Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
Hey everyone, I have to tell you about this all-in-one shake that I am loving called Kachava. It's hands down the best thing that I've found to help me get all my essential nutrients into each day. Kachava is the all-in-one superfood shake made up of high quality plant-based nutrients. It's got greens, it's got superfruits, plant proteins, antioxidants, adaptogens, probiotics, in other words,
everything your body craves to feel your best. It's creamy, it's smooth, and it comes together with just water. It also comes in five delicious flavors. I've tried literally every single one of them. Personally, vanilla and chai are my favorite flavors, and sometimes I like to combine them to have a vanilla chai. But there's also chocolate, matcha, and coconut acai, if that's your thing.
Big fan of the coconut acai. I like to drink cachava in the morning because then I know I got all my nutrients right at the top of my day and I just feel satiated, happy, energized to go about my day. Cachava is offering our listeners 10% off for a limited time. Just go to cachava.com slash morbid. Spelled K-A-C-H-A-V-A and get 10% off your first order. That's K-A-C-H-A-V-A.com slash morbid.
Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. Maybe you'll find inspiration in the incredible true story of black female mathematicians at NASA in Hidden Figures, or the fantasy world of Throne of Glass. There's more to imagine when you listen. As an Audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog,
Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this right here, folks, is Morbid. It's Morbid. Hey. Hey. We've been getting so wily in the introductions lately. We have. We've been doing a lot of recordings. Yeah. Yeah.
I think so. We're just like, ah, gotta make it new and fresh. I know. And I forgot even to tell you guys at the top of the, because this is part two, obviously, of the Gideon family murders. I forgot to even tell them at the top of part one that it was a two-parter. Oh, it's a two-parter. Yeah. By the way, if you're here for part two. Hey, this is part two. It's a two-parter. I mean, there's a lot.
Yeah, there's a lot going on. It's like Michaela says, go to part two. Go to part two. That was good. That was good on both ends. That was real good. My favorite is when she does her eyeliner and she says, nice and sharp. That eyeliner could cut a man. I love that. I love it. I love it. I love it. Makeup. Makeup. Michaela.
I don't know. I feel... We're wily. So crazy. It's been a silly day in this pod laboratory. It has been a silly day. A good day, if you will. And people keep seeing doubles of me in my house. Yeah. That's occurring. Frequently. So I told this story like probably like a month or so ago now that I saw a double of you. Yeah. But then Mikey admitted to us today. That he also saw a double of me. He seemed to double weeks ago. Like, oh yeah. He didn't even tell us. He didn't want to scare us. The man didn't even inform us. He was scared. He was scared.
That's scary. What's going on with you? That's what I'm wondering. Someone tell me. I think it's because you're spooky. I like that reason. It's like the X-Files of it all. That explanation worked for me. Yeah, because Elena was like, well, why isn't anybody seeing Tumbles of John in the house? And I said, because he's not spooky. Yeah. He's not. He's really not. You, on the other hand. Yeah. Spooky as fuck. So...
It's spooky as fuck. And I don't live here. Yeah. I mean, I spend more time here than I do at my own home, but. Yeah, I'm just surprised. I want to know what it means. What does it mean? Because I'm like, why am I showing up?
Mikey said that it's because I say out loud a lot that I wish there was more of me to do the things that I need to get done. So maybe I've wished it. I'm a manifesting queen. Maybe you manifested something, some kind of fuck shit. Something ominous. Because I don't love that. Yeah, I don't know. Any thread that I've found about like what doppelganger things are is like...
Well, damn. I'm sorry to inform you. I didn't like the feeling. I didn't feel threatened when I saw She Who Shall Not Be Named, but I felt scared after the experience. Yeah, I don't know. And I only saw her very quick. She didn't like me. She didn't like you. And that's weird because you really liked me. I like you. Yeah, I've heard. Yeah, so you've heard. We've made a career together and shit. Yeah, it's true. I mean, ask some people and they'll say different, but.
I was like, what? I was like, no, you can't argue that. No, you can't argue that. But yeah, I don't know. So I guess we're just going to ride this train all the way and see what happens. See who next sees a doppelganger of me in my own house. What if your fucking kids see it, though? That would bum me out. Then I'd have something to say to her. That's when me and her would come to blows.
Oh my God. What if it's like that episode of Buffy though, where like he intended to split Buffy in half, but he split Xander in half. But what if somebody actually did split you in half and you have to fight to the death and only the weaker one dies? Fuck, am I the weaker one or is she? I don't know. I only saw her for a second.
She's ominous and she can appear and reappear so me tends to believe. But I have to, I don't know. I think I'm the stronger one. I'm the one getting shit done over here. She doesn't seem to be doing much. Oh, I would not say that out loud. I mean, she's me. She's part of you. Yeah. She's not you though. Well, she needs to pull her weight around here is what I'm saying. I'm leaving. I'm going elsewhere this weekend. She needs to start pulling her weight.
Maybe take some stuff off my hands. That would be great. Don't say that. Oh, God. I mean, like, take some... Now she's going to rip your fingerprints and shit. I haven't even seen her. I have. And so has Michael. Ash's face is, like, terror. Because I don't fuck with that kind of shit. Like, I'll talk about that kind of stuff. Like, I enjoy, like, talking about, like, paranormal and stuff and that kind of thing, but...
I don't fuck with it. Like, I don't talk to it. I don't, uh-uh. Yeah, I mean, like, hey, she hasn't bothered me, so that's... Don't say that either. I'm trying to say that it's fine. Like, you're not doing anything wrong. It's cool. You're just kind of... I just want to figure out what you're all about. There you go. That's really what it is. I'm just trying to figure out where you came from. Okay. You know? Let's move on before we get this whole Doug any further. We'll move on. Maybe I should... Why don't I pull a tarot card?
Yeah, do it. And see what. Do you have a deck? Maybe I could sound bowl after. Everyone's like, maybe you could just tell us. Everyone's like, it is part two. Will you just tell us? I'm just going to pull one out at random. Yeah, like put, feel what feels right though. Yeah, like I put. Hold on. Energy. You made me double think it. Like close your eyes and feel the vibes. What'd you get? Did you get death? No. What'd you get? The tower. Mikey's going to shit himself when he doesn't have noise canceling headphones on.
If you guys know anything about the tower, just...
Try to explain that to us in this situation. Pray for me, I guess. All right, we got to get into this. I'm fucking terrified and I'm leaving after this. Let's get into this. This gets wily. Let's get into this. You thought this discussion at the top was wily. Part two is wily. It's real wily. So in part one, we got familiar with the dynamic of the Gideon family and unfortunately found out that two of the four of them, Veronica, Ronnie, and her mother, Mary, had been murdered, along with a boarder in their apartment, Frank Burns.
