Speaker 1: Influencers. We both love to hate and sometimes hate to
Speaker 1: love them. But when we hear the word, we tend
Speaker 1: to think of people with their smartphones and done up
Speaker 1: good looks on Instagram and social media, making their money
Speaker 1: from a long line of sponsorships. But all the way
Speaker 1: back in eighteen forty one, a good old fashioned case
Speaker 1: of viral marketing took an unexpected turn and ended in tragedy.
Speaker 1: This is the mysterious Case of Mary Rogers, also known
Speaker 1: as the Cigar Girl. My name's Ben and.
Speaker 2: I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked and Grim, a
Speaker 2: true crime podcast. Warning the following podcasts and material intended
Speaker 2: for mature audience listener.
Speaker 1: I honestly hate the word influencer. I think there's a
Speaker 1: fine line between like an influencer and a creator.
Speaker 2: Honestly, since influencer became a thing, you always hated that term.
Speaker 1: I have because there's influencer gets a bad rap and
Speaker 1: it can yeah, draws over into the creator world, because
Speaker 1: people who are creators are like, yeah, I'm just creating
Speaker 1: cool shit for the fact that I love doing it
Speaker 1: and I had a lot of people in my corner
Speaker 1: who support me, And I mean, yeah, I can pop
Speaker 1: up ads there and that's kind of how how I
Speaker 1: build revenue. But then influencers are just like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: the boss, I'm the shit by the sponsored ads that
Speaker 1: I have, and that's about it.
Speaker 2: I do think when you're like a creator first and
Speaker 2: then influencer kind of you're usually like way more successful.
Speaker 1: I think so. And it's not to say that all
Speaker 1: influencers are bad or all creators are bad or all
Speaker 1: creators are good or whatever. There's bad and good in
Speaker 1: both both worlds. Yeah, but influencers tend to get the
Speaker 1: bad rap.
Speaker 2: You know. Well, sometimes I think they're just they have
Speaker 2: more or people think they have more influence than they
Speaker 2: actually do. Because say, fifty thousand Instagram followers, is it
Speaker 2: really like if you post something, it's not necessarily going
Speaker 2: to just make that other person blow up.
Speaker 1: No at all, Definitely not. And I learned that a
Speaker 1: few years ago, because I've talked about this before. I
Speaker 1: have well over I think one hundred and eighty thousand
Speaker 1: followers on TikTok. I haven't posted in like over a
Speaker 1: year if that even more. But yeah, you don't have influence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we almost need to have way more nowadays or
Speaker 2: something I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, you have to have millions, millions, millions, millions, because
Speaker 1: everyone out there is becoming influencers, creators and it's a
Speaker 1: very large ocean. But that's not even my goal anyways.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's yours either.
Speaker 2: Well, yours was just for fun. Yeah, it's just for fun.
Speaker 1: I want to do this sort of stuff because I
Speaker 1: love it. And what's really awesome is we have incredible
Speaker 1: people in our corner supporting this show, helping us.
Speaker 2: It's been a crazy week. I can't believe it. We had.
Speaker 2: Is this record breaking?
Speaker 1: I think so it could be.
Speaker 2: We had twelve patrons sign up this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so holy shit. We have twelve individuals this week
Speaker 1: to thank. Usually we have like anywhere from like two
Speaker 1: maybe to five every week sign up, but twelve this week.
Speaker 2: So amazing, so much. Yeah, it kind of just like
Speaker 2: I don't know, we get notifications and it just kind
Speaker 2: of made her day every time.
Speaker 1: It was a kidding. So here we go, long list
Speaker 1: of patrons to thank, do it. So I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: I get your name wrong. We're always sorry. We're terrible
Speaker 1: with that, but we do our best.
Speaker 2: It's our charm.
Speaker 1: It is right it's the Canadian charm. We'll just say
Speaker 1: sorry at the end and it's all good. Right. So
Speaker 1: first off, we have Lauren Maguire, Danny Bagbie, Lisa Johnson,
Speaker 1: Demi Conway, Gris shout out to Demi local friend of ours,
Speaker 1: Maddy Horton, Cheryl Means, Gail Galliado, Mandy Rolloffs, Marissa Geese,
Speaker 1: Diana hurd Rio, and finally Mishma Lou Bobby I hope
Speaker 1: I said your name right, Mishma.
Speaker 2: That's a good list of awesome people.
Speaker 1: That is incredible people, So thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your support. That that means the world to us, it
Speaker 1: really does. And they also have an exclusive episode dropping
Speaker 1: today as well overrun.
Speaker 2: Patreon yep, last day of the month. There's always an
Speaker 2: exclusive episode just for.
Speaker 1: Those patrons exactly. But if you do sign up, we
Speaker 1: just want to let you know, make sure you sign
Speaker 1: up for that all access.
Speaker 2: That's how you get the free episode, right.
Speaker 1: Our lord's here. That's just behind the scenes content. The
Speaker 1: all Access gets that ex episode as well, but you
Speaker 1: still get some cool stuff with the other Tier two.
Speaker 1: Don't get us wrong. Yeah, we have some other big news.
Speaker 2: I think I know what it is, ready, what is it?
Speaker 1: Drum roll?
Speaker 2: Our second year anniversary is coming.
Speaker 1: Up in like a week. Yeah, February eighth is our
Speaker 1: two year podcast anniversary.
Speaker 2: We made it, I mean.
Speaker 1: Technically not yet. Technically not yet.
Speaker 2: Really, I feel like that's a huge accompliment. Accomplishment because
Speaker 2: a lot of podcasts don't make it to two years.
Speaker 1: No, I think, like I looked it up before, and
Speaker 1: like the average podcast makes it. I think somewhere between.
Speaker 2: Like seven or eight seven or eight episodes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it could have increased in the last year
Speaker 1: or so, maybe even up to ten or twelve, but
Speaker 1: it's definitely not in the hundreds, and we are well
Speaker 1: on our way to reaching much more.
Speaker 2: Than just one hundred in my books.
Speaker 1: We made it fair enough. I thought you meant we
Speaker 1: made it to our second anniversary.
Speaker 2: Oh no, Like I just think that's a huge accomplish,
Speaker 2: is what I know. But we made it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mean we made a tour second anniversary and
Speaker 1: well you're like.
Speaker 2: No, we didn't.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, well it's a weird I
Speaker 1: was thinking, you know.
Speaker 2: I was like, way to be positive.
Speaker 1: I've got a little bit of whiskey. I got to
Speaker 1: finish off here still before I dive into my beer.
Speaker 2: Actually, my goodness, look at you over there, double fist,
Speaker 2: and you were drinking the scotch whiskey. I don't know
Speaker 2: which what it is, but you were drinking that for
Speaker 2: the pre show.
