← After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
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A
Hello everyone, it's us, your hosts, Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney.
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But before we begin the show, we want to ask for a few seconds.
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Of your time if you're enjoying After Dark. And we love you if you are, we would love you just a little bit more if you could vote for us in the Listener's Choice category at the British Podcast Awards.
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So go to the Show Notes now, click the link and just then search for After Dark. Fill in your name and your email and don't forget to confirm they will send you an email you need to confirm. The whole process probably takes about 30 seconds.
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If you've already voted, we are so, so grateful. If you haven't stop what you are doing right now. Vote for us before you enjoy this show.
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A
Hello and welcome to After Dark. Now we're going to open this episode with a quote from our guest today, all about the case that we're going to be discussing. And the quote is this. This 1897 murder in New York was one of those stories everyone in the city knew about as reporters battled it out to be the first to get the big scoop. It's got everything you could want in a salacious tabloid. Jealousy, love triangles, baby farms, bath houses, and of course, a violent murder. Oh, and a duck named Julia accidentally leading the police to a vital clue to set the scene. Here's Anthony.
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The afternoon of Saturday, June 26, 1897, was hot and humid in New York City. All around Manhattan's many piers, children splashed about in the cool water. James McKenna and John Maguire had jumped into the river at the foot of East 11th street when they saw something odd floating towards them. A large, brightly colored package dreaming of treasure fallen from a ship. They swam out to it and pulled it back to the dock. Once retrieved, the boys could see that it was oddly bulky. A small crowd of onlookers gathered and one of them passed a knife to the boys in the water. They scored a tear in the thick red and golden oilcloth, excited to discover what they'd found. Through the tear they made, they saw something white inside and drew out the blade, noting a sticky, tacky substance along its edge. Despite the humidity and the heat of the sun, a shiver passed through the boys and the crowd realized what they had found with urgency. Now the package was hauled out of the water. Someone fetched a policeman. The parcel lay there for a while before anyone dared to peel back the red and gold wrapping any further. When finally they did unwrap the floating package, their worst fears were realized. Inside was the mutilated torso of a human being. The chest and arms, but no head, no stomach or legs. Welcome to After Dark, where in this episode we aim to piece together the history of the scattered Dutchman.
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C
Fantastic pun to start with.
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A
Yeah, really nailed that one.
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C
I've also never had a more girl caption read back to me before. It was quite fun.
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A
Well, there we go. You might have guessed that in today's episode we're joined back with Dr. Kat Byers, one of our all time favorite guests. We've just done an episode with Kat about the Gouffe murder case in Paris and this is kind of a companion episode to that. But whereas France had, in the 19th century, a lot of very clever, very groundbreaking detectives, New York, we're about to find out, was a little bit more chaotic, some might even say a bit farcical. Kat, welcome back to After Dark.
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C
Thank you. It's great to be back.
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A
It's so good to have you here. I am obsessed with this story and obviously the duck. Most importantly of all, justice for Julia.
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C
Honestly, she's the star.
- [06:27]
A
She really is. Okay, So I just want to give us a little bit of context before we dive into the story here, because this is a really, really interesting moment for New York City. Right? So we're in 1897, and this is a moment when the city as we would recognise it today, is starting to emerge. So in Manhattan, the skyscrapers are literally taking off and shooting into the air. And the American economy is absolutely booming in this moment. This is the time that's known as the Golden Age. Right. There's huge wealth to be made and there's huge levels of immigration as well. So, ARR. From Europe and further beyond are hundreds of thousands of people who are all coming into the city through Ellis Island. And if you look at old photos of this time, what is so fascinating is you see the streets of the city are absolutely teeming. So people are, I mean, really almost piled up on top of each other. Right. This is an extraordinary moment of sort of busyness and bustle. The other thing that's happening in this moment is that in America, there's a newly elected president, William McKinley, who. Who is really famous for one thing, and that is being assassinated, which hasn't happened yet, to be fair, that will happen in 1901. So there we go. There's a little bit of a feel for what this time period in this city might look like and sound like. But let's get to the story. Cat. We have a body.
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C
Part of a body, yes.
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A
Very importantly, part of a body that's been discovered. These boys find it in the water. What happens next? Where is it taken?
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C
So, as with any pieces of bodies found in New York, it's taken to the morgue. And then a couple of days later, another part of what appears to be the same body is found just outside of New York by a poor man and his son. Blueberry picking, got these two pieces, they take them to the morgue, and obviously, as you would assume, a police investigation starts now.
