WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.779 Welcome back to another deep dive. Today we are 00:00:02.779 --> 00:00:06.219 opening a file that is, frankly, just one of 00:00:06.219 --> 00:00:08.519 the most unsettling contradictions we've ever 00:00:08.519 --> 00:00:10.339 come across. It really is. We're looking at a 00:00:10.339 --> 00:00:12.259 stack of sources here about a woman named Manny 00:00:12.259 --> 00:00:15.380 Doss. And if you've heard of her, you probably 00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:19.010 know her by one of her nicknames. The most famous 00:00:19.010 --> 00:00:21.550 one is The Giggling Granny. Which, let's just 00:00:21.550 --> 00:00:23.210 be honest, right out of the gate, that sounds 00:00:23.210 --> 00:00:25.129 like a character from a children's book, you 00:00:25.129 --> 00:00:27.829 know. Right. The sweet old lady in a sitcom who 00:00:27.829 --> 00:00:31.070 bakes the best pies and maybe knits slightly 00:00:31.070 --> 00:00:33.770 lopsided sweaters for everyone. It just evokes 00:00:33.770 --> 00:00:36.509 warmth that evokes safety. It's completely disarming. 00:00:36.590 --> 00:00:39.229 Completely. It sounds harmless, sweet, even. 00:00:39.649 --> 00:00:42.369 But then you look at the other nicknames in these 00:00:42.369 --> 00:00:44.990 documents. The Jolly Black Widow. A little more 00:00:44.990 --> 00:00:48.130 pointed. A little. And then Lady Bluebeard. And, 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:50.490 well, suddenly that giggling image takes on a 00:00:50.490 --> 00:00:53.289 much, much darker hue. It really does. We are 00:00:53.289 --> 00:00:55.630 not talking about a sweet old lady who bakes 00:00:55.630 --> 00:00:57.869 cookies for the church social. We are talking 00:00:57.869 --> 00:01:00.490 about a woman who, between the years 1927 and 00:01:00.490 --> 00:01:05.129 1954, that's a long time. A very long time. And 00:01:05.129 --> 00:01:08.090 over that period, she is responsible for a trail 00:01:08.090 --> 00:01:10.989 of bodies that spans across the United States. 00:01:11.250 --> 00:01:14.150 It's a case of cognitive dissonance in its purest 00:01:14.150 --> 00:01:17.890 form. You see the photos, this smiling, bespectacled 00:01:17.890 --> 00:01:20.290 woman looking for all the world like everyone's 00:01:20.290 --> 00:01:22.489 favorite aunt, and your brain just struggles 00:01:22.489 --> 00:01:25.349 to reconcile that visual with the data. And the 00:01:25.349 --> 00:01:27.849 data is just staggering. We are talking about 00:01:27.849 --> 00:01:31.170 11 confirmed victims. Confirmed. And these weren't 00:01:31.170 --> 00:01:32.849 strangers in a dark alley. These were the people 00:01:32.849 --> 00:01:34.989 closest to her. That's the part that really chills 00:01:34.989 --> 00:01:38.109 me. Let's just list the roster right at the top 00:01:38.109 --> 00:01:39.790 so everyone understands the weight of what we're 00:01:39.790 --> 00:01:41.870 discussing today. Okay. We are looking at four 00:01:41.870 --> 00:01:45.609 husbands. Four? Two of her own children, one 00:01:45.609 --> 00:01:49.230 sister, her own mother. Her own mother. Two grandsons, 00:01:49.290 --> 00:01:52.609 and a mother -in -law. It's a systematic dismantling 00:01:52.609 --> 00:01:55.090 of her entire family tree. It's almost efficient 00:01:55.090 --> 00:01:57.469 in a really terrifying way. And that's what we 00:01:57.469 --> 00:01:59.250 want to do in this deep dive. We want to move 00:01:59.250 --> 00:02:01.930 past the caricature. It's so easy to look at 00:02:01.930 --> 00:02:04.829 that giggling granny headline and treat it as 00:02:04.829 --> 00:02:08.849 this, you know, macabre curiosity, tabloid oddity. 00:02:09.090 --> 00:02:11.639 Right. But... Our mission today is to really 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:13.759 try and understand the psychology and the methodology. 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:17.139 How does a woman in the early 20th century with 00:02:17.139 --> 00:02:20.319 very limited education, limited resources, get 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:23.080 away with this for nearly 30 years? And the motive 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:25.560 she gave. Yeah. That is the thread we really 00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:28.199 need to pull on. She claimed she was searching 00:02:28.199 --> 00:02:31.699 for, and I'm quoting here, the real romance of 00:02:31.699 --> 00:02:34.479 life. While simultaneously collecting life insurance 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:37.280 policies on almost everyone she claimed to love. 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:39.800 See, that's it. It's that intersection. It's 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:43.060 a search for true love. This fantasy life and 00:02:43.060 --> 00:02:45.800 the cold, hard calculation of financial gain. 00:02:46.180 --> 00:02:49.080 That is where the truth of Nanny Doss lies. So 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:51.000 is she a hopeless romantic who just happens to 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:54.020 kill? Or is the romance just a mask for a very 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:56.439 greedy, very cold predator? I think that's the 00:02:56.439 --> 00:02:58.039 question we have to try and answer. So let's 00:02:58.039 --> 00:02:59.979 unpack this. We need to go all the way back to 00:02:59.979 --> 00:03:02.159 the beginning. Because stories like this, they 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:05.000 always start somewhere. And, well, usually it's 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:07.800 not a happy place. No. Our sources take us back 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.259 to Blue Mountain, Alabama. The year is 1905. 00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:14.199 November 4th, 1905, to be exact. She was born 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:17.099 Nancy Agnes Hazel. And if you are looking for 00:03:17.099 --> 00:03:19.120 the seeds of what was to come, the environment 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:23.860 she was born into is a textbook case of repression 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:26.180 and trauma. And you have to understand the context 00:03:26.180 --> 00:03:28.479 of rural Alabama at the turn of the century. 00:03:28.740 --> 00:03:30.740 Life was hard for everyone, right? Oh, absolutely. 