Now I'm Intrigued

In our final episode on Georgia Tann, we tell the story of the lives impacted by Georgia's actions even years later and how some have come together to heal and rebuild from the ashes Georgia left in her enormous wake. SOURCESFor 20 years, a Tennessee baby thief kidnapped more than 5000 children from the streets, hospitals, and shanty towns of Memphis. Now, 70 years later, survivors of her 'house of horrors' are confronting the past.Together Again : After 44 Tortured Years, a Mother Finds Her Stolen Child Via 'Unsolved Mysteries' - Los Angeles Times Before We Were Yours: A Novel: Wingate, Lisa - Books The Children of Georgia Tann | Unsolved Mysteries Wiki 

Georgia Tann, even with her limp, her small frame and grandmotherly appearance, had a ridiculous amount of energy. And most of it was concentrated on her work - her absolute tyrannical goal to become the foremost leader in adoption work. She could sell babies when other people couldn't give them away. She worked long hours in her office, visited local businessmen to ask for donations to her cause and gave speeches about the great things about adoption. She would tell them… this not only helps the children, but it also helps taxpayers who won't have to pay for the upkeep of orphanages. This was one of her refrains and in the 1930s she told everyone that she'd save the people of Memphis $218,000 by arranging over 2,000 adoptions. Suppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetwork SOURCESGeorgia Tann: The Mastermind of a Black Market Baby Ring That Lasted for Three Decades | by Robyn Kagan Harrington | Exploring History | Mediumhttps://ideapod.com/georgia-tann-the-baby-thief-kidnapped-5000-babies-and-sold-them-allRaymond, Barbara Bisantz. The Baby Thief . Hachette Books.  

This is the hardest episode. In fact, you honestly may want to skip this episode. I don't really want to tell this story, but I'm a firm believer that stories are powerful and even if they're hard and ugly and horrific, they should have light poured over them so that perhaps it will stop similar abuses from happening again. And these children deserve the truth of what they suffered to be known. They just do. It is said that many of the children who died in Georgia's care didn't even have a death certificate or a burial. But how did so many die?Suppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCES"She terrified people" | Arts & Culture | nashvillescene.com“Good Housekeeping published . . . been fatal abuse”: “The Little Girl Who Refused To Die,” Good Housekeeping, August 1991, pp. 90-91, 132-134 Raymond, Barbara Bisantz. The Baby Thief . Hachette Books. For 20 years, a Tennessee baby thief kidnapped more than 5000 children from the streets, hospitals, and shanty towns of Memphis. Now, 70 years later, survivors of her 'house of horrors' are confronting the past. 

If Georgia Tann was good at anything, it was creating co-conspirators, unfailing supporters of her work and methods. She had her low level spotters. Folks who would deliver milk to poor areas and tell her about children they'd found that fit the description on her wishlist. Blonde, blue eyed baby girl. Check. Nurses who'd tell her about unwed pregnant women who might need her “help.” And then she would just go and take the children without any kind of consequence or repercussion. Today I'm telling you the story of her team of high level co-conspirators. This level of evil doesn't happen in a vacuum. This level of evil required the consent of doctors, lawyers, judges and senators. And Georgia somehow had them all in her pocket.Suppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCESRaymond, Barbara Bisantz. The Baby Thief, Hachette Books. EH Crump of Memphis - Historic "Boss" of the CityCrump, Edward Hull "Boss" | Tennessee Encyclopedia Season 2, Episode 5 Abe David Waldauer (1896-1975) - Find a Grave Memorial Camille Kelley: 'The Little Irish Judge' - The Knoxville Focus 

Your baby is gone. Gone. This is the story of SO MANY MOTHERS. In this case you might do what all mothers would do, even young and poor with little resources. You would try everything to get your baby back. But, we're talking about fighting Georgia Tann here so the deck is stacked so heavily against you... there will be no winning. The doctor who delivered your baby… he's on Georgia Tann's payroll and when you sue Georgia Tann, he'll testify against you. He'll say that you knew exactly what you were doing when you signed those papers and gave your baby away. And you'll lose. Suppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCESThe Woman Who Became a Millionaire by Selling Children | by Sal | History of YesterdayRaymond, Barbara Bisantz. The Baby Thief. Hachette Books. Georgia Tann: The Mastermind of a Black Market Baby Ring That Lasted for Three Decades | by Robyn Kagan Harrington | Exploring History | Medium

