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The Ridiculous Story of the World’s First (Documented) Serial Killer · Ridiculous History

0:23
Speaker 1: Previously unridiculous history. I'm kidding. I just always love when
0:28
Speaker 1: those voices come in at the beginning of something like
0:30
Speaker 1: I lost. I was going to just chime in and
0:32
Speaker 1: be like, what happened? I want to know I was
0:35
Speaker 1: there and I don't even remember. Right by the way,
0:38
Speaker 1: you're Noal, I'm Ben. We are joined with our guest
0:41
Speaker 1: super producer Paul Decant, who has an awesome sound cue.
0:49
Speaker 1: I love that. I love it that thing, whatever that is.
0:54
Speaker 1: He'll get to pick out his own sound effect because
0:56
Speaker 1: he's actually filling in for its super producer Casey Pegram
1:01
Speaker 1: here in the spirit where the sound effect goes Paul
1:04
Speaker 1: um and so, yeah, Paul could potentially pick out his
1:07
Speaker 1: own sound effect. That's true, and I thought you did
1:10
Speaker 1: on a previous episode, Paul, But we can't wait to
1:13
Speaker 1: hear it. Wait a minute, We've we've been informed that
1:19
Speaker 1: Paul has had a sound effect all along. Now we
1:22
Speaker 1: knew what it sounded like. It's sort of a mission control,
1:25
Speaker 1: you know, bleeps and bloops kind of sound effect. Yeah, yeah,
1:27
Speaker 1: it's very spacey. I'm just bummed that Paul isn't gonna
1:29
Speaker 1: pick out his own sound effects. Clearly, Casey picked that
1:31
Speaker 1: out for him. Yeah, Paul, if you want to pick
1:33
Speaker 1: your own sound effect, you completely have agency. Thanks for
1:36
Speaker 1: having you know, I think he should. You know, I
1:38
Speaker 1: think we should chuck case he's not around, screw him,
1:41
Speaker 1: you know, just chuck it out. How dare you who?
1:44
Speaker 1: I have feelings Casey abandoned us for France. Yeah, well,
1:47
Speaker 1: Casey is living his other life and we'll return across
1:50
Speaker 1: the pond. It's his best life. Also, he is going
1:53
Speaker 1: to be back, so we need to be careful what
1:55
Speaker 1: we say about it. I don't want to angry Casey.
1:57
Speaker 1: He's not gonna hear these. He doesn't even edit him.
1:59
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't think he listens to the show.
2:02
Speaker 1: Might he might go back and just to see if
2:03
Speaker 1: we talk any trash? Hey, Casey, thanks for doing and
2:07
Speaker 1: uh and if if he hasn't listened, Fellow ridiculous historians,
2:11
Speaker 1: do not snitch on us. We're being very serious. But
2:17
Speaker 1: in our continuing streak of telling uh spooky or tales,
2:21
Speaker 1: as we get closer and closer to Halloween, nol, you
2:25
Speaker 1: and I have touched on some gruesome practices such as cannibalism,
2:29
Speaker 1: and we've touched on legends of monsters, but today we're
2:34
Speaker 1: looking at real life monsters. Yeah, I mean, says you, Okay, alright, yes,
2:41
Speaker 1: we're talking about serial killers. And it is true that
2:43
Speaker 1: in the US often serial killers are given this kind
2:47
Speaker 1: of infamy. They're almost like there's something that's occasionally celebrated
2:53
Speaker 1: about them, which is terrible. Yeah, especially and like you
2:55
Speaker 1: know in our industry, the podcast world, where it's like
2:58
Speaker 1: we're just up to our ears and true crime stories. Um,
3:01
Speaker 1: and I'm actually working on a true crime story right now.
3:04
Speaker 1: That is a little different. It's not so much celebrating
3:07
Speaker 1: the idea of the serial killer. It's a little bit
3:09
Speaker 1: more of looking at what it means to be human,
3:12
Speaker 1: what it means to have these impulses, or to what
3:15
Speaker 1: the obsession with serial killers actually means to us as
3:18
Speaker 1: a culture, Like why is it so fascinating? My theory is, uh,
3:22
Speaker 1: that it makes us feel better about ourselves. It makes
3:24
Speaker 1: us really, well, I'm not I'm at least I'm not
3:26
Speaker 1: that crazy. At least I've never actually murdered multiple people
3:30
Speaker 1: and one of these yeah right, I'm not that bad. Uh.
3:34
Speaker 1: One of the factors in this almost deification at times
3:37
Speaker 1: is certainly the question that people end up asking themselves,
3:42
Speaker 1: would I be someone capable of this? Have? Could I
3:47
Speaker 1: understand that mentality? And it's it's a deep and dark question.
3:52
Speaker 1: But luckily we're not We're not going too far into
3:55
Speaker 1: the psychology of that that kind of process on today's show.
