Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Bankey. New York
Speaker 1: City can be a harsh place during the winter. In
Speaker 1: January of the residents complained bitterly about the relentless blizzards
Speaker 1: and ice. To combat the weather, the mayor hired snow fighters,
Speaker 1: men who worked in shifts to keep the streets shoveled.
Speaker 1: Snow fell quicker than the men could shovel, though, and
Speaker 1: the freezing sleep that followed made travel hazardous, if not lethal.
Speaker 1: News about the war hadn't helped moral Typhoid Mary Mallon
Speaker 1: had recently broken quarantine to resume work as a cook,
Speaker 1: causing outbreaks across the city, and as bad as all
Speaker 1: that sounds, things were about to get worse. Fred Rick
Speaker 1: Moores walked into the police station and calmly announced he
Speaker 1: had just murdered eight people. At first, the officers thought
Speaker 1: that misunderstood him. Frederick Moore's wasn't his birth name. He
Speaker 1: told them he had changed it from Karl Manerick, but
Speaker 1: he chose Moore's because he liked the Latin phrase momento mori,
Speaker 1: which means remember you will die. He chose Frederick for
Speaker 1: its root words meaning peace and ruler. Moors told them
Speaker 1: he was a medical man, or at least that that
Speaker 1: was what he wanted to be. He had found a
Speaker 1: job at the German odd Fellows home for the elderly
Speaker 1: and yonkers, where he earned eighteen dollars a month, plus
Speaker 1: room and board in exchange for helping to care for
Speaker 1: the three fifty residents as a nurse. The job offered
Speaker 1: him the chance to practice medicine in peace. Although he
Speaker 1: worked as a nurse, he insisted the residents call him
Speaker 1: hair doctor. At this point police called in a translator,
Speaker 1: uncertain this man, who was admitting to murder and calling
Speaker 1: himself a doctor and peaceful ruler of death had a
Speaker 1: language barrier. It all sounded bizarre. The translator assured them
Speaker 1: they had heard correctly. Moores explained that he had wandered
Speaker 1: the halls wearing a white coat and stethoscope. The superintendent
Speaker 1: had asked him to hurry along with the deaths of
Speaker 1: the home sickest and most costly patients, a task Moore's
Speaker 1: felt was beneficial. The patients were old, and he believed
Speaker 1: it was kinder to kill them than let them linger.
Speaker 1: While he had initially decided on arsenic, he found that
Speaker 1: death was messy. The victim suffered for several days, becoming
Speaker 1: violently sick. In the meantime, after spending days cleaning up
Speaker 1: after the arsenic victim, chloroform became his poison of choice.
Speaker 1: In his own words, using the drug on the elderly
Speaker 1: was like putting a child to sleep. The police investigated
Speaker 1: the nursing home residence, and staff alike told them they
Speaker 1: didn't like or trust Mores. He had a short temper,
Speaker 1: and any resident not on his good side died shortly
Speaker 1: after any disagreement. One employee stated he had walked in
Speaker 1: on Moore's and the superintendent as they stood over a body.
Speaker 1: When he asked why the room smelled oddly sweet. The
Speaker 1: superintendent lit a cigar and Moore's opened a window. Neither
Speaker 1: man answered the original question. While prosecutors had a confession
Speaker 1: and testimony, it wouldn't be enough to convict Moore's or
Speaker 1: the superintendent. Patrick Reardon, the city's corner, insisted that testing
Speaker 1: for chloroform was impossible. The other corners and medical professionals disagreed.
Speaker 1: Reardon refused to exhume any of the bodies, and without testing.
