WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.099 Welcome to today's deep dive. I am really thrilled 00:00:04.099 --> 00:00:06.080 you are here with us because we are stepping 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:09.619 directly into the gaslit kind of shadowy underworld 00:00:09.619 --> 00:00:12.019 of the 19th century today. It's a fascinating 00:00:12.019 --> 00:00:14.500 era to look into. It really is. And we have a 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:17.579 very specific mission today. We are going to 00:00:17.579 --> 00:00:21.600 extract the absolute most intriguing, unbelievable 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.160 details from the life of a man named Charles 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.699 W. Bullard. Right. A name that might not immediately 00:00:26.699 --> 00:00:29.320 ring a bell for everyone. Exactly. You might 00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:30.960 not know that name right off the bat, but by 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:32.859 the end of this conversation, you will understand 00:00:32.859 --> 00:00:36.159 exactly how a man known primarily for his elegant 00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:39.579 musical talent managed to become, well, one of 00:00:39.579 --> 00:00:42.539 the most slippery, highly sought after safecrackers. 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:45.329 and prison escapees of the 1860s. It's such a 00:00:45.329 --> 00:00:47.969 wild trajectory. Oh, it's a massive, sprawling 00:00:47.969 --> 00:00:50.310 narrative. We are looking at a story that involves 00:00:50.310 --> 00:00:54.590 a $100 ,000 train heist, a criminal syndicate 00:00:54.590 --> 00:00:57.829 renting commercial real estate to execute a literal 00:00:57.829 --> 00:01:00.490 underground prison break. And a desperate international 00:01:00.490 --> 00:01:02.689 flight from justice. Yes, so we've got a lot 00:01:02.689 --> 00:01:05.189 of ground to cover. We really do. It's a sweeping 00:01:05.189 --> 00:01:08.480 journey. When we examine the reality of 19th 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:11.019 century crime, particularly at this elevated 00:01:11.019 --> 00:01:14.519 level, it completely shatters the stereotype 00:01:14.519 --> 00:01:17.599 of the common street thief. Right, the guy just 00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:20.420 picking pockets in an alley. Exactly. We are 00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:23.939 looking at highly engineered, incredibly sophisticated 00:01:23.939 --> 00:01:27.420 operations. They required patience, vast amounts 00:01:27.420 --> 00:01:29.840 of capital, and a level of specialized skill 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:32.659 that was just... Exceedingly rare. And Charles 00:01:32.659 --> 00:01:34.719 W. Bullard was right at the center. He was at 00:01:34.719 --> 00:01:36.620 the very center of that evolution in organized 00:01:36.620 --> 00:01:39.719 crime. Okay, let's unpack this nickname that 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:42.180 our subject carried throughout his career, Piano 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:44.859 Charlie. Yeah. Because honestly, it sounds a 00:01:44.859 --> 00:01:47.000 bit like a secondary character you might find 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.099 tucked away in the corner of a smoky saloon, 00:01:49.099 --> 00:01:51.700 just providing background ambiance. It does have 00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:53.900 that harmless ring to it, doesn't it? Yep. But 00:01:53.900 --> 00:01:56.780 the moniker wasn't ironic, and it wasn't just 00:01:56.780 --> 00:01:59.200 some clever underworld handle. So he actually 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:02.120 played. He did. Charles W. Bullard was a genuinely 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:05.200 gifted, legitimate pianist. He had real musical 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:08.120 talent. But he quickly realized that the hands 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:11.120 he used to entertain high society could be repurposed. 00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:14.460 He took that exact same physical skill set and 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:17.099 applied it to the burgeoning world of high stakes 00:02:17.099 --> 00:02:19.490 safe cracking. I have to admit, I never really 00:02:19.490 --> 00:02:21.909 considered the mechanical overlap there. Most 00:02:21.909 --> 00:02:24.629 people don't. Because you usually picture 19th 00:02:24.629 --> 00:02:27.490 century safecrackers using brute force, you know, 00:02:27.530 --> 00:02:31.210 crowbars, maybe explosives, just tearing the 00:02:31.210 --> 00:02:33.310 iron apart. It's a smash and grab approach. Right. 