ED LARSON
Man, it was so funny yesterday I had Rambo here and we left the garage door open by accident. And I'm like where the hell is Rambo? And then I look and then he's just like, he found out how to get himself trapped like underneath a desk surrounded by wires. I don't even know how he got in there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How did he get there?
ED LARSON
He was just like sitting there wagging his tail like all proud of himself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's so cute.
MARCUS PARKS
Can't back out now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well. Okay, here we go. Let me try to... I gotta get in this, I gotta get in the mode.
MARCUS PARKS
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's so hard, right, because do we have any frog noises? It actually really would help if we have like, is there a swamp scape that we could maybe hit here?
MARCUS PARKS
(croaking)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I mean? Like there's gotta be something we can overlay. Being like (Southern accent) Oh there, watch out that house there now.
ED LARSON
Oh you can do the Born on the Bayou intro.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel we're gonna have to pay money.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
20 seconds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We got something.
ED LARSON
There we go. Or at least like a fryer going or something like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(hissing) (swamp sounds play) (Louisiana accent) You're about to hear a tale now of old Madame LaLaurie. You need to think about what it means to the ghost and New Orleans itself. You get down there and you get that gator, fry it up real nice with that dark oil. It's kinda spooky. Ooh it's a reed! It's a sharp grass all in here. Now watch it, there's a snake in there. And it's time to get onto Last Podcast on the Left.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Was it clear enough?
MARCUS PARKS
This is Last Podcast on the... Yeah. This is Last Podcast on the Left.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm Marcus Parks, that's Henry Zebrowski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
ED LARSON
(Louisiana accent) I'm Ed Larson now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See?
ED LARSON
(Louisiana accent) I'm Ed Larson there now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) Now watch that there now.
MARCUS PARKS
See y'all are going more for like the salt of the earth Louisiana.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
(Louisiana accent) Here on this episode we're gonna be dealing with the uppercrust of Louisiana.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
(Louisiana accent) The people always sound like they're about to push out a fart.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) It's a little bit of a fart caught on the edge of my perineum.
ED LARSON
(Louisiana accent) I'm more of a furniture smasher now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Smash, smash!
MARCUS PARKS
Much more of a furniture smasher, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm doing my Troy Landry voice.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you ever watched any Troy Landry or follow him on Instagram?
ED LARSON
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like called Swamp Monsters.
ED LARSON
Fuck yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's just him going like (Louisiana accent) that's a big gator now. That's it. It's a whole thing about how he goes out to the haunted swamps and how scary the swamps are. And the swamps are scary.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But mostly it's just big, big animals.
MARCUS PARKS
But the reason why we're talking about swamps and Louisiana is because we got a special Halloween episode for you today. We're gonna finally cover the story of Madame Delphine LaLaurie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Miss LaLaurie!
ED LARSON
LaLaurie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is one of those.
ED LARSON
It's upsetting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is upsetting.
MARCUS PARKS
Highly upsetting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Highly upsetting. It's a historical gold star episode. Also this is I would say in true Last Podcast on the Left fashion, I feel like our ghost stories always go one way or the other. They either go a series of like exorcisms which are incredibly sad-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just on the whole, sad. Ghost sightings, haunted houses which are largely debunked but have like fun little episodes within and we got like silly little characters in it.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the investigators, that's the story there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the story. But then this is one where as soon as you pop the top of this story, you see oh actually this is a true crime story.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And very close to the Amityville Horror Story where this is like not only, the ghost stories are one thing but the creepiest part is the bitch at the center.
ED LARSON
Yeah, the reality of the whole thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well Madame Delphine LaLaurie is one of the most enduring figures in the realm of American paranormal phenomena. However LaLaurie is not infamous just because she herself haunts her former home or rather isn't the only one who haunts it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) I won't even go there. That's the closest I'm gonna do to a Madame LaLaurie, I don't think I'm gonna attempt to do it often.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know, I liked it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) I do not go into the house.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what pops up.
MARCUS PARKS
Stamp of approval.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Excellent.
MARCUS PARKS
Well rather LaLaurie is notorious because she herself created all the other ghosts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And think about how much industry that has led to in the New Orleans area ever since.
MARCUS PARKS
My god, so many ghost tours. What would these ghost tours do if they didn't have the LaLaurie mansion to end on?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, for a good reason.
MARCUS PARKS
Madame Delphine LaLaurie was a wealthy resident of the French Quarter in New Orleans who committed heinous crimes in antebellum America, crimes so foul that her evil deeds seem to have rooted themselves in the very soil on which her former mansion stands.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So again, up top, this is not an objective podcast. We don't believe in objectivity. I think it's dumb. We are taking the side because of the research that we have done, especially the two main sources that we have kind of used here, one which is great, (Louisiana accent) 'Madame LaLaurie: Mistress of the Haunted House'. We are siding on the fact that we believe that these stories are true about her or at least to some degree.
MARCUS PARKS
To some degree, yes. Now this isn't one of those, like there are certain stories like Elizabeth Bathory where we have no clue whether or not this woman actually bathed in the blood of virgins or anything like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It would have been a lot cooler if she did.
MARCUS PARKS
But with Madame LaLaurie, there is so much evidence to support the horrible, horrible stories that are said about her.
ED LARSON
So she's a B and a C.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A bitch and a cunt?
ED LARSON
Yes! I'm trying to be a gentleman here. We're in New Orleans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guess what? It's Madame LaLaurie. We don't have to be gentlemen with that fucking bitch cunt.
MARCUS PARKS
Well specifically Madame LaLaurie was a torturer and murderer who exclusively targeted the enslaved people who involuntarily served her and her family and did so in a half hidden torture chamber right next to the servants' quarters within her mansion at 1140 Royal Street.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Beautiful street, beautiful house.
MARCUS PARKS
It is. It's foreboding.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
LaLaurie's motivations for such crimes however are still somewhat of a mystery to this day, or at the very least they don't have a neat explanation like many ghost stories do. Because again, this really is a true crime story, it's a ghost story, it's a history story. It's all that wrapped up into one. Some legends say that LaLaurie's parents were killed in a slave uprising decades prior and she avenged their deaths by torturing and killing the closest approximations at hand. Much like a serial killer will choose a type based on a personal hatred or betrayal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is mostly a time, we know that that is mostly not true either.
MARCUS PARKS
Also.
ED LARSON
Yeah but she's considered a serial killer, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know. She lives in a very strange section of murderer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And crime.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just straight up crime against humanity.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But the slave uprising is but one of the myths surrounding Madame LaLaurie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly sometimes I think of her, she's closer to a Mengele.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But most likely she tortured and killed the enslaved people in her thrall for the same reason most serial killers torture and kill people. She was a sadist who derived pleasure from the act and she had a steady supply of vulnerable victims that the authorities couldn't have cared less about. So yeah, I think she was a little closer to a serial killer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
In Madame LaLaurie's case, her victims could literally be delivered to her house to do with whatever she wished. Although as we'll see, there were even limits to what most people would accept within the foul institution of American slavery.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we'll see, and this is our opportunity right now to say straight up top, we're not into it.
MARCUS PARKS
Not into.
ED LARSON
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't approve of slavery.
ED LARSON
My family was in Poland.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me too, man. We dropped into fucking 1925 Staten Island, baby.
ED LARSON
Yeah, baby.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had nothing to do with this!
MARCUS PARKS
I'm gonna plead the fifth. Go ahead and plead a big, big fifth right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Teflon, baby!
