Not Another History Podcast
We are Cindy and Katie, and every two weeks we bring you a random theme and offer several of our favorite historical events loosely based on that theme. We are basically just living out our old lady fantasies of rocking on the front porch together, drinking, and gossiping about people who are already dead. Music: The Life of a Divorced Bumblebee by Josef Bel Habib (www.epidemicsound.com). Design: canva.com
Not Another History Podcast
In Another Life
In this episode, Katie and Cindy explore the theme, "In Another Life." Katie tells the fascinating story of Dorothy Eady and Cindy shares about the amazing escapes of Yoshie Shiratori.
Hi Katie, hi Cindy, are you ready to do this, I suppose I suppose.
Speaker 1:You know, some people might say that when it comes to recording we're inconsistent.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Some people but.
Speaker 1:I say we're more like the elusive pangolin. Do you know what a pangolin is?
Speaker 2:Isn't it like? It's kind of like a mammal, but it's got scales.
Speaker 1:It is. It's like an eater, it's like a little armadillo-y thing. Yeah, I think we're like pangolins, right. We pop up our heads every once in a while with a history story and then we disappear. And when we do appear, people's reactions shouldn't be like, oh, it's about time. They should be excited, like when you see a pangolin in the wild. People pay a lot of money, katie, to go like on national geographic expeditions to find pangolins and we don't charge anything for this people get this for free and you don't know what's going on in that pangolin's personal life like.
Speaker 2:Maybe he's got some doctor's appointments that he's got to go to, maybe his kids are being pains in the butts, you don't know, and he's got to go meet with the teacher and discuss strategies for socialization. Yeah, exactly, don't judge him.
Speaker 1:We don't judge, we just celebrate that we're here Exactly and people are getting this for free.
Speaker 2:I mean, I heard the most interesting podcast statistic and I feel like we should wear it as a as a badge of pride. It's something like 90 percent of podcasts don't make it past 10 episodes some really low number and then of that remaining 10% like 90% don't get past 20 episodes and like we're way ahead of that.
Speaker 1:We're way ahead.
Speaker 2:So like we're like one percenters, Cindy, this is very exciting.
Speaker 1:Well, my next question is what percentage of those that make it past that actually make money, though I think it's like, I feel, I feel like there's a little asterisk next to that statistic and they're like and if you are recording over 100 episodes and you don't make a dime, it's probably your sign that you should stop. But we're not gonna stop, katie. We're to keep popping our heads out when we are available.
Speaker 2:It's a delightful little surprise to our fans, all five of them. It's like oh, I thought they died, but I guess they're still around because they're still making podcasts.
Speaker 1:Good for them, good for them, good for them, good for them, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On that note, katie, we do have a podcast planned for today, we do.
Speaker 2:What's our topic? It is In Another Life. So you came up with this topic. I did yes, because I had a story kind of in mind and it's history. It happened in the past, um, that's for sure. Um, but I want to try something just like a little different. So I'm very interested in seeing what your, your reaction is gonna be, and I'm gonna kind of veil it in a little bit of secrecy.
Speaker 2:I feel like if I, if I tell too much or I get too much into it, it's going to give too much away. So I just want to ooh, it's going to be interesting Lean into the unknown. Cindy.
Speaker 1:Lean into the unknown. So it's a history story, but we don't know where it's going. No, so it's kind of like in the future it could be. Look at the layers, katie. How are we not raking in the money?
Speaker 2:with this. There's no one paying for the sweet, sweet content I don't know. I okay, let me preface this with I feel like I had a really strong start to it, um, and we'll see how things go. We'll see, um, and that's what I'm gonna say and I won't reveal, like, the title to the end because, again, I feel like it's gonna give away too much. I just wanna wait, wait.
Speaker 1:You have wait, hold on. Yeah, there's a title to it.
Speaker 2:You titled your podcast story yeah, don't, we don't, we don't we the title.
Speaker 1:You already told us the title. Oh what?
Speaker 2:it's about. Like the person who it's about, oh, oh.
Speaker 1:Wait. So you're going to tell me the story and then tell me who it is? I'm so confused I've not been tracking.
Speaker 2:Maybe we should go back down our pangolin hole.
Speaker 1:We're just drooping our little pangolin heads. Where do they even live? What do they? I don't know.
Speaker 2:They're not subterranean, I don't know, maybe they live in trees. We should go climb back up our pangolin tree, go in our pangolin nest or our pangolin comforter over our little pangolin nest, go back to sleep, go back to sleep.
