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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home in auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. 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 celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants SW 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 fee, full terms@mintmobile.com.
- [00:51]
Genevieve Manion
Hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host Genevieve Manion, 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 adv. Foreign S and welcome to this, my 46th episode. I hope that you had a delightful week. Mine was very exciting, it was very lovely, but also mythically stupid. I had an abominable attack of dyslexia this week, but thank goodness I realized that the attack happened in just enough time to produce this week's episode. I will explain. Not in too much detail though. You are not gonna believe this. Okay, I have been so excited about next week's episode, which is my very first crossover episode with Brian and McCloud. From the awesome podcast sightings that I got my own episode calendar so twisted that this episode almost didn't happen. We clearly agreed to drop this very spooky, ooky, eerie, amazing episode on the 16th. It couldn' have been more clearly the 16th. And my brain managed to drop the one entirely and flipped the six to just become a nine and I was like okay, cool, the ninth it is on Thursday. This last Thursday evening someone from our network Q code was like okay, cool, we've got some awesome artwork created for the episode on the 16th. And I was like don't they mean the 9th? And I looked back at our numerous emails that say the 16th. And long story short, I had to produce this episode in two and a half days. Thank goodness she added that little detail and I actually read it properly this time. And thank goodness I didn't do what I usually do when I make egregious number mistakes, which is instantly ask everyone involved what the hell they're talking about. I took a minute this time to consider that it might be a me problem. Incidentally, it usually takes a good five days to produce these episodes. But rather than panic, which of course I did, what am I talking about? Obviously I panicked. I remembered. I love a good challenge. I love limitations. So even though I was like okay, amazing, not gonna sleep for two days, I still went ham with this episode because limitations only make me want to try harder. It sounds like a good trait to have, but it's not. I could have taken it easy on myself and done like the Donner Party, but no, I decided to do not one nor two but four grisly Victor train murders. One with a wild twist complete with frickin sound effects and everything. It's just a little shorter an episode than usual. On the bright side, I have a whole week now to think about what I've done and hopefully learn my lesson not to interact with any numbers in such a cocky self assured manner ever again. All that being said, as mentioned, next week's episode is going to be awesome. Brian and McCloud from Sightings Very gentlemanly endured me scream laughing into a mic all through the recording of our episode of the Willington Milhouse Haunting. We are going to escort you through an EVP session of one of the most haunted Victorian era homes in history and I think it might be the spookiest episode I will have yet released. So do not miss next week's episode. Now before we get to the meat of today's episode, the Chicken Nugget if you will, a little Haunted Housekeeping. Thank you as always for rating the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thank you for leaving me comments on those platforms and sending me messages on Instagram at myvictorianightmare, which I love so dearly. And speaking of comments, thank you for letting me know that so many of you would be potentially interested in joining the fan coven, which is officially happening. I guess I wasn't sure if anyone would say they were interested and I got almost 100 notes of interest between Spotify and Instagram. Comments? You guys just keep showing up to my birthday party. I always get so scared that no one will show up to my birthday parties, but when they do, it's such a lovely feeling. So thank you. I mentioned last week that as part of the Fan Coven. You will receive this show ad free as well as lunar phase specific meditations, ritual guides and affirmations. Whether you're just dipping your toesies into the craft, you're not sure where to start. Maybe you've been doing this for a long time. No matter what angle, spirituality or lack thereof, you're coming to it. I'm going to do my best to make these practices as accessible to everyone as possible and meditations as blissful as can be. Now just to be clear, I may be a creepy eepy girly pop, but I don't cosplay as a wickedy witch. I use the craft to help me find my power to connect deeper plea with the earth and others. I take a fairly modern and eclectic approach to witchcraft while still respecting and adhering to a number of ancient