533 - An Exercise in Frustration

Summary

My Favorite Murder – Episode 533: "An Exercise in Frustration"

Hosts: Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark
Air Date: May 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

In "An Exercise in Frustration," Karen and Georgia blend their signature wit and empathy to tackle two stories centered on justice, women’s agency, and mysterious circumstances. Karen recounts the harrowing tale of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard, a 19th-century woman unjustly institutionalized for her independence, before becoming a pivotal mental health reformer. Georgia’s story follows the cold case of the 1972 Aconcagua mountaineering tragedy, in which American climbers Janet Johnson and John Cooper perished—and the camera recovered decades later only deepens the mystery. The episode also features true crime case updates, pop culture sidebars, and sharp social commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Episode Segments

1. Opening Banter, Travel, & Voting (02:31–05:11)

• Italy & Language Fumbles: Georgia practices her "terrible Italian" in anticipation of a trip, prompting a playful riff on traveling, language mishaps, and "Chef’s kiss" jokes.
• LA Mayoral Election PSA:
  • Georgia: “We have a lot of listeners in LA… make sure we tell them that they have to vote for mayor. Oh, and they cannot vote for Spencer Pratt.” (03:33)
  • Discussions include the importance of voting, bad celebrity candidates, and support for progressive leaders like Nithya Raman.
  • Karen: “We've played around with democracy too much, and we are now actively doing damage and harm to people every single day with non-action.” (04:42)
• Reality vs. Escapism: They note the weirdness of discussing serious political issues and then pivoting to vacation plans: “This is the crazy world we've had to live in…” (04:57–05:11)

2. Life Updates, Jump Roping, & Vatican Listeners (05:12–10:15)

• Desert Getaway: Karen describes her restorative trip to the desert, enjoying hot springs and battling the “stress waterfall.”
• Jump Rope Challenge: Georgia starts a 5-minute daily jump rope routine, aiming to become a “jump rope influencer.” Karen joins in with her mini trampoline.
  • Georgia: “I'm going to turn it into content because nothing can happen without turning it into content.” (07:30)
• Listener Map Oddity: Their ad manager finds listeners in Vatican City, launching jokes about Vatican archives, ghosts, “dragon eggs,” and “Vatican secret keeper” listeners.
• Quick-witted exchange:
  • Karen: “May we please go into your archives that you don't let the public into? So we can see the dragon eggs and the ghosts that are caught in a Raggedy Ann doll?” (09:23)

3. True Crime Case Updates (11:34–13:56)

• Alec Murdoch Conviction Overturned: Karen recaps the shocking overturn of Alec Murdoch’s convictions due to juror misconduct.
  • Karen: “The South Carolina Supreme Court seems to agree with this, saying in its recent decision, Hill had, quote, placed her fingers on the scales of justice.” (12:14)
• Yogurt Shop Murders Break: Georgia shares that DNA evidence exonerated the teens convicted in Austin’s infamous yogurt shop murders, and a large restitution is awarded.

4. Podcast/Network Corner & Merch Update (13:56–15:53)

• Highlights from other Exactly Right network shows.
• Merch plug: “This is terrible. Keep going.” mug is restocked.

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Main Story #1: The Institutionalization of Elizabeth Packard (Presented by Karen)

Segment Start: [19:58]

The Life and Ordeal of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard

Background

• Born in 1816, Massachusetts, bright and intellectual but faces gendered constraints of her time. (19:58–21:34)

Unjust Institutionalization

• Suffers "brain fever" at 19; father interprets her illness as the result of “too much mental effort” and commits her to an asylum. (23:17–24:04)
• Marries Theophilus Packard, a Calvinist minister 14 years her senior: “Where Elizabeth was vibrant, sociable, and curious, Theophilus was gloomy and, in his own words, dull.” (27:38)
• Marriage is “love-strangling”—her independent streak, abolitionist views, and spiritual curiosity clash with her husband’s rigidity.
  • Karen jokes about Theophilus's “chinstrap beard” being a sign of “the final argument against the chinstrap beard.” (26:37)

Imprisonment for Dissent

• In 1860, after years of publicly disagreeing with her husband and leaving his church, Theophilus has Elizabeth forcibly committed under laws that require no proof for a husband's accusations. (33:03–34:38)
• Karen: “All husbands have the right to institutionalize their wives without any medical proof that they are mentally ill in any way.” (34:38)

Life Inside the Asylum

• Elizabeth details horrific abuse: overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, physical violence, punitive baths, and neglect.
  • Examples: women “violently stuffed into stray church”; an aide threatens Elizabeth with a knife for helping a patient; bathtubs used as torture devices. (37:54–39:44)
  • Karen: “It’s mayhem in there… patients begging for mercy as attendants throw them into the tubs, sometimes with, quote, their hands and feet tied.” (39:07)

Resistance and Advocacy

• Maintains sanity by journaling and documenting abuses: “I am becoming so extremely sensitive to wrong and abuse that I cannot or shall not witness it without interference, even if you put me into fetters for it.” (40:03)
• Released after three years thanks to pressure from her older children and disruptive advocacy, but is immediately locked in the nursery by Theophilus. (40:23–41:24)
• Sneaks a letter to a friend, which brings attention from a judge and finally forces a legal proceeding on her sanity. (41:53–42:39)
• Jury takes seven minutes to declare her sane; Theophilus flees with the youngest children. (43:20–43:39)

Legacy

• Wins custody back, sues her husband, publishes exhaustive accounts of asylum abuses, and champions reforms.
• Helps inspire over 30 new laws, including the right to trial before institutionalization.
• After decades of advocacy, dies at 80; the Illinois state-run psychiatric center is ultimately renamed in her honor.
• Quote from author Kate Moore: “I think she would be personally grateful that she and her work have been recognized when for so much of her life, she was denigrated and dumbed. But I also think she would say, the work is not done.” (47:28)

Notable Moments & Quotes

• Georgia: “Because she knew how to write. All the women who were not given an education, who couldn't write about their experiences or send a note through a window to their friend… they could only raise their voices, which then immediately qualified them as being slightly insane, which is why they didn't want to educate women.” (48:35)

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Main Story #2: The Aconcagua Mountain Mystery (Presented by Georgia)

Segment Start: [53:14]

The Tragic 1972 Climb of Janet Johnson & John Cooper

Setup

• February 2020: Porters find a decades-old camera on the receding Polish Glacier of Aconcagua, highest peak in South America. (54:19)
• The camera belongs to Janet Johnson who, along with John Cooper, died mysteriously in 1972. (57:29)
• Georgia: “This is the story of the Aconcagua Mountain mystery.” (58:32)

The Expedition

• Diverse team: lawyer, psychiatrist, doctor, dairy farmer, police officer, BYU student (Shelton), NASA engineer (John Cooper), and Janet (PhD, school librarian, avid climber).
• Janet is enigmatic; background includes escaping strict, religious family after coming out, becoming a top-notch mountaineer.
• From the start, the team lacks cohesion and underestimates the climb.

On the Mountain

• Altitude sickness sidelines several team members, including the leader.
• Janet is accused in John Cooper’s diary of being “a real loner” and allegedly not contributing enough (72:18), likely colored by both interpersonal and gender biases.
• Last four climbers (Cooper, Janet, McMillan, Zeller) push for summit—none have tackled a mountain this high or climbed together before.

Tragic Events

• Group splits up; Zeller and McMillan’s narrative: Janet falls behind, is found lying in snow, says, “My name is Janet Johnson. Don't make me suffer. Just let me lay here and die.” (76:00)
• McMillan’s descent is hallucinatory, seeing dead mules and soldiers—later realizes these were altitude-induced hallucinations.
• Cooper’s dead body is found later, with a mysterious cylindrical wound; Janet’s body found tangled in rope, with blunt force facial trauma and a rock placed atop.
• Medical opinions suggest foul play, but the mountaineers’ official version (agreed in a private meeting) blames altitude and natural hazards.
• Political upheaval in Argentina prevents further investigation.

The Camera & Aftermath

• The discovered camera yields 24 crystal-clear photos—none resolve the mystery, but one shows climbers roped together, contradicting survivors’ claims they weren't tied together.
• Georgia: “The film does not solve the mystery, it adds to it. It tells you what Johnson saw in her final, but not how she felt, not how she died. Not every discovery leads to revelation. Some just make you wanna know more.” (88:24)

Speculation & Endnotes

• Karen and Georgia debate explanations: Was it murder? Psychosis brought on by altitude? Cover-up? Consensus: something strange happened, but the truth may be lost to history.
• Recurring thread on women’s treatment—in history and in the 1972 expedition—a theme connecting both stories.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On what happened atop Aconcagua:
  • Karen: “It does sound a little fake, them saying, she said, my name is Janet. That whole story seems fake and oversimplified.” (92:25)
• Georgia, on women’s voices across history:
  • “All the women who were not given an education, who couldn't write about their experiences or send a note through a window to their friend…” (48:39)

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Memorable Moments & Classic Exchanges

• Vatican Listener Bit: Joking about a supernatural Vatican archivist-benefactor giving them access to "dragon eggs" and secrets. (09:23, 09:39)
• Mountaineering and Self-Reliance: Karen, on the team's dysfunction: “...the idea that someone was like, she's just doing it for herself. It's like, so how many that are left are doing it for everybody else?” (74:14)
• Direct Calls to Action: Both hosts repeated the importance of voting, writing, and staying involved in causes related to justice and women’s autonomy.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Voting & Advocacy PSA: 03:26–04:55
• Listener in Vatican City: 09:07–10:15
• True Crime News Updates: 11:34–13:56
• Elizabeth Packard Story Begins: 19:58
• Packard Verdict & Advocacy: 42:56–44:29
• Aconcagua Mystery Begins: 53:14
• Janet’s Camera Found: 57:56–58:32
• Speculation on Mountaineering Tragedy: 89:04–92:02
• Closing Thoughts & Theme Tie-in: 92:42–93:44

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Tone & Style

The episode is both heart-wrenching and sharp-witted. Karen and Georgia’s conversational style weaves humor with righteous anger at injustice—a combination that provides levity without minimizing the subjects’ seriousness.