Speaker 1:Go back to sleep. Maybe people will be excited to see us again next time. Maybe We'll do better. We'll do better.
Speaker 2:So the person that this is about, I can tell you it'll run, it's going to be fine. Her name is Dorothy Louise Eadie. Bring any bells.
Speaker 1:Not a single bell Excellent.
Speaker 2:Excellent, all right. So Dorothy Louise Edie was born on a snowy day on the 16th of January in 1904 in lovely England. She was her parents' only child and the apple of her mother's eye. She was described as being a sweet and very precocious child. She was really full of life and energy. But unfortunately, when she was three, she was playing next to a stairwell and fell down a flight of stairs with her tiny little body just falling head over foot against each little step. Until she came to a stop at the base of the stairs, she wasn't moving. Her parents immediately rushed to her side to see how she was, but she wasn't breathing, she wasn't moving. They were really worried about her and you have to remember, this time there are no ambulances, there's no paramedics, so they had to call for a doctor and just pray and wait. Once the doctor finally did arrive, he told them that their precious baby girl was gone. Her parents were absolutely devastated. Again, this is their only child and the doctor told them that you know, I need to go, I need to get her death certificate, but I'll come back, I'll bring a nurse with me and we'll get her all ready to be taken away and you know, and we'll handle this. So the doctor did come back about an hour later and the nurse goes upstairs to wash Dorothy's body and dress and prepare her for burial, and the doctor stays downstairs to console her family. And when the nurse gets upstairs and opens the door, she sees Dorothy sitting upright in bed playing with a doll as if nothing has happened. What? And she showed no signs of having suffered any injury whatsoever. What? Yes.
Speaker 2:However, not long after Dorothy's seemingly miraculous recovery, her parents started to notice that things were just a little bit different. So she started to have these really horrible nightmares where she would just be like lost in this giant room and there were just these huge columns, and like her mom would wake her up in the middle of the night and she would just burst into tears and just say I just want to go home, I just want to go home. And her parents would insist, like you are home, you're fine. And she, she just no, I'm not, I need to go home. And when they would ask her okay, so where is home she? She couldn't explain to them where it was, but she just was so insistent, like I need to go home, you need to let me go home, you have to help me.
Speaker 2:But Dorothy's difficulties extended beyond just home. So, like one Sunday morning, her parents were asked to like come and pick her up early from Sunday school. And when they met with the teacher they were told you cannot bring her back to Sunday school. And when they asked why, the teacher said well, dorothy keeps getting into arguments with me about what I'm trying to teach and she keeps referring to Christianity as a heathen religion and she doesn't want any part of it. She can't come back what. They're totally confused by this, but they agreed. Another thing that they noticed that was like a little bit different about their baby girl was that, you know, even though she was born and raised in London, she started to speak with a very strange accent, like she didn't sound like she was British, it was just like her pronunciation just sounded really off all of a sudden. And you know they weren't too worried about things.
Speaker 1:Okay and you know they weren't too worried about about things okay. I would love to meet this couple and see how just calm and chill they are. If my child started to speak in a british accent, maybe for the first day or two, but that's adorable. She's been watching a lot of peppa pig and then after day two, I'd be concerned. I imagine this is before Peppa Pig and they're also British too, so she wouldn't copy.
Speaker 2:I imagine they were probably just like relieved that she was alive and like, okay, she's got a funny accent, but at least she's alive, she's not dead, whatever, it's gonna be okay. So you know, things just kind of carried on and you know they, they thought that getting her out and taking her to different places might kind of distract her. Um, and and one day they decided, you know, let's take her to a place that every four-year-old loves, let's take her to the british museum and, by all accounts, are these four-year-olds?
Speaker 1:are they? Are they us, katie? Are they you and me?
Speaker 2:that would be four-year-old that would be and, by all accounts, when they took her to the british museum, she absolutely hated it, every single minute of it as a typical four-year-old would you know dragging them.
Speaker 2:I mean unless, again, unless it's you or me. But you know they four-year-olds. They find they are not excited by mesoamerican pottery or japanese woodblock prints, like whatever they don't. She was not interested until the family turned a corner and her eyes grew wide. Her mouth gaped open and she whispered this is my home. She ran around this room. She was kissing the feets of statues, she was pointing at dioramas of temple complexes and saying that's where the gardens are supposed to be. The fountain should be over here. She came to this giant sarcophagus and she told her mother these are my people, I am home. Her parents had taken her to the ancient Egyptian.
