Doctoring the Truth
Welcome to Doctoring the Truth, a podcast where two dedicated audiologists dissect the world of healthcare gone rogue. Explore jaw-dropping stories of medical malfeasance, nefariousness, and shocking breaches of trust. The episodes provide deep dives that latch onto your curiosity and conscience. It's a podcast for truth-seekers craving true crime, clinical insights, and a dash of humor.
Doctoring the Truth
Ep 10-Of Mice, Monkeys and Murder: The Mysterious Death of Dr. Mary Sherman (Part 1)
The year is 1964, and a brilliant cancer researcher has just been found dead in her New Orleans apartment. The circumstances are bizarre—her right arm completely missing, her torso severely burned, yet the official cause of death is listed as stab wounds. Welcome to the perplexing case of Dr. Mary Sherman.
As we dig into this medical mystery, we uncover a trailblazing woman who shattered glass ceilings in orthopedic surgery and cancer research decades before the feminist movement took hold. Dr. Sherman wasn't just any physician—she chaired prestigious committees, published groundbreaking research, and earned international recognition for her work with radiation and bone cancer. So why would someone want her dead? And why were so many powerful people nervously checking on the investigation's progress?
The threads of this case lead us down unexpected paths: secret cancer research potentially linked to biological weapons development, contaminated polio vaccines, anti-Castro operations, and even possible connections to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination. We examine a cast of bizarre characters, including David Ferrie—a man with CIA ties, an unfortunate orange wig, and no medical credentials—who somehow became involved with Dr. Sherman's work.
Part detective story, part medical history, this episode explores the dark intersection where cutting-edge science met Cold War espionage in 1960s America. The burns on Dr. Sherman's body suggest exposure to high-voltage radiation, pointing to a laboratory accident rather than a simple homicide. Was her death the result of secret experiments gone wrong? Was she silenced to protect classified research? The case remains officially unsolved, but the evidence suggests something far more complex than a random murder.
Listen as we reconstruct the life and mysterious death of this remarkable doctor, whose brilliance may have led her into dangerous territory. The story continues next week in Part Two, where we'll explore even deeper connections between medicine, politics, and one of America's most notorious moments in history.
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welcome. Thank you. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? We want to know how you are. How was your trip?
Speaker 1:I'm good, listen. Um, right off the bat, we're gonna start with uh, correction section. It's not really a correction, it's like you know, we're a little bit tardy, and by we I mean me, because one of us I mean me had to go to New Orleans. I mean, I had to go to New Orleans.
Speaker 2:You guys, she really had to. She had a poster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a poster, a research poster, and I won a little blue ribbon, which was so exciting. But more than that, I got to bring my daughter and my younger sissy hello shout out to Emma and my daughter, savannah, and um, so when I wasn't learning, I was learning on the streets of Nolens. So, um, fabulous time, lots of tours of how was the ghost tour situation yeah, so we went on to like a voodoo ghost tour situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we went on a voodoo ghost tour which was walking through the French Quarter at night and that was really cool. But what I really loved was we actually went on a bus tour.
Speaker 1:Normally I hate bus tours, but they let us off to tour different cemeteries at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like a two-hour bus tour.
Speaker 1:It was really funny because in the middle of this like really macabre, fascinating tour, um, the bus driver was like, okay, this is the best beignet place in the city.
Speaker 1:So then we got out and we all had our little beignet donuts and and a hot chocolate and we got back on the bus but wow, I mean these cemeteries, you know how the water table is super high in New Orleans and I mean I knew this and I knew that a lot of the people were buried above ground and whatever. But apparently, if you can't afford like a mausoleum or like a little tomb thing mausoleum or like a a little tomb thing, um, what they would do is just put like basically a, basically like a big old cement cat box, um, but with dirt and turf, and then they would pack the bodies in there and then, because new orleans is hot, wait for the you know a year and a half for everything to kind of cook and then, then they get it out, crush the bones and then there's more room for the next person and then by the time the family decides, okay, that's enough already.
Speaker 1:Then they put a slab on top. But apparently our tour guide was telling us don't look too closely, because there's like dentures and femurs and eyeballs and like glass eyeballs and stuff that float to the top, because you know it gets so many things in there, not everything yeah, oh, wow interesting.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing yeah, you're welcome for that, um, but I did learn some other stuff that I mean, I've been to New Orleans before, but I was like a college student and all I really cared about at the time was what was happening on Bourbon Street. So this was a little different because I had my family with me, um. But I learned that I don't God, I should have looked this up beforehand, um, but there was some time in the late 1800s, maybe early 1900s, there was a dude that um wanted to make some money, um, so he settled. He was a French guy, he settled in New Orleans and so he settled. He was a french guy, he settled in new orleans and he was decided he was going to get into the fur trade business and sell fur coats for the ladies. All about why you'd need a fur coat in new orleans, I don't know, um anyway. So he wanted to do it cheaply, so he brought with him a bunch of nutria. Do you know what nutria?
Speaker 2:are.
Speaker 1:They are. It sounds like a cereal bar, but they're actually. Do you ever watch Princess Bride? Yeah, so they are R-O-U-S's rodents of unusual size. They are massive rats basically that were indigenous to South America. So he brought them and he had them all in their little cages, their pens or whatever, but New Orleans, as we know, is prone to lots of storms and things. Anyway, the cages blew over and the nutria escaped and they did what rats and bunnies do and they propagated and so now they're an invasive species.
