406 - My Husband's Lovely Wife

On today's episode, Georgia covers the disappearance of Bonnie Bickwit and Mitchel Weiser and Karen tells the story of Marina Raskova and the Night Witches.

For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Last, Hey, and welcome to my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
That's Georgia hart Stark.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, that's Karen kil Gareth.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
And we're here to provide you with some true crime stories,
the tough stuff, and then some observations that are neither
professional nor very well informed. Are you into it?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Apparently you are because you pressed play too late. You're
already in Are your sister pressed play? You're in the car,
you're on a road trip. It's December now.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Your girlfriend forced play?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Sorry?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Sorry, sorry, It's gonna be like this from now on.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's December. Now, that's correct. Are you excited about the holidays?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, thank you for asking. I am up to my
ears in catalogs that I can't stop lightly thumbing through.
And the rule now is if I'm going to buy
something for myself, I have to buy at least two
other people in my family a gift.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh that's sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
And right now I'm looking at because in my office
is my gift pile. Oh I think I might have
one quarter of my Christmas shopping already done.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
You guys do hardcore presence, like everyone has to get
everyone a gift. Oh yeah, that's a lot of pressure,
it is. I don't do that. But my brother and
his wife might do that. And then they come over
and give me like a little Landcombe hand cream set,
and I'm like, I thought we didn't do this every year.
Every year I have to apologize and said, I thought,
we don't do this.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
That's because your husband's lovely wife. Tell me your name again.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
My husband's lovely wife is Georgia. No, and she is
lovely and she is me your sister.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
You know that.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Your brother would be like, no problem, we won't do
it next year. And then Yolanda is like, absolutely, that's
not what we're like.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, she makes our family look good. And then we
just passed my older nephew a Hundhi a chrisp Handi
dollar bill.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
He must love you so much.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
I mean, we're the best. And then yeah, that's well,
we don't do that. I'm glad I don't. Yeah. It
seems like a lot of pressure to get people's stuff
they might not want.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh. Absolutely, that's why some families exchange gift lists beforehand,
and you just it's basically for Christmas, you run errands
for the other people and get them what they want
and they know they're getting it, and then they get it.
That's not what my family does either. You have to.
They don't make it easy, no before, during, or after.
You have to get them exactly what their heart's desire is.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
But they won't tell you what it is.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
They absolutely would never tell you. They we don't know ourselves.
I'll play both parts here. You don't know as the
shop or you have no idea as the receiver. You
just want someone to do it right for once.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
So it's cashmere slippers, a lot of cashmere, a lot
of slippers. And what about a magazine subscription for the year.
That's a great, a good, great suggestion. That's a really
good idea. Plant club planted the month and they send
you a new plant every month. I really love this.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Wait, did you get a holiday job suggesting presents?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I'm writing vogues? Fifteen holiday presents for people you don't
know what to get. That's not true.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
You turn it in then you're like plants, and they're like, Joja,
we do need a little more specificity in this.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Less and I just started just clanning it slippers.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
What do you mean specificity?

Speaker 1 (03:44):
I dare you to go over there with fifty dollars
and scratchers for each person, and that's fucking it that
year for you.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
That's actually I think that both my sister and my
father would love that is Now, would my niece be
allowed to play? What's the to live it on the lottery?

Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's gambling, it's whatever gambling age is?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Eighteen? I guess twenty one.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
What do you got this week?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
I guess My one thing is I went to my
first Christmas party of the season. Oh wow, yeah, pretty early,
really fun and also just like the first party I've
been to in I don't know, four years or something
like a really long time.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Did you socialize?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
I did?

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Did she get dressed up?

Speaker 2 (04:25):
I yet in the way that I do where I
kind of look like sixties and Margaret, So it's kind
of like a tighter pant with a V neck sweater.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
It's like the fashion black clothes instead of the everyday
black clothes.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Exactly. I'm not pretending that I'm about to work out.
I'm pretending that I'm, you know, somehow classy.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
But you're leaving the house.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Those are my two looks.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
I love it. That's perfect. Always pretending I'm nervous about
our erm holiday party. Yeah, like because we don't work
in an office, so we don't do face to face staff.
We haven't met are many many employees other than on
zoom right have it met them in person? And we have,
but like it's like thirty five thirty six people now, yep,
so that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
But the good news is your idea held over from
I think the last Christmas party, which was we're using
name tags again so that you don't have to deal
with the pressure of how dare you not remember?

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Thank God? I have a quick book wreck. It's a
quick like who done it? Strong female detective lead. Yes,
there's a lot of trigger warnings that I should say
in it that you've got to look up yourself. However,
it takes place in northern California, some of it in Pataluma. No,
because aside from the fictitious crime we're chasing, it's at

(05:45):
the same time that probably classes kidnapping is happening. Oh
so that gets mentioned and brought in, Other real true
crimes get brought in.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, that's the story I told on this podcast. Member,
I told you that there was the part where the
kids of the Junior High when they found out that
she was missing, they pick up the missing posters and
ran out into the street, just ran out of the
school and it was like downtown. All of a sudden
there was children everywhere putting posters everywhere.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
I remember that that's in the book, is it?

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
So someone on Instagram named Emily dryde all told me
to read this book. It's called When the Stars Go
Dark by Paula McClain, and Paula mclan is like a
great crime writer. So wow, it's a quickie. I got
into it and out of it real fast. Listening to
it if you're on a road trip or going to
see your family or whatever, anything to listen to. It's
a good one.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I wonder if Paula McLean is from Sanoma County.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
It takes place in Mendocino and she mentions in the
end that she lived there for a while in her twenties,
so oh, okay probably, Yeah, Wow.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
That sounds great. I'm reading a very scary book right now,
but I'll wait till i'm done. That's my push to
actually continue to read it is you can't talk about
it until you finish it. You phony, because you'll just
talk about it and never look at the book again.
But it's real good.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
You don't have to finish a book to like a book.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Right, True, But like if we're going to do book recommendations, yeah,
it's like, hey, I read the first seven pages. It's amazing.
Like I would absolutely do that if we could get
away with it.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
But like, are you getting joy from the first half
of it? That joy doesn't go away because it sucks
at the end.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
True, but I do feel like, especially authors would feel
like the entire experience is the crucial part of the recommendation.
Like do you know what you're talking about? Ultimately? Hmm, Okay,
that's just the restriction I'm keeping on myself.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, fair enough? Should we do Spotify conversation?

Speaker 2 (07:35):
I mean, this is kind of like we're about to
do a thing that we've never really done before, which
is like old school radio station shout outs, Like people
are writing in here's their shout outs. But it's basically,
you guys have all all of our listeners every year
send us their Spotify wrapped when they're numbers for our
podcast are really high. To go, look what I'm doing

(07:55):
for you people? Yeah, can I have a little bit
of credit for how much time I spend with you
listening to you?

Speaker 1 (08:01):
That's right? And we really appreciate all the Spotify Wrap
twenty twenty three posts that we got, so we thought
we'd read a couple tweets from listeners and their number
of minutes.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yes, give them the credit that they have earned.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay, this my first one is bruised tea leaf at
Jayna wah h nay listen to fifteen thousand, nine hundred
and fifty eight minutes of My Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Can you believe it?

