Part One: The Naturopathic Doctor Who Bombed a Plane

Summary

Podcast Summary: Behind the Bastards

Episode Title: Part One: The Naturopathic Doctor Who Bombed a Plane
Air Date: April 28, 2026
Host: Brett (Cool Zone Media)
Guest: Brandy Posey (Comedian, Burn This Records)
Producer/Contributor: Sophie

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Episode Overview

This Behind the Bastards episode dives into the life of Robert Spears, a pivotal figure in the early naturopathic medicine movement—and ultimately, a brazen con man notorious for his crimes, culminating in a deadly act of plane sabotage. Before the climax of mass murder, however, listeners are taken through a rich, strange history of alternative medicine in America, tracing its roots and profiling the colorful personalities who forged—and fleeced—this movement. Today’s episode primarily sets the stage, looking at the birth of naturopathy, the personality and tactics of its early stars, and the making of a conman.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Tone: A Break From Pedophiles (00:05)

• Brett lightheartedly introduces the episode as a relief from the grim focus on pedophiles, shifting instead to a con artist—"one of the good, decent con men who makes this podcast and this nation possible" (00:10).
• Brandy Posey expresses relief at the lighter (though still horrifying) subject matter, quipping about the volume of pedophilia news.

2. From ‘Quacks’ to ‘Naturopaths’: The Birth of Alternative Medicine in America (04:36)

The Two Waves of Naturopathy

• Brett outlines two main “waves” of naturopathy:
  • The early 1900s surge, ending as modern medicine and vaccines advance
  • The 1970s revival when skepticism of mainstream medicine returns

The Pioneer: Dr. Benedict Lust

• Lust: German-born, not a medical doctor, but founder of naturopathy in the US (06:10)
• “Dr. Lust” creates much amusement (“I’ll give him the stolen valor if I get to say Dr. Lust a bunch.” ― Brett, 06:11)

The Water Cure and True Belief

• Inspired by Sebastian Kneippe’s “water cure” (cold plunges, herbal teas), which both Lust and Kneippe credit for surviving tuberculosis.
• Brett gives context: “The first generations of guys…are like true believers. They're not guys selling snake oil. I mean, they are selling snake oil, but they truly seem to believe in it generally.” (06:28)

Context: Why Quackery Wasn’t So ‘Quack’ in Its Time

• Early medicine often dangerous (heroin for cough, overprescription of drugs) so going with a “quack” could sometimes cause less harm: “Sometimes you’ll be doing better by going with a quack doctor just because they're only feeding you homeopathic medicine as opposed to straight heroin and cocaine, which has some negative health consequences.” (07:06)
• Modern lines between alternative and mainstream medicine did not yet exist.

3. Colorful Medical History: Water Cures, Bone Setting, Human ‘Bake Ovens’ (06:56–27:43)

Lust’s Arrival in America and Eclectic Tastes

• Lust trains in osteopathy and chiropractic—fields founded on dubious theories and wild claims
• Osteopathy, now mostly reputable, began as “all diseases were curable by manipulation of deranged displaced bones… He [Andrew Still, the founder] could shake a child and stop scarlet fever, croup, diphtheria…” (16:08)
• Chiropractic originated from a man who claimed to learn spinal secrets from a ghost.

Fusion and Branding

• Lust’s innovation: combining fringe treatments into one discipline ("unionizing the quacks" ― Brandy, 20:52)
• The movement opposes “druggists”—mainstream doctors overprescribing dangerous medicines (22:24)
• Central Tenet: “The body can repair itself…physicians should seek to restore balance so [the body] can cure its own ailments.” (22:54)
• The term “naturopathy” is coined and purchased by Lust (23:01)

Naturopathy in Practice: From Eccentric to Dangerous

• Heat therapy (aeropathy) involved “human bake ovens.”
  • "Can you take 500 degrees Fahrenheit? Try it." (26:13)
  • “This must have hurt and killed people. I haven’t run into stories of that…you shouldn’t be baked.” (27:04)
• Other treatments: astral healing, zodiac therapy, blood-washing with herbs, “autotherapy” (using potions made from a patient’s own excretions or blood) (27:43)
  • “Shout out to him for being able to sell somebody’s shit back to themselves.” — Brandy, 28:16

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4. The Decline and Return of Naturopathy (29:43–41:12)

• As medical science advances, naturopathy’s power wanes (39:32)
  • "By 1957, the last [chiropractic colleges] stopped issuing [the ND degree]."
• Second wave: rebirth in 1970s (and notably, in Portland, Oregon)
• Modern outbreaks of preventable diseases (e.g., measles in affluent PDX neighborhoods) are tied to vaccine skepticism with historical roots in these old movements.

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5. The Making of a Master Conman: Robert Spears’ Early Life (42:07–54:51)

Born To Grift

• Real name: likely Clyde Stringer/Clyde Porter
• Raised by a mother (“Matilda”) who used multiple aliases and was a serial scammer; unconventional, cunning lifestyle
  • “She’s living it up… A lot of men are having the male version of this life… You have to stan a woman willing to break free from tradition and really be like a very masculine kind of scumbag.” (46:11)

Formative Years: Poverty, Train Life, Petty Crime

• Deep poverty, frequent moves, a revolving door of men in his mother’s life
• Clyde learns early how to leave, hop trains, and fund trips through petty crime (52:00)
  • “He starts committing petty crimes while he's away to pay his way…this behavior ultimately gets him in trouble.”

Early (Comedic) Escapades

• Bad checks, charm: “He’s really charming…people are often willing to forgive him… As soon as he gets caught, every time he’ll say, ‘Oh, yep, I did it...’ and apologize.” (53:38)
• Early criminal career includes making the news as “The Gilded Youth” for a $9 forged check that prompted a manhunt (55:30, 55:34)
  • “That's a long way to chase a guy for $9… it really says a lot about how little there was to do back then.” — Brett (55:30)

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6. Jailed, Drafted, and a Life of Grifting (56:49–67:34)

• Doing time for fraud, then paroled on the condition that he join the WWI effort—using a fake name: Robert Vernon Spears.
  • “This gives me a chance to establish the name I'm going to be known by for the rest of my life.” (61:07)
• Even in the Army, he cons friends out of money, is caught, but his charisma helps him skate by (62:07)

Postwar: The Tinder Swindler of His Day

• Returns home, claims (falsely) to have been a WWI fighter pilot, accrues “gentleman bandit” reputation.
• Marries women, robs them blind, disappears (64:53–66:34)
  • “What a pile of marrying ladies and robbing punk ass bitch.” — Sophie (65:21)
• Finally meets his match: Laura Myers, who cons the conman (67:17–67:23)
  • "Laura Myers, feminist icon." — Sophie (67:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On early medicine vs. naturopathy:
  “Sometimes if your doctor's prescribing you like fucking arsenic, and your fake doctor's prescribing you…homeopathic arsenic, which is just water, you're better off with Homeopathic arsenic…” — Brett (21:10)
• On cold water therapies:
  “From here on out…rest of [Kneippe’s] days, he's like a practitioner of this thing.” — Brett (10:05)
• On fusing fringe medical treatments:
  “He's unionizing the quacks.” — Brandy (20:52)
• On the questionable nature of early alternative therapies:
  “This must have hurt and killed people…I haven’t run into stories of that…you shouldn’t be baked.” — Brett (27:04)
• On the first con-woman in Spears’ life:
  “Gorgeous women have the right to be scumbags, too. Matilda, we salute you.” — Brett (46:36)
  • “The glass gutter is just as important as the glass ceiling.” — Brandy (46:34)
• On Robert Spears’ endless aliases:
  “This guy has like 30 or so serious names, by which I mean a name that he had…he had took real efforts to falsify…” — Brett (43:17)
• On the doomed women in Spears’ path:
  “He would entrance a young woman, he would ask for her hand in marriage, they would get married, and then in the night, he would steal everything in her house that wasn't nailed down and run like fuck for a new town and start a whole new life.” — Brett (65:21)
• The ultimate reversal:
  “Laura flips the script. By the time he comes downstairs with their luggage, she's stolen all of his money and run for the hills… Laura Myers, feminist icon.” — Brett & Sophie (67:17–67:23)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:05: Introduction & episode tone
• 04:36: Origin of naturopathy, Dr. Benedict Lust
• 06:56: Water cure & 19th-century ‘medicine’
• 16:08: Osteopathy’s wild beginnings
• 20:52: First fusion of alt-medicine; "unionizing the quacks"
• 21:10: Critique of early mainstream medicine
• 26:13: “Human bake ovens”: heat therapy gone wild
• 27:43: Bizarre therapies: blood-washing, astral healing
• 42:07: Segue to focus on Robert Spears/Clyde Stringer
• 53:38: Spears’ criminal charm & repeated escapes from consequences
• 55:30–55:38: “The Gilded Youth” $9 check caper
• 61:07: Spears assumes the name “Robert Vernon Spears”
• 64:51–65:21: “Gentleman bandit” persona, robbing wives
• 67:17–67:23: Laura Myers cons the conman—“feminist icon”