Speaker 1:What I didn't know I didn't know that, but what really found intriguing, slash, devastating, is that the nutria feed on grassroots. So you know, new Orleans is kind of held together by the swampy grasslands, you know between the ocean and Louisiana, and these little things will eat, they're feeding off the roots of these grasses. So what's happening? Of course I didn't, I didn't fact check, but according to my tour guide, um, you said that these nutria are eating grassroots at a pace of about a football field and a half an hour. And so if you look at um, a google map like google earth of louisiana, you know how we always learned when we learned our states, uh, in school, that louisiana was an l shape. It's not an l shape anymore. The bottom, like the foot of the l, is gone. It's gone, it's gone, munched, it's munched. I know so they're like. That's why Louisiana likes to party and live life today, because it's going to be reclaimed by the ocean by the end of the century. So, yeah, fascinating, okay.
Speaker 2:Wow, those little buggers.
Speaker 1:That really struck me. Yeah, I mean, I did, I checked it out, I did check Google earth. Have a look. I mean it's like a lowercase L instead of an uppercase L. I know it's crazy, so sad, and some of it has to do with, like, a lot of salt wash from various hurricanes and whatnot that also killed the grasslands. But anyway, sad, sad and poignant. Um well, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1:yeah, you're welcome I mean additionally, I think I gained 10 pounds, ate a lot of hurricanes, um eight beignets and you know all the gumbo and jambalaya that a body can take. So yeah, I'm back. And you know, when we went, it was actually hotter in Minnesota than it was in New Orleans at the time it was upper 70s, yeah, and it was like 86 here in Minnesota. Then when we landed a couple days ago it was in a snowstorm. So thanks a lot, minnesota.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been just real. You know what I was thinking today and my colleague said to me, I think yesterday um remember that wives tale of three snows on Robin's back? Um, I think we've exceeded three.
Speaker 1:So I know I sent you a picture of a robin in my backyard the day I got back. I was like dude, he's covered in snow. You promised me the last time.
Speaker 2:I saw him. I didn't make the wise tale. Okay, I'm just spreading the gospel. You got my hopes up, though I know I got my own hopes up. I'm disappointed. I saw a robin on my walk today and I thought, sir, where is spring?
Speaker 1:Sir, ma'am, whoever you are, Don't you know your own wife?
Speaker 2:sir, come on, write to the people, welcome back and thank you for sharing about your travels. And what else will you be sharing with us today?
Speaker 1:Well, since I was in New Orleans, I thought I was really inspired by, you know, all the woo-woo there and the history and the rich cultures, and I thought I've got to find a New Orleans medical story story. Um, so I, we went to a lot of my daughter really likes, like oddities and, like you know, antiques and things. So we, we went to a lot of these um kind of whole in the wild shops to kind of look for mysterious and wonderful things. In one of these shops I found a book entitled oh gosh, can I not remember what it's called? Oh, dr Mary's Monkey, by Edward T Haslam, and so I decided to do a story about this. So it's called Monkeys, mice and Mary, the Mysterious Murder of Dr Sherman. And this will be part one of a two-pata, because guys buckle up, this is a wild ride. I'm buckled, okay, all right. So, um, any remaining sources? I mean the majority of what I pulled for today's episode was from the book Dr Mary's Monkey, but remaining sources will be listed in our show notes. Trigger warning this episode contains information about the medical experimentation on animals which you know many consider animal abuse. All right, so a bit about the author.
Speaker 1:Edward Haslam is the son of an orthopedic surgeon who worked with Dr Mary Sherman at Tulane university's medical school. He recalls instances from his childhood when his father was upset by an? I by the idea that an experiment was taking place on the grounds of the U? S public health service hospital, and how he tried to stop it. Um, haslam's book reflects 20 years of investigation into this case and its connections. Yeah so, Dr Mary Sherman. Haslam's book reflects 20 years of investigation into this case and its connections. Yeah so, dr Mary Sherman. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Dr Mary Sherman was found dead on July 21st 1964, in her apartment in New Orleans. She was 51 years old. She lived in an upscale apartment on Loyola Avenue near the Ochsner Clinic where she worked. The official cause of death was multiple stab wounds. However, the condition of her body raised far more questions than answers. Her body was mutilated and she'd suffered from severe burns on parts of her body, particularly around her arms and upper torso. Her right arm was missing altogether. The nature of the burns was what led to widespread speculation. Some believed that the burns were the result of high voltage radiation or exposure to some form of experimental substance which aligned with her involvement in radiation research. Experimental substance which, aligned with her involvement in radiation research. The unusual nature of the injury suggested that it might not have been a straightforward homicide, but instead something far more complex. So the basic storyline goes as follows At about 4 am, a neighbor detected smoke and called the police.
Speaker 1:His name was Juan Valdez, and no, it's not the coffee guy. That was my immediate thought. Wait, the coffee guy. So the police checked the building and found a smoke-filled apartment, and so they called the fire department because they couldn't get in due to the amount of smoke. So when the firefighters arrived, they removed a smoky mattress from the apartment. While searching the apartment, they discovered the badly burned body of a woman who'd been stabbed repeatedly. An investigator from the coroner's office arrived and checked the scene. No murder weapon was found, but a large knife was missing from the knife rack in the kitchen. Her body was sent to the coroner's office where another doctor, who was a colleague of hers at the university where she worked, identified her.
