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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance tech at a university, he knows ordering from multiple suppliers takes time away from keeping their arena up and running. That's why he counts on Grainger to get everything he needs, from lighting and H vac parts to plumbing supplies, all in one place. And with fast, dependable delivery, he's stocked and ready for the next tip off. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by for the ones who get it done.
- [00:31]
Sherry Lynch
Hey true weirdos, I hope you know how much all of us here appreciate you. You are the people we're making this show for, and your feedback means the world to us. We were so blown away for this show to win as many awards as it has. I mean, at this point we're working for hardware and handouts, but at the end of the day, it's you people will walk up to us on the street. I had a guy wave at me wearing a true Weird Stuff T shirt at the it just is the coolest thing and that's 100% you and thank you.
- [01:03]
Max Sweeten
And we're just covering costs to be able to present this to you. We're not really making any money with it, so if you could do us a favor and patronize any sponsors that you hear throughout the show, that would be great. Also, just go on whatever platform you listen to it and please rate and review it. It really helps us in getting discovered. And if you have a suggestion for anything, just reach out to us at our website, trueweirdstuff.com and thank you so much for listening.
- [01:36]
Narrator/Archivist
May 1930 quadruplets were born Monday to Mrs. Sadie Morlock, wife of Carl W. Morlock, a factory worker. Two of the babies weighed over four pounds.
- [01:49]
Sherry Lynch
The chances of conceiving quadruplets naturally is anywhere from one in 700,000 to one in a million million pregnancies. A successful quadruplet pregnancy in 1930 a phenomenal occurrence. That's what made Sadie and Carl Morlock's four baby girls such big national news. They were tiny and born just 29 weeks, 30 years before the first NICU was launched. Only sheer luck and their relatively robust size for preemies kept them alive. Back when Sadie Morlock discovered she was pregnant, there was no ultrasound. No technology existed that could reliably identify twins or triplets or quadruplets. Doctors basically guessed they might be able to detect multiple heartbeats. A skilled manual exam might identify two or more heads or other distinguishable body parts, but it was far more common for multiples to be a Great big delivery room. Surprise twins, that was one thing. But quads. Four babies. The Morlock infants made hospital history in Lansing, Michigan. The quads were miracles. Born celebrities, every milestone followed, every birthday trumpeted with headlines. Four gleaming blonde heads. Four. Four identical wide smiles. Four special little girls growing up in the heartland under the benevolent gaze of the whole nation. Yet the carefully posed portraits released to the public concealed the truth of what was really happening in the Morlock home To the Morlock quads. We should be so careful of stories that begin like fairy tales, because those stories have a way of ending like fairy tales, too. With a dark lesson and a heavy price paid. Because monsters are real and happily ever afters are rare. And then they got a small beam
- [04:03]
Narrator/Archivist
of light against the mirror.
- [04:19]
Sherry Lynch
True.
- [04:20]
Max Sweeten
Weird stuff.
- [04:26]
Sherry Lynch
Four identical children born from a single egg. The medical term is monozygotic multiples. Same DNA, same gender. The odds of naturally conceiving identical quadruplets is as high as. As 20 million to one.
- [04:43]
Max Sweeten
Although it's time for a random fun fact.
- [04:49]
Sherry Lynch
The Nine Bandit Armadillo, an armored, nocturnal, solitary little varmint native to South America, has one very remarkable characteristic. No, not the fact that it can jump three to four feet straight into the air. Imagine your headlights picking up that sight on a dark country road. The nine banded armadillo has something in common with humans. Polyembryoni. The capacity to develop more than one embryo from a single fertilized egg. But wait, there's more. The nine banded armadillo has something called obligate polyembryoni. And that means that every single pregnancy she has will result in one egg being fertilized and then splitting. In her case, splitting four times. Identical armadillo quadruplets every time. The only species of vertebrate known to have this trait. How fun. It's crazy that we're just out here living our whole lives in complete ignorance of the magic of the nine bandit Armadillo. But anyway, the birth of identical quadruplets, armadillo or human, is always an attention getter. And especially back in May 1930, when the Morlock babies arrived.
- [06:00]
Narrator/Archivist
Readers of the Lansing Capitol News will name the quadruplets born Monday to Mr. And Mrs. Carl Morlock. With the consent of the parents, the newspaper today opens a contest. Mrs. Morlock will select the winning combination of four names for her infant daughters.
- [06:27]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
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- [06:56]
Sherry Lynch
The babies were extra welcome. Good news for the people of Lansing. Even before the stock market crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, Michigan was already struggling. The state took a far more severe beating than the rest of the country. The unemployment rate for the Nation hovered at 26%. Except in Michigan, where thanks to the steep decline in the auto industry, the unemployment rate was more like 34%. Local governments couldn't meet the needs of the destitute, nor could private charities. It was estimated in 1933 that local and private groups in Michigan were able to meet only 15% or less of the total needs of a strained and desperate population. Not the most optimal time to be growing a family. But the Morlocks could never have known that they were expecting four babies instead of one. And besides, the birth of a child, even in the hardest times has always been something humans revere as a hopeful sign. Proof that life finds a way no matter what. And four little matching miracles. A fine distraction from the bad news that was grinding the good folks of Michigan right into the dirt.
- [08:15]
Narrator/Archivist
Quadruplets Excite Lansing City Pride the city of Lansing is showing a kind of fatherly interest in its collective attitude towards its first set of quadruplets. A public campaign has been started and a number of individual sources have responded. A dairy company has offered to furnish milk for six months. Mr. Morlock is an employee of a local factory who's been out of work a great deal recently because of illness and unemployment conditions.
- [08:51]
Sherry Lynch
Donations poured in. The proprietor of the Miller Home Bakery promised the family a loaf of fresh bread a day for the first six months of the baby's lives. Mrs. Chester C. Twitchell stitched up four handmade baby gowns. Cash arrived too. $25 from a Mrs. Ellen Wentworth, $5 from Martin de Glopper, an engineer with the Michigan State Highway Department, and a very special $10 from 10 year old Nancy Haynes. She was the winner of the newspaper baby naming contest and that $10 was every penny of her prize money. The fact that Nancy's daddy was Dr. Howard B. Haynes, the same doctor who delivered the quads, was probably a giant coincidence and had nothing whatsoever to do with her win. The names Nancy picked for the quads were Edna, Wilma, Sadie and Helen Ewsh. At the time, this was lauded as being insanely clever. I mean, okay, but also why Am I so weirdly suspicious of this now long deceased child and her little moment of glory? What is wrong with me? The only hiccup in the whole name game came when Mrs. Sadie Moorlock modestly refused the name Sadie. Saying she didn't want any confusion for the child, she suggested the name Sarah instead. That was accepted. In lieu of middle names, the girls each kept the single letter they'd been assigned at birth. Edna A, 4 pounds 8 ounces. Wilma B, 3 pounds 5 ounces. Sarah C, 4 pounds 4 ounces. And Helen D. Last but not least, weighing in at three pounds exactly, Mr.
- [10:37]
Narrator/Archivist
And Mrs. Carl Morlock, parents of quadruplets born here May 19, will not have to worry about rent for the rest of the year. City Council voted Monday night to allow them the use of a house owned by the city rent free for a year.
