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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. This episode is sponsored by Capital One. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC. Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Violet sat in the parlor of Welsh Dr. Edward Hughes Jones. He was twice her age, but she was professing her love for him. He was so kind and so generous. She was an heiress. Her first husband was a soldier who died at sea. But his fortune wouldn't become hers until her 25th birthday, which was still years away. In the meantime, Dr. Jones was offering to support Violet financially. They would become engaged and she would pay him back tenfold in just a few years. She was so grateful, she burst into tears and embraced him. With the help of Dr. Jones and other generous locals, Violet was able to live the life befitting an heiress in the early 20th century. She stayed in a manor home in Wales and wore fine fur coats and expensive jewelry. One appraiser remarked that she had the finest collection of diamonds he had ever seen. More than anything, Violet loved fast cars. And she acquired a collection of top of the line automobiles. She raced them through the countryside and her maintenance bills grew to thousands of pounds each year. The equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars today. But happiness is always fleeting, isn't it? And in Violet's case, her lavish lifestyle was destined to have an expiration date. On January 2nd of 1909, Violet was driving one of her cars on a narrow seaside road just above the sea wall. She lost control and crashed being thrown from the driver's seat and into the ocean. All that was left of her was her hat. Sitting on the road, she was just shy of her 25th birthday. Violet's mother was filled with grief. She spread the news far and wide of her daughter's death. Except the police weren't quite as Moved as she was, there were a few things about the car wreck that didn't add up. For one, there was no damage to the car other than the driver's side window being broken. That was supposedly where Violet had been thrown from the car. But that was the other odd thing. There was no blood anywhere. If Violet had really gone through the window, there should have been blood everywhere. This all led investigators to look deeper into Violet herself. They found that she was £17,000 in debt. That amount was about a million dollars today, and there was no record of her ever having a rich soldier husband who died at sea. Violet Charlesworth, you see, was not an heiress, but a prolific con artist who had scammed dozens of people out of their money and then faked her own death. When it came time to pay up, as investigators searched for her, she became a global folk hero. Although she was a criminal, her ability to successfully pose as a member of the upper class and then con many of them out of their money was looked upon with admiration. Violet was ironically known for wearing a red cloak. Many women in the United Kingdom were wearing one in her honor, although they stopped once police started to question them, thinking that they were potentially violent. But soon enough, they would get a much more promising lead. A woman who looked like Violet and was going by the name Margaret Macleod was spotted in Scotland. And she'd skipped out on a hotel bill, which definitely sounded like Violet. Reporters found her first traveling south by train. With a swarm of press taking her picture. She had to admit that she was, in fact, Violet Charlesworth. Over the next several months, Violet's celebrity only grew. She could now make her own money honestly by giving interviews to the press. She wrote a song about her life. She starred in a stage show. Producers from Hollywood reached out about a silent film deal. But by 1910, investigators had completed their investigation and charged both Violet and her mother with fraud. They were found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. However, they only served three of those years. Once free, Violet is said to have moved to Scotland. And after that, she disappears from history. It's possible that she finally decided to live a quiet life. Or it's possible that she took on a new identity and scammed her way into another fabulous existence. Ultimately, though, we will never know. The press moved on pretty quickly with the sinking of The Titanic in 1912, arguably the biggest news story of all time up to that point. But Violet's story has survived to the modern day. For those curious enough to learn about it. Although she was a criminal, we can all sympathize with her desire to live a life among society's elites. Her schemes were always creative. Although if she could do it all over again, maybe she would throw just a little bit more creativity behind faking that car wreck. This episode is sponsored by Capital One with no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com Bank Member FDIC did you.