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Frédéric Bourdin "The Chameleon" & Helen Hadsell "The Contest Queen"
31 Plays2 years ago
This week, we’re both covering stories from The Lone Star State with a couple of con people! Where’s that Southern hospitality?! 🤠
First, Felicia covers the case of Frédéric Bourdin - a notorious serial imposter from France who earned the nickname "The Chameleon.” Since childhood, Bourdin is believed to have assumed at least 500 false identities throughout his life. But none more infamous than the case of the Barclay family in San Antonio who, at age 23, Bourdin convinced was their long lost 13-year-old son that had mysteriously vanished from his neighborhood in 1994.
Next, Lauren tells the tale of Helen Hadsell - a woman known as the “Contest Queen" for how many contests she won in the ‘50s & ‘60s. With prizes ranging from lavish all-expense paid trips to even a whole house that was showcased in the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, Hadsell was a real life Lady Luck! Until later in her life when she became involved with Laredo cult leader Jose Silva and his Silva Mind Control approach. Under Silva, she went on to give lectures on mind control and positive thinking as a self proclaimed “Doctor of Metaphysics,” even retconning her earlier contest wins to imply they were due to these techniques.
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Transcript
Introduction and Technical Difficulties
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters Podcast. I'm Felicia. I'm Lauren. We're best friends. And we like spooky stuff. And this is not our first time attempting to record this episode. We're having a little bit of an internet disaster. I know. Really, our Wi-Fi is being so rude to us today that we are now recording for the first time in a long time without seeing each other's faces.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah. How does Lauren feel about this? I'll never know because I can't read the face. No, I mean, we're just trying our best here. Our Wi-Fi is not being kind. I think it's going to make it a very, I said this in the first recording, but a very intimate episode. Yes, yes. It's funny because we already explained all this once, but now we have to do it again. So this is really acting. Yeah, this is just a performance. We are a performance of ourselves.
00:01:11
Speaker
But let's try, let's
Discussion on 'Tammy and the T-Rex'
00:01:12
Speaker
try. So go ahead, give us some recommendations, Lauren. What have you been watching? I shall, I shall. So my recommendations this week, I might, I think I may have recommended this on the podcast already. So I'm sorry if I did, but I watched again, Tammy and the T-Rex. Have you seen that? Yeah, yeah. We did talk about it, right? At some point, I think we did. Yeah.
00:01:36
Speaker
James did it in one of his secret screenings where like people show up and don't know what the movie is. And it's just such a fun time. I mean, it's Denise Richards like at her youngest and honestly, like does a great performance. But it's basically that this mad scientist puts the brain of her boyfriend in a robot dinosaur. It's amazing. It's like, it's just so over the top. And that's like, I think this is the
00:02:05
Speaker
you probably know because you probably James probably talked about it. But this movie had like kind of a PG version and then like has the uncut version, which is like very bloody and weirdly gruesome for like a movie about a giant fake dinosaur.
00:02:21
Speaker
It really is so silly. And yes, this was the more gory version. Excellent. So it was, of course, yes, exactly what you want. But I had forgotten. It just really is so bonkers. And it really is kind of unclear what kind of movie it is, but also in the best way. It's very fun. There's a lot of gore. Denise Richards is crying and acting her most.
00:02:48
Speaker
But the best part is there's this like, I had forgotten kind of that there's this like, gay, black best friend, and he's so funny. Yeah, he's great.
00:02:58
Speaker
He really does a great job and like is, I don't know, just like add so much to the movie that I don't think would be there if it was somebody else. Yeah. So I really had fun. Yes. And then my other recommendation is another one that probably everyone has seen at this point or I would I would hope everyone has
Exploring 'The Room' and its Cult Following
00:03:16
Speaker
seen at this point. But have you ever seen The Room? Like Tommy Wiseau's The Room? Oh, God. Yeah. Travis made me watch it once. I mean, I could barely get through it. Like I understand.
00:03:28
Speaker
the that people like bad things but I was like it's so boring like I can't get through watching this I totally agree I felt bad I like on the way over because it was we saw it in like a rocky horror picture show way
00:03:44
Speaker
where like people bring props and throw them at the screen and like the guy who plays Mark was there like doing a Q&A with James. So it was like, I don't know. He's such an interesting guy and has really like made the most and made like this whole career out of this one terrible movie that he was in. It's kind of fascinating. Yeah. Like I'm like, I guess, I guess that's what I would do too. Like he's the one, I didn't really get this. He wrote,
00:04:12
Speaker
the book that the disaster artist, that movie with James Franco about the making of the room was based on. So like, I don't know. Yeah, he really has had this like full Hollywood kind of story where he made this one terrible movie. And then it became like this cult movie. He wrote a book about it. That book got made into a, you know, Golden Globe winning movie.
