Episode 452: Doris Duke and the Murder of Eddie Tirella

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery. Plus. Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna.

And I'm ash, and this is morbid.

It's morbid in the afternoon. woo yippee-ki-yay, it hasn't been morbid in the morning for a while, yeah.

Because we're always doing like, Admin shit in the morning, yeah, and it's like kids going to school, so it just gets chaotic in the morning. Now it really does.

The puppies are like, cry-crying. Yeah, now there's puppies involved in the whole thing. So our mornings start, John, and my mornings start at like 3 a.m now, yeah.

Terrible. It's been a ride. Oh, and by the way, thanks everybody for mentioning litter-mate syndrome. I have gotten more messages than I can count about litter-mate syndrome fun.

And I appreciate the concern. I did research litter-mate syndrome before I got these puppies, so I know all about it. We have a trainer, we're very like on it.

That's when they get it, they're being separated with training and being separated with sleeping and all that good stuff. They just snuggle together sometimes during the day. The litter-mate syndrome thing is when they get like, too bonded and then they hate you. Yeah, they either like, they like, super bond with each other and don't bond with you. Or they get super aggressive with each other and can get like it can get like, dangerous.

Oh, shit, like they can get like too aggressive with each other and like, eat each other, yeah, damn.

So we're on it. My cats just like sniff each other's noses, to be honest. Well, Sydney and Blanche seem to dig each other. Yeah, they're good bros. Yeah, they're good bros.

I love them, they can handle being apart right now, so that's good. Yeah, yeah.

We'll just keep it up, dogs and cats. But thanks for everybody mentioning that I appreciate it, but just know that I know what it is.

So I promise, I know what it is. Ick, yick, ick, yick.

I didn't, I thought you were going to say something. No, I thought I was, too. And then she took a breath.

Yeah, I really did, and she looked at her page and I said, Oh, what's what's coming? and then nothing came. I think I just forgot how to do this for a second, which is bad. It's been a busy week.

Yeah, we had a busy week. We got to collab with Bailey, Sarian, with the girls from red handed, with the girls from red handed.

Let me tell you, it's so weird, though, seeing that many humans within a one week period. Because we live a life where, like, we see each other, our spouses and Mikey, and that's literally it. And it's even weirder because we have collabed with Bailey before, but it was over the internet and, like, we feel like we know each other.

And then we got to do it, this time in person, right? So we were like, we're meeting each other, but like, we're not meeting each other because we know each other. Yeah, but it was very strange.

And then Red Handed was in person, too, so it was like, we're usually doing these things on Zoom. So it was a whole week of in person getting to hang with pod friends. It was great, it was so much fun.

It was just wild, like I forgot how to act for a minute. Yeah, I always forget how to act. I was like, Oh, hi, yeah.

Oh, hey, I'm ash, hey weirdos. And then they're like, This is life, this is life.

Ash, are you broken? Like, Oh, hey weirdos, what's going on? They're like, what, me checking out at target?

I'm like, Hi, oh yeah, weirdo, keep it, weird bye.

Just like short circuit, everywhere I go, keep it weird bye, keep it weird bye.

That's who we are. Oh, I feel like a robot sometimes, but don't we all? Yeah, don't we all.

Yeah, I'm trying to think, if I have any more, I'm sure I'll have more. TikTok shout outs for you guys. Like in the next episode, I haven't been on TikTok as much.

Yeah, that's fun, but I'm going to get back onto it. So I'll have some more for you because it's fun to shout out. TikTok people. Did you say TikTok? Watch what happens live last night?

That's something we could talk about. Oh, no, God, no. Tom Schwartz. I was like, Excuse me, no, I didn't. no. That happened in an alternate universe.

Yeah, it did. No. Tom Schwartz was on, Watch what happens live, and he told people to hug Tom. No, Tom Schwartz was on and he told people to hug Tom Sandoval. If they saw them. Wow, and did you see Lala's response to that? No, but I bet it was awesome.

She said, We're not gonna hug him, we're gonna atomic wedgie him, which I was like, Yeah, that's pretty epic. Don't put your hands on anybody else, but but atomic wedgie, Tom Sandoval, Atomic wedgie. I like it that. I mean, welcome to VPR. Corner for a second. But man, I can't wait for that reunion guys.

And it's not happening until, like, the end of May. I know you keep telling me that and it's almost like you punch me in the face every time we talk. Well, it's because, if I remember it, I feel like I've been punched from within my face, so then I have to outwardly punch you in the face. But, like, figuratively, yeah, it makes me sad, though I don't wanna wait that long.

I know I don't either, but Ariana looks phenomenal, She looks so fucking good. The revenge dress. Shouldn't we all be so lucky? Shouldn't we all be that goddess?

The baddest bitch on the planet she really is. But you know what, I have a long one for you today, I'm here for it.

And there was really no way to transition out of Vanderpump rules into true crime, but there never is. We should probably begin with vanderpump rules. Get into chit chat and then go into the story, because it's probably an easier segue. Yeah, Sugoo, but who knows?

Who isn't that? Where did I hear Sugoo? Was it the office? No, Oh, it's, and that's why we drink. Oh, they say that, Yeah, sugoo.

I was like, I wanna give them cred because I remember hearing that word. I like Sugoo, I like it a lot and I like it. That's why we drink.

Hey Emma and Christine, Hey, what's up? We love you. Okay, well, yeah, so we're gonna be talking about what's one of my favorite things in the entire world other than old Hollywood.

Socialites and old socialite. I fucking love it and we're gonna be talking about Doris, motherfucking duke. Oh, let's go.

And she's actually one of the most like, famous socialites in America. From the very start of her life, she had access to quite literally all the money and all the power in the world. Wow. But weirdly, she spent a good portion of her life like bouncing from one disappointing relationship to the next. Unfortunate.

Yeah, every time she entered a new relationship, she was more and more jaded from the last one, and it was kind of a pattern that was taking shape. Doris really seemed to be losing control of herself and her emotions toward, like, the middle part of her life. Not great, which could be part of the reason that she is linked to the suspicious death of one, Eduardo Torella.

But because he appears in, like, the later portion of her life. And there's a lot to cover before that. We're gonna start at the very beginning. Before we give too much away. Let's go, because I know you guys don't like if we give too much away. So I said, I won't.

I won't do it, I won't. I will cater to you my little babies, and I meant that lovingly, not like you're being a baby.

I meant like, you are my babies, I meant you are my bebes, my bebes. Actually, Moira Rose is on the other side of my mic right now, so Doris. She was born on November 22nd, 1912.

And from the time she took her first breath, she was among the rarest class of individuals set above and apart from other Americans. Because of all the money she was born into, it's a whole lot of money in a small fucker. You know what I mean, you know what I mean, you know what I mean.

We're all like, Yeah, Cardi, totally so. Her father was James Buchanan Duke, better known to his friends and family as simply Buck.

Buck, which I'm like, if you have a motherfucking name like Buchanan, don't you dare shorten it to Buck? Yeah, don't. Buchanan is beautiful, yeah.

I mean, come on, he could do whatever he damn well pleased because he was one of the richest men in the world, and he was one of the richest men in the world. Because he had inherited his father's tobacco company, and also a power company later, so he expanded the tobacco company greatly. He actually made them the first company to operate automated cigarette machines in the U.S.

Which like, Oh, delightful, so cool, but like, so terrible, wonderful, cool that like. He invented something that could make it happen so quickly, but bad because cancer sticks.

Truth So, by 1900, he had gained control of a lot of the competing brands, and he consolidated all of them and formed the American Tobacco company. Awesome yay, so happy about that.

This is wild. Eventually, he owned almost 93 of the tobacco market in the U.S. Wow, and a power company on the side. Damn the money.

The money I told you, it's a whole lot of money, that's a lot of money, it's almost all of it, actually.

Damn, and you said money and power, and you meant it. Oh, I meant it. you really meant it, literal power. no, like you meant like power.

I got the power, but it's literal power, and tobacco, which is also power at this point. Yeah, I really, I know, yeah. At that point, people thought like, smoking cigarettes cured everything, exactly.

So Buck married his second wife, who was known as Nanny. That's what they called her, because her name was Nanalene. I believe, is how you say it. I love a nanny. Yeah, my grandmother was nanny.

Yeah, my kid's grandmother is nanny. my kid's grandmother will also be nanny, because my mother, well soon to be mother-in-law, is nanny. Yeah, and she spells it just like our nanny does.

Oh, I love that, which makes me happy. Yeah, so yes. He married Nanalene Nanny Holt Inman in 1907, after a very messy and very public divorce from his previous wife, just one year before. Her name was Lillian, but I didn't really look into her.

To be honest, that's okay, so I'm sure Lillian was fine. Who really knows cause they got divorced?

It could have been him, it could have been her. It's not my business, but nanny, she's my business, nanny.

She had become a young widow in 1902, when her husband, wealthy industrialist. Is that how you say that? Yeah, thanks, William Inman. He died in 1902 from what is listed as diabetes, but in all likelihood, it might've been alcoholism, yeah.

Yeah, but you know, diabetes will do so after her, that'll do, that'll do. After her husband's death, she spent years traveling, shopping, being a young society woman. Pretty much all I've ever hoped and dreamed of.

Yeah, until she met Ben Duke, who was Buck's younger brother, and they met in 1906. At Lake Toxaway Resort, which I'm like, did you name it Toxaway? Because, like, even back then, it was like, trendy to get the toxins away. Ooh, I like that.

Or maybe it's a place I don't really know.

But who really cares what it was? I mean, maybe you do, but whatever the meaning changed the entire course of nanny's life is the point here. Ben ended up writing a letter to his older brother and told him. Quote I have met the most beautiful woman in the world, essentially trying to set his older brother up with this sexy ass lady.

