Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey weirdos, before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about a place where the darkness never ends. Wondery Plus. It's like stepping into a haunted mansion where the floorboards creak with ad-free episodes and early access to new episodes lurks around every corner. So come join us, if you dare. Morbid is available one week early and ad-free only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or an Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Alina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. Morbid.
And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but for you, it's probably June.
I was like, nope, nope. I was like, I'm going somewhere with this. I'm going somewhere with this. Me and Mikey both were like, no, oh, nope, nope. It's not that. I was like, for me it is. Give me a moment. Just let me live. Yeah. It's literally almost Kermis for us. We're five days out. It's the new year for you. It's 2025. What's it like in the future? It's been the new year for you. Yeah. Is it cool there? I hope so. Is everything better? What are the drones doing in 2025? Oh my God, I was just going to say that.
They could abduct me. It's fine. It's not aliens. I was going to say they won't because it's not aliens. It's the government. So I don't want them to abduct me. No, I'm not saying the government. I would like aliens to come through and pick me up because I'm scared. Because I'm scared. Can you pick me up, aliens? I'm just kind of complacent now. That's like scary for you, though. Yeah, I'm like numb to it. I'm just like, well...
It is what it is. I got that too. It's so funny. I had like, welcome to my therapy sessions. I had like the worst end of the world anxiety for a long time, like especially this year. Yeah. I think just like the mental state that I was in really fed to that. Yeah. Fed that. But now I'm just like, I feel like one, people have always thought the world was ending. Absolutely. And that helps me immensely. Literally always. It's fine. And then...
Can't do anything about it. Yeah, so like why? My therapist like really did some great fucking work on my mind. Yeah, she did. Yeah. Shout out to her. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists throughout the years. There's been like eight of them. Pour one out for all your therapists. Pour one out for each of them. Each one of them. Each one. Each one. Well, I have an interesting case for us today that has nothing to do with therapy and everything to do with robbery. Well, there we go. We told you we were going to give you a little palate cleanser-y thing.
kind of thing. Yeah, it's definitely palate cleansery. This has just like, put them up, fella. She's got a transatlantic accent. Yes, 100%. She's got the bob haircut. Yeah, there's so many quotes throughout this and I don't know if I'm great at a transatlantic accent, but I'm definitely going to try. That one was interesting, but I have faith in you. No, that's fair. I'm also really tired. My heels. No, it wasn't good.
It was honestly, it was, oh, Mikey's worried that everyone's going to come after me. Probably. Listen, he left me. Sorry. You better. No, it was awesome. That was such a good transition. Oh, Matt, I'm really going to come after you because that was fake as fuck. No, but I wish everybody saw the finger guns that went along with it because it really added to it. I liked it. Yeah. You know, I do what I can. Yeah. I'm going to punch Ash in the face after this. Guys, she hits me a lot all the time. It's crazy. Yeah.
I don't know how to transition out of that. I was like, where do we go from here? Leave all the lights on, please.
All right, all right, all right. So robbery, transatlantic accent, and ladies. And what is this case called? It has a fun name. It's called, and you already know because you pressed the episode, but for those of you who didn't read it, the Bobbed Haired Bandit. See, that's what I'm talking about. The Bobbed Haired Bandit. That's what we need after the Blackout Ripper. And you know what? I have a fuck-ass bob right now.
You do have a fuck-ass bob. So I feel seen. And my hairdresser just had her baby, so I'm gonna have a fuck-ass bob for longer than I thought, which is totally fine. Welcome to the world, T. But it was the perfect time to do this story. Absolutely. You and your fuck-ass bob. I'm cementing in my fuck-ass bobdom, and let's go. Fuck-ass bob.
Bobbed him. I like that. Fuck ass bobbed him. I like it. Our hashtag still a thing. Use that. Let's go. I'm old. All right. A little past 930 on the evening of January 5th, 1924, one Lester Loudon. That's his name. Lester. Lester. Isn't that a cute name? Huh. Like Lester Holt. I love him. Lester Loudon. Lester Loudon. He was working at the Thomas Rulston Grocery in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
That night had been pretty quiet, and as the evening was going on, fewer and fewer customers were coming in. The store was completely empty when a young woman entered, and let me tell you, baby, she was serving looks.
She was wearing a seal fur coat over a beautifully beaded dress. It looked like she was on her way to a party. Oh, damn. He said, who's that girl in her fuck ass bob? He didn't even know who Madonna was yet, so it was crazy. But the woman approached the counter where he was standing and she had her hands in her coat pockets and she just said, hello, can I have a dozen eggs? I can't do transatlanticism, so...
Hashtag death cab for cutie. It's a great song. It really is. It gets you crying. Oh, it does. Oh, all right. Well, as Loudon was wrapping up the eggs for this beautiful young woman, she took a few steps back from the counter and pulled out a 25 automatic pistol from that seal fur coat. And she shouted at him, stick them up quick.
She did like a Mae West style. That was my best shirt. Impressive. Bitch. She said, I'm happy to see you and it's a gun. Wait, you're good at it. Don't do that. This is my episode and not yours. Damn it.
But he immediately threw them hands in the air like he did care. Like he did care. He cared very much in that moment. He deeply cared. He was obviously focused on the woman in front of him with a giant pistol. But he also noticed that in the time it had taken him to get the ass. What? I was just going to say eggs, but then my mouth went to say ass. The ass. I don't know. It's a romantic vibe in this fucking low grocery store.
It's the end of the year. I'm so tired. I'm like, she didn't want the eggs. I want the eggs. And the time it had taken to get the eggs. I'm getting eggs today. Happy eggs. Yay, me too. A man had entered the store and was now corralling the other clerks to the back of a store. He was like, everybody back here. Another woman. Everybody back here now. Yeah.
