This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

If you know Los Angeles, there's a good chance you've heard of George Allen Hancock.

He's the guy Hancock Park was named for, that fancy neighborhood between Hollywood and Midwilshire.

He's also the reason you can visit the famous LeBreya Tarpitz, which Hancock donated to Los Angeles County in 1916. Hancock was a lot of

things. An oil sion, a railroad tycoon, a rancher, a millionaire, a philanthropist, a cello player

in the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra. He was also an oceanic explorer and marine scientist,

perhaps best known for his expeditions to the Galapagos. In November 1934, aboard his trusted vessel, the Valero

3, with a group of Smithsonian researchers in tow, Hancock embarked on his most dramatic Galapagos

expedition yet. Anchored off the island of Floriana on December 8th, Hancock cabled following message to his

business manager back in Hollywood.

Hysterical over the death of Dr. Friedrich Ritter, Frau Dory is packing up to go back to Berlin.

He was talking about Friedrich Ritter and Dory Strauss.

They were originally from Germany,

but they had been living on Floriana for almost six years.

They went there seeking a simpler life,

an escape from modern society, a tropical utopia.

But now Friedrich had died under curious circumstances.

More on that later.

Dory was headed back home, and their plan to grow old together in an Eden of their own making had come to a tragic end.

But there was more to the story, because Friedrich and Dory weren't the only Europeans who had fled civilization for the Galapagos.

As the Los Angeles Times put it, Captain Hancock has reported that other deaths may have occurred on the lonely archipelago.

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