Speaker 1:The state's item newspaper reported that homicide detectives said the front door to her apartment had been forced open, her wallet was empty and her 1961 automobile was missing. Sam Moran, the special investigator for the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office, said that the front door had been forced open and an unsuccessful attempt had been made to open a jewelry box. The other residents in the building were questioned and nobody heard anything, except for one resident who heard one Valdez walking around his apartment before the police arrived. Mary's housekeeper, elminer Peterson, reported that the burglar alarm in Dr Sherman's apartment was in the off position because she was expecting visitors from out of town. There were no signs of forced entry and no signs of a struggle. There didn't appear to be anything out of place in the home, so it wasn't ransacked. It wasn't a burglary gone wrong.
Speaker 1:The homicide report was completed on October 29, 1964, about 10 weeks after the police stopped their investigation. The first half covered the crime scene and the second half of the report was dated several days later, on November 3, 1964. Detective Frank Hayward and Detective Robert Townsend and their supervisor, lieutenant James Cruby, should have signed the report, but Robert Townsend's was the only signature on the document. The fact that the report was so delayed and the breach of protocol due to lack of signatures is suspicious. The report described the scene and this is gruesome, so trigger warning.
Speaker 1:The body was in a supine position, both legs were outstretched and parallel to each other. The left arm was outstretched and, parallel to the left side of the body, the right side of the body, from the waist where the right shoulder would be, including the entire right arm, was disintegrated from the fire, yielding the inside organs of the body. There was what appeared to be a stab wound in the left arm and also in the inner side of the right leg near the knee. The body was nude, however, clothing had been placed on top of the body, mostly covering it from just above the pubic area to the neck. The mentioned clothes had been burned completely, while others were still intact but scorched. The autopsy was performed by Dr Samuels, a pathologist, who told police that the victim had died prior to the fire, had not been raped and was dead before her genitals were stabbed. The coroner's I know Just a little extra there. The coroner's Whoa, I know Just a little side. Yeah, just a little extra there.
Speaker 1:The coroner's officials examined the clothing that was piled on top of her body and noted that most of the clothes were still neatly folded when placed on top of the body. The criminologist observed that the clothes were made of a synthetic material that would ignite into flame at 500 degrees Fahrenheit. At lower temperatures they would have only smoldered. So this is interesting. Apparently the temperatures in the apartment then didn't reach 500 degrees because the clothes didn't burn. So I looked up what it takes I mean, I'm probably on some list right now what it takes to burn a body and according to some cremation information it takes 600 to 2000 degrees for several hours to burn a body and even then there's going to be pieces of bones like joints and skull fragments and stuff. Bones do not burn. Did you know that when a body is cremated, like I always thought, everything just turned to dust? It doesn't. There's still bones and then they grind the bones up and that's when you get the ashes.
Speaker 2:I didn't even really think about that um, so I mean, I only know that because of, like pets that have been cremated, because I was expecting the bag of ashes to look like ashes and they look like little fragments of bones.
Speaker 1:Oh, god, oh, I don't want to, oh, okay, well, so therefore the crime scene didn't match the crime. It was impossible to to explain the damage to Mary's right arm by damage, meaning it was missing, and the right side of her body with the evidence that was found in her apartment. In fact, what if it happened somewhere else?
Speaker 2:Something definitely must have happened to her earlier that evening, something more violent than a typical house fire, in order to disintegrate her entire right arm and right rib cage yeah it would take something that and it's not like this was a work incident and then you just casually went home without your freaking arm on and like going about your business, before your, your friends or family come to visit yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean it would take something that would vaporize and destroy everything, something high voltage like, I don't know, a five million volt linear particle accelerator that she had access to at work or in the lab that she worked in.
Speaker 1:So what if there was a mishap in the lab and her death would have exposed secret research going on there? The autopsy report noted that she died from a stab wound to the heart. So what if she had been working on I don't know, mutating monkey viruses using radioactive exposure and suffered a blast injury from something gone wrong? What if this didn't kill her and then she was killed by others in the lab by a stab to the heart to avoid exposure of their secret experiments? They would have then taken her back to her apartment, stacked some clothes on her and then stabbed her indiscriminately to make it look like a psychopath was involved and then set the place on fire. And this is, I mean so the initial stab wound to her heart, the um autopsy report noted, happened while she. That was what killed her. She was alive when that happened, but the other stab wounds and there were multiple all over her body were done post-mortem.
Speaker 2:So to me something like that I mean makes maybe a little more does make some sense also highly irresponsible to choose. Let's take her back to her apartment and start it on fire and hopefully don't kill everyone in the entire building. Come on, guys right.
Speaker 1:So police investigated 150 professional associates and acquaintances of Mary. And yet almost half the homicide report was about totally irrelevant details and nothing to do with what happened to Mary between 4.30 pm on July 20, 1964, and 4 in the morning on July 21, 1964, on the night slash morning of her murder. For instance, the report talked about a peeping Tom who'd been caught ogling a woman in the same apartment complex six months earlier. He had moved, subsequently moved out of town and he had an alibi for the evening in question. And then there was Jane. She is a young woman from New Jersey who had the misfortune of walking past Sherman's building around midnight. She was described as wearing like toreador pants and having short hair. So, gasp shock, obviously she was a lesbian. So yeah. So they said that she was on her way to a lesbian rendezvous In the police report a lesbian rendezvous in the French Quarter. Oh my God. So there was more stupid stuff like this in the report.