The police were pretty stumped because there was no sign of forced entry. No one had alarmed the otherwise territorial dog, Tucci. And every suspect or person of interest they had so far, including the father of the family, Joe Gideon, whom they beat mercilessly, had not panned out.
But taking a closer look at Ronnie's diary and the man who she simply referred to as B eventually gave them the lead that they needed. At the end of part one, we found out that a possible suspect for the B mentioned was Bob Irwin, who had actually been pretty obsessed with Ronnie's sister Ethel and was a previous boarder at their home. Yeah, that's scary. Not the apartment that they lived in currently, the one where they were killed. But the bigger one, right? But the bigger one.
Now, it's actually pretty unclear why no one had thought to mention Bob Irwin when the diary was discovered and investigators were seeking a man with a B initial. But anyone with even the slightest familiarity with Bob Irwin probably would have thought he made a good suspect. Born in 1906 in Pasadena, California, Bob's life had been really, really difficult from the start. His father, Benjamin Irwin, was the founder of I Shit You Not,
Fire Baptized Holiness Church. You didn't just put that into like a random generator online and that came out? Fire Baptized Holiness Church, which was not a church. I didn't. I was like, please tell me that is not real. No, it was a fanatical Christian cult operating out of Northern California.
Benjamin, the dad, eventually abandoned the family. It was when Bob was still very young, leaving him and his two brothers in the sole custody of their mother, Mary, who was equally fanatical and put her religion before literally everything else in her life, including the care of her children. Oh, yeah. That's sad. It's his story. Bob's story, I will tell you right off the bat, is very sad. Oh, that's terrible. Okay.
But left to their own devices, Bob and his brothers ran completely wild. I think it's the
Ah.
Which earned him some sympathy with adults. I had a feeling. But unfortunately, while he did indeed prove to be actually an immensely talented artist, by the time he reached his late teens, Bob was also beginning to show signs of very severe mental illness and delusional thinking.
In his late teens and early 20s, his talent had actually earned him the admiration of several influential people in the art world. And he actually earned apprenticeships with some pretty notable artists of the time. But due to his paranoia and explosive anger tendencies, those opportunities almost always fell apart not long after they started. Like he just had these big outbursts. He just couldn't handle it. Mm-hmm.
Now, in 1932, he was sent to the Burke Foundation, which was a voluntary psychiatric facility in White Plains, New York. And after nine months at the facility, he left the clinic, claiming that he, quote, left to get away from a couple of female employees who began to make life miserable for him after he rebuffed their sexual demands.
But in truth, a social worker later clarified that Bob had left the facility because he had gotten into, quote, so many violent quarrels with other patients that he feared his behavior would lead to serious consequences. Ah, there it is. A little different. So Bob moved into Mary Gideon's boarding house on East 53rd Street in October of 1932. So that's five years before the murders.
also right around the time that Ronnie started her diary that the police had found in 1937. But...
It was there that he met and quickly became enamored with Ethel Gideon. In many ways, Ethel reminded Bob of his last girlfriend, Alice Ryan, who he was still very obsessed with. Once he'd settled in at the boarding house, Bob tried to resume his art, but he found that his thoughts of Alice and preoccupation with sex dominated his mind day and night, preventing him from producing any kind of work.
So I want to give you a little bit of a trigger warning for self-harm here. Finally, after a week of torment and no productivity, Bob decided to try to rid himself of these sexual preoccupations once and for all. According to Bob, on Wednesday, October 27th, he went into the bathroom at the boarding house and put a rubber band around his penis and went for a walk around town in order to numb the area.
When he got back to the boarding house, he then went into the bathroom and attempted to remove his penis with a Gillette razor. Oh, boy. He got about halfway there, but obviously that was incredibly painful, even having numbed the area. So he was not able to finish. But he managed to get himself from the house to the Bellevue Hospital with the rubber band actually kind of acting as a tourniquet to keep him from bleeding out.
He checked in under the name James Adamson and calmly asked the night intern to finish the job. Oh, boy. The intern simply bandaged him up and told him to come back during the daytime when the surgeon would be on.
So Bob came back several hours later, still insisting that they remove his penis completely. But instead, the surgeon applied antiseptic and sutured the very serious wound and then admitted Bob to the psychiatric ward, where he remained for nearly five months. And after that, after his stint there, he was transferred to Rockland State Hospital in upstate New York. Oof. That is rough. Yeah. And that is...
Very, very sick. Yeah. This man is severely mentally ill. And it's sad that not much was able to be done about it to keep him...
From progressing. In a safe place and from like, to keep him one, from hurting himself, because obviously he's inclined to do that, and to keep him from hurting anyone else. Like this man is not somebody who should have lived on his own and like been on the streets, unfortunately. Absolutely not. Like there needed to be some serious help happening here. And the system, obviously, I mean, it's the 30s. Like there's not a lot in the way of mental health. Not at all.
like anything. So, I mean, we were just talking about, you know, the Marion Parker case, which was in the twenties, but it's like, we're not far off from there. And they were still treating it in a very different way than they treat it now. And it's interesting actually. Cause like when we get to the trial part of this, it's,
It's we were like talking about it in the Marion Parker case and how William William Edward Hickman, how he was like very clearly trying. Yeah. He was making a valiant effort to seem insane. Yeah. To act like he was in this case.
he's not trying. He just is. Like, it's very clear. This is coming from a very genuine place of not sane. So we're literally like taking your trial that we just discussed and turning it on its head with this trial. Yeah, how it would go if he really was. Yeah, it's interesting that we end up doing these back to back because we don't usually tell each other about our cases until they happen. Yeah.
But anyway, during his time at Rockland, excuse me, Bob proved an unruly patient. He made several escape attempts, including one incident when he made it all the way to downtown Manhattan. Holy shit. To the apartment of his previous psychiatrist from Bellevue. Oh, fuck that. Luckily, he was able to be apprehended and returned to Rockland before anything happened.
Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre that you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, and even new ways of thinking. Find the genres you love and discover new ones along the way. Explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want, with more added all the time.
Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your daily routine without needing to set aside extra time. There's more to imagine when you listen. Guys, I have been listening to The Name of the Wind. It's the most beautiful title that I have ever listened to. I literally paused my Bravo shows.
And I was just absolutely sobbing. I 10 out of 10 recommend it. And by the way, as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500. That's audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days. audible.com slash morbid.