Speaker 1:She's an ancient Egyptian. Come back as a four-year-old British girl.
Speaker 2:And from that day, after any chance that she got to go back to the British Museum and go back and see the artifacts she would. She practically lived at the British Museum, so much so that the head of the Egyptian antiquities at the time, ea Wallace Budge, kind of took her under his wing and encouraged her to learn hieroglyphics and kind of helped her out in her studies. But she didn't know hieroglyphics already. I know it's a little difficult, but I mean she's also four, she's also four, so like she doesn't know how to write.
Speaker 2:I mean, she was older than this once he got to her.
Speaker 1:I know You're not quite through the story yet, but I'm just like. I'm calling your bluff lady Like little girl and girl, and apparently so.
Speaker 2:When she was six she saw a picture of the ruins of the temple of Abayos and she was able to like, positively identify the temple, like that's that's where I lived, that's that's when I have been having this dream, that's that's the temple. And she also pointed to a picture of a mummy. Um, in that same like news clipping or magazine article, and she named it. She said, like, oh, that's he's my friend, I know him. That mummy turned out to be the mummy of Seti the first, who was the Pharaoh and ruler of Egypt around 1300 BCE. And like she, she in detail described like what his personality was like, who he was, like his son Ramses the second, who is indeed his son. In real life, she would describe him as oh, he's a very vivacious young man, he's very sweet, he's very kind, he could be a little raucous, but he's very nice. And just how could a six-year-old know those things, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And into her teenage years she would continue to have these very vivid dreams about the temple and what her life was like there, and over time she was kind of able to piece these dreams together and to reveal her past life, and so apparently she was the daughter of a soldier who, following the death of her mother when she was three years old, he couldn't afford to keep her, so he offered her up to the temple of Qol el-Sultan, which is like a temple to the goddess Isis, and offered her to be like a priestess in training, and she eventually became like a consecrated virgin. Her name was Ben and I'm probably butchering this, but Ben Thristrit and as a high priestess of Isis, she eventually became acquainted with the pharaoh, seti I, and over time the two became lovers, which is strictly verboten. She eventually became pregnant and, rather than bring shame to the pharaoh and an eventual trial which would ultimately lead to her execution, she killed herself and her love of Egypt. It never dissipated. It never went away.
Speaker 2:In 1931, she moved to Egypt with her boyfriend. At the time, his name was Imam Abul Meghoud. He became a teacher of English in Egypt and they married once they got there. According to her report, because we do have records and interviews with her as soon as she reached Egypt she fell on the ground and kissed it and said I'm home, I'm finally home. They lived in Cairo for a while. She eventually had a son who she named Seti, go there After her original boyfriend and she just became completely ingrained in egyptian culture because for her, this was home, this is where she was supposed to be um.
Speaker 2:Eventually, she and her husband separated. He moved to iraq, but she stayed in egypt with her son and she met with you know other famous egyptologists and she became um. She worked as like a translator for them and she worked. You know other famous Egyptologists and she became um. She worked as like a translator for them and she worked. As you know, the term is a shovel bum, so it's individuals who work for archaeologists and their archaeologists themselves dig up, help to dig up remains. What not like? Not human remains they can be human remains but, like um, excavate different sites and that that sort of.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:And she worked on a number of different research projects and was very well regarded in her own right, even though she didn't have this kind of like traditional training as an archaeologist. But she would maintain this claim that, no, I am ancient Egyptian. I know this, I know that and you know people did try and test her. In fact hold on, I'm moving from my notes, I'm sorry I have to edit this out and she stayed in Cairo for quite some time, but eventually she did move to Abydos where again, she felt like that was her home, where she'd always been, and she set up a home there with her son and she was referred to as Om Seti by the locals. So Om means like mother, and Seti is the name of her son. And it's customary in Egyptian villages that you refer to a mother by the name of their eldest child and she's henceforth, you know, from the fifties onward. That's how she referred to herself and how others referred to her. So she dropped the name Dorothy because it truly wasn't who she was, um.
Speaker 2:And after she set up her home there, um, she did have a um. She had an archeologist who kind of like challenged her claim that she was who she said who she said she was. So when she did make a trip to the temple of Seti, the chief inspector there from the antiquities department asked her some questions about okay, you know, what is that painting over there? That's completely obscured what's on there? And she was able to say, oh, this is what it looks like, and there was no way that she could have known what was on there and the information, like the papers, about what was featured on the wall hadn't been released yet and it was obscured, so there was absolutely no way that she could have known unless she had somehow had some prior knowledge.
