← True Weird Stuff
Loading summary
Transcript160 lines
- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
I'm Kiana. And I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it
- [00:21]
J.M. Schlimpf
to me because it's so easy to use.
- [00:23]
Commercial Narrator
It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.
- [00:26]
Friedrich Ritter
Start your free trial@shopify.com it was supposed
- [00:30]
Sherry Lynch
to be a new Garden of Eden. A utopian wonderland where the abundance of nature more than met every need. A peaceful haven where the laws of man and clothing both were irrelevant. It's such a human thing, you know, our belief that paradise is something that can be found or created. And it's so very human. The way we're shocked by the serpent who always finds its way in. We don't see until it's far too late that we are the serpent. That there can be no such thing as a new garden of Eden. Not with us in it. But why not give it a try? Am I right? Make out a small beam of light.
- [01:32]
Max Sweeten
True. Weird stuff.
- [01:39]
Sherry Lynch
Friedrich Ritter was a successful dentist and physician in Berlin, Germany. His medical practice was thriving. His marriage to a talented opera singer was solid, if unfulfilling. And his future as a respectable member of German society was firmly on track. Dr. Ritter was miserably unhappy with all of it. The professional acclaim, the gracious home, the plump bank account meant little to him. Ritter had a different dream for himself. A dream he'd clung to for more than 20 years. He said that all he wanted was to live wholly and completely in contemplation and communion with nature. Ritter yearned for the freedom of a more natural and pure life. And even had a spot in mind. A lonesome little island in the Pacific. Ritter was a huge admirer of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He was obsessed with Nietzsche's concept of the Ubermensch or superman. Ritter worried that his own comfortable life in Berlin was nothing but a distraction and a feast of simple pleasures that only blinded him to his own mediocrity. He wanted more. He wanted to be more. He wanted to be a superman. A man who transcended the expectations and limitations of society. A fully self realized man. As his idol, Nietzsche described a man with complete moral autonomy. A man who represented the ideal future of humanity. That was the potential Ritter saw in himself. And his mistress saw it too. Mistress what? Mr. Ideal Moral Autonomy. Etc. Etc. Had a mistress he did. Her name was Dory Strout. She was Ritter's patient and at age 28, 15 years younger than her, would be Superman. Dory was a teacher, married and and unhappy both work and home. She felt oppressed by her husband and disregarded by the headmaster at the school where she taught. She believed heart and soul that it was her destiny to live a different kind of life. A life of freedom. You can see how Strauch and Ritter might be drawn together, even if the thought of hooking up with your dentist seems like the hardest of hard no nose. Anyway. Struck was at a party thrown by Ritter's opera singer wife. She and her married lover commiserated over the emptiness of it all. The jewels, the crystal goblets, the tiresome prattling gossip. The decision was made right there. Enough. Ritter left his wife, his dental practice and all his money behind. Strauch left her husband and her teaching career. And in July 1929, the couple set sail from Amsterdam for the sixth largest island in the Galapagos chain, Floriana, also known as Charles Island.
- [04:54]
Friedrich Ritter
To those who could not know or understand our motives, the journey upon which we had embarked must have seemed the strangest ever undertaken. Leaving behind me a lucrative practice of medicine in Berlin, I and my comrade were in fact turning our backs forever upon civilization and the society of our fellow men. Of our own free will and choice, we were going into exile to seek in the solitude of an almost desert island in the far Pacific, the independence, the peace of mind, the opportunity to cultivate our reflective powers to the fullest, which are denied to man by the complexities of modern life.
- [05:52]
Commercial Narrator
When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [06:25]
Sherry Lynch
The Galapagos chain of island 600 miles or so off the coast of Ecuador, is famous famous for its wildlife and for inspiring Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The Galapagos has been volcanically active for 20 million years or more. Floriana, where Ritter and Strauch were headed, has a long history thanks to the small island's fresh water and plant and animal life. It became a favorite spot for whaling ships to stop when Ecuador annexed the Galapagos. The island became a prison colony. Who needed cells and bars when you could just dump prisoners on an island surrounded by shark infested waters and currents far too strong to risk escape. Despite multiple uprisings and rebellions, disease and death, the last prison colony on Floriana wasn't closed until 1959. Not that prisoners were the only inhabitants of the island, rather than there was a small handful of settlers on Floriana. Even Today, only about 100 people live there. But the wild beauty of the place. Sea lions, Galapagos, penguins, lava gulls, sea turtles, flamingos. And at night, a sky so vast and exploding with stars that it feels like the last patch of earth at the very rim of the world. When Ritter and Strauch landed on Floriana, the doctor was prepared. Prior to leaving Berlin, he pulled all his teeth. I mean, who knows? Better the risk of having a dental emergency in the middle of nowhere than a dentist. Also, he was curious to see if his gums would naturally toughen up. This next detail is fantastic. He also constructed a set of steel dentures for himself, popping them in at dinner time. His love, Dory, opted to keep her own teeth, a decision she no doubt regretted later because her teeth took a bad turn in the tropics, rotting and becoming abscessed. Ritter ended up having to pull all Dory's teeth as well, with gardening tools. No anesthesia or novocaine. It's too terrible to imagine. But here's a true love twist. Ritter shared his steel dentures with his lady. So let's please celebrate that bit of chivalry. The couple built a small shelter for themselves out of corrugated tin. They planted a garden, raised a flock of chickens and acquired a small herd of cattle. The heat and heavy rains took some getting used to, and the pair had never in their lives encountered such stubborn, thorny, aggressive vegetation. They soon decided that the only strategy that made sense in the climate was complete nudity. Except for knee high boots, which were handy for navigating a land littered with sharp edged volcanic rocks and spiky vines forever snaring their ankles. Word got out about the modern day Adam and Eve of the Galapagos. Ritter was a prolific letter writer and some of his letters were leaked to the press. But ships also docked off Floriana and tales of encounters with Ritter and Strauch in their little palm sheltered oasis made their way back to the mainland. People were fascinated by these bronze nudists who'd managed to escape civilization. A man named J.M. schlimpf, who had a lifelong Robinson Crusoe fantasy of his own was inspired by Ritter and Strauch to spend a year on Floriana himself. He described his first meeting with the couple.
- [10:12]
J.M. Schlimpf
Naturally, I felt somewhat embarrassed intruding on these people and thought it best to announce myself. I did this by singing the German national anthem. Before. Before I had finished the second line, two absolutely naked figures, beautifully tanned, ran out of the house, stared at me a moment with open mouths, then darted back again. The doctor soon reappeared, dressed in canvas pants and a white shirt. Eve soon followed in a light blue cotton dress, under which I think there was nothing but Eve. Afterward, I learned that this Adam had also paused to insert his foot false teeth.
- [11:00]
Sherry Lynch
Okay, so if you thought that maybe not enough attention was paid earlier to Ritter's steel chompers, here it comes.
- [11:10]
J.M. Schlimpf
The teeth were the first thing I noticed about this remarkable man and the last thing I am likely to forget. They were his own invention and I believe the only ones of their kind in Eden. Earth or heaven above. This medium sized and heavily bearded Adam, open, opened his lips in a disarming smile. Not only disarming, but overwhelming. I have read of savages losing their wits at the sight of a white man taking out his glass eye. Well, these teeth had almost that effect on me. They were made of glittering stainless steel.
- [11:41]
Sherry Lynch
We have Schlimp to thank for asking how Ritter kept them clean. The answer is steel wool, not toothpaste, if you're curious. Ritter bragged that he could open up an oyster shell with his metal teeth. Not that he ever did, mind you, since he and Strauch were mostly vegetarians. They did make an exception for eggs, which their chickens produced in abundance. By the time Schlimf paid his visit, the Adam and Eve of Floriana had learned that life in their island paradise would be a daily struggle for survival. Floriana was home to wild hogs, wild donkeys, wild dogs and feral tabby cats. Insects were everywhere and the mosquitoes were relentless. The wild donkeys ate the plants in their garden. The wild hogs rooted up whatever was left. Feral cats stalked the chickens. Wild dogs stalked the feral cats. Every day Ritter and Strauch repaired their makeshift fence. Every night, the donkeys gleefully crashed through it.
