[SPEAKER_01]: Warning, this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing.
[SPEAKER_01]: 1799, Makaja and Wiley Harp were in the midst of a notorious killing spree throughout much of the new country, the United States of America.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Harp brothers, as they refer to themselves as, are now part of the American Frontier legend and folklore being called America's first serial killers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though much of their exploits are more fiction than fact, the heart brothers were indeed river pirates, thieves, kidnappers, and murderers.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've inspired tale stories, books, and movie characters, but their crime spree left a trail of blood and terror, wherever they went.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one was safe, that crossed paths with the hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a study of strange.
[SPEAKER_03]: enjoy editing this part when you trim it down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, good to show everybody, I'm Michael Mayn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't do ASMR because I'd laughed too much during it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my guest today is trying to turn my podcast into an ASMR podcast, which I would probably be more popular if I did that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have a good point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Popular.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Amy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we, or boo?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that how you say that?
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been married for almost 10 years and you still don't know how to pronounce it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she just gave away the secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my wife, Amy Schiller, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice to be here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I'm having deja vu.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you are a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Amy was my first guest ever when I did a test episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I covered the Burme Island, which is an island that disappeared as a little fun test episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I still haven't released it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will release it on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is my plan.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was really good in it, so maybe you should just release my part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be better.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can find yourself out of the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just going to be my audio.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the reason Amy is on today.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why is Amy on today?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is I had a couple of people back out, so she's being very nice to come on my show.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not even second choice.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you're likely not third, fourth, fifth.
[SPEAKER_03]: What number on the list was I?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, not that far down.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the truth is is that you don't listen to your husband's podcast, to your husband's wonderful podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: because Amy famously does not like anything remotely somewhat scary or suspenseful, how would you describe your?
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a very active imagination, images, and ideas stick with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: very, very easily.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so stuff that famously, my husband might say, oh, this is not scary.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will say, yeah, but it's, I don't like having that image or that idea in my brain.
[SPEAKER_03]: while I'm trying to go to sleep basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And why you actually may be perfect for this episode tonight is because we will be dealing with subject matter that I would normally keep you far away from.
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But these, the two men we're going to be talking about, they're America's first documented serial killers.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are so horrendously bad that I need somebody on to kind of, to make fun of the situation and the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to lighten this up a bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we dive into this though, Amy, why don't you tell everybody about who you are and what you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so as much as you want to share, last time you were on a my test episode, I,
[SPEAKER_03]: no one heard that so it's not like no one heard it but i did not do i did not do a good job explaining the kind of things that you do so i would love for you to explain explain yourself explain myself okay i am a mishlerb and i am famously not into scary things in addition to that i am an actress and i am also a life coach
[SPEAKER_03]: So I help people make intentional change in their lives through the magic of personal development.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of the show, I'll have you share places where people can find you, and I'll have links in my show notes for everybody interested.
[SPEAKER_01]: Excellent.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so today, Amy.
[SPEAKER_01]: As I already kind of started, we are going to be talking about America's first document serial killers, which is an important distinction because as long as there are humans there have been serial killers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are the first documented American serial killers known as the harp brothers, which included Makaja harp, his nickname was big harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Wiley, who is known as Little Harp, and you have a look of either confusion or why I was going to call Little Harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I wrote it down as Little Harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I wrote it down, but it says, yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: little hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like a lot of tales I've I've been drawn to and covered on the show legend around the harps has kind of outgrown the reality the fact that the truth of the matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And and I'll honestly this is the hardest story I've researched on my podcast so far because it is so much
[SPEAKER_01]: folklore and legend that it's actually it was just really tough to even figure out a timeline because there's so much contradictory kind of anecdotes and statements and names and times and stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I've done is I've whittled it down to what I think is as close to the truth as we can probably get today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am happy to be wrong with that and listeners if you are
[SPEAKER_01]: interested in the story of the heart brothers and you've done your own research and you've done a lot of writing and reading and what not I am more than happy to be wrong and I would love to learn more so you can message me at a study of strange at gmail dot com and let me know
[SPEAKER_03]: don't email me though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to know anything or no she's she's not going to want to that is that is certain and why we're on that cold action I should also say that if you like the show and like these topics please make sure to follow the podcast wherever you listen to follows wherever you listen to follows wherever you listen to podcasts Amy's making me nervous I'm messing up tonight you know I just wanted to say you should also subscribe
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you can you can subscribe, but not everybody calls it subscribe anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I learned.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes apps is just a plus button, and it just means like follow, but it's the same thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's that plus button.
[SPEAKER_01]: Smash that plus button, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you really want to support the show, check out our Patreon, where you can get additional exclusive content.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the heart brothers, their terror, the heart brothers' terror spread out across the new country of the United States because this tale takes place during and right after the Revolutionary War in the late 1700s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they committed crimes in Mississippi, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky amongst other places.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the terrifying thing about the heart brothers is that it seems that they were drawn to violence.
[SPEAKER_01]: At least that's the way the the tales are told.
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't killing people to rob them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were killing people just for the good old fun of killing people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and every decision we know that they've made revolved around war, piracy, rape, pillaging, the pruning of hedges and many small villages.
[SPEAKER_03]: The sound delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: So who were the heart brothers?