The thing about Georgia moving to Memphis is that it was so well-suited for her personality and needs. She was direct, never subtle, demanding what she wanted and didn't make any effort to hide her crimes. By 1924, Ed Crump had created a culture of fear in Memphis and citizens were fearful to criticize him or his friends for any reason. And Georgia Tann quickly became friends with Crump.Georgia dove head first into the adoption scene in Memphis, making every contact she could do further her mission. She visited merchants door-to-door, soliciting donations and espousing the benefits of adoption. It benefited not only children, she emphasized, but taxpayers, who would be spared the cost of maintaining orphanages. She mentioned the tax aspect often, and in the 1930s claimed to have saved Memphis citizens $218,000 by arranging two thousand adoptions.Suppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCESEarly Twentieth Century | A History of Tennessee Student EditionRaymond, Barbara Bisantz. The Baby Thief.  Hachette Books. Edward Hull "Boss" Crump (1874 - 1954) - Genealogy

In this episode,  I'm going to show you that Georgia Tann, though a monster, accomplished something incredible. She made undesirable children… well, desirable. When Georgia was growing up, people would not adopt children because of a huge belief in eugenics. I'll explain what that is in a minute. But, just picture the mass immigration to the United States, the exorbitant amount of children in poverty and orphaned little ones in the streets of New York and Boston. Then, the Orphan Trains we talked about last episode. The crazy thing is that orphans were undesirable, unwanted, tainted by their poor, unfortunate parents and nobody wanted them unless it was to use them for labor. Suppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCESRaymond, Barbara Bisantz. The Baby Thief. Hachette Books.  Baby Farming - Adoption HistoryBaby Farming | Encyclopedia.comEugenics - Adoption HistoryBaby farming - Wikipedia

If you've never heard of Georgia Tann, you are in for a wild ride. Her story is one of those that you can't quite believe was allowed to happen. It's one of those that makes you wonder just HOW some people gain power and then are able to stay in that power and use it and use it without consequence. Honestly, we usually see men in these types of power plays so that's what makes this story even more fascinating. How did she become a woman so comfortable in her own skin and bold in her actions to take over an entire industry and make it something new, something sinister, something manipulative and diseased? That's the thing I so wanted to understand and uncover. Today, we're going to look at Georgia's beginnings. Who and what shaped her into the complex, corrupt and strange woman she became?Suppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCESRaymond, Barbara Bisantz. The Baby Thief . Hachette Books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_TrainYellow Fever - the plague of Memphis'Orphan Trains' Brought Homeless NYC Children to Work On Farms Out West - HISTORY

 What do you do when you are poor and have nothing and are worried for your sick child? Do you let this woman who says she'll pay for his medical care take your child? The thing is, it doesn't really matter because once she has a target in mind, she'll find a way to take that baby anyway. This season we look at the intriguing life of the woman responsible for completely changing how adoption was viewed…for making adoption socially acceptable, even desirable. But her methods… they were vicious and cruel.  THIS season we tell the story of Georgia Tann. I'm your host Brigetta Schwaiger and this is Now I'm Intrigued. Support the Show--> https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetwork

In 1969, when UCLA recruited him to head up the department, the West family packed up their life in Oklahoma and traveled to their namesake. They went West to Los Angeles, he and K and all three of their kids in tow. Los Angeles would change Jolly and cement his legacy. This is where he became a celebrity and it's where he was able to solidify those words his mother had spoken over him, “you will do great things.” He was enthralled with celebrities except for one aspect. There was a darker side of Hollywood that Jolly didn't jive with. He became enemy #1 of the Church of Scientology WAY before anyone else ever publicly spoke out against them. In this episode, we explore the war between Dr. Jolly West and the Church of Scientology.Dr. Jolly West's death is just as controversial as the incredibly complex and vibrant life he lived.For the full story, please go purchase John West's "The Last Goodnights, Assisting My Parents With Their Suicides." It's available on Amazon.com. Show NotesSuppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSourceshttps://www.latimes.com/local/la-scientology062990x-story.htmlhttps://youtu.be/Z8scMW9H1F0https://youtu.be/7PUfSlYvKLAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPMacCIf11k West, John. The Last Goodnights, Catapult.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kevorkian