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Themes

• Systemic Abuse of Power: From asylums to gendered exclusion and cover-ups.
• Women’s Agency and Advocacy: How writing, protest, and storytelling can drive reform and challenge history's erasures.
• Unanswered Mysteries: Both cases leave lingering questions—a through-line of frustration, resilience, and the limits of “closure.”

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Notable Quotes

• Karen (on reform): “I think she would be personally grateful that she and her work have been recognized… but I also think she would say, the work is not done.” (47:28)
• Georgia (on mountaineering narrative): “The film does not solve the mystery, it adds to it… Not every discovery leads to revelation. Some just make you wanna know more.” (88:24)
• Karen (on education and power): “…if nobody knows anything then we're going to be good with it.” (49:04)

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Recommended For

• Fans of history, true crime with feminist lens, and unsolved mysteries.
• Anyone seeking a heady mix of irreverence and outrage at injustice—with some bite-sized pop culture tangents.

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Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered

As always, the hosts close with their signature reminder: “Stay sexy and don’t get murdered.”

Transcript

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is exactly right.

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a fun, easy way to discover your next great audiobook.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Check out Earsay on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye, My favorite.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark, that's Karen Kilgariff, and today we're going to beautiful Italy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I've been practicing my horrible Italian on Karen since I'm going. Ah yes, she's Pulling out the chef's kiss.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's Italian corner.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The chef's kiss. Did you preparado cafe for me?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, I made coffee for you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Grazie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're gonna do great.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right now I'm flashing back to pictures of very patient waiters waiting for me to do that and then being like, madame, I will speak English with you. It's like, thanks so much.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. They just want to see you sweat a little bit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Put some effort into it, please.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Have some respect for the country you're in.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. And also, we're supposed to say. When they say, oh, where are you from? You say, I'm from the Republic of California instead of the U.S. like, I'm.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm cool. That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Speaking of, I feel like obligated that we have to talk about this real quick.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do I move this off?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. This is get getting serious.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We have a lot of listeners that live in LA and that are over 18, and I think we need to make sure we tell them that they have to vote for mayor. Oh. And they cannot vote for Spencer Pratt. And I know that you're 18. You're like, I don't give a shit. It doesn't bother me. You have to vote. So you cancel out the people that are stupid that are voting for him, because we know our listeners aren't stupid. They're not going to vote for him.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But they might not go out that day.

[Karen Kilgariff]

True. That's a great point to make.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I also think I will say I believe in the children who are so much smarter and more active than we ever had to be. The privilege of apoliticalism from the 90s, I think about and shiver with how disgusting it is and how much I never helped or did anything. And I think these kids today know what's what. Also speaking of which, I'm a real believer in Nithya Raman. She's also running. You know, she's amazing. Because they do everything they can to keep her down. They do everything they can.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. I mean, that's a debate all on its own.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Vote for someone you believe in. Clearly it's not gonna be him.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We've played around with democracy too much, and we are now actively doing damage and harm to people every single day with non action.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, for sure. That's. I felt like we had to say that just because.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And now. Dun, dun, dun.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And we're back.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And we're back. Because this is the crazy world we've had to live in where we simultaneously deal with the fall of democracy and then, hey, Georgia's excited to go on vacation to the wonderful world of Italy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel like there might have been a glitch in the Matrix and it's freaking me out a little bit right this second. Yeah, well, before we walked in this room, maybe this room is a time machine. Who the fuck knows? Or a time capsule or something. But the hot dog phone box is upside down and it's freaking me out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know what it is? What? The other podcasts that shoot in here, they take our stuff down and put other stuff up.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So someone's fucking up with us. Who did that, Bridger?

[Karen Kilgariff]

You specifically.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Paul Holes. Paul Holes did it. Oh, that's okay. We were going to call him on that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's really funny. Wait, was this like an Easter egg that he put in to say, hey,

[Georgia Hardstark]

no, I don't think Paul did it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think but it just happened on accident.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Paul doesn't clean up after himself, but he was in here not that long ago. Someone turned the hot dog phone upside down and blew my mind.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Seriously, there's three people crying in the control room right now because of the intensity with which you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, I love it. I love it. What's up with you?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I went to the desert this past weekend for a last minute birthday trip.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hot springs?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Because I didn't plan anything. And then I was like, well, I don't. I'm not just gonna sit here and I might as well go and sit in some. Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Lithium water?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Magnesium water.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Man, I'm a believer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You look glowy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, thank you. Well, I really also, I think I've gone over the. I went over the stress waterfall and for a while I was churning down in those. The white water at the bottom of the Strauss waterfall.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I see you in a barrel. Just like an old timey barrel.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right. I was down there, water straight down on my head for a while. I popped straight back up and I landed in a hot spring out by the desert.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hell yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also it was 103 or 4 at one point. We just sat by a pool. Like I was a person that gets tan and just like laid around by the pool for like hours.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So nice.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was great. I like less self help books and more like just go, just go sit in the sun or just go bake and.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Get some dopamine somehow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, actively.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, but like good for you. Dopamine. Not like alcohol.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, exactly. Do something that immediately have an effect on your nervous system, which that really does. I didn't realize Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I love that place.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm a real desert lizard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Should we get into it or do you want to hear about jump roping? Nope. Let's get into it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What's jump roping?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I just started a new personal challenge if you want to join me. Jumping rope five minutes a day. Yes. Boom.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's great.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm going to turn it into content because nothing can happen without turning it into content.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Are you going to learn to double dutch? Eventually. Are you going to build up to a skill?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm going to learn to jump rope first because it's harder than I remember.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But do you feel like you might be able to get skip rope?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, that's the idea.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right then.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Then I'm a jump rope influencer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Then you can go to New York City where I watch tiktoks of people jumping into those double dutches that pop up in a square. I was there as a K. You could. Yeah, I think I could do it a little bit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I think I could do it now. That's how cocky I am and how much I don't know how old I am. I bet I could fucking get into a dumbbell.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You immediately break your hip the second you do like. Oh, God, that's really good. I'm totally down for that. Do we have to check in and stuff?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure. Unless we don't do it, we will never talk about it again.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, that is our way.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Truly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But it's fun to try things.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know, I have a mini trampoline that I jump on all the time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I do, too. I never jump on it. It's so hard.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What about this? I'm gonna get on my mini trampoline.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You do your jump.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And we'll do parallel jumping therapies and then report back.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My favorite jumping apparatus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is not an integration of any kind. Not being paid by Big Jump at all. It's not what's happening. I am.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're not. Didn't get the.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Damn it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did you see Katie Van Buskirk right before we started recording?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's our incredible integration person.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ad sales.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ad sales manager. She text us and said, I was looking through where your listeners are across the world. And then she wrote with a fucking gif. Vatican City.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's not true.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's true.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Inside the Vatican.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. We have listeners in Vatican City.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, then may I Just for one second.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We are tying it all the way back to Italy. Please get it back up there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Get it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. What?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hello? Every citizen of Vatican City. That's listening to us right now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're putting it over the.

[Karen Kilgariff]

May we please go into your archives that you don't let the public into? So we can see the dragon eggs and the ghosts that are caught in a Raggedy Ann doll. We want to see it all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There has to be a listener who just does the archives gotta be some. Just like a custodian.

[Karen Kilgariff]

A custodian. A file folder. Tend to. Er.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We'll give you some merch.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You can have any sweatshirt you want if you tell us the secrets of the Vatican.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And let us look ins. Yeah, I'll be there soon.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I have watched the secrets of the Vatican and they don't tell you any good secrets. Like, it's like Mary Magdalene is actually the one.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, Nobody knows the good secrets but the people who made them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And I bet it's. If you're gonna talk about fucking time travel cities and places, that's obviously.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's the number one portal.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

They do a lot of old crazy shit there. We did go on. We went on a tour of the Vatican because Paige Hurwitz, our friend and ep, made us go there. A person who was born and raised very Jewish.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She was like, we have to go to the Vatican. And it was me, Janet and Adrienne were like, we don't want to. Made us go. Yes. It was incredible. Except for I did get in trouble for filming inside the Sistine Chapel. And I was doing it for my dad, where I was like, he's going to lose his mind. And the man, like, put my hand down and he was like, be respectful of other people's religions. And I was like, I think we're the number one of the classic Catholics in this religion. Like, my grandparents paid for this fucking thing. They gave you all kinds of money they didn't have.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, Vatican City, here we go.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What? Here's the thing. You're flipping through Netflix. You're like, oh, look, there's a true crime podcast. Let me click on here and see what they're doing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What the fuck are they talking about?

[Karen Kilgariff]

What is this?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why is this. This is so dumb. First of all, it's two women. I can't stand women.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Listen to their voices.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They think their opinions matter.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They can't even speak Italian.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Go into the kitchen and be trad wives.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And really, meanwhile, meanwhile, we're not going to. We refuse meanwhile. That's not in the plans.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, real quick, let's do some case updates.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, if we are true crime podcasts, let's Talk about. Because big things have actually been happening in the true crime space.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's true. We're in.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the craziest one is that the convictions in the Murdoch murders have been overturned. Alec Murdoch, convicted for the murders of his wife Maggie and his son Paul. That guilty verdict has been tossed by the South Carolina Supreme Court, citing shocking jury interference by a woman named Becky Hill, a court clerk who managed jurors during his 2023 trial.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What'd she do?

[Karen Kilgariff]

They say she improperly influenced the jury, among other things, by advising them not to trust the defense's evidence.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, you can't do that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, that's egregious. I mean, absolutely not. The South Carolina Supreme Court seems to agree with this, saying in its recent decision, Hill had, quote, placed her fingers on the scales of justice. We should say Becky Hill has denied influencing the jury, although she did.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What would she do?

