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In the pharmacy line is halfway through.
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An incredibly detailed 17 minute story about his gout. A story likely more painful than the gout itself.
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Diversion Audio
Diversion Audio.
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Narrator
A Note this episode contains mature content and descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take care in listening. Seth Ramsey and Franklin Andrews were roommates in the Archer Home for the Elderly and Firm at the turn of the 20th century. The large federal style house was a nursing home, but not in the way we think of them now. The type of care we associate with nursing homes now would have been in what was called a residential hospital then. This was not that. The Archer home was basically a boarding house for people in the empty nester stage of life. The residents still had social engagements and active lifestyles. Seth Ramsey was a widower in his 60s and Franklin Andrews was a bachelor in his late 50s. Both of them were in good health, but neither of them wanted to keep a full house just for himself. So they'd each booked a bed here at the Archer home. They'd gotten lucky. They had the best room in the place. It was the only two bedroom, no extra residents squeezed into too little space. It was also just off the veranda and it had a great view of the town. Windsor, Connecticut. But best of all, Ramsay and Franklin got along well despite not having known each other all that long. After dinner. Around 9pm the residents turned in chatting about the day before. They nodded off. They wouldn't wake up until it was time for communal breakfast downstairs. Except one morning when Ramsay was startled awake around 5am he heard strange noises coming from Franklin's side of the room. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the twilight, but when they did, he saw Franklin sitting bolt upright in bed, projectile vomiting and covered in his own fluids. And it wasn't normal vomit. It had a weird coffee ground appearance. Welcome to the Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. I'm a writer of true crime, which means I live inside the research wormhole. I'm constantly reading about crime, but I'm not necessarily interested in the headline grabbing elements like blood and vomit. I'm more interested in the people behind these stories and what we can learn about all of us 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 any combination of those roles. As you probably already know, women can do anything. Today's story we're calling the Murder Factory the name the press dubbed the case back in the early 20th century when it was ushered in by a massive heat wave. This one is a real saga and it's really linked to the time period in which it happened. Because it's an historical crime. I want to take a little more space to really get in there and make sure I'm going through some of the context that's crucial to understanding the case. Plus there's a lot of fascinating people who make their way into the story and a lot of strange, weird details that I have to include. So this is the first episode of a two episode miniseries about the Archer house. It was supposed to be a place where older folks could find comfort, community and somewhere to call home. Instead, it was a murder factory. I'll tell you all about it after the break.
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Narrator
My favorite class in college was Intro to Psychology. It explained so much to me about why we think the way that we think. And without going so far in depth as to sound like actual science, it was, but it didn't feel like it, if that makes sense. Anyway, my favorite lesson was about functional fixedness. It's a term for the phenomenon that we can't see past the intended use of things. For example, the coconut oil in your kitchen cabinet is the same thing as the coconut oil in your bathroom cabinet. But most of us would never grab the coconut oil from the bathroom to throw in our frying pan. Or how when you look at tennis shoes, you don't often see how they could be tied together and used to weigh something down. Or how chewing gum can be used as a weapon. That kind of thing. And my favorite example of functional fixedness involves the mentor of my Intro to Psychology teacher. He was an elderly professor close to retirement, and every day on his lunch Break. He'd go into the back stairwell and smoke a joint. And this was during the early 2000s in Georgia, back when you had to pick out your own seeds and stems and grind it up yourself and roll it on your sister's coffee table and make sure you got all the crumbs out the cracks before her shift was over. High stakes is what I'm saying. So after the stairwell filled with smoke, someone inevitably called campus security and that elderly professor would wait until the moment they showed up, step on his roach and swatting at the clouds all around him, he would say damn kids and campus police ran past him every time. They never suspected him for a second, even though he was there every time they got a call, even though there was smoke all around him. Because this burnout they were looking for couldn't possibly be a professional, respectable academic. He couldn't possibly be old. Let's go back in time. 120 odd years. It's the turn of the century. 