 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, hello there. Welcome to Dapper History with me and my co-host. Also, welcome to Women's History Month. Today we'll be talking about one of the earliest female doctors in the United States, the girl boss trailblazer with a theory to revolutionize the way we look at health and medicine. Through persistence and hard work, she became one of the first female serial killers in the United States. That's right, we're talking about Linda Hazard. Also, I want to put this as an official trigger warning that this video will be talking about disordered eating habits, including starvation. I'm not going to go into any excessive grizzly detail. I'm just letting you know that if that's not something you want to hear about, this is not the video for you. Linda was born in 1867 in Cobra, Minnesota. From a young age, she was described as intelligent, curious, and studious, doing very well in school. But there was something off about her. I mean, of course, there was something off about her. Why else would I be making a video on her? She's described in reports as being overbearing and intimidating, which got worse as she got older. And keep in mind, this was back in the day when women had virtually no power whatsoever, so for her to be considered intimidating really meant something. She got married to Edwin Perry in 1885 and had two children with him. But Perry was a broke-ass b***h who was holding Linda back from her ultimate dream, medical malpractice. So she divorced his broke-ass, leaving her two children behind and moved to Minneapolis, the city of dreams. There, she would begin her new controversial theory on medicine. So what was this theory that was so groundbreaking that no one had thought of it before? Well, it basically boiled down to Linda's belief that overeating is the cause of most physical ailments. Okay, I get that. Eating too much fat, cholesterol, sugar, sodium, that can definitely have a negative effect on your health. I agree with that. So what is the cure for that that you're suggesting, Linda? Starvation. Because of eating too much sometimes is bad for your health, then eating nothing all the time must be the golden tickets of healthy living. Obviously, why didn't I think of that? And no, you should never eat when you're hungry, okay? These f***ing bitches who are saying, you should eat when you're hungry! Don't listen to her! You should eat when you're hungry! Eat when you're hungry! That is the worst advice ever, okay? I just moved the chair for you. Why are you like this? In 1902, right around the time that she was divorcing her husband, you go girl, her first patient died in her care. Oops! And of course, the cause of death was determined to be starvation. But then, the family of the victim noticed that his body was lighter in more ways than one, as in, a significant amount of his jewelry had gone missing after he checked into Linda's care. Sips tea. It's so hot. Oh my god. That wasn't a joke. I didn't mean to do that f***. So obviously at this point, everyone's pissed and they all want Linda in jail for murdering and thieving. They hate to see a girl boss winning, what can I say? But here's where it gets juicy. They couldn't get her for stealing because there wasn't enough evidence. And they couldn't get her for malpractice because, get this, she didn't have a medical license at all! And somehow that means she was off the hook! Woohoo! Girl power! Yes! After this, Linda met the man of her dreams, Samuel Christman Hazard. He was an alcoholic who got kicked out of the military for misappropriating army funds. Also, he has been married twice, didn't bother to divorce his last wife, married Linda, got arrested for bigamy. Bada bing bada boom. After Samuel got out of jail, he and Linda scampered off to Washington State to begin saving lives and making the world the worst place. They chose Washington State because at this time there was some bullshit legal loophole there that grandfathered in some practitioners of alternative medicine, meaning that Linda got a medical license despite having no education in the field. Girl power! Yes! Woo! She bought a piece of property called Willerness Heights with the dream of eventually turning that into a sanitarium paradise. In the meantime, with her new loophole medical license, Linda got to work. Now for some reason, quite a few people were drawn to Linda's controversial new practice. I speculate that a lot of them were either hypochondriacs or people who actually were sick and just were unable to get the help that they needed elsewhere. One way or another, the story was always the same. After seeking her out and having a consultation, Linda would be able to convince them the best remedy for whatever illness they had is starvation therapy. And then every single person, after about two or three months of the therapy, would die of starvation. But don't think that Samuel was sitting around being a deadbeat while Linda worked. Oh no! He earned his keep by taking control of the patient's funds while they were in a compromised state and basically just stealing all their money. You go, king! So at this point, people are dying left and right and everyone knows it's Linda. Everyone's trying to stop her. Newspapers are publishing articles about this woman doctor who keeps killing her patients. Children give her a state the nickname of starvation heights and are afraid to go near it. You know what I think they were actually afraid of? A strong woman. Cops are desperately trying to find something that they can arrest her for, but they can't get anything because she has her special loophole license and alternative medicine with the added excuse that all the patients were sick when they came in there was nothing we could do. Go off, sis. Don't let them mansplain anything to you. Also, she wasn't technically forcing anyone to starve to death. All