Polyamorous baroness ‘crazy panties’ arrived on 'Love Island' and made her boyfriends fight each other
The true story of two German socialites who attempted to start a new life on one of the Galapagos Islands culminates in gruesome end after the arrival of one crazed baroness
Pulling a gun and telling people living the quiet paradise island and their families “I am the Empress of this island” before re-naming it “Love Island”, one woman and her two boyfriends wreaked havoc on a group of hippy expats, which ended with two gruesome deaths.
Meet the woman who invented a very twisted concept of Love Island long before the hit show hit our screens. Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet landed on the Ecuadorean island of Floreana and immediately shot a beloved donkey square between the eyes to start her reign of terror.
Despite her often terrifying behaviour, Eloise was dubbed “Crazy Panties” by her fellow islanders, flouting her self-styled “Baroness” title.
This chilling tale of a utopian dream gone very wrong traces the tragic path of two German socialites seeking refuge from civilization after World War One.
The twisted narrative of murder and deceit ends with an oil magnate stumbling upon two mummified bodies on a Galapagos Islands beach - Crazy Panties’ two boyfriends.
Abbott Khaler revealed some extraordinary details about Crazy Panties, a tagline earned due to a flouncy pair of trousers she used to wear. Khaler told the Mirror US: “ ‘In a way she was this feminist - being polyamorous - sleeping with whoever she pleases - boasting about it - she's truly terrible."
Her book “Eden Undone” based on previously unseen archives, reaches its climax during the height of the Great Depression when Los Angeles oil tycoon George Allan Hancock and his team of Smithsonian scientists discover a gruesome pair of corpses - thought to be the Baroness’ lovers Rudolf Lorenz and Robert Phillipson, and their Ecuadorian servant Manuel Valdivieso.
The San Francisco Examiner described the trio as “a fabulous Viennese Baroness, and her two love slaves (a couple of masculine ex-dressmakers)". Khaler said it was not long before she “began to turn her own lovers against each other.”
The original group of European exiles were led by Freiderich Ritter and Dore Strauch. Fleeing political and economic instability in their home countries, they had hopes of creating a utopian paradise on the island. However, as Hancock and his American companions soon discovered, this paradise had devolved into chaos.
Khaler said: “In the context of utopian societies throughout history - its kind of a utopian idea that there's always somewhere better. When you escape you bring your current problems with you.”
Petty squabbles turned into fiery confrontations as the baroness, equipped with a riding crop and a pearl-handled revolver, instigated fights between her lovers and unabashedly wooed American tourists. She quickly overshadowed Ritter and Strauch, sparking jealousy among the pair who were accustomed to being the focus of international headlines.
When the Baroness landed with her two attendants behind her, the Ritters and all the Wittmers were lined up to meet her. “Raising her gun on high, she leaped ashore and proclaimed: ‘By the grant of God and the Sovereign Government of Ecuador I am the Empress of this island, which I here-by rename Love Island.”
Hearing a rustling from a nearby bush she said “no one laughs,” thinking it was someone hiding, mocking her. After the mule emerged she shot it straight between the eyes. A news report added: “Soon, at gun point if they objected, the other settlers were forced to pay homage and tribute to this extraordinary woman.”
The Baroness' consorts, Lorenz and Nuggerud embarked on a voyage to Santa Cruz, stocked up, and headed toward San Cristóbal, only to vanish into thin air. Some months later, in 1934, their dessicated remains were found on Marchena Island's coast, quite adrift from where they aimed to go.
The Baroness’s two devoted followers grew jealous of each other and “strove for her favours,” although the exact story of their jealousy is not known it is known that it ended with one skeleton found “plucked clean by wind, water and animals” on the lonely beach of a nearby island. Another skeleton, possibly that of the other lover, turned up on another island beach. The Baroness herself disappeared completely.