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Episode Tone & Style

• Language & Banter: Casual, irreverent, and darkly humorous. Heavy use of sarcasm, wry commentary, and historical asides. Regular playful interjections from Brandy Posey.
• Delivery: In-depth and research-focused but punctuated with comedic bits and disbelief at the absurdity of historical medical practices and scams.
• Reoccurring Themes: Skepticism of alternative medicine’s origins, recognition of both the con artists’ cunning and the gaps in mainstream medicine of the era, repeated astonishment at the literal and figurative heat of the times (e.g., “bake ovens”), and feminist appreciation for swindlers of all genders.

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Next Episode Preview

Part one concludes with the rise of Robert Spears—the masterful conman. Stay tuned for Part Two, where the story builds toward the infamous plane bombing and the ultimate unraveling of this grifter’s legacy.

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Guest Plugs:

• Brandy Posey’s stand-up album Milk Job and label Burn This Records [YouTube.com/burnthisrecords] (67:55)
• Tour on Van’s Warp Tour all summer

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For those who want to skip the commercials, you just got all the wild, factual, and hilarious content—no “human bake ovens” required.

Transcript

[Sophie]

Call Zone Media.

[Brett]

Welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And we've got, we've got a fun one for you this week, folks. I know it's been a rough year. There's been a lot of pedophiles. I'm not just talking about the US government. I'm talking about on the podcast. We've been covering a lot of pedophiles in part because there's a lot of pedophiles in the US government, to be fair. But this week, thank God, we're handling just an honest, simple grifter, you know, one of the good, decent con men who makes this podcast and this nation possible. And to talk with me about just a. Just a corn fed, good old fashioned, down home con artist, Brandy Posey. Brandy, you're a comedian and you run your own comedy record label and you've got an album milk job that's out right now.

[Brandy Posey]

Right now.

[Brett]

Right, right now.

[Brandy Posey]

Right now, baby. Hell yeah.

[Brett]

Welcome to the show. Brandy. How you, how you doing? How you been since last we talked?

[Brandy Posey]

I've been good. Also keeping up on the pedophile news and probably keeping up with the pedophiles. Yeah, grinding my teeth as much as you, I imagine.

[Brett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's frustrating to be aware of the world these days. I don't recommend it. Instead, why don't you, why don't we all just sink into a story of days gone by and talk about a con man from like a family of conmen. This will be a nice one, everybody. I hope you all enjoy it.

[Brandy Posey]

Is this about a Beagle Boy? It feels like you're about to tell me the story of the Beagle Boys.

[Brett]

The Beagle Boys? Who the hell are the Beagle Boys?

[Brandy Posey]

From DuckTales.

[Brett]

Oh, no, no, no, no. This is much worse.

[Brandy Posey]

Oh, okay. Great. Great.

[Brett]

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[Brett]

So we're talking about a guy named Robert Spears who was one of the first naturopaths. He he was a very influential figure in like the first wave. You have two big waves of naturopathy as like a discipline. One that kind of goes up from the start of the century until polio vaccines become a thing and people are like alternative medicine. Why would we ever not want modern vaccinations and the like. And then you've got one that kind of crops up more recently in the 70s. So there's like a Split between the two. And we'll be talking about both. This, this con man who spoilers winds up committing some pretty serious plane crimes at the end of his life. This, this ends in a fun slash mass murdery place. But before you get to the mass murder, there's a lot of cons. So this should just be a fun episode for everybody. We're talking about. Have you ever heard of Robert Spears? That name ring a bell?

[Brandy Posey]

No, old Bobby has not crossed my path. I can't wait.

[Brett]

Well, we're going to talk about him. But before we talk about him, we've got a little mini BTB episode. Because I want to talk about the birth of natur as like a field of endeavor, of work, of quote unquote medicine. And you really gotta keep the quote unquote there when you're talking about this period of time for sure. The guy who most often gets credit for starting naturopathic medicine as a discipline was a German born American with an amazing name like the. The guy most often described as the founder of naturopathy was Dr. Benedict Lust. Amazing, amazing doctor.

[Brandy Posey]

Dr.

[Brett]

Lust.

[Brandy Posey]

Come on.

[Brett]

He wasn't really a doctor. And to be fair, he didn't claim to be a medical doctor. But Dr. Lust is just really funny. Like I had. I prefer that. I'll give him the stolen valor if I get to say Dr. Lust a bunch.

[Brandy Posey]

Does this whole thing start with boner pills? Is that where we start?

[Brett]

Is that he genuine Lust doesn't. No. I mean, I'm sure he sold some weird boner medicine. Don't get me wrong, he was selling like quack medical treatments in the early 1900s. He must have been. But I also think he was a legitimate believer. That's something this first couple generations of guys who become like the naturopathic like movement. The first naturopathic crusaders are like true believers. They're not guys selling snake oil. I mean they're selling snake oil a lot of the time, but they truly seem to believe in it generally.

[Brandy Posey]

Well, and I guess like at the same time, like what is actual medicine doing? It's not much. We're passing but we're like, yeah, we got nails, skulls.

[Brett]

As we'll talk about, they are still doing some skull nailing. One of the problems with modern medicine at this period of time is we've just now, by the time you're starting in like the early 1900s, you're really starting to get the first wave of mass produced, high quality pharmaceutical drugs. Unfortunately, you don't have like the basis of knowledge about like when those are good and when those like wind up being worse for everybody in a lot of cases. So you have a shitload of people being overprescribed. Like, oh, your four year old's coughing, here's some heroin. That'll get him right back to baseline, giving a four year old heroin. So people, if you're someone who's saying, I'm against, I think doctors use too many drugs. I want like a non drug solution. In the 1900s, a lot of times you'll be doing better by going with like a quack doctor just because they're only feeding you homeopathic medicine as opposed to straight heroin and cocaine, which has some negative health consequences. So it is more blurry when you're talking about the difference between alternative medicine, whatever that, that kind of shit, and like the ama, like there's not as much of a gap between them as there will come to be in the modern era. That makes sense.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah.

[Brett]

So Dr. Benedict Lust, again, not a doctor, was born in Middlebach Baden in Germany in 1872. So he's like a year younger than Germany itself as a young man or child, it's a little unclear in my sources. Lust gets sick, he contracts tuberculosis, and at the time, by 1872, it's not as much of a death sentence as it had been like a generation before. But a lot of people are still dying from tuberculosis. So if you get diagnosed with it, you know, there's a pretty good chance you're not coming through the other side. But Lust takes a treatment that's become in vogue at the time and is known as the water cure. This was largely the invention of a priest named Sebastian Kneippe. But Nipe had discovered a book that some even older guy had written on curing disease via cold water plunges. You even see this today in a lot of, like the podcast, right? Health influencers, everybody, RFK loves the cold plunge. People have been doing this for way more than 100 years, like almost 200 years. There have been guys advocating for cold plunges, basically as a treatment for different illnesses. Now in Knipe's time, which is again the mid-1800s, tuberculosis was even more so a death sentence. And so he had gotten sick before. Lust gets sick. The guy who treats him also gets tuberculosis as a young man. And he like finds this book and writes, quote, I clung to it like a drowning man. He later wrote, it became, in a short time, the staff supporting the invalid. Today it is the lifeboat that was sent to me by a merciful providence in the nick of time in the hour of extreme peril. And so Nipe gets given what he thinks is a death sentence, this tuberculosis diagnosis, and he gets better, and he gets better while taking the water cure. Now, does he just. Does he recover because of that, or does he just recover while he does that? You know, Nipe obviously credits his recovery to the water cure because he makes his whole life about that. From here on out, the rest of his days, he's like a practitioner of this thing.