[SPEAKER_03]: It was, I don't know, tell me.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm about to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Makaja Harp, as I mentioned earlier in Wiley Harp, sometimes you see Wiley's name is Willy, they were born in Orange County, North Carolina in the mid 1700s, and their stories, the way it starts is symbolic of the rest of their story, which is, it's really hard to figure out what is the truth and what is not the truth, because they may not have actually even been brothers at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: They may have been cousins, but told everybody that they were brothers, they always refer to
[SPEAKER_01]: I a comment I heard from a present-day descendant of the harp family who's written books about them, he made a really good comment that I liked, which is that there's no proof that they were cousins, and they called themselves brothers, so unless they were proof that proof that proved, unless there was proof that proved that they were cousins and not brothers, you kind of have to take a method word for it, because there's just no evidence that they were cousins at all, it's just people.
[SPEAKER_01]: decades and hundreds of years later, kind of trying to deduce who they were really were.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that makes sense to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to refer to them as brothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's also debate about when and where they were born.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because most accounts say that their father immigrated from Scotland and settled in North Carolina in like 1760s or 50s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the boys were born in 68 and 70.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, and that's 1768 and 1770.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, some accounts say that the heart brothers were born in 1748 and 1750 and immigrated with their father into the country.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I'm kind of making my own assumptions about their tale and my own deductions, I guess I should say, I believe they were born around 60 and 70 for reasons that we will come across in the states.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to be calling out these kind of contradictory facts and their facts, contradictory anecdotal statements about the history of the heart brothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Makaja was the oldest.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was born likely in 1768.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's big harp because he was bigger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Wiley was actually born Joshua Harp, but he went by Wiley, and he was likely born in 1770, and he was known as Little Harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their name was originally Harper, but they dropped the E and the R. Today we always spell it with the E, but they actually might have taken the E off themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one actually knows why they did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of assumptions, almost every article I read has a different story about why they changed their name to Harp from Harper.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could have been that their family was, they were loyalist to the British during the Revolutionary War and they may have changed their name for safety and a lot of harpers may have been Tories may have been British loyalists.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the accounts, but there are many, many, many other, again anecdotal stories about why their name changed.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the brothers didn't change.
[SPEAKER_01]: like they didn't get into serial killing and be like you know better brand for us no that's actually some of the stories we don't know we don't know if the father changed the name or they've changed the name it depends on what you read but we do know that their name changed that's the important thing we just don't know winner why or who even did it
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So because the family were loyalists to the crown, their father likely fought for the Tories before the British during the war of independence in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are accounts that the brothers fought in the war, some witness accounts, including,
[SPEAKER_01]: that they fought during the battle of blue licks where they helped defeat an army that included American folk hero Daniel Boone, but that is most likely not true at all that is just history trying to lump the brothers into these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, in my deduction of their story, there were two young, they were kids during the Revolutionary War, is likely their father fought for the British, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: How old though, when you say kids?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if they were born in 60 and 70, so like, while he would have been six around the start, Makaja would have been like eight, and then the war ended in 70, 80.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I had my history correct, so yeah, they were like 12, 10, 12, when it ended.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now there is folklore that the harps were, if you believe that they fought in the war, which a lot of people do, there's these legends that they were part of so-called rape gangs.
[SPEAKER_01]: that would go around and raping and pillaging all the American villages and settlements.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I think that's just total legend that has spurred from this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not believe that is true at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason there's a lot of this contradictory information, Alpoina, right now, including that they were part of rape gangs during the war,
[SPEAKER_01]: is most accounts written about the harps came about almost half a century later where they were interviewing people that were like 90 years old at the time, but they were, you know, far younger when the harps were around and there's their own confirmation bias and their own the way I equate it is it's like people trying to look cool in Instagram now.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like the 1850s way of trying to look cool like oh, yeah, I knew the harps.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I saw them in the war and
[SPEAKER_01]: Hang out with them one time and I was like, you better not be killing people and they were like, oh, we won't wink wink Like it's these kind of tall tales that people are weaving and that's why we don't know the truth around these things because people told tall tales.
[SPEAKER_03]: How you doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: Good.
[SPEAKER_03]: So far so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, their father, no one knows what happened to their father, but he might have been hung by the British.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's too late for the British.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, that was that was a British.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I totally misspoke there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was likely hung because he fought for the British after the war ended because there were a lot of accounts of new Americans going around and and rallying up, not rallying up, but grouping up British loyalist after the war and killing him.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: like that is a thing that happened and that may have happened to their father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this takes us actually to the perfect time, the war ends.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the harps, they've lost their dad, their dad, they have died a battle or a pung.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is sad.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were teenagers, they were young and they come from a family that were British loyalists, so they were not feeling too safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they had to fend for themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the boys left home at an early age to try to survive.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[SPEAKER_03]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I've said it like six times already, but keep count from now on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the full floor around the brother this time is that they were looking to start a new and they moved and lived around the the Appalachians.
[SPEAKER_01]: The the Appalachian Appalachians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Appalachians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Appalachian mountains.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they traveled with a tribe of Cherokee who would attack colonists settlements from time to time and the harps lived with the Cherokee for around 12 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now there's a key point that I want to make right now where most of anything you read about the harps has one thing that I think is very untrue and wrong in most accounts.