- [12:44]
Friedrich Ritter
We had fled from the society of over civilized man, but now we had for neighbors a vagrant colony of wild cattle, wild hogs, wild asses, wild dogs and wild tabby cats. They ranged over the whole island and seemed to resent our intrusion upon their preserve.
- [13:06]
Sherry Lynch
It was a near relentless cycle, but in time and through trial and error, the newly minted Adam and Eve finally succeeded in reinforcing the fence well enough to keep their wild neighbors out. Ritter was philosophical, if exhausted. Paradise, he explained, isn't something a person can find. Paradise must be created.
- [13:29]
Friedrich Ritter
It may seem to others that we who have come so far in search of this heaven have only succeeded in discovering a very special kind of hell. True, we toil and moil against greater odds and bear daily a far heavier burden of labor than is required of most men and women in civilized society. Still, we regard our lot as the preferable one. For us. We too are the absolute masters of our destiny, as you who remain in Europe and America can never hope to be here in the desolate solitude of the Galapagos. Our lives are entirely submissive to a purely personal and inward sense of duty.
- [14:21]
Sherry Lynch
And far away, back home in Germany, another couple was daydreaming about paradise. They'd read of Ritter and Strauch, but maybe they skipped over the parts about how hard life was in this new Eden because Heinz and Margaret Wittmer were making their own plans to leave civilization behind. Pregnant and with their 13 year old son in tow, the Wittmers arrived on Floriana in 1932. Margaret wasn't a bit worried. Ritter was a famous doctor and surely he would deliver her baby when the time came. Which he did. Although without any real enthusiasm for the task or for the company of his fellow Germans. The Wittmer set up house in an old pirate cave on the opposite side of the island from Ritter and Strauch. That's where Margaret gave birth to another son, whom they named Rolf. His was the first birth ever recorded on Floriana. And while the Wittmer scene played plenty able to adapt to their new and very rugged circumstances, the couples were not friends. Ritter scorned Heinz and Margaret for their ignorance and disinterest in Nietzsche, probably also scorned their reasons for coming to Florian in the first place. Unlike Ritter and Strauch, with their high minded notions of moral autonomy, the Wittmers were just exhausted by life in post World War I Germany. No need to worry though, over the social dynamics on Floriana. A boat was about to arrive on the island. A boat carrying four new settlers. No one could possibly have known or even guessed what would happen next. She was the self proclaimed Baroness Eloise Verborn to Wagner Basket, Austrian born and divorced from a French merchant named Basket. Eloise landed on Floriana accompanied by a man servant and not one, but two lovers. Girl what? The men were named in order. Manuel Valdiviso Robert Philipson and Rudolph Lawrence. The Baroness had heard the stories of idyllic beauty and endless sunshine on flowers. Floriana. And she had an entrepreneurial vision. A spectacular hotel on the island. She'd call it Hacienda Paradiso. It was to be this luxurious tropical retreat for the wealthy. Though she did declare that tourists and immigrants of the better races would also be welcome. Eloise radiated such a commanding confidence that no one dared question her imperial imperious declarations. They were dazzled by her toothy smile, her flashing eyes and her casual disregard of the rules polite society. As for marketing her vision, Eloise had that figured out too. First she sent press releases to the newspapers announcing the construction of Hacienda Paradiso. Next, she seduced the governor of Galapagos to win him over to herself side. She also seduced the captains of yachts and certain select men from the passengers of those yachts. It didn't take long for word to spread that there was a stunning brunette on Floriana. One who dressed only in pink silk bloomers with a pearl handled revolver dangling from a silver cord tied around her waist. And she was ready to talk business. The way yachts were suddenly steaming across the Pacific in the direction of the Galapagos, everyone was eager to have an encounter of their own with the Baradas. Pretty impressive stuff for a woman who not so long ago was the owner of a small dress shop in Paris. That's where her stash of silk French lingerie came from, by the way. All the better to be worn without other clothing to hide it, especially in that sweltering heat. And hey, if Ritter and Strout could reinvent themselves as the Adam and Eve of Floriana, then Eloise could certainly declare herself a baroness. Come on. What's the point of creating a new world if you can't bend the rules to benefit yourself? Now, if Ritter and Strauch didn't care for the vitmers, you can imagine what they made of the Baroness and her boy toys. Ritter found the baroness shockingly arrogant and her male companions dull and stupid. As for the Vipmers, they wanted nothing to do with any of it. Ritter seethed. Disruption. It all meant for him and Dori's hard won life. A life that was only made harder by a period of drought that strained the island's already limited supply of fresh water. The three groups were were in constant conflict. Over water, over territory, over anything and everything. The Baroness put herself in charge of the island and proved to be a most erratic and unpredictable leader. She alone determined who was welcome. On Floriana, for example, a Norwegian man arrived with a plan to go hunting and was marched at gunpoint right back to his ship. If it all sounds kind of nutty, it was. But remember, people weren't exactly used to being bossed around by a gun toting topless beauty back then. The shock value worked in her favor, clearly. Meanwhile, all was not champagne and giggles at home for the Baroness. Oh, sure, she'd set up house with a pair of devoted boyfriends and had somehow persuaded pretty much everyone that she ought to be addressed as the Empress of Floriana. But you know how it goes. A threesome can be a very unstable thing. The possibility always exists that feelings can change. The two might team up against one over time. The Baroness and Philipson drew closer and closer. Lawrence, battling illness, found himself stuck with the bulk of the cooking and cleaning. It all broke wide open after an argument between the trio. Rudolph Lawrence apparently decided that he was no longer on board with the whole free love, freedom vibe. He was tired of the Baroness's endless affairs, knowing that there was no end to the number of men he'd share her with. After yet unmarried, another ugly fist fight with Phillipson, Lawrence was banished from Hacienda Paradiso. He ended up staying with the Vitmers for a time, with whom he'd become friendly. This arrangement lasted for several months before the Baroness succeeded in persuading Lawrence to return home. And then, on March 27, 1934, the Vipmers heard shouting coming, coming from the home of the Baroness. When they arrived to investigate, they found Lawrence alone and distraught. He told them the Baroness and Philipson were gone. The home was in wild disarray, a scene that suggested either a struggle or a tantrum. It was weird, though, that they left all their possessions behind. Puzzling. But then, the Baroness was the most volatile of creatures. No telling what she might do in a fit of temper. It was a little surprising when a few days later, Lawrence completely dismantled the house, built of corrugated zinc and wood, like every other structure on the island, and sold every bit of it, from the contents of the house to the scraps. Surprising. But then, it was no secret that Lawrence had been treated poorly by the Baroness and Philipson. Maybe he deserved a profit from their abrupt departure. I mean, hadn't he earned