The woman motioned for Loudon to join the other clerks. She was like, go on, get back there. And she held her gun on all of them. And the man shouted to her, hold him back, as he started rifling through the register, stuffing bills and handfuls of coins into his pocket.
That night also, one of the clerks hadn't pushed the cash envelope all the way into the safe. So they were also able to get that as well. Once they grabbed all the cash in the store, $680 in total back then, which doesn't sound like a ton. That would be $12,545 today. Holy shit. Because this is 1924.
The roaring 20s. They got all that money and they started backing away in the direction of the door. And the man yelled, don't make a move. If you want your head blown off, just try to follow us out. Oh, I liked that one. Yeah. I liked that. There was also some more finger guns. Because he's backing out with guns. He said, if you want your head blown off, just try to follow us out. Don't make a move. Don't make any moves.
Outside, they jumped into their car that was parked across the street and they drove off, leaving the six clerks just huddled in the back of the store like, what the fuck just happened here? Damn. And probably traumatized. Probably. So to the police and the public, the robbery of the grocery store wasn't that shocking. It wasn't that surprising. The economy was trending downward in New York at the time. We're entering the Great Depression. It was pretty jazzy. It was, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Shit was popping off. A lot of men were out of work. It was also the time of prohibition. So crime in general was on the rise between bootleggers and organized crime rings. It was fucking wild in the New York streets. Yeah.
In New York, the press dubbed 1923 the gunman's year, noting that 270 murders had been committed with guns that year, many in the commission of armed robbery. So this, unfortunately, wasn't like a new concept to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. And all of this culminated in a culture of criminality that New Yorkers simply came to accept as a reality of life in the city at this point.
On a smaller level, it kind of reminds me of what you were talking about with the blackouts in the Blackout Ripper story. It's like the setting really – the setting and the time period really add to the vibe of the overall story. Oh, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So while most people weren't super interested in the news of the robbery, what did catch people's attention was the fact that one of the robbers and the one who seemed to take the lead was a woman. And not just a woman, but she was young and she was fashionable. Sure.
She was hot. She was hot. She was a hot girl. She was smoking. She did hot shit, like robbing grocery stores. Yeah, hot girl shit. Don't do that. Yeah, don't do that. But for many New Yorkers, especially the older residents, the woman's clothing and specifically her hairstyle were very symbolic of this youth culture that was emerging during this specific period. Ooh.
You know who I'm talking? I'm talking flappers. Flappers. Flappers were young, sexually liberated women, especially compared to generations before them. And they just didn't give a shit when it came to things like dancing, drinking, and mixed gender socialization. Oh my goodness. They were talking to boys. She's committing capers over here. It's crazy. According to author Stephen Duncombe, older generations came to view the bobbed hairstyle as a, quote,
Are you ready? Symptom of the mentally defective. I'm obsessed with that. The bobbed hairstyle was a symptom of the mentally defective. And they even blamed this hairstyle for quote unquote breaking up marriages. Absolutely. And then I wrote in my notes today we call it a fuck ass bob. A fuck ass bob. And I got one.
So the outrages over flappers and supposedly loose women was pretty much just like a moral panic, very similar to satanic panic. It's when the older generations are like, oh my God, the youth is crazy. It's always happened. But the fact that one of these robbers appeared to fall into that category of crazy youth only strengthened the belief among many that young people were heading in a very dangerous and even criminal direction.
So already under pressure. Because they're fuck-ass bobs. Because they're fuck-ass bobs. Thank you. So already under pressure to do something about street crime in the city, Brooklyn police acted very quickly. And within a week, they arrested 22-year-old Helen Quigley, a former burlesque dancer. Oh, come on. She was just living with her father in Brooklyn. A few days earlier, her boyfriend, Vincent Apples Kowalski...
This is such a case. What a time to be alive. What a time. I'm dating Apples Kowalski. That's right. Who isn't? You know. You know what? Yes. You know who isn't.
So a few days before she had been arrested, Apples there had been picked up on suspicion of robbery and wasted no time in confessing and also implicating Helen as his accomplice. Wow. Loyalty. I know. Seriously. They did bear a slight resemblance to the two who had robbed the Rolston grocery. And they were actually even picked out of a photo lineup by Lester Loden.
But Helen Quigley insisted that she had nothing to do with the robbery or any of the other holdups in the area. She said, you got me wrong. Why I'm so afraid of a gun, I can hardly look at one. I like that. I try. I'm really, really trying. Yeah, you're starting to embody it. Thank you. I automatically go Southern when I try to do an accent. I mean, transatlantic accents have like a hint of Southern to it. So you're on there. All right. Thank you. I like it. But she said, you got me wrong.
You got me wrong. Now, despite her declaration of innocence, she was the embodiment of the 1920s flapper, right down to her very casual demeanor when she was faced with arrest. When police went to her dad's house to arrest her, she, quote, calmly asked if she could finish drying the supper dishes before they brought her in for questioning. Priorities, you know? They said, ma'am, you're under arrest for robbery. And she said, my dad's going to get pissed if I don't clean up dinner. Yeah, she's like, you think I want to leave that in the sink? Fair enough. Think we want rodents in here? You know?
It is New York. But according to Helen, she did have a date with Apples Kowalski on the night of the murder, but he never showed up.
That's so like Apples. You had his number from the very beginning. Of course I did. Apples, Kowalski, come on. She even Helen knew. Yeah. So she was like, whatever. She didn't give a fuck. She was like, I just stayed home that night. Other than that, she called Kowalski a dirty rat and a squealer. That's right. But she didn't say much else during the hours-long interrogation. Damn. The press and the police were completely certain that she was the bobbed-haired bandit who had robbed several stores in South Brooklyn neighborhoods.
But that was certainly shaken just a few days later when another store was robbed. This time it was a Weinstein's drugstore.
