← Conspiracy Theories![Best of 2024: The Death of Harry Houdini [VIDEO] — Conspiracy Theories cover](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/4b9e4b82-9bf9-11e8-ad4e-23b6913e004d/image/4cd695ee3724ee3c22e972e5d612fea4.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)
Loading summary
Transcript15 lines
- [00:01]
Carter Roy
Lights. Camera. Carter. Hey. Conspiracy Theories. Listeners and viewers, we've introduced a lot of new things to the show this year, including video. In my second best of 2024 pick, we'll revisit our video episode covering the mysterious death of famed magician Harry Houdini. You can hear the audio everywhere, but you'll only be able to watch it on Spotify. We'll be back with new episodes of Conspiracy Theories next week. Due to the nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of violence and death. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. If you're listening on the Spotify app, you can watch a video version of this episode right in the app and and be sure to swipe up after the story and let us know what you thought. In the summer of 1924, expert magician and escape artist Harry Houdini sat in an office in Boston holding the hand of a woman he barely knew. He strained his eyes to watch her, but couldn't see a thing. They were sitting in complete darkness. The woman was Marjorie, a self proclaimed medium who maintained she could commune with the spirits of the dead. But like so many others in her profession, she did her best work in a pitch black room. It was more than a little suspicious. Now it was up to Houdini to prove that she was a fake, a flim flammer like the rest of them. The only problem was, she was very good. She couldn't really be speaking with the dead, could she? Then a male voice, totally unlike Margaery's, boomed. You won't live forever, Houdini. You've got to die. I put a curse on you now that will follow you every day until you die. And then you'll know better. Houdini had made enemies before, but he did take note of this particular warning. After all, it's not often that a curse is placed upon you by a ghost. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday and be sure to check us out on instagram @the conspiracypod and we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, just swipe up and give us your thoughts. You may know Harry Houdini as one of the greatest magicians in history. He was a huge celebrity in his time. Then he died under strange circumstances on Halloween 1926, leaving many to wonder, was his death just an accident? Or was it planned at the hands of someone who had it out for him? Before we get into this story, amongst the many sources we used, we found David J. Hur's the Witch of Lime street and the Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. Extremely helpful to our research. The audiobook editions of both works are available for Spotify Premium subscribers in Spotify's audiobook catalog, where you can check them out after listening to this episode. Stay with us.
- [03:42]
Buzzballs Ad
This episode is brought to you by Buzzballs. Every time I see these guys in the store I have to smile. They are hilarious and so cute. My favorite flavor is Watermelon Smash. Thanks to Buzzballs, you can get delicious cocktails in these cute ready to drink ball cans. They're made with real fruit juices and creams, plus they're kosher certified and gluten free. There's a Buzzballs for every cocktail taste. Find the Buzzballs near you. Buzzballs 15% ABV Carrollton, Texas Please enjoy responsibly.
- [04:14]
Carter Roy
Exclusively on AMC and AMC.
- [04:17]
Marjorie Crandon
There's a black cloud that hangs over our family.
- [04:20]
Carter Roy
Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches Return Slasher's out.
- [04:23]
Marjorie Crandon
There hunting Mayfair women.
- [04:25]
Carter Roy
You can have a battle on your hands. Starring Alexandra Daddario I'm gon of it of him. Surrender to the darkness.
- [04:34]
Arthur Conan Doyle
It's not a sin to kill the devil.
- [04:37]
Carter Roy
Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches new season January 5th exclusively on AMC and AMC.
- [04:45]
Arthur Conan Doyle
This episode is brought to you by Dutch Bros. Big smiles, rocking tunes and epic drinks. Dutch Bros. Is all about you. Choose from a variety of customizable handcrafted beverages like our Rebel energy drinks, coffees, teas and more. Download the Dutch Bros. App for a free medium drink. Plus find your nearest shop, order ahead and start earning rewards offer valid for new app users only. Free Medium Drink Reward upon registration. 14 day expiration terms apply. See Dutchbros.com.
