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Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of graphic torture and slavery. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. On April 10th, 1834, a fire broke out in the mansion of Madame Delphine Lalaurie.
As people gathered outside to watch the blaze, volunteers rushed into the building to make sure everyone was safe. What they found inside the slave quarters was so horrific, everyone in the city was screaming for Delphine's blood.
Since that day, the lines between history and myth have blurred around Delphine. No villain in New Orleans looms as large. Even today, stories of her cruelty and rumors of her ghost haunt the French Quarter.
But how much of the story is true? What did the volunteers really find inside the mansion? And what's the truth about Madame Delphine Lalaurie, who turned from New Orleans' crown jewel into its most hellish monster?
I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. And we'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts.
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Hello there, I'm Mike Flanagan, and welcome to Spectre Vision Radio's production of Director's Commentary. Director's Commentary is a deep dive into a film through the eyes of the filmmaker or filmmakers who made it. It combines an in-depth interview format with a classic Director's Commentary track, the likes of which used to be common on physical media releases, but sadly are becoming more and more rare these days. Filmmakers talking about film with filmmakers. For people who love film.
and filmmakers.
Each episode covers a notorious murder or murders with a special focus on those who were impacted the most. We'll always leave with the knowledge of why these stories need to be heard. You can listen to Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts.
Our story starts in the late 1700s. At that time, New Orleans was technically owned by the Spanish crown, but the city's real royalty was the McCarthy family. Their ancestors were among the city's first citizens, and their line included knights, merchants, and a mayor. This was the dynasty Delphine Lalloury was born into in 1787.
Her father, Chevalier Louis Barthélemy de McCarthy, was a landowner, slaveholder, and one of the wealthiest men in the city. Her mother was known for her lavish parties, hosting all of the New Orleans aristocracy on their plantation.
The family's wealth created a bubble around Delphine's childhood, protecting her. When a plague of yellow fever swept through the city, Delphine didn't have to worry. Her family could sequester themselves on the plantation. In fact, the McCarthy's continued to throw parties for their rich, healthy friends while the death toll in the city rose.
Adding to her charmed life was Delphine's beauty. Over and over, people announced that she would surely become one of the most dazzling women in the city. So, to sum up, well-mannered, beautiful, and rich. Delphine Lalaurie grew up with every possible advantage of the time.
Of course, this being the 1700s, this included enslaved labor, which surrounded Delphine on her father's plantation. By the time she was born, 40% of New Orleans' population was enslaved. For Delphine, living among enslaved workers likely seemed normal.
But New Orleans abided by the Code Noir, or Black Code. Certain forms of extreme cruelty toward an enslaved worker were not only frowned on, they were punishable by law. So Delphine would have grown up knowing that this type of abuse toward enslaved workers wasn't allowed. The question is, did she listen?
Given her eventual crimes, it's tempting to search for early signs of cruelty and extreme racism in the young girl. But as far as we can tell, there were none. Still, Delphine's privilege might give us a hint on her perception of slavery. Before we continue with Delphine's psychology, please keep in mind that I'm not a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist, but we have done a lot of research for the show.
A pair of studies in 2010 and 2013 by UC Berkeley professor Paul Piff showed that people from wealthier backgrounds are likely to show more narcissistic tendencies and less compassion toward the underprivileged. Some consider themselves deserving of their advantages, while others are undeserving. In other words, Delphine's upbringing probably gave her narcissistic tendencies that made her less likely to see a problem with slavery.
Her privilege over others seemed natural, even expected. Still, the line between the privileged and the enslaved wasn't always so black and white. The ruling class of New Orleans was the so-called Creole society, which included Delphine. And to truly understand her childhood, we have to look more closely at what exactly Creole society meant.
Creole was a common term throughout the New World, but its meaning varied wildly depending on where you used it. Even within New Orleans, two overlapping but distinct cultures called themselves Creole. The first were people who came from mixed-race parents. Unlike those in the British colonies, white men in New Orleans were often more willing to claim their mixed-race children as quote-unquote "legitimate"
So, as the city developed, nearly every prominent family had mixed-race relatives, including the McCarthy's. However, there was a second group, made up of mostly white elites, who resented the city's multiracial reputation. They said "Creole" referred to anyone who could trace their ancestry back to Europe, which technically included multiracial people, but purposefully didn't acknowledge them.
