Ep. 87 - Trunk Murders and New England Vampires

Summary

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My Victorian Nightmare

Host: Genevieve Manion
Episode 87: Trunk Murders and New England Vampires
Date: March 23, 2026
Podcast Theme: Morbid, witty, and deeply-researched glimpses into the ghastlier sides of the Victorian era.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Genevieve Manion explores two chilling criminological themes from the Victorian era: the rise of urban legends surrounding “vampires” in New England, and the gruesome phenomenon of “trunk murders.” True to her podcast’s macabre-yet-affectionate tone, Genevieve tells the story of the so-called vampire Nellie Vaughan and then dives into detailed accounts of two notorious American trunk murders: those of Albert N. McVicar (by Emma Ledoux) and Elsie Sigell. Genevieve’s narrative is richly atmospheric, blending historical dark whimsy with emotional insight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Are These People? – The Curious Case of “Vampire” Nellie Vaughan

[03:39–09:57]

• Tuberculosis & Vampire Panics: Genevieve recounts prior episodes addressing how 1800s New England tuberculosis outbreaks fueled vampire folklore, notably leading to family graves being exhumed in superstition-fueled rituals.
• Nellie Vaughan’s Story:
  • Died of pneumonia at 19 in 1889—not tuberculosis, yet somehow posthumously labeled a vampire.
  • Her grave in West Greenwich, Rhode Island was unremarkable for decades, but in the 1970s, urban legends inexplicably flourished after a 1977 newspaper claimed her grave was unnaturally sunken and adorned with the inscription “I am waiting and watching for you.”
• The Making of an Urban Legend:
  • Claims of the grave’s unearthliness fueled vandalism.
  • Reports of "ghost sightings," such as Marlene Chatfield hearing “I am perfectly pleasant” next to the grave, adding an eerily human touch but followed by supposed supernatural scratches ([08:18]).
  • Another story: a mysterious woman at the grave repeatedly chanting “Nelly is not a vampire” in menacing tones before vanishing ([09:11]).
  • The legend led to black mass rumors and Sabbath-linked vandalism, forcing relocation of Nellie’s gravestone.

Notable Quotes:

• [04:53] “Spoiler alert: It did not work. Ever. But that didn’t stop them from doing this, for in some places, hundreds of years.” –Genevieve Manion, on anti-vampire grave rituals
• [08:18] “‘I am perfectly pleasant.’ End quote.” –Marlene Chatfield’s alleged encounter with Nellie’s ghost
• [09:11] “She began repeating, Nelly is not a vampire…in increasingly menacing tones.” –Genevieve, recounting a chilling encounter

Insight:
Genevieve makes clear that these urban legends, while “genuinely terrifying," are a product of cultural fears, misinterpretation of Victorian funerary language, and the human tendency to find meaning in tragedy.

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2. Trunk Murder #1: The Black Widow, Emma Ledoux and the Death of Albert N. McVicar

[09:57–26:17]

• Case Introduction:

  • Emma Ledoux, described as “a real piece of work” ([14:59]), murdered her estranged husband, Albert N. McVicar, and stuffed his body into a trunk intended for train shipment in 1906.
  • This matched the grisly pattern of “trunk murders,” crimes Genevieve finds “strangely comforting,” given their Victorian horror flavor.

• Motive and Method:

  • Emma married young, quickly performed a succession of marriages and insurance frauds, and was a serial bigamist.
  • She lured Albert McVicar back by feigning interest in rekindling their marriage, convinced him to buy furniture, plied him with whiskey laced with morphine, killed him, and stuffed him into a trunk ([21:40]).

• The Investigation:

  • Emma’s mistakes abound: using her real name for purchases, leaving a photograph behind, being flamboyant at the hotel, and leaving a clear paper trail ([22:40]).
  • She was apprehended within two days and tried to deflect blame to an imaginary killer named Joe Miller ([24:19]).
  • Her defense team spun an implausible narrative of coercion and accidental overdose, dismissed by the prosecution.

• Conviction & Aftermath:

  • Emma Ledoux was found guilty and became the first woman sentenced to hang in California ([26:17]).
  • Her sentence was commuted to life after retrial, but after 14 years she was paroled, only to end up back in prison for further crimes.
  • She died in 1941, her grave as unremarkable as the conclusion to her disastrous crimes.

Notable Quotes:

• [15:02] “This gal was a real piece of work.” –Genevieve
• [17:25] “This woman was particularly not good at this [murder].” –Genevieve
• [23:03] “Oodles of witnesses. Oodles of paper trails. She did a bad job.” –Co-host voice
• [25:22] “‘She could not love that pop-eyed wood chopper who could neither read nor write and was deaf as a post. Just women don’t love men like that.’ What a dick. That sounds like Victorian manosphere content.” –Genevieve, on the defense’s argument

Memorable Moment:
Genevieve’s detailed “you are there” style reimagines the murder’s setting, guiding listeners through the hotel as if witnessing Emma’s fumbled plot in real time ([17:28–21:40]).