Good for him, and guess what, what, the plan worked, what?

And by the next year, Nanny and Buck were married on July 24th in a small ceremony in Brooklyn. Oh, adorable, yeah, now, nanny. She brought a huge inheritance to this new marriage and also her son from that previous marriage. Walker Inman.

Buck initially actually wanted to adopt Walker because, you know, he would be a son. He would go on to carry the Duke legacy, and it would be wonderful. But Walker was like, Fuck all of that.

He didn't care, he literally said that. It's a direct quote. I don't know where I found it, but it's direct. He was not interested.

He made it clear from a very early age that he did not wish for Buck to adopt him. And they actually fought a lot over their years, like a ton, but especially more and more as Walker got older. And the fights led Buck to worry that he was not gonna have anybody, especially like a child, to leave his fortune to, or to carry on his name. Yeah, like, he's like, Well, shit, this is all gonna end with me and this is like an amazing empire that I've built.

Yeah, like, you can't just let it float off into the ether. That would suck so bad. Let a stranger take it, I know, right? So luckily, in the spring of 1912, that all changed when, at 42 years old, Nanny discovered she was pregnant.

Whoa, right? Which, like, must've been crazy back then, too, because, like, we know a lot more about pregnancy now. But like, in 1912, I feel like that must've been a little scary. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, like, I don't think she expected to find herself pregnant. No, definitely not in 1912. exactly now that fall, she went into labor actually unexpectedly.

And Doris, our girly girl, but like, not really. Was born in the master bedroom of the Buck and of Buck and Nanny's rented house, which was on New York 78th Street. And as she was born, she was surrounded by, Quote, a fleet of high priced private physicians and nurses. She was just surrounded by money, bye money.

As she came into the world, they just threw cash at her. They absolutely did. Yep, they were like, let's make it rain up in here, let's make it rain for this infant.

And this, like, it's really interesting that this happened, but it's also really scary because her birth made headlines in major cities across the country. In America, that's terrifying. And of course. The press noted that she was now the sole inheritor of Buck's $100 million estate, which led to her being nicknamed the richest girl in the world. Ooh, that's a little scary, right?

That's a little scary, and you know what, maybe I'm thinking of it in, like a now age where, like social media is so scary and things fly so quickly. But I mean, back then, back then, the news was the news, obviously.

But it was like, social media kind of. It's like, Oof, that's a little scary. And a lot to put on a baby, a lot to put on a baby and on her family to shield her from. And by the way, so. His estate was worth $100 million.

Then today, that would be worth $3 billion. Whenever you bring me into a place of billion, I don't, my mind cannot comprehend a billion. no like a billion.

That's watching Succession. The other night they were talking about some deal and they were like 10 billion, and they were just saying it like it was. It sounds fake.

Here's a cobb salad. Like it was just like it was, so would you like an egg with that? And I was, like, billions.

Like, billions, billion literally sounds fake to me. billion exists, like, that's so crazy to me, it's wild.

Yeah, just ask, you know, Shiv and Logan Roy, I will. It exists, it exists, and they throw it around like monopoly money over there.

I mean, when you get to billion, I feel like it is fucking monopoly money. Yeah, at that point it's gotta be like, whatever. What's scary is, I was never good at monopoly money, so I don't know I was never a monopoly gal.

I am gonna go on the record right now, I fucking hate Monopoly. That's a bold stance to take. I will, you know what, I'll stand with you, but only because I cannot remember the last time I played Monopoly.

No, me either, and I never remember it being a good time. It's never a good time, I never do. Whenever it was, like, brought forth that we were gonna bring out the monopoly board, I was like, I would rather go lay in the middle of the road.

You're gonna bring out clue, let's motherfucking go, we'll make a night of it. Yeah, I got kids clue for my kids recently.

It's so much fun, you have to figure out who broke the toy. That's what you do in Kids Clue Cause. Like, I'm not gonna introduce them to murder like right now, when they're seven, why not?

But I know it's crazy. But man, they love that and they keep asking me to play the adult clue, and I'm like, not yet, not yet.

Just because of the basis of it. Yeah, you don't need to explain one, I don't want to explain that to you, and two, you don't need to go to school and talk about like. The butler was murdered in the kitchen with a candlestick.

Oh my god, like whoa, but kids clue who broke that toy? and what toy was it that broke? yeah.

That sounds cool, it's all the same characters, I like that a lot, I love it, but yeah, clue I'm all about.

Monopoly not so much. No fuck, monopoly too much, but Doris, but Doris too.

She's rich as fuck, and from the moment she was born, it was clear her life was going to be very, very different than anybody else's life around her. Buck was also a huge germaphobe, and he was, like, incredibly protective of her. So he bought a private pullman car that he named Doris. That way, the family could travel around New York, just like totally isolated from the general public.

But the car was stocked with champagne, cigars and staffed with a full-time chef. So wait, this is a car for the child in like the family. But like, he got it so that the child wouldn't be, like, just wheeled around in a little.

I thought you meant this was literally just for the child, and it was like stocked with champagne, cigars, tobacco. He bought it when they had the child. It's kind of like, when you get like, when you have more than two children and you get a third row. Yeah, like, you get the bigger car, you get a rich little baby to give all your inheritance to.

So you get them a car that's stocked with all that shit and a chef that's sick, which I was like, But where does the chef cook, though? Yeah, that was my first question that I was gonna have about that. It's like, what's happening there?

What kind of chef is it? Is it only a salad chef? He's a full-time chef? He's a full-time chef. So also, it's like, is he just hanging out in that car?

Always, all the time, that's not good for you, just at the ready, I don't know.

And it's like, where is it? Is everything up to code? I don't think there even was a code back then. Is the temperature of everything right when he starts cooking? Probably not.

I don't know, like, I don't know about that. He might get real fumey up in that car. Yeah, I'd rather just stop and get some burgers on the way. Yeah, too much going on.

But Buck also hired what was described as a battery of nurses and bodyguards to protect his daughter. Because he was rightfully convinced that she had become an attractive target for kidnappers. Since everyone was like, Hey, this bitch has $300 billion, yeah, you know.

Wait, No, three billion, not $300 billion. That'd be insane. yeah, that would be wild, that would be crazy, and you know what?

I don't blame him, I don't either. Billions of dollars, he can afford to do it, do whatever the fuck he wants. Yeah, do it, man.

It's for your kids, but that's the thing. When she had been born and dubbed the richest girl in the world, it opened the floodgates. And tons and tons of letters were starting to be sent to the family on a regular basis. Begging the baby for money like, she can't even write you back. People have always been people.

Yeah, people you know like people always, just people always take it that extra mile, people stay people they do true, like you said that. And I was like, then I was like, No, that makes sense.

No, that makes no sense. No, it's really not. Open up your red mouth, yeah. But the thought of someone kidnapping her for ransom wasn't far-fetched.

So Buck was spending money to protect his daughter out of pure fear and constant paranoia. And when he wasn't doing that, he was showering her and his wife with. Like, super extravagant gifts and artwork and antiques. Like Craziness. Sounds like the life of. Is it the life of Riley? Did they say? It sounds like that? Yeah, it is.

Is it Riley? is it Riley? But from the moment she arrived in this world, there was a very loud and clear message being conveyed to Doris. That you could have whatever the fuck you want, whenever the fuck you want. And there is nothing that can't be bought because you have the means to do so. And herein lies the problem. All of that other stuff, you're like, that sounds cool.

Beautiful, awesome. Yeah, yeah, why not? You got the money for it, do it.

But then when you get to that part, you're like, and there it is, that's the issue, exactly, that is the issue, exactly.

Because that doesn't, that doesn't make a great adult no, or an easy to deal with adult no, no.

No, no, no, no. So shortly after Doris was born, the family actually moved back to Duke Farms, which was their 2,700 acre in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey. It's actually cool to read about Doris because she's from around here, I know that is cool.

She spends most of her time in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Actually, oh, that's funny, yeah. Like, the Newport Mansions will become a thing in this, the Newport Mansions, they have such like a cool mystique about them. Oh my gosh.

Like, they're so knives out, they are, like, they're so like murder mystery, yeah.

They just got that vibe about it, I just love it. I was like looking at some of them online as I was doing this story, just to see. Because I've never been inside of one, have you? No, I don't think I've actually been inside the Newport mansions.

You can, though. Yeah, they do tours and stuff. I want to do that. And I think like part of them isn't like Salve Regina, that campus, like some of the mansions, are part of it or something.

Probably, I think it's like a beautiful campus. Oh, love that I didn't even know that, just saying.

I just said, probably because it sounded good, probably. Do you ever sit down on your ankle and then you go to move your ankle to the opposite way? And you're afraid you're going to break it in half all the time? That just happened to me, so, like, bear with me a moment.

All the time fuck.

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole and I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time. The impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away? We've covered stories like a Shark tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills. An active lawsuit filed by Larry King. And no real product to push.

He then began to prey on vulnerable women, instead selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. you can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

Experience In Person The unsettling, true stories behind the Dr. Death podcast at Exhibit C Live presents Dr. Death a closer look. This live tour experience brings you face to face with accounts of doctors who caused irreparable harm. The system that failed to protect their patients and the heroes who stopped them. You'll hear from me, Laura Beale, reporter and host of the Dr.

Death Podcast, along with our panel of experts and whistleblowers, it's hosted by Suspects Matthew Scher. It's an important evening with one of the most iconic true crime podcasts of all time. Don't miss your chance to be part of the conversation. Exhibit C Live presents Dr.

Death A Closer Look. Tickets go on sale August 9th, so get your truest true crime fans together and get tickets before they sell out.

Spock, spock. So they moved back to New Jersey to their, you know, this like small, quaint little farm with 2,700 acres. No, in addition to the no big deal, yeah, NVG.

