Tillie Klimek: Mrs. Bluebeard of Chicago

This, this is morbid. This is morbid! Hi, everybody! Here we are, how's it hanging? It's hump day, everybody! Hope do!

Everyone knows like a noth, a sculpture thing. But there was like a commercial. Yeah, that had a camel, I think.

“It was a man who turned into a camel, I believe.”

Oh, what? Maybe my brain. I didn't even know the dark history of that. I thought it was just a camel. I think the man became a camel, because he kept saying, "Oh, boo!" - No, I, I, debit, debit shaking her head too.

I don't know, I don't know about that. - I don't know about that. - I'm gonna go get out of here. - I think it was just gonna be like, like my, my, my, my, my, my, my, wow.

- Yeah, I think he just means that's like, like, I thought, I'm probably probably like one. There's Dark History by this guy. - I didn't think it was Dark History. I just thought it was a man becoming a camel.

- That's a bit. - That's, that's dark. - It's a bit. - It's dark, man. I don't wanna be a camel.

But, you know, exactly, it's not thought. I shouldn't know, you thought, I guess. I don't know, there's a lot that I thought that's not real. - I don't think, there's a lot that I thought I thought. - I think, there's a lot that I thought I'd think.

And I think, all right, so now that we figured that out everybody, yeah, I guess we just, he began the commercial as a camel. He began and ended as a camel. - Yeah, we can get into what I do now.

- Oh man, which is this case? - Which is this case? - I do know about this case.

“Also, if I take it to the radio city musical, show.”

- Oh, honey. - Do that, honey. - Just gotta remind you, you know? - Debbie's teaching us a tap. It's one night only.

- You're not kinda wanna miss that. - You're not kinda wanna miss that. - You're not kinda wanna miss that tap. - I'm telling you. - Tip of the tap, tap, tap.

- It's one night only, babe. - Got merch. - One night only exclusive to the event. - Do it. - I thought you were gonna say one night only, I guess.

- What? - Well, you were just, every day I said. - Even all the way through the case, you're like, "Well, night only, oh my god." - Oh, but yeah, I had to get that in.

Now we can get to our case. We're gonna, everybody who gives the minute marker for when we shut the fuck up and start talking about the case. - This is supposed to be easy one.

- This one was quick, it's right now. - This one's quick. So we're talking about Tilly Climak today.

“- She is referred to as Mrs. Bluebeard of Chicago.”

- Oh, excuse me. - You do remember when we covered Mr. Bluebeard correct himself. - Yeah, he was killing all his brides. - He sure was.

- But you can guess what Tilly was doing. - She was killing all her men, maybe.

- I feel, well, here's the thing.

We don't actually know much about Tilly Climak's early life before she started killing all her men. - Before she started the murdering. - But yeah, with the murdering, that made her famous. But before all that, she was born,

by the way, there's a lot of Polish pronunciations in this. I'm literally married to a Polish man who has a Polish last name, so I'm gonna do my best. And I did look all these up,

but I'm not sure if I'm gonna slay. - I have complete faith in you. - That's so nice. She says with a devilish grin. - I have,

(laughing) - I really do, I meant that. - Thank you, okay. - Well, she was, thank you, I appreciate it. She was born Otilia Gibyork.

- Ooh, I like it. - I like it. - I like she's gonna see them. (laughing) (laughing)

She did, like, I hope I did it. - She was born in Poland in 1876, some time ago. And she immigrated to the US with her parents uh, Michael and Micolina Gibrick. - Ooh, when she was about four years old.

- So she ended up being raised in an area of Chicago, known as Little Poland, where obviously a lot of other Polish immigrants were living. And because of that, she really didn't have to learn English for a long time, so when she did eventually learn English,

it wasn't like, obviously it's not her first language,

so it wasn't like super strong. Just keep that in mind for a later. - Imagine knowing several languages, like well enough to have a conversation. - I wish that I was better than I am,

because I'd like to be genuinely fluent in a language. - I thought you been just in general. (laughing) I was like, can I talk to you? Can I just let something off my chest?

- I wish I was a better girl. - I just wish I was better than I am. I was like, whoa. - I'm looking at the woman in the mirror. (laughing)

I'm asking her to change her ways. (laughing) - I love it, and learn another language, and learn another, become bilingual. (laughing)

That's what we want. - So in 1890, when she was just 14 years old, Tillie married 17-year-old Joseph Mitschvik, another Polish immigrant who had come to the US right around the same time as her family.

Five years later, Tillie gave birth to a son that they named Joseph Junior, and her husband found work with the Illinois Central Railroad.

Her first marriage is kind of mysterious.

It's not as publicized as the ones that came next.

than her following marriages.

But the relationship did come to an end

“with Joseph's unexpected death in January of 1914.”

Here it is. The coroner said, heart trouble. Oh, but his death allowed Tillie to cash in on a $1,000 life insurance policy. Look at that.

Once she did that, she wasted no time finding a new husband. Now, at the time, his death didn't seem super suspicious. Chicago was a very fast-paced environment, and he was just kind of a day-to-day guy. So his death really didn't make it onto that.

