A Pyrrhic Victory (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00Both of today's stories are about people who actually achieved their big career ambitions, but at an extremely high cost. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please replace the Follow Buttons nasal spray with superglue. Okay, let's get into our first story, which is called Proving a Point.

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1:37The sugar bee apple. Packed with notes of honey, caramel, and molasses, plus an extra crisp crunch, sugar bee apples are perfect for snacking, baking, and everything in between. Download our new free recipe book and find a store near you at hellosugarbee.com. Sugar bee apples, naturally On the afternoon of June 10, 1871, a defense attorney named Clement Vallandingham sat in a courtroom in Lebanon, Ohio, listening intently as a prosecutor questioned a witness. And with each word that this witness said on the stand, it made the knot in Clement's stomach get tighter and tighter. Because this testimony was very bad for Clement's client, an accused murderer named Thomas McGeehan.

2:22So the murder that McGeehan was on trial for had happened about six months earlier on Christmas Eve in the nearby city of Hamilton. That night, McGeehan had stormed into a saloon with a group of men and attacked another man named Tom Myers. And at some point during this attack, a gun went off and Tom Myers was shot and killed. Now, there were at least 30 witnesses in the saloon at the time, but the whole attack had happened so fast and was so chaotic that no one had seen who did the actual shooting. Despite that, everyone in town immediately decided that McGeehan had done it. However, even Clement had to admit that that was a reasonable assumption.

3:04McGeehan and the victim, Tom Myers, had a long-standing feud, and everyone knew they hated each other. Also, McGeehan was a well-known violent criminal who was said to have killed at least four other people. So when Tom Myers got killed, the citizens of Hamilton didn't even wait for a trial. They wanted to hang McGeehan right now. Now, the police had obviously intervened and arrested McGeehan instead, but word had spread all over Ohio about how messy and dramatic this case was. And as a result, the trial itself had become very high profile. Every day, journalists and important people from all over the state came to sit in court and listen to the testimony.

3:43And now all of these important people were watching Clement's defense case get just obliterated by this witness. The witness was one of the men who had been in the saloon at the time of the murder, and he was making a very big claim. He was saying that even though no one in the saloon saw McGeehan fire the gunshot that killed Tom Myers, he must have. Because after the gun went off, this witness saw smoke coming from McGeehan's jacket pocket, like he had been concealing his gun inside his jacket when he had fired it. Clement looked around the courtroom while the witness explain this and saw that everybody was nodding, like what the witness said made perfect sense.

4:22Clement could tell basically at this point, everybody thought his client was guilty. But Clement, he did not agree. He knew McGeehan's case looked bad, but Clement was absolutely certain that his client really was innocent. Clement's theory was that the victim, Tom Myers, had shot himself by accident when he pulled out his own gun during the fight to defend himself. Unfortunately for Clement, though, this was 1871, so there was no forensic evidence about gunshots except for some scorch marks on Tom Myers' shirt. So the whole entire case was really just based on witness testimony. And of course, this witness was very convincing for the other side.

5:01The prosecutor finished up his questioning and then walked back to his seat with a smirk on his face like he knew what he had just done. They pretty much had just won the case. It was now Clement's turn with the witness, and he really didn't know how it was going to go. But as Clement stood up and crossed the courtroom floor, he felt a calm come over him because he was thinking to himself, I don't have much to lose. I mean, pretty much everybody thinks my client is guilty. And so if he's found guilty, no one's going to be shocked. But you know, maybe I can find a way to prove he's innocent and that would be just great.

5:34But if I don't, it is what it is. So, to be clear, Clement was a very controversial figure in Ohio at this time, which was right after the Civil War. He had been very vocally against the then-president Abraham Lincoln, and his viewpoints had gotten him banished from Ohio and the other northern states. And then after the war ended, he had returned to his home state of Ohio and had gone back to being an attorney. But he had never really been able to fully rehabilitate his public image. Even now, six years later, a lot of people still really hated him for behavior during the war. And so, in essence, Clement knew that pretty much his public profile was not about to change if he lost this case.