- [05:17]
Carter Roy
At one time, Harry Houdini seemed immortal. Like he couldn't die, in part due to his most famous trick, the Water Torture Cell, which he first performed in 1912. First, his ankles were secured in a stock chains hoisted him into the air upside down, then lowered him headfirst into a tank of water. A lock clicked into place. Curtains were drawn so nobody could see him thrash around. Inside, a man with an axe stood at the ready in case anything went wrong. As seconds turned to minutes, audience members begged him to break the glass and save Houdini from drowning. But the magician always emerged breathless and dripping wet, but alive. Now, if you thought I was going to say Houdini died in his famous Water Torture Cell, you wouldn't be alone. That's a Popular myth, he actually survived every one of his death defying stunts, which is pretty amazing. And how dangerous they were. He would jump from bridges, handcuffed, only to resurface seconds later, unshackled. And when that became old news, he'd be handcuffed inside a wooden box that was nailed shut and then dumped into the water. No restraints could stop him. He escaped from a glass box, from a nailed coffin, from a rope so tight around his hands and neck that he seemed to be choking. The only time one of his tricks almost got the better of him was when he was buried alive. He crawled his way out from under six feet of heavy soil just before running out of air. Call it luck, talent, or some kind of sixth sense. Whatever it was, it all came to an end just before Halloween, 1926. On October 22, Houdini was in his dressing room in Montreal, preparing for a show. That night, he relaxed in a chair and chatted with two local university students. That's when a third visitor entered. J. Gordon Whitehead, another college student, wanted to return a book Houdini had loaned him. The two younger fans hoped Whitehead would leave, but he stuck around, taking over the conversation. He spoke on a few different subjects. And then suddenly, Whitehead asked Houdini, was it true? Could he withstand a punch to the abdomen? Granted, this wasn't a totally random question. To prove his legendary strength, Houdini would invite fans to strike him as hard as they could. At 52 years old, he was incredibly strong. He had to be to pull off his tricks. Usually, even the most powerful blow had no effect on the magician. But this time, Houdini didn't seem so eager to prove himself. He was still nursing a broken ankle and needed to rest. Whitehead pressed the matter anyway. Houdini finally nodded and began to pull himself up out of his chair. But before he could brace himself, Whitehead delivered four or five heavy blows to Houdini's stomach. He might have kept going if one of the horrified students in the room hadn't pulled Whitehead away. Houdini waved off the injury and pushed through his next performance. But secretly, he was in great pain. He traveled to Detroit and performed his next show, too, despite a raging fever. But as soon as it ended, he collapsed. At the hospital, a doctor realized Houdini's appendix had burst. He wasn't expected to live another 24 hours. But this was the great Houdini. He put on a brave face for days, talking and joking with the hospital staff. Yet the greatest escape artist of his era couldn't get out of this One Harry Houdini died on Halloween day. Peritonitis was listed as the official cause of death. His ruptured appendix had given way to a fatal infection. The New York Life insurance company conducted a routine investigation. They got affidavits from J. Gordon Whitehead, along with the other two college students who saw him punch Houdini. The insurance agents concluded that Whitehead could have caused Houdini's appendix to rupture. If so, they said it was just an accident. But not everyone thinks it's that simple. See, Houdini was a busy man. He rose to fame as the 19th century came to a close. But then he constantly reinvented himself to stay in the spotlight. New illusions, new feats, more tours, a film career. He was always challenging himself. It's what made him a household name. Toward the end of his career, Houdini pivoted again and became a vocal critic of mediums, as in seances and speaking to the dead. That earned him more than a few enemies along his tour route. And depending on who you believe, one of them might have had Houdini killed.
- [11:07]
Marjorie Crandon
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply with Lululemon.
- [11:38]
Lululemon Ad
The real gift happens when your holiday checklist is complete. When you give them the coziest scuba matching set, you both get moments like this. And this. And this. This holiday Lululemon makes it easy to find last minute gifts that bring presents. Open the moment. Shop now@lululemon.com.