So, depending on who you were, the intermixing of black and white citizens was either the center of Creole culture or a taboo not to be mentioned. This made race relations complicated, or for a young girl, probably confusing.
Delphine grew up knowing some of her relatives were former enslaved persons. One of her uncles was in a 50-year relationship with a former enslaved woman who had her own property, wealth, and enslaved workers. The two had seven children, who Delphine likely treated like any other cousins. But there was another piece to the dynamics of plantation life: the threat of a violent enslaved uprising.
The McCarthy's had personal experience with this. Before Delphine was born, another of her uncles was shot and killed during an uprising on his plantation. But in 1791, paranoia exploded to new heights following the slave rebellion in Haiti. Just south of New Orleans, the Haitian rebellion showed that an organized enslaved population could overpower the white ruling class.
Listening as her father read the newspaper, or perhaps eavesdropping while he met with other slaveholders, Delphine heard of rapes, beheadings, and torture of white Haitians during the rebellion. She sensed fear in her father, which he shared with all of Louisiana's white population at the time. That fear became her own.
So Delphine grew up learning two contradictory takes on enslaved people. In her mind, some were brutish, potentially dangerous laborers. But others became cousins who were treated just like her white family members. The young Delphine likely learned to compartmentalize when it came to race. That was the key to her family's privileged status.
and her feelings reflected those of the entire city. Members of both Creole groups believed that slavery was essential to New Orleans, even when those enslaved workers were their in-laws. But before long, there was another important part of her status that needed attention: a husband. At the age of 13, Delphine was on the lookout for a match.
If that sounds a little young, it wasn't unusual for the time. With parental consent, New Orleans law allowed girls to marry at 12, so young brides weren't uncommon. Just before the turn of the century, the teenage Delphine met her first husband, 35-year-old Ramon López y Ángulo de la Candelaria.
On paper, Lopez was as impressive as his name suggested. He was a decorated representative of the Spanish royal treasury. Lopez was also a recent widower. His first wife had died during their journey from Spain. In letters, Lopez told friends that he was devastated by the loss, but apparently not enough to stop him from courting the teenage delphine.
We don't know much about how the two met. As a new administrator in the city, Lopez would almost certainly have been invited to the McCarthy plantation, but there are no records of a courtship between the two. All we know is, just a few months after Lopez's arrival, he asked the Spanish crown to approve his marriage to Delphine.
This approval process was standard in the Spanish Empire since the crown didn't want its officials becoming too entangled with the locals. It appeared, however, that López wasn't keen on waiting. He sent his request in April of 1800, then almost immediately asked the local bishop to marry the two, without the crown's official consent.
Especially so close to the death of his wife, this rush to the altar raised some eyebrows. Lopez claimed that his romance with Delphine had sown a rift between her parents and that a quick marriage would quell their feuding. But records indicate that her parents were already in mediation before Lopez arrived in Louisiana. So that argument doesn't hold water. There's another possible reason for a speedy elopement, and it's a familiar one.
Had Delphine gotten pregnant by Lopez? If that was the case, the powerful McCarthy family would have made sure it was covered up, so we can't know for certain. But on June 11th, 1800, the local bishop agreed to marry the pair without consent from the royal crown. So at the age of 13, Delphine married a man more than 20 years her senior.
Despite the age gap, Delphine had a vast support system to help her adjust to married life. Her father could still provide financial and paternal support, and her social standing only improved with her husband's important job. So long as she remained in the colony, she was all set for her charmed life to continue.
Little did she know that her marriage had stirred up controversy abroad. There was more to her husband than Delphine knew, and the safety of home was about to be stripped away. In the summer of 1800, 13-year-old Delphine McCarthy married her first husband, Ramón López y Angulo, a significantly older man who should have solidified her already elevated status.
The marriage was intended to bring stability and more prestige to the young queen of Creole society. But the decision proved catastrophic. Lopez was a representative of the Spanish royal treasury and had married Delfín without receiving the consent of the Spanish crown. When the crown found out, he received an official decree relieving him of his duties and ordering him to return to Spain.