1901. President McKinley has just died of an assassination. Attorney I say attempt because he survived the initial bullet he took in the gut during his speech. He died of gangrene a few days after his surgery. So that's where we are in terms of medical science. The President just died of gangrene after surgery. Keep that in your back pocket. I have a point, I promise. Also in 1901 in Connecticut, Amy Archer and her husband James Archer were hired to care for an elderly widower, John Seymour. When he died three years later, John Seymour's descendants converted his home into a boarding house for the elderly. It was actually a pretty smart economical move. This was 50 years before Medicare began and 35 before Social Security started in the United States. So the elderly had even less support then. A lot of middle class people saved for their retirement. But private nurses are expensive. So even if they were able to pay for their room and board without a huge strain, it left a lot of elderly people still feeling like a burden on their families. And that's those who had families to burden. Not to mention, I mean people have a hard enough time now with resigning their loved ones to elder care. Back then there were no real options and definitely no good options for families who couldn't physically care for their elders. So when the Seymours saw that hole in the market, they capitalized on it and they kept Amy and John Archer on as caretakers for years, which both subsidized the Archers rent, paid them a fee and gave them a lot of experience. After a few years though, the Seymour heirs sold the house. And the Archers used their savings to buy their own house in Windsor, Connecticut in 1907. They converted it into a business, the Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm. The Archer business plan had two options for the residents, or as they were called then the inmates. In M. William Phelps book the Devil's Rooming House, which is the book on the Amy Archer Gilligan case, he says that inmate was, quote, a socially acceptable term used at that time to describe residents of psychiatric hospitals, institutions, insane asylums, prisons or nursing homes similar to Amy's. We're going to hear from Phelps himself later on in part two of this episode, so stay tuned for that. People at the time didn't see anything weird about calling them inmates like you or I might. But back to the Archer's business plan. In exchange for shelter, food and medical care for the rest of their life, residents at the Archer Home had two options. Option one, they could pay a weekly rate of between 7 and $25, according to one advertisement. The other option was to pay a one time flat fee of $1,000, which Amy called her contract for life care. Now, I'm not a business expert, but some quick calculations tell me that $1,000 would pay for around a year of care at that time. That's less than three years at the weekly rate max. And that's the gross, not their net. And yes, of course it's disgusting to put a monetary timeline on someone's life, but if you're running a business like the Archers, then you have to think about these things, right? Plus, the Archer home was not end of life care. It wasn't a hospice situation. It was a boarding house. Most people who stayed at the Archer home weren't in bad health. There were hospitals for the infirm. The people at the Archer home were mostly just old. That meant there was a good chance that they'd live longer than three years. So from a business perspective, after a while, each resident would start costing the Archers money. Amy and James didn't seem to realize that, though. The Archers seemed less concerned with the accounting and more concerned with the really important work they were doing for their community. And it was important work. Everyone in town thought so. Windsor's residents really respected the Archer's resolve and dedication. They especially revered Amy. After James died in 1910, three years after the Archer House opened, James official cause of death was the sudden onset of kidney disease, which most people in those days usually suffered from for years before