practices. But I'll be sure to give a full and proper description of exactly what I'm offering when I get it together. It's going to take about a month I think to get all that up and running. I have already started gathering presents to send you if you sign up, which I need to chill with. I can only fit so much cool stuff in the envelopes that I already bought. I will let you know the moment the coven drops. Why didn't anyone tell me a Blissey silk pillowcase would dramatically change my life? I am a very hot sleeper and I've spent a ton of money on cotton sheets and pillowcases thinking that would help keep me cooler. And I was just about to start looking for sheets made of straight up towels terry cloth sheets because I am so used to just throwing a towel over my cotton sheets I swim in my sleep. Then the darlings at Blissey sent me one of their 100% silk pillowcases and I have to admit at first I thought sleeping on a silk pillowcase would be like sleeping on satin, which is like sleeping on a plastic bag, let's be honest. But I cannot believe how much cooler and luxuriously I slept. I woke up feeling like the Queen of England after sleeping on that pillowcase. Blissey's pillowcases also have proven anti aging properties. They eliminate hair frizz. They're dermatologist tested and proven not to clog pores like cotton. Their 100% silk pillowcases are also antibacterial hypoallergenic, far more breathable than any pillowcase I have ever used used machine washable. That's important to me and I'm sure the 3 million other people who have bought and love Blissey's products. Because you're a listener, Blissey is offering 60 nights risk free plus an additional 30% off when you shop at blissey.com forward/victorianpod that's B-L-I-S-S-Y.com victorianpod and use code victorianpod to get an additional 30% off. Your skin and hair will thank you. Now, before we get to the Victorian train murders, let's enjoy a few ghostly encounters in our weekly segment called With Their Own Eyes, where I share with you the firsthand accounts of spooky ghosts given by petrified Victorians. This one is from the Illustrated Police News article called True Stories About Ghosts that I have been sharing over the last few weeks. What a wonderful find this was. This personal account reads as after the death of a female relative whose husband at the time was lying paralyzed, the room in which she died gave birth to all kinds of noises. The furniture was moved violently about while the room itself was locked and the key in my possession. This lasted until the death of her husband when the house resumed its normal condition. These sounds were not heard by one pair of ears or by the inmates of the house only. And here I am reminded of another fallacy in the reasoning of ghost scoffers. They say that a man, by prolonged concentration of thought on one particular object, may project a picture of that object into the retrograde. But from this view, how is the following explained? A friend of mine came home one evening and told me that he saw his father walking down the corridor leading from the boxes of a certain theatre. He was much surprised as he imagined his father to be some miles in the country at the time. The next day he received intelligence of the death of his father and the hour when he saw him in the theater. His father was in perfect health when he saw him last. Ooh, that is so creepy and comforting. I have heard so many examples of this where people swear they see or hear loved ones at the moments that they died. My mom said she heard my great aunt slip outside my grandmother's house, thinking she must be there and like fell down the steps. She ra the door thinking that she'd see her in a pile at the bottom of the steps, but she wasn't there. A few hours later they got a call that my great aunt had passed away only a few hours earlier. Suddenly I find this phenomenon comforting because to me it makes me feel like we're more deeply connected to our loved ones than we may be aware. My great aunt may have slipped on her way out the door to this life and maybe my mom hear because my aunt knew she would be the first to run and try to catch her. Who can say? If you've had any similar experiences like this, let me know in the comments. Okay, let's begin. My references for today's episode all come from the British Transport Police website btp.police.uk I was delighted to find seemingly endless articles about train crime history on this site. All of the specific pages that I used can be found in the show Notes we begin with the murder of Mr. William Pearson in 1901. On Thursday, January 17, 1901, a Mrs. Rhoda King was forced to share her train cabin with both the corpse of a murdered man and his killer. Ms. King boarded the 11:20am Express train from Southampton to Waterloo. She was on her way to visiting a sick relative, boarding a third class compartment at Southampton. It was empty when she entered, but at Eastleigh a young man entered the cabin, quiet, unassuming. At Winchester, an elderly gentleman stepped in as well, newspaper