[Sophie]

And is.

[Brandy Posey]

This is it.

[Sophie]

Oh, I was just gonna. And just FYI to the listeners, if you want to look in this guy, his name is spelled K, N E, I, P P. So, yeah, just a knife.

[Brett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brandy Posey]

Gotcha, gotcha. Now, is the water cure just drinking water a thing?

[Brett]

No, it's like a cold plug.

[Brandy Posey]

Okay.

[Brett]

Oh, okay, okay. Again, like guys are doing today, right? Where you get like this bucket of ice water and you plunge yourself in for whatever period of time. From an article in the Journal of Integral Medicine by Susanna Saranko. Building from this little book, Knipe eventually modified the cold water baths to what became his signature treatment, the shower baths or gushes, which he administered with a simple garden watering can. By pouring water on the subject, a quicker reaction is brought on than by bathing. Pouring was Father Knipe's special method. The object of all cold water applications is to cause a stimulation in the circulation of the blood, and they must last only long enough for this reaction to take place. Knipe paid close attention to the primary and secondary reactions caused by cold water on warm skin. And part of why this is so popular is that ice bathing or what he's doing, which is like pouring cold water on you because he says it causes the reaction faster, it has a physiological effect, it does measurable things to your body. Right. That said, it is never. Neither ice bathing nor any other kind of cold water exposure has been shown to treat or cure tuberculosis. There's no documentation of this working. However, there's a couple of things going on because both Nipe and LUST will credit getting better from TB to this cold plunge type thing, basically. And first off, in the 1800s, a lot of people are misdiagnosed when they're diagnosed with tb. A lot of deaths that are just credited to tuberculosis were something else. And doctors were worse at diagnosing stuff back then. Right. And secondly, without treatment, a decent number of people survive tuberculosis. I'm not saying don't get your tuberculosis treated, but I did find a 2023 article in the Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease which notes that about 40% of TB patients in 2021 weren't diagnosed or treated. And that 10 year survival rates without any kind of medical treatment are about 40%. Right. Which is less. People who don't seek medical care are a lot less likely to survive tuberculosis. Please, if you get tb, seek treatment. But it's not crazy that two dudes might have gotten sick and just gotten over it more or less intact. Because that happens sometimes, right? That's just, you know, the human body be doing shit. People don't respond the same way to every disease.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah, we're a powerful little machine that wants to live.

[Sophie]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brett]

Sometimes your body just pulls through. Cool.

[Sophie]

People did cool stuff. Listeners are very familiar with friend of the pod tuberculosis because, yeah, almost every episode it comes in and, and either kills our villain or kills our hero.

[Brett]

That's what life was like before modern medicine. And we're going right back to that period of time. Don't you worry. You give, you give RFK another year or two.

[Sophie]

Yeah, I'd really rather not.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah, I'm excited for the white handkerchiefs that people cough a little bit of blood into now to be made out of plastic.

[Brett]

I'm already. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brandy Posey]

Gone are the days of the cotton hanky.

[Brett]

No, no, it got to be plastic for May, baby. So cold water immersion does. Because this is something people are advocating today, it does again have observable and measurable physiological effects. Some studies have suggested can help treat chronic immune inflammation and have a beneficial impact on stress. However, number one, there's negative health consequences. It can raise your heart rate to a degree that can cause cardiac events in people. There are like health nuts who have died doing cold plunges because it shocks their heart. Also, per an article in the International Journal of Circumpolar Health, quote, many of the health benefits claimed from regular cold water exposure may not be causal and may instead be explained by other factors. In other words, most of the studies that suggested a benefit are flawed in some way. There's not. I'm not saying there's no bit. There are maybe some benefits and especially because of the way it affects your heart and circulation, people with certain conditions might benefit from cold water plunges. But the science today is far from certain on this. And it's surely not curing tuberculosis, right? No, but they have a lot less data back then, so it is more forgivable. I don't think Nipe is a con man. I think he truly believes this saved his life and he's doing his best to help other people. Right. And I think the same is going to be true of the future doctor Not a doctor Lust because he falls in love with this stuff when he goes to Nipe's clinic, which is basically a spa. Knipes doing these cold water exposure things. He's also giving people herbal medicine. There's a lot of teas involved. And Dr. Lust falls in love with this. This is his first hit of what we today called alternative medicine. This is the very first gaspings of that. And Lust is immediately like, oh, this is my whole life right here, baby. I'm going to make this everything to me.

[Brandy Posey]

Well, and it also makes sense because at that time it was like that or chimney sweep. Right. So what else are you going to

[Brett]

do with your time? I mean, Jesus Christ, I don't even have television really going yet.

[Brandy Posey]

Exactly. If I'm just sitting at a nice place that has some nice teas and things like that, it's like I'm going to maybe feel better than when I'm doing a 20 hour sh in the factory.

[Brett]

Now me, I would live at the pharmacy. I would be buying that heroin cough syrup every day of the week. Oh man. If only. If only. So lust moves to the United States near the end of the 1800s. And by that period of time before we're really into the 1900s, even the U.S. particularly New York, has become kind of this globally recognized mecca for nonsense medicine. Like we Americans, we're on the ground floor of selling bullshit to people and claiming it cures disease. From 1896 to 1901. Lust because as soon as he moves there and he starts training in a couple of different like quasi medical fields, one of which. So he trains as an osteopath. An osteopathy. And osteopathy is a difficult case to talk about. We're not going to be giving it enough attention today. If you run into someone who is an osteopath, they're probably a real doctor, right? Probably. It is largely a real type of medicine today. But it was founded decades ago by an untrained amateur who felt that all disease was caused by misplaced or deranged bones. Quote from Quackwatch Quackwatch writes quote. And most diseases were curable by manipulation of deranged displaced bones, nerves, muscles, removing all obstructions, thereby setting the machinery of life moving. His autobiography, the founder of osteopathy states that he caused a bald headed man to grow hair 3 inches long in one week. And that he could shake a child and stop scarlet fever, croup diphtheria and cure Whooping cough in three days by a ring of its neck. He was antagonistic towards the drug practices of his day and regarded surgery as a last resort. Rejected as a cultist by organized medicine, he founded the first osteopathic medical school in Kirksville, Missouri, in 1892. This will not be the last time Missouri shows up in these episodes.

[Brandy Posey]

Extremely true.

[Brett]

Wow, your baby's got whooping cough. Let me ring their neck. That'll fix them.

[Brandy Posey]

Absolutely. The James Bond of doctors.

[Brett]

It's crazy how many people who call themselves doctors still think, like, oh, your kid's coughing too much. I gotta basically break their spine. You gotta let me get my hands around that fucking neck and just really throttle it like a son of a bitch. Like, that's still a lot of guys who say that they're doctors today. They paralyze kids all the time.

[Brandy Posey]

Abuse the child until they say they're okay.

[Brett]

Yeah. So now, that said, as wild as that last paragraph was, from this point, osteopathy develops after this into again, what is today a largely real field of medicine. There are still some quacks who call themselves osteopaths. But over time, the good osteopaths who cared about evidence based care won out over the bad ones. I think that's how the articles I've read make it seem I'm not a doctor except for in New Jersey. Right. But Dr. Lust is studying osteopathy when it is still firmly in its quack era. He also studies chiropractic medicine and takes classes on that. And if you remember our episodes on the history of chiropracty, it was founded by a guy who learned the secrets of spinal manipulation from a ghost. That is where chiropractic medicine comes from. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Amazing stuff happening in the early late 1800s and early 1900s. So, yeah, lust gets into chiropractic osteopathy and he starts exploring botanical medicines, you know, what people would call, like, plant based medicines. And he gets interested in the emerging field of what becomes known as physical culture. Bernard McFadden, who we've done episodes on, is a major factor in this. He and Lust are kind of contemporaries and they're writing about health and about a lot of the shit RFK is in. It's like, how can you stay looking buff longer if you're a dude? You know, like, how can you get big biceps? Like, what kind of chemicals will make it easier for me to keep muscle on?

