In social psychology, there's something known as the halo effect, a phenomenon where people tend to find those who are more physically attractive as also being more intelligent, kind, trustworthy and other positive traits. But sometimes this tendency can actually be really dangerous and can allow people to really easily be manipulated by those who they find good looking. In this week's story, I'll be covering a case that demonstrates very clearly what I mean.

It's one of the most bizarre and unique cases that I've ever read about. And it's also a case that somehow, from what I've seen, only has around 10,000 views total across all videos that cover it on YouTube, which is honestly just kind of crazy. But that's the point of the series covering untold stories. And trust me, you're in for a wild ride.

So without further ado, settle down. Make yourself comfortable. Grab yourself a snack. Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Chang, and this is Hidden Stories. On the morning of Christmas Eve, 1946, a 19 year old girl from New York City named Pearl Lusk received notice that she was being fired from her job. Now, for Pearl, this was particularly devastating news.

She had just moved to New York City three months earlier from her home in the small town of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, to pursue the dream luxurious life that she had always heard was possible in the big city. During those three months, she'd actually gotten a taste of that dream life since she was a fairly attractive girl, blond and petite.

She was able to get a pretty well-paying job working as a salesgirl at the open John Collins Department store in Manhattan. Pretty quickly, as a result, she wasn't able to move into her own furnished studio apartment, which she had decorated in pretty pink curtains in lavender seats to better suit her new lifestyle. She began using mascara and dark lipstick, which she had never used before, and she even got her blond bangs transformed into nice little neat curls at an expensive hairdresser.

Over time, she also easily became friends with many of the other sales girls at her store and would often spend hours chatting with them or getting meals with them. And in her free time, she would go out on dates with guys she met at the store or just relax on the couch of her apartment reading popular detective novels.

For those first three months, Pearl really couldn't have been happier and was finally living the life that she had always envisioned for herself. But being fired from that department store ripped that dream life away from her in an instant. All of a sudden, both her salary and her social life had been completely obliterated, with no real way to quickly find a new job and pay her rent and living expenses.

She became really stressed out and when people are desperate, they do things they normally wouldn't, as you'll soon see. On the day after Christmas, Pearl was returning home from visiting her mom in Brooklyn when a stranger suddenly approached her on the subway. Now, this man wasn't actually a complete stranger. He had approached Pearl for the first time a couple weeks back, introducing himself as Allan Leroux and asking if she wanted to get drinks with him.

Now, obviously, this wasn't the first time Pearl had ever been hit on, but although she had politely turned him down, having always been taught to never hang out with strangers, unlike some of the other guys Pearl had rejected in her past, she never forgot about Allan. He was, without a doubt, the most handsome and well dressed man that she'd ever seen in real life.

And in the days after she rejected him, she even felt some feelings of regret creeping into her mind over his good looks and romantic name. That day, when Allan approached her for the second time, he asked her again in his charming and charismatic way whether she wanted to get drinks with him. This time, Pearl having nothing else going for you at the moment and seeing no reason why not to get drinks with this handsome, mysterious stranger agreed.

She followed him to a bar in Times Square, and they began talking, getting to know each other. She told him about losing her job, and he was very sympathetic and caring, which she liked. But although the conversation flowed pretty normally and casually, just like any other date, the more Pearl talked to Allan, the more intrigued she was by him.

Although at first he had seemed interested in her like every other guy who should ever gotten drinks with. The more they talked, the more she began to feel that he wasn't romantically interested and instead had a different type of interest in her. It was a very subtle feeling and she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she just pushed the feeling aside and figured that it was nothing.

After their conversation had gone on for a while longer, Allan told her that he might actually have a job for her if she was interested. Allan told her that he worked as a private detective for an insurance company that specialized in recovering extremely expensive stolen jewelry. He said that he had reason to suspect that a young woman named Olga was carrying some of the stolen jewelry on her underneath her clothes.

However, since this woman, Olga, knew him by sight, Allan said he couldn't investigator himself due to the risk that she would recognize him and dump the jewelry somewhere. He also couldn't call the police until he could prove without a doubt that she actually had the jewels. As such, he wanted Pearl to sub in for him as a detective to help improve once and for all, that Olga did indeed have the jewels.

Allan told her that if she was willing to take on this job, she could meet him the next morning and he would walk her through his plan for accomplishing this. For Pearl, it was almost a complete no brainer. The job reminded her of the kind of stuff that the really cool detectives would do and the novels that she'd been reading and since.

Ellen had also promised her a really big reward once the jewels were retrieved, which could solve her rent issues. And it was also just hard to say no to a man as attractive, cool and kind as Allan was. She excitedly agreed to the job when Pearl met back up with Allan the next day, he showed her a photo of a tall, attractive woman with black hair, brown eyes and pale skin.