- [10:55]
Sherry Lynch
It was called the Pung House. Square, framed and painted yellow, it was one of four houses purchased by the city for a street widening project. The home was moved and plastered, placed on a new foundation. Repairs to the property were still underway when Lansing's mayor, after loud suggestions from the press that the city do something for the Morlock family, request that the City Council take action. Ask any parent of multiples, especially when the children are identical, what it's like being out in public with their babies. People can't seem to help but react with awe and wonder and curiosity. That was especially true for the Morlock babies in Lansing. Their pram alone was a showstopper. The Bishop Furniture Company and Lansing collaborated with the F.A. whitney Carriage Company of Leomonstern, Massachusetts, to create a custom stroller for the quads. It was big, it was wide. And when the four tiny girls peeked their heads out, bonnets tied firmly beneath their chins, well, who could resist pausing for a peek? Carl Morlock was initially appalled by his own quadruplets on the grounds that multiples were a sign of low breeding. People, he said, would think his wife was a bitch whelping a litter. But Carl very quickly caught on to just how lucrative these babies might turn out to be. Since the public had what seemed to be an insatiable curiosity about the quads, Carl thought, why not capitalize on that? He hung a sign on the front porch announcing that the babies could be viewed for 25 cents per person, which were gangbusters for a little while. Then Hollywood came calling.
- [12:41]
Narrator/Archivist
Sound pictures were taken of Lansing's quadruplets by the Fox Hearst Corporation, which makes new, real sound pictures for Fox Movietone and for Hearst Metrotone. The film will be sent to New York by airmail and will probably be shown in the local theaters soon.
- [13:00]
Sherry Lynch
The filmmakers transformed the Morlocks borrowed home, moving the dining room furniture out of the way to make for the four compartment steel bed shared by the infants. Two banks of klieg lights were trained on the babies who obligingly howled on command.
- [13:16]
Narrator/Archivist
A sign on the front porch inviting the public to view the quadruplets has apparently ceased to attract patronage. As the parents indicated, there has been a marked falling off of the audiences. Papa Morlock smiled a bit warily, indicating that the arrangements made with the moving picture people certainly met with his approval.
- [13:40]
Sherry Lynch
Local press did their part documenting every milestone in the quads lives their first birthday.
- [13:47]
Narrator/Archivist
The Winsome Quartet will be one year old on May 19th. They are involved in plans for the appropriate observance of that important event.
- [13:59]
Sherry Lynch
Even the visit to the hometown of a nurse who cared for the babies made the news.
- [14:03]
Narrator/Archivist
The town of Perry was honored by having as their distinguished guests Edna A, Wilma B. Sarah C. And Helen D. Grandma Morlock accompanied them and did her bit in presenting these young ladies to guests who who visited them during their stay here in the home of Mr. And Mrs. Lyle Herbert in Michigan, at
- [14:27]
Sherry Lynch
least, the quads seem to belong to everyone. Carl Moorlock was born in Germany on September 8, 1888. The family emigrated to the United States when Carl was just three years old. They settled in rural Odessa Township, Michigan, near an uncle who'd made the journey a few years earlier. The family didn't make much effort to assimilate their native German was the only language spoken in the home. Sadie Morlock ne Leon was born in Ohio. Sadie's father had wanted a son and never got over his disappointment in having her daughter. He loaded her down with farm work and chores, some of it beyond her physical abilities. At age 14, Sadie ran away to the home of her maternal grandmother. Her father showed up with a shotgun a handful of times, but was firmly turned away by his very disapproving mother in law. Eventually Sadie headed for high school in Yuriksville, Ohio, where she lodged first in a rooming house and then with a classmate and finally in the home of a Dr. And Mrs. Zellers. To thank Sadie for her donation of four pints of blood for his alienation wife, Dr. Sellers offered to pay her tuition to become a licensed practical nurse. She spent a couple of years on staff at the Ohio Valley Hospital in West Virginia and accompanied Dr. Sellers on many obstetric cases, skills that would come in extra handy once she was married and caring for quads. Then she spent a couple of years working as a cook, first for a wealthy family in Virginia, then for another inheritance, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. All skills again. That would come in handy when she found herself married and raising quadruplets. And speaking of marriage, Sadie met her future husband in 1925. She was working as a nurse at a hospital in Michigan. He was an extremely grumpy and disgruntled patient there for an appendectomy. The nurses were giggling at his antics. All of that complaining and. And grumbling in German. Sadie joined a few co workers who were standing just outside his room, listening and laughing. Sadie later said, I would never have imagined myself married to that grouchy German. Until she bumped into him a few months later at a baseball game. Carl Morlock approached. And that's when Sadie realized who he was, still sporting the same stern buzz cut he'd worn in the hospital. For Carl, it was love at first sight. Sadie was less certain. It was January 1926 before she even agreed to a date. Nine months later, the couple went to the Ionia County Courthouse to apply for a marriage license. Many years later, Sadie told her daughters she wasn't fully convinced that Carl was the one. She described sitting on a bench outside the courthouse, asking herself, why am I doing this? It was Carl's brother Bill, who persuaded her to go through with the marriage. Carl loves you so much, Bill insisted. At that point, Sadie was 27 years old. Carl was 37. Marriage did seem like the next step. And so on September 15, 1926, the couple exchanged vows. Education was a priority for Sadie, and she wanted to settle in a place with outstanding schools. Carl took a job as a shipping clerk at the Atlas Drop Forge in Lansing, and the couple settled into a rented apartment. Hospitals always need nurses. So I found work in Lansing. And then there was my husband's family. A number of his relations needed care, and I was happy to help. Carl picked up side jobs. Roofing, painting, that sort of thing. They were happy. Or happy enough. And then in March 1929, Carl asked Sadie what she might like to have for a birthday present. I'd like a baby. A baby is my heart's desire. By autumn 1929, Sadie was pregnant, just in time for the October 1929 stock market crash and the start of the Great Depression. Within two weeks of the stock market crash, well over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. That unemployment number would climb to between 12 and 13 million people out of work by 1933. Carl Morlock lost his job in that first wave, at roughly the same time that Sadie began worrying about her pregnancy. She was a nurse, remember? And she'd logged many hours in obstetrics. She was getting too big, too fast. She told Carl she suspected twins, though there was no way to be sure back then. Her physician, Dr. Howard B. Haynes, chuckled and told her she was just nervous because it was her first baby. Go home, he said. Relax here, he said. Your imagination is running away with you. Sadie, he said. Meanwhile, Sadie and Carl both were beginning to panic. Sadie was so large, so off balance that Carl feared she might not make it down the steep stairs of their second floor apartment when the time came. Of course, it was raining the day Sadie went into labor. She made it to the hospital just in time to prove Dr. Haynes dramatically wrong. Baby A born 10:25am Baby B born 10:30am Baby C born 10:32am Three minutes later, a very startled Dr. Haynes yelped.
- [20:12]
Max Sweeten
Oh my goodness, there's one more.