3:59
Speaker 1: All the we do want to hear what you think
4:00
Speaker 1: about it. Feel free to write in We're ridiculous houstuf
4:03
Speaker 1: works dot com today. Instead, we're delving into a question
4:07
Speaker 1: that has personally, just speak for myself here, personally haunted
4:12
Speaker 1: me for a while, and that is this who was
4:16
Speaker 1: the world's first serial killer? Yeah? I actually googled this,
4:21
Speaker 1: ben um like you do when you're when you're trying
4:24
Speaker 1: to find things out. That's what we've been reduced to
4:26
Speaker 1: is professional googlers. You know, I don't even know how
4:28
Speaker 1: to use a card catalog. I go to the library,
4:31
Speaker 1: and you know, I lived next door to a library.
4:34
Speaker 1: You go there, Yeah, I go there, you go in there. Yeah,
4:36
Speaker 1: I love libraries. You like libraries to I'm kidding, I
4:38
Speaker 1: know how to use the card catalog. Point being, I
4:40
Speaker 1: googled first serial killer like I'm doing right now, in
4:44
Speaker 1: a name that commonly pops up as a guy named
4:46
Speaker 1: Herman Webster mudget Um known as H. H. Holmes, and
4:51
Speaker 1: he is considered on paper at least to be the
4:53
Speaker 1: first American serial killer. Right, But the story we have
4:58
Speaker 1: today is not about your mudget It's about a lady
5:01
Speaker 1: serial killer. Yes, And the notion of the serial killer
5:05
Speaker 1: name um is divisive, and I think there's an issue
5:08
Speaker 1: with maybe calling this person this person was more of
5:11
Speaker 1: an assassin, really, yes, more of a poisoner. I do
5:14
Speaker 1: want to stuff though, because you mentioned H. S. Holmes.
5:17
Speaker 1: There's an amazing book if you haven't read it yet,
5:20
Speaker 1: The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson. White
5:23
Speaker 1: City being Chicago. Yeah. H. H. Holmes built a murder house. Gruesome,
5:29
Speaker 1: grim and gory stuff. But you're right, no, that's there's
5:32
Speaker 1: a question about what makes someone a serial killer. And
5:38
Speaker 1: we've looked into this and previous episodes on other shows.
5:42
Speaker 1: This person, Locusta of gall was a poisoner. She wasn't
5:48
Speaker 1: out there, you know, sneaking up behind people and cutting
5:51
Speaker 1: their throats. But one could argue because of the benefits
5:55
Speaker 1: that she enjoyed with the protections that we're going to
5:58
Speaker 1: get into of that she experience, ants that she may
6:01
Speaker 1: well have fallen into a pattern where she just kind
6:03
Speaker 1: of did it for lulls. Yeah, yeah, definitely not a
6:08
Speaker 1: mentally healthy person. So this this occurs in the first
6:15
Speaker 1: century a d. We don't know a ton of stuff.
6:20
Speaker 1: We don't know very much at all about Locusta's early
6:23
Speaker 1: life other than that she was from Gaul, because that's
6:27
Speaker 1: what people called her. Locusta from Gaul. Maybe there were
6:31
Speaker 1: a ton of other Locustas and there was like Locusta
6:33
Speaker 1: from Rome, Lacousta from Gaul. Maybe maybe that's how they differentiate.
6:38
Speaker 1: But Gall itself was where northern Italy and the Alps are,
6:45
Speaker 1: and it's it's got three geographical regions around the time
6:49
Speaker 1: this happened. What I'm saying is it's a big place.
6:50
Speaker 1: It's France now, right, France, and then uh, northern Italy.
6:56
Speaker 1: So we bring this point up to say that knowing
6:58
Speaker 1: just that she is from Gaul all doesn't really help us, right, Like,
7:03
Speaker 1: what we do sort of know about her though, is
7:06
Speaker 1: that she grew up uh living off the land as
7:09
Speaker 1: it were, or at least in terms of like some
7:11
Speaker 1: of the the species of plants that were available in
7:17
Speaker 1: that region. Um. She was an active forager and kind
7:22
Speaker 1: of got herself real familiar with some of the uses
7:26
Speaker 1: of some of these herbs and flowers and various things
7:30
Speaker 1: that could be used for good or for ill. There
7:33
Speaker 1: we go in like that traumatic note, yes so or
7:36
Speaker 1: for ill or for yeah? Yeah yeah good, Yeah, we
7:41
Speaker 1: got it. So this person living off the land has
7:46
Speaker 1: a encyclopedic knowledge of the different plants that grow in
7:49
Speaker 1: the area and the different medicinal or nefarious uses of
7:55
Speaker 1: these plants. People recognize talents, and there was an empress
8:02
Speaker 1: named Agrippina the younger who noticed that Lucusta had as
8:08
Speaker 1: leave nice would say a certain set of skills, and
8:13
Speaker 1: Acousta at this point was already pretty notorious. Yeah, how
8:16
Speaker 1: did her reputation precede her? That it made it up
8:19
Speaker 1: to such high levels of government and like influencers or whatever.
8:22
Speaker 1: Ben Well, they stopped calling her Locusta from Gaul and
8:25
Speaker 1: started calling her Locusta the Poisoner. That became her new name.
