304 - Show-Off Time

This week, Georgia covers the life and tragic death of Aaliyah and Karen tells the survival story of ultramarathon runner Mauro Prosperi. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Okay, we're like a well oiled machine. Oh we are.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
You hear that, you hear that churning, the churning of
the machine.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I have to leave this in right. Hello, and welcome

(00:43):
to my favorite murder. Thank you. Yeah, that's Karen Kilgariff,
that's Georgia Hart. Start. And this is how we do it, guys,
This is how we do it, professionals. All the way
to the top. I was just actually smiling right as
we turned and hit record in our separate homes, I
just was smiling of like with thank God for Stephen

(01:05):
Ray Morris. We made it through this pandemic and through
this quarantine. Podcasting the entire time. Yeah, it's not many
people did much more. That helped many more, but it
just was making me smile of like we just kept
doing it like responsible, Like like how I think of
responsible people behaving Oh like.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Actually still doing your job, like continuing on to life
instead of being like, well, this is the green light
for me to lay on the couch for the next
two years in depression mode.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Good bye. Yep. No, we still picked up our bloomers
and we sat in front of the zoomers and we
did yes, and we go on wait, you finish it
one more, Let's get out of here. We've done it again. Truly,

(01:59):
I feel like I've into twenty twenty one has lasted
about three years where I've passed into an area I
don't give a fuck anymore. I want what's best for everyone,
But I also you know what I mean, I just
would love to wrap this year up. I'd love to
you know, chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Did you
put up?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Speaking of, did you put up your white Christmas, fake
Christmas tree, your beautiful I should.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
I haven't done it yet because I packed so much
stuff into my garage, but it's blocked. I blocked my
own Christmas tree in no.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, so I have metaphor of what this year's been like.
Your joy is blocked in by.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
What I just I realize every day I think of
going down and getting it, and I'm like, you will
end up really sweaty because you're gonna have to move
about five couches, maybe hurting yourself a little bit, maybe
just a slight lower back pall that affects me for
three to six weeks out.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Right, and so then you have to keep it up
through January, and then you're that depressing person who has
a Christmas tree up through January.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Right, Although I do have to say, if you're in
the market or like thinking about a fake tree, especially
go all the way fake like I did, and have
a white, sparkly tree with lights already in it. You
kind of can leave it up for as long as
you want. Yeah, does it make you happy? Great? Put
it up in September, take it down in March. Yeah,
fucking cares? Who fucking cares?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
At this point we put up Christmas lights, which are
great outside. But the problem this year is that we
have a puppy and a kitten, so there's no fucking
Christmas tree this year for us. Like it's just it
would be asking for a pain in the air, like
asking to be annoyed all the time.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
And well, yeah, and it would go down like it
would be in the middle of the night. Kind of
what's that saying? It stands to hear early crash.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, I mean I've already had to put all my plants,
my beautiful indoor plants that I like kept alive and
love so much, and how to put them outside because
Moses and now they're all dying.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Because I just if I don't see them, I won't
water them. Yep. Anyway, do it pick a day? Not
like I'm some green thumb, but I just pick a day.
That's what I learned. I looked it up because I
was like, I would love to keep my house plants alive,
and I'm acting like I simply can't quote unquote, and
then so I looked up some tips and it was
just like, like, water your plants on Sundays. Then it's

(04:19):
just like and only one they're thirsty, Like wait, let
the dirt get really dry, right right? Those are my
two tips from like They're gonna die green thumb corner.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
From Karen's Karen's plant corner. Who I was speaking of
Karen's corner, I have a Karen was right corner.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Oh shit, you know my favorite corner corner.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
The fucking TV show The Great on Hulu is one
of the best fucking shows.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
I would have you ever watched it if you hadn't
told me. Now Vince and I are like in it.
It is I can't believe that was Elf. I didn't
even know it was El Fanning. Isn't she fucking spectacular?
She is like next level, next level? Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
And the writing what was the move? It's made by
the same dude who made the movie, uh with what's
with Olivia?

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (05:08):
The Favorite? The Favorite? Yes, it's like it's the same
kind of vibe going on to Tony Tony something.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
I look at his name every time I watch an
episode going because I always think of him as like
a playwright, because it's I heard it was originally a play.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
It does seem it does have those that vibe directed
by your ghosts, Lanthia mos No, oh, sorry.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Like ep Okay, your ghost is killing it though. I mean,
Jesus Christ, that thing is a beautiful television show to watch.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, that sounds like a name from gam of Thrones?
Is it Tony McNamara, Yeah, okay?

Speaker 1 (05:45):
And what else did he do?

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Tony McNamara wrote The Great and wrote The Favorite, and
wrote Cruella and The Rage and Placid Lake.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
He's good. He's a legend, I mean. And this show
it's like, what you like? Do you like costumes? Show
up for this? Do you like comedy? Show up for this?

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Do you like history? Show up for this? Do you
like vintage cursing? I love when they use like modern cursory.
I don't know why when there's like fuck this and
fuck that, like yes, literally speaking my language, literally speaking.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Your language, but also teaching you about the Russian aristocracy
and the way that their democracy unfolded. I don't really
look at you. I didn't learn that. I didn't learn
that much. And also the guy that plays the general,
her general, Oh yeah, who is he has been in
all of my British shows. I bet he's got over

(06:40):
the years. Yeah, and he is in a couple of
the old and I can't offhand, I can't remember which ones,
but he's been in like Jane Austen style. He's you know, classic.
He started as like the the hawk guy and now
he's like this character part that he is so good
at where you're like, I love when that guy's on screen.
And I love the Elizabeth. I love the aunt. Oh

(07:02):
my god, she's my favorite for sure. Butterflies. Yes, she's amazing.
I was going to recommend there's a Netflix true crime
documentary and it's German and it's called Dig Deeper The
Disappearance of burghete Meyer, and it is I think it
was for six parts episodes. It's so unbelievable, you have

(07:26):
to watch it. It's an unbelievable story, okay, And it
turned out the burgheite Meyer, her brother was like basically
the head of the police in I think Homburg, and
so she just disappeared. And so he was in it
where he was in charge. He was way high up,
but he was like somewhere else, so he couldn't run

(07:48):
the investigation or interfere. But then it basically just went
cold and they went, yeah, there's just no answer.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
When did it take place in the I think eighties? Okay,
eighties or early nineties? Okay, you have to watch it though.
It's really unbelievable. What they call it. It's called dig Deeper,
the Disappearance of Berghee Meyer. Okay, I'm in yeah, really incredible.
What happened to this family and these people, her ex

(08:20):
husband who she was divorcing, her brother, her daughter.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Oh, it's you got to see it, okay, and I'm
on it. Okay. Once we watched Succession tonight that movie. Oh,
oh so excited. Oh, just the living stomach ache of
entertainment that is Succession. It's just getting better and a
brilliant piece of work. Just wonderful. Do you have anything

(08:46):
else or should we get into it?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (08:48):
I just have I just have one thing, which is
and this is really I feel really bad. But at
the same time, I don't think we were talking massive shit.
But when Michelle Bhuteaux did the celebrity hometown with us,
we walked, we did a little memory lane walk, and
we were talking about what we called the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, okay,

(09:10):
and then the guy that runs the Winnipeg Comedy Festival
wrote in and said, Hey, just so you know, that's
not us, that was that other comedy festival that took
place in Winnipeg. So there were a couple like, you know,
saucy comments. I think Michelle made a joke about her
check not clearing or something like that. Whatever it was,

(09:31):
it made this person feel like they really needed to say, hey,
that's not us, So our apologies to the Winnipeg Comedy Festival,
which I have never been to. Okay. I assumed Winnipeg
as a city only had one, but I was wrong
in that assumption, and I think the one we were
at isn't around anymore. Not sure, not going to name

(09:51):
the name, but he full apologies and props to the
Winnipeg Comedy Festival. The guy was really nice and funny
in his email, but he was just like, yes, oh
my god, I love it. Oh, I have a thing too. Wait,
hold on a second, I forgot. Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
We got a lot of shit from people who were like,
how do you guys, how do neither of you own
a pizza cutter?