slowly dying. And it was rarely fatal, even to an elderly person, unless they had pre existing Conditions. James wasn't elderly. He and Amy were both in their late 30s or early 40s. So it was shocking to the town when he died. And it inspired people to respect Amy even more. She worked so hard to keep their business afloat all on her own, with a little help from James's life insurance payout. After all, the people of Windsor could see the hard work. Amy looked so worn down. Because while Amy wasn't elderly, she definitely didn't look like she was in her 30s. Okay, to a degree, every photo of someone from a historical period makes them look old. You know, just based on the styles alone. Like, Amy wore the high collared dresses and puffed sleeves of the Gilded Age. Her hair is. The best way I can describe it is by the Martha Washington thing we used to do in the swimming pool where we let it drip forward and then fold it back and pose like we were in a daguerreotype. So, yeah, the styles have aged her, but she actually looks like she could just as well be in her 60s. From her thin lipped, clenched jaw to her furrowed brow. The people in town, especially the socialites, the ones who decided what everyone else should think, called her sister Amy. They rarely saw her without a Bible in hand. And she definitely looked like someone who would clutch her Bible all the time, like as a weapon. They watched her dedication to the elderly, some of whom I'm sure they assumed probably nagged and bothered her constantly. And she had a little girl whose father had just died, too. I mean, that does sound pretty tough. That is, it would be tough if that was true. As I mentioned before, while the residents at Amy's were older, they could take care of themselves. They mostly just couldn't take care of a full house and themselves, so they wanted the extra help. But to the town who didn't know any different, Amy seemed close to saintly. Not everyone in the home was as convinced that the Archer house was a place of God, though. Because they had a problem on their hands. People kept dying, remember? And I've said it a few times, the residents weren't sick most of the time. So these frequent deaths were weird. They seemed to hit out of nowhere and they were happening to healthy people. Then they, Amy would have their bodies moved out of the house in the middle of the night, so no one really saw them. Amy said she thought it would be disturbing if the other residents woke to find their friends dead. And fair enough, that definitely would be disturbing. I mean, imagine you were running Archer House. I don't think I'd move the Bodies like that, it definitely comes off as sort of brushing death under the rug, if not something actually sinister. But anyone who has worked in direct care will tell you you can never do enough. You can never be fast enough, caring enough, sweet enough, smart enough, good enough. You have to make some tough calls. Calls that just can't please everyone. It's not really surprising that some of those calls ended up iffy. And when it comes to death, dying and grieving, no one can do anything. Perfectly. By the way, we are now squarely in the Victorian era when there was a whole fashion element to grief and grieving correctly. At this point in time, no one could do anything regarding death well enough. It's also no surprise that there were deaths. Even though the people at Archer House were in good health, for the most part they were elderly and well, you heard what kind of medical care the president got. And he was the president. Still, residents insisted there were far too many people dying. Something was very wrong at Archer House. Someone they said was killing them. The town socialites were having none of that. They rallied behind Amy's pristine reputation. Scandalized that anyone could suggest something untoward about an organization run by a saint. Not only was it impossible, but the audacity to them. Amy was basically doing charity work, but for money. Sometimes she even set up funeral arrangements and sent bouquets to grieving family members. Of course she was contractually obligated to do that, but most people didn't realize that. They also didn't realize that although she claimed she had taken it upon herself to pay for her residents funerals when they couldn't afford to, that was a straight up lie. So while the townspeople might have been obsessed with Amy and totally convinced that her organization was a flawless reflection of God's love on earth, the people closest to her physically, her residents refused to be gaslit out of their suspicions. And as more and more Archer residents died, those suspicions only grew. Until one resident, Franklin Andrews, became convinced he knew exactly what was causing all this death. Or rather, who.