8:29
Speaker 1: Wasn't she also Locusta the Sorcerer at some point? Yeah,
8:33
Speaker 1: she's a woman of many names. Um crazy. So she
8:36
Speaker 1: was already kind of like doing little hits early on
8:40
Speaker 1: and even getting arrested. I believe she was she was
8:43
Speaker 1: imprisoned when Agrippina approached her in a D fifty four
8:48
Speaker 1: and Agrippina had a particular job for her. She said, Locusta,
8:55
Speaker 1: I want you to poison my husband Claudius. Oh real quick.
9:01
Speaker 1: There's an amazing name given to her profession that combines
9:05
Speaker 1: her like, you know, knowledge and know how with herbs
9:08
Speaker 1: and their uses, with this idea of being an assassin
9:13
Speaker 1: necro entrepreneur. Oh yeah, and this was coined, maybe not coined,
9:17
Speaker 1: but used in this particular situation by Dr Catherine Ramsland,
9:21
Speaker 1: who is a PhD in psychology. Yeah, there's First off,
9:26
Speaker 1: that's that's my favorite phrase we've learned recently. And people
9:30
Speaker 1: did in a way respect this person's abilities. There were
9:36
Speaker 1: multiple poisoners in the area in ancient Rome at the time,
9:39
Speaker 1: but Locusto was by far one of the most well
9:42
Speaker 1: known and notorious. We're also going to get into why,
9:44
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just that she You know, anyone can
9:48
Speaker 1: slip somebody some poison or just like make poison or
9:50
Speaker 1: find it used to buy it, right, um, But she
9:53
Speaker 1: was very widely and clever and crafty. And then we'll
9:56
Speaker 1: get into the next story involving her employee under Agrippina,
10:00
Speaker 1: that becomes infinitely clear. There's an excellent paper I found
10:09
Speaker 1: called Poisons, Poisoning and the Drug Trade in Ancient Rome
10:13
Speaker 1: by L. Sillier's and FP. Retief at the University of
10:17
Speaker 1: the Free State, and in this they give us some
10:20
Speaker 1: more details about exactly how Locusta came to be in
10:26
Speaker 1: the employee of Agrippina. So she had been convicted of
10:33
Speaker 1: multiple crimes during the reign of Cloudius. She was a
10:36
Speaker 1: known repeat defender. She was bad medicine, which I guess
10:40
Speaker 1: works on a couple of levels. But let's keep going. Agrippina,
10:44
Speaker 1: you see, was the second wife of Cloudius, and she
10:48
Speaker 1: had a son named Nero, who I am sure is
10:52
Speaker 1: familiar to a lot of ridiculous historians. Yeah. Yeah, it
10:55
Speaker 1: was the name of that app he used to used
10:57
Speaker 1: to burn CDs back in the early two thousands. Oh wow,
11:00
Speaker 1: deep cut Nero. Yeah, it's because But but the reason
11:03
Speaker 1: it was named that is because Nero was a bit
11:05
Speaker 1: of a pyromaniac and he was known for burning Rome
11:08
Speaker 1: to the ground to some degree while playing a fiddle.
11:13
Speaker 1: There's another story that we're gonna get to that allegedly happened. Um,
11:16
Speaker 1: but it's fun to talk about, you know, legend and
11:19
Speaker 1: myth can sometimes you more interesting than the truth? Yeah, yes, agreed.
11:23
Speaker 1: So as we were saying, Agrippino wants her son Nero
11:28
Speaker 1: to be the new ruler, and she has like a
11:30
Speaker 1: lot yeah, like yes, a life or death sort of desire,
11:35
Speaker 1: and she asked Locusta to poison Uh, let's see, I
11:40
Speaker 1: was saying, cloud Us, let's see Claudius. That sounds good,
11:44
Speaker 1: and she did it with uh. It was almost like
11:48
Speaker 1: a heist because, as you can imagine, this guy has
11:51
Speaker 1: a lot of security tasters. Even he's got a food
11:54
Speaker 1: taster named Holitus. So how what does she do? How
11:58
Speaker 1: does she get past this? Do you think that's where
11:59
Speaker 1: how atosis comes from? We can only hope. I want
12:04
Speaker 1: I was wondering the same thing. Yes, so she like,
12:07
Speaker 1: I don't know, how did how did she exactly circumvent talitis?
12:11
Speaker 1: It was a little weird, like she did she bribe
12:14
Speaker 1: him to kind of get out of the way. Is
12:16
Speaker 1: that what happen? So the way she gets past this
12:19
Speaker 1: is through the use of poison mushrooms, which originally are
12:24
Speaker 1: given to the emperor by his food taster. But that
12:28
Speaker 1: doesn't quite work. Right, I don't think so. Yeah. So, um,
12:32
Speaker 1: I I read that that she um, Agrippina bribed this
12:36
Speaker 1: food taster to kind of get him out of the picture,
12:39
Speaker 1: and then um gave the mushrooms to her husband herself,
12:43
Speaker 1: because apparently he was like a huge mushroom fan. He
12:47
Speaker 1: really really liked the shrooms. I can relate to that.