00:04:38
Speaker
It's kind of incredible. I did see the disaster artist and I thought it was excellent. Right? I mean, it's much better than the actual room. Yeah, I don't blame you on that one. And I'm not sure if seeing it in the Rocky Horror way made me feel much better about it. Oh really? It sounds like it'd make it more fun at least.
00:05:01
Speaker
Yes, it definitely made it more fun. I was overwhelmed. I guess there's just like a whole group of people like people knew every single word. Yes. Like yelling at the screen. No, like I almost felt like I like wasn't like I was like, I'm not in on the joke. Like, yeah, I don't get it quite enough. I think you and I have a very similar sense of humor. And I feel like that's not necessarily our sense of humor.
00:05:28
Speaker
Exactly. And it's like, I feel like a little weird about it sometimes too, where I'm like, we just like making fun of Tommy. Like I feel kind of bad. Yeah. Oh my gosh. We're so similar. Yeah. Yeah. It's like almost gets like cringy for me. But honestly, I'm glad that I went and it was fun to like hear the guy, the actor Greg talk about it.
00:05:47
Speaker
But it's a really specific experience and I think you have to also be appropriately liquored up for it. But yeah, that's my recommendations this week.
Insights on 'Love on the Spectrum'
00:06:00
Speaker
I love it. For my recommendations, I have one that is just going to delight you and it's that I finally watched Love on the Spectrum and it was incredible.
00:06:15
Speaker
Isn't it so sweet? It's so sweet. And it's funny because I already actually was following because I watched the US version and I was already actually following Abby on TikTok because like her TikToks had like come up for me. I thought I was like, oh my God, this girl's so amazing. And so I had followed her. And then we turned the show and I was like, oh my God, that's Abby. She's a celeb. She's a celeb. And then like to see like which couples worked out and which which people are still looking for love.
00:06:45
Speaker
My favorite was the older man, Steve. There is a woman out there for Steve and I just I don't know who she is, but please go find him. I know he just has so I mean, there's not a bad bone in that man's body like he will be so sweet to whoever he dates. So sweet. Oh, gosh. So glad you watched it. It's just the most pure form of reality TV to
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, like I just it didn't feel manipulative. It felt just like like a genuine way of trying to help people. And I really loved it. I really did. Yes, I'm so glad you watched and I totally agree. Yeah, I have another recommendation, which I was going to say, but I guess I won't actually.
'Orphan First Kill' and True Crime Inspiration
00:07:33
Speaker
So I watched Orphan First Kill. Oh, I need to watch it.
00:07:39
Speaker
I won't tell you anything other than and now I have to switch. OK, so this is what's happening now in my brain. So I was going to do one story, but I'm actually going to switch into the other story. OK, because I'm mentioning this. OK, so our first kill is really good. I really enjoyed it. I went in with very low expectations and I was like so happy and loved it.
00:08:07
Speaker
So maybe also go on with the expectations. I don't know. Maybe that contributed. Maybe that's it. That's it. But the movie, a lot of the plot points that happened in the movie.
00:08:17
Speaker
reminded me of different true crime stories that I've heard over the years. And so I'm going to cover one of them today. Oh, yes. I can't wait. That's so exciting. Wait, can I ask a stupid question really quick? It is a prequel, right? It's a prequel. Yes. It's a prequel to Orphan from 2008, I think, or 2009. How do they? Because hasn't she grown up? I know. I know, Lauren. I know.
00:08:43
Speaker
they just ignore it. They use some CGI de aging. And they use a lot of like, I think angles and like, she like the actress Isabelle Furman is pretty short. I looked it up, of course. She's like five three. But I think the rest of the actors like we're wearing some sort of platform shoes to make her look smaller.
00:09:04
Speaker
There is some de-aging, but honestly, I only thought about it for the first little chunk of the movie, and then I was so into the story, I really wasn't thinking about it anymore. So, I don't know. I think it worked. Wow. Okay. Well, that's a good recommendation. I can't wait to check it out. Yeah, and just text me along the way. I will for sure. I'm first, right? Yes, you're first. Okay, good, because here I go.
The Tale of Imposter Frederick Borden
00:09:33
Speaker
So one of the true crime stories that reminded me of Orphan First Kill is the story of Frederick Borden, who was a French serial impostor. Impostor, eh? If you will. And he looked up a, I'll get into the whole story, but he basically is most famous for impersonating a missing American child.