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B
Are they assuming this is the same body or are they like, oh, we're just finding loads of body parts, or are they connecting pretty Quickly.
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C
This one, they're connecting pretty quickly. I mean, they do find body parts fairly frequently. But these two, it's obvious that they're from the same body. So they're like, right, we've got two pieces. I mean, from just the one, you'd be quite clear. That was, you know, probably a suspicious situation. But having two, you're like, okay, someone's tried to hide this. So it's at the morgue. And obviously trying to figure it out sort of begins. The first instinct is maybe it's a medical cadaver. So obviously we've got this going. We talked previously about the New York morgue and body sales. So, you know, a lot of body part business is going on at the morgue anyway. So at first they're like, maybe this is. Someone used it for a medical cadaver and just threw it in the river afterwards. But then based on the way that the body's been cut, they think, okay, this isn't from a medical scenario. But apart from that, they haven't got any clues whatsoever. It's a man who's quite muscular and well built, but he has really smooth hands and manicured nails. So there's this immediate confusion of like, okay, he's got a. He looks like he maybe has a physical laboring job, but he's got these really smooth, sort of tidy hands. So at this point, they have absolutely nothing, like, nothing to identify him beyond his torso and his hands.
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B
That is very confused. I mean, my mind can't come up with a. An explanation for that. So I can totally. You know, we're saying, like, oh, they can't solve this, and this is blah, blah, blah. But actually, that's quite confusing. I'm confused by this. But the backdrop, of course, as you can well imagine, is that the police are involved, as we say. And as you say, Kat, they're connecting these threads pretty quickly. But then also the press starts to get involved. So what does the combination of the police involvement and the press involvement, how does that stir things up at the time?
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C
So also very kind of you to be so generous to the police that not be able to figure this out.
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B
Thank you. I am an empath. What can I say?
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A
There you go.
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C
It's not their fault. It's their job, and they can't figure it out. So essentially, what's happening in this moment is that obviously this is announced in the press. And we're also at this moment where, as we've talked about before, like, the press in the 19th century is really, like, it's when You've got this real tabloid press happening and, like, big. Selling salacious stories, selling murder, selling crime. And so the press hears about this and they are like, this is fantastic. There's all these massive stories. You've got these big rivalries going on with massive newspapers as well, of who gets a scoop. So that's adding to all this. And you've got reporters descending on the morgue, trying to figure it out, asking the police questions, and then at the same time, the police themselves are not the most professional outfit at this point. So the New York police is like a relatively young police force still. And it's also just incredibly corrupt. And, you know, I'm sure there's some people in the police who are, like, trying really hard and good at their job, but in general, it's a really corrupt institution. And this is in 1897 and literally two years before Theodore Roosevelt, who then goes on to be president, has become the sort of head of the police. He's been brought in to try and sort out the police because it's so corrupt and it's so embedded in all the different, like, institutions in the city. This is also the year when all the morgue scandal stuff kicks off. So, like, this is the setup we've got is not only are the police and the morgue not very good at their jobs, everybody also knows that they're not very good at their jobs. So these are coming together. So there's an element where the press are like, we want to solve this mostly because we want a scoop, but actually, we're probably going to be a bit more imaginative and a bit more focused on solving it than the police. And you've got. Yeah, so all these people start coming to the morgue. You've got palm readers, you've got occultists, you've got people being like, I'm a fortune teller, I can communicate with the spirit. You've got a phrenologist, even though there's no head. Like, you've got all these people coming and reporting who they think it might be. You've got all these women who are looking for a missing husband or her missing lover, all these people descending on the morgue, but as of yet, they have not been able to figure it out.
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A
It's such an interesting contrast, isn't it, Kat, from the previous episode, that we've just done about the Gouffe case in Paris, where the police are key to solving what's happening, and it's their incredibly detailed and groundbreaking forensic work that actually catches the two killers in that story. And if you haven't listened to that episode, listeners do go back and listen to that. I have here a quote from a New York detective, presumably about this case, and it gives a real flavour of where the police are at and what the tone of policing in New York is. Right. It's quite a long quote, but I'm going to read. It says, I believe that this most atrocious murder was committed by a foreigner. In the whole history of crime in this country, murders which were done with like, ferocity as this have always been committed by foreigners, usually those of a warmer climate than ours. All right. I should judge from what I've heard of this case that the murderer is Sicilian or possibly a Spaniard or a Cuban. Maybe a Spanish spy has been put out of the way by Cubans. I mean, it's just. It goes on and on. I suppose, on the one hand, this speaks to what a diverse place New York already was at the end of the 19th century, and something of those class and racial tensions that were going on, and particularly those clashes, therefore, with the police. But presumably then as well as now, this was an astonishing thing to say, surely.