Summer is in full swing, and we're all looking for ways to save money for road trips, staycation, or summer camp for your kids. You may not expect to find a deal at the pharmacy counter, but with GoodRx, you can instantly save up to 80% on your prescription medications. Using GoodRx is easy and totally free. All you need to do is search for your prescription on the GoodRx website or app and show your discount at the pharmacy. With GoodRx, you can find prescription savings at the pharmacies right in your neighborhoods.
like CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Vons, Sam's Club, Publix, and even more, many more. And remember, GoodRx works whether you have insurance or not. You don't have to have insurance. And even if you do have insurance, GoodRx could actually beat your copay price. I've been in that seat many times.
So when you're filling prescriptions this summer, don't forget to check GoodRx before you get to the pharmacy. I have saved so much money using GoodRx and I've been able to put it towards things like staycations and different things like that that you actually want to spend your money on. For simple smart savings on your prescriptions, check GoodRx. Go to GoodRx.com slash morbid. That is GoodRx.com slash morbid. ♪♪♪
At Rockland, that was the place where he received his first official diagnosis of hebephronia. It was a subtype of schizophrenia, which the psychiatrist at the time described as being characterized, quote, by foolish mannerisms, senseless laughter, delusions, and regressive behavior.
This diagnosis actually no longer appears in the diagnostic. I was going to say. Yeah, it's not in the DSM, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Now we would just classify it as simple schizophrenia. Yeah, I was going to say because I've never heard of it. Yeah. That's interesting. It's dated. But the symptoms of delusional and disordered thinking and distorted reality, among others, are still acknowledged in the schizophrenia diagnosis. Oh, okay. So now he would just be called schizophrenic or treated as such. Yeah.
So after a few years of bouncing around from one boarding house to another, Bob reappeared at the door of Mary Gideon's boarding house in the early summer of 1934, just a few months after Ethel's marriage to her first husband was annulled. Because remember, she had a teen marriage of her own. Yeah, that was like a thing. Yeah.
I think it was a thing to get out of the house. Yeah. Because I think the house was very dysfunctional. Yeah, for sure. So now that he was once again in Ethel's presence, Bob felt particularly inspired, actually, because she was, like I said, she was beautiful. And he began sculpting again. He was devoted to Ethel from the moment that he returned to the house. But while she liked the attention and the adoration that she received from him, she was never actually willing to commit to a relationship with him. For her, it was just kind of like a fun thing. Yeah, just like flirting was...
She found him to be like an attractive man. Yeah. A lot of people actually did. Yeah. So she's just like, you know what? Yeah. We're just having a flirtation. It's a fun thing, but she never saw it. Yeah. Seriously. So actually by that time she had already started dating Joe Kuttner, who she ended up marrying and who was obviously far more stable than Bob. Yeah. And somebody that she could see a future with. Yeah. Yeah.
But despite her intention to marry Joe, she still indulged Bob, flirting with him and actually allowing him to sculpt her. So it was while he was living with the Gideons that Bob began experiencing delusional thinking and started believing strongly in what he called visualization, which he believed was the ability to manifest things purely by mental power and focus. Okay. He believed that through the process of visualization, he could obtain everything he wanted for himself
and he became very frustrated when things didn't appear to be going his way. Which I imagine happened a lot. Yes, absolutely. He was absolutely desperate to be with Ethel, but no matter what he did or how he tried to prove his love for her, she was resistant because she loved Joe. Yeah.
Ooh, yeah.
Which I think she put it gentler than that, but that was essentially the message. Yeah, but that's what he took from it. And she said she wanted her daughter to marry a wealthy man and not have to struggle like she had in her own marriage. So I think she was saying to Bob, like, I want something better for Ethel.
And also, like, I want you to move on. Yeah. Because she liked him, too. She's not going to marry you. She's not going to be with you. Like, you need to move on. Yeah. And it sounds like she went about it in, like, the kindest way that she could have. That she possibly could. Exactly. You know? But, undeterred by Mary's words, Bob continued to pursue Ethel romantically.
And a few months later, while the two were out for a walk along the pier, he insisted that they should get married. Oh, boy. Now, at that point, having grown tired of Bob's relentless advances and honestly his increasingly bizarre talk of visualization, I can never say that, and other strange beliefs, Ethel finally explained that while she hoped they could remain friends, she had accepted Joe Kudner's proposal and they were going to get married in the coming months. Bob later told a reporter, I just went crazy.
In the weeks that followed, he spiraled into depression and heavily contemplated suicide as he bounced from one boarding house to another. And then he was dealt another serious blow in October when, after putting up with his poor attitude and sullenness for months, his boss let him go from the production factory he was working at.
In response, Bob grabbed a nearby meat cleaver and threatened to, quote, split his boss's head right down the middle. Holy shit. So now out of work and desperate, Bob actually returned to Rockland Hospital where he voluntarily committed himself for treatment. Which...
That's interesting. It is interesting that he does like obviously know enough. He recognizes. It seems like he has these periods where he's good. Where he's like lucid. Lucid, exactly. And like realizes like, oh no, I need to get some kind of help. And he goes to get the help. And it's like, I wish that they would have just recognized that he needed to stay there.
Yeah, because it's like... Because I think this is like... I mean, back then it was just like... Before medication, before... It was before any of the advances of understanding what these things are, how you can deal with them, tools that you can use to get through these things. Yeah.
Psychiatrists helping you like be like, okay, when you feel this way, this is what I want you to do or this is what I want you to try or visualize this. Like coping mechanisms. Appeal to his visualization thing, but like make it more of a tool that he can use to like get himself out of these really intense emotional situations. Yeah. And it's like they just didn't have that. And just offer him a safe space to stay while he is going through it. Is going through all that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So based on everything that they learned about him, detectives became convinced that Bob Irwin was most definitely their suspect. Sounds like it. Yes. But the only problem was they had no idea where he was. A police spokesperson told reporters on April 5th, we've been looking for him since the murders. We think he's the man. I hope he hasn't committed suicide. In response to a citywide alert, Bob's former landlord, who had actually been renting him a room directly across the street from the police precinct...
contacted police. But by the time they arrived at the boarding house, Bob had packed his belongings and fled. Oh, damn. And the landlady had no idea where he had gone. But she did remember that Bob had two suitcases with him and one of them had a distinct looking strap wrapped around it with a large buckle to keep it closed. So...
That was a pretty key detail to remember. Yeah, that was a good detail. So the news about the manhunt for Bob Irwin came as a shock to very few people who knew him well, but among those who found it hard to believe was actually Ethel Gideon. On April 6th, she told reporters, I cannot believe Irwin is the man who killed my mother and sister.