Speaker 1: Yes, just a n f y. I all scotch is whiskey,
Speaker 1: but not all whiskey is scotch.
Speaker 2: Holy shit? Okay, cool? Cool? Yes, So are we diving in?
Speaker 1: We're diving in.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of excited for this one, actually than I am.
Speaker 1: It's a very interesting one. And yeah, our our individual
Speaker 1: we're talking to to talking about there we go to
Speaker 1: talking about our individual we're talking about is Mary Rogers bud.
Speaker 2: Okay, is this kind of a well known case or not?
Speaker 1: Uh? I don't think it's like well known, But I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's like not known. That's kind of like
Speaker 1: one of those under the radar ones. But some people
Speaker 1: do know about it.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, right on.
Speaker 1: So Mary Rogers, also known as a cigar Girl, was
Speaker 1: very much so an eighteen hundred 's influencer. I kind
Speaker 1: of love that, actually, but she wasn't like that typical
Speaker 1: influencer that we think of that I was describing with
Speaker 1: that like self righteous attitude that I'm so great. She
Speaker 1: was very much, so reserved, very nice, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into that though. Okay, But Mary was born in New
Speaker 1: York in eighteen twenty awesome. Her father had died when
Speaker 1: Mary was only five years old. Not awesome, and that
Speaker 1: left her and her mother in a very tricky position. Now,
Speaker 1: her mother's name was Phoebe, and she was doing the
Speaker 1: best as she could to make sure she could look
Speaker 1: after her daughter. She had also had a previous marriage,
Speaker 1: so she had a divorce and then lost her second husband,
Speaker 1: and she had some children for her first marriage, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't find any information on those kids, so, as
Speaker 1: far as I know, we're just talking about Mary and
Speaker 1: Phoebe here. But she was doing the best she could
Speaker 1: look do to look after Mary, and she decided one
Speaker 1: of the best things she could do to make sure
Speaker 1: that she was home and could provide was start a
Speaker 1: boarding house. So that's exactly what she did. She started
Speaker 1: a boarding house on Nasu Street, where she lived, worked
Speaker 1: and raised Mary.
Speaker 2: Okay, what exactly is a boarding house? Is that just
Speaker 2: somewhere that people kind of rent, yes, ance or a
Speaker 2: room or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you rent a room, sort of thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you live in this person's house, you know,
Speaker 1: cook and clean for you or whatever, and provide you
Speaker 1: a room for a fee. Oh okay, okay, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a an inn, like a medieval inn, you think, right,
Speaker 1: except a little bit more permanent solution. It's not like
Speaker 1: you go there for a night or two, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure you could could if you need to.
Speaker 2: But they're probably looking for more, so long.
Speaker 1: Term renters exactly. Now, long term might mean a month
Speaker 1: to a year, I don't no, but it's definitely not
Speaker 1: like by the night. Okay. Now, as Mary grew up,
Speaker 1: she began entering an age where she could start helping
Speaker 1: her mother, and she was working around the boarding house
Speaker 1: and also put more into the public eye by working
Speaker 1: at the boarding house. People would come in and see
Speaker 1: Phoebe and her daughter. Now, this is something that I
Speaker 1: think pretty much everyone today could think of as most
Speaker 1: both a blessing and a curse being in the public eye. Right,
Speaker 1: So Mary didn't actively go looking for the limelight, but
Speaker 1: being a little more in the public eye, like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: it sure managed to find her. She became known around
Speaker 1: town for her immaculate beauty.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: She was tall, had soft features, thick black hair, and
Speaker 1: whenever she went anywhere, men seemed to follow her.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I was like, what exactly was how is
Speaker 2: she attracting people here?
Speaker 1: Yeah? She she was very beautiful and she was a very
Speaker 1: kind individual, and it began attracting a lot of attention.
Speaker 2: Was anything said about like if her mom was a
Speaker 2: beauty as well?
Speaker 1: Not that I could see.
Speaker 2: No, okay, no.
Speaker 1: So, when Mary was only twenty years old, a man
Speaker 1: by the name of John Anderson, was the owner of
Speaker 1: a large cigar shop on Broadway, offered Mary something that
Speaker 1: would quite literally change her life. John wanted Mary to
Speaker 1: come and work for him, and it would be pretty
Speaker 1: easy work too. All Mary would have to do was
Speaker 1: stand behind a counter and sell cigars to men who
Speaker 1: came into the cigar shop. Okay, now, I do want
Speaker 1: to preface this. I don't want to get the wrong
Speaker 1: idea that I'm saying that retail work isn't very hard,
Speaker 1: Like all you do is stand behind a counter and
Speaker 1: sell shit. That's not what I'm saying. Trust me.
Speaker 2: Okay, I never thought that.
Speaker 1: But okay, I have all the respect in the world
Speaker 1: for retail workers. Trust me on that mountain, I know you.
Speaker 2: So that maybe why I didn't go there.
Speaker 1: Just transitioning from running a boarding house and tending to
Speaker 1: all these individuals in the house to just selling some
Speaker 1: cigars behind a counters that's quite the transition, much less
Speaker 1: work for her, right, Especially in the eighteen hundreds, retail
Speaker 1: was a very different world.
Speaker 2: Right right, Oh my gosh, yeah, I could only imagine.
Speaker 1: No, I think, like, you know, you're working in a
Speaker 1: cigar shop. You're not like, hey, bring the truck around,
Speaker 1: we got crates to unload. It's like, oh, hey, my
Speaker 1: dude is dropping off the weekly box of cigars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where there are twenty four cigars this week? Like you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's much more minimum.
Speaker 2: And you're not dealing with like probably computers with like
Speaker 2: transactions and stuff, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Imagine, And I'm pretty sure in the eighteen hundreds there
Speaker 1: was much more polite activity occurring between transactions too, not
Speaker 1: where's the manager I needs?
Speaker 2: You know, Yes, I actually feel like all around it
Speaker 2: would just be way more pleasant.
Speaker 1: I think. So. So John was kind of onto something
Speaker 1: though by bringing Marion to work for him, and that
Speaker 1: something would be what we would now recognize as basically
Speaker 1: a good bit of marketing. He wanted Mary to be
Speaker 1: the face of his shop, and it would be a
Speaker 1: good deal for quite literally any anyone involved. With Mary's
Speaker 1: good looks and growing reputation around, she'd bring in more
Speaker 1: men into the shop to buy cigars, which meant more sales,
Speaker 1: which meant more money for everyone, including Mary.
Speaker 2: He was kind of being pretty smart, really he was.
Speaker 2: He was thinking he was using his nogin.
Speaker 1: But Mary was a young woman, and it was eighteen forties.
Speaker 1: During this era, less than ten percent of women held
Speaker 1: jobs outside their home. Oh okay, Mary was no different.