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C
I think it was astonishing in the sense of. Is that really all you've got to go on is there's a red and gold oilcloth. Maybe Spaniards love red and gold. That'll be who did it. So I think in that sense, it is kind of astonishing, but it's also, they just didn't have anything. And it's interesting, if we think about it, compared to the last case we talked about, where you had this incredible forensic doctor who was able to be like, even based on a body that is so far decomposed, I can figure out who it is. In this case, it was like, yeah, we don't really have the ability or the skill or the technique to do that here yet, so we just don't know who it is. But then, fortunately, some intrepid reporters step up, so they start pulling the clues together.
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B
And one of those clues, I've been really struck by the description of the oil cloth. The whole way through, I've been kind of going, we're talking about this oilcloth an awful lot here. We're talking about the colours, we're talking about the blah, blah, blah. But actually it turns out to be quite a key clue. Right?
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C
Yeah. So obviously it's quite a distinctive thing. And again, like the gouffe case, if you've got at least a material object, you're like, we can go with this. And they figure out where it was purchased. So they find this little shop in Astoria, and this woman says, oh, I sold it to a German housewife named Augusta Neck.
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B
That sounds like a character's name.
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A
I know it does. It does. But she's German, so she's foreign. So immediately we're not trusting her. In the context of this world, she is foreign.
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C
Although there's a lot of Germans in New York at this period. But yes. So she's someone called Augusta Nak. And so they have this clue. So they start to be a bit like, okay, what's the situation with this woman called Augusta? And then they also have another reporter who has been thinking a lot about the body and about this idea of it being really muscular but having these smooth hands. And he's like, this reminds me of something. What does this remind me of? And he often goes to one of the bath houses to get, like, a scrub. And he's like, wait a second. This is like the guys at the bathhouse who. Obviously. Very muscular. Yeah, that's the gayest thing I've ever heard. He just goes for fun. He's definitely a super straight guy. He just goes there after work. Anyway, he goes to his bath house, like, five times a week. And so he goes and he questions all these different bath houses. And then at one of them, they're like, oh, yeah, actually, we have this guy called William Guldensop, this Dutch guy who hasn't turned up for work recently because he went off to see this country house with his girlfriend. And so we haven't seen him. And so then they get him, like some employees in the bathhouse to come to the morgue and see if they recognize the body.
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B
Well, that's kind of clever. Well, I guess it's not really clever. It's just they. So they happen by that information, don't they, really?
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C
I mean, it's clever. On behalf of the reporters, not particularly clever. I mean, the police are like, great, thanks.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks so much for doing our work.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Okay. So the press digs up this woman, Augusta Knack, and we know that she bought the red and gold oilcloth. That's gotta be suspicious right away. I mean, she must be in our frame as a suspect, right, Kat?
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C
Yeah, because, I mean, the body part was obviously wrapped in this. And it's not the most common thing in the world to be wrapped in. So this is when they start really looking closely into Augusta.
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A
And I have a picture of Augusta here, which I'm going to describe to you because it's quite telling. I Think of how people are perceiving her. This is very clearly a newspaper sketch of her. And she looks very severe. She's, I suppose a middle aged woman. She's got quite dark hair with these sort of that very late 19th century curly fringe that's kind of in like two little curtains either side of your forehead. And she's got quite a sort of ugly elaborate hat on her head with some feathers and quite a lot of ribbon. And I don't know if it's maybe a fur coat or something, some kind of collar that's puffed out or something. But she just. She looks quite. Not exactly overdressed but like she's trying to look more respectable than she maybe is. And she's also very severe. She's got this very high kind of dark brow that's yeah, kind of looming over these quite sad looking eyes and this very sort of sharp, severe face and nose. And then on the other hand we have a little illustration of William the Dutchman who's missing. And this is interesting considering there's no head to this body. But the newspapers have given it a go anyway. And he, unlike Augusta, is, I would say, good looking. He's got this lovely neat sort of central parting with his hair combed either side. He looks very respectable. He's got a nice cravat right up under his neck. And he's got the most fantastic moustache, quite fancy and late 19th century moustache. So I'm quite into that. But it's interesting already the portrayal of some of the people involved in the case by the media. Not only are they kind of picking up these clues and following the trail, I suppose, but in some ways actually sort of rewriting or making assumptions about the story as they go along as well.