[Karen Kilgariff]

She pled guilty to misusing public funds and using her job for personal gain and specifically to promote her book about the trial.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a wash. That's no good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Cause here's the thing. I think they get her on this crime justifiably so. And then it's like. And perfect. Cause now we undo the whole sweater, Right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Unbelievable.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. Okay, I have a quick update on my. You know, the case that is nearest to my heart, which is the yogurt shop murders. Yeah. I covered in episode 70 live at the moon tower. And so they have finally found the actual killer. Based on DNA, it's clearly this person. And so the city of Austin is expected to pay 35 million in restitution to the four teenage boys who were arrested and convicted of this. So Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn, and the family of Maurice Pierce, who died in 2010. So 35 million. Yeah. It's taken a long time, but they're at least getting some justice.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is it justice or just like, at least they're getting some relief from the difficulties that being convicted for this crime has probably created in their lives.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And you can, if you watch the documentary that was on hbo, I think they're in it, and they're clearly struggling still. So. Yeah, that whole case. All right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, we have podcast network.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's time to be positive. Okay, so this week on Ghosted, Roz is joined by the scrumptiously spooky drag sensation, Pineapple Honeydew.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Are you familiar with Pineapple's work?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, I'm not either. Pineapple.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I can't wait to watch. They get into Appalachian superstitions, psychic dreams, and pineapple's own uncanny manifestations.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ooh. And then on I said no Gifts. Bridger avoids a full blown argument when writer comedian Chloe Radcliffe arrives with a gift. Then the the two discuss Craigslist killers, bed bug immunity, and dating delicate men.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's like a conversation just for us. Then over on this podcast, Will Kill youl, Aaron and Aaron dive into histoplasmosis, which is among the most widespread fungal infections in North America.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What is it about me and them that makes me so excited about that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because you know you're now going to listen to that episode and now you'll be an expert on the widespread fungal infections in North America.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I love fungus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They also discuss bats, birds, tuberculosis, and the surprising history behind this disease's discovery.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. That's gonna be good. Finally on Hollywoodland, Jake and Zeth tell the story of the legendary Steve McQueen. From beers with Elvis to Charles Manson's hit list, this story never takes its foot off the gas.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's our Disgraceland, Hollywoodland vibe over there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Love it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And just for everybody to know, in the merch corner, we have looked around this terrible world of ours and decided to officially restock that. This is terrible. Keep going. Mug. You asked for it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There it is, blue on blue. And it's on both sides now, which I really love.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, I love that color combination. It's very 1981.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I love it. That's a good mug.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It is.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, don't forget my Ontario mug from touring in like 2018. I probably got it at a Starbucks.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, it's Starbucks for sure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Or it was given to us.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If you gave this to us and you're seeing this right now, please write in and tell us what it was like. Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right. You're first.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm first today.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's easy to make your drive amazing with reclining seats that melt the tension away, Thoughtful tech and charging ports that keep every device powered make everyday epic

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

It features class leading interior space and available front and second row relaxation seats that let you really recline and unwind.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The 2.5T hybrid engine with up to an EPA estimated 619 miles of range on select trims. It's built for long hauls, quick errands and everything in between, no matter where you're headed.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The available 14 speaker Bose sound system makes for an immersive ride.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And the Palisade Hybrid comes with an available class exclusive dash camera feature and available class exclusive Blind Spot View monitor

[Karen Kilgariff]

for extra peace of mind seating configurations for seven to eight passengers and with

[Georgia Hardstark]

available H Track all wheel drive, you're ready to go anywhere in style.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Need more? You've got standard 100 watt USB C ports to keep every device powered and

[Georgia Hardstark]

a standard passenger talk intercom so you can threaten to turn this SUV around if your K don't knock it off. Without taking your eyes off the road,

[Karen Kilgariff]

the all new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid is more than just another suv. It's still the Palisade, but with so much more.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Learn more about the Hyundai palisade@hyundai USA.com

[Karen Kilgariff]

Call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

If you're not a bath person, Dr. Teals will change your mind.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I am obsessed with baths, you know that and Dr. Teals has been in my bath for decades. Like this stuff is the best.

[Karen Kilgariff]

To be honest, and this sounds fake but I just got out of the bathtub because I wanted to try this and my skin feels crazy soft like I have lotion all over my skin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't think I've taken a bath without Dr. Teals in over a decade and I take a bath bath pretty much every couple days.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Find Dr. Teals all dressed in blue in your local bath aisle.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dr. Teals Yep, you needed that. Goodbye Goodbye. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

It's December 1816. So a while ago, a baby girl named Elizabeth is born in Massachusetts in a comfortable household by two parents who can afford to educate their children. Her two brothers are sent to all boys schools. While Elizabeth will eventually be trained with other young girls to someday become schoolteachers, she is a curious, driven, an exceptionally bright young girl. These are all qualities that would be celebrated if they were displayed by her brothers. But we're talking about 1816. Yeah, an intellectually gifted girl invites scrutiny and criticism and screams of Kill the witch. Elizabeth will learn the hardest way she can. Society prefers their ladies to be nice and to be quiet. And when they're not, when they dare to use their brains to question authority or their husbands, that intelligence will be used against them and they will be deemed too dangerous for their own well being. And that usually back then meant being institutionalized. Sure, when Elizabeth is forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution, she witnesses and experiences genuine harm. But it also radicalizes her and she will begin to keep a diary writing down everything she sees. And when she finally gets to tell her story, she will not be nice or quiet about it. She will change the world.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is the story of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packer. Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard. She has three last names, like a modern day lady Maren. Read the book. The woman they could not silence by author Kate Moore, who wrote the Radium Girls book.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And that's the main source that was used today. Any other source is listed in our show notes, but it's mostly the work of Kate Moore. So Elizabeth Parsons Ware grows up very religious. Her father, Samuel Ware, is a minister with Calvinist leanings. So pretty bleak lens of Christianity that says all humans are inherently sinful. And salvation isn't determined by you making good choices or being a good person. It's just kind of randomly what God decides based on, like, I like you, you'll be saved, you won't. Sucks pretty fear inducing at all times. So you kind of can't do anything right. And you're always apologizing. We've all been there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the Wares run a very God fearing, theologically strict household, and yet they're very progressive about their daughter's admir. For a girl of her era, Elizabeth's education is an unusually rigorous one. And it also probably helps that they live near Amherst College, which kind of provides this intellectual backdrop. So that influences the way she sees the world. Of course, by the time 1835 rolls around, 19 year old Elizabeth is working as a teacher until her career is interrupted by what doctors will refer to. The doctors of the time will refer to as brain fever. Her symptoms include headaches, chills, fever and confusion. Today, she would likely be diagnosed with a viral or a bacterial brain infection like encephalitis or meningitis.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Those are fully treatable with modern medicine. But it's 1835, so doctors theorize that Elizabeth's job as a teacher has overstimulated her female brain.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hysterical. She's hysterical.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's just lost it. Which is manifested in these physical symptoms that she has. Now cut to my sister Laura going, it does drive you insane. Like I. That's all I can think about where it's like, it's true, they were right, but she's wrong. So. Oh, that felt great. I've never really, I've never really taken that to the public station.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's never going to hear it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're wrong, Laura. Yeah, she doesn't. She's not a fan of this show, Laura.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You guys are wrong.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You guys, guys have always been wrong.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. So when Elizabeth's father hears about this diagnosis, he requests that his daughter be admitted to the local asylum, believing that the root of her illness is that she's, quote, used too much mental effort, end quote. In her line of work. Me too. Too much mental effort.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Need the hot springs.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's really hard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We should do this from a hot spring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ooh, we absolutely should. There's two ducks that just hang out the whole time with you, and they're not scared of you because they're filled with lithium.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I want ducks to be my friends. That's my new, like, bird obsession.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's guy, girl, duck couple.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And they're, like, cool with everyone.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They don't care. They're just so relaxed and filled with magnesium and all the minerals you need for your nervous system to be okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They just sold this to me completely.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, great. We'll get you a little gift certificate. So this, of course, will be entirely against her will, obviously. And according to Elizabeth, she will later write a needless and unkind decision. She will spend six weeks in this asylum, subjected to all kinds of archaic treatments, including, at one point, bloodletting. Oh, so it's not any kind of, like, hospital that we would know today, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

They didn't have lobotomies yet, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I don't think so. I would love to. Everything in me wants to say, no, of course not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But I don't know. I wanna ask if they had electric shock therapy, but I don't even know if they had electricity. I don't, so I shouldn't ask.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think it was, like, the fresh new thing around town, electricity. But I don't know either. What we know is this. She does not write about this first time she's hospitalized in any way, but it's a 19th century mental asylum. Her physical symptoms do start to improve, though, so she's finally discharged because, of course, she is treated and basically her brain infection goes away. But by the point that she gets out, she firmly believes that her recovery is incidental and that her treatment by these asylum doctors has actually only made her worse, mentally and emotionally.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So a couple years pass after that, and then in 1839, when she's 22, she gets set up with a friend of her father's named. Get ready for this. Oh, sorry. We have a picture of Elizabeth. Here's her og.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She does not look happy. That's a dour face.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All she wanted to do was be mean to children and hit them with a stick while she taught them Latin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's like, someone, unzip my dress, it's so tight.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Please. I'm just upset about it. The idea that you would get a physical infection or a virus, and suddenly it's like, sorry, crazy. Go to the insane asylum.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Your father or your husband says you're crazy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's all. That's needed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, so she gets set up with a friend of her father's named Theophilus Packard. Can we take a look at Theophilus?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Theoph.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Theophilus.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Whoa.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is when he's young. No, this is after he sees the ghost.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He looks like Planet of the Apes, where they, like, put a suit on

[Karen Kilgariff]

one of the apes with those. And also, I think it's the chinstrap beard. This is the final argument against the chinstrap beard. I know. Guys do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Cause they're like, there was more left.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, there used to be a lot. Now we're down to this one, and the answer is firm. No, please don't.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm trying to see if he'd be hot without it, but I don't think so.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, also, he's taken the chinstrap beard to a totally upsetting level where it's under his chin but grown out so it looks like he's wearing a children's lion costume.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What do you think it smells like? Is that so they can eat soup better?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Maybe it's so that he can worship the Lord better because he is like her father, a Calvinist minister and 14 years older than her. He's 37. He is not particularly romantic. I know that's gonna shock you. He's not all about that relationship. And in fact, later, Elizabeth will write that during their courtship, he, quote, did not seem to love me much.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, sounds about right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She does go on to say that she marries him in part to make her father happy, but they are not a match. So author Kate Moore writes, quote, their characters were as opposite as it was possible to get. Where Elizabeth was vibrant, sociable, and curious, Theophilus was gloomy and, in his own words, dull.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He said he was dull?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Always trust the guy when they tell you what they are.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's like, look, don't get fooled by my way back. Chinstrap beard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know I seem whimsical because of this fucking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This was just an accident.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What if he couldn't grow beard hair on his chin? It started back when. Okay. So for years, Elizabeth endures a marriage that she will later describe as, quote, love strangling. The worst. She spends that relationship constantly tempering her own thoughts and feelings to keep peace in the household. She has a lot of children, and she moves at the whim of her husband's ministry career. He is always the focus of everyone's life. Cause how. How could it not be?

