Transcript
Speaker: Hello, Sam. Hi, Jeffrey.
Speaker: Welcome to the Jeff and Sam Show. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. And this is a true crime history comedy podcast. And every Thursday we are here for you.
Speaker: Every Thursday. Unless there's an extenuating circumstance. Unless there's some circumstance, but every Thursday we're here for you, and it's pretty much a new show for you. so like, subscribe, rate, and review.
Speaker: Write the word review. That's all you have to write. Don't matter what you write. Just write something. Give us a rating. That would be very much appreciated. Just don't write something dumb. Don't write something dumb.
Speaker: Write something fun. Right? new? What's new? um
Speaker: Show. ah Well, obviously, you know, I took a little bit of time off recently, and so I've been re-binging Vikings. I just, you know, love it. Okay. um and I forget, have you seen that whole series? Nope.
Speaker: Have you seen any of it? Nope.
Speaker: It just doesn't seem like something I would you're right you're right be interested in. You're right. You're right. Probably not. um Yeah, no. You're right. Vikings. um But, yeah see yeah, re-watching that. And then um Lie to Me. I that watched that for the first time. Have you seen it?
Speaker: I don't know. feel like if you have, you'd know. Okay, I haven't. I like it a lot Okay. I like it a lot. a Lie to Me. Yeah. It's um crime, yeah, but it's the other side of like the investigative aspect.
Speaker: It's a the the science behind... like facial expressions and like deception detection. and What's it on? um I'm watching it on Disney, but I think it's on like. Netflix. There you go. Yeah. It's good, it's good. And also the main character has a British accent, so you'll like it. Tim Roth. Yeah.
Speaker: I've got one for you. What? Cape Fear. Oh, yeah, Have you seen it? The movie? Nope. Oh. There's an old movie from the 90s. Excuse me. a seasoned movie. There's a seasoned movie from the 90s, and I think this is kind of based on that movie. Okay. And based on books, maybe. Okay.
Speaker: It's 2026, and it's on Amazon Prime. That's this year. Okay. And it's like eight episodes, seven episodes, something like that. Javier Bardem, Amy Adams. Whoa. Patrick Wilson.
Speaker: You'd know him if you saw him. No, I know Patrick Wilson. And Juliette Lewis. Why have I not seen this before? I don't know. Scary, really good, suspenseful, and it's like um the music and the way it's filmed, it's very much the 90s. It's giving that vibe, kind of. Good decade. Yeah, that was a really, really good show, and I know you would like it. Javier Bardem.
Speaker: So Amy Adams is the lawyer. Okay. And she tells harvey Javier Bardem, I forget his name, the character's name. She tells him to accept the deal for the crime that he didn't commit.
Speaker: But that's his best option. He goes to prison for like 20 years. And he gets out. Dun, dun, dun. And he is so creepy. I love it. Yeah. He gets out and he is like...
Speaker: It seems like coming back to visit them. I love that. In a scary kind of way. Such a good show. And then last night I watched one called Undertone. This is a movie. That is the one that Francois wanted us to go see in theaters.
Speaker: Oh, my God. It was good. Yeah. So it's out streaming now. Yes. On Prime. Okay. So these people, this they're podcasters, and they do spooky stuff, right? So people send them clips of, like, spooky songs, spooky sounds they heard at night and stuff like that.
Speaker: And the woman that's in it, she is also caring for her mom who is upstairs in her bed. Her mom is like actively dying, it seems.
Speaker: And so there's that happening in the house and she's recording the podcast downstairs and they're listening. it It's all about sound. This is a sound movie. The sound makes the movie.
Speaker: She puts the headphones on And she can't tell if the sound is coming from the computer or if it's outside in the house somewhere. Yeah. and all the while she's recording the podcast, there's a double, like you can see her in one room and you can see a dark room on the other side of the wall.
Speaker: So creepy. Dig it. Oh, so creepy. Okay, going to have to watch it. Undertone. That's good. I feel as though... There are so many movies that are coming out or have recently come out that are in our wheelhouse. Yeah.
Speaker: That I feel like I keep sending them to you and Kayla, but like we got a long ass list, Jeffrey. and We got to go see it. We got to get back to the movies. And then, you know, most importantly, because I know how much you loved the first season of the show.
Speaker: We Were Liars. Oh, that's coming out with a part two. Oh, yeah. And then also, obviously,
Speaker: is rounding the corner to when Practical Magic comes out. my God. That is going to be an event. I'm so excited. When does that come out? September a day. and Who cares? September. We're there. um so We will pre-buy tickets and we will get a group of people we will to go with us to see that and Silent Patient.
Speaker: The Silent Patient. Okay. and that's not really i mean That wasn't really on my radar to see just because I'm more of a book person. Now I have to go back and do the whole the whole Practical Magic book collection because my sister was telling me about how they did two prequels and then the sequel. like So I have to go back and read Well, I've already volunteered you also for the Silent Patient one. You're going. We'll go. Claire and i it's the whole thing. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Speaker: I don't care. i think it's in the fall. Oh, okay. Actually, fall 2026, so we're coming up. It's going to be movie season. Listen. We haven't been to the movies in a long time. We many movies to see. Yeah.
Speaker: We've to get on this shit. And right now, you're like in Switzerland or somewhere. You're somewhere. My taste coming Yeah, I don't know. I think it'll be Switzerland. Yeah. Because last episode, I was in Amsterdam. This person left me in the country...
Speaker: to live her best life. I invited you. You know what? I'm good. Yeah, have been exactly. we've we've We've done, I've done some good traveling this year and got no complaints. Yeah, but don't act like I didn't tell you to come because you know, I love how much you love the idea of being packed into a city with wall-to-wall bodies.
Speaker: drunk and high and painted and sparkly and sweaty and that just seems like so up your alley. Well, i you know did do the festival thing and it took me a minute to like really be okay with that. When she started singing, I was good.
Speaker: Yeah. Alanis won't be there to protect you for this. No. Yeah. No, see, but this is my, this is my once a year, i act like I'm 20 years old again and just got get it all out. Can't wait to hear the stories.