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C
I mean, I think a little bit. And I think there was definitely a lot of that in the 19th century of kind of like looking like a criminal versus not looking like a criminal. I think in like a case of Augusta Knack it might have just been quite accurate. They described it at one point as pleasant yet repellent. And she seemed to be like very seductive. And she did have various sort of men circling around her. But I think that maybe she also was only in her 30s and I think she looked pretty hard worn for her 30s. No offense to her. The impression I get is that she was quite a terrifying woman. And so she basically they traced that Goldensup had been, you know, that had been his girlfriend. And so they go and they interview her and then they track down her Husband. Because they think, oh, maybe her. Maybe it's like, a jealous husband situation. And her husband, who's this baker called Herman, is like, we broke up a year and a half ago. She was cheating on me. I have nothing to do with her. Please keep me away from Augusta.
- [19:28]
B
This is Augusta's husband.
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C
Augusta's actual husband. She does have an actual husband.
- [19:32]
B
Yeah.
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C
And it turns out that William had moved in with them as a lodger, and then she'd just taken up with William. Oh, yeah.
- [19:42]
B
He sounds like a bit of a ride. And he has a girlfriend. And then we have this picture of Augusta, who I'd be like, I know. Like, yeah, I don't want to cast any spirit. She must have been very funny, put it that way. She must have had a great personality.
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C
Look, I think the charisma doesn't necessarily come off the page. Yeah.
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B
But let's not doubt that it was there.
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C
It was there. Like, Augusta was. Well, she literally had men fighting over her.
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B
Yes. So this is how they're connected, William.
- [20:09]
C
So this is how they're connected to knocking boots. Yeah. And they're like, okay, this is weird. And she's like, oh, no, it has nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me. And then there's a third man that's involved, because it turns out that after Augusta left her husband to be with Bill, they got another loggia. This also is, like, a whole theme called Martin. And then Martin and Augusta start getting together.
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B
Go on, Augusta.
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C
She was a song. Yeah.
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A
She's, you know, New York.
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C
There you go. And then William finds out, beats Martin up, and Martin's in the hospital for a while, and then he gets fired from his job as a barber because he comes in with two black eyes. So now the police are learning about all this, and they're like, okay, there's this whole setup going on with this Augusta woman in the middle. And then all these rumors start swirling that Augusta is not, in fact, a midwife and is actually an illegal abortionist. And so we have all of this going on, and it's the newspapers that are picking all this stuff up, and they're, like, running around interviewing people. They're, like, running after Herman's baker's truck, and he's like, please, leave me alone. I left that woman.
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A
I'm already a good gold.
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C
Like, he took up with the lodger in my hat. He's like, leave me alone.
- [21:14]
A
Yeah, I feel bad for Herman. Wow. Okay, listen up. You can get the new iPhone 16e with Apple Intelligence for just $49.99 when you switch to Boost Mobile. We pulled so many all nighters to give you this. Hey, stop messing with the miike.
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- [24:11]
C
Wow.
- [24:12]
A
So presumably this was not an untypical situation for a lot of people living in the city, right? You know, we think of the 19th century as adhering to very strict sort of, you know, marital boundaries.
- [24:24]
B
Stop for a second. Stop for a second. Wait. People chasing around trucks, A lover with no head and no arms and well, whatever it is like run of the mill, run of the mill stuff here.
- [24:36]
C
Normalized 19th century thruffles guys.
- [24:38]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:39]
C
This is the story that people aren't getting.
- [24:42]
A
Oh my God this is what's been happening. Okay, fine, look, let's just take the headless guy out of the equation for a second. But I do think that, you know, people had affairs all the time. People broke up with their spouses and had strange and unusual living arrangements all the time. And I think that's. I mean, we often talk about, you know, this is why true crime is so useful and interesting to historians, because it gives you a way into and a record of the lives of people who might otherwise have disappeared from the written archive. Right. And I think this is exactly that. This is just. We're sort of laughing. It's quite a sort of hilarious setup and yeah, kind of Victorian throuple, but the only reason we know about this is because one of them turns up dead. And I think that's. It's just so amazing that we have that information. Now, Kat, let's get to the important stuff here, because where does this duck come in? There's a duck in this case. Come on, what's going on?