While she provided investigators with everything she knew about Bob, more than 18,000 officers mobilized across the city in search of the suspected killer. At Rockland Hospital, detectives learned that Bob had actually been discharged the previous October and since then had just been kind of bopping around to various boarding houses across the city.
And during his time at Rockland, his most recent time, they informed investigators that his religious delusions had worsened and he'd actually started studying religion like almost exclusively, completely casting aside his sculpting and his art. Ooh. Yeah. And it's like that's the only outlet that man has, you know, or has had. Yeah, and where he was raised in such a –
A place where like religion was not a place of comfort or a place of solace or something to believe in. It was like probably a punishment. It's like that's probably not a good place to be going. Yeah, it wasn't great.
So on a hunch, investigators went to Grand Central Station and asked the baggage check attendant whether anyone had checked luggage resembling that which had been described by Bob's landlady. As luck would have it, somebody matching Bob's description actually had checked that very bag they were looking for, and that person had not been back to retrieve it in days.
So presented with the suitcase held closed with the strap and the buckle, investigators searched its contents and found inside them that small alarm clock that Ethel said was missing from her sister's dressing table at the apartment. So this piece of evidence only further confirmed their suspicion that Bob was the killer.
The hunt for Bob Irwin was the largest since the hunt for the Lindbergh kidnapper five years earlier. But despite their best efforts, it was not the NYPD who ultimately found Irwin, but a tip from a reader of True Detective magazine. You could not write this.
You literally couldn't. You could not write this. Just as they had done before, the editors of True Detective remained committed to helping find Ronnie's killer. Because remember, she worked for them. She posed for the covers. Yeah. She was friends with them. Yeah, they got to know her. They loved her. So to that end, they offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Today, that would be over $21,000. Wow. It was huge.
In late June of 1937, an employee at the, I think it's Statler Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio, happened to be flipping through her copy of True Detective on her break, and she noticed a police photograph of Bob Irwin, and she thought, huh, that actually looks a lot like the new bar back Bob Murray. Stop. Now this motherfucker, amused by the resemblance, showed the photo to Bob Irwin.
And from the look on his face, she could tell that it was way more than a mere coincidence. Yeah. So Bob fled the hotel that day. Why would you do that? Why would you show him and say like, oh, this guy looks like you? Come on. Like, that's a dumbass move. I'm sorry.
So he fled the hotel, and by the time detectives made it there, he was gone again. Awesome. So by the summer of 1937 now, Bob Irwin's photo was plastered across billboards, magazines, newspapers, all around the country at this point. And it was only a matter of time before they caught up with him. Wanting to get ahead of the story, Bob ended up placing a call to the Chicago Tribune with an offer he knew they would not be able to resist.
He told the operator, I'm a friend of Robert Irwin, who was wanted in New York for the Gideon murders. He wants to give himself up. What kind of deal can you make with him? Now, after getting through... And this is him. This is him. This is actually him just pretending to be a friend. He's like, I have a friend. After getting through to the right person, he offered the paper a complete exclusive confession in exchange for $5,000 cash, a white linen suit, and a Panama hat. Stop. Stop.
Given what they were being offered, the Tribune jumped at the opportunity. Of course they did. And agreed to meet him at the office of managing editor John Deinhart, where Bob sat down and told his story. The man...
Who did it is sitting pretending to be a friend telling the story. If this doesn't tell you that. Oh, at this point, he wasn't even pretending to be a friend. He was. Oh, he now he's saying it's actually him. Yeah. It was the friend who called and set all this up, but was like, I can get Bob to you. So Bob sat down with them. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm without, I'm speechless. Now, at that time, it was actually pretty common for the press to pay criminals for their exclusive rights to their stories or any kind of other information that they deemed valuable as news reporters. But this was the first time a newspaper had knowingly and deliberately shielded a murderer from the law in order to get a story. Fucked.
He murdered three people. He came in this place and said, I'll tell you the story. And they were like, yeah, let's just let him do that. And not call the police. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? I'm so surprised that they weren't charged with obstruction of justice. I think this, it got so sensational and like it got so beyond that, that probably once he does eventually get convicted. So once it ended there, they were like, whatever. But I'm like,
What the fuck kind of precedent does that set? Yeah, that's really fucked up. Now there's no fucking way ever that that could happen again. No. But this happened. I'm shook by that. And the fact that his name...
Because you've been saying Bob, so I forgot that his name was Robert. And I think Steve Irwin's son is named Robert Irwin. Yeah, you're right. And he's a lovely, lovely guy. He is lovely. I follow that whole family on TikTok. He's very much a Steve Irwin. And it's bumming me out so much to hear that name, like in conjunction with like something so terrible. It's weird that we started this with doppelgangers. Whoa.
That's weird. A little strange. This is really just the same name. Robert Irwin, the Steve Irwin DNA seems lovely. Oh, yeah. Seems stand-up guy. But the Chicago Tribune at the time, not a stand-up newspaper. No. So they were like, yeah, let's do it. They were like, yeah, sure. Because essentially they just wanted to secure the exclusive rights to have advantage over every paper in the world, which honestly is hilarious because...
Spoiler alert, it didn't end up working out for them. I can't imagine why. No, but they were the first to technically get to the story. On the evening of June 26, 1937, Bob Irwin sat down with reporters and photographers from the Tribune wearing a suit at the Morrison Hotel and just started his story. Wow. This is so bizarre. I've never heard of another case like this.
He told them, Wow. Wow.
And after several months of hospitalization, he decided the only way to regain his focus was to rid himself of Ethel. And that's why he was resolved to kill her. But not wanting to mar her beauty, he said he decided to stab her in the back of the neck with an ice pick from his apartment. That is so chilling. And it's such disordered thinking. I don't want to ruin her beauty, but I want to end her life. What the fuck? I feel like that just goes to show you like...
Something was not connecting upstairs. Yes.
Summer is jam-packed and the heat is no joke. So guys, we gotta prioritize hydration. And with all the drinks out there, you want hydration that works. Well, listen. Liquid IV delivers extraordinary hydration with advanced science thanks to Live Hydro Science, an optimized ratio of electrolytes, vitamins, and nutrients. One stick of Liquid IV delivers superior hydration to water alone with three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drinks plus eight vitamins and nutrients.
it's hydration for endurance mental clarity and overall well-being i love how many different flavors that there are there's pear sugar-free white peach sugar-free green grapes strawberry lemonade there's a ton of them right now i'm super into the strawberry lemonade and i really love to just mix that and bring it poolside with a little fancy straw and the sugar-free flavors are actually quite delicious in my opinion
It's a zero sugar hydration solution with no artificial sweeteners. Also clinically tested to hydrate more than water alone. Turn your ordinary water into extraordinary hydration with Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to liquidiv.com and use code MORBID at checkout. That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code MORBID at liquidiv.com.