- [20:15]
Sherry Lynch
Baby D born 10:35am now whose imagination is running away way. Dr. Haynes. Since this was back in the day when fathers were not permitted in the delivery room, Carl was pacing and waiting for news of the birth. It was clear to him that something unusual was happening. Twins, he thought. Sadie had been right about carrying twins. Quadruplets, though that fell into the category of medical miracle. So rare, so unlikely and you know, it had to be so, so utterly overwhelming for Carl Morlock to even comprehend how life was about to change.
- [20:55]
Narrator/Archivist
Soon, callers at the hospital exceeded all reasonable bounds, with prospective visitors thronging the corridors. Mr. Morlock, realizing the possibilities of the situation, charged an admission fee for visitors who came to his home to see see the wonder of reproduction.
- [21:16]
Sherry Lynch
The first year of the quads, lives flew by with all four girls and reasonably good health. Though Helen, the last born and the smallest, lagged somewhat behind her sisters. Carl Morlock made the decision to run for the office of constable and won his election. His campaign and credentials basically consisted of fathering the Morlock triplet, proof that in America, a little bit of celebrity can get nearly anyone elected. Carl was sworn into office on Monday, January 11, 1932. The whole world was watching the Morlock quads grow up. But raising them brought challenges that Sadie had never dreamed.
- [22:00]
Narrator/Archivist
When Mr. And Mrs. Carl Morlock have trouble distinguishing between their five year old quadruplet daughters, they will need merely to call in the police. Fingerprint records of the little girls, taken by request of the parents, were entered in state police files and duplicates sent to the Department of Justice. The parents said the quadruplets are so nearly alike that they want to have a means of positive identification.
- [22:30]
Sherry Lynch
From the memoir written by an adult, Sarah, AKA Baby C. Morlock.
- [22:35]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Nearly every afternoon the four of us sounded like a bad chorus with our afternoon crying spells. And our father just couldn't stand the concert. So off he would go to our neighbor's house and there he would sit for hours on her back porch steps. Whenever our neighbor asked him why he was sitting there, he would say, all four of them are whooping it up over there again. Our mother. Mother told us that our neighbor was quite amused that our Papa Morlock wasn't enjoying this musical contribution by his little songbirds.
- [23:06]
Sherry Lynch
When he wasn't exhausted by his children being, you know, children, Carl Morlock brooded about their safety.
- [23:16]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Kidnapping was on the minds of thousands of people around the world. That was the year the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped from his bed on the second floor of his parents home in New Jersey. There were lots of stories in the newspaper and on the radio. My parents, like many other parents with young children, were concerned about the possibility of someone kidnapping my sisters and me.
- [23:37]
Sherry Lynch
Carl had reason to worry. His mother, who moved in with the family when the quads came home from the hospital, once opened the door to a pair of men who she assumed had come to pay their quarters to view the baby.
- [23:50]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
All of a sudden they grabbed up two of us and darted toward the front door. But just then, as we later learned, our mother came into the house, saw them and signaled quickly to our dad. He was large, burly and solidly built. And he stomped in and curtly ordered the men to put his babies down immediately. And that soon ended any dreams they had of kidnapping us for any.
- [24:21]
Sherry Lynch
When the quads were five, Sadie and Carl enrolled them in the Virgin Simmons School of Dance and the Frida Marie Kildson School of Dramatics, Voice, Musical Comedy and Pantomime. The quads were soon an opening act for minstrel shows. You know, white performers and blackface performing the most racist stereotypes of black people that you can possibly imagine.
- [24:47]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Our entertainment years began when we were three and dressed in costume for the very first time. Our mother would sit in on our lessons and encourage us while sometimes taking notes to help the teacher. We took tap dancing, ballet and acrobatic dancing. Our worldwide exposure was not limited to the newsreels and local theaters. We also appeared on the radio at the National Auto Convention in Detroit in April of 1937, as well as other national and local radio programs. On numerous occasions, the Morlock quads were
- [25:21]
Narrator/Archivist
used as puppets to tell a story about America that hid segregation, racism and genocidal violence. Predictably, they were beloved by the white audiences they performed for for. But that adoration never translated into real regard for their well being.
- [25:43]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Once upon a time, someone asked me when I first realized that I was a famous person. Well, I replied, I think it was in our dancing chorus rehearsal when I glanced to the right, then to the left and saw three other people who looked just like me, dance just like me and sang like me. I think. Then I realized I was part of a famous team.
- [26:07]
Sherry Lynch
This is what the outside world saw when they looked at the Morlock Quadruplets. The miracle of four identical girls. Beauties, all blessed with talent and charisma. And that it factor.
- [26:21]
Narrator/Archivist
By age 7, the girls were touring music halls in matching dresses, singing patriotic
- [26:28]
Sherry Lynch
tunes to paying audiences, devoted parents, a supportive community. The Morlock Quads couldn't be more charming or more blessed. Fairy tale, really. But you know how it is with fairy tales. The more golden the light, the more perilous the dark. Instead of one princess imprisoned in a tower, there were four. And questionable, distasteful, even terrible things were happening now in the Morlock home to the Morlock Quads. You might say that Carl hoarded his daughters like a dragon hoards his treasure.
- [27:10]
Narrator/Archivist
Offstage life was an endless list of restrictions. No friends, no parties, no holidays, no boyfriends. And no swimming lessons. Carl's obsession with their chastity led to invasive, abusive monitoring included removing the house's doors so he could watch them dress or use the bathroom.
- [27:36]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Our father never let us try our hand at swimming, much less go to a park. So we were mostly sheltered and kept too busy in our stage life to even think of seeking recreation. Our father made rules. He never explained anything. He'd only say, don't do as I do, just do as I tell you.
- [27:55]
Sherry Lynch
20 rules you know. To be exact.
- [27:57]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
There was to be no conversation on the part of the four of us the table during meals. There will be no vacations or weekend enjoyment. There will be no girlfriends or boyfriends. There will be no playtime or talking with your young cousin. There would be no allowances to per week. As youngsters or in adolescence, we were told to never go to the library or touch any books there. They have germs. Likewise, he told us, don't answer any telephone or call up any friends. There will be no cooking or snacking. You will never go to the movies, not even a nice one. Or attend a sports event or a circus.
- [28:29]
Sherry Lynch
Carl was just warming up.
- [28:31]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
You are never to smoke, you are never to drink, you are never to go out dancing, you are never to gamble, never wear slacks, never drive an automobile, never date, never marry, never have children or grandchildren.
- [28:41]
Sherry Lynch
Sadie didn't agree with most of Carl's rules, but didn't feel there was much she could do. He was the man of the house, the father of these girls. His word, like it or not, was the law. Sadie, having grown up with a domineering, abusive father, was primed to marry a man just like him.
- [29:02]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Mother would try to talk to him and keep him under some sort of control, but by being Lansing city constable, he was permitted to own and carry a registered Colt.32. And he had a Smith Wesson.32 as well as a foot long billy club. When he got nervous about something, we knew it was always wiser and in our best interest not to provoke him. We seemed to always hold a certain fear of his wicked weapons.
- [29:28]
Sherry Lynch
Karl Morlock was the kind of man who presented an agreeable face to the world while saving his true face for his family. The Lansing Police Department had no idea that their constable was not only terrorizing his wife and daughters, he was also shooting the neighborhood dogs and cats with a BB gun, killing many of them.