Yeah, just a couple, just a few acres, but in addition to the main house, the property included more than 40 other buildings. Damn nine lakes, nine lakes.

And one and a half miles of stone walls, huh? So before Doris was born, the property had actually been open to the public. Like they were welcome to come stroll on the grounds. There was a lot of diverse wildlife that could be spotted.

The landscape was beautiful, it was like visiting a park. But when the family returned, Buck was way too scared of having the public roam the property while they were there. I don't blame him, yeah.

Especially because a lot of interest had peaked in his family. Yeah, of course. So he closed the property and he said he effect, or it was said. He effectively kept the world from his daughter and keeping his daughter from entering the world. That's tough.

And it's like, the thing is totally protect your kid at all costs, but you can't cut them off from the world. I know that's, but I understand why that was so hard. Yeah, totally to balance, because it's like, how do you balance that?

Because I'm sure, like, especially in that position, that's well. I was just going to say, like, I'm sure every parent feels that to a certain degree, like you want to shelter your child as long as you can. But then to enter, like all the money that they had into it, it's scary. That's when it gets, like, really, really tough.

But I don't know, I feel bad, like that's a shitty like, I know I'm saying, I feel bad for like, billionaires.

I'm not saying that, no, but I'm saying, like, that position, I feel bad, you feel bad for this father, that you're worried about your kid.

Yeah, you're like, parent to parent, parent to parent, you can relate on that level, we have so much in common.

Not many more by nine legs, you know? So, while she was shut out from the outside world at Duke Farms, Buck doted on his daughter entirely. He would buy her anything she could have wanted toys, pets, ponies.

But he never really let other children come over to play with Doris. And on top of that, for the first 10 years of her life, I just got Super Boston right there, and I like, felt it for the first 10 years of her life. You kid?

But she was homeschooled by private tutors, so between being kept away from children her age, in play and at school, her social skills were lacking, to say the least. But luckily, luckily, he came around, and in 1922, when Doris was 10, her parents decided to enroll her in the Brearley school. I think that's how you say it.

It was an all girls private school on the upper east side of New York. Oh, excuse me, xoxo, Gossip girl now I had it originally written.

Written I just said I had originally written, I had originally written that. She became best friends with a girl named Blair and Serena, and then they lived happily ever after the end.

There you go, but that's not what happened. You remember the character? Doris? Yeah, right.

I had originally written that, yeah, you had written that, they wrote in her out of there now. School helped Doris dive into different interests and things like music, art and literature, which those were all things that she really loved to like dive into. But school didn't do much to improve her social skills.

She was still getting piles and piles of letters from strangers, either making threats to her or begging her for money. And she would show them to her classmates, very unaware that this was not something they would ever relate to. I was gonna say, What do you say to that? I'd be like, That's wild, you wanna be friends?

That's really scary. I'd be like, I'll help you, I wanna help you now. One friend she did make recalled that Doris was, quote, a smart girl, sardonic and kind of scrawny. But then she went on to say she was definitely something of a pariah among the other kids.

That's sad. It was giving me like a little princess. Remember that movie? Oh my god, you know, I've been thinking about that movie.

Really, yeah, for some reason, the vibes were similar. That's how I felt sometimes you and I are like, really like lately.

I feel like, too, like, I'm like, can you just like, leave my head for a moment? get the fuck out of my head? ash my head? Okay, I just feel bad because it's not her fault.

No, you know, like it's not her fault she was born into, I just said, her fur, it's not her fault.

She wrote it, she wrote it. It's not her fault, it's not her fault that she was born into a family of a billionaire. Like, you know, legacy. Yeah, one in a billion chance that's gonna happen to us.

It sucks that, like, she kind of, she reaps the benefits of it, the monetary benefits of it, but that's not everything exactly. And it's like, obviously, that's really tough for a kid. I just feel bad.

I do, too, for the kid, but sadly, things were gonna take a sad turn for Doris. That is sad because in 19 sad.

Brought to you by Sad in 1925. Life shifted really dramatically for her because her father's health started to take a serious decline as she was getting older. Like, into her, like, 10, 11, 12 years. I don't know what the fuck you call those her 10, 11, 12s, you know? yeah, the 10, the 11, the 12s.

Pre-teens, he was constantly fatigued, he was constantly sick. But now it was becoming clear that this was a lot more serious than anybody had originally thought. Oh, no. And on October 10th, John Buchanan Duke did end up dying from pernicious anemia.

Pernicious, Yeah, damn. It's a condition where the body is incapable of absorbing enough vitamin B12. Eek.

Yeah, yeah, that's rough now. Doris was a self-described daddy's girl, and Buck's death, excuse me, left a major hole in her life and left her alone with a very cold and very distant mother. Oh, no. And, of course, a full staffed house.

Of course. But the year before he died, Buck had established the Duke Endowment with a $40 million donation to Trinity College in North Carolina, where he was from. Damn. After that, the school was redeveloped and branded as Duke University to honor him. Oh, that one.

Some people say that he made them rename it after that, but if he donated $40 million, I think that's fair. Yeah, I would say so, I'd want it named after me at that point, that is for sure, you know?

Now, after he died, his will left another 65 million to the school, but the bulk of his estate went to his daughter. Leaving 13-year-old Doris with roughly again $100 million in cash. Damn, she's flushed with cash, and again $3 billion today, so she had $3 billion in cash.

Damn, she, on top of that, had control of Duke Farms, among other properties. Wow, at that point, she quite literally was the richest girl in the world. wow.

The entire world, the world, the planet, all of it, the planet. But sadly, her inheritance put more of a strain on the relationship she had with her mother. Because nanny, which I would, too, resented the fact that her husband had left everything to their daughter.

Can you imagine, yikes, you marry this man's? And like, I want my kid to be taken care of, or my future kids, but like, they get everything. Yeah, all those nights we spent together.

That's a tough hit and they get everything. That's a tough hit to take. That's rough, I will say that.

And what was even harder of a hit to take was there actually ended up being a lawsuit where Doris sued Nanny over the sale of Duke Farms because Nanny wanted to sell the property, but Doris wanted to keep it. So she ended up suing Nanny and the executors of the will successfully. Wow, and she kept Duke Farms and the family until she died, it was like her primary residence.

Wow, look at that, isn't that crazy? But like, 13 years old and she sues them, 13 years old having to sue them too, and that's so traumatic, too. Like, what the fuck?

And it's like, how do you even come to that place at 13?

You know, like, how do you even know to do that? Yeah, and you guys just like, go home and eat dinner together after your lawsuit gets settled out of court. And like, who got her to do that? It had to have been somebody, I think.

I don't know, because it's like that person must have had a vested interest. Maybe it was just her, though, because she sued her mother and the executors of the will, maybe, I don't know.

You're right, and she's a very steadfast, girly. So I mean, yeah, but that definitely could be it. Now. Fast forward a few years from that to the fall of 1930. Now, Doris is celebrating her 18th birthday with a big old coming out party.

Oh, you've always wanted one of those, a debutante ball with the white gloves, ever since you saw it on Gilmore girls. Oh my, I've always wanted a debutante party. Yeah, you wanted to do a fan dance?

I really, really wanted to do the fan dance, y'all like, I don't know any of the interworkings about anything else, but I really want to do the fan dance. Yeah, like, you don't want to, like, have anything else to do with it, you just want to do the dress. Probably the food, absolutely, the food and the gloves and the white gloves.

I love it and the gloves now. Most society women would like have this at this time and love it and all that jazz. Doris fucking hated this, she wanted to go off to college.

She didn't want to have one of these, but Nanny was like, you are having a coming out party, of course, like, Duh, you're Doris Duke now. The coming out party was held at Rough Point, which was their New York Rhode Island No Newport Rhode Island estate. That will end up becoming a huge point in this story later on.

But it marked Doris's entrance into high society, high society and the world of the elite and the wealthy American families. Cha-ching, cha-ching, which all sounds pretty terrible, if you ask me, but like the food and the white gloves, the fan dance, sign me up.

Into it. So the coming out party, like I said, definitely meant a hell of a lot more to Nanny than it did to Doris. Nanny was a member of what was referred to as the Old Guard, which is just like the old high society woman, the original. It's like, you know, it's like how it meant more to Emily Gilmore than it did to Rory.

And Lorelai, exactly exactly now. So she took nanny. She took the rights and responsibilities of society, life very seriously. While Doris, on the other hand, saw the responsibilities of all this wealth and privilege she had as an inescapable burden.

MM At some points, I'm sure, yeah, she probably loved it. There was probably some pretty sick parts of it.

Yeah, definitely not gonna lie, but at least at least at this point in her life, she felt like it was an inescapable burden. Yeah, I'm sure there were definitely those moments of being like, Oh, cool, everyone wants to kidnap me. Yeah, exactly.

That's a burden and I'm sure it was very difficult to make friends that were not of her station. Quote unquote exactly that like, you don't know if people are just being friends with you because you got money exactly, you know.

Now, she would tend to hang out Doris with a different crowd that nanny deemed the lower class, ooh, and she called them undesirables. Wow, I call you an uncrustable. That's like a compliment, though, so don't even call her that.

But these people, what flavor, though? what's not a great flavor? Remember when I got them to tweet at me about the grilled cheese flavor? Yes, that was a good time.

I need Uncrustable to please bring back that flavor. I never had that, but I'm intrigued by it. It was greasy and beautiful and everything that dreams are made of, if you ask me. And it also probably sent me into a very, I don't even know, a very unhealthy lifestyle breathing down the health highway.

Yeah, yeah, that was me, beep, beep backwards. Yeah, yeah, exactly with my lights off.