[Georgia Hardstark]

He turns heads when he walks in the door.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He looks like he invented like grape juice or something. He, like, he looks like something from an old.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, try cleaner, like a disgusting prune tonic that. He's like, it works. It makes you vitality.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It'll fix your spleen.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He's always talking about a spleen. Like, he won't shut up about his spleen.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's like, listen, I'm dull, but your spleen will be clean.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Spleen is the heart of every melody,

[Karen Kilgariff]

of every chin beard. In 1848, the first women's rights convention ever held in the US which was the Seneca Falls Convention, takes place in New York. And activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott are like the central players of this event. It's a watershed moment in the broader movement for women's rights in the United States. Elizabeth is now in her early 30s. She doesn't get to go to this, but she hears about it and she hears the messages of women's empowerment that come out of it. It resonates with her. She is a decade into this miserable, dull, loveless marriage, and she begins to test the social limits of her role, not only as a mother, but as a preacher's wife. So she takes on, this is the ultimate, like, get out of jail free. She starts doing missionary work. So she gets out of the household, she's like, it's for the Lord. Bye. It's what we're all supposed to be doing. And she gets to be out in the real world. And once she gets out into the real world, she starts examining her own faith. And this is the time where spiritualism is very, very popular in the United States, which is the belief the living can communicate with the dead. And being raised in the Calvinism end of Christian, she's drawn to theologies that are more empathetic and mystical and humanistic.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I could see that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She even attends a seance where she claims that she spoke with her late mother.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So Listen to episode 363, landed in marshmallows. If you want to hear about Harry Houdini's fight against spiritualism, that was a good one because he didn't like it. So for most other women at that time, that kind of dalliance into spiritualism was what was happening. It probably would have been fine, but because Elisabeth's husband is a rigid 19th century Calvinist minister, her spiritual journey puts a huge strain on their marriage. But she doesn't wanna hide her beliefs anymore. Basically, she's just trapped and she's like, whatever, I'm gonna do what I want. So in Their ultra religious social circle, which is probably just all the people at her husband's church. They're just watching as the minister's wife dabbles in the heretical like a seance.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You can't, you can't.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's not allowed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so at home, this I guess ho is challenging theophilus values on everything from how to raise their six children to major issues of the day like slavery. Elizabeth identifies as an abolitionist, although a very flawed white 1800s one, very self serving, but overall especially like trying to put it on the table with her husband, who is 10 times worse in every direction than her, he doesn't like. She is an avid supporter of John Brown, the man who led the anti slavery raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and was executed for it. She's a believer in this movement and her husband is mortified. He of course, unsurprisingly finds his wife's politics increasingly embarrassing. She becomes so disillusioned that she actually leaves her husband's church because she's like, how could you say you're of God and be doing this to people?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, that's such a fucking you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh my God. Wife leaving, preacher's wife. You saw the Whitney Houston movie, you know what it's like. So leaving the church is. She is just piling up the humiliations for him. Their marriage is in shambles, but of course divorce is off the table. He would never do it morally. And she is deathly afraid that she'll lose custody of her children. Then her husband of 21 years. Does the unthinkable die? No, no. It's close though, but not bad for him. It's 1860. They're living in Jacksonville, Illinois, and one night in the middle of the night, Elizabeth is taken from her home by two strange men and brought to the Illinois State Asylum and Hospital.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. He's just like, here's the problem, let me get rid of it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, you're so embarrassing by contradicting me that you must be insane. And so you have to be committed. And it's right there in Jacksonville. Elizabet has no idea what's going on. She remembers being in the reception room hours later, begging to be released. And then she sees her husband through a window and realizes, like he's there to confirm this is happening and make sure it happens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Chilling.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She will later write in her journal that he looked at her with, quote, one last look of satisfied delight. Never had I seen his face more radiant with joy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Damn.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So he's like, she's can you imagine that face? Can we see the face again? Never had I seen the face so radiant with joy, if that's what I mean.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He doesn't look like a joyful person.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He looks a little stunned.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It would actually probably be very upsetting

[Georgia Hardstark]

to see him, that guy, radiant with joy. First of all, just seeing that face through a window and I think like that's a ghost or whatever. But to see him happy, he's like,

[Karen Kilgariff]

hooray, she's finally gone. I can get back to my books and ledgers and God and of course God. So Theophilus commits his 44 year old wife to an asylum, telling the doctors there that she is, quote, slightly insane. His proof is, I mean we'd all be in there, this whole building of people would be in there, thank God, together. His proof is her leaving his Calvinist church and disavowing his worldview. And Illinois state law at the time says no problem, passed. All husbands have the right to institutionalize their wives without any medical proof that they are mentally ill in any way, y'.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it was just so recently.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So as we know, Elizabeth has been through this before. It's what her father did to her when she was a teenager and of course that works against her and reaffirms her diagnosis. The well respected 43 year old Superintendent of this hospital is a man named Dr. Andrew McFarlane. And he does seem to agree with Theophilus assessment that Elizabeth's actions over the last few years suggest that she is, quote, slightly insane.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Slightly insane is so cute. It's like, can you. That would be great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, she's not raving in the streets, we understand, but she certainly isn't down at church nodding along with her husband's beard. Elizabeth will write that she's been quote, placed there by her husband for thinking, end quote. But her insistence that she's sane, of course, only seems to affirm to Dr. McFarland that she's not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The old trick, I'm just screaming I'm insane. Yeah, never works.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, I'm sane. I'm sane. Then you say it 500 more times. So she's committed with no clear discharge date. And so she begins to write. And from her very thorough diaries, she describes her time in there, yearning not only for her freedom, but for her children. She is in agony. Her friends on the outside are advocating for her release, but they are powerless of course, because of the laws of the time. So they can argue all they want. Elizabeth is certainly not alone in her Experience, though she documents the leagues of other women that she meets in the asylum and who have also been unfairly institutionalized by the men in their lives. She also records details on patients who are genuinely unwell and how the state are clearly unequipped to treat them and are often abusive. It is a miserable place. It's overcrowded. Resources are stretched thin. There's high staff turnover. Some wards are filthy. There are puddles of human waste left on the unclean floor. Every room seems to have been stripped of the smallest possible comfort. Patients only get to sit on hardwood benches, and the bedding is as scratchy and itchy and terrible as it could possibly be. And so Elizabeth writes all this down. She takes it all down, and she write about all of it in detail. But the darkest testimony involves the extreme abuse that she experiences and that she witnesses other patients being subjected to at the hands of asylum employees. So you gotta figure probably a lot of these employees were totally unqualified on trains. They're just thrown in there, like, make sure they're quiet or make sure they eat or go to bed. From there, the exploitation of that power. Women are injured as they're violently stuffed into stray church. They're beaten for being unruly. They're choked. Sometimes Elizabeth tries to intervene, but she writes that once, while trying to help a patient that's being manhandled by a much larger attendant, he turns and grabs Elizabeth and drags her through the hallways back to her room by her arm and locks her in so she can't interfere anymore. She writes about a patient being starved as punishment. And when she sneaks that woman some food, an aide finds out and pulls a knife on her and holds it over her head.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So it's just. It's mayhem in there. She also writes about an assistant choking a young patient. And one of his fingernails is so sharp, it slashes the young patient's throat when the attendant backs off. Elizabeth dresses the patient's wound with a piece of her own clothing, and she keeps that bandage. And she writes that the scrap is, quote, red with the blood of this innocent girl as proof of this kind of abuse in the Jacksonville Insane Asylum.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. So terrifying.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And she's just kind of like, I'm just going to put it down.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She writes extensively about the arrival of bathtubs, too.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And we talked about this a little bit with Nellie Bly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So at first, they're introduced as a more hygienic and dignifying alternative to the sponge baths that were usually given to patients. But Elizabeth describes them as quickly becoming instruments of torture used to punish girls and women for things as small as, quote, silly behavior and laughing. From her bed, Elizabeth writes that she can hear the patients begging for mercy as attendants throw them into the tubs, sometimes with, quote, their hands and feet tied. And if they resisted, a straitjacket was placed upon them. End quote.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like just sadistic people. This is not therapy in any way.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is. No, in fact, it's sadism. It's sadism cause they're held underwater repeatedly for long stretches of time. And sometimes the water's freezing or it's scalding hot. Right. And the only way that Elizabeth knows that the patient survives this basically torture treatment is when they come back up out of the water screaming, fuck. So she is in this situation and in this hospital for months. And of course, it's deteriorating both her mental and her physical health. Cause it's a living hell.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

As an act of resistance, she does her best to keep her mind sharp. So she commits to a routine of regular exercise and prayer. This is you and me in jumping rope. This is how we're gonna do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Keeping sane in this fucked up world.

[Karen Kilgariff]

As we jump rope or on a mini trampoline, we're going to be like,

[Georgia Hardstark]

lord, Lord, Lord, sharpen our brains.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let's sharpen this shit up and get it together. She writes in her journal, Quote, I am becoming so extremely sensitive to wrong and abuse that I cannot or shall not witness it without interference, Even if you put me into fetters for it. End quote.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She is trapped in this asylum for three years total.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Until she's finally released in 1863 due to sustaining pressure from her older children, who are now either in their late teens or early 20s. Okay, so they just basically have been calling and pressuring Dr. McFarland and the other asylum officials. Like, did they have phones? No, sorry. They've been calling. They've been. They have been putting pressure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sorry.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no, no, that's the good catch. They have been putting pressure on Dr. McFarland and on the other asylum officials, Basically saying, our mother is not crazy and you know it and get her out of there. But also, the asylum officials and the workers are getting sick of dealing with Elizabeth and her interference because she really is fighting back. Right. Essentially, they officially declare her incurably insane, but then release her. So it's not a celebration because she is still married to Theophilus. And so when she gets home, according to her journals, he locks her in the nursery of their home.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Theophilus. Theophilus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The whole time, were you thinking about the whole time?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. Like literally just now. Just now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Full credit then.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Full credit. And apparently nurseries were way smaller in houses back then.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, they were like in the fucking attic. Like the attic room with the.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's Harry Potter shit. He's locking her in the smallest place he possibly can. She manages to sneak a letter out of the nursery window to a friend outlining exactly how she's been confined against her will.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So she's just locked in there? Yeah. And she had. Okay, wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Just like whatever if just. I mean, imagine it's just like. You want to give me some soup? Sounds good. Could we please do that? Like whatever this guy fucking beardo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Don't. I don't want to see.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Don't bring it back. Outlining exactly how she's been confined against her will under the false pretense that she's insane. That friend delivers the letter to a local judge. And finally, for some reason and somehow it works. For the first time, Theophilus's behavior is seen as legally problematic. While a husband can easily have his wife committed to an asylum. Asylum. It's not as defensible to lock that same wife up in a little room in your house.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There are boundaries.