00:02:33.409 --> 00:02:36.729 So making the leap from playing a Chopin concerto 00:02:36.729 --> 00:02:39.669 to cracking a heavy bank vault, it just feels 00:02:39.669 --> 00:02:41.949 totally counterintuitive. It feels like a leap 00:02:41.949 --> 00:02:44.069 until we break down the sensory and physical 00:02:44.069 --> 00:02:46.770 realities of what both activities actually demand. 00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:49.699 Think about the anatomy of a 19th century safe. 00:02:49.860 --> 00:02:52.000 Okay. They were becoming increasingly complex. 00:02:52.259 --> 00:02:54.599 They were moving away from simple keyways to 00:02:54.599 --> 00:02:56.960 intricate combination locks and brass tumblers 00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:59.919 housed within these thick iron doors. So brute 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:03.000 force is becoming less effective. Exactly. To 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:05.280 manipulate those locks without explosives, you 00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:07.520 need extraordinary fine motor control. You need 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:09.819 an incredible level of dexterity in your fingertips. 00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:25.139 Like a musician. Precisely. So he's essentially 00:03:25.139 --> 00:03:28.139 treating the dial of a safe... Like an instrument. 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:30.280 That is the perfect way to look at it. He's feeling 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:32.439 for tension in the metal rather than tension 00:03:32.439 --> 00:03:35.240 in a piano string. He is relying heavily on tactile 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:38.039 feedback. When a safecracker of that era manipulated 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:41.000 a dial, they were feeling for the absolute slightest 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:44.159 shift in resistance. A microscopic catch of metal 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:47.120 against metal that indicated a tumbler was falling 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:49.520 into its proper gate. That requires such a delicate 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:52.139 touch. It does, but it requires more than just 00:03:52.139 --> 00:03:54.500 sensitive fingers. It requires a highly tuned 00:03:54.500 --> 00:03:58.000 ear. Ah, of course. The auditory component. Right. 00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:00.539 A musician is trained to discern minute differences 00:04:00.539 --> 00:04:04.180 in pitch, tone, and resonance. When Bullard pressed 00:04:04.180 --> 00:04:06.599 his ear against the cold, dense iron of a vault 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:09.460 door, he was listening for the subtle, internal, 00:04:09.699 --> 00:04:12.379 auditory cues of the lock's mechanisms moving. 00:04:12.580 --> 00:04:14.599 Almost like he was tuning a piano. Very much 00:04:14.599 --> 00:04:32.939 like that. I want you... listening to this right 00:04:32.939 --> 00:04:35.360 now to just hold on to the duality of that persona 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:37.720 for a second. It's quite an image. A man who 00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:40.500 could sit down at a grand piano commanding the 00:04:40.500 --> 00:04:43.680 room with this elegant refined artistry and then 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:46.500 hours later under the cover of darkness apply 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:49.660 that precise artistic focus to illegally bypass 00:04:49.660 --> 00:04:52.579 an iron fortress designed to protect a fortune. 00:04:52.860 --> 00:04:55.339 It completely recontextualizes what a criminal 00:04:55.339 --> 00:04:57.480 looked like in that era. It really does. But 00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:00.259 Bullard wasn't cracking safes just for the intellectual 00:05:00.259 --> 00:05:02.490 thrill of the puzzle. He was in the business 00:05:02.490 --> 00:05:04.970 of amassing serious wealth, and his ambitions 00:05:04.970 --> 00:05:07.110 were staggering. Absolutely staggering. Which 00:05:07.110 --> 00:05:09.329 brings us to a massive turning point in his career, 00:05:09.509 --> 00:05:12.290 the Hudson River Railway Express heist. This 00:05:12.290 --> 00:05:15.250 is where his profile changes completely. Bullard 00:05:15.250 --> 00:05:17.990 orchestrates a robbery of the Hudson River Railway 00:05:17.990 --> 00:05:21.410 Express, making off with an estimated $100 ,000 00:05:21.410 --> 00:05:24.149 worth of goods. Unbelievable. And this is the 00:05:24.149 --> 00:05:26.410 event that ultimately catches up to him and lands 00:05:26.410 --> 00:05:28.730 him in a prison cell to serve a lengthy sentence. 