Sometimes life delivers an unusual twist. The results might not leave us an object to display in the Cabinet of Curiosities, but that doesn't mean they aren't fascinating.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. First impressions are everything. What others think about us is usually cemented only after a few minutes. How we look, our mannerisms, the way we even talk, even what we smell like can have a lasting effect on how we are perceived from that point on. And in the case of Gloria Ramirez, she was a perfectly nice woman. She just made people stick to their stomachs. On the night of February night, Gloria was rushed to California's Riverside General Hospital emergency department. She was having trouble breathing and her heart was beating out of her chest. The doctors had rarely seen a woman as young as Gloria with such symptoms. She was only thirty one and suffered from late stage cervical cancer. The paramedics wheeled her into a small curtained room as the doctor swarmed around her. They asked her questions about what had happened and if she knew where she was. She tried to answer, muttering sounds no one could understand. Gloria was pumped with a cocktail of drugs to calm her heart and sedate her. A respiratory therapist named Maureen Welch clamped a self inflating resuscitator over her mouth and nose, squeezing the rubber bladder to fill her lungs with air, but Ramirez wasn't responding. Her vitals were fading fast. One doctor removed her shirt while someone else brought in a defibrillator. As they were sticking the electrodes to her chest, a few people noticed her skin glistening, as though it had been coated in a thin layer of Greece. When Welch pulled the resuscitated her away from Gloria's face, she smelled a strong garlic odor coming from her mouth. Another nurse, Susan Kane, tried to take a sample of Gloria's blood. She stuck the syringe into her arm, and as the blood drained into the tube, the smell of ammonia filled the room. She also saw a little beige flex floating in the red liquid. Within moments, the medical staff surrounding Gloria began to fall ill. Medical resident Julia Gorczynsky nearly fainted from nausea. A colleague asked her if she was okay, and then passed out themselves. Gortchynsky left the room to recover at a nurse's station far from the odor. Maureen Welch, the respiratory therapist, also fainted. Whatever had been plaguing Gloria had now contaminated the hospital's emergency department. Patients and staff were evacuated into the parking lot. Twenty three people needed medical attention after being in close proximity to Mr Ramirez. Five of them had to be hospitalized. A small team stayed behind to try and save Gloria, performing CPR and shocking her heart with the defibrillator for almost an hour, but nothing worked. At eight fift PM, Gloria Ramirez was pronounced dead because kidney failure. Investigators from the County Health Department interview the staff on duty that nights, including those who hadn't assisted with the Ramira's case. But we're still in the vicinity. Their findings determined that the people who had passed out or suffered from muscle spasms may have worked directly with her blood or ivy lines. In addition, it seemed that women had been affected more than men in the room. Every staff member had their blood tested afterward, though each one came back negative. The county Health department choked it up to mass hysteria, but medical resident Julie Gordzynsky and others disagreed. Her nausea that night turned into a major respiratory problem, forcing her into the ICU for two weeks. She was also diagnosed with hepatitis and suffered from a loss of blood supply to her knees, causing tissue death. Obviously, whatever had been wrong with Gloria Ramirez went beyond mass hysteria, so the coroner's office brought in experts from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of Federal Research facility in California that specialized in nuclear weapons. They suggested Miss Ramirez had been medicating herself with dimethyl sulf oxide or d M s O. D M s O did have real medical applications. The FDA had approved it to treat certain bladder conditions. It was also used to heal wounds more quickly and decreased pain. Unfortunately, it was also peddled as an alternative treatment to cancer Miracle Cure. Except Ramirez hadn't gotten a hold of medical grade d MSO, she had most likely purchased tubes of it from her local hardware store. Apparently, d M s O was also an excellent decrease er. It had been known to have a garlicky taste, and her ingestion of it might have explained why her skin looks so oily. The lab determined that the oxygen given to her in the ambulance had bonded with the d MSO to form a new chemical that crystallized in her body, hence the yellowish particles in her blood. The fibrillators electrical shocks then converted it again into dimethyl sulfate, and the fumes from that were what