12:50
Speaker 1: And some people, some people will say that or some
12:53
Speaker 1: sources at least will report that the closest aid the
12:57
Speaker 1: food taster was sick, and then others will say know
13:00
Speaker 1: Ain dribed him tom linger. Either way, he wasn't around,
13:04
Speaker 1: and the mushrooms went directly into the hands of Claudius,
13:08
Speaker 1: who was apparently a lethal drunk um and he did
13:11
Speaker 1: not kill him, but it made him convolves violently and
13:14
Speaker 1: have really bad tummy troubles, right, And so they wanted
13:18
Speaker 1: to induce vomiting, right, that's right. So um, one source
13:22
Speaker 1: that I read has Agrippina herself feigning concern for her,
13:28
Speaker 1: you know, convulsing husband and and daintily sticking this poison
13:34
Speaker 1: feather down his throat, because that was a thing they
13:36
Speaker 1: would use a feather to to induce vomiting and stick
13:38
Speaker 1: it down your throat and tickle your your gullet or
13:41
Speaker 1: whatever and then make you puke up the bad stuff.
13:44
Speaker 1: But instead this feather was laced with an even deadlier poison.
13:49
Speaker 1: Oh you know what, let me step back just a
13:51
Speaker 1: second to clarify here. I think I've got the turn
13:54
Speaker 1: of events correct. So the day before the poison, Locusta
13:58
Speaker 1: poisons the bodyguard, and the bodyguard has to call out sick,
14:01
Speaker 1: and then Agrippina bribes the food taster, so they removed
14:05
Speaker 1: two people from the She's thinking several steps ahead of
14:09
Speaker 1: even us four D track podcasters. So dies because the
14:17
Speaker 1: feather has been poisoned. It's soaked in strychnine. Right, And
14:22
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, immediately after the death of this emperor,
14:26
Speaker 1: Nero ascends to the throne and they recognize that Locusta
14:31
Speaker 1: she has a lot of potential, especially if you are
14:33
Speaker 1: a power hungry emperor. Right. And there's an interesting pattern
14:38
Speaker 1: that transpires here, because we mentioned she had been arrested
14:42
Speaker 1: more than once, multiple times. Twice she was arrested for murder,
14:46
Speaker 1: but each time she was arrested, a Roman senator bailed
14:49
Speaker 1: her out. People speculate it was kind of a way
14:52
Speaker 1: of buying a future kill. Absolutely, she had friends in
14:54
Speaker 1: high places, no question about it. Um. But the thing
14:57
Speaker 1: that's messed up here is that Agrippina, who obviously it
14:59
Speaker 1: was trying to set these events in motion and get
15:02
Speaker 1: her boy Nero in the throne. She immediately threw Lacusta
15:07
Speaker 1: under the bus. Immediately, she immediately said she poisoned my husband.
15:12
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was like a strategic mootally that's
15:14
Speaker 1: what they call getting in front of getting ahead of it.
15:17
Speaker 1: And yeah, but I wonder if it was really like
15:19
Speaker 1: Locusta was in on it, maybe where it's like, all right,
15:21
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take the fall for this because I'm already
15:23
Speaker 1: a known poisoner, or if she just was caught completely unaware,
15:27
Speaker 1: whatever the case might be. Um Nero, who is now
15:32
Speaker 1: a power hungry looney tune on his own, um, because
15:36
Speaker 1: Agrippina has really been jockeying for this stuff and trying
15:40
Speaker 1: to manipulate events, and now she's got what she wanted
15:43
Speaker 1: more or less. But Nero, it doesn't seem like he's
15:47
Speaker 1: acquiescing to his his mother anymore. He's kind of got
15:50
Speaker 1: his own acts to grind in the form of another
15:54
Speaker 1: potential heir to the throne, a fourteen year old who
15:58
Speaker 1: Claudius had given that's sired under a previous marriage, named
16:03
Speaker 1: Britannicus right right, and Locusta is in a terrible spot
16:09
Speaker 1: because the death sentence she receives is death by bloodgeoning.
16:12
Speaker 1: And by the time Nero reaches out to her, she's
16:14
Speaker 1: been in jail for several months. Here's the deal, he
16:17
Speaker 1: cracks in about or so he frees Lacusta, the poisoner
16:23
Speaker 1: at this point from prison. He gives her a bunch
16:25
Speaker 1: of money, he gives her some land, and he says
16:27
Speaker 1: he's gonna make her an aristocrat, publicly absolved of all
16:32
Speaker 1: crimes she has committed or will ever commit. And all
16:37
Speaker 1: she has to do is poison this fourteen year old.
16:40
Speaker 1: Britannicus is fourteen years old. All she has to do
16:43
Speaker 1: is poison this child. And reputedly allegedly, Acousta had one question.
16:51
Speaker 1: She said, do you want it to be fast or
16:55
Speaker 1: do you want it to be extended and painful? Yeah,
16:58
Speaker 1: there's nothing monstrous about like at all. That's her concern
17:02
Speaker 1: about poison your fourteen year old fast or protracted and painful?
