Episode 1: Dear Honeys

Death of an Artist

The episode investigates the coordinated suicides of Petra Mathers, a celebrated children's book author, and her husband Michael, a photogra

Key takeaways

• Petra Mathers was a well-known author and illustrator, notably of the book 'Sophie and Lou'.
• The couple utilized nitrogen gas and plastic bags as their method of suicide.

Main topics

• The death of Petra and Michael Mathers
• The discovery of suicide letters

Notable quotes

When Michael and I got together some 40 plus years ago, we'd always planned on checking out together.

Conclusion

A haunting exploration of a deeply premeditated end-of-life decision t

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 4 (0:05) The wilderness can hide a lot, but it can't hide the truth forever. I'm Delia D'Ambra, host of Park Predators, and every week I investigate true crime cases hidden in national parks, forests, and beaches. I follow every lead, every clue, and every overlooked detail. Because even when a trail seems to disappear, the truth has a way of resurfacing. Listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:41) Leon Nafok here. Before we get into this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can hear the full season of Death of an Artist ad-free right now by signing up for Pushkin Plus. You'll also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks, and true crime binges from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Sign up and save on the Death of an Artist show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus. Use the code ARTIST25 for 25 % off an annual subscription. Let's get into the show. Speaker 4 (1:12) This podcast is about suicide. Listener discretion is advised. Speaker 1 (1:19) Hello, you've reached Michael and Petra Mathers. Leave us a message. Happy birthday, dear Mikey. Happy birthday to you. Speaker 1 (1:45) Unless I'm misreading my calendar, I believe 2345 is your birthday, and I'm calling to wish you a happy one. I'm thinking of you, and just know that I love you both. That's it. Bye-bye. Michael, give me a call, please. It's good. We're worried about you. My name is Patty, and I'm a friend of the Mads. The phone has been ringing. And that's the way to go together. Speaker 4 (3:54) Are you scared? Speaker 5 (3:57) What are you scared of? You hiding behind mom? Remember when we recorded you and you listened to yourself? This is just that. It's just a toy. You can make any sound you want into this. That was a funny sound. Tess, can we show you a video? We're going to show you a video that starts with the most beautiful song you've ever heard. Then we're Speaker 4 (4:23) going Speaker 5 (4:23) to read a book. You want to see it? Speaker 4 (4:27) Yeah. It's Speaker 1 (4:41) kids, yeah. Yeah, kids. Speaker 1 (4:51) right there. That is a rainbow right there. Here's a story about someone whose life took a wonderful turn when she learned to dance. It's called Sophie and Lou. Speaker 5 (5:12) Tess, look. What do you see? Speaker 1 (5:15) It's the same book. Speaker 4 (5:18) I remember this book from when I was little. When Auntie Gracie was your age, she had this book. Speaker 5 (5:26) See you, Tess. Petra Mathers is the author. She's the person who wrote the book and drew the pictures. Speaker 4 (5:31) Do you get that? She's the lady that mommy and daddy are so curious about. Speaker 5 (5:37) She also wrote all these other books you have. Remember Lottie and Herbie? Speaker 4 (5:43) She Speaker 5 (5:44) wrote Lottie and Herbie too. Speaker 4 (5:49) Copping for her? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to start reading this book. It's called Sophie and Lou by Patra Mathers. Sophie was shy. So shy she did her shopping during the lull hours so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone. One morning she heard pounding and shouting across the street. What are they up to over there? Look, and then they opened a dancing studio right across the street from her house and she's looking in. All those animals are learning to dance and Sophie's curious, looking in, but still pretty shy. Speaker 2 (6:18) Sophie and Lou, I think, to this day, I think is a classic children's Speaker 8 (6:21) book. Speaker 2 (6:21) Oh, I love that book so much. We just... The dancing Speaker 8 (6:25) and the... Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Speaker 2 (6:27) And that's Sophie and Lou, our patron Michael. Speaker 1 (6:31) Sophie and Sophie. No, that's Lou. Who Speaker 4 (6:36) is this? It's you. It's Lou. I like his face, she thought. All the way home, she danced inside. Speaker 2 (6:51) You want to go first? Speaker 8 (6:52) I'm Michael Braske, and Michael Mathers was one of my best friends. Speaker 2 (6:57) I'm Michael Coy, and Patriot was my best friend, and she's always said I was her best friend. Do Speaker 4 (7:03) you each call each other Michael? Speaker 2 (7:04) Yes. You Speaker 4 (7:05) do. Do your friends have nicknames for you? Speaker 2 (7:08) No. We're just known as the Michaels. Speaker 2 (7:12) People think it's our last name. He's Michael number one and Michael number two. That's true. Speaker 8 (7:17) That's true. Speaker 2 (7:18) What does that Speaker 5 (7:19) make Michael Mathers? Speaker 8 (7:20) He could be number three. He could be other Speaker 2 (7:22) Michael. Speaker 8 (7:23) Yeah. Yeah, the other Michael. No. Patriot's Michael. Speaker 2 (7:29) Yeah, Patriot's Michael. He Speaker 8 (7:30) was my Michael to her always. That's what she referred to him as, my Michael. Speaker 8 (7:36) Do you know about when Petra met Michael in a bookstore? Speaker 2 (7:40) We're not there yet. We're not there yet. You're jumping way ahead. Am I? Yeah. Speaker 5 (7:44) Well, why don't you just tell us how you met Petra? Yeah. Just start at the beginning. Speaker 2 (7:49) I can't remember now where I was when I met Petra, but I moved to Portland in 1975, January of 75. I was working for a chain of bookstores when I was 27, 28, something like that. She was... like no one I had ever met before. I have this sense of how I felt, which was gobsmacked. Tell how you hired her, your interview with her. Speaker 8 (8:15) Someone came up to me in the store, one of the other people that worked there, and said, there's a young woman downstairs that wants to work in the book department. Would you go down and interview her? So I went down, and Pedro was there. She was in a beige sweater set with a matching skirt. Speaker 8 (8:33) touched me and she said, I'm really good. I want to work here. And I said, well, that's good enough for me. I said, you have a background in books. And she said she had a degree in book selling from a school in Germany. And she had a pretty thick accent. And she was beautiful. So I went up to my partner in the book department. I said, go downstairs and interview a patron and then tell her she's hired. Speaker 8 (9:02) one weekend, I stopped by Petra's and I went in and there was art all over her kitchen and they were little postage stamp paintings that I'd never seen anyone do before. They were just beautiful. There would be a rather large 18 by 24 watercolor and it was filled with tiny little pictures. And I said, I didn't know you were an artist. And she said, oh, that's, yes, I am. And then we discovered in Portland that she had created a whole wall in a children's bookstore with large paintings that filled the whole wall. A lot of them were based on nursery rhymes or just anything that came to her head. So I went in and bought three of them, I remember, for $25 a piece. Still have one. And that's when we discovered that she was an artist. And we thought she was really good and she wanted to do children's books. Don't get ahead of yourself. You're jumping. Okay, I'm sorry. You take over, would you? Speaker 2 (9:59) At some point, Petra and her then-husband David were living down at the Oregon coast in a house that they had built. And we knew that she wasn't happy with David. He was a very nice, very ordinary, kind of a schlubbish guy. And definitely, I mean, we never thought he was in her league, right? Speaker 8 (10:25) Well, yeah. We didn't realize he was even home sometimes when we visited. It was just the three of us, but David was there. Speaker 2 (10:33) She really married him to stay in the country. Speaker 8 (10:36) I don't think she ever loved him, but he was madly in love with her. Speaker 2 (10:42) Michael had published a book, and it was a book of photographs. And I met Michael. I took him to lunch to talk to him about promoting the book. And he presented himself as this sort of just aw shucks, didn't know one end of