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3. Trunk Murder #2: The Chinatown Mystery – Elsie Sigell

[26:17–38:47]

• Discovery:

  • In 1909, police in New York’s Chinatown found the body of young missionary Elsie Sigell in a trunk, strangled with a window cord. The murder’s complexity was immediately apparent.

• Societal Context:

  • Genevieve addresses the racist backdrop surrounding the incident.
    • White New Yorkers feared “opium dens” and Chinese men seducing white women—a myth which was exploited in press headlines and reinforced by laws like the Opium Exclusion Act ([31:13]).
    • Genevieve intentionally refrains from repeating historical racist tropes, instead highlighting their existence and impact.

• The Crime:

  • Elsie, involved in missionary work, was romantically entangled with William Leon (real name Leung), whose jealousy was public knowledge.
  • William Leon went missing the same time Elsie did. Witnesses and letters reveal jealousy and threats.
  • Clues included jewelry with her initials, witness testimony of William’s threats, and a confession by William’s cousin, Chong Singh ([35:18]), who chillingly recounted watching the murder and refusing to help dispose of the body.

• Aftermath:

  • William attempted to move the trunk through various locations, with accomplices who may or may not have known the horrific cargo's contents ([37:18–38:10]).
  • Despite a confession, William escaped to China and was never brought to justice. Elsie’s funeral was private; her mother was so distraught she was institutionalized and couldn't attend.

Notable Quotes:

• [31:13] “Liquid opium still perfectly legal, enabling white women to still get their opiates away from Chinese opium-smoking men was the main angle of laws like that one.” –Genevieve
• [36:37] “It adds an extra level of dehumanization to me, like removing their dignity.” –Genevieve, on victims’ undressing in trunk murders.

Memorable Moment:
The narrator’s empathy is palpable as she describes Elsie’s funeral and her mother’s devastation ([31:13–32:35]). She also connects the case to broader patterns of violence, sensationalism, and xenophobia.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment |
|-----------|-------------------------------------------------| | 03:39–09:57 | “Who Are These People?” segment: Nellie Vaughan and the New England Vampire Panic | | 09:57–26:17 | The Trunk Murder of Albert N. McVicar by Emma Ledoux – Storytelling, investigation, trial, and aftermath | | 26:17–38:47 | The Trunk Murder of Elsie Sigell – Discovery, context, investigation, and conclusion |
| Various | Throughout: Insights on Victorian attitudes, gender, crime, and the mechanics of urban legend |

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Memorable Quotes

• [04:53] “Spoiler alert: It did not work. Ever.” – Genevieve on anti-vampire rituals
• [08:18] “‘I am perfectly pleasant.’” – Marlene Chatfield’s purported ghostly encounter
• [14:59] “This gal was a real piece of work.” – Genevieve on Emma Ledoux
• [23:03] “Oodles of witnesses. Oodles of paper trails. She did a bad job.” – Co-host voice (Genevieve)
• [25:22] “‘She could not love that pop-eyed wood chopper who could neither read nor write and was deaf as a post.’... That sounds like Victorian manosphere content.” – Genevieve
• [36:37] “It adds an extra level of dehumanization to me, like removing their dignity.” – Genevieve, on trunk murder victims

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Episode Tone & Style

• Genevieve’s tone is both darkly witty (“strangely comforting about the heebie-jeebies”), empathetic to victims, and bracingly honest about sensationalism and prejudice in historic crime reporting.
• She excels at weaving storytelling, period atmosphere, and critical reflection into a compelling narrative.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode offers a window into the intersection of Victorian superstition, gender, and sensational media—revealing how stories of vampires and lurid crimes like “trunk murders” reflected (and shaped) broader cultural anxieties. The show is rich in historical context, vivid characterization, and memorable, eerie storytelling, without ever glorifying the violence or echoing the prejudices of the era it describes.

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Further Content:

• For ad-free listening, illustrated police news deep dives, witchy content, Dark Poetry, and more, join “The Fan Coven” at myvictoriannightmare.com.

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“Until next time, be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.” – Genevieve Manion

Transcript

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[Genevieve Manion]

hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. Hello, 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

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror

[Genevieve Manion]

and mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello friends and welcome to this, my 87th episode. I hope that you had a lovely week. I sure did. I've decided to subscribe to the deadly 1950s food pyramid just for a little while.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

I have upped my bread servings by

[Genevieve Manion]

about 70% and it is doing wonders for my constitution despite the horrors. You should give it a try for for you today, Dear Listener. Although I usually do illustrated police news article deep dives on the odd weeks, I've just been way too into trunk murders lately. They sit right with me. For some reason at the moment, I've

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

stopped trying to understand these things about myself.