Many people's radar. He also worked in a dangerous and stressful industry. So it wasn't that crazy that he died from heart trouble. Okay. And at that time, it wouldn't have been

not unusual for Tillie to move on so quickly. She didn't have a job. She was a widow now with a child to care for. Yeah. So grief was a luxury that she could not afford for very long.

Yeah, that is the truth of the time. It is. Now, in February of 1914, just one month after Joseph's death, Tillie married Joseph Ruskowski. But that marriage proved to be very short-lived.

By May, he was dead. Oh, yeah. January, February. March, April, the three months. Holy shit, dead.

Untilie inherited his $1,200 in savings and $722 from an insurance policy. All together today, that would be like $63,000. Damn. Good chunk of change.

Now, just like she happened with her first husband's death, she did not waste much time on grieving. And within a few months, she had started up a new relationship using some of her latest inheritance to fund a vacation to Milwaukee.

Oh, such a luxury. Oh, it's a place. OK. Does that dream city? It's that.

I think that's a dream city. Wow. Yeah, sports. You know that. It's so weird.

They'd actually fucked me up the first time I saw that

on their basketball court, but I don't think it's always there.

“I think it was a special thing, just special.”

I guess, there's a special moment for-- So yeah, she went to Cream City with her new boyfriend. And that's not a euphemism. Holy shit. So it was pretty clear that her intention

was to quickly win a marriage proposal from this man's. But unfortunately, you bring them there. Yeah, bring your men's to Cream City. You're looking for a ring. Secure that marriage proposal for a long time.

Now, unfortunately, though, when she raised the subject of marriage, he left at her proposal of marriage, which is not nice. Very rude. And she was enraged. I would be.

She said, take me seriously. By the way, contrary to popular belief, my previous due husband's been to die in natural causes. I've fucking poisoned them.

So don't mess with me. Whoa. Like, I don't think that's going to help your case. Because I'm out to marry you. Has that worked with anyone getting a marriage proposal?

Let us know. Yeah, right then. We won't submit you to the authority. No, not at all. So she immediately realized that she had made a serious

mistake in confessing to murder. Yeah, not only was he now highly unlikely to marry her, but he was also likely to dial 911 and report an emergency. How about that? Yeah, so hoping to prevent the inevitable,

till he threatened to report him to the authorities for violating the Man Act, which was a 1910 US law that criminalized the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes.

“Oh, I think they just called that sex trafficking now.”

Yeah. Yeah. Gaskowski and response told her if she did that, he would tell the authorities that she was a murderous. And they're like, you know what, let's go our separate ways.

Yeah, the argument just kind of ended there. But a few days after they returned home to Chicago, he died unexpectedly. Did you? Sir, did you eat something that she served?

Might have because that's wild work. He might have. That's wild work. Yeah, holy shit. So after the death of Gaskowski,

Tilly didn't head straight out to find any man's this time. Instead, she just lived with a man known only by the last name of Myers. During their time together, she would usually introduce herself as Mrs. Myers,

even though they were not officially married. And she seemed to just be living off the money from the inheritancees and all the insurance policies of her old husbands. But neighbors did recall a man living with her

for at least some amount of time until he just vanished at the end of 1918. Maybe it was Michael Myers. Maybe. That's why he pieced out.

Yeah, that's why he's mad. He said, I have a girl named Lori back home. I got a gnome, maybe, maybe. So this period of living as Mrs. Myers came to an end when Michael left and in March of 1919,

when Tilly married her third husband, Frank Koopchick.

But if the marriage was ever a happy one, it did not last very long. So by this time, the money from the inheritancees and the insurancees had probably run out. And that meant that Tilly had to get her acid job.

So she started working at a local tailoring shop in order to support herself in her husband, her new husband. At the same time, at neighbors started to notice that every day after her husband, Frank, went to work.

Another man that she only referred to as John would stop by the apartment to quote,

Oh, you don't-- You don't say. She was side-smoochin.

This is scandal, though, so.

Yeah, bitch.

“Just stopping by for a smooch on the porch.”

Right after Frank leaves her work. Right on his porch? Yeah, fucked up. So thanks, Carried on that way between Frank and Tilly, and apparently John.

Yeah, yeah, for two years until one day in 1921, when Frank became seriously ill. Now, to their neighbors, it seemed that his condition was dire. But Tilly was chilling.

She did not seem alarmed in the slightest. It's a red flag. In fact, as far as they could tell, she almost seemed light-hearted about his illness. Wow, years later during her trial,

her land lady, Martha Weselek, recalled one afternoon when Tilly, quote, "came out in the yard with a piece of newspaper, all about a fine coffin for $30, that she was going to get for Frank."

Holy shit. Can you not, Jen? No.

She's just like advertising to the towns.

People like, "This is the coffin I'm going to go." "This is $30, not dead yet, but he will be damned." So Weselek was horrified by how Cavalier that she was being about Frank's very serious illness. According to the land lady,

this was only one of many suspicions and callous statements made by Tilly at the time. Other neighbors also recalled her knitting a hat for herself that she said she was going to wear to Frank's funeral. She is planning for this, like you planned for Coachella.

Yeah. Like, she's going to have the whole fit. Yeti. Nice coffin. They'll place to stay.

Yep. Holy shit. Yeah. I can't stop saying holy shit. Holy shit.