Speaker 1: The district attorney didn't have a case with at least
Speaker 1: a confession in hand. Moore's was admitted to Bellevue for
Speaker 1: psychiatric evaluation. From there, he was moved to the Hudson
Speaker 1: River State Hospital for the Insane. The district attorney felt
Speaker 1: at least Moors would never be free to harm anyone again,
Speaker 1: until the day that Mores walked out the front doors,
Speaker 1: never to be seen again. I'm Lauren Vogelbond. Welcome to
Speaker 1: American Shadows. The scandal hit New York City in nineteen
Speaker 1: fift A local political organization, Tammany Hall, had long been
Speaker 1: a source of widespread corruption, from rigging elections to placing
Speaker 1: certain people in unelected positions. New Yorkers weren't particularly surprised
Speaker 1: when the story hit the papers. Of all the job
Speaker 1: positions crooked politicians negotiated and promised corner didn't immediately come
Speaker 1: to mind. Yet there was money to be made in
Speaker 1: the recently deceased, and in certain investigations it paid to
Speaker 1: have autopsy results show certain outpumps. The city paid out
Speaker 1: over a hundred and seventy two thousand dollars a year
Speaker 1: to its corners and their assistants. Im many not only
Speaker 1: drew a nice salary, but they also earned commissions. Hiring
Speaker 1: corrupt staff who performed certain favors came with an additional cost.
Speaker 1: Taxpayers of corners often build the city twice for the
Speaker 1: same body, and few corners were as corrupt as Patrick Reardon.
Speaker 1: He had once been a doctor, but lost his license
Speaker 1: for frequently being too drunk to practice medicine. Lucky for him,
Speaker 1: the dead rarely complained. That didn't mean that journalists, the
Speaker 1: d A, and city commissioner weren't wise to Reardon's antics,
Speaker 1: though he had been the reason More's and the superintendent
Speaker 1: at the local nursing home had gotten away with multiple murders.
Speaker 1: Reardon had a habit of showing up to tragic accidents
Speaker 1: so drunk that he needed his assistant to hold him upright.
Speaker 1: Such was the case on December eighth of nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: when a train slammed into the back of another car
Speaker 1: waiting at the station on one sixteen. When Reardon saw
Speaker 1: the bodies, he made a single comment that the names
Speaker 1: of the deceased were hardly distinguished enough to warrant anyone
Speaker 1: coming out on such a miserable night. City Commissioner Leonard
Speaker 1: Walstein was at the time the bane of Tammany Hall's existence.
Speaker 1: He released a lengthy report on the state of the
Speaker 1: city's coroner's office, particularly reared him. He pushed for reform
Speaker 1: that would require a qualified and licensed doctor to head
Speaker 1: up the coroner's office. Unfortunately, nothing changed, reared In remained
Speaker 1: in charge. Walstein worked with local journalists to raise the
Speaker 1: alarm again, this time printing a story that drew national attention.
Speaker 1: They alleged that reared In had performed illegal autopsies since
Speaker 1: he wasn't really licensed. To stop the embarrassment, the governor
Speaker 1: insisted that rear didn't be fired and that a qualified
Speaker 1: corner be placed in the job instead. In a childish
Speaker 1: fit of anger, Mayor John Highland made sure the most
Speaker 1: qualified candidate did not get the job. Instead, he hired
Speaker 1: the second most qualified in the hopes that the new
Speaker 1: corner would fail. The mayor soon regretted his decision. Doctor
Speaker 1: Charles Norris had been educated at Columbia and Yale. His
Speaker 1: father was a merchant banker, and his maternal grandfather had
Speaker 1: been the president of the Bank of Commerce. The family
Speaker 1: had a history of being hard working and patriotic traits
Speaker 1: Norris inherited. He was a large and cheerful man with
Speaker 1: an oversized mustache and a lively sense of humor. He
Speaker 1: did need that sense of humor. While the mayor remained
Speaker 1: determined to keep corruption front and center, Norris cleaned house.
Speaker 1: As the new chief corner. He hired an exceptionally talented
Speaker 1: chemist from Columbia University named Alexander Getler, and a brilliant
Speaker 1: doctor from Harlem, Thomas Gonzalez. Together they whipped the Medical
Speaker 1: Examiner's office into proper shape. Unhappy that the men had
Speaker 1: made such progress, high him slashed the budget. Undeterred, Norris
Speaker 1: fought for better pay and working conditions for his staff.
