Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
(narrator) The truth behind the tale of a legendary monster...
A mysterious stranger stakes a claim
to a family fortune...
and a bizarre plan to bring a president
back from the dead.
But first...
within the walls of a haunted Italian villa
is a dark and terrible secret.
What wicked deeds played out here
over 400 years ago?
[thunder crashes]
In the heart of the Tuscan countryside of northern Italy
stands a magnificent medieval bastion--
the Castello di Malaspina.
(woman) The castle is, by no means, a fairytale castle.
From the outside, Malaspina looks menacing
and...
even terrifying.
(narrator) The impenetrable structure, flanked by two stone towers,
has a dreamlike quality.
But deep below the grand halls and family frescos
is the darker side to the stunning, ancient relic.
(Sophia) The Castello di Malaspina
comes complete with dungeons
and, indeed, a torture chamber.
You get a powerful sense of the sufferings of the people
who might have been confined there in the past.
(narrator) And some say
that one former resident of this spine-chilling dungeon
still haunts the castle to this day.
There have been sightings of a small woman with long hair.
(narrator) So who is this young girl
that is said to roam the castle?
The tale behind the mysterious ghost of Malaspina
is one of forbidden love, fear, and ***.
The owner of this imposing Tuscan castle, Lady Malaspina,
has just given birth to a baby girl.
[baby crying in background]
But what should be a moment of joy for the Malaspinas
quickly turns sour.
Their daughter, who they name Bianca,
is an albino.
At the time, this is considered
to be a mark of the devil.
(narrator) Fearing the shame that Bianca would undoubtedly
bring on the family if she were to be seen in public,
the Malaspinas keep their daughter locked up in the castle
and never let her out.
But one day, when Bianca is a young woman,
something happens that will change her life forever.
She falls in love.
Through her window,
she catches sight of a handsome young stable lad.
This is love at first sight.
(narrator) But when Bianca's parents
learn of this affair with a common servant,
they do not look kindly on the matter.
(Sophia) For a noble family like the Malaspinas,
it would be unthinkable for their daughter
to marry anybody who was not
also of the nobility.
(narrator) So they forbid Bianca to have any contact
with the young servant boy.
But the amorous albino is undeterred.
Bianca remains determined to be with her lover,
and so she runs away from the castle.
(narrator) Beyond the castle walls,
the couple rekindles the affair,
but the secret tryst
is destined to be short-lived.
Word reaches the castle of Bianca's escape,
and her parents send a troop of guards to round up the wayward girl
and bring her back to the castle.
(Sophia) They are furiously angry that she has defied them.
They decide they can take no chances
of her escaping them again.
Having defied her parents, she could expect
only the most brutal treatment.
(narrator) So the Malaspinas devise a vengeful plan
to keep their daughter out of trouble once and for all.
The couple decide that they will
shut their daughter into a dungeon.
(narrator) Bianca is chained to the wall
and given two companions in the cell.
In the same room with her, they put two animals--
a dog, to symbolize
her fidelity to her lover
and a wild boar,
to signify her rebellion against her parents.
And they brick up the door
and leave her to die.
(narrator) It seems as if the Malaspinas have put an end to the problem
of their disobedient albino daughter once and for all.
(Sophia) What better way to hide your guilty secret
than to brick it up forever?
(narrator) The gruesome tale of how Bianca Malaspina was murdered by her parents
has been passed down from generation to generation,
and over the years, some have cast doubt
on whether the tale is actually true.
But then, in the 1980s, something happens
that will silence the skeptics forever.
When excavations were being made in the castle,
some human bones and some animal bones
were found together...
in a dungeon.
(narrator) Analysis of the bones suggests
that they belong to a young woman
and date decisively to the 17th Century.
The legend, it seems, is true.
And to this day,
it's said the forlorn figure of a blonde-haired girl
can be seen roaming the castle late at night...
the unquiet spirit of the murdered Bianca Malaspina.
A drowned English aristocrat comes back from the dead
to stake a claim to a huge family inheritance
and this classic mansion.
Situated on the edge of the English coastal town of Poole
in over 100 acres of woodland
is the serene country estate of Upton House.