[SPEAKER_01]: The legend says that
[SPEAKER_01]: little harp, abused a girl in some fashion, depending on the story you read, and was shot by a Captain James Wood, not the actor James Woods, but James Wood, who was governor of Virginia from 1796 to 1799, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Wiley lived after he was shot, but he was pissed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the boys, you think?
[SPEAKER_01]: The boys decide to take retribution in their hands, and they kidnap Wood's daughter, Susan Wood, and Susan's friend, Mariah, or Maria Davidson, forcing both of them to become their wives, and then they were traveling around.
[SPEAKER_01]: to, uh, I believe they were traveling towards Chet Nuga at the time, Chet Nuga, Tennessee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, according to the book, though, Harps last revenge, this is not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: The info came from James would, again, like half a century after the Harps were killed, spoiler alert, they, they died.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and other sources that were likely trying to tie themselves, like I said earlier, it was like people trying to like sound cool to tie themselves to famous
[SPEAKER_01]: bad guys of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no evidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no records that Susan Wood or Mariah Davidson were ever kidnapped by the harps.
[SPEAKER_01]: The harps were, however, known to travel with two girls, sisters, Susan and Betsy Roberts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are likely the two women that traveled with the harps for many, many, many years that people referred to.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not James Woods's daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it was, that's just one of the most interesting things I come across in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you see videos, when you read accounts, when you read blogs about the heart, brother Susan Wood, I'm 99.9% sure was never part of the heart's life and was not kidnapped and not forced to become a wife of one of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Were the other ladies in on it?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is up for debate.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to find some interesting stuff about the ladies in this story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hang on to that thought.
[SPEAKER_03]: No did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's also no record of Wiley getting shot by James Wood, which you would think there would be some sort of record of within the military of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, feel free to disagree with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listeners out there that know the story, but that is, that's where my reasoning is out of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the brothers, they're traveling with the Robert Skurls.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to survive.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the stories goes that a man named Moses Dawson sees the group meets the group and is like, wait, these these women, they don't seem like they're happy traveling with these two dudes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he starts to suspect something.
[SPEAKER_01]: The heart brothers are like, he's starting to suspect something.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the heart brothers kill him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, as as you do and there are some accounts that say again, this is none of this is like provable.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is all just anecdotal stuff One of the accounts I read says that Moses Dawes actually Assaulted one of the women and that's why the harps killed him.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why they were unhappy
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it may be, but so there's different accounts, but a guy named Moses Dawes likely could have been killed by the harps and the story goes that they, that his body was found, cut open, filled with rocks to wait him down in the water, and this becomes a bit of a calling card for the heart brothers, because apparently a number of other victims of theirs were cut open and filled with rocks.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are you laughing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you thinking of the wet bands from home alone?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think of the wet bands from home alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they could call us the pebble band it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which makes me think one of them was like, like, big heart was like, hey, yeah, hold on.
[SPEAKER_01]: We gotta put rocks in their body because that's a calling card.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're the rock band.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and Wiley's like, what, no, no, we're not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop, stop.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're the Wiley Rock Carps.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: What, we rock the heart name with rocks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Indeed.
[SPEAKER_03]: In bodies.
[SPEAKER_01]: So somewhere during this time period, which is like we're in the 1780s and the 1790s, the brothers and the women they're living with the Cherokee, and they were likely part of a raid or maybe multiple raids that preyed upon unprotected settlements with the Cherokees.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in retaliation for one of these raids, the government attacked the Cherokee town of Nicarjack in 1794, and the regiment massacred family kids, anybody that was in there, they massacred.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's a really terrible thing and it kind of shows you that the harps they've now grown up in a war and now they're growing up in raids and the town they've been living in for likely like 10 to 12 years is now been massacred they're just surrounded by not so happy things.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just normal for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Death and destruction and violence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the harps were either not in Nick Ajac when the Masca happened or they escaped.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one really knows, but they, because of the massacre, they were like, we're getting out of Dodds.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need Dodge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Excuse me.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're getting out of Dodge.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just got to keep traveling.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to try to survive somewhere else because this, uh, this is not going to work anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they likely move next to Beaver Creek in Powell County, Tennessee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, folklore and legend will continue to be an issue trying to solve the story, but things are starting to get more clear in the in the sort of the timeline of the harps in 1794, including the little love affair with the Robert Skurls, the the level before some, as I'm just going to call him, right now, the play golf, the play golf, famously, they would go on double dates to movies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, so I'd folklor at least twice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're going to keep counting what am I like five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's far fewer than I even thought.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I didn't count the first one.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: So while he gets married in this time period to a Susan Rice, so he breaks up the little lovable for some.
[SPEAKER_03]: That bastard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we don't know if they were actually married to the two girls who murdered anybody yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Moses does.
[SPEAKER_03]: The adulterer yet right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he, I think they've murdered a few people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so they murdered Moses does.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at least him and maybe some other people.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm keeping track of how many people they've murdered and how many times do you say folklore?
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So far, you're worse than the serial killers said folklore in more time.
[SPEAKER_01]: got it got it I guess that's the way it's gonna have to be so while he gets married to Susan Rice in 1797 and she is a minister's daughter so good for him and good for the minister good for whiley good for Susan it's all good not no I don't think so good
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you, you, there's a thing called sarcasm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, there's a thing called delivery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was snap.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: It sounded like you were actually thinking like, oh, this is, this is a good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, not at all, not at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And very soon after then, the same year, I think it's September of 1797, if I remember correctly, Big Harp, Makaja,
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets married to Susan Roberts, who they've been traveling with and living with for years.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they've just been living in sin this whole time?