But these people who were the undesirables to Nanny were Doris's friends. Yeah, they were the musicians, artists and writers, and they would all hang out at the Harlem Jazz clubs. Ooh, that sounds cool, which Doris discovered in her late teens and absolutely fell in love with.

She was a big, big fan of jazz. Ba-da-pow, There you go, what did the watch? What crappens guys call the lady?

Oh, trixie, monocle, Trixie, monocle. Go listen. If you love Bravo, go listen to watch what crappens Ronnie and Ben are. Chef's kiss.

And we love them. We do now try as she might, to express her disinterest in the high society life that was so important to her mother. Doris could not escape the responsibility or the pressure of her wealth. And the most important expectation that she was faced with was finding a husband that her mother felt was a good match for her status and social position. Oy.

Now, Nanny tolerated Doris's art and musician friends from the Harlem nightlife, but they would literally never do for a husband in Nanny's eyes. Yeah, now Nanny had her eye on another man in Doris's life. Ooh, I don't know why I'm getting Southern, because they're not even southern.

But this guy was Jimmy Cromwell. He was an aspiring politician, and he was also the sole heir to a fortune that was made from investment banking. With one, J..P. Morgan, I wonder if he was also related to the family from Halloweentown. It's entirely possible.

I couldn't find any valuable sources on that information, but you should look into it. I'm gonna look into it. I think you should, you know, yeah.

Do you know, Marnie? do you Jenny? Halloween is cool, okay? what's the is it, Benny, the skeleton?

Yeah, Benny, he's my favorite, but Cromwell, he sounds like a big creep. He's not like, Benny, that's not great.

He had his eye on Doris since she was just 16 years old and he was 33 at that point. So, and I, oop, I'm out, what's that? TikToks? That were like, that's weird. But as they got older, the relationship was actually encouraged by Nanny Duke.

I hate that. And friends of the Duke family, they all felt that quote A merger of the two families would strengthen their position and consolidate their wealth. EW So they were like, Yeah, it's totally fine that he's been hitting on her since she was 16..

Will it make us richer? Let's go, let's go, girls, let's go. So Jimmy and Doris, they actually did end up marrying in 1935..

Doris was 22 and he was 39.

Okay. The ceremony took place in the library of the Duke's New York Home at East 78th Street. Which I'm pretty sure, is where she was born, oh, and was described by the New York Times as unostentatious and somewhat mysterious.

Okay, which is the theme of my wedding thank you and goodbye. I like the somewhat mysterious somewhat.

Not entirely mysterious, but somewhat. But there was a little mystery in there. I like that unostentatious.

And unostentatious. I like it, yeah, I feel that I'm into it. They're like Tom Sandoval and Rachel.

Oh, their age gap. I was like, well, in what way? their age gap, in the creepiness of it all, there you go.

Now, Doris had made it a point to shield herself from the press throughout her entire life. And that's why the wedding was as private as it was unostentatious, very, very private. And I feel that too.

Now, she and Jimmy made a quick exit after the wedding. They headed to the Haba and they got on board an Italian ocean liner that was bound for Egypt, which was where they would spend their honeymoon. Oh, okay, right, my friend actually just went to Egypt.

Hi, Holly, and it looked so fucking beautiful. And now I want to go to Egypt. let's go to Egypt. Okay, cool.

Now, in the years before Jimmy and Doris were married, Nanny was really confident. Like I was just saying that his wealth was sufficient. She seemed to think that his intentions with Doris were genuine. She never thought he was a gold digger until the stock market crash of 1929. Uh-oh, then she said, I think he might be a gold digger.

You know what? She started getting a little skeptical of Jimmy Boy there and his motivations to marry her precious daughter. Because the financial crisis had caused his family to lose a large amount of their fortune. So he was kind of clinging to his relationship. And it seemed to be a way of keeping up appearances and maintaining a lifestyle that he'd gotten used to. Oh, no.

Versus like, being in love, yeah, but still, no matter how right Nanny might have been about this man. Her constant criticism of Jimmy only seemed to push Doris closer to him. Uh-oh. It was like Doris wanted to spite her mother any chance she could get.

Of course, defiance was kind of a pattern in her relationship with her mom, whether it was the coming out party, the wedding celebration or even the marriage. If Nanny thought it should be one way, Doris was like, Cool, I'm gonna go the other way. I'm so sad that Nanny was not like a radical nanny.

I know, and I mean radical in the way, that's like radical, raw, yeah, like rad.

She's so rad. Yeah, no, I was like, I don't think she's a little radical, actually. I think she maybe was.

Yeah, yeah, I'm mad that she's not rad. Yeah, yeah, I mean, bums me out.

She's a product of her environment, she sure is, but you know, you have a choice. Yeah, don't be a shit, don't be a bitch.

Yeah, don't be a bitch, don't be a bitch. She's like, What did you just say, young lady? Now? Another theme emerging in Doris's life was her desire for privacy and this tendency to avoid the press.

This was probably a behavior that grew over time, I think, and most likely came from Buck's last words to her. On his deathbed, he had told her never trust anyone. I mean, solid advice, those were his dying words to his daughter. I can't even.

His 13-year-old daughter. Solid advice, solid advice. Definitely don't trust anyone. I wish he had said a little bit more, and if you're going out, that's all.

You're like, I gotta throw something important in here. That is solid advice to throw out at the buzzer. Also, go see what you wanna see in the world. I mean, I hope an I love you was thrown in there. So I'm sure it was, I bet it was because he loved his daughter.

And I'm sure maybe that's what it led up to. Maybe it was like, this whole thing like, I love you, I never want anything to happen to you. Fly, fly, little bird, follow your dreams.

It was all these wonderful things, and it was like, follow your dreams, travel the world, but don't trust anyone. And that was the end of it. Maybe I'll give my kids that advice when I die. I think it's good advice. I would. I'm already handing out that advice to everyone I know.

Don't trust anyone, don't trust a ho. I'm not giving it to people I don't know because I don't trust anyone. Well, especially if you don't know them. But anyway, she was probably right to guard her privacy because, like we know, since she was a child. It was this endless line of strangers asking for money, threatening her safety or prying into her personal habits.

To write about them in tabloids sounds awesome. And even her mom kind of had a way of slipping in and out of those categories. Especially when it came to one money and two. How Doris's choices would affect her social status? It was like Nanny had. I think she had good intentions at her heart. But it was also always layered with, like, Well, how will people think of us? I think it's literally, and I know like, it's like Emily Gilmore.

It's like, Emily Gilmore, it literally is. It's like there's times when you're watching that show and you're like, Fuck yeah, Emily, yeah, like you love them.

Like, I know you love them, I know you want what's best for them. And then there's times where you're like, God, Emily, what the fuck, shut your mouth? And it's always to do with like appearances.

Yeah, and like, what is like socially acceptable? And I think it's just like, that's the. That is a product of how they were raised, totally unfortunately, the time period, the society they were in.

It's so surface level, though, all of it, and that's what sucks is like Doris was looked at on such a like a surface level from her own mother. Yeah, no, it's true.

And the reason why I think she was like, like she did love Doris and had good intentions, is because she was really, really worried about Doris. Getting together with Jimmy. Yeah, so worried so that she actually, before they were officially married, hired a private detective to dig into Jimmy's life. Hell yeah, which I think was again a mixture of caring a lot about her daughter, but also like, what could come out?

Yeah, making sure that you, you aren't going to tarnish my legacy here exactly now. It could have tarnished her legacy in her eyes. Because the investigation, for one reason or another, led her to believe that Jimmy was a gay man. And that would not be acceptable for her daughter, which is lame.

Yeah, now, of course, she warned Doris, but I can literally picture Doris rolling her eyes into the back of her head and not giving a shit. Yeah, cause she's like, cool mom bye. And she probably thinks at this point that her mom's going to say anything to make it so that she doesn't marry Jimmy.

Now, whether it was because Jimmy wasn't necessarily interested in Doris physically or not, signs of a troubled marriage began. Almost immediately after they got on the ship headed for Egypt, according to one biographer quote, they had delayed sex to enjoy the ship, but they retired early. She slipped on a negligee. Jimmy asked his bride what he could expect in the way of annual income. Wow.

So, like, those are two different things. She's trying to go a little spicy and celebrate the mirage, of course, the marriage.

The Mirage.

I was gone for a minute, but I'm back now. I literally died, like, actively, actively died. You might've heard some of that, actually.

I don't think we cut it entirely possible that you heard me die slightly. Yeah, but I'm back now, she's back.

Here I am. So, yeah, she's trying to get a little spicy. And he's just focused on his yearly projections. Yeah, I'm just getting ready for taxes. Which like, imagine, like the night after you get married, or like, a couple of nights after. You're like, ooh, like, let me put on this outfit where I look a little cute and like, let's go.

And he's like, So, like, how much money are you going to give me annually? I'd be like, I fucked up, can you sign this tax form for me? Like God, like, Yeah, that's not good.

Yeah, so this night laid the foundation for a marriage where Jimmy constantly wanted more, more, more when it came to money, and Doris wanted more, more, more when it came to intimacy. It was not ideal, but at the same time, a divorce would have been a scandal. So hey. They went on as a married couple for a good while, with both of them just maintaining affairs on the side. Trying not to get caught by the press. Wow, yeah.

Now, the marriage finally did fall apart, though in early 1943, and it was a messy divorce. Oh, no. Doris told the press that Jimmy was a reckless spender and he was constantly demanding more money. And Jimmy pointed the finger back at her and revealed a ton of the affairs that she had had throughout the years. Did she say, like, same to you?

Pretty much, I'm sure you, too, direct quote. But the court did end up siding with Doris, probably because she had more money and influence, probably.