[Karen Kilgariff]

People, people, we. We're here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You can't just run around.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's a rocking chair on the front porch. It's so nice here. Willy nilly, you keep all that abuse to the asylum. Okay, so In January of 1864, Elizabeth goes to trial to establish her mental state once and for all. She is now 48 years old.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did. She's like, can I go to sleep?

[Karen Kilgariff]

She is like. But probably in the perfect, like menopausal state to be like, let's do this thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's also like an old lady. I mean, I.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no, say it. I mean. Cause 48 in today's money. She's 117.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Various physicians and family members, friends and acquaintances go on record in the courtroom to state that she is a sane human being.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And after five days of testimony, but only seven minutes of deliberating, the jury deems Elizabeth Paxton to be sane.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And you know, it was an all male jury.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, it would have to be.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I believe neckbeards abound.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Neckbeards being like, I don't want to give this woman her freedom, but I must. With that, Theophilus immediately skips town and takes their three youngest children with him. Elizabeth is left with nothing but the clothes on her back. Luckily, she does have her older children and her friends to lean on. But of course, she is forever changed by the years of mystery. So she channels her anger into advocacy work. And she starts by advocating for herself. She takes her husband to court in both Illinois and Massachusetts, where he's currently living, and she sues him for damages.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Damn.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, in the mid-1800s in the is electricity real yet?

[Georgia Hardstark]

We don't know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hundreds?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Nobody knows.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's that long ago. A few years after that, in her early 50s, she finally wins custody of her youngest children. And then she sets out on a campaign for the the rights of both married women and patients in psychiatric institutions.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Her most powerful tool is her writing. Her diaries capture the horrors of the asylum so vividly that when she publishes several books based on them, the public laps it up. She becomes increasingly famous. She travels all through the United States sharing her story, and she eventually secures real changes in the law. She's said to have inspired the passage of over 30 different laws in various states, ones that better protect women's personal assets when they get married, and an Illinois law that guarantees a trial for anyone unwillingly being committed, which could have prevented Elizabeth's own institutionalization if it had existed years earlier. So now it's 1867, and Elizabeth's efforts also result in the State investigation of Dr. Andrew McFarland and the Illinois State Asylum and Hospital, which stretches on for seven months. In the end, investigators recommend he be removed from his post, but for unknown reasons, this doesn't happen and he holds the job for three more years, at which point he willingly leaves to open his own private asylum. In 1897, when she is 80 years old, Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard dies suddenly of a strangulated hernia. She is buried in Chicago after decades spent writing books and giving impassioned lectures on the horrors of the asylum and the women who sent there and who suffered there, her legacy as a courageous woman who stood up and spoke out has endured. As for Dr. McFarland, despite the reputational damage caused by Elizabeth's advocacy work, not to mention the investigation into the asylum under his leadership, When a new state run psychiatric center opens in Springfield, Illinois in 1968, it's named in his honor cool. The McFarland Mental Health Center. But when author Kate Moore's book the Woman They Could Not Silence is published in 2021, it brings renewed attention. Elizabeth Parson Ware's story. And in 2023, Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker announces that center will be renamed the Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard Mental health center.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That is amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And it just happened. And it's because of author Kate Moore and her work. And of course, Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard's work, where she was just blindly in the dark going, this is wrong. I need to change somebody do something such a strong.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like they could have named it something generic too, Just taken his name off of it. But instead of naming it after this evil doctor, they named it after a woman who fought him, Fought his evil. That's amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And also it's like, was he evil? I feel like the naming thing is like their way of saying, but he did such great work, which always happens. But he didn't according to the people he was doing the work on. And that's the key, is that anybody can claim that or they're constituents can claim it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Or their boys down at the Elks Lodge.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But how about the people that were there and sitting in their own fucking piles of feces being tortured? Okay. So of this decision, author Kate Moore has said, quote, I think she would be personally grateful that she and her work have been recognized when for so much of her life, she was denigrated and dumbed. But I also think she would say, the work is not done, end quote. And that's the story of mental health advocate Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. I didn't as slightly. What is it? Slightly insane.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Slightly insane.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I didn't know that about her at all. That's amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And also, it's Mental Health Awareness Month.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So that's what the whole vibe is about.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Good job.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. And here's Kate Moore's book. She's an amazing author. The woman they could not sign. Silence. Very cool.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So cool. Good job. That was great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That was harrowing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The idea that there are this many women who had to go either undercover or just were committed to insane asylums and then had to do the work on the other end once they were released.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, you can't just send me here. Cause you don't like that I'm talking.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, it says something about like, you know, because she knew how to write. All the women who were not given an education, who couldn't write about their experiences or send a note through a window to their friend, tell them what was going on with them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. You know, they could only raise their voices, which then immediately qualified them as being slightly insane, which is why they

[Georgia Hardstark]

didn't want to educate women. Because then we would fucking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's why our school systems are in the state that they are because if nobody knows anything then we're going to be good with it. It's easy to make your drive amazing with reclining seats that melt the tension away, thoughtful tech and charging ports that keep every device powered.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

The available 14 speaker Bose sound system makes for an immersive ride and the

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Need more? You've got standard 100 watt USB C ports to keep every device powered and

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

the all new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid is more than just another suv. It's still the Palisade, but with so much more.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Learn more about the Hyundai palisade@hyundai USA.com

[Karen Kilgariff]

Call 562-31446 for complete details.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye.

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

If you're not a bath person, Dr. Teals will change your mind.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I am obsessed with baths, you know that. And Dr. Teals has been in my bath for decades. Like this stuff. Is this the best?

[Karen Kilgariff]

To be honest, and this sounds fake, but I just got out of the bathtub cuz I wanted to try this and my skin feels crazy soft like I have lotion all over my skin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't think I've taken a bath without Dr. Teals in over a decade. And I take a bath pretty much every couple days.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Find Dr. Teals all dressed in blue in your local bath aisle.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dr. Teals. Yep. You needed that. Goodbye. Goodbye. Here's a fashion tip. Wear clothes that you like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many closets are full of subitudes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean I wore a Quint shirt into the office at the beginning of the week and people went nuts. It was super cute. It was like a linen button down with short sleeves in a nice fuchsia color. And it's that like get ready for warm weather kind of feeling that you can have right now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I got a linen dress and I'm planning on wearing it all summer. It has pockets.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Quince.com mfm Goodbye. Okay. Okay. Great job.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My turn.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, if you insist, I guess.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean I don't have to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean I could walk out right now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How do they get so disgusting? And how do you keep them clean?

[Karen Kilgariff]

You never can. You're always wiping your glasses on your shirt. The thing they tell you not to do.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh really? Oops.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Unless you're the kind of person that can keep a little silky. No, I can't do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Nobody can do that. That's a lie. It is a sturdy lie. Okay, conspiracy. I couldn't Think of the word conspiracy. Oh, my God, my brain.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, the brains are going to cross the board. Myself, the people I'm observing. This is what's happening to all of us.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, but let's go back to February of 2020. Remember that the world is starting to look with increasing concern at coronavirus outbreaks in China and Italy. But today we are in Argentina. Specifically, we are in the Andes Mountains on South America's highest peak, the Aconcagua.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Have you heard of it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No. Neither is it up by Machu Picchu.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The fact that this is. I don't know. I don't know. Why am I saying yes?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The fact that this is the highest mountain in South America makes it one of the seven summits, which are the highest peaks on each continent. So this makes it part of a popular climbing challenge for mountaineers who want to conquer all of them. Could you imagine being like that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do they not know about TV or naps? I mean, I get it. It's nice to be outside side and stuff. I don't know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just to have that drive would be cool for something besides podcasting.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I feel. I feel like those are people who have learned something in this world about. Not the immediate gratification of, like, stuff like this. I just never learned that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, same. It's just we need same.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I can't hike all the time if no one's giving me attention.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Or alcohol. Okay. So Everest is the highest of these seven summits. It's also the most expensive and logistically worrisome, which is because of its popularity, altitude, and weather concerns. But it's debatable as to whether it's the hardest to actually climb. And so also, I did the deaths on Everest in episode 174, and you covered Junko Taba in episode 526. Should anyone want to feel cold more?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Learn about a legendary lady mountaineering or your thing or just a bunch of terrible deaths? Skeletons. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Okay. So it's the middle of summer in the southern part of the hemisphere. 2020. So February. It's the peak of the Andes climbing season, and two porters are on the mountain not too far from the summit on its hardest climbing route. It's called the Polish Glacier. Laying down ropes for a climbing expedition. And Aconcagua has multiple to the summit. Some don't require much technical equipment or skill at all. You can just kind of have a nice walk up to them. But you do have to be in really good shape to get to the top, which is 22,000ft. Because the risk of getting severe altitude sickness is very high. And so some climbers use oxygen, some are purists and don't. But this route that we're taking, the Polish glacier route, is where the porters are, you know, getting everything ready for the mountaineers. And this part is extremely. It requires significant mountaineering experience. And it's named the Polish Glacier because the first group to open up the route in the 1930s had been from Poland.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's not that interesting.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It used to be that groups of mountaineers set up their own camps, lay their own lines, but now there's a whole industry around mountaineering, and these porters are doing just that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Can you imagine? That's your job, though.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That'd be pretty rad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, some people are planning, like, this is my lifetime trip to climb this mountain. And other people are like, ugh, I gotta go to work and climb this mountain.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I gotta.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Again, they do it constantly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

These idiots just keep coming. I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Another thing that's changed is that the Polish glacier is receding because of the global climate change. Fake.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm just kidding.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What's the word? Conspiracy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Conspiracy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, it's not. This means that every so often, and I remember seeing this, like in my news feed, the glacier spits out an item that had once been encased on ice. My thoughts on this particular day. The porters stumble upon a nikomat camera. Oh, it's an old school camera and it's got an old school label maker name on it. So a name and address with an old school label maker. Wow. Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The name says Janet Johnson and there's her address as well. The porters can see that 24 photos have been taken with this old camera. They shrug it off, they take it down to the mountain to their campsite when they're done for the day, and they show it to a guide named Ulises Corvalant. And when Ulises sees the name Janet Johnson, he goes white. And he tells the porters that Janet Johnson, along with another climber named John Cooper, died on the mountain almost 50 years earlier under very mysterious circumstances. Ooh. And her camera had just been uncovered.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The ice receding is unveiling evidence.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. This is the story of the Ahonkagua Mountain mystery. The main source for this is a 2023 New York Times article. It's very

[Karen Kilgariff]

good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Robust, Long. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Boring.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, it's not boring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wordy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's good. It's called Ghosts on the Glacier by John Branch with videos by Emily Rine It's a really great read. And then I also went to a website by this writer slash mountaineer named Mark Horrell. H O R R E L L.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, I know Mark.