This is old Raquel, he told her. Since Olga worked as a private secretary for the owner of the local Croydon hair company, Allan wanted Pearl to visit the company office and ask the receptionist whether there was a mystery white working there. That was just a made up name, of course. But Allan told Pearl that while the receptionist was checking, she should go and get a good look at Olga in person.

So that she'd be able to recognize her in a crowd. He told her. Olga sits at a desk right outside of the door that leads to the owner's office. You can't miss her. And he said that after Pearl was done memorizing August appearance, she should leave and come meet back up with him at their current location for further instructions.

This seems simple enough to Pearl, so she left and went to go visit the Croydon Head Company Building. Everything went very smoothly and she was not only able to memorize both Olga's face and her clothes, but also her street coat and her hat. And when she returned to Allan and told him that she would now be able to recognize Olga anywhere among any crowd, he told her that she had done a great job.

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He then said that since Olga was going to leave work at 5 p.m., sort of like she did every single day. They had some time to kill before Pearl would have to follow her. As such, he gave Pearl some money and told her to go to the movies or something and then meet him back here at 330 so he could show her his plot.

He warned her to be very careful and not to tell anyone about the job or Olga because word could get back to her. So people did as she was told, and one to watch two movies by herself before meeting back up with Ellen at exactly 330. When she arrived again this time, Alan was holding a strange looking object in his hands.

It looked like a sort of shoe box covered in brown wrapping paper with a hole on one end and a wire coming out of the bottom. When she asked about it, Alan told her that it was an X-ray camera and it was how they were going to prove that Olga had the jewels. He told Pearl she should take this X-ray camera and follow Olga after she leaves from work.

He said, Fred is Olga is getting off the train in Brooklyn to go to her apartment. You should walk right behind her and discretely point the camera towards her before pulling the wire to take a picture. Since the camera looks just like a simple shoe box, no one's going to notice anything at all, he promised. But he also warned Pearl not to let Olga see her following her, snapping her picture, and also to take the picture within close range around 2 to 3 feet away so that the picture would be clear.

And after she was done with it, he told her to come meet him again so he could take the camera and get the picture developed. Very excited to be playing a role in her very own detective story. Pearl quickly made her way back to the court in her company, building with Alan's instructions in mind when she spotted Olga leaving the building at around 5 p.m..

She followed her onto the subway as according to plan, and when Olga got off in Brooklyn, Pearl did as well and quietly followed close behind her while holding the X-ray camera before finally pointing it at her and pulling the wire. It was a very seamless job. Olga and everyone else nearby never noticed a single thing, and Pearl happily made her way back to Allen, hoping that she'd gotten a good photo.

But after Alan took the X-ray camera to go get the photo developed and came back the next morning. He told Pearl that it was no good. The picture just wasn't clear at all, and she would need to retake it. There was actually something wrong with the camera, he said. As such, he told her that he would need three days to fix it and that she should meet him.

That after three days came and went and Pearl saw Alan again. This time, the box he was holding resembled a gift with green and red wrapping paper all over it that said Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. It was also a lot bigger and heavier, Paul noticed, but it still had the same horn side and wire coming out of the bottom.

And Alan told her that it worked the exact same way as the last one had as well. So it was still early in the morning that day, Alan said instead of waiting outside August's workplace, Pearl would wait at August's subway station in Brooklyn until she saw Hugo getting onto the train to go to work. Then, at the same instructions applied, when Olga gets off, get close to her without her noticing.

Aim the camera at her waist area where the jewels probably are, and then pull the wire to take the picture. Like the first time the plane started very smoothly, Pearl again was very easily able to follow Olga without being noticed. And even though she was carrying a bigger box, everyone just assumed it was a holiday gift. And when it was finally Olga stop and she got up and left the train.

Pearl again discreetly followed her to take the photo. But this time Vertis Olga was pulling the wire on her X-ray camera. An extremely strong force suddenly struck her hits, almost ripping the box away from her at the exact same moment. A massive warning explosion ring through the air, almost deafening Pearl. And as she screamed, terrified as she saw blood on her dress and hands.

But when she looked up, she saw that all girl was now laying on the ground, lying in a large, deeply red pool of her own blood. Pearl immediately realized that she had been shot. Someone, for some reason, had tried to kill her, and that blood that was on herself wasn't actually her own. It was August that it spluttered her.

And although for a moment, Pearl immediately spun around, horrified that the gunmen were still there, they were nowhere to be seen and had clearly run off after shooting this poor girl. But as Pearl stood there, terrified, trying to collect her thoughts, she realized that for some reason people were still running away, terrified. As she looked around, though, she couldn't quite figure out what they were running away from.

