Hey guys. Thanks for joining us.

Welcome.

How you guys doing?

Gucci swag.

Yeah, I’m good.

Good y’all. How about y’all?

 All about that cash. You know, same old, all about the base.

Pretty excited to be here with you guys.

Yes, always excited.

Yes. Ready to get into another fun conspiracy.

 Yeah. Before we get into it, let’s… wrap up some paperwork here. Please check us out at our website, www.3(the number3), schemequeens.com. We have links there to all of our social media episodes and ways to support us, including merch. You can also find us on Buzzsprout, check us out on Instagram or Facebook at 3SchemeQueens, that’s number 3, Scheme Queens, all one word, and reach out to us on our website via the contact link if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, anything you wanna share with us. If you don’t feel like supporting us financially…

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Yes, of course, share with your friends and family. And shoot us some emails. We love to hear from you guys. And a way that I like to share podcasts, as I say, in conversation. Oh, I was listening to this podcast today.

And then you don’t tell them it’s you?

No.

Yeah.

Oh, it was this really interesting conspiracy theory about the Philadelphia Project. Have you heard of it? Have you ever heard of it? I’ve, yeah. And then I just slide into their DMs, you know?

Right.

Yeah.

That’s what I do.

So what time is it, guys? Is it drink check?

Drink check. What you guys drinking over there? I am drinking a little mocktail moment. Oh. Little cherry mocktail moment.

Okay, we like that. I am supporting my hydration with a little dihydrogen monoxide.

Okay, good for you, nerd alert. I’ve got a little seltzer. It’s just, it’s food lion, it’s generic, but a little blackberry seltzer.

Ooh. Delicious.

So yeah, everyone stay hydrated, grab yourself a drink. Join us as we get into a good one, okay? As we commence again. What are we talking about this week, Megan?

All right, this is kind of a twofer.

Ooh. Yeah. A twofer one, if you will.

Yes.

Oh, I’m sorry. Are you just saying that you’re gonna kill two birds with one stone, Megan?

Oh, I am. Maybe two mockingbirds with one stone?

What?

Yes, guys, we’re gonna talk about To Kill a Mockingbird today. And this was interesting because I wanted to research one conspiracy theory and it took me down the rabbit hole to another. So we have two. conspiracy theories about To Kill a Mockingbird.

Oh my God.

Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize the following year and sell more than 40 million copies worldwide. The coming of age story follows Scout and Jem Finch as their father Atticus defends a falsely accused black man in 1930s Alabama. The book was reportedly inspired by Harper Lee’s childhood memories from small town Monroeville, Alabama, where she lived next door to a young Truman Capote. They remained best friends for many years, however, following the publication of In Cold Blood in 1965, Lee and Capote’s friendship began to disintegrate and Harper Lee became a bit of a recluse. Harper Lee was still, quote, seen around town in sweatpants looking for bargains at a Dollar General store, washing her clothes at a local laundromat and drinking coffee at a McDonald’s, end quote. Was it resentment that Capote did not acknowledge Lee’s contributions to his work that led to the decline of their friendship? Or was it at Capote actually wrote Lee’s one hit wonder and did not received credit?

Oh.

Have you guys heard this?

No, I haven’t heard this.

How about you Colleen?

I don’t think I’ve heard this at all.

So I guess you guys probably don’t have strong opinions if this is new.

No, but I am very intrigued.

Well going into it, I did not believe it and I did some research and we’ll find out where I stand now.

Are you gonna prove it to us?

Yeah.

So the theory that Capote actually wrote To Kill a Mockingbird stems from people who claim that Capote implied that he was heavily involved and or responsible for To Kill a Mockingbird. The fact that Lee Harper never published another novel until 2015. We’ll get…

Oh, sequel, wasn’t it?

Yeah, well, sort of a sequel, prequel. We’ll get to that later. We’ll talk about that. But yeah, the fact that she had never published another novel left many feeling that if she was such a good author, why was she like a one and done author?

That’s true. A one hit wonder, if you will.