Speaker 1:It seemed like they were implying that there must have been a sexual motive for the killing, and the report listed in absolutely excruciating detail the place of employment of each of these incidental people who are irrelevant to the case. But yet they didn't mention Mary Sherman's place of employment? Why wouldn't they mention that she worked for the renowned Dr Ochsner in his cancer laboratory at Tulane Medical School? And what about Juan Valdez? Was that really his name, I mean? According to this author, he was privy to research by Joan Mellon, who wrote a book Farewell to Justice, and said that Juan worked for Clay Shaw at the International Trademark in New Orleans, and he was connected to Lee Oswald. You know Lee Harvey Oswald. Ever heard of him? Oh sweet to seewald. Ever heard of him? Oh sweet to see. Have you ever heard of him?
Speaker 2:That was not rhetorical. No, I don't know. I don't know If I have. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Okay, so not one to you. Didn't see JFK, then it wasn't around. Question mark the movie.
Speaker 2:Okay, alright, anyway, tell my colleague because she thinks I'm old and I guess I'm not.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, You'd be old if you knew too much about this. I would think, so you just made yourself super youthful.
Speaker 2:You hear that, Mallory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mallory, take that. The international trademark is often mentioned in connection with Clay Shaw. He's a New Orleans businessman who was the only person prosecuted in the investigation of President John F Kennedy's assassination and he was prosecuted by District Attorney Jim Garrison. Shaw, who was the director of ITM, was accused and later acquitted, of conspiring to assassinate Kennedy. Haslam also encountered a news article from New Orleans about a Juan Valadez, who worked for the CIA for 30 years and is now retired.
Speaker 1:Haslam reported speaking to a New Orleans police detective named Frank Hayward who investigated Mary Sherman's murder, and Frank confided in Haslam that he had wanted to arrest Juan for Mary's murder but he didn't have enough evidence to make the charges stick. He also said he couldn't believe the amount of phone calls he was getting from all over the show the FBI, the Justice Department, louisiana State Police, police, it went on and on all these entities that were calling him repeatedly to inquire about any progress investigating the mary sherman murder. It was almost like somebody was nervous. So Frank went on to say that there was no central air in the patio apartments where Mary and Juan lived and their apartments were opposite, with windows that opened only to the street in front of their personal apartment. So, given the location of Juan's apartment, there was no way he would be able to smell the smoke from Mary Sherman's fire unless he'd been roaming around the courtyard of the patio apartments at 4 AM for some reason.
Speaker 2:Okay, but I'm just thinking um in Minnesota. When there's wildfires in Canada, I can smell that a little bit a wildfire, a little bit bigger versus a mattress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there were people all around Mary's site. So you imagine these apartments are like back to back. So it's like one side of the apartment faced Street A and all of those apartments, their only windows faced Street A and Mary faced Street B and all of those apartments only had windows facing Street B. So how is one guy on the opposite end, who probably would have been the last one to smell something, the only one to smell something?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:I suppose, Then there was an interesting detail from a police report that Mary Sherman's apartment had been burgled I love that word. I don't it's a terrible word, but I love to say it Burgled a few months before her murder. But we'll come back to that word. I don't it's a terrible word, but I love to say it Burgled A few months before her murder. But we'll come back to that later. Let's learn more about Mary first. So Mary Sherman was considered absolutely brilliant by her medical colleagues. She rapidly rose to the very top ranks of the male-dominated hierarchy in American medicine, specifically in bone and joint surgery, a field that to this day has extremely few female physicians, unless you watch ER. Self-made, financially successful and professionally respected, Dr Sherman was a sophisticated and powerful woman during an era when the future feminists of the 1960s were still watching. Leave it to Beaver.
Speaker 2:No, I know.
Speaker 1:Leave it to Beaver Nick at Night. Cool Go you. Yet the glimpses we see of her very private personal life show a complex and sensitive woman who loves theater, literature, music, wine, flowers and international travel, and who carried with her some terrible personal burdens. Most of what we know about Mary Sherman comes from newspaper articles, the unusual police report I just described and her last will and testament. There are a handful of interviews out there that paint a picture of an unusually talented woman who met an unusually brutal and horrible end.
Speaker 1:Mary was born as Mary Stultz in Evanston, illinois, in 1913. She was one of several daughters of a musical voice coach. When she was 16 years old, she went to France for two years to study at Le Col de M Colneau and later taught French while working on her master's degree at the University of Illinois. She married a man named Thomas Sherman, about whom we know little, but that's how she became Mary Sherman. She received a Phi Beta Kappa membership due to her graduate work at the University of Chicago and, side note, the University of Chicago is an intellectual powerhouse that rivals Harvard, stanford and any other Ivy League university. It was founded with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and was modeled after the European Research University rather than the American Teaching College. This was done at a time when the Rockefeller fortune was heavily invested in the pharmaceutical industry, and their sponsorship of biochemical research contributed to the development of new commercial drugs. Today, the University of Chicago remains at the forefront of genetics and cancer research.
Speaker 1:As an outgrowth of this biochemical medical research, the University of Chicago became one of the first major centers of nuclear research. The landmark event of this nuclear effort was the construction of the first atom smasher, a vast nuclear accelerator hidden underground in UC's sports stadium. In 1937, it produced the first sustained nuclear reaction. For a UC physicist, enrico Fermi. This is where Mary Sherman did her postgraduate work.