that much? For his next move, Lawrence posted a notice on the old barrel that served as the island's post office, asking for a spot on the first passing ship. The man servant, Manuel Valdovisio, was long gone, having hitched a ride out on the first boat. He saw Lawrence under the watchful gaze of the Wittmers, who probably suspected him of murdering the Baroness. Philipson had a longer wait. Then finally, a yacht called Dinamita, captained by a Norwegian named Nygerd, agreed to take Lawrence aboard. Nygerd's boat was headed to the island of San Cristobal, which suited Lawrence just fine. Any island was better than this one, he thought. The Dinamita left Floriana, taking Lauren's and whatever knowledge he had regarding the fate of the Baroness with it. Eight months later, the captain of a tuna clipper spotted something troubling on another small island in the Galapagos chain. Marcian Island. Marcian island is small, remote, flight forbidding, uninhabited, and even now welcomes few tourists. Outside of divers and snorkeling expeditions, it's only 50 square miles with a volcano that's still active. It last erupted in 1991, with most of the island covered by what they call young lava. That's lava that's no older than 500,000 years. Very little grows on Marina. It's barren and hostile to all but a very few land animals. Captain Manuel Rodriguez of the tuna clipper Santo Amaro found two naturally mummified bodies on Marcina. One of the bodies was lying mostly under a boat. The other was sprawled further down the beach. It was impossible for Rodriguez or his crew to determine if the dead had wrecked on Marchina or been blown there by a storm, or, for reasons unknown, had intended to land there, isolated and inhospitable as the place was. Letters found in the pockets of one of the bodies were signed by a Mrs. Vipmer, leading the crew to believe that the withered remains were those of a man and a woman, most likely the Vitmer of Floriana Island. There was also a pile of baby clothes scattered in the sand, though no sign of a child. It was most worrisome until a more thorough examination revealed that both bodies were male. Could this be Mr. Vitmer and the absent Lawrence? But no. A telegram from an American radio star named Phillips Lord, who was sailing on his own yacht, reported that Lord had only just enjoyed dinner with the Vitmers on Floriana. They were both alive and well. There was no fresh water on Marchena, no vegetation. The butchered and decomposing body of a seal found near the partially mummified remains indicated that the pair had at least tried to survive being marooned. The cause of death was thirst. Their identities were finally discovered because Captain Niger was a man with a distinctive bald head. And the body further down the beach Had a much slighter build. It belonged to Nygerd's passenger, Rudolph Lawrence. Which answered one question. What had become of Lawrence? But only deepened the mystery. There was still no sign of the Baroness or Philipson, not anywhere in the world. If they had sailed to Tahiti, as Lawrence and the Vipmers claim, there was no record of them ever setting foot on land. Now Lawrence was dead, and Nygerd's boat had been heading for San Cristobal. And Marcina is north of the Galapagos Archipelago, far from San Cristobal, to the east. How had the men gotten so far off course? In the pile of letters found with the bodies, there was one addressed to millionaire explorer Captain G. Allen Hancock of Los Angeles. The letter was from Friedrich Ritter, who allegedly wrote that he was contemplating leaving his island Eden to return to Germany. He wrote that the Baroness and Philipson had vanished to the South SEAS, which echoed Mrs. Vitmer's claim that the two had boarded a yacht bound for Tahiti. It was an interesting anecdote for Ritter to share, given that Mrs. Vipmer had also told the authorities that there had been no yachts anywhere in sight on the day the Baroness disappeared. Was Ritter repeating gossip in his letter to Hancock, or did he know some darker truth? And you have to wonder, because Ritter's letter included two dramatic and ominous sentences.
- [27:44]
Friedrich Ritter
We will hope you come once more to the island. Then I will tell you what I cannot write because I have no proof for it.
- [27:54]
Sherry Lynch
Hancock planned to do just that. In late November 19, 1934, accompanied by a group of scientists with the Smithsonian Institute. Hancock admitted he had no idea what Ritter might mean and wanted only to do his part to clear up the mystery of the missing Baroness and the marooned Lawrence and Niger. The intrigue and possible violence that was taking place at Hacienda Paradiso wasn't the only discord on the island. Things were not going so well for the first Adam and Eve of Floriana. Doris Strauch was struggling to manage the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Never easy, and made all the worse by her primitive living conditions. Back in Berlin, Ritter had assured his young patient that she could control her Ms. Symptoms with the power of her mind. You know, gritted out with willpower alone. Maybe that worked a little, or at least seemed to when Strauch had access to medication, warm baths, proper nutrition, and a decent bed to sleep in. She wasn't doing so well on Floriana and eventually needed a cane to help with balance. Ritter found this disgusting proof of her mental weakness, her inferiority. She was no Ubermensch, no Superman. He could barely tolerate her presence and would refuse to even speak to her for days at a time. The relationship between Strauch and Ritter deteriorated and became abusive, physically abusive, and at times Ritter even struck her in front of witnesses. So much for the early days of island life, when Ritter proclaimed, we are
- [29:44]
Friedrich Ritter
truly at the entrance gates to heaven and shall remain to the death, our naked bodies toiling in the sun.
- [29:54]
Sherry Lynch
Ritter's letters and his essays for the Atlantic magazine had also made glowing note of his Eve's happiness. He said that Dory was ecstatic with their adventure and never regretted it. He failed to mention his disappointment with his Eve's diminished stamina, her increasing disability. But Margaret Vitmer was observant, attentive, and watchful. She had no affection at all for Ritter and had a very different story to tell about the couple. In November 1934, as Captain Hancock was racing toward Floriana and his ship, the Valero, Ritter died unexpectedly. Bitmer and Strauch were both at the dying man's bedside. Strauch said it was food poisoning that took Ritter's life. She said that the drought had taken such a toll on their garden that they had no choice but to kill and boil a few of their own chickens. This struck Margaret Vitmer as unlikely. Ritter was a fierce vegetarian, eggs aside, and had weathered other such droughts without falling ill. Margaret also thought it was nearly impossible that Ritter, after years of rough island life, would not know if meat had spoiled. Plus, how to explain Dory eating the same food and not suffering the same effects. Margaret suspected foul play in her 1936 book Satan Came to A Survivor's Account of the Galapagos Affair. Dori Strauch acknowledged Ritter's frustration with her illness, but wrote that nothing he did or said changed her feelings for him. Strauch described a loving deathbed conversation, a tender exchange between partners who had shared not just a life but a vision, partners who had sacrificed every worldly comfort to create their own authentic paradise, a home in complete harmony with the natural world. Margaret Vipmer was like was that's German for what a load of Margaret Witmer told a very different story about what happened as Ritter lay dying. She wrote that Ritter's eyes burned with fury and hatred, that in his last moments of life he glared at Strauch and spat out the words, I curse
- [32:26]
Friedrich Ritter
you with my dying breath.