00:03:31.099 --> 00:03:33.919 But the Hazel household was something else entirely. 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:37.180 We have her parents, Louisa and James F. Hazel, 00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:41.159 and the father, James. Wow. The source material 00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:43.659 paints a picture of a man who was not just strict, 00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:46.060 but tyrannically controlling. Controlling is, 00:03:46.099 --> 00:03:49.400 I think, putting it mildly. He was a railroader 00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:51.500 initially, but by the time Nanny was a teenager, 00:03:51.659 --> 00:03:53.960 around 1920, he had taken over the family farm. 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:57.039 And the dynamic there was just brutal. How so? 00:03:57.259 --> 00:03:59.120 Well, for one, he forced the children to work 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:01.340 the farm instead of attending school. Which explains 00:04:01.340 --> 00:04:03.560 her poor academic performance that's mentioned 00:04:03.560 --> 00:04:05.539 in the sources. She just wasn't given a chance 00:04:05.539 --> 00:04:07.360 to learn anything other than labor. Exactly. 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:09.979 It creates a world that's very, very small. Your 00:04:09.979 --> 00:04:12.819 world is the farm. You work, you sleep, you obey. 00:04:13.319 --> 00:04:15.379 But it wasn't just the labor that was the problem. 00:04:15.419 --> 00:04:18.649 It was the isolation. James Hazel had this deep, 00:04:18.649 --> 00:04:21.290 almost paranoid fear of his daughters interacting 00:04:21.290 --> 00:04:23.850 with the outside world. He forbade them from 00:04:23.850 --> 00:04:26.209 wearing makeup. He forbade attractive clothing, 00:04:26.430 --> 00:04:30.730 no dances, no social events of any kind. And 00:04:30.730 --> 00:04:33.170 what was his justification for that? The justification 00:04:33.170 --> 00:04:36.230 he gave was that he wanted to prevent molestation. 00:04:36.740 --> 00:04:39.379 He had this idea that if he kept them locked 00:04:39.379 --> 00:04:41.540 down and looking plain, they would be safe from 00:04:41.540 --> 00:04:44.360 men. Which is, I mean, the irony is just tragic 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:46.519 and horrible because the sources are pretty clear 00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:49.259 that Nanny was, in fact, raped multiple times 00:04:49.259 --> 00:04:52.000 as a child. Exactly. And when she tried to tell 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.899 her father, the very man who had built this entire 00:04:54.899 --> 00:04:58.420 prison to ostensibly protect her, he refused 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:01.189 to believe her. That is just... It's heartbreaking. 00:05:01.410 --> 00:05:03.449 It's a complete betrayal. You have the external 00:05:03.449 --> 00:05:05.550 control from the father, the internal abuse from 00:05:05.550 --> 00:05:07.709 what happened to her, and then the complete denial 00:05:07.709 --> 00:05:10.509 of her reality by the one authority figure in 00:05:10.509 --> 00:05:12.410 her life. It creates a pressure cooker. Yeah. 00:05:12.509 --> 00:05:14.970 You can absolutely see how a deep, deep hatred 00:05:14.970 --> 00:05:17.389 toward the father figure would just fester in 00:05:17.389 --> 00:05:19.449 that environment. What does that teach a child? 00:05:19.670 --> 00:05:23.089 It teaches a very dangerous lesson. It teaches 00:05:23.089 --> 00:05:25.470 you that authority figures are not to be trusted, 00:05:25.629 --> 00:05:28.009 that your pain doesn't matter, and that you are 00:05:28.009 --> 00:05:31.509 completely and utterly on your own. It forces 00:05:31.509 --> 00:05:35.189 a person to retreat inward. And for Nanny, that 00:05:35.189 --> 00:05:38.129 retreat took a very specific form. But before 00:05:38.129 --> 00:05:40.350 we get to her coping mechanisms, we have to talk 00:05:40.350 --> 00:05:43.329 about a specific physical trauma. This is something 00:05:43.329 --> 00:05:45.290 that comes up in serial killer profiles a lot, 00:05:45.329 --> 00:05:47.670 doesn't it? The head injury. It's a recurring 00:05:47.670 --> 00:05:50.819 theme, yes. We see it in so many cases where 00:05:50.819 --> 00:05:53.339 impulse control becomes an issue later in life. 00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:55.800 It's almost a trope, but it's often based in 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.740 fact. So what happened in Nanny's case? It happened 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:00.920 when she was just seven years old. The family 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:03.300 was taking a train trip to southern Alabama to 00:06:03.300 --> 00:06:06.100 visit some relatives. A train trip, which in 00:06:06.100 --> 00:06:08.839 the early 1900s was a huge deal. It's loud. It's 00:06:08.839 --> 00:06:11.800 shaky. Huge. A major event. But something went 00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:14.100 wrong. The train stopped abruptly, I mean, just 00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:16.220 slammed on the brakes. Nanny was thrown forward 00:06:16.220 --> 00:06:18.980 and she hit her head hard on the metal bar of 00:06:18.980 --> 00:06:21.600 the seat in front of her. Ouch. And we're not 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:22.980 talking about a little bump on the head here. 00:06:23.139 --> 00:06:25.480 The sources say she suffered long -term effects 00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:29.259 from this. Severe headaches, blackouts, and depression. 00:06:29.939 --> 00:06:32.939 These issues plagued her for years and years. 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:35.879 And what's really interesting is Nanny's own 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:38.879 self -assessment later in life. She explicitly 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:41.259 blamed this accident for her mental instability. 