[Brandy Posey]

I feel like you're trying to convince me that RFK Jr might actually be a Time traveler from this era. That's the only way he actually makes sense, right?

[Brett]

His ideology is firmly rooted in the early first 20 years of the 20th century. Now, lust is one of those guys who binges on fringe medical treatments. He's not discriminating. He likes it all. He's taken sun baths. You know, the modern equivalent would be. Modern equivalent would be those guys who like, expose their assholes to direct sunlights for health reasons. He's exploring electrotherapy. He's like shocking himself to make himself feel better. And crucially, what kind of makes Lust a trailblazer is he's putting all of these different quack treatments together, and he's mixing them with like, cold water therapy and herbalism. And he's looking at it all as one connected field, Not a bunch of separate things. Things. Right? And that's a new idea. Previously, most of these old timey medical grifters aren't seeing themselves as part of like a large movement that includes a bunch of different kinds of treatment. They're like, no, the secret is electro therapy. The secret is water therapy. The secret is they've got their thing and that's the thing that they're trying to sell. And Lust is like, no, no, this works a lot better if everybody's connected and we're all part of like a united front pushing all these fringe treatments that the real doctors don't want you to have access to. Right?

[Brandy Posey]

He's unionizing the quacks.

[Brett]

He's kind of unionizing the quacks. Yeah. That's basically Dr. Lust's story. In 1901, Dr. Lust starts collaborating with a group of fellow travelers to set out the underlying theory behind their new discipline, which doesn't have a name yet, but they're firmly in opposition to what they call the druggists. Right? Today, the term that like these folks use is allopaths to refer to, like real doctors, what we call real doctors. But they're calling them basically druggists, right? And the critique they're making, which is to a degree valid in the time, is that real doctors just want to dope you the fuck up. And a lot of real doctors are just doping you the fuck up. That's not an unfair critique of the day. That doesn't make what they're selling work any better. But it is sometimes less harmful, right? Sometimes if your doctor's prescribing you like fucking arsenic, and your fake doctor's prescribing you fucking homeopathic arsenic, which is just water, you're better off with Homeopathic arsenic, you know, 100%. Yeah. So the central tenet that Dr. Lust and his colleagues land on is this. The body can repair itself. And that rather than treating sickness, physicians should seek to restore balance to the body so that it can cure its own illnesses. Right. And it can avoid getting sick, because if the body stays in balance, then it won't get ill. The website Indie Health Facts has a good summary of what Lust eventually comes to believe and push to make the center of naturopathy as a discipline. Dr. Lust was opposed to the processing of foods because such manufacture tends to destroy their true nutritional values. He was opposed to the administrations of all drugs and narcotics because they are unnatural elements which the human body is not capable of assimilating. He's opposed to the regimentation of the American people under medically controlled experiment elements because such legislation will wipe out other methods of treatment and bring inestimable damage to the health of every man, woman and child affected. He's opposed to any legislation which in practice would prevent a family from attending to its own ills, or the choosing by such family of any type of treatment it might desire, because such legislation restricts personal liberty, intends to take from the American people the right to use the beneficial, homespun, efficient remedies which have been handed down from generation to generation. He is.

[Sophie]

That's a lot of words.

[Brett]

It's just rfk. It's just rfk. Right. I don't think you should be able to tell people that anything they believe is medicine isn't medicine. That's a crime. That's the only crime. Not selling nonsense is medicine. Now, the name naturopathy is actually coined by a married physician couple, the doctors John and Sophie Scheele, who are kind of colleagues and contemporaries of Dr. Lust. They come up with the name in 1902, and Lust buys it from them. He purchases the naming rights because as soon as he hears naturopathy, he's like, I can't beat that. That's the best marketing name for this thing that we're doing. Like, that's going to work, really? And it is a good name. It's a good name.

[Sophie]

I don't know why, but like, 1902 seems really early for buy naming rights.

[Brett]

Yeah, no, this man is committed. He's convinced. And honestly, it works like he is a visionary when it comes to this shit. So Lust opens a school for naturopaths, and he opens what's probably the first health food store in the world. I think in. I think it's in New York. But yeah, he opens like a health food store in like 1910 dot, right? Like in the fucking start of the century. So that stuff goes back quite a while.

[Brandy Posey]

God, I don't even want to think about how bad this guy's deodorant was.

[Brett]

When I've been to anything, just a solid crystal, it's literally emeralds. He's just rubbing it in there. It doesn't do anything. As naturopathy evolves, it becomes clear that its practitioners all share one curious trait. A distrust or even a hatred of medical drugs. In an often heedless embrace of every conceivable non drug therapy, often to absurd ends. Now again, and the way lust frames this is like people have a right to use the homespun treatments that their ancestors have been using for generations. That's not what's primarily being marketed by the naturopaths. They're into a lot of expensive, insane quack treatments. Take aeriopathy. Areopathy is a treatment that starts from the premise that, and this is true, heat can reduce pain. Right? We've all probably experienced this in some way. It's a pretty common thing to like, you know, deal with like inflammation, joint pain, all that sort of stuff. People have known this basically forever. It's the, if you've ever heard of like an old timey treatment, the mustard plaster, where they'll put like this plaster of mustard on your naked chest. It's because that like burns and the heat offers like a relief from some kind of like chest cold symptoms and stuff. And I think it, I've never had it performed on me, but I'm sure it does like feel like it helps at least. Aeropathy takes this concept up to 11 and incorporates what was literally called. The name of the device used for aeropathy is a human bake oven. As a treatment, they're literally putting people into actual ovens and at like oven temperatures. I need to show you, Sophie's gonna put on screen if you're watching this, a 1912 ad published in the Calgary Herald and I'll read the ad to you. It's got a picture in the center of what looks like a fucking iron lung, but it's an oven that everything but the person's head goes inside. And it says, rheumatism positively cured by the human bake oven. Can you take 500 degrees Fahrenheit? Try it. 500? That's crazy. You should take 500. No, absolutely not.

[Sophie]

I was like, okay, okay, okay, 500. You're burning your face off.

[Brett]

That's well, in excess of what I've read most of these treatments were. Usually, people seem to be slow cooked from anywhere from like 280 degrees Fahrenheit, which seems to have been like the most common. 280 to 300 degrees is like a normal temperature. And most. For most people doing this, the high temperature is up to like 400 degrees. But obviously, as that ad shows, some people are going way further than that. And it's not always the whole body ovens, Some smaller contraptions were used to target a single part of the body, like this easy leg bake oven Sophie's gonna show you, which just. I mean, it almost looks like one of those cuffs you put your arm in and it's on a. But I can see how you just kind of jam your leg in there and it just like bakes the shit out of it.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah. Turn my knee into a brownie. Let's go.

[Sophie]

Wow, what a choice.

[Brett]

This must have hurt and killed people. I haven't run into stories of that. You shouldn't be baked. Like, there definitely are people getting burns. Because again, you shouldn't be baked. Every doctor, I think, will tell you that. Now is that, like 500 degrees is too much for any part of your body. You cook meat.

[Brandy Posey]

I don't even know that my oven actually goes up to 500 degrees.

[Brett]

You probably shouldn't be cooking meat at 500 degrees.

[Brandy Posey]

That's your baby's cough out of their chest.

[Brett]

I rarely go above, like, 400.

[Brandy Posey]

No, seriously, that's crazy. Like, like, I like a hot sauna. I like a sauna. That is a whole different ball game from this. This is crazy.

[Brett]

That's another level of batshit. Now, naturopaths were also known to advocate astral healing and zodiac therapy, which is basically someone giving someone tea based on their horoscope. And there are a bunch of weirder treatments that Quack Watch collected for an article on this. Like, quote, blood washing with herbs autotherapy, which is, quote, treatment with potions made from the patient's infected tissues or excretions. And autohemic therapy, which involves a solution made by modifying and potentizing a few drops of the patient's blood. Great stuff.

[Brandy Posey]

Wow, man. But seriously, shout out to him for being able to sell somebody's shit back to themselves.

[Brett]

Oh, yeah.