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I can, although let's just do you one better. This
is from att Live Boardman LIVV boardman, who says, at
My Favorite Murder, I've spent the equivalent of twenty days
straight listening this year, still have one year's worth of
episodes left till I'm up to date. Live listened for
twenty eight thousand, three hundred and fifty minutes.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
And okay, a top point five percent fan, thank you.
I mean it is fun to know this dat.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Oh yeah, I didn't see that. It is Falcon at Falcon.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Lord zero, the Falcon Lord listens, Falcon Lord lessens.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
They listened to seventy three thousand, one hundred and seventy
two minutes of My Favorite Murder. That's amaz amazing, thank you.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Well then you know what, Now I realize that Aaron
put these together almost in ascending order, because this last
one is from Vanessa at cry Bicks b in Junior.
Vanessa says, the math is telling me this is equivalent
to one thousand, six hundred and eighty nine hours listening

(09:40):
to us, And then it just says, I just love
you all so much. It says you've listened for one
hundred and one thousand, three hundred and seventy five minutes.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Oh my god, you must talk to yourself and our voices.
Now I feel like because that's what I would do,
Like when I listen this thing for a long time. Yeah,
like I narrate my life in the voices of whatever
I'm listening to.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Just please be careful, Vanessa. I don't I've been having
to listen to this voice for fifty plus years. It's
not great. It's going to turn on you at some point.
Just get ready.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Question the advice that your brain is giving you, because
it might be our advice, which, as we've said multiple times,
is not always sound.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
No, not certainly not professional.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Right, not professional, not learned, not any of it. But
but it's from the heart it.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Is and we appreciate you. Should we switch right over
to the arm highlights.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Sure, let's do it. Let's do it. Hey, we have
a podcast Nowork called Exactly Right Media. Here's some fun
things from it.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Actor Lou Wilson, who's the announcer on the Jimmy Kimmel
Live Program, is Bridger's guest this week. And I said
no gifts. And also Bridger had a Black Friday billboard
in Times Square. Go to his Instagram, I said no
gifts to see the picture of Bridger lording over Times
Square the way he always was meant to. Oh he was.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
That's Fami so high. And then on That's Messed Up.
In SPU podcast, Kara and Lisa discussed the SPU episode
a Misunderstanding from twenty sixteen season seventeen. And they also
have a couple more live tour dates before the end
of the year. So if they're in your town, you
would be very, very sad to miss them.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, I promise you great wonderful performers. Also, if you
like Nick Terry's MFM animated, he is a new one
out called Cookies Dog. It's an instant classic. He's really
captured the conversation about Cookie's imaginary dog from episode three
ninety five. So you can go to YouTube dot com
slash exactly Right Media and you can watch that Nick

(11:39):
Terry video and then all the other MFM animateds they're
all up there.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Go take a look, Sie, They're so funny. You know
what's so amazing about the Cookies dog video is that
Nick Terry. You can tell he's a true artist because
he went back and looked to see what color Cookies,
harness and leash were like in my Instagram and got
it right. Like, how does he know purple? How does
he know it's purple? It's like, oh wait, we post

(12:03):
about her constantly.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Oh wait. He's a professional. He understands details matter.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
And at this point it's too late to order merchandise
if you'd like to receive it in time for Christmas. However,
the Exactly Right and my Favorite Murder Store now has
gift cards. Hey hey, it's the perfect last minute gift
or stocking stuffer for your favorite podcast listener and they
can use it for all the fun stuff in either
the Exactly Right and then my Favorite Murder Store. So
go to Exactly Right store dot com to grab one.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
And enjoy all our new designs while you're there. There's
some really cute ones. My sister went and bought a
sweatshirt without telling me and Aaron we were on a
meeting together, and she's like, your sister bought a sweatshirt.
I watched her do it.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Doesn't she know. One of the many perks of being
your sister is that she gets free my favorite murder
and exactly right merch.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
That's not true though, because she doesn't listen to this podcast,
so she doesn't get anything.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, free fuck her, Laura, fuck her. All right, Well,
I'm first this week. Okay, I'm telling you, not asking you.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
I've decided it's okay that you go first this week.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
And then for the rest of the month after this
normal episode, we're doing like quickies, but they're not quick
they're still like long episodes, very long and normal, right,
So we just don't have an opening, and then one
of us tells the other a story each episode, but
they're still great. We did some really great stories in there.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Harvey Milk, Yeah, I just did the loven Worth prison break.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
I mean, look, we don't have to make excuses. There's
some podcasts that completely disappear for the two holiday months.
So like, we're still here with you, giving you fresh
new content. You're going to love it, and they're slightly shorter,
but then at the same time, in a lot of
ways not at all.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, in other ways, you're still going to slog through them,
we promise.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Okay, I'm at the stage in my day where my
story is printed on blue because I can't get the
energy to change my printer or ink. You know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Hell, yeah, you know what. You're at the stage of
twenty twenty three where you can't do that. That's how
I feel.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
That's right, it's all blue.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
It's all laid down time from here on.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Out, laydown time.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
Okay. So today I'm covering a story that I read
in a recent Rolling Stone article that came out that
was fascinating and I was like, I have to cover this.
The article for Rolling Stone is titled two teens hitchtike
to a concert. Fifty years later, they haven't come Home
by Eric J. Greenberg.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
So this is the disappearance of Bonnie Bickwick and Mitchell Wiser.
So the other main source I used is Mitchellanbonnie dot com.
It's a website that serves as a resource hub with photos,
news clippings, and more detailing their disappearance. And the other
sources are listed in our show notes. Okay, so here
we are. It's the summer of nineteen seventy three. The

(14:52):
Vietnam War is still going on, but American support has dwindled.
Richard Nixon is in his penultimate thank you Jay for
their research and using smart words.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Do you know what year that is?

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Penultimate? Is the year before?

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Right?

Speaker 1 (15:08):
That's right?

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Ya. I didn't mean that to be so concerning. I
thought that'd be a fun learning moment, but oh it
wasn't offended. Okay, good.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
He's in the penultimate year of his presidency and with
the Watergate hearings in full swing, his approval rating has
fallen to an all time low. On top of all this,
the Arab oil embargo is in full effect, causing nationwide
fuel shortages and scenting American citizens' ability to travel on
the open roads, which is such a part of American
life and a modern American experience. So just to give

(15:39):
you an idea of what's going on, Shit's not great,
got you. Not a great time to be alive. So
this political and economic turmoil of the early seventies sets
the stage for a flourishing of a counterculture movement that
defines the era of the American hippie. Hippie used grow
their hair long and take to the streets to protest
the Vietnam War. Psychedelic drugs spark controversy between boring people

(16:04):
and people who you know, think it's dangerous and shite,
and rock and roll music takes off, facilitating the gathering
of all of those who choose to revel in the peace, love,
and anti violence. Sentiments of the counterculture revolution, like what
a terrible time to be alive? What a great time
to be alive? You know, contains multitudes.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
It does it as as it always does. It's like
as bad as things get, then people actually start to
take action, which is like we're seeing in twenty twenty
three as well, where it's like people start to realize
I have to do something. I can't wait for somebody
else to do something.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, the status quo won't do so. Among the iconic
rock and roll bands of this time are the Allman Brothers,
the band called The Band Yeah, which I watched the
documentary about recently with Vince it was pretty cool, and
the Grateful Dead, of course, So all of those are
playing at a massive music festival at the Watkins Glen

(17:03):
Grand Prix Raceway in upstate New York on July twenty eighth,
nineteen seventy three. It's called not Woodstock the Summer Jam,
so organized by concert promoter and business partners Jim Koplick
and Shelley Finkel and assisted by legendary concert promoter Bill Graham.
Summer Jam is originally set to host one hundred and