Speaker 1: He also insisted on proper procedures and the use of
Speaker 1: standard scientific investigations. Norris tasked the chemist Getler with inventing
Speaker 1: new tests for elusive poisons, a challenge that the new
Speaker 1: chief toxicologists settled into with ease. Outwardly professional, to the
Speaker 1: point that one journalist labeled him as interesting as table salt,
Speaker 1: Getler was anything but highly competitive and outbowing. He had
Speaker 1: an unquenchable love of chemistry. Like his boss, Norris, Getler
Speaker 1: had a strong work ethic. Unlike his boss, Getler, the
Speaker 1: son of poor Jewish Hungarian immigrants, didn't have family money.
Speaker 1: He had worked hard to put himself through college. Outside
Speaker 1: of his job, he spent his time at ballgames, bowling,
Speaker 1: and cards. Both men were well aware of the Medical
Speaker 1: examiner offices corrupt history, and that the mayor had it
Speaker 1: out for them. The public also had a distrust of
Speaker 1: the office and the science behind it. Even though the
Speaker 1: men had come from opposite social and economic circumstances, they
Speaker 1: were in step with each other and had great plans
Speaker 1: for the future of criminal science and pathology. Norris and
Speaker 1: Getler not only began building an efficient and effective office,
Speaker 1: they carved out their reputations in a new field, forensic medicine.
Speaker 1: Though Getler was dedicated to his job, the mayor's budget
Speaker 1: cuts meant he had to work outside the department to
Speaker 1: pay the bills. He alternated between teaching as an associate
Speaker 1: professor at New York University and as a chemical pathologist
Speaker 1: at both Bellevue and Allied Hospitals. Though it would have
Speaker 1: been easier to accept bribes, Getler's moral compass was as
Speaker 1: strong as his work ethic. A confident in his skill
Speaker 1: set and his labs equipment. Getler refused to alter his
Speaker 1: testimony or his chemical analysis. However, by in nine three,
Speaker 1: one woman would cause him to doubt himself. Mary Frances
Speaker 1: had dark hair, expressive eyes, and a rosy complexion. She
Speaker 1: married John Crichton in nineteen nineteen when she was twenty one.
Speaker 1: The newlyweds quickly moved into his family home, a large
Speaker 1: two story house in Newark, New Jersey. Mary had grown
Speaker 1: up poor, while John, the son of a prominent Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: Railroad Company executive, was accustomed to the finer things in life.
Speaker 1: Neighbors had always liked the elder Creton's, but they didn't
Speaker 1: think much of their son's new bride. Mary didn't get
Speaker 1: along with a lot of people, including her siblings, with
Speaker 1: whom she had fought over their parents maker will. She
Speaker 1: wasn't social. The couple had no friends to speak of,
Speaker 1: and Mary had never gotten along with her in laws.
Speaker 1: Neighbors often heard Mary fighting bitterly with her mother in law,
Speaker 1: in particular. In nineteen twenty, John and Mary had their
Speaker 1: first child, Ruth. That same year, the elder Missus Crichton
Speaker 1: died of food poisoning. A year later, Mary's father in
Speaker 1: law died of a sudden heart ailment. John didn't have
Speaker 1: any siblings, and the couple inherited everything. Three years later,
Speaker 1: they welcomed an infant's son, John Junior. Neighbors had noticed
Speaker 1: a shift over the past couple of years. Mary, who
Speaker 1: had never been friendly, was now downright rude and combative,
Speaker 1: and she complained about everything, well, everything except when her
Speaker 1: eighteen year old brother, Raymond, came for a weekend to visit.
Speaker 1: Mary convinced him to stay longer, and even found him
Speaker 1: a job in a local store, sweeping floors and stalking shelves.
Speaker 1: In April of that year, Raymond went to a doctor
Speaker 1: complaining about a dull egg in his abdomen, having a
Speaker 1: constant thirst and a dried out tongue. Thinking the young
Speaker 1: man had an infection, the doctor prescribed a tonic. A
Speaker 1: week later, Raymond returned with additional symptoms, a sore throat
Speaker 1: and nausea. On the twentieth, he suffered a seizure. When
Speaker 1: the doctor arrived, Raymond was shaking violently and vomiting uncontrollably.