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I feel like this year is going by so, so quickly, but one thing that I'm super proud of myself for doing is going back to therapy. Sometimes I'm just like bobbing and weaving out here all the drama in my life, and I'm like, wait a second, girly. Go back to therapy. I always operate better when I'm in therapy, and it helps me take stock of my progress and actually set achievable goals for the next coming months.
I think everybody should go to therapy at least once in their lives. I think most people should go multiple times in their lives because therapy is fantastic and it just offers you a set of skills, a set of coping mechanisms. You find out a little bit about yourself and how you approach things. And therapy
It's just awesome. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. And all you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Take a moment, visit betterhelp.com slash morbid today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash morbid.
On the night of March 28th, he went to the apartment on East 50th Street and rang the bell. Having always liked Bob, Mary happily let him into the apartment where she was prepping for Easter dinner the following day. He told the reporter, Mrs. Gideon did not want me to have anything to do with Ethel. Outside of that, she was always very friendly to me.
They chatted pleasantly in the kitchen for a short time. Mary even introduced Bob to her newest boarder, Frank Burns. But eventually, Bob started becoming impatient and asking when Ethel would be home. Confused, Mary explained that Ethel had moved out of the house years earlier because she was now married to Joe. But according to Harold, I think it's Schechter. Yeah, we've done a couple of his books. I think you used his book for the Ed Gein case. Yes.
He wrote a book about this case called The Mad Sculptor. Ah. And according to him, the last time Bob had visited the apartment, Ethel had actually been staying with her mother temporarily. End quote. Bob had gotten it into his head that she and Joe Kudner were separated. Oh, wow. Yeah. So after a few hours, Mary became impatient and somewhat bluntly explained that Ethel wasn't going to show up. And since it was getting late, she wanted to go to bed.
But undeterred, Bob insisted he was going to stay until he saw Ethel, which prompted Mary to yell, get out of here or I'll call the Englishman, referring to Frank Burns, who was now asleep in the next room. Oh, no. The threat caused Bob to become completely irate, and he rushed toward Mary. He recalled, at that moment, I hit her with everything I had. She fell back on the floor with her legs back over her head. I grabbed her by the neck. She scratched my face like nobody's business. Good. Good for her. I know. I know.
He said he then choked her for nearly 20 minutes until she was dead. What? And then he simply sat back down at the kitchen table and continued on waiting for Ethel. He said, she was the one I felt I must kill. I simply had to finish what I planned.
And remember, Frank Burns is asleep in the next room, but he didn't hear anything because he was deaf in one ear. Yeah, that one ear. And he was asleep on his good ear. Oh, man. As he waited, it occurred to Bob that Ronnie might return home before Ethel, which presented a serious problem. He told the interviewer, she was beautiful, and I hate to destroy beauty. What the fuck? Because he's an artist.
In that moment, Bob was reminded of something that he'd read recently about how a bar of soap wrapped in a towel could make an effective blackjack that he could use to stun Ronnie and nothing more. So he went to the kitchen and grabbed the bar of soap from the sink. That's why that's soap. That's why it was there, which he wrapped in a dish towel and then returned to his hiding place in the bedroom. A little after 3 a.m., Bob heard Ronnie returning from her night out, which lined up perfectly with what Stephen Butter had told them.
And after saying goodbye to Butter, she entered the apartment and went straight to the bathroom where she started her little nightly routine, removing her makeup, just getting ready for bed. He said, she stayed in there the longest time. I thought she would never come out. But finally, just before 4 a.m., Ronnie entered the bedroom and Bob swung the soap bar as hard as he could, striking her on the head. He said it didn't have the slightest effect, which like obviously, but in his mind, that was totally going to work.
So with his blackjack having crumbled to the floor and Ronnie having now seen his face, he grabbed her by the throat and started choking her, demanding to know where Ethel was. She just came home to her house. Yeah. Just in the middle of the night. How many times does everybody else in the world do that? This is BTK behavior of like waiting in someone's closet. Yes, it is. Like until the middle of the night. Like that's scary. It's fucked up.
Now, when Ronnie explained that her sister was at home with her husband, Bob lost all control and started strangling her. He told the reporter,
Bob estimated that he held on tightly around Ronnie's throat for nearly two hours. What the fuck? But he couldn't say for certain. He said, when you get in a mix-up like that, you don't think about what you're doing and time means nothing. I'm like without words here. It's beyond. So once he had choked all the life out of her, he ripped off her slip and left her body on the bed and then stuffed Mary's body under the bed. He never said why he did that.
Yeah, maybe just so, I don't know, the only thing I can think of is she wouldn't be immediately found. I guess. But, or like why he ripped off her slip, I mean, Ronnie's slip, like why he left her naked on the bed. Yeah, I mean, who knows? But he was about to leave the room when he noticed the small, this is really interesting and just strange, um,
He was about to leave the room when he noticed the small green alarm clock sitting on the dresser still. And to him, he said the glowing green clock resembled an eye that had been watching him while he murdered both women. So he grabbed it and stuffed it into his pocket as he left the room. Wow.
I mean, that tells you some things. He's not of sane mind. Not here. I mean, this is absolutely fucking horrific. Absolutely. This is brutal. So Bob was about to leave the apartment and go back to his boarding house when he remembered Frank Burns. The boarder had been in the apartment the entire time, but like I said, never woke up because of his hearing.
So when Burns had come in several hours earlier, Mary introduced Bob by name. So Bob felt that if he left Frank alive, there was a good chance that he would be able to identify him. So he crept into Frank Burns' room using the ice pick that he intended to use to kill Ethel and stabbed Burns in the head. But doesn't that point to not wanting to be caught?
Into making pretty logical moves to make sure that you are not identified? That's the thing. I think he, I mean, he's a diagnosed schizophrenic. Absolutely. But I mean, like in this moment, I'm like, because you can be a diagnosed schizophrenic, commit a crime like this. And know it's wrong still. And they can still say you're guilty because you were sane in the moment, in the action of committing the crime. Yeah. Yeah.
He's sane. Well, just wait. That's sane behavior. You are not the only one that thinks that. Yeah, I fully believe that. So, and we'll get to it because you're not alone there. He said, Holy shit. With all three occupants dead, Bob grabbed his coat and left the apartment a little after 6 a.m.