in hand. None of the three spoke, but Ms. King later described the silence as very uneasy. As the train came sped toward London, the older man fell asleep and the younger stranger slipped into the bathroom. King Happy to have a moment where this strange energy lifted. She stared out her window. Little did she know the energy was about to get a whole lot worse. Suddenly she was shot in the face, stunned and wounded. She turned to see see the young man standing over the elderly passenger who had also just been shot, now slumped and motionless, a bullet embedded in his skull. The young man was rifling through the dead man's pockets. This guy returned from the bathroom and shot them both point blank in their heads with a revolver. But he didn't aim high enough with poor Ms. King, despite the hole in her face. She screamed, asking why did you do this? And this monster turned to her and said plainly, coldly and straight up, psychopathically, I did it for money. Do you have any money for me too? Bleeding from the gunshot wound in her face, King fumbled in her handbag and handed him a single shilling. The fact that she was able to even understand what he was saying and reacted to me is mind blowing. I feel like I would have just frozen entirely. Poor Mr. Pearson was sat directly next to her and his shattered skull was profusely bleeding and pooling on the floor. She begged the killer to please cover Mr. Pearson's face because his eyes were open and looking in her direction, which the killer obliged to. He covered Mr. Pearson's face with a handkerchief. Man, these train cabins must have been soundproof like, wouldn't you imagine someone would hear gunshots on a train? Seems to be an ongoing theme with these stories. People getting riddled with bullets and not a peep heard from any other passengers. I continue. Mr. William Pearson was a farmer from Winchester. The killer, George Henry Parker, was just 23 years old, a former soldier with no known connection to either Pearson or King. After covering Mr. Pearson's face, he turned to King and told her that if she made a sound, he would shoot her again. She did her best to keep quiet and still, with a hole in her face, surely bleeding profusely herself, as the killer planned out his next move. In a way, he was almost asking her to help him figure out how to cover this up. This poor woman. In a desperate attempt to pacify him, King said that he should throw the gun out of the window. But he was scared workers along the tracks would see him throw it out. She eventually convinced him to do so. I'm sure to also try to prevent him from shooting her again. He threw the gun out of the window into the dark tunnel. She was still terrified of him and didn't want to make any wrong moves. They just sat together with Mr. Pearson quietly as she wept silently to herself. As the train was Nearing Vauxholm at 1.29pm, Parker warned her to stay silent. He ran out of the train and vanished into the crowd. King, half fainting from the copious loss of blood and suffering from shock, still found the strength and courage to scream to a nearby railway man that a man just shot her and he was running away. A number of people snapped to life and took off after him. Parker ran all the way down the station steps and past the gatekeeper detective, disappearing into the street with several men in pursuit. Near Vauxhall Bridge, a constable spotted him. The chase led into the gasworks, a place menacingly full of steam pipes and shadows, where he was luckily quickly cornered and did not lead them into steamy, shadowy peril. Thank heavens. When captured, he snarled that he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that pesky woman he shot directly in the face. Back at the station platform, Inspector Goody and others inspected the scene. Mr. Pearson was pronounced dead. King was rushed to St Thomas Hospital and luckily survived. The wound in her face was a mere inch from being fatal. The revolver that was thrown from the train was later recovered near Wandsworth Bridge. Brave as hell, Ms. King later testified at both the inquest and trial, displaying remarkable composure under the circumstances. On Friday the 1st of March, 1901 George Henry Parker stood before Justice Fillmore at the Central Criminal Court. His lawyer claimed insanity brought on by alcohol, but the jury wasn't having it. Parker was quickly found guilty and sentenced to hang from his neck until he was dead within three weeks of the trial.
- [17:45]
Ryan Reynolds
This episode is brought to you by Polestar. There's only one true way to experience the all electric luxury SUV Polestar 3, and that's to take a test drive. It can go from 0 to 60 in as little as 4.8 seconds with the dynamic handling of a sports car. But to truly understand how it commands the road, you need to be behind the wheel up to 350 miles of range. The 3D surround sound system by Bowers and Wilkins. It's all something you have to experience to believe. So book your Test Drive for Polestar 3 today@Polestar.com Our next tragic Victorian train.