She just does give a shit. Some people also remembered that she would just casually talk about how Frank only had, quote, "two inches to live."

And time that she's going to be dead soon.

“I think a metric of measurement sounds like it doesn't fit here.”

It does. I think that might have been a language barrier thing. Oh, perhaps. So she was, like, two seconds to live. I don't know.

I mean, but maybe she made up a new thing. Either way, not a lot of time to live. No, not a lot. So whether she was joking or not, it turned out that she was in fact correct about Frank's future.

A few days later on April 25th, 1921, Frank Koopchik died in their apartment. Oh, boy. During the funeral, a few days later, with Frank's body on display for more, for mourners,

for mourners, Tilly played upbeat dance music on a record player. Holy shit. I'm so sorry. Holy shit.

One night on me. (laughing) (laughing) One night on me, she sent us really no time. One mourner, we're called later,

that at one point during the funeral, Tilly reached into the coffin and grabbed Frank's ear, shouting, "You devil, you won't get up anymore." Oh, my God.

Yeah, she's not. (laughing) (laughing) I just came about to think that I would be like, "What do you do?

What are you to do?" I would have meant to do. And this would make you just leave.

“I think you leave your well-respects with Frank”

and you say, "You deserve to be better at this ear, "but you devil, you're dead." Like, that's so crazy. It is a fact. That's crazy work.

Yeah, they were like a sheet drunk. Holy shit. So the next day after a salsa of her husband's dead body, she collected $675,000, which would be like $11,000 today. Wow, just about from his life insurance policy

and she set out to find herself a new husband. Yeah, 'cause like, she said, "You won't get up anymore." No, like, "My goodness, Tilly, I know." Poor Frank.

So everybody who knew her to that point knew that she was a very brash woman with a unusual sense of humor, you could say. But even to those who knew her well, they had to admit that her attitude around Frank's death

was suspicious. Yeah. Yeah, to the more superstitious among them, too, the fact that she seemed to have the ability to predict her husband's death

was evidence of strong psychic abilities. Oh, yes. That what's called her witch. They said, "She seems psychic." Or murderous.

That's the thing. Others quietly gossiped about her potential involvement. Yeah, they released some on us. It could be a psychic, it could be homicidal. It could be psychic, it could be a murderous.

It could be a real toss up here. Yeah, especially with the way she's acting real toss up. Yeah, you know, yeah, crazy girl. So when it came to the neighborhood gossip, she provided more than enough material

in the wake of Frank's death. When a previous relationship's ended, with the quote unquote untimely deaths of her husband, she made it at least a few weeks before looking for a new man to get together with.

Oh, good. This time, she didn't actually even wait until the end of the funeral, before cozying up to the recently widowed Joseph Climac, who was also a friend of Frank's and at the funeral.

where she grabbed Frank's ear in the coffin.

“It was like, you devil, you're digging up anymore.”

Yeah. And was playing like, oh, this is awesome. And he's like, yeah, this will be fun. Well, my goodness, that afternoon. My goodness, I'm not sure what happened.

Because that afternoon, their interaction was said to be casual and short. So maybe he stopped in after all the madness. Maybe he said, because he recalled later, she felt too bad to see people.

Yeah. So maybe she had already laughed after causing that spectacle. They were like, somebody was like, we should get her out of here. He was like, he should go. And Joseph was like, I don't know.

He had to have seen her at that point. Because he was like, she felt too bad to see people. But she did allow herself to be pursued by him for a few weeks before agreeing to marry him. Wow.

So they got to chat, not the funeral, then they were like, let's get married. And if you see him, it's great. [MUSIC PLAYING] He later said that he married her for a nice home,

“because she was a good cook and kept a clean space.”

At least there's that, men are simple creatures. We don't-- by the time they were married, he had already heard some of the rumors and gossip about her past with men and just her in general. But he didn't care, and he didn't believe any of it.

He said, as soon as we married, she burned all the photographs of her husbands and her man friends. And she tore up all her letters. She had my picture on the mantle.

That was all. You said no more men, friends. No more men, friends. Just me on the mantle, babe. I'm your only man, friend.

One man friend for you, girl. So he might have believed that Tilly had changed her way as it was committed to him, since his picture was on the mantle, and all. But survey said that was a lie.

Within a few months, Tilly was openly complaining about her marriage, especially to her cousin Nellie Koolick. According to Nellie, when she suggested that Tilly get a divorce, if she was so unhappy,

Tilly said, no, I'll get rid of him some other way. Just divorce him. You could just divorce him. But you won't get the life insurance in that case. Why the murder?

Well, at the end of the year, Tilly learned that Joseph had a thousand dollar life insurance policy with the Catholic order of foursters. I don't know if that means that they're Catholic tree people. I was going to say that they're known

to have pretty solid life insurance policies, I think. Like, oh, yeah, sorry. Likeful. So she insisted that this was not enough money.

“And she said, you need to increase that,”

and also make me the beneficiary on your wife now. Of course. And she said, it was also important because she was, in fact, psychic, like the townspeople had said. And she'd had a premonition.