Speaker 2:Um, she, there are other accounts of you know, apparently she asked them to tell other archaeologists asked her to, like, map out where certain gardens were or where, like, the footprint of a temple was, and she would mark it out perfectly. And when they excavated it, it turns out, all of her dimensions were correct and, and I mean, she lived out the rest of her existence in Egypt, um, at the temple of um Abydos, um, and there's, if you go on YouTube, you can see a video interview of her, of her from the sixties, talking about, you know, her accident as a child and coming to Egypt and and you know it's toned down a little bit Like she doesn't talk about how like said he was her lover. She just kind of.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, I knew him, and he was very nice and very kind and she became a bit of like a local oddity and tour groups would come and visit her and cruise ships would stop by, like people from cruise ships would stop by to speak with her and kind of get a little bit of a little bit of her, her story. But also she was very, very entrenched in egyptian culture, um, ancient egyptian culture in particular. But until the day she died she maintained yes, I am this, I am who I say I am. And in the interview she actually talks about how some people think maybe the fall, it knocked a screw loose, and then other people believe that maybe I did die and my soul left and it was re-inhabited by an intrusion spirit. And when the interviewer says, well, what do you believe? And she kind of smirks and she's like the second one, she really truly did believe that she had the soul of a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian priestess. That's the story of Um Sedi.
Speaker 1:You're going to end on that note. Nope, I'm not going to let you end, katie. I have so many questions, not questions for you per se, but just questions in general. Okay, so, okay. So, based on the story, that the way you told it, it sounded kind of like she was somebody who this om om seti person was growing along with her, yes, like she was inhabited by a three-year-old Egyptian girl, and then that person continued to grow, or it was a different level of sophistication.
Speaker 2:No, I think it was a different level of sophistication. I think it's that the woman that priestess like in her fully adult form somehow got into this three-year-old's body. Okay, and over time, the true story of what happened was revealed to her through her dreams. Over time, cause I I think it's a lot for a three-year-old to kind of handle, like oh, by the way, you were the lover of this Pharaoh, and then you offed yourself when you found out that you were pregnant by accident.
Speaker 2:So that that's my interpretation. Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna turn, turn the turn the tables on you a little bit, do you think? What do you think? Do you think this is real? Do you think it's just a head injury? The tbi, what? What do you think?
Speaker 1:what do you think? So what I think is I think this little girl fell down the stairs. It knocked her soul out. This high Egyptian priestess came in, took over her body, which means that a four or three year old soul went and inhabited an Egyptian woman, an ancient Egyptian woman, and for a long time, people in an ancient Egyptian woman and, for a long time, people in that ancient Egyptian community were very confused.
Speaker 2:Like why is she speaking? Why is she speaking this language? We don't understand.
Speaker 1:That's the thing, right. Can you imagine, then, a three-year-old running around speaking British?
Speaker 2:English and we're speaking ancient Egyptian with a British English accent, with a British, my, my take, my hot take, I don't. So I go back and forth because, like she, she fell down the stairs and was like clinically dead, right or otherwise. It was a really awful doctor, I guess.
Speaker 1:That's true. We haven't explored this doctor yet, right? Who was like she's absolutely dead. We need to go prepare her body Totally dead 100%.
Speaker 2:And then comes back an hour later and she's sitting up like nothing happened, but she's ready to watch Bluey.
Speaker 1:Because it takes a while for souls to transfer across it's complicated.
Speaker 2:It's like a dial-up, like you gotta leave it on overnight for it to download my hot take is.
Speaker 1:I think it was just.
Speaker 2:I want to 100% believe that it was just a brain injury and it created this whole world in her little brain Because the parent believing that she's spoken a different with a funny accent, like foreign accent syndrome, is a real thing. That happens after some people get brain injuries, where you sound like you have an accent but you don't actually have an accent. It's just the way that you're perceived by others based on on like your speech sounds. But what I have such a hard time rationalizing is like she was four and completely insistent that she was ancient Egyptian, which, when I'm assuming like she hasn't been exposed to really ancient Egyptian culture, like she doesn't really have an understanding of it. Yeah, as I'm assuming, most Victorian children did not really get out to the British Museum. Much didn't really like. How could she recognize it or so passionately be like no, that is it, that's, that's my life.
