Truck stop brothels run by a web of ex-cons. A Commonwealth attorney wasted on

whiskey and power. Protection exchanged for cash and flesh. This is Hooker Gay, criminals and libertines in the South, and I am

your host and lifelong wayward woman, Dr. Lindsay Byron. Listen to Hooker Gay, Criminals and Libertines in the South on the I Heart Radio

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky, listener discretion advised. If you were living in eastern Toronto in the year 1960, you might have seen an old woman bustling in and out of a little apartment that she lived in above the local barber shop. She might have nodded at the patrons of Ray's barber shop on

Gerard Street East, which was located a short walk away from Lake Ontario with a

view to New York State across the water.

The woman was a widow who spoke with boundless love for her late husband.

She adored her grandchildren.

She was an artist, often seen with a paintbrush in her hand.

But this woman also had unusual guests come visit her from time to time. People whose bearing and dress appeared undeniably regal. Rumor had it that when Queen Elizabeth II visited Canada, the Queen herself invited the old woman

onto the royal yacht. Rumor had it that if you looked closely around the mouth, the old widow bore a slight resemblance to the

Queen. They were, after all, first cousins twice removed.

And if you looked even closer at the old woman's face,

you might have seen that she had a haunted look about her eyes,

because this woman who lived above the local barber shop in Canada was no ordinary widow.

She was Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the last living member of Russia's once fearsome Romanov dynasty.

Not the only descendants, but the last person alive who had actually lived during the Romanov's 300-year reign.

She was the final vestige of a lineage that had ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917.

Grand Duchess Olga was a decorated nurse who served on the front in World War I, a mother who escaped Russia while

pregnant with a child in tow, but most of all she was the last living remnant of the dynasty that had ended in revolution and the gruesome

murder of her brother's entire family, including most famously the little princess Anastasia.

...