Speaker 1: She'd never left home for work, She never worked anywhere
Speaker 1: outside of the boarding house she'd helped her mother run it,
Speaker 1: and now John was proposing that she'd go to work
Speaker 1: in a shop that didn't exactly have the cleanest reputation.
Speaker 1: Wasn't so much that the shop itself was like a
Speaker 1: bad part of town or anything. It just sold cigars, right,
Speaker 1: But both Mary and her mother were concerned that the
Speaker 1: type of men who'd be coming into the shop to
Speaker 1: see Mary.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I see.
Speaker 1: But when Mary figured out how much of a financial
Speaker 1: success it could be for her, she and her potential
Speaker 1: new boss. John managed to convince her mom to let
Speaker 1: her take the job, even though she had her reservations
Speaker 1: about it, so convinced her that was that, and Mary
Speaker 1: began working at the shop. Mary's good looks and John's
Speaker 1: branding made her into quote the cigar girl, and her
Speaker 1: allure and reputation began to spread. Soon men were flocking
Speaker 1: to the store just to see her. Really hey, yes,
Speaker 1: turning her essentially into an eighteen hundred's equivalent influencer.
Speaker 2: Pretty much yes, wow, thought pretty much a celebrity.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's pretty much what she was having that
Speaker 1: title the cigar girl. Yeah like that, that in itself
Speaker 1: sounds alluring, right, it does, especially for like gentlemen. You know, Oh,
Speaker 1: I smoke scars, the scotch, the whiskey or the whatever, right,
Speaker 1: the top hat and the cane down the street. Oh,
Speaker 1: the illustrious cigar girl.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, as you're smoking this, it can be like
Speaker 2: I bought this from like this is a.
Speaker 1: Cigar girl, right, yeah, I talk to her. She smiled
Speaker 1: at me like right, like, oh, that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: So Mary, though she wasn't what you typically think of
Speaker 1: as you know, the influencer, the negative connotations that we
Speaker 1: discussed at the beginning. She wasn't larger than life, she
Speaker 1: wasn't loud or energetic, but she was very sweet. She
Speaker 1: was modest and very dignified. She was quick with a smile,
Speaker 1: but just as quick to shut down any ideas that
Speaker 1: any of the men at the store may be getting
Speaker 1: about her, and that only made her reputation grow bigger.
Speaker 2: Oh right, man, she was just I don't know, playing
Speaker 2: this right, but not even necessarily intentionally.
Speaker 1: It's not like it's just her. Yeah, she's not playing
Speaker 1: it right. Yeah, she's just fitting into this perfectly, seamlessly.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a proverb proverbial proverbial Can I say
Speaker 1: that proverbial Cinderella's glass slipper. It's just the perfect fit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it almost just seems like this is like
Speaker 2: a movie.
Speaker 1: To me, I wouldn't be surprised if there was movies
Speaker 1: actually made from this. Yeah. I mean, Mary literally encompassed
Speaker 1: the ideals of the perfect woman. For her times, people
Speaker 1: just literally couldn't get enough of her. She was ideal
Speaker 1: in every way, so she became an attraction. Men flocked
Speaker 1: to the store. They bought cigars, postcards, and mementos. With
Speaker 1: her face on them.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yes, And all the while Mary just focused on being
Speaker 1: her and focused on her work, making sure that she
Speaker 1: was a model employee, and not paying much attention to
Speaker 1: the reputation growing around her and her name.
Speaker 2: And she's probably bring in quite a bit of.
Speaker 1: Bank, definitely.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This went so far that one man even wrote a
Speaker 1: poem inspired by Mary that appeared in the New York Herald.
Speaker 1: And while I couldn't find the poem itself, I did
Speaker 1: find a couple quoted lines from it where it refers
Speaker 1: to her quote heaven like smile end quote star like eyes.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yes, person's head over heels.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of individuals were head over heels
Speaker 1: for Mary.
Speaker 2: Okay, and correct me if I'm wrong. But at that age,
Speaker 2: probably in the eighteen hundreds, it's probably rare that she
Speaker 2: wasn't married, right, Probably because I feel like people back
Speaker 2: then got married quite young.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean she is twenty and single.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, well I'm kind of digging her. I
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: She's pretty awesome. Yeah, she sounds honestly like quite a
Speaker 1: nice individual. She's got a good head on her shoulders,
Speaker 1: and I mean beauty like that. No one can complain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah, there's photos.
Speaker 1: Of her teen hundred baby.
Speaker 2: Well is there anything like?
Speaker 1: No, there's like drawings.
Speaker 2: What about these things that people were purchasing though.
Speaker 1: Like sketches and drawings?
Speaker 2: Okay, well I want to see that.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I did already post one on Instagram, so.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I didn't see that yet. That's bad.
Speaker 1: So after she had been at the shop for about
Speaker 1: ten months with no problems, things started to change when
Speaker 1: Mary didn't show up for work one morning and no
Speaker 1: one knew quite where she was. Her boss, John reached
Speaker 1: out to Mary's mother, who was just as shocked as
Speaker 1: he was when she found out that Mary hadn't shown
Speaker 1: up for work and that she basically disappeared, and the
Speaker 1: both of them went forward and reported her missing to
Speaker 1: the authorities. So with her reported disappearance, newspapers began printing
Speaker 1: that Mary had disappeared from her home and her mother
Speaker 1: said that she had found an apparent suicide note.
Speaker 2: Oh oh shit.
Speaker 1: But this had turned out to be a hoax?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, but honestly, sometimes that's it surprised me,
Speaker 2: But it didn't surprise me, you.
Speaker 1: Know, if that was the case, a suicide note.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because sometimes when you're just like in that limelight
Speaker 2: and you have all this pressure and.
Speaker 1: Stuff like, oh, things tend to get to you.
Speaker 2: It can. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So searches in the neighborhood were done. The press
Speaker 1: published story after story of the missing cigar girl, but
Speaker 1: it looked like Mary had just disappeared. And the next
Speaker 1: day Mary just reappeared.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, alive and well yeah okay.
Speaker 1: Though she wasn't back at work, and it was the
Speaker 1: talk of the town and everyone kind of knew. Though
Speaker 1: some thought that her reappearance could potentially be a hoax
Speaker 1: because she wasn't at work, no one really saw her.
Speaker 1: It was just word spreading that she's bad.
Speaker 2: Oh a rumor.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Anothers thought her disappearance was actually what was the hoax?
Speaker 1: Did she really disappear? Did she really come back? No
Speaker 1: one really knew, and some actually blamed John, thinking that
Speaker 1: maybe this was just another publicity stunt, more marketing.
Speaker 2: Actually that kind of crossed my mind. It wouldn't be
Speaker 2: the worst thing, really, It would only make her more famous, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it would only make a cigar shop get more traffic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he's already clearly got that sort of mindset for marketing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: virality of the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Right, he's pretty creative. Really.