(man) Upton House is a rather beautiful, country house
built in 1816.
It's surrounded by park land, there's a little formal garden,
and it looks out across the sea.
(narrator) The home contains original wood carvings and chandeliers,
a library with curved, hidden doors,
and a grand entrance hall.
(man) You walk in through the front doors, and on either side of you
are these black, marble columns, and then, up above you,
there's a circular window that lets light down into the hall.
(narrator) But these sun-splashed halls were once the stage
for a scandalous family drama
that captivated British society.
This is one of the great mysterious of 19th Century culture.
Nobody has really produced a satisfactory explanation.
(narrator) The owner of Upton House, Lady Tichborne,
has just received some terrible news--
her son, Roger, the heir to the Tichborne estate
and the vast family fortune,
has been lost at sea in a shipwreck
off the coast of South America.
It's absolutely accepted by almost everybody
that Roger Tichborne drowned on that ship.
(narrator) Everybody except one person--
his mother.
(Matthew) His mother refuses to accept this idea
that Roger Tichborne drowned on that ship
and never gives up hope that, one day,
Roger Tichborne is going to walk back through the door
or be discovered somewhere.
(narrator) Convinced that her son somehow survived the wreck
and is still alive, Lady Tichborne begins a search
that will change the family's destiny forever.
(Matthew) So what she does is she puts adverts in newspapers
looking for her lost son.
(narrator) For more than ten years,
Lady Tichborne posts missing persons notices
in publications around the world...
with no success.
But then, in October of 1866,
she receives a telegram
from a town in Australia called Wagga Wagga,
and it contains the news she's been waiting for.
(Matthew) The advert is answered by a man
who's gone under the name of Thomas Castro.
He's a butcher in Wagga Wagga, and he says...
"I am Roger Tichborne."
(narrator) The man claims that he was rescued from the sea
by a vessel bound for Australia,
where he started a new life.
Overjoyed at the news, Lady Tichborne invites the man
back to England and to Upton House,
where she welcomes him as her son and heir.
But not everyone is convinced that the Tichborne Claimant,
as he comes to be known, is for real.
(Matthew) Roger Tichborne was this rather skinny,
fit, young aristocrat.
This man is not like this at all.
This man is a hulking, great butcher.
He's enormous!
There are, kind of, glaring errors and inconsistencies
in the story that he's presenting to the family,
but he clearly is somebody who has
some sort of intimate knowledge of the family,
so he cannot be dismissed, absolutely.
(narrator) So it's decided that the matter of whether the man
is really Roger Tichborne should be settled by the courts.
The trial,
which begins on May 11, 1871,
pits several members of the Tichborne family against the Claimant.
So there are two things upon which his defense rests.
The first is the testimony of Lady Tichborne herself.
(Matthew) The idea that Lady Tichborne
seems absolutely clear
that this man is her son is very persuasive
and very powerful.
(narrator) The second piece of evidence that supports the Claimant
comes from a thorough medical and physical examination.
Despite the huge dissimilarity in physical bulk,
these two men have a kind of facial similarity,
but there's something else,
something that actually was
quite hard to talk about in a courtroom.
(narrator) Roger Tichborne had an abnormality so incredibly rare,
that it should make him decidedly easy to identify.
(Matthew) It was a kind of genetic malformation
that the real Roger Tichborne had.
In effect, his-- his, um, his ***
had retracted into his body.
And when doctors examine the Tichborne Claimant,
they make a stunning discovery.
[thunder crashes]
(narrator) It's the mid-19th Century in England.
The heir of Upton House, Roger Tichborne,
was thought to have been lost at sea,
but then a mysterious stranger comes forward,
claiming that he is the missing man,
returned home to collect his inheritance.
To prove his identity, he submits to
a thorough medical exam,
but does he have the same rare genetic deformity
as the real Roger Tichborne?
(Matthew) The real Roger Tichborne had
a kind of genetic malformation.
In effect, his--his, um, his ***
had retracted into his body.
The trousers of this butcher from Wagga Wagga,
amazingly, contain the same secret.
This man doesn't have a ***, either.
(narrator) It looks as if this man
really is Roger Tichborne
and that he is in line to inherit the family fortune
and Upton House.
