Ryan Reynolds (17:44)

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.

Genevieve Manion (18:16)

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.

Ryan Reynolds (30:15)

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Genevieve Manion (30:45)

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.