Episode 90

Sword and Scale

Incongruity

History, Society & Culture, True Crime, Documentary

4.0 • 63.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2017

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Claudia Rowe, author of The Spider and The Fly, decided to write to a serial killer, she wasn't prepared for how it would change her life. In her quest to understand the nature of cruelty, she ended up discovering much more about herself. Kendall Francois murdered at least eight women and hid the rotting corpses in the home that he shared with his mother, father, and younger sister. A large foreboding figure who emanated a pungent odor, he demands that Rowe offers personal details of her life in exchange for the answers she is seeking. She does not comply with his wishes, which leads the reader to wonder "Who really is the spider and who really is the fly?"

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Sword and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.
0:06.3	Listener discretion is advised.
0:11.8	Surely there were officers who spoke to me about the smell in the home that was so bad that they couldn't get it off their skin.
0:21.6	Welcome to Sword and Scale, Season 4, Episode 90,
0:35.6	a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.
1:10.8	The In this episode, we're going to delve into 19th century English poetry.
1:12.9	Kidding, not kidding.
1:15.1	Actually, you'll see what I mean in just a minute.
1:22.5	We are joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Claudia Rowe to talk about her new book, which reads like poetry.
1:25.2	It's called The Spider and the Fly.
1:29.0	It's a story about finding yourself and delving into what makes you human. And of course, murder. I think you're going to like it. But before we get to that,
1:34.3	I want to remind you that our new show, Sword and Scale Rewind, hosted by Stephanie Wilder Taylor
1:38.6	and Lynette Carolla, will be launching very soon. We don't have a fixed date yet, but it will
1:43.8	almost certainly be in early
1:45.4	June. If you want to know the second it's available, then join our Facebook, Twitter, and
1:49.9	Insta pages. Just search for Sword and Scale Rewind or SS Rewind.
1:58.9	This is Claudia. I'm a journalist and author of The Spider and the Fly, a reporter, a serial killer, and the meaning of murder.
2:07.3	And I'm assuming this is also a reference to the poem from the 1800s?
2:13.1	Yeah, it is.
2:14.1	And the poem is about flattery.
2:16.3	The poem is about the spider flattering, the ditsy fly, and, you know, that flattery is eventually going to get you killed. And, you know, who flattered whom? In the relationship between Kendall Francois and myself, there was some surely mutual manipulation going on.
2:40.3	Yeah. there was some surely mutual manipulation going on. Will you walk into my parlor?
	...

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