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- [25:19]
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Narrator
At this point in his life, Franklin Andrews was in good health. But he hadn't always been. When he was a boy in the early 1850s, Franklin had a severe hip pain that prevented him from walking. It was likely what we now know as congenital dislocation of the hip. Over the course of months, that condition caused his leg to shorten. As a result, he always walked with a pronounced limp. Even his friends would say he was quote lame. It was the medical diagnosis at the time. Most people don't realize that it's an ableist slur when they say it nowadays that lame actually meant disabled. Not boring or silly. Just, you know, food for thought in your own language going forward, in case you didn't know. But back to Franklin. Franklin had always been self sufficient. He fended for himself from an early age and he had worked as both a farmer and a factory worker. He also took a routine constitutional walk every morning, a walk of about five or six miles. I don't actually know anyone who does that nowadays. Even with all Our pedometers and Fitbits and Apple watches. It wasn't until he was 57 years old that Franklin started to feel his age. The effects of years of hard physical work showed up in his bones and joints. He got treatment for rheumatism in his shoulders and legs. For months, the condition prevented him from tending to his family's farm. But let me explain. At 57, Franklin couldn't do hard labor anymore. He had been doing it though. That's why it was taking its toll. Again, this is 1911. There were very few desk jobs and very few people really changed careers, especially not in middle age. Although I guess back then 57 wouldn't have been middle age as we see it now. Still, Franklin was a lifelong bachelor, so he didn't have children or a wife to lean on for personal care or even social interaction. It seems like he got most of his interactions from either his walks or his work. So when he stopped working, it seems like he got kind of lonesome. He sold his farm and he went back and forth between the homes of his two local sisters in Wallingford and Yalesville, Connecticut. But they were his elder sisters. They were much more frail than Franklin was. Neither of them had extravagant means and Franklin didn't want to burden them. To their credit, neither sister nor his in laws ever told Franklin to get lost. In fact, his brother in law, Warren Andrews, said that Franklin, quote, was perfectly healthy and well, with the exception of his lameness. But Franklin started to consider where else he could go for a while. That was the house of a friend who said Franklin could stay as long as he wanted. He was no trouble at all, never complained. But still, Franklin didn't crash for long. It just wasn't in his nature to freeload. Even when his friends and family told him that wasn't what this was. He bounced around between his family members and eventually ended up with his third sister, Nellie Pierce. She had room for him and was happy to have him, but he didn't want to burden her either. That's just the type of man he was. You know, the type who never overstays his welcome. The type who's such a good house guest that he leaves your house better than when he arrived. He's the type who would see something that needed fixing and before you know it, he's fixed it without you asking him. Franklin Andrews had pinballed from place to place too long for his liking. So when he saw an advertisement for the Archer home in the newspaper, he decided he was in. His sister Nellie didn't Want him to go. Even though Franklin had money enough to stay at Amy Archer's, Nellie was worried about him. And like everyone else, she wanted him around. But Franklin was going. Period. And once Nellie realized she wasn't going to talk him out of it, she took the trolley from Hartford to Windsor and walked the two minutes to the Archer home to meet Amy. For herself, Nellie was not impressed. By this time, September of 1912, the Archer Home was deteriorating. There were the baseline issues of her business model. To start with, for new revenue to come in, she needed more beds. So she kept adding more beds. At one point, there were an estimated 20 beds in the home. Not 10 double occupancy bedrooms either. Beds in the common areas, the hallways squeezed together to fit as many people as possible. In addition, James Archer's death left behind a pile of undone chores. Everyday things like painting, weeding, cleaning. And now they had a severe bedbug problem. Amy had sent one of her residents down to the W.H. mason Drugstore to purchase some arsenic. She was handling it. Amy and Nellie discussed the going rate. Either $1,000 up front or $7 per week. Nellie looked around the house and asked, basically, what's the deal with this place? Why does this house look like a dump? That's when Amy put the hard sell on her. Her husband had died a few years ago, and he was her handyman. Nellie didn't bite. Instead, she