- [32:29]
Sherry Lynch
This was the melodrama that greeted Captain Hancock when he dropped anchor at Floriana. The press had a heyday describing how the Adamless Eve Doris Strauch announced that she was returning home to Germany wearing a dress they all breathlessly noted. As for the secret that Ritter felt he could not commit to paper, Strauch either knew nothing or was a skillful liar. The Vitmer shook their heads. Their relationship with Ritter was distant at best, hostile at worst. The man had not shared any of his secrets with them. And so this was a secret that Ritter took to the grave. Strout sailed away from her Floriana paradise on Hancock's boat and eventually made her way back to Germany. Three people dead, two disappeared. And her time in that so called New Eden receding in the distance. She stood at the rail, watching Floriana grow smaller and smaller. Smaller, until finally it cannot be seen at all against the unbroken blue of the vast sky. Did it all seem to her like a crazy fever dream? A spell that had finally been broken? Shortly before Christmas 1934, the story broke that Dory Strauch had revealed to Captain Hancock that it was a fight over buried pirate treasure that brought death to the Baroness and her two lovers. It was rumored that Strauch told Hancock where the treasure could be found. And how did she know? Well, the story went that Strout poisoned Ritter, her island Adam, after he divulged to her the location of the treasure. Something only he and the Baroness knew. This was a story that sold newspapers. But do you really buy it? Ritter despised the Baroness. Why would he tell her, of all people, where to find buried treasure? As for Strauch, she had plenty of better reasons to murder Ritter. What woman battling a chronic illness wants to be followed around all day by a naked old kook whining that she needs to cure herself with the power of positive thinking? Thought like, who wouldn't have murder in their heart after days and months and years of that? Not that, you know, you should kill people just for being annoying. That, of course, is wrong and illegal. Strauch herself died in 1943. So if she did hasten Ritter along to the next world with the help of some poison chicken, she got away with it. To this day, the mystery of what happened on the island of Floriana in 1934 is just that. A mystery. One that's unlikely to ever be solved. How frustrating that the truth may never be known. Of that motley community of escapees from civilization, only the Vitmer family survived and remained on the island. They were not spared tragedy, though. Their older son died by drowning. But baby Rolf, the first birth ever recorded on Floriana, grew up big and strong and eventually ran a yachting business on the island. His mother, Margaret Vipmer, was the only person who may have known the full truth of what happened to the Baroness and her lover, Robert Philipson, on that fateful day in March 1934. Whatever secrets Margaret knew, she never told, hinted at, teased. Maybe because Margaret enjoyed the questions from tourists and the attention from the press right up until her own death at age 96 in the year 2000, right there on Floriana, where she, with no pearl handled pistol or lofty philosophy to guide her, had succeeded in living out Friedrich Ritter's ubermensch dream. In 2013, a documentary about the baffling events on Floriana was released. It was called the Galapagos Affair. Satan Comes to Eden. It is a thorough telling of the tale, with none other than Cate Blanchett voicing, Dori Strauch, Diane Kruger taking on Margaret Witmer and Connie Nielsen doing real justice to the Baroness. The story itself is so bizarre that the documentary can't help feeling a little bit delightfully unhinged. The Baroness told us of her plan to turn Floriana into a kind of Miami for American millionaires. We are appalled at this profit making scheme. The very idea of it casts a sordid blight upon our island. I, for one, am disgusted by her theatricals. If she had a single proper man with her instead of a pair of
- [37:40]
Friedrich Ritter
servile gigolos, she could be kept in order without trouble.
- [37:45]
Sherry Lynch
It's sobering to see how it all played out. It's heartbreaking, even the despair of just how impossible it is for humans to recreate Eden. No matter how many trappings of civilization we shed, the one thing we can never truly leave behind is ourselves. There's no paradise to be found or made that the serpent can't enter. Because the serpent is inside all. All of us. The serpent is us. As for the baroness, she left only one trace of her wild, colorful life on the island. One scrap of proof that she had lived big and dreamed bigger. It was a sign tacked off at Post Office Bay on Floriana.
- [38:39]
Narrator Reading Floriana Sign
And it read, whoever you are, friends, friends. Two hours from here is Hacienda Paradise, a little spot where the wary traveler is happy to find some rest, refreshment and peace on his way through life. Life. This little bit of eternity chained to a clock is so short, after all. So let us be happy, let us be good at paradise. You have no name, but one friend. We will share with you the salt of the sea, the vegetables of our little garden, the fruits of our trees, the fresh water running down from the rocks. We will share with you what other friends who have passed by gave us. We will spend with you some moments of. Of life and give you the happiness and peace that God put into our heart and mind since we have left the restless turmoil of the metropolis to the quiet centuries which has laid its mantle upon the Galapagos.
- [39:51]
Sherry Lynch
So, Max, what do you think about the Adam and Eve of the Galapagos and the Baroness and her boy toys and the mysterious Vitmers who lived in a pirate cave like is is? Doesn't it blow your mind that these are real, that these things actually happen?
- [40:06]
Max Sweeten
It's, you know, why do we keep having stories? It's just human beings at their absolute worst. It was kind of a. There was a little Lord of the Flies vibe to this. I mean, little bit, yeah, you know, I mean, there was a little bit of that that went on with this.
- [40:24]
Sherry Lynch
There's a lesson here, though. Here's kind of what I took away from it. So you have. And by the way, Friedrich Ritter, like, he was, he was doing real well as a dentist with his opera singer wife. He had a very comfy life, very comfy life in the bourgeoisie. And he left all of it, including his last nickel, to take off for Floriana with his younger mistress. So he, I mean, he really, I will give him this. I thought he was insufferable in so many ways, but he, he did put his money where his mouth is now that he was beastly.
- [41:04]
Max Sweeten
He put his money where his steel mouth was.
- [41:07]
Sherry Lynch
Still, I knew you would love his teeth. Oh my gosh, there's so many excellent details here. So. But here was the life lesson that I took from it. So we have Friedrich Ritter, who has this idea of himself as like this superman, this, you know, this morally autonomous philosophical genius living in naked natural splendor in the tropics. And. And then you had the baroness who, you know, decided that no rules were going to apply to her and she and her boy toys and man servant were going to do as they damn well pleased and she would make herself the empress of the island. Both, Both parties failed. The high minded, like super intellectual failed. The wildly impulsive slave to her own appetites failed. You know who succeeded on Floriana? The hard working unimaginative.
- [42:06]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, they're like she was.
- [42:08]
Sherry Lynch
Yeah, yeah. We live in a pirate cave. I am pregnant. We will make, we will make this work.
- [42:13]
Max Sweeten
May I say, the baroness was a babe.
- [42:16]
Sherry Lynch
I mean, seriously, I, I must tell you, she spent her days on Floriana in a pair of pink silk Panties with that revolver dangling around her waist and nothing else. It was a. People were rerouting ships to get a look. It was a gigantic deal back in the day. I mean, it probably would be today even.
- [42:40]
Max Sweeten
Yeah.
- [42:41]
Sherry Lynch
You know, if there was a little island, because there are only 100 people who live on Floriana even today, year round. It would kind of, I guess, be a big tourist attraction. You know, the gun toting, beautiful baroness who's wearing nothing but, you know, her pink britches. But only the Vipmers made it and did it not. Because so much of this story sounds like, oh, the people of the olden days. Am I right? Margaret Vipmer died in the year 2000. This. This isn't all that long ago.
- [43:10]
Max Sweeten
No, it wasn't. I mean, that's the one thing when you. When you look at pictures of the baroness, you know that this was, you know, 1930s, 1940s, that these pictures were taken. So it. It's Sherry. This is so not me. You know, I can't relate to wanting to find some sort of paradise where you have to take out all your teeth. You don't have to do it later with gardening tools. Hey, you knew. You knew that the woman that was coming with you had her teeth. Did you not think, let me bring some of these dental tools in case we need it. And we're not going to do it with gardening tools. Oh, my God.
- [43:48]
Sherry Lynch
I'm with you. I'm like, well, I know you were trying to travel light, but you didn't bring, like, a medical bag. I mean. Okay, so let's start. Let's start in Germany with him pulling out all of his teeth. Now you have to. He's insufferable, but you have to give him that. He's. He. He has the courage of his own convictions.
- [44:10]
Narrator Reading Floriana Sign
Right.
- [44:11]
Sherry Lynch
The man pulled every one of his teeth.
- [44:16]
Commercial Narrator
Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-Grainger click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [44:47]
Sherry Lynch
Here's a detail that didn't make it in the episode that experiment to see if his gums would toughen up. They didn't really. They didn't and maybe even if you don't have any teeth, there's still some oral hygiene stuff going on because his gums were a hot mess for most of the time he was on the island. And when. When we say that he pulled Dory's teeth with gardening tools, the historical record doesn't get more specific than that. I mean, are we talking like a trowel, a hoe?
- [45:18]
Max Sweeten
I don't. I. I am thinking about all the gardening tools we had when I was a kid, and none of them look like they'd have anything to do with pulling teeth.
- [45:27]
Sherry Lynch
Well, remember in the Castaway movie with Tom Hanks? Oh, that part took an ice skate blade and a rock and knocked his too, maybe. Maybe like Ritter would wedge a gardening trowel at the gum line and smash at it with a rock until the tooth popped out. Please, I don't. There's nothing in the world. I want enough to suffer through that.