Speaker 1: I definite props to that because he is definitely creative
Speaker 1: for that. So, either way, Mary came back to work
Speaker 1: six days later.
Speaker 2: Okay, she did come back to work, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Looking well, but reportedly apparently no longer smiling her usual smile.
Speaker 1: But she told people she'd just been away visiting relatives
Speaker 1: in the countryside, and both John and her mother stood
Speaker 1: by her story, even though they were the ones who
Speaker 1: reported her missing in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When you said that, I'm like, that's really odd.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's not a whole lot really known about
Speaker 1: that or the truth behind it. It was just kind
Speaker 1: of that's what we went with. That's what we know.
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, that's confusing the shit out of me. Where
Speaker 2: the fuck was she?
Speaker 1: Trust me? It kind of confuses me too, Okay, but
Speaker 1: it is what it is. So even though she'd return, though,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were in that same mindset like
Speaker 1: what really happened? And they were wondering, and they each
Speaker 1: tried to kind of come up with their own explanation
Speaker 1: for what really occurred. Rumors began circulating that Mary had
Speaker 1: been seen in other parts in New York, not the countryside,
Speaker 1: during those days that she was reportedly being missing, and
Speaker 1: that she hadn't been alone.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: The rumors said that Mary had seen was seen, sorry,
Speaker 1: in the company of a handsome naval officer, and that
Speaker 1: Mary was actually lying about what she'd been up to
Speaker 1: during those six days that she had been gone.
Speaker 2: You know, I kind of I just hate that because
Speaker 2: you want to say you want to hide something or
Speaker 2: keep something quiet, then people just like make it up
Speaker 2: for you, like there's just no getting out of it.
Speaker 2: Really pretty much that happens nowadays.
Speaker 1: Oh it does all the time. Yeah, yeah, And remember
Speaker 1: this is eighteen forty one too, right.
Speaker 2: Like maybe she just wanted a hot fucking minute.
Speaker 1: True. Reputations for individuals in eighteen forty one, especially women,
Speaker 1: were everything, and Mary's image had been built on her looks,
Speaker 1: her modesty, and with these rumors going around, Mary's reputation
Speaker 1: began to literally come into question. And I mean, what
Speaker 1: if she just couldn't handle it?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Like much.
Speaker 1: Like influencers today when they're pressured about anything, Maybe it's
Speaker 1: someone's integrity, their history, what maybe they posted the wrong
Speaker 1: thing on Instagram? Who knows right. Things can get to
Speaker 1: an individual, those pressures, those build up.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can say the wrong word at times
Speaker 2: and it's a big fucking deal, so you miss. It's
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure. It can be a lot of
Speaker 2: pressure sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can literally just misgender someone and it
Speaker 1: could be an honest mistake. I mean, I've unfortunately misgendered someone,
Speaker 1: I apologize and continue on. Thankfully they've been receptive and
Speaker 1: understanding that it was an honest mistake. Yeah, but some
Speaker 1: people might not be receptive of an apology, right, And
Speaker 1: that's the world we live in. It is so so
Speaker 1: for Mary. She'd been back for only one week and
Speaker 1: she decided to quit her job at the cigar shop
Speaker 1: due to all the whispering surrounding her name, and she
Speaker 1: returned back to a boarding house with her mother.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I mean she had somewhere nice to return,
Speaker 2: but that sucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it was fun while it lasted.
Speaker 1: She got some extra money out of it. It was
Speaker 1: time to move on, so she stayed at the boardinghouse
Speaker 1: as far away from the public eye as she could,
Speaker 1: living and working the boarding house again. But it was
Speaker 1: only a month later when there would be another development
Speaker 1: in Mary's story.
Speaker 2: She disappeared again.
Speaker 1: She was engaged.
Speaker 2: Oh yep, okay, that's good.
Speaker 1: She announced an engagement not to a tall, dark and
Speaker 1: mysterious naval officer, though, but someone else entirely, a man
Speaker 1: by the name of Daniel Payne ay any okay, yep.
Speaker 1: He was a young man who was about the same
Speaker 1: age as Mary, and he also worked as a clerk,
Speaker 1: and he lived in the boarding house that Mary and
Speaker 1: her mother ran. Okay, that sounds good, which is how
Speaker 1: Mary came to meet this individual. And it was within
Speaker 1: only a month that the two were to get married. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they were engaged within a month. And this sudden
Speaker 1: engagement didn't help stop rumors that Mary had been up
Speaker 1: to something when she shouldn't have been to, or what
Speaker 1: she against what she had said. In fact, it only
Speaker 1: seemed to make them worse, as whisperings continued behind her back.
Speaker 1: But Mary at least seemed a little bit more like
Speaker 1: her old self again. She smiled and just kind of kept.
Speaker 2: To herself, waved it off and moved on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, just water off a ducts back, right, And
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to do those things.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 1: Social media, you get a negative comment, we get a
Speaker 1: negative review in the podcast, it can weigh you down, yeah,
Speaker 1: because someone takes that time just to be a dick
Speaker 1: to you. You know, it's like fuck you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Honestly, my one friend she does listen, so we'll
Speaker 2: see if she says something, but she always says bless
Speaker 2: and release, so just bless them and the release them.
Speaker 2: And I honestly like, I have to remind myself that sometimes.
Speaker 2: But it's a really good saying.
Speaker 1: And there's a big difference too, between criticism, constructive criticism,
Speaker 1: and yeah, being a dick you.
Speaker 2: Know, oh yeah, because yeah, sometimes it can be like
Speaker 2: just saying something and really honestly helping you to improve
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, okay, I could actually work on that,
Speaker 2: rather than just be like your personality is shit exactly.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh wow.
Speaker 1: And whisperings behind your back about shit that they don't
Speaker 1: even know or experience are making up, Like what's the point, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just gossip.
Speaker 2: But that's good that she was just letting it be
Speaker 2: kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So by the summer, you know, the two of them
Speaker 1: were still quite not yet married, and despite some of
Speaker 1: the recent rumors, it was clear that Mary wasn't pregnant.
Speaker 2: Oh god, that was one of the rumors.
Speaker 1: That's that's one of the rumors that are flowing around,
Speaker 1: which all to note that might come in a little
Speaker 1: bit later on.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So the day was July twenty fifth, eighteen forty one,
Speaker 1: and Mary knocked on Daniel's door at the boarding house
Speaker 1: and told him that she was going to go spend
Speaker 1: the day with her aunt. Daniel was just as happy
Speaker 1: that Mary was happy and hoped that she would have
Speaker 1: a good day out, so he told her that he
Speaker 1: would come by in the evening and walk her home
Speaker 1: in the two part of their ways. But the universe
Speaker 1: works in funny ways sometimes, and it had other plans
Speaker 1: for how that evening would play out. As a day
Speaker 1: went on, a huge rainstorm rolled in and the streets
Speaker 1: were drenched in tremendous amounts of rain. Daniel had also
Speaker 1: spent that Sunday out of the boarding house, but when
Speaker 1: he saw how much it was raining, he decided not
Speaker 1: to stop by and pick up Mary for a walk home.