- [25:34]
C
Where does the duck come in? Rather to what you've just said, I think that's so true. And I think that we always have this idea of the 19th century as people living these really prim lives. And obviously there is this very strong kind of moral and social ideology of what appropriate, inappropriate ways to live. But it doesn't mean that most people are actually living that way or that people really cared that much when you got down to it, because I think the idea of turns out your neighbors have an affair apart somewhere in throuple. I just don't think people really cared that much. And I think these things are normalised. And I always find it sort of frustrating when you read things and people assume that everyone around that person would have behaved a certain way to an affair, to an unwired pregnancy or whatever it was when you're like, I think a lot of people were just kind of getting by and maybe there would have been some external judgment or some illusion of judgment, but also people just sort of lived their lives. But anyway, yes, the duck the vital part of this story. So all this stuff is going on and the police are now actually involved and they're investigating and they're interviewing people. And then we have. I think it's before all this. So Martin is also just not the smartest guy in the world and he just cannot stop mouthing off and he goes to his barber shop. So also for like months leading up to this, he kept going to the barbershop and being like, hey, random, Question guys like, do you know much about poison? Hey, do you know where I can get, like, a massive knife? So he's been doing this for ages. And also, everybody knows that he hates this guy William because of the whole situation, and that William obviously beat him up. And he's kind of, like, feeling. He's, like, sort of threatened by him. And he's like, oh, I can't believe this guy. I should get rid of him. So he's literally going around town being like, you know, making it known that he hates William, the handsome Dutch masseuse guy. And then police don't have the crime scene, so they've got all this stuff. It seems really, really suspicious. They also go to Augusta's apartment and search it. They find a pistol. All this stuff's coming together, but they haven't got a crime scene. But then the duck comes into the story. So what happened is that they had rented a house, cassette said, in New York in a place called Woodside. And Augusta had said to William, who I think she was still involved with. This is also very murky. Like, I think she was still involved with both of them. And they set up this plan. And so she says to William, like, oh, I'm thinking of starting this baby farm. Do you want to come up and see the house with me? Like, we could live there and, like, run it together. She's also telling Martin, like, oh, you could run a baby farm with me, and you can have a barbershop baby farm. And he's, like, playing them off.
- [27:56]
A
And, Kat, just for our listeners who haven't heard our episode on Amelia Dyer and baby farms, can you just tell us briefly what a baby farm is in the 19th century?
- [28:04]
C
So it's basically somewhere where if you couldn't afford to take care of your child, you would pay, usually a woman running a, quote, baby farm to take care of that child, maybe ongoing, or maybe just you'd give the child totori to them for a lump sum of money. And obviously, a lot of people running these farms had no incentive to take care of those children, and they would just take the money and sort of let the children die or in some cases, murder them. So that's the kind of setup we've got going over here. Also, Augusta's like, she's not a great girl. She's got a lot of terrible criminal activity going on. Anyway, so she. They lure William up to this house and shakes him upstairs. And Martin is hiding in a cupboard, and he leaps out and shoots William, stabs him, and then cuts him Up. So really just very much kills him. And then they dismember the body, pack it up in these oilskins. And then to clear up the house, Martin turns the taps on because he doesn't really know much about cleaning. Leaves the tap running and it's like, that'll just sweep all the blood out of the house. It'll go down the drain. It'll be great. But he doesn't realize is that this actually just creates a puddle outside the house for days and days of this kind of like bloody water. And nearby this house is a farm. On this farm, there's a duck called Julia.
- [29:21]
B
Are you making up that she's called Julia?
- [29:24]
C
Genuinely, she's called Julia. This is part of the narrative. Like, she is a big part of the story. Her name is actually Julia, which is a great name for a duck. Anyway, I imagine perhaps that she hadn't been named prior to this case happening. And then when it all blew up, her neighbor was. The guy who owns her was probably like, she's my favourite duck. This is her name. It's his moment for the spotlight.
- [29:42]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [29:43]
C
He may have just been calling her like the duck beforehand. Anyway, Julia, like, goes on a little walk, as you do in the countryside, and then comes back and her owner notices that she's, like, covered in what looks like blood.
- [29:53]
B
Julia, what have you been doing?
- [29:56]
C
So Julia's been committing crimes in the countryside. He inspects her and finds that there's no injury. So he is like, obviously in my imagination, he's like, julia, lead me to the crime. I think he probably just, like, follows, like, he's going.