- [18:16]
Genevieve Manion
Murder is that of Mr. Frederick Isaac Gold in 1881. On the afternoon of Monday 27 June 1881, the 2pm train from London Bridge rolled into Preston Park Station just outside of Brighton. As the doors opened, a man staggered from a first class carriage covered in blood. The ticket collector ran over to him and asked him what in God's name happened? Apart from being completely drenched in blood, he was missing his collar and his tie and he was clearly in a state of distress. The man identified himself as Mr. Percy Lefroy and claimed that he had been viciously attacked moments before the train entered the darkness of the Merstam Tunnel, Lefroy described two men that he said shared the train compartment with him. According to his account, out of nowhere, while sitting with these men, he was hit in the head by one of them and remembered nothing after that. But the ticket collector didn't see two other men enter or leave his compartment. He did, however, notice something strange. A piece of watch chain weirdly sticking out of Lefroy's boot. When asked about why he had a chain hanging randomly from his boot, he said that he had hidden it there for safekeeping. But something was off about the guy in general, and his twitchy explanation for this weird little boot chain tickled the collector's spidey senses. Vibes were off, and not just because he was completely covered head to toe in blood. Lefroy was taken to the local police station by the platform inspector while the ticket collector ran to alert the railway police at the station. Lefroy formally reported the assault and was taken to the county hospital. The attending doctor urged him to stay for observation, but Lefroy was suspiciously itching to get the heck out of there. He insisted that he must return to London for an urgent appointment. Even though he had only just arrived in Brighton. The doctor's spidey senses also tickled vibes were off. Before leaving, he returned to the police station to give a full statement and even offered a reward for his supposed attacker pretty brazenly. But at Brighton station he was searched and two counterfeit coins were discovered in his possession. Lefroy denied knowing anything about them. Okay, real quick. To me this is the least suspicious thing. The amount of times that I have had a mini panic attack while walking out of the grocery store or clothes door thinking that I stole something because I have the term memory of a goldfish and forget that I did indeed buy. Everything happens literally every time I go to any store, I panic. Every single time I leave a restaurant, like did I walk out on the check because it has happened before? I have done that. I would not be shocked at all to find one day that I have two counterfeit coins in my purse. Maybe I did steal them and don't remember anyway. Moving right along all while Mr. Lefroy was acting twitchy. The train compartment where his mysterious bloody blackout happened was being examined. Investigators found three bullet holes, blood spattered across the door, the floor mat and footboard as well as a blood stained handkerchief and newspaper. There was every sign of a violent struggle between at least two individuals. Despite a number of glaring contradictions in his own story and and mounting evidence of something more sinister, the police made a baffling decision. They just let him go. But Detective George Holmes was ordered to accompany him on his way to London to keep a well peeled eye on him. As Lefroy's train made its way north, a search party combed the rail line. And deep inside Balcombe Tunnel they found what they were hoping not to find but had steep suspicions they would. They found the lifeless body of a man who did not fit the description of either of the two men Lefroy described as his attackers. He was an elderly man. Lefroy described two much younger men. He had been shot and stabbed. His watch and chain had been stolen and a knife smeared with blood was found nearby. The victim was quickly identified as Mr. Gold, a retired corn merchant from Brighton. Apart from the watch and chain, he had declared to the railway company that he was carrying a very large amount of money before the trip, which he no longer had. Word of the discovered body traveled quickly. At Three Bridges Station. Lefroy's eye peeled. Detective was informed by telegram that the man he was accompanying was now the prime suspect in a violent murder. And confoundingly again, Lefroy managed to convince Holmes to let him stop at a boarding house in Wallington, where he said a relative lived to change his clothes. The cop was like, yeah, you do smell a bit ripe and are also still drenched in another man's blood. Have at it. Lefroy was like, be back in two shakes. And he didn't come back out of the house. He popped right out the back and off he went, believe it or not. And one can only imagine the savage Sherlock themed mockery Detective Holmes received from his peers. What followed was one of the largest manhunts of the entire Victorian era. Newspapers across the country published Lefroy's description. The inquest into Mr. Gold's death opened on 29 June, and there was no doubt this was a case of willful murder. The railway company itself offered, offered a generous reward for Lefroy's capture and the public