Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / One Trick Penny

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One Trick Penny · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of curiosities. The perfect crime everyone's
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  Speaker 1: tried to plan one, even if they never intended on
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  Speaker 1: going through with it. How do you commit such an
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  Speaker 1: act without anyone finding out? How do you make sure
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  Speaker 1: there isn't any evidence to tie you back to the
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  Speaker 1: scene of the crime, no witnesses or DNA to test.
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  Speaker 1: With all the movies, books, and TV shows about it,
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  Speaker 1: you'd think that someone would have come up with a
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  Speaker 1: way to carry out such a dirty deed. But what
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  Speaker 1: if there was a place where it didn't matter if
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  Speaker 1: you got caught, where you could commit crimes with impunity
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  Speaker 1: d and no amount of DNA evidence or eyewitness testimony
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: could be used against you. I'm not speculating about some
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: magical fantasy land. There is a real, actual place that exists.
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  Speaker 1: Bounded in eighteen seventy two, It's visited by almost four
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  Speaker 1: million people a year and spans over thirty four hundred
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  Speaker 1: square miles, an area that sprawls across three states. If
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  Speaker 1: you're a fan of the outdoors, you probably dreamed of
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  Speaker 1: going there your entire life. Yellow Stone National Park. It
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  Speaker 1: was the first national park established in the United States,
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  Speaker 1: and it sits upon a massive volcano several dozen miles wide.
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  Speaker 1: It's also home to more than five hundred active geysers,
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  Speaker 1: including the famous Old Faithful, which shoots over four thousand
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  Speaker 1: gallons of boiling water more than one hundred forty feet
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  Speaker 1: into the air. But there's one other feature of yellow
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  Speaker 1: Stone that deserves mentioned. It doesn't get a whole lot
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  Speaker 1: of press, and for good reason. It's a relative of
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  Speaker 1: the small parcel of land where visitors dare not dread,
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  Speaker 1: a strange fifty square mile area that crossed over Idaho's
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  Speaker 1: border where hapless visitors can become victims if they're not careful.
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  Speaker 1: Back in two thousand five, a law professor named Brian
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  Speaker 1: Coult published an athlete titled paper The Perfect Crime, all
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  Speaker 1: about this part of the park. Within the paper, cult
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  Speaker 1: proposed a theory that if someone with keen constitutional knowledge
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  Speaker 1: used it in tandem with an obscure statute, they could
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  Speaker 1: commit crimes without fear of arrest or prosecution. He didn't
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  Speaker 1: mean to give aspiring serial killers a place to carry
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  Speaker 1: out their deeds. He just wanted to alert lawmakers to
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  Speaker 1: the glaring legal loophole in one of the country's most
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  Speaker 1: beloved vacation spots. Cults had found the one place in
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  Speaker 1: the country where someone could get away with murder. It
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  Speaker 1: works like this, All legal problems that occur within Yellowstone
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  Speaker 1: National Park are handled by the district Court, which resides
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  Speaker 1: solely in Wyoming. Even though there are some branches of
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  Speaker 1: the park in Idaho and Montana, Yellowstone technically only exists
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  Speaker 1: within the state of Wyoming. Therefore, if you were arrested
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  Speaker 1: on the Idaho side of the park for murder, you
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  Speaker 1: would need to be tried back in Wyoming. But here's
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  Speaker 1: where things get tricky. According to the sixth Amendment of
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  Speaker 1: the U. S Constitution, your trial needs to be held
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  Speaker 1: where you originally committed the crime. So back to Idaho
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  Speaker 1: you go. Only no one lives in that district. There
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  Speaker 1: are no roads and no inhabitants, well, no human inhabitants.
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  Speaker 1: Yellowstone National Park is federal land, so no one is
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  Speaker 1: allowed to legally reside there either. That makes this so
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  Speaker 1: called dead zone a gray area where the courts are concerned.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure they won't allow a bear to
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  Speaker 1: serve on a jury. Cult didn't hold back in his paper,
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  Speaker 1: clearly calling out Congress for dropping the ball and how
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  Speaker 1: they had gone about forming state borders, something they've done
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  Speaker 1: dozens of times four. He also made a clear point
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  Speaker 1: that anyone who used their constitutional rights to avoid prison
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  Speaker 1: could still be sued by a victims family, but if
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  Speaker 1: that didn't work, the authorities could always take the offender
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  Speaker 1: on a one way trip to a little corner of Yellowstone, because,
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  Speaker 1: just like Las Vegas, what happens there stays there. John
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  Speaker 1: Trickett had no intention of sitting out the Great War,
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  Speaker 1: not while his two older brothers were out there fighting
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  Speaker 1: for queen and country. He was built for it too.