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been living in sin this whole time.
[SPEAKER_01]: How dare they?
[SPEAKER_01]: Those serial killers live in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those serial killers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Additionally, live in sin with women that are like the warm about them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's interesting about these marriages is we know for a fact that they happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're a lot of their the rest of their story.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know for a fact that any of it happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: So really, because there's what there's marriage certificates.
[SPEAKER_01]: okay but so really all you know about these guys is that they got married you don't actually know that they killed people no we do know that we do know that later on so we're coming up to some of that stuff it is not all crystal clear how many and who exactly but we definitely know they killed a lot of people and there was there were they were one to by the government for killing a lot of people and yeah so now we're coming into a time where we actually know a lot more about what happened
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, they get married and in 1797 or thereabouts around the same time, they try to make it go of a normal life in Knoxville, Tennessee.
[SPEAKER_01]: They try to play house.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, hey, guys, we're going to do this the right way, but they quickly become suspects of stealing hogs, cattle, horses, so they weren't doing a good job of contributing to a healthy society and talent.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were taking from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were taking from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they were either ran out of town or left because they didn't want to get arrested or a combination of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They went back onto the trails around the mountains and the trails of the times and tried to make it go of it there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where their rain of terror really begins.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it may be a bit late for this, but I'm going to paint a picture of what these two dudes look like according to accounts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Makaja was big.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is big hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's a big dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Beardy, matted, thick, dark hair.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was described in the one to posters and the one to statements from the from the governor at the time to be around 30, which is also why I'm deducing he was born
[SPEAKER_01]: Wiley Harp was much smaller.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also had sort of matted long hair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Neither one of them were hats often, which was not the normal way that is not in style at the time to go headless.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a way to describe people.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like doesn't wear hats.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's the way people describe men until like the 1960s, like they'd be like, oh, he doesn't like to wear a hat as he goes out about 30 to the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a big deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Wiley, the younger one in smaller one, was considered the brains of the operation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Always.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one terrifying aspect of big harp is that it's said that he
[SPEAKER_01]: and murders, they are about to do a lot of.
[SPEAKER_01]: So hold on to your bridges.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amy's giving me some kind of weird look that I can't quite figure out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm trying to go back to my brain about that you said something about that it was like weird that he used a Tomahawk to
[SPEAKER_03]: on his victim.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you said something about that being like it's weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important because that's his like it's almost like another calling.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's another calling car like the car preferred the Tomahawk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost anyone so the legends say that they that came across the harps hiding out or staking out people in the trails and passages of the Cumberland gap, which is where they were for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're killed and robbed and one of the few people to survive was a guy named Reverend Lamberth Lamberth We're gonna say Who was sure he was gonna die when these two not adhered non-hat wearing people stepped out of the trees and the brush to attend Always the non-hat wearing Always always be scared of the people without hats
[SPEAKER_01]: And the stories say that the harps saw inside the guy's Bible, like you know, they were collecting his things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And inside the Bible was George Washington's name, like George Washington had signed it for this Reverend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they actually liked Washington even though their dad was a British supporter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're like, yeah, George Washington is a cool cat.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you got to sit that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to sign it your way to go, dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here comes the general.
[SPEAKER_03]: to reference.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was for anyone on this podcast that knows Hamilton.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is probably a lot of people most people do by myself now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, the hearts where let the Reverend go and they crept back into the darkness of the brush and shrubs along the trail.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the way as much as this reverence survive.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what they would do.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would kind of camp out almost like Robinhood except They weren't a nice Robinhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were like hang along the trails and the cumbersome gap wait for people to come around jump out and be like, Yeah, getcha and then like kill them and stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Rob from anyone Get her to anyone give to themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's that's honestly a very nice way to describe the heart brothers
[SPEAKER_01]: Now all three women because big heart little harp they're married to both both names Susan by the way, and there's that still that third woman the other Robert sister who has been with them for all these years.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all traveling with the harps all three women.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, just, just wait, Amy, just wait, there's more.
[SPEAKER_01]: But all three women became pregnant around the same time, and Big Harp apparently killed one of the babies because it was making too much noise.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just a sign to show you how you feel.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whoa, you did not say there was anything about Infanticide in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not, but that is again why have you on so we can make fun of these idiots and terrible people.
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are rumors that he like killed all the babies, but that apparently is not true at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did confess to killing a baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know this because he made the confession before he died, spoiler alert again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he apparently regretted it, so good for him, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, good guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sarcasm.
[SPEAKER_03]: There she did that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, the brothers fell under the eye of suspicion when a man named Johnson disappeared.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this man's body was soon found in a river.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chest cut open.
[SPEAKER_01]: Body filled with stones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the stone, stone boat, bro.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there what did you call him?
[UNKNOWN]: That one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I call them the Pebble Band-in.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go, the Pebble Band-in.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, indeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they had to move away from this area because people started looking for those the old heart brothers.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Pebble Band-in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, the Pebble Band-its were on the radar of the local possees.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they traveled up through the Cumberland gap towards Kentucky where they killed more people, including a man for a horse.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they killed another man who they suspected had money, and one of the victims along the way was a guy named Peyton.