He finished by telling his audience from the Tribune, I'm certainly sorry I killed all three of them. There was only the one I was after, and that was Ethel. I don't know whether it was hate or love that made me want to kill her. If she had come in first, I probably would have killed her and nobody else. Wow. Imagine being Ethel here. I can't imagine. There's so many layers to it of knowing that if you had walked in, you were the one that was getting this, but also then to know that
Three people died in place of you. And two of them being your sister and mother. Two of them being, yeah. And by no fault of your own. No, but the survivor's guilt. Oh, it must be unbelievable. You would already have survivor's guilt anyway. Yeah. No matter who it was that killed them. Even if it had nothing to do with you. But then learning that you're the intended victim. Yeah. That would ruin me. Yeah.
But before ending the interview, the reporter asked what Bob was expecting to happen to him now that he had confessed and would be apprehended. And he answered, whatever's coming to me, I'll take.
Wow. So it wasn't until after the evening edition of the Herald and Examiner hit the newsstands that investigators learned Bob had confessed to killing Ronnie, Mary, and Frank. The front page article had scooped the competition and been the first to report the news. That's fucked up. So the Chicago Tribune literally just obstructed the fuck out of justice to get this interview. To get that front page scoop. And they didn't even get it.
Wow. It ended up getting scooped by the competition somehow. Wow. Just like word of mouth, I think. But detectives naturally thought it was them and not the Chicago Tribune who had done the interview. And it was only when they reached the offices of the Herald and Examiner that they learned Bob was still holed up at the Morrison Hotel with the staff from the Tribune. Wow.
Fuck. Yep. This is so bizarre. So on June 28th, 1937, Bob was transported back to New York after voluntarily waiving extradition and declaring his willingness to take responsibility for the Gideon murders. According to the New York Times, Bob was jaunty, giggling at times, and without the slightest trace of remorse as he repeatedly confessed the murders to the New York detectives who'd been sent to retrieve him from Chicago. Wow.
Once they arrived back in New York, Bob was taken to police headquarters and questioned until just before 3 a.m. A police spokesperson told reporters he stated that he had made a statement to Lieutenant Owens and Detective Crimmins confessing to the murders in the plane en route from Chicago to New York and that that statement was true. Wow. According to investigators, he was fully cooperative from the moment that he was picked up in Chicago and actually even seemed eager to get back to New York and face his penalty. Wow.
One reporter wrote, he boasted to them that he was willing to plead guilty to the murders and that he was not afraid of death in the electric chair. Okay, buddy. He doesn't even plead guilty. So I'm like, what? So this is all just shit. So Bob appeared before the court of general sessions on July 1st, where his lawyer, Samuel Leibowitz, entered a plea of not guilty.
According to the New York Times, the courtroom was packed with, quote, an admiring crowd of middle-aged women hoping to glimpse Irwin. Get it together. Like what? Get it together. Just like in part one and every other fucking part we do of any case?
People are gonna people. People are gonna people. Like, what is that? Like, come on, man. First of all, you want to catch a glimpse of a man who was intending to kill a woman that he was romantically obsessed with, and because she wasn't there, he killed her mother's sister in a border at the house? Yeah.
Like, here's the thing. That, like, gets you going? That's the problem. It's like, I understand being curious and, like, being interested in the case and wanting to see who this guy is that did this. Absolutely. But they were, like, romantically interested. Like, that's... Wow. It's like the girls that showed up to see Ted Bundy and be like, please marry me. And literally parted their hair the same way and dyed their hair. The way that he liked. Yep. Because that's what he liked. Or, like, Charlie Manson's girls. Yeah. It's such a fucking weird pathology. It's a strange...
Yeah, people are weird. But after entering his plea, Bob was removed from the court and returned to a cell to await trial, which was tentatively scheduled for the fall. In a statement to the press, Leibowitz said, This is the most interesting case I have ever had due to the social implications. You cannot tell me how many more Irwins are running around loose. I hope that society will, learning a lesson from the Irwin case, make a more logical and sane approach to the problem dealing with the criminal insane. Which, like...
for a defense attorney to say like, yeah, like he's wrong, but I think he's insane. And the way that he said it, like hopefully society will figure their shit out. Yeah. It's a very, this is a lesson for sure. For the time I'm like, wow, mildly progressive. Yeah. That's the word I was looking for. Now in early September, before Bob's trial was to begin, Samuel Leibowitz arranged a press conference in which he promised his client would be on hand to answer questions for the press. Yeah.
However, when Bob was brought to the interview room in the courthouse, he was, quote, wild-eyed, unshaved, and unkempt, and appeared to have no idea what was going on. Once he settled in the chair beside Leibowitz, Bob, unprompted, blurted out, for two weeks they had doctors staring and leering at me. Their eyes. They bothered me. I couldn't stand it. They beat me from behind with a blackjack. Six men with blackjacks. I couldn't fight six men with blackjacks. Just talking nonsense. All right. Which...
Maybe it's because he's in a state of whatever he deals with or maybe he is pointed. Yeah. I mean, it seems to me like he's obviously clinically there's something wrong. Yes. But I think the thing that they're going to have to prove here is that he was insane during the time of the murders. Mm-hmm.
So Bob said little more to the reporters before being returned to his cell, but it was clear to the reporters that the entire press conference was part of the defense attorney's trial strategy. Whether it was true or not, it was... True or not. Yeah, genuine or not, it was strategic. Absolutely, because it's like a...
They can use it. Yeah. No matter what. Exactly. You know, like they're just like, OK, this happened. Great. Like in front of some cameras and show everybody that he's clearly not, you know, he's not all with it right now. It's going to sway public opinion no matter what. Of course it is. And according to The New York Times, Mr. Leibowitz, who is apparently laying the groundwork for a defense based on a plea of insanity, told reporters he thought Irwin was a dual personality.
Lebowitz himself told the reporters that he had seen his client just one day earlier and he seemed calm and collected, but then added, you saw how he acted today, like a raving maniac.
It's wild how they talked. You're like, yikes. Yeah. After several months of delays, Bob finally went before the Court of General Sessions on March 24th, 1938. Because he had already confessed, the only issues being considered were, quote, the mental condition of the defendant, Robert Irwin, at the time of the commission of each of the alleged crimes, whether he is now capable of understanding the proceeding and making his defense on the trial of the indictments. Yeah. So essentially exactly what happened with your trial. Yeah.
With your last episode. But unlike a traditional trial, in this case, the jury was presented with testimony taken from 20 sessions of the Lunacy Commission. The Lunacy Commission? That was a legit thing. I've never heard that. The Lunacy Commission. Wow. And transcripts from the 28 witness interviews, as well as physical and documentary evidence.