So imagine you are a nineteen-year-old college student, hanging out at your apartment with your boyfriend and you step into the hall. A group of people grabs you and neighbors watch as they take you out of the building and throw you into a vehicle. The reason the neighbors don't help… these people are shooting at them just so they can take YOU. This is the setting of our story today. The story of Patty Hearst, an American Heiress who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a small, armed revolutionary group with an incoherent ideology and unclear goals, birthed out of the crazy 1970s bombing extravaganza. Patty Hearst, who proceeded to brandish a weapon and rob a bank and was apprehended by the FBI instead of being rescued. The story of how Jolly West became one of the psychiatrists who evaluated her, wrote over 300 pages about her brainwashed condition and his impact on her trial. SHOW NOTESSuppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCE MATERIALEVERY SECRET THING Patricia Campbell Hearst with Alvin Moscow Doubleday & Company Inc. NY 1982https://www.npr.org/2016/08/03/488373982/whose-side-was-she-on-american-heiress-revisits-patty-hearst-s-kidnappinghttps://www.biography.com/crime-figure/patty-hearsthttps://nybooks.com/articles/1976/06/24/no-charge/https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/patty-hearst-kidnappedhttps://nybooks.com/articles/1976/04/29/the-people-v-patty-hearst/https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/27/archives/psychiatrist-says-he-believes-miss-hearst-on-role-in-bank-robbery.htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPMacCIf11k

Today's story puts us in an office in Haight - Ashbury in the 1960s. Haight- Ashbury is a district in San Francisco, California named for the intersection of those two streets. It's a name synonymous with the Hippie and counterculture of the 1960s.Into this environment in 1966, enter Dr. Jolly West on the precipice of the Summer of Love. He was supposedly there to study hippies and LSD. He felt he just had to witness what was happening in Haight-Ashbury first hand. So… he did what researchers do. He secured a grant and took a yearlong sabbatical from the University of Oklahoma saying he was pursuing a fellowship at Stanford.  But... he was setting up a fake Hippie Crash Pad, a place both comical and creepy. SHOW NOTESSuppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCE MATERIALhttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/haight-ashbury-in-the-1960s_n_1967664https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haight-Ashburyhttp://www.rockument.com/blog/haight-ashbury-in-the-sixties/https://allthatsinteresting.com/haight-ashbury-1967https://journalnow.com/opinion/columnists/david-smith-charles-manson-was-nightmare-from-the-summer-of-love/article_4f8b8eb8-ce35-11e7-b07f-179fd09fb8c2.htmlO'Neill, Tom. Chaos. Little, Brown and Company. iHeart Radio, Project Midnight Climax Podcasthttps://www.history.com/mkultra-operation-midnight-climax-cia-lsd-experiments

On April 26, 1964, West hopped on a flight to Dallas, scheduled to examine Jack Ruby in the county jail that afternoon. The Dallas papers reported it in their final editions that evening: West emerged from Ruby's cell to announce that the previously sane inmate had undergone “an acute psychotic break” sometime during the preceding “forty-eight hours.” Whatever transpired between West and Ruby in that cell, only the two of them could say; there were no witnesses. West proclaimed that Ruby “was now positively insane.” The condition appeared to be “unshakable” and “fixed. Why in the world did Ruby seem sane when Jolly went in but insane forevermore after he came out of that cell? SHOW NOTESSupport The Show --> https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetwork SOURCESTikkanen, Amy. "Jack Ruby". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jack-Ruby. Accessed 22 September 2021.https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/21745/t25-report-of-psychiatric-examination-of-jack-ruby-by-dr-lo?ctx=57fbc0eb-e3dc-43b1-bb6f-3d8c888017fc&idx=3https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/november-22-1963-death-of-the-presidenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_RubyO'Neill, Tom. Chaos. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

This is the story that Dr. Jolly West is most notorious for. The one that earned him the most press and attention in real-time. The one the press lambasted him for. The story of a feisty teenage-like creature named Tusko.Jolly was 38 years old when he invited a crowd to come to watch his latest experiment. Tusko, an adolescent bull elephant, had been purchased from the Phoenix area for $3,500 which would be around $35,000 today.The day before the experiment, a compressed air rifle was used to shoot a placebo control dose of penicillin into Tusko. He exhibited the expected symptoms “immediate startle response… 2 or 3 minutes of restlessness followed by normal behavior throughout the day.” The real experiment would be the next morning at 8am. Show NotesSuppport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCESO'Neill, Tom. Chaos . Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. https://tulsaworld.com/archive/ex-ou-psychiatry-department-chair-dies/article_4a4081f0-654c-5f31-9a0a-05ce183af38c.htmlhttps://thislandpress.com/2013/07/29/the-electric-elephant-acid-test/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/feb/26/research.sciencehttps://www.treehugger.com/historical-timeline-of-animal-rights-movement-127594https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Spring_monkeys