[Brandy Posey]

That is absolutely a hell of a

[Brett]

sales your own blood. Selling your own blood, man. You made that, bro. That's crazy. Yeah. Wow. Now, to be totally fair to Dr. Lust and his colleagues, it's like 120 something years ago again. Real doctors aren't always a lot better than the quacks and the naturopaths. You know, they have some points in this era, but what's happening is you're going to start not long after this period seeing the development of like real medical science. Like people medicine from 1900 to like 1960 probably gets better faster than it has at like any other point in history. You'd be hard pressed. I mean maybe the like 60 years after that. But even then I don't think we had jumps quite as big as that leap from in 1900. A lot of people are still basically living the same way with similar medical access to what they would have had in like the 1600s. Right. In a lot of parts of the world there's not massive differences from how shit would have been in like the Enlightenment era in terms of the average person's access to good medicine to. By 1950-60, even people out in the sticks have a much better access to real quality medicine and to doctors who actually know something meaningful about how disease spreads. And you have the ability to actually prevent a lot of these diseases for the first time. And that's gonna be disastrous for this first wave of naturopaths, right? Is that especially from like 40 to 60, it becomes really impossible to deny that like, okay, well the people who use the naturopaths are still getting sick and dying from all of like the weird plagues going around. And the people who are getting vaccinated that don't are living well.

[Brandy Posey]

It's also funny, we've got World War II happening during this time period too. Right? And the idea of being like, here's like a T for your leg that got blown off is not

[Brett]

good. Okay, what about this echinacea, is that, is that good? It's, it's been reduced by a thousand gallons of water. Oh no, you're dead. You bled out. You bled right out. Huh? That was a femoral hit.

[Sophie]

Yeah. Did either of you see that skid SNL did in the, in the last month or so that like making. That was like a combination of making fun of the Maha movement, but also like the pit. It's literally this. No, it's literally this Modern Times. You would love it. You would love it. It's great. Also Harry Styles, isn't it?

[Brett]

Hell yeah. Great. Good for Harry Styles. So, you know, and it's also important to note that one of the key differences, one of the reasons that like osteopathy becomes more of a real, becomes a real discipline and the reason that medicine, you know, in 1900 and 1920, maybe a lot of doctors aren't really much better than the naturopaths. That changes too, in part because the real doctors, even if they start from position of believing a lot of bullshit, are doing what you ought to do, which is you document, okay, we prescribed this treatment to this many people and oh, actually it turns out that after a year or two, there was no difference between them and the people who didn't get a treatment, or between them and the people who got this other treatment that's cheaper or, you know, whatever you prune away, you find out, oh, some stuff we can see isn't working, so we're not going to do that anymore. And some stuff, the consequences of giving people these medicines, even if they work immediately, is worse than, you know, giving them this alternative. So we're going to do that and the field gets better and we get a lot better at medicine over time. Naturopathy's problem, and the reason why it doesn't really go down the same road is that it was fundamentally created and always run primarily by a bunch of weird little guys and girls who each had their own specific kind of alternative or quack therapy like water therapy or blood washing. And they were primarily getting into the naturopathy not because they saw themselves as. They're mostly not like lust. They don't see themselves as scientists who are part of a movement. They've got a thing to sell. And if that's the attitude you approach your discipline from, that's not conducive to good science.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah, you're coming at it. Yeah, Scientific method versus the vibe method

[Brett]

is what we're talking about and versus I'm already if this doesn't treat this disease, I'm out a shitload of money. Like, I'm ruined like this. I have to be able to sell this even if I realize it doesn't work after a while because I'm pot committed to this shit. Speaking of pot committed, you know who's pot committed to this podcast? Our sponsors. Oh, very nice. Huzzah. Yeah, they can't get away from us now.

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[Brett]

you by Vive Healthcare, the makers of Devato Dolutegravir lamivudine. If you're living with hiv, do learn about Dovato. Dovato is a complete HIV treatment by prescription only for some people 12 and older. Your doctor will determine if Davato is right for you. Most HIV pills contain three or four medicines. Dovato is as effective with just two. No other complete HIV pill contains fewer medicines than Dovato.

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[Brett]

Do ask your doctor about fewer medicines. Visit Dovato.com or call 1-877-84488. And we're back. We're back. And we're. We're talking about naturopaths. So the AMA guys in Dr. Lust Day have a lot of teeth. And they do not take kindly to a bunch of weird ass hippie types taking patients and claiming to treat disease. The AMA declares war on Dr. Lust and they managed to score some real hits. Per an article in the Journal of Applied Natural Medicine, lust was arrested 14 times and fined once. $500 because a dirty woman sleuth of the medical trust, the American Medical association with an unspeakable name took an electric light bath in his institution. Now that's from a naturopathic publication. Quoting a naturopath. I wanted to know more about this story. This dirty woman sleuth of the medical trust. They're calling it the medical trust because trust busting is popular in this era. Right. This is the Teddy Roosevelt era. When some of this is going or when a lot of these people's like, political awakening is. So, you know, that's why they're. They're framing it that way. But I looked into this and it turns out that in 1921, Dr. Lust was arrested for committing criminal libel against Francis Benzareke or Ben Zekri. That's the unspeakably named woman who worked as a detective for the ama. Lust wrote that she was a disgrace to American womanhood and to the free soil of America on which she treads.

[Brandy Posey]

I want to hear her story, man.

[Brett]

It sounds like he's got some medical issues with women. Wow. Well, because she's. They've got her trying to bust. Trying to prove that Lust and his followers are representing themselves as doctors. Right. Are legally claiming to be treating diseases in a way that exceeds what they're. What they're free to do. Right? Obviously. Freedom of speech and shit. You have some room. We have a lot more room today even to sell, like, quack treatments. But you can't say certain things just to say on your fake medicine.

[Sophie]

Just to say that, quote, a disgrace to American womanhood into the free soil of America on which she treads. Hot.

[Brandy Posey]

Love it.

[Brett]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

Great tattoo.

[Brett]

Great t. Shirt as every woman I've ever loved.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah, I want to see a film noir movie about this woman just, like, in her office smoking a cigarette. And just like, somebody comes in with a bag of their own blood and was like, yeah, I need help, Detective. Let's go.

[Brett]

Yeah. So these guys are all getting arrested a shitload for practicing medicine without a license. Which is actually why Dr. Lust buys the rights to the word naturopathy. So his people will have something else they can call themselves that's decidedly not a doctor and thus much more defensible. And that actually works really well.

[Brandy Posey]

Do they have a seal the way that, like, doctors have a seal? Is this a shaka in the middle of.

[Brett]

They've got a logo. Yeah, they've got a logo. They've got paperwork that they're issuing. Cause he's handing out licenses for naturopathic doctors. Right? And once they start branding themselves that way, judges tend to agree even when they're still sentencing him. He was told by one judge, there's no evidence that you practice medicine or held yourself out as a physician, but we find you just the same. And the naturopaths will point like, look at the injustice of the system. And I see this as a judge being like, yeah, man, you technically figured out how not to say the words that would have definitely been illegal. But you were for sure representing yourself as a doctor and selling medicine. And I'm just going to fine you anyway because I know you're guilty. Because you are, because you were Dr. Lust. By the way, no matter how much flak the AMA threw his way, naturopathy kept struggling forwards. From the 20s to the 30s, roughly half of US states passed laws that allowed naturopaths and other drugless healers to practice. Per quackwatch. However, as modern medicine developed, many of these laws were repealed and all but a few mail order schools ceased operations. The doctor of naturopathy nd degree was still available at several chiropractic colleges. But by 1957, the last of these colleges stopped issuing it. The National College of Naturopathic Medicine was founded in 1957 in Portland, Oregon, but until the mid-1970s, had very few students. From 1960 through 1968, the average enrollment was 8 and the total number of graduates was 16. So again, there's a gap of like a generation from between the first and second wave of naturopaths. It makes, by the way, Portland, Oregon, where naturopathy, like its second wave, started. The seeds of its rebirth just had an outbreak of measles traced to A Safeway. And it's not because people can't afford vaccines. That's not. If you look at where the fucking viral outbreaks of cured diseases occur in Portland, it tends to be more affluent neighborhoods who are choosing not to take vaccinations.