(17:24):
fifty thousand guests, and they're all purchasing tickets at ten
dollars apiece. The venue, Watkins Glen, New York's Grand Prix Raceway,
had only ever held one hundred thousand people, so the
extra fifty thousand was already kind of pushing the limits
of what they could hold. But the draw of the
Grateful Dead, the Almond Brothers in the band, it can't

(17:45):
be contained. In the days look up to the July
twenty eighth show, even though tickets had sold out, thousands
of people without tickets show up in droves, as we've
all seen in Woodstock documentaries, Jamming the small country roads
of the roughly twenty seven hundred person town. So small town,
a bunch of fucking hippies and rock and rollers, show up,

(18:06):
peace love.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
What's crazy is that it's like all those I bet
you many of those people were at Woodstock, and none
of them learned the lesson of remember how kind of
awful that was and how fucked up it got. Like
you were just showing up. But I guess that's a
very hippie way of doing things. It's like, we're just
gonna show up and see if we get a little
you know, good luck ticket, whatever, We'll just see because

(18:26):
you can still hear the music, you don't have to
be standing inside the gate.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, I think the idea is like, let's just see
what happens. That shit couldn't have happened. Often a lot
of them are probably from small towns, and like why not,
right it's summer. Yeah, so of course there's nowhere for
the traffic to move, so everything gets jammed up. People
start hopping out of their cars leading them there and
hiking anywhere from five to eight miles to get to
the Venueuck that.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
So you're just in a permanent, like single line parking
lot when you need to get back out. Yeah, no,
thank you, nohing before.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
We're the girl who would stay home at Woodstock given
the choice. For real, we're the no thanks. I'll stay
home and feed the dog, you know what.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Give me your purse and I'm going to walk back
to our house and then lock the front door and
stay there.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yeah, I'm good. I'll be here when I need to
do summer school. You guys, go.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Tell me about it. Just remember everything on Telly. I'm
going to love this story.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Take mine pictures, okay. Colcik and Finkle consult with Bill
Graham and they decide to fuck it. Allow everyone who
shows up to attend the concert for free. They assume
that's the only way to avoid the crowd backlash and
help everyone have a safe fun time, you know, not
like putting up barriers. Everyone's going to fucking trip their
ass over them. It's just going to be a riot.

(19:42):
Fuck it, let everyone in, which is smart. In the end,
an estimated six hundred thousand people at ten Summer Jam.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
That's too many.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Dwarfing Woodstocks four hundred thousand person crowd just four years
prior and naking the festival well, a long running Guinness
Book World Record holding event for greatest claimed tendance at
a pop festival.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
With no water, oh my god, or toilets. No classic
needs covered at all.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
I have to ask this in every story we cover
that's historic. What did women do with the period?

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Like?

Speaker 1 (20:18):
How do they handle their period?

Speaker 2 (20:20):
They walked over to the forest. They'll be like, well,
I'll be back in two hours. Oh my god, I
gotta go find some moss.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
But before the festival becomes a free for all, two
lucky teens score those ten dollars tickets. Those two teens
are high school juniors Larry Marion and Mitchell Weiser, who
they're both sixteen. When Larry's parents forbid him to go, however,
he gives up his ticket to Mitchell's girlfriend, fifteen year
old Banita Bickwitt, who goes by Bonnie. I'm gonna call

(20:48):
her Bonnie from now. Mitchell Weiser is he's sixteen. As
I said, he's a Brooklyn native raised in the middle
class Jewish family. Though their political beliefs and opinions start
to diverge as men, she becomes a teenager, as it
always does seems, as seems to happen often, He's still
close with his family. He has many good friends at school.

(21:09):
He's a skinny kid with glasses and long hair that
he pulls back into a ponytail, just like a sweet,
normal kid from the seventies in Brooklyn. He loves baseball,
but he's also very interested in the arts, and he
develops a love for photography and lands a coveted job
as the photographer's assistant at a local Brooklyn studio that

(21:29):
summer in nineteen seventy three. So normal, all American kid.
He's bright and talented, and he attends a new experimental
school for gifted students called John Dewey High School in Brooklyn,
and it's there that he meets Bonnie Bickwit. She's an
equally bright, yet far more outspoken fifteen year old. She's
always been a high achiever academically, so when she hears

(21:51):
about the school John Dewey for like gifted kids, she
writes an impassioned letter to the principle asking to be admitted.
The principle is so blown up by the letter that
he admits Bonnie into the school and even frames the
letter and hangs it on his office wall. Oh, so
she is awesome. Like Mitchell, Bonnie also comes from a

(22:12):
middle class Jewish family, with whom she's quite close. She,
like many other Jewish kids in her community, spends her
summers at Camp well Met, a popular Jewish summer camp
in the Catskills. Once she reaches her teen years and
grows out of the camper age, she gets a job
at Wellmet as a mother's helper. Bonnie and Mitchell are

(22:33):
an inseparable couple who alder friends, love, and envy. Their
love is so strong that earlier that summer of nineteen
seventy three, the two secretly exchanged quote wedding rings. Obviously
they're not legally married, but that's kind of a what
is it called gesture?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Teenage thing?

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Teenage gesture. Both kids have big hearts and take an
interest and causes like environmental preservation and indigenous people's rights.
Bonnie is described as free spirited, Mitchell as fearless. They
dated for about a year and a half, sharing their
love of art and music. Bonnie's favorite band is The
Alman Brothers and Mitchell's is The Grateful Dead. So when

(23:10):
the opportunity to see both of their favorite bands that
the same show comes up, there's obviously nothing that could
stop them from going, so they get these two tickets.
So the plan is for Mitchell to meet up with
Bonnie at the Camp well Met in Narrowsburg, New York,
and then she was going to take off from the
camp and they were going to hitchhike together from the

(23:33):
camp to the concert. So Mitchell takes all the cash
she has twenty five bucks and uses it for a
bus ticket into Narrowsburg and a camp ride to Camp
well Met. So though Bonnie spent many great summers at
Camp well Met, by the summer of nineteen seventy three,
she's kind of seems like she's kind of over it.
In a letter to Stuart Carton, Mitchell's best friend, who
is also friends with Bonnie, she describes being lonely and

(23:56):
bored at the camp. She's tells Stuart she's thinking about
quitting her job and even asked him if the camp
he goes to his hiring so she could work there instead.
So like she's kind of over it. So when Mitchell
arrives and on the morning of Friday, July twenty seven,
nineteen seventy three, Bonnie's request for time off is denied,
and she's like, screw it, I quit and leaves with

(24:17):
Mitchell leaving behind her things. She says, I'll come get
them next week. Oh yeah, she's I'll come get my
stuff and my last paycheck next week. So they're like
nothing stopping them from going to this concert.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
So Watkins Glen, where the concert is, is about one
hundred and fifty five miles northwest of Narrowsburg, where the
camp is, So they have to hitchhike one hundred and
fifty five miles. That's a lot, right, that's like what
from here to Like.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
It's halfway to San Francisco or like a little less,
but I mean it's.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Way up three hours.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
The nearest highway, State Route ninety seven, runs right through
the camp. So Mitchell and Bonnie walk over and wait
by the side of the road with a cardboard sign
reading Watkins Glen waiting to hitch a ride, which at
the time, of course, don't ever hitchhike. Now, at the
time it was a totally normal thing. I mean, it
was more than normal. It was like how some people
got around right right.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yes to me, in my opinion, that kind of culture
in the early seventies had that kind of like it
was counterculture. So you're hitchhiking, you're you're conserving, you don't
have a car. Someone else is going to be cool
and bringing up and it was like in the spirit
of the day, which we now have done enough stories,