MARCUS PARKS
Now while most serial killer dens like John Wayne Gacy's home in Des Plaines and Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment building in Milwaukee, those were torn down after it was discovered that the structures were true houses of horror. But Madame LaLaurie's home is still standing in the French Quarter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, like a big scary guy with loaded pants. Like it really does feel like... And again it's because you know the story. But as you walk past that place man, it does feel like it just looms.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It looms because it's bigger than any other house on the block.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they used to have Verti Marte across the street which was like the best fucking po'boy sandwich spot in the entire city. And then several times I had big sloppy shrimp po'boys sitting on that corner just staring at that house for hours at a time.
MARCUS PARKS
Hell yeah. While the house has been renovated many times over since Madame LaLaurie's Day, the bones of her mansion remain the same.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The bones!
MARCUS PARKS
The pain and suffering inflicted within these walls have soaked the home with so much paranormal energy that even standing across the street can fill you with a sense of dread and terror. In fact, many people in the paranormal community in New Orleans, which is ample-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh it's thick as hell.
MARCUS PARKS
They wouldn't even enter the LaLaurie mansion if they could, for fear that the energies contained therein might prove too much to bear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's why we also big shout out always the French Quarter Phantoms.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is still probably the platinum tier of ghost tours that I have taken across the United States of America. They are fucking great. But those guys know how to tell a story, especially about the LaLaurie Mansion because we pressed. I was like I gotta go in there. Like what can we do? I tried to be like let's figure it out. And the guy fucking just straight up said absolutely not.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like don't go, don't go.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well no one can go in there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well one of the authors of these books, I believe it was Carolyn Morrow, she did get to go inside.
MARCUS PARKS
She did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And people have fucking... Ugh, Jack Osbourne went inside.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh.
ED LARSON
Of course he did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you listened to his fucking... Have you watched his Portals to Hell show?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
ED LARSON
No. Who gives a shit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean I don't know if we're ever gonna run into him but it's just the show is... I don't know why, why do they keep giving him paranormal shows? Just go live, do anything else!
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's boring.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
He's the Prince of Darkness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's not though, his father is.
ED LARSON
His father's the king now, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just very...
ED LARSON
I mean eventually Ozzy has to become the king at some point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? I think prince is kinda fun cause you don't have all the responsibilities, it's a lot of paperwork.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Maybe Jack Osbourne is like a Duke of Shade.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dookie of fucking poopoo.
ED LARSON
Fuck yeah. Barking at the moon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly though if you have an offer for us, Jack, we'll take it.
MARCUS PARKS
Now before we get into the ghost stories as well as the facts and myths behind Madame LaLaurie, let's acknowledge our sources today. The first is 'Madame LaLaurie: Mistress of the Haunted House' by Carolyn Morrow. While the second is 'Mad Madame LaLaurie'.
ED LARSON
Yeah! Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That one just sounds like a fucking wrestling woman.
MARCUS PARKS
Mad Madame LaLaurie!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) You better get me a gumbo, you twat!
ED LARSON
She's just got like a fucking two by four.
MARCUS PARKS
Fucking tag team with King Kong Bundy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That one's by Victoria Cosner Love. And we also borrowed a couple of ghost stories from the website for Ghost City Tours in New Orleans. But while our first book is more dry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
MARCUS PARKS
It's dry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is dry.
ED LARSON
Not when Marcus was done with it, I'll tell you that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck yeah. Is it the tears? I read this book. You know what I appreciate about that book is that it goes example by example why we know the things that we know to be sure and not sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it is a fucking slog.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But it's far more reliable when it comes to the actual history behind Madame LaLaurie. However while the myths are legion, the truth is still a harrowing and fascinating tale.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, because the exaggerations of the fake version of the story, you're like ah all right, that's how I kind of feel reading it. But the fact that the shit that we know that happened happened is bad enough.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. Now few people are allowed within the LaLaurie home today because it's been a private residence for decades. But as I said, even those who stand on the New Orleans sidewalks outside of the LaLaurie mansion report dizziness, nausea, chills, and feelings of anxiety.
ED LARSON
Well they're just not used to eating all that thick food.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing.
ED LARSON
It's all these cream sauces.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. They've been walking for miles.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I went and I hadn't eaten all day. Was I hung over? Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But it was creepy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's creepy as fuck!
ED LARSON
Of course it's creepy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, it's creepy as fuck. You go over there...
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean when we visited the LaLaurie Mansion years ago, just looking into the vestibule gave me the feeling that I was staring into the gaping maw of some earthly hell. The only feeling I could compare it to, it was like when we visited Auschwitz. It's staring into a place of pain and misery.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Like it just fucking emanates from it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Two out of five stars.
ED LARSON
What, Auschwitz?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Not fun.
ED LARSON
You know Dr. Mengele, he puts the 'ow' in Auschwitz. What do you think? What do you think? Accurate?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Correct.
MARCUS PARKS
Correct. Very accurate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just the truth. Just the truth hidden inside the yuck.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to those who have been inside the house, moaning can be heard from the room where LaLaurie committed her tortures, the chains that her servants were forced to wear constantly can be heard dragging through the home, and phantom footsteps follow you everywhere. Concerning the standard paranormal fare, the area where LaLaurie's Chamber of horrors was located is said to sometimes emit the rank odor of rotten meat often associated with particularly strong hauntings. And a dark heavy energy persists almost 200 years after LaLaurie's reign of terror ended.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know, if it's gonna be anywhere, this is one of those places. If there's gonna be ghosts, if ghosts exists, this is where they are.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It's a spot. It's like here and like castles.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But while all those paranormal experiences obviously come from the victims, it's said that the house is also haunted by Madame LaLaurie herself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She built that place hand by hand, brick by brick. She had people do it.
MARCUS PARKS
A spirit medium who was let into the house in 2005 claimed that LaLaurie's spirit pervades the entire block, as if she's still trying to keep control over her domain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) You keep yelling now! You keep yelling! I can't go in too deep.
MARCUS PARKS
Go in deep, it's okay. Say I'm a drunken frat boy and I've wandered off in the French Quarter and I'm looking at Madame Lalaurie's house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) You go on and get! Get out of here now!
MARCUS PARKS
That's what I'm hearing. You gon get out of here now!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(Louisiana accent) You gon get, get outta here now!
MARCUS PARKS
Now as far as the hauntings of LaLaurie go, the house was briefly converted into an all girls school exclusively for black children up to the age of eight during the reconstruction era.
ED LARSON
It's a bad idea.
MARCUS PARKS
To put it there.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Really bad idea.
ED LARSON
It's a bad idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well you remember we'll kind of go into why that happened. Because there was a period of time where they tried to kind of dispel the rumors about the house and even the story itself for a period of time. And I do think that it used to have owners that bought it and turned it into sort of a giant almost hospital-like, asylum-like building.
MARCUS PARKS
But despite knowing nothing of the building's past, the girls would often come to their teachers with mysterious scratches and bruises. When the children were asked who did this, their answer was invariably "that woman".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not good.
ED LARSON
That's horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
Now there are some who say that the ghosts of the enslaved people have long since moved on and the only spirit that remains is that of the evil Madame LaLaurie. But others say that the spirits of the enslaved stay to torture LaLaurie herself and to ensure that Madame LaLaurie's spirit never leaves 1140 Royal Street.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it's one of those, because she didn't die in the house.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I can see the imprint of it maybe being a thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Ah but Abraham Lincoln did not die in the White House.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Wait, did he?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. No?
ED LARSON
I think he did.
MARCUS PARKS
I think he did.
ED LARSON
Cause yeah, he died like two days later after he got shot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he didn't die at the theater.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but I thought he died in like a Krispy Kreme. Where did Abraham Lincoln die? Let me pull it up. Yeah, it doesn't say. Petersen House, Washington DC. So it wasn't the main house.
