Randa: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Stabbin' Stylists podcast. I'm Randa. And I'm Ashley. We are just two stylists who love true crime and hair, and we're gonna tell you about both. This is a true crime podcast. These stories may be disturbing to some. Listener discretion is [00:01:00] advised.

Trigger warning: This episode contains graphic crime

Ashley: So transitioning to spooky season with a little lady of the night, because I can't imagine a better person to transition into spooky season with than Alice Cooper, her full name was Alizonia Chambers Cooper, she actually ended up becoming one of the most infamous women in the 19th century in Chattanooga, but yet not much is known about her. She was born in 1830, and not n- much is known about, like, her early life, but her later part of life was operating , inside Chattanooga's vice because, like, uh, we've talked about in Cleveland and other episodes, this was a booming railroad town.

With railroads and industrial booms, there are saloons, gambling halls, prostitution houses, [00:02:00] violence, political corruption, all the things.

Randa: Et cetera, et cetera.

Ashley: So in Chattanooga

In the late 1880s, a lot of this activity centered around on what was then Florence Street. Florence Street was a whole red light district at the time. Mm-hmm. Now Florence Street no longer exists. It is based on bringing it back to Sanborn fire maps.

Randa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ashley: It is, where Highway 27 and the modern downtown corridor near West Main Street, Chestnut Street, and the old rail road lines is.

Okay. It's kinda in that area. according to the 1886 map, it is kind of near where like Highway 27 is now, but two blocks from Chestnut Street.

Randa: Okay.

Ashley: Her final brothel was at 11 Helen Street, which is also still not a road, it is around where, like, the Highway 27 exit ramp [00:03:00] heading towards, um, MLK is.

Randa: Okay.

Ashley: this ended up later on being the more kind of vice district. So you gotta think she was business long enough that she was able to literally, like, move with-

Randa: Yeah ...

Ashley: where time was moving to. She was pretty much consistently through everything described as a prostitute, a madam, but she was also consistently described as someone who was financially successful enough that, like, she had her own economic independence w- at a time that women really didn't have economic independence. Yeah. she was described as intimidating, loud, and deeply connected to influential men throughout Chattanooga.

Randa: Oh, okay.

Ashley: she wasn't just, Running a shotgun shanty house Yeah She had a nice brothel

Randa: Reputable

Ashley: Yes. She was who the men with the money went to

Randa: Yes

Ashley: During that time in the Victorian era, newspapers, like, would actually [00:04:00] sensationalize these madams' lives- Mm-hmm ... and, like, make it look like this big, huge, like, nice embellishment too.

Like, it was weird because it was illegal, but yet they were still looked at as, like, very fancy and-

Randa: Fancy ladies ...

Ashley: right, and wealthy members of society

So another historical writing also calls her the wige- wickedest woman in Chattanooga.

Randa: What an-

Ashley: And that actually followed her to her death. In 2016, there was a little column writ about it, written about her, and even, like, decades after her death, locals remembered stories about her violent temper, heavy drinking, and influence inside the city's underworld.

Okay. So this woman was, like, known in her time. Yeah. There's literally, like, oral traditions about her. And even, she was so influential at the time that during another prostitution boom in the 1890s, another madam is [00:05:00] said to have said she turned profits that would have made Alice Cooper proud.

Randa: Oh,

Ashley: my. So yeah, so like number one- She was

Randa: a standard.

Ashley: Yeah, she was a standard. I love that. She was a standard, and there was multiple prostitution booms in Chattanooga, so I both of those things

There's no actual official reports of what happened to cause her death.

What we do know is that in 1893, Alice Cooper died under violent and mysterious circumstances. Some accounts and later retellings say that she died after slitting her own throat. Oh. Some versions describe the death as suicide during emotional distress or intoxication, while other ones claim that she was married by a lover, cri- client or criminal associate, 'cause I mean, obviously- Yeah

she was heavy in the underworld. But there is no surviving record that says what happened, and no one [00:06:00] was ever prosecuted for her death. she was literally this super famous woman in life, but, like, there's no s- no one knows what happened.

Randa: Huh. Did y- I think we know what happened.

Ashley: Yes. That is... You brought that up the other day.

That's very, like, slit her own throat. Come on.

Randa: I don't know about it.

Ashley: Come on. I

Randa: don't know about it.

Ashley: And if they sensationalized her life so much- Right ... if she just up and slit her own throat, even if she, anything that happened, why was her death not, like, sensationalized too? Exactly. Just, it's feels like, like, somebody would've kept it out of the papers or something, you know?

Right. Like, why, yeah, or-

Randa: You would think ...

Ashley: mm. But that does not mean her story stops there. After her death, she was bu- buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in the Chattanooga, St. Elmo area. For decades, her grave was actually unmarked or just forgotten. You know, just [00:07:00] tale as old as time. She's just kind of forgotten about until her story resurfaced later through, like, historians and cemetery enthusiasts and ghost story collectors, and just as, you know, creepy started to become a trend, her story started to be told more and passed around more.

eventually a new marker was eventually placed that simply said, " Lady of the Night."

Randa: Okay then.

Ashley: That phrase became permanently attached to her grave, and obviously is now, like, a huge curiosity. And people actually come now and they leave her things like coins, flowers, lipstick, cigarettes, or alcohol

I mean, because of the official records being gone because of the time, it was, you know, railroad, gambling, prostitution time, not really- Yeah ... that well of records kept. There's really nothing known about Alice Cooper, and this whole story could be made up. You know? Yeah. Nobody has any clue, but there's, there is a grave still to this day at Forest Hill [00:08:00] Cemeteries in Chattanooga that says, "Lady of the night, Alice Cooper."

Next, next week will be a local Cleveland case. It'll be a short one, but it'll be a good one. It's one of my most requested cases, and it'll be a good kickoff to, um, spooky season, so we'll see you then.

Randa: Yeah

Speaker 2: Don't whistle in the woods at night. Bye y'all.