5 More Ways to Fake Your Death

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Campsite media. Hello, CrimeListNation. I have a special treat for you today. It's our fourth bonus episode. We had so much fun with this week's fake death stories that we just couldn't stop. We had to go on. So we gave Rory a little homework. What are we doing here, Lane? This week we have a top five and Rory is going to share it with us. That's right, Josh and every listener out there. We've got a top five fake deaths coming at you. Here we go. Number one through five. Joan of Leeds was an English nun who faked her death because she kind of hated being a nun. Pretty relatable. In 1318, she feigned deathly illness and made a dummy of herself. Her colleagues buried her dummy in holy ground, meaning either one, her dummy was exceptionally realistic. Two, her colleagues are really dumb, slash gullible and have terrible eyesight. Or three, they're cool as hell and help Joan get away with this. When the Archbishop of York found out about this, historical records do not show who snitched on her. He wrote a letter to local religious authorities telling them to keep an eye out for a rogue nun. The Archbishop didn't know why Joan ran away, but had no issue speculating she was seduced by indecency. She involved herself irreverently and perverted her path of life arrogantly to the way of carnal lust and away from poverty and obedience. She was accused of living with a man. How scandalous. All right. Number four or two. All right. Our next greatest top five fake death, David Freeland. David Freeland was a former New Jersey senator who faked his own death via scuba diving accident in 1985 while awaiting trial on racketeering charges. Freeland had taken painkillers before diving with a friend and never came back up to the surface. His body was never found and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Two years later, he was arrested in the Maldives, where he'd been working as a scuba dive instructor as well as an owner of a chain of scuba gear shops. He clearly he clearly had a lust, a carnal lust for scuba diving. He'd been living under the alias of Richard Smith, Harley. Great choice. He'd traveled around the world before settling in the Maldives and did little to lie low, including posing for a postcard in which he was in scuba gear, feeding a live shark with food held in his own mouth. He eventually was returned to the United States and served nine years in prison. Freeland died in 2022. Wow. How is that not a movie? I mean, the guy it's who wanted to get caught up in where he just because like, you know what, I just I always wanted to scuba dive and I chose senator and then I chose crime. Also, what is that like you come back up with a group and they're like, you know, I lost them. Dave, I don't know what Dave. We were all swimming together and then he was like, I'm going to go feed a shark with food in my mouth. And we're like, what? Rory, number three. Friedrich Goulda. I think I'm saying that right. If you're a listener and you know, call in. Let us know what a pair of tickets to how to fake your own death. The live musical production by Josh and Rory. Friedrich Goulda, also known as the terrorist pianist, was a classical and jazz composer and pianist. He was known for his unorthodox practices. He once performed completely naked with his wife, improvising and shouting about being mad. In 1999, news agencies announced the death of Friedrich Goulda. Shortly after that news report was retracted, Goulda had faked his death, faxing his own death announcement from the Zurich Airport to promote a concert at which he was about to be resurrected. The resurrection concert sold out. Goulda died a year later on Mozart's birthday, something he said he'd always wanted to. Do you think performing nude is why they called him the terrifying pianist? I mean, maybe. Terrifying. I'm sorry, I miss you. That was. You misheard it. I love that he once performed completely naked with his wife, improvising and shouting about being mad. It's like that's how we all make love, right? Is that not that's not specific to him. The next one, Alistair Crowley was an English Oculus and author known for practicing sex magic. Yeah, a cultist, I believe. A cultist. I know I said Oculus. Yeah, he's actually an optometrist. Yeah. In September 1930, Crowley, then 54, traveled to Portugal with Honey Jaeger, a 19 year old German woman who was his newest romantic interest and sex magic partner. Soon after they arrived in Portugal, Crowley and Jaeger's relationship soured. He complained about her in his diary, writing about her pathological fear and lying. After a fight between the two of them, Jaeger left Portugal in a huff. So Crowley decided he'd fake his own suicide. It'd be a publicity stunt mostly designed to annoy Jaeger, according to one biography on Crowley. Crowley picked a cliff formation just west of Lisbon called Boca do inferno for his suicide. His suicide note was addressed to Jaeger. I cannot live without you. He writes. Crowley slipped off to Spain, where he got to read about his tragic death in the papers. Three weeks later, he made his grand reappearance in Berlin alive and well. And finally, Harry Gordon was a once successful businessman who faked his own death in 2000 in hopes to benefit from a multimillion dollar insurance payout. His abandoned boat was discovered in a river north of Newcastle. After an investigation in April 2001, the coroner ruled that Gordon had drowned. Gordon spent the next five years living as Rob Matzl, complete with a new passport and blue contact lenses. He spent time on the Spanish coast, then in England, working at a potato crisp warehouse before settling on New Zealand. Gordon, as Rob, met and married again. He still had a wife back in Sydney. It was on his honeymoon with his new wife when he just happened to run into his brother, his brother thinking Gordon had drowned years ago, asked, is that really you? Gordon said, of course, and told him now was not the time to talk. By the time their honeymoon had ended, Harry, slash Rob was nabbed at the airport before he could board a plane home. Gordon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and was sentenced to 15 months in jail. Gordon's wife back in Sydney, Sheila, was charged with conspiracy because she had known about Gordon's scam all along. She served five months of home detention. Wild how similar that is to our British one. Like, yeah, wife is in on it. The like alter ego is ridiculously obvious. Like, yeah, somebody knows. And also similar goals. I mean, Rob was like, I just want to pretend I'm dead and finally work at a potato crisp warehouse like we've all dreamed of since we were children. There you have it. Top five fake deaths. If you plan to fake your own death someday, you now have plenty of ideas. But ideally, you wouldn't. People would be sad. We'll see you next week.