[Genevieve Manion]

Trunk murders just feel right, as do New England vampires. I fell too deeply into these creepy rabbit holes this week, so today I will be discussing the vampire. Or was she Nelly Vaughn? As trunk murders of Albert N. McVicar and Elsie Siegel. I covered perhaps the most notorious trunk murderer of the 1800s in this week's Patreon True Crime Extras episode. The Murder of Alice Bowlsby. Such an upsetting story. She was a woman who died after a botched abortion, a common demise of so many women in those days. And her abortionist put her body in a trunk and tried to send her off on a train. Very similar to another murder that I will be discussing today. But first, thank you to Chi, Nicholas, Annamarie, Suzanne, Chunk, Rachel and everyone who has joined the Patreon this week and those of you who have signed up for the one week free trial. You and everyone who joins are the reason why my show can continue. And those who join receive weekly witchy content. True Crime Extras 13 episodes of Dark Poetry and my Victorianightmare ad. Free and a day early. If you too would like to join, just go to myvictorianightmare.com to find out

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[Genevieve Manion]

Okay, before we get to the Trunk murders, those being murders where victims are mysteriously found in trunks, let us have our fairly new segment, who Are these People?

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Where I discuss fascinating, strange, eccentric and

[Genevieve Manion]

or mysterious so and so's from the 1800s and today I want to talk about the alleged vampire Nelly Vaughan. This is one of the most bizarre New England vampire situations I have yet to hear of. In episode six, I discussed the wild world of Victorian vampires. And I discussed the vampire panics that were a result of the tuberculosis outbreaks in New England in 1800s, but also all over the world. Many people believed that tuberculosis spread because certain dead family members were actually vampires sucking the life out of their families from the grave. And the only way to stop the vampire from erasing an entire bloodline would be to dig them up, cut out their heart, burn it, mix the ashes

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

and water and have the allegedly vampire

[Genevieve Manion]

cursed family members drink the hard ash.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Spoiler alert. It did not work. Ever. But that it didn't stop them from doing this. For in some places, hundreds of years,

[Genevieve Manion]

the most famous American vampire, in other words poor gal who died of tuberculosis who was exhumed and given the vampire treatment was a woman named Mercy Brown. It's believed Bram Stoker took inspiration for the character of Lucy Westerna from Mercy Brown's story. But there was another poor gal named Nellie Vaughan, who is also almost as famous as Mercy, but for entirely bizarre urban legend reasons. Nellie Vaughan, who died at just 19 in 1889 of pneumonia, not tuberculosis, which was what the vampirism was thought to be, was buried in West Greenwich, Rhode Island. And for many years her grave remained untouched. She was never exhumed, never considered at all to be a vampire until somehow in 1970, she got a reputation for a vampire and people began vandalizing her grave. Now I put a link to the skepticalhumanities.com article where I found some of this information because they did such a fabulous job of piecing together how this poor girl became a vampire over time. It all likely began with a newspaper article in 1977 claiming that the only sunken grave in the cemetery that continues to sink into the earth belonged to a woman named Nelly Vaughan. It Said, quote, no vegetation or lichen will grow on the grave, which bears the description. I am waiting and watching for you. So says a local university professor. Now, that inscription sounds pretty spooky, rather creepy, but that wasn't an uncommon kind of inscription in the 1880s or 1890s. I am waiting for you in heaven. I shall be watching over you. These were very common grave inscriptions at that time.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

They only sound creepy when preceded by what sounds like supernaturally strange or evil

[Genevieve Manion]

implications about a grave. Then, by 1982, this young woman's grave began to be vandalized. And another newspaper article in the Providence Journal Bulletin claimed that the cause of the vandalization was due to a nondescript, unnamed professor telling his students that there was a vampire buried in a cemetery off Route 100, too. So we have more.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Someone trustworthy said a vampire thing.

[Genevieve Manion]

So other people reacted to the vampire thing, and before you know it, people

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

start saying, there's absolutely a vampire in that cemetery.

[Genevieve Manion]

And kids with nothing better to do are creeping around trying to find the stone.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

But this is where the brewings of

[Genevieve Manion]

an urban legend get genuinely terrifying. The story takes a malevolent turn. People begin reporting ghost sightings around her grave. Not just any ghost sightings, but pissed off ghost sightings because she's mad now

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

that people are accusing her of being a vampire.

[Genevieve Manion]

Author Charles T. Robinson wrote in his book New England Ghost Files, different reports

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

of this particular ghost sighting.

