Speaker 1: Wait, are two people a group?
Speaker 2: You're listening Today and Nightshade? Before we begin our dive
Speaker 2: into the world of all things poison A quick note.
Speaker 2: This podcast discusses real life cases involving poisoning, violence, and death,
Speaker 2: which some listeners may find upsetting. Please listen at your
Speaker 2: own risk. This episode includes references to infant and child death.
Speaker 2: Take care while listening and enjoy the episode. Hey, Hi, Hello,
Speaker 2: Welcome to Day in Nightshade, the podcast where history's most
Speaker 2: infamous poisoners meet their match, and by match I mean
Speaker 2: well us armed with quite frankly unhealthy amount of research.
Speaker 2: I'm Jay, I'm one of your guys for this episode
Speaker 2: through the murky world of Victorian England and the somewhat
Speaker 2: stupid poisoner mister William Palmer.
Speaker 1: And I'm Katie here to provide some scientific insight, a
Speaker 1: brain full of random facts, and the occasional shocked gasp.
Speaker 1: So this is the very first episode of what we
Speaker 1: hope will be a very long running podcast, Day and Nightshade.
Speaker 2: We both don't want it to end, really no, it's
Speaker 2: the only way that we can force each other to
Speaker 2: spend time with each other because we have ADHD and
Speaker 2: we keep forgetting to communicate. But also I live in
Speaker 2: a different country, and like I said, I'm Jay. I
Speaker 2: live in Germany near the Black Forest, near the Black Forest,
Speaker 2: which is a cool place and it's back poisons and mushrooms.
Speaker 2: But it means that we can't see each other in
Speaker 2: person all that often.
Speaker 1: Hm.
Speaker 2: And so this podcast is a way to keep our
Speaker 2: friendship alive. That's basically what we're doing it for. So
Speaker 2: you need to listen to it otherwise you're gonna ruin
Speaker 2: a friendship. It's gonna be your fault.
Speaker 1: It will be your fault.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to introduce people to the threat. No,
Speaker 2: we've been friends for almost ten years, regardless of me
Speaker 2: being in Germany or not. And yeah, we both have
Speaker 2: a fascination for true crime and very specifically for poisons
Speaker 2: and poisoners.
Speaker 1: You might know Katie. You might know me from my
Speaker 1: globally chartbing Pooda. You might know me from podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah you're so famous.
Speaker 1: I'm no. I actually have a sweatshirt that says nobody
Speaker 1: nobody cares if your Internet famous.
Speaker 2: I definitely don't care. I knew you before the fame,
Speaker 2: that's true, that's just poisoned you No, Katie's podcast is awesome.
Speaker 2: It's Who Did What Now pod if you want to
Speaker 2: listen to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I'm probably gonna as you may
Speaker 1: be listening to this episode as a preliminary drop on
Speaker 1: my podcast channel, just just so that you know where
Speaker 1: you're going to be going.
Speaker 2: We will be doing the things.
Speaker 1: We will be doing things, so make sure to share
Speaker 1: care and let's in to day and night Hade. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Today, as I said, we're going to be talking about
Speaker 2: William Palmer, doctor, gambler, murderer, a man who you think
Speaker 2: would be good at those three things, but no, no,
Speaker 2: he was shockingly terrible at every single one of them,
Speaker 2: and extremely bad at hiding his crimes.
Speaker 1: For someone called the Prince of Poisoners, he had all
Speaker 1: the subtlety of a bull and a China show.
Speaker 2: Honestly, if poisoners had a ranking scale, he'd be somewhere
Speaker 2: between Captain obvious and practically waving a giant red flag.
Speaker 1: And yet somehow he still managed to mudder at least
Speaker 1: fourteen people allegedly allegedly.
Speaker 2: We can't it's been a long time, but it's alleged.
Speaker 2: We don't know. Important word there allegedly, because if he's
Speaker 2: listening from the afterlife, I'd like to say, William, buddy,
Speaker 2: we know you did it. It's pretty damn obvious.