00:06:41.879 --> 00:06:44.240 She did. She pointed to that exact moment on 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:46.180 the train and basically said, that's where it 00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:48.180 all went wrong for me. Now, we have to look at 00:06:48.180 --> 00:06:50.339 that critically, right? Okay. Is it a convenient 00:06:50.339 --> 00:06:53.959 excuse? Maybe. It's easy to say, the train made 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:56.889 me do it. It creates a simple narrative. We do 00:06:56.889 --> 00:06:59.589 know today that traumatic brain injuries, especially 00:06:59.589 --> 00:07:02.050 to the frontal lobe, can have a profound effect 00:07:02.050 --> 00:07:05.089 on personality, on impulse control, on emotional 00:07:05.089 --> 00:07:07.350 regulation. We can't diagnose her from a century 00:07:07.350 --> 00:07:09.910 away, obviously. No, of course not. But based 00:07:09.910 --> 00:07:12.509 strictly on the text, she believed this was the 00:07:12.509 --> 00:07:14.769 turning point. It gave her a narrative for her 00:07:14.769 --> 00:07:17.329 own darkness, a reason for why she felt the way 00:07:17.329 --> 00:07:19.629 she did. So you have this potential brain trauma, 00:07:19.730 --> 00:07:22.670 and you have this incredibly abusive, isolating 00:07:22.670 --> 00:07:26.189 home life. She's an escape. She needs to get 00:07:26.189 --> 00:07:28.129 out. And since she can't physically leave the 00:07:28.129 --> 00:07:31.290 farm, she escapes mentally. How? She starts devouring 00:07:31.290 --> 00:07:34.089 her mother's romance magazines. And this is it. 00:07:34.129 --> 00:07:36.949 This is the real romance origin story. It is. 00:07:36.990 --> 00:07:40.579 She is living in this gritty... abusive, painful 00:07:40.579 --> 00:07:43.579 reality. But in her head, she's living in the 00:07:43.579 --> 00:07:46.420 pages of these magazines. And she becomes obsessed 00:07:46.420 --> 00:07:49.379 with one part in particular, the Lonely Hearts 00:07:49.379 --> 00:07:51.579 columns. For those who might not know, you should 00:07:51.579 --> 00:07:54.139 probably explain the Lonely Hearts column context 00:07:54.139 --> 00:07:57.199 in that era. It's hard to imagine in the age 00:07:57.199 --> 00:08:00.459 of swiping right on an app. Right. Think of it 00:08:00.459 --> 00:08:02.600 as the Tinder of the early 20th century, but 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:05.180 much, much slower and with much higher stakes. 00:08:05.579 --> 00:08:08.060 Men and women would place these little ads in 00:08:08.060 --> 00:08:10.540 magazines. and newspapers seeking partnership. 00:08:10.899 --> 00:08:13.360 It often led to correspondents writing letters 00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:15.579 back and forth and sometimes very quick marriages. 00:08:15.899 --> 00:08:18.720 So for a girl like Nanny, isolated on a farm 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:22.220 in Alabama, these columns represented a portal 00:08:22.220 --> 00:08:24.459 to a different world. A completely different 00:08:24.459 --> 00:08:27.019 world. A world where men were dashing and romantic 00:08:27.019 --> 00:08:29.360 and they came and saved you from your miserable 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:31.540 life. So she wasn't just looking for a boyfriend. 00:08:31.779 --> 00:08:33.799 She was looking for the fantasy she read about. 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:37.320 She wanted to be the heroine in this story. Precisely. 00:08:37.870 --> 00:08:40.649 And that dissociation, that huge gap between 00:08:40.649 --> 00:08:43.549 the fantasy she felt she deserved and the brutal 00:08:43.549 --> 00:08:46.409 reality she lived in, that is the space where 00:08:46.409 --> 00:08:48.590 her crimes eventually took root. She was building 00:08:48.590 --> 00:08:51.110 a script for her life. Yes. And when real life 00:08:51.110 --> 00:08:53.669 people didn't follow her script, she, well, she 00:08:53.669 --> 00:08:56.350 edited them out. So she is desperate to get out. 00:08:56.429 --> 00:08:59.450 And at age 16, she sees her chance. Enter her 00:08:59.450 --> 00:09:03.620 husband number one, Charlie Braggs. 1921. She 00:09:03.620 --> 00:09:06.220 is 16 years old. They work together at a linen 00:09:06.220 --> 00:09:08.500 factory, and she'd only known him for, what, 00:09:08.539 --> 00:09:11.000 four or five months? And surprisingly, her father 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.779 approves of this. The same man who wouldn't let 00:09:13.779 --> 00:09:16.200 her wear nice clothes or go to a dance. I think 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:17.980 the sources suggest it was just about getting 00:09:17.980 --> 00:09:20.240 another mouth to feed out of the house. It wasn't 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:21.860 about her happiness. It was about economics. 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:24.759 It was a practical decision for him. So she marries 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:27.840 Charlie Braggs. And in her mind, this is it. 00:09:27.860 --> 00:09:29.460 This is her freedom. This is the start of the 00:09:29.460 --> 00:09:32.039 romance story. But the reality check hits hard 00:09:32.039 --> 00:09:34.700 and fast. Because she doesn't just marry Charlie. 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:37.299 She marries into his whole family situation. 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:40.879 Which was? Charlie was the only son of a single 00:09:40.879 --> 00:09:44.879 mother. And this mother was, let's say, territorial. 00:09:45.789 --> 00:09:48.370 She insisted on living with the newlyweds. Oh 00:09:48.370 --> 00:09:51.029 no, the classic monster -in -law scenario. It 00:09:51.029 --> 00:09:53.549 seems so. Nanny wrote about this later on. She 00:09:53.549 --> 00:09:55.669 said her mother -in -law had taken over my life 00:09:55.669 --> 00:09:59.009 completely. She limited Nanny's activities. She 00:09:59.009 --> 00:10:01.230 wouldn't let Nanny's own mother visit. It was 00:10:01.230 --> 00:10:03.610 just a transfer of control. That has to be just 00:10:03.610 --> 00:10:06.370 devastating. You think you've escaped your father's 00:10:06.370 --> 00:10:08.110 prison, but you've just walked into a different 00:10:08.110 --> 00:10:10.409 one with a different warden. Exactly. And how 00:10:10.409 --> 00:10:12.889 does Nanny cope with this new reality? Let me 00:10:12.889 --> 00:10:16.129 guess. Not well. No. She starts drinking and 00:10:16.129 --> 00:10:19.730 she develops a heavy smoking addiction. The text 00:10:19.730 --> 00:10:22.110 describes a stressed out nanny. And on top of 00:10:22.110 --> 00:10:23.549 that, the marriage itself was just volatile. 00:10:24.089 --> 00:10:26.009 Both of them suspected the other of cheating. 