- [29:51]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
We were really like Littleton soldiers with tunnel vision and we marched to every beat. His future vision for the four of us was to to just work our jobs and immediately return home to take care of him and our mother for the rest of our lives.
- [30:07]
Sherry Lynch
Carl used his fists just as much as he did his voice.
- [30:11]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
He would strike out, especially toward Helen. One time he kicked her mop pail into her face, breaking her front teeth and bloodying her mouth. He would also switch her with his belt, often leaving welts, and also reached over at the dinner table, hitting her on the head with a blunt end of a dinner knife when she was slow to respond to a question.
- [30:30]
Sherry Lynch
Carl had rules for his wife Sadie too.
- [30:33]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
He forbade her to attend the funerals of her parents. The last time she saw them Alive was August 14, 1937 when they visited our home. And the first and only time we saw our maternal grandfather and grandmother was when we were seven years old on this very same visit. I've often wondered how we four quads coped with all our father's edicts and still remained so compliant and pleasant. Like the old adage, our mother would sometimes say, when you live with the lame, you learn to limp.
- [31:06]
Sherry Lynch
Karl, according to his daughter, was less a father than he was a dictator. As it happened, Carl deeply admired another dictator Adolf Hitler. Carl fervently rooted for the Third Reich to prevail in World War II so that Hitler could make the trip to America to root out, he said, the defectives, spoiling this country's promise. He'd sometimes go off on a real pro Hitler tangent while out in public, Hush. You're American now. They'll deport us if you talk like that. Carl was literally a Nazi, though this was carefully tiptoed around, the way it is now in some families. Oh, that's just Carl. He's got a little obsession with Jewish doctors trying to seduce his wife. And he's fixated on his daughter's purity. And he has some unhinged notions about racial superiority, but other than that, he's a good guy. Except, no, he wasn't.
- [32:04]
Narrator/Archivist
Early on, two of the girls were circumcised to prevent excessive masturbation. As they entered puberty, their father would squeeze their breasts and buttocks to see how they would react, telling them this is what boys would do to them on dates.
- [32:22]
Sherry Lynch
Okay. First circumcised here means clitoridectomy. Female genital mutilation. It was a procedure common enough in this country. The Blue Cross Blue Shield covered it. Until 1977, people were terrified of masturbation, believing it caused insanity and criminal tendencies. So much so that they went with a treatment that was both intensely painful and disfiguring in order to prevent it. This was a truly psychotic chapter in American medical history. And where was the quad's mother in all of this? Where was Sadie? Passive, mostly. Complicit in the abuse of her daughters, herself a victim of Carl Morlock's need for control, his paranoia, his anger. He was hyper fixated on racial purity and sexual purity and was a true believer in eugenics. Remember how dismayed he was by the prospect of having even twins? How he thought that multiple births were a byproduct of inferior breeding? Yep. Carl Morlock was a staunch advocate for the bogus and discredited theory that the human race could be improved by the enforcement of selective breeding. There's a reason we know these things. Things that happen behind closed doors. Private things. Because in their early 20s, the girls, Edna, Wilma, Sarah and Helen all began displaying symptoms of a serious mental illness. Delusions. Long periods where they'd sit catatonic for hours. The diagnosis was schizophrenia. Edna was the first to be diagnosed, the first to be institutionalized. She was treated with multiple rounds of electroconvulsive therapy. A year later, Wilma was diagnosed, followed by Sarah and Then Helen. Both Wilma and Helen were also treated with electroconvulsive therapy. Schizophrenia is a serious psychotic disorder, but it's rare, affecting fewer than 1% of the population of the United States. There's no single gene that causes it. There's no definitive test to screen for it. Heredity plays a part. If you have a sibling or a parent with schizophrenia, your risk is six times higher. In identical twins, if one has it, the other twin has a 50% risk of having it too. Which is one way we know that environmental factors must play a significant role as well in activating the genes that trigger schizophrenia. And the Morluck quadruplets, one single egg, Four baby girls. All showed symptoms. All were diagnosed. Now, not much was known back then about schizophrenia. And so when the newly formed National Institution Institute of Mental Health, the nimh, approached the Morlocks about studying the girls, Carl leapt at the chance, mostly because it wouldn't cost him a dime. Plus, he was having health issues of his own.
- [35:35]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
In 1954, doctors told our mother that her father's health was declining from cancer. The doctors said they had done all they could do to help take care of his problems with diabetes, hardening of the arteries, and possible cirrhosis of the liver.
- [35:49]
Sherry Lynch
Carl was told that he must either go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, or to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. A physician in Ann Arbor who consulted on Carl's case suggested Bethesda because there was tremendous interest there in Carl's four identical daughters.
- [36:11]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
The doctor explained the research would help medical science in its study of monozygotic quadruplets, as well as provide further testing and treatment for our father, and they would pay for his care. Life with father was almost unbearable, and I was instrumental in siding with our mother to agree that we go.
- [36:30]
Narrator/Archivist
The girls resided on the Baltimore campus for three years from 1955 to 1958, where they were observed by more than 45 practitioners and staff members who recorded their every move and interaction. In addition, the institute sent researchers to Lansing to interview the girls. Parents, friends, teachers and other community members.
- [36:59]
Sherry Lynch
Lead NIMH researcher David Rosenthal spent three years studying the quads.
- [37:05]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
We all had physicals and interviews with as many as 30 medical physicians, interns, physiotherapists, sociologists and others. We got really used to the routine
- [37:17]
David Rosenthal
psychiatric evaluations, doll play, handwriting analysis, Rorschach tests, electroencephalography, galvanic skin response tests, and more. Rosenthal outlined his findings in his 1963 edited book, the Gheenane Quadruplets A Case Study and Theoretical Analysis of Heredity and Environment in Schizophrenia.
- [37:40]
Sherry Lynch
Rosenthal attempted to give the quads some privacy by changing their surnames to a word he borrowed from the Greek language genain. It means dire birth.
- [37:51]
David Rosenthal
The sisters suffered from an unhappy collusion of nature and nurture. They'd inherited some predisposition to illness, then been subjected to a thoroughly pathogenic home. Both of their parents practiced irrationality and and wielded control over every aspect of their lives. There were also vertical and horizontal identification patterns within the family, meaning that the quadruplets over identified with their parents and one another.
- [38:20]
Sherry Lynch
Horrors that had been carefully hidden behind closed doors and drawn curtains were now spilling out.
- [38:27]
David Rosenthal
A father obsessed with his daughter's virtue made their home into a prison, which he patrolled with a shotgun behind the always drawn blinds. He permitted them no privacy, watching as they undressed and even fondling them. He claimed he was only testing how they'd later react on dates, though when the time came, he forbade them from going on such dates. When he and his wife caught two sisters masturbating, they took them to a doctor who surgically mutilated them. Following their high school graduation, three of the quadruplets were assaulted outside the home and their father did nothing about it.
