The First American Female Serial Killer (Pt 3)

Summary

The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told Episode: The First American Female Serial Killer (Pt 3) Release Date: January 16, 2024 Host: Mary Kay McBrayer Guest: Harold Schechter

---

Introduction and Context

In the finale of the three-part miniseries on Jane Toppan, purportedly the first American female serial killer, host Mary Kay McBrayer delves deeper into the escalating depravity and recklessness of Toppan’s crimes. This episode contextualizes how Jane’s background and previous actions set the stage for her eventual unmasking and capture.

The Davis Family and Community Suspicion

Mary Kay begins by recounting the strained relationship between the Davis family and the town of Catamit, Massachusetts. The Davises, led by Alden Davis, ran a hospitality business but lived on the town's outskirts—a choice that bred suspicion and resentment. This animosity was compounded by Alden's Confederate war background and his involvement with the extreme Second Advent Church led by Charles Freeman.

Notable Quote:

"...the town of Catamit, Massachusetts didn't really like the Davis family." ([00:11])

Charles Freeman’s Sacrifice and Its Aftermath

In 1879, Charles Freeman, the leader of the Second Advent Church, violently sacrificed his young daughter, citing religious necessity. This atrocity led to his institutionalization and further alienated the Davis family from the community.

Notable Quote:

"After that, Jane kept killing her private nursing patients until June of 1901..." ([10:40])

Jane Toppan’s Escalating Crimes

Jane Toppan’s killing spree intensified with the demise of the entire Davis family within a short span. The community, already wary of the Davises, dismissed the deaths as divine retribution rather than recognizing the pattern of a serial killer. Toppan’s methods became increasingly reckless, involving morphine and atropine to poison her victims.

Notable Quote:

"It was easy to see the demise of the Davises as the hand of God delivering punishment, rather than see it for what it actually was, the work of an increasingly reckless and sloppy serial killer." ([00:11])

Manipulating the Davis Family

After murdering Mattie Davis, Jane moved in with the remaining Davis family members under the guise of providing comfort. Her manipulative tactics included setting fires and poisoning with lethal substances, ultimately leading to the deaths of Alden Davis and his daughters, Genevieve Gordon and Minnie Gibbs.

Notable Quote:

"Something comes over me. I don't know what it is. I seem to have a sort of paralysis of thought and reason." ([33:05])

The Final Acts and Arrest

Jane’s spree culminated in the blatant murder of the Davis family, which drew significant attention. However, it was not until Detective John S. Patterson exhumed the bodies and discovered arsenic traces that Jane’s crimes could be definitively connected to her. Her subsequent arrest on October 30, 1901, shocked the community and her acquaintances alike.

Notable Quote:

"I suspected they had been poisoned, but I didn't think Jenny Taupin would use anything as easily detected as arsenic." ([30:56])

Trial and Insanity Defense

During her trial, Jane shifted from pleading not guilty to confessing her crimes. Despite her calm recounting of the murders, her defense argued insanity—a claim ultimately upheld by the court, resulting in her lifelong confinement at Taunton Asylum. Jane’s inability to comprehend the gravity of her actions was evident in her own statements during the trial.

Notable Quote:

"I cannot make sense of it all. Something comes over me. I don't know what it is." ([33:05])

Interview with Harold Schechter

In an exclusive conversation, true crime author Harold Schechter discusses the complexities of Jane Toppan’s case, including the questionable validity of her purported confession published by William Randolph Hearst. Schechter emphasizes the importance of verifying historical accounts, especially those influenced by sensationalist media practices of the time.

Notable Quote:

"None of them were real confessions. Hearst would sometimes pay them a bunch of money." ([49:20])

Conclusion and Reflections

Mary Kay McBrayer reflects on the societal fascination with serial killers, particularly female perpetrators like Jane Toppan. She highlights the ongoing debate of nature versus nurture in Toppan’s case, acknowledging that while her upbringing and circumstances influenced her actions, there remains no definitive answer to her motivations.

Notable Quote:

"It really is the question, we can't stop trying to answer it." ([00:11])

Looking Ahead

The episode concludes with a teaser for the next installment, focusing on Holly Dunn, the sole survivor of a railroad serial killer, promising another deep dive into remarkable true crime narratives.