Exactly. So let’s back it up. Capote and Lee were childhood neighbors who would often write stories on a typewriter that Lee’s dad purchased for them. Eventually, Capote would move to New York City and have some early success with the 1948 publication, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Lee followed him to New York City where he was working for the New Yorker magazine. He pitched a non-fiction article about the murder of a rich family in Kansas and prepared to head west. In need of an assistant, he brought his old friend Lee with him. Lee had just finished the final edits for To Kill a Mockingbird and had previously studied criminal law. Many argue that Capote’s flamboyant and brash personality rubbed locals the wrong way, and it was Lee that the locals embraced and spoke to. Even as he began to resent her for the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, she still remained loyal to him. She contributed 150 pages of notes and even anonymously published an article in a journal for law enforcement praising the handling of the Clutter family murder. She edited a final draft prior to publication, but Capote failed to acknowledge her contributions. So this I had kind of heard, like I kind of had heard about this, that she was like his right hand man while he was writing in Cold Blood. And that, yeah, a lot of the locals didn’t really wanna talk to him, but they loved her, and so they would talk to her. And so perhaps she was pretty heavily involved. And I think she was pretty upset. He published the book and didn’t give her any credit.

Yeah, I’m intrigued.

We don’t like that.

No. Frankly, everything I’ve read or watched about Capote implied that he’s kind of an egotistical narcissist who was jealous of his best friend’s success and never achieved his own goal of winning his own Pulitzer Prize.

Yeah.

And on the one hand, I can see him, like I know him, but just like based on everything I’ve seen and read, I can see him implying like that she owes her success to him. But on the other hand, I feel like if he had actually written this book, there is no way that he wouldn’t have made like every effort to prove it. Like he seems like the kind of guy who’d have been out there being very, very vocal. and providing facts just to feed his ego, to be like, this was my Pulitzer Prize. So a narcissist is not gonna let somebody else take all the credit for his own work.

Right.

And then in 2005, several journalists writing a 50 year anniversary piece on the writing of In Cold Blood, interviewed a lot of the locals. A lot of the locals actually reported that they believed that Harper Lee had perhaps ghostwritten this book, In Cold Blood.

Ghostwritten?

Like wrote it for him.

Like wrote it?

Yeah. And then- Oh, Harper Lee, I’m sorry. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, so kind of the opposite. Like here, Truman Capote has perhaps made some implications that he wrote to Kill a Mockingbird. And now it’s like the reverse. But like really most of the evidence is that if anything, perhaps she wrote-

I’m getting, yeah, I’m getting the vibe she wrote it all.

Yeah. Reverse.

In 2006, a note was donated to a museum by Capote’s cousin that was written in 1959 by Capote to his aunt. And in that note, he states that he has read To Kill a Mockingbird and enjoyed it very much. And nowhere in that letter does he claim responsibility. So this is kind of like before the book blew up. And it seems like if he is writing about like, oh yeah, this was really a great book, you would think he’d be like, and hey. It’s mine. Hey, Aunt Sue.

Right.

I wrote this book.

Right.

And then in 2015, The Wall Street Journal had two Polish literary scholars run the text from Got Set a Watchman, which we’re gonna talk about in just a minute. That was Lee’s second book that did come out later, To Kill a Mockingbird and In Cold Blood. So all three of these books, they have these literary experts analyze them and be like, is this the same language? Oh. And they determined that they could not be written by the same people. Okay. Oh, okay. So that kind of like knocks that one.

I do, I have a question.

Yeah.

Were Harper Lee and Capote involved romantically?

No, Capote was a very openly gay man.

Oh, I didn’t know that one.

He was a gay man.

Yeah, have you guys watched Capote, the movie?

No.

We’re linking to it in our Amazon affiliate links.

Is that Matt Damon?

It’s a pretty good show.

No, it’s that guy who died. What’s his name?

Oh, the drug abuse guy.

It begins with an S.

Yeah, the Hunger Games guy, right?

 Yes, I think it might be Hunger Games. Begins with an S.

Oh, I see, I see.

Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How did he die?

Drug abuse.

 Oh, that’s sad.

I think it was an accidental abuse.

So that was pretty short. But then I’m going to get into the maybe bigger conspiracy that I uncovered reading about this. But just so I mean, what do you guys think here? About the conspiracy? Who wrote to Kill a Mockingbird?