00:10:00
Speaker
What? And it's gonna get dark. So I will say and the only reason I will spoil this one part of Orphan is because it's in a lot of the descriptions of the movie and it's also in the trailer. And that is that so our main character of Esther gets from I think she's in like Estonia or something to America by looking up
00:10:26
Speaker
on the internet, missing American children, finding one that looks pretty close to her face, and then waiting for someone, a policeman to pick her up from like a random location. And then she tells him, Hi, my name is Esther. And I am this missing child from America. Can you please call my family? Wow. Yeah. And so that's America. Yeah, it's genius. So but
00:10:50
Speaker
And I'm so curious like whether this has ever happened before, but this is the first story that immediately came into my head. Because I think last year, maybe the year before, I watched the documentary on the Frederick Borden case, which is called The Imposter, which you know, makes sense. And I found this from 2012. But it is so it is such a good documentary. So if you want like more of the full story about what I'm going into today, that's definitely the way to go.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's just freaking, it's free on Tubi and Peacock, if that's helpful. Yes, no, that's good to know. I will definitely be watching it. Yeah, it's freaking crazy. Okay, so let's step away from Frederick Borden for a second. And we'll talk about the missing child he ends up impersonating. So Nicholas Barclay was a 13 year old boy that went missing on June 13 1994.
00:11:50
Speaker
So he was from San Antonio, Texas. Texas. Oh, another connection. Hey. Hey. Texas is dangerous. Texas is dangerous. Yeah. That's what we should. We should do a whole series of like scary things that happen in Texas. It would be a lot of episodes. Oh, no. Stay safe, Lauren. OK, so. Hi, Will. He was last seen playing basketball with some friends in his hometown and seemingly vanished.
00:12:19
Speaker
So a little background on Nicholas Barclay. At first when he disappeared, people weren't super concerned because apparently he had run away from home before. He had some behavioral issues and he had run into problems with the law already at his young age.
00:12:40
Speaker
So, but like petty crimes, like he had like stolen from some stores and done some things. And so he was actually supposed to go to a hearing at some point that year to potentially be sent into a group juvenile delinquent home. So his family thought, oh, no, he's run away because he doesn't want to deal with the consequences of all everything that's gone down here.
00:13:10
Speaker
And so his parents, his sister, brother, the authorities, they all at first were like, oh, no, he's probably just run away. Well, we are sure he's going to turn up. He has no more than $5 in his pocket. There's just no way he's not going to come back home. And because he's a kid and it's 1994, it's not like he has a car. It's not like he has a phone. He doesn't have a credit card. There was no way to figure out where he went.
00:13:40
Speaker
And so they weren't sure like, okay, maybe he is staying with a friend. Maybe he's like hitchhiked out of town, like who knows? And then when he didn't come home for a few days, that's when the Barclay family started to get really scared. And then the police started looking for him. So Nicholas Barclay never returned home. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but
00:14:06
Speaker
This is still an unsolved crime. So because ultimately, I know. So ultimately, we're talking about Frederick Borden today, but I did feel it's important to mention Nicholas's story. This is an unsolved crime. No one knows what happened to him. There are some theories that I'll get into later. So three years go by. It's very sad. It's very sad. So three years go by.
00:14:26
Speaker
And they get a phone call from the police station saying, we have your son. He was found in Spain. And this family from San Antonio, Texas is like, what are you freaking talking about? And so the sister flies to Spain to meet with Nicholas and to bring him home.
00:14:50
Speaker
So, okay. She really just went for it. Yeah. She said, this is my brother. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it gets very strange. But so that's that's kind of where we are on the Nicholas Barclay side. Now let's switch back over to the Frederick Borden side. So Frederick Borden is French and he's been nicknamed the chameleon because he has assumed at least over 500 false identities in his life.
00:15:22
Speaker
Yes. According to him, he was typically a new person every week. And up until he started pretending to be Nicholas Barclay, he usually made up these characters that he would become. And when he was young, so he, he looked pretty young for his age. So after he turned 18, he started posing as like, you know, a street kid, basically, to get put into
00:15:50
Speaker
foster homes and what is the, I don't think they use the word orphanage anymore, is that true? Group homes, I don't know. So to basically get free lodging and free meals and to get taken care of. So when he was 18, up until his early 20s, he was basically pretending to be like 14 or 15 years old and moving through all these different countries, childcare systems in many countries all around Europe.
00:16:20
Speaker
So yeah, it's really wild. I can't believe it. Yeah. And so he ends up in Spain and apparently the authorities have kind of caught on to what he was doing.
00:16:33
Speaker
So he felt like he needed to disappear because he was like, basically my options here are to go to jail for, you know, obviously faking identities, but also for using all these different countries' welfare programs to his benefit that he didn't actually need. And so he says, I either go to jail or I get out of here. So apparently what he started doing was calling
00:16:59
Speaker
different police stations in America and asking about different missing children. Wow. Which I thought was weird, but I guess it's the 90s. So in the movie of Orphan First Kill, she's using the internet, but I guess Borden had to use the phone.