---

Additional Information:

• Book Recommendations:

  • America's First Female Serial Killer, Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster by Mary Kay McBrayer
  • Fatal by Harold Schechter

• Resources:

  • Visit Diversion Audio for more true crime stories and subscribe to their newsletter for exclusive content.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

1. Mary Kay McBrayer ([00:11]): "The town of Catamit, Massachusetts didn't really like the Davis family."
2. Mary Kay McBrayer ([10:40]): "After that, Jane kept killing her private nursing patients until June of 1901..."
3. Mary Kay McBrayer ([33:05]): "I cannot make sense of it all. Something comes over me. I don't know what it is. I seem to have a sort of paralysis of thought and reason."
4. Harold Schechter ([30:56]): "I suspected they had been poisoned, but I didn't think Jenny Taupin would use anything as easily detected as arsenic."
5. Harold Schechter ([49:20]): "None of them were real confessions. Hearst would sometimes pay them a bunch of money."
6. Mary Kay McBrayer ([00:11]): "It really is the question, we can't stop trying to answer it."

---

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the episode, providing a structured overview of Jane Toppan's heinous crimes, her interactions with the Davis family, her eventual downfall, and expert insights from Harold Schechter. The inclusion of notable quotes with timestamps enriches the narrative, offering direct insights from the speakers.

Transcript

[Diversion Audio]

Diversion Audio.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

A Note this episode contains mature content and descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take care in listening. Today's episode is the finale of our three part miniseries on the first American female serial killer. If you missed the first two parts, I highly recommend that you pause me here, listen to those episodes and then come back once you're caught up. Because that backstory is integral to understanding how Jane's crimes got bigger, faster and way sloppier the town of Catamit, Massachusetts didn't really like the Davis family. The Davises said they started their hospitality business because they enjoyed working with strangers and they lived on the outskirts of town because they enjoyed it there. That might have been true, but it wasn't the whole truth. At first the town was reluctant to get close to Alden Davis because It was the 1870s in Massachusetts and Alden Davis had fought for the Confederacy. There's enough of an aversion already. But then there was the religious sect that Alden Davis was a part of. The Second Advent Church was run by Charles Freeman, and not only was it a fundamentalist Christian sect, the kind of which we still have to be wary, but it was, as they so often are, next level fundamentalist and not at all Christlike. Charles Freeman lived near Katamet with his wife and two young daughters, 4 and 6 years old. His congregation admired him for his fervent convictions and he was always preaching about the need to prove yourself through sacrifice. In April of 1879, he told his wife that what they needed to sacrifice was their four year old daughter. At two o'clock in the morning of May 1, 1879, Freeman woke up and told his wife he was doing it. He had been called and he would complete the sacrifice. She said, if it is the Lord's will, then I am ready for it. As if someone had released a huge weight, Charles went out to the shed and got a sharp sheath knife. He came back inside to his daughter's room. His eldest daughter woke up and he sent her into the other room with his wife. Charles knelt to pray by the crib of the older child. He prayed that God would steal his will like he had Abraham's, even though Abraham did not actually kill his child. Charles prayed that she didn't wake up, but she did. She woke up just as he drove the knife down into her side. The next day he invited the congregation over for a long, unhinged sermon before he took them into his daughter's bedroom to see her body. He claimed that she would rise again in three days. The community was gutted and appalled and Charles Freeman was ultimately sent to an asylum for the criminally insane. But at least one of his neighbors stood by him. Alden Davis showed up to the four year old's funeral and declared, there never lived a purer man than Charles Freeman. So everyone in the town took a big self preservationist step back from the Davis family. That's awful, you might think, but what does this atrocity have to do with Jane Toppan? Like I said, the town of Pottamet didn't really care for the Davises. They kept them at arm's length, which I think is pretty understandable. So when the Davises started dying one right after the other, and I do mean one right after the other, the town kind of thought, well, whatever happens to that family, happens to that family. It was easy to see the demise of the Davises as the hand of God delivering punishment, rather than see it for what it actually was, the work of an increasingly reckless and sloppy serial killer. Jane Toppan. Welcome to the greatest true crime stories ever told. Mary I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. I'm a writer of true crime, which means I live inside the research wormhole. But I'm not necessarily interested in the attention grabbing elements, the blood and the gore, all that. I'm more interested in the people behind these stories and what we can learn about society by looking at their experiences. That's what I explore here every week when I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or a combination of those roles. As you probably already know, women can do anything. Today is the last episode of our three part miniseries on the first American female serial killer. It's a 19th century American tale about how an orphan turned indigenous injured servant bootstrapped herself into a mad scientist murderer. Her story is the one I spent years researching for my book, America's First Female Serial Killer, Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster. So I'm excited to share it with you. In the finale of this miniseries, Jane's crimes reach new levels of depravity and recklessness before the law finally catches on. I also have a conversation with Harold Schechter, who wrote his own excellent book on Jane Toppan. So stay tuned for that all after the break.