followed the case intensely. Less than a month later, on July 8, Lefroy was tracked down to a boarding house at 32 Smith Street, Stepney. He kept the blinds down all day and only left at night under cover of darkness. Police searched his room and found more blood stained clothing. Witnesses claimed to have seen him pawning a revolver and others claimed that that he used counterfeit coins in a store. So things were looking quite dismal for Mr. Lefroy. He was quickly arrested and tried before a Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. The trial was rather quick. The jury took only 10 minutes to deliver a guilty verdict. Among the key witnesses were poor Detective Holmes, railway staff and a woman from Horley who had seen two men fighting violently in Lefroy's train as it passed her cottage, which is rather flimsy. Evidence a train passing by. A lady knitting socks in Orly swears she witnessed a scuffle in a train that was passing her home at least 20 miles an hour. I have a feeling Detective Sherlock Holmes was responsible for putting forth this witness. Flimsy evidence aside, there was clearly plenty of very good evidence to convict Mr. Lefroy, whose real name was Mapleton. He confessed to being deep in debt and said that he boarded the train intending to rob someone. He had hoped to find a vulnerable victim and an elderly man seemed to be the best choice. But Mr. Gold bravely fought back and so Lefroy both shot and stabbed him, then pushed his body out of the train. Lefroy was hanged on 29th November 1881. Our next grisly Victorian train murder is sadly unsolved. It is the murder of Elizabeth Camp from 1887. On the cold and dreary evening of Thursday 11th February 1897, Edward Berry, a fruitier from East Street Walworth, stood waiting on the platform at Waterloo Station. He was then to meet his fiance, Elizabeth Annie Camp, who was to arrive on the 7:42 train from Hounslow. The two were in the midst of planning their wedding. The train arrived late at 8:25pm and as passengers left the train, Elizabeth was nowhere to be found. As Barry searched the crowd for Elizabeth, a commotion erupted further down the platform. Railway porters gathered here near a second class carriage, joined quickly by station officials and, ominously, police officers. With a rising sense of dread, Barry ran toward the scene and was told that a woman's body had been found grotesquely stuffed beneath a carriage seat. A train cleaner made the discovery while passing along the train. He noticed a pair of legs awkwardly protruding from beneath the seat. Reaching in, he uncovered the body of Elizabeth. Beaten, bloodied and horrifyingly contorted. Her body was removed to St Thomas's Hospital, where Barry was summoned to officially identify her body. The cause of death was clear. Her skull had been shattered with a blunt instrument and the compartment's furnishings were soaked in blood. A murder inquiry was launched immediately, led by Superintendent Robinson of the LSWR police and Chief Inspector Marshal of Scotland Yard. The medical examiner concluded that Elizabeth had been bludgeoned to death with a heavy, blunt object. No evidence of sexual assault was found, luckily, but her pockets had been emptied, suggesting a deadly robbery. It appeared that she put up a serious fight. Elizabeth was 33. She had spent the afternoon visiting her sisters in Hounslow. She left them after a short stay and boarded the 742 train. Her sister and a helpful porter both insisted the compartment she entered was completely empty. When investigators scoured the scene, they uncovered only a few clues a shattered umbrella, a pair of bone cufflinks and nothing more. Her ticket and green purse were not found. A methodical search for clues was done. Along the railway line on the embankment between Putney and Wandsworth, police found an object half buried in the earth. A chemist's pest used for grinding substances in pharmacies. It was smeared with blood and human hairs clung to its surface. Doctors confirmed that it easily could have inflicted the horrific injuries found on Elizabeth's body. Fingerprint analysis was just in its infancy at this time and not widely used yet, so fingerprint analysis was not done on the murder weapon. Elizabeth's murder shocked the public. Witnesses with conflicting accounts abounded. Some claimed a man was seen fleeing Vauxhall Station, hands dripping with blood. Many saw nothing at all. Some speculated that the killer may have had a secret affair with the woman. But with no evidence whatsoever, investigators dug into every lead and discovered that Elizabeth had apparently been lending money to relatives and her brother in law was considered a possible suspect and asked to account closely for his actions that night. But that was the only real lead that they had and it dried up quickly. He had a solid alibi. There was a particular, particularly trustworthy account of a pastry cook employed by the train named Burgess, who told police that at Wandsworth he saw a man jump from the train. He gave a Description as around 30, medium height with a dark mustache and dressed in a top hat and frock coat, well dressed but clearly in a hurry. Two more porters independently confirmed seeing this man. But despite this description, at least Elizabeth's killer was never found.