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Like people were a little of gas last week when we.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Both talked about that, which I find were they a gas?
A little of gas? Which I find like, calm down?
But this one person wrote, I mean so someone caught
This girl named Nikki l Bag on Instagram commented, my
husband and I received a sterling silver Tiffany pizza cutter.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
For a wedding gift.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Oh can you believe that it, in Noah, reflects our
lifestyle at all. It is currently in a drawer next
to our one ninety nine pizza cutter. On pizza nights,
if we think our pizza is on the fancier side,
we scoff at the lowly cutter for the pleaves and
give a quick shine to the cutter made for pizza
eating queens, and then immediately fuck the pizza up by

(10:56):
cutting right away before letting it cool. I just thought
that was like the nicest of the comments.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well, that's kind of hilarious. Please remember, if you get
married and you get a jacked up gift like that,
return it for that money. What are you doing? What
are you doing? Get your tiffany motherfucking credit, start credit,
Stark credit, get yourself so many beautiful butterfly necklaces. Right,

(11:23):
But yeah, I don't, I've never really. I think there
are people who live differently and they assume everyone lives
like them. And pizza cut a people being actually like
a gast. That's silly to me because you order pizza
from a restaurant that cuts it for you, and if
for some reason that doesn't happen good enough, it's called

(11:43):
a fucking knife. Other than that, who gives a shit.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
What's crazy to think about is there are people out
there who like live lives that have pizza oven outdoor,
like brick pizza ovens, that like make pizza stems.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
I know it's crazy. Wait, are you thinking of Papa John?
Because he does not listen to this podcast? There's no way. Okay,
So should we do some network business. Yeah, let's do it.
Let's see this week on Exactly Right, the Exactly Right
podcast network I saw what you did is doing a
double feature of the nineteen ninety one version of Point
Break and the twenty fifteen version of Point Break. Amazing.

(12:19):
I love analysis, compare and can trust get in there.
You're going to want to hear these observations.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
You got to see it to believe it. And then
we also want to wish that's messed up. An SVU
podcast a happy one year anniversary. Yay, we love having
them on the network. This week they cover the episode
of SVU called Pure starring the Great Martin Short, and
then their special guest this week is none other than
SVU super fan your friend Karen Kilgariff.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
That's right. Oftentimes when podcasts on our network have one
year anniversaries, they ask one of us to be on
it to mark that time with them, which is very
We had a great conversation. I love those guys, love it.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
And this week on Wednesday is our amazing, hilarious guest,
Nicole Bayer. So please check out Celebrity hometowns.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh and hey, there's lots of great MFM and exactly
right merch for sale. We have lots of cool Christmas
Stay safe, do God's Mission sweatshirt still exists, you can
get it. There's ornaments there's all kinds of great stuff
over there, and you can still get it sent to

(13:31):
you in time for the twenty fifth if you order
expedited shipping. That's right.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
And also we have a lot of this is terrible
keep going merch. So if you need that instead this
holiday season, we got you. Yeah, whatever you need, yeah,
we got you.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Don't worry about it. So you know, throughout December we're
giving to different charities because it's the holiday season and
it's the giving season. And so this week we're donating
to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. They're committed to
preventing and ending homelessness in the US, and we're going
to give them ten thousand dollars. We're really happy to

(14:05):
be able to give them a little help this holiday season. Yep.
And if you can too, it's a great thing to
reach out to. And if not, think good thoughts. All right, Well,
I'm first this week, right you are? Are you ready?
I'm ready? Are you ready? I don't know, thank God,

(14:29):
I'm ready. That would be funny. It's like, no, I
need a little more time to work. Can I have
twenty five minutes?

Speaker 2 (14:36):
All right, Karen? For this week today, I'm going to
talk about one of the most influential music artists of
all time, her life and her tragic death, The Princess
of r and B Aliyah.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Oh Wow Yeah. Been wanting to do this one for
a while.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Sources used in today's episode are the Alio website, biography
dot com, to CNN staff articles, a New York Times
article by Kurt Eichenwild, a Daily Bast article by Cheyenne Roundtree,
and a New Yorker article by Jim DeRogatis. So here
we go on January sixteenth, nineteen seventy nine. Aliyah Dana

(15:15):
Houghton is born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Diane
and Michael, and then at five, the family all moves
to Detroit. So Aliyah, whose name is of Arabic origin
and means like the heavens, high born, exalted one. She
starts voice lessons pretty soon after she's even able to
form full sentences. She starts singing, she had the gift.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
She had the gift.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
She sings in choirs and churches. She eventually also attends
dance and guitar lessons as well, so she's a talented kid.
When she's still young, Aliyah has a small role in
a production of the musical Annie. She plays an orphan
and only has one line, but it makes her realize
that that's what she wants to do. It will be
on stage and perform for the rest of her life.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Annie is a It's a like a watershed moment for
little girls who think they can sing or can sing
when you get when suddenly you find out that there
is a musical that just is filled with ten year
old girls that are kind of scream singing. It's like
one of the most exciting things that can happen to
you as a young show off.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Do you do you know this from a personal experience,
Karen come, oh, yes, yes, I do.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yes. Why did you play well? No? The Annie. I
think it was like nineteen seventy nine when the Annie
cast album came out with Antony McCardle starring Annie, and
that just that whole you know, it's a hart. It's
just like this kind of like it was just all

(16:47):
anthems for young girls.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Is Karen's doing a marching arm thing right now, like
a fist pounding march.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
It just felt good. I know that feeling that.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
She worked and I know what you meant by that too,
So she yeah, she wants to do it forever. She
later says, quote, what I loved about it was just
putting the production together, being in the chorus, learning the routine, singing,
and doing a little bit of acting. That's when I said,
I've got to do this forever. In nineteen eighty nine,
ten year old Aliyah performs in the Youth Vocal Competition

(17:20):
on Star Search.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Did you know that?

Speaker 2 (17:23):
No, her dress is like what in nineteen I'm the
same pretty much the same angels are. It would have
just been the dress you've always wanted in your entire
ten year old life, you know, at the frilly bottom
and the top, and then it has got a little
bolo coat on it as Ooh yeah, look, she's so cute.
She doesn't win, but it's okay because she does get

(17:45):
a gig performing five nights a week with Gladys Knight
in Las Vegas. Yes, holy shit, it seems random, but
Gladys is actually Aliyah's uncle, Barry Hankerson's ex wife. Oh okay,
they're connected. She sees this thing and Aliah and she's like,
she's fucking amazing. I want her to perform with me.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Gladys Knight, I know, the greatest is the Vegary just truly.
That's amazing. Well, also, there's so many people who were
on Star Search and didn't win and went on to
become huge. That's right, Yeah, I believe, justin Timberlake. Yeah,
I watched it. I watched it.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
We watched it every time it was on. I just
don't remember any of it. Remember the acting category, that's right,
what do you do?

Speaker 1 (18:32):
How does the mountain get a terribly written scene on
a log or something? Yeah, it was like two people
fighting over a kitchen table is crazy.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
We love the singing, the child singing, which now I can't.
I have a hard time watching children sing. Yeah, it
just creeps me out. Uh you know to comedy, yeah, exactly.
And the comedy, Yeah, comedy, lots of there. There was
lots of great comics on. There was She Sings My
Funny Valentine, which is like, oh, that's cute, but then
like some of the lyrics are like you don't have

(19:01):
an Adonis's body, Like it's kind of a little bit weird.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, when children sing standards, that's what happens. That's invoyria. Ye,
it's unavoidable in appropriateness.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
So Gladys Knight later says this about Eliah from an
early age, I knew she had enormous talents.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
And intrinsic gift.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
When she first performed with me in Las Vegas, she
was still quite young, but she already had it the
spark that the world would later.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
See and fall in love with.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
So by age twelve, Aliyah is signed with Jive Records
and her uncle Barry Hankerson's Blackground Records. And Aliyah's uncle
Barry isn't just Gladys's night ex husband, he's also R
Kelly's manager. M In nineteen ninety four, when it is
only fourteen years old, R Kelly writes and produces her

(19:53):
first album, Age Ain't Nothing But a Number Oh No.
The first single, back and Forth, makes it onto the
t top five on the Billboard Hot one hundred charts
and becomes the number one R and B songs as
well on the charts. Aliyah later says, I still remember
how nervous I was right before back and Forth came out.
I kept wondering if people would accept it. When it
went gold, I had my answer, and it was just

(20:15):
such an incredibly satisfying feeling. Well, the album is very
successful many people feel that the lyrics are too suggestive.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
For a teenage girl.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Aliyah later responds by saying, I didn't feel I was
too mature.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
I felt for my age. I was just right.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, I was a little bit sexy, but that's just
me and I'm not going to deny being a little
bit sexy.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
I think it's a wonderful thing. She was like fourteen
years old, you know. Yeah, and it was the unchecked nineties, right,
it was the time where everyone was just kind of,
you know, putting stuff out totally totally.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, So we don't want to focus on r Kelly
because he fucking sucks, But I just wanted to go
over some of this stuff. And it's pretty timely because,
as you know, in September twenty twenty one of this year,
R Kelly was found guilty of many charges, including sexual
exploitation of a child, bribery, racketeering, and sex trafficking, and

(21:12):
he now faces life in prison. So during his recent trial,
prosecutors actually discuss R Kelly's relationship with Aliyah, acknowledging that
she was one of his victims. Oh they said, yeah,
they said Aaliyah and R Kelly met in nineteen ninety two,
when he was around twenty five and she was thirteen.

