246: Toilets & the Red Sash Murderer

Hank Robar is not one to be messed with. So when he got into a dispute with village officials in  his hometown of Potsdam, New York, he got even by decorating his property with toilets. Over the years, Hank added more toilets. He decorated the bowls and tanks with artificial flowers. He put so much time and energy into the toilets that he began referring to them as “toilet gardens,” and later, as “art.” Town officials were not amused. They did everything in their power to stop him. 

Then Brandi tells us about the death of Josephine Galbraith. For Josephine’s family, her death was sad, but not shocking. The 76-year-old woman suffered from chronic back pain. She’d recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She’d told her husband and children that she didn’t want to continue living. But when Josephine died in an apparent suicide, a detective on the scene suspected she’d been murdered.   

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:

The documentary, “Potty Town”

“Hank Robar: The man behind Potsdam’s toilet gardens,” by Sydney Schaefer for NNY360

“Potsdam agrees to toilet garden lawsuit settlement,” by Tom Graser for NNY360

“Owner of Potsdam toilet gardens, village reach undisclosed settlement in federal lawsuit,” by Sydney Schaefer for NNY360

“Robar v. Village of Potsdam Board of Trustees,” casetext.com

“How 5Pointz artists won $6.75 million in lawsuit against developer that destroyed their work,” by Jessica Meiselman for artsy.net

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:

“Red Sash Death” episode Accident, Suicide, or Murder

“Digging Up Buried Bones” by Loren Stein, MetroActive

“’He Would Have Done Anything For Her': Family Fights To Prove Father's Innocence After Mom's Suicide Leads To His Arrest” by Sharon Lynn Pruitt, Oxygen

“$400,000 settlement in wrongful charge” by John Coté, SF Gate

“Santa Clara County to pay $400,000 to Palo Alto family” by Howard Mintz, The Mercury News

“Galbraith v. County of Santa Clara” findlaw.com

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