00:05:29.029 --> 00:05:32.470 $100 ,000 in the 1860s is an astronomical figure. 00:05:32.569 --> 00:05:34.389 We are talking about the equivalent of millions 00:05:34.389 --> 00:05:37.209 today. Right. But what really stands out to me 00:05:37.209 --> 00:05:40.949 is the logistics of stealing goods rather than 00:05:40.949 --> 00:05:44.610 just a bag of cash. How does someone even manage 00:05:44.610 --> 00:05:48.209 a physical haul of that size? If we connect this 00:05:48.209 --> 00:05:50.480 to the bigger picture. We really have to look 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:52.500 at the industrial scale of what he accomplished 00:05:52.500 --> 00:05:55.819 here. Taking $100 ,000 in paper currency from 00:05:55.819 --> 00:05:57.879 a vault is one thing. You just put that in a 00:05:57.879 --> 00:06:00.199 satchel and walk away. Exactly. Stealing $100 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:03.620 ,000 worth of railway freight implies a massive, 00:06:03.660 --> 00:06:06.879 highly coordinated logistical operation. We are 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:09.689 talking about heavy. bulky cargo. So he couldn't 00:06:09.689 --> 00:06:11.589 just do this alone? No, not at all. You need 00:06:11.589 --> 00:06:14.269 a crew of teamsters. You need horse -drawn wagons 00:06:14.269 --> 00:06:16.269 waiting in the dark to receive the stolen items. 00:06:16.449 --> 00:06:18.750 Wow. You have to physically offload the train, 00:06:18.910 --> 00:06:21.649 transport the cargo through the city without 00:06:21.649 --> 00:06:23.810 drawing the attention of the police or night 00:06:23.810 --> 00:06:26.490 watchmen, and then you need secure warehousing 00:06:26.490 --> 00:06:28.930 to hide the physical volume of what you just 00:06:28.930 --> 00:06:31.310 stole. It's essentially running a shadow freight 00:06:31.310 --> 00:06:33.750 company. It is. And then you still have the problem 00:06:33.750 --> 00:06:36.649 of turning a warehouse full of stolen textiles 00:06:36.649 --> 00:06:38.730 or raw materials into actual money you can spend. 00:06:38.970 --> 00:06:41.610 Precisely. You cannot just walk into a legitimate 00:06:41.610 --> 00:06:44.709 market and sell boxcars full of stolen railway 00:06:44.709 --> 00:06:46.870 freight. People are going to ask questions. They 00:06:46.870 --> 00:06:49.389 absolutely will. So you require a sophisticated 00:06:49.389 --> 00:06:52.230 fencing network. You need intermediaries who 00:06:52.230 --> 00:06:55.089 can alter makers' marks, repackage the inventory, 00:06:55.389 --> 00:06:57.629 and ship it to other cities or overseas buyers 00:06:57.629 --> 00:07:00.410 to be liquidated. That's a huge operation. It 00:07:00.410 --> 00:07:03.370 is. Pulling off a theft of this magnitude proves 00:07:03.370 --> 00:07:05.829 that Piano Charlie wasn't just a solitary, clever 00:07:05.829 --> 00:07:09.230 guy with nimble fingers. He was a manager. He 00:07:09.230 --> 00:07:11.790 had the capability and the connections to sit 00:07:11.790 --> 00:07:14.889 at the center of a major, complex criminal enterprise. 00:07:15.189 --> 00:07:18.259 He's playing in the absolute major leagues. But 00:07:18.259 --> 00:07:21.160 as complex as the operation was, the sheer scale 00:07:21.160 --> 00:07:23.759 of it brought the law down on him. It did. The 00:07:23.759 --> 00:07:26.199 authorities finally track the theft back to him. 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:28.920 The law wins around and Bullard is incarcerated. 00:07:29.579 --> 00:07:32.660 The music stops. For a brief moment, yes. Because 00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:34.459 you would assume that's the end of the line for 00:07:34.459 --> 00:07:36.800 a while. You serve your time. You age out of 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:39.680 the game. But stone walls and iron bars apparently 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:42.339 do not make a prison for Piano Charlie. They 00:07:42.339 --> 00:07:44.980 certainly did not. His incarceration didn't end 00:07:44.980 --> 00:07:48.439 his career. It merely set the stage for one of 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:51.240 the most remarkable, labor -intensive engineering 00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:54.439 feats in the history of the 19th century underworld. 