(21:32):
Oh no, uh huh, and r kelly saw how talented
she was, so he started producing and writing the music
for her, and not long after he also started quote
engaging in sexual activity with her, which we all know
now is called rape. You know, Aliyah was far too
young to consent, obviously, but r kelly kept engaging in

(21:54):
this sexual activity for several.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Years with the child.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Nineteen ninety four, R kelly was on tour when Aliah
called him and said she might be pregnant, so he
starts panicking. Knowing that if she's pregnant with his kid,
he could get charged with statutory rape. He decides he
has to fix the situation. He flies home to Chicago.
He gets his accountant, who testified in the trial, saying
that he needed to come up with a plan to

(22:21):
marry Aliyah in order to keep quote, keep her from talking,
end quote, keep him out of jail. So, because Aliah
was only fifteen at the time, R Kelly's former tour manager,
Demetrius Smith, he bribes the Chicago official into giving him
fake documents lying about Aliah's age, and they use those
documents to get a marriage license, so basically the documents

(22:44):
say she's eighteen instead of fifteen.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh wow, And so.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
On August thirty first, R Kelly and Aliah mary in
a hotel room at the Sheraton near the Chicago Airport.
Then he fucking leaves the same day, gets on a
plane and goes to his next show.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
H So Aliyah goes home to Detroit to tell her
parents what happened, and they're obviously very upset about the
whole thing, and then rumors start to spread about the marriage.
In nineteen ninety four, Vibe magazine got a copy of
the marriage certificate, which showed R. Kelly's real age of

(23:20):
twenty seven while Elia's fifteen. And people are talking all
about this. It's really scandalous, as it should be. And
R Kelly and Alia deny it's true. They just say
they're really good friends.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
The marriage is annulled pretty quickly, and there's a settlement
entered where they wouldn't make any public comments about each
other and they would no longer have any personal professional
contact with each other. I think her parents were upset obviously.
R Kelly quote admitted to no liability or wrongdoing, and
Aliyah and her parents agree not to sue him, and

(23:54):
Aliah's uncle Berry I Guess quits.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
His job as R Kelly's manager.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
When he finds out about this her resignation, he tells
R Kelly that he should quote seek psychiatric help for
a compulsion to pursue underage girls.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Wow. Yeah, so fine, let's fucking move on from R Kelly.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
So back to nineteen eighty four, Elia's first album, Aging
Nothing but a Number has just been released.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
It's a massive hit. It's just a really unfortunate title
that this. I know that that's that he's involved in it.
It just like it's so indicative. Yeah yeah, but he's
on the cover of the album too. Oh no, it's
like not all bad. It's all bad.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
So it's a massive hit that everyone now knows about
Aliyah and love her. She's got this really cool style.
She's got like baggy pants and oversized shirts. She becomes
like a major fashion icon. She kind of like teen
Vogue says, she like sets the prototype for that time period.
And in nineteen ninety six, Alia's second album, One in

(24:57):
a Million, is released. This time she works with Timbaland
and Missy Elliott and they end up making this incredible team.
They worked together many times in the future because they
are just such a tight team.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
You want Missy Elliott to produce your album if you're
I mean that is she the that move of getting
out from under that shadow and then to move to
Timbaland and Missy Ellen it's just like but also she
really was insanely talented, insanely beautiful, like just prime so

(25:31):
perfectly for show business.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, she definitely you know, it's like such a corny
thing to call it, but like that it you know,
she had that thing where you just wanted to like
watch her. And at the time, like in the late nineties,
I was into like emo and punk and hardcore like
I was not, And I bought her album. I never
fucking bought albums, Like I didn't own anything. I had

(25:53):
like a boombox CD player on my car seat beside
me because I couldn't afford a fucking car stereo And
I still have that album somewhere, Like it was so good. Yeah,
she was just incredible. So the whole album, One in
a Million, ends up going multiplatinum, and Elia starts performing
shows around the world and at this point she's a

(26:14):
major star. Alan light of Spin magazine says, quote, there's
a lot of popular, interchangeable young pop and R and
B singers, and Aliah had an element of mystery and sophistication.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
And at the time, Alia's not only releasing hit records
and performing shows, She's also at this time attending the
dance program at Detroit High School for the Fine and
Performing Arts and getting a four point o GPO. Oh,
my god, GPA not a GPO, right, I.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Don't know what that is. Yeah, So she's fucking finishing
high school at the same time, and she plans to
attend college. I know, amazing.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
In nineteen ninety eight, Alias song are You That Somebody
is featured on the Doctor Doolittle soundtrack and it becomes
one of Elia's most recognizable songs.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
She's nominated for her first Grammy, and in the same year,
she performs Journey to the Past on the Anastasia soundtrack
and is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. Yeah.
So that's nineteen ninety eight, great year for her.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
So next Aleah goes into acting because she can fucking
do anything, and so in two thousand she stars in
Romeo Must Die, a modern day martial Arts version of
Romeo and juliet Do you remember that movie?

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yes, I don't. I don't think I saw it, but
I remember how popular it was and how much everyone
talked about it.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, Aliah was Juliette and jet Lee was Romeo. The
movies of box office success. And not only did she's
Alia Starr in the movie, she also executive produced the
whole soundtrack and performed the hit Try Again and Once Again.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
She's nominated for Grammy Drink and I love that fucking song.
But wait a second, is she like eighteen?

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Now?

Speaker 1 (27:53):
I mean like she's yes, Jesus Christy two thousand, so
she's maybe she's twenty? God old? Was I she's twenty
or twenty one? Okay? Time?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, I mean just doing her work. Yeah, I was
starting my drinking career at twenty and twenty one. Like,
what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Elia? Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Elia spends the rest of the year two thousand and
the first part of two thousand and one recording a
studio album and shooting the movie Queen of the Damned,
which was a horror movie where she plays a vampire queen,
and she's often working all hours of the day, but
her hard work pays off. In July two thousand and one,
she releases her self titled album. It sells over two

(28:33):
point four million copies, and the songs more Than a
Woman and Rock the Boat are like at.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
The top of the charts.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
She also accepts more acting roles in movies like Matrix Reloaded,
which she had started shooting, and also the movie Honey,
and at the time, her love life also going great,
which she fucking deserves. She is dating co founder of
Rockefella Records, Damien Dash. They met in two thousand through
his account and they became friends and then we're dating.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
But it was like kind of secretly.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Dash said that they would quote be in a room
full of people talking to each other and it felt
like everyone was listening.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
But it would just be us. It would be like
We're the only ones in the room. So I think
they were total true love. Okay.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
So, in mid August two thousand and one, plans to
make a music video for Rock the Boat again. The
production company scouts multiple beaches for locations, and they settle
on Miami, Florida and a Cabo Islands in the Bahamas.
On the twenty second, Aliyah and her team shoot underwater
scenes in Miami and the next day they take a

(29:40):
chartered flight to the Bahamas. So Aliyah is a nervous flyer.
She doesn't like to fly at all, and flying to
the Bahamas scared her because it was a smaller like
a little plane. It wasn't like a commercial flight. But
she's talked into going. She initially didn't even want to
go shoot in the Bahamas at all. This team spends
the twenty fourth shooting in the Bahamas. The next day,

(30:00):
Aliyah and her dancers film some scenes on a boat.
Director Hive Williams later says filming the music video was
quote very beautiful for everyone. We all worked together as
a family. The twenty fifth was one of the best
I've ever had in the business. Everyone felt part of
something special, part of her song. I know, it's a
beautiful video. They put it out with the boat scenes

(30:21):
out of the way. The team's actually had a schedule,
so they weren't supposed to leave until the following day,
but they decide to get a flight out that day
because they were done and take the flight back to Miami.
So a last minute flight is booked through a small
charter company named black Hawk International Airways, this company only

(30:42):
owns one plane, and it's a small twin engine Cessna
that can only hold eight passengers. There are two other
charter companies with bigger planes, included the company that's been
hired to fly them out as scheduled the next day,
but they're not called for some reason, and black Hawk
is available, so they go with it. Eliyah and seven colleagues,

(31:03):
including her hairdresser, a bodyguard, and a record executive, show
up to the small airport in the Bahamas. So what
happens next is up for debate, but a typical story
that's accepted is that a fight broke out between the
pilot and the passengers, the pilot saying that the plane
is already overweight just because of the luggage, and so

(31:24):
bringing eight more people on is going to be way
past the limit. And the body of Art himself is
like three hundred pounds, so it's like they can't have
that many people, but they all want to leave. Oh so,
and also the plane holds eight people, including the pilot,
so the team allegedly is telling the pilot that they
need to go anyways and take them to Miami. Like
there's this big, like hours long argument about whether they'll