According to Lewis Hecht, the clerk who was at the Weinsteins that night, this is rude, a, quote, chunky bobbed-haired girl and her boyfriend entered the store and immediately pointed the gun at him, demanding the cash in the register. After pocketing the cash and looting the store, the girl handed him a note and told him to give it to Captain Carey of the Detective Bureau. Oh, my God. They're, like, going, they're, like, let's communicate with the cops? Full send. Yes. Mm.
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The note read, You dirty fish peddling bums. Leave this innocent girl, Helen Quigley, alone and get the right ones, which is nobody but us. And we are going to give Mr. Hogan, the manager of Rolston's on 7 Ave. another visit as we got two checks we couldn't cash. And also ask Bohack's manager, did I ruin his cash register? Also, I will visit him again as I broke a perfectly good automatic on it. We defy you fellows to catch us. Ha!
I'm so obsessed. The fact that she was like, you fucking bums. No, no, no. She didn't say that. An innocent girl. You dirty fish peddling bums. Dirty fish peddling bums. You got the wrong girl in there.
Looks like you got the wrong girl. I beg of us to do better and to speak like this again. To speak better. Call people dirty fish peddling bums. Honestly, that's a great insult. It's chef's... Like, I can't think of something better. You know, I was looking up 1920s slang because I'm going to try to throw it in here as we go. I love you. To go on a drinking spree on a toot. On a toot.
Oh, you know, he's a... You know where Apple's is. He's just out on a toot. On a toot. That's what your kids call a fart. So it makes it even funnier. It's so funny. Like everything was funnier. It really was. Like I know life was not funnier because like, you know...
The depression looming and all that shit. But they added so much to it to make it worthwhile. I was going to say, it was the stuff like this, like the linguistics of the time. It's so good. So good. So the note was signed, the bobbed-haired bandit and companion. I love that she called herself.
the bob-haired bandit. Yeah, I think they had already dubbed her at that point and she was like, it's me. But I love that she was like, I'll take it. And companion. And my companion. Like he's not. Yeah, my man. Companion. That egg over there. I love it. So this note seemed to have been written explicitly for the purpose of proving the innocence of Helen Quigley and her man Apples there. Good for her. She's trying to get that girl out. She's like, it's me.
At that point, those Apples and Helen Quigley had been arraigned on robbery and assault charges. Oh. So they're like headed for the big house. Oh, damn. But by the time they received the note, Captains Carey and Sullivan had actually started to question whether Helen was actually guilty. And the latest robbery at the Weinsteins seemed to indicate that she probably wasn't the bandit. Yeah. So after Helen Quigley and Apple Kowalski's arraignment, I keep wanting to say arrangement.
You can say that. It's arranged. It's arranged. Their arraignment and the announcement that they would be held on $20,000 bond. Another letter arrived for the police, and this one was more forceful than the last. The writer said, Why don't you see that Helen Quigley is let go? You cops are rotten, as she ain't guilty. If you can't find the guilty party, grab the first one you get a hold of, if you hold a grudge against them. Wow. She said, You guys are filthy and fake. She said, Wow, you're real dumb. Pretty much.
Unfortunately, the note had the opposite effect that the writer intended. The judge actually doubled Quigley and Kowalski's bond. Damn. And was pretty certain that the writer was just a third accomplice trying to weaken their case against the pair. But as the robberies continued, so did the letters to the police and to members of the press. On January 22nd, the editor of the Standard Union received a note that read, I must say we have a wonderful police force. They must all be asleep. Whew.
Cold nights are the best to stick people up. The cops and bulls have hangouts and are always in on cold, wet nights. I passed two cops and bulls standing on Fulton Street and Bedford Avenue Saturday night. I asked one of them where Keeney's Theater was and they directed me. I almost laughed in their faces to think they were talking to the one they were looking for and can plainly see they blind or asleep.
She's... I'm not condoning anything that she has done. No. It's kind of iconic. No, it's truly iconic. It's kind of iconic. She said... She's like, I was right in your face. She said, LOL. And you got the wrong person. I'm telling you, you got the wrong person and you're still not letting her go. Yeah. Like, damn. I love what she's doing. Damn.
So by late January, store clerks and residents were seeing the bandit and her companion all over Brooklyn. On January 21st, a grocer in Brooklyn claimed he'd been robbed of $600 by the pair, who escaped in a car that they had parked around the corner. Which obviously, like, that part is not great, because you're like, these grocers do not deserve to be... Terrorized. ...losing their...
Their work. You know what I mean? Like their, you know, what they use to put food on their table. And like the clerks being scared to go to work. Exactly. Like none of that is cool. Her notes are hilarious to the cops. Just to clarify. Yeah. But that same night that the other robbery happened, four, quote, boy bandits, ranging in age from 14. Boy bandits? Boy bandits. Ranging in age from 14 to 18, held up several stores in the Bronx and took more than $700. My God. Which would be $13,000.
thousand dollars in today's money. Get it together, everyone. I'm like, how did you hide that from your parents? Damn. Now, even though there was no apparent connection between these and the other holdups, the press still subtly implied that there was definitely an epidemic of violence and robberies being perpetrated by young people across the city. Damn. It's kind of just a fact.
One journalist wrote, every other night or so, the frightened proprietor of a chain grocery store would back away from a crouching, snarling little demon whose eyes blazed over the sights of an ugly automatic, a foul-mouthed fury who but a moment before had seemed in the background. Wow. Why can't we do better? Why can't we talk like this? Why can't we? They used to call policemen elbows. Shut the fuck, why? I need an explanation on that one. Call them elbows.
I love that. Yeah. I love that so much. Yeah. Well, with each new bandit letter published in the paper, the public had new material to inform the growing mockery and the jokes aimed at the police who were unable to catch the pair. After a run of particularly rainy days in late January, the Standard Union joked, if this weather keeps up, the girl with the bobbed hair may try her luck in getting away with a red hot stove. Whoa. Nice.