[Genevieve Manion]

One from a woman named Marlene Chatfield. She said that she heard a woman's voice beside her while standing next to the grave, saying, I am perfectly pleasant. End quote.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

And though creepy, that doesn't sound particularly

[Genevieve Manion]

menacing until just after the words were heard. Marlene claims that red scratches began to appear on her husband's face, prompting them both to run screaming out of the cemetery.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Another supposed ghost sighting. Now this turned me white. This Marlene went back for some reason

[Genevieve Manion]

and allegedly saw a young woman standing near Nellie's grave who said she was with the local historical society. Marlene asked her what she thought of Nellie's vampire reputation, and this sounds straight

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

out of an awesome horror movie.

[Genevieve Manion]

She at first didn't seem too interested in the topic. She just said she thought it was silly. Then her demeanor changed. She began repeating, nelly is not a vampire.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Nelly is not a vampire, in increasingly menacing tones. Allegedly, Marlene was so creeped out by this mystery woman that she ran back to her car.

[Genevieve Manion]

And when she spun around to make sure she wasn't following her, she saw that the woman had disappeared entirely.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

The stuff that urban legends are made of now. Did this really actually happen? Who can say? But the story just keeps spinning into more madness.

[Genevieve Manion]

Some people in the community came to believe that Nellie was indeed a vampire, and demonic black masses were being held at a nearby church in her honor. This resulted in satanic vandalism around her grave. So eventually Nellie's gravestone was moved to an undisclosed location, which was, and this makes me so sad, almost entirely already broken. It' to note that not only was she not a vampire by any definition, not Even by the 19th century's conception of tuberculosis vampires, she died of pneumonia. Mercy Brown wasn't a vampire either. There are no vampires. No person whose grave was desecrated, whose bodies were exhumed and cut into by the living for the purpose of preventing anyone else from dying of tuberculosis ever should have been disturbed. I really hope that despite all of the beliefs, terrible behavior and disrespect, that Nelly's spirit moved on long before any of this nonsense even started. Okay, let's discuss the trunk murderess, Emma Ledoux, the black widow of Stockton. Like I said, this story will sound a little familiar to those who subscribe to the Patreon, although it's a completely different murder than the one I talked about this week. On a lovely, bright Golden State one afternoon at four o'clock on March 24, 1906, a train bound for San Francisco pulled away from the Stockton station when baggage attendants noticed a trunk had been left on the platform of the station. They inspected it, noticed it had no tags, and brought it back to the baggage room. Around 8:30 they noticed that the baggage room smelled horrible. One of the workers quickly identified the smell. He had the misfortune of smelling a decomposing human body before, so we alerted police.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

There is truly nothing like that smell. I lived in an old building in college called the George Washington Building on Lexington Avenue. It's a fancy boutique hotel now, but it was a disgusting SVA dorm halfway

[Genevieve Manion]

house for elderly ex addicts that never

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

moved out in the 70s.

[Genevieve Manion]

So a bunch of art students were living among like three dozen or so 80 to 90 year olds. And they would often die.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

It was a random, regular occurrence actually. And then they'd turn their rooms into dorm rooms. Within weeks that place was so haunted with understandably grumpy old people, ghosts enraged that they had to listen to like Radiohead day in and day out, blasting in everyone's rooms. So long story short, I myself had to report not one, but two horrible odors coming from rooms that turned out to be dead bodies. Typical college experience. I'm sure.

[Genevieve Manion]

Anyway, an officer soon arrived with a chisel to open the locked, odorous trunk. He broke off the lock, opened it up, and the first thing that he saw were two bare feet. Then he noticed it was the body of a man, fully dressed, except for shoes and socks, stuffed into the trunk. Horrifying. Police quickly began an investigation and were able to track down the delivery boy who delivered the trunk to the station. He told them that he was hired by a lovely lady who was staying at the California Hotel to bring the trunk to the station. It was then assumed that this man in the trunk must have maybe been a guest at the hotel as well. So the proprietor of the hotel was summoned to see if they could identify the body. God, imagine that.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Like, can you say no? Of course I'd want to help out in, like, a murder investigation if I could. But what if you've never seen the guy before and now you're just traumatized for the rest of your life? Like you couldn't even help, and now you need to go to therapy forever? Well, the proprietor did offer to come,

[Genevieve Manion]

and she did recognize the man. She not only remembered who he was, but pointed out his name in the guestbook. His name was Albert N. McVickar. He had checked into room 97 with a wife not too many days prior who had checked out of the room that morning and was not seen with him when she did. Luckily, apart from the fact that Ms.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

McVickar was clearly not too good at

[Genevieve Manion]

covering her tracks, in general, she was extra, extra clumsy. She forgot something before her hasty checkout.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

A bag with a photograph of herself inside.

[Genevieve Manion]

A tall, thin, pale woman with rather bouffant dark hair and distinctive arched eyebrows. The police had her description wired to every police station in the Bay Area.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Now, granted, she did make all of this pretty easy, but the cops didn't

[Genevieve Manion]

fumble any of the clues that she left. They nabbed her in only two days. They found her in Antioch, and when

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

they approached her, they said, Ms. McVicker, you're coming with us.