MARCUS PARKS
But does not Abraham Lincoln, Honest Abe, haunt the White House?
ED LARSON
Or at least the theater.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's around. He's got the Lincoln bedroom.
MARCUS PARKS
The Lincoln bedroom, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Does he haunt the Lincoln bedroom?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Have you never heard that?
ED LARSON
I've been in there, I didn't see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We were gonna do a whole episode called Haunted Presidents but it was just more like yeah, I saw Lincoln standing there. And that's it. But yeah, he shows up at the Lincoln bedroom. People have said, a couple of celebrities have talked about because sometimes if they are allowed to go visit Washington DC, in the White House, they'll let them stay in the Lincoln bedroom. I think it's because Bill Clinton's got cameras in there. But like the rest of the time, people have multiple times, people have seen Abraham Lincoln just hanging out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just going (singing) I wish I could be gay! Oh what's sucking dick like?
ED LARSON
Who wants to go on a walk? Who wants to go on a long walk? More speed! Gimme Mr. Speed.
MARCUS PARKS
Now make no mistake, Madame LaLaurie was indeed evil, although the tales of her crimes had been made far more lurid over the years than they truly were. But for completionist's sake, here is the short version of the story told at the near maximum level of sensationalism.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's said that on April 10, 1834, Madame LaLaurie's mansion on Royal Street caught fire during an elegant dinner party. But when the firefighters entered the room to extinguish the blaze, they found seven enslaved people chained up in a secret room. The men were stark naked with their eyes gouged out, their fingernails pulled off at the roots, their lips sewn together, their tongues sewn to their chins, their hands cut off and sewn to their bellies, and their joints pulled from their sockets. The women bound in chains were found with their mouths and ears crammed with ashes and chicken intestines, and some had been smeared in honey so as to attract swarms of stinging black ants. Their intestines were pulled out and knotted around their waists and holes had been drilled into their skulls where a rough stick had been used to stir their brains. Some were already dead and some were unconscious but all had been there for months. Likewise, the room had obviously been used for the purpose of torture for years.
ED LARSON
And this bitch was having like dinner parties while this was going on?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Again, this is the exaggerated story.
MARCUS PARKS
This is the legend, yes.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Reportedly-
ED LARSON
It was lunch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, that's when I get really crazy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was lunch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Never dinner. Dinner's my time.
MARCUS PARKS
Reportedly when those who were still alive were carried out to receive medical treatment along with the other mutilated corpses, the crowd that had gathered for the fire were so outraged that they stormed the mansion and demolished it thoroughly. Madame LaLaurie meanwhile had escaped soon after the fire broke out, knowing that her chamber of horrors would no doubt soon be discovered. The mansion was sold soon after and workmen reported the moans of spirits coming from all over the house as they repaired it. But when they finally pulled up the floorboards, they found dozens of skeletons and freshly dead bodies. The underside of the floorboards had deep scratch marks in the wood, for unbeknownst to anyone, Madame LaLaurie had kept a dungeon underneath the house from which she could pluck further victims. And all had starved to death because their dying moans were thought to have come from beyond the veil.
ED LARSON
It's upsetting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're right. Yeah, I'm glad. I thought you were gonna slow clap but I'm really glad that you didn't.
MARCUS PARKS
You got a Halloween joke for us, Eddie?
ED LARSON
Yeah! Yeah, I figured we'd bring some Halloween jokes in.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, just break it up a little bit.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
ED LARSON
Do you know how they got all the blood to rush out of the elevators in The Shining?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How?
MARCUS PARKS
How?
ED LARSON
They had Carrie sit on top of the elevator.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd rather the slavery. You know what I mean? I'd rather than slavery.
ED LARSON
Or what does Jack Torrance drink when he's out of whiskey?
MARCUS PARKS
What?
ED LARSON
Red rum. Dummies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's good, that is really good.
MARCUS PARKS
That's really good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Really, really good.
MARCUS PARKS
That's really good, that's correct.
ED LARSON
Thank you, no problem.
MARCUS PARKS
Now there are some truths mixed in with these myths.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There are surprisingly more truths than you'd think there would be.
MARCUS PARKS
There really are. But while the extent of the torture and mutilation was exaggerated to the nth degree as the years went by, some of the details I mentioned are absolutely real. You'll just have to wait until the next episode to find out which are which.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Gotchu, fuckers!
MARCUS PARKS
It's not like you don't have a fucking all knowing, all seeing box in your fucking pocket at all times.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever, man. Hey man, I will say that is one of those things about this topic is that I love our fellow podcasters, I love everybody else who's out there. But it is so difficult to get to the actual information about this story.
MARCUS PARKS
It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the myths are often repeated or it's the other side which I do understand, there's a whole debunking side of it too which kind of muddies the waters. But the book that we read, the main source, that is the real, that's got the as much of the hard data that could exist, it has.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it points more towards it being more real than not.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now as far as the truth goes concerning Madame LaLaurie herself, her story is inextricably wrapped up in the history of American slavery in the Louisiana territory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now begins our five episode series talking about the history of slavery. No, don't worry, these three white men are not gonna do that. But we're gonna do a quick sum up?
MARCUS PARKS
No. No, we're gonna give context. This is merely context for the Madame LaLaurie story.
ED LARSON
Yes. You gotta say something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I gotta say something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'm just waving my comedian white flag.
MARCUS PARKS
I say Louisiana in particular because the law as an unwritten rule surrounding American slavery, which had a centuries long history by the time of Madame LaLaurie, differed from territory to territory in Antebellum America.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I really didn't know that either.
MARCUS PARKS
I didn't either.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That book breaks down, obviously it's just one source that kind of talks about what it was like in Louisiana specifically. But it is interesting.
ED LARSON
So where was it the worst place to be a slave?
MARCUS PARKS
South Carolina.
ED LARSON
That makes sense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, like Charleston.
ED LARSON
I could have probably guessed that, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
There is like a feeling when you're in Charleston.
MARCUS PARKS
See, that's what I fucking said.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I did not, I was also not a huge fantastic of Charleston. I love the people.
ED LARSON
The food is great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We can't wait to come back in 2024 when we're back there live, it's gonna be great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But yeah, it scares the shit outta me.
MARCUS PARKS
No, Charleston has an aura, it has a heavy air. Again, it's got this all pervading feeling of pain and suffering.
ED LARSON
Well that and they still fucking hate. Like the rifle club in Charleston, South Carolina, which is like their Gowanus, it's got like a bowling alley and they all hang out. They just added the Confederate flag.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Great.
ED LARSON
Years ago.
MARCUS PARKS
Cool.
ED LARSON
Like they just started.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good.
ED LARSON
Just the old ass fuckers just voted to start flying the Confederate flag.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You say hate, I say they're just rooting for losers. That's the problem man, they lost.
ED LARSON
They did lose, man. They tried to steal half the country! I don't know why people like these fucks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
I also only mention the rules and laws because they played heavily into Madame LaLaurie's treatment of the people she enslaved, it plays heavily into how her crimes were able to go on so long, and why people reacted the way they did when they discovered what she was doing. See back then slavery was seen as an economic necessity in colonial Louisiana, just like it was all over the South. But slave owners and slavery supporters could also conveniently point to the Old Testament to justify their great crime.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I can't wait to see the current, just the idea of like you're in court and you just have the Old Testament open. Being like listen, no, listen!
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta read the story! Noah fucked his sons! It all makes sense!
MARCUS PARKS
Well the passage from Genesis that was most often cited was a story from Noah, he of the flood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
See one day-
ED LARSON
That fucking guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Russell Crowe.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Love the Noah movie. If you get a chance to watch it, it's a lot of fun. The soundtrack is unbelievable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's good. Natalie was in Noah, she was a stunt person in Noah.
