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The True Story of The Bluebeard Killer · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: During the Great Depression, most people were scraping together pennies
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: just to survive. One guy figured out a more efficient strategy.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Merry lonely women, take their money, and then they mysteriously
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: stopped showing up to dinner. He called himself a wealthy widower.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: He said he owned a ten room mansion. What he
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: actually had was a garage behind his wife's grocery store
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and a talent for lying through his teeth. This is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the story of Harry Powers, part con man, part predator,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and a walking red flag in a pinstriped suit. Before
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: we jump into the story. If you like your true
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: crime bingeable, you're exactly where you need to be. Hit
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: follow now for at least two new episodes every week.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: This is ten minute murder. Let's get into it. The
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Great Depression didn't exactly come with a warning label. One
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: minute people were building futures thriving. The next they were broke, hungry,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and hanging on by a thread. And while most folks
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: tried to survive with what little they had, one man
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: saw an opportunity to climb out of poverty by using
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: other people as his ladder. His name was harm Drinth,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: born in the Netherlands in eighteen ninety two. He immigrated
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: to the US with his parents in nineteen ten, landing
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His family settled into the local
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Dutch community, living quietly and minding their own business. But
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Harm wanted more than quiet. He wanted out. He threw
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: himself into learning English and got good at it. By
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the time he served in World War One, he sounded
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: like any other American kid. When he came back, he
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: reintroduced himself as Harry Powers. The quiet immigrant son had vanished,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: replaced by a guy who claimed to be a successful
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: oil stock promoter in Oklahoma. He wasn't, obviously, but pretending
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: paid better. In nineteen twenty seven, now in his thirties,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Harry responded to a lonely heartsad from a woman named
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Lluella Struther. She owned her own farm and a grocery store,
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  Speaker 1: which to Harry might as well have been a jackpot.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Then he got married, and that's when it clicked. He'd
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: tried making money the honest way, he'd even dabbled in
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: making it dishonestly, but marrying a woman with money that
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: was clean, simple and legally binding, and during a time
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: when half the country was barely scraping by Harry Powers
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: decided that love letters were the new con game. He
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: just needed enough desperate people to believe he was worth trusting.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: By the time the Great Depression tightened its grip, the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: world had already been through a war and left behind
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a wave of women who had lost their husbands to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the battlefield. These women suddenly expected to raise families alone
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: with whatever their late partners left behind. Some had land,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: some had a little money, and all of them had
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the same thing. Harry Powers was looking for vulnerability. Still
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: married to Luella, Harry started moonlighting as several other men.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: He wrote back to Lonely Heart's ads and newspapers, and
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  Speaker 1: even ran a few of his own, All of them
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  Speaker 1: shouted in all caps, just in case desperation wasn't loud enough.
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  Speaker 1: Wealthy widower worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: very fine looking man of thirty eight, He claimed he
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: was too busy with business enterprises to make friends, but
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: was looking for a faithful woman who'd enjoy his ten
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: room house, her own car, and more spending money than
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: she'd know what to do with. None of it was real.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: His wife Luella was alive and still very much married
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: to him, that Howes didn't exist. What he did have
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: was a garage he'd converted into a private hideout behind
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: her grocery store. That was his office, his workshop, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: as will later find out, something far worse. His fake
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: ads pulled in women at a steady pace. Many were
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: war widows with children and no financial safety net, so
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: when someone offered them food, shelter, and a second chance,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: it was easy to believe the fantasy. Harry reportedly got
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: between ten and twenty letters a day. One of those
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: letters came from Asta Iker in park Ridge, Illinois. Asta
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: was a widow with three kids. Unlike many others, she
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: still had a little financial stability, but she was carrying
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the weight of it all alone. When Harry, using the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: name Cornelius or Van Pearson, started writing her, he said
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: all the right things, the timing, the tone, the promises.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: She wanted someone to help carry the load. She had
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  Speaker 1: no idea she was walking into the hands of someone
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: who only wanted to take more. When Harry, now going
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: by Cornelius Orvin Pearson, showed up at Asda's door in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: park Radge, Illinois, he didn't set off any alarms. He
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: seemed polite, charming, maybe even a little awkward. But Asta
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: liked him enough, apparently, to agree to go away with
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  Speaker 1: him on a trip and leave her three children behind.
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  Speaker 1: That was a big decision, but she'd written home to
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: say things with Cornelius were serious. She wanted her children
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: to join them soon. So when Cornelius came back about
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a week later alone, no one really panicked. He said,
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  Speaker 1: Asda had everything arranged and the kids could pack up
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  Speaker 1: their things. Now they were going to be a family again.
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  Speaker 1: He handed over a check from Asta and sent one
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  Speaker 1: of the kids to the bank to clean out her account.
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  Speaker 1: But the bank teller took one look at the signature
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  Speaker 1: and paused. It didn't match any of Asta's previous checks.
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  Speaker 1: They flagged it and sent the child back with nothing.
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  Speaker 1: Cornelius didn't wait around. He gathered up the kids and left,
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  Speaker 1: telling neighbors they were off to Europe. Just like that,
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  Speaker 1: the entire Iker family disappeared, no calls, no postcards, no return.