Speaker 1: He figured that she wouldn't want to walk home in
Speaker 1: a storm, probably unsafe, and that she was, you know,
Speaker 1: with her aunt. So we thought she was probably safe
Speaker 1: at the place where she was currently, and she could
Speaker 1: probably even stay the night there if necessary, right, which
Speaker 1: is probably a good call.
Speaker 2: Well, and then I was just thinking, it's hard to
Speaker 2: think differently, right, But I was just like phoner, but like,
Speaker 2: they don't have phones, No, you can't phone.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna send her a quick text, just.
Speaker 2: A Facebook message and let her know. Yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Maybe give her a can and a string and we
Speaker 1: can communicate that way. I don't know. Yeah, So he
Speaker 1: decided not to go pick her up, and he headed
Speaker 1: home without her. And when he arrived home, he told
Speaker 1: Mary's mother about his decision, and she agreed. She thought
Speaker 1: that it would best not to be traveling the storm,
Speaker 1: that he made the right decision.
Speaker 2: Okay, because I was like, is she gonna like this decision?
Speaker 2: I don't know if I like this decision, because shit's
Speaker 2: going down. I can already tell.
Speaker 1: It was quite the storm outside, and she agreed, best
Speaker 1: not walk in the storm. Mary's probably just sitting there
Speaker 1: and the aunt's home and they'll wait it out too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the next day, after the storm had passed, Phoebe
Speaker 1: Mary's mother expected Mary to come home on her home
Speaker 1: during the day. It was light out, you know, and
Speaker 1: she can make her way home just fine, especially since
Speaker 1: she made her way there to begin with. But as
Speaker 1: the hours ticked by, her mother began to get nervous.
Speaker 1: By dinner time in the evening, when Daniel had come
Speaker 1: home from work and Mary still wasn't back, they both
Speaker 1: knew something might not be right, and Daniel headed back outside.
Speaker 1: He went straight to Mary's aunts to see if Mary
Speaker 1: was still there. There was a chance that she was
Speaker 1: still there, and maybe she just you know, enjoying herself
Speaker 1: and enjoying the stay and enjoying the company. Maybe she
Speaker 1: even got sick, or who knows what. She wasn't able
Speaker 1: to walk home by herself. So he thought all these
Speaker 1: things in his head, all these different scenarios.
Speaker 2: Let me guess what. She was never there.
Speaker 1: Hit the nail on the head, yep.
Speaker 2: I knew it. Yeah, you were leading us up to that, yep.
Speaker 1: So when he got there, he asked Mary's aunt if
Speaker 1: she knew where she was, and she said that she
Speaker 1: was never there at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yikes, Mary's in some trouble or she's hiding something
Speaker 2: big here.
Speaker 1: What do you think she could be hiding?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I think she's in trouble. I think
Speaker 2: she's in trouble. I'm not entirely sure how, but I
Speaker 2: think someone is threatening her or I won't want to say,
Speaker 2: holding her captive. But I don't influencing her in a
Speaker 2: very bad way.
Speaker 1: Influencing the influencer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, that's what I'm going with.
Speaker 1: That's like influencer inception. Well, I mean, technically, if you
Speaker 1: think about the influencers really are the one being influenced
Speaker 1: because their likes and comments and follows are what drives them.
Speaker 2: We're getting deep here today.
Speaker 1: Wow, you want another therapy session. That's gonna cost you. So,
Speaker 1: of course Daniel was worried now that Mary had quite
Speaker 1: literally disappeared again again, so both he and Mary's mother
Speaker 1: notified authorities. They reported where she was headed, who she
Speaker 1: was supposed to be with, what she was wearing. And
Speaker 1: it was summer, mind you, so she had traveled light
Speaker 1: and she was wearing lighter clothing as well. She didn't
Speaker 1: have a bag with her or a coat, and outside
Speaker 1: her normal clothes, she had only been wearing a bonnet.
Speaker 1: So nothing extraordinary or anything. Mary's mother, rightfully so was
Speaker 1: quite worried. Something didn't quite sit right with this. If
Speaker 1: the plan was to run away or even just run
Speaker 1: away for a few days, and why didn't Mary pack anything?
Speaker 1: Why was she just packing light? This most likely meant
Speaker 1: she intended to return home. The story of Mary's disappearing
Speaker 1: again was an even bigger story in Craze in the
Speaker 1: first time around for the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Oh really, see, I would have thought now that she
Speaker 2: wasn't the Cigar Girl, that it might not have been
Speaker 2: such a big deal.
Speaker 1: She still has that titles. People still know who she is,
Speaker 1: and they still know her as the cigar Girl, even
Speaker 1: if she doesn't work there anymore. So the Cigar Girl
Speaker 1: hadn't just run away once, but twice, and the press
Speaker 1: and rumors, like I said, I just couldn't get enough.
Speaker 1: Everyone was talked about what would have made Mary run
Speaker 1: away this time. Maybe your naval officer would come back
Speaker 1: from sea and they'd pick things up from where they'd
Speaker 1: left off. Or maybe Mary was dumping her respectable clerk
Speaker 1: boyfriend for a dark and rugged sailor who knows all
Speaker 1: these whisperings going on.
Speaker 2: Or maybe she's in like actual danger and people need
Speaker 2: to shut the fuck up and just try to find her.
Speaker 1: That's true. That. I mean, I'm sure some of those
Speaker 1: rumors were going on. Authorities were searching. Don't dismiss that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, that was actually me being a little bit.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm getting into this and I just
Speaker 2: want to know where the fuck Mary is.
Speaker 1: Well, several days went by with no news. By this time,
Speaker 1: Mary didn't just walk back into everyone's life like last time.
Speaker 1: She did, however, return, but in a much more morbid fashion.
Speaker 2: Oh seriously.
Speaker 1: It would be fishermen out of the waters near Castle Point.
Speaker 1: Oh no, they would find near the shore. What they
Speaker 1: saw was something weird, strange floating out in the water,
Speaker 1: so they decided to take a small boat to see
Speaker 1: what it was. And because of who she was, fishermen
Speaker 1: knew instantly when they approached her that they had found
Speaker 1: the missing Cigar girl.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: And by the time they had returned back to shore
Speaker 1: with her body in the boat, word had already started
Speaker 1: to spread like wildfire about her discovery, and a crowd
Speaker 1: had beg began to form.
Speaker 2: Really how earth did it spread like that? Though?