Not Joseph was going to die soon. And if he did, she didn't want to be poor with him being gone. Not you're supposed to say that to you. Also, like, you're new spouse. Yeah, and they're like, you know,

everybody thinks I'm psychic. And I did have a vision. Think you're going to die. Where you died. And I would like your money if that's the case.

Like, what do you do? In the days that followed, she would just walk around their house, telling him, you're pretty near debt now. Hold my God. And then she said, did I tell you, you're not going to live long?

Ah, scary. Yes, scary. He's the origin story of, I think, I'm going to die in this house. That's where that came from. Yeah.

But guess what, he was brave. He declined to add any more coverage to his shit. He said, I'm not dying in this house. And now he said, I don't think I'm going to die in this house. And he also made his son the beneficiary of the policy,

which then caused tally to take out two life insurance policies on him and accident insurance all in his name. The red flags are piling up their flag and the flags are flagging. They're blanket. So once the new policies were in place, Joseph's mysterious illnesses

quickly followed. It started with, quote, shooting pains in his arms and legs. And then his arms and legs became stiff and eventually numb.

So he was like basically paralyzed.

Holy shit. His breath also started to smell strongly of garlic, even though he wasn't eating very garlicy foods. Within a few days, his symptoms became so severe that he was paralyzed from the waist down.

Oh my. And trigger warning for animal death. At the same time, two of his dogs also died from a mysterious illness after eating food scraps from his plate at the table. Oh, no.

Is this our stomach? Could be. OK. Good call. Was it the garlic?

It's the garlic. So Joseph had been seen by Tilly's doctor and had been given multiple prescriptions. But nothing seemed to be helping the pain or the numbness that he was experiencing. After Joseph suffered for several days, his brother John, I just feel bad. I know, me too.

After he was suffering, his brother John insisted that he needed to see a different doctor.

He needed the second opinion until he was like, no, it's fine.

And she said, I don't need help from a stranger.

No way. And John said, hey, that's cool, but I'm not a stranger because he's my brother. Yeah. What girl? Huh?

So he was like, no, no, no. I'm arranging for a physician to look him over of my choosing. So he hired Dr. PT Burns to check in on his brother. Burns took one look at Joseph and immediately like Elena, recognized the telltale signs of arsenic poisoning.

According to Burns, Climac showed every evidence of a slow poison, but to be sure he returned later that afternoon to double check the symptoms and that only convinced him further. So Dr. Burns had Joseph taken to the hospital where the other doctors predicted that he had, quote, this is wild about an equal chance to live or die.

“That's literally the worst thing I can imagine hearing.”

And then doctors, no, like, imagine kind of like life. Yeah, that does have. I'm sure many people have been like, why, why did you need a medical degree to tell me that? That's like that's just every day.

Is we rolled the dice, do you know about coin tosses? Yeah. Pick heads or tails.

That's basically where you are.

Your life is a penny. Like, isn't that where all of us are? Yeah. Yeah. It's just so every time.

Yeah, pretty much. So one seed been removed from the house. Dr. Burns checked in with the attending doctor and got a list of all the prescriptions that Joseph had been given because medicine did contain arsenic back to them. Yeah.

Like, whatever. It literally was in cosmetics, like, all that shit. So he was like, okay, maybe that's the case here, like, maybe one of your medicines has arsenic and you're like, overdoing it or something like that. So he took all of the medications to a chemist, Dr. William McNally, who tested each individual

medication and confirmed that all of them showed evidence of arsenic. Oh. But they weren't supposed to. Oh. They weren't medicines that were supposed to have arsenic included amongst the ingredients.

So that meant that somebody had intentionally poisoned him. My, how the turns of table. Yeah. It's so crazy. We didn't see this coming.

I can't believe she's putting arsenic in his medication. I think. Probably because she knows they're all getting suspicious of eating her food. Yeah, probably. Because she's like, well, they're not going to be suspicious of their meds.

“I think it may have been a mixture of both to be honest with you.”

So Burns reported his findings and all of the results of the chemical analysis to police conveying to them that he suspected, Tilly, poisoning her husband. Wow. They reviewed the evidence and everything that they had already started to hear about Tilly in his past and October 26, 1922 detectives not only arrested Tilly, but her 26-year-old

son Joseph. Oh. And the announcement of Tilly's arrest in the newspapers seemed to kind of break a dam on local gossip. Oh, no.

And within hours, investigators were receiving anonymous letters just like intons. So they were like, please assume all of the bodies of her previous husband and examine them for certain. Yeah. She's going down for real.

She's going down for real. In their search of her apartment or their apartment together investigators discovered a bottle of arsenic, labelled Ruffon Rats. Ruffon Rats. And Tilly son said, that belonged to a former nurse who lived with us the previous year.

Like, that's that's not ours. It's just here. I also love that it's like it's rat poison essentially and he's like, oh, no, a nurse lived here. And those her sees arsenic and you're like, babe, that's rat poison.

Like, you didn't need to throw the nurse in there. No. Just say that belonged to a previous owner or just say, like, yeah, we have that because we have a rat problem. It's a rat poison.

Like, he's like, no, that was a nurse.

“I think that ours wasn't me definitely medical.”