- [12:08]
Carter Roy
Officially, Harry Houdini died of an infection after his appendix ruptured. It might have been exacerbated by J. Gordon Whitehead punching him, but the event was never investigated as a possible crime. Unofficially, some historians believe Houdini's death could have been planned by someone who had it out for him. Specifically, someone with ties to a religious movement known as spiritualism. Central to spiritualism was the belief that one could communicate with the spirit realm to contact the dead. Devotees would sit in on seances conducted by mediums. To understand the depth of Houdini's rivalry with the spiritualists, we have to travel back a few more decades. That's when the Fox sisters began speaking to the Dead. And spiritualism really took off. In 1848, Maggie Fox and her little sister Kate claimed a spirit in their house was talking to them. That news attracted big crowds. Eventually, they moved to larger venues and charged a fee to attend their seances. Years later, Maggie admitted that she and her sister were frauds. In hindsight, it might be hard to understand how so many people were fooled. Unless you think about it within the context of the time. Spiritualism emerged alongside some major scientific breakthroughs. Just a few years earlier, Samuel Morse sent his first message via telegraph. These advancements totally changed what people thought was possible. We harnessed electricity. We could speak through wires. Why couldn't we communicate with an invisible spirit realm too? Around 1920, right before Houdini set his sights on mediums, the movement gained popularity again. Not coincidentally, two devastating events had just occurred. World War I and the influenza epidemic of 1918. Millions died, leaving their loved ones to grieve and to hope that death wouldn't keep them from speaking. Once more, spiritualism made a huge comeback. But this time there was a twist. The new batch of believers were mostly upper class and well educated people, riding the wave of innovation. Doctors, scientists, professors, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Many of Doyle's friends and family had just died, including his son. He became a spiritualism evangelist. He went on tours around the world to tell everyone how great it was. He wrote articles in support of mediums he thought had the gift. He even debated skeptics in public, including his very good friend, Harry Houdini. Houdini hated spiritualism. He thought mediums were nothing more than con artists. And honestly, it's hard to blame him for feeling this way. After his father died, he watched mediums take advantage of his mother, Cecilia. She practically went bankrupt over it. Even when he showed her exactly how the medium's tricks worked, she wouldn't listen. She was a believer until the day she died. To see this happen was especially hard for Houdini. He considered himself a mother's boy. Cecilia's death in 1913 affected him profoundly. Arthur Conan Doyle was sympathetic to his friend's opinion. No one wants to see their mother get conned. But he also urged Houdini to give seances one more shot. Doyle believed his wife Jean was a truly talented medium. She could show him the power of real spiritualism. Didn't Houdini want the chance to talk to his mother one more time? So in 1922, Houdini agreed to take part in a seance with the Doyles. The trio sat at a Small table with pens and paper at the ready. This was how Jeanne talked to the dead. Once she connected with a spirit. They told her what words to write. All three of them closed their eyes. Doyle said a prayer. Then they waited for Cecilia to arrive. Normally, Houdini kept one eye open during seances, always on guard. But today he felt a yearning that he never expected. Gene picked up the pen, Channeling Cecilia. For 15 pages. Houdini read and re read them, cherishing each word. For a moment, he thought Doyle was right. This was true comfort. But then he realized the words sounded nothing like his mother. First and foremost, he always spoke to her in her native Hungarian. If Jean had truly been channeling the voice of Cecilia, she wouldn't have written in English. Houdini's comfort curdled into anger. He began to think that maybe Doyle, who he considered his friend, was just like the rest of them, a con artist. He manipulated Houdini's emotions over his dead mother to try to convince him the magician never wavered again. In his opinion of mediumship, they were charlatans, every single one. And he would do everything in his power to stop them from preying on the bereaved. Houdini attended more and more seances, sometimes wearing a disguise. He'd study the medium's movements, figure out their tricks, and then he'd perform them for a live audience, proving to the public that spiritualist mediums were really just masters of illusion. In 1924, he compiled his exploits in a tell all book, A Magician among the Spirits. It was a takedown