00:17:18
Speaker
And he hears about Nicholas Barclay from San Antonio, Texas. So he like once again, like pretending to be like on the street, a policeman comes up to him and he
00:17:32
Speaker
acts really distraught and confused and says that his name is Nicholas Barclay. And so they call the US Embassy. I guess maybe because it's the 90s, like they haven't actually like sent a picture of him or anything like that to the Barclay family. They just believe him, I guess, and then make the calls to get the sister to come and take him.
00:17:57
Speaker
So they're like, yeah, this is him. So Wow. Frederick Barclay, by the way, and you can see this on our Instagram page. Sorry, I just use their two names together. I know. I was like, wait. There are one person now. Now they're one person now. So Frederick Borden has dark brown hair and brown eyes and a French accent. Yeah, what kills me? Nicholas Barclay, blue eyes, blonde hair.
00:18:27
Speaker
from San Antonio, Texas. What the heck? I know. So Frederick Borden, before the sister gets there, he bleaches his hair blonde and he basically tries to stay very covered, like wearing hats and big jackets. And I think the idea for him was sort of like, oh, I'm so like emotionally distraught. I just seem to be covered. Don't look at me. I'm sad or whatever.
00:18:51
Speaker
But also he was like, don't look at me. I don't look anything like this kid. And according to because there's been a lot of interviews with Fredrick Borden, because he's actually out of jail now. But sorry, spoiler alert, he goes to jail. But I think he's back in France now. And he has like two kids and whatever. But so he's given a lot of interviews about this time in his life.
00:19:10
Speaker
And he said like once the ball was rolling, he just kind of had to go with it. He was like he I don't think he necessarily I think he's maybe has some like other issues going on. But he was like once they called the U.S. embassy and the sister was on the plane. He was like, OK, I guess this is who I am now. I have to just go for this. I cannot. I mean, the sister believes him.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, so the sister gets there and hugs him and is holding him and is like, this is my brother. This is my brother. Dang, girl. She didn't even. Yeah. I mean, you would think if I was your brother, you would think you would know. And yeah, that's another question that comes up when people talk about this case is why was the Barclay family so quick to accept Frederick Borden's
00:20:05
Speaker
when it's clearly they look so different. And he has a French like, why were they so willing to accept this so
00:20:12
Speaker
But also, it's not like, I don't know, it's not like if they, I don't know, it's not like their kid was acting out so much that they were like, we'll just accept this random stranger. It's like, there's another option in there. It's like not to have anyone. Yeah, well, I'll get into the big stuff here. But before that, so basically the story that Bridget Borden says is that he was stolen and he was put through a child prostitution ring.
00:20:40
Speaker
And that at some point while he was in there, they put this stuff in his eyes that altered his eye color. And then they also said that he was not allowed to speak English, so he had to speak French, which explains his accent.
00:20:58
Speaker
Oh my gosh. I mean, anyone that believes this, I'm sorry. I know. It's bad. But people did, like, so he lived with the family for almost five months.
Private Investigator's Revelations
00:21:10
Speaker
They were on TV because also people were, I mean, the local news stations, the local community,
00:21:16
Speaker
We're so excited that Nicholas Barkley had been found after all these years and so like they were on TV and he was giving interviews as Nicholas Barkley.
00:21:30
Speaker
And then a local private investigator was watching one of the TV interviews that they had been filming of the family. And he was looking at a photo of Nicholas. He's looking at this Borden on the show. And he said what actually really stood out to him was that their ears were really different. And I said, interesting. I think all of them are really different.
00:21:56
Speaker
Interesting, not just a hair color or body shape or eyes. But, you know, it was the one thing that he felt that couldn't be explained away with some sort of lie because like the ears could only be this different if he had undergone some like crazy plastic surgery, which just didn't make any sense. And so then the FBI, he contacts the FBI and they court order
00:22:25
Speaker
fingerprints and DNA from Frederick Borden. And at some point also, so even before the FBI did this, the investigator, there's an interview with him on 60 Minutes and he talks about he sits down with Frederick at a diner in town and they're talking and Frederick Borden says, I know I'm not Nicholas Barclay and you know I'm not Nicholas Barclay and no one else seems to know.
00:22:57
Speaker
Right? It's yeah. And that's sort of where he confesses. And I wonder if it's so there's a couple of reasons I wonder why he confessed. One, I thought maybe it's because he felt so bad for the manipulation of this family and and pretending that their child is no longer missing and or dead.
00:23:24
Speaker
But what he says, what Frederick Borden says is that he actually came clean because he found out that Nicholas Barclay is dead. And he said that the family confessed to him, that they also knew that he was not Nicholas.