- [30:15]
Ryan Reynolds
This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, US parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives, but are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing and this investment costs less than that. After school training, start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk free trial@greenlight.com Spotify greenlight.com Spotify Our final.
- [30:46]
Genevieve Manion
Victorian train murder is the Merstam tunnel mystery of 1905. And it ends with a twist that not even you will see coming. When the mutilated corpse of Mary Sophia Money was discovered deep within the black maw of Merstam Tunnel in The autumn of 1905, what began as a seemingly tragic accident quickly unraveled into one of the most chilling and confounding murder mysteries in British railway history. And I just have to say I don't mean to make light of this very tragic story by saying it includes the very most Victorian train murder related name imaginable, but it does. At 10:55pm on Sunday, September 24, sub inspect Dr. Gerald Peacock was patrolling the dark Merstam Tunnel, part of the Brighton line when his lantern flashed over the body of a young woman grotesquely mutilated and sprawled upon the railway bed. Horrified, he quickly searched for some identification, but he found no papers, no purse, no ticket. There had been no reports of a missing woman from a train. It was as if she had Simply, simply appeared there, brutally murdered in the cold belly of the tunnel. Initial assumptions were that it was a suicide, but that theory crumbled quickly. A scarf had been rammed down the victim's throat deliberately and violently. Marks on the tunnel walls hinted at a struggle. By the next morning, her brother identified the girl as 22 year old Mary. Mary Money. Her brother was expected to take the helm of being the public face of the Money family. Speaking to and being hounded by the press, he pled for respect and that his sister's dignity or character not be attacked. When unfounded rumors of suicide or affairs later began to swirl, an expert from the Home Office estimated that Mary had been dead for roughly an hour when found. Her body was covered in bruises, injuries that could only have been inflicted while she was alive. However, there were no signs of sexual assault. Attention quickly turned to the 9.33pm train from London Bridge, which had gone through the tunnel during the critical window. Days later, the guard recalled seeing a young couple in a first class compartment, close, quiet and unremarkable. At Red Hill, beyond the tunnel, he saw a man emerge alone from what he believed to be the same carriage, walking calmly toward the station exit. A signalman at Pearly Oaks added that as the train had passed he saw man and woman fighting inside a first class carriage. He dismissed it as he had often seen couples fighting in those first class cabins. Strange detail, so we thought nothing of it. But the man quickly felt terribly guilty for not speaking up. Nevertheless, the woman that he saw in the fight very well may have been Mary. Police were confident that the case would be quickly closed by tracing Mary's male acquaintances. But she seemingly had none. Or so it seemed. She lived a modest life in Clapham, working at a dairy and boarding with her employer's family. That Sunday evening she told a co worker that she was stepping out for a walk and would return shortly. She was last seen alive around 7pm buying chocolate at a sweet shop near Clapham Junction. She mentioned that she was heading to Victoria Station to the shopkeep. A ticket collector later identified her photograph, remembering taking her ticket and boarding the train. So it's a total mystery why she was getting on a train when she told a co worker that she was only leaving for a short walk. After that she vanished until she reappeared in the depths of Merstam Tunnel. Police questioned a young railway clerk who had once courted Mary, but he had a solid alibi. Her employer, who was his brother, testified that they had no improper relations with her. Theories followed but nothing definitively emerged. And despite what appeared to be clear signs of murder, especially the evidence that that the scarf was shoved down her throat, the official inquest returned a maddeningly vague verdict. Mary, according to the inquest, suffered fatal injuries from a train. But whether she fell or was thrown remained inconclusive. So the inquest didn't call her death a murder at all. Theories about the identity of her murder abounded, but the most highly considered suspects, the protective, publicly grieving brother, Robert. At this time, no one considered him a suspect whatsoever. But he turned out to be both a bigamist and mass murderer, responsible for the murder of his own children and two of his wives. It is actually believed by Scotland Yard that he was likely a serial killer who murdered at least seven other secret wives prior to the mass murder that became known as the Eastbourne Tragedy. Robert Money's alias was Robert Hicks Murray. He also posed as an American captain named Charles Sterling, claimed to have fought in