(25:30):
we're looking back, it's like the spirit of the day
may have rained and that was like what everybody wanted
to be happening, Peace, love, et cetera. Right, but that
isn't always the way.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, it's always evil lurking. You know what, I just
thought of this. If everyone's home for the holidays, ask
your parents or your grandparents if they have any hitch
hiking stories, send them for our hometowns at my favorite
murder at Gmail.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Please, good one. Right, but you know, ask the question,
see what you can get going at the dinner table. Yeah,
and then if that is fruitful hitchhiking, yeah, then you
get them. Now I know you did drugs and then
you just get confrontational.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah. I guarantee your great aunt who never had kids,
has a hitchhiking story. Promise right, easily. Okay, So they're
waiting to hitch a ride. The kids are wearing jeans
and a T shirt. They have sleeping bags under their arms.
Mitchell is also carrying a gray and olive green plat
flannel shirt and his fancy camera. It isn't long before
passing truck driver pulls over to pick them up. He

(26:32):
takes them as far down the highway as he can,
then drops them off. But this is the last time
anyone would see or hear from Mitchell and Bonnie. No
one's even sure if they made it to the concert
or not. So fast forward to that Monday, July thirtieth,
nineteen seventy three. The concert happened and Bonnie doesn't show
back up at Camp well Met to get her stuff,

(26:54):
so campstaff calls Bonnie's mom, Ray Biquit and tells her
that Bonnie's men. At the same time, Mitchell's family, having
not heard from him, start to worry as well. Mitchell's
dad and sister, Sidney and Susan, respectively hop in the
car and make the five hour drive from Brooklyn to
Watkins Glen and they meet with police there. But when

(27:16):
they try to report the kids missing and ask the
police to launch an investigation into their disappearance, the local police,
which is Skuyler County Police, chuck the whole thing up
to a runaway teen situation and dismiss the families. Please
for help, certain the kids would not just run away,
and determine to find them. Sidney leaves photos of Mitchell
and Bonnie with the police anyway. He and Susan then

(27:37):
drive around the county, including the Watkins Glen Gorge, and
search for the kids themselves. They spend hours calling out
their names, but don't have any luck finding them.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
It's such a nightmare, like there was the most gigantic
music festival in the area, and then you're there asking
police for this very specific and very important help, and
they're probably already they have been overwhelmed for so long
like this. I'm sure this imagine all the crazy shit
that people got up to during this festival. And now

(28:10):
they're like, oh, but hold on, there might be some
missing hitchhikers. And it's like you can just hear the
police being like, we don't have time for that.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, and there might. It's like two teens who are
hung over still and like they'll make it. It's like Monday.
It's not even like a week later. But I think
that's how weird this is for those kids, is the
fact that it wasn't even like a week later, it
was Monday. That the parents were like something's wucking wrong.
So like that in itself you should listen to.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Absolutely. These are kids that go to super smart school, right,
These are people that do their homework, that whose parents
are in it with them.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, you can count on them.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
So, looking to cast a wider neet, Bonnie's mom, Ray
drives out to Monticello, New York to report the kids
missing with the Sullivan County Sheriff's Department, which is another
police jurisdiction in the surrounding area. And that's was the
last place Bonnie and Mitchell were seen when the truck
driver dropped them off. They too, blow it off, believe
the kids are runaways because both kids are Brooklyn residents.

(29:09):
The NYPD are technically supposed to aid in the investigation too,
but they never got involved. Without much help from police,
Bonnie and Mitchell's families do everything they can to try
and track the kids down on their own. They post
ads and as many newspapers across New York as they
can't as they can afford to buy space in. They
mail at least five hundred letters in circulars to Native

(29:30):
American reservations and mission schools. Because Bonnie and Mitchell are
both big advocates for indigenous pupil's rights. So they thought
if they had runaway, maybe they went there.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Oh okay, you know, just in their minds, just trying
to follow any logic of what could be happening.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Exactly, and they follow up on every tiny lead that
comes in, no matter how obscure their friends from school,
they're super smart. Friends raise six hundred and seventy five
dollars to aid in the cost of the search. Ray
even consults with the site, and the psychic says she
sees the kids quote lying in a gravel pit, but

(30:06):
never provides a location. So awful. And Mitchell's sister, Susan
even goes so far as to infiltrate local cults like
the Unification Church, which is the Mooni's Right and the
Children of God to see if maybe the kids had
gotten lured in somehow. I mean, that's incredible that a
sister would do such a thing. It's just heartbreaking.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
It's so sad, like the desperation.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, totally, But none of their efforts lead defining Bonnie
and Mitchell. Mitchell and Bonnie's family friends keep their search
up for the next ten years, but eventually their funds
dry app and media coverage fades. Because it's the seventies,
tools like name US and the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children haven't been created yet, and nobody took

(30:51):
missing children, especially teenagers, seriously back then. It was just
all runaways in their minds. So the families kind of
have no choice but to cut back on their search
effort and the case runs cold. In nineteen eighty four,
the Weiser family moves to Arizona to help with Mitchell's
dad's asthma, but they pay the New York Phone company
every month to keep their new Arizona phone number in

(31:14):
the New York Phone books in case Mitchell ever returns
to the city and tries to look them up. How
heartbreaking is that?

Speaker 2 (31:22):
So? Sun, That's so sad?

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Okay so twenty five years later, in nineteen ninety eight,
New York based investigative reporter who I mentioned in the beginning,
Eric J. Greenberg, is looking for a story. When he
decides to dig back into the case, what he finds,
on top of the NYPDS and Sullivan and Skuyler County's
negligence is a flat out mishandling of any pay per

(31:45):
trail of the case at all. The original case files
held by Sullivan County Sheriff's Department, which contained things like
a potential witness list and the kid's dental records to
help ide if any remains were found, have since gone
completely missing. So like an initial witness list that could

(32:05):
be gold, you know of, like the people who are
still around from the concert milling about did you see
these kids? Any of that shit. So the National Center
for Missing Unexploited Children had been established in nineteen eighty four,
and they generate age progression photos of Bonnie and Mitchell
and Sullivan Counties. Detective Lieutenant Anthony Suarez is put in

(32:26):
charge of reinvestigating in nineteen ninety four. Unfortunately, facing an
uphill battle without those case files that are missing, Suarez
drops the ball entirely. He doesn't even try to track
down witnesses, nor does he contact the investigator originally assigned
to the case. Greenberg publishes his article detailing all of

(32:47):
these missteps in nineteen ninety eight. It generates a lot
of outrage from loved ones and strangers alike, all taken
aback by the fact that the police could hear a
report of missing children and completely neglect it. So looking
back now, members of each county's police departments and the
NYPD admit that they screwed up, and they say they
carry a lot of shame for it. As maddening as

(33:09):
the report of police not giving a shit is. It
prompts Bonnie and Mitchell's loved ones to publicly call in
the New York Governor and Attorney General to reopen the case,
so it gives it's like some much needed attention. Finally,
in June of two thousand, Governor George Pataki appoints Sullivan
County resident and state Police investigator Roy Striaver along with

(33:32):
Detective William kill Gallen.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Hey, I got brought on stage one time as Lori
kill Gallen. LORI your first name Rory kill Gallen, because
there's the comic Laurie kill Martin. He's a headliner. So
the host was just kind of combining all the girls
and throwing it out there.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Oh my god. So they're called on to reinvestigate the
disappearance of Bonnie and Mitchell. So that's in two thousand.
At the same time, MSNBC runs an episode of its
then new series Missing Persons that details the case, and
so in October of two thousand, Streever gets a call
from a fifty one year old man named Alan Smith.