In support of his client's compromised mental state, Leibowitz presented testimony from Dr. Leland Hinze, assistant director of the New York Psychiatric Institute, and Dr. Bernard Gluick, I think it is, the former director of the psychiatric clinic at Sing Sing.
both of whom had actually evaluated Bob. In total, both men spent nearly 70 hours interviewing Bob. So this was a dedicated process. And during that time, Hintze said Bob's behavior would sometimes become frightening and erratic. He said he would begin by excessive talking and would be considerably upset when he was interrupted for some explanations on some point he had raised.
According to Hintze, these interruptions often prompted Bob to, quote, stare at the examiner, grit his teeth, pound on the table viciously with his fist, and yell that he would not suffer any interruptions. That would be terrifying. Even just writing it and, like, picturing it was a terrifying experience. I can't imagine being there. Stare at the examiner and grit his teeth and yell and, like, pound his fist. Like, that's a lot. That's scary. Yeah.
I think it is so important to arm your house with a security system. And my personal choice for that security system is SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe is an advanced home security system that puts you first. I just know that I feel so much better walking into my house after a long day of being away, knowing that that baby has been armed. I've been checking in on the cameras. I know what's going on 24-7. I also feel so much better going on vacation, knowing that I can check in and see what's going on at my house at any time. I think it's so important to arm your house with a security system.
I've told you guys the story of why we got SimpliSafe in the first place. It was like literally in the middle of a blizzard, a super crazy windy night. It was so creepy. And 3 a.m. our doorbell rings and I'm like, who the heck is that? And I didn't know because I didn't have SimpliSafe yet. That was the exact reason we got it. And I would love
literally never go back to not having SimpliSafe. I'm always checking my cameras. The other thing that's really cool is, I mean, I'm always like really on top of arming the system, but if for some reason I get all the way up to bed and I've forgotten, I can do it from my phone because everything is right on the app.
I love SimpliSafe and you will too. By partnering with SimpliSafe, I've finally gotten real peace of mind and I want you to have that too. Get an exclusive 20% off any new SimpliSafe system when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash morbid. That's simplisafe.com slash morbid. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
Now, one subject which Bob would talk at length about was his spiritual beliefs. Harold Schechter wrote,
Bob told the psychiatrist, there is no limit to the extent that I can build myself mentally and physically through electricity. I can stop the action of my heartbeat, prevent my lungs from expanding and contracting, control the passage of food through my body. All of this done by electricity. False. Incorrect. Wow. But...
Arguing that Bob was sane when he committed the murders and knew what he was doing was both morally wrong and illegal was the district attorney William Dondy or Dode, excuse me, and Delaina.
And he pointed to several instances in which Irwin appeared to be concealing information. Upon his arrest, for example, Bob was reluctant to disclose information about the crimes, which implied a certain level of awareness of what he had done. And similarly, when he was asked about the fee that he received for his confession, Bob explained that he planned to use a small portion for himself...
I mean, that is some high-level planning. That's high-level thinking. And planning, yes.
Like, damn. Right? Yeah. This is such an interesting case because it's very clear that this man is insane. He's very ill. He is a very ill man. I mean, his actions before this and, you know, what he did, the self-harm that he did to himself and all that stuff is, there is something wrong there. But I see what you're saying and I see what the DA is saying here with...
By criminal definition, not so much. He, like, when you pointed it out that he killed Frank Burns because he knew somebody could identify him. Yeah, he was like, he's been introduced to me by name and he saw my face. And even Ronnie. Yeah. Ronnie turned around and saw his face after she didn't get knocked out with the quote-unquote blackjack made out of soap. And so...
And he was like, I had to kill her. Like that's criminal thinking. That's sane thinking. That's ordered thinking. Exactly. And it's like that's – by criminal definition. I fully believe you can be extraordinarily mentally ill, but if your moment of lucidity is when you murder someone with your fucking bare hands and you know it's wrong, to jail you go. Like you're guilty. Yeah.
Yeah. That's the way it is. Like you can't get off of that. If you were lucid while you did it and you know what you did and you still did it and then you made steps to cover it up and to make sure you didn't get identified, there's really no arguing that. But then there's the whole issue of can you be institutionalized or can you be sent to prison when really you should be institutionalized? He should absolutely be institutionalized. Exactly. Yeah. I think you should still – and I think that's where the problem lies because a lot of times –
figuring out whether somebody is quote unquote insane or not criminally insane is to sentence them yeah and usually it's like if you're not insane then straight to prison you go yeah but in this case this man this man is not going to like prison's not going to do anything for him no and not that prison is like necessarily meant to do anything for anybody but
But it kind of is. It's rehabilitation. Yeah, it's supposed to be. Whereas somebody like this is not necessarily going to be able to be rehabilitated. But you also look at an institution, and especially at this time, it might be worse. Oh, it might be, absolutely. It might be even worse. It's like, I don't think he's going to come out of there ready to take on the world either. No, but then you think of the danger in which you're putting the other prisoners. So it's like there's this whole gray area, I feel like, where...
I feel like the definition of criminal insanity is so...
It's, yeah, it's hard. There's a lot of... Because there's so many different variables. Gray areas. And gray areas. But this one, I'm like, he was sane when he committed those murders in my opinion. And that's the thing. I think I agree with that. I think he was when he committed the murders, but then I feel like it's a whole different story of, okay, well, like, what the fuck do we do with him now? You know? Yeah. So Dodge argued that this was evidence that Irwin had already contemplated his options upon arrest and that, quote, Irwin contemplated the possibility of a trial which would terminate
by committing him to an institution for the insane. According to the prosecution, the facts of Irwin's voluntary surrender in Chicago and the shrewd bargain struck with the Chicago Herald-Examiner, which Irwin initiated and accomplished by himself, indicates a mentality of keenness and comprehension. Which, yeah, it does. Yeah. And I also am like...
I mean, I don't put a whole lot of stock in diagnoses that happened in the 30s. So it's like, I don't even know if he's schizophrenic. I don't know what his diagnosis would be now. I don't know what it would be now. And that's the thing. I don't know. I mean, again, I'm not going to armchair diagnose him because I don't know enough about him and his life and what he's done. I just know that there's moments where he is showing criminal cunning. Definitely. And that's not...
You know, like that's not, I don't know. It's just, there's a lot. It's a tough one. There's a lot of gray area within this case. He is completely right when he says that. That deal that he struck with the newspaper. It's cunning, for sure. That's a cunning deal. And keen. And it was for his benefit. And it's like, but it also shows like a lack of
I don't even know, like an over overinflated sense of self almost that like or an ego of some kind, like a hubris here that like he thought he could do that. And then it's like, then what did you think would happen?