They said, the cops don't really work well during the rain, so she's going nuts. The increase in public criticism was very clearly starting to irritate city officials. In an article published in the New York Herald, Mayor John F. Hyland angrily told a reporter, there isn't any bobbed-haired bandit. That's only a myth.
You're just flimflamming us. I'm like, sir, she's been seen. She's been... She's been witnessed by several people who have been held up at these stores. Like, is everybody just making this up? Yeah, they just don't want to admit that. It's a hoax? You know what this is? There's a lady that's... Getting the best of them. Making us run for our money here, and we're not happy with it. Yeah, she should stay in the kitchen where she belongs. Yeah.
Whether he genuinely believed that or not, there was indeed a bobbed-haired bandit, and the failure to capture her was definitely starting to make the NYPD look like a bunch of idiots. They were so mad. And they were pissed. They were so mad. So on the night of January 26th, a contingent of 200 police officers, picture that, 200, scattered across neighborhoods all over Brooklyn intent on capturing the bobbed-haired bandit and her companion. I love companions.
Believing that the pair were sure to strike that night, as they had the previous five Saturdays, officers stood watch outside of grocery stores, drugstores, and even delis around the city, just waiting for that bandit to make a mistake.
And at that same time, another large group of officers were assigned to watch over the home of NYPD Commissioner Richard Enright after one of the bandit's notes referenced making a visit to the man's home. Oh, damn. But by the time the police had spread out their net, the bandit had already robbed eight businesses of nearly $2,000. Holy shit. Which would be $37,000 in today's cash. Dang.
And showed no signs of slowing down or even losing any kind of confidence. Because why slow down? They're not catching you. It's raining. I gotta go. Yeah, it's raining. However, despite that large-scale effort, there was no sign of the bandit that January 26th night.
And the next day, the press reported on yet another failure by the police. In the meantime, John Hyland expressed his complete support in Commissioner Enright and the NYPD, writing, It has always seemed to me a very regrettable feature of life in New York that some of the newspapers, consciously or unconsciously, aid in attempts to dislodge a fearless police commissioner.
Wow. She's like, it's the newspaper's fault. It's, yeah, obviously. That we can't catch this person who doesn't exist. Obviously it's the newspaper. It's like, you're the one who's saying that she doesn't even exist.
Exactly. But now, as far as he was concerned, the bobbed-haired bandit wasn't the problem. The press was. He already said that he thought she was a myth created by the press to sell papers. And he later said, true, occasionally a girl may commit a larceny, but there's surely no occasion for the scareheads about girl bandits. The scareheads. The scareheads. Nor for moralists to say that the town is infested with them. He's like, girl bandits aren't real.
That is exactly the energy that he is delivering. Girl bandits are fake. Girl bandits have cooties. No. There's only boy bandits. You can't be a girl bandit. No. Ugh. You're stupid. That's so funny. But he said he was confident that if they could crack down on the press and prevent them from fueling this public hysteria, the bobbed-haired bandit would just disappear and people would go on with their lives. Yeah. Grrrr.
Because the press had no interest or reason to stop reporting on the bandit. As long as she continued to pull off these robberies around the city, and as long as readers were interested in her antics, they were going to keep publishing the stories to sell those papers. Yeah. And they didn't give a shit how it made the police look. They were like, make yourselves look better.
By early February, the local papers honed in on a new theory detectives had been developing, and it was that despite all reports, the bobbed-haired bandit was not a woman at all, but perhaps a young man disguising himself by wearing young woman's clothing. Because once again, there's no way...
that this is a girl bandit. They said, a girl is not defying us like this. It must be a man. Yeah. While some may have found the theory more credible than others, just as many dismissed it as nonsense, noting that many of the witnesses, quote, described the bandit's feet and shoes as typically feminine and her walk as characteristic of a member of the weaker sex. Adorable. It makes me think of in Scream 1 when Stu is like,
No, there's no way a girl could have killed him. And Randy's like, it takes a man to do something like that. Oh my God, it's so true. That's the perfect quote for this. That's the vibe that I'm getting. It takes a man to do something like that. I love it. That's exactly what this is giving. That's the vibe.
Now the bandit and her companion, they did lay low for a few weeks and that was until early February when they were back at it again. Hell yeah. With the fuck ass bob. Hell yeah. She's getting out there with her glad rags. What's a glad rag? Tell us all about it. Fancy clothes. Oh my god. Her glad rags.
She's going to go commit a caper. Is that a crime? Yeah. A robbery? A crime. I love it. Yeah. Well, they were back on the job and they landed themselves right back on the front pages of the New York papers. A little after 10 p.m. on the evening of February 3rd, the bobbed-haired bandit entered an H.C. Bohat grocery store on Lafayette Street and approached the counter wearing what the press described as a saucy turban trimmed with fur. Oh.
Oh, a saucy turban. Now, despite the late hour, there were still several store clerks behind the counter and actually three customers waiting in line.
When she reached the counter, the bandit asked the butcher, Peter Crossman, for a whole chicken. She said, one whole chicken, please. Me too. Same. He disappeared into the deli, and when he returned with the chicken, the bandit pulled a revolver from her coat pocket and said, one peep and you're a dead butcher. She said, hey, grab a little air. Ha ha ha.
That's also slang. What does that mean? That means put your hands up. Grab a little air. I just love that she made like a chicken joke. Yeah, I love that. I love it. And you're a dead butcher. So the butcher dropped the chicken on the floor and threw his hands up in the air because again, he did care. Yeah, he grabbed a little air. The bandit then whistled and within seconds, her companion was by her side, pistol in hand. And I just picture her doing the like, the pinkies in the mouth kind of whistle. Oh yeah, the pinkies in the mouth whistle. Like, woo-woo. Hell yeah. I wish I could do that kind of whistle. The woo-woo.