00:10:26.490 --> 00:10:28.529 Brags would disappear for days at a time. It 00:10:28.529 --> 00:10:30.669 was incredibly toxic. But they did have children 00:10:30.669 --> 00:10:33.350 in the midst of all this chaos. They did. Between 00:10:33.350 --> 00:10:36.590 1923 and 1927, they had four daughters. And this 00:10:36.590 --> 00:10:39.309 brings us to 1927. This is the year everything 00:10:39.309 --> 00:10:41.570 changes. This is where the timeline gets really, 00:10:41.669 --> 00:10:45.289 really dark. It does. In 1927, the two middle 00:10:45.289 --> 00:10:47.990 daughters died suddenly. Just like that. Two 00:10:47.990 --> 00:10:50.320 kids. The cause of death that was given at the 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:53.220 time was suspected food poisoning. Okay, let's 00:10:53.220 --> 00:10:56.639 pause on that. Suspected food poisoning. In 1927, 00:10:56.759 --> 00:10:59.179 how much of a red flag is that? Does that raise 00:10:59.179 --> 00:11:02.759 eyebrows? It's tricky. In that era, food poisoning 00:11:02.759 --> 00:11:05.820 or acute indigestion was kind of a catch -all. 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:08.519 Forensics were primitive. People really did die 00:11:08.519 --> 00:11:11.139 from bad food, from botulism, things like that. 00:11:11.299 --> 00:11:13.639 It wasn't entirely uncommon for children to die 00:11:13.639 --> 00:11:15.639 suddenly from mysterious illnesses. But looking 00:11:15.639 --> 00:11:18.519 back... with what we now know about nanny it 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:22.059 is the first massive flashing red flag it's the 00:11:22.059 --> 00:11:25.559 pattern beginning in charlie bragg's He must 00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:27.820 have suspected something, right? Because his 00:11:27.820 --> 00:11:29.740 reaction is not what you'd expect from a grieving 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:32.399 father. Not at all. His reaction wasn't to mourn 00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:34.559 with his wife and comfort her. He took their 00:11:34.559 --> 00:11:37.200 firstborn daughter, Melvina, and he ran. He fled 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:39.539 the house. He left the newborn. He left the newborn 00:11:39.539 --> 00:11:42.259 Florine behind with Nanny, but he got himself 00:11:42.259 --> 00:11:44.539 and the oldest child out of there as fast as 00:11:44.539 --> 00:11:47.360 he could. That is a pure survival instinct kicking 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:50.700 in. He looked at his wife, or the situation, 00:11:51.019 --> 00:11:54.889 and he saw a threat. He later stated it explicitly. 00:11:55.190 --> 00:11:57.110 He said, I left her because I was frightened 00:11:57.110 --> 00:12:00.389 of her. Charlie Braggs is this unique figure 00:12:00.389 --> 00:12:02.710 in our deep dive today because he is the only 00:12:02.710 --> 00:12:05.230 husband who escaped with his life. The one that 00:12:05.230 --> 00:12:08.090 got away. He saw something in her eyes or in 00:12:08.090 --> 00:12:11.049 the situation that told him to run. He realized 00:12:11.049 --> 00:12:14.250 on some level that staying meant death. So Braggs 00:12:14.250 --> 00:12:16.149 is gone, but then the source material says he 00:12:16.149 --> 00:12:19.240 comes back in 1928. What's that about? It's brief, 00:12:19.419 --> 00:12:21.879 and it's messy. He returns with a divorcee and 00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:24.320 her child. It seems he just came back to finalize 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:26.919 things. They officially divorce, and Nanny ends 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:29.000 up taking her two surviving daughters and moving 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:30.919 back to her mother's home. Back to the farm. 00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:33.799 Back to square one. Back to the abuse, but now 00:12:33.799 --> 00:12:35.639 she's a single mother working in a cotton mill, 00:12:35.740 --> 00:12:37.980 and she has already crossed a line. Two children 00:12:37.980 --> 00:12:40.399 are dead. The taboo against killing has been 00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:43.590 broken. The seal is broken. It is. And that sets 00:12:43.590 --> 00:12:45.669 the stage for the next chapter. She needs a new 00:12:45.669 --> 00:12:47.990 husband. She needs that romance again. Enter 00:12:47.990 --> 00:12:50.210 Robert Franklin Harrelson. Husband number two. 00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:54.850 1929. She meets and marries Harrelson. And if 00:12:54.850 --> 00:12:56.649 she was looking for her Prince Charming from 00:12:56.649 --> 00:12:59.330 the magazines, she certainly did not pick him. 00:12:59.870 --> 00:13:03.230 No. The source says he was an alcoholic with 00:13:03.230 --> 00:13:05.509 a criminal record for assault. He was a violent 00:13:05.509 --> 00:13:07.509 man from Jacksonville, Florida. It was another 00:13:07.509 --> 00:13:09.960 abusive relationship. But surprisingly, this 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:12.460 marriage lasted 16 years. It was her longest 00:13:12.460 --> 00:13:15.039 relationship by far. Why do you think that is? 00:13:15.100 --> 00:13:17.220 Why did she stick with him for so long when she 00:13:17.220 --> 00:13:20.240 disposed of others so quickly later on? It's 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:22.759 hard to say definitively from the text. I mean, 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:25.000 perhaps the Great Depression was a factor. Maybe 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:26.899 any kind of stability, even violent stability, 00:13:27.159 --> 00:13:29.139 was more valuable. Perhaps he was just intimidating 00:13:29.139 --> 00:13:31.559 enough to keep her in check for a while. But 00:13:31.559 --> 00:13:34.519 the tension was building. And during this long 00:13:34.519 --> 00:13:37.419 troubled marriage, we see the focus of her violence 00:13:37.419 --> 00:13:40.559 shift to the next generation, the grandchildren. 00:13:40.840 --> 00:13:44.179 And this is this is really the part of the research 00:13:44.179 --> 00:13:46.279 that gets under your skin. I agree. We're talking 00:13:46.279 --> 00:13:49.019 about Melvina, the daughter that Charlie Bragg's 00:13:49.019 --> 00:13:50.960 trying to save. She grows up. She gets married. 