(31:46):
go or not.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
You know, there's a kind of like, do you know
who I am? Do you know? Sure? Type of shit happening?
Probably time is money, We're busy, blah blah blah. Yeah
that's my guess. I mean, yeah, absolutely, Okay, So no
matter what, the version of events is true.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
And I'll get into that a little bit later. Aliyah
and her seven colleagues eventually bore the plane and it
takes off at around six forty five PM. Almost immediately
after the plane takes off, a witness is standing outside
the terminal and sees everything. The plane takes off, banks left,
and then almost immediately it crashes to the ground and

(32:23):
bursts into flames.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
I know.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
The guy that witness, Claude, says, quote it took less
than a minute. It was a heavy blow when they hit.
A lot of the plane just basically disintegrated. So people
rush to the scene and find a grizzly sight. Bodies
have been thrown out of the plane and they are
now laying across the field. The wings had been destroyed

(32:47):
upon impact and the engines and landing gear were torn off. Leah,
who's twenty two years old, is found around twenty feet
away from the plane, she still strapped into her seat,
and her cause of death is found to be severe
burns and head trauma. Most of the remaining eight people,
Anthony Dodd, Eric Foreman, Scott Galen, Keith Wallace, Gina Smith,

(33:09):
Douglas Kratz, Christopher Maldonado, and Luis Morales, they're already dead,
although there are still a few alive and suffering terribly,
but everyone on the plane eventually dies. Musicians and actors
around the world are devastated to hear that Aliah's died
in a tragic accident. I remember I saw a flash

(33:29):
on the screen I was watching. I had to be
watching MTV or something at my grandma's house, and I
thought it was like fake because they showed the numbers
like seventy nine to two thousand and one, and I.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Was like, oh, what is it? Her birth her birthdays?
Like I had no fucking I was so whatever.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
No, no, I was just really really shocked because I
was such a huge fan and she had this she
was so young and full of life and well, and
she was peaking.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
She was like I remember, a Queen of the Damned.
How much people were talking about it, and this was
like pre internet. Yeahiness, Yeah, and the photos of Queen
of the Damp. Maybe there was the Internet, but it
was just like she was clearly just leveling up, leveling
up so fast and killing it. And yeah, it was

(34:13):
so shocking. It was truly like the height of her career.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
And what a tragedy, like, you know, an avoidable tragedy
to die in a plane crash.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
It's so sad.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
And so they all share stories of meeting her, of course,
talking about what a genuinely good person she was. Hype
Williams says, quote, she was a very happy person. She
had nothing but love to give to others, and she
selflessly shared much of who she was. I don't know
if anyone really understands that about her. She had these incredible,
graceful qualities as a person. Fans are inconsolable, hundred cent

(34:46):
bouquets to the hotel where her family is staying. Well,
they await the return of her body, and a private
funeral is held on August thirty first, and fans line
Park Avenue as Eliaskafs gets carried to Saint Ignatius Loyola
Roman Catholic Church and it looks like Princess Diana's procession.
It's just like so many, so many people, strangers and fans,

(35:09):
just you know, mourning her.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Then you know it's August thirty first, two thousand and one,
so that it quickly gets overshadowed.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Obviously. By September eleventh, an investigation into the crash is conducted.
Officials find a multitude of causes for the crash, all preventable,
so it's within eight hundred and five pounds without people
even on it, and then they add nine people. Yeah,
so according to the investigation quote, every nook and cranny
of that airplane was packed. According to one story, the

(35:41):
baggage holders and pilot told passengers the plane was super overweight,
but the passengers said they didn't care. They demanded to
be flown home that day. But regardless of him telling
all this, he still flew the plane out. You know.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
So, in addition to being overweight, the weight wasn't distributed
correctly throughout the plane, so basically it mattered where the
weight was placed. And so in this case, the plane
was much heavier in the back, which can cause a
pilot to lose control. So it's not evenly distributed, and
there was another reason, the major reason why the plane crashed,
it's the pilot. Not only was Luis newly on probation

(36:19):
for possession of cocaine, he had traces of cocaine and
alcohol in his system when the plane crashed. And worst
of all, he wasn't certified to fly a Cessna plane.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Oh no, I know, I never heard that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
In fact, he shouldn't have been a licensed pilot at
all because he overly exaggerated the number of test hours
he'd flown in order to get his license. He had
actually been hired by the charter company Blackhawk International Airways,
just days before the fatal crash. I know, so Blackhawk
was to blame for the crash as well. They weren't

(36:58):
even authorized to offer rate charter flights in the Bahamas,
not to mention the fact that they've been cited by
the FAA four times between nineteen ninety seven and two thousand,
violations that included failure to follow drug testing rules and
failure to perform proper maintenance. While there are other causes

(37:19):
of the crash, none of them really explain how this
flight came to fruition, how everything about it was wrong,
and it totally could have been prevented. Music journalist and
author Kathy Ian Dolly was one of those people who
didn't understand how, like completely, how this could happen. In
August of twenty twenty one, this year, she released a
book called Baby Girl, better known as Aliyah, and in

(37:42):
the book, Kathy wrote that the events that took place
that day never added up for her. She questioned why Aliyah,
who was known to be an anxious flier, why she
would have been adamant about getting on a plane that
was being told to them over and over again was
not safe to fly, Like, why risk it when she
knew she could fly out on the scheduled flight the

(38:03):
next day. Just didn't seem like something someone who's terrified
of flying would have done.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
So.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
As Kathy was writing her books, she saw a video
where a man from Abacco Islands, a man named Kingsley Russell,
whose family ran a taxian hospitality business there. He said
what he saw leading up to the plane crash, and
she ended up interviewing him for the book. He said
that his mom drove Aliyah and some of her team

(38:30):
members to the airport that day, and Kingsley, who was
just thirteen at the time, was riding along so he
could help load the bags, and he said that during
the ride, Aliah kept telling her team that she didn't
want to get on the plane. It was two hours
late and she was stressed out and tired, And when
they got to the airport and she saw how small
the plane was, she was like, I'm not getting on

(38:51):
the plane. So after the pilot said that the plane
was too heavy for all the passengers, luggage, and equipment,
Aliah gets back in the car saying she has a headache,
and her team kept trying to talk to the pilot
into flying them home without removing any of the weight,
like they also didn't want any of the baggage to
come off. Then a team member came to talk to Aliah.

(39:11):
This is all allegedly based on what Kingsley said he
saw that day. A team member came to talk to
Aliyah while she was still in the car and saying
she didn't want to fly. And then Kingsley said he
watched as the team member handed Aliyah a pill that
knocked her out, and once the plane was ready to
go a Leah was basically asleep and carried onto the plane,

(39:35):
never even knew she was boarding the plane. According to
this statement, the story makes sense to Kathy. Then she
says it doesn't make her feel any better. Obviously it's
a very sad story. And we also don't know if
that pill was given, if it could have just been
an aspirin, she could have just fallen asleep.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
It's all one person's story, so it all could also
have not happened. But yeah, but we do know the basics,
which is what happened with that plane and the fact
that it was over exactly.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
So for the twentieth anniversary for death, Aliah's estate made
some of her music available on streaming services finally, like
you couldn't get any of her music before this, and
this was this year, so fans were finally given an
opportunity to legally listen to her hits and also a
ton of artists, including Adele, The Weekend, Beyonce, Rihanna, and

(40:22):
Jay Cole say that she was a huge influence to them.
And actually Drake Aliyah had the biggest influence on his
career and he even has a tattoo of her on
his back. Oh I know, now I didn't. And twenty
years later, people still mourned the loss of the extremely
talented and genuinely kind Princess of r and b Aliyah. Wow,

(40:45):
that is the tragic story of the death of Aliah.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Great job, thank you. All right, mine is going to
be a very strange left turn. When Jay sent me
the research for this, I was like, oh, what's this story?
Because we picked the I pick this, you know, like
five months ago or something. Yeah. Yeah, And it kind

(41:10):
of makes me laugh that, you know, this year isn't
getting any easier. I'll just say that the news isn't
getting any better. We're not seeing stuff around that are
making that that's making us feel like things are really
evening out and everything's chill. No, not in the least.
So this story is kind of just makes me laugh

(41:31):
because it's just the strangest and funniest and oddest timing.
But this is the survival story of marrow prospery ok,
So I'm about to tell you about this crazy just
it's just kind of like a random survival story because
I said to Jay, we were trying to, you know,

(41:53):
find different ones. It's like looking for this. You want
this kind of story and this kind of story. And
then I'm like, but then again, every once in a while,
it's nice to just take a break and hear a
story about somebody surviving. Oh my god, you gotta like
sometimes we have to have these fucking stories that aren't
doom and gloom. That's just you know, it's just a break.
It's a real departure. And this one, this one really is.