She then directed Cosman and the other clerks to the back of the store. While the bandit kept everybody at the back of the store, the man went through the cash register, stuffing bills into his pockets. $150 in total that night. Today, that'd be about $2,700. Once they emptied the registers, they backed their way out of the store, loudly declaring that they would shoot anybody who made a move or yelled for the police. And once they got outside, they just jumped in their car and they sped off. And they said bye.
Doubt it. Oh. Boyd. Boyd. I love a Boyd.
Yeah. Seems a little hinky to me. She had a coat and a bob. I just want you to let that sink in. That's it.
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Unfortunately, when their robbery victims were shown photographs of this woman and her two accomplices, quote unquote, they all denied that she was the bandit. They said, no, that's not the girl. They said, no, she's just got a coat. And they said, okay, fine. And they arrested another young woman just one day later. They said, all right, Mary, it's not you, but I think it's Rose Moore. Yeah, me too. We're going to go arrest her. Yeah. And they arrested her after her mother reported her missing to the police. When a detective caught up with Rose,
She was wearing a seal skin coat and a pink hat over her bobbed ass hair. Over her bobbed ass hair. The arresting detective told the Brooklyn Eagle he was, quote, satisfied in his own mind that Rosemore and the notorious bobbed haired bandit Wiley and Defiant were one in the same.
Damn. Wow.
Fond of fun. You're a shitbag. He was like, you're having too much fun. I'm going to make them think you're a bandit. You have a fuck-ass bob. I'm going to put you in the big house. Men suck. Like, you're the worst. Are you kidding? You're horrible. And it's like her brother. It's like, shut the fuck up. Yeah, shut the fuck up, Kyle. Shut the fuck up, sibling. Like, get the fuck out of here. Yeah. She's having too much fun. I got to throw her in the big house. You're not my dad.
Yeah, get the fuck out of here. Well, by this point, Helen Quigley and Mary Cody were actually still in custody on suspicion of being... These poor people. They're just like... They're arresting more people while they have all the bobbed-haired girls in little holding cells. All of them.
Police were arresting or detaining anybody who fit the description of the bandit and her companion, desperate to close the case. And her companion. They were just desperate to close the case. They wanted to end all the public criticism. Meanwhile, as detectives interrogated Rose Moore, the real bandit continued writing notes, just taunting the police and condemning the press for printing lies about her. After an interview with the supposed bandit appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle, the editor received a note that read,
Dear sir, the interview you printed about the bobbed-haired bandit was a fake and you ought to be exposed. It seems to me that you would have more to do than sit down and just make things up. Personally, I think you are a bum. I have never been interviewed, as a matter of a fact, and I defy you. P.S. I also defy the police. A photographic copy of this letter has been turned over to the police of the popular street station. I think you are a bum. She does not get it.
I we need to start calling people bums. We do. We have to call people bums 2025. Yeah 2025 we're bringing back calling people bums. Personally I think you are a bum. Yeah. It should be said that while the bobbed haired bandit did write a lot of notes to the police and the press there were countless other fake notes. Oh I'm sure. Written by anonymous senders.
It's not always known which is which, but. But all of them are, they have such zest and flair. They do have such zest and flair. What else do they have? They're very hotsy totsy. They are very hotsy totsy. And you know what? We got a lot of bob haired patsies sitting in the big house right now. Tell me everything. What? Bob haired patsies? Yeah, patsies are people who are set up. A fool, a chump. A chump. And they're sitting in the big house in jail.
This is too much. I love it so much. I wish we were dressed like swanky. I know. I'm wearing sweatpants. We need to do a listener tale that's 1920s themed so we can go. Literally yesterday. I don't know how we do that, but we'll figure it out. We could just read regular tales and just decide to be 1920s. I love it.
I like it. Well, regardless, the letters became so popular with readers that the Brooklyn Eagle just continued collecting them and publishing them now on a weekly basis. Damn. Much to the irritation of the police. I imagine. Because not only did the letters make detectives look foolish for their inability to catch the bandit, but they also reminded New Yorkers that crime was still a big problem in the city, and that fact reflected very poorly on police commissioner Enright.
After a few weeks of downtime, the bandit popped up again in late February, this time wielding a pistol in each hand. She got one too. Oh, damn. And this was when she and her companion robbed the James Butler grocery in Brooklyn. By that point, the public had started mistakenly seeing the bandit everywhere. So when the woman entered the store wearing her, quote, three-quarter length sealskin coat and her black turban, one of the customers shouted, the bomb hit!
abandoned she's arrived here she is the pair went through their usual routine corralling the customers and the clerks to the back of the store while one of them went through the registers and then they backed out of the store with their guns drawn and said don't tell anybody and they said oh my god it's really a skirt what does she's a real skirt what's it mean a woman a woman oh my god it's a woman
It's a skirt bandit. As they made their way out of the door, the bandit shouted, give us ten minutes to get away or you'll be sorry!
This time, the total takeaway was less than $60, but still a good sum of money. That'd be about a thousand bucks today. Yeah. The latest string of robberies led the police to devise a new strategy, though, casting an even wider net and questioning nearly anyone who met even one of the bandits' descriptors. However, while this strategy was intended to catch the criminal, it had the unintended effect of scaring or just straight up inconveniencing the female members of the public.
Oh, damn. Yeah.
it's just encouraging their hair to grow like please every night they're like please grow faster that's how that works they're using rosemary oil biology the sentiment was shared by others in the beauty industry and only led to more criticism of the police and of course their inability to catch this bobbed haired bandit i love her another stylist told reporters it's a shame the way the police are playing hide and seek with the girl and letting her out with them all the time a
I love this. A police force of bobbed haired girls would catch her soon enough. She said, fuck that. Why don't we take all these bobbed haired arrestees and make them the police? Yeah, they're out here. They're tooting the wrong ringer. Yeah. You know? Is that like barking up the wrong tree? Asking the wrong person. I love it. Tooting up the wrong ringer.