[Harold Schechter]

Have you made the switch to Nyx? Millions of women have made the switch to the revolutionary period underwear from Nyx. That's KN I x period. Panties from Nyx are like no other. Making them the number one leak proof underwear brand in North America. They're comfy, stylish and absorbent. Perfect for period protection from your lightest to your heaviest days. They look feel and machine washed just like regular underwear but feature incognito protection that has you covered. You can shop sizes from extra small to 4xL. Choose from all kinds of colors, prints and different styles from bikinis to boy shorts, thongs to high rise. You've got to try nyx. See why millions are ditching disposable, wasteful period products and have switched to NYX. Go to knix.com and get 15% off with promo code. Try 15 that's nyx.com promo code. Try 15 for 15% off life changing period underwear. That's kn I x.com this week we.

[Diversion Audio]

Discuss and celebrate savings. I know it's usually a master detective or a super sleuth who loves true crime as much as we do, but today it's better. It's cheap Caribbean's 25th anniversary sale. That means 25 good reasons to put up your away Message now until February 3rd. You can unlock up to $250 off all inclusive vacation packages site wide. You're definitely going to need a portable charger for all these vacation pics. Visit cheapcaribbean.com for up to $250 off. Offer ends February 3rd.

[Advertisement Host]

You don't just live in your home, you live in your neighborhood as well. So when you're shopping for a home, you want to know as much about the area around it as possible. Luckily, homes.com has got you covered. Each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts. Everything you'd ever want to know about a neighborhood, including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities, and even things like medium lot size and a noise score. Homes.com we've done your homework.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

So this is our third of three episodes about Jane Toppin. We did a deep dive into her early years and now we're moving into her most criminal period, right? Yeah, it gets more criminal. And the interesting thing here that I want to point out is that when I've told this story before, at parties or whatever, there's a point where people get her. I don't know if I'm just telling the story in a way that makes her a sympathetic character or what, but right around the point where her favorite patients leave the hospital without saying goodbye, that's when most people are like, yeah, I could see how she would kill someone. They're not excusing it by any stretch, but they get it, if that makes sense. The typical refrain goes something like if all that shit happened to me, I'd kill someone too. Except for they didn't hurt people, may hurt people, but plenty of folks had an upbringing as bad as or worse than Jane, and they didn't murder 30 people. So what? I don't know. That really is the question is it situational or was it in her all along ye olde nature versus nurture debate? The answer is both, of course, and neither, and there's no one right answer because really there's no answer at all. But because it's the question, we can't stop trying to answer it. Last episode we found Jane at the bedside of Elizabeth Brigham, her foster sister. Jane spent the summers recuperating from her round the clock freelance work as a private nurse, and she had invited Elizabeth out to the seaside where she slipped her an overdose of morphia mixed into mineral water, sent her into a coma, and killed her. After that, Jane kept killing her private nursing patients until June of 1901, when Mattie Davis, wife of Alden Davis, arrived in Boston to collect Jane's debt. Jane tortured her for seven days before finally administering the fatal dose of morphine that killed Maddie. By then, Jane had decided to kill the whole Davis family and burn their house to the ground. It wasn't long after Maddie's funeral that her daughters, Genevieve Gordon and Minnie Gibbs, invited Jane to move into the Jakin house to help care for their father, who was always an erratic personality, and keep the house. Jane was so fun to be around that they thought she was sure to lift their spirits. Genevieve hadn't seen her mother in a year, so her mother's collapse and fairly sudden death afterward struck her especially hard. That sadness was what Jane said made her think Genevieve was better off dead. She would be first on the list. But before that, Jane had to start a few fires. It was a new experiment for her, and you probably remember how she liked to experiment. They'd only been settled in the house for a few days before the father, Alden, who'd suffered insomnia since his wife's death, smelled smoke in the middle of the night. He yelled for Jane to help him extinguish the flames and she came running from her room looking as if she just woke up. Together they successfully put out the fire, and then it happened twice more with the same results. It seems like people should have grown suspicious, but the only people who would have thought to do that, the Davis family were suffering with grief far too Much to question Jane when she claimed to have seen a stranger skulking about the property. And that stranger was probably the firebug trying to burn the house down. Everyone just went with it, and then they started dying. Jane pulled one of the daughters, Minnie, aside one afternoon and told her that the other day she saw Minnie's sister Genevieve in the garden shed eyeing a box of Paris green rat poison. Jane intimated that they should probably keep a close watch on Genevieve, given her recent depression. Within a few days, on July 26, 1901, Genevieve started to vomit violently. After dinner, she threw up until her throat was raw. And when she came out of the bathroom, Jane was waiting for her with a glass of mineral water. Genevieve was dead by morning. The physician listed her cause of death as heart failure. The neighbors said Genevieve died of grief. Jane told Genevieve's surviving sister and father that she died by suicide. She said that she'd found the syringe that she'd used to inject herself with rat poison, but to spare their feelings, she threw it in the outhouse. Genevieve was interred next to her mother. Only a few weeks later, it was Alden Davis turn. During a heat wave of 1901, he came home from a trip to Boston and all but collapsed on the sofa from exhaustion. Jane fussed over him for a few minutes, and then she came back with a glass of Hunyadi mineral water. The next morning, Minnie Gibbs, the surviving elder daughter of Maddie and Alden, came over to see her parents with her two young children. They lived in walking distance of Alden's house, which was nice when Minnie's husband, Irving, a sea captain, was away for months at a time. Harry Gordon, Genevieve's widower, was also there with their daughter. The family gathered around the breakfast table with Jane, but Alden Davis didn't come down to join them. Harry sent his little girl upstairs to wake up her grandpa, but when she scampered back downstairs a few minutes later, she said Alden wouldn't wake up. The family called the doctor. The doctor took one look at Alden and knew he was looking at a corpse. He thought maybe his heart had given out, but after further examination, he listed the cause of death as a cerebral hemorrhage. Alden was the third body to be interred in the family plot in two months. But Jane wasn't finished. Just four days after Alden's funeral on August 12, the remaining family members all went on a joyride around town. Before they left, Jane urged Minnie to have a little cocoa wine to soothe her nerves. It sounds gross and I can only imagine it tasted worse after Jane dissolved a tablet of morphia in it. Minnie didn't drink alcohol, but she gave in to the nurse. Jane was, after all, their professional and she started feeling bad immediately. By the time they got home that afternoon, she couldn't get up the stairs. Jane brought her a glass of mineral water, into which she had already of course, dissolved a tablet of morphine and a tablet of atropine. Around midnight, Jane injected Minnie with another dose of morphine, which rendered her completely still except for a twitching leg. Normally, Jane would pull back the covers and slide into bed alongside her victim, but this time she did something that was arguably worse.