(34:12):
This is chilling. He saw the episode of Missing Persons
and claimed that he met Mitchell and Bonnie on the
road all those years back in nineteen seventy three. According
to Alan, they had all tried to get to Summer
Jam but couldn't get anywhere because of the crazy traffic,
so giving up, they turned back and hitchtike together, landing
a ride with a random driver in an orange VW

(34:35):
bus with Pennsylvania license plates, so all very specific. Along
the way, he says that the four stopped by the
Susquehanna River to take a dip and cool off, but
when Bonnie jumped in, he says, the current swept her away.
Mitchell dove in after her, but he vanished too. That's

(34:56):
what he says. He saw that whole thing happen. Okay,
Alan and the driver, figuring there wasn't much they could do.
They can't jump in as well, agree to leave, with
the driver promising he'd stop at a payphone and report
the incident. So Alan got dropped off before they reached
a phone, and he just says that he assumed the
driver must have made the call, but he has no

(35:19):
way of knowing. That is his story of how they disappeared.
How do you It's like it's creepy, right, Yes it is.
It could be real.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
It absolutely could be real. But I just as we
always do on the show, I just kind of put
myself in that position. And if you think you just
witnessed two drownings, you drive away going, hey, you're going
to take care of it, right, Like I don't. I
can't relate to that. I personally can't relate. So I
understand they would have had to get to a phone.
There's a lot of things involved because it was nineteen

(35:49):
seventy three or whatever it was. But I just don't
like treating it like it was an errand that you're
going to kind of shift off of yourself and onto
a different person seem cold at best.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, for sure. So Streaver and kill Gallen they meet
up with this guy Alan, and they drive him up
and down the section of the Susquehanna area that he
says it happened. But Alan says nothing looks familiar to him.
You know, it's been so long. On top of that,
there are never any bodies found in that region that

(36:23):
matched Bonnie and Mitchell's descriptions. While Streaver and kill Gallen
do find Alan to be a quote credible witness, there's
no real way to confirm his story, so lacking any
heart of evidence, though, Mitchell and Bonnie's families do find
it hard to have any closure with this theory, and
of course doubts remain in their mind, like it's a
convenient story, but there's no proof of it whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, and I mean, it's completely understandable that the family's
not satisfied by that, and it's purely speculation of what
else could be going on. But after all that time
being told that where it's like, oh, there's some people
who witnessed them drown and just didn't let anybody know,

(37:08):
But now we're going to let you know. Because thirty
or forty years have passed, it just doesn't really track.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, well, he says it's because he saw the missing
Person's episode and realizes that, you know, I guess like
there wouldn't have been a lot of ways for him
to look it up on the internet and see what
the outcome had been true.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
And also, you know that person didn't reach out when
they did like, I don't mean to be judgmental of
that person. I just it all is like very odd.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, I don't think if I had been a family
member would have been like satisfied and able to move
on from that description alone. Unfortunately, the next year, September
eleventh happens, the terrorist tacks on the Twin Towers. Of course,
it occupies all of the NYPD's personnel and resources, and
so once again Mitchell's and Bonnie's case is left by

(37:55):
the wayside. It isn't until twenty eleven that a new detective,
active Cyrus Barnes of Sullivan County, is handed the case.
He looks into the drowning story, but unlike Streever and
kill Gallen, he finds Alan's story to be full of holes.
During the time in which he supposedly watched Bonnie and
Mitchell drown, Allan was actually in the Navy. I don't

(38:18):
know if that means he was overseas or what, but
he was in the Navy, and he says, quote, it
just made no sense. Then, Detective Barnes gets a random
call from a woman in Florida in twenty thirteen who
grew up in Wayne, New York. She believes her father
may have killed Bonnie and Mitchell. She says her father
was a serial predator who assaulted her and then used

(38:39):
her to lure in other kids for him to assault,
and her story is plausible enough for Detective Barnes to
look into. They go to Wayne, New York, which is
actually interesting because another psychic had called in and said
they need like the name Wayne, that maybe the perpetrator
was named Wayne had come into their mind, and it's
Wayne County, so it's kind of interesting or a coincidence.

(39:03):
This woman points police to two possible burial sites in Wayne.
They excavate both areas, no remains are found in either place,
and so the case is handed off once again to
a different Sullivan County detective in late twenty twenty one
early twenty twenty two, so recently that's Jack Harb. So
Harb has just refused to discuss the case publicly or

(39:26):
share any reports because, according to Mitchell's sister, Susan Harb,
quote believes publicity could prompt responses from new sources that
he would have to track down and investigate, so he's
not publicizing it because he thinks it would create new
leads that he has to then, like, what the fuck?
That's police work. That's exactly what police work is.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Well, but is he trying to say he's going to
go track down the sources that he already has and
that he doesn't want new ones? I don't know, But
what could be new at this point?

Speaker 1 (39:59):
You know how it is? People like you know, a
wife at the time who covered for her husband who
was a monster, is now free to say what she
wants to say.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
My question is why is he talking about it at all?
Then if he doesn't want to talk about it, like,
why would that even be a story or be a thing?

Speaker 1 (40:16):
I just think that also, what we found is publicity
on a case never hurts if it's done the right
way for the right reasons.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Well, seems like that's a broad generalization of never hurts. Right,
it's publicity if it does the right thing, It can
do a lot of things. Yeah, that's true. Publicity is publicity.
But but I hear what you're saying is that he's
almost trying to prevent a thing that he can't control anyway,
and then while preventing what he thinks could be potential problems,

(40:44):
he's preventing potential solutions.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Exactly the Weiser's and Biquits feel like it's a dismissal.
So after all this time, authorities do not appear to
be any closer to solving the mystery of what happened
to Bonnie Bickwit and Mitchell Weiser. Fifty years later, and
with the coming of the fiftieth anniversary of Summer Jam,
their high school friends are hoping Internet chatter might draw

(41:07):
more eyes into the case once again and prompt a
new lead. Bonnie and Mitchell's parents are long since deceased,
as are many of the potential witnesses who could have
pointed authorities in the right direction, but their high school
friends still want closure. When John Dewey's graduating class of
nineteen seventy five, which would have been Mitchell's class, they
had their twenty five year reunion in two thousand and

(41:28):
they planted a Norwegian red crimson maple tree in honor
of their missing friends. The plaque beneath the tree reads, Mitchweiser,
Bonnie Bickuit, we still miss you, Classes of seventy four
and seventy five. Another twenty five years later, the sentiment
still remains. It's all still there. The Summer of nineteen
seventy three is etched into their hearts and minds. As

(41:51):
the summer, all of their lives changed. Mitchell's old best friend,
Stuart Carton, still operates a website it's Mitchell Andbonnie dot
com and that's Mt. C h E L and Bonnie
b O N n I E to keep their story
alive and hope that someone might come forward with new information.
When he reflects on his decades long search for answers,

(42:13):
he says he keeps up hope quote because if the
tables were turned, that's what Mitchell would do end quote.
And that is the story of the disappearance of Bonnie
Bickwit and Mitchell wiser Man. Yeah, go read that Rolling
Stone article. It's it's really detailed and fascinating.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Also, just like that theory the woman coming forward and
talking about her father at the time and then it's
time and place is accurate that idea of like if
somebody who's already not okay, so like that woman was
claiming her father was like a serial abuser whatever. And
then there's all these people GMing the streets of their