(42:14):
So let me just read you some of these sources.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
There's a BBC News article that I will read the
subject line of later by Marrow Prosperry. Used a lot
of information from your favorite magazine, Men's Journal. There was
an article called Crazy in the Desert by Hampton's Sides
that had a ton of information. There's a website called

(42:38):
off Grid, and Patrick McCarthy wrote an article called Alone
in the Sahara the survival story of Marrow Prosberry. Wikipedia,
of course. And there's a Nerdist article by Matthew Hart
that I won't read the title of right now because
it gives it a gives it away even a little
bit more. Okay, So we begin on April tenth, ninth,

(43:00):
teen ninety four, in the blistering hot Moroccan Sahara Desert. Now, yes,
and you know why we're here in the Moroccan Sahara
Desert because eighty runners are at the starting line in
a place called Foam Ziguid for the Marathon of the Sands.

(43:22):
The French name of it is the Marathon des Sabliz.
This is a six day, one hundred and fifty five
mile foot race through the Sahara Desert. Hot did you
say it was? What did you say it reaches? I
didn't say, but it sometimes reaches up to one hundred

(43:42):
and fifteen degrees. Why yay? And you're there. You're running
an ultra marathon and you probably paid a lot of
money to get there. Oh I'm sorry. I have so
many issues with this, so so many so. And it's
described in your favorite magazine Men Journal as quote the
equivalent of running six marathons back to back in a

(44:05):
convection oven. Oh so, or an air fryer. It's yes, exactly.
Oh my god, you're a human marathon or tater tot,
which is quite ironic considering how much your average marathon
or fear starches. Okay, so, one of these participants, one

(44:26):
of these eighty runners, is a thirty nine year old
Italian man named Marrow Prospery. He's back at home in Italy,
he's a police officer, but his passion is competing in
extreme athletic events, so that includes several Olympic modern pentathlons.
So the pentathlon is the one that has fencing, two

(44:47):
hundred meter freestyle swim, equestrian show jumping, and then a
combination of pistol shooting and a thirty two hundred meter
cross country run. Degalah, I'm sorry, could you do that again?
I pentackle on in the Olympics, which maybe many people
don't know, involves fencing, a two hundred meter freestyle swim,

(45:10):
some equestrian show jumping on a horse, then some pistol
shooting and a thirty two hundred meter cross country run.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Those are all individual things that you get good at
throughout your lifetime, but then you have to do them
all at fucking once.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
You have to do them all at once at the
Olympics against a bunch of other people who are like
I also love to do this, so out of my
fucking way talk about showing off. Fuck Annie, this is
like let me show show off time. It's next level
show off time. Because also it's it's the show off
time for the rich. Because between fencing and equestrian show jumping.

(45:47):
These aren't just like your average kids from the town
high school, you know what I mean. It's like serious. Okay.
So by nineteen ninety four, Morrow has retired as a pentathlete,
so he's competed for a while, but when his friend
tells him about this Moroccan ultra marathon, he cannot resist
signing up. Oh god, okay, So let me explain how

(46:09):
an ultra marathon, this one in particular, gets broken down.
There are six stages, one stage per day. So on
day one, the runners they run eighteen point eight miles.
On day two they run eighteen point eight Okay, eighteen
point eight miles on day one, twenty four point two

(46:31):
miles on day two. Nineteen point six miles on day three.
So are you catching on that these are these are
actually meters, but they're the reason the miles are so
weird is because I'm taking it back. I'm taking it
back out of the metro system for you. For you,
as an American, it's day three, nineteen point six miles.

(46:52):
Day four the longest day you run fifty three point
six miles. That's illegal. Five is just a regular marathon
till six point two miles. Thank you, and then on
day six you just cool it down with a nice
four point eight mile run in the desert rip to
those people's knees. I just want to say, and also

(47:14):
just I think about that where I'm like sometimes when
I like have to go back to the bathroom to
like go get a brush, very you know what I mean,
and you're like kind of walking a little bit like ooh,
my hip or whatever. And it's like these these people
travel to Morocco to run hundreds of miles. They went
back and forth to your bathroom a billion times, so

(47:37):
many times with like with the heater and with five
sweaters on. Oh, I'm like sweating and smiling the whole time.
They're like that, I love it. I love it. Let
me pay you. I just I love living this way.
I love this high. So each runner carries their own
pack of supply, so they have food, clothing, sleeping bag,

(47:57):
a compass. But then it's side from the checkpoints throughout
each leg where the runners are given water. They're basically
self sufficient. So Marrow trains for this race by running
twenty five miles a day, so he does like a
little less than a marathon a day while he's steadily
decreasing his water intake, so he gets his body trained

(48:19):
to basically be running while dehydrated.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
To not die. You have to train your body to
not die. That's how you know not to do a
fucking sport. Yeah, that's how you have to go. Hey,
have you ever considered being interested in video games? Or
are you just going to run, run, run away?

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, it's great books and reading. Hey, you know what,
have you ever had a fucking twice baked potato? It
will blow your mind and make you want to lay
down for a while. Marrow's wife, Sinzia, is supportive of
his athletic pursuits, but she's very worried about him running

(48:57):
in this ultra marathon in the desert. Now we have
a smart person and finally someone shows up with a
little bit of reason. The elements are so tough on
runners that every participant must sign paperwork that designates where
to send the body if they don't make it out alive.
That's right, you have to get real real at the
beginning of this ultra marathon. Well, you don't have to

(49:19):
do that when you're about to eat a twice baked potato. No,
you don't. Although you do have to chew and swallow
chew at least thirty five times. That's the old big
twice baked rule. Okay, So since Zia worries that if
this happens, she's going to be left raising their three kids,
who are all under the age of eight at this time,

(49:40):
irresponsible of him.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I don't like that when people make decisions, like when
people are like parents of young kids and they make
decisions that are like perilous to them.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
But let me give let me tell you what Marrow
told his wife to reassure her. He said, he'll be fine.
He's the worst that's gonna happen is he's going to
get a li little bit sunburned. So there perfect, So
all right, bye husband. So now we're back to the race.
Starting gun sound effect and they're off. The Ultra Marathon

(50:12):
has begun. It's day Onemorrow. Is immediately taken with the
beauty of the desert, so boom, he's off and he's like,
this is incredible. So there is this thing about it
that I think is really amazing and that I would
really I think would be an amazing thing to experience,
which is you're just doing it thing most human beings
can't do. Sure, So there is that kind of like

(50:35):
you're getting your runners high. But then you're also like,
you know, like a you're on a screen saver, You're
that's my screen savers, like the desert with the dunes
in the little So you're saying, Summer twenty twenty two,
Karen Kilgareth is going to run this. I'm saying, fifty
eight miles in one day is not a big deal
if you stay positive. If I stop eating twice baked potatoes, now,

(51:00):
how many months will it take me? Okay, So he's
loving it. He's bewitched by what he sees around him.
He says it gorgeous. Also, his training is paying off
because he maintains a very steady pace through the first
three legs of this race and he ends up being
in seventh place overall out of I think eighty runners.

(51:20):
So he's he's doing good. So the final checkpoint hits,
and then you go and you set up your tent
and you get ready to just like drink a bunch
of water. And I'm sure some like some weird gel out.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Of a packet, right, a protein gel, some kind of
a gel, some kind of an ivy it looked like you.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Were going to say smoke of fatty the way you had. No,
that was the that's a protein pack. But you know
that might be an option to So mar comes in,
he sets up his tent, He hangs his Italian flag
on his tent, and that way the other Italian racers
when they get to the campsite they can find him.
Then they all hang together and it's like the countrymen
have have a bonding time, discussing their day and the

(52:04):
little camaraderie and they smoking of fatty and talking about
how afraid of carbs they are, so okay, so they
do that. Now it's the fourth day, and it's the
day that's the most daunting leg of the journey, the
fifty three point six mile day. Fuck. So they've already
been running this whole time, and now it's it's this day.

(52:24):
Marrow stops off with a bang. By the early afternoon,
he's increased his pace significantly and he's jumped up to
fourth place overall. So he's doing really good in an
ultra fucking marathon. Yeah, like killing it. But about twenty
miles into the day, which is around one o'clock in
the afternoon, temperatures begin to rise and they hit one

(52:48):
hundred and fifteen. Oh that shit. Remember last summer when
it hit one hundred and fifteen degrees? Was it the
last summer? This past summer? I think it's this past summer.
It was like the hottest and fucking history or whatever.
And it was the day. It was July and it
was Scotty Landis's birthday and we had a like COVID
birthday where there was only seven of us. We'd all

(53:10):
had tests and we were all clear, and we're all
just standing in my pool and so your body neck
down was like pool temperature, and your head was blazing
hot and it was windy hot head. Everybody had hot head.
Was it was hard to be in a pool. And
this guy's running the long day of the Ultra Marathon

(53:33):
in the same weather. It's amazing. Yeah. So then but
he's doing fine, he's in fourth place. He stops at
the third checkpoint for the day to get his water
and to wrap a blister, and then he takes back
off and fifteen minutes into his continued run, the rise
in heated surface air causes the winds to kick up

(53:53):
and marrow can start to feel the sand whipping at
his face, and soon the winds get stronger and the
sand dunes begin to lift into the air. And that's right,
it's a sandstorm that kicks up. Yes, no, yes, So
prior to the race, all runners were instructed to stop
running and stay where they were if a sandstorm starts.