This was a shocking and bizarre punishment. Many officials regularly ignored the marriage approval process altogether, but Lopez had just jumped the gun a little. His firing just didn't make sense, and he suspected that someone was plotting against him. He was right. That man was Don Juan Ventura Morales.
Morales was Lopez's predecessor with the Treasury, and the two hated each other. It appears that Morales reported Lopez's illegal marriage to politicians who could ensure his removal. And with Lopez retired, the Crown had to replace him with the only experienced man available: Morales.
For a time, this probably seemed a distant distraction to Delphine, especially because her new husband didn't seem worried. Lopez ignored the summons and carried on with his duties as if nothing had changed. Surely she wouldn't have to leave her home and relocate to Spain over some paperwork. But as more of his superiors ordered him to step down, Lopez finally had to yield.
Then he had no choice but to leave New Orleans. So in the spring of 1802, he and Delphine boarded a ship to begin the long journey to Spain. Standing on the deck watching the New Orleans skyline fade from view, 15-year-old Delphine must have felt powerless for the first time.
In a few short years, she'd lost so much control of her life, and she would need to fight to get it back.
When the couple arrived in Spain, they appealed for Lopez's reinstatement. They were successful, but there are multiple accounts of how it happened. According to legend, Delphine was exploring the royal gardens one day and knelt to examine the flowers. Just then, Queen Maria Luisa walked by and spotted Delphine, her dark hair draped over her shoulder and her delicate hands cupping the petals.
Taken by the young woman's beauty, the queen approached her and declared, "Your petition, whatever it is, is granted."
Unfortunately, the real story isn't nearly as satisfying. Lopez was a fervent writer of letters, and he bombarded his supervisors with mail. Post after post, he blamed Morales and other politicians for his harsh punishment. Eventually, his persistence paid off. In 1804, either out of sympathy or just from sheer exhaustion, the Crown allowed him to return to New Orleans.
This was not a moment too soon, for just as the news came, Delphine realized she was pregnant. It must have come as a huge relief that she'd be able to raise her child in her home city. The two boarded a ship bound for New Orleans, and Delphine gave birth to a baby girl during their journey.
But the couple's story had one final twist. Just days away from the city, the ship ran aground near Havana. And sometime during the accident, likely from either injury or shock, 39-year-old Ramon Lopez Iangulo died. Soon after, 17-year-old Delphine arrived back in her home city, a mother and a widow, all within a few months.
But New Orleans was no longer the home she remembered. During her time abroad, the city had undergone one monumental change. The Americans had taken over.
The sale of New Orleans was a little complicated, but here's what you need to know. For a time, the Spanish held the city after acquiring it from the French. When a new treaty ceded it back to France, Napoleon sold it to the Americans as part of the Louisiana Purchase. This upset the Spanish, who felt they'd been cheated out of their city. So as American administrators poured in,
a culture war took shape: the Creoles versus the Americans. According to researcher Carolyn Morrow Long, the Americans thought the Creoles were frivolous and unproductive. Even the new governor, William C.C. Claiborne, said they were "illy fitted to be useful citizens of a republic."
This banded the Creoles together against American authority. And for Delphine, it perhaps made the word of law a little less important.
That might explain her next choice in suitors. As a young mother, Delphine was immediately on the search for a new husband. But the disappointment of her last marriage caused her to think outside the box. This time, she wanted a partnership that would empower her, not shackle her. So in the spring of 1807, she decided to marry a pirate.
Okay, Jean-Paul Blanc wasn't really a pirate, but he worked with a lot of pirates, including the infamous Lafitte brothers. And he had a much more swashbuckling personality than Lopez. Blanc was a jack-of-all-trades in New Orleans: a merchant, a slave trader, a lawyer, banker, and even a state legislator.
Governor Claiborne called him a man of genius and education and possessing considerable influence in the city. But he also added that Blanc was dangerous. This dangerous quality is what Delphine was looking for in her next husband, someone with autonomy and power. She didn't want to be swept away by the whims of a foreign legislator. Blanc did what he wanted, with or without the support of the law.
There's no better example of this than his dealings with the slave trade. Under Spanish rule, New Orleans had gone back and forth on outlawing the slave trade from Africa. But the introduction of American law complicated things. In the early 1800s, the American government was debating whether or not enslaved persons were human or subhuman.