Speaker 1:So I definitely think it's weird how this three, four-year-old suddenly had a strong interest, and and not even just interest, but she was just drawn to the ancient Egyptian culture and knew so much about it already. But then when she gets older, okay, it is weird that she kind of can predict where perimeters of things are, what's on paintings. But at the same time too, I'm like, is it the kind of thing where maybe she just did a lot of research and not intentionally? I don't think she's trying to necessarily mislead people on purpose, but maybe once you've read a few books about how ancient Egyptian gardens were typically constructed, you can kind of guesstimate. You know, okay, this is how big it's going to be, most likely, this is kind of where these pieces are going to be. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you know what traditional motifs look like in art, you can kind of predict and I can see that as a fan of the Roman Empire Like there will be eagles, there will be figs, there will be, I see there will be a person with hair down to here about here wearing a linen cloth and there's probably like an owl, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, oh my gosh, she knows Also. This is what I say. I call her bluff because she didn't know hieroglyphics. She had to be taught and at first I'm like, okay, if she's a three-year-old Egyptian child, I get it. She hasn't been taught. If she's supposed to be this, you know, older woman, a high priestess is that what you said? Perhaps like a high priestess, you're telling me she had to be taught by a british gentleman in the british museum and do hieroglyphics?
Speaker 2:like no, that's where I draw the line. You're true that you make a very good point like and why can't you just rattle off the ancient egyptian as well? Like, even if you couldn't write it?
Speaker 1:you can write the hieroglyphics just right, you know what's going to be in the paintings. Yeah, you know about your lover. You, oh, you hung out with ramses the second and he's vivacious, but you can't read the hieroglyphics. I that being said, I do think this is katie and this is what I've always said. This is what I've always said. You know, we're all one traumatic brain injury away from being history fans. This is why we all should like and subscribe this podcast. True, yeah, it's probably true if it happened to dorothy, but I do love the idea that they switched bodies. It's like where, where did Dorothy go? Where did she go.
Speaker 2:I like to think she didn't actually leave, she just like made space, oh true. And then the priestess came in and then Dorothy came back and they're like oh wow, I guess we're roommates now.
Speaker 1:Move over, little girl. Did I tell you about our lover?
Speaker 2:Buckle up, sweetie, you're going to learn some hymns to Osiris tonight. I just want to watch Bluey. I just want to watch Bluey. No, aww, no, we're going to read Bluey. No, aww, no, we're going to read the ancient Egyptian book of the dead.
Speaker 1:Where is she buried? Do we know? Oh?
Speaker 2:Egypt.
Speaker 1:Did she have? Where was she, did she?
Speaker 2:She did not get turned into a mummy. She did not.
Speaker 1:That's where I was going with that. I'm wondering if she was like you know what I'm, if she was like you know what I need? I'm an. I'm an ancient egyptian, ancient egyptian high priestess. I deserve my own tomb, I deserve my own sarcophagus, and you better mummify me the best we can do is this urn from home goods for pottery barn my kids better spring for the Pottery Barn one.
Speaker 2:It's got to be fancy.
Speaker 1:So the topic you came up with was In Another Life, which I totally see the connection to your story. For somebody who did not have that story already in mind, it was a little tricky to figure out something. But I'll say that I came up with my story idea. It didn't come to me from a reading. It didn't come to me from, you know, reading a history book or something. It actually came to me in song.
Speaker 2:What's which song.
Speaker 1:In another life I would make you stay, stay. Do you know this song familiar?
Speaker 2:hum, a few more bars.
Speaker 1:Cindy, I'm almost there so I don't have to say you were the one that got away. I'm so proud of you, I'm so proud of myself, thank, thank you, katie.
Speaker 2:I think I much prefer the Cindy cover, to be honest.
Speaker 1:My debut album is set to come out in, but yeah, I it made me think of a Katy Perry song, and specifically the one that got away. Uh, the one that got away. So my story is the story of yoshi shiratori, aka the prison break magician. So this is, I'm taking your story, katie, and I am just like giving you the complete opposite version of this.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love Like. This is why we come up, we pick random topics, because it's like okay, see how you can make it fit. I don't care how much you have to try and shoehorn things to fit into. Like, just do it, just go for it, be as creative as you can. And I love it.
Speaker 1:In my case I'm as random as possible, but I actually think there could be a slight connection between our stories. Well, really, we'll discuss this. We'll discuss this. So Shiratori was born in Japan in 1907. Over the years, he held a variety of jobs, including being a fisherman and working in a tofu shop, but eventually he fell in with a bad crowd, like like it happens sometimes, and he took up gambling and stealing.
