← MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
A Pyrrhic Victory (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
00:29:05
Both of today's stories are about people who actually achieved their big career ambitions... but at an extremely high cost.
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- [00:00]
Mr. Ballin
Both of today's stories are about people who actually achieved their big career ambitions, but at an extremely high cost. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do. And we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please replace the follow button's nasal spray with Super Glue. Okay, let's get into our first story, which is called Proving a Point.
- [00:49]
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- [01:15]
Mr. Ballin
the Mr. Bolland podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. On the afternoon of June 10, 1871, a defense attorney named Clement Vallandigham sat in a courtroom in Lebanon, Ohio, listening intently as a prosecutor questioned a witness. And with each word that this witness said on the stand, it made the knot in Clement's stomach get tighter and tighter because this testimony was very bad for Clement's client, an accused murderer named Thomas McGean. So the murder that McGeehan was on trial for had happened about six months earlier on Christmas Eve in the nearby city of Hamilton. That night, McGeehan had stormed into a saloon with a group of men and attacked another man named Tom Myers. And at some point during this attack, a gun went off and Tom Meyers was shot and killed. Now, there were at least 30 witnesses in the saloon at the time, but the whole attack had happened so fast and was so chaotic that no one had seen who did the actual shooting. Despite that, everyone in town immediately decided that McGeehan had done it. However, even Clement had to admit that that was a reasonable assumption. McGeehan and the victim, Tom Myers, had a long standing feud and everyone knew they hated each other. Also, McGeehan was a well known violent criminal who was said to have killed at least four other people. So when Tom Myers got killed, the citizens of Hamilton didn't even wait for a trial. They wanted to hang mcgeon right now. Now, the police had obviously intervened and arrested McGeehan instead. But word had spread all over Ohio about how messy and dramatic this case was. And as a result, the trial itself had become very high profile. Every day, journalists and important people from all over the state came to sit in court and listen to the testimony. And now all of these important people were watching Clement's defense case get just obliterated by this witness. The witness was one of the men who had been in the saloon at the time of the murder. And he was making a very big claim. He was saying that even though no one in the saloon saw McGeehan fire the gunshot that killed Tom Myers. No one. He must have, because after the gun went off, this witness saw smoke coming from McGean's jacket pocket, like he had been concealing his gun inside his jacket when he had fired it. Clement looked around the courtroom while the witness explained this and saw that everybody was nodding. Like what the witness said made perfect sense. Clement could tell, basically, at this point, everybody thought his client was guilty, but Clement, he did not agree. He knew McGeehan's case looked bad, but Clement was absolutely certain that his client really was innocent. Clement's theory was that the victim, Tom Myers, had shot himself by accident when he pulled out his own gun during the fight to defend himself. Unfortunately for Clement, though, this was 1871, so there was no forensic evidence about gunshots, except for some scorch marks on Tom Meyers shirt. So the whole entire case was really just based on witness testimony. And of course, this witness was very convincing. For the other side. The prosecutor finished up his questioning and then walked back to his seat with a smirk on his face, like he knew what he had just done. They pretty much had just won the case. It was now Clement's turn with the witness, and he really didn't know how it was gonna go. But as Clement stood up and crossed the courtroom floor, he felt a calm come over him. Because he was thinking to himself, I don't have much to lose. I mean, pretty much everybody thinks my client is guilty. And so if he's found guilty, no one's gonna be shocked. But, you know, maybe I can find a way to prove he's innocent, and that would be just great. But if I don't, it is what it is. So to be clear, Clement was a very controversial figure in Ohio at this time, which was right after The Civil War. He had been very vocally against the then president, Abraham Lincoln, and his viewpoints had gotten him banished from Ohio and the other northern states. And then after the war ended, he had returned to his home state of Ohio and had gone back to being an attorney. But he had never really been able to fully rehabilitate his public image. Even now, six years later, a lot of people still really hated him for behavior during the war. And so, in essence, Clement knew that pretty much his public profile was not about to change. If he lost this case, I mean, basically nothing would change. You know, he's the guy that everybody hates, and his client's the murderer. It is what it is. But if he won't, he could recreate himself in the court of public opinion as a sensational criminal defense lawyer who overturned impossible cases. And again, he really believed his client was innocent. So this would be like a two pronged major victory for Clement. And so Clement stepped up to the witness box and began firing off questions to this