- [39:05]
Sherry Lynch
And all of this was happening at the same time that newspapers all around the country were busy running sweet little stories of the lovely, dancing, singing, perfectly identical Morlock 4 candy code at quasi Fictions. Not unlike Rosenthal's report, which managed to leave so much that was relevant out. Karl Morlock's Nazi ideology, for one. His obsession with race didn't make the cut, of course. Back then, schizophrenia was thought to be caused by a mother whose parenting style mixed warmth and hostility in ways that left a child confused and ultimately broken. The fact that the Morlock girls arrived in Bethesda with a near paralyzing phobia of contamination via penetration. Hello? No alarm bells ringing, no giant red flags snapping in the wind. Nothing. Still pointing the finger of blame at Sadie. Well, not just Sadie. Carl's mother was also in the hot seat. A bunch of Freudians, obviously. I mean, definitely scrutinize the mothers. And pay no attention at all to the man swinging the billy club and running his hands over the breasts and bodies of his teenage daughters. There's no evidence to suggest that Carl Morlock raped his own daughters, a fact for which we can be grateful and relieved. Yet every aspect of their lives under his roof was shaped by his manipulations, his distorted ideas about the body, sexuality and control. Though none of the quads publicly express breast relief at his death. You couldn't blame them if they did.
- [40:47]
Narrator/Archivist
Carl Morlock, 68, father of Lansing's Morlock quadruplets and a longtime constable, died at a hospital on Friday, August 9, 1957. A native of Wittenberg, Germany, Morlock had been elected city constable 16 times after he first ran for the office of in 1931, shortly after the birth of his four daughters. The quads, now 27, are at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
- [41:23]
Sherry Lynch
Quad Sarah Baby C thrived in Bethesda. She'd made friends among the staff, and she volunteered as a stenographer in the Laboratory of nutrition and endocrinology.
- [41:35]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
I thoroughly enjoyed this experience and was up every morning, fixed my own breakfast in the kitchen, donned a white lab coat, then sailed up to the ninth floor. I worked half days as well as participating in the research tests given to us quads. I also typed two doctoral theses for members of the research team, one of which was on the subject of amoebic dysentery. It was a very interesting and educational experience. Experience.
- [42:02]
Sherry Lynch
Two months before her father's death, Sarah took the federal civil service exam and passed. She was hired as a medical transcriptionist at what is now the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
- [42:14]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
My sisters were kept busy participating in various laboratory tests, having therapy or conferences with psychologists, psychotherapists and social workers. Wilma and Helen were involved in crafts and occupations, occupational therapy classes, as well as working in the clinical center beauty shop, doing shampoos and cleaning. Edna enjoyed playing the piano, going to church and movies, taking bike trips around the campus or visiting points of local interest.
- [42:41]
Sherry Lynch
In January 1958, the National Institute of Mental Health research project into the Morlock quads was finally complete. Sadie came to Maryland to fetch her daughters, but Sarah stayed behind. She moved into a boarding house, found a new job. She began attending services at the Luther Place Memorial Lutheran Church. She joined the choir. After all, she'd been performing in public since she was a toddler. She joined a folk dancing group. For the first time in her life, Sarah was living as one of one an individual, independent, free to explore and experiment and discover. There was even a young man pursuing her.
- [43:23]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Oh, I played hard to get, but that didn't seem to deter him one bit.
- [43:27]
Sherry Lynch
His name was George Edward Cotton, Jr. And he proposed.
- [43:31]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
I wanted to invite my sisters to be my bridesmaids, but Mother reminded me that Wilma and Helen had moved to Detroit, where Wilma had won a scholarship to go to the Virginia Pharrell Beauty Academy and Helen and she were living together. So the only sister I could count down on was Edna.
- [43:47]
Sherry Lynch
Just like her mother before her, Sarah had real doubts about marrying George. History repeating, she met with the chaplain at Bolling Air Force Base where George was stationed.
- [43:58]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
He said it would be better to join George as his wife as he would have to find a place for me off base if I were only a girlfriend. Besides, he said, the Air Force doesn't look after girlfriends like they do after a real wife.
- [44:11]
Sherry Lynch
It wasn't the most the most romantic approach. But Sarah, like her mother, was persuaded to take the leap. George was almost immediately stationed in Saudi Arabia while Sarah tried her best to live with her new in laws who were heavy drinkers on most days and overbearing every day. When George was packed off to England, Sarah boarded a plane and followed him there. She found work, developed a passion for afternoon tea and eventually gave birth to her first child, William Cleave Cotton. George's Air Force career kept the couple on the move. Japan, North Dakota and eventually back to Lansing. Sadie Morlock passed away in April 1983. Five years later, Sarah and George divorced. But Sarah, the most high functioning and resilient of the Morlock quads. Sarah kept going, kept taking, taking classes, earning certifications. She was alone, but her independence and positivity propelled her forward. Until January 21, 1994, her firstborn, William, died in the hospital after a lengthy illness.
- [45:19]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
According to his death certificate, William had been battling Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome AIDS for four years. He died of acute congestive heart failure.
- [45:32]
Sherry Lynch
Sarah soldiered on until 1999. She missed her sisters. They'd lived apart for so long and all four yearned for time together. They wound up living in the same apartment complex in Lansing and were inseparable for the next three years. Wilma Baby B died of pneumonia in January 2002. She was 72. On Halloween 2003, Helen Baby D died. Now it was just Sarah and Edna. On May 19, 2010, the sisters celebrated their 80th birthdays, an event commemorated by the Sparrow Hospital in Lansing where they'd been born.
- [46:13]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
The marvelous display featured the story of our historic celebrity birth at Sparrow, along with photographs and artifacts from the early and later years of our lives. Edna Nye Ra received 25 birthday cards, including ones from a set of twins in Chelsea, Michigan, some quads in Armada, Michigan and some quads in Murphy, Texas. So all in all, it was a very, very happy 80th birthday.
- [46:38]
Sherry Lynch
Edna Baby A passed away on April 10, 2015. She was 84.
- [46:45]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
As I look back, life was difficult at times because of our father and the. The way he treated us. But our brave mother tried to maintain a happy and exuberant spirit in our home to the very end. Yes, it has been interesting to have three sisters who looked like me and acted like me as I was growing up. But in some ways, we were very different. That came out when we were together, sharing our interests and talents and traits with each other. Each of us had been blessed with a gift of our very own, which we shared with each other by the
- [47:20]
Sherry Lynch
simple, rare and unexpected miracle of one egg dividing four times. The Morlock quadruplets were born into a world that treated them like a sideshow. It was as though the girls were the property of everyone but themselves. A father with twisted ideas about race and purity. A man for whom daughters were objects to be manipulated and controlled. There's nothing terribly exotic about that. Ditto the passive mother, herself a victim cowed into silent acquiescence because, oh, my goodness, what would people think if they knew nothing unusual there. It's a story playing out behind closed doors pretty much everywhere. It's only because there were four Morlock girls that what happened to them is of any interest at all. Sarah Morlock, Baby C, died at age 95 on July 7, 2025, the only one of the Morlock sisters ever able to live independently. The therapy she received during her years in Bethesda had served her well. You'd never know, reading her sunny autobiography, just how dark and restricted the Quads lives actually were. She saved those revelations for the end, sharing the truth with a writer named Audrey Claire Farley. That book is called Girls and Their Monsters, the Janaean Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America.