ED LARSON
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's fucking cool. Was she a rock monster?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well they cut all the good stuff. It was a whole sci-fi movie, they cut all of this shit out of it.
ED LARSON
Well they kept the rock monsters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A little bit. But yeah, whatever.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They backpedaled.
ED LARSON
I loved it but the score just sounded like it was saying 'Noah' over and over again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Noah!
ED LARSON
(singing) Noah!
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Noah! Well one day Noah got drunk as he was wont to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, man.
MARCUS PARKS
If you're a scholar of the Bible, you know that Noah got drunk and Noah was an alcoholic.
ED LARSON
It's in the movie.
MARCUS PARKS
Noah then went to his tent, got naked, and passed out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a father's right.
ED LARSON
Yes. Yeah, he's in the tent.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's the whole point of the tent.
MARCUS PARKS
While checking in on his dad, Noah's son Ham saw Noah quote-
ED LARSON
Ham.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ham.
ED LARSON
Ham. Ham.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ham.
ED LARSON
Ham.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ham. Ham.
ED LARSON
Great name. Now I want to have kids just so I can name one Ham.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is my daughter Virginia.
ED LARSON
Sorry for interrupting you. It's just you said Ham.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I knew it was gonna make all of you really excited. Well Noah's son Ham saw Noah quote "in his nakedness, splayed out for all the world to see".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, that's what it is. Like I'm down to see my dad naked.
MARCUS PARKS
Down.
ED LARSON
Had you not?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I saw him naked once. It's rough. But I feel like in this is that he saw him with a night-based hard-on.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I think that's a lot to take.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And Noah was old. So you know like how you get older, your penis gets gray.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Imagine his.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
ED LARSON
It was probably white.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah because he was like, yeah, Noah lived to what, 800, 900?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh god. With that fucking long fucking weird thin dick looked like.
MARCUS PARKS
Gravity pulling it down further and further.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I always think about that when they have a very old man in a porn and it's just like his balls look like the guy from Poltergeist, the preacher.
ED LARSON
Yeah, when he was bringing them two by two, he was actually talking about his balls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Ham then went to his two brothers and said hey, I just saw dad naked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
And this apparently was naughty gossip which Ham's brothers didn't appreciate. So Ham's brothers went and covered up their naked drunken father without looking at his body at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because that's what a true son does.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And so when Noah woke up hungover, Ham's brothers told Noah that Ham had indeed gone into his tent the night before.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
And lo, he had indeed seen Noah's dick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My dick?
MARCUS PARKS
And his balls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My balls?
MARCUS PARKS
Now according to some scholars-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not my balls! Pray me, pray, pray tell me, son, please tell me he did not see my asshole. Because that is an unforgivable crime! Because it belongs to god.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to some scholars, it was actually a serious matter in ancient Babylonia to look at another person's genitals for any reason.
ED LARSON
I thought Babylon was supposed to be like sex all the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Babylon. Babylonia, I think, oh fuck.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. I don't know. I refuse to speak confidently.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. As do I. I did not pay attention during my ancient history class 20 years ago in college.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I think Babylon is something else. But I know Sodom and Gomorrah is the other one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Sodom and Gomorrah is a different one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was the fun part.
ED LARSON
Yeah, the first half of the bible is fun but it really jumps the shark in the sequel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how it always is.
MARCUS PARKS
But the actual translation in the King James version of the bible was that Ham had quote "seen his father's nakedness", which again according to some scholars could be interpreted to mean that Ham had actually engaged in drunken sex with his father.
ED LARSON
Ham bone, Ham bone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I thank god that my algorithm hasn't gotten to there. That I've always heard. I thought that was always the story was that Noah banged his sons. Should even put this into Google? Which kid did Noah sex with?
ED LARSON
Yeah, you could put that into Google. Marcus has put much worse into Google.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You heard it here first, folks.
MARCUS PARKS
I would caution against the word 'kid'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know. I just feel like... Well I already typed it.
MARCUS PARKS
Daughter. Offspring.
ED LARSON
Yeah, offspring I good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow, yeah. Noah offspring.
MARCUS PARKS
I know how to get around.
ED LARSON
Sex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Noah offspring.
ED LARSON
Screw job.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm putting in screw job. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's bad.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nothing's good. I refuse to even put it, I can't put it in.
MARCUS PARKS
Well either way, when Noah discovered that his son had at least peeped his junk, he said cursed be Ham, father of the land of Canaan, and cursed be the people of Canaan who shall hereafter be servants unto their brethren. The so-called Mark of Ham was then placed on the people of Canaan. And that mark, slave owners claimed, was the dark skin of the African. Therefore since Noah's son saw his dad's dick and Noah got all mad about it, it was totally fine to own African slaves.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow, it was easier to be a lawyer then. Because that doesn't really, it doesn't track for me.
ED LARSON
It doesn't make much sense.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no.
ED LARSON
But they also say you can't be gay or eat shrimp.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well in Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, we talk a lot about how if you're gonna take everything literally from Leviticus, one of the biggest crimes is wearing the mixed linens.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know?
ED LARSON
Which I love.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We got to.
MARCUS PARKS
Polyester.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just so crazy to think because it just doesn't make sense. Wouldn't Noah then be black?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He made him black by zapping him?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he zapped him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
No, god zapped him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
God zapped him with the Mark of Ham.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And they said that's how they explained the difference in skin color.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fucking stupid. I think it's fucking stupid.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's really fucking stupid, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I thought Mark of Ham was what you have, the hyperlipidenism.
ED LARSON
Man, love it.
MARCUS PARKS
But if you use the bible to justify enslaving people, then you also had to follow the numerous rules laid out in the bible concerning the treatment of enslaved people. For example, one could not excessively punish or beat an enslaved person to death. And if one did so, the death had to be quote unquote "avenged". That's the word the bible used, avenged. But that avenging would only happen if the enslaved person died within two days of the beating.
ED LARSON
If you die within three days or four days, it's probably worse.
MARCUS PARKS
It's much worse but you don't have to be avenged.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, by god's legal system, you're cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And it's also quite vague on what 'avenged' meant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think honestly the way they term it is that you would be punished by the law.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how they used it. I mean like you can't transgress because if you do, you will get punished.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now that's a lot of mental gymnastics to justify a horrid practice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. It's like 100 years of fucking mental gymnastics to try to figure that out. Because people within the time period, there were plenty of people that didn't like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they didn't know what the fuck to... Whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a whole thing. It's a whole literally history class that I'm not prepared!
MARCUS PARKS
But really the cold, hard fact that most slave owners rested on was that slavery was good for the economy, or at least good for the people who enslaved others.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now excessive cruelty of enslaved people was technically illegal but it was mostly just a practice that was frowned upon. Furthermore, as I said earlier, the definition of excessive cruelty and the punishments thereafter varied from location to location. In North Carolina for instance, early statutes granted planters the right to inflict virtually unlimited violence for whatever reason. That was codified. But in the Orleans territory, the laws were a bit stricter, if still ultimately toothless and subjective. Acceptable punishments for enslaved people included flogging, whipping, putting a person in irons, and solitary confinement. Excessive punishment however included mutilation and beating that went beyond normal flogging and whipping.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They also had legal parameters for the things you could use to punish someone.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like they had to be a certain length and a certain type.