Speaker: I'll be sitting right here when you come back. We'll turn the microphones on and you can tell me all about it next week. oof Yeah. Do I have to come back? You know, I'm not the judge of that.
Speaker: I'll be the judge of
Speaker: I'll be the judge of that. That's really none of your damn business. Tell it to her face. Lena, if Lena just heard that whole conversation, she's laughing so fucking hard right now. That was good. Tell it to her face. I'll be the judge of that. That's we're going just start saying. She already don't have hers. She already don't have hers.
Speaker: RuPaul has these things that he likes to say just to make people feel super uncomfortable. And one of them is, doesn't matter what, Sam, say to me, Jeff, where are you from?
Speaker: Or whatever.
Speaker: What's your favorite topping on a cheeseburger? I'll be the judge of that. That just makes... It gives off this vibe, like, what the fuck is happening with them? And every person... that is on the receiving end of that or or witnesses it, you can see it in their faces where they're just like, oh, what just happened? like if you and I walk into a store and I say, tell it to her face.
Speaker: They're just like, what's going on with them? i don't feel comfortable. but they also want to keep watching. Right. Yeah, of course. Like I uncovered a little bit watching the whole drama unfold. Exactly, exactly. oh Okay.
Speaker: What are you drinking? Ollipop. Crisp apple. I mean, it's good. It's so good. It is. Cheers. Cheers, queers. Cheers to Amsterdam. Cheers to... Switzerland. The Bethan t-shirt that I know you're going to wear. I will wear it. I know. Absolutely. It's already packed in the bag. Well, I guess... I would hope so, because at this point, when you're listening... Bethan. I'll send you a picture of me surrounded by a bunch of Dutch people. God forbid if there's any Dutch people that just heard that whole thing right there. They're like, what the fuck is happening? Maybe after this trip, um we'll have Dutch listeners. We'll have Dutch people listening. We do have Norwegian people listening. Of course we do. No way. No way.
Speaker: Roo. Roo. Okay, are you ready? do we have anything else? I don't think so. Have you people rated, subscribed,
Speaker: Reviewed. Reviewed. You should do that now. Click the like button. Click the stars. ASAP. Don't hesitate. Just do it. Never hesitate. Never hesitate. do it with confidence.
Speaker: All right. So I'm going to flip a coin. Flip it. Flip it. Tell me when to stop. Stop.
Speaker: but It's an American penny. Oh, hot damn. The one that has Trump's face on it? Don't even. That's not You did that. You are the one that did that to me three or four months ago. And I believed you. know, which never happened. Oh, that was good. That was good. Yeah, no. oh sorry You were going to blame something on me, but and you were the one that did that.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. For those of you who don't know, um we have collected coins from all over the world from our own travels or that people have brought back to us specifically for the show because... We two stories in an episode typically, and in order to choose who goes first, we leave it up to fate, or the fates, or the gods, or physics. And we have literally a box of coins from all over the world. Yeah.
Speaker: That has grown beyond anything I could imagine. right Kelsey made us our little box to hold the coins in and the coins really Cause she's amazing. True. she's She's gonna laugh when she sees the table that's like just all her. Yeah.
Speaker: All right. Do you want to be the face of the male president or do you want to be one cent? I'm trying see what's on the sides. It's like wheat.
Speaker: I'll be wheat. You'll be wheat? I'll be wheat. You don't like ape ah on You know, i do. ah Honestly? Honestly, i do You can be the wheat. Okay. I'll be Abe. Okay.
Speaker: Love your hat.
Speaker: Okay. Oh. I didn't, that took a minute. see the processing happen? Okay, it's the wheat. Oh, okay. Okay, okay, okay. My turn.
Speaker: So the coin decides which one goes first. ah I hope you have a redemption story, okay? That's all I'm saying. You're going dark. A little bit. I can't be like, you know, every week with the happy stories or the meaningful stories. Sometimes i just got to like go with the true crime, right?
Speaker: And what's my favorite kind of true crime story? Do you know? A woman survivor. Yes. Okay. So. Really, just, I never pulled that out of my ass. You did so well, Abe. You did so well.
Speaker: Thank you. Elizabeth Shoff grew up in a small town called Lugoth, South Carolina. Town of 7,000 people, lots of woods, lots of woodsy trees.
Speaker: Lots of woodsy trees. Her home was surrounded by all these woodsy trees. Lots of wilderness. She was the middle child, and she was in the ninth grade. She just started like having a boyfriend, and she took the bus a short distance to and from school.
Speaker: On September the 6th, 2006, Elizabeth just got off the bus from school. One of the other students offered all the kids a ride from the bus to their driveways because it was like a 10 minute walk. It's in the middle of the country, you know?
Speaker: And they all said yes, but Elizabeth said no. She was going to take the 10, 15 minute walk home. And so she's off. And as she was walking up, this is a trigger warning, sexual assault of a teenager, okay?
Speaker: So I'm telling you now, if you need to skip ahead, do it, it's kind of brutal. So um she declined the ride and she was walking home.
Speaker: As she was walking up the small road to her driveway, she heard some shuffling of the leaves and that was to her right. She looked over and she saw a man approaching her. And this man's name was Vincent Filial.
Speaker: Now he was wearing camouflage pants and a green t-shirt. And he said that he was with the Kershaw County Sheriff's Department and he told Elizabeth that he was arresting her because of marijuana that had been found on her family's property. He was also wearing a fake badge, like a county sheriff's department badge.
Speaker: But it wasn't obvious that it was at first. He was definitely not a cop. He did live nearby, she didn't know it, but he had been watching her get off the bus and figuring out her habits for a long time.
Speaker: Now, Filial was an unemployed man, and he was also a suspected sex offender. And he was wanted at the time for allegedly sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.
Speaker: But nobody was aware that this man was on the police radar. So nobody in the community was aware of this. And he was also a survivalist.
Speaker: So he had been keeping a low profile. Along with telling Elizabeth that she was under arrest, he also said that he had her brother too and that he was arrested.