6:16I mean, basically nothing would change. You know, he's the guy that everybody hates, and his client's the murderer. It is what it is. But if he won, he could recreate himself in the court of public opinion as a sensational criminal defense lawyer who overturned impossible cases. And again, he really believed his client was innocent. So this would be like a two-pronged major victory for Clement. And so Clement stepped up to the witness box and began firing off questions to this witness. By the end of the day, Clement had gotten that witness to admit he hadn't actually seen a physical gun. And eventually, Clement was able to completely destroy the jacket-shooting theory when he showed the court that the jacket that McGeehan had been wearing that night, there was no hole anywhere on it.

7:04As the week went on and more witnesses took the stand, Clement was pleased to find that none of them had any actual proof that McGeehan shot Tom Myers. But he also couldn't find any evidence that proved his client was innocent either. So later that week, on Friday, June 16th, as the trial came to a close, Clement was kind of worried. I mean, he knew that he had not done enough to get his client acquitted. And even though he knew that the likelihood of success here was always going to be slim, he felt like he had begun to make some serious headway and they could win. Victory felt possible. And it was just slipping out of his hand.

7:40That afternoon, Clement sat behind the defense table, sweating profusely as he listened to the prosecutor's team deliver their just brutal closing arguments. This was giving Clement a lot of anxiety. I mean, he was moments away from giving his own closing arguments, and it was really his very last chance to convince the jury that his client was innocent. but he just did not feel like the speech he had prepared would do that, especially after, you know, the prosecutor's really just very powerful speech that he was giving right now. And so as the prosecutor very eloquently and beautifully wrapped up his speech, Clement was busy furiously crossing out lines on his speech and rewriting things and trying to make it better, but he just couldn't.

8:22So he just sat there, racking his brain on what to say. But as he was sitting there in silence and like the prosecutor is sat down and everybody's waiting for Clement to stand up and deliver his speech here, an idea suddenly hit Clement. It hit him so hard that he actually just dropped his pen. He didn't know why this idea hadn't occurred to him earlier. But he suddenly realized there was a way he could prove McGeehan was innocent. It was so obvious. And if he was right, he would go down in history as probably the greatest defense attorney Ohio had ever seen. And so Clement, he lunged for his pen again, then he frantically scribbled down what he was thinking.

8:58And then a minute later, he heard the judge call his name and tell him, come on, it's your turn to speak. And so Clement, he shot to his feet and he cleared his throat. And instead of launching into the speech he had prepared for this moment, he asked the judge to let him do it instead on Monday. The judge was a little apprehensive, but eventually they agreed. And when they did, Clement felt a surge of excitement rush through his body. And after the court proceedings officially ended for the day, Clement could not get out of there fast enough. Clement waited until nightfall to act. He needed to run a test to make sure his theory he was going to employ on Monday was correct.

9:36But he didn't want anybody from the prosecution team to see him doing it. So after dinner, Clement slipped out of his hotel and into the quiet streets of Lebanon. He'd spent the last few hours having dinner with some friends. And while he was pretty vague about what he actually planned to do tonight, he did tell them that they really needed to stay in town long enough to hear his big final argument on Monday. He was so confident in what he'd uncover tonight doing this test that he was sure his speech on Monday would be like the greatest legal moment in the history of Ohio. And so now, as Clement made his way to the edge of town, he was filled with adrenaline and kept increasing his speed until he was basically running.

10:16And then he finally arrived at a quiet, isolated part of Lebanon. And as soon as he got there, he set up for this test he had planned and then ran through it. And after he finished, Clement smiled, because he knew he had just found a way to prove that his client was innocent. Just a few minutes later, around 9pm, and Clement was back inside of his hotel room. He was so excited about the results of his test that he couldn't even sit down, and so he just kept pacing around and around and trying to get his thoughts together, but he was just so excited. His hotel room door was cracked open, and as he paced around, he saw his co-counsel, who was another lawyer on the defense team, walked by.

10:57So this hotel was sort of like the home base of everyone who was in town for the trial. And so most of the prosecution and the defense teams were staying there. When Clement saw his co-counsel, he immediately waved him inside and tried to tell him what he'd figured out. But the words just kind of tumbled out and all he really got across was that the prosecution had it all wrong, but he, Clement, had figured it out. But his co-counsel was just looking at him like he really didn't understand what he was saying. And so at some point, Clement realized he really needed to do a physical demonstration here.