[Georgia Hardstark]

One of the greats. The rest of the sources can be found in our show notes. Great. So it's 1972 and a 52 year old Portland based lawyer named Carmine Defoe. Yeah, that's a good name.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hold on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Starts putting together a group that will tackle Aconcagua together. And they want to do the Polish glacier route, the hardest one. If they succeed, they will be the fifth ever group to do so.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, hey.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Let's climb. Carmi is a member of a climbing club.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Carmi. Is that his name? Nickname?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Carmi. Yeah. Did I say Carmine?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, I meant Carmi. It's probably Carmine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's it could be. It's such a cutie nickname for like Carmine to me. Carmi.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he's been a member of a climbing club that's a thing called Mazumas. It's been around since the 1890s. It's still around today, so don't talk shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You can join it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Most of the climbers he recruits are also members of the group. Includes a psychiatrist named Jim Petrosky, a doctor named Bill Eubank, a dairy farmer named Arnold McMillan.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just like people who were into climbing mountains. It's like takes all kinds.

[Karen Kilgariff]

A showgirl named Maureen.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. A police officer named Bill Zeller, and The youngest, a 25 year old Brigham Young University student named John Shelton, who was hot. And he also spoke the best Spanish in his because of his mission trip.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Mm.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The hot was me. What's it called?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Editorializing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're welcome.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And NASA engineer named John Cooper, who had worked on several recent Apollo missions.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, every type of person.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Except for women.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, we're gonna get to her.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Carmi hires a local guide named Miguel Alfonso. And then close to when the group is going to leave, he announces one new member of the a school librarian with a PhD in education from Denver named Janet Johnson.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. While most people in the group are in the same general orbit, although none of them have ever climbed together, Janet has never met anyone else in the group. But Carmi's Denver friends say she's a highly experienced climber. So she can come along.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let her in.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, a lady climber. What's she doing on this?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm not gonna wait around all day.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What's she doing on the mountaintop? Stop it. This is serious. No, it's not okay because the climbing party includes a NASA engineer and a woman.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And a woman, period, for God's sake.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's considerable public interest in the expedition and it attracts some media attention because, like, it's kind of a new exciting thing, this mountain climbing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Women in the 60s, you know, Everest. The whole like, climbing thing is like a big trend.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The trend. It's really becoming a trend.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And everyone loves NASA people, so. And of course they love women. So they get us a lot of media attention, especially directed at John, NASA John and Janet. So John, NASA John, I'm gonna call him that. Is 35 at the time of the expedition. He had grown up in Kansas and had always loved the outdoors. After graduating from Oklahoma University, he becomes a pilot for the Coast Guard. He's an avid climber. He's just like all the things that you want if you want an outdoorsy type. You know, like when you are swiping whichever way and you're like, do I want to hike on my first date or no, he's the hike on the first date guy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's the hike five miles on a first date.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. He summited Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya and Popocatepetol.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Where my vacation home is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. And they all have elevations between 17,000 and 19,000ft. And at NASA, John had worked on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon and every mission since up until the last one, which was Apollo 17. That's right. You knew that. Shortly before his expedition to Aconcagua, while at NASA, he had met a secretary named Sandy Myers, and they had gotten married in 1968, and they had a son named Randy in 1969. And we're back. Let's show a photo of NASA John Cooper. Si vous play.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Rugged.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Absolutely.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Absolutely. You would love to have a beer with that guy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally fun times. Cheers. Although all of John's backstory becomes known as around the time of the climb, most of what people know about Janet at the time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's a lady.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Is that. She's a lady. Yes. Which is unusual for a climber at this time. Janet's 36 at the time of the expedition and had been born in Minneapolis and adopted by Victor and Mae Johnson. The Johnsons are very religious and very strict. And Janet is an obedient daughter. She's a voracious reader, extremely studious, loves to. When she's 10, she says to her parents she wants a sister. And so they adopt a five year old named Judy Oh, I know. Judy says her sister, quote, liked to study. That was her favorite thing to do. Straight A's. She would settle for nothing less. Same. When Janet goes away to college. This sucks. When Janet goes away to college. And this is so little sister.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, no.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Judy finds a box of love notes between her sister and another woman. This Janet. And love notes between Janet and another woman. Judy found those in her room.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

When she went away to college. It's unclear exactly how Janet's parents find out. Although, little sister, it's clear. Yeah, yeah. I mean, allegedly. Allegedly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But you said that. But you go, this sucks. And then you're like, she found a thing where I'm like, why does that suck?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah, sorry.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's happening.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That doesn't suck. Judy found. Became a rat.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, got it. I'm sure she regretted it the rest of her life. They find out about it. Her parents are really strict, religious parents, and they send Janet to a hospital to cure her. Yeah. Oh, there's her theme today. This, of course, does not work. And Janet moves to Denver as soon as she can to put distance between herself and her parents.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's the story my mom used to tell as being a nurse in a psychiatric hospital in, like, the, you know, the late 60s 70s, where people had just the kids that smoke pot, the kids that rebelled, the kids that were different in some way, and just like, well, you have to go to a psych.

[Georgia Hardstark]

To the scariest place on earth.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So it's in Denver. She becomes her own woman, and she gets her master's and then a PhD in education and starts working as a school librarian. And then really just. It's just the thing to do between climbing mountains whenever she can. She's just obsessed with it. She's among the first 20 women to climb all of Colorado's 14ers. They're called the summits that are higher than 14,000ft, as well as notable mountains all around the world. Wow. Yeah. In addition to local interest in John and Janet, the group also attracts attention because of their plan to climb the notoriously difficult Polish glacier again. They would be the fifth team to do it if they accomplished it. Spoiler. They don't. A journalist from the local paper in Mendoza, Argentina, named Rafael Moran goes to interview the climbing team when they arrive in Argentina. So he goes to the hotel. He's like, let's get just, you know, a little fluff piece on everyone. But right away, he gets some bad vibes. When he interviews everyone together. He feels that the group is not Cohesive. They don't seem to know each other well enough for what they're about to embark on. Because you have to trust each other, especially if you're roped together and, like, believe that the other person knows what they're doing and has your best interest and helps out. They also don't seem to quite understand just how difficult the Polish glacier route is. They're kind of being jovial about it. He tells the photographer to make sure he gets single shots of everyone in the party because he's convinced they won't all make it back down the mountain. And he'll want a photo for the newspaper when that happens. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, let's see a photo of Janet. So that's Janet.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Got it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's no sunscreen back then, but sunscreen didn't exist.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No sunscreen. Everyone's wearing the same flannel.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. No sunscreen. But skin cancer still exists.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Those cool sunglasses for sure, though.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah, for sure. So. Wow. Yeah, she's got it all going. The group stays together at a hotel in Mendoza, Argentina. Before setting off, John Cooper, the NASA engineer, keeps a diary. And from it, it seems like he and the other men in the group don't quite understand, like, what category to put Janet in. She just is kind of an enigma to them. He says she doesn't seem feminine at all. He writes, quote, janet sure is weird. She went swimming in her bra, blouse, and panties today, and the pool was full of people. And end quote. So it's just like women climbing mountains.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But also, she just jumped into the pool because she didn't have a suit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She didn't give a fuck. Like, she was definitely like a I don't give a fuck lady. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna live life how I want to live life.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so these guys had kind of never been around anybody like that before.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. So the team sets out for base camp, a 25 mile, extremely rigorous hike on its own. Like, you get to the first place and you're like, you have to go more.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Who's making the food?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. So base camp is at 13,500ft, which is around 1,000ft less than any of the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains. Altitude sickness begins to be a factor at around 8,000ft, and they're at 13,500. And by the time they reach the base camp, Eubanks, the group's doctor, is already not feeling well and has to stay there. So I looked up what altitude sickness feels like. Cause I don't fucking know. And I'LL tell you and you'll understand this as well as I do. Altitude sickness generally feels like a severe hangover.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oof.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Those fucking hangovers where you're lying there just wishing for unconsciousness.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. You could get out of your own body just for two hours.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like sweaty and suppressed and so bad. It's characterized by a throbbing headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue and shortness of breath. So it sucks you're not hiking anymore when you get it. At base camp, the group connects with a local 25 year old climber named Roberto Bustos, whom they have hired to look after their base camp setup. So I think he might be the cook. Or they just are eating like dried weird walnuts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. What is it? Handfuls of walnuts. It would drive me insane.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Roberto also specifically remembers that the vibe seemed off to him as well. They didn't seem like a team, but rather a group of individuals. He says, quote, there was no group attitude. I was thinking, oh, I am on my own. Everyone has to take care of himself. In my opinion, they weren't ready for such a strange and big mountain as Aconcagua.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's a terrible way to start, right? Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And I think a lot of people underestimate this mountain and the people who are from there know that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do you think the infighting would be worse if it's strangers who aren't gelling or if it's people who know each other really? Because that also has a thing of like you could start as a great group, but something happens and then. Yeah, either way, then it's more personal.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. But you think that you make sure you like each other though, if you're gonna do it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Trust is the two people might not like each other when everyone else. Yeah. Who knows? Email us. Are you a mountaineer? Let us know what's it called.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Altitude sickness is like, what's the ultimate thread on the trail. Let us know what it's like to be a mountaineer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you hate every. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The whole time you're thinking of string cheese, right? Because that's all I can think of. Or like you have to like line your pockets with gummy bears or something.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Those little crackers that are sandwiched with peanut butter. They're so fucking good.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Think up pulling that out of your socks so no one else can see.