00:23:43
Speaker
because the oldest brother who had had some drug problems had accidentally killed Nicholas and the family to protect the family and the rest of them, they covered it up and reported him missing. Oh my gosh. Yes. That is juicy and also I believe it.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yes, it is so dark. And so this hasn't been proved. The family, of course, denies it. And Frederick Borden says, you know, like, obviously, I'm a criminal who's going to believe me, but this is what they told me. I believe that. I think that's real. Why else would you like to know if that's your brother or your child?
00:24:30
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's only been three years. So it's like 13 to 16. Like, there would still be some features that would be the same. And so even in like grief or relief or whatever that family was going through, they had to know pretty quickly that that was not him. Yeah. Especially once they're living all in the same house together, like it just feels way too suspicious.
00:24:58
Speaker
I totally agree that I think that seems like the most likely explanation. Yeah. So he pled guilty. Oh, oh, just also America gave him a passport that said Nicholas Barclay. He had a passport. It's ridiculous. Before they did fingerprints, before they did any DNA testing, they were like, that's him.
00:25:19
Speaker
It's just come on. That's the weirdest part of the story to me is how quickly they're just like all like, okay, let's get him from the other country. That's probably him. Yeah. Like the US government being like, yep, okay, sounds good. We don't give passwords to any, like it is so hard to get a visa here or like to get- That's insane. Citizenship that I'm just like, what? For this random man. I mean, this was before 9-11, which I do think changed a lot of that, but still, still. That's a good point. I don't think they were given out so willy nilly.
00:25:48
Speaker
So he pled guilty to passport fraud and to perjury, and he was imprisoned in California for six years. And then he in 2003 goes back to France. And as soon as he gets there, no, he assumes the identity of Leo Bailey, a 14 year old French boy who had been missing since 1996.
00:26:14
Speaker
Oh my God, he just went back to his same games. Yeah. And this is why I wonder if he has some sort of mental something going on. Because he's been doing this since he was almost a kid. He's never really been himself. So it just is like, I wonder if there's something going on here that he is just drawn to doing this. It feels like he has to be.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, one thing he has mentioned in interviews that he didn't receive love or affection as a child. And whenever he pretended to be an orphan, he got all this love and affection and people taking care of him and people feeling bad for him. And so I wonder if like maybe he became like addicted to that feeling. Yeah.
00:27:07
Speaker
thought could very well be. It was even when you were talking earlier about him like doing this, I'm like, this just seems like so much more work than like getting a job. I know. Oh, I know. I know. But okay, so that's not even his last one. So pretty immediately, they DNA tested him and they were like, okay, you were not the OBLI. Stop.
00:27:31
Speaker
Back in Spain, he claims to be an adolescent named Ruben Sanchez Espinoza, whose mother had been killed in the Madrid bomb attacks. And the Spanish government was like, ah, no, no. And they deported him back to France. So he keeps getting deported back to France. This is like the story of his later years. And then in 2005, he passed himself off as Francisco Hernandez Fernandez, which is a fun name.
00:27:58
Speaker
15 year old Spanish orphan. And he even spent a month in the college, Jean Monnet, a junior high school in France, dressing as this teenager in 2005. Wow. So at that point, wow, he is like almost, let's see 2000. He's almost 40 years old. Yeah, it's still doing this.
00:28:23
Speaker
Or maybe he was less than, he was born in 1974. What's 2005? 30. Okay, JK, he was like 30, not 40. 31. Math is hard. Math is very hard. But still, a full adult man. Yeah, just for him to be a teenager. And then he went, he did go back to prison for some amount of months.
00:28:46
Speaker
And and then in 2007, he got married to a French woman. So like, who is that? Who is that? Well, I don't know. Her name is Isabel. I don't know. And they. Oh, this says, OK, they must have had more children. I thought I read they had two children, but this is they have five children. Wow. Oh, gosh, there's a lot of info on this page. And in 2007, Borden made a Facebook post saying that Isabel had left him for another man. So that's very sad.
00:29:14
Speaker
Oh, good on her. Yeah. Yeah, true. So, Borden, at some interview in 2008, said that he would never impersonate anyone again, but I'm not really convinced. Yeah, I'm not convinced either. Wait till he starts impersonating his own children. Right? Oh my gosh. That's such a good point.
00:29:38
Speaker
Yeah. And so the Barclay family, Barclay family, by the way, has ever been charged for Nicholas's death. I'm sure they were investigated at some point once these claims came out, but that thing has really happened with that. So Nicholas Barclay is still considered a missing child.
00:29:59
Speaker
Wow. That is so crazy and so sad and wild. Yeah. And now it's also like this sad thing where it's like there's, I mean, even in today's episode, now we're spending so much time talking about this insane imposter while we still don't know what happened to Nicholas Barclay.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that is just really, yeah. If he was murdered by his family, that is so sad or accidentally killed. I know. That man, that was one of my favorites that you've done though. That was so wild.