I think she did.

I think she did.

Yeah, I do, too. I think she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. And I think he wrote In Cold Blood. But I think she probably wrote like 50 percent of it.

Oh, I think yes. She was involved with writing it. Yeah.

Sure. I would say that.

Yeah. So I think probably she deserved a lot more credit. And also – like the argument for like, if she wrote one great book, she should have written more. I think it takes a lot of confidence to publish what you write. And a lot of times when artists write things, it’s very personal. So I could see that maybe she just never felt comfortable publishing something else because she was so famous already. Like she wouldn’t want her info or things that felt so close to her heart that publicized again. Or yeah, maybe it like- I could see that as an argument. And maybe she wouldn’t be okay if her art was rejected.

Yeah, yeah. But I’m intrigued to hear what happens.

Colleen, you make a really interesting point.

Yeah, thank you.

Because the plot does thicken.

Oh.

She was a one-hit wonder. She definitely did not like the spotlight, which again is why, again, Alabama loved her. She just kind of… went back to her small town Alabama and lived under the radar.

A common pattern for female writers and authors, too. Like when you think of very common, like Louisa May Alcott, for example, she did write a couple other books, but you really only know her for one book too. So I don’t know, but.

Well, she had in fact written at least two books, but only had this one book published until 2015.

I did buy this pretty cool sequel book and I never read it. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf.

Well, this might…

I wish I read it.

This might make you feel guilty for him.

I don’t know.

I did not. Oh no.

I think a couple of people, I mean, I do know a lot of people who read it, but here’s the deal. 2015 Penguin Random House announced that it was releasing the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird called Go Set a Watchman. The timeline is that Lee wrote Go Set a Watchman in 1957, but it was rejected by publishers. So she wrote a prequel To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960.

Oh no.

But then in this discovered sequel that was actually written before To Kill a Mockingbird, but like timeline wise, it’s a sequel. In this discovered sequel, Atticus Finch, the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird, is portrayed as a racist. He’s portrayed as a racist clan member. Many believe it is possible that she never wanted the second book published as she have not wanted to tarnish her beloved characters. And remember, fans have been begging for a sequel since the initial release of To Kill a Mockingbird, but Lee never complied.

Oh, interesting.

Wait, so wait, I’m sorry. She never wanted her characters tarnished? So like, was he a clan member? I

 think like in the first version she wrote, she wrote him as this racist man. It gets rejected. She rewrites, I think she gets back into it. She delves into these characters. She re-writes them. And these are now her like beloved characters. It’s been now. you know, 50 years, everyone loves them. And maybe she didn’t then want to be like, oh, this hero, everyone loves Atticus Finch, right? And so maybe-

She could have read the book. I had no idea. That’s interesting.

Do you, is it supposed to be like, you said it’s a sequel, prequel?

No, she wrote it first. She wrote this book before To Kill a Mockingbird and it got rejected. So then she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. But if you actually look at like the timeline within the books, To Kill a Mockingbird takes place first.

Or did it become him?

I think the point is that she developed him into a different character. And so maybe she’s like, this is who Atticus Finch is, right? Is who she developed him into, To Kill a Mockingbird. And if we now publish this other book that I wrote before, it like ruins his character. I’m in, and he-

I would think that this would be like, it would have been interesting if she wrote a prequel book about how he was a racist clan member and how he sort of has a redemption arc.

Yeah.

And then develops into the Atticus Finch that we love from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Go Set a Watchman was initially promoted as a sequel, but we now know that it was really the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, with many passages in that book being used again. Oh, interesting. And so it’s released as a separate book, but it’s… The writing is…

Like the same?

Yeah, except that her characters are completely different it sounds like.

It sounds like perhaps a different storyline, but there are excerpts that are the same.

Oh, I don’t like that.

It’s giving cringe.

Yeah, well, that kind of goes into maybe she didn’t want this book published.

Right, well then why did she publish it?

Go Set a Watchmen is set after To Kill a Mockingbird, because Scout is 26 in the book.

Oh, okay.

So it is, yeah. But I guess the theory is like this was never intended to be a sequel. Like it’s a book she wrote, got rejected, she kind of redeveloped it and created To Kill a Mockingbird and that’s what was her hit.