[Harold Schechter]

Have you made the switch to nicks? Millions of women have made the switch to the revolutionary period underwear from nyx. That's KN I x Period Panties from Nyx are like no other, making them the number one leak proof underwear brand in North America. They're comfy, stylish and absorbent. Perfect for period protection from your lightest to your heaviest days. They look feel and machine washed just like regular underwear, but feature incognito protection that has you covered. You can shop sizes from extra small to 4xL. Choose from all kinds of colors, prints and different styles from bikinis to boy shorts, thongs to high rise. You've got to try nyx. See why millions are ditching disposable, wasteful period products and have switched to NYX. Go to knix.com and get 15% off with promo code. Try 15. That's nyx.com promo code. Try 15 for 15% off life changing period underwear.

[Diversion Audio]

That's kn Ix.com this week we discuss and celebrate savings. I know it's usually a master detective or a super sleuth who loves true crime as much as we do, but today it's better. It's cheap Caribbean's 25th anniversary sale. That means 25 good reasons to put up your away Message now until February 3rd. You can unlock up to $250 off all inclusive vacation packages site wide. You're definitely going to need a portable charger for all these vacation picks. Visit CheapCaribbean.com for up to $250 off. Offer ends February 3rd.

[Advertisement Host]

You don't just live in your home, you live in your neighborhood as well. So when you're shopping for a home, you want to know as much about the area around it as possible. Luckily, homes.com has got you covered. Each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts. Everything you'd ever want to know About a neighborhood including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities and even things like medium lot size and a noise score. Homes.com We've done your homework.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Jane had been feeding many lethal medications over the course of the day. But this time, instead of getting in her victim's deathbed to experience the pain the way she enjoyed, instead Jane brought Minnie's 10 year old son Jesse into her bed and she cuddled him while his mother died downstairs. Jane had never seemed very concerned about getting caught for her crimes. The atropine helped mask her use of morphine, but that's about the only precaution she took to hide her behavior. Still, murdering four members of the same family in less than three months was absurdly blatant even for her. The local newspaper covered the events with the dramatic headline entire family wiped out. Oddly, the paper never once mentioned foul play. But the hackles of the Davis clan were finally starting to rise. Captain Paul Gibbs, Minnie Gibbs, father in law, remembered Jane administering some drug to Minnie while she rested. He told his son Irving about it when Irving arrived home from sea. Maybe that's why Irving declined when Jane offered to move in and take care of him. Jane just turned her attentions elsewhere. She was done with the Davis clan for now, but her time enacting this intimate familial revenge may have inspired her because she actually went back to Lowell, back to the house where she'd grown up and where Oramel Brickham still lived. She wasn't there to kill for once. She was there to betray in another way, to marry her foster sister's husband. You might remember Oramel as the faithful, beloved widower of Jane's foster sister Elizabeth. And while he seems to have been a totally devoted husband to Elizabeth, he wasn't what you'd call a romantic figure. Harold Schechter says in his book Fatal that Oramel was a portly gentleman of advanced middle age with a double chin, bald dome and bushy gray mutton chop whiskers. It didn't matter what he looked like when she arrived at his house on August 24, 1901. Jane thought she'd have Oramel all to herself because back in January, the winter before she killed the Davises, Jane had actually poisoned Oramel's longtime housekeeper. She thought the housekeeper was her competition for his affection. Instead of being met by a new housekeeper, Jane was met at the door by Oramel's elder sister, who had come to visit on her way to the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo Jane poisoned and killed her four days after arriving. She didn't want eyes on her while she tried to woo the widower of her foster sister that she'd murdered. She did have eyes on her, though. Right after Minnie Davis was