witness. By the end of the day, Clement had gotten that witness to admit he hadn't actually seen a physical gun. And eventually, Clement was able to completely destroy the jacket shooting theory when he showed the court that the jacket that McGeehan had been wearing that night, there was no hole anywhere on it. As the week went on and more witnesses took the stand, Clement was pleased to find that none of them had any actual proof that McGeehan shot Tom Meyers. But he also couldn't find any evidence that proved his client was innocent either. So later that week, on Friday, June 16, as the trial came to a close, Clement was kind of worried. I mean, he knew that he had not done enough to get his client acquitted. And even though he knew that the likelihood of success here was always going to be slim, he felt like he had begun to make some serious headway and they could win. Victory felt possible, and it was just slipping out of his hand. That afternoon, Clement sat behind the defense table, sweating profusely as he listened to the prosecutor's team deliver their justice. Brutal closing arguments. This was giving Clement a lot of anxiety. I mean, he was moments away from giving his own closing arguments, and it was really his very last chance to convince the jury that his client was innocent. But he just did not feel like the speech he had prepared would do that, especially after, you know, the prosecutor's really just very powerful speech that he was giving right now. And so, as the prosecutor, very eloquently and beautifully wrapped up his speech, Clement was busy furiously crossing out lines on his speech and rewriting things and trying to make it better, but he just couldn't. So he just sat there racking his brain on what to say. But as he was sitting there in silence and like the prosecutor has sat down and everybody's waiting for Clement to stand up and deliver a speech here, an idea suddenly hit Clement. It hit him so hard that he actually just dropped his pen. He didn't know why this idea hadn't occurred to him earlier, but he suddenly realized there was a way he could prove McGeehan was innocent. It was so obvious. And if he was right, he would go down in history as probably the greatest defense attorney Ohio had ever seen. And so Clement, he lunged for his pen again. Then he frantically scribbled down what he was thinking. And then a minute later, he heard the judge call his name and tell him, come on, it's your turn to speak. And so Clementi, he shot to his feet and he cleared his throat. And instead of launching into the speech he had prepared for this moment, he asked the judge to let him do it instead. On Monday. The judge was a little apprehensive, but eventually they agreed. And when they did, Clement felt a surge of excitement rush through his body. And after the court proceedings officially ended for the day, Clement could not get out of there fast enough. Clement waited until nightfall to act. He needed to run a test to make sure his. His theory he was going to employ on Monday was correct. But he didn't want anybody from the prosecution team to see him doing it. So after dinner, Clement slipped out of his hotel and into the quiet streets of Lebanon. He'd spent the last few hours having dinner with some friends. And while he was pretty vague about what he actually planned to do tonight, he did tell them that they really needed to stay in town long enough to hear his big final argument on Monday. He was so confident in what he'd uncover tonight doing this test that he was sure his speech on Monday would be like the greatest legal moment in the history of Ohio. And so now, as Clement made his way to the edge of town, he was filled with adrenaline and kept increasing his speed until he was basically running. And then he finally arrived at a quiet, isolated part of Lebanon. And as soon as he got there, he set up for this test he had planned and then ran through it. And after he finished, Clement smiled because he knew he had just found a way to prove that his client was innocent. Just a few minutes later, around 9pm and Clement was back inside of his hotel room. He was so excited about the results of his test that he couldn't even sit down. And so he just kept pacing around and around and trying to get his thoughts together, but he was just so excited. His hotel room door was cracked open. And as he paced around, he saw his co counsel, who was another lawyer on the defense team, walk by. So this hotel was sort of like the home base of everyone who was in town for the trial. And so most of the prosecution and the defense teams were staying there. When Clement saw his co counsel, he immediately waved him inside and tried to tell him what he'd figured out, but the words just kind of tumbled out. And all he really got across was that the prosecution had it all wrong. But he, Clement had figured it out, but his co counsel was just looking at him like he really didn't understand what he was saying. And so at some point, Clement realized he really needed to do a physical demonstration here. He really needed to repeat the test he had just done to show, actually show the co counsel exactly what he was talking about. So without a whole lot of explanation to his co counsel, Clement got up, he set up the test, and then he turned and he told his co counsel to watch carefully. And then Clement began to perform the test. But this time during the test, there was a sudden explosion and Clement collapsed to the ground. It would turn out that Clement's test did prove without a shadow of a doubt that his client really was innocent. His theory was that Tom Myers shot himself by fumbling with his own gun. But in order to make sure his