(54:15):
But Marrow's first thought is the only way to avoid
being buried by the sand is to keep moving through it. Also,
he doesn't want to lose his place that he is
because he's in fourth place, okay, dude, So he just
keeps running through a sandstorm. The winds grow stronger, few
runners Morrow can see around him, They disappear, and basically

(54:40):
the air is now so thick with sand that he
cannot see at all. He thinks he's still on the trail,
and he just keeps running. Oh no. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him,
the rest of the runners have all listened to the rules.
They have stayed put. They wrap themselves in their sleeping
bags along the trail, do their best to protect themselves.
Some get bloody noses, some get respiratory tracked abrasions from

(55:03):
the sand being nailed. Yeah, it's pretty serious, and the
race staff actually decides to officially stop the race for
the day, saying that they can resume from where they
are all currently at the next day. With the sandstorm
in full force, Marrow tries to keep going. He's wrapped
his head in like a shirt to protect it from

(55:26):
the sand. He said, it feels like a storm of
needles hitting his face. And finally he can go no further,
So he crouches beneath a small bush for shelter, and
he waits for the storm to pass. Guess how long
it takes for the storm to pass. No? Eight hours?

Speaker 2 (55:43):
No, and you'd go out of your mind from the
sound and.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
The yury and this small helpless bush. That's like, can
I hide under you? You're trying to hide under me?
But I mean so Now it's completely dark and Marrow
has not only lost sight of the trail, but of
all his fellow competitors, so he doesn't know where the
fuck he is. No, he's exhausted. He spends the night

(56:11):
sleeping out on the dunes. He knows he's lost his
fourth place standing that's his concern. He's an ultra marathon
or he's not fucking around. No, he's not there to
make friends with other Italians. He could do that back home.
He wants to win this fucking thing. He plans on
getting up and just continuing the race the next morning,

(56:31):
hoping that at least he'll finish to the best of
his ability. So, yes, he's not going to get you know,
fourth place, but he can finish. So when he awakes
the next morning, he finds the landscape is totally transformed.
He has no idea where he is, and he is
completely lost. Shit. Okay, so we'll talk about Marrow Prosperry

(56:52):
a little bit. He was born on July thirteenth, nineteen
fifty five, in Rome, Italy. He's a natural athlete. In
nineteen seventy three, he joins the Italian police force and
he works in crowd control, which he finds boring. The
real reason that he joined the police force is because

(57:13):
the very convenient for him, perk Italy's Police Federation offers
a generous subsidy for those training to be national caliber athletes.
What So, essentially, if you sign up to be a
cop in Italy, but you're also like an ultra marathon
or or a pentathlete likemorrow is, you get paid to

(57:34):
do that. You can do both, right, because they only
want the fittest sure on their police squad. Okay, So
in the nineteen eighties, while competing at a pre Olympic
pentathlon event, Marro meets an English and Russian language translator
named Sinzia Pagliara. Sinzia is drawn towards Marrow's positive attitude,

(57:57):
his enthusiasm for taking on challenges, and his competitive drive.
And he's also just a straight up hot Italian is
Oh yeah, he has those Italian eyebrows that kind of
they both go up like kind of like two little
canoes that are tipped back, that make him look really

(58:17):
empathetic and like, oh sweet and caring. He's one of those.
The two get married within six months of meeting, and
they settle in I want to say, Acchi Trezza, Italy,
which is the Sicilian fishing village outside of the city
of Catania. I know for real. They and then they

(58:38):
have three kids. So Marrow continues competing in pentathlons for
as long as he can, and he retires when he
reaches his late thirties, but he never loses his competitive edge.
So when his friend and fellow athlete Giovanni Manzo talks
about the one hundred and fifty five mile ultra marathon
through the desert that he plans on running. Morrow immediately

(58:59):
wants to sign up alongside him, and he does so. Giovanni,
this same man is the first one to realize Morrow's
missing when he makes his way to the fourth and
final checkpoint on the evening of April fourteenth, and he
sees that Morrow, who should have beaten him by several hours,
is nowhere to be found. So he reports this to
the race staff, and they're confident that Morrow couldn't have

(59:22):
strayed far, and they promise they're going to send out
a search team the following morning. So when Marrow awakes
to a wildly different desert landscape on the morning of
April fifteenth, he's not in any way discouraged. He's mostly
upset about losing his standing in the race.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Guy.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yes, I'm just such a bro and such a dude.
But he figures since he has his map and his compass,
that he's sure to find his way back to the
trail or He also thinks he's going to bump into
another runner along the way at some point, and then
once he does, he can team up with that person
and they can finish together. So with that in mind,

(01:00:03):
Marrow starts running again. So he doesn't know where he is,
but he just starts running, and here it's like the
good faith. He makes his way through the desert, climbing
up the larger dunes he passes to try to get
a better view of what lies ahead, but he doesn't
see any signs of the next checkpoint or of any
of the other runners. And this goes on for four

(01:00:24):
hours until reality finally sets in. Morrow is lost. So meanwhile,
the search party takes to the surrounding desert by land
in a fleet of land rovers and by air in
one lightweight aircraft. They look all morning, they see no
trace Ofmorrow anywhere. The race staff realizes that, based on

(01:00:45):
their water rationing system, Morrow has at most two liters
of water on him, which is barely enough to sustain
him for the rest of the day in this triple
digit heat, So with this in mind, they commission a
more and police helicopter to also help them search. So,
unaware of any of that Moroccan drama, Morrow decides he's

(01:01:09):
going to stop running and just walk for a while. Okay,
he's just still fucking going for it. For hours, he
figures there's no point in expending all that energy when
he doesn't even know which direction he should be headed,
so as a precaution, and then gets a little bit gross.
But also it's this, it's what we all expect. He

(01:01:31):
urinates into his empty water bottle because he knows that
eventually it's going to get serious with him and watery.
He's a smart person. He's got enough food on him
to last a few days, but without knowing when he'll
hit his next checkpoint, water could be virtually impossible for

(01:01:52):
him to come by. He is in the Saharan desert. Dude. Still,
he figures that even if he can't find his way
back to the trail, the ray staff will surely come
looking for him soon. He just needs to maintain and
keep going. No, don't go, you're going the wrong way. Yeah,
he just needs He's just like, you know what, I

(01:02:13):
just got to do that thing that I love, which
is to run it love blazing heat. Marrow works with
the desert conditions basically just he's now only walking during
the early mornings and then again in the evenings when
the temperatures are at their coolest. He wears two hats
he covers his skin with long sleeves, and when the
sun's beating down hard on him, protecting his skin during

(01:02:35):
the hottest part of the day, he rests underneath anything
in any shade that he can find. This goes on
for two days, no before Marrow hears another sign of life.
On the evening of April sixteenth, he looks up to
see a helicopter flying right toward him. It's the Moroccan
police helicopter that's on loan for the search Ofmorrow, and

(01:03:00):
so he finally is like, thank God, I knew it,
I'd be rescued. As the helicopter approaches, it's so low
in the sky. Mario will later say that he could
actually see the pilot's helmet. It was that like kind
of close to him. So he takes out this pen
sized emergency flare out of his pack that basically the
race provided for all the racers, and he launches it.