[SPEAKER_01]: I only include that because we don't know the names of all their victims and depending on what you read, they're different.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to kind of drop in some of these names to add the historic record of this story.
[SPEAKER_03]: They killed a guy named Jim, and they killed a guy named Jim.
[SPEAKER_01]: which might be more true than most of what we hear about the harps.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there you have it folks, add that to all the rumors and folklore of the heart brothers that killed someone named Sassafras.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just going to jump us all the way to 13.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're at 13.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now tales of killing a handful of other men in this time exist as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: And babies don't forget they killed a baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where a lot more of the accounts of like bodies filled with stones come because apparently some of these victims were found with stones and their bodies waited down at rivers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, big harp typically using the Tomahawk to to kill people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, one of the men that they killed during this time was named John Langford, some accounts refer to him as Stephen or Thomas Langford.
[SPEAKER_03]: because those are real common, those are the real similar names.
[SPEAKER_03]: John Steven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, Thomas, but they all refer to him as Langford, including old newspaper accounts from back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think it is Langford, but no one's calling everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no telegraph.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, you know, like word travel slowly.
[SPEAKER_03]: People get these things and they're like three.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like what if it was three that they killed, it was on the same family and they killed all three of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: over the rest of this episode, I would normally say, yeah, maybe there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: On this one though, we actually know a little bit more, so I'm going to say, no, it was just the one Langford.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is because you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the story behind Mr. Langford, as I refer to him, is that they were hanging out in an inn and haven't some drinks, haven't some food, and they meet this guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they noticed that he had money, and he was traveling.
[SPEAKER_01]: along the, you know, the Appalachian Trail or Cumberland Gap or whatever area this is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do they not come across a lot of people that like, and not assume that they have money?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like most people I would think at that time traveled with at least some money.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, it's not, because it's not like today.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, you don't have things.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you don't have.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the new, this is also the new United States of America.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's not a lot of infrastructure in place.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not, yeah, you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like people are going to be trapped.
[SPEAKER_01]: If they're traveling from anywhere to anywhere else, they're bringing their value bulls with them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, they hang out with a guy and they're like, hey, hey, Jon or Thomas or whatever you said your name is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, bird.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, bird.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... uh... tell you steven steven sir steven mister okay pickles that's what's heard is not your name so mister pickles lengthford you you shouldn't be traveling alone because there's a lot of bad people that rob folks trestles trestles you should travel with us when you live in a fair little length no little little wiley little wiley
[SPEAKER_01]: So this little scene we're doing is kind of what they did.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were just like you should travel with us It's so dangerous out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll protect you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Look at my brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at my brother with a Tomahawk over there Like shaving his beard with a Tomahawk.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you can't be you can't be little hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, here little Big heart.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been years since we've done improv together.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is terrible.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're over here and you can be big Harp Okay
[SPEAKER_04]: Boy, this is, do not sell the name of Roy Kent.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of pitch a Roy Kent as big heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, a little bit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Refuse.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: She will walk off this podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: There goes my marriage.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, do you all listeners you hear it heard it here first you can't make fun of Roy Kent and not even I wasn't even making fun of him though I was just using his always here in his group there He's everywhere
[SPEAKER_03]: The name shall not be so late.
[SPEAKER_03]: The grunt sound shall not be so late.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, stop it.
[SPEAKER_01]: This up to episode brought to you by Apple TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ladies and gentlemen, I should get a new episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you wish.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do wish.
[SPEAKER_03]: You so wish.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, not a sponsor, but could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Please get in touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, please do Apple.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, what do you think happened to Mr. Thomas Stephen Langford as, as traveled?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I, you know, they exchanged information, Instagram, and I, he went on his merry way to live a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long,
[SPEAKER_03]: healthy, fruitful life.
[SPEAKER_01]: The truth is that they quickly killed them, and because they had been with him that night at the end, everybody suspected the harps of killing them, so they formed a posse because that's what you did back then, and they caught the harps, and all three women, all of them arrested.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, the infoked at that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that was like they were like, wait a second.
[SPEAKER_03]: Left the way you set that up, it sounded like the heart brothers formed a posse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK. No.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the people in town were like, hey, that link for guys with founder and kiddie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so those two guys with them that were like hey travel with us, they probably killed them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a posse was formed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They caught the harps and they were arrested and put in prison in Danville, Kentucky.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, the wives were arrested as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, the harps, they're a spray, a couple of fellas, they escape.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, little harp famously, small enough to fit you, bars.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like my pet hanger when I was a kid who could squeeze out of the cage.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: a hamster.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I had a hamster squeeze out of his cage.
[SPEAKER_01]: They could get surprisingly small when they took it through things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had a cat that was he was enormous, but somehow he squeezed himself underneath a copy machine at the vet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, rather than yeah, I can I totally understand it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the harps escape and the wives were acquitted.
[SPEAKER_01]: They claimed that they were never trying to be like buddies and wives with the harps.
[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't kill anybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just here.
[SPEAKER_01]: They claimed that they had always been forced into this relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: They murdered my baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they're acquitted.