Speaker 1: I'm thinking maybe some shouting back and forth, like as
Speaker 1: they're approaching shore, get the authorities. We found the cigar
Speaker 1: girls sort of thing maybe, And then people started to gather,
Speaker 1: That's my thought, because they certainly weren't sitting here calling
Speaker 1: on their cellphone. I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it was easy for everyone to see when they
Speaker 1: took a look at Mary that she had been unfortunately
Speaker 1: beaten badly, and she had also been strangled with a
Speaker 1: piece of lace from her own clothes. Oh I hate
Speaker 1: that her wrists and ankles were bound and a weight
Speaker 1: was tied around her waist by a chord, and there
Speaker 1: was still more to be, still more to come. Some
Speaker 1: reports claimed that Mary had also been brutally raped before
Speaker 1: she was murdered. Oh no, However, to preface that, I
Speaker 1: could not confirm that detail. Okay, so I could not
Speaker 1: find if that was rumor or fact. If she was.
Speaker 2: Raped, see someone wash, someone was probably just obsessed with
Speaker 2: her this. I hope that we know that you get
Speaker 2: that you're telling us what happened here.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you everything I know.
Speaker 2: Oh, I hate those kind of answers. Why do you
Speaker 2: hate those old older case that you probably don't know
Speaker 2: like a ton about what this should happened.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to give you everything I know, and
Speaker 1: you can decide for yourself.
Speaker 2: If that's enough, If that's enough, okay, is it going
Speaker 2: to be enough for me?
Speaker 1: You're just gonna have to let me continue to talk
Speaker 1: about it, and you'll find out. This is the third
Speaker 1: time I'll tell you what I know. Okay, I'm your titties.
Speaker 1: So her official death was ruled as a strangulation via
Speaker 1: an optopsy, and rumors began circuling over who could have
Speaker 1: done such a terrible thing to someone like Mary, And
Speaker 1: with her mysterious supposed naval officer nowhere to be seen,
Speaker 1: the authorities quickly turned to the next man in line,
Speaker 1: Mary's fiance Daniel. Of course, they brought him in for questioning,
Speaker 1: but he was able to give a very detailed account
Speaker 1: of his whereabouts and movements and was released not long after.
Speaker 1: He clearly wasn't the culprit. After that, another weeks, sorry,
Speaker 1: did they also take the boss into I'm sure they
Speaker 1: talked to the boss, but I don't think he was
Speaker 1: really come in for questioning or anything, but okay. It
Speaker 1: would be another week that went by with no more
Speaker 1: new developments though, and no new leads, and authorities began
Speaker 1: to get desperate. They first announced a reward for arrest
Speaker 1: and conviction of the murderer. And then they took it
Speaker 1: a step further when they announced that anyone who knew
Speaker 1: anything about the crime, including anyone who maybe even took
Speaker 1: part in it but was actually not the murderer themselves,
Speaker 1: would be offered a reward and even immunity if they
Speaker 1: could help capture and convict the person who had actually
Speaker 1: killed Mary.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yes, Wow, they're really trying here.
Speaker 1: So it's not like it's just all these rumors and whisperings.
Speaker 1: Authorities are doing their due diligence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's a big reward, real or not reward,
Speaker 2: But saying that you'll have immunity, that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Immunity, that's a huge deal. It's huge.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the very next day after the authorities announced this,
Speaker 1: they received an anonymous letter claiming to be from a
Speaker 1: man in Hoboken who's seen Mary there on Sunday. He
Speaker 1: said that he'd seen Mary walking in the sick Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and pronounce this right. Elysian. There
Speaker 1: we go, Elysian Fields, and she hadn't been alone. Not
Speaker 1: long after Mary had got there, a boat had apparently
Speaker 1: pulled up, pulled up to the shore, and six rugged
Speaker 1: looking men got off and headed to Mary. Mary had
Speaker 1: seen to know them, at least, she hadn't seemed uncomfortable
Speaker 1: around them, as she'd been laughing and talking with them,
Speaker 1: and then after a while they headed towards the forest together.
Speaker 1: But then the letter kind of continued. It wasn't long
Speaker 1: after Mary and the six men disappeared into the forest
Speaker 1: that another boat sailed up to the shore from New York.
Speaker 1: Inside the boat, there were three well dressed men, and
Speaker 1: one of them got out to talk to another couple
Speaker 1: of men on the dock. This man had been reportedly
Speaker 1: asked if anyone had seen a group of six young
Speaker 1: men and a woman, and the man the dock said
Speaker 1: that they had seen them, and that even pointed towards
Speaker 1: the direction of the forest where Mary and the men
Speaker 1: had gone. But the man from the boat asked another question.
Speaker 1: He asked if the men had used force against Mary
Speaker 1: or if she'd gone with them without a fight, and
Speaker 1: the man of the dock told her that the group
Speaker 1: of men hadn't touched her, and the men from the
Speaker 1: boat then apparently got back in the boat and headed
Speaker 1: back to New York without asking or saying anything. Else.
Speaker 2: Hmm, this is so odd, isn't it. Yeah, Like I'm
Speaker 2: just my brain's just going wild here, Like what was
Speaker 2: she up to? Like I don't get this at all.
Speaker 1: I don't know. No one came forward either, claiming to
Speaker 1: be the author of this letter.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, they never did.
Speaker 1: Hey, no, But it was published in a newspaper, and
Speaker 1: the very next day after that, another piece of the
Speaker 1: puzzle fell into place, recognizing the story those two men
Speaker 1: from the dock who were questioned by these other individuals
Speaker 1: in the from New York, From New York. Okay, they
Speaker 1: came forward and said, yes, everything in that letter is true.
Speaker 1: But they also said that even though they knew who
Speaker 1: Mary was, at least what she looked like, they hadn't
Speaker 1: been too far away from the group and they weren't
Speaker 1: actually sure if it was Mary who had gone into
Speaker 1: the fores set. They weren't, so.
Speaker 2: If it was her, that adds in level.
Speaker 1: It would be another few weeks before there was another
Speaker 1: break in the case, but this time it came from
Speaker 1: a stagecoach driver. The driver claimed that he'd seen Mary
Speaker 1: arrive in a boken on that day, and she pretended
Speaker 1: to go visit her aunt and that she hadn't been alone.
Speaker 1: He claimed that Mary was with a tall man with
Speaker 1: dark hair, and that both of them had gone into
Speaker 1: an inn near Elysian Fields. The investigators were able to
Speaker 1: track down the inn and speak with the innkeeper, and
Speaker 1: she confirmed this story. She didn't know who either of
Speaker 1: the visitors had been, but she remembered a man with
Speaker 1: dark hair and a young woman, and she remembered that
Speaker 1: they'd gotten something to eat before they headed off into
Speaker 1: the forest together. Not long after they disappeared in the forest,
Speaker 1: the innkeeper remembered hearing a woman scream oh wow. But
Speaker 1: reportedly the inn's in a bit more rough area, and
Speaker 1: she said that that kind of thing can sometime times happen,
Speaker 1: and she hadn't really thought anything of it at the time,
Speaker 1: especially when she kind of went outside and listened a
Speaker 1: little bit closely for a second scream and it never
Speaker 1: came o.