But at that moment, a security guard rushed up to Olga on the ground and asked Pearl, what happened? What happened? She told him. I just took a woman's picture and somebody saw her. Suddenly, a policeman then appeared and without warning, grabbed her and ripped the X-ray camera out of her, hit. Pearl was about to complain and ask him why he had done that when she suddenly noticed that the box to the camera had been placed in had been somehow shredded, open, almost as if it itself had been shot as well.

And when the policemen opened the box further and pulled out a sort of sock gun from inside, Pearl suddenly put two and two together. She finally realized what that explosion was, why everyone was running away. And as the policemen grabbed onto her arm to take her away, she began to cry and said to Olga, I'm awfully sorry that I saw you.

Turns out the attractive stranger that Pearl had met entrusted was not actually named Alan LaRue. He was not a detective, nor did he work for an insurance company. His real name was Alphonse Raquel, and he had been married to all go Raquel for around a year and a half. However, once Olga realized that he was a very violent and abusive man, she had left him.

But Alphonse, furious at his ex-wife's betrayal and wanted her back. So did stalking her and sending her death threats when he wasn't satisfied with just doing that. He kidnaped Olga and held her for more than a week, further, threatening her with all sorts of guns and knives. And although Olga managed to persuade him to let her go shortly after that incident, when she was at home, Alphonse saw her through an open window, hitting her in her right leg.

By that point, he had stated numerous times that he wanted her dead and he had acted on it. And Olga obviously was terrified for her life when she continued to catch glimpses of her ex-husband watching her as she walked around and as she continued to call her every day at work. She decided that she just simply couldn't live like this any longer and went to the police.

Olga told them that she was afraid that something terrible was going to happen to her because of her ex-husband. But the officers told her not to worry. They sent two detectives over to her house and said that these two would protect her and watch over her every day. Nothing would happen to her, they promised. But of course, they had no idea what Alphonse had been up to.

He knew that something like this was probably going to happen and that the police officers would have his face. But the thing is, he wouldn't need his face, you see. For a while he'd been trying to trick someone else, a complete stranger, into killing Olga for him. After trying for a while to find the right person for the job, someone who could follow simple instructions, but who also was an overly bright to the point that they would pick up on what he was trying to do.

Alphonse found Pearl. She seemed like the perfect candidate. I mean, who would expect her to be a murderer? So he began training her first to recognize Olga and then unknowingly to pull the trigger. He came up with a convincing story that just could be true. And next three camera that could be used to take photos of jewelry, but really a makeshift shotgun that could be incredibly lethal at close range.

And when his first gun failed to fire, he improvised and made a new one. All along the way, Pearl had been getting manipulated, which she had thought was a cool detective mission, was, in reality, an assassination plot. And Alphonse had succeeded. Well, almost. Although Olga had been hit from extremely close range with the shotgun, she had been hit in the Upper Lake area, which meant that although she did lose her left leg, she actually survived the incident and went on to recover.

After Olga was brought to the hospital, police launched a large manhunt to search for Alphonse, although he managed to evade cops for almost a week. His trip was finally picked up on the side of a mountain, but when police asked him to surrender, he refused and fired at them with his gun. In the end, he was killed in the resulting shootout.

One of the few items that were found on him was an old photo of him and Olga from their happy days together. And as for Pearl, after shooting Olga, she was brought to the police station for questioning. There she admitted her entire side of the story and learned about Olga and Alfonso's history as well. In the end, since she had no knowledge of what she had been doing, the court dismissed all charges against her and she was allowed to go as a free woman.

Incredibly, Pearl and Olga would end up becoming friends after the incident, but although Pearl would go on to marry, raise a family and get a nice, solid job, Olga struggled to return back to normal life. Four years after losing her leg. Olga spent a lot of time and energy trying to get some sort of compensation from the state for the police's negligence and not protecting her from Alfonse.

She claimed that she had told the police countless times that she was scared for her life because of him, but it didn't matter and he still managed to cripple her. She asked for $200,000 in damages. There are around $2.5 million today. But in the end, despite great efforts by both her and her lawyer, a judge dismissed her claim.

The judge said that ultimately it was Pearl who shot her, not Alphonse. As such, as unfortunate as the circumstances had turned out, the police had no way of knowing that this unknown woman was a threat, and as a result, they were not at fault. Following this ruling, Olga went on to earn a meager living selling costume jewelry, and it's unknown where she and Pearl are today.

With that being said, I hope you found this story interesting if you're new here. Hi, my name is Andy Chang. I tell really untold, bizarre, true hidden stories once a week. I personally guarantee you that basically every story, every single story I cover from here on out will be just as intriguing and as thought provoking as today's. So stick with me as always.

Let me know in the comments sections. Your thoughts, story ideas, comments, everything down below. I'll see you guys soon.