ED LARSON
But it really wasn't enforced.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well the goal depended on-
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's what you call the sheen of civilization.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Is that if they could lie to themselves and tell themselves that all of this was okay if there were rules in place, if there were laws.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. See look, there's rules.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Look, this is a civilization, there are rules, there are laws. We're protecting these people. Look, this is fine. One loophole to get out of it completely however was that these excessive punishments were usually only witnessed by other enslaved people who could not legally testify against white people for any reason.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's the thing is all the witnesses were other people getting punished as well.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Or another guy doing the punishment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. But in order to continue the mental gymnastics of slavery while still including enslaved people in the law, they had to come up with a designation, a sort of antecedent to the post Civil War Three-Fifths Compromise. Enslaved people were referred to in the law as 'passive beings' which was meant to describe an entity that fit between a free person and a thing that was owned by a free person. Therefore enslaved people could be codified into the law without the law acknowledging them as actual people. Now while Madame LaLaurie's tortures were exaggerated over the years, there were slavers who engaged in equally bizarre punishments. According to a formerly enslaved man named Moses Roper, his slaver in South Carolina devised a punishment involving a hog's head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This one fucks me up. This is like one of those, like reads out of a Rob Zombie movie.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I'll get a joke ready.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, good. Good.
MARCUS PARKS
Pick a good one.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to the story, this sadist drove nails into a hollowed out hog's head and forced enslaved people to wear it when they got in trouble. They would then be rolled down a long and steep hill so the hog's head nails would puncture their face and head all the way down. In another punishment straight out of a nightmare, a fugitive named John Brown said that his slaver would suspend people by their hands above sharpened stakes that were just high enough so as to force the person to hold themselves up to avoid being stabbed. But once their arms gave out, they'd fall down upon the spikes which would pierce their feet to the bone. The victim would then be whipped until their backs were jelly and the wounds would be rubbed with red pepper and salt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Eddie?
ED LARSON
I feel like I'm getting hazed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it is. This is an emotional hazing. Yes.
ED LARSON
This is so upsetting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is your function. All right, so now you come in, you make it silly. Dig deep.
MARCUS PARKS
Give us a short sharp.
ED LARSON
All right. How do you know if the ghost in your house died in high school?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How?
ED LARSON
It smells like Teen Spirit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? That's not bad.
MARCUS PARKS
That's great. I really like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's not bad.
MARCUS PARKS
That's not bad at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It sets the tone.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But in New Orleans, such actions could technically result in a judge issuing a decree that the planter had to sell everyone under his thrall, presuming guilt if the enslaved was a clear victim of excessive abuse. They did actually have a thing, it was like oh we don't need a witness, this person has obviously been abused. Or at least that's how it was supposed to work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that's also what's fucked up too. It was a monetary punishment. You don't go to jail.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like they basically just say like okay, you can't have these people anymore.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But there was a provision in the law in which the slaver could clear himself quote "by his oath".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Meaning that in most cases, the courts could only prosecute if the slaver admitted to their own guilt. And most of the time the slavers could skate with the fine even if they were found guilty.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And according to that, the 'Madame LaLaurie: Mistress of the Haunted House', one of the things, it's like it was also pretty easy to just straight up bribe a guy.
MARCUS PARKS
yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You kind of go in and... Because remember if you had any of this, you were rich.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right. If you owned people, it was very expensive. And it was a rich person's idea of... It was their life. So it's like they had plenty of money to throw around to bribe people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. An enslaved person cost at this point the equivalent of $25,000.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now that's all to say that Madame LaLaurie lived her entire life in a society in which slavery was omnipresent and the degree of punishment in the overall treatment of said enslaved people was basically a matter of taste. Now Madame LaLaurie was born Delphine Macarty on a plantation in the late 18th century in uptown New Orleans, which at the time meant anything north of Canal Street. This is where the so-called Americans lived, ie white people born on American soil. South of Canal Street however was where the Creoles lived. Although back then 'Creole' was simply a word for anyone not born in New Orleans or its environs. These would be the people who would eventually give New Orleans its identity, immigrants from France,
Spain, the Caribbean.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The original white people!
ED LARSON
The people who made it cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, exactly. The people who gave it its personality, its flavor.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they were also the same people that were like... Because when the Americans started arriving, the quote unquote "Americans" started arriving, it was ruining the vibe for them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we'll get to that here in a second. To that point though, once you got to the 19th century, the term 'Creole' got flipped to become a racial term that meant native Louisianans of pure white blood descended specifically from French and Spanish colonists. Interestingly though according to family letters, travelers accounts, newspaper stories, and court cases, Creole women mistreated the people, they enslaved at a far higher rate than men, or at least their crimes were more heavily documented. But I do have a theory behind this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, I also do as well.
MARCUS PARKS
I think it's all a question of proximity. I think the mistress of the house was in direct contact with their involuntary servants far more often than the men were.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And the enslaved people that men dealt with, the people out in the fields, were more likely to be punished by an employee rather than the plantation owner directly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then also the woman of the house was more often than not, an abused enslaved person was a woman or a child. Because a lot of times the quote unquote "guy" would be out there with the men enslaved people and they'd outnumber him. And also he'd have to work with these people, that's a part of it too is that deep inside these constructs, you're just trying to keep them from flipping out.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. At any moment one of these guys could take that farm implement he has in his hands and slit your fucking throat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And fucking bury you with it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And that happened occasionally.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh it did.
MARCUS PARKS
It happened quite often. But according to one abolitionist from New York, Creole women put on a polished and respectable appearance for their guests but were habitually cruel to those they enslaved. Madame LaLaurie of course would have taken this as simply the way things were, the way Creole women were expected to act.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well she fit that to a T.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Madame Delphine LaLaurie really enjoyed her station in life and she would go on to specifically position herself to be an important and intrinsic part of New Orleans society.
MARCUS PARKS
In fact, an architect named Benjamin Latrobe wrote that he personally witnessed one of Madame Laurie's cousins whip a woman to death. And this cousin treated another woman with such unnamed cruelty that she died shortly after. It's environmental. This is how she learned, this is how you're supposed to act.
ED LARSON
Can I ask a question?
MARCUS PARKS
Conditioning, that's what it was.
ED LARSON
What did they have there? Why do they need slaves?
MARCUS PARKS
Cotton and sugarcane.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. They were the the full free labor force that built the entire city.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the woman who would become known as Madame LaLaurie came from a large, wealthy, socially powerful family that included military officers, merchants, and numerous plantation owners who had lived in New Orleans for almost a century. This is old money. All of them of course were also slavers. To put it into perspective, when the Macarty family arrived in New Orleans, the population of the city was 4800. Incredibly, 3600 people in that population were enslaved Africans.
ED LARSON
Seems like you don't need that many people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's about unfettered growth. We are just using it to turn this swamp into an American city.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, turn a swamp into an American city. And also you got one guy that's making a whole lot of money, he buys a bunch of land, and he's like okay, I'm gonna turn all of this shit into sugarcane, I'm gonna turn all this shit into cotton. And so yeah, you buy 40 or 50 people and they do that and that's just what happens. And you get enough guys doing that, that's why you have about 1000 people that are free whites and 3600 that are enslaved. Yeah, it's fucking incredible. That's how this whole fucking country was built.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kind of like a mark on our very soul that will haunt us til the end of time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, this isn't just New Orleans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nothing heavier than that.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's not New Orleans, this is like the entire fucking South.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean it's much of it. The White House was built by enslaved people.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the dirty fucking... It's not even a dirty secret.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kinda known.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the secret that we don't like to talk about and don't like to acknowledge but it is the reality of this fucking country.
ED LARSON
I just didn't realize that there was more slaves than white people.
MARCUS PARKS
So many more.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Certain places too.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really depends because this was a harbor town.
ED LARSON
And at this point are there still slaves in the north?