- [48:54]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
Yes, as I look back, together we
- [48:57]
Sherry Lynch
made quite a team when the quads were children performing together on stage. One of their signature songs was called Alice Blue Gown. I once had a gown it was almost new oh, the daintiest thing it was sweet and blue with little Forget
- [49:18]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
me not safe here and there When
- [49:20]
Sherry Lynch
I had it on I was on you and it roared and it wore and it roared until it went and it wasn't no more in my sweet little.
- [49:42]
Sarah Morlock (Baby C)
When I first wandered down into town I was both proud and shy As I felt every eye but in every shop window I'd primp passing by Then in matter of fashion I'd frown and the world seemed to smile all around Till it wilted I wore it I'll always adore it My son Sweet little Alice Bluegard.
- [50:23]
Sherry Lynch
Next time On True Weird Stuff. He was the prototype of a suburban dad tooling down the interstate in his two year old bronze Chevy Malibu station wagon, windows down, whistling a tune, eyes on the future. And in the back of that station wagon under a tarp, were the bludgeoned bodies of his entire family. William Bradford Bishop set them ablaze and disappeared, never to be seen again. The Bishop murders on the next True Weird Stuff.
- [51:05]
Max Sweeten
Special thanks to our voice talent on this episode. Wendy Tonetti, Aaron Cox, Carrie Doc Bowser and Don Morgan. So Sherry, I had, I, I've never heard anything about the Morlock quadruplets. And how did you come upon this story?
- [51:23]
Sherry Lynch
Well, so schizophrenia. Even to this day, schizophrenia is a puzzle and a challenge for science and, and, and healthcare. And I was aware that there had been this like multi year study of a group of quadruplets out of the Midwest and, and I only had known them as the Janain quads, which was the, the sort of pseudonym that Dr. Rosenthal at Bethesda gave them. And so I, I, I stomp I, you know, like you learn about it when you're in school. You know, I went for my MSW and worked in mental health. So obviously, you know, that was where my area of interest was and I forgot all about it and I was working on something else and the name Carl Morlock was on the screen and so I zoom, zoom, zoomed. I was like, where do I know that name from? Oh, the Morlock, that's the real name of the Janine babies. Well, what I've read in that little snippet was like what, what in the Hitler sympathizing did I just see? And so that I just, and then I couldn't believe it, could not believe the backstory on these girls. And schizophrenia is terrifying because it's generally the symptoms and signs will appear in very late adolescence, early adulthood. And it, you know, it's varying degrees, right? You've seen people with schizophrenia who are fully catatonic and people that pretty functional. There are medications and, and some treatments that are available but it's a scary and, and confusing and puzzle puzzling disorder. And the thing about schizophrenia is there's a genetic component, but the genetic component is not enough. There are all these other things that have to happen. Like there's no single gene for schizophrenia. There's a genetic vulnerability and then life and your environment turns on or off epigenetics, right? Certain genes that then begin expressing. Which is why it's fascinating for the Morlock quads, Max, because one egg split four ways they all had the same basic genetic vulnerability. And, and they all had the disease. They all had schizophrenia. But you'll notice that they, they were resilient in different ways and functioned in different ways. And Sarah was by far the most high functioning of the four girls.
- [53:56]
Max Sweeten
So, yeah, I mean. So I wanted to ask you about the other three girls. Did they require care? Did somebody have to mind them? Do you know anything more about the other three sisters?
- [54:13]
Sherry Lynch
So Sarah alone married and lived independently, but the other three sisters, they were not institutionalized for the bulk of their lives. They did live independently. They lived together and they had very structured employment. They thrived. They did as well as you could hope to do under the circumstances of their lives. Everything that they had endured on top of a serious chronic mental illness. Right? So they did. They did super well, don't get me wrong. But only Sarah really had the capacity to live in the world. The other sisters managed, but Sarah thrived. And it was so interesting because even when the girls first got to Bethesda, they were patients, you know, quote unquote patients. They were research subjects. But Sarah, you'd have thought she'd arrived on the campus of her, of her school. Right, Sarah. Sarah's orientation to the whole experience was different. Sarah viewed herself as a partner in this research, not as a subject. So when you look at, like, her orientation to reality, her perception of her own strengths and abilities, you can see how all of these things sort of fed and snowballed and gave Sarah tremendous momentum. She was, she was a very courageous and adventurous and brave individual.
- [55:42]
Max Sweeten
Right.
- [55:42]
Sherry Lynch
And this was at a time, too, when, you know it, when life was a little harder for a young woman on her own to just decide, well, I think I'm going to take the civil service exam and, and find myself a place to live and get, and get a job. Like, do you understand, like, how crazy hard that was, right, for anyone, much less for Sarah Morlock. So it's fascinating in that way because it gave us that. It gave us that rare thing. It gave us a chance to study genetics and nature and nurture genetics and environment across four individuals who had come from one egg like it was. It was truly a scientific marvel. And that's why the government could not haul those girls to Bethesda fast enough.
- [56:30]
Commercial Narrator
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- [57:00]
Max Sweeten
So, Sherry, in doing your research for this, did you find that there was any correlation with the nature of their birth and the schizophrenia and the mental health issues?
- [57:13]
Sherry Lynch
There's because of how complex schizophrenia is? I don't, I don't know that you can answer that definitively, yes or no. I mean, the girls didn't have a particularly traumatic birth. They were, they were preemies at 29 weeks. But that's not uncommon for a multiple pregnancy anyway. Right. Even today, multiple pregnancies, whether twins, very, very fragile, very, very high stakes pregnancies. So you have to kind of like marvel really that these girls were born in the early 1930s at 29 weeks before NICU was even a twinkle in anybody's eye. They were in, you know, what they called them, you know, hot box warming boxes and heated incubators. But they were basically heated plastic boxes. I mean, we didn't, we didn't have what we have. Now. The, the fact that all four girls survived their birth and their infancy should tell you that they had, they came from good, sturdy stock. Right, because of the way. So schizophrenia, schizophrenia is so scary because you, you can know that there's a vulnerability, but you can't predict it. And, and you can be diagnosed with schizophrenia without a family history too. So just is this thing that can, this thing that can happen to you in your late teens, early adulthood, that turns your life upside down and inside out. The girls were not deprived of oxygen during their birth. Like there was nothing, there was no known factor that would have suggested anything. Now, Carl Morlock had family members who were described as having sanity problems. But you have to think about when all of this is happening. People were, people thought mental health, poor mental health was a moral failing or a character failing. People were ashamed. Family members that struggled were often like hidden away. People didn't talk about it. People didn't have a vocabulary to talk about it. So there's, there was clearly some family history of mental illness on the Morlock side that we know of. Harder to say on Sadie's side because she ran away from home and kind of cut ties with her family, but
- [59:44]
Max Sweeten
her father looking for her with a shotgun. So that's not normal, let's put it that way.
- [59:51]
Sherry Lynch
I.
- [59:52]
Max Sweeten
Go ahead.
- [59:52]
Sherry Lynch
I love stories. I love stories like this for that reason. Like, oh, please do tell me some more about the good old days when people, you know, when people were so good. Tell me more.