buried, after the entire nuclear Davis family had died in close succession. It wasn't just the Davis's relatives that started to view Jane with suspicion. She also finally caught the state authority's eyes. This may explain why, despite the blatant natures of the crime, the papers never mentioned the possibility of foul play. Authorities may have asked them to keep those suspicions quiet to avoid alerting Jane that she was under scrutiny. State detective John S. Patterson was assigned to watch her. He tailed her around Buzzards Bay. He was on the train with her when she moved back to Lowell. And when Jane arrived to stay with Oramel Brigham, Detective Patterson booked lodging down the street. He didn't move fast enough, though. When Jane realized that Oramel didn't intend to marry her or keep her on in any permanent capacity, she decided to try a few tricks to change his mind. First, she laced his tea with morphia. She thought that the sudden onset of illness might convince him that he needed her. When it didn't work, she told his friends she was pregnant with his child. That had the opposite of the intended effect. Oramel ordered her out of his house that very moment. She didn't go. Instead, she sulked up to her room as if to pack, and she took an overdose of morphine herself. By this time, though, Oramel had wised up. He went upstairs to make sure she was packing, and he found her unconscious. He called the doctor right away, who made her vomit and revived her. Oramel didn't have the sympathetic reaction she was trying to induce in him. He assigned her an in home nurse to watch her. But when that nurse went to prepare her lunch, Jane poisoned herself again. Again, her attempt was foiled. The doctor injected apomorphine into Jane and made her vomit again. When she revived again, the doctor asked her why she was doing this. She answered, I'm tired of life. I know people are talking about me. I just want to die. I just have to tell y'all. No, she didn't. She didn't want to die. She wanted pity so she could continue on her rampage. Although, to be honest, I'm not even sure that that was a conscious thought by that time. It's hard to trace the leaps in cognition. At first, Jane didn't want her favorite patients to leave, so she made them sicker. Then she started experimenting with counteractive medicines. Then she tried to push them all the way to the brink of death and see if she could bring them back. I'm thinking this is where the power complex escalated big time. But that's also when her crimes turned sexual. That's when she would get in bed with her patients while observing the overdose's effect. And then she graduated to killing by poisoning. Her train had so clearly jumped the tracks that her thought processes here get more and more difficult to follow. Maybe by this time she knew the detectives were onto her, but probably not. She'd gotten away with so much for so long, she probably didn't realize that when she was admitted to the hospital right after her attempts at suicide, the patient just down the hall was Detective John Patterson.

[Harold Schechter]

Have you made the switch to nyx? Millions of women have made the switch to the revolutionary period underwear from nyx. That's K N I X Period Panties from Nyx are like no other, making them the number one leak proof underwear brand in North America. They're comfy, stylish and absorbent. Perfect for period protection from your lightest to your heaviest days. They look feel and machine wash just like regular underwear, but feature incognito protection that has you covered. You can shop sizes from extra small to 4 XL. Choose from all kinds of colors, prints and different styles from bikinis to boy shorts, thongs to high rise. You've got to try nyx. See why millions are ditching disposable, wasteful period products and have switched to NYX. Go to kn I x.com and get 15% off with promo code. Try 15. That's nyx.com promo code. Try 15 for 15% off. Life changing period underwear. That's kn I x.com with the best.

[Advertisement Host]

All inclusive vacation deals to Mexico and the Caribbean. Booking your getaway with cheap Caribbean vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal. Whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas and more, or simply soak up the sun and sand in a tropical paradise, Cheap Caribbean Vacations has your deal for that plan and book the exact getaway you want at exactly the right price for you by using our exclusive budget Beach Finder. Or find a featured all inclusive package to Riu Negril and do your [e-mail].