In episode 3 of our Season One on Dr. Jolly West, we explore Jolly's involvement with the CIA and their controversial MK-Ultra program. Project MK-Ultra was the code name given for illegal experiments on actual humans done by the CIA.  This was an actual thing that happened in US history, it's not just a theory. These experiments were supposed to develop procedures and figure out what drugs (like LSD) could be used in interrogations to weaken humans and force them to confess by using brainwashing and psychological torture. We explore Dr. West's involvement with the notorious CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb who was nicknamed the “Black Sorcerer” for developing crazy ways to drug unknowing people up with LSD - high potency stink bombs, swizzle sticks laced with drugs, poisoned toothpaste, handkerchiefs, cigars. Anything for mind control experiments.Finally, this episode tells the tragic story of three-year-old Chere Jo Horton's horrific murder on the Lackland Airforce base, Jimmy Shaver's arrest and Dr. West's involvement. Was Jimmy Shaver an unknowing participant in the MK Ultra mind control experiments?SHOW NOTESSupport the Show →https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCESSourcesO'Neill, Tom. Chaos. Little, Brown and Company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltrahttp://wla.1-s.es/barclays-tax-avoidance-scm-censored-guardian-2009/AT-june07-Price-PT1.pdfhttps://www.history.com/mkultra-operation-midnight-climax-cia-lsd-experimentshttps://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/bs-md-frank-olson-lawsuit-20121208-story.htmlhttps://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon-west/

 Jolly and K make a big move to San Antonio, Texas where Jolly, now a full-fledged doctor, serves as Lieutenant to Major in the U.S. Air Force where he is Chief of Psychiatric Service. Jolly's time at Lackland is his debut in the field of brainwashing and will also start him on a path with the US government that will link him to conspiracy theorists for the rest of his life and beyond. In the 1950s, West was appointed to a panel to discover why 36 of 59 airmen captured in the Korean War had confessed or co-operated in Korean allegations of war crimes committed by the United States. These POWs had “falsely” confessed to germ warfare. His experiences with these men sparked a lifelong interest in helping victims of imprisonment, torture, and coercive persuasion otherwise known as "brainwashing".It's super important to understand at this point in the story how pivotal to our history. If the communists could control minds, then they could control interrogations, memories, the actions of leaders, and more. And guess what? The US had not even started to think scientifically about how this might be achieved yet. It meant we were behind, it meant we were vulnerable, it meant we were losing a war we didn't even know had started.P.S. I apologize in advance for how much I talk about bugs in this episode. It's super detailed. I promise it's important for this episode and our next episode that includes the story of CIA Scientist Frank Olson and his infamous death. SHOW NOTESSupport the Show →https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSOURCEShttps://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c84j0hcd/entire_text/https://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon-west/https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Louis_Jolyon_Westhttps://koreanwarlegacy.org/chapters/the-pow-experience/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPMacCIf11khttps://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/endicott-biological.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_biological_warfare_in_the_Korean_Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Schwablehttps://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-warhttps://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/06/27/reviews/990627.27reg.htmlhttps://www.amazon.com/BIOLOGY-DOOM-Americas-Warfare-Project/dp/080505765Xhttps://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/09/us/louis-j-west-74-psychiatrist-who-studied-extremes-dies.html

When I walked into my new job at the NPI at UCLA, I did register that there must be hundreds and thousands of tragic and interesting life stories in that building. I did not, in fact, realize that one of the most interesting stories would be that of Dr. Jolly West, my new boss. Though he was what some call “one of America's first celebrity shrinks”, having recently retired as Head of the NPI, I knew absolutely nothing about him. That would change quickly. But, let's start where beginnings do. In episode one, we explore all the early life environmental and social factors that formed the man that I would one day meet on a college campus in Los Angeles. I believe you can't look at the actions of a human without exploring the context of those actions, both historically and personally. Humans are complex and none more so than Dr. Jolly West. SHOW NOTESSupport the Show → https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetworkSourceshttps://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-dr-louis-jolyon-west-1046360.htmlhttps://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS426https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/30sfood.htmlhttps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/early-warnings-how-american-journalists-reported-the-rise-of-hitler/254146/ https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938 The Last Goodnights: Assisting my Parent With Their Suicides by John West, Copyright 2009FICTIONALIZED BITSYoung Jolly and His Mom At The PianoAnna grocery shopping and going to the bankWhen Jolly and K meetJU1D03AKy1obzGVTveUR

We invite you to season one of Now I'm Intrigued.  I'm going to tell you the incredible story of a man involved in CIA brainwashing experiments, who participated in the MK -Ultra mind control program (which was an actual real thing… not just a conspiracy theory) and had connections to some of the most interesting people in recent history. People like Patty Hearst, Charleton Heston, and Jack Ruby. He was also my boss. Join me for season one as we take a deep dive into the fascinating life of Dr. Jolly West.Support the Show --> https://www.patreon.com/swagfampodcastnetwork