Speaker 1: And the jury is certainly though still as well. So anyway,
Speaker 1: let's get back to where it all began. Shall we
Speaker 1: about to make an angel music joke like heart playing.
Speaker 1: I went with them lesbian purring for some reason I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Picture the scene. Picture the scene, Katie in your
Speaker 2: mind's eye. I'm picturing Roxley, Staffordshire, England, the year eighteen
Speaker 2: twenty four. A child is born, No, not into poverty,
Speaker 2: but into a wealthy family with eight kids. Nope, yes, nope, yes, no, yes,
Speaker 2: two parents, Sarah and Joseph Palmer, and eight kids, eight kids,
Speaker 2: eight yes.
Speaker 1: Little fresh humans. And they had money. The thing that wait,
Speaker 1: the thing that usually helps people like not become criminals.
Speaker 2: You'd think that, you'd think that it would, but no, See,
Speaker 2: mister Palmer had a gift. He could take a perfectly
Speaker 2: fine situation and completely ruin it, destroy it, goodbye, Calm
Speaker 2: Hello William Palmer.
Speaker 1: I mean that is a little bit relatable. Infirm as
Speaker 1: he falls into roses and comes out smell and the
Speaker 1: ship seems to be a bit.
Speaker 2: Seems to be my life. But the thing is that,
Speaker 2: dear William, that I didn't murder people. So as much
Speaker 2: as I can relate slightly, I don't relate to that yet.
Speaker 1: For legally, that was a joke.
Speaker 2: Jo, that was a joke. It's one of those joke
Speaker 2: things that I sometimes do. So his father, his father,
Speaker 2: his father was a sawyer. Do you say he was
Speaker 2: a sawyer? He was? He was a sawyer. You say so,
Speaker 2: I know, so, you say so, I saw so, you
Speaker 2: saw so he was a sawyer.
Speaker 1: I saw so he's a sawyer.
Speaker 2: This makes no sense.
Speaker 1: So a sawyer, for those of you who don't know,
Speaker 1: is a person who works in a saw mill.
Speaker 2: Nice little tip bit of ben further, thank you.
Speaker 1: Can I also like interject with a weak question. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: his father was a sawyer and they were rich.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the likelihood is he owned the saw mill,
Speaker 2: or at least had some level of misteaks in it.
Speaker 2: But Joseph Palmer, his father actually died when William was
Speaker 2: twelve and left the family with a seventy thousand pound inheritance.
Speaker 2: Sevent seventy thousand pounds then.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that would be I'm sorry, over six million
Speaker 1: pounds today. Okay, I'm sorry, colored me suspicious?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the life insurance that he managed
Speaker 2: to take out as a sawyer for seventy thousand pounds
Speaker 2: six million. We're gonna say six million, because that's what
Speaker 2: we can understand, is that that much money. He got
Speaker 2: life insurance for six million, and they somehow managed to
Speaker 2: make that happen. But anyway, back to William. So, William
Speaker 2: ended up going to study medicine. He became a doctor
Speaker 2: and like, for a while there, everything in his life
Speaker 2: was calm, everything seemed fine. But you see, William had
Speaker 2: a fatal flaw strick naight, I mean yeah. But what
Speaker 2: I'm talking here though, is gambling. Typically, the man adored
Speaker 2: a good racetrack, loved his horses. He loved his horses.
Speaker 2: He got so deep into debt that his medical practice
Speaker 2: basically became a side hustle to like fund his racing addiction.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a perfectly reasonable combination to me, desperate
Speaker 1: gambler who has access to a large amount of deadly substances.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And now William Palmer began his so I say,
Speaker 2: slow descent.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that slow. It was a bit swift. It
Speaker 1: was with swift.
Speaker 2: But his descent into crime. Speed can be negotiated, can it?
Speaker 1: Can it be negotiated?
