He is indicted twenty five times that a lot that is kind of a lot for horse Stealing, I imagined him kind of a. Horse Whisperer John Frankfort born in eighteen, thirty, nine and grew up in Lancaster Pennsylvania. He was a man it's stealing and selling horses. He won Jojo Warden that he was responsible for every missing horse in Eastern Pennsylvania and he just keeps getting caught and escaping. So it's almost like a running joke we're hearing about him from every Newman she's and exhibitions, man teacher at the mood are museum in Philadelphia. In all the news. Articles uhm, it's Clyde or set out right that he's famous he's talked about as famous or notorious notorious horse thief caught, that's one of the the

does that you'll see each time he was caught, he was put in jail, but then he'd escape he'd still another horse get caught and somehow escape again Frank for the will have the reputation of just not taking since seriously. He mostly worked alone, but he wants to escape jail with help from the so called buzzard boys, a gang of six brothers all named buzzard. They use what they called the birdcage trick. One brother Ike Buzzard, who is somehow allowed to keep a bird cage in his jail cell, asked the God Could you please take this canary cage over to my brother, a buzzard, so the guard goes in to investigate one of the Buzzard brothers snakes past them takes the keys at locks him and the cell, and then of course, he proceeds.

An unlocks eleven other cells and freeze the inmates, and one of them is Frankfurt. Eventually, the lanky Mister County jail, got so sick of Frankfort escapes that they built a special cell just for him, but he cut through it in November, one thousand eight hundred and eighty one he made his way to the cellar where he dug through a stonewall and crawled to the top of the stone chimney. Keeper, wise of the prison- I guess he was a very wise. I heard about a work and when he appeared to the top of the chimney shot him in the face destroying one. I that's how we got the nickname one eye Joe in one thousand, eight hundred and eighty five Frankfort was finally caught for the last time at a horse sale in Philadelphia that search key from the maximum sentence. Nineteen years and so into the most severe prison in the state of Pennsylvania. If not the whole country.

Or several news articles that say that Frankfurt was such incredibly good escapist or escape artist that finally, he met his match. So state penitentiary, it was said that no jail was strong enough to hold him but John Frankfort NY who did escape from Eastern State penitentiary, not alive anyway, for today's story, we've partnered with reporter Alanna Gordon from WHI wise the pulse in Philadelphia to find out what exactly happened to John Frankfort. And to go inside a mysterious practice. The change Not only the city of Philadelphia, but the medical community is all of us know it. Today, I'm Phoebe Church,

this is criminal. Eastern state penitentiary is where solitary confinement basically originated in the United States. Every single prisoner was a solitary confinement of the time, So all the cells are made for that, the only light that comes in the cells. Comes from the skylight at school, the eye to God, so they supposed to get on their knees and pray. Torwards that skylight upwards uh Edward God is presumably watching over them or looking at them and that's his solid natural light

It was a thin sliver of light between Eastern States opening in eighteen, twenty ninth roots, closing in nineteen. Seventy one. Eighty thousand people serve time there If you see the gates to each all they have their iron full iron with with bolts and they have a small window with bars on it, so not easy to escape noughties to escape guards would put hoods over prisoners when taking them out of their selves. So no one could recognize them and they wouldn't know where they were. There are reports of torture. We don't know if Frank furred ever gotten trouble, it doesn't seem like he did and he's daughter who visits some semi. Often I think- be once a year or so says that he never complained to her,

but once she asked them how how it was in the present, he said. Maggie life is not your own. Here. By the 1890s about a decade into his term, he wasn't as closely confined he did plumbing and other work around the prison. He also looked after the prisons, fierce dogs, being a skilled horse. If you figure he might have had a way with animals. But during the time of Christmas of ninety five, he standing to the prison dogs and apparently they got in a fight the dogs did and he tried to separate them and he got bit the bite supposedly got really. Affected and by MID January, Frankfort takes a turn for the worse. His bed written he's, not very conscious. So he's basically

the last thing he was under the care of the prisons. Doctor doctor, John Bacon, Bacon was pro probably as good a doctors. There was at the time he trained under the best of the best at the University of Pennsylvania, but Frankfurt didn't make it at fifty eight years old He died in the prison on January 20th, one thousand eight hundred and ninety six Frankfurt Maggie travels with her husband to the prison right away. They wanted to have her father's body transported to Lancaster for the funeral but when they went to get it the prison said at first. No, it wasn't ready, so they had to wait and wait what they get the body He has bruises all over his body. He he has sold marks and his skull is how to open the top of Frankfort