Speaker 1:In 1936, shiratori was arrested for robbery and murder. Shiratori claimed he had been falsely accused of murder, but nonetheless, a jury found him guilty and he was sent to aomori prison. Now, the condition of Japanese prisons at this time wasn't. It wasn't great. Uh, there were not the best, not the best of times. Uh, the living conditions were horrendous. There was a lot of torture, a lot of abuse, and same at this Aomori prison.
Speaker 1:Like the other prisoners at Aomori, shiratori was tortured by guards and when he could no longer handle this abuse, he decided to plan his escape. He began by memorizing the guards' schedule. As he observed the guards, he noticed there were some gaps in the security and he discovered that there was a 15-minute window during which he could escape. Shiratori then used a piece of wire he had taken from a bucket in the bathhouse and he picked the lock on his cell. He also pulled up pieces of his floorboard and hid them in his bed so as to buy him some more time to escape without being detected. Because when the guards came by to do their night check, they're like oh yeah, that's not just a bunch of floorboards in that bed, that's a human being, that's not a pile of lumber, that's a human.
Speaker 1:His plan, katie, it went off without a hitch and the guards had no idea he was gone for like hours, had no idea he was gone for like hours. But sadly for shiratori, three days later he was captured by the authorities and he was sent back to prison, but this time he was given a life sentence. So not only was he going back to prison, but he was going back to prison for life forever. When world war ii started, shiratori was sent to akita prison. Akita prison was even harsher than aomori. At akita prison, prisoners were required to sleep on concrete floors and do manual labor, and because shiratori had a reputation as an escaper or, if you're in the school system, in a loper, I like to call it a loping. Uh, did you?
Speaker 2:ever use that phrase it's, it's. It's so fun, though, like I'm going to a loop it's so fun.
Speaker 1:It just means I. I ran away, but I'm in. Loping sounds so joyful anyway. Shiratori. Because of his reputation right as an escaper, Shiratori was automatically locked in solitary confinement. Now the thing about solitary confinement is that the cells were designed to make escape basically impossible. The cell itself had high, smooth copper walls with only a skylight at the very top. On top of that, prisoners in solitary confinement were kept handcuffed inside the cells even when they were sleeping. So good luck trying to escape solitary confinement at this prison.
Speaker 2:You know what, Cindy, though I'm sorry to interrupt, but that sounds like my ideal Mother's Day sounds like my ideal mother's day.
Speaker 1:I am in a room. No, I can't get out. Nobody can get in. It's peace and quiet.
Speaker 2:No one's going to ask for me to open their fruit snacks.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I'm handcuffed. Literally I'm handcuffed. My hands are tied.
Speaker 2:And then get mad at me when I open it the wrong way, because I know that there's a wrong way to open it.
Speaker 1:I didn't. You know not all of these prisons, but some of these prisons that I'm mentioning. They have been turned into museums in Japan and so I feel like there is an opportunity here to make some money. You know how people will rent out rooms. In English banners they could have a Mother's Day weekend special. Leave your family behind, come to Akita Prison for a special mother's day treat. We will. We promise to leave you alone. Now, katie, you may not want to leave Akita Prison, but Shiratori did. So.
Speaker 1:He wasn't flustered by the copper walls and handcuffs. At night he would practice actually scaling the walls. So I should mention, he's really good at getting out of handcuffs, like that's a no problem for him. So he would get out of his handcuffs every night and he would actually practice scaling these tall walls. There was also an air vent at the top, so every night, you know, he'd get out of his handcuffs, he'd scale up the walls and he would loosen the vent a little bit every single night. So after doing this every night for several weeks, it was time for Sherry Torrey to make his escape. He knew that the guards would be able to hear him on the roof, so he decided to wait for a dark and stormy night, and when the thunder was booming, he made his escape through the air vent and just like that he was gone again.
Speaker 2:Did they get him? Did they catch him again? Well, no.
Speaker 1:So this time he was able to evade the authorities for months, but again his freedom was short-lived. Shiratori went to the home of kobayashi, a guard who had been kind to him at akita prison. Shiratori explained to kobayashi that he escaped from prison not because he was evading his life sentence, but because of the prison guards and their torture.
Speaker 2:That's like potato, potato.