00:13:51.100 --> 00:13:53.379 She has kids of her own. And Nanny becomes the 00:13:53.379 --> 00:13:55.610 grandmother from hell. Okay, let's talk about 00:13:55.610 --> 00:13:57.710 the hat pin incident, because this sounds like 00:13:57.710 --> 00:14:00.289 something out of a horror movie, but it is right 00:14:00.289 --> 00:14:04.190 there in the record. It is 1945. Melvina has 00:14:04.190 --> 00:14:06.809 just given birth to her second child. She's recovering 00:14:06.809 --> 00:14:10.250 in a room, and she's groggy from the ether, which 00:14:10.250 --> 00:14:12.789 was used as anesthesia back then. Right, so she's 00:14:12.789 --> 00:14:15.190 in and out of consciousness. Exactly. And she 00:14:15.190 --> 00:14:17.750 sort of wakes up, and she sees her mother, Nanny, 00:14:17.870 --> 00:14:21.070 standing over the newborn baby's crib. And what 00:14:21.070 --> 00:14:23.220 does she see? She thought she saw Nanny stick 00:14:23.220 --> 00:14:25.679 a hat pin into the baby's head. A hat pin into 00:14:25.679 --> 00:14:29.019 a newborn soft spot. That is pure evil. I have 00:14:29.019 --> 00:14:32.620 no other word for it. It is just gruesome. Melvina, 00:14:32.700 --> 00:14:35.139 from what we can gather, tries to scream or intervene, 00:14:35.299 --> 00:14:37.919 but she's too drugged. Later, when she's more 00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:40.399 coherent, she asks Nanny and her husband about 00:14:40.399 --> 00:14:42.559 it. What do they say? They tell her the baby 00:14:42.559 --> 00:14:46.539 is dead. And Nanny and the husband... They kind 00:14:46.539 --> 00:14:48.820 of gaslight her. They say, oh, nanny told them 00:14:48.820 --> 00:14:50.639 the baby was dead, but they did happen to notice 00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:52.799 she was holding a pin. Wait, wait. So they saw 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:55.179 the pin, but they just accepted the story. The 00:14:55.179 --> 00:14:57.860 doctors couldn't explain the death. And Melvina 00:14:57.860 --> 00:14:59.600 was basically told she was hallucinating from 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:01.620 the ether. You didn't see what you thought you 00:15:01.620 --> 00:15:04.820 saw, but the baby was dead. That is terrifying 00:15:04.820 --> 00:15:07.360 to doubt your own memory of your child's murder 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:09.840 because your mother tells you you're crazy. And 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:12.139 it didn't stop there. There was Melvina's other 00:15:12.139 --> 00:15:14.320 son, Robert Lee Haynes. He was born in 1943. 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:18.639 What happened to him? So by this point, Melvina 00:15:18.639 --> 00:15:20.460 had separated from her husband and started dating 00:15:20.460 --> 00:15:23.220 a soldier. And Nanny disapproved of this soldier. 00:15:23.340 --> 00:15:25.600 She just did not like him. So her motive here 00:15:25.600 --> 00:15:28.980 is control. She punishes the daughter for her 00:15:28.980 --> 00:15:31.340 choices by hurting the child. It seems that way. 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:35.200 On July 7, 1945, Melvina and Nanny have a nasty 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:38.279 fight. Melvina leaves the house to go visit her 00:15:38.279 --> 00:15:41.120 father, Charlie Braggs. And she leaves her son, 00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:44.899 Robert. in nanny's care oh no big mistake a fatal 00:15:44.899 --> 00:15:47.360 one the boy died that night the official cause 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.659 of death was asphyxia from unknown causes suffocation 00:15:50.659 --> 00:15:53.360 that is the clear implication and here is where 00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:55.700 the financial motive starts to become very very 00:15:55.700 --> 00:15:59.379 clear two months after her grandson's death nanny 00:15:59.379 --> 00:16:02.220 collected 500 in life insurance she had taken 00:16:02.220 --> 00:16:07.120 out on him 500 in 1945 that's not nothing i mean 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:09.179 it's a few thousand in today's money but for 00:16:09.179 --> 00:16:12.200 the life of your own grandchild It's just chillingly 00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:14.480 low. It shows you the value she placed on human 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:17.100 life. It was a transaction. Nothing more. So 00:16:17.100 --> 00:16:19.740 the husband, Harrelson, is still around while 00:16:19.740 --> 00:16:22.000 all of this is happening. Yeah. But not for long. 00:16:22.179 --> 00:16:25.940 No. 1945 is a pivotal year. The war is ending, 00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:29.600 and Nanny's war at home is escalating. One night, 00:16:29.720 --> 00:16:31.759 Harrelson comes home drunk, and according to 00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:34.159 Nanny, he raped her. And that was the final straw 00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:36.659 for him. The very next day, she goes to his secret 00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:39.460 stash. He kept a jar of corn whiskey buried out 00:16:39.460 --> 00:16:41.179 in the garden or hidden somewhere. She found 00:16:41.179 --> 00:16:43.759 it, and she added a special ingredient. Rat poison? 00:16:44.019 --> 00:16:46.820 He came home, he drank it that evening, and he 00:16:46.820 --> 00:16:49.720 died that evening. And again, no autopsy, no 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:51.840 investigation. He just drops dead, and that's 00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:54.759 it. He was a known alcoholic with a history of 00:16:54.759 --> 00:16:57.860 violence. In that time and place, people probably 00:16:57.860 --> 00:17:01.220 figured he died from bad moonshine, or his heart 00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:04.990 just gave out, the community just shrugged. And 00:17:04.990 --> 00:17:07.430 Nanny was a grieving widow once again. And this 00:17:07.430 --> 00:17:09.750 marks a real shift, doesn't it? Before this, 00:17:09.869 --> 00:17:12.190 we had food poisoning and unknown causes, which 00:17:12.190 --> 00:17:15.430 are deniable. The hat pin was direct, but maybe 00:17:15.430 --> 00:17:17.230 she thought she'd get away with it because Melvina 00:17:17.230 --> 00:17:20.730 was drugged. But now we have a very active, calculated 00:17:20.730 --> 00:17:25.400 method. Rat poison. She is refining her craft. 