- [30:09]
A
She waddles off. Exactly.
- [30:10]
C
She's like, come with me. And then he finds this pool of blood and goes into the house and is like, oh, my God, there seems to have been a murder here because they haven't cleaned up properly. And then contacts the police. And then the police obviously tie this all together and they're like, right, well, now we've got the scene of the crime and we've got some murder weapons and we've got two people who clearly did this or were absolutely involved in this. And we can prove that they knew him. And they both had a motive because it also comes out from Martin and also from ex husband Herman that Augusta was nervous about William giving away her whole baby farm, illegal abortion business things. And she was maybe being blackmailed by him. So she definitely had a reason to want him killed. Apparently, he also tried to get someone to murder her ex husband, but that obviously didn't work. And so then they are put on trial.
- [31:06]
B
Now, one thing I just want to inject here while we're going through this is. This is a message for producer Freddie, producer Stu, and senior producer Charlotte. The next time we have Kat on, can somebody vet her stories that they're actually true? Because I think she is making shit up just to come on this podcast. This is the most bizarre thing. I have heard some stories over the last two years on this podcast, but a duck genuinely kind of helping to solve a murder has to be right up there with. With some of the best material we've had. You're welcome, After Dark, listeners. You're very, very welcome.
- [31:42]
C
Yeah, Julia the duck. And she. I think she just hasn't had the recognition that she deserves for this case.
- [31:47]
B
She hasn't had the miniseries being played by Saran Jones.
- [31:50]
C
Exactly. So. Well, yeah. Duck solving crimes. Yeah. And I think it is one of those things where obviously they had all the other pieces and, you know, they probably would have found the house eventually, but it's a great way to get to the house. But, I mean, I'm sure you guys have experienced this because of all the episodes you've done that. Sometimes there's stuff that is absolutely stranger than fiction. And if something you read about it in a fiction book, you'd be like, that's a bit on the nose. That wouldn't happen like that.
- [32:13]
B
We can't put that in. Yeah, they won't buy that. Yeah.
- [32:16]
C
There's no way they would buy this woman with her illegal baby form luring one of her lovers in her throuple up to this house to murder him.
- [32:23]
A
If you submitted this as a novel to your editor, and the big twist was a duck found the blood and therefore the crime was solved, the editor would be like, we have a bit of a plotting issue here. No, we're not doing this.
- [32:38]
B
Did you lose interest in the last third of the book?
- [32:41]
A
Did you give up and just thought, what could possibly solve this? It's interesting for me because I think when we started this conversation, I was thinking this would be. It was kind of picturing the set of something. I know it's set a bit earlier, but Gangs of New York style, kind of gritty city, streets and poverty and lots of immigrants kind of living cheek by jowl in this very tense environment. And the police kind of being on the exterior of that and sort of bushed up against it in terms of that tension. But actually, we're looking at this place on Long island just outside of New York, but also, like, it's so bucolic. There's a farm next door and it's so. I suppose it would have been so shocking at the time to think that in this respectable, at least semi rural setting where there are lovely named ducks that are beloved by their owners flopping around in puddles, that there would be a couple who a were plotting and capable of carrying out a murder. But also that planned to move into that neighbourhood to run a baby farm and possibly provide illegal abortions. Like that must have been so salacious for the 19th century reader coming across this story.
- [33:48]
C
This is the thing about the countryside, this is why I'm scared of the countryside. Because you just don't know what people are up to. But I think there is that and I think at the time, like, I don't know if people would have been shocked at this happening because also, I mean like so many cases in the 19th century, you know, ones that didn't really make it out of the local area and ones that were a massive deal were scenarios of like a, you know, a murder happening somewhere where people didn't expect or you know, the tiny town. We never, you know, it's that classic trope and it's a trope for a reason of like, you know, in this tiny, beautiful town, something dark was lurking. It's like the entire David lynch filmography. But I think there's an element of obviously the story was surprising. There's a reason why they said sort of Trial of the Century, although they say that every other year. But it also, I think just, I don't know, there was very much this gritty life in New York at the time. Like you're saying this kind of Gangs of New York thing that really was a reality that people lived incredibly hard, incredibly difficult, brutal lives. Not everybody, but it was like a really brutal time. And so I think that, you know, obviously something's. This is an extreme example, but I also don't think that people would have been shocked at what other people around them were capable of in that way. And again, these stories are drummed up, they're made bigger by the tabloids and there's huge full page spreads and people get really obsessed with it. And the duck really adds a whole other dimension. But I don't think it would have been really shocking in that way.