[Georgia Hardstark]

These days it's expensive to be a mountaineer. And that's partly because nowadays porters set up camps. They lay lines so that groups can mostly travel directly from base camp to base camp up the Mountain. But in the 70s, that wasn't really how it went. This group would be doing all of that work themselves. So the route up the mountain will include three separate camps. So they have to climb up to Camp 1, haul all the gear up there and set up camp, then go back to base camp, then go back to Camp 1 with the rest of the gear, camp there, and then do the same thing two more times for Base Camp two and three. So bring everything up. Stay. Bring everything up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So it's an exercise in frustration.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

While you're mountaineering.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Saw that tree already. You're like, your attitude just gets worse and worse.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. The conditions are varying with the potential for storms to blow. And the climb includes long periods of navigating through spiky ice formations called penitentes. Right, Penitentes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Penitentes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Have you ever heard of them?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're literally penitents.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Penitentes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Because they look like people praying in church.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're basically stalagmites.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They're stalagmites coming up from the ground.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. They're these huge spikes of ice. Huge fields of them just coming up from the ground. Like upside down. Giant icicles. I'm going to show you a photo because I just understand those. Oh, so you have to navigate around those. It's just a pain in the ass, essentially.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You can't just, like, worry about putting one foot in front of the other.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. It looks like an old movie. Like a dune or, you know, labyrinth kind of thing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Or a doctor knows situation.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. So there's a bunch of those as well. So those are a big pain in the ass. They're hard to climb around. It's grueling and already feels like people are starting to grumble about each other. NASA John writes in his diary that he does not think Janet is contributing enough. He writes, quote, she's a real loner and appears to be for only one thing. To get herself to the summit at the expense of everyone or on everyone's back, meaning they're carrying more than she is or something. And she's not really helping out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's the first thing I thought of that she would be accused of, because as a woman, she can't maybe technically carry as much. Or if there is that kind of bitterness where they're like, we didn't want her here anyway.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That is what you would say.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Several in the group come down with acute altitude sickness right off the bat and stay at Camp 1 or go back to base camp. This includes Carmi. Right. Off the bat, the leader, the author

[Karen Kilgariff]

of the whole plan, he's out.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The Dr. Eubanks is out. And Shelton, the hot interpreter, out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Gone.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The rest of the group make it to Camp 3. They do the fucking thing. At the base of the Polish glacier, about 18,000ft up, and the last camp before the stretch to the summit. So one last camp, okay? As they get ready to start climbing, Petroski, the psychiatrist, can't get on. I just hate this word. Can't get on his crampons. I hate it. I can't. Every time I see. Are you going to spit that out?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Why did I take that same.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, they are spiky shoe attachments to get into the ice that absorb your

[Karen Kilgariff]

foot blood every month.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Call them spiky shoes, not crampons. I just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Can I borrow a crampon?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. Do you have a crampon? I forgot to bring them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God. I'm sliding into the penitents.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he's like having trouble putting them on, which is weird. And it's clear to everyone else that it's because he's disoriented and they think that he's suffering from severe, possibly deadly altitude sickness. Cause at that. That point your brain is like not working. I'm fine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Leave me alone. This is my tampon.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I the local guide, Alfonso, takes him back down the mountain to base camp. So now there are only four climbers left in the entire group. Zeller, the police officer. McMillan, the good old dairy farmer, and John NASA. John and our Janet. None of them have ever climbed a mountain this high before. And none of them knew each other before the trip.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Here's the other thing that I just would like to. And maybe I'm totally wrong in doing this, but the idea that someone was like, she's just doing it for herself. It's like, so how many that are left are doing it for everybody else?

[Georgia Hardstark]

You want to hold hands at the top of the mountain? No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Literally going to be like, me first?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, isn't that kind of what mountaineering is about?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Like, you go together, but it's a one man sport.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It ends up one woman. One. Okay, sure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

According to the accounts of Zeller and McMillan, the psychiatrist and the police officer who are left. And spoiler alert, they're the only two survivors of the group of four. The group had set out believing they would reach the summit that day, but had moved very slowly, picking their way across the glacier with ice ax and crampons. They realized they will have to camp for the Night. And they didn't bring their tents. So they have to, like, bivouac into the fucking ice and try to, like, spend the night in there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh. Make themselves like a little igloo. Like a last minute igloo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sucks. And so the next morning, NASA John Cooper says he's too fucking. He's like, I'm out. Descends. He's like, I'm gonna go back to base camp. And they let him go alone. Which is something I guess you're not supposed to do. Which is like, maybe part of the thing of them not knowing each other.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They don't stick together.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know? So those three climbers keep going up for the summit. The last stretch is an icy, snowy ridge. And Zeller and MacMillan say they walk ahead of Janet, making a path for her. Let's see that photo. Remember that one?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's just someone hiking with a rope tied or around them leading back to whoever's taking the picture behind them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yep.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They're at the top.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Big old mountain.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They made it to the top.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, they didn't. Okay, that's technically not the top.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, it's on the side.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's the top.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. I don't know. What do I know?

[Karen Kilgariff]

More than me?

[Georgia Hardstark]

So they make her a path. And at some point, as the sun is starting to go down, they turn around and realize Janet's not behind the them anymore. According to their account, they find her 100ft off the trail, lying in the snow. And she says, quote, my name is Janet Johnson. Don't make me suffer. Just let me lay here and die. End quote. The men say that Zeller ropes himself to Janet. And eventually both of the men try to get Janet back down the mountain. And they say her hands are swollen and black. They have to anchor her from three different directions to keep her stuck. They get to the snow cave where they had been in between the final ridge and Camp 3, where they had spent the night, where Cooper had left to go back down the mountain. Remember? And there's a flare gun there. And so they shoot it. But nothing happens at the lower altitude at this point. Cause it came down. They say Janet seems in better shape, so they send McMillan down the mountain to help. So it's just Zeller, the police officer, and Janet at this point, who was clearly not doing well.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

On his way down, McMillan loses his ice axe and falls, sliding 1,000ft down. He has a black eye when he tells this story and says that's how he got it. Then he says he saw members of the Argentine army and dead mules and a dead soldier. But it's only when he finally reaches Camp 3 that he realized he had hallucinated all of that, because that's what happens when you have altitude sickness. He will later learn that he really did see a body, but it wasn't a dead soldier hallucination. It was actually, actually John Cooper's body. NASA John Cooper's 35 year old NASA engineer. So meanwhile, Janet and zeller are following McMillan down the glacier and they also take a big fall which doesn't result in major injuries, but their faces get cut up and their glasses get broken. In the fall, Janet and Zeller become untethered from each other. Cause remember, they had tied her up in three places to help walk. And it's only when Zeller climbs back up to Janet that he sees John Cooper's body. He says, quote, I checked him and he was dead and appeared to be frozen. I didn't see any cuts on his exposed skin and no tears in the clothing. So I assume that he didn't die as a result of a fall, but exhaustion and hypothermia, end quote. So just kind of sat down where he was at and died. Zeller says at this point that Janet seems in decent shape since they've been coming down a bit, but wants to rest a bit longer. So he leaves her and says he'll go back ahead of her, back down to Camp 3, which again, you're not supposed to leave anyone alone, especially someone who's clearly suffering. He reaches camp and he finds MacMillan there and the two fall asleep and Janet never joins them. The men say in the morning when they woke up, there was no sign of Janet. So they decided to go back down the mountain, saying that Zeller was too disoriented from altitude sickness to try again and to keep going or to help get anyone down the mountain. So essentially just two people of this whole mountaineering team make it close to the top and come down and out of the only two come down alive, okay? The case is widely reported on and John and Janet's families are of course devastated. In some newspaper articles, Janet's name is misspelled as Janet. Janet's mother saves clippings of every single article and carefully crosses out every Jeanette and replaces it with her daughter's correct name. I know some articles quote Janet saying, having said let me die here, which they said that she said. And in all of those articles, her mother blacks out the entire quote quotation. She's like, my daughter would never do that. They don't believe that at all. A judge and police investigator in Mendoza opened a case labeled as an investigation into possible manslaughter. But despite this, after brief questioning, everyone on the mountaineering team is allowed to leave the country and go home. Once back in Oregon, Carmi gathers the surviving members at the party for a meeting with, like, the club leadership and they write an official chronology, which is the story everyone tells their hometown newspapers and any following investigators. So they put a story together in secret and everyone sticks to that narrative.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, so they don't. That meeting and that plan is a secret plan. They're not like, let's get together and put this on the official record.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're like having been interviewed back in Argentina and having very different narratives and conflicting stories. They meet up and they get their story straight, essentially, which is suspicious.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, it is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So the account says that John and Janet had been desperate to reach the summit and had likely died of pulmonary edemas from lack of oxygen at altitude. And because their bodies aren't able to be autopsied, they're still on the mountain. That's the general consensus. That is. So that was 1972. And in the summer of 1973, John's body is found. That expedition is led by Alfonso, our local guide, who is haunted by this entire ordeal. At the foot of the Polish glacier, they find ripped tents and sleeping bags. And about 150ft above on the glacier, they find John's body. And there's photos of it. John is found missing a crampon and without an ice axe. He's on a gentle slope and reports say his face is frozen in a look of terror. But like that, to me is like everyone is when they die.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, it's the same thing as when it freaks people out and people think it's demonic. When people's like, eyes are missing when their bodies are discovered and it's like soft tissues is what goes first. But it looks like the devil has been here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. So that says nothing to me. But it's just, it's noted death.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's dead bodies.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. So here's the weirdest part of all to me. His abdomen has a cylindrical hole which is bloody and goes so deep it almost like hits his spine. Though this isn't seen until his body thaws at a lower altitude. Cause they were. A National Geographic reporter named Lauren McIntyre, who goes with this group, comes to the conclusion that, quote, there is no mystery at all. He fell on his ice axe and he injured himself. But remember his ice ax isn't with him when they find him, but he could have fallen on it, left it behind. Then he says he was in so much discomfort and pain when he was nearly to base camp that he finally got off the steep part of the glacier, got down on the flat. He had evidently stopped, sat down and removed his gloves, and was probably trying to examine himself and in his wound when he fell unconscious and froze to death. So he fell on his ice pick. Is that consensus? He tells us to the press in a statement. And it seems like a lot of people take him for his word, even though he's just a reporter and not a forensic investigator. Alfonso, the guy, feels incredibly uneasy about all of this because he specifically remembers the two other climbers saying they had seen John's body in a seated position, not laying down with his head in his hands. But of course, they had been hallucinating. You have to remember the whole time that these two who survived were probably suffering from some sort of altitude sickness as well. Yeah. Janet's body is not found until February 1975. Ernesto Cambolaro and his son Alberto, who's 17, are with another climber named Guillermo Vieiro when they have to scrap their summit attempt and decide to climb down via the Polish glacier in a field of Penitentes and covered by some snow. So it's a field, and it's covered by some snow. They find Janet's body.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ooh.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Her face is blackened from two years of exposure, but it's also severely injured with exposed bone. And there is blood visible on her face and jacket. And like John, she's missing one crampon and her ice axe. Ooh. Her hands are bare. She's tangled up in ropes. And this is super random. A rock is found sitting on top of her body, and there are no rocks around it. She's in this ice field. Field, Exactly. So she's found on a shallow slope, far from anywhere. She could have possibly fallen a long distance with Zeller. So that narrative that that's how he lost her and she could have died isn't true.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So Alberto is a teenager and doesn't really know what to make of it all. But the other two men will say that they are sure Janet was murdered. Of course, they are just as inexpert as a National Geographic reporter who swears the opposite of. But it doesn't look like it squares up with the official narrative of the expedition.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's just such a weird thing for a reporter to come out and just be like, I'm almost Positive that this is what happened, where it's like, sorry, aren't you a reporter?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. How would you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're not supposed to speculate. Yeah, yeah, totally. A medical student who was present for the autopsies of both John and Janet says that John had a skull fracture. And that hole in his abdomen, which looked to him like it could have been made by an ice cream screw, maybe your ice pick as well. The injuries to Janet's face and damage to her boot looked like she had been hit hard several times. So it looked like she had blunt force trauma to her face.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The medical student who is now a neurosurgeon, is also convinced that they were killed and that their deaths were not accidental. He says that this was the consensus and that the medical examiner believed the same. And they're all. So he's kind of one of the last people who can verify that. Janet is buried at the small cemetery at the base of the Aconcagua, which she had told her family she wanted before the expedition. If she perished on the mountain, no one from her family is able to attend. But someone leaves flowers with the note de tu madre or from your mother on her grave.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's so sad.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And the only item her sister receives is Janet's ring with a brown stone from her finger. And Judy still has it today, unfortunately. Any chance of further investigation? So here's maybe there would have been a big investigation and the answers would have happened. However, it's 1976 in Argentina and there is a coup. There's a violent military coup that overthrows a democratically elected President Peron and establishes a military dictatorship that brutally just consumes Argentina for years. I hate to gloss over because it's