But I don’t understand- Why it got published?

That is the conspiracy. I guess it’s-

How did this book get published? Okay.

So apparently everyone knew this book was out there. but they were like, oh yeah, well that draft has been allegedly lost, right? The draft of this book that was the first book, it’s been lost, it doesn’t exist, oops, can’t publish it. And then like suddenly her friend and lawyer, Tanya Carter, found it and sold it to publishers.

Oh my God.

Wait, her lawyer did?

Yeah, her friend and lawyer.
That’s so messed up. That is so messed up.
So let me tell you about Tanya Carter.

Tell me about this girl.

She was a secretary and eventually a lawyer in the law office of Alice Lee, who was Harper’s older sister. And Alice Lee was always known as like Harper’s fiercest defender and like looked out for. And so again, she was the secretary and eventually a lawyer in this law office before she married her husband, Patrick Carter in 1990. Her new father-in-law was actually a cousin of Truman Capote, who had grown up with him and Harper. So now fast forward to 2007 when Harper Lee suffers a stroke, which led to declining health and loss of hearing and vision. Her agent, Samuel Pinkus, improperly coerced Harper to sign over the rights to To Kill a Mockingbird, and he improperly collected royalties until 2013 when a lawsuit was settled out of court and Carter fired Pinkus.

Oh my gosh.

 So Harper Lee’s in a nursing home with a cognitive decline and they’re like, here, sign this paperwork.

Elderly abuse.

Yes. And so apparently, you know, he was found guilty and it all makes sense, but now it’s like she’s kind of relying on Carter. Also very strange that Truman Capote, like- He’s involved in this? Yeah. I mean, I think it’s probably like small town Alabama and they’re all related to each other, you know?

That’s true, that’s valid.

I mean, not like incestuously, I don’t mean like, I’m not implying that, just like small town Alabama, not a lot of people. You know, like people who come from North Carolina and marry their middle school crush.

Yeah, small town North Carolina.

Yeah.

So then in 2015, there’s this press release announcing the publication of Go Set a Watchman and it stated that Carter had just discovered this manuscript the year prior. So she’s like, you know, Harper Lee has had some health issues. She’s in a nursing home and her lawyer is like, hey, I just found this manuscript in 2014.

No.

But it turned out that Justin Caldwell, who was a rare book expert, called into appraise a T Kill n Mockingbird manuscript for insurance purposes, had actually found these drafts in 2011.

Oh my God.

Carter claims she was not present for that discovery, but Caldwell and Lee’s agents say no, Carter was there.

I don’t like this at all.

Right. This is so skeevy.

Right.

So we can allege that like they… they’re appraising this, they find this manuscript in 2011. Harper doesn’t want it published. And then they wait till she’s-

Harper had a stroke in 2007, so she doesn’t really-

Yeah, but I think it’s-

That wasn’t up there like the edge of her, like the end of her health.

I feel so bad for her. I don’t like this at all. Yeah, I mean, yeah, if we know that Harper Lee was unfit to sign over her rights to To Kill a Mockingbird in 2007, then how could she have consented to the publication, like she was legally found-

Unable to sign over those rights in 2007.

How did they get it through?

Right, so how would she have been capable of consenting to the publication of Ghosts at a Watchman? In fact, multiple friends state that when asked about the novel, she had no idea what they were talking about. So like at the time when they go visit her in the nursing home and be like, hey, how do you feel about your book being published? And she was like, what are you talking about? So how’d they do it? They reported that she was forgetful and often got lost in conversation. In fact, there were, multiple APS investigations, Adult Protective Services investigations, that reported Harper was largely uncommunicative.

No, this is, those people are terrible people.

Furthermore, Harper’s older sister Alice, who was one of her sister’s fiercest advocates, she passed away in 2015 at the age of 103.

Wow, longevity.

A couple points there, good for her, 103.

Yeah.

 Yeah, what do you think she was doing there, Kait?

I hope she was like gardening and you know.

Oh I meant how do you think she made it to 103? What kind of hippie stuff would you do?

Yeah, I was getting there.