Fortunately for the NYPD, it would not come to that. But I do love the image that conjures. I immediately thought of a bunch of fuck-ass bob-haired flappers just walking in, flashing about. Put them up! I love it. I love it. Oh, I want to be one.
The robberies continued into March, and of course, so did the sensational press coverage. Soon enough, the bandit was being celebrated by most as a kind of anti-hero, and obviously an early feminist figure pushing back on the suffocating norms and restrictions imposed by
By a world ruled of stinky, stupid men. There you go. One journalist wrote for the Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn's girl bandit is merely part of the great world revolt against authority and correct principles, using her energies on the only plane open to her in which she can revolt. Whoa. They said, she's got a bob and she's robbing people and fuck men. Yeah. She's in a week, sister. No. Love it. Love it.
By the end of March, Commissioner Enright was fucking pissed. And the NYPD and him had become so frustrated with the situation that he started to speak out to the press about how he might have to step into the investigation and bring the bandit in himself. He said, I had about reached the conclusion that I would have to go out and get her myself. I'm not so sure that she is not a shorthand man.
Oh, see, we can't, we can't just give it, it's a skirt. I'm like, no, she's a skirt and she's getting the best of you, Commissioner. And you're just upset about it. His comments were aimed at the critics of the police, but it's also clear from his statement that the bandit's gender was at least some degree of a threat to him. Oh, yeah. Otherwise, he would have never called it into question. Exactly. Asshole. I'm saying. For months, the bandit and her companion had been holding up drugstores. My favorite part, to be honest. Her companion. And groceries around the city. Yeah.
All without firing a single shot or harming anybody. No shots have been fired up to this point. Which, thankful for that. But that all changed on April 1st.
when the pair attempted to rob the payroll department of the National Biscuit Company, which is a company that I would love to support. I was going to say, that place is near and dear to my heart. Same. Now, the heist was to be the biggest of their career thus far, not only because it was supposed to be the biggest payout, but also because it occurred in broad daylight while a large number of clerks were present.
That morning, the couple actually hired a car to take them to the biscuit company, which I'm going to do that too. And I'm not going to rob them. I'm just going to buy a lot of biscuits. I'm getting a car to go to the biscuit company right now. Nabisco. National Biscuit Company. Nabisco. Oh my God. I never knew that. Mikey just told us Nabisco. Mikey just cracked the code. I never knew that. National Biscuit Company. What the fuck?
the fuck i'm gonna support them boom well when they boom when they arrived to nabisco the man pointed a gun at the driver arthur west and told him to get in the back of the car once west had been tied up and placed on the floor in the back seat the bandit took over the wheel and they continued to down the street to the national biscuit warehouse nabisco whoa whoa
Once they reached their destination, they parked on the street outside the warehouse and entered through the front door and climbed the stairs straight to the administrative offices. So on the second floor, the young woman walked to the caged-in payroll office, and she stepped up to the desk and handed the clerk, Nathan Mazzo, an envelope. Mazzo opened the envelope and took out the paper inside, but it appeared to be blank.
Oh. Oh.
The payroll office erupted into chaos as the clerks and secretaries started running, trying to escape the gunman. But the bandit kept focused on Mazzo, and the other man corralled the employees and forced them into a smaller office just adjacent to the payroll cage.
Now, as the staff began filing into the small office, Mazzo was last in line, and he appeared to make a move for the bandit's gun, grabbing her arm when he passed by her. The bandit fell back away from Mazzo, tumbling over a chair and falling to the floor.
Seeing what was happening, her companion fired two shots, hitting Mazzo in the arm, causing the man obviously to scream, and then the scene to erupt into chaos. Just erupted, yeah. Because fire has now been... You've now heard gunshots. Exactly. With everything having gone awry, the pair fled down the stairs and out to the car, with several National Biscuit drivers following behind them now. You know, they...
They were doing these little ones that were going well. At night. And they got to, they were putting on the ritz. They were high-hatting. I know what that's all about. High-hatting. They were getting swelled. They were. They were throwing on side, acting high-toned. Acting high-toned. Gotta keep it chill. You gotta chill out. How do you say chill out in 1920s? I think it's like, hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
You're simmered down. You got to cool your jets. Hold your horses. Keep your shirt on. I like keep your shirt on. Take it easy. Pipe down. Keep your hair on. Keep your hair on. Why do I feel like your ma right now? She doesn't really talk like that, but like kind of. But she kind of does. She has a 1920s vibe about her when she gets going. Why don't you be a Baba Lupus, baby? She does. She does the transcendent.
I just like the like high hat and getting swelled. And swelled. Getting too big for your breath. Keep your hair on. Keep your hair on.
Well, nobody's hair was on. Everybody was fucking terrified. They were getting swelled. They were getting rightfully swelled. They were acting way too high-toned. An ambulance and police arrived at the scene a short time later, and Nathan Mazza was taken to the hospital for treatment. A few blocks away, a patrolman came upon the Packard that the pair had arrived in. And the driver, Arthur West, was still tied up on the floor in the back. Oh!
The patrolman took the car and the driver to the nearest precinct, where he explained that he had picked up the couple at a hotel near Prospect Park and had driven them down to where the car had been found, at which point he was jumped by the couple and thrown into the back of the car. Oh, damn. He said he had not seen either passenger's face, but according to the press, quote, his description of both the girl and her companion tallied perfectly with that of the bobbed-haired bandit and her companion. Oh, okay.
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After 17 successful robberies. 17. 17. We just did the highlights here. Holy shit. The holdup of the National Biscuit Company, Nabisco, changed everything for the bandit and her companion. Wow. Where she was spoken of as an anti-hero, now the papers were accusing her and her companion as attempted murderers and announcing quite inaccurately that Mouzo's wounds will, quote, probably prove fatal.
