Episode 16: Alabama Nannie Doss the Giggling Granny

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Transcript

00;00;49;20 - 00;01;39;17
Ragen
Hello. My name is Ragen and welcome to the Twisted State's podcast. Thank you for joining us for episode 16 of Twisted States. where we take a look state by state and some of America's most nefarious killers, elusive cryptids, and bizarre mysteries so on this episode, we're going to take a trip down south to Alabama. Alabama was the 22nd state to join the Union and did so on December 14th of 1819 Alabama as a southeastern U.S. state bordered by the states of Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida to the south and Mississippi to the west, the state extends south all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and ranges in elevation from sea level at Mobile

00;01;39;17 - 00;02;20;27
Ragen
Bay to more than 2000 feet in the Northeast, which is highest point being out here at 2413 feet our topic of today's episode is one nanny dos so without further ado, let's get into it a little bit of backstory on November 4th. 1905 Nancy Hazel, aka Nanny Dos, was born to parents Louisa and James Hazel in Blue Mountain, Alabama, a small town located between Anniston and Jacksonville.

00;02;22;17 - 00;02;42;00
Ragen
In 1912 at seven years old, Nancy suffered a head injury on a train when it stopped suddenly. And this would lead to a lifelong issue with headaches an issue she later blamed for many of her actions horrible, unforgivable actions that put her in a place of criminal infamy.

00;02;44;14 - 00;03;30;21
Ragen
As a child nanny would often look at romance magazines that belonged to her mother and daydream of finding that perfect, perfect partner and having that perfect life her childhood was one where she didn't have a lot of freedom and her father ruled over his children under a very strict thumb so was once nanny was able to get out and get away from all of that, she took she took the first opportunity she could in 1921 at 16 years of age Nanny would seek employment at the Linen Thread Company in Anniston.

00;03;30;28 - 00;03;35;23
Ragen
And this is where she met her first husband Charles Braggs.

00;03;38;05 - 00;04;09;25
Ragen
In 1922. The couple were joined in holy matrimony. Once married, they quickly started having children by 1926 they had four things weren't going so well for Nannie and Charles with Nancy's fixation with romance. She always had this unrealistic reality of what it meant to be in a relationship and what love really was and what it meant and how it, how it functioned and how it worked.

00;04;10;28 - 00;04;51;29
Ragen
So as soon as things started going downhill in her relationship with her husband, which it wasn't even really going downhill, I think, I think they were just kind of settling and getting past the honeymoon phase of things. Things started getting getting rough that getting bad and everything finally came to a head. One sunny morning, the two middle children got up, getting ready for school, ate breakfast and died suddenly and this was during the fifth year of Charles and Nanny's marriage.

00;04;54;18 - 00;05;15;19
Unknown
Shortly after this occurred, someone reached out anonymously to Charles and warned him not to eat anything that his wife cooked for him. Shocked and spooked by this warning, and the sudden loss of his two children, Charles left taking their eldest daughter Malvina with them, but leaving their youngest child, Florian, with their mother by 1928. The divorce would be final.

00;05;15;25 - 00;05;39;10
Ragen
Later that year, Braggs would find a new love interest and bring Melvina back to stay with her mother. Nancy and her two daughters moved back in with her parents and she would find work in a local cotton mill, not wasting any time getting back to her search for romance doses. Lonely Hearts column obsession would pay off and she would meet and marry husband number two.

00;05;39;25 - 00;06;47;04
Ragen
Frank Harrelson, a Jacksonville resident shortly before the end of 1929 Frank unfortunately was a violent alcoholic and this became very apparent early in the relationship but Nancy continued to hang in there made the best of things for several years until 1945 and then once again here we go it seems that at this point her murderous nature seemed to bubble up once again to the surface first by murdering her granddaughter with a hatpin in the hospital that year, then indicating her two year old grandson Robert on July 7th once again of 1945, she was even brazen enough to collect a $500 life insurance policy she had taken out on him just a few months earlier her marriage

00;06;47;04 - 00;07;12;21
Ragen
to Frank would last 16 years until one day he was out drinking with a friend and when he came home he forced himself on Nancy Dos Nanny went out to the yard the next day and poured rat poison into Frank's moonshine bottles that he had buried in the yard. Frank passed away on September 15th of 1945 from what was assumed to be food poisoning or some other ailment.