Speaker 1: Within minutes, he was dead. The doctor didn't understand what
Speaker 1: had happened, but thought perhaps had died of a severe
Speaker 1: case of gastro enteritis. Not long after Raymond's death, a
Speaker 1: letter showed up at the local police station calling out
Speaker 1: the unusual deaths of the Crichton house, starting with Raymond.
Speaker 1: The anonymous sender stated that Mary was a killer and
Speaker 1: that the detectives should investigate. While it certainly didn't constitute proof,
Speaker 1: the letter convinced detectives to talk with Raymond's doctor, who
Speaker 1: by now had also had second thoughts about the cause
Speaker 1: of death and about Mary's involvement. He remembered Raymond complaining
Speaker 1: about his sister's insistence that he eat chocolate pudding every day.
Speaker 1: The owner of the store Raymond worked at had seen
Speaker 1: Mary show up at the store if Raymond forgot to
Speaker 1: eat his pudding and made him eat it before she left.
Speaker 1: Believing Mary might have poisoned the chocolate pudding, detectives searched
Speaker 1: the house. They found a bottle of Fowler's tonic, which
Speaker 1: promised translucent skin with its rich arsenic formula, and they
Speaker 1: arrested Mary on the spot. The coroner's office ordered Raymond's
Speaker 1: body exhumed for a more thorough autopsy. Meanwhile, John and
Speaker 1: Mary hired James McCarthy, the best defense attorney in the state.
Speaker 1: The lawyer told the press that the critons had been
Speaker 1: in shock at Raymond's passing. McCarthy suggested that Raymond must
Speaker 1: have taken Fowler's tonnic himself. He presented a strong pace
Speaker 1: of how readily available arsenic was to the public. It
Speaker 1: was impractically any store. When the jury returned a not
Speaker 1: guilty verdict, a journalist noted Mary's quick smile before collapsing
Speaker 1: into her husband's arms. Though acquitted of murdering her brother,
Speaker 1: detectives arrested Mary once more, this time for the death
Speaker 1: of her in laws. The pace drew so many onlookers
Speaker 1: that pathologists had to perform the autopsy's grave side. While
Speaker 1: the older Mr Crichton showed no signs of arsenic poisoning,
Speaker 1: his wife Annie did. A nurse testified that Mary adamantly
Speaker 1: served her mother in law hot chocolate every day, and
Speaker 1: McCarthy called in Alexander Getler as well as other prominent pathologists.
Speaker 1: Getler determined the levels of arsenic were too small to
Speaker 1: have caused Annie Cretton's death. Instead, he found traces of
Speaker 1: bismuth and a prescription of Annie's He told the court
Speaker 1: that she had probably died from mixing medications, not from
Speaker 1: arsenic poisoning itself. Mary Francis grinned at the prosecution as
Speaker 1: she walked out of the courtroom, a free woman once again.
Speaker 1: Charles Norris was tired. Ten years of running the department
Speaker 1: and fighting corrupt politicians had taken its toll on the
Speaker 1: usually cheerful chief corner. He had fought against ignorance and
Speaker 1: corruption for so long that the murders, poisonings, and other
Speaker 1: deaths practically ran together. Had also poured a considerable amount
Speaker 1: of his own money into the department for equipment, and
Speaker 1: what he got for his efforts was an accusation of embezzlement.
Speaker 1: The new mayor, LaGuardia, believed that all mayors who had
Speaker 1: come before him and their employees must be corrupt. Though
Speaker 1: a thorough investigation showed the coroner had put money into
Speaker 1: the department instead of taking it out, the accusations took
Speaker 1: poll on Norris. Even after returning from a long overdue vacation,
Speaker 1: he had little of his old energy. On September eleven five,
Speaker 1: he died in his bed rule heart failure. Friends and
Speaker 1: family said he had worked himself to death, Thomas Gonzalez
Speaker 1: took over the office. Getler stayed on as the chief toxicologist,
Speaker 1: and life went on. Two weeks later, a case came
Speaker 1: into the office. Thirty six year old housewife Ada Applegate
Speaker 1: had died after a bout of vomiting and stomach pain.