[Sophie]

You can always get an organ to come up if it's like a weird medical thing. Some obscure, very tiny cult medicine stuff.

[Brett]

Weird cult. Yep.

[Sophie]

Ancient white supremacy. Modern white supremacy.

[Brett]

I love my adopted home.

[Sophie]

Oregon's like, hey. Hey, how you doing?

[Brett]

Hey. Oh, yeah, we're keeping it weird, man. Hey, you're crazy, aren't you? Welcome to Portland.

[Sophie]

Yeah, but our weather rocks.

[Brett]

It is nice. Great weather. So we hate the sun. Yeah.

[Sophie]

The weather today is so good, you guys.

[Brett]

It's. It is perfect. It's like 65 degrees and sunny. It's great.

[Sophie]

It's perfect.

[Brett]

I'm wearing a T shirt. Summer fire season this year is going to be a nightmare, though. Anyway, that's an important point. Just if you're talking about naturopathy today, there are some differences because there's like a break of a generation between two fields. I think a lot of the same problems are still present. An issue of, you know, at least with this first wave, the very first naturopaths, like Dr. Lust, I think, really believed in what they were doing. A big part of the problem is a huge amount of, like, the second wave are just people who realize, oh, this movement connects me to a huge base of people I can sell nonsense to. And that's what they. And that's definitely a lot of the founders, too. It's. It's. I. Maybe I'm wrong about Lust being in this genuinely. Like, I honestly can't tell with him, but it seems like he's somebody who, like, really does think this all works. And that's not going to be the case with our actual subject of this week, Robert Spears. Yeah.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah.

[Brett]

Who, again, is the guy we're talking about this week?

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Brandy Posey]

Or at the very least, like, Lust believed it at the very. For some period of time. It clear he clearly was a believer, and who knows what happened? But, you know, I mean, you're not gonna go through all of this trouble, necessarily, if you don't have true belief behind that for some.

[Brett]

Right, Right. That tends to be how I think about it, too. And yeah, so Robert Vernon Spears, the guy we're actually talking about, was born on June 26, 1894, in Cassville, Missouri. See, I said we'd get back to Missouri, and we sure as hell did. It's Actually got to show up a few more times in these episodes. He was not, however, born under the name Robert Vernon Spears. This is one of our classic con man stories where this guy has like 30 or so serious names, by which I mean a name that he had, like, he had took real efforts to falsify as his own. He's got documents for these names. He's got dozens of them. This guy goes through so many fucking names. He was probably born Clyde Stringer or Clyde Porter. But even that I have to put a probably on because Clyde Roberts mother is a woman we just know of as Matilda. And she writes her kid name. She gives him a different name on different government documents because she's also a con woman. And so from the beginning, she's like setting her son up for success, being like, I'm going to make sure nobody ever knows what your name is, boy. Like, this will be. This will really benefit you down the line. There's not a clean paper trail for your life that's not going to be

[Brandy Posey]

SEO for 150 years.

[Brett]

Yeah, yeah. Trust me, being able to become a new person by. By skipping counties is going to be much more beneficial than name recognition in the life you're going to lead. My son.

[Brandy Posey]

Well, and it's funny, I will say, if this kid was born a Clyde, I have a little bit of respect for him. Out of the way.

[Brett]

Oh, born Clyde. Clyde, Clyde, Clyde to the bone.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love to hear about. I'm excited to hear about a Clyde who identifies as a Robert. This is great.

[Brett]

Yeah. Well, he comes to later. Alan Logan, author of the Spears biography self styled, just notes that Matilda, his mom, was, quote, a woman who also used many names in chains. Her own identity as circumstances dictated, she claimed her child was the son of a farmer named George Stringer from northeast Oklahoma, which is where George was born and where he was raised for the first three years of his life. They got married when he was three after moving to Missouri. So they raised him for the first few years of his life in Oklahoma. Then they move up to Missouri. And his mom uses the surname Smith on her marriage certificate to George, but she had been using the name Jink Jenkins most of the time prior to that. So even her husband knows she's given two different options as to her maiden name. And her headstone would give yet another last name. This was a slippery woman, and she would pass those traits on to her son. Her marriage to George did not last long. After a year, she was caught having an affair with some other dude and so she takes Clyde in the night and abandons George, who files for divorce. This is also going to leave a mark on Clyde. He's going to not have the best record of sticking around for marriages as we'll talk about. And he kind of inherits that from his mom. Yeah.

[Brandy Posey]

Matilda, I love this woman as like the Moriarty.

[Brett]

She's amazing.

[Brandy Posey]

The medical detective lady. I would really like to see their paths crossed.

[Brett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. These two characters were born for each other. So after leaving her husband behind, Matilda would tell her son that George had, quote, died of pneumonia. But Alan Logan writes, it is not entirely clear who she was telling Clyde had died of pneumonia because we don't actually know who Clyde thought his father was. Right. Like, we just have some old paperwork. So it's not entirely clear who Clyde's dad was or who she told him it was. Matilda moved through men at a rapid pace. Right.

[Brandy Posey]

So hell yeah, Matilda. I mean, don't you know, you got a little kid. So I got questions.

[Brett]

But also great for Clyde. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's living it up. She's living it up. A lot of men are having the male version of this life, which is much more common. So you have to stan a woman who's willing to like, break free from tradition and really like, really just be like a very masculine kind of scumbag. And honestly, I appreciate that. You know, it's nice to see the

[Brandy Posey]

glass gutter is just as important as the glass ceiling.

[Brett]

I think the glass gutter matters just as much as the glass ceiling. Gorgeous women have the right to be scumbags too. Matilda, we salute you. You know who else is a scumbag? Nope. Mmm. That's not good.

[Sophie]

I like this roof over my head.

[Brett]

Sure. Well, anyway, here's ads.

[Sophie]

Okay.

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[Brett]

you by Vive Healthcare. They're makers of Dovato Dolutegravir lamivudine. If you're living with hiv, do learn about Dovato. Dovato is a complete HIV treatment by prescription only for some people 12 and older. Your doctor will determine if Divato is right for you. Most HIV pills contain three or four medicines. Divato is as effective with just two. No other complete HIV pill contains fewer medicines than Dovato.

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It is unknown if Dovato is safe and effective if you have HIV and Hepatitis B if you have Hep B. Don't stop Dovato without talking to your doctor as it may get worse or harder to treat. Don't take Dovato if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking Dofetilide due to serious or life threatening side effects. If you have a rash or allergic reaction symptoms, stop Dovato and get medical help right away. Other serious or life threatening side effects include severe liver problems and lactic acid buildup. If you're female or obese, you may be more at risk. Tell your doctor about your medicines or supplements. Medical conditions liver or kidney problems, pregnancy, breastfeeding or planned pregnancy.

[Brett]

Do Ask your doctor about fewer medicines. Visit devato.com or call 1-877-844-8872. And we're back and we're talking about whether or not our advertisers are scumbags. Sophie says no. I say I don't know who is right. Probably Sophie. Legally, I think I have to say that you do. So in 1899, Matilda, who was just going through this carousel of men in cities with her young son. In 1899, she marries an elderly farmer. Matilda, you got it, girl. She's pretty cool. Not a great mom, doesn't do a good job raising this kid, but pretty cool to read about.

[Sophie]

She's out here thought nin trotting and I appreciate that.

[Brett]

She marries a Civil War veteran with lifelong injuries and a drinking problem to match. And he's got, got like a kid that she winds up. Well, she winds up having a kid. I don't think it's his. I think she cheats on him and she has a kid with somebody else and he gets pissed. So he bounces in 1902 and now she's a single mother of two. As a result, Clyde experiences deep poverty for basically his entire childhood. His mom is only able to keep them fed and sheltered by moving constantly from town to town and conning strangers to stay alive. I want to read a quote from the book. Self styled. As they moved from place to place, he saw Matilda retelling their story and remaking her identity. She used different names when it suited her. Clyde may have absorbed more from his mother than she realized, including the seeds of his own restless wanderlust and the ease of taking on aliases. This is just. He was like made in a lab to be a con man, basically. Matilda eventually marries again and the family settles in Pryor, Oklahoma, merging the families of two single parents who now had six kids between them. This marriage doesn't work out either. And when things get bad enough that Clyde doesn't want to be there anymore, he realizes kind of by his adolescence, I could just leave. Like there's a train station in town. And he figures out when he's like 12 or 13, I just bounce on a train and go away for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Like if I don't want to be around here and I can just visit new places and then I can come back whenever I'm ready, they'll take me back. And he loves the freedom of the road. And he starts in order to fund these trips. He doesn't want to work so he starts committing petty crimes while he's away to pay his way. You know, I know a lot of friends who have gone through versions of this period in their life.

