was not considered.

I like that she's like, I— it's not my fault that they, they like just chose not to get better.

Like, literally, that's exactly what she's saying.

Sorry you chose to get sick. Oh, your fault. Weird.

Like, what the fuck, Tilly? Yeah, she didn't give a fuck. Now, the press was actually impressed with her calm demeanor and her ability to maintain composure.

Is the press okay?

No, never. But ultimately, the jury was less convinced. In the end, the evidence against Tilly was much too damning and the prosecution was convincing. So on March 13th, after just an hour of deliberation, the jury found Tilly guilty for the murder of Frank Kupchick. When the verdict was read, she didn't show any emotion at all. And she quote, sat so still she made her neighbors wriggle uncomfortably.

Ew.

I know. Fortunately for Tilly, the jury could not bring themselves to sentence a woman to death. Kind of feeling they recommended life in prison. On her way back to her cell after the trial, her only response to the crowd of reporters outside was to talk about how warm it was in the courthouse. Damn, it's warm in there.

That's cold-blooded. Yeah.

Now As she was led from the courtroom, she was also met with the cheers of her female supporters in the court who shouted, "Never mind, Tillie! Don't forget there's a new motion for a new trial for a week from Saturday. Cheer up!" Wow, babe, they exhumed the 3 bodies of her 3 husbands that all contained so much arsenic it could blow your fucking skirt up.

Like, goddamn, could blow your skirt into another galaxy.

Literally. Forget the Milky Way, babe. And you're like, don't worry, girl, don't get down on yourself. Cheer up. All smiles, Tilly. It's all up from here. No, it's— it's down from here. She's going to jail.

Oh Lord.

Now, Nellie's trial was repeatedly delayed for more than a year while she sat in a jail cell. But on November 8th, 1923, a jury found her not guilty and she was free to go. Mind you, they exhumed her husband's body and there was arsenic in it.

She had the arsenic. Yeah. I wonder if they thought that Tillie did it.

Maybe. Now, in the weeks and months after Tillie's trial, there was a lot of talk about the fact that several other Chicago women had been acquitted on murder charges and Tillie was very quickly convicted. Some members of the press and public speculated that her conviction was due to her lacking physical attraction.

Whoa.

They said, I think you convicted her because she's ugly. I'm not saying she's ugly, but that's what they said.

That's what they said.

And they pointed to the repeated unkind descriptions of her throughout the trial. Mostly male journalists pushed back on that complaint. One journalist wrote, there is no good reason to believe that they would have acquitted her had she been other than homely. The evidence showed that she was guilty of deliberately planning the death of at least one man and probably a prison more.

I mean, valid.

Calling someone homely is so—

homely is diabolical. It's—

that's down dirty.

Yeah, it really is too much.

Now, once she settled into life in prison, she was kind of thriving in there.

Yeah, I think she was meant for that life.

She was in fact meant for that life. She was a model prisoner. She found work sewing American flags for other prison institutions. Wow. She had a bunch of homies in there. Okay. Uh, staff loved her. She didn't pose any problems at all. And then on November 20th, 1936, she died of heart disease at Dwight Prison, and she was 64.

That's young. Yeah. Wow, Tilly.

Isn't that one of the wildest stories?

Tilly raged. She raged.

She may have been the high priestess of arsenic poisoning.

She raged through life.

Yeah, forget dancing for your life. Yeah, she was not Tilly. No, she was never meant for that.

Never.

Wild. And Joseph lived. That's nice.

Oh, Joseph lived. I didn't think of that. Yeah, so he lived. Yeah, but I mean, that's rough, rough existence after that.

But yeah, I know what the long-term effects of arsenic poisoning are. Do you have a fun fact?

That was a crazy story.

It was.

I do have a fun fact.

Don't forget a fun fact.

This is thanks to Mikey. Mikey gave me this fun fact.

Thank you, Michael.

Orcas are a natural predator of moose.

How?

They can dive to eat seaweed. Moose can. Moose? And orcas are documented natural predators of moose in coastal Alaska and Canada. They attack them when they swim between islands or along shorelines. Wow.

I don't know how fun that is, but it's mind-blowing.

I personally love moose. So now I have street beef with orcas.

You actually can't really have street beef with them.

I have ocean beef with orcas.

You have aquatic beef.

Yeah. I have marine beef.

Marine beef. Not mer— Oh, that's perfect.

Marine beef. I have marine beef.

Why does that sound disgusting? I just picture soggy hamburgers.

Marine beef.

Not marine beef.

Yeah, I have marine beef with orcas now, so, uh, but that's fine because I don't go in the ocean. So we're gonna go unpack that, but I'm really worried about moose. So that's, that's how I feel.

And what is the plural of moose? Mooses? Meeses?

Mooses? I think it's moose.

I don't like that.

Look at that group of moose over there.

Yeah, that sounds so—

I don't know if I'm right.

I think you are, but I don't like it. Moose.

Moose. Hate it.

I have to unpack that now too. We have a lot to unpack.

It says correct. I saw 3 moose. Incorrect. I saw 3 mooses or 3 meeses.

Nah, meeses is better.

Or 3 meese.

Meeses.

Yeah.

Mooses.

Apparently did not evolve from Old English and that's why we didn't get a plural. So that's another fun fact.

I give you two for one. Look at you. You're so fun. Look at that. All right. Well, we hope you keep listening. We hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you spend several days thinking about the plural of moose.

Just be moose. It's moose. Think about it.

Maybe keep it that weird. Moose.