Speaker 1:She was trained at the headwaters of nuclear, biochemical and genetic research in America Before she became involved in human medicine. Mary conducted groundbreaking research into botanical viruses that lived in the soil. Her early articles were so profound and insightful that they were frequently quoted in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, and although she'd been deceased for 30 years, the scientific citation index reveals that 10 medical articles published in 1993 contain references to her scientific writings which were published between 1947 and 65. The names of the journals tell the story of her state-of-the-art use of radiation for treatment of bone cancers, radiology, skeletal radiology, pathologic research, acta, radiologica, histopathology and bone. I mean, I just want to get a journal in the mail called Bone, just short and sweet.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So I mean her thinking was groundbreaking and revolutionary. This was a young woman who studied in France at a time when Madame Curie's name was the pinnacle of the scientific world and was one of America's most promising minds. With proper training, encouragement and opportunities, she could be within striking distance of the legendary Curie herself and potentially become one of the most important women in science. Perhaps it would be Mary who, at such a young age, had a deeper understanding of the basic life of viruses than anyone before her. Maybe it would be her who would break through the cancer barrier. The great minds at UC saw her potential and brought her along for the ride. During the 1940s she became an associate professor of orthopedic surgery and practiced medicine at UC Billings Hospital. It's not clear when, but there are allusions to the fact that Mary's husband took his own life in the 1940s at some point. Mary was the only person who mentioned this and I found no independent corroboration of this information. But her life changed in the 1950s.
Speaker 1:Her cancer work at the University of Chicago had attracted the attention of a famous and wealthy doctor who was the president of the American cancer society. He was also the president of a renowned medical clinic named after him. You know you've made it when your clinic is named after you, and he was the chief of surgery at Tulane medical school, one of the most respected medical schools of the time. That doctor was Alton Oxner, md of new Orleans. Oxner's offer to Dr Sherman was considerable. She would be a partner in his clinic, the head of her own cancer lab, and she could keep her place in the academic side of medicine and act as an associate professor at Tulane Medical School. Additionally, she would also have the personal support of one of the most politically powerful and well-connected doctors in America, guaranteeing her a constant flow of research funds. Dr Ochsner was known for his staunch anti-communist stance and connections to intelligence agencies. Some believe his clinic was actually a front for secret medical projects aimed at undermining Castro's regime.
Speaker 1:A single woman, mary, moved to New Orleans in 1952 and lived in a resident on historic St Charles Avenue near the corner of Louisiana Avenue. She lived there until her death in 1964, juggling her jobs at Tulane and Ochsner's, performing surgeries at Charity Hospital and working on the medical staff of several children's hospitals. As doctors went, she was always more comfortable in a lab than in an operating room. Her career prospered, one of the clear indicators for success for an orthopedic surgeon is being elected to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. It takes years, if not decades, and some never make it. Once in the academy, the success ladder continues.
Speaker 1:Bright students are placed on committees that create the rules governing science and ethics. They establish what's acceptable and who is accepted. The brightest of the stars chair the committees. One of the most prestigious is the pathology committee, which reviews the state of the art on diseases, particularly bone cancers. Mary Sherman was chairman of the Pathology Committee of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. Her position took her all around the world when it was necessary to agree on the language that physicians used to describe and categorize cancers of the bone and soft tissue. It needed to be re-examined. Six of the nation's leading experts were selected to tackle the task, and Mary Sherman was among them. When the front page of the newspaper had the sad task of announcing her death, it described her as an internationally known bone specialist whose main area of interest was bone cancer treatment and research. So at this point you may be thinking well, why on earth would anyone want to murder such a renowned and well-respected physician? Let's talk conspiracies. In 1967, jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney who investigated Kennedy's assassination was interviewed by Playboy magazine Wow, but it was like an 18 page article and it's like one of the most revealing articles and that's kind of a play on words, because Playboy can be,
Speaker 1:revealing, as we all know, but people just get it for the articles, and in this interview, um garrison claimed that a man named david ferry had been involved in covert medical experiments, including the injection of cancer cells into unsuspecting individuals as part of a secret research program. He suggested that these experiments were tied to a larger intelligence operation aimed at developing biological weapons potentially for use in assassination plots. Garrison's allegations linked Ferry, dr Mary Sherman and Dr Alton Ochsner to a clandestine network that sought to engineer cancer as a tool of assassination. While these claims remain highly controversial, they have fueled ongoing conspiracy theories surrounding Ferry's involvement in medical research and the broader context of Cold War era covert operations. So let's talk more about who this dude, david Ferry, is.
Speaker 1:David was born on March 19th 1929 in nolens, louisiana. He grew up in a working-class family, though much of his early life remains shrouded in mystery, with many aspects of his childhood left unreported or unclear. He attended loyola inter university of new orleans, where he studied law, but he didn't complete his degree. Instead, he pursued his passion for aviation, becoming a flight instructor and a skilled pilot. He gained notoriety for flying small planes, an activity that later drew attention due to his alleged involvement with the CIA and anti-Castro operations. Ferry was linked to anti-Castro Cuban exile groups and was believed to have worked closely with individuals involved in the CIA's covert efforts against Fidel Castro. He was allegedly associated with Operation 40, which is a secret mission aimed at overthrowing Castro's regime.
Speaker 1:Before his involvement in aviation and political activities, ferry pursued religious studies with the intention of becoming a Catholic priest. He initially trained in a seminary but was ultimately rejected from the priesthood due to concerns over his unorthodox beliefs and alleged inappropriate behavior. Despite the rejection, ferry maintained a lifelong fascination with religion, often engaging in theological debates and incorporating religious themes into his personal ideology, and incorporating religious themes into his personal ideology. His expulsion from the seminary contributed to the erratic and controversial trajectory of his life. Ferry suffered from a rare condition that caused severe hair loss, leaving him completely bald and without eyebrows. Unfortunately, to compensate, he wore an ill-fitting orange wig and painted on fake eyebrows. That gave him a very striking and unusual appearance, which is a nice way of putting it. So if you're curious, just look up David Ferry on your Google machine. It's quite a sight.