Homes.com knows having the right agent can make or break your home search. That's why they provide home shoppers with an agent directory that gives you a detailed look at each agent's experience like the number of closed sales in a specific neighborhood, average price range, and more. It lets you easily connect with all the agents in the area you're searching so you can find the right agent with the right experience and ultimately the right home for you. Homes.com, we've done your homework.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

When the hospital discharged Jane, she went to live with a couple of friends in Amherst, New Hampshire. And yes, Detective John Patterson was still following her. In fact, he was again lodging just down the street when three other police officers showed up at his door on October 29, 1901, with good news. After Minnie Gibbs was buried, one detective approached Minnie's father in law, Captain Paul Gibbs. I just have to tell y'all right quick that in my narrative nonfiction book about this case, I associated that character with my late grandfather, who suffered no fools. He is by far my favorite person in this story. After getting permission from Minnie's widower Irving, which I can only imagine that his father Paul urged him to give, officials had exhumed all four of the Davis's bodies. Mini Gibbs viscera had turned up lethal traces of poison arsenic. This is what Detective Patterson needed to move in on his suspect. On October 30, 1901, Jane's arrest made headlines. The following day on Halloween, people everywhere were stunned that someone could brutally murder an entire family. They were even more shocked that she was a nurse and a woman. But the readers who were most surprised of all were the people who knew Jane. They couldn't believe it. They didn't believe it, and they later wrote to her in jail telling her so. Jane, though, wasn't really surprised. She was too smart not to anticipate that her increasingly blatant crimes would call attention. She just gotten too far down the path of depending depravity to stop herself. And now her most salient emotion was she was irritated that the detectives stood in the room while she packed. At first, she was only charged with the murder of Minnie Gibbs. I'm not sure why, but I'm assuming they only tried her for the one because they had the most evidence there and because if that case failed, they had more crimes to try her on. Later, at the jailhouse, she learned that her childhood friend James Murphy would defend her pro bono. Murphy was especially thrilled when he realized that the poison found in Minnie Gibbs was arsenic. Arsenic, you might recall from other stories we've covered on this show, was a key ingredient in embalming fluid in this era for exactly that reason. Even Captain Paul Gibbs, who believed Jane committed the crimes, was surprised when he heard the investigators were relying on the presence of arsenic to pin her. The old salt said as much in this quote. I suspected they had been poisoned, but I didn't think Jenny Taupin would use anything as easily detected as arsenic. He went on to put the professionals even more to shame. He thought the Davises, quote, had been killed by morphia and atropia. Atropia expanded the pupils of the eyes, whereas morphia contracted them, so that if a person had been killed by those poisons, the pupils of their eyes would practically be in their normal state, and to detect the traces of the poison would be very difficult. Officials thought that was a good idea, so they tested the bodies for those, and their findings were positive. No one ever found out how Captain Paul Gibbs, the retired fishing boat captain, worked it out, but he did. Still, Jane received letters of support and gifts from her friends and former patients at the jailhouse where she had what she called a nice rest. And at first she pled not guilty until abruptly she about faced and confessed. I couldn't find a clear reason behind this shift. That's one reason why I have a hard time fully accepting the confession that William Randolph Hearst published in one of his newspapers. I'm just not sure how it came to be, if he paid her, if she even wrote it. So I just don't really trust it. But rest assured, that whole confession question is definitely something I'll get Harold Schechter's take on when I interview him. Regardless of the details behind that Hearst confession, though, Jane definitely did change her plea to guilty. And she started talking from what she said. By this point, Jane had lost count of her victims. She recounted it all with full calm and composure to Henry R. Stedman at the American Medico Psychological Association. The article is long, but I think it's important to read you at least this part of it. When I try to picture it, I say to myself, I have poisoned my Minnie Gibbs. My dear friend, I have poisoned Mr. Davis and Mrs. Davis. This does not convey anything to me. And when I try to sense the condition of the children and all the consequences, I cannot realize what an awful thing it is. Why don't I feel sorry and grieve over it? I cannot make sense of it all. Something comes over me. I don't know what it is. I seem to have a sort of paralysis of thought and reason. I have an uncontrollable desire to give poison without regard to consequence. I have no objection against telling my feelings, but I don't know my own mind. I Don't know why I do these things. Later in court, she wondered how they could possibly find her insane. She could not possibly be insane when she knew full well that she was doing wrong. And she went to great lengths to avoid being caught. So when the court ruled her not guilty by reason of insanity, Jane thought for sure that the court would eventually overturn the sentencing. But they didn't. The court ruled that, quote, her disease being constitutional, she will never recover. And then she was committed to Taunton Asylum, where she stayed for the remainder of her life. She died August 17, 1938. By then, she was 84. My godfather actually gave me a copy of her obituary as a book release gift. The obituary refers to her as a mass poisoner. It says she gave the names of 31 victims, but that she killed at least 100. From the time I became a nurse at Boston Hospital, where I killed the first one, until I ended the lives of the Davis family. The obit also says she died at the asylum as just another quiet old lady. But that's not what the nurses are on her ward said. They said from time to time, Jane would beckon them over and tell them to get the morphine. She would gesture to her other patients and say, you and I will have a lot of fun seeing them die. And now, dear listeners, I am super pumped to share with you the conversation I got to have with Harold Schechter. He not only wrote his own heavily researched book, fatal about Jane, but he's also written about Ed Gein and Albert Fish. You definitely, definitely know who he is, even if you don't know you know who he is. He's written many true crime books and he's very frequently the expert interview in true crime documentaries and shows like America's Most Wanted. He is, in short, amazing. And he's here. That's after the break.