Speaker 1:I'm not escaping because I'm stuck in prison for my life. I'm escaping because they're mean to me there. They're so mean. It's the principle of the thing. Soiratori asked kobayashi to help him make a case against the prison system. However, kobayashi didn't agree with this and when shiratori went to use the bathroom, kobayashi called the cops on him. So back to prison. Shiratori went. Now, if you're counting, this is two times that he's been in prison and he's escaped, right, so this is his third time going to prison. Okay, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So this is his third time going back to prison, after escaping two times, and by this point, shiratori was a bit of a legend when it came to prison escapes and the authorities were like we will never let him escape again. So they decided this time to send him to Abashiri prison, which was notorious for being the worst of all prisons. This is the prison where, like the worst of the worst were sent, nobody escaped from Abashiri. Now, abashiri was Japan's northernmostmost prison. There was a ton of snow there, freezing temperatures, and prisoners were required to wear super thin uniforms, which deterred them from trying to escape, because if you escape with these tiny, these little, you know thin uniforms, you're still gonna die out there. Um, shiratori's ankles and wrists were placed in heavy shackles that didn't have any keyholes, and they required handcuff specialists to remove them. And talk about, I mean, happy teacher appreciation week. Katie, did you know there are other careers out there, like handcuff specialists?
Speaker 2:I missed that that day at high school, like when the handcuff specialist came in and talked about all the cool things you can do, the great benefits and, man, I wish I had known right now in my life over here?
Speaker 1:yeah, here I am in education and I could have been a handcuff specialist anyway. Uh he, shiratori, was put into a cell with openings that were too small to fit his body and there were no loose air vents or gaps in security like the other prisons. They learned their lessons the first few times, and yet Shiratori was still determined to escape, did is? He took his miso soup and every day he poured the miso soup onto his shackles and onto the steel frame of his cell. Every day, and he did this for several months. The salt in the soup eventually corroded the metals over time and Shiratori was able to slip out of his shackles that's so smart, right. And he could also pry open the feeding hatch on the cell door, but that feeding hatch was too small to fit his body. So shira tori figured out that he could actually dislocate his shoulders and slip through oh gosh and katie, just like a grimm's brother sausage slithering through oatmeal. Shiratori became the first and only prisoner to ever escape Abashiri prison. Did they catch him? Where'd?
Speaker 1:he go, so this time he learned his lesson to not go to the home of a guard. Instead, he went into hiding. For more than a year he lived in an abandoned mine and stayed alive by eating wild rabbits and foraging for berries. But and this is just share tory's luck, katie in 1945 he was confronted by a farmer who mistook him for a notorious thief in the area. The farmer attacked Shiratori and a struggle ensued and the farmer ended up getting stabbed and he died.
Speaker 2:More murder.
Speaker 1:More murder. Shiratori was captured and put on trial and even though he claimed it was in self-defense, this time he received the death penalty. Oh, now for the authorities. Fourth time's a charm, katie. They weren't gonna take any chances. This time they sent him to sepororo prison, where six guards watched him literally 24-7. This time the walls were very, very, very high and there was only one opening in the cell and it was smaller than Shiratori's head, so he couldn't squeeze through it. And still, one morning the guards opened the cell door and shiratori was gone. Where was he? Where'd he go? So this time, shiratori had unscrewed the cell's floorboards and dug a tunnel with a miso bowl soup.
Speaker 1:He only dug in that man's soup right it's like they say katie, when life gives you a bowl of miso soup, you dig yourself a tunnel. And if they, if you cannot dig yourself a tunnel, you pour it in your shackles and you corrode the metals where there's a miso bowl soup. There's a way. There's a way, absolutely so. He would take his miso bowl soup and he would only dig at night and he positioned the hole right under his bed so he could easily cover it up and then to throw the guards off even more, it said that Shiratori would look up a lot, which would make the guards think that if he was going to escape, he was thinking about going up Exactly. If he was going to escape, he was thinking about going up Exactly.
Speaker 1:So Shiratori escaped and he went into hiding again for another year until one day he was sitting on a bench and this time a police officer who had no idea who he was, by the way came over and sat next to him. The officer offered Shiratori a cigarette. Now, cigarettes were considered a luxury in Japan at this time, and it is said that Shiratori was so overcome by this police officer's generosity that he confessed his true identity to the officer and was once again arrested and taken back to court. Can you imagine being that officer?
Speaker 2:I'm like oh yeah, you're like oh, I knew that.