Speaker 1:His appearance fueled speculation and intrigue about his involvement in various clandestine activities. Allegations of sexual misconduct also marred his personal life. He was accused of inappropriate behavior involving young men, and these accusations led to his dismissal from Eastern Airlines, where he had worked as a pilot. Multiple sources claimed that Ferry had a history of engaging in questionable activities, including interactions with underage boys. While some of these allegations were dismissed or never fully prosecuted, they contributed to his troubled reputation and further fueled the mystery surrounding his life. His erratic behavior and legal troubles only added to the suspicion surrounding his association and activities.
Speaker 1:One of the most controversial aspects of Ferry's life was his alleged connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F Kennedy. Reports suggest that Ferry knew Oswald and had been seen with him in New Orleans before the assassination, fueling numerous conspiracy theories. Ferry was rumored to have had an interest in medical experiments, particularly those related to cancer research. According to some theories, he was involved in secret medical projects developing biological agents potentially used in the Cold War and assassination plots. These claims have been linked to Judith Ferry Baker, who asserted that she worked on secret cancer research projects alongside Oswald and Ferry.
Speaker 1:Ferry and Sherman are believed to have met through their shared association with Dr Alton Ochsner. Reports suggest that Ferry, despite lacking formal medical credentials, had access to research facilities where Sherman worked. His knowledge of biology and alleged role in underground research may have facilitated their collaboration. It's alleged that they worked together on clandestine projects aimed at developing cancer-causing viruses as part of the covert Cold War operations. The unusual circumstances of Sherman's death fueled speculation about a cover-up and have linked Ferry to a larger network of secretive scientific research.
Speaker 1:Knowing all of this begs the question what would motivate an accomplished medical professional like Mary to risk her reputation by getting involved in an underground medical lab with a violent political zealot, with a criminal record of sexual misconduct and no medical credentials? Was she led there by her own ambitions? Was there a dark side to her, concealed from public view? Did more powerful forces manipulate her or was a serious medical problem brewing that justified the risk? To truly understand the strange and unsettling story behind Dr Mary's monkey, we must step back into the world of the 1960s, a time of intense geopolitical tension, groundbreaking medical advancements and deep-seated government secrecy, and the Soviet Union locked in a battle for global dominance. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, heightening fears about communist expansion and Soviet influence just 90 miles off the US coast.
Speaker 1:This era was characterized by covert operations, espionage and scientific experimentation, often conducted under the guise of national security. Medical research was rapidly advancing, but not always in an ethical manner. The polio vaccine had been a major breakthrough in the 1950s, but new concerns arose over the contamination with SV40, a monkey virus that some researchers believed would cause cancer. At the same time, biological warfare programs were being explored, with scientists investigating ways to use disease as a weapon. Against this backdrop, the US government became obsessed with eliminating Fidel Castro, cuba's communist leader. Various assassination plots, including the infamous CIA-backed Operation Mongoose, were devised, many involving unconventional methods like poison cigars or toxic pens. I mean nothing scarier than a toxic pen. It's like what'd it do? Like leak anthrax on you? Like what?
Speaker 2:no, it's reminding me of that um umbrella, from that other episode where you got him in the back of the knee oh, yeah, yeah, maybe, yeah, I should have looked that up.
Speaker 1:Okay, maybe, with cold war, paranoia fueling secret experiments and medical ethics taking a backseat to political strategy, dr sherman's work and her shocking death became even more suspicious. Was she just another scientist or was she part of something far more dangerous? While the Cold War fueled political and military tensions, another battle was being fought in labs and hospitals the fight against deadly diseases. The 1950s and 60s were a golden age of medical discovery, but they were also a time of ethical gray area, where scientific ambition sometimes outpaced caution. One of the most significant breakthroughs of the time was the development of the polio vaccine. Polio had been one of the most feared diseases in America, crippling thousands of children each year. The vaccine developed by Dr Jonas Salk and later refined by Dr Albert Sabine, was a triumph of modern medicine, but there was a dark side to the success. Some batches of the vaccine were found to be contaminated with SV40, a simian virus that had unknowingly been transmitted from the monkey kidney cells used to grow the vaccine. Years later, scientists debated whether SV40 could be linked to an increased risk of cancer, a controversy that remains unsolved.
Speaker 1:At the same time, cancer research was advancing rapidly. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy were emerging as mainstream treatments, but researchers were still searching for the key to understanding and possibly preventing cancer at a cellular level and possibly preventing cancer at a cellular level. This led to secretive and controversial projects, some of which involved high-risk experiments with viruses and radiation. No discussion of this book Dr Mary's Monkey would be complete without addressing one of the most infamous and enduring conspiracy theories in American history the assassination of President John F Kennedy. The events of November 22, 1963, continue to spark debate, with countless theories challenging the official story that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. But what if Oswald's time in New Orleans and the medical experiments described in Dr Mary's Monkey were somehow connected to a much larger plot? More on that in a moment moment.