But the story of the Tichborne Claimant isn't over yet.
The medical evidence seems compelling.
They both have this incredibly rare malformation.
(narrator) And many people are supporting his story.
(Matthew) The Claimant seems to have knowledge of things
that only Roger Tichborne would know,
and yet there's a lot that he doesn't seem to know.
(narrator) Many members of the Tichborne family
think that the man is an imposter
simply because he shows no signs of an aristocratic upbringing.
(Matthew) This man is coarse,
this man has no manners...
this man can't be an aristocrat.
(narrator) Suddenly, the case seems to waver.
And then, when Lady Tichborne,
the Claimant's main supporter, dies,
it collapses completely.
The court decides that this man cannot be Roger Tichborne.
(narrator) The Claimant is tried for perjury
and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
(Matthew) By the end of his life, he has absolutely nothing,
and he's buried in a pauper's grave.
(narrator) But in a strange twist of events,
the Tichborne family allows a nameplate to be affixed to the man's coffin.
It reads, "Roger Tichborne".
The family never explains the reason behind
their sudden change of heart,
and whether or not it was really him,
we shall never know.
There remains the possibility that
he could have been the real Roger Tichborne.
Nobody has really solved this mystery.
(narrator) Today, Upton House stands within a large public park,
a remnant of the vast estate
and a reminder of the extraordinary tale
of the mysterious imposter who claimed the mansion
as his own.
A founding father, a national landmark,
and a grisly experiment that almost altered history,
and it took place
behind closed doors here,
at one of America's most famous homes.
Sixteen miles south of our nation's capital,
on the banks of the Potomac River,
is a majestic, 50-acre estate
that dates back to 1735.
(woman) It's America's
most heavily visited historic house.
We have about 1.1 million visitors each year.
(narrator) The main residential building,
which was nearly destroyed by a British warship
during the Revolutionary War,
is now considered one of the finest examples
of American Colonial architecture.
(woman) On the grounds, visitors can enjoy
the beautiful piazza overlooking the Potomac River,
a beautiful, formal flower garden with greenhouse,
and a coach house and stable housing 18th Century vehicles.
(narrator) But it's not the gardens or the architecture
that draw crowds to this splendid mansion house.
(Susan) It's really an iconic, historic house
because of its association
with our first president.
(narrator) This is Mount Vernon,
the home of George Washington.
But this grand presidential estate
also harbors a ghoulish secret.
A weary George Washington, now retired,
returns home after a day spent working
on renovations to his property.
(Susan) Mount Vernon was incredibly important to George Washington
and his refuge from the cares of his responsibilities
as general and president.
(narrator) But the effort needed to maintain the property
is taking its toll.
(Susan) The next day, which is Friday, December 13,
he wakes up, and he reports having a sore throat.
(narrator) And the sore throat soon develops into something worse.
(Susan) At that point, he's feverish,
he has a very painful sore throat,
he's having difficulty getting his breath,
and he's really uncomfortable.
This is becoming serious--
this may be more than an ordinary cold.
(narrator) Washington's wife, Martha,
summons the best doctors in the land.
After assessing the former president,
they recommend a decidedly archaic treatment...
bloodletting.
(Susan) Bloodletting was thought to
rebalance the humors in the body
and perhaps reduce pressure or swelling.
(narrator) Over the course of the next 16 hours,
doctors drain several pints of blood from Washington's body.
(Susan) Martha Washington wasn't sure
this was such a good idea
and asked that they stop,
but Washington said, "No, no, more."
They took probably about maybe 35 percent
of Washington's total blood in his system.
(narrator) But the radical treatment
fails to revive the ailing leader.
On Saturday, December 14,
Washington expires late in the evening
between probably 10 and 11 o'clock at night.
(narrator) His wife and doctors
and the whole fledgling nation
are left to mourn the passing of the great man.
In the days that follow,
a stream of friends, family, and admirers come from miles away
to pay their respects to the fallen leader.
Among them is a man who refuses to believe
that Washington has breathed his last.
One of the visitors is yet another doctor,
Doctor William Thornton.
(narrator) Thornton is a renowned painter, an architect,
and a trained physician.
