Fresh Hell Podcast

In the second part we follow Mary through her years on North Brother Island, her legal fight against the city, her release, and the decision that would ultimately send her back into quarantine for the rest of her life.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Mallon was simply an Irish immigrant making a living as a cook for some of New York's wealthiest families. But wherever she worked, typhoid fever seemed to follow.

In the first part of our two-part series, we head back to New York at the turn of the twentieth century, where crowded streets, groundbreaking discoveries in public health, and one baffling outbreak after another form the backdrop for one of the most famous investigations in medical history. As sanitary engineer George Soper begins looking for the source of a mysterious typhoid outbreak at a summer home in Oyster Bay, he starts to notice a pattern everyone else had overlooked!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final part of our series on Starr Faithfull, the investigation begins, and this is where the mystery begins!

Why were parts of her clothing missing? Why did two autopsies reach different conclusions? What was in Starr's diary? And what role, if any, did the powerful former mayor Andrew J. Peters play after years of abusing her?

In this final episode, we walk through the investigation, the evidence, and the theories that have been debated for more than 90 years. We also talk about how the press turned Starr into a "party girl," and why we think that completely misses the point.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Starr Faithfull finally tells her family the secret she’s been carrying for nearly a decade: she has been sexually abused by a powerful and trusted relative since childhood.

In Part 2, we talk about what happened after that revelation, as her family struggles to help her in an era when trauma was poorly understood and the modern ideas of treatment were more than questionable.

This is Part 2 of our 3-part series on Starr Faithfull.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1931, the body of 25-year-old Starr Faithfull washed ashore on a Long Island beach. Newspapers and the public speculated whether her death was murder, suicide, or an accident. But before we can answer that question, we need to go back to the beginning: to old Boston money, political power, and the man Starr knew as "Uncle Andrew."

Content note: This episode contains discussions of child sexual abuse, grooming, eating disorders, addiction, suicidal ideation, and mental health struggles.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices