Genevieve Mannion (0:00)

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match Limited by state law not available in all states. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for Cele, so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host Genevieve Mannion and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me there's just something especially intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello friends and welcome to this, my 45th episode, which happens to be my one year anniversary episode. I'm one. This is so exciting. Thank you everyone who has been with me since the beginning or from any time that you've joined our creepy little family. I think, I think I am more proud of this little podcast than any work I have ever done. It has been so rewarding to see it grow, to use it to help me heal, and above all to connect with you darlings. Thank you for following my show and here's to hopefully more years to come. This was a wildly exciting week apart from turning 1. I used last Monday's new Gemini Moon to do a very igniting abundance ritual and I even posted a video on the Instagram that night, how to do it Yourself. And when I woke up the next morning I checked my email and I found that Apple Podcasts chose to feature my other podcast, Dark poetry. There are 3.5 million podcasts out there, so to be chosen to be featured in the top five position at the tippy top of Apple Podcasts browser, it's a very big deal. It gives a big boost to your visibility. You can't pay for it, it you just you have to be chosen. So that was some very exciting abundance to find Incidentally, the last time I did this ritual it was on January 21st. That's the night that we had that planetary alignment and the same thing happened. My Victorian nightmare was featured the very next day. I put an image of my analytics for that week on Instagram so you can see I went from about 496 listeners on the 21st to 30,000 five days later. Witchcraft works. It's really weird. I highly recommend it. In that vein, okay, I may or may not do this depending on demand, but would you like to join a fan coven? If you're interested in the craft and would like a little guidance, I am thinking of creating lunar phase specific meditations, ritual guides, affirmations, bits and pieces to aid you in your craft and making those available on Patreon, along with offering the show ad free for like $8.99 a month. Only 20 and you might get stickers, you might get some awesome goth pins for your backpack. You will probably get a pretty postcard signed by me thanking you for joining and perhaps some cool stuff for your altar. It'll be a surprise. But again, it all depends on demand. If you would be interested, let me know in the comments on Spotify or message me on Instagram to let me know. No commitments. I am not going to hunt you down later. I'm just taking the temperature. Perhaps one day we can all meet up. We can tell some ghost stories, we can call the coroners, have some cocktails. We'll see. Even if you're not interested in witchcraft, I promise those meditations will be blissful as hell to listen to. I put my own coven to sleep all the time again. Let me know if this sounds like something you would be into in the Spotify comments or on Instagram today. For you, dear listener, I have some brutal vigilante justice, deadly vengeance, another spooky skeleton discovery, a hammer murder, 1800s red pill propaganda, a mysterious murder suicide, a clairvoyant shot by a spirit hand, and a devout salvation seeking rooster named Cochin. All courtesy of the Illustrated Police News, Law Courts and Record, our favorite goopy, gloppy, murdery, marvelous tabloid from the 1800s. But first, some haunted housekeeping. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for rating the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Those ratings and your treasured comments are the reason I've made it to one year of producing the show. They are that important and continue to be that important for keeping the show going. Please leave me comments on both of those platforms. They delight the bejesus out of me. A listener left a comment on Apple Podcasts that says your voice is like a female Vincent Price and that may be my very favorite compliment of all time. I will wear that one so proudly. Thank you. A listener named Violettes on Spotify wrote that she listens to the podcast while working the midnight shift at a hospital and it's been so calming and delightful while I clean gore from Instruments heart emoji, I was also very pleased to hear that many of you heeded the warning not to eat anything before listening to last week's episode. I am delighted you did not ruin your own lunches by listening to me tell you things. You can also find me on Instagram, yvictorian Nightmare and blueskyictorianightma. And if you want to listen to the show ad free, you can join my Patreon, which you will find@myvictoriannightmare.com this message comes from Greenlight Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk free@greenlight.com Spotify for today's spooky Ghost Story segment with their own Eyes, where I read to you first hand accounts of spooky ghost encounters from petrified Victorians. I have two more sightings from that fabulous article that I found last week in the Illustrated Police news from 1881 called True Ghost Stories. And the first one reads My ghost story is I had gone to bed, slept well all through the night, having given orders to be called earlier than usual as my mother was set out after breakfast by train on the Highland Railway to the far north. I woke suddenly, remembering it might be time to rise, when I distinctly saw figures standing in the corner corner of the bedroom. It was clad from head to foot in armor, the visor down. I felt my heart beat fast with fear and could take in the proportions of the figure and recognized it as the eldest brother of a very intimate girlfriend of mine, but no relation. I closed my eyes, unable to overcome the awfully mysterious impression of the apparition imparting to me. When I looked again, it had vanished. I got up, dressed, and on going downstairs found my mother prepared for her journey. An indefinable dread prevented me from disclosing to her what I had seen that morning, I accompanied her to the railway station, impressing upon her to telegraph on her arrival at Iverness that evening. Her telegram reached me. The words to this effect arrived, all safe and well. Young Monro died this morning, and so it was. By why his apparition visited me, I know not. The death was sudden and unexpected at his Highland residence. His family relations were at the time in the south, and he died before any of them had heard of any illness to cause uneasiness, easiness. And the second one reads, permit me to add a further instance also with the range of my personal experience. In the summer of 1857, the mutiny year, I was at home from India for some few months and at the county house where I was then staying on a calm, warm night in July, dozing, neither asleep nor actively awake, I deceived distinctly saw a coffin and in it the corpse of a valued friend of mine, lying in a bedroom of a bungalow at Mutra. The features of the dead were exactly in the condition that might be looked for after death by one who was an old friend in whose memory his living countenance was enduringly familiar. He was an officer in the 9th Bengal Cavalry, and I had left him in India in May in good health. I now felt assuredly that he must have died, and my anxious glance at the obituary of the Calcutta Englishman received by the next mail revealed his name, rank and date of decease at Mutra in exact fulfillment of the preceding fatal intimation. End quote. That first one is wild. While reading it, I thought it was like a medieval ghost. You don't see those knocking around quite so often. Well, maybe they did in the 1800s, but so strange that this guy who died was dressed in medieval armor. Assuming ghosts are real and that this guy really saw this ghost, it makes me wonder if perhaps this young man who died also lived in medieval times and was reincarnated in the 1800s, but perhaps his soul associated itself more with that era. Like when I haunt my family and friends, I would love to take the form of my last inquiry incarnation, which was probably an elegant, consumptive lady in the 1800s in black lace and crepe instead of my current form, which is braless in black sweatpants. If I die today, I'm going to be humiliated. If I have to haunt you people in this attire. I want to quickly discuss something that was spoken of in that second story. The man mentioned the mutiny year of 1857. This was the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a major uprising that took place in India against the British EAS India Company, which was essentially operated as a sovereign power on behalf of the British. It was founded in 1600 by the English, initially for trade with India and other parts of Asia. But it became an overwhelmingly powerful force wielding both commercial and political influence. It even controlled vast Indian territories and even had its own private army. The Indian Mutiny against this massively powerful company. This sovereign power eventually led to its total disillusion. In 1874, the company had been imposing invasive British style social reforms, harsh land taxes, and essentially an apartheid system in India. The rebellion was so successful that again, it led to the complete dissolution of this foreign power and other reforms also. Like imagine you're just dozing on the couch watching a corny ghost hunter show and you see a premonition of your friend dead in their coffin. This equally creeps me out as makes me want to cry. Yikes. Okay. Our first article is quite intense and has a really brutal illustration that I put on the Instagram and blue sky. It is called the summary execution of a murderer. And it reads, the summary execution of a murderer took place at Monterey, California on the 17th. The victim of lynch