most likely caused the nausea and loss of consciousness among the medical staff in shorts. Every time the doctors tried to save her life, they were unwittingly putting themselves in more danger. Gloria's body was stored in a facility for two months following the incident before it was released to the family. Another autopsy was conducted, but no official cause of death could be determined given the lack of evidence. She was finally laid to rest a few weeks later. No one knows for certain what caused the patience and staff at Riverside to fall ill, but many in the medical community concur with Livermore's theory. Of course, without definitive evidence, all they have our postulations. Gloria's case is still a mystery to this day, but one thing is clear. She never meant to hurt anybody. Like the rest of us. She was just trying to survive. The thing about violent criminals is that sooner or later they end up getting caught. They might get sloppy in their crimes, leaving evidence behind for the authorities, or they might even turn themselves in haunted by the ghosts of their past. For nineteen year old John Charles Cross, it was a little bit of both. In nineteen fifty four, a new hotel opened up in Miami Beach, Florida. It was called the Fountain Blue, and it became famous for appearing in such films as nineteen eighty three's Scarface and the nineteen sixty four James bond hit Goldfinger, but before Double O seven ever stepped foot in its lobby, The Fontain Blue was the site of a horrible crime. It was February of nineteen sixty one, and John Cross had been writing high for six days. The New Jersey native had been living in Miami under the name of doctor Herbert Waters using stolen credit cards. He had checked into the massive font and Blue as part of his spree, occupying a room that cost forty one at night. Today, that same room would run you over three fifty dollars. Cross had been suspected in several states of stealing cars and passing bad checks. On February eleven, hotel management presented him with a bill for his room, as well as the food that he had ordered during his stay, all of which total nearly four hundred dollars. Cross told them that it wouldn't be a problem. All he had to do was run down to the hotel's credit manager to cash a check, and then he'd be able to pay the bill. He stepped into the office of A. H. Jordian, hotel's credit manager with his bill in hand. Jordian informed him that he would need to settle it up right then. And there to avoid any further issues. Cross had no problem with that. He presented a check for the credit manager to cash, which would cover his debt. Jordian examined the check and then asked Dr Waters for identification. You won't be surprised to hear that he didn't have any. Jordian got on the phone with the hotel's detectives, separate from hotel security, who wore distinct uniforms to alert guests of their presence. Hotel detectives walked around and playing clothes to better blend in with the clientele. They hung out in common areas and kept eyes on comings and goings, leaving the enforcement to the uniform guards. Moments after Jordian called the police, a detective arrived to escort Cross away. The police would deal with him now, except Cross wasn't about to let some hotel cops stop his spending spree. He drew a pistol and shot the man five times before escaping out into the lobby. And that's where another detective, fifty three year old Louis Joseph Barns, was waiting for him. Cross aimed the gun at him, but quickly decided Barrens would be a better hostage than a victim. Cross fled to the parking lot with the detective in tow, pulling on the handles of parked cars as he passed them, looking for an open one. On a second try, a door opened, and to his good fortune, someone had left the keys inside. Cross didn't get too far, however, as the police were already in pursuit and stopped him in front of a neighboring hotel. A standoff ensued shortly after. One officer shot at Cross and missed twice. Barrens took the opportunity to try and wrestle the gun out of the young man's hand, but accidentally set it off and shot himself in the knee. Cross bolted from the car on foot, but he didn't make it far. Another officer gave chase and tackled him. A short while later. John Charles Cross was arrested and charged with the murder of the hotel detective. Jury summons were issued all around the county, including to a former firefighter named William j. Alsop. He and his wife were newcomers to Miami, having moved there from New York City a few years before. Sadly, Mrs Alsop was forced to return her husband's jury summons to the court. Her husband, you see, couldn't serve on the jury of the John Cross trial because he had died a few months earlier while on duty at his new job working as a hotel detective at the Fountain Blue. He'd been shot five times by John Cross himself. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,