They didn't. Okay. He was shot, which is very wrong. Absolutely. He was shot in the arm. Yeah. He's not going to die. A few days later, he himself would capitalize on the spotlight, giving interviews where he heroically claimed that he'd been reaching for the gun, not trying to remove the bandit's veil, as had been suggested by the police and the press.
He told a reporter, Believe me, if I got that gun, I would have saved the police a lot of trouble. I'd have killed them both. That's what I'm going to do next time. I'm going to get the gun and I'm going to shoot her. Honestly, I probably would have been as insufferable coming out of that. Oh, if you shoot me in the arm? Like, I would have come out and I would have been like, Next time, I'm getting that gun. I'm getting ya. Yeah. You shoot me in the arm, you're done. Yeah. But if Nathan Mazzo was fantasizing about a second visit from the bandit and her companion, he would be sadly disappointed. Yeah.
After months of robberies and obviously very intense press coverage, the bobbed-haired bandit and her companion seemingly disappeared. For weeks, NYPD officers and detectives spread out across the city in search of the bobbed-haired bandit and her companion. But the robberies had stopped altogether, and there was no sign of the infamous duo anywhere. Wow.
Finally, in mid-April, investigators got a break when they learned that the Parkers, who were the couple that hired the car and the driver that took them to the biscuit company, were 20-year-old Celia Cooney. 20? 20-year-old Celia Cooney and her 25-year-old husband, Ed. Ed. Ed.
Ed. Honestly, yeah, her companion is Ed. The couple lived in Brooklyn until recently when they gave up their apartment and told their landlord that they were moving down to Florida. NYPD detectives contacted authorities in Florida who put out an alert across the state. And in the early hours of April 21st, Celia and Ed Cooney were arrested at a rooming house in Jacksonville.
Damn. Is that her? Yeah. The bobbed haired bandit. She does look 20. She looks younger than that to be honest. Wow. So now who exactly were Celia and Ed Coon? Who were they? Well.
Celia was born into extreme poverty and raised along with seven brothers and sisters by a single mother who relied on her children to beg for money in the street. That's how bad things were. So she kind of, this was in her bones already. For most of her younger years, the family lived in a coal cellar until Celia was taken in by an aunt in Brooklyn when she was 14.
In 1918, she moved out on her own, and a few years later, in 1923, she met her now-husband, Ed, at a vaudeville theater on Fulton Street. I love that.
I love that. That's so 1920s. Like, that's so of the time. And it's a beautiful love story, to be honest. She later remembered that night saying, I thought I'd blow 30 cents taking in a show and hoping to run into some friends. But by the end of the night, she struck up a conversation with the man next to her. And as the picture came to an end, she had fallen in love with Ed's quote unquote, wonderful smile.
Oh my god, right? That's actually really sweet. They dated for a few months before they decided to get married on May 18th, 1923. And Celia said, I'd never been so happy in my life, but we weren't saving a cent. Ed kept insisting on me buying myself some nice clothes. It seemed so wonderful to me to be loved and worried about. So we spent our money that summer almost as fast as we made it. Wow.
At the same time, Ed was working as a welder for a small garage in Brooklyn. And while the salary wasn't great, it was enough to pay a small rent on the small room that they shared in a rooming house. But in September, Celia learned that she was pregnant.
and that news changed everything. She told Ed, I'm not going to have my baby raised in a little two-by-four hole like I was, insisting that they needed to find a more suitable home for their family, and Ed promised that he would find a way to make it happen. This was how. That sounds like such a sweet story at first. You're just like,
You like root for them. Yeah. And then they just said, you know how we could do that? Robbing a lot of places. And you said, oh no. This was how Celia and Ed Cooney became the bobbed haired bandit and her companion. Wow. And her companion Ed. At first, it all seems like this strange fantasy to the young couple. Yeah.
Celia said, I had been reading magazines and books about girl crooks and bandits. Girl crooks. Girl crooks and bandits. And it began to seem like a game or play acting after I'd really came home with the guns. It was more exciting than anything I'd ever thought I'd do. Wow.
The couple said they never intended to hurt anybody and they never wanted to. The shooting at the biscuit company was completely unexpected. And it was an unconscious reaction from Ed when he thought his pregnant wife was in danger. He told the police. And in that sense, you're like, like you put like obviously putting your being in the position of robbing people whilst pregnant already. You're you lose that argument. Like, you know, I mean, like, that's it.
But now you almost believe her when she says, like, we didn't intend to hurt anybody. No, I don't think they did. Because they never tried to before. No. You know, like, it seemed like the intimidation tactic was what they were going with, and it seemed to work. Yes, which is wrong. And throwing people off kilter with her being the first one going in there with the gun, I think, was their intention. Like, throwing them off completely at first. Yep. And then Ed can saunter in all tall and, like, you know. Get everything done. Get everything done. Yeah. Yeah.
I think his reaction was a somewhat natural instinct, I guess. He was just trying to protect his pregnant wife.
But it's not okay. They had put themselves in that position to begin with. So it's like precisely your argument falls flat. Precisely. He told police, I thought she had been struck or maybe cut and I fired through the door at Mazzo who fell. My girl was down and I had to rush in. I picked her up and carried her out. And if they hadn't already planned to go to Florida after one final heist, the reports in the papers the next day certainly would have prompted them to run.
Among the details of the holdup and the shooting were detailed descriptions of both Celia and Ed, along with orders from Commissioner Enright to, quote, shoot her on sight if necessary. Damn. Which is like, I don't think that's necessary. Yeah.
Without the money from the biscuit holdup, life in Florida wasn't much better than what they had in New York when they first got married. After spending most of their money on train and boat fares to get to Jacksonville, the two had run out of money, and they vowed not to commit any more holdups.