of pretty much every well known medium who ever existed, all the way back to the Fox sisters, who, by the way, were not only retired from seances, but dead. He explained their tricks using photographs and diagrams. He even dragged Arthur Conan Doyle for supporting mediums, officially torching their friendship. Was it a little hypocritical of him? Maybe. Houdini was extremely secretive about his own tricks, and here he was, putting medium secrets on display. But that's not how Houdini saw it. At least he was upfront about being an illusionist. He felt he was on a crusade to expose them all. He was famously quoted as saying, it takes a flim flammer to catch a flim flammer. In other words, he was just the person for the job. But there was one medium who wasn't so easy to figure out. Someone who had already impressed Houdini's colleagues so much that Houdini risked his own reputation to prove she was a fraud. She was known professionally as Marjorie. Marjorie, whose real name was Mina Crandon, was an upper crust society wife of a Boston surgeon, Dr. Leroy Crandon. He was one of the scientific thinkers who'd become interested in finding scientific proof of an afterlife. Before 1923, Marjorie hadn't taken spiritualism all that seriously until one day she decided to attend a seance on a whim. A medium told Marjorie he sensed a spirit among them. He asked her, did she have a brother who died? She did, although she brushed this off as a common fishing tactic. But the medium knew things about her brother. Was he blonde and tall? Yes. Liked to play pranks? He did. Then the medium's face grew serious. Margaery's brother had an important message for her. She had the gift of mediumship. As in, Margaery should be running these seances. Her mind raced. To her, the news kind of made sense. She and her brother Walter had been extremely close growing up, and everybody believed he'd had psychic abilities. Even after he died in an accident in 1911, she still felt their bond. But she put the thought of mediumship out of her mind until a few months later. At that point, her husband, who went by Roy, was all in on spiritualism and started holding seances at their home. Marjorie asked if she could join, just to watch. But to everyone's surprise, most of all her own. Marjorie showed a strong connection with the dead. The story goes that she made the seance table shake and rattle violently until it lunged at a man. He jumped back from the circle, but the table kept coming. It chased him out of the room, down the hallway, and into a bedroom. After that, Marjorie conducted seances all the time with a close circle of friends. The spirit she channeled most often was Walter. Her brother Walter would speak through Marjorie in a deep, booming voice. Even Houdini would later admit the words couldn't have been coming from Marjorie. Somehow it even sounded like Walter moved around the seance room. But talking only scratched the surface of what Walter was capable of. A typical sitting would go something like this. Walter would arrive at the table whistling one of his favorite songs. He'd ask for someone to throw on a record and liven up the place. Then he'd float around the room, joking and showing off, making bells ring and lights flicker. If Walter was really in a good mood, he'd make the seance table tilt and dance. Week after week. During the summer of 1924, Marjorie and Walter made magic in the seance room. And eventually, word got around Boston. They called her the Witch of Lime Street. Now, Marjorie didn't seem interested in gaining converts to spiritualism, the religion. She just so happened to be so good at the seance table that she turned people into believers. Her husband even wrote to Arthur Conan Doyle about her. This brought Marjorie one step closer to being in Houdini's warpath. Doyle took an immediate interest and recommended her to a friend of his, Malcolm Byrd. Byrd was an editor for the renowned magazine Scientific American, and he agreed to look into Marjorie's apparent talents. See, around the same time Houdini started debunking mediums, Scientific American was running a contest nicknamed the Great Spirit Hunt. They were looking for proof of psychic powers. Any medium who could win over the magazine's committee would win $2,500, or what would be about $45,000 today. If it seems weird that a science publication would host a seance contest, you're not wrong. But Remember, in the 1920s, the line between real and pseudoscience was kind of blurry. When Houdini heard about the contest, he insisted on joining the panel of judges. And then he basically said not to even worry about getting the prize money together. There'd never be a winner. And for a while, no one even came close to claiming the prize, just as Houdini promised. Houdini was so scathing in his article about one failed contestant, the rest of the panel worried nobody else would even apply. The contest started to leave a trail