Speaker 1:Right now it's time for a sounded like a train oh, wow welcome to the chart note segment, where we learn about what's happening in medicine and health care. Okay, so, um. When I was scrounging around the curiosities and oddity shops in New Orleans, I was hoping to find something a little bit more spooky, so I couldn't let this episode go without talking a little bit about voodoo. So voodoo has its origins in West Africa, particularly amongst the Fon, yu and Yoruba peoples of present-day Benin, togo, nigeria and Ghana. The word voodoo means spirit or deity in the Fon and Yu languages, religion that centers around a supreme creator, mawu or olu dumare spirits, loas or orishnas, ancestor worship and rituals involving music, dance and possession. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:During the transatlantic slave trade from the 16th and 19th centuries, enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas and the Caribbean, where they preserved their spiritual beliefs despite colonial oppression. However, these beliefs often merged with elements of Catholicism, indigenous practices and other African traditions. This syncretism resulted in various forms of voodoo other African traditions. This syncretism resulted in various forms of voodoo In New Orleans. This meant a blend of African traditions, catholicism and French spiritualism. Today, voodoo is still practiced in Haiti, parts of the Caribbean and the US, especially Louisiana and West Africa. It remains a vital spiritual system, often misunderstood due to Hollywood portrayals, which emphasize curses, zombies and black magic rather than its true religious and healing aspects.
Speaker 1:In voodoo, healing is a central practice that incorporates spirituality, herbal medicine, ritual and energy work. The use of dolls, often sensationalized in pop culture, actually have deep roots in traditional healing and spiritual guidance, rather than just curses or harm. So healing in voodoo is holistic, addressing physical, spiritual and emotional well-being. Practitioners, often called hungans, priests or mambos priestesses, use a combination of herbal medicine, spiritual cleansing, ancestor and spirit communication and energy work and rituals. Contrary to Hollywood portrayals, voodoo dolls are not just tools for harm, but have been historically used for healing and guidance. They function similarly to a medical chart in the following ways Diagnostic tools, so practitioners might use a doll to represent a sick person, calling upon spirits to help identify the cause of an illness.
Speaker 1:Healing focus so pins or charms are placed on specific parts of the doll corresponding to the affected body areas, symbolizing healing energy directed towards the person. Prayer and protection Dolls are often used to channel prayers for someone's recovery, sometimes adorned with herbs, oils or written petitions and spiritual connections. So they believe that dolls may serve as a link between the physical and the spirit world, allowing a practitioner to ask the spirit for help in healing a person. So while voodoo dolls can be used in hexing, their primary function in traditional voodoo and Louisiana voodoo dolls can be used in hexing. Their primary function in traditional voodoo and louisiana voodoo is for positive purposes like healing, protection and guidance.
Speaker 1:Their misuse in media has overshadowed their genuine role as sacred tools. Um, on one of our tours I think it was our nighttime uh voodoo tour the um tour guide was telling us how the dolls almost worked as like medical records because, um, when the enslaved population would go to a voodoo practitioner for help for healing, you know they point to their stomach or their heart, like where does it hurt? To education and literacy. Um, a lot of times the pins would be put in the doll in the place where the heart hurts or the the stomach hurts, and then put on the shelf and then you know when that person came back. It was like a record of what they came in last time.
Speaker 1:That's cool so I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 2:I actually loved that section because I've only seen the hollywood like portrayal of voodoo dolls, so that's super yeah like you want to get back somebody.
Speaker 1:So then you just like stick a pin, poke the heck out of it. Yeah, yeah, I didn't think of a few people I'd want to anyway. Um, so back to the case. So edward haslam's book suggests that the key figures in new Orleans' underground network of spies, anti-castro operatives and medical researchers may have played a role in shaping the events leading up to JFK's death. The connections are as eerie as they are fascinating. I think I'm going to stop here, because we're at 48 minutes and I'm just hearing your mouse going.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry did you hear how much more she has you guys?
Speaker 1:that is a lot. Yeah, I got about 20 pages of stuff. So you know what folks there'll be more next week, just you know, I think folks There'll be more next week, just you know. I think we're going to wrap it up here, so that wasn't the most eloquent wrap up, but I'm done.
Speaker 2:You know what we're a baby podcast. It's fine.
Speaker 1:We did a baby. Oh, and Amanda? What Amanda we didn't mention? This is episode 10. We're in the double digits, baby. Hey, double digits.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, we kind of just were chatting with Kathy and then we were like, okay, go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we're never going back to single digits now. Oh my God, it's all uphill downhill from here.
Speaker 2:Well, not always, but for a while, until we're tripped along For a long while, right? Well, not always, but for a while. Until we're tripped a lot For a long while, right, okay, well, so first of all, then, let me just get ready to recap on what we just talked about. Sometimes, you guys, I wish you could see a video of us doing this, because that opening paragraph, my jaw literally like on the floor, my arms were like flailing around. I was like I'm sorry, what this?
Speaker 1:is how we're starting. Yeah, I didn't really mince around, did I? There was no romanticizing. No, she was like okay, dude push me off the cliff let's go.
Speaker 2:So glad I buckled up, but I I was not expecting that. And then, the more you read, I was like what happened to mary? Um, yikes, so looking forward to do we actually find out what happens to mary, or you can't tell me? No, we don't know. Maybe we don't know because there's conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1:So case yeah, it's an unsolved case. Yeah, it's an unsolved case. We'll talk some more about the key players and possible suspects and different theories surrounding it, but it remains unsolved to this day.
Speaker 2:Oh, mary, and yeah, she was a busy lady, so why would she link up with this freaking drip? Who's got a bad rap? Link up with this freaking drip? Who's got a bad rap?
Speaker 1:Maybe she had an altruistic reason. I'm distracted, I'm sorry. I'm sitting looking out my window and there's a squirrel that's on its back.
Speaker 2:Is it?