[Genevieve Manion]

To which she replied, My name is Mrs. LeDoux.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

This gal was a real piece of work.

[Genevieve Manion]

Emma married very young at 16 in 1898, but the relationship didn't last long. It's unclear exactly how or why, but she was granted a divorce very quickly within the same year of the marriage. She then quickly remarried at 18 to a man named William Williams.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Emma and her William Williams moved to

[Genevieve Manion]

Arizona in 1902, and he very, very quickly, mysteriously passed away not too long after she took out a $10,000 life insurance policy on him. That would be roughly $378,000 in today's currency. Her husband's official cause of death was gastroenteritis was suspicious considering the convenient timing of the insurance policy purchase and the

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

fact that only two months after he died, she was not only seeing someone new, she was already married.

[Genevieve Manion]

She married a man named Albert McVicker in Brisby, Arizona. A 35 year old man. She was still 18 and he was smitten. She wasn't.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Though it's unclear why she chose to

[Genevieve Manion]

marry him at all. Because she moved out of their new home together only a few months after the marriage. Marriage? Much to his chagrin. Rather than divorce, she just moved back in with her mother. They were estranged.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

But the fact that she was still married didn't stop her from looking for a new man. To be precise, new men. In not too much time, she thought it would be a good idea to get engaged to not only one guy, but two at the same time. While still married, she said yes to

[Genevieve Manion]

a man named Jean Ledoux and another poor gentleman named Joseph Healy.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Actually, it was probably for the best for Joseph.

[Genevieve Manion]

She decided to break off their engagement and bigamously marry Mr. Jean LeDoux. For about six months, the now Ms. LeDoux tried to figure out what to

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

do about her little being married to two different guys situation.

[Genevieve Manion]

And she decided the best way to

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

handle it would be to murder Mr. McVicker. And I wonder sometimes if the amounts of true crime that we now read and watch has made killers more clever when it comes to covering the tracks. Or if some of these, these killers back then were just as stupid as their crimes would suggest.

[Genevieve Manion]

This woman was particularly not good at this.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

And I will show you why if

[Genevieve Manion]

you would follow me through this charming lobby of the California Hotel on Main and California streets here in Stockton. It is March 23, 1906, roughly 9:30 or so. I thought you might enjoy a cocktail in there. Lovely oak beamed, vaulted ceiling lounge. Oh, don't you just love those wicker chairs with the big poofy cushions? Oh, it's so inviting.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

And those lilies.

[Genevieve Manion]

Stargazers. Look at the lovely arrangement. That is the smell of luxury. Even though this isn't the most luxurious hotel, it's amazing how those lilies can turn anywhere into my dream vacation. As I was saying, I thought you might enjoy a cocktail and to personally

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

see how stupidly Emma planned out the

[Genevieve Manion]

killing of that gentleman right over there.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

That's her by the way, with the big black flower hat, laughing heartily and

[Genevieve Manion]

sitting across from him in the corner. They're drinking straight whiskey.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

What might she be doing here with Mr. McVickar? You may understandably be wondering, isn't she

[Genevieve Manion]

now married to another guy who has no idea she's married to this guy? Well, let's order some drinks and I'll explain what she's up to.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Good evening, madame.

[Genevieve Manion]

How may I help you? Two glasses of your chilliest champagne, please.

[Hotel Staff / Waiter]

Coming right up.

[Genevieve Manion]

Thank you. This hotel, by the way, will be seriously damaged in the great San Francisco earthquake, which is less than a month away. The earthquake will kill over 3,000 people. Just random horrifying fact before we witness a murder. So our Emma here had a brilliant idea that she would not only get her first husband out of the way, but she would trick him into buying her all new furniture before she did. Ah, thank you. Cheers, darling. Her other husband has no idea she's here, by the way. He thinks her mother is taking her on a furniture shopping spree. Emma contacted Mr. McVicker, who was hard, heartbroken when she left home, and said that she would like to rekindle their marriage. Let's buy all new furniture together and then take a little trip to the Bay Area, she said. Now, doesn't that sound nice? He jubilantly agreed. That's what they were doing all day. Furniture shopping and visiting the lovely beaches over in San Francisco. Now, don't look directly at them, but she was just delivered a bottle of whiskey to go, and they're sloppily making their way over to.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Oh, she's down. And she took the lilies with her. Oh, God, what a mess. You can look.

[Genevieve Manion]

Everyone is looking.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

She just tripped over the leg of

[Genevieve Manion]

one of those lovely chairs we passed by on our way in.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

She didn't even think to stay sober herself on the night she chose to murder her husband.

[Genevieve Manion]

She's making quite a scene, and the

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

hotel proprietor herself is coming over to help, getting a good look at both of them.