(Susan) Thornton is devastated to find his hero already dead.
(narrator) Then, to the shock of everyone at Mount Vernon,
Thornton makes a grizzly and unnerving proposal.
(Susan) He believes that
he can resuscitate Washington,
effectively bring him back to life.
(narrator) Thornton puts his outlandish idea to Martha Washington.
(Susan) First he's going to thaw the body,
then he proposes to cut an opening
into the airway, or the windpipe,
and then finally,
to put blood back into Washington's system,
specifically the blood of a lamb.
(narrator) The blood of a lamb, Thornton hopes,
will reinvigorate the dead president
and bring him back to life.
[thunder crashes]
(narrator) It's 1799.
At his home in Mount Vernon,
the nation's first president, George Washington,
has drawn his last breath,
but an ambitious doctor, William Thornton,
believes his life is not quite over.
He wants to perform a radical scientific procedure
to resuscitate the president.
He proposes to put blood
back into Washington's system,
specifically the blood of a lamb.
(narrator) Lamb's blood, it's believed,
has special medicinal properties that could reanimate
a person's circulatory system,
and with that, Washington would be brought back from the dead.
(Susan) The body itself was in perfect working order,
and it should start working again.
(narrator) Although it seems outlandish today,
at the time, little was known about the inner workings of the human body,
and to some, Thornton's plans
may have seemed perfectly plausible.
Martha Washington thinks long and hard
about the doctor's ghoulish suggestion.
Then, after much deliberation,
she makes her decision.
She said, "No, don't do this."
And I think there was a real sentiment of "let him rest in peace."
(narrator) Martha and the nation
say farewell to the founding father,
and he is buried on the grounds of his beloved Mount Vernon.
(Susan) I think the lengths
that the doctors were willing to go
to try and save Washington's life
really underlines how difficult it was
for them to imagine
America going on without him.
(narrator) William Thornton remains convinced for the rest of his life
that his plan would have resurrected the president,
and today, millions of Americans
still flock to the home of the nation's first president
and his final resting place, Mount Vernon.
When an all-powerful emperor is stripped of his throne
and sent into exile,
he attempts one of the greatest comebacks in history,
and the brazen scheme was hatched here in an isolated villa
in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
On the small and rugged island of Elba,
seven miles off the coast of Italy,
stands a 17th Century estate
known as the Villa dei Mulini.
(man) The Villa dei Mulini has
absolutely gorgeous views of the Mediterranean.
It gets the sea breeze, in winter, it gets the wind.
It's a very pleasant place to live.
(narrator) But in the early 1800s, this peaceful retreat
held one of the most ruthless dictators the world has ever known...
Napoleon Bonaparte.
And it was in these grand hallways
that the infamous general plotted an audacious escape.
(Michael) Napoleon's escape from Elba
is one of...
the greatest tripwires in history.
(narrator) Napoleon Bonaparte, the deposed emperor of France,
has been sent to live out his days
on the Mediterranean island of Elba.
Although he is given a nominal position as the island's ruler,
for the once mighty leader,
it's a massive fall from grace.
(Michael) Napoleon is the most remarkable figure
in European history.
He'd risen out of nothing.
(narrator) Just two years earlier,
he commanded one of the most powerful armies
the world had ever seen.
Now he lives in a gilded cage,
the Villa dei Mulini.
And charged with the role of making sure that Bonaparte doesn't escape
is a British officer named Neil Campbell.
(Michael) Campbell's an interesting figure.
He's in awe of Napoleon,
and Napoleon sees this.
(narrator) Before long, the young soldier becomes intoxicated
by the power of the French general's personality.
(Michael) Napoleon's always saying to him,
"Oh, let me tell you about the battle of this and the battle of that,"
all his famous history, and Campbell loves all this.
(narrator) Gradually, Napoleon begins
to turn the tables on his British minder.
(Michael) Instead of Campbell keeping an eye on Napoleon
and getting information out of him ,
Napoleon's finding out from Campbell
what's going on in the wider world,
and the roles gradually become reversed.
(narrator) Meanwhile, Napoleon's supporters in France
manage to get a message to him
that the French people want him back.