Speaker 1:alive, it's alive. He's playing like a dog would with a stick. Oh cute stick and he's like tossing it around and rolling around and I'm just okay cute, like my adhd, okay, anyway, I've got to stop looking y'all, we're the type of people that are like oh, something shiny literally okay well, I guess that brings us then to our medical mishap for the week.
Speaker 2:um, this medical mishap was sent in and the writer requested to stay anonymous. So let's get into that. Let's get into that. Hello, anonymous friend. All right, set the scene. It's an ER shift, okay. So the writer writes Okay.
Speaker 2:It was a typical chaotic shift in the emergency room, but one case would stand out amongst the rest, leaving everyone baffled and relieved at the same time. A young child was brought in by concerned parents reporting strange symptoms. The child was hearing voices and, most unsettling of all, complained that something or someone was eating their brain. As a team of emergency room doctors, my colleagues and I initially suspected a possible neurological condition such as schizophrenia, but we were prepared to keep an open mind. Before meeting the family, I received the nursing report. The child's condition was alarming. Despite the troubling psychological complaints, there were signs of physical distress as well. The child's head was jerking to the right, sharply turning towards her shoulder. The movements were so erratic that it raised the possibility of a neurological disorder or even seizures. But something felt off.
Speaker 2:This didn't completely add up. When I walked into the room to meet the family, the child was visibly distressed, their head twitching violently to the right with every movement. Their parents were understandably anxious and we knew we needed to figure out the source of the child's pain and discomfort. Given the violet head jerks and the child's complaints of pain localized to the right ear, we made the decision to conduct an otoscopic examination.
Speaker 2:However, this was easier said than done Can relate to that. Oh, totally, that's valid. This child's erratic movements made it nearly impossible to visualize the ear canal Been there. Done that so many times done that so many times.
Speaker 2:Um, the pain seemed intense and with no clear cause yet identified, I suggested we try something that might help calm the child long enough to continue our evaluation a small dose of lidocaine drops into the ear to numb the pain. Um, a simple solution, we thought. But we soon realized this would be anything but simple. It took six nurses six to gently restrain the child long enough to administer the lidocaine drops. The room was filled with tension as we held our breaths, hoping that this would provide some relief. Within moments, the child seemed to be calm, calmer. Sorry, that's not what they wrote. The child seemed to calm slightly, but nothing. Sorry, that's not what they wrote. Um, the child seemed to calm slightly, but nothing could have prepared us for what happened next. In a sudden shocking movement, an earwig, a real live earwig, shot out of the child's ear canal like a missile. Oh, that's my worst.
Speaker 2:I just made a makeshift paper bag with my hands and started like yeah, no, I'm hyperventilating over here um there was a collective gasp throughout the room, followed by startled screams, some from the nurses and others from the parents who had witnessed the bizarre spectacle. It was for real. It was as if a scene from a horror film had come to life right before our eyes. The insect had evidently been burrowing deep inside the canal, causing the child severe pain and discomfort oh, the poor baby, yeah, oh, my god just like that.
Speaker 2:The child went from writhing in pain to sitting up calmly, no longer indicating any discomfort. The erratic head jerking ceased and the psychological complaints disappeared as well. It was a strange and almost surreal conclusion to a puzzle that had started with such a serious medical concern. We took a moment to process what had just occurred. The earwig's presence had been the unassuming culprit all along, and the bizarre neurological symptoms had been nothing more than the child's body's desperate attempt to signal that something was terribly wrong. Once the earwig was expelled, the child's symptoms vanished entirely.
Speaker 2:In the end, what we thought might be a complex psychiatric case turned out to be a rare and startling example of how something as simple as an insect can cause a cascade of symptoms that can easily be misinterpreted as a neurological disorder. The relief in the room was palpable and, as strange as it may seem, everyone who had been a part of this case nurses, doctors and family alike left with a newfound appreciation for the unpredictability of medicine. And while this isn't your average er story, it was certainly one that no one would soon forget, and not your typical medical mishap story, but more of a medical mystery that I felt compelled to share.
Speaker 2:Hope it brings some laughs oh my gosh, thank you, that was amazing, my worst nightmare too, I know they couldn't look in the ear, but my worst nightmare to look in an ear and like see a bug and have it jump out at you, that poor child, oh my gosh, and I mean thank goodness it wasn't a neurological disorder.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you have to wonder, like like something's eating my brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the earwig man, the kid was totally right and, like we've all seen an earwig, there's munchers on the front.
Speaker 1:There's little pinchers. God, I've got chills and my ears standing up in the back of my neck.
Speaker 2:Those things Gosh. Those pinches hurt. I got pinched by an earwig once. Those pinches hurt, I got pinched by an earwig once. Oh, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Thank you again for sending that Eek, thank you.
Speaker 2:Anandas, and since we all just learned we're doing a two-pata and you've kind of already told us what we can expect, I abruptly just cut y'all off.
Speaker 2:This is where I will tell y'all to not miss a beat. Subscribe or follow doctoring the truth wherever you enjoy your podcasts for stories that shock, intrigue and educate. Trust, after all, is a delicate thing. You can text us directly on our website at doctoring the truth, at buzzsproutcom. Email us your own story, ideas, comments, medical mishaps or medical mysteries at doctoring the truth, at gmailcom. And be sure to follow us on instagram and or facebook, or both, or all the things at doctoring the truth, and we're also on tiktok. Hey, um, don't forget to download, rate and review so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then, my friends, stay safe and stay suspicious, suspicious, suspicious, suspicious. Okay, bye, bye.