00:17:25.660 --> 00:17:28.079 She is. And she is entering her most prolific 00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:30.319 phase. This is where she truly becomes the lonely 00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:32.160 hearts killer. She goes right back to the columns, 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:34.579 her childhood obsession. She's mobile now. She 00:17:34.579 --> 00:17:36.720 isn't stuck in Alabama anymore. She travels to 00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:39.079 Lexington, North Carolina to meet her next husband, 00:17:39.339 --> 00:17:42.000 Arlie Lanning. And how does she meet him? She 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.279 answered his lonely heart's ad, traveled to him, 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:46.279 and they were married three days later. Three 00:17:46.279 --> 00:17:48.680 days. She really does not waste any time. She's 00:17:48.680 --> 00:17:50.859 chasing that fantasy. But of course, the reality 00:17:50.859 --> 00:17:53.420 is always the same. Lanning was another alcoholic 00:17:53.420 --> 00:17:56.380 womanizer. It's a clear pattern. She picks men 00:17:56.380 --> 00:17:58.900 who are troubled, who are unstable. But the dynamic 00:17:58.900 --> 00:18:01.440 is a little different this time. The source material 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:03.859 says she was the one who was disappearing for 00:18:03.859 --> 00:18:07.259 long periods. Yes. She would vanish for months 00:18:07.259 --> 00:18:10.680 at a time. But when she was home, she played 00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:14.299 the role perfectly. The doting housewife. She 00:18:14.299 --> 00:18:17.640 cooked, she cleaned, she smiled, she put on a 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:20.380 great show. Which makes the betrayal even deeper. 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:22.559 She's playing the part while she's plotting the 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:25.119 final act. And the final act came for Arlie Lanning 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:29.490 in 1952. He died of what was ruled as heart failure. 00:18:29.529 --> 00:18:32.230 Which we can now assume was chemically induced 00:18:32.230 --> 00:18:34.700 heart failure. Almost certainly. And look at 00:18:34.700 --> 00:18:36.920 the community reaction. It's fascinating. The 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:39.099 townspeople supported her. They saw her as this 00:18:39.099 --> 00:18:41.500 poor, grieving widow. They had absolutely no 00:18:41.500 --> 00:18:43.460 idea she had done this before. And that's the 00:18:43.460 --> 00:18:45.279 advantage of moving states, isn't it? There are 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:47.720 no computerized records. No one in North Carolina 00:18:47.720 --> 00:18:49.880 knew about the dead kids and the dead husband 00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:52.759 back in Alabama. Exactly. To them, she was a 00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:55.279 fresh face with a tragic story, and she cashed 00:18:55.279 --> 00:18:58.420 in. But then things get even stranger. The house 00:18:58.420 --> 00:19:00.819 burns down. The house she lived in with Lanning. 00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:04.289 Yes. In his will, the house had been left to 00:19:04.289 --> 00:19:06.930 Lanning's sister, but it conveniently burned 00:19:06.930 --> 00:19:09.789 to the ground shortly after his death. The insurance 00:19:09.789 --> 00:19:12.430 money for the house went to Nanny. Of course 00:19:12.430 --> 00:19:14.890 it did. She banks it immediately and then she 00:19:14.890 --> 00:19:17.430 starts cleaning house. That's a good way to put 00:19:17.430 --> 00:19:20.190 it. Lanning's mother, her new mother -in -law, 00:19:20.250 --> 00:19:22.890 died in her sleep around this time. The implication 00:19:22.890 --> 00:19:25.430 is very strong there. So she's just eliminating 00:19:25.430 --> 00:19:28.009 anyone who's an obstacle or a burden? Then she 00:19:28.009 --> 00:19:30.859 moves in with her sister, Dovi. Her own sister, 00:19:31.059 --> 00:19:32.839 who is bedridden. Oh, this is her own sister. 00:19:32.980 --> 00:19:35.579 Her own sister. Nanny arrives to take care of 00:19:35.579 --> 00:19:38.859 her. And soon after Nanny arrives, Dovey dies. 00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:41.380 It's relentless. She is like an angel of death. 00:19:41.480 --> 00:19:42.839 If she shows up at your door with a suitcase, 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:45.220 your days are numbered. She is clearing the board. 00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:49.059 No ties. No burdens. Just the money and the freedom 00:19:49.059 --> 00:19:51.700 to find the next romance. Which brings us to 00:19:51.700 --> 00:19:53.960 the Diamond Circle Club. Another dating service. 00:19:54.259 --> 00:19:57.440 Another lonely hearts column. This time she meets 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:00.160 Richard L. Morton. Husband number four. They 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:04.200 marry in 1952 in Emporia, Kansas. So we've moved 00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:06.839 from Alabama to North Carolina. Now to Kansas. 00:20:06.859 --> 00:20:09.400 She's moving west. What was Morton like? Was 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:12.700 he another drinker? Interestingly, no. He didn't 00:20:12.700 --> 00:20:15.420 drink. But he was adulterous. He cheated on her. 00:20:15.559 --> 00:20:17.480 And we know Nanny does not tolerate men who don't 00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:20.000 follow the script. No, she doesn't. But before 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:23.210 she deals with him. Her past comes calling. Her 00:20:23.210 --> 00:20:25.990 mother, Louisa, the woman who raised her under 00:20:25.990 --> 00:20:29.430 that abusive father, needs a place to stay. So 00:20:29.430 --> 00:20:32.069 she comes to live with Nanny and Morton in January 00:20:32.069 --> 00:20:35.670 1953. And you would think, okay, this is her 00:20:35.670 --> 00:20:38.269 mom, the one she used to read the magazines with. 00:20:38.410 --> 00:20:40.170 You'd think there might be some sentiment there. 00:20:40.309 --> 00:20:43.490 Louisa lasted a matter of days. Nanny poisoned 00:20:43.490 --> 00:20:46.049 her own mother. Why? Was it about an insurance 00:20:46.049 --> 00:20:49.069 policy? Or was she just tired of caring for people? 