At the station, Tilly was relentlessly questioned by detectives and now the state's attorney, who suspected her not just of attempted murder, but of multiple murders at this point. My God. They demanded to know how it was that the two dogs who had eaten from Joseph's plate also came to die.

Yeah. And she insisted, they just fell over and died. You can't make me a poisoner.

I'll show you that my first husband had an infection in his throat.

I'll show you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you have his throat, man? What are you doing?

What is that? Lering. Like, what is going on? Like, I'll take you to the doctor that I'll show you. But also her first husband died of heart rubble.

Oops. Yeah. So, what was that baby? She's the job moves track of husband? He's through her too.

So while she was at the police station claiming innocence, Joseph or husband was at the hospital telling a police of very different story. According to him, he had been examined by a doctor a few weeks earlier after his wife took out a new life insurance policy and he immediately fell ill. And he said, a week or two later after the examination, I found I couldn't smoke anymore.

Oh, no. One day, my soup tasted strange. Another time, the coffee was funny, then I began to get sick. I seemed to be burning up. I'm afraid someone poisoned me in a plot.

In a plot, in a plot, they poisoned me in a plot.

But it was pretty clear to the detectives that if anybody had poisoned this guy, it would

have to be somebody who had access to his food like his personal belongings. Yeah. Maybe also the house who stood to gain more from Joseph's death even than his wife. And she did seem to have a history of men dying around her, not long after getting married and acted crazy at their funerals.

She had. That was pretty wild enough. That was her. That's just Tilly. Yeah, that's just Tilly things.

So at the precinct, investigators confronted Tilly with all of the evidence and their theory. They're like, hey, you know how like you have this string of husbands that turns up dead and now like your current husband is on the precipice of death, you know, 50/50 gover take. It's weird.

We think you might have something to do with that string and she broke down and confessed that she tried to poison Joseph because he was, quote, fooling around with other women. Oh, no. It's like, baby, even if that's the case, you can't try to poison him and like, they're not going to understand that.

Yeah, just let him, let him be a fool now to add even more salaciousness to this, according to Tilly. She received the poison from her cousin, Nelly. Oh, and she said she started putting it in her husband's food after he was examined for the life insurance policy a few days later, the coroner, exhumed Fred Koopchick's

body for analysis.

“I think I believe that was her first husband and discovered that his remains still”

contained arsenic enough to kill four men, who was the court. Yeah. It hadn't even degraded. That's how much it was. No.

Which also like, obviously some of it probably had degraded and there were still that high. It was still that high. To go forward. Yeah.

At the same time, the case appeared to expand with the arrest now of Tilly's cousin Nelly, who was also suspected of murder. Nelly and Tilly, just like her cousin Tilly, a surprising number of people around Nelly, seemed to have fallen ill, or died from mysterious causes, including her late husband, who was a voicig sthermer.

I would never suspect Nelly and Tilly.

I know murdering people. Well, that's the thing. Nobody did for a while. And you can only murder so many people until people start to like, literally plop it. You are really connected to.

Yeah, constantly. Like the most connected to that you stand again financially from murdering. Yeah. You got it. It's good that they weren't undercut.

Keep doing that. That's going to catch up with you. And it did. One of the notes that police received after Tilly's arrest indicated that Nelly's husband had been fact been poisoned by her.

Oh boy. And initially, the note wasn't given a lot of attention, but once they learned that Tilly got

“the poison from her cousin, that's when they started to look at her, isn't it?”

Well, it was late a minute. So the arrest of Nelly caused a sensation among the press who immediately started to speculate

about her being a second Mrs. Blubian, my god.

In 1920, Chicago, it wouldn't have been that surprising for a woman to kill her husband, which was crazy, especially if she wasn't, especially if she thought he was cheating on her with another woman. Apparently that was like an epidemic day. Not two women seemingly working together to murder their husbands for money.

That was a good story. That is a good story. That is a good story. That's a good story. Yeah.

That's good shit. It's going to pay the bills. So each day, the story seemed to get more and more sensationalized. Just one day after Nelly's arrest, investigators announced that they were exhuming the bodies of each woman's first husband to search for signs of poisoning.

This was very delicious. It is. And since Nelly's husband died one year before Tilly's first husband, the press speculated that Tilly, quote, may have been a student of Mr. Mer. Oh, my goodness.

So they were like, fuck, is Nelly like the OG Mrs. Bluebeard? And then the students are passes to the teacher? Yeah, damn. In a series of events that we really, we're not really, we're very unfortunate events. Love any snick.

Yeah. So the discovery of arsenic and the remains of two Nell of Tilly's dead husbands, prompted police to expand their potential victim pool. And they started taking the claims and assertions.

“Previously regarded as gossip, seriously, you have to.”

For example, Harry Swedo, one of Tilly's cousins, told the attorney general that his sister, who also would have been Tilly's cousin, his sister rose, died mysteriously after attending a dinner at Tilly's apartment. And here I am, overcook in my chicken to hell because I'm scared of giving someone a tummy ache.

I know. I know you take chicken per coffee. I think you're so seriously, and this woman, you come to her house, you might die. You might, in fact, I, especially if she doesn't like you. Damn.

Uh, another cousin, Elizabeth Ventowski, told investigators about the unexpected death of two of her sisters and a brother, all of whom had dined with Tilly shortly before they died. What the actual fuck? Yeah.