(42:51):
town or county and that they're not used to being around,
and it's like that people are getting fired up and
getting pissed off, and we can't get out of our
driveway because these people, these people, I mean, that piece
is so much more realistically kind of trackable, yeah, than
that other one.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
I mean, people were just so much more trusting back then.
Like you'd go into someone's car hitchhiking, or you'd spend
the night at someone's house that was a stranger that
let you because you were in town for this concert.
You know, it could be anything. I think the craziest
part is like they don't even know if they made
it to that concert, so the area that they have
to look of where they went missing is so large. Yeah,

(43:34):
it's just it sounds overwhelming and just awful.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah, really does, and so tragic because clearly they're just
two very special teenagers, like mature, intelligent, caring all those things.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, who knows what they could have done with their lives.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
What a loss? Yeah, total, Well, great job, thank you,
although frustrating, just like those ones are awful.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
The cold ones that you know I love, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
I mean, but are important, Like you say, It's like
I do think that is the huge benefit of the
true crime wave is that it has enabled citizens louth
to take things into their own hands. And if in
a case like this, where the police are either saying
they're not working on it or they're going to work

(44:26):
on it to their own taste, and nobody else gets
to be involved or hear about it, then it would
be very helpful for people to maybe people who are locals,
people who grew up there, people who know anything, like
to be assembling some sort of investigation.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Well, it happens with these citizens loose where they're obsessed
with the case and they're able to match up remains
that were found thirty years ago with missing people that
are still being looked for. And once you're able to
do that, you're able to try to solve the case somehow.
Once you have any answers like where do they end up,
what part of the town or what part of the

(45:02):
county were they in, that's sort of how they die,
then you can kind of start to put the pieces together.
But not when you have nothing.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, well, good job, thank you.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Are you making a left turn? You know I'm going
to left turn.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
So today I'm going to tell you, and you may
have heard about these gals already, but I'm going to
tell you about the Soviet Union's all female bomber regiment
that fought off the Nazis during World War Two. They
flew under the dark of night so that the German
soldiers couldn't see them coming. They cut their engines on
their approach so that the only sound that would give

(45:41):
them away was the wish of the wind as their
planes coasted into bombing position, Likening this sound to a
witch's broom. The Nazis gave these women the foreboding nickname Knoctexan,
which translates to the night Witches. This is the story
of Marina Raskova and the Night Witches.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Damn now, I don't know this at all. This is
a gooddy.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
So the sources that we used for today's story are
a Vanity Fair article from twenty fifteen called the Little
Known Story of the Night Witches, an all female force
in World War Two written by Eric Grundhauser, an article
on Gray Dynamics dot Com from twenty twenty two entitled
Marina Roskova and the Night Witches by Rachelle Momey, and

(46:29):
an article from the Collector entitled night Witches the Female
Russian Combat Unions of the Sky written in twenty twenty
three by Jesse Lee Smith, and the rest are in
our show notes. I've also seen this mentioned. There's those
kinds of social media feeds where it's like mysterious history
or like fascinating history. I've seen that mentioned there where

(46:50):
I was immediately what is this? So if you've heard
of the Night Witches but you don't know the details,
I'm going to give it to you now. So this story,
as well as World War Two, begins in nineteen thirty
nine with Germany's invasion of Poland. The Soviet Union had
already entered a non aggression pact with Germany called the
Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, wherein both countries agreed not to attack

(47:15):
each other while they secretly split up the European countries
that were lying between them, granting each other influential dominion
over an equal share of countries. I had no idea
about that, or many things from history, but that is
very fascinating to me because that it explains a lot
from the beginning of World War Two. But just two

(47:36):
years later, on June twenty second, nineteen forty one, as
Hitler and acts his plan to rid the world of
quote Jewish and Slavac races. End quote, Germany breaks their
pact and launches an invasion of the Soviet Union with
a mission dubbed Operation Barbarosa. And that operation involves around

(47:57):
ten million combatants and it'll prove to be the largest
land defensive ever waged. And it isn't long before Germany
occupies part of Russia and Stalin is forced to beef
up his military might and actually really fight back with
force and brute.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
A lot of people think that if Hitler hadn't done that,
he would have won, you know what I mean, Like,
you can't double cross Russia.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
No, especially when Russia is literally like what one hundred
times bigger in your country? Like yeah, okay. So, while
Stalin forms and expands tactical groups of the Red Army
like tank regiments and naval infantries and artillery regiments and
aviation squads, women are almost entirely barred from combat, especially

(48:42):
when it comes to the Air force. Absolutely no women
are allowed to serve in the Russian Air Force. Some
are able to fight on land, several even joining sniper teams.
Many others, of course, aid in unofficial guerrilla capacities like
digging tank ditch traps and creating obstacles for Germans to
contend with. And of course they're all allowed to do

(49:04):
the very difficult work of nursing the injured, cooking everyone meals,
sewing the uniforms, all of that. But these women have
lost husbands, brothers, fathers, their homes, their cities, their overall
safety to these Nazis in this Nazi invasion. So the
women of Russia want to fight back, literally, especially the

(49:26):
female pilots that are in Russia. There are many Russian
women who can fly, and so these women begin to
reach out to the one woman who they know can help.
A decorated flier and national hero with a direct connection
to Joseph Stalin, a woman named Colonel Marina Raskova. So
we'll talk about her for a second. She was born
on March twenty eighth, nineteen twelve, in Moscow as Marina Malanina,

(49:53):
and young Marina dreams of following in her father's footsteps
of becoming an opera singer. In nineteen nineteen, she's just
seven years old and her father is hit by a
motorcycle and the infection that sets in from those injuries
ultimately kills him. So over the next couple years, the
family's money dwindles, and Marina, of course wants to help

(50:15):
her mother financially, so she changes her focus and she
starts studying engineering and chemistry, and she graduates from high
school in nineteen twenty nine and promptly goes to work
a chemist job at a die factory. The same year,
she marries her coworker, a man named Sergi Raskoff, and
the after that, in nineteen thirty, they have a daughter

(50:36):
named Tanya. So shortly after her daughter's birth, Marina gets
accepted to the Zukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy, which is
a sanctioned school of the Soviet Air Force, and she
trains to be a draftswoman, who's the person who draws
up technical plans for aircraft, and she quickly excels so
she falls in love with aviation. She's very good at it.