- [35:20]
B
It's so interesting to think about the ordinariness of murder. And that's an odd phrase and I don't mean it to sound glib, but actually it's a very interesting thought exercise to think about the Ordinariness of murder. That's really, really interesting.
- [35:37]
C
Yeah. And it's something that I think with the morgues, like I come across obviously all the time that, you know, you have these big cases and again, some of them are massively blown up. But the vast majority of cases, even the ones that are blown up, are about like a domestic dispute ultimately. You know, I mean, they're like a romantic entanglement. They're about money, they're about jealousy, they're about all these different things. Even, you know, the one that we did last time I was on about the goofy case. Is it financially motivated? It's three people in this caught up in these circumstances. So I think there's that as well. Is that like murder? It's not ordinary, but it is. Most of the scenarios are like human interactions and like human complexities that end up just being. Being pushed to the extreme of absolutely blowing up. Which again I think is one of the reasons we're all fascinated by true crime is because it's like what happens when humans are pushed past the limit or when they break the social code, which says you don't do that even if you have been betrayed, blackmailed, all these other things.
- [36:31]
A
And that's why as well, I suppose, we're so obsessed with detective stories of this era and later, because those are the people who come by and put that order back together again and say, no, no, that was a blip. Everything is fine. You don't need to look beneath the surface of other people's lives. It's all good, you know, which is very kind of Agatha Christie.
- [36:47]
C
Right?
- [36:48]
A
This idea that in every again, like you were saying, Kat, you know, every picturesque village in England, there's someone waiting to shoot their husband or poison the housekeeper or whatever it is that everyone has the capability, I suppose, within them to do.
- [37:17]
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- [38:16]
E
I can't believe they're having a gender reveal for their dog.
- [38:18]
F
No, no, no, no. This is a breed reveal.
- [38:21]
E
Oh.
- [38:22]
F
So, yeah, they're finding out the breed of the puppy they're rescuing.
- [38:25]
E
So they could just be spending of time lot a all their money on, like, pet insurance.
- [38:28]
F
Instead, we got lemonade for Roscoe and it covered vaccines, microchipping. We saved 90% on vet bills.
- [38:34]
C
Oh, here we go.
- [38:38]
E
What do you think beige confetti means?
- [38:41]
F
I don't know that we'll never get this Saturday back.
- [38:43]
E
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- [38:57]
A
So, obviously, thanks to Julia, the crime is solved. And you mentioned that Augusta and Martin are arrested, so presumably they're taken to trial. What happens at that trial and is it a big sensation, considering it's such a big story in the press?
- [39:13]
C
The trial is a massive sensation and obviously is reported on all day, every day and also internationally. So, again, like, you see with all these kind of cases, there's, you know, the reporting on in the uk, the reporting on wherever, and everyone is absolutely gripped. And I think especially it's another case where everyone fits into really great stereotypes. And so obviously, the more that people fit into a stereotype, the more people are like, this feels like reading detective fiction. So they have this trial and they both kind of turn on each other. So Augusta also has been really. She's just kept her cool the whole time. There was this one moment before the trial when they. So they found some legs as well. At some point they found some other part of the body. They never find the head, but they find some legs and they, like, present her with the legs and she's like, I'm not bothered that I'm not having any reaction to these. And I think apparently she also starts charging people in prison to come and see her. She's like, oh, you can come see me, like, 25 cents. And then she refuses to say anything. And then Martin kind of gives his whole version of the story, which is that she made him do it. And then her story is like, it was all his idea and he was an accessory. So obviously it's that kind of classic thing of being like, you know, whose fault is it going to be? And he gets this amazing lawyer who. I really wish someone would write a book about this guy, but he destroyed all his Own records, obviously, because he was a crooked lawyer. And he was, like, this really flamboyant guy at the time who was famous for defending all the low lives of New York and apparently once managed to get this woman acquitted who'd shot her lover four times because he said that she pulled the trigger accidentally four times. Like, every single time it was an accident. So this guy is, like, so good. So Martin, I think he thinks he's gonna get out.
- [40:50]
A
He sounds like. Who's the lawyer in Chicago in the 1920s, like, behind Lyddy Flynn?