Speaker 1:Okay, you want to go. You want to go? Oh, okay, all right, now you can keep that cigarette, that's fine, that's fine. So, while in court, shiratori explained that he only escaped because of the horrible way prisoners were treated. In other words, if they hadn't been treated horribly, maybe he would have stayed in prison. Still be in prison. Yeah, I guess um shira tori's story won the court over and they declared that the farmer's death was indeed self-defense and they lifted his death sentence. He still had to serve time for escaping from prison four times. This time they sentenced him to just 20 years, but they allowed him to request which prison he wanted to go to. Shiratori picked Fuchu Prison in Tokyo and he never tried to escape. I guess he liked it there and he was released early on good behavior, in 1961. He lived for 18 more years in freedom and he passed away in 1979.
Speaker 1:Now Katie Bananas. Yeah, here's the connection between our stories. Yes, remember when I said where did Dorothy go? Our stories? Yes, remember when I said where did dorothy go? Shira tori strikes me as just one of the most sweet, like I mean smart, smart as all get out, but just sweet and honest and like I'm just trying to do the right thing. Do you think? Maybe she bounced to him and that's Dorothy?
Speaker 2:Because he was born in 1907 and it was 1904 when she was born, and she was three when she fell down the stairs. Do you see what I'm saying? On the stairs, do you see what I'm saying? Maybe he contained the spirit of a feisty young, three-year-old British girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who's just like? I just want people to listen to me. I just want people to. You know, don't be mad at me for escaping, just you know, hear my story yeah, hear my story, just listen to me yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think we solved that mystery. Yeah, done, done and done so yeah, that's the story of yoshi shiratori, the prison escape artist magician, I guess.
Speaker 2:What I'm really struck by is at the very end. It's like the cop gave him a cigarette and he's like you know what? I should just go back to prison. If you need one more reason not to smoke, kids, here it is. There you go.
Speaker 1:Right, you'll just end up in prison again. You'll just end up in prison. I think he was a really good person to begin with. I really think that he ended up with a wrong crowd and this is how just things went, and he just I mean, I don't know why he wouldn't just try to stay out of prison in the first place. I'm gonna do my time. And then he was like no, it's the principle of the thing. If you're gonna treat us awfully, then I'm just not gonna stay here.
Speaker 2:I cannot stand for this do you really think it was that, or do you think he just wanted to get out?
Speaker 1:I, I, you know what I think honestly, I think it was a combination. I think I mean, he went to this guard who was like you know how bad it is, like you're gonna help me right, try to fix the system. I think it was probably that, and I think he's one of those incredibly brilliant people who's just always thinking if you ever worked with kids, you know there are kids who just get themselves in the craziest situations and you're like how did you? I literally turned my back for two minutes. How did you get yourself into this situation? And I feel like that's who he is. Right, he's somebody you're just like. I mean I literally turned my back for two minutes and you dug a hole under your bed with a soup bowl, just like, yeah, some people just are like that.
Speaker 2:I think what gets me is the resiliency that you know we're going to put you in this unescapable room and we're going to have six people watching you at all times, and yet he still managed to pull that all off. I hope those guards lost their jobs, because how could he dig with nobody and nobody, nobody, nobody noticed, nobody. Yeah that's.
Speaker 1:Uh. I think when they said that we we watch him 24 7, they meant they meant we take some time off at bedtime and go to sleep. In the paperwork it said we watch 24 7, but in real life and they took a nap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was an awesome story, cindy. I love it well.
Speaker 1:Thank you, katie, and I do you think we've earned climbing out of our little pangolin holes? I think so with pride.
Speaker 2:With pride we can escape our little japanese prison, self-imposed pangolin dungeon our spirits floating into those of now I have a question for you. At any point when laney was little, did she hit her head?
Speaker 1:does this explain her obsession with you know, if I, if my child accidentally hits her head, so my biggest I'm a big true crime fan, right? So you know that my biggest fear is that my child hits their head and turns into a serial killer. If my child hits her head and turns into an Egyptian, an ancient Egyptian high priestess, I'm going to be thrilled, I'm going to be. If she's like mom, I have to pack everything up and I have to go do an internship at the British Museum and then move to Egypt. For the rest, of fine, as long as you're not going to get me on an episode of Dateline, I'm fine, you're going to be the mom, like, helping her pack.
Speaker 1:You're like, let's go together, honey, if I'm going to pay for these ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic lessons, then I expect you to translate for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're such a good mom. Thank you, Katie. So are you.