all appeared to have been sloppily stitched up with some sort of twine. His stomach was cut open in the intestines were spilling out, so they at the body, and they see this. You know Makled Corp this with bruises, so they suspect fault play doctor Bacon said that Frankfurt's official cause Death was a strangulate, it hernia, which is an intestinal blockage. He had been suffering from that for awhile, and he did have that bad dog bite, but nine of those, things explained why his head and his body had been cut up like that, and then a man named Alexander life contacted Maggie and said he had some in, for may shun about what happened to her father lifestyle it's also an inmate at eastern state. He was in for second degree murder. Their friends like he seems to think very highly of Frank. Ford, Liepsner told Maggie that he'd been out of his cell working on it construction projects and decided to sneak over to the hospital wing to visit Frankfurt. This

is January of eighteen. Ninety six it was cold and snowing and he looks oh no for the place, and then he sees across the yard a body She sees a table with his friends naked body on it and the doctor. The prison physician is war get on him. She goes in the ear, but he tries not to be seen. He doesn't want to be discovered, and then he sees doctor bacon, remove France for heart and he put set all the snow, presumably to keep it fresh, he's working on his school and he opens up the scroll.

And takes out the brain, and he sat that all the snow too Life Center said that two other inmates also witness this and he told Maggie he'd be willing to testify to what he'd seen the average layperson would. I know what autumn see decisions look like it's. The quickly Ay Y incision, where you draw, and it's uh Jenn from kind of the midway part down the chest. And shoulder area to the sternum. That's where the wise spreads out and then down the optimum in the middle. So So that way you can open the ribs. You could take the hard out and you can take the entrails out too. Do an investigation into the conditions at eastern state. A legislative committee sought testimony from inmates wardens and even newspaper reporters about what happened to Frankfort Alexander. Took the stand.

I can read it in a little bit of this 'cause. It's really fantastic He said he saw doctor bacon go by with the entrails in a bucket and the vote that he had been told that all convicts who died of the present would treat it. That way. She that's big one, that's what he claims so late. Sir claims that every free inmate, who died at Eastern State risked becoming the doctors, guinea pig and when it was doctor Bacon turn to take the stand. He testified that he had performed emergency surgery for Frankfurt's hernia right before he died. A last ditch attempt to save him. That's why his stomach was cut up. Then the legend but if committee asked him to explain what happened to Frankfurt's body after he died. This is good concerning the postmortem examined. Mission, Dr Bacon said a prisoner whose first name was Arthur had assists. Human had removed the skull and taken out the brain, the prison wreck

of the case and its treatment and was then submitted to the committee. Why did you take out the brain doctor bacon was asked, be Does John Frankfort was a typical criminal and I wanted the brain for scientific purposes. Doctor Bacon said that he had taken the brains, out of two other bodies, and he added that this was frequently done. He denied that he had taken out the heart of the balls and admitted that he might have carried the brains of the bucket as Liepsner there had stated wow. Yes, It's the test that stuff sorry for the. If there is a chasm, but it's just so fascinating to be This was done so casually an when I pee picture this trial, I kind of pictured Doctor Bagan Big kind of defensive, about it, saying of course, with it. This He wasn't the only doctor, stealing people's organs.

Strange time in american history to become great at building the body you first have to scan finished for one to study, to figure out how it worked. The medical industry, as we know it today, was just establishing itself so after civil war. You have first For a lot of medical innovations like the idea of the ambulance of the ambulance, is the service gets implemented and they have embalming and surgery- and there All these veterans that have medical conditions from you know, amputations, nervous conditions to other complications from being in the battlefield and that creates market and the market for physicians to be trained and Philadelphia. So you of all these medical schools sprouting that attracted knew students.

All of these students needed bodies to dissect to learn and become good doctors the most ambitious attended, extracurricular dissection courses and even took anatomy a second time. But there was a problem. The math didn't add up. So when eight thousand and eighty two, a few years before Frankfurt's death. The state of Pennsylvania has one thousand four hundred and ninety three medical students in need of bodies to dissect. Ideally, they would need seven hundred and forty six to make that possible, because each student gets half a body, but there are only four hundred and six lawfully available. So that's like their shore I like half their short by half and there just wasn't a legal way to meet that demand, but a medical schools, reputation depended on way Or it could provide students with quote abundant Anatomical,

material, so they have to figure out other ways to get bodies and that's where bodysnatchers coming or, as they called at the time, resurrectionists the body snatcher term. Is mainly associated with medical grave robbery. My little sample is a medical historian whose written a book about this. He says that digging up cemet Aries and selling the bodies to medical schools was a goldmine. The e She is bodies to snatch or those of the poor and vulnerable who didn't have money for a watchman or a secure grave. These were African Americans immigrants. Those who died in asylums and prisons. There was also and urgency to getting bodies. They would decompose fast,