Jimmy got literally nothing, and he would spend years contesting the divorce and still begging for more money. Oh no, so the divorce from Jimmy. It really marked the beginning of a new era for Doris. New year, new her, that's right.

She dove deeper into her interest, she started traveling more, she took tons of trips abroad to Europe. And in the last days of World War II. She was like, going there constantly, wow, and she fell in love with the culture and, of course, the men.

We love a European man. Of course the men, of course the men. She kept going back more and more, and she was so inspired that she started writing and eventually took a position as a foreign correspondent for major newspapers across the country. Like Bad Bitch.

I didn't know that about her, nor did I until I started looking into it.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police coverup, if you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a coverup to prevent one of their own from going down.

Everyone had an opinion, and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop around, She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down low.

Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, no, it's hysteria, it's all in your head.

It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here?

Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical Follow Hysterical. On the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts, you can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

Now, it was during one of her European trips that she met Porfirio Rubirosa. And I did look up how to say that, and I'm doing my best, you're like, and I nailed it. If I do say so myself, maybe I think I did all right.

Now, he was a Dominican diplomat and actually the former son-in-law of a Dominican dictator. Oh so, he was a little messy, he was a little messy, he had a little bit of a lot going on.

Now, Rubirosa was usually on the fringes of violent political movements. And a lot of people were really fucking terrified of him. One because he was perfectly fine being aggressive, and two, he had major, major, scary, scary political ties. Eek, and also he had a reputation as a popular ladies man. Oh, look at that.

He's like, super handsome, is he? I gotta look him up. Don't think he was the best human being, but like, super hot, sometimes the worst human beings have good faces.

They sure do. He'd actually been linked to our girl Marilyn, Miss Marilyn Monroe, and also to Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake. Oh wow, so he really like, he got around, yeah.

Now, when Doris met him in Paris in 1945, he was still actually married to popular French actress Danielle. Derue. I believe, is how you say it, or Derue. But he was, Oh my, I just looked him up. Is it a little hot in here? It's unfortunate.

I know, right, not the kindest man, no, but he was still married to this French actress, Danielle Derue, I believe. But he was completely taken with Doris and she felt the same way toward him.

He was to her, sexy, dangerous, exciting, quite frankly, everything that Jimmy was not all right now. It was no surprise that, not long after meeting, Doris and Rubirosa started an affair that would eventually lead to marriage. Okay?

Now, by the time she married him, she knew it was highly unlikely that she was ever going to build a relationship on love and mutual respect. Because she was one of the wealthiest people in the world, that sucks. And unless she wanted to keep having her heart broken over and over again, she just kind of had to accept that most people were attracted to her. At least partially because of money. Okay, now, this was 10,000 million gajillion percent true of Rubirosa.

Neat. He was already known to swap one opportunity or partner out for another if it was for more money. Oh, which is sad, yeah.

So, and this is fucking wild. Doris put up $1.5 million for her relationship with him. Whoa. A million dollars went to Danielle with the expectation that she would divorce her husband and walk away, which she did. Holy shit.

She was like, a milli, a milli, a milli. She was like, all right, she was laughing straight to the bank, literally laughing to the bank. Yeah, and that was in 1947..

Damn, and then. Doris and Rubirosa were married in September of 1947. Wow, now in true Doris fashion, the ceremony was understated. It took place. I think this is really cool.

It took place at the Dominican Consulate in Paris, and there was just a handful of guests there. And at that time, actually, Doris was working as a fashion correspondent for Harper's Bazaar Look at Doris, so a lot of the guests were coworkers from the magazine. Now. She definitely entered the marriage with eyes wide open, but it also didn't make it suck any less that her husband was almost entirely motivated by her money.

Yeah. Within days of the wedding, he was already making demands and clearly expected to be showered with expensive and extravagant gifts, including an apartment in Paris and an airplane. Just a little stuff, that's what I got Drew for our wedding. I was gonna say, just stuff that you expect when you get married.

Here's a chateau and a flying device. Love you, love you, mean it, jokes now. Things couldn't go on that way, obviously, and be hunky-dory forever. So as the years went on, Doris started getting more and more jealous and resentful of her husband between his demands of her and his flirtations with other women. So she would try to work on things, but he saw it as her making unreasonable demands of his time.

So it just forced a greater wedge between them. Oy now to get away from all of that, just as she had done with her mother when she was a teenager. Doris hid from the status and wealth and the quiet cafes and nightclubs in Paris. In the post-war years, Paris was getting more and more popular with Americans and jazz musicians. So that was drawing huge, huge crowds of people who either knew nothing or didn't care about high society.

That's kind of cool, yeah, it's awesome. So she could just be another American jazz enthusiast when she was out with them, instead of the richest girl in the world. Oh, that's cool, yeah.

So, after spending more and more time in the club, she actually started sitting in with the bands. Damn, playing piano and socializing with the people there who liked her for who she was. That's wild, not what she could buy them.

Yeah, her newfound popularity and acceptance at the jazz clubs of Paris only exacerbated the tension between her and her husband, though. At first, it started as her getting away. But then it was like, I'm sure her eyes started to open. And she was like, What the fuck am I doing? Yeah, she's like, Why am I settling for this? I can have this life just as easy.

Yeah, so the final nail in the coffin came when Rubirosa was named Dominican Republic's Ambassador to Argentina, which meant that he was going to have to move to Buenos Aires. Oh, what a terrible predicament to be in, What a terrible one.

Doris She didn't want to move there for multiple reasons, and she was especially concerned over fears for her personal safety. Yeah, so she decided to stay back in the U.S. But she bought him yet another airplane that he could use whenever he wanted to see her. My God, to buy an airplane.

And she was like, for whenever you want to see me, but he barely came home to see her. Of course. Sad, yeah. So the distance clearly made things worse, and by 1948, her second marriage had completely fallen apart.

Yeah, they were barely together a year. But this time she had planned ahead. And they had signed a prenup. That actually, I read in one source, the U.S. government helped pen this prenup. Holy shit, yeah.

But it allowed for a quick divorce, but also unfortunately required her to pay him $25,000 a year for the rest of his life. Holy shit, which she did until 1965, when he was unfortunately killed in a car accident. Wow, now, allegedly, their relationship actually never truly ended, sexually, at least.

Oh, and she was so upset over his death. When he did die, she spent several days in bed. Oh wow, so it's like, So she really loved him.

She really did love him or cared for him. I think she loved him in a big way, for sure. Yeah, that's sad.

And I think it's also apparent how much she loved him because this relationship, I think, changed her fundamentally. She knew that everybody wanted something from her, and throughout the years, she had learned to use that to her advantage. But I think years of trying not to let that bother her were starting to catch up. Yeah, that makes sense. She was spending more and more time at the jazz clubs, and the lifestyle, in her case, was a bit of a catch-22. She was learning more and more about the music and the culture, and having really a lot of fun with that. But at the same time, she started to experiment more with drugs.

Oh, now. This scene eventually led her to Joseph Joey Castro. He was a young jazz musician, he was gaining popularity in L.A. and in 1950, Doris invited him to stay with her in Hawaii.

She had part of the house renovated to accommodate musical performances. You know, as one does, I was just gonna say, that's what everybody renovates their house for. Yeah, like, my boyfriend's in a band, so let me just renovate part of my house for him, of course.

Now, she had cultivated a lot of relationships with the people in the jazz scene and a lot of these people she considered close associates. But Joey was one of the few people that she actually considered a close friend. They shared a passion for music, but he also understood things about her that a lot of people had overlooked. She struggled massively with social anxiety and he understood that and could help her. It was actually the reason that kept her from actually pursuing a career in music or performance was her social anxiety.

Oh, that's sad. I know social anxiety sucks it. does I get social anxiety?

Me too, I think everybody does. It makes things very difficult, just like varying degrees, though. Oh yeah.

And I think hers was on the higher end of the spectrum. Yeah, for sure. But eventually, their friendship, you know, Joey and Doris here, grew into a romantic relationship. Oh, and in 1953, Doris actually bought a home for them in L.A. where they could unwind.

Unwind, This is my unwinding home. I was gonna say, you just have a home to. I unwind in that one. we make music in that one, we unwind there.

We sometimes eat cereal. In this one, this is where we watch the price is right, and this is where we watch the spooky stories. Exactly, imagine.

Imagine now. According to her biographers, Doris's purchase of the house in L.A. Quote implied a commitment to Castro. But she had only made the decision to buy the place after her on and off again relationship with another man. Novelist Louis Brumfield, appeared to be going nowhere. Hmm.

Yes, now the end of the affair with that man freed up more of Doris's time, so she refocused that time to her relationship with Joey. Now. By 1954, Joey had actually assembled a small jazz combo with Doris, and they were performing together in small clubs. With Doris in disguise. So she couldn't be recognized, Oh my God, she is like, Duke Silver Ron Swanson bitch. I literally wrote that in the script.

Oh my God, I love that, I literally wrote that, I love it. I also said I couldn't help but picture her wearing a Sia wig and playing a saxophone, right?

Yeah right, I literally all I could think of was duke Silver, Oh my God.

I'm obsessed, I love it. So, it wasn't quite as stimulating as her last relationships. But this relationship with Joey was comfortable and familiar for Doris and also allowed her to pursue her love of music. It was a bit out of convenience, I think it sounds like it.

Unfortunately again, it was a lifestyle that put Doris in contact, close contact, I'll say, with a lot of questionable characters, including those who were more than willing to sell her drugs. She's getting a little more on drugs. Throughout this time period, which, we all know, doesn't lead to wonderful, wonderful things. No, always now. By 1956, Doris's world had undergone a dramatic and unexpected transformation.