17:06
Speaker 1: Just like, look, I work for you now, Nero. So
17:11
Speaker 1: the story. Know, some of the details may differ here, NOL,
17:14
Speaker 1: but here's here's what I heard. I heard that Nero
17:17
Speaker 1: invited this fourteen year old Britannicus, which again I like
17:20
Speaker 1: the name, to a huge party one of the palaces,
17:24
Speaker 1: and they were passing around wine. Fourteen year olds drank
17:29
Speaker 1: wine at that time, and uh, Britannicus takes his sip
17:33
Speaker 1: from his wine goblet and then starts a convulsive Is
17:37
Speaker 1: this the one though? Where like he had complained the
17:40
Speaker 1: wine was this is good? Oh yeah, this is the one.
17:43
Speaker 1: So apparently, back in those days, they would dilute wine
17:47
Speaker 1: with hot water, so you'd be drinking hot wine. Um,
17:51
Speaker 1: that does not sound very refreshing with dinner. That was
17:52
Speaker 1: common and I was not aware of this at all.
17:54
Speaker 1: And apparently Britannicus found his hot wine to be too hot,
17:59
Speaker 1: so he wanted somebody to cool it on down for him.
18:04
Speaker 1: And the tasters tasted his hot wine, they did not
18:09
Speaker 1: taste the cold water that was added to it to
18:13
Speaker 1: make it less hot. And that's of course where the
18:15
Speaker 1: poison came into play again. Very very's, very very sharp,
18:19
Speaker 1: very smart. Hot wine is just such a weird phrase.
18:22
Speaker 1: Would would you guys like that on a T shirt.
18:24
Speaker 1: Mulled wine because you had some herbs. It's the whole thing.
18:29
Speaker 1: Hot wine. Sounds like the wine has gone bad. Here's
18:38
Speaker 1: another interesting aspect of this story. Apparently britannic Is might
18:44
Speaker 1: have had epilepsy, so Nero was able to say, no, no,
18:48
Speaker 1: don't mess with him, he's having an epileptic fit. Yeah,
18:52
Speaker 1: And apparently, like dinner went on as usual, with the
18:55
Speaker 1: guests just kind of like awkwardly looking at this convulsive
18:58
Speaker 1: fourteen year old in the corner of the room and
19:00
Speaker 1: not wanting to offend the psychotic emperor. Just when about
19:06
Speaker 1: their business, drinking their hot wine, drinking their hot wine.
19:10
Speaker 1: And it is a success. So instead of accusing Acousta
19:15
Speaker 1: of murdering Britannicus the way Agrippina did, Nero says, you know,
19:21
Speaker 1: all right, done deal, here's your here's your land, here's
19:24
Speaker 1: your house, and measures treasures, pardons for all of the
19:28
Speaker 1: previous poison things that she'd been accused of or convicted
19:30
Speaker 1: of or what have you, clearing her name, impunity, indemnity,
19:34
Speaker 1: and little cherry on top here uh an official title
19:38
Speaker 1: Imperial Poisoner. Nero even sets up a poisoning school. Yeah,
19:43
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, and she was the head. Yeah, exactly.
19:45
Speaker 1: That's so brazen though, It's like I wouldn't think that's
19:48
Speaker 1: something you would. Maybe it is. Maybe it's sort of like, hey,
19:50
Speaker 1: look at me, I got my own poison or no
19:51
Speaker 1: mess with me kind of thing. I guess. So, yeah,
19:54
Speaker 1: like how much of it is a propaganda thing? But
19:57
Speaker 1: check this out. For the next four teen years, she
20:01
Speaker 1: is performing assassinations and poison poison what what would you
20:07
Speaker 1: call poison operations poison projects. Yeah, she's doing that and
20:12
Speaker 1: she has immunity from the law. She's above the law.
20:15
Speaker 1: And she did she she did train women in the
20:19
Speaker 1: art of poisoning at her school. We talked about this
20:21
Speaker 1: in the episode we did on like a brief History
20:23
Speaker 1: of poisoning or arsenic. I believe it's very gendered. It's
20:27
Speaker 1: very gendered, and almost unfairly so. It became like a
20:30
Speaker 1: stereotype that was a little bit like like the idea
20:34
Speaker 1: of that being like a woman's weapon or something. Yeah,
20:36
Speaker 1: I think a little bit misogynistic. It's incredibly misogynistic. Yeah.
20:40
Speaker 1: So she used over time a ton of different things, hemlock, belladonna, nightshade, arsenic. Uh,
20:48
Speaker 1: what's what's this stuff you used to treat malaria queenin Yeah, uh,
20:54
Speaker 1: cyanide opium. Cyanide is a speculative thing. But the other
20:59
Speaker 1: stuff we know pretty much for sure. And she practiced
21:03
Speaker 1: the scientific method. She would keep track of what worked
21:06
Speaker 1: and how, which is why she asked questions like do
21:09
Speaker 1: you want a painful slow death? Do you want something fast? Yeah?
21:13
Speaker 1: I mean I've almost seem seen her described as something
21:15
Speaker 1: of a researcher, like, you know, practicing that scientific method,
21:18
Speaker 1: trial and error, seeing what would have the effects that
21:22
Speaker 1: she wanted and what would be the best substance to
21:25
Speaker 1: use for particular situation. I'm sure she had tons of
21:29
Speaker 1: notes and data on this stuff. Would be fascinating to
21:31
Speaker 1: get ahold of. Absolutely. Yeah, So we have to wonder
21:36
Speaker 1: is that stuff lost the history? Is its still around somewhere?