00:07:54.720 --> 00:07:57.560 Here's where it gets really interesting. Because 00:07:57.560 --> 00:07:59.279 we need to introduce the network he had cultivated. 00:07:59.800 --> 00:08:02.779 Bullard was far from a lone wolf. No, he was 00:08:02.779 --> 00:08:05.060 very well connected. Two of his major criminal 00:08:05.060 --> 00:08:07.759 partnerships during this period were incredibly 00:08:07.759 --> 00:08:11.040 powerful figures, Adam Worth and Frederick Mandelbaum. 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:14.579 Heavy hitters. Right. And in 1869, this network 00:08:14.579 --> 00:08:16.439 looks at Bullard's prison sentence and decides 00:08:16.439 --> 00:08:19.600 it simply isn't acceptable. They need him out. 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:21.899 They needed their asset back. But they don't 00:08:21.899 --> 00:08:24.420 stage a violent riot and they don't try to hijack 00:08:24.420 --> 00:08:27.500 a prison transport wagon. They execute a covert 00:08:27.500 --> 00:08:31.250 construction project. The mechanics of this 1869 00:08:31.250 --> 00:08:35.009 escape plan are staggering. Frederica Mandelbaum, 00:08:35.149 --> 00:08:37.090 who was one of the most prolific and powerful 00:08:37.090 --> 00:08:39.629 fences in New York, along with her associates, 00:08:39.870 --> 00:08:42.450 actually rented an office right across the street 00:08:42.450 --> 00:08:45.169 from the prison where Bullard was held. I am 00:08:45.169 --> 00:08:46.889 trying to wrap my head around that. They are 00:08:46.889 --> 00:08:49.389 signing a commercial lease on a piece of real 00:08:49.389 --> 00:08:53.789 estate. Paying rent, acting like legitimate businessmen 00:08:53.789 --> 00:08:56.490 or property holders, strips Lee to camouflage 00:08:56.490 --> 00:08:59.509 a prison break. it's audacious how do you even 00:08:59.509 --> 00:09:01.830 begin to dig a tunnel from an office to a prison 00:09:01.830 --> 00:09:04.269 cell under a public street without the entire 00:09:04.269 --> 00:09:06.809 neighborhood noticing it requires an unbelievable 00:09:06.809 --> 00:09:10.029 level of discipline and covert engineering Think 00:09:10.029 --> 00:09:12.070 about the physical reality of digging a tunnel 00:09:12.070 --> 00:09:15.529 in 1869. Right. No power tools. Exactly. You 00:09:15.529 --> 00:09:17.649 don't have pneumatic drills. You are dealing 00:09:17.649 --> 00:09:20.110 with cobblestone foundations, compact earth, 00:09:20.470 --> 00:09:22.789 groundwater, and potentially rudimentary city 00:09:22.789 --> 00:09:26.070 pipes. It is entirely manual labor done by hand 00:09:26.070 --> 00:09:28.789 in the dark. That sounds terrifying. And dangerous. 00:09:29.029 --> 00:09:30.990 Yeah. Every time a cart rolls over the street 00:09:30.990 --> 00:09:33.149 above, you have to worry about a cave -in, which 00:09:33.149 --> 00:09:35.049 means they had to silently shore up the tunnel 00:09:35.049 --> 00:09:37.529 roof with timber as they advanced. And what about 00:09:37.529 --> 00:09:40.559 the dirt? If you are excavating a tunnel wide 00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:43.500 enough for a grown man to crawl through under 00:09:43.500 --> 00:09:46.980 a street, you are generating tons of earth. That 00:09:46.980 --> 00:09:49.519 is the logistical nightmare of tunneling. You 00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:52.940 have to quietly haul every bucket of dirt back 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:55.899 into the rented office. Just piling it up. They 00:09:55.899 --> 00:09:57.879 couldn't just leave it. They likely had to pack 00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:00.220 it into barrels or crates, disguising it as commercial 00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:03.440 goods, and cart it away on wagons in broad daylight. 00:10:04.190 --> 00:10:06.190 or they had to pack the office to the ceiling 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:09.129 with excavated earth behind drawn blinds. That 00:10:09.129 --> 00:10:11.470 is wild. But the engineering is only half the 00:10:11.470 --> 00:10:13.429 battle. They also had to manage the navigation. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:16.340 They had to dig blind under a street and angle 00:10:16.340 --> 00:10:18.659 the tunnel so perfectly that it breached the 00:10:18.659 --> 00:10:20.960 floor of Bullard's exact cell. Right, because 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:23.039 if they pop up in the wrong cell... They alert 00:10:23.039 --> 00:10:25.100 an inmate who might alert the warden, and the 00:10:25.100 --> 00:10:27.000 whole plan is ruined. It's a massive gamble, 00:10:27.080 --> 00:10:29.399 but they didn't just rely on shovels and compasses. 