Speaker: He placed handcuffs on Elizabeth's wrist and a sort of chain around her neck with a little black box on it. And he tells her that if she tries to escape, that box has a bomb and he's gonna detonate it.
Speaker: So then she's led into the woods by Filial. Holy shit, that was from zero to 16. As scared as she must have been, Elizabeth is also very smart.
Speaker: She's already planning. She's leaving breadcrumbs behind her, little things that belong to her. She knows without a doubt that she's being kidnapped. And he asked her if she has a phone. He then asked her if she's a virgin.
Speaker: What a disgusting fucking question to ask a teenage girl. A child, yeah. He takes Elizabeth to a little spot in the woods with a hidden underground bunker. This little bunker was 15 feet down, 4 feet wide, and 20 feet long.
Speaker: And this place is stocked up because he is a survivalist. He even cooks down there. She notices some pretty fucked up stuff down there like guns, grenades, tasers, and a lot of pornography.
Speaker: Thileau then strips her and places another chain around her neck, and then he sexually assaults her. And for the next couple of days, this would happen to Elizabeth over and over again. ah She was threatened and she was tortured.
Speaker: She would go to sleep and then she would wake up and be sexually assaulted again. He told Elizabeth that he had rigged the bunker with bombs up bombs all around it. And if she tried to escape or the police came, he would blow everything up.
Speaker: On top of this, he's also screaming at her. And Elizabeth, she's doing exactly what he says to do. Because sometimes that's the only way to survive. She knows this. She knows this. And normally when Elizabeth comes home, she immediately calls her mom, Madeline. And that was not the case on this day. So her mom obviously immediately was worried about her. Something was off.
Speaker: Madeline calls her son and asks if she's there with him. And he says no. So she starts calling friends. She calls family. Nothing. Nobody has seen Elizabeth. Essentially, like she vanished into thin air. Like in her driveway. That's the word part. driveway.
Speaker: And the police, of course to them, she's a runaway. Oldest story. Well, duh. And on day two, September 7th, he makes Elizabeth watch TV with him. Specifically, they watch the news.
Speaker: And she sees her mom begging for information. People are hanging up flyers with her picture on it. Elizabeth remembers her last interaction with her mom. It was sort of like a normal mother-daughter spat. Nothing horrible, just a normal thing between a mom and a daughter. But Elizabeth, in her eyes, was rude to her mom. Yeah, that the thing. Is that the last time I'm going to talk to Yeah.
Speaker: So now she's watching her mom on TV begging for information or for clues, something. But he, Phileal, is using this to torture Elizabeth. Everyone who had any interaction with Elizabeth that last day was also being questioned. She seemed fine. She was happy. She just got off the bus. Same time she does every day. There was nothing different. There was no indication that she was running away. Vanished. Because why is that the first fucking thing? Right. After all of the laws that have come out,
Speaker: Around the world to, and we've we've covered so many of them in this show about the reporting of missing children. And it's the same story over and over again as, oh, they always just thought they were ah or they thought they were runaways and that kind of thing. And then at the conclusion of that story, we're like, oh, and such and such a law came out that reported that now you can involve the FBI within this many hours. And it's like, fucking hell.
Speaker: And 24 hours after Elizabeth was reported missing, this is when the big investigation starts. So this includes the police and the neighbors, the friends and the family. An Amber Alert was never actually issued because of the rules in South Carolina, and they never had any reason to suspect that she had left the state. Apparently that's part of an Amber Alert if they've crossed state lines, and that was never suspected. Well, and that's one of those caveats to some of the laws that have been created, too, is that, yes, there are federal laws that exist for reporting, but state to state, they differ still. yep
Speaker: On Elizabeth's third day of captivity, September 9th, she heard helicopters overhead. Maybe that gives her a little hope. And she... How far from her home is his bunker? You'll see. You'll see. She even at one point hears footsteps above her.
Speaker: And she can see the shadows through the crack in the door. So she's close to the people who are searching for her. What? But she doesn't want to scream because if she screams, Filial tells her that she's going to die. yeah so she's not fucking screaming. She's terrified.
Speaker: That night while Filial is sleeping, she manages to get his gun and she sort of sort of takes it slowly out of the bag where it was hidden and she goes over to him. While he's sleeping, she held the gun up to his head and she pulled the trigger, but the gun is jammed.
Speaker: He was sleeping, and he never knew that she did this. Otherwise, she could have been killed. There's so many reasons that I love this girl, and this is one of them. Days go by, and she understands that he isn't going to free her, and she also understands... She's also...
Speaker: but she has to make this situation better for herself. And she needs to gain the man's trust. So she starts making him think that she feels more at ease around him.
Speaker: Oh, my heart's breaking for her. Because it's really smart, but it's like the things that these guys have go through. The disgustingness of it, yeah. She starts making him think that maybe she isn't an unwilling participant in this situation.
Speaker: She's trying to make him believe that maybe she is interested in him. She starts talking about things that she knows are interesting to him and she starts building a rapport with him. She starts humanizing herself.
Speaker: How old are ninth graders? 14. fourteen He starts changing the way that he talks to her. He starts calling her baby. And then she starts calling him baby.
Speaker: Imagine how strong and smart this kid is to do that. He's done these horrible things, and she knows that what she has she knows this is what she has to do to survive. She manages to muster up the word baby.
Speaker: And she starts to build a relationship with him, a relationship in his eyes. He tells her that he loves her at one point. She says, i love you back. She even says she wants to be in a relationship with him and even pretends to enjoy the sexual assaults.
Speaker: She's pulling some reverse psychology on his ass. All you have to do is survive. Yep. And he's buying it. He starts to open up to her. He starts he stops chaining her up at night.
Speaker: and the sexual assaults become less violent. Eventually, he starts letting her out of the bunker for short periods of time. he shows up He shows her all of the boby booby traps that he's made around the bunker, and the tables are turning.
Speaker: And when she does go outside, she removes strands of her hair, and she puts them in the lower tree branches, just in case the search dogs are searching for her. ah So she now managed to convince him to use his phone for playing games.