In a very short amount of time, she had gone from introverted socialite to secret jazz performer. And this is where I wrote, It's giving Duke Silver. She was literally traveling around the world at this point, performing in some of the most prominent jazz clubs, of course, still in disguise. And while she may have been privately living out her fantasies, I think she was really going through it, I think mentally. And then I think the drugs didn't help. And she couldn't ignore the reminders of a lot of past failures starting to creep in around her. That year, Louis Broomfield died, and it was the first of several events that hit Doris really hard. Aw.

Mm-hmm. After he passed, she learned that Rubirosa, because this was before he had passed, too, had married socialite and her former rival Barbara Hutton. Uh-oh. And the disappointments and heartbreak caused her to retreat even further into her secret lifestyle, which made her dive even further into drug use and casual sexual encounters. Oh.

So by the early 1960s, her relationship with Joey Castro started to become more strained because of that. Yeah, mostly because she was also reluctant, excuse me, to fully commit to their relationship. Joey really wanted to get married, but Doris was like, No.

And according to her cousin, Pony Duke, Doris loved Joe. Pony Duke isn't that great. Doris loved Joey's music and appreciated his companionship. But Quote was not about to get married again. She didn't want to get married again. She'd been scorned twice. I was gonna say, I can't, yeah.

You can't really blame her. So instead, she, quote, orchestrated a strange sort of marriage ceremony that was not really a marriage ceremony to appease Joey. So I think she low-key, like, made a fake wedding. I was just gonna say, So what you're saying is? It seems to me like he was very much under the impression that they were legally married. But to her, it was like, Nah, this is like, not for realsies.

Wow, okay, now. The sham marriage did ease tensions for a little bit, but the fights were gonna start back up again. Yeah. And by the end of their relationship, the arguments between Doris and Joey had not only increased in frequency, but also intensity. Uh-oh.

They usually ended violently. Oh, no. And things took a dramatic turn for the worse in June of 1963. When, during one of these intense arguments, Doris grabbed a butter knife from the kitchen counter and allegedly stabbed Joey in the arm. Oh, that's not a normal fight, she stabbed him y'all.

That's not a normal argument. If you are grabbing any kind of knife to stab your partner in the midst of an argument, it's time to walk away. Yeah, any kind of weaponry that's being brought into an argument is really that's the time to think about it. Yeah, I would say, so, yeah, that's the time to really take stock of what's happening here.

Seek guidance. Yeah, you know, everybody needs it, occasionally, that's not good. So, by 1964, Doris and Joey had become completely estranged.

And he's not guilty in all of this either. Yeah, and we'll get there. He was totally cut off from the life of luxury that he'd have been enjoying with Doris for a decade at this point. So as a result, he filed a shit ton of lawsuits and divorce suits demanding financial compensation anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000..

Oh, I guess it just like, depended on how he felt that day. Yeah, you know, yeah. But he also wanted part ownership of the house in L.A. Now, among other things. His suits alleged that they had been married twice, first in Rhode Island in 1956 and then again in Philadelphia in 1960..

But in response, Doris filed for and was awarded a restraining order in May of 1964, which barred him from ever publicly claiming to be her husband. And effectively ended his pursuit of a quote unquote divorce, Oh damn, or any kind of compensation, because they were like, you're not married now. He had allegedly broken her jaw at one point in 1966 after she pulled the plug on his record company, which she owned.

What the fuck? The morning after, she fled to Hollywood to go to Newport with her designer. And a man that would soon be at the center of this story, Eduardo Eddie Torella. Uh-oh now. Doris's life before this point had always been kind of like a fairy tale, whether she liked it or not. Her wealth, her money and her privilege shielded her from a lot of the more difficult realities in her life.

Yeah, but they were only going to protect her for so long, and she knew that now, that knowledge and that wear were starting to show in her personality. Anytime a relationship ended, and especially because they usually ended badly, she would become harder and tougher on the outside and more depressed on the inside. And at the same time, her experimentation with drugs paired with her mental struggles. That was starting to make her a lot more impulsive, and that was becoming more clear, especially in the violent fight she was starting to have.

I mean, she literally stabbed her sort of husband, her fake husband. And while she hopefully regretted those arguments and altercations, they were not going to be the last time she became violent. Oh, no, and the next time should have come with greater consequences. Eek.

So, even though, she felt more and more comfortable with the L.

A nightlife through Joey during the 1950s. She was kind of retreating further into herself, and at the same time, she was surrounding herself with what her cousin referred to as a colorful group of Hollywood types, which included Eddie Torella. And I would also assume that he was probably referring to her, butler Bernard Lafferty. And this other woman, Shandi Hefner, who Doris actually ended up adopting when Shandi was like 35 and Doris was in her like 60s or 70s. It's like a sidetrack story that I can't get into here because we could be here for hours.

Okay, but please go look into that. Oh, yes, I will. It is wild, okay?

Yeah, I would definitely. I'm gonna accept that information. Definitely. Read some of the biographies that I'll link in the show notes and the Variety Vanity Fair articles written about her. But right now, we're gonna focus on Eddie, okay?

Now it's crazy, though, like that, that happened. Wow, yeah, I think there's a whole A&E show about adopting adults. They should feature. Doris. Oh my, okay.

So, anyways, Doris met Eddie Torella in L.A. in 1959.

This was before she had cut Joey off, and that's how they met. He was an aspiring interior designer and occasionally moonlit as a nightclub singer, which I think is really fun. moonlighting as a nightclub singer that's so like old Hollywood.

Yeah, Badaboom. It's also how Lady Gaga got big, I'm pretty sure there you go, but didn't she used to sing in nightclubs?

Yeah, probably wasn't she on the hills. Oh my god, Yeah, she was. I think that's when she was starting to get bigger. It was a long time getting her outfit together on an episode.

Yeah, you're not wrong. When she was singing like, Poker Face, I think that's a deep cut. Yeah, I wanna watch the hills now.

Yeah, but Eddie, he had played some of those same venues that Joey had played, because, remember, he's also like a singer guy, Oh, yes. And Joey had learned that Tarella's real passion in life was for design, and while they were still together, Joey told Doris about Eddie.

Because it just so happened. She was looking for an interior designer. Ah, look at that. Of course, she's rich, so it was Joey who suggested she take a chance and hire Eddie. Literally, the only thing that Doris and Eddie had in common was that they had both grown up in New Jersey.

It started and ended there. I feel like that's like the ultimate in common thing, though. It's like, if you're both from Jersey, I feel like it's like, that's okay, that's it. I think so, too.

Yeah, actually, I just I don't know why. You'll hit it off, it'll be great. Yeah, I think you'll get each other.

It's not great here, no, but they did seem to sort of get each other. I think Eddie got Doris a little more than Doris got Eddie, but I think she got him to a degree cool.

Now, by all accounts, Eddie was a charming, popular and super, super talented dude. In high school, his classmates actually referred to him as playboy of the Western front. Wow, which, like, I'm obsessed with that. Who are these high school kids that came up with that?

Well, like, high school kids were like, way better back then, that was like the 40s and 50s. I feel like they all had like transatlantic accents, and they were just like, hey, these are like high school kids that, like, had cigarettes rolled up into their like, which like, don't smoke cigarettes. But like, back then, it was cool, you know?

Yeah, so after graduating from Dover High School, he had pursued a career as a dancer and an artist. But at the same as he was like, trying to pursue that. He got drafted into World War II, and when the war ended and he returned home, he worked on Saks Fifth Avenue. OH, designing hats for people like Mae West.

Oh, who's she? Yeah, crazy, I love her now. Then he decided to move out to L.A. where he started gardening, and he found work with famous clients like Alan Ladd and Peggy Lee. Oh.

Yeah, he was like in touch with big people. He was an incredibly hard worker. He really never had any trouble finding a job. Especially through word of both of these very famous, influential people. Yeah, it was just that he struggled to maintain an interest in one job or one field for a long time.

By the early 50s, he was actually, though, becoming pretty successful as a designer in Hollywood. But because he refused to join a union, it limited the work he could get, so to make extra money. He was singing in the nightclubs where he met Joey, just moonlighting, moonlighting.

Now, his first work with Doris was when she had him remodel and design the 20 greenhouses at Duke Farm. Jesus, now this is actually I thought you would be all over this. She wanted him to revive them, and she wanted them to be used as like a public attraction because she opened the grounds up again. Oh, okay.

Now, Eddie impressed the shit out of her when he redesigned each greenhouse into a garden that represented a different ecosystem or part of the world. Shut the fuck up, that's awesome. how fucking cool is that? I wanna see that, right?

Damn, I love a theme. I love a good theme. you guys know, we love a theme around here. we love a theme. Oh, that's so cool.

Transforming gardens that represent different ecosystems, that's cool, that's a cool mind right there. yeah, that was a mind at work, yeah.

So she was like, Oh, let's fucking go like, you're my guy. She was super excited to dive into her love of gardening because she actually was an avid gardener. With the completion of the project, she was like, let's go.

But she had also gained a new companion, and at this point, her relationship with Joey Castro is falling apart. And then it ultimately does fall apart. So she wasn't interested in a romantic relationship with a man. She just missed companionship, which she had found in Eddie. And he was the ideal companion because he was a gay man.

He wasn't after her for like, love or anything like that. She knew that he would stick by her and not lose interest in her sexually. And at the same time, he was funny, talented and also nice to look at now, according to Ponyduke. Eddie Quote was the mixture of masculinity and taste that Doris Duke found so very attractive and the perfect ornament for Doris as she aged an ornament.

I was like, Wow, damn. But her dramatic and theatrical aesthetic was also a perfect match for Eddie. Because he was just starting to make a name for himself in the theater and film industry. Very multifaceted man. Oh, okay.

Oh, he was a handsome man too, wasn't he? I was just looking at him, Super handsome. Don't look at too much.