Like even he could barely answer that. Yeah, I don't think he went from A to C. I think he went from A to B with that plan. So there's that part of it. That's like, that's a disjointed thought. That's the thing. So there is a lot of different details that are confusing. And I don't know a lot about schizophrenia, but what I do know is that there are periods of clarity and then there are periods of, you know, like struggle. Which that happens with a lot of diagnoses. A lot of mental illnesses and diagnoses, yeah. Yeah.
So after weighing the evidence, the jury determined that Robert Bob Irwin was in fact sane at the time of the murders. Because of that, his case went to criminal trial on November 7th, 1938, where Samuel Leibowitz did everything in his power to stall the trial, objecting to jurors and repeatedly filing motions to postpone the trial, which honestly, that's a tough case. Yeah. I feel like he would need all the time in the world to prepare for that. It's true.
But then, on November 15th, the press reported the surprising news that Bob had accepted a plea deal from the prosecution, where he would plead guilty to second-degree murder on all three charges, and they would remove the death penalty. The district attorney told the press, because of Irwin's previous record of insanity, there was a possibility that the jury might have held him legally insane, in which case he might finally have been released from confinement.
And see, that's where my issue comes with the whole like, if he's found insane during that, you know, quote unquote, then they'll put him somewhere and then they'll release him. And it's like, that's no, like a lot of times that's not gonna work. A lot of times that's.
Where we have another string of horrible crimes that people pay the ultimate price for because this person was let out and deemed to not be sane during this whole thing. And it's like, he would do it again. And I think that's where it's like a problem with the justice system and a problem within like hospitalization and that kind of thing. I feel like the whole system then and even now is just...
Yeah. It needs to be revisited. Well, and it makes the jury's job even worse because they're sitting here having to say, okay, if we find this person not legally sane during this and he gets committed to an institution, is he going to be walking out of there in court?
A year. Exactly. You know, like less than that sometimes. Because you would have to think of that. Yeah. So yeah, it's tough. Yeah. So instead, the prosecution intended to recommend a sentence of 90 years to life on each count to be served consecutively. Okay. On November 28th, Bob appeared before Judge James Wallace, who I'm almost 99% sure we have covered before. Like he's been in cases that we've covered. Yeah.
Just sounds very familiar. That was in the court of general sessions and he was sentenced to 139 years in prison.
99 years for the murder of Burns and 20 years for each of the murders of Mary and Veronica Gideon. Wow. When asked if he had anything to say on his own behalf, Bob said, And then he wasn't done yet.
But Judge Wallace interrupted and said, this is no time for a long speech or extended remarks. But Bob ignored the judge and continued, this is a farce. I have a definite and real reason why sentence should not be pronounced. You say you represent justice. I say you do not. You represent a rich man's justice. No, I think you just killed three people pretty brutally. Yeah. And then made great effort to hide it. Great effort. So I think that's...
That's the problem, Bob. Yep.
So after managing to get Bob under control, Judge Wallace reread the charges and the sentence and then turned to the district attorney to make it clear that he had accepted the guilty pleas on the recommendation of the district attorney's office, but he had done so with reservations. The judge, he said, there is no question the defendant is mentally unsound. In my opinion, the state has lost nothing in accepting these pleas except possibly the execution of this defendant. And that would bring no credit to the state.
Yeah. So he's like, I don't really know if what we're doing here is great. Yeah. But he was like, but I guess we're not executing him, which like... That's good. ...woo for us.
But it turned out that Judge Wallace was not the only one who questioned whether sending Irwin to prison was the right decision or not. A little more than a week into his sentence at Sing Sing, Bob was transferred to Dannemora State Hospital for the criminally insane after two Sing Sing psychiatrists evaluated him and deemed him very definitely insane, quote unquote. While at Dannemora, he studied foreign languages and eventually taught himself French, German, Latin, Polish, Italian, and Spanish.
and, quote, also invented an international language of his own.
Wow. Yeah. Damn. When he wasn't spending time on his education, he wrote letters to his former psychiatrist, Frederick Wortham, and even began a long-distance correspondence with a woman in Cuba. Wow. However, within a year, his anger got the better of him and he became one of the more unruly patients at the hospital who most often required solitary confinement. He's aggressive. He is aggressive and dangerous. In 1975, he died at the...
I think it is state hospital for the criminally insane after an eight year battle with cancer. And he was 67 years old when he died. Wow. The fact that he lived until 1975. Yeah. It's like, so it's so strange to wrap your brain around that time frame.
But that's a wild one. And it's just so it's for his life was sad. Like absolutely. When he was a child. So you feel bad for the child. Absolutely. You feel so bad for Ethel Gideon. Oh my goodness. For having to live the rest of her life knowing that she was the intended victim and that her mother and sister and an innocent border at the house. That they just became collateral damage. Exactly. In this whole thing. And then for the victims, it's like Frank is just sleeping in his bed.
Just a border in that house. Just wrong place, wrong time entirely. The mom was always good to him. That's the thing. Ronnie was always good to him. The whole family was good to this man. They did nothing to deserve that except he just couldn't have Ethel and he couldn't handle it. He just became obsessed. Like. Yeah. Scary. Scary, scary obsessed. Wow. But.
But it's such a wild case and it was handled so wild on so many different levels by the press. First with publishing fake details about the murders when nobody even knew anything yet. Yeah, that's gnarly. Exploiting Ronnie and like all the photographers that had worked with her. But then like True Detective...
They came out smelling like roses here. Yeah. Like the one that you say like, oh man, those detective magazines, they're the ones who come out and are like, we actually give a shit about her. Like that's crazy. And then the fucking Chicago Tribune. That.
Like way back when, of course. Yeah, way back. I was like, oh my God. You guys wouldn't do that now, right? You would never do that now. You would never do that now. They couldn't do that now. No, they could not. There's no fucking way. Of course not. I'm like, how did this, how is this allowed? It's wily behavior. Insane.
So yeah. Yeah. Wow. That is part two for you and that wraps it up. Damn. Veronica Gideon and the Easter Sunday murders. Wow. Well, thanks for that. You're welcome. With that, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep in here. But not so weird that you don't turn into what I'm pretty sure next is a listener tale. Yeah. Party. Music.
I have the breath of a woman who just ate a salad. Gin salad.
That's going to the end of that. Because I had a little salad with a little garlic. A little gorelic. Gorelic and vinegar. Some gorelic in here. Make for a stinky-ass breath breath. Hell yeah. Okay. Let's do this.
If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.
No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.
Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