(50:58):
After just one year of schooling, she becomes an instructor
and during this time she's learning how to fly a
plane herself. By nineteen thirty three, she becomes the first
Soviet woman to graduate as an aviator navigator, and a
year later, in nineteen thirty four, she becomes the first
Soviet woman to become a pilot instructor, so she learns

(51:19):
and then starts teaching immediately. Yeah, wow, she's smart. Marina
is sent to the Central Flying Club Intoshino and she
officially earns her pilot's license in August of nineteen thirty five.
This is also the year she gets divorced, which allows
her to fully focus on her career. So this woman
is a trailblazer in pretty much any possible way that

(51:41):
she can be.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
It seems she's.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Got her pilot's license in hand, she racks up hours
of flight experience. She's constantly challenging herself to push it
to the limit, and it's not long before she starts
setting international flight records. On October twenty fourth, nineteen thirty seven,
she sets the female world record for a NonStop long
distance flight of roughly eight hundred and ninety eight miles,

(52:07):
which she earned alongside fellow female pilot Valentina Grizzo Dubova.
The next year, in nineteen thirty eight, Marina beats her
own records from the previous year, including a September twenty
fourth to twenty fifth flight from Moscow Komsolsk that spans
over four thousand miles. This flight was taken again with

(52:28):
Valentina grise O Dubova and a third female pilot named
Polina Osipanko. So Marina's achievements earn her the Order of
Lenin award and the Hero of the Soviet Union award,
a gold star medal, seen as the highest distinction in
the Soviet Union at the time. She's dubbed the Soviet

(52:52):
Amelia Earhart. So kind of explaining all those things, it's
like the way there suddenly were allowing her to do
these things, and add it, get these flights. Amelia Earhart
had been making news, and so she becomes the Soviet
Amelia Earhart, and her achievements grant her the opportunity to
meet Stalin, and he shows great admiration for Marina. She's

(53:14):
even recognized with a commemorative stamp that was issued in
nineteen thirty nine. The Soviet Union has a lot of
pride in Marina, and she has a lot of pride
in her country. And just in time too, because nineteen
thirty nine is right when she and her skills and
her expertise are needed. So cut to nineteen forty one,

(53:35):
Marina answers the call of her fellow Soviet women, and
she starts to lobby to allow women to join the
war effort. She speaks directly with Stalin, and because he
has so much respect for her, she convinces him to
allow women to be eligible for the draft. And then
on October eighth, nineteen forty one, Stalin goes a step
further and lets Marina form three all female aviation squadrons

(54:00):
with her Marina at the helm Wow. So now thousands
of Soviet women from the ages of seventeen to twenty
six enlist. Only roughly one thousand are chosen to serve,
and those chosen are sent to Ingles, which is a
small town in Saratov Oblast, for training and they learn
how to fly or to improve on their existing flight knowledge,

(54:21):
and they're also trained in plane maintenance and in navigation. Now,
ordinarily this kind of training would take eighteen months, but
given the urgent need, the program is accelerated and these
women finish in just six months. Once their training is complete,
Marina separates the newly minted pilots into three different all
female regiments. The best pilots are assigned to the five

(54:43):
hundred and eighty sixth Fighter Aviation Regiment. The second best
ones are assigned to the five hundred and eighty seventh
Bomber Aviation Regiment and the third best are assigned to
the fifth hundred and eighty eight Night Bomber Aviation Regiment.
So the five hundred eight eighty sixth Regiment is led
by Commander Tamara Kazarinova, But when enemy fire takes out

(55:06):
a large number of the pilots in that regiment, another
commander by the name of Alexander Grindev steps in. Marina
commands the five hundred and eighty seventh Regiment herself, and
a major Yevdoya Bershanskaya, leads the five hundred and eighty
eighth Night to Regiment. As the war rages on, the

(55:29):
five hundred and eighty eighth becomes a standout regiment. They're
the only one to remain all female, everyone from the
pilots to the navigators, to the commanders to the mechanics. Wow, women,
and now this part's going to shock you, Georgia. Just
because these women are granted unprecedented access in the Soviet
Air Force, it doesn't mean that they are respected by

(55:51):
their male peers or the senior staff. Come on, you're
surprised and you're hurt and I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
It's shocked.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
They aren't given new uniforms. They have to wear the
men's hand me downs, and of course they don't fit.
Kind of impedes a soldier if you're wearing really oversized clothes.
In some cases, smaller women are forced to rip up
their own bed sheets and stuff them into their boots
to keep them from falling off.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
That's how bad it is.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Oh my god. Also, the equipment for the five hundred
and eighty eighth Night Bomber Regiment is especially bad because
they're the least experienced group. The squads two hundred and
sixty pilots are stuck flying Paula Karpov or PO two biplanes.
These planes are usually used as training aircraft for new

(56:37):
pilots or for crop dusting. They are definitely not meant
for combat. So Jay included a picture of one for me.
It literally looks like one of those biplanes that like
you would see old newsreel footage of people going standing
out on the side of like trickplanes, like it's charming.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
It's very charming looking.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
It's not. You don't think send that to World War two.
So the technology in these planes is outdated, they move
very slowly, they're dangerously light weight. The seats for the
pilot and the navigator are completely uncovered, so there's no
protection whatsoever when they're in them. On top of that,
these planes can't fly very high, so they have to

(57:16):
execute their combat missions flying very low and close to
the enemy. Basically, being an air woman with the five
hundred and eighty eighth is about as dangerous as it
could possibly be. And here's the kicker. These planes are
made of wood and canvas.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
That's not real, that's a toy.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
It isn't that insane. So basically they're insanely flammable. One
spark could basically set the whole plane on fire. They're
flying them through action, so bullets and bombs are lighting
up the sky around them, so them catching on fire
is highly likely. Still, the women of the five hundred

(57:56):
and eighty eighth Regiment do what most women do, which
is they make the best of what they've been given.
So here's how the night Witches operate. Once darkness falls,
three po two planes take off together information and as
they approach their enemy target, the two outer planes peel
off in opposite directions and they act as decoys, drawing

(58:16):
the attention of the Nazi searchlights and ground guns below.
When the moment is right, the navigator in the third
remaining plane taps the pilot's shoulder and the pilot cuts
the engine, and then that allows them to glide over
the target unseen and unheard, but nothing but the wush

(58:38):
in the wings of the plane to betray their presence.
At this point, it's already too late because that plane
is dropping bombs on unsuspecting Nazis below n So they're
truly just coming out of nowhere, like there's no way
the ground forces looking up can see what's happening.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
In one night, they will repeat this process three times,
with each plane taking a turn in the center position
to drop the bombs. Then all three planes return to
base to be loaded up again for another outing. And
because these planes are so light, each one can only
hold two bombs at a time, so in order to
cover as much ground as possible, the pilots have to

(59:17):
fly anywhere from eight to eighteen air raids in one night.
Uh huh. On top of that, the planes expose the
women pilots to bitter cold during the hours and hours
of flight every night many of the pilots and the
navigators suffer from frostbite over the course of the war. Plus,

(59:38):
these planes are so outdated they don't have proper navigational equipment,
so these navigators are forced to rely on compasses and
maps as they're flying in this plane bombing the enemy.
Here's my least favorite detail. The strict weight limits of
these planes mean the pilots cannot carry parachutes aboard, so

(59:58):
if they're hit and they need to bail, they can't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Later days bye.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
But PO two planes do have some advantages. They're lightweight,
so they're easier to maneuver, they're fairly quiet, and they
can safely drift with the engine off, which allows for
their trademark stealthy approach.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
I bet if they had like more modern in the
time planes, they couldn't pull the shit off, right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
No, These things are like it's like a box kite
coming in and bombing your shit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
The design of these planes also allows them to take
off and land basically anywhere, and they make emergency landings easier.
And the wood in the canvas construction, while dangerous wilin combat,
also make it so that German radar cannot detect them,
so it's kind of ideal in those ways. So the
silent attacks with basically only a wooshing sound warning the

(01:00:50):
enemy is what earns these pilots the nickname the night Witches.
But cutting the engine isn't their only stealth tactic. These
bomber pilots don't use any lights on their aircraft at all.
They use the light of the moon and the stars
to guide them. Damn, that's romantic. So they're astrology girlies,

(01:01:11):
or sorry, astronomy girlies. A rumor starts that they're using
some sort of chemical in their eyes or a pill
that gives them catlike night vision, but that, of course
none of that is true. It's just the hours of
intense training at night that has enabled their eyes to
adjust to this darkness and take care of the job
at hand. The night Witches become so deadly and so