MARCUS PARKS
In 1800?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. Again, this is not a history, we don't know. We don't know.
ED LARSON
You're right, you're right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. In 1800, yeah, there would have been. Yeah. Because in 1776, yeah.
ED LARSON
That's a little too close, right? Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a little too close to 1776.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Definitely. Now since enslaved people far outnumbered free people, whites lived in constant fear of slave insurrections. In the case of the Macarty family, those fears were legitimized in 1771 when a relative by marriage was murdered in a revolt that was soon put down and punished severely. The leaders in that rebellion were tortured on the rack and dragged by a horse until they died. Their bodies were then displayed quote "until consumed". That was the decree. And their hands were cut off and nailed up on a post on a public road. Basically it's leave the bodies out there until they're skeletons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
ED LARSON
So that the crows and bugs get at it?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very medieval. It's a very old school way of punishment.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's 1771, it's not that far off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess it's true.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And there's a bunch of French people there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Spanish.
ED LARSON
That's right, the Inquisition.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, exactly. And that's the other thing too is that this is very similar to what settlers in New England had been doing for over a century to the native populations who rose up against white settlers there. We talked about King Philip's War in our Salem series in which this type of shit was done all the time. Put the heads on the posts outside of the city gates, nail up bodies, let them rot as a warning to others. It was a very common practice around well I would say basically the entire world. I don't think Europeans and Americans are singular in that practice.
ED LARSON
I've been doing that with the spiders in my house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Leave the body out on the windowsill so the other ones can see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No man, spiders are good for your house.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah they are.
ED LARSON
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're extremely good for your house.
ED LARSON
No, I don't want them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They fucking eat mosquitoes. They eat all the bad bugs.
ED LARSON
I kill them myself. I don't need no spiders.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love my spiders.
MARCUS PARKS
I love my spiders too. Now as far as the others who participated in the rebellion that killed Madame LaLaurie's relatives went, they each received anywhere between 100-200 lashes and their ears were all sliced off before they were forced back into involuntary servitude. This, in Madame LaLaurie's mind, was how one punished the people you enslaved.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Upon reading that book though, her family, like in many ways this is how you reacted to a quote unquote "insurrection", right?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did this whole thing where they go overboard, they do all this like fucked up shit, right. Largely the rest of the family sort of kind of did it as everybody else did it, where they were more like, I don't know what the term is. They were slavers but the goal was they were just like quote unquote "normal" slavers. Where what eventually she would go do I think was far outside of the realm of what anybody else in her family would do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well maybe to that point, the Macarty family also had many members who were mixed race because in the early years of New Orleans as a white settlement, there were very few white women to marry. Mixed race children took the family name, they received inheritances. But it's speculated by some scholars that part of Madame LaLaurie's deep hatred for black people was partly wrapped up in her hatred of so-called race mixing, which gave part of her inheritance to people she considered lesser than. Now Madame LaLaurie had three marriages over the course of her life and all three men were terrible in one way or another. Her first husband-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she had a taste. She had a type.
MARCUS PARKS
She definitely had a type for a dangerous man.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Her first husband was a 35 year old Spanish officer of the Crown named Ramón Lopez y Angulo. He married the Madame when she was just 14 and New Orleans was still owned by the Spanish. It was French, then Spanish, then American. Ramón had the dubious distinction of being the man who reopened the slave trade in Louisiana in 1800 after it had been closed for four years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They tried to shut it down for a section of time, or at least the idea of bringing in outside people.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the Spanish tried shutting it, the Spanish in 1797 said like okay, enough's enough, we need to stop this.
ED LARSON
Yeah, there's 3600 of them, there's 1200 of us. I think we're good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Enough's enough. Yeah, yeah, we're all fine here.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But then there was a really strong sugarcane and cotton crop and then all of the town heads came to Ramón and said like hey, we need more guys, would you open it back up? And so Ramón opened it back up without consulting the Spanish Crown and he actually got into quite a bit of trouble because of that and it actually led to his death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He was brought back to Spain. They said like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Big old punishment, you're coming back to España.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, big punishment. Like you fucked up. And also he wasn't supposed to marry Delphine Macarty at the time, he wasn't supposed to marry her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. At the perfect marrying age of 14 years old.
ED LARSON
She was already a hardened bitch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well she would definitely become a hardened bitch.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think it helps.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I mean? To get married at 14.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But he wasn't supposed to marry her because he was supposed to ask the Spanish Crown for permission to marry anyone in a colony. So he was on his way back to Spain. They stopped off in Cuba. Fucking Delphine got off the boat, Ramón stayed on, the boat hit a sandbar, it capsized, Ramóne died.
ED LARSON
He fucking split.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He tried to.
ED LARSON
He's sitting in the Bahamas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly it is dubious how he died but it does seem as such that this is how.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Why did he even tell them that he married her?
MARCUS PARKS
It got back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just find out, man.
MARCUS PARKS
They find out, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause her family was, again, well landed. They were a big family within the entire area.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, very rich, very wealthy. It was a good move for him.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But the Spanish Crown of course were a bit of sticklers for things like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Delphine, after Ramón died, returned to New Orleans to find that Louisiana had been purchased by the United States. This flooded the city with New Englanders who looked down on the white Creoles as people who lacked business sense, devoted themselves to a version of Roman Catholicism that bordered on idolatry, and were addicted to frivolous pleasures. And thank god New Orleans grew out of that phase.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank fucking god.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I can't even believe. But it is true because you remember at this time, people really thought Catholics were like cult members.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause they are.
ED LARSON
Yeah, they are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're cannibals.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, both y'all were... Or just you were raised Catholic, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We both-
ED LARSON
I was raised Catholic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You went to Catholic school.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah. My father was Jewish but he didn't care about anything, he was more of an atheist.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And my mom raised me Catholic because she cared and I went to Catholic school and it was fucking horrible. I got hit by a nun, it sucked.
MARCUS PARKS
Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, with a car.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a big car. No, I got hit with a ruler when I dropped my pencil box in second grade.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
ED LARSON
Yeah, it scarred me, I remember that shit. And I learned how to draw every letter differently and now I write like shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do. Wow, yeah. And isn't that the ultimate revenge?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Forever ignorant.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Fuck you, Sister Dolores! I know you're dead. I know you're fucking dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See you in hell, Sister Dolores!
MARCUS PARKS
The second grade teacher that I had that paddled, I got hit by a gigantic paddle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow!
MARCUS PARKS
The full paddle with the holes in it and everything.
ED LARSON
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So you got classically beat.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, I got beat a lot by teachers.
ED LARSON
Really?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Public school too.
ED LARSON
No shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's back in the day. Wow.
ED LARSON
Texas!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah man. Yeah. Up until, I think the last paddling I got, it was the year 2000.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?!
ED LARSON
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fucking real?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's too soon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I was 17.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In Y2K you're getting spanked?
MARCUS PARKS
In Y2K getting spanked by a full grown man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa. I feel like there's something else in there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And then you sign the paddle afterwards, that was always the weirdest thing about it. And then you kinda laugh and shake hands, it was weird.
ED LARSON
That is weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't like this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel icky.
MARCUS PARKS
It was a strange ritual.
ED LARSON
Your story seems worse than mine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It does. You got paddled at 17.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, 17 and 7, both.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. I would have freaked out. I think at 17-
MARCUS PARKS
And many years old in between.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You would be like I'm a man now!
MARCUS PARKS
At 7?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, at 17.
MARCUS PARKS
At 17. Well that is the weird thing about it because you are both sort of grown men and you do have to bend over while this other grown man smacks you on the ass three times real hard. And then you have to pretend like it doesn't hurt, and then you shake his hand and he shakes yours-
ED LARSON
Thank you sir, may I have another type of deal?