Speaker 2: Case. Just two things really quick. One, I just hate
Speaker 2: that that you're just in a shitty area and a
Speaker 2: scream is just not alarming when really someone needs help.
Speaker 1: Oh, isn't that terrible? I hate that's horrible.
Speaker 2: And then I also just kind of like love her too,
Speaker 2: because I love it when people when if someone came
Speaker 2: and it's like a big deal and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know who the fuck that is, Like I
Speaker 2: just I just love that. I don't know what. It
Speaker 2: makes me happy and just like smile inside.
Speaker 1: Think of that as a modern day influencer situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I don't know someone who thinks that they're
Speaker 2: a big deal and they're like a rot. Not that
Speaker 2: I'm saying that Mary thinks she's a big deal, but
Speaker 2: they're arriving somewhere and this person is expecting like special treatment.
Speaker 1: The person just like, yeah, I don't think she was
Speaker 1: expecting that specially.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: But imagine like, okay, an Instagram influencer going to like
Speaker 1: an ice cream shop on the beach and like San
Speaker 1: Francisco or something. Yeah, San Francisco's beach is.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, if I post a picture of
Speaker 1: your ice cream and tagu, would you give me my
Speaker 1: ice cream for free? Because I have like eighty thousand followers.
Speaker 1: And then the person's just like, who the fuck are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. So this is this little in lady.
Speaker 2: I just love her for some reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it would be though two months later that
Speaker 1: that very same innkeeper, missus Lawson, would call upon the
Speaker 1: authorities again, but this time she had something quite different
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 2: Oh dang, maybe we don't love her. Was she hiding things?
Speaker 1: Well, according to her, her children had been playing in
Speaker 1: the forest when they found the exact spot where Mary
Speaker 1: had allegedly been killed.
Speaker 2: Really, so this is legitimately a month later that she
Speaker 2: had found new information. Yes, okay, she didn't have this
Speaker 2: at that time when they first questioned.
Speaker 1: Correct, okay, so our kids apparently found a white petticoat
Speaker 1: caught in a bush, and they found a silk scarf
Speaker 1: and a parasol and a handkerchief with the initials m
Speaker 1: R on it, and Mary's mother confirmed these items to
Speaker 1: be belonging to Mary. That's sad. Everyone was then on
Speaker 1: the lookout for a tall man with dark hair, a
Speaker 1: description that coincidentally closely resembled the naval officer in the
Speaker 1: rumors from the first time Mary had gone missing, and
Speaker 1: only added to the fuel for that rumor. But regardless,
Speaker 1: no one could find this man, this tall man with
Speaker 1: the dark hair.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that's really not very descriptive.
Speaker 1: Not really. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of individuals
Speaker 1: around like that. I'm sure a lot of guys were like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wear my hat today because I don't want
Speaker 1: to get like suspected of some shit, exactly. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be that sus So the authorities went back
Speaker 1: to Mary's mother, hoping that maybe she knew more about him,
Speaker 1: Maybe she did meet this guy, maybe she knew something.
Speaker 1: Maybe she could I don't know, bring some light to
Speaker 1: the situation, but she said she didn't know, and if
Speaker 1: she did know who he was, she certainly didn't tell police.
Speaker 1: Maybe she was in a situation where she was worried
Speaker 1: that similar fate could be waiting for her. Yeah, hard
Speaker 1: to say. Daniel unfortunately took Mary's death very hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the months that followed her death, his mental health
Speaker 1: began to suffer, and once the news broke about the
Speaker 1: finding of where she was most likely killed, there was
Speaker 1: no going back for him.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Daniel was found deceased in the very same spot only
Speaker 1: a few weeks later. Seriously, he decided to commit suicide
Speaker 1: over the loss of his fiance and overdosed on laudanum.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to look it up. Because I just kind of want
Speaker 1: to give this guy his space as much as I could. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you ended up overdosing while heavily intoxicated, and there was
Speaker 1: a note found with him that read to the world,
Speaker 1: Here I am on the very spot. May God forgive
Speaker 1: me for my misspent life.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. That's terrible, isn't it. Oh? Wow?
Speaker 1: Okay, Now some say this maybe ominous words that show
Speaker 1: he may have played a part in her final days.
Speaker 2: Oh, because I was just gonna say, he doesn't even
Speaker 2: know what the heck happened, Like, he doesn't know anything really, right.
Speaker 1: And but most don't suspect him of anything, though there
Speaker 1: are a few who say that this might point towards him.
Speaker 2: Can you read what it said one more time? Sorry?
Speaker 1: It says to the world, here I am on the
Speaker 1: very spot, May God forgive me for my misspent life.
Speaker 1: And that very spot, just to clarify, is the spot
Speaker 1: Mary was killed.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, Like I mean he was heartbroken.
Speaker 1: Yep. Now, the tall man with dark hair was never
Speaker 1: identified or caught, and Mary's case has never been solved.
Speaker 2: I was really hoping that wouldn't be the case.
Speaker 1: No, though her death remains a mystery, this didn't stop
Speaker 1: speculation and rumors, just as she endured while she was living,
Speaker 1: People talked and formed stories just as much while she
Speaker 1: was passed. One story actually speculates Mary's killer wasn't actually
Speaker 1: a man with tall, dark hair. This theory suggests that
Speaker 1: her killer was a woman, a doctor. This alleged doctor
Speaker 1: named Madan Ristelle was actually quite renowned, and she was
Speaker 1: renowned for helping women at the time terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, damn. Marstelle wasn't a legitimate doctor, mind you,
Speaker 1: but she still did what she could to help individuals
Speaker 1: who needed her help. So what if this doctor was
Speaker 1: helping Mary and her fiance terminate their unwanted pregnancy and
Speaker 1: things didn't go so well. It's presumed that the doctor
Speaker 1: would have fled, and Mary's mother and Daniel would have
Speaker 1: been left with Mary's body, and they've desperately tried to
Speaker 1: cover up the incident, especially given her positive reputation.
Speaker 2: Right, but then, why would she have been seen at
Speaker 2: the doc or where she was seen with like six
Speaker 2: men or I guess some people said they weren't even
Speaker 2: certain it was her right.
Speaker 1: Not even certain it was her. H Now, this story
Speaker 1: could have very well been true except for one very big,
Speaker 1: glaring issue. Mary's autopsy revealed that she was never pregnant
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form, and her cause of
Speaker 1: death was strangulation and there was nothing to show any
Speaker 1: sort of abortion or anything that he ever taken place.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that just can't be then.