00:20:49.329 --> 00:20:52.470 The sources suggest it was just, annoyance, the 00:20:52.470 --> 00:20:55.809 burden of care. Louisa was old, she needed attention, 00:20:56.089 --> 00:20:58.549 and Nanny did not want to give it. That is just 00:20:58.549 --> 00:21:02.289 so cold. And Morton followed soon after. He died 00:21:02.289 --> 00:21:05.509 three months later on May 19, 1953. So in the 00:21:05.509 --> 00:21:07.789 span of just a few months, she kills her own 00:21:07.789 --> 00:21:09.930 mother and her fourth husband. The rapidity is 00:21:09.930 --> 00:21:12.529 increasing. She isn't waiting 16 years anymore. 00:21:12.730 --> 00:21:14.309 She's cycling through them. She's getting more 00:21:14.309 --> 00:21:17.049 efficient. And this leads us to the final chapter, 00:21:17.329 --> 00:21:21.400 the downfall. Husband number five. Samuel Doss. 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:25.660 June 1953. She's in Tulsa, Oklahoma now, a different 00:21:25.660 --> 00:21:28.039 state again. And Samuel Doss was different, wasn't 00:21:28.039 --> 00:21:30.220 he? Very different. He was a Nazarene minister. 00:21:30.420 --> 00:21:33.059 He had lost his previous family to a tornado 00:21:33.059 --> 00:21:36.319 in Arkansas. By all accounts, he was a godly 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:39.420 man. No drinking, no carousing, very devout. 00:21:39.619 --> 00:21:42.200 So you would think this is what you wanted. A 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:44.940 good, stable man. The opposite of the others. 00:21:45.059 --> 00:21:48.220 You would think. But he had a fatal flaw in Nanny's 00:21:48.220 --> 00:21:51.579 eyes. He was boring. And he was controlling, 00:21:51.859 --> 00:21:54.440 but in a different way. He disapproved of her 00:21:54.440 --> 00:21:56.500 romance novels. He attacked the fantasy itself. 00:21:56.759 --> 00:21:59.099 He did. He told her she couldn't read the very 00:21:59.099 --> 00:22:00.940 stories that had sustained her since she was 00:22:00.940 --> 00:22:03.059 a little girl. He forbade them. That must have 00:22:03.059 --> 00:22:05.329 triggered something very deep in her. It's the 00:22:05.329 --> 00:22:07.430 father figure saying no all over again. I think 00:22:07.430 --> 00:22:10.569 so. And Samuel was also very frugal. He was tight 00:22:10.569 --> 00:22:12.930 with money. Nanny wanted to spend the insurance 00:22:12.930 --> 00:22:15.029 money she'd collected, and he wouldn't let her. 00:22:15.150 --> 00:22:17.049 So the clog starts ticking on Samuel Dawson. 00:22:17.130 --> 00:22:20.829 It does. In September of 1954, Samuel is admitted 00:22:20.829 --> 00:22:23.329 to the hospital with what they thought were flu 00:22:23.329 --> 00:22:26.430 -like symptoms. The doctors diagnosed it as a 00:22:26.430 --> 00:22:29.089 severe digestive tract infection. Which is code 00:22:29.089 --> 00:22:32.069 for he's been poisoned, but he isn't dead yet. 00:22:32.319 --> 00:22:34.819 He was a strong man, and he survived the first 00:22:34.819 --> 00:22:37.420 dose. He was treated in the hospital and actually 00:22:37.420 --> 00:22:41.740 released on October 5th. So he goes home to the 00:22:41.740 --> 00:22:44.079 woman who just tried to kill him. And Nanny realizes 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:47.140 she needs to finish the job. But this is where 00:22:47.140 --> 00:22:50.660 she gets sloppy. Or maybe just impatient. What 00:22:50.660 --> 00:22:53.460 happened on October 12th? That evening, Samuel 00:22:53.460 --> 00:22:55.880 died. But it was the suddenness of it that raised 00:22:55.880 --> 00:22:57.980 the alarm. He had just been released from the 00:22:57.980 --> 00:22:59.660 hospital. He was supposed to be getting better. 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:02.750 And what did Nanny do? She was in a rush. She 00:23:02.750 --> 00:23:05.029 immediately tried to collect on two life insurance 00:23:05.029 --> 00:23:07.029 policies she had on him. That's the tell. The 00:23:07.029 --> 00:23:08.789 body isn't even cold. She's on the phone with 00:23:08.789 --> 00:23:10.710 the insurance company. And the doctor who had 00:23:10.710 --> 00:23:12.670 treated Samuel in the hospital was immediately 00:23:12.670 --> 00:23:15.549 suspicious. He refused to sign the death certificate 00:23:15.549 --> 00:23:19.349 and insisted on an autopsy. And this time, they 00:23:19.349 --> 00:23:22.049 looked for poison. They found a huge amount of 00:23:22.049 --> 00:23:24.329 arsenic in his system, enough to kill a horse. 00:23:24.589 --> 00:23:26.990 She hadn't just sprinkled a little in his food. 00:23:27.069 --> 00:23:29.349 She had overloaded his system to make sure it 00:23:29.349 --> 00:23:31.430 worked this time. Some of the sources mentioned 00:23:31.430 --> 00:23:33.829 it was in a prune cake. Right. Or the coffee. 00:23:33.970 --> 00:23:36.569 Coffee and a prune cake are the legends. However 00:23:36.569 --> 00:23:39.009 she delivered it, it was a massive undeniable 00:23:39.009 --> 00:23:41.950 dose. And because she used so much, the evidence 00:23:41.950 --> 00:23:44.809 was incontrovertible. So they arrest her. Yeah. 00:23:44.829 --> 00:23:46.910 And this is where the persona of the giggling 00:23:46.910 --> 00:23:49.500 granny. really comes into the public eye. Yes. 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:52.420 They bring her in for questioning about Samuel, 00:23:52.619 --> 00:23:55.980 and she confesses. But not just to killing Samuel. 00:23:56.319 --> 00:23:57.880 She just starts talking. She starts talking. 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:00.680 She confesses to killing four husbands, her mother, 00:24:00.819 --> 00:24:03.140 her sister, her grandson, her mother -in -law. 00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:06.819 She just lays it all out. But why? Why admit 00:24:06.819 --> 00:24:09.279 to all of it if they only had her on the one 00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:11.430 murder? It's bizarre. It seemed like she was 00:24:11.430 --> 00:24:13.769 proud of it, or at least amused by the whole 00:24:13.769 --> 00:24:16.130 thing. This is where the press had an absolute 00:24:16.130 --> 00:24:19.049 field day. She would recount these horrific murders, 00:24:19.269 --> 00:24:21.950 you know, describing how she put rat poison in 00:24:21.950 --> 00:24:23.950 her husband's whiskey, and she would chuckle. 