[SPEAKER_01]: The harps have escaped.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then the harps and the wives reunite at a pre-planned place so it's harder to get out of these things It is and honestly this is sort of a bigger discussion to be have of like because we don't know a lot about them Or the relationship, but this definitely happened and They again later something else will happen in the story with the wives that we can talk about But that that's kind of the big question and in discussion around the behavior with these people.
[SPEAKER_03]: What else were they gonna?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean
[SPEAKER_03]: this is not for your podcast, but yeah, women don't have a lot of options.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's in a weird way being separated from the women for a while allowed the heart
[SPEAKER_01]: take their crash.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, like they apparently butchered and killed many, many, many people when the women were away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they just had free reign, they were like, ladies aren't here, let's do what we want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was just kill a bunch of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Allegedly.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what you're saying is that had they not gotten married.
[SPEAKER_01]: and had women around in general they might have been worse might have been way worse it's possible it's very possible and this is when the governor i think it's of uh... Kentucky puts out the wanted statement that you can still find for the heart brothers he wanted three hundred bucks ahead so it's dead or alive bring the head what is that about today and that is uh... forty eight dollars
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, no, I didn't do anything like a nice gift card to post mates.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I didn't do the, what do you call that?
[SPEAKER_01]: The comparison conversion.
[SPEAKER_01]: The conversion.
[SPEAKER_03]: 300 dollars in that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also that's far enough a way to that the conversion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, it's not as easy as it is to do from from even like 50 years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: You kind of just have to sort of make some jumps.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the brothers decided they should head somewhere that they can be safer, get away from everybody looking for them, and they decide to go to a place called Cave and Rock, which is in Illinois.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a famous site.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can still go visit it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's wonderful pictures online of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a really cool cave along the Ohio River.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's where they joined a group of outlaws led by a legendary river pirate himself, Samuel Mason, and they camped out and buddied up with Samuel Mason for a while, living at Cave in the Rock and going out on the river and robbing fishermen and ferries and boats and stuff for a while, and they don't...
[SPEAKER_01]: tame their murdering around mr. Samuel Mason why would you he's a river pirate by this point yeah why exactly but they thought he's a river pirate he gets us right we can do what we want so apparently
[SPEAKER_01]: The heart brothers were too much for Mr. Mason too, including they like pushed somebody off a cliff or had somebody jump off a cliff and Samuel Mason is like, guys, yeah, this isn't working out and this is where our first scene comes in, we're going to.
[SPEAKER_03]: Didn't like the improv.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now we got to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the improv.
[SPEAKER_01]: The improv scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: And but now we're going to do a scripted scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's have you read big harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll do a little harp and Samuel Mason.
[SPEAKER_01]: How about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that work?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll read the descriptions.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm just reading big harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just read big harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, so this is at Cavan Rock in Illinois, along the Ohio River, and Big Harp and Lil Harp stand next to a dead body on the bank of the river.
[SPEAKER_01]: A large cliff towers over them, and the harps are laughing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you see him singing his arms like a wee little girl as he fell?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the brothers laugh hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did, I did!
[SPEAKER_01]: Samuel Mason looks at the brothers from the entrance of cave and rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: He walks towards the brothers than stops.
[SPEAKER_01]: Turns around, it goes back towards the cave.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does this dance a few times.
[SPEAKER_01]: Men in the cave waved to Sam, encouraging him to go talk to the harps, but Sam is scared.
[SPEAKER_01]: He eventually puts on a smile and skips down to the harps.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, hey, what's shaking, dudes?
[SPEAKER_03]: We were just talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: How we should push more people off the cliff.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the most fun we've ever had.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: But look, guys, the fella's an eye have been talking.
[SPEAKER_02]: About what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Big Harps mood shifts.
[SPEAKER_01]: He smiles and his hand tightens its grip on his tummerhawk by his side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, all sorts of things, really, but the thing is, is we'd like you to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been great.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've done great things as a team, Robin, and Pillage in and the like, but it's time to move on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Push in people off cliffs.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll draw too much attention to our operation here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Big heart growls.
[SPEAKER_05]: Rallow.
[SPEAKER_01]: and moves towards Sam, but little harp stops his brother, but uh uh come back and and visit, yeah, I'm thinking to throw out a white elephant party for Christmas and you two should come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thanks guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: See ya!
[SPEAKER_01]: Sam runs back to the cave where his men hold guns and are watching the harp brothers closely.
[SPEAKER_01]: The harp's slink away, knowing they're outmatched.
[SPEAKER_03]: historical record of exactly what big harps sounded like.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is with the absolute antithesis of Roy Kent historical document historical die all very true of very true not dramatized in any fashion.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in July of 1799 the heart brothers leave Samuel Mason's gang and they they begin their own
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they weren't holding them back.
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't able to kill even more people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now, they start killing people in Kentucky and Tennessee, including a guy named William Ballard, who was disemboweled, a guy named John Graves and his son were apparently decapitated, near a dareville Kentucky.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm saying that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The harps murdered a family called Titsworth,
[SPEAKER_01]: which included eight adults and children, as well as slaves that worked for the family, and then in late August, the harp sought shelter at a farmstead in Webster County, Kentucky, and this is the home of Mrs. Stigle, and she was too nice to these guys because they're evil, evil, despicable people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe did she know this?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, of course not, but she soon found out because they killed her baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: And two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they've murdered two babies at least two babies and then they kill her and her husband Mr. Stegle was away when when this was happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when he returned and he found out these guys the harps had stayed there and that's who killed everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: He forms a posse.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes after him and he's actually able to track him down and we don't know a lot of details about what happened in this moment
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where he apparently confessed to some of the murders, including one of his own babies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they kill him, they behead him, they stick his head on us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spike or stick or fence post or something, and they put it on the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently they've named the street, like you can still find a street in the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's kind of like heart street or heart pie way, or it should be heart pie way for a little ration.