said, what if Franklin doesn't like it here? Amy had an answer for that as well. She would charge Franklin the $1,000 upfront, and if he wanted to leave, she'd refund him a prorated amount based on how long he. Now, I find this a little odd. We don't have the contract, or at least I couldn't find a record of it. So the question I'm about to ask might have been answered in that. But my question is, how would you prorate it if it's $1,000 for the rest of his life? Well, Amy, how do you know how long that would be? Do you have an amortization timeline in your top desk drawer, like one of those life insurance adjusters? But Nellie either had the information she needed, or she just didn't think Franklin would want to leave. Despite the crumbling building and crowded halls, the place was full of people his age who seemed to be in high spirits. Nellie suspected that this was exactly what Franklin wanted. She decided to stop making a fuss about the arrangement and let her brother move into the Archer house. When Franklin arrived, He paid Amy $2,500 up front. You probably noticed that's a different sum than what she and Nellie discussed. But Franklin didn't mind. In fact, he took to Amy right away. And he started fixing the Archer house up, too. As usual, he was being his sweet, helpful self, wanting to give more than he took. Shortly after Franklin arrived, he made a new friend in Michael Gilligan. Michael was a child of Irish immigrants. A divorced father of three sons and two daughters, all now adults. He was 57 to Franklin's, now 58. And while he'd been a fireman in town, he had also worked farms. When he arrived, he helped shoulder the handyman load, too. Michael was in great health. Like Franklin, the two of them were among the youngest and healthiest of the residents at the Archer home. And Michael got along with Amy just as well as Franklin. Or actually, even better. Within a few weeks, Michael and Amy were involved in a romantic relationship. In November of 1913, Amy married Michael Gilligan, despite his being 20 years her senior. And the town of Windsor was really genuinely happy for them. Not only was it great to see Amy finding love again, but marrying Michael would really help her in more practical ways. On their marriage license, Michael listed his assets. Although Michael came across as a pretty rough guy in appearance, he had a net worth of about $5,000, which would be today about $150,000. Just enough money to get Amy out of the debt that had accrued in James absence. Amy always paid attention to the bank accounts of her residents. Sometimes she even demanded to see their bank records before letting them move in. But she didn't actually learn about Franklin's savings until January of 1914. That's when there was an odd moment. She wrote him the following. I am writing to ask you, as I consider you my dearest friend in need, as you have proved so thus far, could you, or rather, will you please let me take a few hundred dollars, as near to a thousand as you can for a few months until I can get money I have loaned. I have but little cash and our bills are just now very heavy. She went on, really working his guilt. I will pay you 6% in advance. As you know, it is safer than any bank. I thought as a friend, you would accommodate me. I would rather you would Please not speak of this to anyone. I appreciate your confidence, or I would not ask you, as I have friends whom I know would lend it. But I would rather not ask them. Please let me know if you could get it tomorrow morning. I could use it in the afternoon. And I assure you, on my honor, you won't be Sorry. I will give you my note so there can be no possible way for you to lose. Essentially, despite the fact that her new husband had just paid off most of her debts, Amy had just asked Franklin to lend her a bunch more money. And even though Franklin and Michael were friends, Amy wanted Franklin to keep it a secret. You might have noticed a bit of a trend in the cases we've covered on the Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. The trend is secret secrets are no fun. Secret secrets hurt someone. Unfortunately, there's no written record of how Franklin responded to Amy's request for the loan. But we know that his initial appreciation for Amy and Archer House was starting to waver by this point. Around this time, he wrote a letter to his brother Wesley saying there have been some deaths here lately. Have been 18 died. There are 15 here now, and Amy expects some more before long. They come and go, one after another. There's a hint of wariness in that report, and Amy's request for money may have triggered even more of it. Then came February 19th. Amy called her husband Michael downstairs. She had laid a document on the kitchen table for him. It was his last will and testament. He signed it. Then he lay down. He wasn't feeling too good. In fact, he was feeling bad.
- [40:32]
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Diversion Audio
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Narrator
It's cheap.