[Harold Schechter]

Have you made the switch to Knicks? Millions of women have made the switch to the revolutionary period underwear from Nix. That's K N I X period. Panties from Nyx are like no other, making them the number one leak proof underwear brand in North America. They're comfy, stylish and absorbent. Perfect for period protection. From your lightest to your heaviest days. They look feel and machine wash, just like regular underwear, but feature incognito protection that has you covered. You can shop sizes from extra small to 4 XL. Choose from all kinds of colors, prints and different styles. From bikinis to boy shorts, thongs to high rise. You've got to try NYX. See why millions are ditching disposable wasteful period products and have switched to NYX. Go to knix.com and get 15% off with promo code. Try 15, that's nyx.com promo code. Try 15 for 15% off life changing period underwear. That's kn I x.com with the best.

[Diversion Audio]

All inclusive vacation deals to Mexico and the Caribbean. Booking your getaway with Cheap Caribbean Vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal. Whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas, or simply soak up the sun and sand in a tropical paradise, Cheap Caribbean Vacations has your deal for that. Plan and book the exact way you want at exactly the right price for you by using our exclusive budget beach finder. Or find a featured all inclusive package to Blue Diamond Resorts and do Your.

[Advertisement Host]

[e-mail] Homes.com knows having the right agent can make or break your home search. That's why they provide home shoppers with an agent directory that gives you a detailed look at each agent's experience, like the number of closed sales in a specific neighborhood, average price range, and more. It lets you easily connect with all the agents in the area you're searching so you can find the right agent with the right experience and ultimately the right home for you. Homes.com, we've done your homework.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Harold. I'm so excited to talk to you today. Thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about Jane. My first question is, like, where'd you get your start? Like, how'd you do it?

[Advertisement Host]

My day job for 42 years until my relatively recent retirement was as a professor of American literature. At some point, I decided that I needed to supplement my meager academic salary somehow. So I decided to try to write commercial books. And I was basically writing books at that time about whatever interested me at the moment. And I was writing a book about movie special effects when I came across the fact, previously unknown to me, that both Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which are my two favorite horror movies, had been inspired by the same true life case, that of Ed Gein. So I pitched that idea to my editor. She bought it. I did that book Deviant. So when I was actually researching Deviant, I was in touch with Robert Block. Robert Block wrote the novel Psycho that the movie was based on. And I said to Block, why do you think people are so fascinated with Ed Gein? And he said, because they've forgotten about Albert Fish. So that led me to do my second book on Albert Fish. Anyway, before I knew it, much to my Surprise, because it wasn't the career path I had foreseen for myself. I had become a true crime writer when I started. The serial murder thing hadn't really become this big phenomenon the way it did in the 80s and 90s. In fact, the word serial murder, I don't think appears anywhere in my gein book or my fish book. Because it was coined much earlier. But it really didn't enter the language. The 1980s, when I first started doing it, I didn't even think of it as true crime. I thought I was inventing a new genre called true horror. That I was writing stories about those rare American criminals who were really monsters and who had entered into somehow the cultural consciousness as these monsters. In my life as an academic and a literary criticism, one of my mentors said that one characteristic of a genuinely mythic character in literature is that everybody knows the character, but relatively few people can tell you who created him. So when I was teaching, I would say, you know, to my class, well, how many people have heard of Sherlock Holmes? And everybody raised their hands. And then I'd say, how many of you know who created Sherlock Holmes?

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Right.

[Advertisement Host]

And, you know, the same thing is true of Hannibal Lecter. Everybody's heard of Hannibal Lecter. Relatively few people, if you ask, would say Thomas Harris. He created a genuinely mythic monster there in the form of a serial killer. But I mean, it ties into the way in which at a certain period, the serial killer became this mythic embodiment. Different kinds of free floating fears and anxieties. And it's kind of remained that way.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

So I want to ask about Jane. I remember when I read the terrible True Confession in the hearse periodical. Do you remember that one where she kind of laid out everything? Well, how do you feel about it?