[Genevieve Manion]

Emma sure is making herself and him particularly memorable. Here, Come with me. We can take our glasses. No need to chug. We're just gonna take a little walk onto the lovely hotel lanai here, where

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

we have a full view of their room windows and into the room. They have burst.

[Genevieve Manion]

Mr. McVicker just plopped himself down on a chair next to the bed, and Emma is opening up that. That new bottle, from what I can see, pouring two glasses. I know it might be a little tricky to see, but that little bottle she has in her hand has enough morphine in it to kill 10 men and she's now emptying it into his glass. Unfortunately for Mr. McVicker, he's too drunk now to taste the morphine and will finish his glass within a few minutes. Here, let's make our way back and I'll tell you a little more about the the very stupidly planned murder of poor Mr. McVickar. It makes me so sad, too, that he was so happy to see her and think that they were rekindling a relationship, when in fact she not only planned to kill him, but to trick him into buying all new furniture for her home with her new husband before she did. It's just so diabolical. In only a few hours, he was dead.

[Ryan Michelle (Agent of Paradise Podcast Host)]

Agent of Paradise Podcast I am your host, Ryan Michelle. Bathe with my husband, Sterling.

[Genevieve Manion]

What's up?

[Ryan Michelle (Agent of Paradise Podcast Host)]

Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julianne Nicholson, and Sterling Kelby Brown. Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming

[Genevieve Manion]

and stream paradise on Hulu and Hulu on Disney. When Mr. McVickar bought the furniture earlier that day, he listed the delivery address as his own, the home he believed they would both be returning to first thing in the morning. With his now dead body in the room, Emma left to run to the furniture store to change the address to her new home with her new husband, then purchased a trunk trunk nearby. She returned to the hotel, stuffed Mr. McVicker into the trunk, and paid a delivery boy to deliver the trunk to the station.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

This woman did all of this using her real name, not her new last name, but her legal name, Emma McVicker.

[Genevieve Manion]

She also decided to buy herself a brand new fancy black flower hat for $8, and of course, made sure to take out a $5,000 life insurance policy on him before doing any of this.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

So, oodles of witnesses. Oodles of paper trails. She did a bad job. Now, to be fair, I say this like I would do a better job. I always think I can cover up a murder if I had to. That's not a confession. But if I'm honest with myself, I would absolutely end up getting myself drunk because I would be so nervous about killing somebody that I would also probably fall over something like a gigantic vase of flowers in front of 50 people.

[Genevieve Manion]

And the person I'm trying to murder,

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

I shouldn't be so judgmental.

[Genevieve Manion]

So, as mentioned, it took only two days to nab this lady. Not that far away from the Crime scene in a few towns over.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

And apart from not doing a great murder cover up job, she was also not a great liar like me. She told the police that she didn't kill him, but she was there when her husband was killed by someone else. And this is hilarious. She said a man named Joe Miller, who was an acquaintance of hers, poisoned her husband with carbolic acid in order to steal her money. It didn't make sense. It's not just you. She said. After she found her husband dead, she panicked and agreed to help this murdering, thieving Joe Miller cover up his crime for no reason. The cops put out a half hearted

[Genevieve Manion]

APB for this Joe Miller who turned

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

out not to exist. So her he went that a way defense wasn't even something her own lawyers were going to touch. Once her trial began, Emma's lawyers actually

[Genevieve Manion]

cooked up an even craz crazier story.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

They said McVicker forced Emma into a life of sex, work and drugs. He accidentally or intentionally killed himself with morphine.

[Genevieve Manion]

And Emma was just an innocent victim

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

in all of this. The prosecution was like, you're stupid.

[Genevieve Manion]

She killed him to get him out

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

of the way because she just got

[Genevieve Manion]

bigamously married to a new guy who she seemed to actually really like. They brought in piles of evidence, love letters From Emma to Mr. LeDoux who was actually illiterate, but he admitted that his brother would read her love letters to him.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

And I feel really bad for this guy because since the defense knew their

[Genevieve Manion]

strategy was falling apart, she clearly killed Mr. McVicker to get him out of the way to start a new life with this man.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

This is what her lawyer said.

[Genevieve Manion]

She didn't love Ledoux.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

She could not love that pop eyed wood chopper who could neither read nor

[Genevieve Manion]

write and was deaf as a post. Just women don't love men like that. What a dick. That sounds like Victorian manosphere content. Luckily the jury didn't buy it. It took them just a few hours to find her entirely guilty of first degree murder. She was sentenced to hang on October 19, 1906. And this seems crazy and perhaps untrue to me, but she was apparently the first woman ever to given a death sentence in California in 1906. I double checked and this is supposedly true. It just seems strange to me that in the Wild West 1800s, no women were ever executed.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Apparently not.