00:30:31
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, I don't need because like this story particular, because I watched the movie, I got like really obsessed with the story. So I barely did I didn't even take any notes. I was like, I know this story. I know this one. I'm telling it from heart. I got I'm pulling the docs up for the dates. But like, man, I know this one. It's crazy. Well, thank you for doing it. That was really wild. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much.
00:31:12
Speaker
Amazing. Okay. Well, I'm gonna keep with the one that I was going to do. I think it's fine. All of ours, we like a little difference in our stories. They never really match up. No, they don't. But I don't know. I think it means that we're just truly
00:31:29
Speaker
led by passion for telling the story. We're not tied down. Oh, yeah. So this week, I'm doing a recommendation from my dad, actually. So he sent this my way and it's I'm going to focus mostly on just the the story of Helen Hadsell.
The Phenomenon of Helen Hadsell
00:31:49
Speaker
So she was a super interesting woman that like basically became famous by just winning a lot of contests. So
00:31:58
Speaker
Yeah. It's not going to be a super sinister story. Me too. I want to win. Yeah, come on. Well, maybe you can learn from her example. Did you say that the person with that won the Mega Millions hasn't claimed their money yet or something? No. Yeah, I don't know. Travis was telling me something about that. I'm sorry. Oh my gosh. No, I love that. I said I have to forget more podcasting.
00:32:21
Speaker
and not just chatting. I like it. Not just chatting. Okay, go ahead. I think no, I think that's good. But Helen was born in 1924.
00:32:31
Speaker
in South Dakota. And basically, her life was relatively normal until all of this contest winning started. So just to give you a little bit of backstory, she ended up marrying a man named Pat Hadsell, who was from Denton, Texas, which is super close to me here. And they settled in Grand Prairie, Texas. But she was kind of classic, I guess, 50s mom.
00:33:00
Speaker
So she was a homemaker, president of the local community choir, a Girl Scout leader on the board of her local PTA, real kind of, you know, 50s housewife stereotype. Also, I mean, I just realized our stories do have in common that they're both take place in Texas. Boom. Oh, there you go. There you go. It's a Texas week. So she eventually became the society news editor for the Irving news record.
00:33:30
Speaker
when they moved to Irving, Texas. So she definitely had writing skills which will come in, but, you know, otherwise pretty much just stereotypical housewife. So I didn't really get this, but in the 50s and 60s, contesting became
00:33:47
Speaker
like this like wild or widely done activity where basically people would fully dedicate their time and efforts towards winning these sweepstakes of any kind yeah I didn't really get that it was like like this became people's hobby or you know some people their whole focus so they were known as you know contest bugs or
00:34:09
Speaker
Contesters where they would just you know either do these like random sweepstakes where they just like pick somebody to win or there are these consumer skill contest where you basically had to you know submit some kind of writing about a product.
00:34:25
Speaker
and they would pick somebody based on that. So her family started entering contests in 1948 as kind of this like family activity where they would just like enter these contests and her good luck started when she won a Tony home permanent kit in 1949 from a contest run by Skillern's departmental
00:34:48
Speaker
departmental drugstores but for the first ten years of doing this they really almost never won. So it took her a little bit to kind of figure out the like how to win.
00:35:02
Speaker
She paid her dues. She paid her dues, exactly. So her family ended up taking this correspondence course in contest writing where they kind of started honing their writing skills. This is so crazy to me that people were this focused on winning.
00:35:21
Speaker
But they in 1957 kind of started this like streak of winning where her even like her son won some toy guns for naming a pony. She won an electric food mixer for coming up with a name for a new kind of cake. But when like when she was interviewed by the newspaper, she was like, it's actually not a big deal because I won two other mixers in contest the year before that.
00:35:48
Speaker
So she was becoming this like just regularly winning these kind of smaller contests. And she was eventually also selected to be president of a Dallas area, like contesting club known as the compatriots. And it was like this whole group of writers that were now focused on winning these contests.
00:36:11
Speaker
So it was a big deal. Oh, isn't that so weird? I just can't get over it. I think it was actually an episode of Wife Swap where one of the family was like really into contests or something. Wow. Maybe it was Coupon. No, I think that was contest. I don't know. Go ahead. I was just about to say it feels kind of like that like Coupon culture to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's like housewives that like have some time on their hands to like get super into this one thing.
00:36:40
Speaker
It's really interesting. But in early 1964, they had really won a bunch of different prizes from lawnmower blade sharpeners to trips to Disneyland, Washington, DC, and Venice. But their first, I guess, bigger media win was they won a house that the Formica Corporation
00:37:10
Speaker
had an exhibit where they were showing a house at the new york world's fair in nineteen sixty four and sixty five where they like this company had built this house where the interior walls and appliances and furnishings were all made from the company's laminated plastic.