He's got a friendly face, I like his face. I'd give him a little smooch, but probably not because he'd be like, get away from me. I'd give him a little smooch, a little smoochy kiss if you watch Bluey.

Smoochy kiss now. Before long, Doris had actually made space for Eddie in all of her houses and apartments, which there's a lot of them. Yeah, he always had his own room wherever they went.

He could have privacy when they traveled together, but aside from him getting to like sleep in his own space, Doris was starting to dominate all of his time. Because, remember, she doesn't have a man's right now, and she's somebody that needed to have someone, yeah.

I'm starting to see that about her. She treated Eddie like a romantic partner in all ways other than sexually. And a lot of times, she would actually get jealous if she wasn't feeling like his first priority. But like, they're not together, yeah, so it's like, Uh.

And that was a lot for him. And by the mid 19, oh, sorry, I just kicked you in the foot, kicking my feet.

Foot five. But by the mid 1960s, her demands were starting to wear on him. He was on the payroll and happy for the work, but the expectation that he would be at her beck and call every hour of every day was getting exhausting. It was a little above his pay grade, it was.

One of his friends said he hated those nights, the nights that he worked for her and had to spend time with her. Oh, but as tired as he was, he was trying to stick with it as long as he could. Because he had bills, he had debt, and working for Doris paid a pretty penny. Yeah. Now, as she got older and started cutting more and more people out of her life. Doris was actually starting to seem a lot more like the generation before her that she used to hate.

Yeah, her mom's generation that treated working people like that, people that were working for them, like the help. That's how she was kind of starting to act. Yeah, she was getting that attitude, and that's something that Eddie was starting to really hate the most.

It was making it harder and harder for him to stick around, and he also felt like he was getting pulled in another direction. He really wanted to make a name for himself in Hollywood, and it actually seemed like that dream was headed in the right direction. Because by 1965, his work in L.A. was finally paying off, and he had landed a job doing the set design for the Sandpiper, which was starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Who are they? I don't know. Two relative unknowns. Yeah, just like credited briefly then in 1966, film producer Martin Ransohoff.

He offered Eddie the production design job on Don't Make Waves, which was a movie starring Tony Curtis and Sharon Tate. Oh, Sharon Tate, yeah, and it was due to start production that fall now.

This opportunity was exactly what he was hoping for, and it was proof to him that he could make it in Hollywood. He was starting to make strides, and it was also proof that he could get out from Doris thumb.

But Doris lost her GD mind when Eddie told her about the job offer. Yeah, I was thinking it would happen. He was sure that she was going to fully freak out if he told her that he had already accepted the job, which he has. Oh so, instead, he told her he was only considering it.

Now, Doris was begging him not to take the job, and she thought of every last thing she could offer him to stay. But he just wasn't committing one way or the other. So she kept begging and pleading for months and months. And she invited him to come to her family estate in Newport, Rhode Island, for the fall. Remember Rough point from the beginning of the story? Okay, here's where it becomes a pinnacle point of the story.

Now Eddie did finally cave and he agreed to spend the fall in Rough Point with Doris, and that was a decision that was going to change his life forever. Oh, no. Eddie arrived at Rough Point early in October of 1966 and he had still planned actually to work on. Don't Make waves. But at the time, he was really behind on taxes, so when Doris offered him more money than he was making before, he couldn't refuse.

He had to go there with her. His plan was to get the work done for Doris that fall and then return to Hollywood and begin building the career that he wanted. And he was finally going to be free. So it's really unclear what happened on the evening of October 7th, but by most accounts, Doris's mental state was not very good that night. In the months leading up to that fall, at rough point, she had been drinking a lot more than usual.

She was still using drugs and she was experiencing very intense mood swings and depression that related to her failed relationship with Joey. And then the most, and then the recent death of Rubirosa. This is when he did die. And it was that was, among, like many other things, too. Now she could have, for most of her life, was used to getting what she wanted.

She even meant she could get from them what she wanted, but at some point they were going to leave her and move on to someone else. And now it seemed like that was happening with Eddie, and she simply couldn't take it now. That fall, she had rented a 1966 Dodge Polaris station wagon to use while she and Eddie were in Newport. On the evening of the 7th. When she was not in a very good headspace, they got into the station wagon a little after 4 p..m.

They were going to actually meet with the president of the Newport Preservation Society. Because Doris wanted to discuss her interest in funding a project that was actually going to preserve a lot of Newport's historic homes. She was like, I want to pay for that, that's pretty cool, yeah, it was also probably a really good tax write-off.

Yeah, but for one reason or another. Eddie and Doris were arguing with each other even before they headed out, and they were still said to be arguing as they were getting into the car. And when they got to the bottom of the driveway leading to the road, Eddie put the car in park, pulled the parking brake and hopped out of the driver's seat to open the large iron gates so they could pull out. I'm very nervous, you should be.

Okay. As he turned around to start walking back to the car, he saw that Doris had moved from the passenger seat to the driver's seat, where she disengaged. The parking brake, shifted the car into drive and Quote pressed down so hard on the accelerator that she left tire-wide gouge marks in the gravel. Oh my. The car sped forward, struck Eddie, which sent him flying up onto the hood. Then she tapped the brakes. He rolled off the car and landed in the middle of Bellevue Avenue.

Holy shit. She stopped the car momentarily while Eddie laid screaming in the middle of the road, and then she hit the accelerator again, drove forward, crushing Eddie under the front tires. Oh my God, and dragging his body across the street under the weight of the station wagon. Before the car jumped onto the curb on the opposite side of the street. Drove through a fence and came to a stop when she finally hit a tree.

Holy shit, so. Days later, an autopsy would show that the first impact had broken Eddie's hip, which had sent him up onto the hood. But the second impact caused crushing injuries to his lungs, spinal cord and brain, which killed him almost instantly. Damn. The police arrived on the scene no more than five minutes later, it's said, where they found Doris in a daze behind the wheel of the car.

Eddie or excuse me, Edward Angel, who was the first officer to arrive? He remembered seeing a small amount of blood coming from Doris's mouth, and his report describes that as a steering wheel injury. Hmm. But other than that, she was physically fine. As he approached the car, she jumped from the driver's seat and just started frantically pacing back and forth. And then she ran back into her mansion, looking for someone named Ed, even though she knew he was underneath the car, she had just driven over him.

Oh, no, now. Once they were able to calm her down, police escorted her to the nearby Newport Hospital, where she was treated for facial cuts and severe shock. But other than that, she was literally fine. Oh no, so the next day, this is very obsessing.

It's horrible, yeah. The next day, the local paper, The Newport Daily News, ran with the headline Doris Duke kills friend in car crash. The article was, like, very light on information and noted that Police chief Joseph Radice, or Yeah, Radice quote, could not be reached for comment on the case. And reporters were told that he would not be available that day for questions.

It would actually be two days before the police chief made a statement to the press about the death of Eddie Torella. And when he did, it was to inform them that an investigation had been conducted, and it was determined that Eddie's death was the result of an unfortunate accident. Oh, that's okay, that's what we're going with.

According to Doris, who wasn't interviewed by the police until over a day after the incident, she was in the passenger seat. When Eddie got out to open the gates, she slid over into the driver's seat to drive the car out onto the street, she told police. It was something we'd done hundreds of times before, but this time, she said quote The car leaped forward and after that everything was a blank.

Oh, my cars usually like, don't leap forward on their own. I was just gonna say, I've never had that experience, the old car leapt forward.

Defense It's very similar to Dog Ate my homework. Yeah, that's not a great defense now. The only other information that the police chief was willing to report on was that, as far as he knew, Eddie and Doris were quote on very good terms. No, they were not.

No, no, the hell they were not. They were literally arguing as they got into the car and he was planning on leaving and she was begging him not to. Oh, no, now, two days after he responded to questions from the Newport Daily News, a larger press conference was held. And the police chief told reporters that Torella's death was definitely an accident. Quote and quote. As far as we're concerned, the case is closed. How, though?

Quick, quick, hush, hush, bye bye. How, though? is what I need to know? Yeah, how, though? yeah.

So Doris may have been able to use her money to hide from any kind of responsibility or public scrutiny in the past. But times had changed, and people cared a lot less in 1966 about this random American socialite times. They are a changing. They were pissed by the lack of information on the case, yeah, and they found it extremely suspicious.

In Newport, the press were super critical of the way that this was handled and the way that the police released information. And they felt actually like the police chief had handled similar incidents poorly because in the years past, he had written off crimes like this that involved the rich summer residents. Mm-hmm, shocking. Even though people were upset and critical over the investigation, it still seemed like whatever had happened at the gates of Rough Point were to remain a mystery. And as far as Doris Duke was concerned, Eddie Torella's death was nothing more than a tragic accident. And she went on to live the rest of her life saying so.

That is shocking, shocking, that that just was like, crescendo, crescendo, crescendo. Then it's like, No, it's fine. Oh, no, we're not done yet.

But I mean, like that part of it, oh yeah, just that it's like it ended, oh, and this big crazy thing happened.

And oh my God, but everything was fine. It was an accident. Yeah, me too. You're like, Oh, don't you know that? Cars leap forward?

You should watch out for that. You don't even have time to be like, Oh, no, cause it's like, Oh, oh, okay, it's just an accident. Okay, we're just gonna live the rest of our lives, that's fine.

Insane, what the fuck, so? The following year, Eddie's five siblings filed a wrongful death suit against Doris in the Superior Court of Rhode Island. They were seeking $2.5 million in damages, and they alleged that Doris had quote negligently and carelessly operated the car that led to their brother's death. Which is literally the truth.

Damn now. The case actually eventually made its way to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in 1973, but the justices mostly sided with Doris and the family only received. And I say, only because she's a billionaire. Yeah, $75,000..