[SPEAKER_01]: But people don't, people today don't realize why it's still card that, and this is another call to action The listeners, I was actually trying to pinpoint exactly where this happened, like where did they put it on the street?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where did the where was this pike where, where did the death happened?
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot find that information, so the street named after them or the area named after them today may not be entirely correct to where this happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: of Google Maps isn't helping you with that like what when I'm like hey where was big harps head you don't see the head no it's not on there there must have taken it down apparently it's in union county tenancies so if any listeners know where this is please give me a shout a study of strange of gmail.com or send me message on Instagram
[SPEAKER_03]: can do not contact me.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, Amy is not going to want to talk about this story ever, ever again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I respect that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the wives, I just call them wives, even though only two of them are technically wives.
[SPEAKER_03]: But why would you, why would you give them names?
[SPEAKER_03]: They're women.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's two of them are Susan and one of them is Betsy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Susan, Susan and Betsy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Susan, Susan and Betsy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're captured.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're put on trial and they're acquitted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, because I don't believe they have actually murdered them.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, and Nord does the history.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think history even assumes that they killed anybody either.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're acquitted and they did like we do know more about them after this happen because they're in census records and accounts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I think a few of not all of them even remarried and had kids and all sorts of stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what's happy?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lil Lil.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: His, he wasn't, their last name is in Wildland.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, he's, his, his, his little, little hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Little hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: He traveled to Natchez, Mississippi, which is a beautiful town on the river, and he was there a while, and then he's like, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: I miss killing more than that though, it's my own assumption, but I also think he was trying to find a way to make a living and he heard that there was a bounty for none other than the river pirate Samuel Mason.
[SPEAKER_01]: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I want to join the gang again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just kidding, boom, boom, bang, bang, stabby, stabby.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, he kills him and kills Samu Mason and takes proof, which I, in some accounts, is the head.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he takes Samu Mason's head to whatever Sheriff had the bounty out for him and was like, hey, guys, I'm here to collect on the bounty.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where our second scene comes in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, guys, I'm here to collect on the bound.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to do a scene, which again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who do I get to be in this one?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because big Kent is already not Kent.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was Roy Kent.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cut that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cut all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to be wily or the share?
[SPEAKER_03]: Little white.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a preference?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll be a little harp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, so we're in the sheriff's office when Wiley-Harp enters, to find a deputy in the sheriff sitting behind their desks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we help you?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm here to collect my reward.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wiley-Harp drops a burlap sack under the sheriff's desk.
[SPEAKER_01]: The deputy looks at Wiley-Harp, he recognizes him, but it doesn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reword?
[SPEAKER_03]: Looking the bag?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sheriff?
[SPEAKER_01]: The deputy quietly steps behind Wileyp, nonchalantly, and the sheriff looks into the sack.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good heavens!
[SPEAKER_03]: That there is the river pilot, pilot the river pirate, Samuel Nathan.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: How'd you come by this head, friend?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a simple fisherman and my boat was attacked on the Ohio River a few days back by Mason, but I killed him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll take my reward and tense him twice.
[SPEAKER_01]: The deputy out of sight takes a spistol on a pointed at Wiley's back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's your name, sir?
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, hi, sir.
[SPEAKER_03]: So sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was pronounced
[SPEAKER_03]: Really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Wiley moves to pull his pistol but the deputy steps forward and shoves his gun into Wiley's back.
[SPEAKER_01]: For someone that's escaped justice for so long, Mr. Arby, you're one giant idiot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is the true story of how Mr. Wiley Harp was caught.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it happened exactly that same way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Originally, I was going to, before we started all of this, I thought about doing that as the Mandalorian and now I'm really glad that I did not, because I don't think either of these men.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't make him for I can't and I don't want to make little harp the Mandalorian so yeah, but it's the bounty hunter thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like no, it's like a bounty hunter and now all of our listeners know the TV we've been watching.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you mean the TV everyone watches?
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've really outed ourselves with that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this brings us to the conclusion of the harp story because Wiley was arrested at this point and hung in 1804.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently, between the two of them, they confessed to killing 39 men, women and children.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some historians claim that it's probably closer to 50 people, which I would agree with because of all the accounts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after their deaths, rumors, as I've talked about have circulated, that the heart brothers had committed even more than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They committed many gruesome and heinous crimes, including, there's rumors that they were cannibals, which I actually don't believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they skin their victims, which I also don't believe, because there's no account of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, they put pebbles in them, however, it is unclear how many of these rumors are true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is clear that they did kill a lot of people, which is what inspired and created these rumors of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the story of America's first serial killers, the duo, the...