11:28He really needed to repeat the test he had just done to show, actually show the co-counsel exactly what he was talking about. So without a whole lot of explanation to his co-counsel, Clement got up, he set up the test, and then he turned and he told his co-counsel to watch carefully. And then Clement began to perform the test. But this time, during the test, there was a sudden explosion and Clement collapsed to the ground. It would turn out that Clement's test did prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that his client really was innocent. His theory was that Tom Myers shot himself by fumbling with his own gun.

12:09But in order to make sure his theory held weight with the jury, he wanted to show everyone that it was definitely physically possible to do that. So when Clement had gone to the edge of town to do this test by himself for the first time, He took a gun with him, and he basically experimented with ways it could have actually happened, by shooting the gun through fabric from different angles and looking at the resulting scorch marks. And when he did this, he realized that the scorch marks that had been left on the victim's clothes, the only forensic evidence they had, they could have only been made if the victim was shot at point-blank range, which meant that McGeehan was standing too far away to be the shooter.

12:51But it was not until later when Clement acted out the shooting again for his co-counsel that his discovery went from great to perfect. Because completely by accident, he did exactly what Tom Myers had done. He fumbled with the gun and shot himself. Clement died from his self-inflicted wound 12 hours later. But his death made his arguments so convincing that his client was eventually acquitted. So Clement had been right. This was the greatest case of his life. It was also his last.

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16:42The next and final story of today's episode is called Gloomy Sunday.

16:51Our second and final story is about a song. But we're not going to be playing this song during the episode. And when you get to the end of this story, you'll see why. On an overcast chilly Sunday in the fall of 1932, 32-year-old composer Rezo Choresh sat in his apartment in Paris trying to write a new melody. He'd been at it for hours, and it was not going well at all. Each time he jotted down a new combination of notes, he'd just tear it up and toss it into his trash bin, where there was already a pile of other discarded drafts. So Rezo was used to this kind of messy creative process. He had made a name for himself as a musician in his home country of Hungary over the last decade.

17:31He'd written more than 40 musical compositions for various singers and artists, and a few had been really successful. So Rezo knew he had the talent to be a huge star and to change people's lives with his music. But recently, you know, despite trying many different iterations and just allowing the messy creative process to take hold and just kind of letting it run its course, Rezo still just could not come up with any new good work, mainly because he was incredibly stressed out. So at this point in 1932, Rezo and many other people were very nervous about the state of the world and their future because there were really violent political views spreading across Europe, especially in Germany.

18:13This was still seven years before the start of World War II, but Hitler and his Nazi party were already starting to gain power. And Rezo, who was Jewish, was worried about all the anti-Jewish rhetoric that the Nazis were spreading. And while that was terrifying and kept Rezo up at night, the more urgent worry he had on a daily basis that was really impeding his creativity was how to literally afford food. Because the world was also in the middle of the Great Depression, which was a period of time in the 1920s and 30s when multiple countries were dealing with terrible economies and mass unemployment.

18:50Back in Rezo's home country of Hungary, things were especially bad and getting worse. Banks and businesses were closing almost every day, and more than a quarter of the population was unemployed, living in extreme poverty. Rezo had moved to Paris so he could find more opportunities. Paris, after all, was the art mecca of Europe. And even though the state of the world felt depressing, Rezo thought that the creative energy there would inspire him to create something beautiful amid all the darkness. But now Rezo sighed and leaned back to look around the tiny, drafty Parisian apartment of his. He'd been here for months and his fortunes certainly had not changed.

19:28He still didn't have any work and he still could not seem to write anything good. But, you know, Rezo, he kept leaning back over and trying to write, but it was like immediately he would tear it up and he was just getting more and more frustrated. Until finally, he just did give up and put his head in his hands and basically said, I can't do this. It seemed like the harder he worked, And the harder he tried to ignore all the despair and sadness and awful things going on in the world, the worse he felt and obviously the worse his work was. Like right now, he actually almost felt physically ill from kind of bottling up all these competing terrible feelings and thoughts.