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  Speaker 1: He was tall, stocky, and he loved horses. A gentle giant,
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  Speaker 1: some might have called him. He also looked so much
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  Speaker 1: older than he was, which was probably why no one
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  Speaker 1: questioned him when he enlisted. He left his home in Lincolnshire, England,
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  Speaker 1: to follow in the footsteps of his brothers who had
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  Speaker 1: been shipped out earlier. Along with his clothes and toiletries,
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  Speaker 1: John packed important things to remind him of home when
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  Speaker 1: he was on the battlefield. One of those items was
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  Speaker 1: a penny from eighteen eighty nine. On one side, it
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  Speaker 1: featured a bust of Queen Victoria. On the other the
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  Speaker 1: figure of Britannia seated upon a rock with a shield
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  Speaker 1: to her right and a trident in her left hand.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't special outside of John's sentimental longing for the
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  Speaker 1: simple things back in Lincolnshire. Sadly, before the war ended
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighteen, John's brothers had been killed in battle,
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  Speaker 1: leaving him the only trick it left. He came home
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  Speaker 1: at the end of the war, having left a piece
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  Speaker 1: of himself back on the Western Front, where he'd been stationed.
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  Speaker 1: He was now deaf in one ear and had trouble
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  Speaker 1: with his left hand. However, it didn't take him long
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  Speaker 1: to settle in at home and build a new life
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  Speaker 1: for himself. John took up a job as a postmaster
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  Speaker 1: and a switchboard operator. He fell in love with a
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  Speaker 1: girl named Clementine, and the two got married. They had
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  Speaker 1: eight children together. Grandchildren eventually followed, but it's not known
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  Speaker 1: whether John got to spend much time with them, as
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  Speaker 1: he passed away in nineteen sixty two when he was
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  Speaker 1: only sixty three years old. It held on to almost
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  Speaker 1: all of his belongings from the war, including his medals,
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  Speaker 1: a pocket watch, some photographs, and the penny he had
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  Speaker 1: kept tucked in his breast pocket under his uniform. When
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  Speaker 1: his grandchildren discovered his collection of memorabilia, however, it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the medals or the photographs that capture their imagination. It
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  Speaker 1: was that coin. There was something about it. A part
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  Speaker 1: of Queen Victoria's face seemed to rise up from underneath.
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  Speaker 1: When John's granddaughter Maureen inspected the other side, she saw
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  Speaker 1: why the late Queen's nose had exploded outward. The penny
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  Speaker 1: had been hit by a bullet. On the other side,
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  Speaker 1: right beside Britannia, Maureen and her siblings saw the round
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  Speaker 1: dvot where a bullet had been stopped. They ran their
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  Speaker 1: fingers over the attempted whole and suddenly had a visual
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  Speaker 1: representation of the stories they've been told so many years ago,
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  Speaker 1: how their grandfather had clashed with the German soldier who
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  Speaker 1: had tried to shoot him in the chest but instead
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  Speaker 1: hit the penny, which deflected the bullet upward and through
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  Speaker 1: John's left ear. It had deafened him for the rest
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  Speaker 1: of his life and caused permanent nerve damage, which is
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  Speaker 1: why he had trouble with his left hand. John had
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  Speaker 1: been one of many soldiers who had packed objects in
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  Speaker 1: their pockets. Doing so was a common practice as a
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  Speaker 1: way to prevent bullets from getting through. This was a
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  Speaker 1: time before kevlar vests. After all. It just so happened
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  Speaker 1: that on that day, at that time, that particular German
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  Speaker 1: soldier had aimed and fired at the exact spot where
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  Speaker 1: John's penny happened to be hiding. It's hard to blame
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  Speaker 1: John for being worried about what awaited him on the
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  Speaker 1: front lines, and no one can fault him for how
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  Speaker 1: he handled it by holding on to a small memento
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  Speaker 1: that reminded him of home. It was a good idea
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  Speaker 1: for many reasons. If it hadn't been for that little
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  Speaker 1: metal disc, after all, Maureen and her siblings might not
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  Speaker 1: be here today. Looking back, he could have kept that
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  Speaker 1: coin anywhere, his pants, his rucksack, even in his hat.
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  Speaker 1: But no, John placed his favorite coin in his breast pocket,
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  Speaker 1: close to the heart that was full of so much
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  Speaker 1: emotion about the war. He had planned ahead, and those plans,
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  Speaker 1: as they say, we're right on the money. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
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  Speaker 1: subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com and it. Until next time, stay curious.