Speaker: Building trust bit by bit. This is super important because the search is now losing steam. And there is nothing. There is not a single clue as to where she went. On so September 13th, the seventh day of her captivity, Elizabeth gets a hold of his phone while he's sleeping. She writes a text to her mom and tries to send it, but there is no signal...
Speaker: because of the bunker that she's in. And it's one of those 2006 phones where it's like the... T9. T9 texting. Yeah. yeah She even tries to climb up a ladder and she sort of sticks the phone out of the hatch with her hand out as much as she can and keeps pressing the send button, but it doesn't seem to work. And he's right there sleeping, so any minute he can wake up. Yeah.
Speaker: She keeps trying this every night. On September 15th, nine days into captivity, the message sends right when her mother, Madeline, is getting ready to attend a vigil for Elizabeth.
Speaker: Madeline checks her phone and sees the message. Her mom didn't recognize the number, but the message was signed with Lizzie instead of Elizabeth.
Speaker: Immediately, her mom knew that it was her daughter. Nobody else would refer to her as Lizzie. The text said, basically, I'm in a hole in the ground near Charm Hill hill where those big trucks go in and out.
Speaker: Get the police and be careful. He has bombs hidden. The sheriff initially thought that this was a hoax, but they were able to trace the number back to Filial. They contacted his ex and confirmed that it was his phone number, and they start to pinpoint the area where he was holding her captive. His ex even took cops to one of those bunkers that he had built. Whew.
Speaker: Also think about this. This is the thing that catches me in the story when I was writing it up. This is a known sex offender that lives police were very close to to her. yeah He lives very close to her. His bunker was very close to there.
Speaker: Did nobody think of this? That's just a thought I had. Like he, a week before, was going to have a warrant served to him for raping a 12-year-old, allegedly. Right.
Speaker: the they only now know this because of the actual victim, who's a kid who's just managed to play the guy and send a text message out to her mom.
Speaker: Like, that's the only reason that she was found. none of them were like, let's ask questions. Let's see if there's predators in the neighborhood and start there. That's insane.
Speaker: And he's a wanted man for sexual assault against a 12-year-old. She's 14. Okay. And he lives so close to her. The cops then make a text the text message public. Yeah.
Speaker: And on TV, from inside the bunker, Filial is watching... Why would they do that? i don't know. And then, of course, he sees his face. He sees the text message. And he is furious at Elizabeth. And he accuses her.
Speaker: But... Our girl is smart. She had already erased the text message, and she denied it. She said something like she would never do that, and she loved him, and she feeds his ego.
Speaker: He turns to Elizabeth, and he asks her for advice because he believes her. He asks should he stay or should he leave? Elizabeth said, you should make a run for it, and if you get caught, you will go to jail, and we won't be able to be together.
Speaker: She tells him she doesn't want him to be caught. Thileal takes her advice and he leaves. She doesn't immediately believe that he left. She thinks it may be a test and that maybe he's waiting outside.
Speaker: So she decides to wait and not take any chances. And on the 10th day, September 16th, she falls asleep and when she wakes up, he still isn't there. She climbs the ladder and she climbs up out of the bunker.
Speaker: She kind of freezes because she knows all the booby traps are around. And she starts screaming because she's afraid to move. So she just starts screaming into the woods. And eventually somebody screams back because they're still looking for her.
Speaker: and it was one of the police officers that was searching for her that screamed back. And Elizabeth is rescued. And the officers don't really understand to what extent extent that she's been abused, but they do take her to the emergency department, the Kershaw County Medical Center. And she is reunited with her family later on that day.
Speaker: So she's rescued. And as for the bunker, like they literally blew that up with explosives. The cops go to his house and Filial was able to, this is insane, build an underground tunnel system to escape and into when the cops came looking for him.
Speaker: Now there's a police hunt for Filial and they're searching the woods and the underground bunkers. On September 17th at two o'clock in the morning, a woman calls the police saying that someone one attempted to steal her car, but like literally she's she's not letting him steal the car. She seems like a badass too. No, motherfucker. Don't fuck with her.
Speaker: They caught him running barefoot along the interstate, and he just surrendered. He claimed that Elizabeth could have left at any time. She was free. She could have left it when she wanted.
Speaker: but who cares what he claims? Honestly, piece of shit. Vincent Filial was charged with and pleaded guilty to 17 felony counts, including kidnapping, multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct, impersonating a police officer, and possession of a destructive explosive device.
Speaker: He was sentenced to 421 years in prison without parole. That's the most magical thing. Ever. 2007. And in 2021. and he died in prison in twenty twenty one Elizabeth went on to graduate college and worked as a dent. She works as a dental assistant.
Speaker: And she said in 2020 that, quote, you can be a survivor just like I am. It takes a little faith and it takes talking to someone and an encouragement that it's not the end of the world. And that's the incredible survival story of Elizabeth Shoeff, the girl who saved herself.
Speaker: Fuck yeah, she did. She did, didn't she? So.
Speaker: Do you think. With all of the podcasts, true crime documentaries, um like, ah ah not reality, but like, you know, those the shows and the movies that exist that are kidnap shows or murder stuff. um Do you think all of that that has come out has...
Speaker: made it harder for criminals and bad guys because like Elizabeth, has she ever talked about like where she learned to do all of these things? She's given a lot of interviews. So it would be interesting, right? Because now we're in 2026 and like all of the shows and and stuff that I have watched or listened to or whatever have taught me a lot. Like if I was ever in a situation, like there are things that I would and would not do. Right.
Speaker: And so. in in 1960, 1980, like a woman who was kidnapped, there weren't television shows all the time about it when you got to see how the police worked and you got to see the idea of reverse psychology and like faking a relationship and gaining the trust of your captors, right?
Speaker: So is it making it harder for criminals because potential targets or victims are aware the fact things that are unsafe to situations that will put them in danger, how to interact with people immediately give you that warning sign. Like, you know, is it making I think it is. I hope it is making it harder. Is it also making criminals smarter? I'm sure. Again with... I'm sure. You know? Yeah.