How many people has she murdered? The thing is, we're not sure. The limit does not exist. Period. Yeah.

There's actually no period, as far as Tilly's concerned, with an ellipses, many. Yeah. There's a series of ellipses. Yeah.

coroner, was completely overwhelmed by requests for analysis of so many different. So many.

“So despite their strong suspicions, that there were, in fact, other victims, the state”

attorney's office only had Tilly's confession to the attempted poisoning of her current husband, which obviously was not a murderer because he's in a lot. But there was a strong enough case to prosecute her for the murder of, I was incorrect, her third husband.

Originally, I thought that was her first.

Oh my goodness. There's so many of them. Her third husband, Frank Koopjik. Damn. So he was the one who she had put enough arsenic to kill four men, at least.

Now in November 11th, 1922, Tilly was formally charged with Frank's murder, and she pleaded not guilty. At the same time, Nellie was charged with the murder of her husband, Boycheek Stermer, and the meantime investigators just continued to dig into their paths, looking for even more potential.

Yeah. After their arrangement, the Mrs. Bluebeard story seemed to grow even larger, at least as far as the press was concerned. This one day after Tilly and Nellie appeared in court, the papers were announcing the discovery of even more potential victims, including Tilly's former husband, Joseph Ruskowski, and

this is horrible, two of Nellie's children, both of whom died in infancy, holy shit. Yeah. Now there was no evidence of foul play, but the press did imply that six of Nellie's children had died under mysterious circumstances. Lots, and they started comparing her and Tilly to Bell Gunnys.

Oh my god. I was wondering if that was going to be a comparison. We haven't done.

“I think Gunnys are gonna, might be gonna.”

I think it might be gonna. I'm not positive, but yeah, we will cover that. I think eventually, because a lot of people know about that case, and it's highly requested. It's a terrible one. She just kills all of her children, right?

And legit babies. Yeah. She's pretty terrible. But her story is unbelievable. Oh, it was worst way.

Do you remember that old show? I don't know if it was on ID, Killer Women? Yeah.

That was the first time I ever saw that.

Oh, really? Yeah. That saw that case. Damn. So she was famous because she had been arrested a decade earlier.

We just crazy to think that was a decade before. Yes.

“Now, the claims were given credibility when Nellie's husband's body was exhumed, and”

his remains were found to contain traces of arsenic. Oh, damn. So she's in on this. Oh, no. With each day that passed, Tilly and Nellie suspected body count just continued to increase,

and came to include former husbands, family members, neighbors, pretty much anyone who died while under their care, or anyone who had been recently in the company of either woman. Holy shit. By mid-November, the suspected number of victims had risen to 20 people, and that was just as they were indicted by a grand jury.

Wow. Their trial was scheduled for winter in 1923, and in the meantime, investigators just continued to build their case, and the press continued their daily coverage of every sensational aspect of the story that they could come up with, which they don't even really have to come up with much.

It was all just there. It was well there. The intense press coverage made Tilly kind of a celebrity, and she gave interviews from her jail cell. I know.

I hate that part. Yeah. Murder investigations and trials and everything. Did they like giving interviews? The accused definitely do, start to become weird celebrity.

She commented on everything from previous relationships with men, to her opinions on young people, and even the rising popularity of flappers. Babe, no one should hear your opinion on young people, or your opinion on flappers. Or your relationships with men. Yeah, definitely don't want to hear that.

No. We know your relationships with men exactly. She told one reporter, "Me, I came to this country when I was a year old from Germany. No foolishness with us. We work."

Basically indicating that she didn't thank young people, worked on it.

Yeah. Okay. I know she was mad. However, when it came to the actual charges against her, she didn't really say very much, and she just wasn't interested in talking about it.

Super, like whatever. Yeah, very superficial about it all. Now if she appeared calm and collected when it came to the press, Nelly was the exact opposite. Oh.

Whenever she gave statements to the press, she seemed very anxious, very overly emotional. She once begged her reporter, "Write to my children, write to my people, tell them not to believe all they hear." Now to spectators following the case, Tilly was exactly the type of woman who seemed as at home in a jail cell as she did in her own apartment.

She didn't give a fuck. Tilly was made for this life. She literally was, but Nelly was out of place, like she was losing her mind. Yeah. By the end of November investigators announced that they were searching for a third potential

conspirator in the case. All right.

According to the press, Voichewski's husband and his brother both died, quote, after drinking

beer at a party at which Ms. Kulik was present and they believe the death was due to arsenic. How much arsenic do these women have?

“Arsenic was just like, I think, like CVS had arsenic back, got to him.”

It was just like, "Go down the street and grab some arsenic." Yeah. And also, I guess you could just buy rap poison. Yeah. There's that.

Now, additional arrest were made. Nelly's sister was arrested and her niece was arrested on suspicion of murder. Just a group of girls. The press started referring to the women as the blue beard click. And they called Tilly the high priestess of the group.

Get the fuck out of here. I was like, "Don't call her the high priestess, that's so, like, fuck you." And also, your mix in your references here just doesn't make sense. Yeah. Don't overreact the play.