(01:03:24):
But the flare is so small that the pilot can't
see it him. Yeah. Please. The pilot flies right past,
totally unaware that Marrow is directly beneath him, and as
disappointing as a moment as this is, Marrow does not
give up hope he just keeps going, sure that someone
will find him eventually. So on the morning of the

(01:03:47):
third day of being lost, which is I think the fifth, No,
I think it's the seventh day overall, he's just walking
in the desert and then he spots it's the outline
of a building off in the distance. He had stored
it as fast as he can, hoping that someone might
be inside that can help him. But when he gets

(01:04:08):
to it, he sees that it's a building called a marabout,
which is a small Muslim shrine, and they're common throughout
the desert where Bedouins stop and rest. The Bedouins are
the nomadic Arab people of the Sahara. So this is
what it looks like, see this, Oh, dwelling, A little dwelling,

(01:04:31):
a little dwelling out of the sun. And basically he
discovers that inside this particular mara about, it's actually more
of a mausoleum. There's no one alive here. There is
a deceased holy man that's buried in one of the walls.
And because of the sandstorm, this building has basically been

(01:04:53):
filled with sand, so the floor is up close to
the ceiling. Oh no, yeah, so Moro can reach the
ceiling from a standing position, and then up in the
rafters he finds a bird's nest with three eggs inside. Dad,
he lucked out. He lucked out the poor bird too.
The bird's like, what could happen up here? Oh? So

(01:05:14):
he eats these eggs for sustenance and for the hydration,
which also allows him to ration some of the food
that he has left. Then he goes outside and he
hangs his Italian flag from a wooden post on the building,
hoping that if any like helicopters, anyone flies over again,

(01:05:35):
they'll spot it and come look for him. There he
spends the rest of the day inside the marabout, shielding
himself from the sun. It must have felt so good
in there, ah, totally. So for the next three days
Marrow waits for rescue inside the Marabout. So again, it's
a bit of a bummer. He has to use his
own urine and a small portable stove to cook his

(01:05:59):
high drated food rations. I mean it's you know, desperate times.
When those run out, he turns to the small colony
of bats that live in the tower of the Marabout.
Oh yes, so he needs the moisture that the bats have,
So he decides not to cook them at all. Instead,

(01:06:21):
he wrings their head off and he uses a knife
to stir up the insides, and he sucks the bats dry.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
A turn about his fair play Dracula, who's the vampire now, motherfucker?

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Oh yes, he he scrambled them. He scrambled them and
then kept them again like a gel packet. But it's
a bat really intense. I don't want that. But would
you want it more or less? What's your pick? Dehydrated
food that you boiled in your own pea or a

(01:07:00):
bat scramble? Remember it's one hundred and fifteen degrees Outspember.
I like staying home and reading. Remember you're chafed, and
this is a serious situation. Oh my god, your nips,
can you imagine? Oh god, their motherfucking nips. So Marl
wakes up on the fourth day at the shrine to

(01:07:21):
an airplane flying overhead. He rushes outside and he takes
everything in his backpack that can catch on fire, and
he sets it on fire. Shit. He's like, I'm fucking done.
He's like, I'm done with this shit. I had too
many bats. I'm filled with I'm filled with inspiration to
get out of here. He also writes sos and the
sand beside the smoke signal, hoping to catch the plane's attention. Yeah,

(01:07:45):
but just as the smoke starts to build, the desert
winds kick out and another sandstorm rolls out. Oh yes,
this is why just go running and down down, like
fucking Rhode Island or something. Why do you have to
go to the most dangerous spot on earth? Some people?
So all of Marrow's distressed signals are blown away, and

(01:08:08):
so he goes back inside to shield himself from another
raging sandstorm, and once again the airplane passes by without
seeing Marrow. So, with another chance of rescue passing him by,
he finally falls into a deep state of despair. Yeah,
the reality sets in that he will most likely die
in this desert. He considers his last remaining options, either

(01:08:31):
to die of slow, painful death by dehydration or to
take his own life, and he figures if he dies
at the marabout, there's a better chance of authorities finding
his body more quickly, and this is what he wants
because then his wife and kids will get his police pension.
But if he's just merely declared missing, his family will

(01:08:53):
have to wait ten years to receive any benefits. Ah
run an awful choice. Awful choice. So he grabs a
piece of charcoal from his failed smoke signal bonfire, and
he writes a note to his wife, and then he
takes his knife and he cuts his wrists. But to
his surprise, when he wakes up the next morning, he's

(01:09:15):
still alive because his body is so dehydrated that his
blood is too thick and it clotted to bleed out.
Oh my fucking god. And in discovering this, marrow is
so elated that he's basically it's like he's beaten death

(01:09:35):
and been given this chance that he takes it as
a sign that is not his time to die. He's
re energized, and he rededicates himself to getting out of
this desert one way or another. Oh my god. Right, yeah,
So he remembers the race staff saying that the race
would end in a mountainous village called Zagora. So he

(01:09:57):
scans the horizon and he sees that there's a mountain
ra you know, off in the distance. Basically, so, in
the morning of April twenty first, he gathers what little
belongings he has left and he makes his way toward
those mountains. As he crosses the endless sands, he becomes
tuned into his surroundings. So he starts to notice that

(01:10:18):
there is like animal life around him once he starts
paying attention. So there's beetles, there's snakes. So that's what
he starts eating because he's like, he's paying attention. He's
like basically desperate, but he's also basically He later describes
it as becoming one with his surroundings and becoming of

(01:10:39):
the desert to survive. He knew that's what he had
to do to survive. He says, quote, while I was
out there all those days, wandering alone, I became like
an animal, a desert creature that lives by the rules
of the sun and behaves entirely on instinct. I crawled
as a reptile, crawls over the ground, hunting for beetles
to stab with my knife, searching for the shade of

(01:11:02):
a tamarisk tree, forging for roots to suck. I fell
into a hyper alert state. I became a tuned to
every shift of the wind, the promising wisp of a
cloud building in the east, the sound of mice running
over the sand at night, every thought, every movement of
my body was devoted to surviving. So along the way,

(01:11:23):
Marrow drops little items that are no longer of use
to him as clues to his whereabouts, so that if
there are any searchers still looking for him, they might
be able to find him. So he leaves behind a
T shirt, toothpaste, a shoelace and more. He's just littering
a trail of litter through the beautiful desert, hoping that

(01:11:43):
the search party will find it. Oh no, So two
days after Marrow's disappearance on the sixteenth, his wife Sinzia
learns about her husband having strayed from the race trail
by reading about it in an Italian newspaper. So no one, Yeah,
no one from the race contacted her. So the next

(01:12:04):
day her brother Fabio flies out to Morocco to help
search for his brother in law. Yeah, and because Marrow
is a police officer and a national athlete for Italy,
Roman officials and officials from Italy's embassy in Morocco now
join the search as well. They find small traces Ofmorrow
in the desert, a sack here, a power bar wrapper there,

(01:12:27):
and they even find that marabout where Marrow was staying
complete with his Italian flag waving on the top of
the building, but try as they might, they cannot find
Marrow himself. On April twenty second, Marrow does the thing
that we've been waiting for him to do since this
story began. He comes upon an oasis. I thought you

(01:12:48):
were gonna tell me. He takes out his cell phone
and calls nine. Was like, I finally I'm gonna break
I'm gonna call it. No. He finds an oasis a
cartoon desert experience. Yes, this oasis is not like the
ones in the movies, though it's not super lush. It's
actually just kind of a big puddle of water. But

(01:13:11):
tomorrow it was so overcome with gratitude he throws himself
into it as soon as he sees it. Yeah, he
tries to drink the water, but his throat is so
swollen from dehydration he can barely get anything down without vomiting.
Oh my god, yep. So over time he manages to
take slow, small SIPs every ten minutes. He basically spends

(01:13:33):
the day laying in the puddle, drinking as wetch water
as he can. Here's what he didn't consider that puddle
was eighty percent camel spit. There's just no way that's
a spatoon. It's discussed. We did that once. You know,
there was a creek behind our house that basically linked

(01:13:53):
my aunt Jean's house to our house. Huh, and we
you know, it would rain and get white and smaller,
but it was really tiny. And then one time we
came upon this widened out section of it and we
were like, oh my god, it's like a swimming hole.
And we all jumped in and went swimming. And uh,
this was before stand by me, we didn't think about leeches.

(01:14:17):
There weren't leeches in it, thank god. That night we
were eating dinner at my aunt Jean's house and we
were so excited and we we told my cousin's team.
He couldn't stop laughing, and he goes, that was completely
cow spit and cow pie that you that you swam in.
Man's always he's the worst. Oh, but he's right. How

(01:14:37):
what did they just pick a place and do it?
I don't get it. Well, yeah, or either that or
they just do it and then it goes downstream like
it's not a it's not a rushing body of water.
It was our little, tiny creek. You know that a
lot of a lot of livestock also enjoyed. Basically, we

(01:14:59):
didn't really think about that part anyway, but Marrow would
not care because at this point he's experienced way worse
than just the little camel's bit. Gave me some camels bit,
he said. So the next days April twenty third, and
Marrow fills his bottles with the puddle water, so he's
done with this on pa, He's like, I have fresh
water now, fuck you, and he continues his trek toward

(01:15:20):
the mountains. But then in the middle of his path
he spots fresh animal dung. So next to the dung
he sees small human footprints, and he excitedly runs and
follows the footprints over a dune to find a young
nomad girl with a small herd of goats. Yes, she's
the first human being he's seen in nine days. It's

(01:15:44):
been nine days. It's been nine days, lost and wandering
in the desert. Amazed and relieved, Maro rushes toward the girl,
but his face is sunken. He's covered in dirt, and
he's lost so much weight he looks like a skeleton.
So the girl screams and runs away. Yeah she does.
Good girl, good girl, good girl. He follows her all