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  Speaker 1: While that was happening in Illinois, over in Massachusetts, another
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  Speaker 1: woman named Dorothy Presler was packing for what she thought
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: was her future. She had met a charming man through
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  Speaker 1: a Lonely Heart's at They were engaged, and he'd asked
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  Speaker 1: her to withdraw four thousand dollars before the wedding. She did.
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  Speaker 1: Then she moved to West Virginia to be with her
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  Speaker 1: new husband. No one ever heard from her again. By
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen thirty one, nearly a year after
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: that forged check stunt at the bank, Harry Powers returned
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to the Iker home. This time, he wasn't charming, he
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't pretending to court anyone. He was there to clean
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: it out, and that's when people finally started to pay attention.
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  Speaker 1: It took a while, but people started connecting the dots.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: A family vanished, a strange man came and went, and
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: suddenly neighbors who'd brushed it off were asking real questions now.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Once the police stepped in, they found a stack of
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: letters between Asta and the man she knew was Cornelius.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: That trail led them straight to a garage behind a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: grocery store in West Virginia, where Harry Powers still lived
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: with Luella. He hadn't exactly covered his tracks. He was smart,
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  Speaker 1: but also real dumb. Inside that four room garage, investigators
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  Speaker 1: walked into what can only be described as a crime scene,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: frozen in chaos, bloody clothing, clumps of hair, and a
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  Speaker 1: child sized bloody footprint stamped into the floor. Word got
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: out fast, crowds showed up, the chaos spilled out into
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the streets. Then a local kid came forward. He told
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: police he'd helped Harry dig a ditch in the backyard
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  Speaker 1: not long ago. That's where they found the bodies of
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  Speaker 1: Asta Iker, her three children, and Dorothy Presler. Asta and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: her daughters had been strangled, her son had been beaten
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: with a hammer. Dorothy was also strangled, and the belt
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: used to kill her was still around her neck. When
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: police searched Harry's car, they found hundreds of letters from
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: other women, each won a potential victim. The press gave
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: him a new nickname, the blue Beard Killer, borrowed from
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: an old folk tale about a man who killed his
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: wife's But this wasn't folklore. It was real, and the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: timing made it even harder. People were already struggling to
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: feed their families and trust their futures. This man comes along,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: preying on grief and loneliness for his own gain. The
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: public was furious. Not long after his arrest, Harry conveniently
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: fell down the stairs if you know what I'm saying,
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  Speaker 1: and ended up with two black eyes. His home turned
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: into a side show attraction. Promoters actually built a six
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  Speaker 1: foot high fence around the garage and a burial site
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  Speaker 1: where they charged admission. That lasted one night. Roughly two
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  Speaker 1: hundred people rushed the scene and set the garage on fire.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: A week later, nearly five thousand people surrounded the jail
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  Speaker 1: where Harry was being held. They wanted him not for justice,
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  Speaker 1: but for revenge. The police had to use tear gas
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  Speaker 1: and fire hoses to break it up, and Harry was
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  Speaker 1: quietly transferred to a more secure state prison. His trial
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: didn't calm anyone down. It only lasted five days, but
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  Speaker 1: the crowd was so large they had to hold it
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: in a local opera house. Witnesses took the stand, connecting
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Harry to the victims and their personal belongings. It was
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: enough he was sentenced to death. The following spring, Harry
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Powers walked into the gallows, dressed to the nines, dark
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  Speaker 1: pinstriped suits, white shirts, black tie. Cool as ever, he
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: declined to make a final statement. The guard placed the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: hood over his head, pulled the lever and that was it.
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  Speaker 1: He hung there for eleven minutes before he was declared dead.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to ten minutes murder binge able true
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: crime stories. My name is Joe, I'm the host, and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time out of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: your day to listen. If you're off to binge Moore,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: don't let me stop you keep right on cooking. But
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: about today's story, This guy Harry Powers his former name harm,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: which I guess is fitting. He saw this grief and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the struggle, the desperation that people were going through back
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: around that time, no doubt, rubbed his hands together and said,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: these are the perfect conditions for a scam. He sold
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: himself with these fake names and these fake ads and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: just prayed on everyone he possibly could. And if you
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: think for one second, even though these lonely hearts ads
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: don't exist in the same way now as they used to,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: if you don't think there are people on Tinder and
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: bumble and Craigslist. I suppose I don't know how people
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: do things nowadays, But if you don't think there are
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: people exactly like this out there trying to prey on you,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: then you're out of your mind. This is absolutely happening
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: just because we don't hear about it all the time.
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  Speaker 1: I think our bs meters are a little bit better
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  Speaker 1: than they were back then, but it's definitely still happening,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So keep your head on a swivel. Hey, if you're
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: brand new to listening to ten Minute Murder, first of all, welcome, Second,
• 11:24
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• 11:26
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• 11:30
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• 11:33
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• 11:36
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• 11:38
  Speaker 1: minute murder dot com. And if you're an og listener,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you've been around a while. I love you with every
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: piece of my heart. That's going to do it for today,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you next time.