As revolting as that sounds, it was actually a purposeful attack on the mental complex that allowed slavery to exist: dehumanization.
So, how would this tactic have worked? A 1975 psychological study out of Stanford showed that people are able to act increasingly aggressive to "dehumanized" subjects. This was the key to the slaveholder's psyche. By referring to enslaved Africans as "subhuman," they allowed so-called "good Christians" to act more cruel with less shame.
But as the very idea of dehumanization came under fire, slavery became harder to defend. Eventually, the concept fell out of popularity in American politics. That was partly why, in 1807, President Jefferson outlawed the transport of enslaved peoples into American territories, including New Orleans.
The Creoles hated the new law. They'd always set their own standards for slavery, and many resented the decision being made for them. Now, let's pause for a moment to think about this and how it lined up with Delphine's already fractured views on slavery.
On paper, the Black Code had given enslaved people some limited protections, but Creole society opposed American laws that banned the slave trade, which was a move that designated slaves as less than human. Delphine had family members that were formerly enslaved, humanizing, but she'd grown up fearing enslaved rebellion, dehumanizing. Each new layer she compartmentalized, which can be dangerous.
Jungian professor Cécile Rosuel warns that compartmentalization "limits our ability to connect to our values, to be moral agents, to act with moral courage and moral integrity." So the more Delphine's morality twisted, the more unstable it became.
But her new husband offered an easy solution to all this. He just ignored the law. Even after the ban, Blanc continued transporting enslaved workers to the United States, making a fortune by selling to slaveholders running American plantations.
It would have been an important and appealing lesson for the 20-year-old Delphine. No matter the public opinion on slavery or the legal restrictions, she could do as she pleased. Still, though Delphine had at least 78 enslaved workers at this time, there are no accounts of her being cruel or malicious to any of them yet.
This actually made her an exception among her peers. During this period, an American military officer described white Creole women by saying, "They have but one fault not easily extenuated: they are habitually cruel to their slaves." Indeed, many accounts refer to the brutality Creole women carried out, especially on other women.
This was possibly out of jealousy, considering the constant interracial affairs of their white husbands. Delphine even had a cousin, Celeste de McCarthy, who was famous for her cruelty toward her enslaved women. But none of these rumors transferred to Delphine. She was universally admired throughout the city for her charm and grace. In other words, she was a model Creole woman.
Eventually, she had four more children and her husband's business seemed to be thriving. If there were any signs of the monster she would become, they were well hidden.
Then, once again, calamity struck. In 1815, Jean-Paul Blanc died. But there's no record of what happened to him, and when a pirate merchant dies mysteriously, historians naturally raise some questions. Was he murdered? Did he fake his death? Was his beautiful wife to blame?
We'll likely never know the reason behind Blanc's death, but it wouldn't have been in Delphine's interest to kill him. At 28 and with five children, she didn't face an easy future as a second-time widow. And that was before she reviewed her husband's financial accounts and found them not so bountiful.
Though Blanc's businesses looked good on the surface, he had apparently run into trouble. And before his demise, he had saddled his wife with the modern-day equivalent of $2.5 million of debt.
Twice now, the inconveniently timed deaths of Delphine's husbands had left her in the lurch. But this time, she wasn't going to just roll into the next marriage. She wanted control of her life. And that meant finding her way out of debt.
Delphine began negotiating with Blanc's creditors. Whether her husband or her father had taught her, she understood the complex arrangements of land ownership, and for the first time she could flex her brains alongside her beauty. Slowly, she sold and leased parts of her estate to climb her way back to wealth.
Delphine also had to sell most of her enslaved workers, falling into the despicable pattern of treating human beings like goods to be bartered or sold. This suggests that her already complicated views on race might have been shifting as her circumstances changed. But in a few instances, Delphine showed glimmers of humanity.
One was with her husband's will. In his final wishes, Blanc had asked that an enslaved worker named Jean-Louis be emancipated. It would not have been surprising if Delphine ignored him and sold Jean-Louis to ease her debt. But in 1819, she set Jean-Louis free at a financial loss to herself. It was also around this time Delphine's father had a mixed-race daughter out of wedlock.