[SPEAKER_03]: And just the pebble band it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the pebbles are wet by the time you grow your victims into the water, but it is true other than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things I want to conclude with here is, you know, if there's anything to learn from this story, my brain.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a takeaway.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lesson.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always a takeaway.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always a lesson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you don't know it right away, the lesson comes later.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for me, I'm always interested in listeners have heard me expand upon this too much in the past already.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I love how the farther back you go in history, especially pre sort of technology of lots of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: How rumors become believable fact.
[SPEAKER_01]: including like the Susan Wood story that almost literally 99% of everything I read is like they kidnap Susan Wood and she was forced to be a wife and then it's like no she wasn't there's no record of that but there is record of Susan Roberts who they were with for decades who married big harps so that's probably the Susan there's a marriage certificate
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's things like that, how rumor becomes fact very quickly, and most of what we know about the harps didn't come until almost half a century later when people started writing about them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's those 50-ish years there before things are being written about them, where tales are being spun and bars and taverns and between neighbors and whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why this was so difficult to research, and I'm sure I've gotten some of it wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: But hopefully the incredible terribleness, the terrible terrible, as I started the episode with.
[SPEAKER_01]: of how evil these two brothers were came across because they're they're frightening terrible people and I do think there is importance to learn how evil humans can be because I think we can be better about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thoughts on your end.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, as a life coach, the thought that came to me was, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: At some point in their lives, the heart brothers decided that
[SPEAKER_03]: They wanted to change their ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they sought out the rapidly growing field of life coaching, the end of the 1700s.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they said, Amy, we really need to change our ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: What can you offer us?
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say, well, you know, the murdering, the killing, all of that, the pebbles in the bodies, is that working for you?
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they would be like, yeah, show we should double up.
[SPEAKER_03]: So again, perhaps I didn't start that correctly because, I mean, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So now the other interesting thing is that perhaps serial killers aside for the most part in life coaching we assume that every behavior
[SPEAKER_03]: So I would perhaps sit with the heart brothers and say, what's the positive intent behind?
[SPEAKER_03]: all these murders.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the quick things that did come to mind while reading about them is there's all these anecdotes that they were just pure evil and they killed, decilled, they killed for the fun of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They wouldn't even rob their victims, but it's like no, there actually is records that they did rob their victims.
[SPEAKER_01]: They did travel with Susan and Betsy for decades and there's a lot of talk about how life
[SPEAKER_01]: And they had to live alone as kids because their father died during the war, right after the war, and they're surviving in a really hard time to survive.
[SPEAKER_01]: So could the survival and the hardships that people like that face could that have been what led them into a life like this?
[SPEAKER_03]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think so as well, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you ask the question, you know, what's the positive intent?
[SPEAKER_03]: So what do they get out of it?
[SPEAKER_03]: If they get out of it, money, they're going to keep doing it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They get out of it some kind of weird thrill.
[SPEAKER_03]: The mind of a serial killer is not a normal brain.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's different things going on, so you can't really follow the positive intent logic of all of that, but yeah, you'd be looking for like okay well how else could we get that thrill maybe maybe we could
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you heard of podcasting?
[SPEAKER_03]: podcasting is not thrilling.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe we could jump out of an airplane.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh wait, those don't exist.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, maybe, maybe we could ride really fast on the horse.
[SPEAKER_03]: You'd start coming up with alternatives.
[SPEAKER_03]: Alternative ways to get money.
[SPEAKER_03]: And...
[SPEAKER_03]: whatever they felt.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is, it's not going to work with serial killers.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm now making myself sound like a horrible life coach.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so where can people find information about your your business, Amy?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a perfect tie-in to to plug yourself.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, my website is
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, if you are a serial killer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Please don't come to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think I have anything to offer you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your brain is special and unique in its own way.
[SPEAKER_03]: And please find a psychotherapist.
[SPEAKER_03]: And a psychiatrist.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if there are serial killers that listen to my podcast, please donate to my Patreon account and then turn yourself in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good thing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going great.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to ask for it to be able to listen to whatever I've said for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Really, maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how possible it's going to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's live.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just may not have it fully edited until like very soon before it goes up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, you can listen to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just don't make me sound horrible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't make me sound as terrible as these two dudes were.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were awful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, no, you, you, you, you, you're, you're a little bit of a, Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, thank you so much for coming on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know you do not like these stories, but I've been in the back of my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, Wing, and I get Amy on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I, I appreciate you making this work out when, uh, when I lost my other guests.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's so sad.
[SPEAKER_03]: Not even third.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, not even, but only because of your, your determination to not be involved.
[SPEAKER_03]: This, you may get some, like, I don't support your podcast at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I mean, I'm going to involve with this type of story.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like these types of stories, uh, famously, I'm against, in fantasizing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Famously, uh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a lot of fun and we're going to end the episode now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's, let's see when I get some food.
[SPEAKER_03]: sounds great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really hungry now after all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: After all that killing, I need some food.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to this episode of a Study of Strange, especially thank you to Amy Schlurb, my wife for joining me and dealing with this tale of blood and murder in Mayhem, and keeping it light, which I thought was appropriate for the heart brothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure to check out her information, it will be in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you enjoy this type of content to view enjoy stories of the strange and unknown and the mysterious, make sure to follow or subscribe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you really want to support the show, check out our Patreon account, which you can find in our website study of strange.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Coming up next week, we have a tale of murder and mystery that has truly stumped me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not even going to say what it is, I just want to encourage you to stay tuned because it's a doozy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you again for listening and good night.