[Genevieve Manion]

California became a State in 1850 and no women were officially given death sentences until Emma Ledoux. Her case was appealed and she was retried four years later. And in this case she decided to plead guilty in Exchange for a life sentence. I didn't realize that this was something one could do after being sentenced to death, but she did, and that sentence was granted. As we know, life sentence only means life sentence if they remove the possibility of parole. She served only 14 years in San Quentin before being granted parole in 1920. But, and this is quite a twist, she actually ended up back in prison and died there. After she was first released, she tried to keep below profile. She married her fifth and final husband, a man named Fred Crackbon, in 1925. It's unclear exactly what crime landed her back in prison, but after her last husband died, it sounds like she got into thievery and violated terms of her parole numerous times. She ended up back in Prison in 1931 and died 10 years later on July 6 6, 1941, in the Woman's Prison at Tehachapi in Kern County. She was buried in an unmarked grave at the Union City Cemetery in Bakersfield, California. Albert McVicker was buried in Highland Cemetery in Kansas in his family plot. Okay, let's discuss our second horrible drunk murder, the murder of Elise Sigel. On the afternoon of June 19, 1909, a man named Sun Leung, a proprietor of a chop suey restaurant in New York's Chinatown, walked into the West 47th Street Police Station and nervously informed them that his cousin had been missing for six days. His cousin, Leon Leung, who had given himself an American name, William Leon, had indeed not been seen for six full days. Mr. Leung led detective detectives to Williams Home, a room on the top floor of the same building of the restaurant. The door was locked and had been for over a week. They broke the door down and found the room empty, except for a trunk that had been wrapped in rope that appeared to be prepared for shipping. It also smelled terrible. Policeman John Riordan assisted Mr. Leung in cutting the rope and opening the trunk. When they opened it inside, they found the almost nude body of a young Caucasian woman, double wrapped in a sheet. She had a cord around her neck similar to the cord in the window shades of the room. The coroner called in believed that the young woman had been dead about a week, the same amount of time that William Leon was missing. The body bore no other signs of violence, but strangulation appeared to be the cause of death. The girl had a gold chain around her neck with a pendant that read ECS And a bracelet with the same initials were found in the room. It was quickly determined that this young woman's name was Elsie Sigell, and she had been in a romantic relationship with Mr. Lian and another man, William's friend Chu Gain. Before this murder case, Caucasian New Yorkers were already made terrified that Chinese immigrants would lure their wives and children into opium dens and sex work. When I read stories from the Illustrated Police News, I do not read the terribly racist articles in the paper, which there are many on the show, because I believe they deserve to be buried in history. But I see the horrible illustrations of Asian Americans and see the headlines. And so often I find stories about white housewives spending their days with Chinese men smoking opium while their husbands are working away to provide for their families. And these stories weren't always just lies, although many were. A lot of middle class white women were indeed addicted to opiates, and a number of them were getting their fix in opium dens. Some found it more discreet to sneak off to opium dens than be seen in the local pharmacy every single day purchased purchasing opium. But in 1909, the smoking opium Exclusion act was passed to prevent a certain kind of opium being imported or possessed. Laws like this one that were passed had little to do with protecting the public from opium addiction. That law left over the counter.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Liquid opium still perfectly legal, enabling white

[Genevieve Manion]

women to still get their opiates away

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

from Chinese opium smoking men was the

[Genevieve Manion]

main angle of laws like that one. So suffice it to say the Caucasian American public was already being fed daily doses of anti Asian propaganda, especially in regard to dangers of white women mixing with Chinese men before the murder of Elsie Siegel. And this horrible event led to even more prejudice, false accusations and demonizing of Chinese men in America. In fact, when the police came to the Siegel residence to tell the family that it's likely their daughter had been found and they wanted them to come officially identify her, her father said she wasn't missing at all. It was her mother who stepped forward to say that yes, she had been missing for six days. They were aware of the relationships that she was having with these men. Her father and mother were both induced to view her remains, and notes were taken that her father reacted indifferently and unemotional to seeing her body. Body? In fact, he said that wasn't his daughter at all. Whereas Ms. Sigell immediately identified her as well as her jewelry. Unlike the funerals of many widely reported murder victims of the day that were often attended by thousands of people, the family insisted that they be allowed to keep their service for Elsie private, and the public respected that wish. It was reported in the Times Democrat that in the midst of all the police activity, the body of El Cie Segal was buried this afternoon at Woodlawn Cemetery. As the father announced last night that he wished to avoid any more publicity, the coffin containing the mutilated form was taken directly from the morgue and the burying ground in a plain undertaking wagon. Reporters didn't hound them. Her funeral was very small. Only her father, two brothers and uncle attended. Her mother was so devastated by the murder that she had to be temporarily institutionalized and could not attend the funeral. So utterly heartbreaking. Ms. Sigell had an active interest in Christian missionary work in Chinatown. She frequently took her daughter Elsie there to do missionary work. And by the time she turned 19, she had a number of friends in Chinatown and had become close to William and Chu. In fact, William had lived in the Sigell house for several months as a boarder. A few days after Mr. And Mrs. Sigell viewed their daughter's remains, her father father chose to speak up. He told police that he knew both William and Chu were in love with his daughter, and William was, quote unquote, insanely jealous. Eight days before his daughter was found, he said that a party was thrown at their house and William arrived drunk. He said that William told his daughter that if she ever hung around chew again, he would kill both her and him. Police arrested Chu, assuming he may at the very least know where William had gone, or possibly that he killed him as well as Elliot. Elsie. When they interrogated him, he admitted that he discovered William threatened to kill him. From Elsie, she wrote him a letter stating that William accosted her at a party, said he wanted to kill him, but that she didn't love William. She loved him. Chu Chu gave this letter willingly to the police and swore that he didn't kill anyone. In fact, he was planning to skip town himself to avoid being killed by William.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