MARCUS PARKS
it's not thank you sir, may I have another. It's like you gotta show him that you're a man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like show him how tight and hard your bottom is?
MARCUS PARKS
Well yeah, your hard bottom-
ED LARSON
Is that why your ass is so good?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh. First BBL.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, no. There was plenty of skinny asses that got hit hard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep. But the big fat ass that I have did make the paddlings more bearable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I take it back, I hope you're still alive, Sister Dolores.
ED LARSON
Fuck you, Sister Dolores! I hope you're dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know she listens.
ED LARSON
I know she listens!
MARCUS PARKS
But soon after the future Madame LaLaurie returned to New Orleans, she married a Frenchman named Jean Paul Blanque on her 20th birthday in March of 1807. Now just like the Madame's first husband, Jean Paul Blanque was also involved in the slave trade, although Blanque was far more hands on. Basically if there was a profession in which there was an opportunity to be crooked, Blanque took it for a spin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You mean a real American.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Goddamn, he was very much a real American, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He was a merchant, a lawyer, a banker, a state legislator.
ED LARSON
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Anything that requires lies!
MARCUS PARKS
And an associate of the infamous pirates Jean and Pierre Lafitte. Jean Lafitte.
ED LARSON
Jean Lafitte!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Jean Lafitte, man.
ED LARSON
I love Jean Lafitte, man! He runs the Pirates of the Caribbean.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's the bit.
ED LARSON
Yeah! You take off from Lafitte's Landing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see Lafitte-
MARCUS PARKS
I didn't know that, I've never been on Pirates.
ED LARSON
You've never been on Pirates of the Caribbean?!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's never been.
MARCUS PARKS
I've only been to Disneyland once.
ED LARSON
But you go on the one with all the rapists and the murderers!
MARCUS PARKS
I went for Star Wars.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the thing is that Jean Lafitte kind of had his history because he helped us during the fucking War of 1812 or some garbage.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. We'll get to it here in a second.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But yeah, he was not a great guy.
ED LARSON
Jean Lafitte! Disney's own.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Disney loves to claim him. Especially with all the human trafficking.
MARCUS PARKS
But above all, Jean Paul Blanque was a smuggler of illicit goods. And after the African slave trade was officially abolished in 1808, he added human trafficking to his resume. And it's estimated that he entered almost 400 people into bondage. He did interestingly enough also play a fairly large part in American military history. During the pivotal battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, it was Madame LaLaurie's husband who convinced Jean Lafitte to join in on the side of the Americans against the British.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. It's really fucking weird about how this is a massively important part, like things could have really changed in the history of the United States of America if we lost this war. Like it's like a whole thing. But it was kind of all dependent upon the negotiation tactics of slavers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And it's not even just this war, it's this battle. Like if we lost this battle and still won the war, well no one won the war, it was a draw. But the thing is that the battle in New Orleans made a celebrity out of the man who led America to victory, Andrew Jackson, the man on the $20 bill, old hickory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh.
ED LARSON
He's a good guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
MARCUS PARKS
No he's not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no!
ED LARSON
I know, just kidding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That guy, I like that guy!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Eddie. Eddie, please.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing is that had Madame LaLaurie's husband not intervened and brought the pirates in, Jackson may have never had the national profile to become president. Like it's so much weird... It's one of those fucking hinge points of history.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was his version of The Apprentice for our former president.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh, that's what made him famous.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, yes.
ED LARSON
And Trump had the Russian mafia as well which is like the pirates.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Actually I think it was Joan Rivers, it was fucking Tommy, what was his name, Tommy Lee technically was his Jean Lafitte.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the Madame and Jean Blanque were married for about a decade but in the early 1820s, Blanque simply disappeared, leaving behind a debt of $3.3 million in today's currency.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think the debt had something to do with it.
MARCUS PARKS
I think the debt had everything to do with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But it might be tempting to say that Madame LaLaurie was a black widow because she did have two husbands in a row either die or disappear. But nah, Jean Blanque probably just fucked off to another part of the world to avoid the debts because $ 3.3 mil is a big fucking marker.
ED LARSON
Yeah. I'd run.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Madame LaLaurie, according to the book 'Madame LaLaurie: Mistress of the Haunted House', there was really no evidence that she killed anybody that was like bigger or stronger than her.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Especially her husbands, she kind of depended upon them for status, money. I think it's more just like she started real early. And if you are a child bride, like you got a lot more opportunity for husbands to die.
MARCUS PARKS
You really do, yeah. Especially if you're a child bride in the late 18th century.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
This all sounds very Game of Thrones.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh it just stopped being Game of Thrones.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The whole world just stopped being Game of Thrones like 150 years ago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
ED LARSON
Man, that's great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're learning, we're growing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we are. But it could also be that since Jean Paul Blanque was a smuggler, slaver, and a pirate, he might have just been fucking killed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Guys like that die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he could have got got.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he could have got got by another guy, another pirate. Who knows?
ED LARSON
Swashbuckled to death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, it's the hardest way to keep your pants up.
MARCUS PARKS
But either way, Jean Paul's death was a huge net negative for the Madame. Simply put, the Madame had no motive for killing either of her husbands.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it fucked up her whole life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When he died and left her, saddled her with the debt. But that's kind of when she... I was saying this to Natalie, she girlbossed it. You know what I mean? She was such a girlboss because she showed up and she was like... I could see them doing the fucking like, you know how every villain movies know about how great they are and how misunderstood they are?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I could definitely see Emma Stone playing Delphine LaLaurie, coming in and you hear like (singing) I'm unstoppable! Sia comes playing over her scene of her understanding she needed to sell all her holdings. She became like a real estate maven and became sort of a very cunning businesswoman during this time period, at the age of something like 20. Where she had to figure out what the fuck was going on and basically get all the money back.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
She wasn't 20, she was more like 35.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes, that's right.
MARCUS PARKS
She was actually like 40.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, but still. Girlboss. (singing) I'm unstoppable!
MARCUS PARKS
Does girlboss include being saved because you inherit all of your father's estates?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think so, implicitly.
ED LARSON
Yeah actually.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, Tori Spelling.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh that's true, yeah. That's good. But while the future of Madame was almost ruined by Jean Blanque's debts, her problems were soon solved when her father died and she inherited a massive fortune, multiple plantations, and a massive number of enslaved people. Now despite rumors that Madame LaLaurie's parents had been massacred in a slave insurrection at San Domingue, San Domingue, Saint Domingue?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
ED LARSON
San Domingue.
MARCUS PARKS
San Domingue. Yeah. Or that her cruel mother had been murdered by those she held in bondage while she was returning to her plantation in her carriage one night, both parents died natural deaths.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they just died.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. What really mattered was the fortune. Because by the mid 1820s at the age of 45, Madame LaLaurie was independently wealthy and terribly powerful. That perhaps is why she chose her next husband, the man who would give her the surname that would be synonymous with torture and murder for centuries to come.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is one of those like mysteries at the heart of this because we don't really know why they got together.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or how they found each other. Because they were very, very different. And I know what he got out of it but I'm not sure what she got out of it, except for that dick.
MARCUS PARKS
Did she did get that dick. I have some theories.
ED LARSON
Well they both had money and power, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did not.
