Today is Saturday, February 13th, 2021.

On this day in 1917, French authorities arrested Margarita Gertrida McLeod, an exotic dancer and

sex worker known better as Madahari. The French believed she spied for Germany

during World War I. Their evidence was thin, but it didn't stop them from executing her for espionage.

Welcome to Today in True Crime, a Spotify original from Parcast.

Due to the graphic nature of today's crimes, listener discretion is advised.

Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13.

Today we're covering the arrest of Madahari, who's widely believed to be one of the most notorious female spies in history.

But the truth is a bit more complicated. Let's go back to the morning of February 13, 1917,

in a hotel room in Paris.

It seemed like an ordinary Tuesday, 41-year-old Madahari rose from bed, put on a delicate lace negligee and ordered room service at the Elysee Palace Hotel.

As a woman who'd spent the past 12 years working as an exotic dancer and highly paid sex worker,

Matahari was accustomed to the finer things in life.

She loved beautiful clothes, fancy restaurants, and being on the arm of an important man.

True, she'd gotten entangled with French counterintelligence, which had been a mistake. When Georges Ladou, the chief of counterintelligence, approached her to be a spy, she figured it would

be another source of income, and they figured that a woman who traveled so much, and had so many

connections with influential men, could provide useful information in wartime. But it had largely come to nothing,

and now she regretted ever getting involved, especially because she had the nagging suspicion

that the French turned on her. For weeks now, she'd gotten the sense that she was being followed,

and her hotel room was being searched when she was

out. But she wouldn't dwell on that now. She was looking forward to another busy afternoon

of appointments with jewelers, tailors, and manicurists, except... Someone was at her door. She answered

...