Oh okay, go ahead.

You know, drinking her raw milk, gardening in her organic vegetables, eating real meat that’s grass fed.

I bet she was drinking a Diet Coke a day.

And she was walking every day and getting fresh air and doing all the things we probably should do. Probably had zero blue light in her life, you know?

Yeah.

So good for her for living to be 103, but also interesting that she’s always the one who’s looking out for her sister. She dies in 2015 and then two and a half months later, they announced this book release.

Yeah, I, this is like, It’s very, the anger that is burning in my gut, That is cruel. is like threatening to like, boil over for this lady that could not communicate and they took advantage of her.

And I’m having Google up right now and I’m reading like the plot of the book and it’s kind of just sad because this book is kind of focuses about like Scout’s character learning that her father is not the man she always thought he was. obviously because he ends up being racist, et cetera. But like it’s sad because it’s like a girl who’s like her entire world has been flipped around because the people she’s loved and idolized her entire life are not who she thought she was. So in my mind, this is probably like really sad and personal for Harper Lee and for this to go secretly behind her back. Also, another fact that I’m reading is that it was the most pre-ordered book since the final Harry Potter.

Wow.

So yeah, I mean, think about the profit HarperCollins made.

Crap ton of money, yeah.

Yeah. It just makes me want to like give her a hug.

Yeah. I mean, but I would say it’s…

She’s  dead. Yeah. Harper Lee went on to die in February, 2016.

It just goes to show that people will abuse anybody. You know what I mean? Yeah, and like your lawyer is supposed to be someone that you sort of trust, right? They’re lying little jerks. Yeah, but it just seems like there was such, yeah. They’ll do anything for money, I guess.

Yeah, so I guess I just wanna say, this is clearly different from any other conspiracy theory that we’ve discussed, but I would argue still a conspiracy, right? All these people are like, oh yeah, she always wanted this book published. And then every people close to her were like, that’s not true. And she was certainly, and again, how can the courts determine almost a decade earlier that she was unable to make these decisions? And then now we’ve made, we’re making, you know, we’re. All of a sudden she publishes another book.

Yeah. Like what? It’s like, who can you trust?

And then also like all these poor elderly people without family to support them, like what a victimized population.

Sometimes I think about owning my own nursing home.
Just so you could protect these people?

Yeah. And I think like, I want it to be the best nursing home, you know, that everyone’s like, I want to put people in that. because I could like bring dogs in there, like adult dogs that don’t have owners.

You’re gonna make me cry.

Okay, how about this? So there was-

Everybody gets a bath.

I can’t.

So in 2014, there was a biography released about Harper Lee, which was unauthorized and contained a statement penned by Carter. So Carter writes like a intro to this unauthorized biography and her sister Alice was like, I don’t want this published and quote, “Poor Nelle Harper, who can’t see and can’t hear will sign anything put before her by anyone in whom she has confidence.”

Oh my gosh.

So that was before…

The really took advantage of her.

That was before Go Set a Watchmen. I mean, Tonya Carter, gosh. So she, again, she is Harper Lee’s lawyer and personal representative. And it sounds like Harper Lee had a will that was sealed. So Harper Lee signed a will eight days before her death.

I’m sorry. But she was incompetent.

Well, isn’t that on the lawyer to determine?

Yes.

Oh my God. and it was sealed because Tanya Carter, her lawyer, was like, oh, she really loves to be private and she wouldn’t want all this out there.

What a snake.

She said, “as the court is no doubt aware, Ms. Lee highly valued her privacy. She did not wish for her private financial affairs to be matters of public discussion. Ms. Lee left a considerable legacy for the public in her published works. It is not the public’s business what private legacy she left for the beneficiaries of her will.” I bet Tanya might’ve been a beneficiary, don’t you think?

I don’t like it.

She argued that if the will were to be made public, it could result in harassment to those named in it.

Oh my God.

Well, I’m gonna harass her now. I’d like to send her a strongly worded letter. I hope the inside of your sock never feels right. I hope you have sensory processing issues. Also, I hope she never has another good hair day in her life. I hope your eyebrow hairs stick up in different directions every day. I hope you have a booger hanging out of your nose. No one tells you about it. Your socks never feel right. I hope the crotch of your pants always hurts a little bit. I hope. I hope that one shoe is higher than the other, but you never know it and your hips are realigned. I hope that every time she sits, she feels like she’s falling just a little bit.