[Brandy Posey]

Oh yeah, we've all got a couple of crusties in our past, right?

[Brett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now this behavior ultimately gets him in trouble when he's like a teenager and he gets sent away to a reformatory school for some time. However long he's at this reform school, by age 16 he is out out because he gets in trouble for passing bad checks and then using the ill gotten money to buy nice clothes and stay in hotels. And he's like paying in check for hotel stays and for clothes for more than they're worth so he can get cash back basically. That's a big part of the scam. It's a lot easier to do this stuff. Although he still gets caught every single time. Right, right. That said, this is a time in which the authorities are a lot likelier to look the other way and at formal charges if people can work things out themselves. Basically, if you get caught, a cop is likely to just kind of like drop things. As long as you're both white people. Right. If like two white dudes are willing to agree, okay, he made it. Right. We don't need to go any further. Usually they'll just be like fine with it. Right. That's, that's a lot more common in this era.

[Brandy Posey]

So he's like a raptor testing the fence too. So he's just like, okay, where can I, what is the move here?

[Brett]

Yeah, what can I get away with? And part of what he learns is, is he's really charming. Clyde is deeply charismatic. And so people are kind of like often willing to forgive him because as soon as he gets caught, every time he'll say, oh, yep, I did it, this is what I did. And he'll like apologize. And as a result, I think that in his youth kind of keeps him from catching serious charges until he turns 18. So Clyde, one of the things about Clyde is he fucking loves trains. Very relatable. Right. Unfortunately, he loves trains because of the crime potential inherent in those trains. And he's been observing employees at the local railroad company, MKT cash checks. And he also, one of his friends, I think, works for mkt. And his dad, his friend's dad had worked there for a while. And so he like talks to that guy and applies him for information about how the checking, check writing process works for MKT employees at the MKT bank. And then he forges the name of his Friend in a church check payable to himself. And I'm gonna quote from Alan Logan's book here, his real audacity wasn't taking that forged check to his friend's father, the MKT Railroad agent who cashed it for him. The check was only for $9, $233 today, but the thrill of it was priceless. The MKT Railroad was enraged by the outrageous stunt. They deployed Special Agent Porum to give chase as Spears made his first known headlines. Described as the Gilded Youth Clyde Stringer from prior Oklahoma. When they finally caught up with him in June 1913, the newspapers reported how Special Agent Porum had trace Kansas City to Oklahoma City and across the state, east and west. He was finally found at Murdoch, Kansas, hunting for work in a harvest field. First off, that's a long way to chase a guy for $9. Really says a lot about how little there was to do back then. Like you are going to the ends of the earth for nine bucks. It's the principal, I'm sure is what that guy would say.

[Sophie]

It's giving comic book the gilded youth.

[Brett]

The Gilded Youth, yeah. No, that's. He does have a comic book style nickname.

[Brandy Posey]

Very Catch Me if you can of him too. It feels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm picturing Leo Dio like this is like a Leo Dio type guy.

[Brett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although again, Frank Abagnale, the real guy behind Catch Me if youf can, was an absolute fraud like that. The stuff in the movie didn't happen. It was mostly just creeping on ladies.

[Brandy Posey]

Well, you know, movie is the biggest con of all, so.

[Brett]

That's right. That's right. It's the final level of cons. So Clyde does more than a year behind bars. He's sentenced to prison, and he's not released until August 31, 1914. And as soon as he's free, he establishes a pattern of behavior that's gonna be with him for the next half century. He'd kind of consider going straight, maybe briefly toy with the idea and then he would immediately commit a series of daring frauds in assorted small towns and cities across Oklahoma and the Middle States. And he's just going to like commit a bunch of fraud and then fucking get arrested periodically in a pattern. This becomes like the normal, like tempo of life for him for the next several years. Right. Is he'll commit a bunch of petty fraud, mostly passing bad checks and stealing merchandise. Like different retailers he worked with over the years. Then he'll get caught and he'll get in some trouble. He'll either talk his way out or he'll do a little time and then he's back on the road.

[Brandy Posey]

I imagine he also has like a bunch of babies and baby mamas all over the country during this too.

[Brett]

Will he does. He has some. He does have a couple of kids that he abandons, like I think like three over the course of the story. He also has a lot of wives that he abandons, as we'll talk about. So within three years, by 1917, he's a wanted man again. So when he moved to Collingsworth, Oklahoma, he changed his last name from Stringer to Porter and figured that'll be good enough. Nobody's gonna guess that Clyde Stringer's Clyde Porter. That's not gonna. That's impossible for people to suss out. And then he passes another series of bad checks and he has to steal a car to flee town. Clyde drove the car to a train station and left it parked outside with a note being like, here's who this car belongs to. I'm sorry I had to take it. It, you know, this is where you should return it to, you know. So the cops ultimately raid Clyde's home and they find a bunch of stolen property and a huge number of forged checks. These were of such high quality that businesses started posting copies of Clyde's bad checks to warn their employees about what to look for when trying to spot bad checks. Right, that like, these are the archetypal bad checks. So you should, you should familiarize yourself with them. Clyde, okay. He goes on the run for a few more months, but as is always the case, he can't avoid the temptation to visit his family and friends. And he gets caught in Toledo operating under yet another fake name. I think he's visiting a sister. And that fake name is Charles Howard. He shows up in court dressed per the Tulsa Daily World to the nines, in a dark suit, white turn down collar and multicolored silk tie. It was his second attempt to win a reputation in the bad check line. So they're always kind of, he's handsome and he's well dressed and the newspaper's always right about that. And it starts to. There's this big, it's gonna be even bigger in the 30s, this like gentleman bandit archetype that's huge in American pop culture. And because Clyde is handsome and he's mostly robbing banks and he's not doing it violently, a lot of people kind of like him. Like, the news is interested in any Clyde crime story because he's this really likable criminal figure people want to hear about.

[Brandy Posey]

When does Bonnie and Clyde happen? Because that's a different Clyde that Rob begs.

[Brett]

That's going to be in the 30s. Totally different Clyde. And this Clyde's going by Robert by then. That's his funny get out of the Clyde business by the time there's that other Clyde.

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah, exactly. He's just like, hack.

[Brett]

I think there's a strategy here. I think he knew he was going to get caught when he stole that car to get away. And I think the note he leaves is part of his image campaign. Basically that if I leave a note in there telling them how to return it to its owner, that'll go better for me when I ultimately wind up in front of a judge. And it does work for him. He winds up in front of a judge. In his biography of Clyde, Logan notes, Alan Logan notes that most of Clyde's victims in this period didn't press charges, and many who did still described him as basically a good guy. Like, they were like, well, I think he's a really good guy. He just fucked up here. And I, I, I'm still pressing charges. In keeping with tradition, these recent charges are ultimately dropped, which Logan claims is due to a technicality. I'm not sure if that's accurate. Vanishing act, which is another book about Robert Spears slash Clyde. The author of that, Jerry Jameson, suggests something different. Quote, the judge let Charles Howard off easy, citing the thoughtful note he had left in the stolen car. This time, however, he suggested the young man join other American patriots fighting in Europe during the Great War. So basically, Clyde gets off, but on the condition that he join the army and go fight in World War I one. Right. That's kind of what happens here, is this judge is like, you're a good young man. What if you just go into the trenches for a little while? How does that sound to you?

[Brandy Posey]

Let's say. See how your stationary gets you out of this one, buddy.