theory held weight with the jury, he wanted to show everyone that it was definitely physically possible to do that. So when Clement had gone to the edge of town to do this test by himself for the first time, he took a gun with him. And he basically experimented with ways it could have actually happened by shooting the gun through fabric from different angles and looking at the resulting scorch marks. And when he did this, he realized that the scorch marks that had been left on the victim's clothes, the only forensic evidence they had, they could have only been made if the victim was shot at point blank range. Which meant that McGeehan was standing too far away to be the shooter. But it was not until later, when Clement acted out the shooting again for his co counsel, that his discovery went from great to perfect. Because completely by accident, he did exactly what Tom Myers had done. He fumbled with the gun and shot himself. Clement died from his self inflicted wound 12 hours later. But his death made his argument so convincing that his client was eventually acquitted. So Clement had been right. This was the greatest case of his life. It was also his last. 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- [15:35]
Mr. Ballin
The next and final story of today's episode is called Gloomy. Our second and final story is about a song, but we're not going to be playing this song during the episode. And when you get to the end of this story, you'll see why. On an overcast, chilly Sunday in the fall of 1932, 32 year old composer Rezo Cheresh sat in his apartment in Paris trying to write a new melody. He'd been at it for hours and it was not going well at all. Each time he jotted down a a new combination of notes, he'd just tear it up and toss it into his trash bin where there was already a pile of other discarded drafts. So Reza was used to this kind of messy creative process. He had made a name for himself as a musician in his home country of Hungary. Over the last decade, he'd written more than 40 musical compositions for various singers and artists, and a few had been really successful. So Rezzo knew he had the talent to be a huge star and to change people's lives with his music. But recently, you know, despite trying many different iterations and just allowing the messy creative process to take hold and just kind of letting it run its course, Rezo still just could not come up with any new good work. Mainly because he was incredibly stressed out. So at this point in 1932, Rezo and many other people were very nervous about the state of the world and their future because there were really, really violent political views spreading across Europe, especially in Germany. This was still seven years before the start of World War II. But Hitler and his Nazi party were already starting to gain power. And Rezo, who was Jewish, was worried about all the anti Jewish rhetoric that the Nazis were spreading. And while that was terrifying and kept Rezo up at night, the more urgent worry he had on a daily basis that was really impeding his creativity was how to literally afford food. Because the world was also in the middle of the Great Depression, which was a period of time in the 1920s and 30s when multiple countries were dealing with terrible economies and mass unemployment. Back in Rezo's home country of Hungary, things were especially bad and getting worse. Banks and businesses were closing almost every day and more than a quarter of the population was unemployed, living in extreme poverty. Rezo had moved to Paris so he could find more opportunities. Paris, after all, was the art mecca of Europe. And even though the state of the world felt depressing, Rezo thought that the creative energy there would inspire him to create something beautiful amid all the darkness. But now Rezo sighed and leaned back to look around the tiny, drafty Parisian apartment of his. He'd been here for Months, and his fortunes certainly had not changed. He still didn't have any work and he still could not seem to write anything good. But, you know, Rezo, he kept leaning back over and trying to write, but it was like immediately he would tear it up, and he was just getting more and more frustrated until finally he just did give up and put his head in his hands and basically said, I can't do this. It seemed like the harder he worked and the harder he tried to ignore all the despair and sadness and awful things going on in the world, the worse he felt, and obviously the worse his work was like right now. He actually almost felt physically ill from kind of bottling up all these competing terrible feelings and thoughts. But as he thought about the fact that he was doing that, he suddenly decided he just can't do that anymore. He can't continue to keep that stuff in. It was at that moment that Rezo exhaled and let in all the anguish he'd been trying to push away. Sadness and fear and quiet desperation just washed over him and into him and. And he didn't fight it anymore. He just suddenly started writing. His pen flew across the page as wave after wave of terrible emotion hit him. And when he was done, he ran over to his piano to. To play the notes that he had just written. And as his fingers moved across the keys, a very slow, sad melody began to fill the air. And it was so beautiful and so sad that he actually felt like crying as he heard it. When he was done playing, he just sat back in his chair. And now tears filled his eyes and his heart was pounding so fast that he knew he needed to get some air faster. He might actually just pass out. And so Rezo went outside to take a walk and hoped the fresh air would help him snap out of the wild emotional fog that had just come