THE UNKNOWN: Camille Monfort
So Supernatural
The episode explores the mysterious legend of Camille Monfort, a French-born opera singer who captivated late-1800s audiences in Belém, Brazil with an allegedly hypnotic voice and eccentric lifestyle. Hosts Rasha Pecoraro
Key takeaways
- Camille Monfort was an opera singer born around 1869 in France who performed at Belém's Teatro de Paz during Brazil's late-1800s rubber boom.
- Audience members reportedly fainted or woke up with red marks on their necks after her performances, fueling vampire rumors.
Main topics
- Camille Monfort's life and performances
- Late 1800s Belém rubber boom culture
Notable quotes
Music gets into our spirit, our soul, and stirs us, and sometimes against our will.
Conclusion
The episode leaves listeners with a compelling blend of historical mystery and supernatural
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:00) There's a moment in every case where someone knows something isn't right. Before the search parties, before the investigators. It starts with just a feeling you can't explain until it proves Speaker 4 (0:12) you're right. Hosted by Delia D'Ambra, Park Predators follows what happens next. Crimes, disappearances, and mysteries set deep inside national parks. Where the terrain, the isolation, and the silence make the truth. Harder to find and harder to forget. Speaker 3 (0:31) Listen to Park Predators every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:40) Think about the last song that stopped you mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-everything. Maybe it came on in the car and you sat in the driveway and you sang out loud to the very end. Maybe it played at just the right moment and brought tears out of nowhere. Maybe it was the song for the first dance at your wedding. The song for me and my husband was, The Closer I Get to You. by the legendary Luther Vandross and Beyonce. It stops me dead in my tracks, no matter what I'm doing or where I am. What about the song that got you through the worst year of your life? I think of Maxwell, A Woman's Worth, when our mom passed away, Rosh. I mean, music does something to us that we just can't quite explain. Scientists have spent decades trying to understand why. And what they've found... is pretty remarkable. Music can lower blood pressure, ease chronic pain, reduce stress, and there's even evidence it can reach people with dementia or Alzheimer's, unlocking memories that seem completely gone through nothing more than a familiar melody. Music gets into our spirit, our soul, and stirs us, and sometimes against our will. And Speaker 3 (2:12) that's what can make it dangerous too. Because if music can lower your defenses, calm your nerves, quiet your fears, make you feel completely safe, what happens when someone learns to weaponize that? There are accounts of a woman who could do exactly that. An opera singer with a voice so extraordinary, so unnervingly beautiful. that it caused some members of her audiences to fall into a trance. And according to those who witnessed it, that's exactly when she would strike. Her name was Camille Monfort. And if the stories are true, she wasn't just feeding on their attention. She was also feeding on their blood. Speaker 4 (3:02) I'm Rasha Pecoraro. And I'm her sister, Yvette Gentile. This is so supernatural. Speaker 1 (3:36) Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen. Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm going to walk you through it the way I tell my best friend. Because, well, that's what I'm doing. Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together. react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions. And I'm going to have the answers because we have case files, we're talking to detectives and family members, and we're going to stay focused on the facts. So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now. And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (4:33) Many people probably thought my life growing up in Hawaii was hard to complain about. I mean, think about it. The ocean breeze, stunning sunset, basking in the glow of paradise at a pace that slows the mind and eases the soul. Although the small city of Honolulu will always be home to me, I'll be honest. Once I moved away, I realized how much I actually love big cities, like Los Angeles and New York. Places chaotic, lively, and bustling. Ones that never stop moving. I dream of one day going to the city of Tokyo, one of the most populated urban areas on planet Earth. Nearly 37 million people, all of them going somewhere with intention. What's interesting is every city has its time, when it goes through an economic boom and becomes a place the rest of the world wants to visit. In the late 1800s, that city was Belém, Brazil. Speaker 4 (5:38) Belém sits at the mouth of the Amazon River, the gateway between the jungle and the rest of the world. Any goods coming out of the rainforest had to pass through the city first. And in the late 1800s, one commodity was worth more than almost anything else. Rubber. The industrial world was hungry for it. Bicycle tires, car parts, machinery. I mean, you name it. Rubber was essential to it. And the primary source of natural rubber was latex. harvested from trees that grew almost exclusively in the Amazon, which meant that Belém wasn't just a port city. It was becoming the center of a global empire. A few shipping executives, farmers, and traders capitalized on high rubber demand, and they became millionaires pretty much overnight. In Speaker 3 (6:34) other words, like the unsinkable Molly Brown from Titanic? They were new money. And they loved showing off. They made huge donations to build museums, theaters, even trains and sewer systems. They also built lavish mansions for themselves and wore the most luxurious clothes they could find. Back then, it was very trendy to embrace European culture and styles. And many of these rubber entrepreneurs liked extravagant expenses. because it gave them an excuse to throw their money around and get some attention. Honestly, they had so much money, they would spend it on some pretty unimaginable expenses. For example, some families shipped their dirty clothes to Europe just to have it washed overseas, for no practical reason other than to show off their wealth. It also became trendy to take baths in mineral water rather than tap water. And not just any mineral water, but it was imported from other countries. Keep in mind that most of the people flaunting this kind of wealth were men. The rubber barons who controlled the trade, the businessmen who profited from it, the industry was almost entirely male-dominated. Which makes it all the more interesting that one of the most talked about over-the-top residents of Belem was a woman. Her Speaker 4 (8:04) name... was Camille Monfort. Before we get much further into the story, we need to acknowledge that the record-keeping in Brazil at the time was very poor. And that was especially true when it came to women. Many city officials assumed that only men were worth mentioning in their paperwork. So they only tracked men's business deals and accomplishments. Women like Camille were mostly ignored. So very little is known about her life. We do know Speaker 3 (8:37) she was born somewhere in France in 1869. Her father was a diplomat who traveled the world helping negotiate with France's allies, and her mother was from an important noble family. It was said she had ties to French royalty, but it's unclear exactly what those ties were. It seemed the Montfours were very wealthy, given their jobs and connections. So it's safe to assume Camille received the best education money could buy. Speaker 4 (9:07) It's also unclear exactly where she grew up, if it was France or another country. But we can assume that, like many women from her time, she studied history, foreign languages, and music. Camille learned to speak English, Italian, German, and Portuguese, which is the main language spoken in Brazil. And that was all on top of her native language, a French. She also knew how to play the piano, the violin, the guitar, and she could sing. Somewhere along the Speaker 3 (9:39) way, Camille moved to Belem. Some reports suggest she immigrated as a child, that her father was sent to Belem to do diplomatic work on behalf of the French nobility, and he brought his family with him. According to that account, Camille spent her early years in Brazil and it became a second home for her. By the time she was an