21:40
Speaker 1: Would would you want to read it? If it is?
21:44
Speaker 1: We can say that although life went pretty well for
21:49
Speaker 1: this arch villain for a while, it did not end
21:54
Speaker 1: well for her. See, Nero always carried this is so cornel.
22:00
Speaker 1: Nero always carried a suicide poison kit that Locusta had
22:05
Speaker 1: made for him, and when he was sentenced to death
22:09
Speaker 1: in and trying to escape his assassins, he forgot his
22:14
Speaker 1: suicide poison kit, so he killed himself with a knife,
22:19
Speaker 1: and the protection that Locusta had enjoyed for so long
22:23
Speaker 1: was gone. Yeah, and uh, with that her her prospects
22:30
Speaker 1: were looking so good because she was very much tied
22:34
Speaker 1: to this notion of Nero, very similar to Caligula we
22:38
Speaker 1: talked about in the episode we did with Chris Rostiotes
22:40
Speaker 1: about non human candidates. Where Caligula the other insane I mean,
22:44
Speaker 1: I'm sure there was more than one, but the another
22:46
Speaker 1: insane Roman emperor of note nominated his horse to be
22:49
Speaker 1: a console um when he died, a lot of his
22:54
Speaker 1: crazy stuff and the people, his hangers on, you know,
22:57
Speaker 1: did not look too good and did not have the
22:58
Speaker 1: protection they needed to continue living the lives that they
23:02
Speaker 1: were living, such as the case with Lacusta, because the
23:05
Speaker 1: people saw Nero as a dangerous force, as a most monster,
23:11
Speaker 1: a completely narcissistic, self involved megalomaniac who didn't care anything
23:17
Speaker 1: about the common people and only wanted to like, you know,
23:19
Speaker 1: feed his lavish lifestyle and again actually burned part of Rome.
23:25
Speaker 1: Do you know the story about that, I'm not. Well,
23:26
Speaker 1: here's here's how the story started. There um the Great
23:31
Speaker 1: Fire of Rome, which is what that refers to. That
23:34
Speaker 1: that myth of him playing a violin while the city burned,
23:38
Speaker 1: it comes from two people, Setonius and Cassius Dio, who
23:45
Speaker 1: alleged that Nero didn't didn't play a fiddle, but that
23:49
Speaker 1: he sang a song called the Sack of Ilium dressed
23:53
Speaker 1: in stage like theater costumes while the city burned, And
23:58
Speaker 1: the idea of him playing a fiddle itself is propaganda.
24:02
Speaker 1: It's meant to help criticize Nero's earlier attempts to rewrite
24:07
Speaker 1: the Augustine models of governance and rulership. So it's kind
24:12
Speaker 1: of like Napoleon not really being short, that's right. And
24:14
Speaker 1: then the Great Fire they were blaming. It's not even
24:17
Speaker 1: hunters and confirmed, but many historians do blame, or at
24:20
Speaker 1: least one in particular, a guy named Tacitus blamed Nero
24:23
Speaker 1: for starting a fire in order to circumvent the Roman
24:27
Speaker 1: sentence and to create like a hubbub so that he
24:30
Speaker 1: could you know, usurt power and do whatever you want
24:32
Speaker 1: and being a total class act. Tacitus, like you said
24:36
Speaker 1: that Nero accused Christians of starting the fire to take
24:40
Speaker 1: the heat off them, sort of like a like mother
24:42
Speaker 1: like son kind of thing, sort of a we didn't
24:44
Speaker 1: start the fire, it was always burning since the world
24:47
Speaker 1: was turning. Yeah. Absolutely. Now the death of Locusta also,
24:53
Speaker 1: I want to I want to correct. I think we
24:54
Speaker 1: said for the death of Nero. That's that's not quite correct.
24:59
Speaker 1: It was in the late sixties A d Locusta. When
25:04
Speaker 1: get to her death, we run full on, phase first
25:09
Speaker 1: into the realm of legend we have. We've got two
25:12
Speaker 1: stories for you of a tall tale, A bit of
25:15
Speaker 1: a it's a long tail, for sure. It's a short
25:18
Speaker 1: story with a long tail along neck really a long
25:21
Speaker 1: neck really. So the first one, one of the more
25:25
Speaker 1: commonly accepted, the more mundane stories, is that uh Locusta
25:31
Speaker 1: had tried to escape or lay low and continue getting
25:36
Speaker 1: away with her murderous career, but the emperor who came
25:39
Speaker 1: after Nero, Emperor Galba uh was was not having it,
25:45
Speaker 1: and Locusta was chained up and dragged through the street
25:49
Speaker 1: and then just executed. But there's another legend. Yeah, it's
25:54
Speaker 1: a totally bonkers legend. It can't be true. I don't know,
25:58
Speaker 1: I don't know how you would even trainage your aff
26:00
Speaker 1: to do this, right, But I did hear um and
26:03
Speaker 1: this is a little gross, guys. Um, this is very gross. Yeah, supposedly,
26:08
Speaker 1: you know, according to this particular version of her demise,
26:11
Speaker 1: Acusta was smeared with vaginal secretions from a giraffe, a
26:18
Speaker 1: female giraffe, and then um and then died as a
26:24
Speaker 1: result of the activity, the ensuing activity from a male
26:28
Speaker 1: giraffe who was trained to do this thing. So the
26:33
Speaker 1: good news is that is we can say with a
26:37
Speaker 1: high degree of certainty that that that probably didn't just logistically, man,
26:44
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't see happen, but it's definitely it's
26:46
Speaker 1: in the record. It's it's a it's it's a it's
26:48
Speaker 1: a legend for sure, and then torn apart by wild
26:52
Speaker 1: animal and I can't forget that that that's that's huge.