over him. But the Paris streets were gray and cold, and this new melody continued to ring in his ears. He was thrilled that he'd actually written something. Something real and powerful for the first time in what felt like a long time. But it was such an intense expression of his own sadness that it almost hurt. Shortly into his walk, he heard somebody call his name. When he looked up, he saw it was his good friend, a poet named Laszlo Yavor, who rushed right up to him. And right away, when Rezo saw his friend, he felt himself lightening up a little bit. He liked Laszlo. They were both Hungarians in Paris, trying to make good, good art and a name for themselves, but neither of them had really done it yet. But as soon as Laszlo reached Rezo, Rezo could tell that his friend seemed really upset about something, too. And his friend told him that his fiance had just ended things with him and he was completely heartbroken. After Rezo said that he was terribly sorry, the men just walked together in silence. They were both lost in their own sad, heavy feelings, and neither of them could think of anything to say. And without even meaning to, Rezzo just began whistling the song that he had just written. And when he did this, it was like the tune had an immediate effect on Laszlo. His eyes welled up and he sort of began to cry. And also he began to sing along, using words from a very sad poem that he had recently written. Razzo couldn't believe it, because without even trying, Lazlo's words were perfectly fit for his melody. And so, as this sort of impromptu collaboration has begun, the men went from this really dark, gloomy mood to a purely excited one. They were so inspired that they rushed into a nearby restaurant to sit and work out the rest of the song. And before they knew it, Rezzo had written an entire composition with Laszlo's lyrics. And the song was about someone whose lover had just died and their desire to be reunited with them. When the men finished, they wanted to hear their song out loud, so they asked the restaurant's resident musicians to play it. And pretty soon, their song, something that hadn't even existed a few hours ago, was blaring around the crowded restaurant. And as far as Rezo and Laszlo could tell, everybody inside was loving this song. Some of the restaurant patrons actually cried, and others closed their eyes and just kind of swayed to the sound. It was what Rezzo had always hoped his music would do, which was truly affect those who heard it. Rezo and Laszlo looked at each other, and for the first time in days, they smiled. Rezo and Laszlo decided to call their song Gloomy Sunday, since it had been created on that hazy fall Sunday. They both had a feeling that this tune was very special and that it would finally be the thing that changed both of their lives. So over the next few months, they took the song around to producers and tried to get somebody to buy it. And finally someone did. A company agreed to publish the sheet music and record it. After that, Rezzo went back to his shabby Parisian apartment and waited for the song to take hold and the money to start pouring in. But that's not what happened. As the months passed by, Rezzo didn't hear Gloomy Sunday on the radio or see it on any charts or hear it in restaurants or performed in theaters. It was like it really had never existed at all. And this crushed Rezzo. He was even more upset and defeated than he had been before. He had written it because he'd gotten a taste of hope, and it felt even worse to fail after that. The rest of Rezo's life and the state of the world got worse too. The Great Depression was still going strong, and as Hitler got more and more popular, people started to wonder if there was going to be a war. So Rezo and pretty much everyone else around him just sank further into their fears and worries and kept praying for something to change. Everyday life is full of moments that you plan for, and moments that just happen often when you least expect them. Whether it's part of your normal routine or something unexpected, Amazon is where you go for everyday essentials, making shopping simple and dependable. 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- [24:48]
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- [25:21]
Mr. Ballin
Three years later on a spring evening in 1935, Rezo was back in Hungary, walking down a street in the country's capital city, Budapest. He was on his way to a friend's house, but as he strode down the sidewalk, he heard a song coming from an open window. He stopped cold and his heart began to pound because he knew that song. It was his. It was gloomy Sunday. Rezo had no idea how or why he was hearing his song, which, as far as he knew, no one had really been that interested in. But it was completely shocking. I mean, someone he didn't know was listening to his song on the radio. That meant it was being put out on the airwaves and being consumed by the public. This was in close. And so Rezo just stood there, letting his own notes wash over him for the first time, you know, hearing this out in public. And then when it was done, he just stood there and just absolutely beamed. And after that, for months, Gloomy Sunday was everywhere. Rezzo heard it played at social gatherings, streaming from people's windows. Street performers sang it to passerby, and it was even performed at concert venues all over the city. And so by the end of the year, it seemed like there was hardly anyone in Hungary who hadn't heard and loved his song. Rezo even read in the papers that his song was being played in England, in France, and as far away as the United States. So Rezo knew that he had actually done it. He had realized his