- [60:02]
Max Sweeten
And you touched on this some. So was this nature or nurture? And the reason that I bring this up is you have Sarah, who, you know, genetically shares all this with these sisters, grew up in the same incredibly dysfunctional situation, and yet she seemed to thrive. And she did. She did well in life and in fact, seemed to have a really sunshiny disposition, as you said.
- [60:32]
Sherry Lynch
She did.
- [60:33]
Max Sweeten
She did. And I just think that's probably one of the most fascinating parts of this story is you had the four of them in this situation. And, you know, I think. We think, well, they're identical then. They're exactly all alike, but the fingerprints are different. Right. And apparently, apparently each of them, as you mentioned in the story, had their own gifts. You know, despite dealing with the schizophrenia, they still had some kinds of gifts that were different than their. Their siblings.
- [61:03]
Sherry Lynch
Well, this is what is so fascinating. And you would need to get, like, we would need to lay our hands on a geneticist to really talk about this. But what's so fascinating about the studies that are done of twins, identical and fraternal and, you know, all. And multiples in general. When we have identical twins, or in this case, identical quads, we have this really unique and special opportunity to study the impact of nurture on nature. Because we have, in this case, we have four human beings who launched from the same genetic canon. They are identical. They came in, those four girls, those infants came into this world absolutely identical. But the moment they arrived, that's when the differentiation began. It's called epigenetics. And I think that there's another word that when. When genes experience changes, methylation, the methylation of your DNA, when your DNA undergoes changes, right? You've. You've heard about that. So epigenetics, the impact of environment on genes. Because we. We all have, like, all of these genes and. And some of them are turned on and some of them are turned off. Some of them are expressing and some of them are silent. And it's the. My understanding of this is it's the environmental factors that are most influential on which genes express and which genes go silent. So in the case of the Morlock quads, this is so magical, you guys. This is so magical. We shot four little stars out of the canon, and the minute they came out of the canon, they each began changing in her own separate and unique ways. So we had Sarah, who was so sunshiny and ambitious. She was ambitious. She wanted things. She would see something and instantly begin making the connections to how she could grow and Propel forward from that, that Helen, the smallest of the quads, the last born, baby D, only three pounds. Helen had some developmental delays and some learning delays, which are not uncommon with children that are born, you know, at. In her case, at 29 weeks, she eventually kind of caught up. But the advantage that baby Sarah had, baby C over baby D, was Sarah wasn't developmentally delayed. And so she. Right from the very beginning, we started off on the same starting line, but right in that instant, you can see how things are going to move faster and differently for Sarah than they are for Helen. They're already not identical anymore in that first moment. It's fascinating.
- [63:59]
Max Sweeten
You could almost make the case that even prior to their birthday that things were different because it might have to do with where the placement was in the womb and that sort of thing. You know, it's one of the things, you know, when we talked about the cloning, the episode that we had about cloning, that you, you can take something that's identical, but you can't. You can't, because the conditions are a little bit different. Maybe one of those babies was how it was positioned in there. The way the nutrition came might have been a little bit different and that sort of thing. So you could almost make the case to say they were different even before they were born.
- [64:39]
Sherry Lynch
I think that is so genius. And you're right. From the moment that egg divided four ways, they began differentiating like something we know now because of the imaging technology we have and the monitoring technology we have for multiple pregnancies, we can know we can have a pretty good understanding of what's happening in utero. So, like, my daughter Maggie has identical twin boys and they had growth restriction in the womb, meaning one twin was, was basically through no fault of his own, like getting more nutrients, right? And, you know, and he was thriving in utero to a degree that the other twin was not. Now they're, you know, they're born and everybody's sort of caught up. But you're right, from the moment that egg divided, those were four very separate human beings. But we didn't know that back then. That's, you know, we didn't know that, that even though they looked exactly alike, that they were so completely different because DNA hadn't even been discovered yet, right? So how could we, how could we. We didn't even have. We didn't have a way to even talk about the Morlock quadruplets when they were little girls. And, you know, you hate to. I don't know what I would do If I am pregnant with quads as the stock market is crashing and the Great Depression is launching, I like, there's a part of me that's looking at Carl Moorlock like, you Nazi asshole. But. But then again, you know, you got babies to feed. And if folks want to stand on your porch and give you 25 cents just to look at them, I guess you're going to take it Like, I don't want to be too judgy about that because there's plenty to judge with Karl Morlock, he was. Karl Warlock was mentally ill. Carl Warlock was paranoid, he was controlling, he was violent, he was perverse. He had a. Such a weird fixation on racial and sexual purity like every good Nazi fascist does. Right? He had his hands all over his girls. It is indefensible what Karl Morlock did to his daughters.
- [66:49]
Max Sweeten
Just the kind of person you want have leading your police department. You know, the thing about this story is we're still fascinated with this. I mean, I was thinking about John and Kate plus eight. And while those, those children were not, obviously they weren't identical, but we have a fascination with this. And the other thing that I was thinking about was that movie, Three Identical Strangers that you and I both liked. And if you haven't seen seen it, watch this. It's a fascinating story. These guys were identical triplets who were born and they were separated at birth and went to different families and two of them ended up at the same college and they were getting confused with one another and then they met each other and it was like looking in a mirror. And so there was a newspaper story and then one other guy determined that he was the other sibling of these two. And the reason I was asking about this earlier was if there was any connection between the mental health problems and the way they were born is because that has come up with the three identical strangers. I mean, one of them, you know, really suffered very badly from depression and ended up committing suicide. And I think the other two have had some issues as well.
- [68:14]
Sherry Lynch
They have, yeah. So there, there are so many things that even now, like in 2026 that we just don't know. You know, there's so much we, we know almost as much as we now know about schizophrenia, which was the Morlock quads. We know very little. And everything we know about schizophrenia we know because of the Warlock quads. See, that was the other thing about this, this story about their lives. Although their names were shielded in the National Institutes of Mental Health Research program, so much of the understanding of schizophrenia and the Treatment for it is derived from the years that these quadruplet girls spent as guests of the United States government.
- [69:02]
Max Sweeten
That's fascinating.
- [69:04]
Sherry Lynch
And I, I think that, you know, they, that should, that should be recognized, and I think they should be recognized and I think we should have some gratitude. I think we owe them a thank you. Because they traded their freedom. They weren't prisoners, Max. They weren't inmates, but they were. They were living on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for years. Studied every single day, everything they ate, every hour they slept, everything was noted. They went through psychotherapy. They. They were viewed from the inside out. Their bones were X rayed, their souls were X rayed and all of that. So that incredible generosity of just giving your years of your life to a collective knowledge base, I think we could say thank you. I don't know.
- [70:06]
Max Sweeten
Well, you know, their living situation was certainly better than living, living with their father.
- [70:12]
Sherry Lynch
Well, you heard what Sarah said. Sarah said life with father was intolerable. You guys, it was a mercy for them to become human research subjects for the government. I want you to think about that. We don't know what happens behind closed doors. And people, people's children, they. People view children as their property, to do with as they will. And Carl Morlock certainly did. And I'm less critical of their mother, Sadie, only because I am very. I grew up with domestic violence and I know that you could say, well, their mother should have done X, Y and Z. Well, she was a victim too. She was terrorized. And this was in, you know, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s. Society wasn't mobilized to help a woman and her children in that way. You know, it's a man's home, his castle, his wife, his family, to do with as he saw fit. And it was so sick that Carl was also the cops.