00:37:29
Speaker
So it's kind of a specific house winning experience but the company ran this $100,000 contest where the grand prize was a $50,000 replica of the house that they would build anywhere in the US including paying for the lot.
00:37:48
Speaker
So it was kind of a big grand prize. And so contestants had to write what they liked about the house and what suggestions they had for future Formica products. And so 1.5 million people entered, but Helen won. 1.5 million? That's some crazy odds to win that. That's wild.
00:38:12
Speaker
I know. And also like all those people like wrote what they liked about this house. I don't know. It's all very funny to me. But they won this house. And so they built her a house in Irving, Texas. And so this kind of marked this big change for Helen, where she had just won all these different contests. And about two years after she had won the house, she started to totally switch her focus to be on mind control.
00:38:43
Speaker
So the I know it's a real plot twist, but I'll show you how it kind of links together. So the the first kind of thing she did was she she sponsored this seminar in Dallas on mind control where they brought a leader of the seminar was brought over from Mexico.
00:39:03
Speaker
And then she just started jumping in full force. So she was part of a lecture series in Dallas on subjects related to psychic abilities and mental potential. And her focus when she was giving these seminars was really on the power of positive thinking. And so she started to use the fact that she had won all these contests and sell this idea of positive thinking.
00:39:31
Speaker
And so, you know, she was the editor of a mind control newsletter for a while and she just kind of like stopped focusing on entering contests. She wrote a book about her experience that was called the name it and claim it game with maneuvers for witchcraft, which gave like her tips on how to win contests. And it was all this philosophy of if you believe you can win, you will.
00:40:00
Speaker
So there's a lot of back and forth on whether she used a lot of these things that she talked about in her later life to win all these contests or whether it was just kind of like good luck and good writing skills.
00:40:18
Speaker
It's really weird to me that like, I guess, I guess she didn't want to give away her, you know, like you could think about it as like, she didn't want to give away all these like tips and stuff while she was still in the contest winning game, I guess. But it's like, why weren't you talking about that when you were actually winning the contest?
Mind Control and Positive Thinking
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder, I mean, I have as many thoughts about this because it kind of maybe every generation has this type of thinking that comes up. Like I feel like ours right now is like manifesting, right? Yes. It's like manifest your greatest life or whatever. But I will say recently I went to a bar. I'm sorry. I'm going to tell the story. It's short. Tell it.
00:40:57
Speaker
they had like one of those wheels that you spin and every number was like a different prize and some of them were like good prizes and some of them were like really weird prizes or like you have or like a challenge now you have to do this weird activity in front of everyone but I literally go into it and I was like
00:41:15
Speaker
I'm going to win a t-shirt, so I'm going to get 13." And I spun it, and of course I got 13, and I got a t-shirt. And I feel like when I do do that in my life, when I just probably proclaim something as truth, I feel like it does happen sometimes. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I kind of believe in manifesting. I don't know. I do feel like it's...
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think it does matter. Yeah, I think if nothing else, it like clarifies in your mind what you want. And then you start behaving in ways that's gonna like, make your life closer to that because you're thinking about it, maybe.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yes, and I think it's kind of the horoscope thing of like, if you start trying to manifest, like you're only going to notice when it lines up. I don't know. It's like, you're not going to be like, I manifested this and it didn't happen. Like, I feel like you're more likely to like, draw comparisons between what you, you know, what's that call? Is it the yellow car theory or something? Or something like that, where it's like, if you like, for example, like for a while, I was like, I really want a
00:42:22
Speaker
black Jeep Wrangler. And then that's all I could see on the street. I would see like 20 a day. So I feel like maybe that's, I don't know. I think they're all connected somehow. Yes, totally.
00:42:35
Speaker
So the next kind of thing that this woman got into, if you couldn't tell where we were going, by 1972 she had established this relationship with Jose Silva, who had this thing called Silva Mind Control.
00:42:55
Speaker
which was this new approach that she was super excited about. She jumped in and received training in this approach. She eventually started teaching and eventually took over as his total contact point for Dallas seminars in 1980. Really quick, I'm just going to talk about Silva Mind Control because it feels one click away from Nixxiom to me.
00:43:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It feels like that idea. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So it's like a little culty. So he started experimenting with this mind control thing because he wanted to increase his children's IQ. I know, right? I'm like, I hope that's not me as a parent.