20:04But as he thought about the fact that he was doing that, he suddenly decided he just can't do that anymore. He can't continue to keep that stuff in. It was at that moment that Rezo exhaled and let in all the anguish he'd been trying to push away. Sadness and fear and quiet desperation just washed over him and into him, and he didn't fight it anymore. He just suddenly started writing. His pen flew across the page as wave after wave of terrible emotion hit him. And when he was done, he ran over to his piano to play the notes that he had just written. and as his fingers moved across the keys, a very slow, sad melody began to fill the air.

20:45And it was so beautiful and so sad that he actually felt like crying as he heard it. When he was done playing, he just sat back in his chair and now tears filled his eyes and his heart was pounding so fast that he knew he needed to get some air fast or he might actually just pass out. And so Rezo went outside to take a walk and hoped the fresh air would help him snap out of the wild emotional fog that had just come over him. But the Paris streets were gray and cold, and this new melody continued to ring in his ears. He was thrilled that he'd actually written something, something real and powerful for the first time in what felt like a long time.

21:23But it was such an intense expression of his own sadness that it almost hurt. Shortly into his walk, he heard somebody call his name. When he looked up, he saw it was his good friend, a poet named Laszlo Javor, who rushed right up to him. And right away when Rezo saw his friend, he felt himself lightening up a little bit. He liked Laszlo. They were both Hungarians in Paris trying to make good art and a name for themselves, but neither of them had really done it yet. But as soon as Laszlo reached Rezo, Rezo could tell that his friend seemed really upset about something too. And his friend told him that his fiance had just ended things with him and he was completely heartbroken.

21:59After Rezo said that he was terribly sorry, The men just walked together in silence. They were both lost in their own sad, heavy feelings, and neither of them could think of anything to say. And without even meaning to, Rezo just began whistling the song that he had just written. And when he did this, it was like the tune had an immediate effect on Laszlo. His eyes welled up, and he sort of began to cry, and also he began to sing along, using words from a very sad poem that he had recently written. Rezo couldn't believe it because without even trying, Laszlo's words were perfectly fit for his melody.

22:37And so as this sort of impromptu collaboration has begun, the men went from this really dark, gloomy mood to a purely excited one. They were so inspired that they rushed into a nearby restaurant to sit and work out the rest of the song. And before they knew it, Rezo had written an entire composition with Laszlo's lyrics. and the song was about someone whose lover had just died and their desire to be reunited with them. When the men finished, they wanted to hear their song out loud, so they asked the restaurant's resident musicians to play it. And pretty soon, their song, something that hadn't even existed a few hours ago, was blaring around the crowded restaurant.

23:17And as far as Rezo and Laszlo could tell, everybody inside was loving this song. Some of the restaurant patrons actually cried, and others closed their eyes and just kind of swayed to the sound. It was what Rezo had always hoped his music would do, which was truly affect those who heard it. Rezo and Laszlo looked at each other, and for the first time in days, they smiled. Rezo and Laszlo decided to call their song Gloomy Sunday, since it had been created on that hazy fall Sunday. They both had a feeling that this tune was very special and that it would finally be the thing that changed both of their lives.

23:51So over the next few months, they took the song around to producers and tried to get somebody to buy it. And finally, someone did. A company agreed to publish the sheet music and record it. After that, Rezzo went back to his shabby Parisian apartment and waited for the song to take hold and the money to start pouring in. But that's not what happened. As the months passed by, Rezzo didn't hear Gloomy Sunday on the radio or see it on any charts or hear it in restaurants or performed in theaters. it was like it really had never existed at all. And this crushed Rezo. He was even more upset and defeated than he had been before he had written it.

24:30Because he'd gotten a taste of hope. And it felt even worse to fail after that. The rest of Rezo's life and the state of the world got worse too. The Great Depression was still going strong. And as Hitler got more and more popular, people started to wonder if there was going to be a war. So Rezo and pretty much everyone else around him just sank further into their fears and worries and kept praying for something to change.

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