00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:32.080 They knew they needed an inside edge to ensure 00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:34.399 he was actually there and ready when the floor 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:37.690 opened up. Yes, the human element. The corruption 00:10:37.690 --> 00:10:40.509 layer is what makes the plan viable. The associates 00:10:40.509 --> 00:10:44.289 successfully bribed two prison guards. They paid 00:10:44.289 --> 00:10:46.389 them off to keep absolutely quiet and look the 00:10:46.389 --> 00:10:48.950 other way while the subterranean digging breached 00:10:48.950 --> 00:10:51.610 the prison walls. So you have a multi -layered, 00:10:51.610 --> 00:10:54.830 highly funded operation. Commercial real estate 00:10:54.830 --> 00:10:58.330 acquisition, covert manual engineering, waste 00:10:58.330 --> 00:11:01.289 disposal, and targeted bribery of state employees. 00:11:01.769 --> 00:11:04.509 It speaks volumes about Bullard's value to this 00:11:04.509 --> 00:11:07.389 syndicate. Criminals don't generally hand out 00:11:07.389 --> 00:11:09.549 charity. They certainly do not. You don't sign 00:11:09.549 --> 00:11:13.230 a lease, fund a multi -week covert excavation, 00:11:13.309 --> 00:11:15.690 and pay off guards for a guy who isn't driving 00:11:15.690 --> 00:11:18.330 serious revenue for your organization. No, they 00:11:18.330 --> 00:11:20.250 viewed him as an indispensable asset. They needed 00:11:20.250 --> 00:11:22.110 his hands back out on the street. And Bullard 00:11:22.110 --> 00:11:24.610 clearly understood the assignment, because once 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:26.529 they pull him down into that tunnel and out to 00:11:26.529 --> 00:11:30.029 freedom in 1869, he doesn't retreat to a quiet 00:11:30.029 --> 00:11:32.700 farm to live a piece of shit. He immediately 00:11:32.700 --> 00:11:43.200 gets back to work. It really is. Later that exact 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:46.120 same year, specifically on November 20, 1869, 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:49.159 Bullard is already back in the field with his 00:11:49.159 --> 00:11:51.860 associate Adam Worth. Wait, the exact same year? 00:11:51.960 --> 00:11:54.360 In the very same calendar year that he is busted 00:11:54.360 --> 00:11:56.639 out of a prison cell through a subterranean tunnel, 00:11:56.799 --> 00:11:59.659 he travels to Boston and hits the vault of the 00:11:59.659 --> 00:12:02.990 Boylston National Bank. That is brazen. And they 00:12:02.990 --> 00:12:05.210 don't just crack a minor safe. They empty the 00:12:05.210 --> 00:12:08.450 vault and escape with an estimated $200 ,000. 00:12:08.850 --> 00:12:12.889 Yes. $200 ,000. That is double the haul from 00:12:12.889 --> 00:12:15.269 the Hudson River Railway Express. And this time, 00:12:15.330 --> 00:12:17.769 it's not bulky railway freight. It's from a national 00:12:17.769 --> 00:12:20.409 bank. What's fascinating here is the incredibly 00:12:20.409 --> 00:12:23.450 rapid escalation and the sheer confidence it 00:12:23.450 --> 00:12:26.190 displays. You have an individual who orchestrates 00:12:26.190 --> 00:12:29.409 $100 ,000 theft, gets caught, becomes the center 00:12:29.409 --> 00:12:31.470 of a massively expensive... of high -risk tunnel 00:12:31.470 --> 00:12:34.529 escape and immediately rolls right into a $200 00:12:34.529 --> 00:12:37.250 ,000 national bank heist. All within a highly 00:12:37.250 --> 00:12:39.429 compressed time frame. It shows an unshakable 00:12:39.429 --> 00:12:41.590 nerve. It also highlights exactly why Mandelbaum 00:12:41.590 --> 00:12:43.870 and Wirth needed him out of that cell. Hitting 00:12:43.870 --> 00:12:46.110 a national bank vault in a major city like Boston 00:12:46.110 --> 00:12:48.889 isn't a job for a crew with crowbars. Not at 00:12:48.889 --> 00:12:51.370 all. The physical security of a bank vault in 00:12:51.370 --> 00:12:54.850 1869 is formidable. You have layers of iron, 00:12:55.070 --> 00:12:58.929 steel, and incredibly complex locking mechanisms 00:12:58.929 --> 00:13:02.070 designed specifically to defeat the very best 00:13:02.070 --> 00:13:05.529 thieves. Exactly. To bypass that level of security, 00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:09.009 you need the Piano Charlie touch. He likely approached 00:13:09.009 --> 00:13:11.649 the Boylston vault using the exact specialized 00:13:11.649 --> 00:13:13.950 skills we discussed earlier. The music skills? 