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Bet On It · 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 right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Ask anyone to give you
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  Speaker 1: a list of their most sought after treasures, and they're
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  Speaker 1: probably going to use a particular phrase about that list.
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  Speaker 1: Everything on it would be a dream come true. And
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  Speaker 1: that's the beauty of dreams, right. They have no limits,
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  Speaker 1: no boundaries, and sadly, no probability of actually happening, which
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  Speaker 1: is why the phrase dream come true has so much power.
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  Speaker 1: Whenever someone wins the lottery or lands that promotion they
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  Speaker 1: work so hard for. To everyone around them, their dreams
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  Speaker 1: had just come true and it can't get much better
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  Speaker 1: than that. But not every dream come true is received well.
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  Speaker 1: Take for example, the story of John Godly, known to
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  Speaker 1: the history books as Lord Kilbracken from Ireland because what
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  Speaker 1: happened to him just after World War Two was both
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  Speaker 1: amazing and, at least to him, more than a little disturbing.
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  Speaker 1: In the late nineteen forties, John was a student in Oxford,
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  Speaker 1: working hard and studying late into the nights, as most
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  Speaker 1: students in his position would do. But when sleep did
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  Speaker 1: finally come to John, it sometimes filled him with the
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  Speaker 1: most unusual ideas. You see, despite the fact that John
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  Speaker 1: wasn't a gambling man, his dreams were filled with visions
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  Speaker 1: of horse races. One day, after a particularly vivid dream
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  Speaker 1: featuring two separate races, John mentioned the details to a friend,
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  Speaker 1: who raised his eyebrows in response. John had described two horses,
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  Speaker 1: one named Bindle and the other named Giladdin, and then
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  Speaker 1: described how each of them won their race. His friend
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  Speaker 1: showed him a newspaper which listed horses with those exact
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  Speaker 1: names running in races. The following day, at his friends urging,
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  Speaker 1: John bet on both winners from his dream, despite the
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  Speaker 1: horrible odds, and then waited for the results. When it
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  Speaker 1: was over, John had made a small fortune because both
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  Speaker 1: dream horses had actually won their respective races. Most of
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  Speaker 1: us would have been elated, and perhaps John was for
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  Speaker 1: a while, But soon enough friends began to pester him
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  Speaker 1: for new picks, hoping to strike it rich with John's help,
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  Speaker 1: And it seems that all the attention began to wear
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  Speaker 1: on John's patients, so instead of giving them tips, he
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  Speaker 1: did the next best thing. He moved back to Ireland
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  Speaker 1: to get away from all of them, but John couldn't
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  Speaker 1: get away from his dreams. Later, not too long after
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  Speaker 1: settling in at his family's estates, he had another horse
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  Speaker 1: race dream, this one featuring a winner named Tubermore. Upon waking,
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  Speaker 1: John researched the horse name and found that there was
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  Speaker 1: a horse running in the famous Grand National that same
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  Speaker 1: day by the name of tu Burrows. Despite horrible odds
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  Speaker 1: of about seventeen to one, John bet on it, and
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  Speaker 1: one three months later, another dream to another bet, this
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  Speaker 1: time on a horse named Monumental. The real horse had
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  Speaker 1: an eerily similar name and netted him another hefty payday,
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  Speaker 1: and those big victories tempted John into more frequent betting.
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  Speaker 1: But whether the dreams failed him or he began to
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  Speaker 1: bet without their help, he soon realized how destructive his
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  Speaker 1: gambling habit could become, and so he decided to quit,
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  Speaker 1: and after that the dreams became much less frequent. A
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  Speaker 1: whole decade went by with only a handful of dreams.
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  Speaker 1: Most of them proved to be true, but every now
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  Speaker 1: and then the dream would steer him wrong. John was
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  Speaker 1: increasingly becoming gunshy with his predictions. And those losses must
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  Speaker 1: have stung more than a little bit. Losing money is
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  Speaker 1: never fun after all. His last dream arrived in June
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  Speaker 1: of ninety eight, just a day before the annual Grand National.
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  Speaker 1: In this dream, the winner was a horse named What Man,
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  Speaker 1: but John couldn't find that name listed in the paper.
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  Speaker 1: The closest he could find was a horse named Mr. Watt,
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  Speaker 1: and after wrestling with his options, he decided to have
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  Speaker 1: eight in the dream and bet on the horse. Mr.
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  Speaker 1: What proved to be a good call, and John took
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  Speaker 1: home a tidy sum of money. After that, though his
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  Speaker 1: dreams came to an end. John Godly never again dreamt
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  Speaker 1: of horse racing, and as a result, his gambling career
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  Speaker 1: was over. And from what I can tell, John was
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  Speaker 1: all right with that, because if there's anything to learn
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  Speaker 1: from his experience with it all, it's that sometimes getting
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  Speaker 1: what you hope for is a lot less satisfying than
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  Speaker 1: you might imagine. In fact, it can lead you down
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  Speaker 1: a dangerous path, one full of a tenuous balance between
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  Speaker 1: risk and reward. It seems the old adage might be
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  Speaker 1: a bit misleading. Not every dream come true is a
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  Speaker 1: dream come true. Hill Beachy was a man with a dream, well,
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  Speaker 1: considering the contents of his it was more of a
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  Speaker 1: nightmare really. In it, Hill watched with horror as a
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  Speaker 1: shadowy figure cut his friend Lloyd McGruder down with the hatchet.