When they unsealed the document –

Oh God.

It directed the bulk of her assets, including her literary properties, be transferred into a trust she formed in 2011. The Mockingbird Trust is what it was called. And there were two trustees. Guess who one of them was?

Carter.

Not that bitch.

Yep. Wait, when did she have her stroke?

Well, so it wasn’t, she did have a stroke in 2007, I believe, which did put her in a nursing home, but it sounds like she had further decline after the stroke. It’s not like she had the stroke and was out of it and that was it. Because again, it’s like she was still like hitting the McDonald’s for coffee.

Right, right, right.

Also I can’t believe she was going to the laundry, about to do her laundry.

She’s like a little, you know, she’s gotta be worth something. She’s like a genius author and she’s like taking her little laundry down to the store.

Yeah, but if her lawyer wasn’t like in charge of her money.

Oh, I don’t like this lady.

So. So because it was in a trust, anything in a trust is private.

Oh, God.

So we don’t really know.

But Carter has alluded to a possible third manuscript.

No. So a third book?

Yeah. That is Carter. Girl is just trying to make money from Lee’s grave.

Yeah.

Apparently, To Kill a Mockingbird generates around three million dollars a year in royalties for the copyright holder. So like if. if the lawyer is the copyright holder now, she gets it all. Or at least her family.

Yeah, yeah.

That’s so messed up.

I just wanna say to all my ancestors and elderly in my family, I would never do that.

Your ancestors?

I don’t know. Future ancestors?

Like ancestors in the grave.

Yeah, that aren’t dead yet.

Yeah. Hi, Grammy. I would never do that to you.

She really wouldn’t, we know that.

Yeah, I’m like, oh my God.

She did also have a niece and three nephews who I think inherited.

I’m sure now I don’t want the book in my property at all, but then I feel bad getting rid of it.

Burn the book.

I know.

Burn the book.

Or like donate it.

Burn the book.

No. Donate it to the library.

I guess not, because maybe she didn’t want it read.

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Burn the book.

It’s a pretty book though.

Take out all the pages. Keep the cover.

So anyway, overall, right? We seem to think we seem to all be in agreement.

Yeah, I think it’s not once you hear the facts, it’s I think not much mystery.

It sounds like I believe she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah, I believe she was more involved in In Cold Blood than she gets credit for.

Yes.

And I believe she was not. She had made it pretty clear her whole life that she didn’t want this book published.

Yeah.

And it’s like they wait for her. her advocate and protect her to die. And then they’ve got her signing wills and publishing books.

This is a sad case?

It is.

She was the victim in all of those stories. Except for writing.

Truly, truly sad.

So there’s that.

Another sad one.

We’ll get a fun one here pretty soon, guys.

Yeah. We’ll get back to the comedy. Aliens?

Aliens.

We do need to date aliens. There’s a running list. Yeah, we got it. But I feel like we’re pretty much scheduled through like May. But yeah, we’ll put something fun in there.

Right. OK, guys. So, Kait, what should they do now?

After you’re finished, scroll on down to the end. Leave us a five star review. Leave us a little comment. Tell us how much you liked the pod. All of those like things that I just said sort of boost the pod. in the platform that you listen to and boost our numbers makes us more visible to increase our listenership. So that would be great. It takes like two seconds. Interact. And yeah, send us an email, interact.

Yeah.

Yeah, we also, we didn’t even do, is it worth a poll?

I guess we can do a poll in case someone has more information they should share with us. Oh yeah. I guess we can do two. We can say, we’ll do two on like one. post.

Right.

Okay. Who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee or Truman Capote?

Yep.

Okay. Um, did Harper Lee want to publish Go Set a Watchmen or was there a conspiracy to publish it without her consent?

Nailed it.

Nailed it. To the board. Um, thanks for joining us guys.

Yeah. And, um, We’ll see you guys next week. Here’s to all the Tuesdays.

Tuesday. Yep. See you.