Speaker 2: We can. We can talk about how much time means
Speaker 2: to us at a different point. But Palmer's family, so
Speaker 2: he ended up marrying a woman named Anne Thornton.
Speaker 1: Let me just look into that quickly.
Speaker 2: Did he marry into the Thornton chocolate family? That would
Speaker 2: be a great one.
Speaker 1: I don't think it would be.
Speaker 2: But no, and Thornton and she had money, which it
Speaker 2: turned out was really convenient because well.
Speaker 1: Palmer gambled all his own money away. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Correct, So now and conveniently died in eighteen fifty four,
Speaker 2: which was only a few months after Palmer took out
Speaker 2: a life insurance policy.
Speaker 1: On her night when a tragic and totally unforeseeable event.
Speaker 2: Honestly, the eighteen hundreds were wild, Like if your husband
Speaker 2: took out a life insurance policy on you, you bet
Speaker 2: I'd have started running, because that's basically a death sentence
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's not a super fun time to be
Speaker 1: living in.
Speaker 2: In fairness Victorian England Victorian generally Victorian.
Speaker 1: Generally Victorian England. I mean, everything's out to kill you. Yeah, wallpaper,
Speaker 1: your husband.
Speaker 2: We went in two very different directions. But yes, the husband.
Speaker 2: But she died. But she, honestly, in this situation, wasn't
Speaker 2: the only suspicious death. They had four children together, and
Speaker 2: all of them died young, some of whom were infants
Speaker 2: at the time of their deaths Now, obviously the mortality
Speaker 2: rate higher, but all of.
Speaker 1: Them, all of them. I'm sorry, all of.
Speaker 2: Them, every last one. But this was Victorian England. Like
Speaker 2: I said to people were like, oh dear, what tragic
Speaker 2: luck another infant mortality?
Speaker 1: Tragic luck or highly suspect coincidence.
Speaker 2: See, we have the privilege of looking at this from
Speaker 2: a twenty first century perspective. But actually, do you know,
Speaker 2: oh historian, what the child mortality rate was in Victorian England?
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, So this, say, is what my eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: which would mean about fifteen to twenty percent of children
Speaker 1: died before the age of one, and about twenty five
Speaker 1: to thirty percent didn't make it to age five.
Speaker 2: That is a large number. That's actually insane. But these crimes, though,
Speaker 2: that the death of his wife and his four children,
Speaker 2: they were not what exposed him What exposed his crimes
Speaker 2: to the world, or well to England at the time,
Speaker 2: was the murder of a so called best friend, John
Speaker 2: Parsons Cook.
Speaker 1: Oh his best day. Yeah, he murdered his best day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they were gambling buddies.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah. He spent most of his time in
Speaker 2: a doctor's office or at the race track. So it's
Speaker 2: really either a nurse, a doctor, or a gambler. I
Speaker 2: mean yeah, that's his social circle. Maybe a jockey if
Speaker 2: he's lucky enough, but that's that's who he hung out with.
Speaker 2: But in eighteen fifty five, John Cook won an absolutely
Speaker 2: massive payout at the time of three thousand pounds.
Speaker 1: Which today and today's money would be near lay half
Speaker 1: a million pounds bet his absolute best pound buddy of friend,
Speaker 1: Palmer was so happy for.
Speaker 2: Him, oh, absolutely, In fact, he was so delighted for
Speaker 2: him that he immediately started poisoning him.
Speaker 1: So thoughtful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so half a million. Can we just take a minute,
Speaker 2: half a million pounds on a horse. I don't know
Speaker 2: what he bet to win three thousand, but you know
Speaker 2: it was odd, that's what I mean, the odds of
Speaker 2: like we don't know what he must have seen, Like
Speaker 2: he won three thousand pounds, which at the time was
Speaker 2: a large amount of money.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry, three thousand pounds now money. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind winning three thousand pounds either, would I.