law was a man named Tarpeim who had murdered a Mrs. Nicholson. A mob of over 300 heavily armed men took him from the prison, fastened a rope around his neck and compelled him to stand in the back of a wagon. He was then told he must say all he wanted to for his time had come. Tarpy addressed the crowd for half an hour. The lynchers then drove the wagon away and left the man hanging by his neck to the limb of a tree, his feet almost touching the ground. The crowd seized the rope and drew Tarpy up higher. Several of the lynchers drew pistols and fired into the body of the dying man. Tarpy's wife, sister and mother were near him and witnessed the whole affair and begged with prayers and tears the mob not to injure him. The Mob numbered over 300 and were heavily armed. Tarpy made a will giving $1,900 to Nicholson, the husband, husband of his victim. Nicholson witnessed the lynching and Tarpy begged for his forgiveness and asked him to place his hands on his head as he knelt. Nicholson granted the request. End quote. Okay, I did some digging into this one. Mr. And Mrs. Nicholson were farmers in Monterey, California. In 1873, they bought their land from this executed gentleman named Matt Tarpy, who was a local wealthy desperado. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as, quote, a brawling, profane, cowardly ruffian with A few redeeming traits, end quote. This guy was kind of like a high class thug for politicians. He was caught trying to rig an election for a candidate and he even had been accused of two other murders. But he used his crooked politician friends to help him get the charges dropped in one case, and he just bribed jurors in the second one. Even though the Nicholsons owned the land, they were paying a mortgage to Tarpy, and he just went ahead and built a house on their land that was tucked far enough away from their home that they didn't notice. But one day, once it was built, they did notice. And Ms. Nicholson went to a lawyer to confirm that if a home was built on her land, she owned it. Right? This was confirmed. But Tarpy, who illegally built this home, had begun renting it to another man. The cojones. When Tarpy got wind that she was taking ownership of the house, he showed up and shot his gun at the house to scare her off. She ran out of the house and he shot her nine times in the back. Because there were witnesses to this event, like the man who was renting the Property, saw it. Mrs. Nicholson actually brought someone with her, and he also saw what happened. Tarpy decided that he'd turn himself in and just claimed the gun, fired by accident nine times in her back, assuming he would just get let off like he always had been if anything were to come of charges. This guy was so slimy and felt so invincible that he told the sheriff his story, and the sheriff just let him go. And he went to go get a shave. He enjoyed a lovely lunch, and he showed up at bars explaining the situation, telling people that he was innocent. But the true story was spreading quickly, and people, people didn't like this guy in general. He was not a very popular man. The sheriff was starting to get worried that a mob was forming, so he brought Tarpy to the jail for protection. But a crowd of about a hundred people showed up at the jail and kindly told the sheriff that they were going to tie him up for a while. The sheriff didn't have the manpower to do anything about this, so he obliged and they tied him up. And folks broke into Tarpy's cell with sledgehammers. They threw him in a wagon with a pine box and a rope. His last words were apparently, when asked if he was ready to die, he said, well, I'm ready, but you are committing murder. He should know, and we know what transpired from that point on. In the following days, authorities vowed to arrest the folks who hanged him. Half heartedly, editorials were also written about the event, only so concerned with the fate of Mr. Tarpy, but far more for the fate of poor Mrs. Nicholson. It doesn't appear that anyone was held responsible for his hanging. Okay, this next one is very sad. It is called a frontier horror. A man leaves to go in search of drink, his lonely wife and little ones frozen to death. And it reads, The LaCrosse Daily Republican of the 6th says a few years ago a man was living with his young wife in Mankato, Minnesota. He was intelligent and successful in business until the passion for drink enslaved him and his business and reputation were both wrecked by its satanic influence. He was forced to seek a new home for his little family, and his wife, bred to luxury, accompanied him to the frontier in the hope that the removal from temptation would free him from the grip of the habit which cursed him. Here they lived for several years, his abstinence from drink being broken only by an infrequent and occasional debauch. When he visited some of the nearest towns early in December, he told his wife that business compelled him to leave and that he would be absent for several days. She about to be confined with several helpless children and scanty supply of wood. Fearing that the insatiate clamour of appetite was the motive which drew him away, entreated him to stay, but in vain. He left. And soon after, one of those severe snowstorms of December, doubly severe on the unsheltered prairie, came on before its close. She was entirely destitute of wood, and terrible alternative was presented to her of passively freezing to death with her little ones or seeking assistance from the closest neighbor, three miles distant, she courageously chose the latter. And leaving her three shivering little ones, ones with nothing but a mother's yearning love and a prayerful blessing, she started out to seek relief. The next day she was found half buried in the snow, dead, a newborn infant at her side. The three children were found dead in the house. This while the once protecting father was away, reveling in the delirium or dozing in the stupor of drink. No words can add to the horror of this tale, but beside the unspeakable agony of that dying wife and mother, how trivial our common losses, griefs and sorrows seem. End quote. My God. Oh, these poor children. And that poor woman. I dug deeper to see if I could find out what happened in the aftermath here. It was a bit tricky because there are no names given here, but I found the article in the Manitowoc, I think Tribune from January 11, 1872 called a sickening horror that gives an added detail that the drunken brute of a father was hunted up and friends in the city telegraphed for who went up and saw the bodies decently interred. End quote. I couldn't find any more info on this one without his name. Unfortunately. I wanted to know if he was held responsible or what became of him in general. So tragic. Guys, it's officially summer time to leave your apartments, slather your ghastly cadavers in SPF and and not spend hours in the kitchen. You have got to try Factor Chef created Dietitian approved meals that are ready in just two minutes, fuss free and absolutely delicious. They arrive fresh and ready to eat, not frozen. And you get 45 weekly menu options. So the meals aren't just like sprung on you. You get to choose with options like Calorie smart, Protein plus keto and more more. And they don't just offer dinners, they offer breakfasts on the go, lunches, snacks, desserts and smoothies. At the moment, my meals are all neatly stacked in my fridge next to the smoothies I ordered the Dairy Free Strawberry Banana one, the Tropical Citrus Green supreme and Mango ones. When I sit down to record, I really like to just have an extra fancy liquid treat on my table like a tasty Factor Smoothie. There's they're really, really good. Get started@factormeals.com Victorian 50 off and use code Victorian 50 off and get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code Victorian 50 off at Factor Meals.com Victorian 50 off for 50% off plus free shipping. Again FactorMeals.com Victorian 50 off and enjoy your Hassle free Delicious Summer okay, this next one is unrelated and not the continuation of that last article. This one is called Deadly Vengeance of a Woman's Relatives upon Her Husband and it reads on the night of December 20, Mr. Holder Isaacson, who resided at the Aqueduct Hotel, Cypress Hills, went to East New York, Long island to make some purchases. He afterward entered a saloon kept by one cook on the Jamaica Plank Road and was invited by cook to take a drink. Thinking he heard a car coming, he looked out and seeing that it was a mistake, re entered the saloon and sat down. The rest is a blank. He awoke the following morning to find himself in the Washington house, frightfully disfigured and beaten. Both hands and feet were badly frozen, his head was covered with gashes, his jaw was broken, the base of his skull fractured, a stab wound behind the left ear, a deep wound on the right side of his head, an extensive lacerated wound over the left eye, as though from the heel of a boot. Two ribs are broken, two stab wounds in the back, his breastbone broken, and marks of garroting on his neck. Mr. Isaacson was sent to the Raymond Street Hospital and Dr. Balk pronounced the wounds fatal. Nevertheless, the patient was on Tuesday the 2nd, improving rapidly, though it is feared that the right hand may have to be amputated. Mr. Miner, who has a paper store at Butler Avenue and the Plank Road, while on his way home late that night, heard groans and on searching, found Mr. Isaacson lying in the snow with blood all around him. He at once gave the alarm, which was responded to by some men from the Washington house, and they found Isaacson. Isaacson still alive. A physician, having been summoned, ordered his instant removal to the Raymond Street Hospital. Mr. Isaacson recently married a widow and this is supposed to have offended some of her relatives, who in revenge attempted to assassinate him. He belongs to a highly respectable family in Montreal and is not known to have an enemy in the world. A small amount of money was taken by his