00:24:23.950 --> 00:24:26.529 She would giggle. That is so deeply disturbing. 00:24:26.829 --> 00:24:29.559 It's a complete and total disconnect. The giggling 00:24:29.559 --> 00:24:32.019 granny persona was born in those interrogation 00:24:32.019 --> 00:24:34.259 rooms. She seemed like she was just gossiping 00:24:34.259 --> 00:24:36.440 about her neighbors, not confessing to being 00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:38.660 one of the most prolific female serial killers 00:24:38.660 --> 00:24:40.500 in American history. Oh, and they asked her why 00:24:40.500 --> 00:24:42.859 she did it all. She gave that famous chilling 00:24:42.859 --> 00:24:46.019 line, I was searching for the real romance of 00:24:46.019 --> 00:24:49.180 life. It's incredible. She killed them because 00:24:49.180 --> 00:24:51.319 they didn't measure up to the fictional characters 00:24:51.319 --> 00:24:53.119 in the magazines. And because she wanted the 00:24:53.119 --> 00:24:55.259 insurance money. We can never forget that. Almost 00:24:55.259 --> 00:24:57.920 every single death came with a payout. Maybe 00:24:57.920 --> 00:25:00.420 not a fortune each time, but it was enough to 00:25:00.420 --> 00:25:03.140 keep her going, to fund the search for the next 00:25:03.140 --> 00:25:06.430 victim. So the trial. Or, I guess, the lack of 00:25:06.430 --> 00:25:08.930 a full trial. Right. The state of Oklahoma decided 00:25:08.930 --> 00:25:11.910 to center the case only on Samuel Doss. They 00:25:11.910 --> 00:25:14.309 had the hard physical evidence. It was an absolute 00:25:14.309 --> 00:25:17.130 slam dunk. And the prosecutor was J. Howard Edmondson, 00:25:17.230 --> 00:25:19.829 a big name. A very ambitious one who would later 00:25:19.829 --> 00:25:22.569 become governor of Oklahoma. He wanted a clean, 00:25:22.750 --> 00:25:25.230 simple conviction, and that's what he got. So 00:25:25.230 --> 00:25:27.750 what was the sentence? She pled guilty on May 00:25:27.750 --> 00:25:31.670 17, 1955, and she was sentenced to life imprisonment. 00:25:31.769 --> 00:25:35.200 Wait, life? Why not the death penalty? She confessed 00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:37.599 to killing 11 people. The state did not pursue 00:25:37.599 --> 00:25:39.680 it, and the sources are explicit about this, 00:25:39.740 --> 00:25:43.160 due to her sex. In the 1950s, they were very 00:25:43.160 --> 00:25:46.180 reluctant to execute a woman, especially a grandmotherly 00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:48.220 figure, even if she was a monster. So she goes 00:25:48.220 --> 00:25:50.480 to prison. And she dies there. She developed 00:25:50.480 --> 00:25:54.380 leukemia and died on June 2, 1965, in the hospital 00:25:54.380 --> 00:25:57.019 ward of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Ten 00:25:57.019 --> 00:25:59.829 years in prison. It doesn't seem like much justice 00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:03.150 for 11 lives. No, it all ends very quietly, but 00:26:03.150 --> 00:26:06.589 the legacy is just huge. So let's zoom out. What 00:26:06.589 --> 00:26:08.690 does this all mean? We've got this tragic origin 00:26:08.690 --> 00:26:11.769 story, this decades -long brutal spree, and this 00:26:11.769 --> 00:26:14.769 bizarre giggling conclusion. For our listener, 00:26:14.890 --> 00:26:16.869 the learner, what is the real takeaway here? 00:26:17.049 --> 00:26:19.309 I think the first big takeaway is a warning about 00:26:19.309 --> 00:26:21.750 stereotypes. We are conditioned, even today, 00:26:21.910 --> 00:26:24.309 to see older women, mothers, grandmothers, as 00:26:24.309 --> 00:26:27.559 nurturers, as safe. Nanny Doss used that biological 00:26:27.559 --> 00:26:30.579 camouflage to kill for decades. It's the caretaker 00:26:30.579 --> 00:26:33.319 blind spot. No one ever suspects the person who's 00:26:33.319 --> 00:26:36.480 making the soup. Exactly. And secondly, it really 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:39.140 highlights the importance of communication in 00:26:39.140 --> 00:26:41.660 law enforcement or the lack thereof back then. 00:26:41.819 --> 00:26:44.200 She got away with this for so long because she 00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:46.440 moved. Alabama didn't talk to North Carolina. 00:26:46.579 --> 00:26:48.619 North Carolina didn't talk to Kansas. She exploited 00:26:48.619 --> 00:26:50.940 the gaps in the system. It was the era before 00:26:50.940 --> 00:26:54.710 databases. If she had tried this today, the second 00:26:54.710 --> 00:26:56.950 husband's sudden death would have hopefully flagged 00:26:56.950 --> 00:26:59.609 her instantly. One would hope. But her ability 00:26:59.609 --> 00:27:01.990 to play the grieving widow was her greatest weapon. 00:27:02.109 --> 00:27:05.369 She weaponized society's empathy. And finally, 00:27:05.410 --> 00:27:09.369 that motive. That search for real romance. It 00:27:09.369 --> 00:27:11.769 raises a really provocative question to end on. 00:27:11.950 --> 00:27:15.140 Nanny claimed she wanted love. But every single 00:27:15.140 --> 00:27:17.519 time she got close to a real long -term relationship, 00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:20.960 she ended it with murder. So was the romance 00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:23.539 just a story she told herself to justify the 00:27:23.539 --> 00:27:25.759 greed? Yeah. A cover for the insurance money? 00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:28.339 Or, and this is the darker thought, was the killing 00:27:28.339 --> 00:27:30.460 the only part of the relationship she actually 00:27:30.460 --> 00:27:33.180 controlled? Maybe the romance was never about 00:27:33.180 --> 00:27:35.539 the man. Maybe the romance for her was about 00:27:35.539 --> 00:27:37.900 having the ultimate power over life and death, 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:40.079 the very power that her father had taken away 00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:42.299 from her all those years ago. That is a dark 00:27:42.299 --> 00:27:45.660 thought to leave on. The idea that murder was 00:27:45.660 --> 00:27:48.519 her only true form of agency. It's a real possibility. 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.240 Well, on that note, thanks for taking this deep 00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:55.460 dive with us. Sleep tight. And maybe check your 00:27:55.460 --> 00:27:57.119 life insurance policy. And who's cooking your 00:27:57.119 --> 00:27:58.019 dinner? See you next time.