Celia said we had less than $50 left and my baby was coming soon, which would cost money. The bandit stuff was over. We never even thought of trying that again. So Ed set out to find work as a mechanic in Jacksonville. But by then their descriptions had made it to the papers up and down the East Coast and then would be followed by their actual names. So they knew it was only a matter of time before law enforcement caught up with them. Yeah.
A few days after their arrest, Ed and Celia were brought back to New York, much to the delight of the New York press, who were happy to have their main story back in the city. The pair were quickly arraigned on charges of armed robbery and assault, where they indicated their willingness to plead guilty to as many as 10 robberies. But they both maintained that they only started robbing stores in order to afford their baby and give Ed to find a better paying job, give him some time to do that.
Celia proudly told the court that the world owed them a living, and she said, Damn. Although enthusiasm for the couple had waned slightly once they were identified, Celia and Ed still had a fair share of fans and more than a little sympathy.
When they arrived to New York from Florida, their train was met by a mob of onlookers. Hundreds of people rushed the train stores just in an effort to get a look at the bandit and her companion. Oh, I believe it. And more than a few of them were saddened to hear that just a few days before being brought back to New York, Celia had given birth to her baby, and the baby unfortunately passed away a few days later. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, the baby was buried in Florida.
Detectives, meanwhile, had a hard time believing that Celia Cooney was the bobbed-haired bandit who had plagued them for months. If you see her, she's just this tiny little thing. She's so little. Friends and neighbors reported to investigators that Ed also was one of the nicest guys they knew, and they never would have suspected him to be an armed robber.
But Celia, on the other hand, received fewer glowing reviews from people who actually knew her. According to one of her former landladies, Celia would, quote, lay in a filthy bed in a filthy room until noon every day, reading detective and true crime magazines and watching boxing matches.
Wow. There's a lot to unpack there. And an anonymous source interviewed by the press also had questionable things to say about Celia. They said she would talk to men on the phone who had Italian names. And I had the suspicion then that she was talking to members of the underworld. That's the way she struck me.
These men had Italian names. Like maybe she's just friends with Italians. You don't say. Jesus Christ. I love how it's just like automatically. Like that is the wildest story. Like she's talking to Joe Bonino. These men with Italian names, they're definitely part of the underworld. They have to be.
Damn, how the mighty have fallen. Wow.
We didn't plan that. No. A few days after their arraignment, Judge George Martin announced that he wanted the pair to be evaluated by psychiatrists after receiving concerning letters from members of Ed's family. According to the letters, Ed had, quote, shown signs of a disordered mentality since childhood, and he displayed apparent inability to grasp a situation. Oh.
Which is interesting. That is interesting. Celia, on the other hand, was described in dismissive and scathing terms. The press claimed that she, quote, had begun to visualize the unwritten part of the detective stories of which she is so fond of. She looks forward to the sentencing in court. Its dramatic possibilities appeal to her. Oh, man. So there's like she's wrapped up in this crime fantasy world, really. The images of her is falling slowly. Yeah. And
Now a little faster, actually. They're making an example of her. It's hitting the skids. The psychiatrist's opinions of Celia were no kinder than the press had been. Celia, he claimed, was the head of the operation, while Ed was, quote, usually in the background, and his function was to smash the cash registers and gather in the loot, while his wife took center stage.
The psychiatrist told a reporter there was something abnormal and not womanly about her actions. She was acting under an impulse that was apparently unnatural. And in every case, she dominated the man who was with her. She was the director and he was simply a tool. I love how they're like, that's not womanly. I'm like, yeah, excuse me. I should reevaluate my life, I guess.
A few weeks later, on May 6th, Celia and Ed appeared before Judge Martin where they pleaded guilty to charges of robbery and assault. Each was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Ed went to Sing Sing and Celia went to Auburn Correctional Facility. And they both had the opportunity for parole after seven years.
Before leaving the courtroom, Celia wrote one last note, this one to the judge, in the hopes that he would share it with the press. And the New York Times shared it. She wrote, Oh. She was just lost. She was very lost. She was very lost. I mean, very bad choices. And what she did was wrong.
Very bad choices. Very bad choices. But I do have this weird sympathy for her. Because you think she... I mean, she obviously grew up... With nothing. With nothing. And it's like she clearly fell into these detective magazines and all that. She fell into her own deluge. And thought it was going to be this glamorous. Yeah. Yeah. But what she... Again, the moral of the story is what she did was wrong. Yeah, because while she was obviously lost and thought it was going to be this whole glamorous thing...
She also wasn't thinking about the people whose lives she was completely destroying. And putting at risk. That kind of money, taking that from somebody like a grocer or somebody who owns a business. That's their whole livelihood. That's it. And they have families too that they need to take care of. So it's like, yeah, you may be pregnant. You may be trying to feed your kid. Right. Taking it out of somebody else's mouth who's working hard for it is not the way to do it. There's other ways. Yeah.
Now, in late October 1931, Celia and Ed Cooney were each granted parole on the condition that they find suitable employment. And
Unfortunately for Ed, that was going to be pretty difficult. He'd had an accident in the prison machine shop and that had resulted in his arm being amputated. Oh, damn. He sadly died from tuberculosis just five years later. Oh, poor Ed. I know. Celia did manage to find work as a typist and she remarried in the mid-1940s and just kind of did her best to stay out of the public eye. She relocated to Florida and she died from natural causes in 1992. Wow.
Damn. Isn't that crazy? Holy shit. Yeah, she lived a long life. Yeah. That was... That was a swell, a Jake, a Nifty, the cat's meow, the cat's pajamas, the bee's knees. I was having a ball. It was a whoopee. And with all that being said, we sure hope you keep listening. And we hope you... Keep... It... Weird. I don't know, that was my best. Not so weird that you try a transatlantic accent and you really fail miserably at that one. But...
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