assailants, his precarious condition having been telegraphed to his father, Mr. J.H. isaacson, and after seeing the horrible condition of his son, appealed to the police of East New York. But they took no notice of the appeal further than to interview the wounded man. Then Mr. Isaacson reported the case to Chief of Police Campbell at Brooklyn, but the chief referred him back to the authorities of East New York. Mr. Isaacson Senior says the police will not interest them because there is no money in the case. He returned to Montreal Tuesday believing his son to be recovering. End quote. I sadly couldn't find a stitch. More info on this story. I wanted to find out if this was true. Was it his new wife's family? How was the reporter so sure? That's a hell of an accusation. And why were the cops refusing to help? Because there was no money in it. But it's a very confusing story and so terrible for poor Mr. Isaacson. Luckily for you, our next article is a spooky skeleton discovery. I promised that I would make this a recurring feature and I'm sometimes true to my word, especially in instances like these spooky skeleton discovery instances. This article is called A Couple of Skeletons Found at Bradford. And it reads, a number of old buildings are being razed at Bowling Green, Bradford to make way for the street improvements. And in one of these, a couple of skeletons were discovered. On Friday night, an Irish laborer was pulling up the boards on the second floor of one of the old buildings with a pick when he discovered the remains which were lying between the boards of the floor and the ceiling of the lower room. The skeletons lay one on either side of a joist and were apparently the remains of a male and female. The bones lay in perfect order and they were devoid of flesh and gave no smell. Unfortunately, the thoughtless man had not the least idea that any interest could attach to a find of this strange character, and he unceremoniously demolished the floor and cast the skeletons among the rubbish below. One of the skulls was however, picked up on Saturday morning in a tolerably perfect state. Several of the teeth still adhering to the jaw and the cranium of the other was secured together with a couple of thigh bones and some other remnants. No idea can be formed as to how the skeletons came to be in the position they were found, and it is evident, evident from the appearance of the bones that they must have lain under the boards for a long period. The fragments were taken to the police office. The man who opened the floor states that the skeletons were in a perfect state when he first saw them. And yet he does not appear to have the slightest notion that they ought to have been preserved. End quote. Dude, not cool. This just makes me wonder how many skeletons and other wild, horrifying things are very likely hidden in the walls of my 100-year-old Brooklyn apartment. I shudder to think. And yet I really want to bust some of these walls in to find out. Okay, our next article is called terrible tragedy. Dr. Merriman Cole found murdered in his office at 86 North Exeter Street, Baltimore, Maryland. And it reads. Dr. Merriman Cole, a retired physician a aged 73, was found brutally murdered in his office at 86 Exeter Street, Baltimore, about 8 o' clock on the night of January 6th. He was found by his daughter laying dead on the floor with 13 wounds about the head and face and his skull crushed in three different places, apparently with a hammer. One pocket of his pantaloons was torn out and a portion of it left hand hanging on the outside. About $9 were found scattered over the floor and $24 in a wallet in his coat pocket. On the table was an unfinished receipt which Dr. Cole was doubtless writing when he was struck down. He was in the habit of collecting rents every Saturday. The locality of the murder is one of the most thickly populated and in the very heart of the city, being about two blocks north of Baltimore street and east of Jones Falls. In intense excitement prevails up to the date of our going to press, no clue to the murderer has been found. End quote. Oh, poor Mr. Merriman and his poor daughter. Oh, honey, could you imagine? Okay. This was such a letdown. I thought I found Dr. Merriman's murderer in a quick blurb in the Buffalo Commercial. September 23, 1872, nine months after the murder. It says charles R. Henderson was arrested Saturday night by the police authorities of Baltimore, charged with the murder of Dr. Merriman Cole on the night of January 6, 1872. Henderson was a tenant of Dr. Cole up to a few days previous to the murder. It is stated that the evidence is very strong against him. End quote. In another article, I found that he pleaded not guilty on October 14th. 14th. But then I found in the Buffalo Daily Dispatch and evening post, a June 1873 volume, that he was acquitted. And in five minutes. That's the fastest deliberation I think I've ever heard. Very sadly, I couldn't find any details about the trial. I wonder what that quote, strong