Yeah. Anyway, finally went on trial in early March of 1923, with assistant states attorney William McLaughlin prosecuting. Go off him.

I always think a job when I hear that name.

By then, they all as a group had been indicted on six murders. Wow. And his opening statement, McLaughlin presented the case at the state's case in simple terms. He said the two women had planned and carried out a wholesale poison plot, which claimed

at least six lives and caused serious illness to nearly a score more. Wow. And he said they did this through a series of poison parties, poison parties. And that their motives ranged from financial gain to ridding themselves of anyone they disliked.

Poison party. Poison parties. Like a Tupperware party. Holy shit. Or Botox party.

Wow. Yeah. After listening to all the names of those believed to have been killed by the pair, and those also made ill.

McLaughlin announced that if convicted, they would be seeking the death penalty, which was

not that didn't happen. No. And especially with women. No. So over the course of the weeklong trial, witnesses included six physicians, a chemist,

four nurses, and several insurance agents, as you can imagine, who all testified against the accused. By far, the most entertaining were a trio of grave diggers and an undertaker, who were all neighbors of Tilly and her husband around the time of his death. One of the undertakers told the jury, "Frankies to leave for work every day at six, and

I'd often see John Cowsky come over to visit Tilly once I seen him kiss her." So they were like, "Here we go, talk about John coming for the smoochie." They said, "She's a troll-up." They said, "She'd be smoochie." One thing about Tilly.

Don't want any smoochie. And then she stays smoochie in John. She's a smoochie man. She's always John. It's always John.

She's got to think for him." Now, the most compelling evidence came from the doctors and nurses who were actively still treating Joseph Kleimek, who was still too ill to testify against his wife at that point. Did we all forget he still lies till life? According to Nurse Mildred Scully, "Yup, who I would trust with my fucking life."

"Yup, and who had been treating Joseph while he was still in the home," Tilly routinely made tasteless jokes about her husband's impending death. And on one occasion told the nurse, "If he makes any trouble for you, take a two by four board and hit him over the head with it."

“So here's the thing, that's a little bit funny as hell.”

And if she wasn't a mass murderer, that like a serial killer, I'd be like, "That's just regular, like you've been married and you're trying to be funny when your husband's not really in your position." But then you look at it in context. But then you look at it like she's a serial killer and actually does harm people.

You're like, "Oh, that's the scariest thing I've ever heard because she's actually telling you to do that." Yeah. But like, you could see some like, you know, feisty lady just being like, "You're giving a trouble, just hit him with a two by four, like that would be funny."

I guarantee you at least 14 people listening their nanas have said that up there. One third of us. As like a total joke. When you're looking at it here and you're like, "Oh, she's a monster." That's dork style.

She meant it. And she said the two by four's right there. Yeah, that's sinister by. She said do it. You won't.

So apparently she smiled to during the trial when Mildred was testifying about that. And everybody in the jury was like, "She smiled and she said they're being like, "That was a good joke." She's like, "Oh, she's like me.

“She found, but yeah, this is the only way we're similar.”

She found it. She cracks herself up." Yeah. No one finds Tilly, funnier than Tilly. And no one finds Ash, funnier than Ash.

I crack myself up. He does. I love it. So for the most part, Tilly's add emotionless behind the defendants table while each witness as they came one by one, testified against her.

She did become emotional when the chemist, Dr. William McNally, took the stand interestingly. When he entered the witness box, the press noted that Tilly, quote, "Jimmer, her stocky body, well back in the chair and swung her feet and incessant circles as she tried to understand the testimony." Love how they had the throat and stocky there.

Not only, if you actually let me read that for you one more time, jammed her stocky body while into the chair and swung her feet and incessant circles as she tried to understand the testimony.

She's blocking and dumb.

That's really fucking rude.

And since she's a minecraft character, and she's dumb, not a minecraft character. Like, well, when she seemed anxious, when she was a minecraft chemo character, as the chemist explained in plain detail, all of the symptoms about arsenic poisoning and confirmed that all three of Tilly's dead husbands had in fact been poisoned. Despite the compelling body of evidence and all the testimony against her, she still proved

to be a pretty strong witness when she took the stand in her own defense as well, which is much like Joseph's, he could deliver. He could die. Yeah, taking your own, taking the stand in your own defense, you could deliver. You could die.

A gamble. Dressed in plain black attire, where the translator by her side, she strongly and repeatedly denied killing anyone, including her husband Frank Coupchick. One asked her actually whether she was responsible for Frank's death. She replied, "I certainly was not.

He died by moonshine." Oh, I don't know if she meant the drink. The drink. I'm assuming.

“And that was the one she said, his throat too, so who knows?”

Now, as for any marital troubles or affairs, she dismissed that as nothing more than gossip.

She told the jury, "I loved them. They loved me. They just died. Same as other people. I'm not responsible for that.

I could not help if they wanted to die." Why are we assuming they wanted to die? That's, I mean, I was like, "Why are these three on a mission?" Like, they weren't old. Yeah.

They didn't die by, like, you know, like the suicide was not considered. I like that she's like, "It's not my fault that they just chose not to get better." Like, it literally. That's exactly what she said. Sorry, you chose to get sick.