[Advertisement Host]

You know, many notorious killers also wrote out True Confession for Hearst. And they were all totally fabricated. None of them were real confessions. Hearst would sometimes pay them a bunch of money. You have to understand that Hearst was one of the great pioneers of what was called the yellow press. Was basically Hearst and Pulitzer and the yellow press. That was a precursor of the tabloids. And not just things like those confessions. They just make stuff up in their news stories. You know, that old saying, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. That was their credo. You know, they were just making that stuff up. So I learned you had to be very, very, very, very careful when you relied on that kind of journalism.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Right. Well, thank you for validating that which I had in the back of my head. And then I wanted to ask you about the book that you are releasing, I think in the fall in September. Can you tell us about it?

[Advertisement Host]

Well, it's a book called Murderabilia, A History of crime and 100 objects. It's a book that I wanting to do for a long time. When I write books, I like to have a certain object connected to the crime that I keep with me. These things radiate with some kind of meaning and it often makes what I'm writing about more real to me. I don't know if you remember John Walsh, you know, the America's most wanted guy. He had a son, Adam, who was abducted and horribly murdered. Anyway, Walsh had a kind of Oprah like show for a while, and he asked me to be on the subject of people who collect all these murder relics. And I was on with a guy named Andy Kahan who works for some kind of victim advocacy department in the Houston Police Department. And Andy was very horrified by the fact that there were people who would like, you know, collect a lock of Charles Manson's hair or something. And he's the one who coined the term Murderabilia. And on the show I pointed out to him that there was nothing new about this.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Right.

[Advertisement Host]

I mean, you can go back to the 1800s and every time there was a sacial crime, you know, crowds would converge on the crime scene and take splinters of the house or whatever. Back then, one of the perks of being an executioner was you got to keep the noose. And these executioners would cut the noose up into one inch pieces and sell them. So for whatever reason, these dark macabre relics have always exerted this fascination. And, you know, I don't collect them, but for one reason or another, I've come into possession of a few of them. So the book is not the history, but it's a history of crime starting in the 1800s, about 1830. And each crime is accompanied by a picture of some object that relates to the crime. And the object becomes kind of a springboard for my talking about the crime.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Did you have an object for the Jane book?

[Advertisement Host]

Well, actually I have a bottle of Hyundai mineral water, which was her favorite beverage, which she dispensed with poison. Yeah.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Did it still have the water in it?

[Advertisement Host]

No.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Okay. That would be wild.

[Advertisement Host]

Yeah, it's a beautiful bottle. So. Yes. So that's in Murderabilia.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

I'm so glad I got to share that with y'all. Just a fun little aside that I didn't mention in the interview because I didn't want to pull focus onto myself. But when my book released mid Pandemic, my godfather also sent me a bottle of Hunyadi mineral water to celebrate. I'll link in the show notes to the photo of us cheesing like maniacs at the Murderabilia. We also have links to Harold Schechter's books, both the one about Jane Toppan and the forthcoming one entitled Murderabilia. And we'll have a link to my book there too. Join me next week on the Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told for the remarkable story of Holly Dunn, the only survivor of the railroad serial killer. For more information about this case and others we cover on the show, visit diversionaudio.com Sign up for Diversion's newsletter and be among the first to hear about special behind the scenes features with the hosts and actors from Diversion's podcasts, more shows you'll love from Diversion and our partners, and other exclusive tidbits you can't get anywhere else. That's diversionaudio.com to sign up for the newsletter. The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told is a production of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, I wrote this episode and our editorial director is Nora Patel. Our show is produced and directed by Mark Francis. Our development team is Emma demuth and Jacob Bronstein. Theme music by Tyler Cash Executive producers Jacob Bronstein, Mark Francis and Scott Waxman.

[Diversion Audio]

Diversion Audio.

[Advertisement Host]

With the Best All Inclusive Vacation Deals to Mexico and the Caribbean Booking your getaway with Cheap Caribbean Vacations means you have more freedom to do your deal. Whether you want to enjoy snorkeling, endless margaritas and more, or simply soak up the sun and sand in a tropical paradise, Cheap Caribbean Vacations has your deal for that. Plan and book the exact getaway you want at exactly the right price for you by using our exclusive budget Beach Finder. Or find a featured all inclusive package to Ocean by H10 Hotels and do your deal at cheap Caribbean.com Amazon One.

Medical presents painful thoughts I could catch.

[Harold Schechter]

Anything sitting in this doctor's waiting room.

[Mary Kay McBrayer]

Okay, just wiped his runny nose on.

[Harold Schechter]

My jacket and the guy next to me sitting in a pool of perspiration insists on sharing my armrest.

[Advertisement Host]

Next time, make an appointment with an Amazon One Medical provider. There's no waiting and no sweaty guy. Amazon won. Medical healthcare just got less painful.

What kind of programs does a school have? How are the test scores? How many kids to a classroom? Homes.com knows these are all things you ask when you're home shopping. As a parent, that's why. Each listing on Holmes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by Holmes.com's dedicated in house research team. It's all so you can make the right decision for your family. Homes.com we've done your homework.