evidence was. That was clearly nowhere near strong enough. So sad thinking. Whoever did kill Mr. Merrymen, it appears that they got away with it. All right. This next one is, I will say, red pill content from the 1800s. I'll read it and then we'll discuss. It is called, A Young Man Belabored by Two Young Ladies for Endorsing Victoria Woodhull's Free Love Sentiments in Baltimore. And it reads, victoria Woodhull's Doctrines of Free Love and Affinity and all those kinds of luxuries find many enforcers who anxiously look forward to the day when such repulsive and unnatural theories will be put into practice. Among Victoria's most ardent admirers is a young man of Baltimore who has heretofore been regarded as a respectable member of society. Unfortunately for this youth, ye heard Victoria infamous lecture at Steinway Hall, New York, and returned to his home a convert to the false teachings of the liberally loving Vic. He had scarcely reached home when one evening a few weeks since, while walking along Lexington street near Liberty, he accosted two young ladies, and after a casual conversation, he introduced the Woodhall Free Love Sentiments and argued in favor of the doctrine in such ungentlemanly terms, coupled with indecent propositions to the Baltimore beauties, that they replied to his argument with the most appropriate weapons, namely a broomstick and a whip, which happened to be convenient. From the manner in which they belabored the misled youth for a few minutes, it is supposed that Baltimore is no place for free lovers. Okay. Firstly, as mentioned many times before, the Illustrated Police News was often wont to make stories up and even though I don't have proof of this, I did check other papers of the time to see if any other articles were written about this incident. There were none. Just a little context here. Victoria Woodhull was first and foremost a leader of the women's suffrage movement. She actually ran for President in 1872 with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. She was also a proponent of free love, by which she meant the freedom of women and men to engage in loving sexual relationships without social restriction or government interference. This was a liberating concept to women that they should be free to love who they please and if they no longer love them, they can leave them. Same for men. But of course this arrangement would have greater societal effects on the lives and freedoms of women who were still considered property of their husbands in this age. She also believed that you shouldn't need to be legally married at all to cohabitate with a loving partner, nor have children with them. She was also a spiritualist and a magnetic healer killer. She would supposedly use magnets to heal people. But like many spiritualists, including Mary Shelley incidentally, she believed in free love and gave a barnstorming speech in New York about the ideology which made men very angry. Not all men, but certainly the kinds of men who wrote for the Illustrated Police News, of which only men wrote for. I think this article is made up, to be honest, very consciously warping the feminist ideas that she espoused and made both heroes of women who fight back against those feminist ideas and fiends of those men who subscribe to this freedom inspired ideology of which there were many men who did as well. But again, the reporter here is trying to warp the ideology to mean that a guy can just sleep with whatever women he wants without commitment. Which isn't what free love meant and what a bait and or whatever the manosphere is calling men who subscribe to the radical notion that women are people. The number one selling product of its kind with over 20 years of research and innovation. Botox Cosmetic Adobotulinum toxinae is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious, serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Don't receive Botox Cosmetic if you have a skin infection. Side effects may include allergic reactions, injection site pain, headache, eyebrow and eyelid, drooping and eyelid swelling. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma, symptoms and dizziness. Tell your doctor about medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, Myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit botoxcosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. See for yourself@botoxcosmetic.com okay, our next article is mysterious and it is called Mysterious Taking off of a Young Widower's Housekeeper, He Drowns Himself and it reads the death of Ms. Dyo at Grangerville, New York, chronicled as resulting from an accident, seems to have a chain of strange circumstantial evidence following it. The unfortunate woman had been for some years a housekeeper for Frank Wilbur, a young widower at Easton, New York, and on a recent Saturday he drove her to her parents residence in Northumberland, where they spent some hours in the evening when returning. The so called accident took place at the bridge at Grange