of ruined reputations in its wake. And then Margaery came along. She'd been a medium for less than six months when suddenly she was being considered for the Great Spirit Hunt. Now, Houdini was still performing, and he was super famous throughout North America and Europe. He understandably didn't want to be bothered unless a medium made it far enough along in the testing process. So before Houdini ever met her, Marjorie already had most of the judges convinced she was the real deal. She'd been giving dozens of sittings with them for months while Houdini was touring. How did she win them over so handily? At one sitting, a small white dove suddenly appeared out of thin air. Everyone gasped and then clapped and cheered. Malcolm Byrd and the other judges were amazed. They all searched the seance room. At the beginning of the night, There was no sign of a dove. They had also locked the doors and placed a wax seal on them so they'd know if someone had slipped inside in the dark. But the seals were still intact. They were so astounded by the dove trick, the men went around and asked all the local pet shops if Marjorie had bought a bird from them. During another round of tests, a former MIT physicist challenged Marjorie, or rather Walter, to tip a weighted scale that was under a cover while he took photographs. Somehow, she pulled it off, and he couldn't figure out how. During these tests, the people sitting next to Marjorie had a special job called a control. Basically, the controls would hold the medium's hands. They'd also sit ankle to ankle or even place Marjorie's feet in in their laps. It creates a silly picture, but in a dark seance room. This was how everyone could ensure she wasn't just sneaking around, pulling strings. And at this point in the contest, she was doing great. The Boston Herald printed an article declaring that most of the jury was convinced of her powers, but she still had to make it past Houdini. Both of their reputations were now on the line. The whole world was watching the contest. It was a big deal. Scientific American had been publishing updates about the spirit Hunt, and most of the local Boston newspapers followed the story as well. Marjorie versus Houdini was the spiritualism showdown of the decade. Houdini had been so outspoken about what a sham mediums were that if Marjorie was able to prove him wrong and win the prize, he'd be humiliated. And she was essentially representing a whole religious movement here. Houdini finally arrived in Boston to face Marjorie in July 1924. Their meeting was surprisingly jovial, but Houdini never forgot what he was there to do. Seated in a chair next to Marjorie, Houdini acted as one of the controls. He wanted to be able to feel the slightest movement, so he rolled up his pants to the knee and pressed his ankle bone right on Marjorie's. The seance circle joined hands, and Walter arrived. He performed several of his usual tricks. Bells rang. Objects floated. Walter had his fun with the Victrola, making the record slow and stop. The Crandons were pleased. It had been a good showing. Houdini, on the other hand, drew one simple conclusion. Marjorie was a fraud. He felt certain that she was slowly moving her foot during the seance, doing it so delicately that that no previous control had ever noticed. With that free foot, she was able to move whatever mechanisms were ringing the bells and allowing the objects to levitate. He didn't have an explanation for the record player, but he was sure he'd figure that out eventually. The next night, Houdini kept his leg pressed even tighter against Marjorie's. Again. He rolled up his pants so he could feel the slightest movement. For the first half of the seance, he felt nothing. But Walter didn't perform any of his tricks either. At one point, Marjorie allegedly told Houdini that the buckle on his garter was hurting her. He was pressing her leg so hard, the metal was digging into her skin. Houdini agreed to take them off for the seance. But when he reached down, he discovered discovered the truth. Marjorie's stockings had gotten caught in the metal buckle. She couldn't move her leg at all because of it. Lo and behold, once the stocking was free, Walter started ringing bells and floating objects. To Houdini, it was the nail in the coffin. He told the other panel members to call off the hunt, but they had a hard time believing him. Marjorie and Walter had shown them amazing things. Was Houdini really sure she was fake? So Houdini went to his greatest lengths yet to prove he was right and put an end to the contest. No matter how many enemies he might make, Harry Houdini was certain Marjorie was a fraud, just like all the other spiritualist mediums he'd uncovered. But he still had to prove it. At the next seance, he unveiled a wooden control box. Instead of having people hold Marjorie's hands and feet, a system she had obviously outsmarted, Houdini had her sit in inside the