It's why dissection classes mostly happened in the winter. So in the early days, even medical students got directly involved in stealing them. They go in the dead of night and they might bribe watchmen or maybe get a watchman drunk or maybe they just look for the moment when the Watchmen falls asleep and and they bring in their wagon and with their horse and dig diggin unearth the body and then away that sounds hot. Perfect to me, and I would imagine to med student today. What was different, then welp, Part of it was. This is a rite of passage. First of all, imagine the medical students back then are tend to be younger. It's a culture of camaraderie and bravado. You want to curry favor with the professor, bring the professor, a body

bring the professor, an interesting body. You want to curry favor with your fellow class I got a body they're impressed with you, your brave, strong lad, and, unlike today, when a lot of us, really want to donate their bodies to science. There was a huge stick to being dissected back then or even being autopsied, nobody wanted this to happen to them or their loved ones. How you die It really matters to people and if Europe or purse, and you're saving money, the money I'd be saving would be dedicated to your death. So when the public, hot wind of what doctors and students were doing, riots broke out some school we're even burned down. There are a few notorious examples of times when became so lucrative that body snatchers actually murdered people in order to supply the anatomy department,

murdering people and selling them to science, clearly a crime just like digging coming up from their plot in a cemetery or opening up some had to steal their brain is a crime right. You think so, but the pause to deal with this were a mass and now just in Pennsylvania, so demand for bodies. System of looting and bribery, corruption is unruly unseemly? It attracts attention in the newspapers. It's politically embarrassing law maker tried to look the other way, but the public was terrified and angry, and more and more med schools kept opening increasing the demand for bodies. Every medical school in the United States has a body watching scandal and there's a lore of body snatching in every medical school and then in eighteen. Eighty, two just before that famous horse thief, John Frankfort,

was captured for the last time. Philadelphia's biggest scandal breaks and one of the most revered doctors in America is accused of body snatching die knew you would be asking us about Doctor Forbes yeah pretty pretty amazing story. This is Michael Angelo. He's the archivist at Thomas Jefferson, University in Philadelphia in eighteen. Eighty two Dr William Forbes, to foremost anatomist in the country here at Jefferson Medical College, had a relationship with some people who supplied cadavers for the students doctor, William Forbes had actually try to be on the right side of the law. He wrote the anatomy legislation in Pennsylvania that legally directed unclaimed bodies to med schools, but it was weak and the bodies weren't coming in the local Philadelphia papers knew that something was

she, so they basically set up a sting. Some journalists suspected foul play in an african american burial ground, so one cold night in the middle of winter. They camped out armed with guns, ready to catch the body snatchers in action, and so you could call the muck raking journalists, no offense, but they actually got to the bottom of this because there were bodies being stolen every winter, from the cemeteries until when they arrested these individuals, they squealed and said Dr Forbes was the and who asked him to bring the bodies he was uh. I stood on charges of conspiring to steal bodies and violate grieves. There were a lot of protests against him and some thought it would be the end of Jefferson. Medical college Forbes denied any involvement, but the damning evidence we

that their word keys to the dead house or they had the place with the corpses, are capped at the college in the possession of those men cell, and we actually have the keys in the archives. Today's so it's kind of grizzly reminder of where am I cracker was one hundred and thirty years ago Forbes was acquitted and amazingly he was able to use his own scandal to pressure legislators. He wrote a new and improved a lot that would compel every state institution prisons, more hospitals, to give unclaimed bodies to medical schools, and it worked the state finally said. Okay, we get it. Let's help figure this out without breaking the law. He was the champion to rewrite the anatomy acts in Pennsylvania, which pro I did for a more rational distribution of human cadavers,

so as Philadelphia went so did the rest of the country, the Anatomy ACT of eighteen. Eighty three was really important landmark for the entire country. Mark the huge step in legitimizing dissection in the state and basically help transform a profession. Seen as a bunch of monsters and ghouls in the public's eye and one this really legit and respected, but the anatomy act didn't lift the curtain on everything sure it protected doctors. What about protecting those at the bottom of the ladder like prisoners doctor still took liberties when no one was looking. So this is just Driftstang detail. There is no where there's no clothes so the anatomy act that talks about Org. It's that's never met shouldn't again every Newman. She doesn't get why if the in,