Speaker: It's like a virus. It's... They just have to mutate and get a little bit stronger or change a little bit and... You know what i mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just crazy to think about it though, because. But also I think more people now now know to not be nice.
Speaker: Like you don't have to be nice. You can say fuck off if somebody scares you. You know what i mean? Yeah. Right? You don't have to, like in the 70s, oh, no, thank you, you know. Yeah.
Speaker: But now you can say, ride fuck right off. I'm not going anywhere with you and start screaming. I'm going, you know what? Scream through the woods. Run. Yeah. Art, use reverse psychology. She's 14 and she did that to him. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: You know, and I ended the show, i ended that story kind of abruptly. And I just think about, like, it wasn't that easy for her to come back from that. Like, think about the trauma that she had. And i hope she's in a good spot. I mean, and she's overcome it enough to graduate from college and, like, speak on this and that kind of thing. And that in itself is wicked powerful.
Speaker: That's so cool. Survival. Way to go. Way to go, Elizabeth.
Speaker: This is a completely different a story. Are you doing like a 180 like 175?
Speaker: I mean, we're just in a different book. a Totally different. Totally different book. Okay. Not even chapter, huh? Yeah. No. Totally different book. Should we start? Maybe a different story, like from a library in another world. Like a European library.
Speaker: Yeah. Literally, actually. On that note. Real quick, we're going to introduce the leading lady of the day. Sarah Chapman was born on October 1862. 1862.
Speaker: eighteen sixty two She was the fifth of seven children born to Samuel Chapman and Sarah Ann McKenzie. She was born and raised in Mile End, which is just a few miles east of Charing Cross in London's East End.
Speaker: By the age of 19, she worked alongside her mother and older sister at a matchmaking factory. oh Sarah Chapman ah would later become an icon and a legend.
Speaker: We're gonna leave Sarah off on the side for right now, okay? During the 1800s, throughout the world, the primary source of fuel was transitioning away from energy produced by water and wind turbines and turning into the faster sources like coal and gas. It was necessary for lighting, heating, machinery, powering factories, railroad, ships, iron and steel works, mass production, cotton mills, and weaponry. They all depended on the rapid functions of machines and systems that were powered by burning things.
Speaker: In England, access to controllable light and heat was on demand and on the rise. You no longer had to be just really extremely wealthy or royalty to have access to it either.
Speaker: To utilize these sources of fuel, they needed a source of ignition and reliable flames. Sir Isaac Holden of Parliament was getting impatient with using flint and steel to light his lamps.
Speaker: So he talked about it all the fucking time. Like people that surrounded him were like, shut the fuck up, dude. We've talked, like just be done. Okay. um He was intrigued and just constantly talking about the idea of these new chemical inventions and like the explosive properties that they held. Like how can we not use this? Right.
Speaker: One of these times that he was talking about it, there was a ah young man there who happened to be the son of a chemist. He went home, had a little chit chat with Daddy-O, and then the world changed forever.
Speaker: Enter the match. real? Mm-hmm. So recently? Yeah. When was this? Like 1800? 1800, yeah.
Speaker: So by the 1830s, matches were in high demand. In 1843, two Quaker merchants seized on the opportunities brought about by the ever-increasing demand. Because let's make some fucking money, right? Yeah.
Speaker: Francis May and William Bryant became the first to import matches and then began as the first large scale manufacturing of them, by the 1880s, the matchmaking business in London was booming.
Speaker: who not Not literally, because that seems bad. i still love our little green matches. Right? They're so pretty. yeah therere Yeah. um From the Berenie Rosendoll.
Speaker: Yeah. um Yeah, they're really pretty in the boxes. Like, they're just... I'm looking at it right now. It's over there on the table. They're delicate and they're, like, fancy. Yeah. But that's one of the things, right It's like, they're so pretty, I don't want to use them.
Speaker: I think we used one of mine. We used one in... Yeah, the on tap on the summer solstice. Yeah. yeah Oh, that's right. Yeah. We did a thing. Of course we did. Yeah.
Speaker: We sent up our sacrifices and prayers and – anyway. London. but Let's go back to London. Factories were all over and provided massive ah massive market for labor.
Speaker: The Industrial Revolution had already brought workers flooding to major cities from small towns and locations throughout the countryside. The working class was saturated and willing to do all types of jobs.
Speaker: People of all ages and children as young as 14 were ripe for the taking by large companies. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly from our standpoint, working conditions throughout the world and then England at the time were exactly as you would have expected them to be.
Speaker: In such heavy industry-dependent economy, like, shit's not going to be great. Factories of all types had no shortage of workers. If somebody refused to do a job or died due to the ridiculously hazard conditions, next one in line, just replace them, right? Don't you know they had a bunch of 10-year-olds in there working? 12-year-olds?
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the working class of that century was, again, because it was so there were so many people needing jobs. They had rushed into the big cities and like they they would work for pennies. So while all these people are making really big money as owners of these up and coming booming industrial practices, like these workers, this entire working class of that century was considered disposable.
Speaker: They don't really care about us. That's, that's every story. Every story is that song. Yep. Um, the general consensus remains that of the shitty working conditions and working lives, was that me? Mm-hmm.
Speaker: But it sounds sleep. Weird. Um... of all of the really bad things that existed there, um the working lives of those in match factories were undoubtedly and incomparably the worst.
Speaker: The young children, teenagers, and women
Speaker: And women worked together in irregular hours in incredibly horrible conditions for very little pay. The Match Girls, as they became known, were at the mercy of a factory foreman on a power trip.
Speaker: Because of course what dude isn't going to be on a power trip when there's an entire working class of women at your disposal? that Yeah. The already poor wages were docked frequently and at the discretion of that foreman for reasons only he, they, or they knew.
Speaker: And some of those reasons included having dirty feet. Yeah. All they had to do was say this, now we're docking your pay. This, now we're docking your pay. There was no need to, like, explain it. Nothing.