- [40:55]
C
Yeah, that exact. Called Howe. Anyway, so he's the lawyer, but at the end of the day, the evidence is just too strong against the fact that, like, Martin did it. Like, Augusta was definitely involved, but Martin did it. And then he's. He's sentenced to the. I think it's the electric chair. So he's executed for it. And she gets 20 years in prison. And obviously, it's one of those trials where they bring in all these different witnesses, they bring in her husband, they bring in the morgue keeper, like, all these other people involved. But in the end, it's Martin that is executed for the crime.
- [41:27]
B
Interesting.
- [41:27]
C
And she gets out of prison after, I want to say, 15 years. And then for a bit, she tries to get a job as a prison warden. So she's like.
- [41:36]
B
She really enjoyed her time there.
- [41:38]
C
But literally, she was like, I really understand how this whole business works. Be a prison warden now. But she doesn't get a job as that. And then she changes her name and, like, sets up a shop. But she stays in New York, so they think she'll leave, and she's like, no, no, I'm staying.
- [41:50]
B
It's interesting, Kat, because I've got a picture of her here. And, you know, often when we have. You know, we were talking about the illustration earlier, and we're like, oh, you know, often when we were faced with these things, we have to take them with a pinch of salt. Well, this is a photograph, and it ain't a million miles off what the drawing shows. To be perfectly honest. She seems like a serious. A serious woman, actually. But I suppose a woman of a certain age. Yeah, she's a really interesting character. And another person who seems to have a savviness about her position in this. It almost seems sometimes. I'm gonna say this, and I'll just be interested to know what both of you think, actually. But sometimes it seems that even contemporary minds, as much as they maligned women, and God did they. They sometimes couldn't quite get to the ends of the thing of going. And she was monstrous and she potentially was. Somebody who is capable of murder is capable of manipulation. It was almost like their misogyny extended so far that they couldn't possibly put women in some of the most extreme situations that they are capable of going to. Do you think that's fair or do you think that's a bit of an odd reading?
- [43:02]
C
Oh, no, I absolutely agree. And I think there is that extent to which it's like a weirdly protective misogyny or something. And it's this idea of, like, they can't be an entire person, which extends to them not being able to be evil. But it's like real feminism is women can also be evil.
- [43:15]
A
Go off Queen.
- [43:16]
B
Welcome to 2025, guys.
- [43:19]
C
Yeah, queen cowboys. But his lawyers and martyred lawyer at the trial, described as Lady Macbeth and the Borgias all rolled into one.
- [43:29]
A
Oh, wow.
- [43:29]
C
And then was like. I mean, obviously he was. You know, he had a reason for saying that because he was Martin's lawyer. But I told. I think there is, and I think there's. It's interesting with this case as well, because they do, you know, like we said, there was a massive amount misogyny at the time, and I'm sure there was more complexity to her and her relationships and all of that, but, like, there's basically nothing redeeming about her whatsoever. I mean, even the fact that her side business was like, I'm going to set up a baby farm. And the whole thing with the illegal abortions was that she also wasn't. She'd trained as a midwife in Germany and failed her training, so she also was, like, literally just killing people. She wasn't even, like, capable of giving abortions. And there's all these other things that came out about her that may or may not have been true, but, yeah, there's definitely a sense of, like, people almost couldn't believe how terrible she was, but also were so fascinated because they're like, this woman is stone cold. You know, there was a bit where just before the trial, she was like, oh, I found God, I'm really remorseful now. I'm really, really sorry. Again, maybe she had. But maybe the timing was that she was trying to. To not get the same sentence savvy. Yeah.
- [44:35]
A
It's interesting as well that she. All the way through, she's making a life for herself that is kind of on the periphery in terms of how she makes her money. And even when she's done in prison, she wants to be a prison warden because I suppose there's not any other option available to her possibly that she can't go out and just find herself a job. No one's going to employ her in their home. She can't resume the service of abortions that she's offering because who would go to her for that, you know? And yeah, I kind of think it's so interesting. She just exists on the periphery in so many ways and often she's sort of put herself there as well, which is fascinating. If you've enjoyed this episode, then get in touch with us, JusticeForJulia, please, and let us know your thoughts. If you want to go back and check out the other episodes that we've done with Kat, we have done the Paris Morgue, the New York Morgue, and as we've mentioned in this episode, the Goof egg case as well last week. So you can check that out asap. If you have ideas for topics that you would like us to discuss on the show, then you can email us@darkhistoryhit.com See you next time.
- [45:48]
I
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A
I need a coffee.
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I
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