But they got to him before he

[Genevieve Manion]

could make a run for it. The police decided to keep him under arrest while they continued their investigation. They didn't quite believe him. That was until they got a very important confession.

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[Genevieve Manion]

A cousin of William named Chang Singh eventually came forward and chose to tell the whole truth. He said that the day after the party incident, Elsie came to William's home to reprimand him for threatening her and Chuu the night before and also to tell him that she didn't want to see him anymore. He said that she told him this downstairs in the restaurant before she went upstairs to see him. He said he saw her go up, but after she didn't come back down. After a while, he decided to go up. He knew his cousin had a dangerous temper. As he approached, he said that he heard a loud noise in the room. The door was slightly open, and he looked through. And now this gets very confusing and so strange. He essentially said that he watched William strangle her to death. He said he saw blood on her face and his handkerchief up on her mouth. The question is obviously, why didn't he stop any of this? That's unclear. His confession continued that he saw Elsie get thrown down onto the bed, laying motionless, while William ripped off her clothes, wrapped her in a sheet, and put her body in a trip trunk. Why he ripped off her clothes, that's not made clear. That seems to be a common theme in a number of trunk murders that I've been researching on this week's Patreon True Crime.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

Extra.

[Genevieve Manion]

This is how Alice Bowlesby was also found. It adds an extra level of dehumanization to me, like removing their dignity. This man Chong went on to say that he then went into the room and took her hand, and William said that she. She was dead. He implied that he should help him get rid of her body, but Chong said that he told him, quote, this is dirty work, and refused to help. He said he witnessed William put her body into the trunk before leaving. Now, again, this wasn't a testimony in court. This was just what he told police in an interrogation. But other folks also admitted to helping William attempt to dispose of the trunk.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

It didn't work out.

[Genevieve Manion]

It's unclear if other folks knew what was inside, though, but. But a number of them likely did. After about an hour after allegedly killing Elsie, William went on a sloppy disposal trek.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

And if it wasn't so hideous and

[Genevieve Manion]

awful, it would almost be comic.

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

He first went to the office of

[Genevieve Manion]

the Constitution Express Company on 8th Avenue and hired a driver named Arthur Logan to transport the trunk to a laundry business on 26th Street. It was delivered and signed for by someone else who paid for the transport. So someone at the laundry business paid to it delivered. So it's possible this person named Wah Kee knew what was inside and was trying to help William. Otherwise why would they pay for and accept this delivery?

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

But then it's possible this person didn't know. Or when they found out, they said

[Genevieve Manion]

get this the hell out of here. Because within a few hours William came

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

to pick it up and bring it elsewhere. William showed up to the laundry place

[Genevieve Manion]

and then personally took the trunk in a cab to a Chinese restaurant in Newark. He did this with two other men, one who later told police that when they got out, William left the trunk outside the restaurant at 1am and said to leave it there. Perhaps the owner of the restaurant was someone he was trying to frame. But one of the guys refused to just leave it there and threatened to tell the police if William tried. So William ended up getting another cab

[Genevieve Manion (Co-host or secondary voice)]

and bringing it right back to his

[Genevieve Manion]

room where it all started and decided to just leave it there and skip town. Chong Sing was released when all of this came to light. Four years later, the Secret Service reported that William had been smuggled back to China via Canada and spent the rest of his life on a farm. He was never arrested and the murder case officially remains cold. As mentioned, Elsie and her mother worked a lot with the Chinese community through missionary work work, and a number of folks in that community who greatly valued Elsie's work got together a fund to offer as a reward for catching her killer just as the case was beginning to unfold. She was reportedly very loved in that community and they wanted to help however they could. And that was the murder of Elsie Sigell. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leave me comments because you know I love them so much and join the fan coven to listen ad free and for even more creepy and witchy content. Until next time, be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.