S5 Ep37: Cassie Chadwick: Beautiful Fraud

Strange and Unexplained with Daisy Eagan

True Crime, Science, Society & Culture

4.0 • 10.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2026

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the turn of the 20th century, a young woman was wreaking havoc in Ohio, taking money from any man with a wallet. By the time she was done, Cassie Chadwick had defrauded banks and people of millions and millions of dollars. A main takeaway for some was how a woman who wasn't very attractive could trick men so easily.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What does it take to be a con artist? Good looks, charm, grace? Or is the key to swindling coming up with a story so
0:15.4	outrageous, no one even thinks to question it? Welcome to strange and unexplained with me, Daisy Egan.
0:24.6	I went through a very brief and specific shoplifting phase in my teens, but I am generally
0:30.4	bad at theft. Once, a bank teller gave me $20 too much, and I returned it to her immediately.
0:40.7	One time I literally forgot to pay for my groceries.
0:47.0	I have no idea how or why the checkout person didn't notice, but I realized the error when I got home,
0:53.5	went back to the store, and paid. Everyone looked at me like I had two heads. Call it a moral failing. In theory, I really want to
0:56.1	stick it to the man, but in practice, I realize it's probably a woman who's going to get in trouble
1:00.8	for it, for miscounting the 20s or letting four bags of groceries walk out the door for free.
1:07.3	The subject of today's episode did not have that same moral failing.
1:12.1	She had no qualms about being a thief.
1:14.8	She took what the good lord gave her, which many reporters were quick to point out were not good looks,
1:20.3	and turned herself into a millionaire with other people's money.
1:49.4	Elizabeth Betty Bigley was born in 1857 on a small farm in Eastwood, Ontario. She was the fifth of eight children.
1:56.1	According to a piece for the Smithsonian magazine titled The High Priestess of Fraudulent Finance from 2012,
2:01.8	Betty lost her hearing in one year as a young girl and as a result developed a speech impediment.
2:08.8	Like many others with irregular speech, she learned to cope by speaking very little and choosing her words carefully.
2:11.7	She didn't fit in at school.
2:20.4	Quote, her classmates found her peculiar and she turned inward, sitting in silence by the hour. One sister, Alice,
2:26.4	said Betty often seemed to be in a trance as if she had hypnotized herself, unable to see or hear anything that existed outside of her mind. Coming out of these spells, she seemed disoriented
2:32.1	and bewildered, but refused to discuss her thoughts, end quote.
2:36.8	Stranger, my girl was dissociating.
	...

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