(Michael) The whole network
of Napoleonic support
is carrying on in France,
particularly through the army and army veterans.
(narrator) And so, under the unsuspecting gaze of Campbell,
Napoleon begins plotting his escape from Elba.
[thunder crashes]
(narrator) February 1815.
The notorious French dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte,
has been exiled to the island of Elba.
Charged with keeping him there
is a British officer named Neil Campbell.
Little does Campbell know
that Napoleon is already planning his escape.
(Michael) Napoleon's always thinking about escaping.
It's very hard to know when
he makes the conscious decision and starts making his plans,
because it was kept top secret.
(narrator) One day in February, Napoleon arranges
to have a drink with his minder.
(Michael) Campbell, to his credit, has never left Napoleon
since he's been on Elba.
Napoleon starts working on him.
(narrator) Napoleon convinces Campbell
that he should visit his mistress on the Italian mainland.
(Michael) He says, "All my sources are telling me
"that your lady friend's having a very nice time to herself in Florence,
"she's playing the field-- if I were you,
I'd get myself over there."
(narrator) And as soon as Campbell's ship sails out of the harbor,
Napoleon seizes full control of the island.
(Michael) Napoleon locks Elba down.
He turns his isolation
into a weapon.
Any ship that comes in is impounded.
That way, he can get hold of the ships he needs for his trip.
(narrator) On the night of February 26,
under the cover of darkness,
Napoleon heads to the dockyard and boards one of the ships.
(Michael) He leaves Elba at midnight,
for the full moon and to avoid any patrols.
(narrator) And three weeks later, with the help of supporters and the French army,
Napoleon returns to Paris triumphant.
But his sensational comeback
is short-lived.
In June 1815,
Napoleon's army is soundly defeated by the British
at the Battle of Waterloo.
This time, the great commander
is sent to an even more remote island
in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
called Saint Helena.
(Michael) There he really is a prisoner.
He is kept on very tight guard,
and he eventually dies in 1821.
(narrator) But on Elba, Napoleon is not forgotten.
And every year in the harbor town beneath the Villa dei Mulini,
the month of May is given over to a festival
that celebrates the tiny island's
most famous resident.
The tale of how the most famous monster in the world
was caught on camera
played out in the shadow
of this ancient fortress.
On the banks of a vast Scottish lake
stands the skeletal frame of an historic stone castle.
(man) It's actually
the third biggest castle in Scotland.
It was a good strongpoint,
and it commanded the water,
so it was a very, very important stronghold.
(narrator) This is Urquhart Castle,
and the body of water that it overlooks
is Loch Ness.
(Tony) Urquhart Castle, as it stands today,
is a ruin.
When you get through the first gatehouse towers,
you end up in a very large courtyard.
Before it was ruined, there would've been large buildings
going off that courtyard.
(narrator) These buildings once housed a well-armed garrison
whose job it was to keep the rampaging area clansmen in check.
But there's one local menace that captures the imagination
more than any military force.
(Tony) You had local people
who had really, genuinely seen something.
(narrator) This is the home
of the Loch Ness monster.
The legend of the creature dates back to the 6th Century
when the Irish missionary Saint Columba
was visiting a fort that stood in the sight
of the present-day Urquhart Castle
and came face to face with a giant water monster.
(Tony) It was said a beast came up out of the water,
and Saint Columba raised his hand with a cross in it
and said, "Go back with all speed."
And the beast turned around and fled instantly.
(narrator) Since then, countless sightings of the beast
have drawn travelers and monster hunters to Loch Ness.
So what is the truth behind the legend
of the Loch Ness monster?
Following a spade of sightings of the monster in Loch Ness,
a London newspaper decides to investigate the story further.
(Tony) The Daily Mail newspaper thought
it could be a real scoop here if they could catch it,
and they sent a big game hunter out to track it.
(narrator) The man they hire is a well known explorer
named Marmaduke Wetherell,
who has a track record in catching large animals.
And it's not long before Wetherell
makes an extraordinary discovery--
a set of footprints on the side of the loch.
The prints are almost 10 inches long
and around 8 inches wide and are far too big
to be any known Scottish animal.