box he built. He promised that if Marjorie could still work under these conditions, he'd accept her talents. So Marjorie climbed into the box, the lights went out, and Houdini waited. Much to his disappointment, Walter showed up anyway, ringing his bell and moving around the room, cracking jokes. Houdini was furious and insisted that Marjorie manage to push down the top flap of the box with her shoulders, Freeing herself enough to ring the bell with her forehead, he climbed into the box himself to show how she did it. But Marjorie's husband, Roy, was outraged. Houdini had said that if Marjorie was able to perform in the box, he would accept her powers. He was breaking his agreement. The men nearly came to blows. The other judges had to break them up and end the session. A few days later, Houdini made some adjustments to the box. There were no more armholes, and he added padlocks to the top flap so that it was impossible to open from the inside. It was extreme. But if Marjorie was still successful, Houdini said he would accept the results fair and square. The lights went out. Walter arrived, but nothing else happened. No seance, table dancing, no bells ringing. Walter blamed Houdini for the bad performance. He threatened. You won't live forever, Houdini. I put a curse on you now that will follow you every day until you die. And Then you'll know better. And with that, Walter departed the seance room. He refused to come back as long as Houdini was there and Margaery was in the box. The trials were over when the Scientific American panel voted. Their opinions had completely flip flopped. Finally, they saw the truth. As long as Marjorie's arms and legs were contained by Houdini's box, Walter couldn't do any tricks. And in a move that I can only describe as ice cold, the panel didn't even tell Marjorie that she'd lost. She had to read about it in the newspaper. Marjorie's defeat was front page news. But the feud didn't end there. In fact, it was just getting started. Marjorie tried to deny the results of the contest. She accused Houdini of strong arming the other judges and turning them against her. Outraged, Houdini fired back with a 25 page pamphlet airing all her dirty laundry, complete with photos and illustrations of how she pulled off her tricks. He titled it Houdini Exposes the Tricks Used by the Boston Medium Marjorie. Then he dedicated part of his stage performance to telling the world she was a con artist. I would love to feel bad for Marjorie, except you remember how it sounded like Walter threatened Houdini. Well, after the seance, Marjorie made a threat of her own. She warned Houdini that if he did anything to hurt her reputation, quote, some of my friends will come up and give you a good beating. Just over a year later, in January 1926, Houdini was starring in a hit show on Broadway. He blended his death defying stunts with takedowns of spiritualist mediums, including Marjorie. It was a shining moment in his career. Except the spiritualists did not see it that way. They still believed in Marjorie's abilities. To them, the control box only proved that physical restraints hindered her psychic powers. Houdini took a show on the road, making a pit stop in Washington D.C. he was testifying at the Capitol on behalf of a bill to make for profit mediumship illegal. He was met with swarms of protesters. He was used to them by now. Once in Chicago, an estimated 1500 spiritualists cross crammed inside his venue. Now, Houdini had nothing against their religion and he told them as much. He too believed in the afterlife and had faith he would see his mother again someday. But his words did nothing to sway the spiritualists. Not only had he offended them, his campaign hurt their movement. His stage performances led to police crackdowns, arrests and larceny charges against some of the mediums. Months later, Houdini Joked on his deathbed that they would celebrate when he died. All of this is at the crux of the conspiracy theory that Harry Houdini was actually murdered. For starters, J. Gordon Whitehead, the man who punched Houdini, is a mysterious figure himself. Okay, he was about 31 years old and a freshman at Montreal's McGill University. After that evening with Houdini, he left school and dropped off the map almost entirely. One researcher spent about 20 years investigating what happened to Whitehead, and even he couldn't find many details. Remember, the two witnesses in Houdini's dressing room gave affidavits to the insurance investigators. They said that right before Whitehead threw any punches, he was badgering Houdini over his beliefs about miracles in the Bible. When Whitehead didn't get the answers he wanted, they said he seemed offended. That's when he asked if he could hit Houdini. Some theorists believe Marjorie put Whitehead up to the attack. She was allegedly still so angry about being Houdini's punching bag that she decided to return the favor. Now, that