MARCUS PARKS
Let's get into it. 15 years younger than the Madame, Louis LaLaurie was from a middle class family in France who had studied medicine at the Sorbonne in Paris. But he had immigrated to Louisiana to seek his fortune. Now it isn't known exactly how Madame and Louis LaLaurie met because Louis was by no means a member of uppercrust Creole society. He was in effect a nobody and had barely begun to establish a practice in New Orleans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pretty certain number one is that he was known to be handsome.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He cut a dashing figure. He was new from France and everybody loved that horseshit. He probably had a little mustache or a little beard. The Sorbonne was a big fucking deal at the time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it seems like maybe he got invited into one of these parties or circles and she like saw him, she was like (Louisiana accent) me want the balls! And then jumped on it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So he was like a little Cunanan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A little tiny Cunanan.
MARCUS PARKS
Cunanan, yeah.
ED LARSON
Okay, good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's Cunanan, just looking for that punany.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's speculated that Madame LaLaurie was seeking a medical specialist to treat an orthopedic condition suffered by one of her children, a curvature of the spine. And Dr.
LaLaurie may have been trying to set himself apart by specializing in medical abnormalities and deformities.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was considered like the fucking height of technology at the time, what he was doing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was the most fucking, like it was brand new shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as author Carolyn Morrow put it, Louis LaLaurie was an inconspicuous, colorless nonentity, a meek mousy little man who cowered at his wife's every word. And he may have been just that or at least partly that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But other evidence says that the Madame was quite engaged by the young doctor who promised that he could fix her child's debilitating ailment. Now for lord knows what reason, Madame LaLaurie has her defenders or at least people who try to play down how awful she really was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It mostly seems to come from the neighboring families and other people wanting to try to preserve the purity of their culture, of their groups of people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Yeah, Antebellum New Orleans. Yeah. But these people, their defense always involves Dr. LaLaurie. According to their defenders, the screams that were often heard coming from the LaLaurie mansion were not from enslaved people being tortured but were instead the screams of the Madame's young daughter being tortured under the guise of medical treatment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think that they were separate.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Is it better?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I always remember-
MARCUS PARKS
For your own good!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For your own good! My sister used to have hair all the way down past her butt, right. But she used to scream, my mom used to brush her hair and she would scream and scream.
ED LARSON
She's got very thick hair.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes. And I always remember the neighbors would come like we were beating the shit out of her. But it's just like no, that would have been fucking cool. No, we weren't though.
MARCUS PARKS
No. See Dr. LaLaurie was a practitioner of an antecedent to orthopedics called orthopraxy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Which depended on, according to a textbook teaching the practice, the mechanical treatment of deformities, debilities, and deficiencies of the human frame. Mechanical being the operative word here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh very much so.
MARCUS PARKS
In other words, this was a medical treatment in that terrifying experimental age of medicine in the 19th century where they would try anything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, I'm looking at the machines right now that they used.
ED LARSON
It's the rack, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is basically one was the rack that had two loops. So basically you'd hold onto a bar, your feet were strapped into this like pulling mechanism, and then they have two different leather belts that would be strapped on different sections of your spine. And that was for scoliosis. So one crank would move one belt the other way, the other crank would move the other belt the other way. And then they would slowly stretch you to align the vertebrae. And it would just... The goal was to break and snap your bones in a way to put it together. But his main purpose in life was to quote unquote "destroy the hunchback". And then his whole thing was that that's what orthopraxy was all about, it was like just getting rid of hunches.
ED LARSON
I mean please.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But look at how they did it. This is another machine where you lay down and essentially like a rowing machine where it's got two wooden planks sticking out of this giant wooden structure where the hunch would sit on the one side of the plank and the other plank would dig up into the top of your ass. And then you would strap you all the way down onto it and then you use that thing to sort of snap you forward to try to punch the hunch up. And he said don't worry, he's like (French accent) as soon as we start, it only takes about 2-3 years of this. This is real. To change your back.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean that's the thing is that at this point they're just trying anything. They're just past like fucking bashing someone in the head with a rock and throwing them in the ditch if something was wrong with them or selling them to the freak show.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So yeah, I bet the daughter was screaming.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I don't doubt that he was... Because there was orthopraxic machines in the house.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And because orthopraxy was a mechanical treatment, some of the torture found in Madame LaLaurie's house like strange braces and rack-like mechanisms were explained away as orthopraxy instruments that had been used to stretch and rotate the Madame's daughter to bring her spine back into proper alignment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which I don't think is incorrect. But I also don't think that those things were being used properly all the time.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because as we'll see in the next episode, one of the main enslaved people that had direct contact with Madame LaLaurie was a woman referred to as the hunchback.
MARCUS PARKS
But after a period of courtship, the Madame married Dr. LaLaurie in 1831 and soon purchased a lot at 1140 Royal Street. It was here that she built the small mansion that would eventually come to be known as the most haunted house in America. And that is where we'll pick back up for part two of Madame LaLaurie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And next week we're gonna get into what we believe to be real and not real. We're gonna go deeper into the ghost stories that were involved around this house. But if you're in New Orleans, y'all know that that place is creepy as fuck. And next week we're really gonna see why it was considered to be and continues to be creepy as fuck.
ED LARSON
I love it, man. I mean I love that there's a ghost thing that we're talking about. I don't love that it happened.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's great cover.
ED LARSON
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But man, it's Halloween. This is it.
ED LARSON
What are you dressing up as?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think I'm going as a warrior type. I think I'm going as Conan the Barbarian.
MARCUS PARKS
Nice.
ED LARSON
At what summer camp does Johnny Depp kill camp counselors at?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
ED LARSON
Camp Crystal Meth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
That's pretty good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
ED LARSON
Yeah, thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Gimme another, I wanna hear another one.
ED LARSON
I got these, I wrote them down. Why is is so hard for Michael Myers to have sex?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Why?
ED LARSON
He has a hollow-weenie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All weenies are hollow.
ED LARSON
Not really.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We got tubes.
ED LARSON
There is a tube but there's meat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It's a muscle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com. Are wieners hollow?
ED LARSON
Is your weenie hollow?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I don't think it's just a bag that fills up with blood. I think it's blood vessels that become engorged.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But there's two. There's the urethra.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I view that as where the cream goes.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh where the cream goes.
ED LARSON
Yes. Well you can hear these jokes and more, I'll be on tour.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I'm gonna be in Chicago on November 1st with Jeff at the 312 Comedy Festival opening up for Take A Banana For The Ride. And the same thing with the New York Comedy Festival November 3-5.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love that, I absolutely love that. Also check out Operation Sunshine at your local comic book store. It is out there, it's from Dark Horse. Go to your local comic book store, order it by name and they'll give it to you. And if not, I'll fucking come to that place myself, I'mma burn it down.
ED LARSON
That's amazing.
MARCUS PARKS
Or you can also put #2 on your pull list, make sure you get it next time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying I'm willing-
ED LARSON
You can probably order it online.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm willing to go all the way.
MARCUS PARKS
But go to your local comic book store.
ED LARSON
It's better that way.
MARCUS PARKS
It's better that way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No stone unturned! All right? I don't care, I use every tactic in the book. All right, that's it. Hail Satan.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Hail Gein.
ED LARSON
Hail your mama.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate this.
ED LARSON
We're trying on new ones.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is different. I'm not ready for this because it does sort of being like, I guess... Ugh.
ED LARSON
Hail your mama!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh.
ED LARSON
What? You don't wanna hail your mama?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly some people don't like their mother.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's true. I love my mom, I'll hail my mother.
ED LARSON
Yes. Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Hail mother.
ED LARSON
Hail mother.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I already have given her enough.
ED LARSON
Ooh!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've given her enough.
ED LARSON
I'mma tell her. I'mma tell her you didn't hail her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck.
MARCUS PARKS
I'mma tell on you, tell on you!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's got enough! Hail Satan.