- [45:48]
Max Sweeten
How about you Let me just tell you, when I woke up this morning, I didn't know this was going to be a dilemma that I would have to be thinking about. How would I take out gardening tools?
- [46:00]
Sherry Lynch
My God. You need to think about it. These are dark days we're living through. You don't know what kind of skills you're going to be called on for. And then. And then he made. So, you know, he made his own dentures. He was a dentist, and apparently quite a good one in Berlin, but he made them out of stainless steel because he knew, and to your point about Doris teeth, he knew that life in the tropics was going to be hard and that he didn't dare risk porcelain or something that could be damaged. He also knew that his lover had Ms. And still felt that she could use the power of mind control and willpower to cure herself of that while living under a bush. It's a lot to take in.
- [46:47]
Max Sweeten
I mean, come on, you know what's going on with that. And you know that long term, you really need a lot of care in order to. To find some kind of level of comfort when you have that. And you're not going to find that living out in the wild on this island.
- [47:01]
Sherry Lynch
And they. They struggled. Like, you know, it's kind of funny. Oh, the wild donkeys and the feral cats, right? It's kind of. Yeah. Lol. But it was exhausting because they would spend all day, like. And it took them a long time to figure out how to build a damn fence. But again, school teacher, dentist, big city, Germany, 1930s. Like, they didn't have practical skills any more than you or I would know how to knock out someone's tooth with a garden tool. So all day, Max, they would toil in the blistering tropical sun to reinforce the fence and to rake the garden back into order because they had. They had to grow some vegetables so they didn't get scurvy. And then all night long, the donkeys are. And the. And the hogs and the cats are yowling. There's a whole section in Ritter's journal about the. How the cats every night would have these mating rituals. And they were like screaming and yowling and hissing and fighting, which of course made the dogs go into a frenzy. And then the sun will come up and they would do it again. Is it any wonder that that dory could not keep up? And I mean, do you know anyone with ms? It's devastating. Like, she just could not. And he was. Oh, he was a brute to her. He was just unbearable. Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, in an abandoned pirate cave, the pregnant Margaret is, you know, going into labor and they're figuring out how to make a go of it. And that family, I think the. I think Rolf may still be on the island today. I think Ralph Vipmer is still there with, I guess, I assume he's married and had family of his own. They're the only ones that were able to make a go of it. And I'm so happy for them because if you look at the timing, they left Germany at the end of World War I and missed the entire nightmare that was World War II and the Third Reich.
- [49:09]
Max Sweeten
Yes, they did.
- [49:10]
Sherry Lynch
They were spared that and probably had very little concept of what was going on since they, the News of the World came to the island when a ship would bring letters, you know, or like really right out of date newspapers. So the baroness. Let's talk about the baroness. Here's a little nugget that didn't make it into the episode. So she was born in Austria and she married this French merchant, solid member of the bourgeoisie, you know, the solid upper middle class merchant dude. And she opened a shop where she sold lingerie and some other things. And her mother in law, her French mother in law was like, my son, you have married a reckless whore and this will not do. And she, the marriage was, you know, the marriage was not good from the jump, but the mother in law had she read the Baron, the baroness, and she knew what she was seeing and she slowly and carefully engineered a divorce to get this woman away from her Son. And I think part of the deal of that divorce was the financial package. Just let her have this, let her have the shop, let her take everything in it. Just go, go, go. And so she succeeded, the mother in law succeeded in getting Eloise out of the family and out of France. And there's this big gap where it's like not. We're not quite clear how she acquired the two boyfriends. But even now when people are in throuples and all sorts of things, even now, it still raises eyebrows. I want you to imagine what it was like in 1930. 1931.
- [51:03]
Max Sweeten
Yeah. Because that, that had to have been really unusual at that time.
- [51:08]
Sherry Lynch
And they, they set up house. So the three of them arrive on the island and those were the days where you could just pull up on an island and decide, oh, is this, this island? This is my island now and I am its empress. That's what happened. And when the governor of the Galapagos was like, slow your roll, lady. She was like, I know how to deal with this, and seduced him and apparently really had some kind of game in the bedroom because he folded and she had her way. She got whatever she wanted. I mean it, apparently. And you said she's. I mean, she's gorgeous. Apparently. This woman was the most like, seductive, magnetic creature. So she sets up house on the island with the two boy toys. And of course, Ritter is beside himself. He doesn't want the vipmers there. He's like, the hell off my island. My Eve and I, this is our perfect moral paradise. And now we've got these, you know, Germans living in the pirate cave that he doesn't like at all. And now we have the baroness and her two boys. So they set up house and Lawrence, it happened almost immediately. Lawrence became like, he became the fetch boy. He would cook and he would clean and he would go get things and find things and run errands. And meanwhile the baroness and the other one are really going hot and heavy. And he was so resentful. So resentful. And I think you probably have the same idea that most people do when they learn this story about what happened to the baroness and Philipson, don't you? Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah.
- [52:54]
Max Sweeten
This whole business about the treasure seems a little iffy to me.
- [52:58]
Sherry Lynch
It sounds totally made up, doesn't it?
- [53:00]
Max Sweeten
Sounds very convenient. So.
- [53:04]
Sherry Lynch
But yeah, the treasure thing sounds like
- [53:09]
Max Sweeten
you're what you want to be paradise. And you end up finding human beings at their worst. I mean,
- [53:17]
Sherry Lynch
it's super disappointing and I would love, like, people have some Tried to figure. Well, people have tried to figure this story out, and, you know, it's like, oh, the. That you don't know what to look at first. Is it the baroness and her scandalous scampering around the island and nothing but her panties and a gun. Is that what we should be looking at? Oh, and she's living in a throuple like. Is that what we should be looking at? But the reality is, is if no one had come to Floriana and had just been Ritter and Strauch, the story still would have ended in the same wretched, disappointing way. Because it wasn't the baroness and her boy toys or Margaret Vitmer and her family that made Friedrich Ritter treat Dory like a piece of crap. Yeah. Like that. He did that all by himself.
- [54:08]
Max Sweeten
I mean, he was that way before. When somebody's in a situation like that, you figure at some point along the line, he must have been nice enough to her to get her. To get her to agree to go out, go along and do this. Or do you think he got hardened by the situation and became more bitter over the things he couldn't control?
- [54:29]
Sherry Lynch
I think that you nailed it. Yeah. I mean, they were. She was his mistress in Berlin. But, you know, it's kind of like anybody can get along with anything if they're fed and sheltered and warm and dry, you know?
- [54:48]
Max Sweeten
Yeah.
- [54:49]
Sherry Lynch
It's when you're living by your wits. The insects. Oh, my gosh. We, like. We touched on the mosquitoes, but the insect life, Life on Floriana was very, very difficult for anyone, much less somebody with such a serious chronic illness as Dori Strauch had, I think. So There are no answers, by the way. None of. There's no answer. I don't think there ever can be an answer. I think Lawrence killed the Baroness and Philipson, and I think that Dory killed Ritter.
- [55:25]
Max Sweeten
Oh, yeah. I think Dory killed Ritter. Yeah. Because I guess. And that's. That's kind of a situation. You. You look around and you go, you know, I may have some moral feelings about killing somebody, but this is the only. This is the only thing that I can do. I mean, it's not. It's not like, you know, I'm going to get another apartment and get, you know, get on plenty of fish. I mean, it's.
- [55:47]
Sherry Lynch
Yeah. Well, one of the things that Ritter was hoping to accomplish in his island paradise is what happens if we leave civilization and all of the trappings of civilization behind? Does all of that burn off, like, impurities and what you're left with is a diamond. I think maybe that's what he was hoping for. But the truth is, is that after you burn the impurities away by stripping the trappings of civilization, etc. Etc. There's just more impurities, there's more selfishness. Because we're human, right? Like we're not Superman, like Nietzsche. We're not angels. We are flawed human beings. And Ritter's experiment, in a way, succeeded because he wanted to know if it was possible to live in complete, perfect harmony with nature. If you left civilization behind. That was the experiment, and the answer was no. And so you have to say that the experiment succeeded. He got an answer. Yeah, he did.
- [57:06]
Max Sweeten
Yeah. But.
- [57:09]
Sherry Lynch
But right to his last breath and, you know, to have Margaret Vipmer sitting at his deathbed while he's dying from the poison chicken. He loathed the Vipmers.
- [57:21]
Max Sweeten
Yeah.
- [57:22]
Sherry Lynch
He thought they were just like farm animals, just dull and. And no spark of intellectual curiosity. And to have Margare at him and him knowing that he failed at paradise, but that she would go on. I think Dory engineered Margaret at the bedside just for that extra little final twist of the knife.
- [57:44]
Max Sweeten
Wow.
- [57:45]
Sherry Lynch
Thoughts?
- [57:46]
Max Sweeten
Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, if you're really vindictive, I guess. I guess if you're living in a supposed paradise and somebody keeps on beating you down, you take a certain amount of joy in being able to really twist the knife as it goes in.
- [58:00]
Sherry Lynch
I mean, don't you try to put your. Like I try to put myself in these people's shoes, like. All right. You know, I have to hand it to Ritter. A lot of people talk the game, but he actually. He did it. Like, all the things he endlessly. Oh, my God. His poor wife, the opera singer, was bored to death by him. All of the stuff that he was always yammering on about, he did it. And I give him full credit for that. But then I put myself in Dory's shoes. All right, we're in paradise. This is a lot of work. This is not what I thought was going to be. But where is the. Frolicking around wearing nothing but a fig leaf and trying not to eat the apple, right? That was not life. And every day he's riding her like a mule about her. Her. It's your attitude, Dory. That's why you're. That's why you're weak and that's why you're sick. Then when she needed. She needed a cane. She was the. The ground was all volcanic rock, sharp as razors. Miserable, thorny vegetation. Just awful. Like not a fit place for people to live. And they lived in very primitive, like they scratched themselves out a little place and she, the ground was uneven and she would fall and cut herself on the rocks. Finally she was like, I need a cane. He sees her using the cane and he goes for the throat. I'm here to tell you I'd kill the bastard too. That would have. I mean, enough's enough. Yeah, enough is enough. If I can't get off this freaking island. Mister, you're about to eat some funny tasting chicken. Which of course I do not recommend that you kill each other just for being annoying. As we said in the episode. Please don't. But can't you see how it can happen?
- [59:45]
Max Sweeten
You know, just in the same way that I can spot guilty people just like that, I can look at his picture and tell you that he looks like an.
- [59:52]
Sherry Lynch
He just kind of an. Yeah, he was kind of an. Now the Baroness was a hot mess of selfish, like, I mean, megalomaniacal. Just the most ridiculous, outsized belief in her own specialness. But in a lot of ways, you can see why the Baroness and Ritter didn't get along. They were the same. It just manifested differently.
- [60:23]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, they were. Yeah, I can, I can see where you would say that. And the two boy toys, it's.
- [60:28]
Commercial Narrator
It.
- [60:28]
Max Sweeten
Do you know what? If you got a picture in your mind that this hot woman with two boy toys and what you got in your mind, if you look at the pictures, that's exactly what you got, you know, I mean, those are two strapping guys. Yeah.
- [60:42]
Sherry Lynch
And the. Oh my God, the man servant, he knew, he knew he was from Ecuador. He knew, like, I'm just here for the money. And then as soon as it started looking sketchy, he was like, I'm Audi. And he had it down. He headed down to the, the shore and flagged down a boat and got that hell out of there and disappears from the narrative at that point.
- [61:04]
True Weird Stuff Outro Announcer
Point.
- [61:04]
Max Sweeten
Right.
- [61:05]
Sherry Lynch
So let's talk about what happened after the baroness and the boy toys disappeared. So Philipson and the baroness are gone. And this is the classic thing, you see it all the time on Dateline. The husband or boyfriend or. And sometimes it's the wife or girlfriend will go, I don't know. I came home and he's. Or she was just gone and the cops are looking around and there's the handbag and the cell phone and the car keys. Well, where'd she go without her handbag, cell phone and car keys? I don't know. Right. Like it's this. It's so sloppy. Same thing happened on Floriana. Margaret Vipmer, who I don't care how much Frederick Reader Ritter thought she was a farm animal. She was smart as a whip and she knew what was what. Margaret gets up there and she's looking around the house and there's clearly been some sort of brawl. Furniture's overturned, cups and plates are broken. Pictures are askew on the wall, like it's just a shit show. And she says to Lawrence Verde, and he's like, they're just gone. And she's looking, and there's the baroness's handbag, her jewels, her. Like you. You don't just get up and go to Tahiti without your stuff.
- [62:27]
Max Sweeten
Right?
- [62:28]
Sherry Lynch
Especially when there's been no boat to take you to Tahiti. So I think that Lawrence killed them. And it's not just that the Vitmers knew about it. I think they helped dispose of the remains. That's my working theory, and here's why. This is my working theory.
- [62:50]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, I want to know that.
- [62:52]
Sherry Lynch
So Lawrence had. In all of this drama going on with the baroness and Philipson. Philipson would beat the daylights out of Lawrence. And Lawrence was not in good health. The tropics did not agree with him. I think he. They never came out and said malaria, but he had fevers and headaches. And so you kind of wonder, with
- [63:12]
Max Sweeten
all the mosquitoes, how could you not?
- [63:14]
Sherry Lynch
Yeah. And he had ended up living with the Vipmer family on and off, and the last bout for a long time before the baroness sent for him to come home. So they were fond of him, and they knew that he was being really badly treated and beaten. I think they were sympathetic, and I think that he may have gone to them and said that Philipson came at me. Whatever story he told was one they felt sympathy for. And, you know, we're out here on the island and there are no. There's no government, there's no police. We live entirely by our wits and our own conscience. I think the Vipmers had a little talk and agreed that nobody would miss the Baroness, Sir Philipson, and that they had it coming and there was no reason for Lawrence to suffer any further. I think they helped dispose of the bodies because it was Margaret Vitmer who told the authorities when they finally came to the island, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, they went to Tahiti. And so the next wave of investigation was, what day did you see the boat that took them to Tahiti? And she. They caught her. She was like, there. There have been. There were no boats, no Boats. But you said that she went to Tahiti and then she was like. That's what Lawrence told us. So. See, there was like a weird kind of slipperiness.
- [64:42]
Max Sweeten
So do you think that perhaps good and justice did prevail here in this situation? Well, you might not want to agree with how it came about, but can you not look at it that way? Or is theirs the only narrative that we have because they're telling us their version of events?
- [65:03]
Sherry Lynch
Yes, but I do. I mean, Ritter was poisoned to death. And are there better ways to break up with someone? I think there are. But.
- [65:16]
Max Sweeten
But if. If two weird stuff is not told is anything it's. Women love to poison men.
- [65:22]
Friedrich Ritter
Yeah.
- [65:23]
Sherry Lynch
Don't you know? Listen, listen, fellas. Be on your. Be on your behavior, okay? Because dinner is ready and you need to be on your guard. I think a rough kind of justice was made it out here. I think that like of all of the people, you know, we often say, like, are there any good guys in this story? Are there any heroes? The Vitmers, in a lot of ways didn't have a dog in any of these fights. They just wanted to get out of post war Germany and raise their family someplace safe where they weren't standing in line for bread rations. And they made a go of island life and they were successful at it. They adapt it in a way that the other four or five didn't. And they saw what was happening to Lawrence and I think they felt that Lawrence killing them was fair and just. And they decided to help a friend and. And I think their conscience was clear. I think they slept at night. No problem.