Enemy ACT had already passed with. John Frankfort died wide doctor bacon would so casually admit to removing Frankfurt's brain and not fear the consequences. It appears that if you could get away with taking organs, you can doctor bake, it says and he took out the organs for a scientific purposes and he's is that he didn't know he that was legal or that he had to ask to do this because he's predecessors did it to a lot of doctors were studying body parts on the side, and there were networks of doctors helping each other find them. So, even if Doctor Bay, himself, wasn't personally interested in John Frankfurt's brain. He may have been trying to hook up a friend. These were the days when people still believe in phrenology and the brain of a clever criminal was especially desirable. My guess is that they had their eye on him. This is a famous

or receive at the time the idea of criminal fizzy Haladjian phonologies, fairly alive and well in the United States. So if something was peculiar about your head, you could tell what that would correspond and what your character would be like, and there is also the idea that a brain of a criminal would be different. So Maybe his brain was taken for scientific study or maybe some just wanted it on their shelf, like a trophy Frankfort was a high profile. Criminal and seemingly uncatchable thing, but all those sheriffs he managed to outwit all those people he ripped off. Lots of people might have wanted his brain in a jar either way

It wasn't all that unusual to look at and even admire body parts in jars kind of like the way we look at art and the museum and there's one place of the there were that still true. Today, this gallery is organized by body part, so we start with brains and go into hearts lungs and around room two loves the moon are museum in Philadelphia, where every Newman works is an old, but still really busy anatomical museum When I went to visit her, she showed me around the skulls, tumors and all sorts of other stuff on display at jars of alcohol are from aldehyde, I'm gonna take it to the wet specimen room. So if you're squeamish just be prepared there, a lot of things in jars, her nickname here is the Wet Specim

Newman leads me to the basement where they store the stuff. That's not on display. They keep it cold in here. So the the age of them kind of is the oldest ones we have are the ones that are covered by a pig's bladder. I can go back to it. You know eighteen, seven thousand, eight hundred and sixty six she points out: the brains and all sorts of different shaped jars. So some of these older brains could have been acquired through somebody. Taking or stealing persons body. I can't see that for sure, but there's a possibility. There's always a possibility.

She told me she still believes that maybe one day she'll find the brain of John Frankford that one eyed horse thief. I hope that it's out there there is no veal, been dealt footnote about to where it ended up. We don't know if it was sold by doctor bacon if doctor bait and kept it if it was returned to the family. There is no mention of what actually happens to his organs, so my hope is that doctor Bacon sold it to one of his colleagues and it ended up in the collection and it still somewhere out there in Philadelphia. Hopefully how would you know it would probably be marked as the brain of a horse thief? Why do you want to find the spring

just to complete the story to get some sort of resolution. What's their resolve. That's a good question. I always believed that saying um like an open casket, general or very bad. So if your loved one brings a sense of closure, an this who is the from you know the basically, the turn of the century has become a fixture in my life for the last two years. So I wanna fall. The story to the end after I left Newman. Covered. A funeral notice for John Frankfort says He was buried in Lancaster cemetery. She went out and looked, but she never did find his grave. The one image she does have is a sketch of Frankfurt from an obit I've. Seen this picture. Frankfort looks

so melancholy, but when I looked closer at that, one eyelid of his slightly drew over the I he lost it's sort. It looks to me like he could be winking like maybe even in death. He managed to sneak away one more time. His last great, escape that was reporter Elana, Gordon, whi wise the pulse in Philadelphia to learn more about, what's changed in the regulation and distribution of Bob. Use for Madison check out their podcast this week you can find it on Itunes, is produced by Lawrence for and me audio mix by Rob, Byers, special thanks to What's wilder and Freddy Jenkins Julie,

and Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal dot, com cream, please record in the studios of North Carolina public Radio, W Unc we're proud men, of radiotopia a collective of the very best podcasts around shows like Benjamin Walker's theory of everything in his new episode. He tries to make sense America's craft beer scene and learns that the Best brewers aren't looking at cash out there just trying to keep their heads above water by Exit strategy is, is death to listen, radio taupe. It is supported by the Knight Foundation and Mailchimp, celebrating creativity, chaos and teamwork. I'm Phoebe Judge this is criminal

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