00:13:14.230 --> 00:13:17.009 Right. He used that incredible manual dexterity 00:13:17.009 --> 00:13:19.570 and that highly trained ear to manipulate the 00:13:19.570 --> 00:13:22.490 bank's lock systems in the dark. He didn't blow 00:13:22.490 --> 00:13:24.409 the vault door off its hinges and wake up the 00:13:24.409 --> 00:13:26.970 entire block. He finessed it. He treated it like 00:13:26.970 --> 00:13:29.070 a concert. He went right back to what he did 00:13:29.070 --> 00:13:31.470 best, executing one of the most liquidative and 00:13:31.470 --> 00:13:34.289 sophisticated jobs of the era. He and Adam Worth 00:13:34.289 --> 00:13:36.590 pulled off the kind of heist that dominated the 00:13:36.590 --> 00:13:38.429 front pages of newspapers across the country. 00:13:38.710 --> 00:13:41.149 So what does this all mean for them? What is 00:13:41.149 --> 00:13:43.830 the reality of stealing the equivalent of a king's 00:13:43.830 --> 00:13:46.710 ransom from a national bank? Right on the heels 00:13:46.710 --> 00:13:49.230 of orchestrating a highly embarrassing, highly 00:13:49.230 --> 00:13:51.549 public prison escape. You can't ring a bell that 00:13:51.549 --> 00:13:53.610 loudly and expect the authorities to just shrug 00:13:53.610 --> 00:13:55.659 it off. No, you really can't. The reaction was 00:13:55.659 --> 00:13:59.080 immediate and overwhelming. Following the Boston 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:01.559 heist, the police interest reached a boiling 00:14:01.559 --> 00:14:05.159 point. The heat was simply too intense for Bullard 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:08.059 and Worth to remain anywhere in America. They 00:14:08.059 --> 00:14:09.480 were just too famous. They had made themselves 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:11.840 the ultimate targets for every detective and 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:13.779 law enforcement agency on the eastern seaboard. 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:16.919 Every local police force, every private detective 00:14:16.919 --> 00:14:19.700 agency would have their descriptions, their known 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:22.460 associates, their haunts, their methods. Everything 00:14:22.460 --> 00:14:25.279 would be under an intense microscope. They effectively 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.460 burned down their own territory by being too 00:14:27.460 --> 00:14:29.840 successful. Which forces them into a desperate, 00:14:29.980 --> 00:14:32.639 permanent move. They have to flee across the 00:14:32.639 --> 00:14:35.299 Atlantic Ocean to England. Yes. They are forced 00:14:35.299 --> 00:14:37.779 to abandon their lives, their network. and live 00:14:37.779 --> 00:14:40.399 under completely false identities. Let's talk 00:14:40.399 --> 00:14:42.000 about what that transatlantic flight actually 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:45.960 meant in 1869. Okay. Today, you hop on a plane 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:49.039 and you are in London in seven hours. Back then, 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:51.620 you were boarding a steamship. You were trapped 00:14:51.620 --> 00:14:54.259 on a vessel for weeks. Just waiting. And the 00:14:54.259 --> 00:14:56.960 transatlantic telegraph cable had just been successfully 00:14:56.960 --> 00:15:00.000 laid a few years prior. So you were sitting on 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:03.120 this slow -moving boat, wondering if a telegram 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:05.500 with your description has already beaten you 00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:07.799 to the port in England. The paranoia must have 00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:09.879 been suffocating. It is a profound psychological 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:13.659 pressure cooker. Crossing the ocean was the ultimate 00:15:13.659 --> 00:15:16.740 reset button for a 19th century criminal. It 00:15:16.740 --> 00:15:19.139 put thousands of miles of deep water between 00:15:19.139 --> 00:15:21.519 them and the American authorities. But it came 00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:24.179 at a cost. A massive one. It was a definitive 00:15:24.179 --> 00:15:27.399 sign that their American empire had grown far 00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:30.659 too notorious to sustain. Think about what they 00:15:30.659 --> 00:15:33.919 left behind. The powerful ecosystem they had 00:15:33.919 --> 00:15:36.259 built with Frederick Mandelbaum. The network 00:15:36.259 --> 00:15:39.299 of reliable fences, the bribed guards, the safe 00:15:39.299 --> 00:15:41.720 houses. All of that infrastructure vanished the 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:43.759 moment the ship left the harbor. Exactly. They 00:15:43.759 --> 00:15:45.940 bought their freedom, presumably with their massive 00:15:45.940 --> 00:15:48.440 share of the Boylston Bank money. But the cost 00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:51.129 was their identity. You pull off the biggest 00:15:51.129 --> 00:15:53.350 job of your life, a legendary heist, but you 00:15:53.350 --> 00:15:55.629 can never claim credit for it. You can never 00:15:55.629 --> 00:15:58.490 use your real name. You are just a wealthy exile 00:15:58.490 --> 00:16:01.309 in a foreign land, constantly looking over your 00:16:01.309 --> 00:16:03.429 shoulder, waiting for a detective from New York 00:16:03.429 --> 00:16:06.169 or Boston to recognize you on a street in London. 