- [66:30]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, I think you're right.
- [66:32]
Sherry Lynch
Dory did not live too much longer after she left the island. And she died in 1945 at home in Germany. But you know, she had a very serious illness and had had years of hard living and deprivation. And it took its toll. Whether or not her conscience was clear, can't say. You know, she maintains that it was food poisoning and that her hands are clean. Now. The universe weighs in here. Here's where the universe comes in.
- [67:04]
Max Sweeten
Yeah.
- [67:05]
Sherry Lynch
So I think Lawrence kills the Baroness and Philipson. And I think he probably killed them with. With the Baroness's gun. Honestly.
- [67:13]
Max Sweeten
Yeah.
- [67:14]
Sherry Lynch
And then the VIP MERS help him dispose of the bodies. And then Lawrence gets off the island with the Norwegian ship.
- [67:23]
Max Sweeten
Right.
- [67:24]
Sherry Lynch
They're heading for San Cristobal. And the. The waters in the Galapagos, the currents are very strong and the weather is volatile. So one theory is. Is that they got blown off course and Wrecked on Marchen island. And that's where they died of thirst. I think the universe took care of Lawrence the murderer, and poor Captain Nygard was collateral damage. Thoughts?
- [67:56]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, that. Yeah. You know, that. That does sound like the universe engineered that.
- [68:02]
Sherry Lynch
So the universe was like, justice does prevail. I think it does. It does. The universe was like, I know he kept punching you in the face and she made you feel emasculated and you had to wash a lot of dishes, but you can't just kill people and get away with it. And now I got it. Now I've got to shipwreck you on this freaking active. Basically, I'm gonna shipwreck you at the cone of an active volcano with no fresh water. Good luck. And I think that's. Yeah, I think Lawrence got his karmic justice. It's just so sad, isn't it, when somebody gets their karmic justice and the person driving them, in this case, Captain Niger, gets it too, because that man didn't do a damn thing except extend some kindness.
- [68:52]
Max Sweeten
Yeah.
- [68:54]
Sherry Lynch
Now there's a. There. There was one detail in this story that I could barely get through through.
- [68:58]
Max Sweeten
Other than the steel teeth.
- [69:00]
Sherry Lynch
Other than the steel teeth. In some ways, this is even harder for me to believe than steel teeth. Here we go. So when the bodies were first found on Marching island and people thought it was the Vitmers because the baby clothes. Margaret had had baby Rolf. Yeah, Right. And the letters in the pocket, you know, signed Margaret Vipmer. Well, it turned out that Margaret was writing to a family member back in Germany who was pregnant and sending Ralph's baby clothes back to Germany with Lawrence. Lauren's pockets were filled with letters that he was. He was traveling with to mail them for the Vitmers, so. Oh, hang on. I just completely lost my train of thought because a squirrel is sitting outside the window, wave. Literally waving its tiny hand.
- [69:51]
Max Sweeten
So Sher. She came there pregnant. Right. Did they bring the baby clothes with them or did they.
- [69:58]
Sherry Lynch
She did. I.
- [69:59]
Max Sweeten
Okay.
- [69:59]
Sherry Lynch
You couldn't buy them there.
- [70:00]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, that was what I was gonna say, because I can't imagine what they'd make there for baby clothes would be anything worth sending back, because apparently there. There wasn't a lot of clothing wearing going on there.
- [70:14]
Sherry Lynch
No, they were. They were pretty much nudist. But you have to remember that at the time that Margaret was sending those letters and baby clothes back, Germany was in the grip of World War II, right. Rations, deprivation, like. And the Vipmers didn't come from some prominent, prosperous family. They were poor and their relatives back home were poor and so. And people weren't casual about clothing back then the way we are. Like you wore something and mended it and handed it down and repurposed it until it wore out. Because I had the same reaction you did. Like, who in the heck is sending baby clothes from a tropical island back to Germany? Yeah, but you have to remember all that. I cannot remember what I was going to tell you about that. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. Yeah. So anyway, poor Captain Nyerd, he. I mean, he had no role to play in any. Any of this, except in agreeing to pick up Lawrence when he was standing on the edge of the land, waving at boats and trying to hitch a ride. And, you know, you can't like weather and all that, blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, he lost his life. Got getting blown ashore on this island, which you can visit today, by the way. They're diving. It's. There's no hotel. Like, you can't stay there. But there are diving expeditions, for example, that will dock off of Marching Island. And of course, ecotourism. You know, people want to go see the wildlife and the Galapagos turtles and all of that.
- [71:56]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, I was going to say there's the turtles there.
- [71:57]
Sherry Lynch
Yeah, the. The early history of the Galapagos also doesn't speak well of humanity because the turtles, they were so easy to catch. They were so easy to catch, and people ate them. It wasn't like they were catching them and keeping them as pets. They were like a food source. And ships would pack their holds full of these turtles until they were nearly extinct. And the poor turtles, it was like a Looney Tunes cartoon. The turtle would literally climb into the frying pan and saute itself. They were ridiculously easy to catch. So a lot of interesting stuff about the Galapagos themselves. I just. I don't know. I just don't think that human beings. If you want to take this, go back to the story of Adam and Eve and get kind of biblical about it. So we've got this garden and everything's perfect. There's no corruption, there's no sin. There's no concept of betrayal. Once all of that enters the world, once it's here, can't be escaped. And you really saw this play out with this small cluster of people. You. You saw the best and worst of humanity, and you saw what happens when people are left to their own to figure it out, how quickly things went dark.
- [73:32]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, but he. He did. He did lend his mistress his stainless steel teeth, which I Think that's love. Do you know what I mean? To take your lover's stainless steel teeth and put them in your mouth. And his giving nature with that. So I guess he's not all bad.
- [73:50]
Sherry Lynch
They did share teeth. Oh, now I remember. I was going to tell you. Okay, now I remember. Thank you, Mr. Squirrel. All right. This shocked me more than the stainless steel teeth. So they find the bodies and then they, they, I guess pull the pants down, have a look and go, oh, can't be Mrs. Vitmer. They're both men. And so this is going. This is. All this, by the way, is traveling all around the world. This news, it's showing up in newspapers, in the Atlantic magazine, and it's the talk of the town. And an American radio star named Philip Lord, cruising on his yacht, stopped off at Floriana and had dinner with the Vipmers in their pirate cave. And when he heard that they had been found dead on Marchina, he radioed to shore and said, no, no, no, they're fine. I had dinner with them a couple of nights ago. Can I, Can I just ask you, in what world of gun tote and topless beauties and stainless steel dentures does some American radio star have a yacht?
- [74:54]
Max Sweeten
Not these days. Anyhow,
- [74:58]
Sherry Lynch
when I, When I, When I came upon that, I was like, wait, who the hell is Philip Lord? You've never heard of him, right?
- [75:08]
True Weird Stuff Outro Announcer
No.
- [75:09]
Sherry Lynch
The hell is Philip Lord? I mean, if you'd have told, told me it was. What's his head, the famous guy with, you know, there's more to the story. No, no, no.
- [75:18]
Max Sweeten
Oh, Edward Armoro.
- [75:20]
Sherry Lynch
No, we lost a Marconi to him. Help me out. I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm kind of blank on it. Oh, not. You know who I mean. And, and that's the end of the story. Or that's how the story goes. Paul Harvey. Yeah, I could almost believe that Paul Harvey was old enough to have a yacht in 1930 off of the Galapagos of Goes. But Philip Lord, who we've never heard of and our day job is in radio, had a yacht and was cruising on his yacht like he. That meant. You know what that meant, Max? Not just that they were paying him, that meant he had time off.