It seems that concrete evidence of the beast's existence
has finally been found.
(Tony) Once these footprints have been discovered,
plaster casts were taken.
They were sent to the British Museum.
(narrator) But after careful study,
the museum makes a stunning announcement.
The footprints weren't made by a mysterious monster
but by...a hippopotamus.
And because there are no wild hippopotamuses in Scotland,
they reach a damning conclusion.
They must have been faked by Wetherell himself.
(Tony) Marmaduke Wetherell,
when he came up to Loch Ness,
he actually brought something with him
in his suitcase.
It was a foot,
the foot of a hippopotamus that he'd shot.
And he used that to make footprints
on the side of Loch Ness.
(narrator) When the big game hunter's hoax is exposed,
he is fired by the editors of the Daily Mail.
His reputation in ruins,
Marmaduke Wetherell retreats into obscurity.
But it won't be the last anyone hears of the hoaxing hunter
or the Loch Ness monster.
A short time later, a London physician
named Robert Kenneth Wilson comes forward
with yet another extraordinary claim.
(Tony) While he was bird watching along the side of Loch Ness,
he stopped to take a photograph,
and something was moving through the water.
[camera shutter clicks]
(narrator) The photograph that Wilson presents
shows a long-necked, dinosaur-like creature
gliding through the loch.
The Daily Mail buys the photo for a large sum of money
and devotes their entire front page to the image
that seems to be definitive proof
that the monster exists.
(Tony) It captured the attention of the world.
It went viral, as we'd say today.
This photograph is the icon
of the Loch Ness monster.
(narrator) But there is more to this picture than meets the eye.
[thunder crashes]
(narrator) Loch Ness, Scotland,
1934.
A doctor named Robert Kenneth Wilson
claims to have taken a photograph of the legendary beast
known as the Loch Ness monster.
(Tony) This photograph is the icon
of the Loch Ness monster.
(narrator) Over the next 60 years,
investigators pore over the photograph,
trying to prove whether it is genuine or a fake,
but without success.
Then, in 1994,
the case takes an extraordinary turn.
Two researchers found a lead
that took them to, of all people,
Marmaduke Wetherell, the big game hunter
who'd produced the footprint.
(narrator) The researchers contact
Marmaduke Wetherell's stepson, a man named Christian Spurling,
who then makes a stunning confession.
According to Spurling, Wetherell had felt pressured by the Daily Mail
into making the fake footprint
and then was devastated when the same paper
condemned him as a fraud.
So together with Spurling,
the big game hunter cooked up a plan
to take revenge on the paper.
(Tony) Spurling admitted that he'd made a model,
mounted it on a toy submarine,
and had given it to Marmaduke Wetherell to bring to Scotland
to photograph.
(narrator) Marmaduke Wetherell launched the submarine
with the monster model on top of it
and had his friend, Dr. Wilson, print the photograph
and sell it to the press.
(Tony) He'd got his revenge
by selling it to the Daily Mail.
(narrator) In that way, the big game hunter had the last laugh.
But if people thought that the debunking of this iconic photo
would stem the tide of interest in the Loch Ness monster,
they were wrong.
Today, in the murky waters around Urquhart Castle,
the investigations continue,
now aided by cutting-edge sonar technology.
(Tony) There's still a lot of mysteries to solve in Loch Ness,
and maybe we can solve the big one, too.
(narrator) Today, the sandstone ruins of this ancient fortress
still stand as a silent witness to the legendary monster tale
that has endured on these misty shores
for more than a thousand years.
An American heiress,
a European count,
and a love affair that went horribly wrong.
At its heart was an extraordinary woman
who made her home in one of the oldest mansions in America.
Just outside our nation's capital is Upper Marlboro, Maryland,
the site of a historic mansion.
Built in the 1670s as a hunting lodge,
its name is Mount Airy.
(woman) Mount Airy sits on about a thousand acres
in what's now the Rosaryville State Park.
It's a very gracious house.
(narrator) Situated in the heart of Maryland horse country,
this iconic manor was renovated to suit its most famous owner's
personal tastes and lifestyle.
(Amanda) It has extensive greenhouses,
heated swimming pool,
a large stable block.