Speaker: um Although inspectors and authorities were constantly watching and assessing the factories, there was never any change to the controversial practices. Historical records exist that indicate that the practices of Bryant and May were frequently questioned and discussed in relation to breaches of the truck acts.
Speaker: Although legislation similar to these regulations can be found as far back as the 15th century, the Truck Act was officially developed in the UK in 1831 in response to the exploitative treatment of workers by their employers. Laws were established to prohibit payment of wages in any form other than a universally agreed upon, like, currency.
Speaker: Because at the time they were, like... if you were working for me, i would be like, oh, here, well, here's this coupon. And it could only be redeemed in one of my business's stores. And that was severely limiting to what people had access to. So they started making these laws. were like, nah, you have to pay them money that they can use.
Speaker: Um, It's pretty shitty. Right? The goal was to protect the workers' pay, ensure that it was the full agreed-upon amount, and was not subject to conditions, like docked wages.
Speaker: Although there were regulations in place under the Factory Act of 1878, the standards in England fell far below those in in any other place around the country. um a Being the leading manufacturer of matches, Bryant and May saw no problem with mass producing the very popular and highly demanded Lucifer match that could be ignited by striking them anywhere.
Speaker: So you know, he like, you can't just pick up one of those matches and like, right? Strike anything with it. And it's not gonna ignite. The Lucifer matches would. Do they still make those?
Speaker: Let me tell you about those for a minute. Oh, do, please. I've never been so interested in matches. Right. It's crazy. They were very cheap to make, very easy to produce, and people wanted them. It was easy. So people were buying them like hotcakes. They were exploiting exporting them now. Like, they're making big, big money.
Speaker: However, unlike safety matches that use red phosphorus, the ah typical red tipped matches, Lucifer matches used white phosphorus, also sometimes called yellow phosphorus.
Speaker: The fumes and chemicals were toxic, unstable, and noxious. With frequent and repetitive exposure, the match girls began to exhibit necrosis of the jaw.
Speaker: This disease affected the teeth, gums, and face, and it became known Fosse jaw. God, it's like the radium girls. Mm-hmm. Oh, wow.
Speaker: The only way to treat this disease was a complete removal of the bone in the jaw, leaving them even more horrifically disfigured. The disfigurement led to plenty of additional problems with nutrition and overall quality of life, too. Because imagine in the mid late 1800s, you get your fucking face chopped in half.
Speaker: It's hard enough to survive with whatever you got going on anyway, and now you got this? Come on. Get out of um So if left untreated, which was realistically the more feasible option for most of these poor women, they would die a terrible, horrible, painful death by basically psychosis and organ failure.
Speaker: Sounds lovely, yeah? Bad choices. is Yeah, right? Like there's no fucking winning there. The poisons they were exposed to had an even more catastrophic effect because of the poverty rates, malnourishment, and poor dental hygiene. Again, eighteen hundreds England, like we've seen the movies.
Speaker: They simply could not fight off diseases and sickness as well. So when this starts happening, you add to all of their already existing medical conditions and they're fucked.
Speaker: According to a report covering the years between 1882 and 1897, the mortality rate amongst match girls was 19.5%. Nearly one five. Damn. That's lot of fucking table dine. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker: Throughout the industry, use of white phosphorus was... becoming increasingly controversial because the impacts were by this time well known. Okay. Disappointingly, yet not unexpectedly, the available alternatives were just not as appealing to the men in charge.
Speaker: Because what do they care? Again, they've got a disposable workforce. Right. It's cheap. It's fast. It sells.
Speaker: Safety matches had been around since 1862. 1862. right. So we're nearly 20... eighteen sixty two right so we're nearlyly twenty 20 years that these other alternatives existed.
Speaker: And the only inconvenience for like regular humans was that like you couldn't light it everywhere. yeah um Bryant and May knew about the matches at the 1862 International Exhibit, okay? So there's documentation of them coming to this exhibition.
Speaker: in 1862, learning about these and still making choices use them. However, because they were less exciting and more of an annoyance because you could only light them when they struck a certain side of the box,
Speaker: Less appealing, right? So Bryant and May chose to ignore that safer option with a total disregard for the damage that they were causing, knowingly causing. The workforce was disposable and easily replaced after all.
Speaker: The Fabian Society, a socialist organization founded in 1884, took interest in these matchgirls and what they were living through and clearly dying from. Theosophist and political anner author Annie Besant joined the cause.
Speaker: By June 1888, the society proposed a boycott of Bryant and May as a way to draw attention and in response to the mistreatment of their workers.
Speaker: After speaking directly to Match Girls, Besant took the information she gathered and wrote an article entitled White Slavery in London. The title of her article was intentionally inflammatory. In her own poetic way, she was striking her own match and hoping that it would burn bright enough to bring about change.
Speaker: Her goal was actually to bring Bryant and May to accountability. The press served as a platform for a bitter back and forth between Bryant and May and then those looking for answers on this article that had come out.
Speaker: In what was one of the very first mass media campaigns, her attention-grabbing title and the contents of the article quickly became important to more people than she could have ever imagined. Blatant lies about wages and conditions were printed from an interview with Mr. Bryant.
Speaker: The lies were quickly exposed by Besant because she had dug and found facts about the company shareholders who had been paying themselves dividends 34 percent.
Speaker: That's insane. What? Yeah. Meanwhile, people's faces are falling off. Are falling off and they're dying, right? And she also exposed that Mr. Bryant had just purchased himself a lovely property worth 1888.
Speaker: in eighteen eighty eight Okay. ah hundred and seventy thousand pounds Damn. In 1888. Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck of here. Same shit happens today. It does. Same shit happens today. really does. Isn't it lovely how hasn't changed? Same shit. Just different.
Speaker: Faces. Words, faces. Yeah. Industry. Yeah. That's depressing. Same shit. She provided additional information and she gathered during her interviews with the Match Girls that showed the truth about the shit wages that were constantly being cut in the conditions that were wholly unacceptable. Although the intent of her article wasn't necessarily to involve or incite the Match Girls into anything, they decided to respond sensationally.