- [75:54]
Max Sweeten
I was there. Was gonna say, when's the last time we had enough time off that we could take a ride on a yacht sort of willy nilly down through the Pacific Ocean to just, just happen upon an island?
- [76:07]
Sherry Lynch
I. That was the most unbelievable. Like, I was like, oh, this is not believable. Oh my God, that's hard to believe. Then I hit Philip Lord on his yacht as a radio guy. Now I've heard everything. That's complete fiction. And then the other detail in it that was so delicious was this was a world and in America when you could have wealthy explorers who their credentials were their money. So Hancock, the Los Angeles millionaire who set sail with the Smithsonian team to go find out what the hell, Ritter, what secret it was. Ritter couldn't commit to paper. I mean, he was just like a bomb vivant, you know, he's just like a rich guy. You know, I'm a rich guy and I've got my rich guy yacht and we're going to get some scientists and go check the world out. Now our fine billionaires, yeah, they go to space or whatever, but that kind of dashing Batman villain sort of energy, I don't think any of today's billionaires have it.
- [77:15]
Max Sweeten
No.
- [77:16]
Sherry Lynch
Despite all of Bezos efforts to become a roided out gym freak with a, you know, a centerfold model on his arm, they don't have that sort of, you know, Gotham, wink wink, Batman villain energy that millionaire explorers had back in the day.
- [77:37]
Max Sweeten
But apparently this guy, this guy. Philip Lord. Philip Lord, his name was Phillips Lord. Oh, can it get any more pretentious than that? He wasn't just a personality. I mean he was the producer of shows and the inventor of some programming and stuff. So you can see where he maybe made money. But at the same time working in radio and getting more than a week off. Wow.
- [78:06]
Sherry Lynch
And even then, like, let's be real and oh, not to complain. Oh, would never complain, you know, would not complain. But even when we get a week in big air quotes off, it's not really.
- [78:21]
Max Sweeten
Oh no, Sherry, no, no, no. It's not new.
- [78:26]
Sherry Lynch
I became. Now we don't get any time off. Other people we work with do. And I remember it was last summer when Bob Lacy, who of our radio show fame came back and said, well, I. How are you guys? I hope you enjoyed your vacation. And Max and I were like dogs that. With rabies that needed to be put down. We're like, don't you use that word. With us
- [78:54]
Max Sweeten
here is Sherry. Tell me if you've ever heard this while you're on vacation. I know you're on vacation, but, but,
- [79:02]
Sherry Lynch
oh,
- [79:05]
Max Sweeten
I really hate to bother you, but
- [79:09]
Sherry Lynch
if I like if you listen to the Bob and Sherry show and, and I'm not there or like it's a best of show, I can promise you I'm not on Philip Lord's yacht in the Galapagos. I'm speaking at a convention. Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm. I'm in. I'm in New York at meetings or I'm speaking at a convention. I am never on vacation. If I take some time off, it's usually. Well, I'm going to be. I have to be in wherever for this convention or conference or meeting. So I'm going to take a couple of days on the other side of it and go see my brother. Like, that's it. Like, the idea of having radio star has a yacht that cruises the Pacific.
- [79:56]
Max Sweeten
He was probably in his late 30s, early 40s when he was doing this. Based on this. And he died in Ellsworth, Maine, at the age of 70. 73. 3. In 1975.
- [80:08]
Sherry Lynch
That. You know, one of the cool things about this particular story is the last person who knew the truth. And maybe, Maybe she, before she died, she told her son Ralph. So there's one more. Right, but we don't know. Right? We don't know because a secret like that is a burden on someone. Like, I really would prefer.
- [80:28]
Max Sweeten
Say something.
- [80:29]
Friedrich Ritter
Yeah.
- [80:30]
Sherry Lynch
Like, if my mom on her deathbed, wanted to tell me something, I'd prefer she didn't confess to aiding and abetting and murder. That's a lot to lay on somebody. And Margaret was strong, strong, strong. So I would not be surprised if she took what she knew to the grave. My gut feeling is that that's exactly what she did. So the last person who knew the truth of what happened on Floriana island died in 2000. That's not so long ago.
- [81:02]
Max Sweeten
So long ago.
- [81:04]
Sherry Lynch
This is a current. This isn't an ancient story. This is a pretty.
- [81:08]
Max Sweeten
Pretty fascinating story. I mean, truly is a fascinating story.
- [81:13]
Sherry Lynch
So I think we can learn a lot of things here. If your life partner has an illness and you keep telling them to cure it with their mind, I maybe would do all the cooking.
- [81:28]
Max Sweeten
I could just see that happening.
- [81:31]
J.M. Schlimpf
Okay.
- [81:32]
Sherry Lynch
I would maybe do the cooking.
- [81:33]
Max Sweeten
How you doing today, Bridget? I feel sick. You know, it's just. You just need to use your mind.
- [81:38]
Sherry Lynch
Yeah. Oh, hang on. I'm making dinner. So that's one lesson we can learn. And then another lesson we can learn is, is that through threesomes are not stable. Whether it's three friends or three lovers or whatever, that is an unstable arrangement. And you need to be really careful about that. Two against one. Because I think in this case, the one that was on the outside ended up killing the two.
- [82:09]
Max Sweeten
Yeah.
- [82:11]
Sherry Lynch
And then the Third thing I think we can learn here, here is that I'll be damned if you can't live in an old pirate cave for a while. If that doesn't sound like something that appeals to middle school you, then of
- [82:25]
Max Sweeten
course I think you can exist. I don't know that I'd call it living.
- [82:29]
Sherry Lynch
I don't know. Margaret did. I mean, she had a baby in that pirate cave, like, they did pretty well in that pirate cave. And of course, the final lesson is, wherever the Garden of Eden is, you're never going to find it. You're sure as hell never going to be able to create it. Because we are humans, and humans are not meant to build paradise. That is not a job for us. And we will never, ever, ever be successful doing that, no matter how much we plan, how many sets of steel dentures we create.
- [83:07]
Max Sweeten
I'm sorry to be so fixed fixated on the steel dentures, but that guy describing them was my. My favorite part of it. Like, oh, my God, that's all I can think about.
- [83:16]
Sherry Lynch
Wasn't there a James Bond movie where the villain had steel?
- [83:19]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, Richard Keel was the. I think his name was Richard Keel. Yeah, he was the one. He was. He played Jaws and he showed up, I think, in a couple Bond movies.
- [83:28]
Sherry Lynch
That's all I could picture in my head was every time Ritter opened his mouth, I'm seeing that Bond villain. But, you know, and. And again, insufferable, selfish bastard that he was. Bring the dental kit. I guess that's the. That's the final thing. Yeah. If y' all are escaping civilization and you have some skills in, like, medicine, go ahead and throw a few things in a bag and take it with you. Because the last thing you want to do is dentistry with garden tools. How in the hell. I'm never going to understand that. And that is this episode of True Weird Stuff.
- [84:02]
True Weird Stuff Outro Announcer
Thank you for listening to this classic episode of True Weird Stuff to fall even further down the rabbit hole of weird history. Follow True Weird Stuff on Instagram and YouTube. True Weird Stuff is a now media production written and hosted by Sherry Lynch. Executive produced by Tony Garcia. Directed by Max Sweeten. Additional support from producers Carrie Bowser and Stephen Call. Our digital witch and social media cult leader, Heather Furr. Original graphics by Kevin Nash. Original artwork by Olivia Axeland. True Weird original music composed and produced performed by Jack Griffin and zane Nash. Copyright 2026 Now Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs remembered.
- [85:03]
Commercial Narrator
Granger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog Dog hvac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-granger click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.