the patients willingly chose to participate in her treatment. Keep this in mind. We'll be coming back to it later. Enter Claire and Dora Williamson, two wealthy British women who are firm believers in alternative medicine. I assume that their appointment with Linda went something like this. Hi, queen. So we are two hypochondriacs with unlimited money and we hear you have some sexy new therapy that we want to try out. Ladies, you have come to the right place. It's called starvation therapy. It's exactly what it sounds like and it has a 0% success rate. So are you interested? Are we interested? Does Margaret Thatcher have girl power? We'll get back to the sisters in a minute, but first I'm going to take a little detour. I'm going to pause the jokes for a second because I think it's important to honestly show just how bad things got under Linda's care. Remember earlier when I said that all of her patients did her treatment voluntarily? That was a lie. While it's true that they all voluntarily chose to begin the treatment, Linda wouldn't allow anyone to stop or leave under any circumstances. She would intimidate and manipulate these patients, not allowing them to leave, even when they were experiencing new physical ailments or when they begged to go to a hospital. She would also cut them off from their friends and family so that no one would know how bad it had gotten until it was too late. And of course, when the patient was too weak and delirious to advocate for themselves, Linda would have her lawyer swoop in, take control of their funds and even rewrite their wills, basically giving her unlimited money. Honestly, the fact that Linda could find both a husband and a lawyer that were just as shifty as her is pretty impressive. We know some of the details of her treatments because one of her patients, Earl Edward Erdman, kept a journal detailing how much he ate every day and how it was affecting him. I'm going to read you just some of his journal entries. Slept better last night, head quite busy, eyes yellow and streaked red. February 21, backache today, just below the ribs. February 24, slept better Wednesday night, kind of frontal headache in AM, heart hit up to 95 a minute, sweat considerable. February 26, did not sleep so well Friday night, pain and right side just below ribs and back. Earl was hospitalized and died March 28, just before he could receive a blood transfusion. Over the course of her life, Linda is estimated to have killed between 20 and 40 people in one of the most painful and dehumanizing ways possible, all the while taking them and their families for a ride. Let's get back to the sisters. Midway through their treatment, their childhood nanny, Margaret Conway received a mysterious telegram telling her that she had to get to America as soon as possible because the sisters were in dire need of her help. Upon her arrival, she was greeted by, you guessed it, Samuel. And he told her with a heavy heart that unfortunately Claire had passed away and Dora had gone insane. When Margaret saw Claire's body, she couldn't recognize it because it was so skeletized to the point where it didn't look like her when she was alive. At this point, Dora weighed 50 pounds. She quietly begged Margaret to help her get out of here. But then when Linda entered the room, her story changed completely, at which point Dora would say, I love this treatment. I don't want to leave. Linda is so helpful. Margaret was eventually able to get Dora out of Wilderness Heights after paying Linda a thousand dollars for some fucking reason. Finally, with Dora's testimony, they had enough evidence to take Linda to court. And I'm gonna pause the girl boss jokes for a moment here and say, yes! Oh my god, finally! The judge threw the book at Linda because at this point she had been up to this bullshit for years now. And there's no surprise that a lot of her former staff was willing to come forward and tell some of the horrific stories about what she did to people. Surprisingly, some of her former staff vehemently defended her, even saying that some of her former patients, you know, the ones who survived, were living their best lives and actually came back to Linda to receive for the treatment. Yeah, that's called Stockholm Syndrome, babe. That's not a good thing. The jury was having none of this. They found Linda guilty of manslaughter and sentenced her to two to 20 years in prison. Linda's response to all of this, it's because I'm a woman, isn't it? I swear to God, at this point in reading Linda's story I'm convinced that she put like all of her stats into luck or something because after serving like the bare minimum of her prison sentence, she received a full pardon from the governor of the state and got out of jail. You can't keep getting away with it! You can't keep getting away with it! This pardon did come on the condition that Linda and Samuel get the fuck out of the United States and never come back. So Linda and Samuel skedaddled off to New Zealand where they lived the rest of their lives. Linda wrote a few books. She set up a school of health which later got demolished in a fire. Get fucked. Finally, when she was 71, Linda fell ill. Guess. Just guess what you think she did to cure this illness. I'll give you a hint. It wasn't ibuprofen. In 1938, Linda died by starving herself to death. She was the final victim of her own treatment. I was gonna try to find some positive or inspirational way to end this video but I don't think... wait, yes I can do that. When we think of serial killers, who are the first people that come to your mind? Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, ha! All men. Linda Hazard was a trailblazer. Fuck. Linda Hazard was a trailblazer for ending innocent people's lives and she showed us that anything a man can do, a woman can do as well. Happy Women's History Month everybody. See you next, whenever the fuck I upload.