00:43:50
Speaker
But he became convinced through working with his daughter that she suddenly had clairvoyant abilities. And so he developed this technique around experimenting with his daughter, where it was basically trying to get your mind to reach this thing called alpha state, where brainwave frequency is 7 to 14 Hertz. And it basically is like this like, they say you reach it in the kind of like,
00:44:20
Speaker
daydreaming or transition to sleeping state where he claimed that if you allowed your brain to reach this state of enhanced awareness that you could mentally project with a specific intent. And so once the mind is projected, a person could allegedly view distant objects or locations
00:44:44
Speaker
connect with this higher intelligence and the information received by the projected mind is then said to be perceived as like thoughts or images or feelings or smells or taste or sound.
00:44:59
Speaker
by the mind and it can be used to solve problems. So it's like basically putting yourself in this resting state that you then have so much more use of your brain or a higher use of seeing into other places, seeing into the future. It sounds
00:45:17
Speaker
really cool and crazy and kind of reminds me of like, people have talked about this with LSD. Have you heard all that stuff? Which stuff? Like having enhanced abilities or like- Oh, sure. Connecting to something higher through- Like hearing colors, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So basically like this mind control tactic or like all of this
00:45:41
Speaker
this method. She really like Helen like really dove in and learned all about it and got super involved. But like the weirdest thing to me is that it again is like all after this time of her winning the contest. So I'm like, I guess it was just something that like, she she really saw like what she was doing with her like positive thinking as like maybe like the baby version of what this was.
00:46:06
Speaker
And so she just got really involved and then eventually got this doctorate in metaphysics from an unaccredited institution. Not that exciting. And she starts to reframe her prior experiences in saying that all this contest winning was because of the power of positive thinking. And she claimed that her ability to win these contests
00:46:35
Speaker
came from, I'm going to quote this, came from the projection of energy each person possesses, which she called, I guess, like, auric energy, like aura. And so she portrayed these contest wins as something that she had been certain of beforehand. Like, she then, in her books, like, goes to talk about how she, like, picked out the lot that she wanted the formica home to be in.
00:47:01
Speaker
She drew up plans for this house before she even won. And similarly, like she said, she had already gotten passports and vaccines before she won this foreign trip because she was like, I mean, seemingly it's very similar to manifesting to me where it's like she had just like told herself that she was going to win. And so she did win. So yeah. So you need to prepare yourself because you're going to win. Yeah. And she even goes on to claim that she had developed a telepathic
00:47:31
Speaker
Like she could communicate telepathically with members of her family, particularly her son, Chris. And so she claimed that this same like projection of energy technique that she was doing with Silva Mind Control worked to facilitate telepathy. And so she even believed in her, you know, as she got older, she believed that she had, you know, these
00:47:53
Speaker
definitely heightened clairvoyance. She even says in her books that she thinks everyone has some powers of ESP and clairvoyance, but that you need to recognize and develop them in order for them to be more powerful.
00:48:10
Speaker
And so she's just like a super interesting lady and and I wish like there was more I'm just like more information about like how those two things like linked up because I'm like it really to me feels like she tried contest winning for a while she was super successful at it, whether it was like writing skills or like just, you know, like,
00:48:30
Speaker
Applying to a bunch of these contests or like some you know, maybe it was just like time and effort at like maybe she applied to a million things and one You know 20, but that seemed so incredible, you know, maybe so yeah, I think it's really interesting that she did kind of like
00:48:46
Speaker
take this contest winning and make it into this career about talking about positive thinking and mind control and all these like sort of like mental, I don't even know what the right word is. Just like using these, these techniques. Mental capabilities. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's wild. Yes. And just turned it all into like a successful career for herself. Good for her.
00:49:14
Speaker
And like, there's definitely like, I mean, I think most people believe in like intuition or like, things like that. So it's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't not believe in a lot of the stuff that she was probably talking about. But it's when everything is get to like a culty place with people that it's like, yeah. I know. I'm always like, I don't know if we need to go into like, you have to join my mind control cult. Yeah.
00:49:43
Speaker
But that's a wild story. Yes. And she did end up dying in 2010 at age 86. And if you're interested in this crazy story, she does have this amazing, I found it on YouTube, but an interview where she talks about how she used positive thinking to win all these awards. So I definitely, if you're interested in her, there is more content to get to know her because she's definitely a little bit of a creature, of a unique woman.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yes. That's amazing. I can't wait to see a picture of her. Yes. She definitely, you know, she looks very much like a fifties housewife and then she definitely looks like a, you know, sweet older woman. Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. Yeah. Well, that's my, you know, that's the story of Helen Hadsell and winning a bunch of contests. Maybe we should all just start, you know, power of positive thinking.
00:50:40
Speaker
I think we must. I also like that both of our stories this week, they weren't necessarily like paranormal, but there's like odd, like odd stories. Yes, definitely. I know. I know. And I think I think there is something still like a little weird about it. Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. But cool. Great job. That was awesome. Thank you. Thank you guys for listening this week. We hope you have some sweet, sweet nightmares.