Dangerville. Wilbur, when questioned by the police of the neighborhood as to how the accident occurred, could give no account of it except that the axle broke and threw them out near the junction of the roads by the mill. Two or three persons who witnessed a portion of this strange affair say that the spot where the axle broke there were marks in the snow indicating that the woman had fallen out there and that her head and shoulder had struck the ground. There were also marks showing that her companion had sprung out of the buggy. Appearances indicated that both had walked along by the side of the road 10 or a dozen feet when their tracks both stopped. From the points where the footprints ceased there was a trail as if a body had been dragged under or behind the buggy. At the junction of the roads stands a pile of lumber with a track branching on each side of it. Around this pile of lumber the body of Ms. Dio was dragged twice, as shown by the trail. The body of the woman was found partially submerged in the creek, and the position of the bridge was such that the horse could not have kicked her in, but someone must have placed her there. Reasoning from these facts, the people in the vicinity said that the girl had been murdered and Wilbur was the guilty man. These suspicions reached the ear of Wilbur and deeply affected him, whether innocent or guilty, and the other morning he was found drowned in a water well near his House, thus meeting his own punishment if he was the murderer, and strengthening suspicion even though he may be innocent. End quote. Ugh, how awful. Okay, I did find some more articles about this incident and some more details. The young woman's cause of death was ruled uncertain. In other words, it was unclear if she was murdered or not. However, it was believed that blunt force trauma was the cause. But the coroner stated that the trauma she received couldn't have been caused by a fall from a wagon. There were also other suspicious aspects to the story. Blood was everywhere in the snow, it was scattered. And bits of her clothing were found. Between the site of the accident and where she was found, there was no way to determine what actually happened. But if I had to wager. Again, guess. Just from the info he gave and the facts of the case, it sounds to me that she was killed by the wagon, that her head must have hit something and maybe she was even dragged, causing more trauma to her body. And possibly the man panicked and didn't know what to do. Maybe he thought he would be held responsible for her murder and dragged her off and the entire affair was just too devastating for him that he died by suicide. I have to read for you the final sentence of an article about the matter in the Central Somerset Gazette, December 30, 1871. It says, Theories there will be in plenty and plausible conjectures without end. But the real heart of the mystery will only be known when we all meet at last and the sea gives up its dead. Damn, that is just extraordinary. I often think about these situations where people are killed and I wonder if their souls remain and hope that the living will discover the truth. And if that may be for some, like the last step in their spiritual development. Like that, they may need to move beyond the need for closure, to move into the next life. And does it help them? If we do discover the truth and acknowledge, like, can we offer closure to the dead? I was walking through the rose garden in the Botanical gardens in Brooklyn yesterday, thinking these very thoughts. And a baby spit up all over his poor mother in front of me. It's hard to have deep thoughts when you live in New York. Something gross and chaotic is bound to come between you and your musings and slam you into the present moment. Anyway. Oh, okay. This next one was so long and random rambling, so I cut it down a bit because the meat of it is fabulous. It is called Shot by a Spirit Hand. A New York mystery. A beautiful clairvoyant. The victim can ghosts murder A case that puzzled all the detectives and that's just the headline, and it reads, a mysterious shooting of ray occurred at 1:00am on Thursday morning, the 12th, in an elegantly furnished French flat on the second floor of no. 976 Sixth Avenue, New York, occupied by a woman and her reputed husband, who were known as Mr. Cheeseman and Ms. Cora Cheeseman, a little girl and a young servant known as Emma. The couple lived in a very retired manner, courted no society, and appeared anxious to avoid observation. Thursday. Thursday night, Mr. And Mrs. Cheeseman were alone in their apartment and occupied the dining room, a room in the rear of the apartment, the windows overlooking the yard. Neighbors between 11 o' clock and midnight heard an altercation in the apartment, and finally, about one o' clock, two pistol shots were heard. Scurrying footsteps descended the stairs, and shortly after, Mrs. Church Cheeseman rushed out of the house to return in a few minutes, supported by two men, when it was ascertained that she was shot