Speaker 1: And lastly, that innkeeper, missus Lawson, while on her deathbed
Speaker 1: years later after an accidental firearm after one of her
Speaker 1: sons accidentally shot her, oh shit, she made a dying confession.
Speaker 2: Uh oh.
Speaker 1: She claimed that on that fateful day, that fateful Sunday,
Speaker 1: July twenty fifth, eighteen forty one, Mary had come to
Speaker 1: her in with that tall handsome individual, But that tall
Speaker 1: handsome individual was a doctor, and Mary was with child.
Speaker 1: From there, her story goes pretty similar to the last one,
Speaker 1: with an unsuccessful termination and the doctor fleeing from there.
Speaker 1: It was her and her sons who were left to
Speaker 1: dispose of Mary's remains, and they ended up planting the
Speaker 1: belongings in the forest near their home. Miss Lawson died
Speaker 1: shortly after this badside confession, and both of her sons
Speaker 1: deny this story, though the New York Tribune newspaper accepted
Speaker 1: this confession. The case remains unsolved and the story is
Speaker 1: chalked up to a dying woman's wild tale.
Speaker 2: Huh okay that the two stories that seem to that
Speaker 2: people seem to be saying and that kind of seem
Speaker 2: could have happened. But then the autopsy shows that she
Speaker 2: was never pregnant, so.
Speaker 1: Correct, wow wow, But also mind you, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: an autopsy would find a pregnancy, but I'm not certain
Speaker 1: on the medical practitioner's expertise on an autopsy in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty one.
Speaker 2: Either that's true, and she would have only been in
Speaker 2: like her early twenties.
Speaker 1: Ay, I believe she was twenty yesh, maybe twenty one, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, but yeah, brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So her story is on. However, she does live
Speaker 1: on in more than one way. Aside from being labeled
Speaker 1: as the infamous cigar Girl, she lived to inspire one
Speaker 1: more man, Edgar Allan Poe, who also lived in the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds with Mary, and he based his story The
Speaker 1: Mystery of Mary Rogue on Mary's life and death, which
Speaker 1: he published one year after her death in eighteen forty two.
Speaker 1: In doing so, he made sure that Mary's fame and
Speaker 1: legacy would live on for many more generations to come.
Speaker 1: And here we are, two hundred years later, almost still
Speaker 1: talking about her story.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I love that. That's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Edgar Allan Poe did change a few details
Speaker 1: in the story, but that story is very much so
Speaker 1: based on Mary Rogers. Wow, the cigar girl.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is. I guess one positive is
Speaker 2: that her story is really living on. But it's too
Speaker 2: bad that no one knows what happened really.
Speaker 1: Right like that.
Speaker 2: I hate that.
Speaker 1: And she seemed like she was such a nice woman too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was so kind, dignified. She didn't really let this
Speaker 1: get to her. I mean, sometimes weight gets to an individual,
Speaker 1: but she kept her her smile and she just lived.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she thought through her decisions and stuff. It
Speaker 2: seemed like too yeah right, she you know, when things
Speaker 2: weren't really going quite well, she decided that she'll go
Speaker 2: back and work with her mom and that would help.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I do think that there was an individual
Speaker 1: that she might have built up a reputation with at
Speaker 1: the cigar shop who became jealous of her engagement. And
Speaker 1: I think that she felt she could trust this individual.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were going out for I don't know, lunch
Speaker 1: or something like that, right, But.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't she have just told her fiance or.
Speaker 1: Maybe she was having an affair with the individual too.
Speaker 1: For one reason or another, there was something happening where
Speaker 1: she felt she could trust this individual and they needed
Speaker 1: to lie or make some something up where they weren't
Speaker 1: telling what was going on. And I think in this situation,
Speaker 1: she most likely would have been like, I can't do this.
Speaker 1: I'm getting engaged, I'm getting married. Sorry, I'm not the
Speaker 1: cigar girl anymore. I am moving on from that. And
Speaker 1: this individual couldn't accept that and wanted her for himself.
Speaker 1: And I do think this tall man with dark hair
Speaker 1: was exactly that individual who took her life.
Speaker 2: He showed us true colors. Yeah, at some point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there was a lot of anger
Speaker 1: taken out on her because she would not accept them,
Speaker 1: hence the beating and the final strangulation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even just the way the body was disposed
Speaker 2: to is pretty brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my theory. Do you have a theory?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, lots of times when you ask me
Speaker 2: this at the end, I'm like still processing shit. But
Speaker 2: I don't think it was the fiance. I don't think
Speaker 2: the mother of the fiance knew anything, to be honest. Oh, man,
Speaker 2: I do think someone I also, Okay, I do think
Speaker 2: your theory is very valid and makes sense. But I
Speaker 2: also think someone might have had an obsession with her
Speaker 2: or something that they were manipulating her of sorts, and
Speaker 2: that she ended up getting herself in, like too deep
Speaker 2: to something that she couldn't get out of necessarily, which
Speaker 2: kind of goes with your theory, I guess, right. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I do think this person. I do think whoever
Speaker 2: did this had a bit of an obsession with her
Speaker 2: that she maybe didn't quite realize.
Speaker 1: Agreed, Yeah, are cats going wild?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that time a day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, perfect timing. All right, Well, I'm curre some what
Speaker 1: your guys' theory is. So shoot us a message or
Speaker 1: something something or thumbing shoot the method to something. Shoot
Speaker 1: us a message.
Speaker 2: We've been talking too much today?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cotton milth, I got a beer here that I've
Speaker 1: hardly touched. Good job.
Speaker 2: This was actually very interesting story. All done.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a tail, but it's an interesting one.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting, and I'm curious on what other people's
Speaker 1: theories are so shoot us a message on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let us know what you think or put in
Speaker 2: the comments or something.
Speaker 1: Yep, we got posts on Facebook and Instagram. We've got
Speaker 1: all our social links down below if you want to
Speaker 1: check it out. Patreon included website you name it descriptions
Speaker 1: down there. If you don't want to check them out,
Speaker 1: you can just hang out with us. Next podcast. That's
Speaker 1: cool too. Yeah. Are a cat is literally like possessed?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, we got there's a huge bang. We should
Speaker 2: probably check that out.
Speaker 1: Nicole's eyes just went like massively wide. Yeah, and our
Speaker 1: dogs are disturbed. Good job week.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, honestly, thank you for being here and until next.
Speaker 1: Week, stay wicked or should I do the whole long
Speaker 1: live thing?
Speaker 2: Should we do it together?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to do it together? Okay,
Speaker 1: stay wicked? Is that good?
Speaker 2: That was great?
Speaker 1: Okay,