Speaker 1: Her doctor had initially thought she had a gallbladder attack
Speaker 1: and had hospitalized her. She got better until she returned home.
Speaker 1: A few days later. Her husband, Everett, called the doctor again.
Speaker 1: By the time he arrived, Ada was already dead. The
Speaker 1: doctor's notes about the manner of death were one thing,
Speaker 1: but there was a name connected to the case that
Speaker 1: grabbed Getler's attention, Mary Francis Crichton. As it turned out,
Speaker 1: the Applegates had moved in with the Creton's after both
Speaker 1: sides had fallen on hard times during the depression. Twelve
Speaker 1: years had passed. Ruth was now fifteen and John Jr.
Speaker 1: Was twelve. Unease and guilt washed over him. A certain
Speaker 1: Mary had gotten away with murder before. He wasn't about
Speaker 1: to let her get away with it again. Getler notified
Speaker 1: the police. The detectives ran into a snag, though Ada's
Speaker 1: husband refused to allow the medical examiner's office to exhume
Speaker 1: her body. When they told him that in cases where
Speaker 1: they suspected homicide, they'd get permission with or without him,
Speaker 1: he finally relented. Getler found that AIDA's organs were full
Speaker 1: of arsenip three times the lethal dose. Given Mary's past
Speaker 1: and Everett's reluctance to exume his wife's body, the two
Speaker 1: were arrested for murder. Detectives suspected an affair between the
Speaker 1: pair and questioned them separately. Everett laughed them off. He
Speaker 1: told them Mary hadn't aged well. He described her as
Speaker 1: having a frog like appearance in a mean streak a
Speaker 1: mile wide. He told them to ask anyone in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood about her. Still positive that something was going on,
Speaker 1: the detectives dug deeper and discovered that there was an
Speaker 1: affair and they had just had the wrong partner. Thirty
Speaker 1: six year old Everett had been sleeping with fifteen year
Speaker 1: old Ruth, and when the trial began in mid January
Speaker 1: of ninety six, he testified that his wife knew everything
Speaker 1: and stood in the way of him marrying Ruth. They
Speaker 1: had been fighting over his relationship with Ruth one day
Speaker 1: when he slapped his wife, Ada threatened to expose his secret,
Speaker 1: angry had knocked her to the ground. The only one
Speaker 1: in the house who hadn't known about the relationship was John.
Speaker 1: He worked so much that he was rarely home. Mary
Speaker 1: admitted that the house had become too crowded, Thinking her
Speaker 1: daughter would move out if married, she strongly encouraged her
Speaker 1: daughter to sleep with Everett and tracked her menstrual cycle
Speaker 1: to prevent pregnancy. Everett told the court that as bad
Speaker 1: as it looked, it had been Mary Francis who suggested murdering.
Speaker 1: Ada had even driven her to the store to buy
Speaker 1: rat poison. Mary said that while she had bought arsenic,
Speaker 1: she had done so at Everett's request and hadn't given
Speaker 1: another thought until detectives questioned her. She also insisted that
Speaker 1: while she had fed Ada milk and eggs, Everett had
Speaker 1: handed her some powder to mix in with them. She
Speaker 1: told the court she had no idea it was rat poison.
Speaker 1: The jury didn't buy the blame game and deflections and
Speaker 1: found them both guilty. The court scheduled Everett and Mary
Speaker 1: to both die in the electric chair. Underly. Everett insisted
Speaker 1: he was innocent to the very end. Mary didn't handle
Speaker 1: it quite as calmly, and she claimed she could no
Speaker 1: longer walk and had to be wheeled in. She clutched
Speaker 1: a rosary tightly in her hand, saying she had recently
Speaker 1: found religion and had prayed to God to help her.