26:55
Speaker 1: But that's part of the whole thing. So we looked
27:00
Speaker 1: into this where this claim would originate, and this kind
27:04
Speaker 1: of stuff like its surfaces in the Encyclopedia of Serial
27:08
Speaker 1: Killers by guy named Michael Newton, at least in the
27:10
Speaker 1: first version. But there's no precise date of death, there's
27:15
Speaker 1: no precise location, there's there's not really in confirmation that
27:19
Speaker 1: has happened. And when we talk about stories of people
27:21
Speaker 1: living in this time, especially people who had a lot
27:24
Speaker 1: of enemies, there's a ton of propaganda. There are a
27:27
Speaker 1: ton of made up things that were meant to ridicule,
27:32
Speaker 1: mock or vilify a particular person right or event, or
27:37
Speaker 1: government or institution. And the moral of the story is
27:42
Speaker 1: I guess that eventually justice did catch up with Locusta.
27:47
Speaker 1: Is she history's first documented serial killer? Well, it depends
27:52
Speaker 1: on how you define it, because they the term serial
27:57
Speaker 1: killer didn't exist at the time. And then you know,
28:00
Speaker 1: if she's doing this as a job, she's essentially doing
28:03
Speaker 1: hits on people. Does that make all mafia or yakuza assassins?
28:09
Speaker 1: Does that make them serial killers? Are they just people
28:11
Speaker 1: doing a job for monetary game? That's the thing. And
28:14
Speaker 1: we also don't know because of how uh free to
28:18
Speaker 1: go about her Mary poisoning way she was if she
28:21
Speaker 1: didn't kind of get off on her a little bit,
28:23
Speaker 1: um get get some jollies from it, right, because the
28:26
Speaker 1: definition of a serial killer that we used today largely
28:29
Speaker 1: um implies some kind of abnormal release I guess that
28:33
Speaker 1: you get from doing it, or some kind of like
28:34
Speaker 1: you're compelled to do it, certainly, not just a functional
28:39
Speaker 1: day job kind of situation, right, yeah, absolutely, And I
28:44
Speaker 1: don't know. It's it's comforting to me that eventually justice
28:49
Speaker 1: was served, but it is terrifying to think that someone
28:52
Speaker 1: could be acting with impunity, literally above the law and
28:58
Speaker 1: have it been known thing. I'm sure there are different
29:00
Speaker 1: operators for different countries intelligence agencies who do stuff like this,
29:05
Speaker 1: who are you know, legally required at times to take lives?
29:09
Speaker 1: But this to be so blatant is surprising. And if
29:13
Speaker 1: if even even some of this stuff is true, this
29:17
Speaker 1: person was a monster, a real monster in the fourteen
29:20
Speaker 1: year old boy poisoning where nobody would help him as
29:24
Speaker 1: he kicked and screamed and convulsed on the floor during
29:27
Speaker 1: a dinner party. Horrific. That's pretty horrific. So that that
29:32
Speaker 1: is the story of Locusta. And and one thing that
29:36
Speaker 1: we are running into with our Halloweenie or Halloween Ish
29:42
Speaker 1: episodes is, uh, is this strange thing at the end
29:45
Speaker 1: where we get to we get to the conclusion of
29:48
Speaker 1: a tale and it's a real downer. We went through
29:50
Speaker 1: something dark and grim. We've got to bring the mood
29:53
Speaker 1: up Noel, there's only one way to do it, and
29:55
Speaker 1: I think you know what it is. Boy do I? Ever?
30:01
Speaker 1: It's listener Mail Ben, and our first mail comes from
30:04
Speaker 1: a Umi who writes, Hello, Historians. I'm listening to your
30:07
Speaker 1: episode A Dead Pope goes to court and you were
30:09
Speaker 1: wondering about mock accents and other English speaking places. Now
30:13
Speaker 1: I'm Americans, so I don't know firsthand, but much like
30:15
Speaker 1: with other foreign languages, a lot of English textbooks explore
30:18
Speaker 1: and show examples of English and different accents, up to
30:21
Speaker 1: and including foreign accents. I have one textbook that I
30:24
Speaker 1: use with high level English as foreign language speakers. That
30:27
Speaker 1: that's from the UK, and the listening features conversations and monologues.