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  Speaker 1: The killer then placed his boot on mcgruder's chest and
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  Speaker 1: tugged the weapon free, And as the man straightened up,
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  Speaker 1: he seemed to look directly towards Hill beachy, and that's
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  Speaker 1: when a bit of light fell across his face. In
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  Speaker 1: that moment, Hill knew exactly what his friend's killer looked like.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, dreams aren't real, and that's exactly what Hill's
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  Speaker 1: wife told him the next morning. But he couldn't shake
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  Speaker 1: the feeling that something bad was going to happen, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe already had. Lloyd McGruder was a good friend and
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  Speaker 1: he'd be sad to see the man get hurt. The
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  Speaker 1: trouble was, McGruder wasn't around to warn. Lloyd was the
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  Speaker 1: owner of the general store in Lewiston, a small community
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  Speaker 1: in what is now the state of Montana. Back in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three, someone discovered gold about two hundred miles
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  Speaker 1: to the south in alder Gulch, attracting a flood of
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  Speaker 1: prospectors and fortune seekers to town. Unknown to Hill Beachy,
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  Speaker 1: Lloyd Magruder was already dead. It seems that he had
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  Speaker 1: loaded up his wagons with just about every bit of
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  Speaker 1: inventory he could find, and then rode south to set
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  Speaker 1: up shop for a few days in alder Gulch. When
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  Speaker 1: he was finished, he headed home, wagons empty but pockets full.
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  Speaker 1: Being in the right place at the right time had
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  Speaker 1: made McGruder rich. And when you live in a town
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  Speaker 1: of wandering strangers and literal gold diggers, that had a
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  Speaker 1: way of putting a target on a person's back. So
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  Speaker 1: Hill Beachy's fear for his friend's safety wasn't misplaced. It
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  Speaker 1: was just unreasonable, considering the only information he had came
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  Speaker 1: from a dream. But Hill's dream had been accurate, because
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  Speaker 1: as Lloyd McGruder traveled home that week in the winter
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  Speaker 1: of early eighteen sixty five, he wasn't alone. A handful
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  Speaker 1: of miners had decided to leave the digging and returned
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  Speaker 1: to town with him, and together they had all ridden north,
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  Speaker 1: and joining them on that journey was a group of
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  Speaker 1: four strange men, Doc Howard, Chris Lowry, William Page and
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  Speaker 1: Jim Romaine. But those four men weren't just strangers. They
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  Speaker 1: were hardened criminals freshly escaped from jail, and they didn't
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  Speaker 1: see empty wagons. No, they saw opportunity as well as
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  Speaker 1: saddle bags full of cash and gold. So they tagged
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  Speaker 1: along and waited for their moment. When that moment arrived,
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  Speaker 1: the four criminals killed Lloyd Magruder and the other miners
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  Speaker 1: in their sleep. Then they tossed the bodies over the
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  Speaker 1: edge of a canyon, gathered up all of the money
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  Speaker 1: and gold and even the horses, and then made their
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  Speaker 1: way back to town. And with the snow storm covering
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  Speaker 1: their tracks with a nice layer of white powder, it
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  Speaker 1: seemed that no one would ever be able to connect
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  Speaker 1: them to the crime. But they soon made a mistake.
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  Speaker 1: They chose to stay the night at the Luna Hotel
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  Speaker 1: in Lewistown. The hotel, as fate would have it, owned
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  Speaker 1: and operated by Hill Beachy, and when he looked up
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  Speaker 1: from his seat behind the desk, he felt the cold
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  Speaker 1: hand grip his heart at the sight of his friend's killer.
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  Speaker 1: Convinced that the dream was more than just a bit
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  Speaker 1: of imagination run a muck, Beachy later snuck to the stables,
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  Speaker 1: where he found confirmation of his fears horses the men
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  Speaker 1: rode in on, as well as their saddles, belonged to McGruder.
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  Speaker 1: The rest of the adventure is a bit of a journey,
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  Speaker 1: and it took several weeks for it all to come
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  Speaker 1: to a close. In the end, the criminals were finally
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  Speaker 1: tracked down to San Francisco, where they had gone to
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  Speaker 1: have their stolen gold minted into coins. Hill Beachy actually
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  Speaker 1: traveled there to help in their arrest, and after tricking
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  Speaker 1: one of them to reveal incriminating details, the authorities were
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  Speaker 1: led to the location of Lloyd mcgruder's body, a body
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  Speaker 1: with a hatchet wound in the head and a bloody
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  Speaker 1: bootprint on the chest, just as hill Beachy had dreamed.
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  Speaker 1: On March three of eighteen sixty five, three of the
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  Speaker 1: four criminals hanged for the murder of Lloyd Magruder, and
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  Speaker 1: the adventure came to an end. Better yet, Mcgruder's widow, Maggie,
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  Speaker 1: was given all of the stolen money, a bag of
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  Speaker 1: freshly minted gold coins that would be worth close to
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  Speaker 1: a quarter of a million dollars today. It wouldn't bring
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  Speaker 1: her husband back, but it would servely help her build
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  Speaker 1: a new life without him. It's fair to say that
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  Speaker 1: if it weren't for an eerily accurate dream, it's very
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  Speaker 1: likely that those men would have gotten away with murder,
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  Speaker 1: and the disappearance of Lloyd McGruder would never have been solved.
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  Speaker 1: Many criminals dream of the perfect crime, and they just
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  Speaker 1: about managed to pull it off. The trouble was someone
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  Speaker 1: else dreamt of it too. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
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  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
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  Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
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  Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Ye