- [41:45]
Diversion Audio
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- [42:05]
Narrator
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- [42:44]
Michael started vomiting the evening of February 19, 1914, the same day he signed his last will and testament. He seemed to recover briefly. His friends say he felt fine when they saw him on February 20. But then on February 21, at two in the morning, Amy called Ralph Frost. Ralph was the manager of the Windsor Hotel, where Michael often drank. Ralph also moonlighted as an undertaker. Ralph was surprised to hear Amy say, come over to the house right away. It's Michael. He's very sick. He'd just seen Michael in the bar the night before. Was Amy calling Ralph as a friend or as an undertaker? When Ralph arrived, Michael was in and out of consciousness. But he did recognize Ralph. He definitely wasn't dead. He didn't need an undertaker. He needed a doctor. Ralph was livid that Amy hadn't called one. Why didn't she call someone who might have actually helped? It was after 3:00 when Dr. King arrived. He immediately asked Amy, why didn't you call me sooner? It was then that Ralph learned Dr. King had already been at the Archer home to tend to Michael the night before. He left specific instructions with Amy about how to treat her husband. He had also given Michael pills for indigestion. Y'all are not going to believe what was in these stomach pills. I'll give you a hint. It was a mixture of bismuth, the main ingredient in Pepto, Bismol and cocaine. That was the doctor's order, actually pretty standard for upset stomach at the time. But by the time Ralph was there and Dr. King returned for the second time, it was clear that the treatment hadn't worked. The doctor should have been called back earlier, and now it was too late. By sunrise, the morning of February 22, 1914, Michael Gilligan was dead. Franklin woke during the middle of the commotion. He was shocked that Michael had died just a day before. They had been palling around as usual. Then his shock turned into horror. Despite how odd this death was, Dr. King didn't conduct an autopsy. He also didn't consult a coroner. Instead, he made the medical assessment that Michael died of indigestion. And for some reason, he listed heart disease among Michael's ailments too. Franklin knew that wasn't true. Dr. King had only sporadically treated Michael in the past. But he should have known there was no indication that Michael had heart disease. What he did have in those two days between signing his will and dying was a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. And some burning in his throat, too. Franklin wrote an ominous, upsetting letter to his family. That makes 21 that's died since I came here. Don't know who will be Next. There are 18 here now, and she expects more soon. Now, Franklin had only been at The Archer House 17 months. 21 deaths since he arrived in a group of elderly but mainly healthy people. That's more than one death per month. That is not normal and Franklin knew it. He mentioned Michael's death in every letter he wrote after Michael died. And he would total up the number of people who had died since he'd arrived. There was also stranger shit in the offing. Michael Gilligan's body was embalmed under the COVID of night as usual. And Amy told her friend that Michael had died of pneumonia, which was different from the likewise bizarre cause of death given by Dr. King. A brand new diagnosis that came from her own imagination. For Franklin, all the signs were pointing towards one thing. Amy Archer Gilligan was the one behind these deaths. She was killing her residents and she'd killed Michael. There was a ton of circumstantial evidence at this point. All the deaths of apparently healthy people were a sign that some foul play was at hand. Spiriting the bodies away at night made Amy look suspicious. But the fact that Michael died 36 hours, hours after signing over all his property to Amy, and then she was making up stories about the cause of his death. There was one small, satisfying irony in all of this. If Franklin's suspicions were right about Amy's scheme, even though Amy had control of Michael Gilligan's property and assets because of the will she made himself 36 hours before his death, she had to extend a grace period. That meant she had to publish a notice so any potential creditors could come make a claim. So his money was still a little tied up. It's not much justice, but I do love a dramatic irony like that, especially when it happens in real life. But what this also meant was Amy's situation remained somewhat the same financially because they had been married. Michael's death didn't open up another bed. She had no new revenue streams. So she started squeezing her current patients, asking them to withdraw their savings, asking them for loans, and all the while, patients were still dying. Then, true to form, when a resident died, Amy demanded that the body immediately be taken away and embalmed. But Amy still wasn't satisfied financially. Satisfied. That is, until a couple named the Goudies got in touch. They were in a situation like Franklin had been bouncing between relatives houses and sick of feeling like a burden. When they came by to tour the Archer home, Amy showed them a double room, the only one in the place. Amy said, this will be vacant very soon. That's when Franklin started to get sick. Join me next week on the Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told for the second episode of our two part miniseries on Amy Archer Gilligan, a tale of greed, violence and the consequences of an insatiable appetite. For more, we'll also be talking to M. William Phelps, who wrote the Devil's Rooming House. Phelps's book is full of incredible research on this case and it helped make it possible for me to tell this story. I'm very excited to bring you even more of his really sharp insights. For more information about this case and others we cover on the show, visit diversionaudio.com Sign up for diversion Audience Newsletter and be among the first to hear about special behind the scenes features with 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. Mary I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, I wrote this episode and our Editorial director is Nora Battelle. 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.
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