Speaker: They took the inspiration from the article, reflected on the reality of what they were living, and took action. Management from the company frantically tried to pressure and coerce their workers into speaking out to contradict the article. They wanted them to write letters and blah, blah, blah. They wanted them to make interviews in the papers that said, oh, yes, it's lovely. We're so happy. Everything's great.
Speaker: Get the fuck out here. My feet are clean. Get the out of here. My jaw's not falling off. Everything's wonderful. It's great. Yeah, I'm i'm really th thriving. Oh, my tooth. me guys point Not making light on it, but like, damn, come on. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah Fuck off. Yeah, fuck fuck all the way off, actually. Thank you very much. um So they refused. ah The company tried to make an example. They decided to like kind of turn the page and be like, fine, we're going to fire people. So they pick a few people that they're like, yeah, they're outspoken. So they fired a whole bunch of women that they thought were involved, um hoping to scare the rest of their workers into making statements for the good.
Speaker: Okay. You think it worked? Nope. Okay. Unfortunately for Bryant and May, the Match Girls had had enough. At this pivotal moment, tensions boiled over and history was made in a way that would forever alter the world of labor workers.
Speaker: Instead of rolling over and submitting to the pressure from the management, on July 5th, the entire workforce of 1,400 women and girls walked out of work. The next day, 200 of those women marched to Bouverie Street,
Speaker: to seek assistance from Miss Annie Besson to form an official strike committee. Within days, the factory was in shambles and unable to continue functioning.
Speaker: Productions get it to a halt. So of course now these rich men are like, oh, freak out. right So re-enter Sarah Chapman. At the time of the 1888 strike, Sarah held a decent wage, that's relative, right? Decent wage is a relative statement, position, and had established herself as an integral part of the workforce. She became one of the primary leaders of the strike and the fight for her fellow match girls.
Speaker: On July 6, 1888, she was one of the women who marched to meet with Besant. Alongside Ms. Mary Knowles, Mary Cummings, Alice Francis, Kate Slater, Mary Driscoll, Eliza Martin, and Jane Wakeling, Sarah became one of the first members of the official strike committee.
Speaker: She helped lead the charge for change in the industry. It didn't take long for the striking workers to feel the pressure of no wages. They were already so horribly impoverished that each family required an income from every member just to scrape by. That's why there were so many children working at this time, because Nobody had extra income, so they couldn't feed the children. So once you were 10 years old, you were working, right?
Speaker: So there was talk about like grumblings, like the coal miners strike, like they they had to go back to work to get just pure economic necessity, right? mean, you gotta have food, right? you gotta to have food.
Speaker: But Sarah and the committee pressed on. Public meetings were held. Press coverage soared. Parliament members became involved. Marches took place. The committee was gaining sympathetic support from various sources. They continued to collect support, and funds were raised to support the strikers, so they didn't have to go back to work.
Speaker: Sarah managed to form connections with Toynbee Hall, which is a charitable institution that had been founded in 1884, and addressed causes and impacts of poverty in the East End, and with the London Trades Council, which is labor organization that united London's trade unions.
Speaker: Meetings were held between the committee, along with their supporters, and the Bryant and May management. The women who had been fired got their jobs back in a pathetically lackluster attempt by management to end the strike. They're like, here, here, here, we'll just hire them again.
Speaker: Bitch, that's not what we're striking about. Please. The Match Girls weren't going to settle. They took the opportunity and used this new power that they realized they had to negotiate other issues. They presented Bryant and May with a list of their demands, and it was agreed to.
Speaker: By mid-July, they had successfully negotiated for better pay and conditions. Ish. After the strike, the Union of Women Match Workers was formed, with Annie Besant as secretary and Sarah Chapman as the elected president.
Speaker: One of the lasting impacts of the strike was that the over – that over the years, amendments were repeatedly made to the Truck Acts in 1887, 1896, and as recently as 1940. um They redefined the terms served to provide an enhanced protection for workers and closed loopholes that had previously been exploited ah in other like versions of the acts by shitbag employers, right?
Speaker: Bullshit wage docking had been ended at Bryant in May, but they weren't actually reformed at all, right? White phosphorus use was not eliminated by the strike. They couldn't get that one out.
Speaker: Although the strike did increase awareness and began more conversations about it. By 1890, even though the companies knew the dangers, still 60 tons of white phosphorus was being used in the industry. 50% of that was by Bryant and May companies alone.
Speaker: Conversely, only three tons of the less harmful red phosphorus was being used. None of it by Bryant May. The famous Match Girl strike sparked deeper investigations into the industry and proved that sickness and death was being caused directly from match industry and white phosphorus.
Speaker: The Home Office, I just love saying that, was now directly involved and increasingly concerned. New legislations, the Factories Act, was introduced which allowed the government to introduce special rules. So like the regulation themselves had a whole bunch of things.
Speaker: And then in there, there was also kind of a caveat that said, at the discretion of government, we can kind of alter this in certain situations.
Speaker: So that gave them more, you know. um The Home Office. The Home Office. The Home Office. Call the Home Office. Yes. I'm coming in. One of the top priorities to address with the new government involvement was the continuing phosphorus-related illnesses and death.
Speaker: 1893 brought with it some of the special rules targeted at 22 Lucifer match factories. It was now required by the government that factories be officially certified, provide sanitation provisions, abide by mandated medical examinations throughout whoever, like, their their working years there, and improve ventilation to limit the exposure. Wow.
Speaker: Records show that the factories had plenty of objections regarding these new regulations because it would be disruptive to the work and it would be expensive. Again, these people are disposable. Why would I pay money? Their jaws are falling off. like it with Where's your humanity?
Speaker: the fucking drawl. I mean, yeah, that just doesn't compute to You're all here buying 170,000 pound properties. In 1880 or whatever. Yeah. So, heaven forbid the lowly, disposable, poor, desperate workforce be taken care of. Yeah.