dream of being a successful, internationally recognized composer with a hit song that truly resonated with the public. A few months later, on a morning in late February of 1936, Rezzo left his apartment and was heading out for the day. And on his way down the street, he passed by a newsstand, and he noticed that one of the headlines mentioned his song, Gloomy Sunday. Initially, he was really excited to see that he was getting some press, so he immediately grabbed a copy and opened it up to read. But as his eyes scanned the page, his stomach flipped because this was not good press. Actually, what this article had to say was so terrible that Rezo's first reaction was that he'd read it wrong. And so he read it again and again and again. But each time he read it, it just said the same horrible thing. And so Rezo found himself starting to panic. Rezo quickly shut the paper and just began looking around him, and he saw there were a few other people who were also by the newsstand, and they were reading the same paper, and they were all talking to one another in hushed voices and pointing at that headline about his song. And Rezo just stood there listening to this unsettling murmur and feeling a wave of absolute horror wash over him. Over the next month, more and more headlines about Rezo's song continued to appear in the papers. And it was like each day they only got worse. And then the story went international. I mean, the Catholic church weighed in on. On it and then the police got involved. Finally, one afternoon at the end of March in 1936, Rezo was sitting at his piano, staring down at the keys. He knew he should be writing music, but instead he was just filled with dread, just like he had been every day since he first read that dreadful headline. And then suddenly there was a knock at the door. And when Rezo got up and answered it, a cold sweat broke out all over his body. Body, because it was the Budapest police and they wanted him to come down to the station. Rezo's pulse raced with nerves. But at this point, he wasn't surprised, because by now he knew that writing Gloomy Sunday had been a horrific mistake. Because it would turn out Gloomy Sunday had been a very shockingly impactful song, just as Rezo thought he wanted it to be. But over the course of the last year, the police had begun finding its sheet music or its written lyrics, or the actual song playing on record players at scenes of suicides. Dozens of people across Hungary, Europe and the United States, from police officers to teenagers to wait staffed students, had taken their own lives, basically while listening to Gloomy Sunday. These deaths were so widespread that that a Hungarian archbishop actually wrote a letter to the general public begging them to stop hurting themselves. And multiple bands of the song itself were enacted across Europe and England and the United States. On the day that the Budapest police knocked on Rezo's door, they demanded that he stop sales of the song. And Rezzo agreed. And eventually, so did the song's publisher and his musical partner, Laszlo. And Rezo's partner Laszlo was especially grief stricken by this whole thing because his fiance, the one who had broken his heart on the day he had written this song with Rezo, she ended up being one of the many suicide victims. Before she took her own life, she sent Laszlo a telegram which simply said, gloomy Sunday. No one knows why Gloomy Sunday potentially caused the sudden wave of death. One theory is that people were already really suffering from depression and feeling hopeless because of the Great Depression and the worsening political climate. And the song's popularity was either a coincidence or sort of an unfortunate trigger. As for Rezzo, he was devastated by the legacy of his song. Even though it did technically live up to his original vision, it did deeply resonate with people and was unquestionably a hit. And over the years, despite all the negative associations with the song, it's been translated into 28 different languages and was even performed by legendary singers like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. Initially, there was an estimated 20 suicides attributed to Gloomy Sunday across Europe and the United States. In the years that have followed, however, lore around the song has only grown, and some estimates put the death toll in the hundreds, although the numbers are difficult to verify. Rezzo never wrote another hit, and in fact, ultimately he followed in the footsteps of some of his listeners. He jumped out the window of his eighth floor apartment on another overcast, gloomy Sunday and died two days later. Before I wrap this episode up, I want to say that if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideations or you're just struggling right now, number one, you're not alone. But number two, you really need to talk to someone. Don't hold that stuff in. A quick note about our stories they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt Produced by Jeremy Bone Story editing by Evan Allen Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Vanhus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Wit Locascio and Cole Locasio, Perry Crowell and Jordan Stidham Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain Production coordination by Samantha Collins Production support by Antonio Minotta and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya. Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him. Bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end. This is very strange Angie. The one you trust. Define the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com
- [33:46]
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