Speaker 1: As the current course threw her, the rosary beads flew
Speaker 1: from her hands and scattered on the floor. Arsenic had
Speaker 1: been what pathologists called a first time poisoner's choice for
Speaker 1: a reason availability. In fact, death by arsenic had been
Speaker 1: incredibly common for a very long time. The French even
Speaker 1: had a nickname for it. The in Barton's Powder Arsmith
Speaker 1: was everywhere. It's green tint went into dies for wallpaper
Speaker 1: and cloth, and every store sold rat bait and pest
Speaker 1: control laced with arsenic. It could be found in creams, ointments,
Speaker 1: and medications. However, it had a drawback being metallic in nature,
Speaker 1: it was easy to trace in the human body. The
Speaker 1: first tests for arstic poisoning were developed in eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: and only grew more reliable over time. So why did
Speaker 1: first time murderers use a poison that could be traced
Speaker 1: so easily. Arsenic manics symptoms of several long term illnesses fatigue, nausea, cramps, dizziness,
Speaker 1: and disorientation, to name a few. This left many poisonings undetected,
Speaker 1: at least at first. The problem was that murderers often
Speaker 1: returned to using whatever worked for them in the past.
Speaker 1: Getler suffered extreme guilt. After seeing Mary's name and AIDA's
Speaker 1: death report, detectives launched a second investigation into the murder
Speaker 1: of Annie Crichton. Getler was relieved when further tests showed
Speaker 1: no signs of chemical poisoning, but the investigation did uncover
Speaker 1: that Mary had poisoned and killed someone else before her brother.
Speaker 1: When confronted with the evidence before her execution, Mary admitted
Speaker 1: to the crime, stating she was surprised she had gotten
Speaker 1: away with it. She hadn't used the Fowler's tonic the
Speaker 1: police had found, She had left that as a decoy. Instead,
Speaker 1: she had purchased the pesticide rough on rats, the very
Speaker 1: same poison she had bought to kill Ada Applegate. When
Speaker 1: she had finished, she smuggled the wrappings out of the
Speaker 1: house and disposed of them elsewhere. When asked why she
Speaker 1: had killed her brother, Mary smiled and said it was
Speaker 1: for the insurance money. Roughly a thousand dollars frustratingly, though
Speaker 1: at least for her, her legal fees had taken most
Speaker 1: of it. It's clear that Mary had fooled people before
Speaker 1: and believed she could do it again. But she hadn't
Speaker 1: planned on Getler looking into the poisoning after the last
Speaker 1: trial ended, and she certainly didn't know the effort Norris
Speaker 1: and the team had put into furthering forensic science, and
Speaker 1: all of that ended up foiling her plans. They had
Speaker 1: presented enough evidence and conducted their testing so professionally that
Speaker 1: Mary didn't stand a chance of slipping through their net.
Speaker 1: The case against her was air tight. There's more to
Speaker 1: this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to
Speaker 1: hear all about it. Their courtship spanned eight years. Charles
Speaker 1: Webb tried to get Gertrude Gorman to commit, but forty
Speaker 1: year old Gertie had never been able to make decisions
Speaker 1: regarding her life. The only daughter of a very wealthy
Speaker 1: widow from an even wealthier family, Gertie's relatives weren't keen
Speaker 1: on Charles. While she found the fifty year old quiet
Speaker 1: and soft spoken, they remained suspicious about his motives. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a secret that Gertie's mother was terminally ill. After all, Ever,
Speaker 1: the dutiful daughter, Gertie stayed by her mother's side until
Speaker 1: she passed away. In Then, without her mother to care for,
Speaker 1: Gertie and Charles spent more time together. Two years later,
Speaker 1: they finally wed, and Charles promptly moved into the Madison
Speaker 1: Avenue home Gertie had shared with her mother, much to
Speaker 1: the dismay of the rest of the family. The newlyweds
Speaker 1: took a series of short and elaborate vacations together and
Speaker 1: visited friends for ten straight months. It looked like pure
Speaker 1: wetted bliss, but by September of n Gertie was dead.
Speaker 1: Her uncle, William T. Hunter immediately called a press conference.