Speaker: Right. It's just like the radium girls. Same story. Different continent. Different continent, different chemical. Same story. Same story, yeah. With all of the increasing inspections, expanding regulatory legislation, public awareness, and mandated reporting of phosphorus poisoning, the government still remained hesitant to officially put their foot down and ban the use of white phosphorus. Because the rich guys were, like, putting their foot on the scale.
Speaker: So, yes, they wanted to avoid getting too involved and getting caught up in what they were being accused of as over-regulating the industry because... It was a moneymaker.
Speaker: In reality, the hesitation was primarily due to the prevalence of notable figures and politicians directly tied to shareholders in the Bryant and May Corporation and the economic significance of the match trade. In 1898, Bryant and May were prosecuted prosecuted for the harm they caused to their factory workers.
Speaker: With the introduction of the Factory and Workshop Acts, more protections were provided for workers, but it also allowed employers to argue against speculat special regulations through arbitration.
Speaker: brought which you know like that At that point, it's like, yes, you're being prosecuted, but I'm allowed to argue, and this this arbitration process is going to be timely, and I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing all the while until I can't do anymore, right?
Speaker: So Bryant and May obviously challenged the additional special regulations. In 1900, the matchmakers union, formerly the Union of Women Matchmakers, demanded a place in the arbitration process because they argued that the workers' voices must be heard.
Speaker: By 1901, Bryant and May are still going through the arbitration process, but still also doing the damn thing, right? But by 1901, advancements had been made that provided alternative production options for easy strike matches. Bryant and May finally eliminated white phosphorus from their manufacturing. Not because they were told to, not because it was bad, but because there were better options.
Speaker: Okay? Years later, in 1910, through a combination of press coverage, public awareness, public campaigning, and legislative changes, the government finally released their official ban. Okay. 50 years after the identification of the horrors that befell those exposed to white phosphorus, the manufacturing of loose fur match was ended.
Speaker: Not surprisingly, Bryant and Mae matches never truly suffered repercussions for their heinous actions. As the primary producers and exporters of matches, they had solidified themselves as a monumental part of economic success. As such, tale as old as time, and true to this day, they were never truly held accountable for knowingly and willingly wreaking havoc on desperate people just trying to survive.
Speaker: By 1909, the company had achieved global expansion, reaching all the way to Australia. Expansion seemed endless, and for decades, the company continued growing. Their successes continued to shine while their extraordinarily, extraordinarily dark history... I mean, just researching them could provide so many other stories because ick.
Speaker: um Extraordinarily dark history was swept under the rug. so ah Consolidations, mergers, acquisitions, and sales took place over the many years, and they were absorbed into company after company until finally the Bryant and May match name was fully dissolved. When do you think?
Speaker: nineteen
Speaker: hell. The 1888 strike showed England and the world the impact that workers can have by simply withdrawing their labor. It was a massive success for, quote, unskilled workers.
Speaker: Unions, because they had the school, school, skilled workers union, match worker union, not skilled. So its implications rippled throughout the next year in what became known as the quote, new unionism.
Speaker: This new era was marked by increasing willingness to take action against injustices, higher rates of membership and significantly wider reach throughout workers outside of traditional craft-based unions. The London strike of gas workers and the London dock strike brought out thousands of workers in the year following the match girls.
Speaker: The match had been lit and a blazing fire of change and reform continued to sweep through the country and across the world. What began as grumblings of unrest grew into an explosive wave of activism. Do you like all of my wordplay? I do. It's so good. I just wanted to draw attention. Yeah. The bravery of those women created a visibility for not only the match workers' plight, but it added momentum to the trade union movement and showed working class people that they had the power to make change.
Speaker: The unassuming Sarah Chapman and the match girls from poverty-stricken London pioneered workplace fairness and were some of the first to influence lasting trade union reforms. Sarah Chapman continued her activism and involvement in trade and labor groups. As president of the country's largest female union, she was elected to represent the organization in the trade union ah Trades Union Congress in 1888 and 1890.
Speaker: In December 1891, Sarah married a cabinetmaker named Charles Henry Dearman. Together they had six children and moved to Bethnal Green, where they lived a peaceful life. Charles passed away in 1922, and Sarah followed him many years later, dying at the age of 83 in 1945.
Speaker: Her legacy is deeply rooted in her pioneering fight for gender equality and fair working conditions. Her memory and spirit of dedication lives on through her descendants and in the hearts of all young women and people who acknowledge that the issues she stood for and the wrong she fought against resonate strongly in today's society. Oh, good job.
Speaker: ah love that theme of a story. Like, They don't really care about us. Like, I love those kinds of stories. Because it yeah typically will always highlight someone who's willing to fight for what is right. Not what they believe in, but what is right. What is the right thing. And it reminds me of Hinkley, California and PG&E. Yeah. Same shit.
Speaker: Different coast. As the radium girls, the match girls. It's Hinkley people getting all kinds of crazy cancers.
Speaker: because that company knew what they were doing don't they all because it's all about making money it's all bullshit yeah ick ick good job thank you anything else i hope you're having the best time ever in switzerland right now course i am are you going to geneva yeah probably lake geneva yeah Can you take a picture of the um the house that Lord Byron rented? Yeah. you know i think i think actually last year, I am
Speaker: think one of the times that I went up to Geneva...
Speaker: Did you see that i think I did because I went, Lord Byron's all the fuck over on there there, right? So like yeah pretty much everywhere I went, it was like Lord Byron wrote here. i just want to see the house where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein.
Speaker: Yeah. Can you take a picture of that for me? can. That. Your reaction when I told you that story was one of favorite reactions ever. Ever. I love that story. Yeah, everything about it. i love that story you just did. Good job. Thank Are we done?
Speaker: I think so. I think so, too. been a long day. Girl. My brain is kind of like... one of One of those, like, this is your brain on drugs, right? Where it's like the egg in the frying pan. Yeah, that's my brain right now. They never told you that you could get it without drugs. no Okay.
Speaker: ah We love you for listening. Thank you. And we're here only for a good time. Not a long time. Amen. Goodbye.