00;07;13;22 - 00;07;47;00
Ragen
Nothing was questioned at the time. No one was even remotely concerned that there may have been foul play Nancy once again took to the Lonely Hearts columns looking for this seemingly unattainable, perfect fairy tale romance and managed to reel in one Artie Lanning married once again in August in 1947. It took a much shorter two and a half years before things would start to unravel.

00;07;47;14 - 00;08;27;25
Ragen
Lanning died of what was presumed to be heart failure in 1950 after landing was laid to rest. His sister inherited the home the couple was living in so of course it mysteriously burned down and Nancy managed to find a way to get her hands on some of the insurance money. During this series of events, Nancy was caring for Landing's mother due to a broken hip and she passed away in her sleep still writing The Delusion and possibly once again getting by with cold blooded murder.

00;08;28;25 - 00;08;53;27
Ragen
Thoughts quickly went right back to work, lining up a new suitor using a dating service called the Diamond Circle Club to secure her next victim. Richard L. Morton of Jamestown, North Carolina, was no alcoholic and was not physically abusive. Shortly after their marriage in October of 1952 doses, mother Lou moved in with the couple after her husband's death and died suddenly after complaining of stomach pains.

00;08;57;07 - 00;09;30;10
Ragen
Three days after Lou's death. Morton, whom Nancy had discovered was a womanizer and was having an affair with his ex, died after drinking at them was full of arsenic, spiked coffee Nancy immediately set out once again, and this time she set her sights on one Samuel Dos the two were married in June of 1953. Sam was frugal, boring, fiscally responsible and easily convinced to take out two considerable life insurance policies.

00;09;30;28 - 00;10;08;24
Ragen
Within weeks of doing so, Mr. Dos started complaining of stomach issues due to, unbeknownst to him, poisoned prune cake while he was hospitalized but managed to survive this attempt on his life that he was completely unaware of but of course, he came home and perished shortly after his second attempt with poisoned coffee, the managed to be successful this last murder, though, was Nanny's undoing.

00;10;08;27 - 00;10;39;08
Ragen
After being convinced by Samuel's doctor to have an autopsy done to possibly save future lives, it was discovered that Dos, his body, contained enough arsenic to kill a horse. The authorities were immediately contacted a nanny was arrested for murder for the simple favor of being allowed to keep possession of a romance magazine, nanny willingly confessed to killing all of her deceased husbands, many of whom were exhumed and tested to find they too had been poisoned.

00;10;41;08 - 00;10;55;09
Ragen
At 48 years old, the state of Oklahoma found her guilty of murder. She was never tried in the other states, but was charged in North Carolina. Canvas, canvas wow. That's not a state. Kansas and Alabama as well.

00;10;58;06 - 00;11;30;11
Ragen
Initially Nancy was facing the electric chair, but the judge handling her sentencing said he couldn't see himself setting such a poor precedent by executing not only a woman, but a woman that had obvious mental disabilities it was during her interrogations that Nancy was given the nickname of the giggling granny due to her tendency to giggle and telling of how she poisoned her husband.

00;11;30;26 - 00;12;02;14
Ragen
She seemed to revel in the prospect of serving a life sentence, strangely enough. But after a couple of years of incarceration and being denied request repeatedly to work in the kitchen for obvious reasons, she started to lament that this decision Nannie Doss died from leukemia on June 2nd of 1965, the 10th anniversary of her incarceration and was buried in McAllister, Oklahoma, at Oak Hill Memorial Park Cemetery.

00;12;06;23 - 00;12;07;05
Ragen
Wow.

00;12;09;07 - 00;12;40;03
Ragen
So there you have it. There's the story of nanny dos. OK, Nancy, Hazel, born one. Nancy Hazel the giggling granny thank you once again for hanging out. This is Ragen signing off for twisted states. Check us out on Instagram, all that fun stuff. If you're listening to this, you can also hop over. She's here with her YouTube channel, Rural.

00;12;40;03 - 00;12;45;28
Ragen
This episodes get uploaded and I will see you next time.