(narrator) The interior features a massive wine cellar
and is furnished with fine antiques.
(Amanda) This is a very private place
where a woman who was extremely powerful
came to be alone.
(narrator) For two decades, it offered respite
for one of America's first female media moguls.
But before this sumptuous estate
could safely be called home,
she found herself at the center of an epic scandal
that spanned the globe.
Living the carefree life of an international socialite
is the headstrong heiress
to the Chicago Tribune newspaper dynasty--
21-year-old Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson.
(Amanda) Cissy Patterson was very spoiled
and very willful.
(narrator) And one day, while traveling in Europe,
the strong-willed Cissy has a fateful encounter
that will change her life forever.
(Amanda) She met a fellow called Count Josef Gizycki,
and she fell head over heels in love with him.
(narrator) The count entrances Cissy
with tales of his ancestral castle,
complete with a drawbridge and moat,
and when the count proposes marriage,
Cissy is convinced that all of her wildest dreams have come true.
But her family is less than thrilled.
(Amanda) They had heard rumors about his womanizing, about his gambling,
about his drinking, about his bad temper.
(narrator) Her parents fear that the count only wants the vast fortune
Cissy is set to inherit.
But on April 14, 1904, in spite of her parents' protestations,
Cissy marries the count in Washington, DC.
The very next morning, they begin the long trip
to Count Gizycki's castle in eastern Europe.
(Amanda) As Cissy's mother handed her over
to her new husband,
the last thing she said was, "Cissy, darling,
you know you can always come home."
(narrator) During the long journey
deep into the Ukrainian countryside,
Cissy daydreams about the grand parties
she will host in the count's luxurious estate.
But that was not to be.
(Amanda) They came around a bend,
and there was a big, box-like structure
that was all but falling down.
That was the castle that he had told her about.
(narrator) The count leads his hesitant wife into her new home.
(Amanda) The whole place was very bare,
the wallpaper was just falling off the walls.
(narrator) And when she is shown the bedroom,
Cissy is horrified to discover
that the mantelpiece is covered with photographs
of her husband's many mistresses.
(Amanda) She was surprised, to say the least,
pretty staggered by all this.
She's horrified and heartbroken.
All the warnings her family and her friends had tried to give her
were all true.
(narrator) From that day on, Cissy becomes a virtual prisoner
in her philandering husband's house.
(Amanda) Cissy's life is very dreary,
it's very, very bleak.
She realized she was thousands of miles from home
and had nobody to turn to.
(narrator) And for the headstrong Cissy,
things are about to get even trickier.
[thunder crashes]
(narrator) It's 1905 in rural Ukraine.
American heiress Cissy Patterson has been duped
into marrying a gold-digging charlatan,
the wicked Count Gizycki,
and just when she thinks things are as bad as they can be,
her situation becomes even more problematic.
In 1905, when they've been married for about a year,
she discovered that she's pregnant.
(narrator) And when the baby is born,
Cissy makes the most important decision of her life.
She decides to escape.
(Amanda) She feels that it's unsafe for her to stay in the house.
(narrator) So in December 1907,
when the count is away on business,
Cissy seizes a rare opportunity.
She packs up and leaves.
(narrator) If she's caught, there's no telling
what the wicked count will do to exact his revenge.
Taking her life in her hands, Cissy disguises herself and her daughter
and flees across the snowy landscape.
Finally free of the count,
they board a train to France.
(Amanda) It was done so secretly and so quickly
that not even the passenger lists in France
have any record of Cissy boarding
so that Gizycki wouldn't know that they were leaving.
(narrator) By the time the count realizes that she is gone,
it's too late.
Once back in the USA, using the inheritance
that Count Gizycki tried so desperately to claim,
Cissy embarks on a new venture.
She buys the Washington Times-Herald.
The count, for his part,
gambles away what little money he has
and eventually dies in poverty.
(Amanda) Cissy Patterson was the first American woman
to be the editor and publisher
of a major metropolitan daily newspaper.
(narrator) In 1931, Cissy purchases the Mount Airy Mansion,
and it remains her beloved home
until her death in 1948.
Today, Mount Airy stands as a testament
to one woman's remarkable perseverance.