(01:01:34):
deeply feared by the Germans that shooting down a night
Which's plane will instantly earn a Nazi soldier an Iron
Cross Metal, which is one of Germany's highest military honors.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
So they were.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Known, they were feared, and they were like, it's like
you have to get them at any cost. Yeah, but
many of the male soldiers from the other regiments in
the Soviet Army can't seem to take the female plets seriously,
even though the danger they're facing in the battle as
they serve their country is equal to that of their

(01:02:07):
male counterparts, if not riskier, because they have big, oversized clothes,
no parachutes, like.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
No cover, so many obstacles.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yes, they're basically dancing backward in high heels, but okay, fine,
you can just make jokes and be a dick about it.
It doesn't really matter though, because whatever anyone wants to
say about the five hundred and eighty eight to sue
their own ego, these women's bravery and tenacity is unmatched.
So here's an example. One night in December of nineteen
forty two, a pilot named Nina Raspopova is in the

(01:02:40):
midst of an air raid when an anti aircraft ground
missile hits her plane and rips the entire floor of
her cockpit away.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
It's like Flintstone's car exactly, so, it says.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Now, with her legs dangling out of the bottom of
the plane while blood is dripping out of her shrapnel wound,
Nina does her best to regain orientation, but the German
searchlight finds her in the night sky and it blinds
her momentarily shit. If she doesn't regain control fast, of course,
her plane will crash, and if she's lucky enough to

(01:03:12):
survive a crash landing, she's going to be an enemy
territory and she will become a Nazi prisoner of war,
which is worst case scenario. Knowing that how much they
hate and fear the night Witches, because you know, it
hisses them off. If they have in any way found
out that these planes that are so scary that are
killing them are women, you know it's over. With all

(01:03:33):
these possibilities looming over Nina, she suddenly gets a glimpse
of her own regiment's runway floodlight. She's able to write
the damaged plane. She points herself in the direction of homebase,
and she's somehow able to land in neutral territory. The
landing's rough, she and her navigator both survive. They both
make it back to camp, where Nina is rushed into surgery.

(01:03:56):
It does take her a few months to fully recover
from her injuries, but then she goes right back to
her plane to fly more missions. So while Marina Raskova,
who I was talking about in the beginning, is credited
for establishing all three female aviation regiments. The Night Witches
of the five hundred and eighty eighth ultimately fall under
the command of Major Yevdokia Brushenka Burushenkshaia.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
You got this, You've got your Russian. Get this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
I speak Russian. I mean, I've very clear phonetic spelling
in front of me, and it's still hard to pronounce.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
That's crazy, you're irish.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
She don't need to. With years of flying experience prior
to World War Two, including fighting in this Spanish Civil War,
Major Berkshenskaya is one of the only female officers and
one of the only female pilots who actually has combat experience.
When she's put in charge of the five hundred and
eighty eighth, she implements a strict kind of a tough

(01:04:57):
love leadership style. And I mean, what else was there
in the Soviet Union? Was there a Montessori.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Style that was Soviet Union in the war. It's like,
you're not getting caddled. That's not a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Don't come here for love. We don't have it to give.
Under her guidance, what was considered the least skilled regiment
becomes the most feared regiment, and one of the many
star pupils of that monumental force is a woman named
Nadeshda Popova. So Nadeshda loses her brother in the Nazi

(01:05:31):
invasion of the Soviet Union in June of nineteen forty one,
and then her home is commandeered by the Gestapo, so
she becomes hell bent on fighting the Nazis herself. She's
one of the first women to voluntarily enlist in the
Soviet Air Force, and when she's accepted into the five
hundred and eighty eighth she's thrilled. On her first mission, however,

(01:05:51):
a plane in her outfit goes down and two of
her close friends are killed, but Nadesha still completes that mission,
dropping bomb that destroy their Nazi targets. So she watches
her friends die, she still gets the job done, wow,
and from that day on, flying these combat missions become
a welcome distraction from her grief. Nadasha Popova becomes one

(01:06:14):
of the most prolific flyers for the Night Witches, completing
a total of eight hundred and fifty two missions over
the course of the war, and she holds the regiment's
record for the most bomb raids in one night eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Wow, Like I can't function with a nap during the day.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
I was gonna say, when's the last time you did something?
Eighteen times? Ever, now in one night it was like
if you left a bar to go to seven eleven
and get chips, Like I would be like, I'm not
doing that more than three times. Now, I'm pissed. Nadasha
is shot down several times over the course of her career.
She survives every time. She eventually works her way up

(01:06:55):
to regiment deputy commander. She survives the war. She goes
on to live long and storied life until her passing
in twenty thirteen at age ninety one.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Yeah, So after World War Two is over, Major Bershinskaya,
who is the one who had her tough love style.
She was the one that was training the night Witches.
She continues her military career. She eventually earned the rank
of lieutenant colonel. Then she retires from the Soviet Air
Force in nineteen fifty nine. She passes away from a

(01:07:27):
heart attack in nineteen eighty two at the age of
sixty nine, but without her guidance. The night Witches would
never have become the monumental force that they became in
World War Two. The Night Witches operations last from June
of nineteen forty two until October of nineteen forty five,
and by war's end, these female pilots of the five
hundred and eighty eighth Regiment alone logged a total of

(01:07:50):
two thousand, six hundred and seventy two combat missions. Holy shit,
they dropped over three thousand tons of bombs and twenty
six thousand incendiary shells, successfully destroying seventeen river crossings, nine railways,
two railway stations, twenty six warehouses, twelve fuel depots, one

(01:08:11):
hundred and seventy six armored cars, eighty six prepared firing positions,
eleven search lights, all of which the Nazis relied on
during their occupation of the Soviet Union. So they they
just got rid of it. But also the Night Witches
did drops where they supplied food and ammunition to their
fellow Soviet soldiers on the ground, and they did that

(01:08:34):
one hundred and fifty five different times.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Sadly, the founder of the Night Witches and of all
of these female flying regiments, Marina Raskova, was not as
lucky to live a long life as her colleagues were.
On January fourth, nineteen forty three, while she's leading two
squadrons on a mission, a severe snowstorm kicks up and
she is forced to make an emergency landing near the

(01:09:00):
Volga River. But as she does, she crashes into the
river's high west bank wall and she's killed. And she's
only thirty one years old.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Wow, only thirty one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
She's only thirty one. Wow. But the good news is
her bravery, her vision, her leadership is fully recognized by
the Soviet Union. She will be the first member of
the Soviet military to receive a Soviet state funeral from
World War II, and her ashes are buried in the
necropolis of the Moscow Kremlin Wall in Red Square. And
in addition to all the military honors that she received

(01:09:32):
during her life, she's posthumously awarded the Order of the
Patriotic War one Class for her heroics. And Marina Raskova
is still remembered today as a legendary pilot the Soviet
Amelia Earhart and the mother of the Night Witches. And
that's the story of a Marina at Raskova and the
Night Witches damn. Good night bitches, Good night bitches.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
It's the Night Witches.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
It's the Night Witches.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
Oh wow, right, powerful, powerful? Yeah rah well, great job fan,
fascinating story. I've never heard of that one before. Thank
you guys for listening and being with us and hanging out.
And we hope you have a great break. We'll still
be with you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Yeah, that's right. Stay night, witchie, stay sexy and don't
get murdered.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Good Bye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Our managing producers Hannah Kyle Crichton.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scualachi.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Our researchers are Maren mcclashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Follow the show on Instagram, at Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Fave Murder. Gooyebye