the Spanish American War and claimed to have been awarded the Medal of Honor. He never served in any army. Between 1908 and in 1911, he lied to two different women that he was in the military and married them both. He would excuse his absences from the other by simply saying he was stationed elsewhere. His wives, Edith and Florence, both gave birth to one child each. He murdered them all when he became infatuated with a much younger woman. And after trying to marry her as well, he realized that he'd have to get rid of his two other families to give himself more time to woo this young woman. And rather than simply leave them like a cretin, he murdered them like a monster. He told both wives that he wanted to take them on a vacation to a villa. He went first and lured his one wife and child there and shot them both to death. He locked the door to the room where he left the bodies. And two days later, when his other wife and child arrived, he shot her in the neck and shot the child as well. He lit their bodies on fire, and for whatever reason, rather than go ahead with his plan to marry this other younger woman, he decided to shoot himself as well. The burning bodies and his corpse were found shortly after, and detectives from Scotland Yard began to piece together other women who may have been his victims, including his own sister, whose death bore similarities to a few other suspected victims. However, Mary Money's killer has never been officially identified. Goodness gracious. That was all quite terrible. So here's something to make you feel a little better. Not a lot, but it's at least nice to know know the funerals for Each of these victims were attended by thousands of people. The funeral services were all kept to friends and family and some town leaders like mayors. But the funeral routes were lined with crowds of people wanting to pay respects. Elizabeth Camp's funeral procession alone required 150 policemen to control the crowd. I found a number of articles about their funerals and I just want to share with you some of these beautiful details. For Mr. Gold it says within the grounds of the cemetery an enormous crowd, for the most part made up of ladies, was collected and many hands showered flowers on the deceased gentleman's coffin as it was lowered into the grave. And for Mr. Pearson there was not a business establishment in the city but had closed shutters or drawn blocks lines and the church was thronged, among those present being the mayor and representative members of public bodies. The internment followed in Winchester Cemetery where a crowd of several thousand assembled. The scene at the grave site was very affecting, not only women but men being moved to tears for Elizabeth Camp Quote the body of Ms. Camp was which had lain at the Lambeth Mortuary since the night of the tragedy was removed about noon, the proceeding being watched by a very large crowd. The coffin in which the remains were enclosed was of polished elm with massive brass fittings. It was placed in a handsome glass paneled hearse drawn by four horses with nodding plumes and taken at a slow pace to the good intention tent street where the friends and relations had assembled. The house was of course closed to the general public, but whilst the principal mourners gathered within the street became almost impassable from the number of those who were desirous of seeing the procession start. And finally for Miss Mary Money. This is so beautiful. The service in the chapel ended. The coffin was was borne reverently to the adjacent grave, followed by the mourners. Their path lay along a little avenue of lime trees whose autumn tints gave a touch of picturesqueness to the solemn scene. A fir tree casts its shadow over the place of burial to which the body was consigned and a group of cypresses surrounds the grave. End quote. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And if you would like to listen to the show ad free, feel free to join my Patreon. And don't forget to listen to my other podcast, Dark Poetry. And thank you all again for expressing interest in the fan coven to be. I cannot wait to officially invite you all to the circle. Be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares. Have you guys been listening to Southern Gothic? This show has all of the moody, eerie, cinematic touches that I love and try to include in my show. So Southern Gothic is a hauntingly immersive history podcast that unearths the legends, true crimes, and ghost stories buried deep in the shadows of the American South. Southern Gothic's commitment to trustworthy research and deep respect for its subjects really makes it stand out. From haunted cemeteries in Charleston, New Orleans, and Savannah, to ghoula folklore, murder ballads, and the eerie remnants of old Southern states spiritualism, Southern Gothic explores tales that echo the same unsettling, though oddly comforting eeriness that folks say they love about my show. So if you're drawn to the strange customs of the past, or just want a story that tingles down your spine, you'll feel right at home with Southern Gothic. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.