30:31
Speaker 1: They want to showcase many accents. However, for me, it's
30:34
Speaker 1: incredibly obvious that all the voices are being done by
30:36
Speaker 1: English people who are putting on accents, and they do
30:40
Speaker 1: include that Italian accent with a character actually named a
30:44
Speaker 1: Mario uh, and over the top Spanish accent for a
30:47
Speaker 1: character asking a friend if he would like more PAA.
30:51
Speaker 1: I know it's something Americans do professionally too, so we're
30:54
Speaker 1: no better. But I thought you might like to know
30:56
Speaker 1: about that cheers, Umi, that's all. That's great. Thank you
31:00
Speaker 1: for thank you for writing in. You've written in a
31:02
Speaker 1: couple of times. We always love to hear from you.
31:05
Speaker 1: And we want to be very clear here that whenever
31:08
Speaker 1: we're doing of course it should go without saying, but
31:10
Speaker 1: let's say it, whenever we are doing uh funny voices
31:14
Speaker 1: or accents, we're we're absolutely not trying to be derogatory
31:18
Speaker 1: at all. We just we sometimes think we're funny. We're
31:22
Speaker 1: not even we're not even really uh so much making
31:25
Speaker 1: fun of Richard Nixon as we are enjoying doing that
31:28
Speaker 1: voice making fun of ourselves. Because if you can't do that,
31:31
Speaker 1: then you know, what good are you? Exactly if you
31:33
Speaker 1: can't laugh at yourself. Uh, here's a speaking of however,
31:37
Speaker 1: there's a good segue speaking speaking of uh being derogatory
31:41
Speaker 1: or using pejorative language. We'd like to read a short
31:45
Speaker 1: and sweet letter from Aaron m. Aaron, you write in
31:48
Speaker 1: and gave us and you give us some nicknames here
31:50
Speaker 1: you say Vito, Ben and null Sapien. I think you
31:54
Speaker 1: all should do a segment on ridiculous historical insults. I
31:58
Speaker 1: thought you'd find the link but comical and entertaining. This
32:02
Speaker 1: is from Aaron in Chicago, and there are some great
32:06
Speaker 1: insults in this in this sourci sentence from Oxford. I
32:11
Speaker 1: don't know if you have pulled this up or got
32:13
Speaker 1: a chance to look at it. But there's a flibberty
32:15
Speaker 1: gibbet flippity gibbet. Is it jibby because it's in uh,
32:22
Speaker 1: it's in a song from the Sound of Music, um
32:24
Speaker 1: called nobody has a problem, like Marie, how do you
32:28
Speaker 1: solve a problem? Like? It's like a flippity gibbet, a
32:31
Speaker 1: with of the wisp, A clown, yeah, a chattering or
32:34
Speaker 1: gossiping person. And then there's a foozle. Now that's one.
32:38
Speaker 1: I don't know what I love. It sounds like it
32:40
Speaker 1: sounds like something from like a Dr SEUs book. Someone
32:42
Speaker 1: who's behind the times, a foozl, a foozel. There's celebbrity gullion,
32:47
Speaker 1: a slobbery or dirty fellow, okay, kind of soiled or stained.
32:53
Speaker 1: There's this one sounds dirty. It's not a curse word,
32:55
Speaker 1: but just sounds dirty. Shot clog, like a shot clog
33:01
Speaker 1: is someone who's unwelcome in a social situation but tolerated
33:07
Speaker 1: because he's paying the bill for everyone. He's a shot clog,
33:12
Speaker 1: and I don't want to spoil the surprise with more. Uh,
33:14
Speaker 1: Suffice to say, Aaron, thank you so much for sending
33:17
Speaker 1: us some of these cool, archaic, ridiculous historical insults. Do
33:23
Speaker 1: did you hear anything that particularly called to you? No?
33:26
Speaker 1: Not on that email. I actually haven't seen it. I okay,
33:29
Speaker 1: I need to dig it up now because I am intrigued. Well,
33:31
Speaker 1: thank you to Aaron and a Umi, and thank you
33:34
Speaker 1: to everyone for joining us on this strange journey. Huge
33:38
Speaker 1: shout out to our guests, super producer Paul Deckett, and
33:42
Speaker 1: even though he's abandoned us, he's still give a shout
33:45
Speaker 1: out to Casey and Absentia, and also to Alex Williams
33:50
Speaker 1: who composed our theme. And thanks to our research associates
33:54
Speaker 1: Eve's Jeff Cote and Christopher hassi Urs and you know,
33:57
Speaker 1: thanks to you, Ben, and thanks to you Nol. I
34:00
Speaker 1: was looking at you. Thanks to both of us for
34:02
Speaker 1: not poisoning people for a living. I think podcasting, while
34:06
Speaker 1: not the most noble of professions, is better than being
34:09
Speaker 1: a poisoner, right, how dare you? It's as no, it's
34:13
Speaker 1: as noble as it gets. It's better than poisoning people,
34:17
Speaker 1: We're getting people through their shifts, man. Yeah, that's the ticket,
34:21
Speaker 1: or night shifts, for their day shifts or you know
34:24
Speaker 1: whatever shift, their shifting shifts. Indeed,