[Karen Kilgariff]

so important and just go watch the musical Evita. You'll learn at least one woman's perspective.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. So moving on, just like that. But you know, there's no chance of further investigation, essentially. Right. The last surviving member of the party, John Shelton. The Mormon.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Jerry Farmer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Nope. The Mormon.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The missionary.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Missionary. BYU student, was in hospice care at the time of this New York Times article by John Branch and Emily Rine. And they go see him in his hospital hospice bed. He insists that there is no foul play. He calls that idea hogwash. And he dies a month before the article is published. But he firmly doesn't believe. But, you know, that's the narrative.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's the narrative that he was at the secret meeting to establish, Right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And he wasn't there. He was.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah. He wasn't even there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But you know, that's based on everyone. That's his opinion. Right. Those around the Aconcagua community have more mixed feelings. Even though the medical examiner felt certain foul play had been involved, they might not adequately understand the damage a fall in the mountain terrain could actually inflict. So that makes complete sense. But still, looking back at the conditions at the time on the glacier, the amount of soft snow would have made a very long fall improbable or maybe impossible. So when Janet's camera is found, the film is sent to a special archival photo development company in Canada called Film Rescue.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Cause they're like, what's on here?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And if just anyone tries to develop it, it's gonna get fucked up. So they are able to get all the photos off of it. So the camera film and another roll of film they found are able to be processed. And the pictures show the party mostly smiling in those early stages of the journey, hauling gear and setting up camp. The photos are beautiful and well composed. And actually, can you show one of them really beautiful photos? This is on the mountain for back in.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow. Just sitting up there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Also, Zeller and MacMillan said when she turned around and saw that she was gone, he said, well, we weren't tied together, so she could have just left. But that one photo that she took, they're tied together.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, that's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So is that her last clue? They are tied together, whoever took this photo. And we're not totally positive which one of them that is. They are roped together.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So why lie?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

What's the lie about?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. So John Branch writes in the New York Times article, quote, if she was oxygen deprived or delirious, she still knew how to focus the lens, compose the frame, and hold the camera steady to take clear photographs. That is where the film ends. That is where the legend begins. The film does not solve the mystery, it adds to it. It tells you what Johnson saw in her final, but not how she felt, not how she died. Not every discovery leads to revelation. Some just make you wanna know more. End quote. And that is the story of the Aconcagua Mountain mystery. And you can punch me in the face just once.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You God damn.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just one time. You can punch me in the face.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You really set that up like we were gonna get the solution, but.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, let's speculate. Pure speculation. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. This is just a true crime podcast theory. We're not doctors.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did one of them go a little.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We could have been. It's been 10 years. We could have gotten a PhD.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why don't we have our fucking honorary degrees from Sacramento and LA City College. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because they know we're full of shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So. Speaking of. So maybe one of them actually kind of had lost it on the mountain and was hallucinating something and killed them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She was not sexually assaulted as well. I don't think that a sane, normal person would be able or have the energy to attack someone like that with being at that elevation. But if you were hallucinating, if you were.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If you had Delicious. Yeah. If you didn't like a person to the degree where they kind of invaded your space and then it's not just anybody, it's this. That's. I'm gonna get there for myself. Is their perception for some reason.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Or. She was pushing to keep going and they didn't want to. But I don't think that there was that level of linear thinking at that height.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because they had such bad altitudes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Like on the way down, he saw, you know, he hallucinated. Hallucinated. So what happened up there? Did he hallucinate there? He was at war and these were soldiers and, you know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But I guess if that were the case, then when they all got together to put a story together, why wouldn't they be able to say, hey, listen, these are the myriad stories we have? Because these are the crazy things we experienced.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Because mountaineering would change forever after that. Like, I see them, these mountaineers, these guys. Guys banding together and being like, let's not get. You know, we're gonna get a bunch of press over this. We just wanted, like, this to kind of be hidden so we can, like, go on doing what we're doing. And we don't want to ruin these guys. Like, the memories of these people and the lives of the living ones. This is speculation. And I'm not saying this is true or. Right. Their entire families, because they had altitude sickness and did.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And some crazy thing happened.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. That they weren't aware of, they don't remember and, you know, in their minds, aren't responsible for.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So it sounds like that's my argument.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm not saying I think that's true, but it's not.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You think that's possible? Like, as opposed to the usual where it's like they. They killed her or whatever. It's like you're. Like something weird happened for sure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But what they're protecting probably isn't just a pure killer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's more of an accident, situational.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Doesn't it seem like, though, that's a little bit more of an argument of not mountaineering because it's like, you'll get. Oh, you'll get up there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And you'll be hallucinating dead soldiers all around you. Because you're not supposed to go up that high.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Because our bodies and brains were not meant for that elevation.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, I got sick in Denver because it was too fucking high.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Remember how high we were on stage in Salt Lake City the first time we played there?

[Georgia Hardstark]

We had to take oxygen in the back.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's crazy, right? And that was like, I'm guessing right now, 3,000ft above sea level, like, probably not even close to this. It's serious.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. But a camera being found in the fucking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, it does sound a little fake, them saying, she said, my name is Janet. That whole story seems fake.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And oversimplified. Like, if you fell and were laying there dying, wouldn't you just be like, get help.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Leave me. Or get help? I mean, I think leave me makes sense if you're a true mountaineer. I don't know. Tell us what mountaineering is like at my favorite murdermail. And.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow. I don't know what other mysteries will be uncovered over the years as the snow melts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Those crampons.

[Karen Kilgariff]

As those crampons come rolling along.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ice pick. DNA test them. I mean, he had a hole in his.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. He got ice picked somehow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did he fall on it? That's possible. Man.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, that was a great story.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, that was very compelling.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I've been excited to tell you about it. Despite the ending. I apologize.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I love 70s photographs.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I love the idea that at the very end, it's like. Except for that they were tied together.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. Well, jump rope.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jump on a trampoline.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Keep it positive.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Don't go on a mountain. Don't go hiking up on a mountain.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Don't be a hero.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Don't be a hero.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Speak up. Your voice is wanted and needed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes, definitely.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And of course, stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

[Karen Kilgariff]

This has been an exactly right production.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our editor is Aristotle Lacvedo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This episode was mixed by Liana Squalaci.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our researchers are Marin McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Email your hometowns to my favorite murdermail.com

[Karen Kilgariff]

and follow the show on Instagram at my favorite murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to my favorite favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And now you can watch my favorite Murder on Netflix.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the Remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show. Goodbye

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Say goodbye to endless scrol and tab hopping and hello to Budget beach bliss at your fingertips.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Go to cheapcaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress free vacation planning should be.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean and it works so well. Like truly, your skin will feel great. I have dry skin all the time, especially the the hotter the weather gets outside and just getting it all taken care of at once and relaxing in the bathtub. It's amazing.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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