Delphine knew this girl would get a portion of her father's inheritance, which would otherwise go to her, but she agreed to be the girl's godparent, and by all accounts treated the girl and her mother no differently than the rest of her family. Were these signs of Delphine's humanity in a trying time, or, considering her future crimes, were they a cover for her hidden sadistic racism?
Was she fantasizing, planning, maybe experimenting with acts of violence? We have no idea. All the rumors about her cruelty only started after she'd met her third and final husband, Dr. Louis Lalaurie.
Dr. Lalaurie arrived in New Orleans in 1825. He was a young man, 23, who'd come from France to work as a kind of orthopedic specialist. He said he was a doctor from a French medical school. And it was true that he'd attended medical school. For dentistry. Back then, the medical industry was a wild west, so doctors could easily switch into, say, orthopedics without any training.
When she met Louis, Delphine was 38, twice widowed, wealthy, and one of the most respected women in Creole society. How a romantic spark struck between her and the young doctor, we don't know. But we do know she was in control.
Louis wasn't like her past husbands. This time, she possessed far more wealth and status than her suitor, and was more than a decade older. Uncommon for women of the time. If the age gap shocked New Orleanians, Delphine was too powerful to care. It was as if she'd returned to the bubble of her childhood where she could do no wrong. Only instead of a doting father protecting her, she was the one in charge.
By late 1826, Delphine was pregnant, and in January of 1828, she married Louis and became the woman history would remember her as, Madame Delphine LaLaurie.
In 1828, 40-year-old Madame Delphine Lalaurie was one of the most powerful women in New Orleans and had just married the upstart young doctor, Dr. Louis Lalaurie. But all was not well between the couple. In fact, it appeared they couldn't stand each other.
Jean Beaux, a business manager associated with the family, wrote in December of 1828 that "The LaLauries do not have a happy household. They fight, often separate, and then return to each other." Whatever passion that had driven them together hadn't translated into a peaceful marriage, and it was around this time that the atmosphere in the LaLaurie household noticeably changed.
It started with the new enslaved workers. Delphine had kept 19 enslaved inhabitants, 15 adults, 4 children, following her second husband's death. But after her marriage to LaLaurie, she increased the number aggressively, acquiring 12 people in her marriage contract, then 18 more soon after, bringing the total to 49 across her properties.
It's possible she expanded the staff in anticipation of a move. In 1831, she purchased a new home in the middle of the New Orleans French Quarter, which stood in addition to her country plantation. The two-story brick mansion had an attached structure for the servants' lodging. But perhaps her increase in enslaved workers served other, more malicious plans.
After all, the workers assigned to the mansion were not there long before people started commenting on their deteriorating condition. According to Delphine's neighbors, her enslaved workers looked singularly haggard and wretched, with signs of emaciation and beatings. Some said that they heard screams coming from the mansion at night.
Speculation ran through the town. What was happening to the LaLaurie's enslaved workers? At the very least, people said, Delphine was starving and beating almost all of them. There was even word that she kept her cook chained to the kitchen stove. But as shocking as these rumors were, no one could prove whether or not Delphine was breaking the law.
Louisiana Code dictated that a slaveholder couldn't punish an enslaved worker, quote, "with unusual rigor, nor so as to maim or mutilate him, or to expose him to the danger of loss of life or to cause death."
But there was a glaring fundamental flaw in the codes: enslaved people couldn't give testimony in court in most circumstances. So unless another free citizen witnessed the cruelty, it went unpunished.
And that held true even when workers started dying. In the years before her marriage to Dr. Lalaurie, Delphine had eight enslaved workers die in her captivity. But just between 1831 and 1833, 12 more died, mostly women and children.
So what triggered the change? Was it Delphine's frustrations with her husband that stoked a new cruelty? Or were these long-biting fantasies that she finally felt secure enough to act upon?
The link might lie in Delphine's alleged narcissistic tendencies established in her childhood years. A 2011 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology determined that people with narcissistic tendencies become more aggressive when they receive negative feedback in public.
The presence of some kind of audience is the key to their aggression. Receiving criticism behind closed doors doesn't affect narcissistic people the same way.
If Delphine and her new husband were fighting, their house workers would have been a constant audience to their dysfunction. It's possible that the embarrassment angered Delphine, and she took it out on the witnesses. And once she began, her compartmentalization allowed her to continue year after year. Without an eyewitness, very little could be done to stop her. That was until the child on the rooftop.