Your fault. Weird choice. Weird choice. I shouldn't give a fuck. Now the press was actually impressed with her calm demeanor and her quality to maintain

composure. It's the press, okay? No, never.

“But ultimately, the jury was less convinced.”

In the end, the evidence against Hilly was much too damning. Yeah. The prosecution was convincing. So on March 13, after just an hour of deliberation, the jury found Hilly guilty for the murder of Frank Koopjik.

When the verdict was read, she didn't show any emotion at all. And she quote, "Sat so still she made her neighbors wiggle uncomfortably." You know? Fortunately, for Hilly, the jury could not bring themselves to sentence a woman to death. Kind of silly.

They recommended life in prison. But her way back to her cell after the trial, her only response to the crowd of reporters outside was to talk about how warm it was in the court house. To homes like just warm in there. That's cold-blooded.

Yeah. Now, as she was led from the courtroom, she was also met with the cheers of her female

supporters in the court who shouted, "Never mind, Tilly.

Don't forget there's a new motion for a new trial for a week from Saturday. Share up!" Wow. They begged Zoom to the three bodies of her three husbands that all contained so much arsenic.

I could blow your fucking skirt up, like, "God damn. I could blow your skirt into another galaxy." Literally. They're got the Milky Way babe. And you're like, "Don't worry, girl.

Don't get down on yourself." Here up. All smiles, Tilly. It's all up from here. No, it's down from here.

It's going to jail. Oh lord. Now, Nellie's trial was repeatedly delayed for more than a year, while she's still in jail cell. But on November 8th, 1923, a jury found her not guilty and she was free to go.

Who are? Mind you, they exhumed her husband's body and there was arsenic in it. You had the arsenic. Yeah. I wonder if they thought that Tilly didn't, maybe.

Now in the weeks and months after Tilly's trial, there was a lot of talk about the fact that several other Chicago women had been acquitted on murder charges. Tilly was very quickly convicted. Some members of the press and public speculated that her conviction was due to her lacking physical attraction.

Whoa. They said, "I think you convicted her because she's ugly."

“I'm not saying she's ugly, but that's what they said.”

That's what they said. And they pointed to the repeated, unkind descriptions of her throughout the trial. Mostly male journalists push back on that complaint. One journalist wrote, "There is no good reason to believe that they would have acquitted her.

Had she been other than homely." The evidence showed that she was guilty of deliberately planning the death of at least one man and probably it doesn't more. I mean, that's valid. Calling someone homely is so homely is...

Diabolical. It's that's down dirty. Yeah. It really is too much. Now when she settled into life in prison, she was kind of thriving on there.

Yeah, I think she was meant for that life. She was in fact meant for that life. She was a model prisoner. She found work sewing American flags for other prison institutions. Wow.

She had a bunch of homies in there. Okay. Staff loved her. She didn't pose any problems at all. And then on November 20th, 1936, she died of heart disease at Dwight Prison.

That's you. Yeah. Wow, Tilly. Isn't that one of the wildest stories? Tilly raged.

She raged.

“She made a high priestess of arsenic voice.”

Yeah. She raged through life. Yeah.

She was not really, no, she was never meant for that.

Never. Wild. And Joseph lived. That's nice. Joseph lived.

Yeah, I think about it. Yeah. So he lived. I mean, that's rough. Rough existent.

That's after that. Yeah. I know what the long term effects of arsenic were. Yeah. Isn't it?

You have a fun fact. That was a crazy story. Yeah. What? I do have a fun fact.

Don't forget a fun fact. This is thanks to Mikey.

Mikey gave me this fun thing.

Thank you, Michael. Ours. Orcas are a natural predator of moose. How? They can dive to eat seaweed moose can moose and orcas are documented natural predators

of moose in coastal Alaska and Canada. They attack them when they swim between islands or long shorelines. Wow. I don't know how fun that is, but it's mind blowing. Personally.

Love moose. Yeah. Wow. I have street beef with orcas. You actually can't really have street beef with them.

I have ocean beef with orcas. You have aquatic beef. Yeah. I have marine beef. I have marine beef.

That's perfect. Marine beef. I have marine beef. Why isn't it disgusting?

I just picture soggy him orcas.

Yeah. Marine beef. Not really beef. Yeah. I have marine beef with orcas now, but that's fine because I don't go the oceans.

“I'm going to go unpack that, but I'm really worried about moose, so that's how I feel.”

And what is the plural of moose mooses, mooses, mooses, mooses, I think it's moose. I don't like that. Look at that. Look at that group of moose over there. Yeah.

That sounds so good. I don't know if I'm right. I think you are, but I don't like it. Moose. Moose.

Hate it. I have to unpack that now too. We have a lot to unpack. It says correct. I saw three moose, incorrect.

I saw three mooses or three mooses. Nah, mooses is better. Or three mooses. Mooses. Yeah.

Mooses. Yeah.

“We did not evolve from mold English, and that's why we didn't get a plural.”

So that's another fun fact. I give you two food. Look at you. It's so fun. Look at that.

All right. Well, we hope you keep listening. Oh, you keep. Oh, yeah. But not so really.

You spent several days thinking about the plural. Just being loose. It's moose. Think about it. Maybe keep it on your own.

Moose. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.