Wow, that's it. Wow, like, who did you pay off? I'd be so pissed.

They were also treated terribly by her legal team. They made it seem like Eddie was like, worse, like they made it seem like he was worse than Doris, somehow. What the fuck?

Yeah, very strange, and in the sorry, I messed up, hold on, oh, silly me. What I meant was. It was worse in the way that the family was treated by the legal team during the trial, particularly when it came to their brother's legacy.

They described him as an opportunist who hung around famous people, hoping their talent and fame would rub off on him. Wow, okay, I'm like, No, he didn't need it to. He was incredibly talented on his own. I was just gonna say, like, let's just ignore the fact that he had any success on his own.

Yeah, absolutely, actually didn't need. Doris fully intending to leave her employment, but okay. His niece later told reporters she killed him twice.

She destroyed his body and then eviscerated his memory. Yeah, which is so sad, that is so sad. And throughout the trial, investigators privately and publicly tried to get any information from Doris about the incident or the accident. Excuse me.

But by then, she had completely shielded herself with lawyers and doctors that made it impossible to get anywhere near her. Damn. But by the early 1990s, she was a fucking shell of herself. After Eddie's death, she pulled even more into herself and she became almost entirely a reclusive, and more and more people were cast out of her circle.

In the end, there was only a very small group of doctors, lawyers and quote unquote hangers-on who hoped she was just gonna leave them something in the will. When she turned 79 in 1992, allegedly her butler talked her into getting a facelift, and that started a slew of health problems. It would go on to include a broken hip, a knee replacement surgery, and a severe stroke in the fall of 1993. And that shit is so scary, right?

Like the stuff that can happen from plastic surgery like that. Oh yeah. And you hear about like implants and stuff like the scary stuff, like health problems that can come from it. It's crazy, it's really scary.

Watch Michelle Visage's documentary on That There You Go. It freaked me out. I was like, Okay, never, never.

But on October 28th, 1993, Doris Duke did die of a cardiac arrest at 80 years old. Damn, she had no children and no spouse to leave her enormous fortune to, because she had a huge falling out with the woman that she had adopted. Oh, I forgot she adopted a 30 something year old.

Damn, but they had a huge falling out. And that's like its own whole separate story. That involves her very shady butler, holy shit.

But she left a lot of her, like enormous fortune.

And a lot of people speculate on his motivations and whether or not he had something to do with accelerating her death. I'll say, oh boy, yeah, but that's like, layered, and it's for another time. Duplicity.

So when Doris passed away, most people figured any revelations about the more mysterious aspects of her life had gone with her. Especially the accident that murdered Eddie Torello. Yeah, that's a big one, yeah. But that all changed in the summer of 2020. Whoa.

When journalist Peter Lance published an article about Eddie Torello's death in Vanity Fair, I love Vanity Fair. I do, too. I actually just signed up to get their hard copies, too nice.

Because I had online access and then I got, like, signed up for some reason, and I was like, Ooh, give me hard copies. Yeah, they have great articles, they do now. Peter Lance. He had actually been born and raised in Newport, and he remembered not only Eddie's death, but the controversy and the suspicion surrounding it. A lot of people in town believed that there was a coverup. And the story he wrote prompted a flood of comments and memories from Newport's residents, who pretty much confirmed the suspicious nature of the quote unquote accident.

Oh man. One man, in particular, would take Peter down a path that would eventually uncover what many accept as the truth about Eddie's death. What? Bob Walker was a 13 year old paper boy living in Newport when Eddie Torello was killed. And on the afternoon of the quote unquote accident. He was out on his route delivering papers near the Rough Point mansion, when he heard a commotion coming from the direction of a massive estate.

He would later tell Peter Quote I initially heard the argument and screaming of two people. And, he said. Because it was usually such a calm and quiet area, it was very easy to hear that these people were definitely pissed off at each other, he said. The argument was followed by silence. And then quote, the roar of a motor, the crash and the screaming of a man, Oh, no, now. According to Bob, he could hear the accident happen and rush to the scene, arriving well before the police did.

And when he got to the gates, he said Doris was just getting out of the car and was staring down at the wreckage. When he rode up on his bicycle. And he asked if he could do anything to help because he had no idea what was going on, Doris turned to him, pointing and screaming, You better get the hell out of here.

Oh, that just gave me chill. And then she began what he described as a kind of crouched pacing in front of the car. Like she was trying to block his view of whatever was beneath it, and she kept yelling at him. Get out of here now, oh my God.

It was literally like walking around the car, like an animal, like an animal, exactly like an animal. Holy shit, hiding his view.

So Bob was completely shaken by this and, as far as he could tell, she wasn't hurt. So he got back on his bike and got out of there, cause he hadn't, that's all he had seen. Yeah, he's like, what the fuck? But when he got his bundle of papers for delivery the next day, he saw that headline about the accident and he read the article. But everything in the paper didn't match what he had seen and heard that afternoon.

So he ran home to tell his father and explain what had happened the day before. But he got a very different reaction than what he was expecting when he got home and he told his dad everything. His dad grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him up against the wall and told him, Now you listen to me, son, you will never, ever tell anybody this story again. you will not tell your brother.

You will not tell your friends and of all people, you're not going to say anything to the police. Do you understand me? Do you understand me? what?

Bob Walker did not understand because his dad was usually completely adamant that his children always tell the truth. But Bob said he was so serious that it was scary and he didn't want to say anything to anybody about what he had seen. Until years and years later, and by that point, everybody had more or less forgotten about Eddie Torello.

Holy shit, so years like, way down the road. Years later, as his dad was declining in health, Bob asked his dad why he reacted that way, and this is what his dad told him. You know, son, at the time, when you told me the story, I recognized that you could have shown motive and intent.

I was concerned that you, as a key witness, could have gone. Or could have been doing your paper route on the ocean drive and a truck could have come up on you from behind. The life of my child was more precious to me than that woman on Bellevue Avenue. That's why I reacted the way I did, Oh my God. So basically, he was saying, like, that woman has all the money in the world and all the power.

And I was protecting you, you a little informant, anything could have happened to you or our family. And I love you more than I love anyone in this world. Oh my god, I got full chills.

Because at first I was so mad at Bob Walker's dad. When I first read it, I was like, What the hell see in my head? I was like, he's scared, he's scared, like, he's scared that something is going to happen to his kid.

And he's like, I don't give a fuck about anybody else, right? I care about you. When I found that out, I was like, I'm literally crying right now because I would be the same way.

You don't give a fuck about anybody else. exactly, I'm protecting you exactly damn.

And the thing is, even if Bob had gone to the police and spilled everything that he had seen that day, it wouldn't have made a difference. No, because Doris was spending all that money restoring the homes in Newport, so it wouldn't have made. The only difference it would have made was putting Bob in danger, exactly.

So, but literally, the reason why Eddie's death was covered up is because she had so much money and power. And she was doing so much for the community. That they were like, okay, it didn't happen, it was an accident. We'll take blood money for you to restore these homes, damn.

So as Peter dug deeper into Bob Walker's story, he found that. There were other people who had come to similar conclusions about Eddie's death, including a police sergeant who had been assigned to the case at the time, his report concluded There was no way this could have been an accident and that Torella's death was most certainly intentional. And he also learned that right after the accident, Doris hired the county's acting medical examiner, the one who was literally filing the autopsy and the death certificate, as her private doctor. Wow, conflict of interest.

Oh, I was just gonna say, Can you say? And there were other people in town, including Police Chief Reedus, there, whose lives and personal fortunes seemed to drastically improve in the weeks and months following Eddie's death. Holy Shit, a.k.a. She paid a shit ton of people off. Yeah, it certainly looks that way, allegedly.

So Peter, allegedly Peter definitely took all that information to the police and they sat on it until they felt enough public pressure to reopen the case. Whoa, and they especially felt that pressure after Peter Lance's book, A Homicide at Rough Point, which I definitely recommend reading, was published now. Unfortunately, the reinvestigation of the case was just as doomed as the initial case. And just after a few days of review days, the Newport police determined quote that new evidence presented in the book is insufficient to warrant further investigation.

I love that. They were like, we've thought about it for 48 hours and we decided that after that long think on it, we're not even gonna look into it. Yeah, like, that is cool. In a statement to the press, town administrators said. It remains the opinion of the Newport Police Department that there is not sufficient evidence to draw any firm conclusions as to the motivations of Mrs or Ms.

Duke. For that reason, it appears that this will continue to be a case that will have to be left to the Court of Public Opinion. Yeah, that's what everybody wants to hear. You can think whatever you want, and you're probably right, but according to us, nah, we're gonna agree to disagree.

But as far, exactly? But as far as Peter, and pretty much all of the residents of Newport, Rhode Island, are concerned. The police had all the evidence that they needed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Doris Duke intentionally murdered Eddie Torella. But it seemed that even 30 years after her death, nobody wanted to fuck with the Duke family name. Wow, trust no one.

Trust no one. And that's the really, really sad story of the death of Eduardo Torella. That is very sad, right, damn.

Bonkers, What a story. A Bonkers story, What a life, what a legacy, right?

What a downfall. Yeah, like shit. I definitely recommend, like, looking even more into Doris, because I'm sure that felt like a very long episode, I think it might've been.

But there was so many things that I ended up skipping over because we could have just been here for like, hours and hours. That's so. That's a wild story. She lived a crazy ass life, yeah, and at the end of it, she wasn't a great person.

Allegedly, allegedly, you know, you know, I'm just saying.

Maybe the car hopped forward, you know, maybe the AS cars do, they do leap forward, sometimes, allegedly.

Allegedly that's all there is, allegedly that's it, so allegedly we hope you keep listening, and we hope you allegedly keep it weird.

Allegedly love you.

Love you.