Speaker 2: But when it's the equivalent of half a million on
Speaker 2: a horse that want to race because it ran fast.
Speaker 1: I mean they go first.
Speaker 2: Though. Yeah, we won't get into the ethics of horse
Speaker 2: riding're riding.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I mean I'm not saying.
Speaker 2: I would have gone, oh yeah, shit, I better poison
Speaker 2: this guy for his half a million. But I would
Speaker 2: have been proudly like, hey, bestI you got like some
Speaker 2: square change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sharing his caring friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just not poisoning anyway. The two of them start
Speaker 2: were staying in a place called Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury, and
Speaker 2: they were celebrating Cook's big win. But suddenly, coincidentally, Cook
Speaker 2: started to feel extremely ill.
Speaker 1: And let me guess, Palmer, being a trained doctrinal, was
Speaker 1: very eager to help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was such a helpful friend, William so Palmer
Speaker 2: he ended up taking it upon him to quote unquote
Speaker 2: treat Cook's stomach issues that he was having. And by treat,
Speaker 2: I mean he was definitely dosing him up with strychnine
Speaker 2: before dying. Cook actually began to scream, I am poisoned.
Speaker 1: Well that should be case closed.
Speaker 2: Really, that should be it, shouldn't it. The dying man
Speaker 2: screaming I am poisoned, and the only person with him
Speaker 2: being a doctor with access to poison, one.
Speaker 1: Would think it's abouty opening shotcase.
Speaker 2: Anyway, imagine your murder victim loudly announcing that they've been
Speaker 2: poisoned to the world, to the room, and you think
Speaker 2: I can definitely walk away from this.
Speaker 1: This is not exactly criminal mastermind behavior.
Speaker 2: Well, you've heard us mentioned it a couple of times now,
Speaker 2: and since this is a poison podcast, strychnine Katie, what
Speaker 2: do you know about this poison?
Speaker 1: Do I know about poison? Let me get my big
Speaker 1: book of poisons.
Speaker 2: What is Stryck nine? What does it do?
Speaker 1: Stryck nine? It was an over the count like you
Speaker 1: can get it over the counter.
Speaker 2: Oh, like pain killers?
Speaker 1: Okay? What does it do? Though? It killed him? I
Speaker 1: mean yes it did. Listen, you're getting a backstory, okay, oh,
Speaker 1: the full backstory. The story you will, you will. It
Speaker 1: had been used like quite a lot. It was in tonics.
Speaker 1: It was used as like appetites of pressants, all these,
Speaker 1: all these things. However, it was mainly used as a
Speaker 1: poison to kill animals.
Speaker 2: Okay, so like rats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it gets better. But then sort of in
Speaker 1: the Victorian era, it became how did I put this
Speaker 1: gently a performance enhancing drug because it had effects like coffee,
Speaker 1: So they thought it would be like I'm met to
Speaker 1: go first. I'm so oh.
Speaker 2: We went with two different performance enhancing drugs. There meantag
Speaker 2: I thought they were to have better sex. I thought
Speaker 2: that's what you were Oh my god. I was like,
Speaker 2: it kills animals, let's give it to me sex life. Jesus,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. I should have horrified the performance in
Speaker 2: my fault. It's also the way you looked at me,
Speaker 2: like wiggling the eyebrows performance enhancing drug. I'm like, what
Speaker 2: am I supposed to think?
Speaker 1: It's toldly because I don't have botogs and now when
Speaker 1: I can actually move them. Books Another phone poison, which
Speaker 1: we will be covering at some point too. Strict nine
Speaker 1: affects a person's ability to control movement. And what this
Speaker 1: does is it binds one of the two neurotransmittals that
Speaker 1: send messages between the nelve cells. One of these neurotransmittals
Speaker 1: tells a nelve to fire, another one tells it to stop.
Speaker 1: So it's like stop going stuck off. Okay, So if
Speaker 1: it glycine and aceta coline, basically strict nine attaches to
Speaker 1: receptors and therefore blocks the signals for the nelve to stop.