Before we continue, keep in mind that this story is secondhand, so some historians wonder if it's true. But if it is, it's the only account where we see Delphine in the act of abuse, so it's worth telling. One night, according to the story, a neighbor saw Delphine chasing a young enslaved child through the house. In her hand was a bullwhip. Terrified, the child raced onto the rooftop, only to be cornered by Delphine.
Rather than face the mistress and her whip, the child leapt from the rooftop to the cobblestones below, dying on impact. The neighbors saw Delphine cross the roof to look down upon the child, then descend back into the home. According to rumor, a group of enslaved adults gathered in the garden in the middle of the night with a small body, which they buried.
The tale continues that this time Delphine couldn't completely avoid retribution. Someone alerted authorities to the incident. Then she was fined and forced to sell off a number of her enslaved workers who'd been mistreated. But Delphine easily outmaneuvered the courts. She sold the enslaved workers to a family member, then purchased them back to continue her abuse.
If this actually happened, it's a damning account of Delphine. But no court documents of the crime exist, and it's the only account of someone seeing Delphine physically abuse her enslaved workers. So it begs the question: if Delphine wasn't harming the enslaved inhabitants, who was?
Many historians are quick to point out that the horrors began with Dr. Lalaurie's arrival. Given the timing, it seems possible he had something to do with the abuse. And though we have no proof of Louis hurting the enslaved workers, documents show that he was violent towards someone else in the house, Delphine.
On November 16, 1832, Delphine petitioned the court for a separation from her husband. She accused him of domestic violence, citing a specific beating a month earlier.
The courts found the claim credible and approved her request. But then, oddly enough, the two appear to have continued living together as if nothing had happened. Perhaps some secret within the LaLaurie mansion was keeping the two of them together. Whatever the truth, we do know that Dr. LaLaurie was by Delphine's side on April 10th, 1834, the day of the fire.
Early in the morning, passers-by noticed smoke pouring from the servants' lodging of the Lalaurie mansion. Up and down Royal Street, neighbors poured out of their homes to race inside and rescue the inhabitants. Delphine and her husband soon appeared from the main house and began directing the helpers.
One of the first people on the scene was a local judge named Jacques-François Canonje. He noticed that Dr. and Madame Lalaurie were directing the helpers away from the servants' quarters and toward the main house next door. This was odd because the fire hadn't yet spread to the main house. People were carrying out artwork and furniture, even as others asked about the enslaved workers still inside the burning building.
Seeing all this, the judge confronted both the LaLauries, asking if there were still people in the servants' quarters. Both denied that there were, but didn't seem able to account for where their enslaved workers were. But by this stage, news had trickled down from those who'd braved the burning building. Apparently, on the top floor, there was a locked door to an attic. Behind the door, rescuers could hear the moans of people trapped inside.
Judge Kanonje returned to Dr. Lalaurie, demanding to know what was going on. The doctor reportedly told him to either help with the furniture or mind his own business. Frantic, Kanonje left the Lalauries and tried to enter the slaves' quarters, but the smoke was too thick. He recruited two neighbors, Montreuil and Fernandez, to search the attic.
The two made their way to the locked door and hammered away at it, splintering the wood. The heat grew overwhelming, the air suffocating. Finally, the door gave way and opened into a low, hazy room. Both men took stock of the horrors inside and then immediately fell ill.
These two men were the first to see the atrocities within the LaLaurie mansion. Within a matter of minutes, they were outside, sharing their accounts with the crowd. Soon, all of New Orleans would know Delphine's secret. The reign of Madame LaLaurie was about to end. And what would become of her next was anyone's guess.
Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. We're here with a new episode every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. And we'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. For more information on Madame Lalaurie, amongst the many sources we used, we found the book Madame Lalaurie, Mistress of the Haunted House by Carolyn Morrow Long, extremely helpful to our research.
Stay safe out there.
Serial Killers is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Connor Fitzgerald, edited by Joel Callen, fact-checked by Anya Baerle, researched by Miki Taylor and Chelsea Wood, and sound designed by Michael Motion, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Joshua Kern. Our head of programming is Julien Boirot, our head of production is Nick Johnson, and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor.
I'm your host, Vanessa Richardson.