seems a tad far fetched, but other rumors say Whitehead himself was really into spiritualism and hated Houdini for debunking mediums angry enough to kill him. Then there were the other spiritualists who. Whose livelihoods were threatened by Houdini Because Houdini was right about one thing. There were a lot of frauds out there who raked in the big bucks, convincing the grieving masses that they could speak with their loved ones. Marjorie never charged a dime for her seances, but plenty of others did. And Houdini was a genuine threat to their business. In the Secret Life of Houdini, authors William Kalush and Larry Sloman mention a small organized crime group within the spiritualist community. They say it wasn't just Houdini who received veiled threats. Other skeptics and detractors did, too. This idea was endorsed by a 1976 book titled the Psychic Mafia. Its author, Morris Lamar Keane, was once called the Prince of the Spiritualists. Based in Tampa, Florida, he'd been a successful medium in the 1960s and 70s. In his book, he confessed he'd been a fraud all along. While he divulged his secrets, he also said duping people was actually easy, thanks to something he called true believer syndrome. More importantly, his book described the dangerous crime ring CLU and Shlomon alluded, to, which Keane called the psychic mafia. According to Keane, he'd even survived an assassination attempt on one of their own. So it's not too hard to imagine that Houdini could have also been a target. But as CLU and Sloman point out in the Secret Life of Houdini, this so called psychic mafia didn't often resort to overt violence. Instead, they relied on poisoning. The kind of poison that could be covered up by an infection from a ruptured appendix. It turns out Harry wasn't the only Houdini to get sick. Shortly before his death, his wife Bess was admitted to the hospital at the same time her husband was on his deathbed. She was gravely ill. According to this theory, Houdini's appendicitis and infection could have covered up the effects of poison. He wasn't given an autopsy since his cause of death seemed apparent. Could Harry and Bess both have been poisoned either before Houdini's appendix burst or in the hospital in 2007, more than 80 years after Houdini died, there was a push to exhume his remains. To test for traces of poison. A team of researchers and forensic experts teamed up with descendants of Houdini and Marjorie. They hoped to put the theory to rest once and for all. But the petition process for exhuming a body is complicated. Ultimately, the plan was dropped. He's not getting out of this one. So the theory lives on. Now, for what it's worth, the Crandons denied having anything to do with Houdini's death. Marjorie seemed truly sad to hear the news, unlike some of her supporters. And her husband insisted Walter had never threatened Houdini. It's just an odd coincidence that Dr. Crandon performed several appendectomies throughout his career and even pioneered one technique to remove the appendix. Hmm. But perhaps the great Houdini got the last laugh. Before he passed, he and his wife Bess made a pact. Whoever should die first must try to contact the other from beyond the grave. They shared a secret code only they would know. Bess tried for years to reach her late husband, but every seance failed. So either Houdini was right all along or just didn't want to admit that he was wrong. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday, and be sure to check us out on Instagram he conspiracypod for more information on the feud between Martin Marjorie and Houdini. We found both David J. Her's the Witch of Lime street and the Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. Extremely helpful to our research. Do you have a personal relationship to the stories we tell? Email us a short audio recording telling your story to conspiracy storiespotify.com until next time. Remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth. Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Abigail Cannon and Mickey Taylor, edited by Aaron Lan, Connor Sampson, Maggie Admire and Chelsea Wood Fact Checked by Lori Siegel and Hayley Milliken with video editing and production support by T. Cruise and sound design by Alex Button. Our Head of Programming is Julian Boirot. Our Head of Production is Nick Johnson and Spencer Howard is our post production Supervisor. I'm your host, Carter Roy.
- [44:44]
Buzzballs Ad
This episode is brought to you by Buzzballs. Every time I see these guys in the store I have to smile. They are hilarious and so cute. My favorite flavor is Watermelon Smash. Thanks to Buzzballs you can get delicious cocktails in these cute ready to drink Ball cans. They're made with real fruit juices and creams. Plus they're kosher, certified and gluten free. There's a Buzzballs for every cocktail taste. Find a Buzzballs near you. Buzzballs 15% ABV Carrollton, Texas Please enjoy responsibly.