00:16:06.389 --> 00:16:09.190 It is a heavy price to pay, and it drastically 00:16:09.190 --> 00:16:11.809 changes the trajectory of his life. They are 00:16:11.809 --> 00:16:14.070 hiding in plain sight, entirely disconnected 00:16:14.070 --> 00:16:16.190 from the power base that once protected them. 00:16:16.309 --> 00:16:18.889 Which brings us to the final act of Piano Charlie's 00:16:18.889 --> 00:16:21.919 story. And it takes a massive jump forward in 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:25.179 time, presenting a really stark, sobering contrast 00:16:25.179 --> 00:16:28.940 to those glory days of 1869. Yes, the historical 00:16:28.940 --> 00:16:31.820 record jumps forward several decades to the 1890s, 00:16:31.820 --> 00:16:33.820 and we see that the end of Bullard's life is 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:37.279 remarkably... grim and unceremonious. After all 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:39.340 the complex bank vaults, the millions of dollars 00:16:39.340 --> 00:16:41.860 stolen, the daring transatlantic slights and 00:16:41.860 --> 00:16:44.500 the aliases, he doesn't go out in a blaze of 00:16:44.500 --> 00:16:47.539 glory. No. He doesn't die peacefully in his sleep 00:16:47.539 --> 00:16:50.200 as an old man living lavishly on a country estate 00:16:50.200 --> 00:16:53.120 under a fake name. Charles W. Bullard dies in 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:56.399 a jail cell in Liege, Belgium. It is a profound, 00:16:56.519 --> 00:16:59.139 tragic irony when you look at the arc of his 00:16:59.139 --> 00:17:01.779 life. Think back to that cell in America in 1869 00:17:01.779 --> 00:17:04.369 when he was locked up. He had the backing of 00:17:04.369 --> 00:17:07.970 a massively powerful, wealthy syndicate. He had 00:17:07.970 --> 00:17:10.529 an underworld network so fiercely loyal and well 00:17:10.529 --> 00:17:12.490 -resourced that they would rent real estate, 00:17:12.670 --> 00:17:15.750 hire excavators, pay off the guards, and literally 00:17:15.750 --> 00:17:18.089 tunnel through the earth to pull him out. He 00:17:18.089 --> 00:17:20.650 was the absolute sender of their criminal universe. 00:17:20.809 --> 00:17:22.829 They moved heaven and earth for him. Exactly. 00:17:23.109 --> 00:17:25.829 But by the 1890s, the picture is entirely different. 00:17:25.950 --> 00:17:28.869 He's an older man, incarcerated again, this time 00:17:28.869 --> 00:17:31.559 in a cold, foreign jail in Belgium. And there 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:33.460 was no rescue party coming. Nobody is digging 00:17:33.460 --> 00:17:35.599 a tunnel this time. There is no rented office 00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:38.180 across the street. There are no associates bribing 00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:41.559 the Belgian guards. He dies incarcerated, entirely 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:44.440 isolated from the vast, powerful network that 00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:46.859 once orchestrated his miraculous American escape. 00:17:47.099 --> 00:17:50.140 That is just bleak. It speaks to the deeply isolating 00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:52.920 reality of a life on the run. You can cross an 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:55.000 ocean to escape the heat. You can outrun the 00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:57.839 detectives for decades. But you inevitably leave 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:01.099 your support system behind. In the end, the sensitive 00:18:01.099 --> 00:18:03.579 hands of the auditory genius that made him Piano 00:18:03.579 --> 00:18:06.319 Charlie couldn't unlock the heavy doors of a 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:08.660 Belgian cell. That is a chilling contrast to 00:18:08.660 --> 00:18:11.750 end on. From a man who had an entire subterranean 00:18:11.750 --> 00:18:15.009 world built just to free him to a man dying completely 00:18:15.009 --> 00:18:18.269 alone in a foreign prison. It is a wildly dramatic, 00:18:18.529 --> 00:18:21.930 almost cinematic arc. It truly is. So let's just 00:18:21.930 --> 00:18:24.349 recap this incredible journey we've taken today. 