in the region of the heart. The most singular story among many conflicting ones given is Mrs. Cheeseman's account of the affair to the truth of which she steadfastly adheres. She says she was awakened from an uneasy slumber by a strange noise, noise in the room as of rushing winds. And finding her husband not by her side, she staggered out of bed in her night dress, when, lo and behold, a sight that froze her blood with horror suspended in the air in the middle of the room, she saw a human hand firmly clasping a revolver which was pointed directly at her. The awful part of the affair was that the hand had no connection with any human body, but floated absolutely by itself before she could do more than scream with terror. The pistol was fired twice, rapidly, and she remembers nothing more till she found herself under the care of the physician. The oddest thing is that Mrs. Cheeseman declares she recognized the hand by a ring on it as that of a person three years years dead. She refused to say anything further. End quote. Isn't that fantastic? The bits I cut out were about confusion over whether or not her and her husband were actually married. And at first she said she was trying to kill herself because of her husband's infidelity, but then changed her story to it was a ghost. So who knows knows what's actually true here. But this story was intriguing enough that it made the full front cover illustration, which is awesome and on Instagram. Take a look. Okay, two more short ones. One that is sad but might be made up, and the other that I really hope isn't made up because it's it's really sweet. I have a feeling it is true, though. The first one is called Avarice kills a man and then follows the corpse several hundred miles. Miles, and it reads, A man in Indiana whose estate was valued on the tax duplicate at $1,250,000 wanted to live on half rations of food and get along without fuel in a cold climate. But he couldn't do it, and his body was found by his neighbors one fine winter morning, frozen stiff as a poker. His hopeful son, a chip off the old block, shipped the corpse to its place of internment, several hundred mil distant, as regular freight to save exorbitant express charges. Okay, that amount of money, $1.250 million, would have been equivalent to over half a billion dollars in the 1870s. Which makes me think two things. It's such an exorbitant number that maybe this article is true, or it's clearly not true because it's such a wildly huge number. It's tough to say, but I love it all the same. Okay, our final article is called A Rooster Attends Religious Worship in a Family at Cayuga, New York and it reads A man in Cayuga, New York has a remarkable Cochin China rooster. He has observed his master's practice of family worship, and as soon as the Bible is taken to be read before prayer, the rooster walks in deliberately and takes his stand by the stairs side of the woman of the house, and there remains in a very quiet and reverent posture during the whole service, seeming to understand the words for soon as Amen is repeated, he walks out without noise and joins his family of hens. The children of the family in their outdoor plays have the company of Chanticleer simply by calling him Cochin. He allows them to put their arms around him and perform their acts of playfulness. End quote A I would have enjoyed church so much more if I could have sat next to a sweet rooster and gave him hugs. I love the last two details that he plays with the children and lets them hug him. He sounds like such a lovely little family member. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple Apple podcasts. Please leave me comments. Don't forget to check out my other podcast, Dark Poetry, and you can listen to this show ad free if you join my Patreon. Oh, and let me know in the Spotify comments if you would be potentially into joining the fan coven. We'll see how this goes. Be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares. If you grew up as a latchkey kid in a small town like me, you probably just thought you were safe. Murder wasn't something people really talked about, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Murder she Told is an award winning true crime podcast created by victims advocate Kristen Seavey that dives into the lesser known cold cases and mysteries from New England and beyond. Murder she Told uses detailed storytelling with an investigative twist twist weaving in original interviews with families, investigators and the people closest to the case. Kristen makes true crime personal. She talks about a little known serial killer from her own hometown who murdered three women. She discusses her own childhood friend's murder which still remains unsolved. Rooted in deep research, straightforward narratives and the victims and their families at the center of every story, Murder She Told Told will speak to any listener no matter where they call home. Learn more@murdershetold.com and find murder she Told now wherever you get your podcasts.