Speaker 1: He stood in his garden surrounded by reporters. He was
Speaker 1: suspicious of his niece's death and subtly hinted that her
Speaker 1: husband might have had something to do with it. Careful
Speaker 1: not to accuse Earl's outright, he mentioned his niece had
Speaker 1: died from poison by chloride of mercury, white crystalline and
Speaker 1: highly poisonous salt derived from mercury and chlorine. Mercury wasn't
Speaker 1: all that hard to come by. It had been used
Speaker 1: as a cure for all sorts of ailments, though mostly
Speaker 1: as a treatment for syphilis, But when it came to mercury,
Speaker 1: it was common knowledge that the cure could be deadlier
Speaker 1: than the disease months or years later. Mercury exposure often
Speaker 1: caused a variety of cancers. Mercury salt poisoning was easier
Speaker 1: and faster than the slippery liquid counterpart. The substance was
Speaker 1: so corrosive that it could burn through mouth and stomach tissue,
Speaker 1: loosening teeth and causing bleeding ulcers. Hunter told the press
Speaker 1: that Gertie's marriage had taken everyone in the family by surprise.
Speaker 1: No one had expected her to marry and thought she'd
Speaker 1: spend the rest of her life devoted to family. Her
Speaker 1: husband had come from nothing and had been well aware
Speaker 1: of the family fortune approximately two million dollars, which would
Speaker 1: amount to some twenty five million today. The family insisted
Speaker 1: on sending the autopsy report and further tissue sampling to
Speaker 1: New York City and Alexander Getler for further tests. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the press dug into the story. Gertie's family weren't the
Speaker 1: only one suspicious of Charles. The trouble had started in
Speaker 1: August of when Gurdie and Charles vacation at the Westchester
Speaker 1: Country Club. The resort boasted grand hotels, spas, a golf course,
Speaker 1: and other amenities catering to the rich. It wasn't Gertie's
Speaker 1: favorite spot, but Charles had talked her into it. That week,
Speaker 1: Gertie fell ill, complaining of a pain in her side
Speaker 1: and shortness of breath. Charles called for a doctor, who
Speaker 1: diagnosed her with mild pneumonia. Dr Meyer had come highly
Speaker 1: recommended by his wealthy clientele. Meyer also like to say
Speaker 1: he was an amateur detective, and in this case he
Speaker 1: instantly thought something was awry. Nothing he described worked, and
Speaker 1: Gertie only grew sicker, developing a waxy complexion. Thinking the
Speaker 1: illness was unnatural, he borrowed Charles from seeing his wife
Speaker 1: without explaining why. The next time Charles saw his wife,
Speaker 1: she was dead. While the press dug into the story
Speaker 1: behind Gertie's death, Getler was busy in the lab he
Speaker 1: found traces of mercury and her kidneys. Between the death
Speaker 1: of his wife and the discovery of poison in her autopsy,
Speaker 1: Charles Webb was having a really bad time, and it
Speaker 1: was about to get worse. The family pointed to Gertie's
Speaker 1: recently updated will, which left everything down to her last
Speaker 1: possession and penny to her husband. Charles and his attorneys
Speaker 1: showed there was another will at Charles had insisted that
Speaker 1: he not inherit everything, but sadly she had been too
Speaker 1: ill to sign it. After a battery of tests, Getler
Speaker 1: determined that Charles hadn't killed his wife. What he did
Speaker 1: find was plenty of pneumonia in her lungs and disease
Speaker 1: to kidneys stemming from laxative prescribed to her by Manhattan doctor,
Speaker 1: and the prescription contained a milder form of mercury salt,
Speaker 1: but still enough to kill her. On October one, the
Speaker 1: Westchester Grand Jury examined the evidence Getler provided and determined
Speaker 1: Charles was innocent. This time, Getler slept at night, knowing
Speaker 1: he had saved an innocent man. Gertie's family insisted that
Speaker 1: Charles still owed them his wife's inheritance. Instead, Charles used
Speaker 1: some of the money to uphold his wife's wishes, establishing
Speaker 1: a park in honor of Guardie's mother, though he added
Speaker 1: his wife's name to the Park as well, and then
Speaker 1: Charles cut ties with Gertie's family and lived out his
Speaker 1: days in peace. M M American Shadows is hosted by
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched
Speaker 1: by Ali Steed, and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young,
Speaker 1: with executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the show, visit GRIM and MIL
Speaker 1: dot com. From more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.