00:18:24.450 --> 00:18:27.150 We started with the sheer sensory finesse of 00:18:27.150 --> 00:18:30.170 Piano Charlie, an artist applying concert level 00:18:30.170 --> 00:18:33.009 dexterity and auditory precision to the cold 00:18:33.009 --> 00:18:35.589 iron mechanics of a bank safe. The ultimate crossover 00:18:35.589 --> 00:18:38.450 of skills. We saw the brute force massively. 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:41.180 logistical scale of managing $100 ,000 railway 00:18:41.180 --> 00:18:44.180 freight theft. We marveled at the unbelievable 00:18:44.180 --> 00:18:47.099 patient engineering of a syndicate renting commercial 00:18:47.099 --> 00:18:50.019 real estate just to dig a tunnel under a public 00:18:50.019 --> 00:18:52.400 street. A legendary escape. And then, without 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:54.180 even taking a breath to celebrate, we watched 00:18:54.180 --> 00:18:56.940 him apply his specialized hands to a $200 ,000 00:18:56.940 --> 00:18:59.759 national bank vault, triggering a transatlantic 00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:02.059 flight that forced him into a life of paranoid 00:19:02.059 --> 00:19:05.500 exile and ultimately led to a lonely demise decades 00:19:05.500 --> 00:19:08.599 later in Liege. Quite a ride. Now, I want to 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:10.940 turn this over to you, the listener. What stands 00:19:10.940 --> 00:19:13.220 out to you the most about Charles W. Bullard's 00:19:13.220 --> 00:19:16.700 story? Is it that tactile, unexpected connection 00:19:16.700 --> 00:19:19.859 between mastering a musical instrument and cracking 00:19:19.859 --> 00:19:23.700 a complex safe? Or is it the sheer, calculated 00:19:23.700 --> 00:19:26.880 dedication of his associates renting an office 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:29.039 and tunneling through the earth for a prison 00:19:29.039 --> 00:19:31.700 break? It's the kind of historical narrative 00:19:31.700 --> 00:19:34.460 that leaves you with a lot to process. It certainly 00:19:34.460 --> 00:19:36.920 leaves a lasting impression. And I want to leave 00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:39.380 you with one final intriguing thread to pull 00:19:39.380 --> 00:19:41.720 on regarding the broader context of this story. 00:19:41.940 --> 00:19:44.440 One of the historical sources documenting this 00:19:44.440 --> 00:19:48.160 era is titled The Real Moriarty. Ooh, interesting. 00:19:48.440 --> 00:19:50.440 Think about the company Bullard kept during his 00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:53.240 peak. His closest associate, Adam Wirth, the 00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:55.220 man who robbed the Boylston Bank with him and 00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:57.539 orchestrated his tunnel escape, is historically 00:19:57.539 --> 00:20:00.259 linked to the concept of a Moriarty. The ultimate 00:20:00.259 --> 00:20:03.799 criminal mastermind. Exactly. A quiet, calculating 00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:06.759 spider sitting at the center of a vast underworld 00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:09.740 web. So what does that tell you about the shadowy 00:20:09.740 --> 00:20:12.359 syndicate Piano Charlie was a part of? We spent 00:20:12.359 --> 00:20:14.779 a lot of time marveling at his genius hands and 00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:17.670 his finely tuned musical ear. But was Charles 00:20:17.670 --> 00:20:20.430 W. Bullard truly a solo genius driving these 00:20:20.430 --> 00:20:23.529 incredible events? Or was he simply a highly 00:20:23.529 --> 00:20:27.349 tuned, incredibly valuable instrument being expertly 00:20:27.349 --> 00:20:30.329 played by an even greater, far more calculating 00:20:30.329 --> 00:20:33.089 criminal network? Wow, that completely reframes 00:20:33.089 --> 00:20:35.150 the entire narrative. Was the pianist actually 00:20:35.150 --> 00:20:37.329 the one being played all along? That is a fantastic 00:20:37.329 --> 00:20:39.789 question to ponder as we wrap up. Thank you so 00:20:39.789 --> 00:20:41.490 much for joining us on this deep dive today. 00:20:41.549 --> 00:20:43.609 It has been an absolute thrill exploring this 00:20:43.609 --> 00:20:46.309 wild, complex piece of history with you. Stay 00:20:46.309 --> 00:20:48.730 curious, keep asking questions, and keep exploring 00:20:48.730 --> 00:20:50.789 the hidden shadows of the past. We will catch 00:20:50.789 --> 00:20:51.349 you next time. next time.