(01:16:05):
the way to her encampment beneath a few scattered trees,
and there Morrow meets the Tureggs, a nomadic Saharan tribe,
another nomadic Saharan tribe. The men of the tribe are
out hunting, so the women tend Tomorrow, having him rest
beneath the shade and feeding him mint tea and goat smelt.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
It was so delicious, Oh, my god, the best. So
when the men of the tribe get back, they Takemorrow
to the nearest village, which is a several hour camel
ride away. Wow, he would have never made it if
not for this, if he hadn't happened upon this place. Yep, yes,
I mean that's the kind of romantic, beautiful thing that

(01:16:47):
you see in movies all the time, is people lost
in the desert and whatever, and then Bedouins or in
this case, the Tuaregs are the ones that save people
because they're the ones that actually know how to live
in the desert. Cruckt So basically, the men of the
Turi tribe their word he might be a criminal, so
they turn him over to the military police. When they

(01:17:09):
get to that village, the police hold him. They blindfold
him in case he's a Moroccan spy, but when they
question him, he explains that he's an Italian police officer,
and then when he says his name, the police officers
there recognize his name from the missing person's reports that
have been sent out for the past nine days from

(01:17:29):
the marathon. So, with Marrow's identity confirmed, the officer questioning
him says, welcome to Algeria, sir. We have received a
report about you from the Moroccan authorities. We must get
you to the infirmary straight away. Yeah you do. Yeah.
So in April twenty fourth, nineteen ninety four, mar Prosberry
is finally strong enough to call his wife. You know,

(01:17:52):
he was scared shitless. It's evening. She just puts the
kids to bed. Oh she picks up the phone and
she hears her husband say, Cinzia, it's me. Did you
have a funeral for me yet? Oh? Cold bro. So
he tells his wife he's alive. He's being treated at
the hospital in Tin Dove, Algeria. So when he was

(01:18:14):
thrown off course, he wound up running and walking about
one hundred and eighty miles out of the way. He
went east and south, he went over the mountains. He
actually crossed the border, the Morocco Algeria border, and he
went twenty five miles into Algeria. He was so he

(01:18:36):
was so off course. So I can show you this
little map, but it's it's pretty funny. The line of
the actual race is like this, and he did this
thing where he did this huge insane loop and ended
up like way over here, like nowherey athlete. But he's
not great with directions. He's not great with being in

(01:18:57):
a sandstorm and going you know what, I'm not going
to try to power through this one situation. So when
marrow Is first admitted to the hospital, he'd lost thirty
three pounds oh in nine days, which is twenty percent
of his original body weight. His eyes and his liver
are badly damaged, and he can only take liquids. He's

(01:19:18):
given sixteen liters of intervenous fluids. His skin is weathered
to a leathery texture that he compares to that of
a tortoise. But he tells his wife, don't worry, I'm
still beautiful. That's Italian. That's Italians. Oh wait, and he
is look at that picture. That's him in the middle

(01:19:40):
of the west. Yeah, oh yeah, very handsome. So Marrow
spends seven days in the hospital in Algeria before being
flown back to Italy. When he arrives at home, he's
met with a hero's welcome, complete with the plodding crowds,
photos with Italian dignitaries, media interviews, and his face plastered
all over the papers. The Italian news outlets dub Morrow

(01:20:02):
the Robinson Crusoe of the Sahara. I don't know Robinson
Carrisa had a plan. Yeah yeah, this guy just kind
of made the best of a really awful fucking situation.
Marrow's survival is nothing short of a miracle, and it
leads some people to doubt it. Some journalists consult sports

(01:20:24):
physiologists about Moro's story, and many of them believe that
it would have been physically impossible for him to survive
as long as he did if his journey truly unfolded
the way he described it. According to these physiologists, the
dehydration alone would have led to his demise. Worried about
bad publicity for the marathon, Des Sable founder Patrick Bauer

(01:20:46):
jumps on the bandwagon and accuses Marrow of making the
story up, or of at least exaggerating it for publicity
and personal gain. He theorizes Morrow and his wife teamed
up to concoct some big, dramatic story so that they
could write a book or make a movie about his
alleged survival. Morrow, however, fights back. He says, quote, if

(01:21:08):
that was the case, then you'd never met two people
who are more stupid than we are. We never got
any money for this. At one point, Morrow even considers
suing Patrick for defamation and for poorly marking the marathon trail,
but he never follows through with that, citing that his
beef is personal rather than legal. Marrow believes that Patrick,

(01:21:31):
a lover of the desert himself who created this marathon
after his own walking journey through the Sahara, is jealous
of Marrow's tremendous story. To this day, Patrick and Morrow
remain at odds, but the main points of Marrow's story
have never veered from the original recounting, and later clues
were found pointing to the validity of Marrow's story, like

(01:21:55):
when a Roman film crew retraced Morrow's steps for a
nineteen ninety five film found the marabout shrine as he described,
complete with leftover bat skeletons in it, not to mention
the fact that Morrow was like dangerously ill when he
was he was taken to the Algerian hospital, So the

(01:22:16):
idea that he would do that and then damage his
eyes and liver for some possible future story makes truly
no sense whatsoever. It Takesmorrow two years before he's fully
recovered from his time wandering in the desert, but when
he does, he's left with a passionate longing to return.
He starts, yes, listen to this shit. He starts training

(01:22:40):
for that marathon again as soon as he can, and
he returns and finishes the race in nineteen ninety eight.
Oh my god. Yeah. He ends up running the marathon
to say, six times after his disappearance in nineteen ninety four,
and in two one he actually places thirteenth. Okay. Sadly,

(01:23:04):
his love of risky endurance races leads to him and
his wife getting a divorce. It's an amicable one, but
she just doesn't have the wherewithal to stand by him
while he continues to put his life on the line.
Marrow has completed eight Desert marathons and is still alive
today at sixty six years old. Wow. And his survival

(01:23:25):
story has been featured on National Geographic Channel's Expedition to
the Edge, Sahara Nightmare, the Netflix series Losers, and a
feature in Discovery Channel six part series Bear Grills Escape
from Hell. And then he and his wife is ex
wife also partnered up to write a book in May
of twenty twenty and it's called Those Ten Days Beyond

(01:23:47):
Life Wow. And in that so the BBC article I
told you I was going to tell you the name
of it was called how I drank urine and bat
blood to survive. Oh lot, didn't tell me otherwise. Spoiler
that would a huge drinking urine spoiler alert. But in
that article he actually says these days the marathon, to say,

(01:24:09):
is a very different experience with up to thirteen hundred participants.
So when he first ran it it had eighty people.
He said, with up to thirteen hundred participants, it's like
a giant snake. You couldn't get lost if you tried.
And that is the remarkable Saharan Desert survival story of
Marrow Prosperry. Wow. I've never heard of it. That's banana,

(01:24:35):
it's it's super crazy, and it's it's you know, it's
just a fun It's just just a little fun excursion. Yeah,
and holidays. Let's have a nice little it's the holidays.
And also you know, what would you do? Like what
would you do? What would I do? I wouldn't do it?
What hell? Yes? Ever do it? I'd love to go

(01:24:56):
to Morocco. I would love to see like do a
one day too or sure, oh I love to go
to Morocco in the winter or like when the sun
I don't know. I would need a next level sun block.

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
But it's crazy, and both my parents have run marathons
before my brother.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
I think it's then a half.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
It's like a thing you know that you're still used
to do in my family, you know, I have like
like my uncle was a trail runner who like wrote
books about it and shit, but like I have no
fucking interest.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
In My dad ran a bunch of marathons really oh
yeah in the in like seventies eighties. My dad was
all about jogging too and ran marathons. But I and
he'd always be like, hey, like while he was training,
always wanted me to like ride my bike with them
or try to do it with him, and I was
just like, that's a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
I mean I did it as my mom and I
used to run together all the time. But I was
a little skinny kid, like I don't who had energy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
I don't have. I don't do that anymore. Well you
could if you just wanted to, if you just applied yourself.
All right, Well that was a great We did it.
We did it, We did it, guys. Yeah, thanks for
being here with us in this endurance race of a podcast.

(01:26:13):
Just hours and hours of podcasts you have to get
through while you drink your own urine and eat bats.

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
If you're not drinking your own urine eating bats while
you listen to this podcast, you're doing it right.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
What are you are you doing? Stay sexy and don't
get murdered? Go bye, Elvis.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly
right production.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton, Associate producer Alejandra Keck,
engineer and mixer Steven Ray, more researchers j Elias and
Hailey Gray. Send us your hometowns and your fucking prayse
at my Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
And follow the show on Instagram. And Facebook at my
Favorite Murder and Twitter at my.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
And For more information about this podcast, our live shows,
merch or to join the fan calde, go to my
Favorite Murder dot com, rate review, and subscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
Mm hmm