- [71:16]
Max Sweeten
He was the.
- [71:16]
Sherry Lynch
He was Lansing law enforcement. He was no more qualified, by the way, to be the constable of Lansing than you or me.
- [71:22]
Max Sweeten
But somehow he kept getting elected.
- [71:24]
Sherry Lynch
Well, because people knew his name. People vote for a familiar name and politicians know that, Celebrities know that. It's always been true. It's always going to be true. So, yeah, I, I think that the part of the. There are so many aspects of the Morlock story that tear at your heart, but there are so many things here to be, to be, to admire. Like I admire Sarah, I admire the life she made for herself. She lived abroad. She was. She navigated a very complicated life. She, you know, her husband was Air Force. He was stationed all over the place. And she was. She was living overseas. That's daunting for anybody, right? But, you know, here's someone who grew up in a very peculiar way and had a very serious mental health diagnosis, and yet she's out there doing it. She's working, she's parenting, she's throwing, you know, dinner parties with jello molds and, like, doing all the 50s and 60s stuff. And then she loses her. Her son to AIDS.
- [72:30]
Narrator/Archivist
And.
- [72:31]
Sherry Lynch
And. And still she manages because of that deep resilience, that strong, deep positivity that was just in her. She manages to somehow keep going. And she died last summer, Max. I mean, this is an old, ancient history. No, she died last July in her. You know, like, these are not the stories of a thousand years ago. This is last July in the United States of America. And I feel like. I feel like I say this a lot on this show. Like, I feel like these people deserve to have their names known and spoken, because when I look at what those sisters did, what the Morlock quadruplets did for all of us by allowing themselves to be studied for years. Anyone listening right now that has a family member who struggles with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The Morlock quadruplets are a big part of the reason why we know what we know and have the treatment options we do. So I just feel like we should know their names and maybe say them out loud with a thank you.
- [73:43]
Max Sweeten
Yeah, thank you.
- [73:45]
Sherry Lynch
Now. Now if we could talk for just a second about Carl Morlock. There are some interesting contemporary echoes, resonances in this story. There is the when. Whenever you see the convergence of a fixation on breeding and purity, be looking for Nazis and the Klan and. And fascism, because a fixation on purity and breeding is baked into those ideologies. And Carl Morlock was watching. So keep in mind his daughters were born in the 1930s, before the rise of the Third Reich and Hitler and World War II and all of that. Carl Morlock was beside himself that the Third Reich would prevail so that Hitler could come to America and purge this country of its defect. And if you're thinking, oh, my God, how bizarre.
- [74:51]
Narrator/Archivist
Ew.
- [74:53]
Sherry Lynch
Good thing he was alone in that. Except he wasn't alone in that. He had a lot of company.
- [75:00]
Max Sweeten
No, there were Nazi rallies and stuff in this country.
- [75:04]
Sherry Lynch
Yeah. People in the United States of America supported Hitler and wanted an American version of the Final Solution here. And we never quite. We never quite eradicated that darkness. We never got the bleach into every filthy corner, which is why it came roaring back in the modern era as it has, because we, we never purged it the first time. Because as you, a listener of True Weird Stuff, a Twitter, if you will now know, this country has a river of eugenics running through its history. How many times does it come up in these stories? And this isn't even a podcast that's looking for them. How many times do we come across eugenics?
- [75:53]
Max Sweeten
Many times, over and over again.
- [75:56]
Sherry Lynch
So that's the fun thing about, like, history. And this is our very recent history. This is our kind of right now ish history because again, Sarah just died like a minute ago. Go. That's the fun thing about it. It's not a bunch of boring, dusty old dates and facts. It's a mirror. And when you look into it, you can see your younger self looking back at you and you can realize all the ways you didn't learn. And it's the collective mirror. So we want to per. We just want to take a moment and thank those Morlock quadruplets who sacrificed their everything so that we could know a little something something. And although it was right to shield their name to protect their privacy, doing that protected their privacy and then robbed them of their legacy, which seems unfair. Does just a little bit. Yeah. So next time on True Weird Stuff, we're going to tell the story of a case that has obsessed Max since his boyhood in the Washington, D.C. area. Take it away, Max.
- [77:05]
Max Sweeten
This is about Bradford Bishop. And Bradford Bishop murdered his family in the Washington, D.C. area and then drove them to North Carolina and burned the bodies and then disappeared into the ether, never to be found. However, there are some people that think that they saw him from time to time and there's reason to believe that they actually did. And this is. He's been on, he was on the FBI's most wanted list and then he was on like, America's most wanted number of times, too, because I think they thought they were going to solve this like they did the John List murder. Another man who murdered his entire family and seemed to disappear into the Ethereum.
- [77:50]
Sherry Lynch
They call them family annihilators. So the thing about William Bradford Bishop, Brad to his friends. The thing about Brad is Brad. Brad was, he was in the Army. The army sent him to Army Intelligence school, then they sent him to language school. Then he went to work for the State Department and he was posted overseas. Then he came back to Maryland and was working as a diplomat in the state, in the State Department stateside. He was handsome, he was brilliant. He was educated. He was married to his high school sweetheart. They had three beautiful kids. And for whatever reason, one day he just snapped. Brad is the only person to ever be removed from the FBI's 10 most wanted list. Not because he died or got caught, but because they never got him and they needed to make room for somebody even worse. It's a fasc. I cannot wait.
- [78:55]
Max Sweeten
I cannot wait for this.
- [78:57]
Sherry Lynch
And the thing is, this is. I mean, I'm just going to tell you right up front, no one he got away with it. He got away with it.
- [79:07]
Max Sweeten
He did.
- [79:07]
Sherry Lynch
We're not going to solve this mystery from for you any more than the FBI, but what kind of a man snaps and does what he did? It's one thing to kill your family, it's the way he did it.
- [79:24]
Max Sweeten
It's.
- [79:25]
Sherry Lynch
And what happened next?
- [79:26]
Max Sweeten
Horrifying.
- [79:30]
Sherry Lynch
So we're going to take us a little journey to Max's childhood. And next week is the story of William Bradford Bishop. Call me Brad. We'll see you on the next True Weird Stuff.
- [79:45]
Max Sweeten
And if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, hit the plus button in the top right corner. And now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered and we really appreciate it. If you subscribe, rate and review True
- [79:58]
Sherry Lynch
Weird Stuff, hit our website, true weirdstuff.com for show notes and photos and videos when we have it, and bonus content. Everything True Weird is waiting for you@trueweirdstuff.com
- [80:10]
Max Sweeten
and follow true Weird Stuff on Instagram.
- [80:13]
Sherry Lynch
True Weird Stuff is a NOW Media production. Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia. The show is written and hosted by me, Sherry lynch, along with my deeply weird director, Max Sweeten. Our equally odd producer is Carol Gary Bowser. Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call. Our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr. Original graphics by Kevin Nash. Original artworks by Olivia Axelin. True Weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and zane Nash.
- [80:45]
Max Sweeten
Copyright 2026 Now Media.
- [80:49]
Sherry Lynch
All rights reserved. All wrongs remembered.
- [80:58]
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