[Brett]

Yeah. Yeah. I think he's trying to be nice. Not traditionally a nice thing to do, make someone go to World War I. But Clyde does join. He signs up, he joins the army, and he uses a fake name to join the Army. And this name he picks, I think, because, because he's like, this gives me a chance to establish the name I'm going to be known by for the rest of my life. So when he's joining the army, he goes by the name Robert Vernon Spears, which is absolutely a fake name. But that's most of his life. He's going to keep going By Robert Vernon Spears. As soon as he signed up, just a few days before he reported for duty, Spears befriended another recruit, C.S. gilbert, and the two went partying before handing their lives over to the army. True to form, Spears told his new friend, and hey, this is crazy, but I'm, like, broke right now. Is there any chance you could, like, front me some money so we could, like, party? I'll totally get you back. And Gilbert's like, of course, man. We're gonna be fighting in the trenches together. I got, like, two grand in my pocket. I'll take care of us. And the two spend, like, two days partying and drinking and going to strip clubs. And at the end of it, when they're, like, sleeping in their hotel at night, Robert Spears steals his friend's cash and runs like, fuck, just as far as he can get before the cops catch the him, which they do immediately. Spears confesses, and he hands over the money. But Gilbert refuses to press charges. And in fact, he begs the cops to release his friend, saying, I guess I like the guy, and besides, I'll be serving in the trenches with him. It's like, if he got went to prison, you wouldn't. But Gilbert seems to be a very nice dude.

[Brandy Posey]

Poor Gilbert. You need to go. You need a coda meeting, buddy.

[Brett]

You deserve a better friend, man. This guy is not your friend friend. There's like, a local news story at the time with the title Lad Freeze, the one who robbed him. Very cute. Very fucking 1917. I don't know much about what Spears actually did with his time in World War I, because he mostly lies about it later, right? We get very little detail about what his actual service is. It looks like he probably spent the last year of the war as an aviator sergeant in the 314th Arrow Squadron, which was attached to the precursor of the British Rail. There's no evidence that he was a fighter pilot, but he pretends to have been a fighter pilot as soon as he gets back. If you're going to be a con man, what better job than fighter pilot, right? You're not going to lie and say you fought in the trenches like a schlub. You want to be a pilot, baby? That's the sexy job, man.

[Brandy Posey]

They got the aviators. Ain't nobody else got the sunglasses.

[Brett]

Yeah, it's a mark of how our era is that, like, even if you get trapped in one of these cool, like, one of our modern 21st century war, like, the cool new technology is so lame to be the guy working with. Like, if. If in 1917 you're like, yeah, I'm a fighter pilot in Europe. That's like cool as hell in like 2026 if you're like, yeah, I'm a drone pilot. It's like, get away from me, bro. That's gross.

[Brandy Posey]

Like play video games and kill people.

[Brett]

Get out of here. I don't even want you to be in the same room as me. That's sick. Yeah, like not even cool enough to be a fighter. It's, it's, it's, it's a bummer, I guess. There's that Kuwaiti fighter pilot who took out two of our F15s on accident. That guy is sitting pretty. He's the only guy with an air to air kill in a long time. We do not do much of that anymore. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. So by this point in time, Spears, he goes over, he probably has pretty pedestrian service, and he comes back lying that he'd served as a first lieutenant and he'd survived all these harrowing duels in the skies above Western Europe until he was finally shot down and wounded. He returns to St. Louis after the war and he starts telling the story to any woman who will listen. Right. Like that's. Of course, of course.

[Brandy Posey]

Betty had a fake cane for a while and stuff too.

[Brett]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. You gotta Dr. House that shit. It works great. Almost as good as an eyepatch.

[Sophie]

I can only imagine this man's dating profile.

[Brett]

Oh, it's a nightmare.

[Sophie]

Oh my God.

[Brett]

Not a word of it. True.

[Sophie]

He's got it. He's definitely got his fake credit score on there job. Not real. Oh my gosh. He's got some like photoshop photos of him. Oh, it's incredible. It's the best trust no man. Wow.

[Brett]

Yeah.

[Brandy Posey]

Number one, Chad.

[Brett]

So he ultimately wins the attention and then the hand in marriage of a woman named Aura Clayton. Run, girl. This is the start of what's going to be. No, don't worry, Sophie, she's not going to need. This is gonna be the start of a regular con act for Spears, which is he would entrance a young woman, he would ask for her hand in marriage, they would get married, and then in the night, he would steal everything in her house that wasn't nailed down and run like fuck for a new town and start a whole new life.

[Sophie]

What a pile of marrying ladies and robbing punk ass bitch.

[Brett]

He does that so many times. Like I don't know how many times in total, but it's like more than you have fingers on. At least one hand, it might be like two or three Hands of fake marriages. He does it a lot, and he's

[Sophie]

just moving from city to state or state. How far is he going?

[Brett]

Down to town. He's not always even leaving the county, Sophie. It was a different time. If you miles up the road, you could live a whole new life.

[Brandy Posey]

Prototypical fuck boy.

[Brett]

Here we are. It is so.

[Brandy Posey]

It's.

[Brett]

It's fucked up, but it's pretty funny. So days after marrying and abandoning Aura, he asks Dorothy Hayes for her hand in marriage. And then he abandons her, takes all of her shit and drives her out west. He just keeps doing this. He spends the early 20s conning a series of victims, several of whom become his wives. He does this in like Seattle. He moves down to Portland, Oregon, and then like through California, Nevada, Idaho, and ultimately winds up in Denver, Colorado. Like, he is just leaving. He's leaving a trail of heartbroken women who are also broke because he took all their money. Wherever he goes, he's there.

[Sophie]

And then he's the tinder swindler.

[Brett]

He's the tinder swindler. He is the tinder swindler. He's the tinder swindler. But things. He kind of gets a reverse thrown at him when he In Denver, he meets maybe his only real match, which is a young lady named Laura Meyers. And she seems perfect for him. She's beautiful. She's got a rich family that he can fleece for all their worth. So they get hitched and they book an expensive vacation. And Spears is like, heading upstairs to get their luggage from the hotel that they'd been staying in for the last couple of weeks. Weeks. And Laura flips the script on him, and by the time he comes downstairs with their luggage, she's stolen all of his money and run for the hills. This is an hour after they get married. Like, he gets turned about his fair play. Laura got your number.

[Brandy Posey]

Oh, man.

[Brett]

Takes all his and bounces.

[Sophie]

Laura Myers, feminist icon.

[Brett]

Yeah. Laura Myers, feminist icon.

[Brandy Posey]

Laura Myers. Wow. And that he. That's the moment he actually fell in with love.

[Brett]

Yeah. Yeah, that's the moment.

[Brandy Posey]

The first time in his life.

[Brett]

Yeah. It is beautiful. You love to see, you know the story in that way. Well, it middles that way. We haven't even gotten to him becoming a fucking naturopath yet. There's a lot more left of the Robert Spears story, but not today because we're at about an hour, so. Yeah, I think. Brandy, you want to go out with any plugs here?

[Brandy Posey]

Yeah, I have a new album. It's called Milk Job. I'M a stand up comedian. It's out on my record label that I started called Burn this Records that is trying to bring more equity into the comedy space for DIY comedians all over the United States and world. A big thing that you could do to help our label out is if you went to YouTube.com burn this records and followed our label so I could monetize video. That would be a huge, huge, huge help. I would really appreciate it. My album is going to be a special that comes out in April so you'll be able to see it there as well too. And then I'm on Van's Warp tour all summer long doing computer somebody. So yeah, come say hi.

[Sophie]

Awesome.

[Brett]

Excellent. All right everybody. Well that's going to be all of it for all of us for it today at behind the Bastards, a podcast that you just listen to. Why not listen to another one? Why not on all of your different devices, just constantly have episodes of this show playing on random loops. You don't even have to listen to it. Just always be playing our episodes. You know, break into your friends houses. Do that with their electronics too. You know, that's that. It's a fun way to do us a solid that will have no consequences for anybody. Breaking and entering is fine if you do it for a good cause. That's the official behind the bastard stance.

[Sophie]

No, it is not. Goodbye.

[Brett]

Okay, well, we're done. Sophie and I disagree on this.

[Sophie]

Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media Media. For more from Coolzone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Full video episodes of behind the Basterds are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit Remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel. YouTube.com behind the Bastards we love about 40% of you, statistically speaking.

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[Brett]

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[Brett]

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