Speaker 1: What this means is that this forces the continuation of
Speaker 1: a nerves movement, which is increased by the slightest stimulus.
Speaker 2: So you're telling me that are we talking like their muscles, yes, contract,
Speaker 2: It's yeah, the muscles contract and they keep contracting.
Speaker 1: They also twitch, they have convulsions. The way that it
Speaker 1: attacks the central nervous system, the muscles all contract simultaneously.
Speaker 1: So you're talking legs, arms, back, neck, face. It causes
Speaker 1: the back to arch unnaturally. You sort of end up
Speaker 1: like a letter like an upside down you you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so you're tensed up. Your body is tensing, your
Speaker 1: facial muscles sort of go into a smile like the joker.
Speaker 2: That's what It's just interesting because that's similar to tatanus
Speaker 2: is the same thing. It's lock jaw that makes your
Speaker 2: makes your smile like the jogger, and so it just
Speaker 2: causes everything. So it looks like you're smiling, when really
Speaker 2: it's just all of your muscles tightening.
Speaker 1: And you are awake through all of this. And what
Speaker 1: this does is this causes It basically causes suffocation because
Speaker 1: of the way that your muscles contract. It puts pressure
Speaker 1: on the lungs and yeah, and it affects the person's
Speaker 1: ability to breathe. And because it also stimulates the brain,
Speaker 1: remember it's a performance in hands, sir, it gives a
Speaker 1: heightened sense of perception.
Speaker 2: So not only are you suffering from your muscles contracting
Speaker 2: and not relaxing and you're you're in pain from that,
Speaker 2: you're hyper aware.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're very much aware of everything that is
Speaker 1: happening to you, and your body is spasming, frozen with
Speaker 1: your eyes wide open. And it is believed this is
Speaker 1: like one of the most antagonizing deaths.
Speaker 2: I mean, it certainly sounds it cure treatment kind of.
Speaker 1: If you know that you have consumed strict nine but
Speaker 1: you haven't had any symptoms yet, you can like flush
Speaker 1: the stomach right and you can sort of maybe be
Speaker 1: okay once the symptoms do appear. However, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you give muscle relax in tranquilizers and rest in a dark,
Speaker 1: quiet room without stimuli, and the symptoms is kept under control,
Speaker 1: the poison can pass through the body within twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: like they were talking eighteen fifties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even today, there's no actual cure unless you are
Speaker 2: one hundred percent sure that you ingested strict nine and
Speaker 2: you go before you have symptoms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, effectively, I mean you can kind of maybe keep
Speaker 1: it under control if they like super quickly get you
Speaker 1: with like muscle relax and tranquilizers in the thing. But
Speaker 1: it's a maybe. It's a maybe.
Speaker 2: So there's no real antidote to this. There is not
Speaker 2: only did he kill people with this poison, he chose
Speaker 2: something that is and he would have understood this as
Speaker 2: well as as a doctor. He would have understood that
Speaker 2: it is agonizing. Yeah, that this is a horrified It's
Speaker 2: not just you go to sleep and you die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not like you know, an overdose of ether, right,
Speaker 1: not just something that would just yeah, he wasn't suffocating
Speaker 1: in Yeah, in my opinion, it's not like, yes, he
Speaker 1: did this for his you know, gambling addiction.
Speaker 2: Clearly he wanted the money, so he could gamble more,
Speaker 2: but he clearly didn't care if his victims suffered. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: that's the thing is that he wasn't just poisoning for money,
Speaker 2: was he.
Speaker 1: No, he must have had something to do with it
Speaker 1: because he had other options. Yes, he was a doctor.
Speaker 2: He had access to pharmacies with all levels of what.
Speaker 2: He could have poisoned people with.
Speaker 1: So many, so many it's the Victorian your our sticks
Speaker 1: everywhere are you talking about?
Speaker 2: But he chose one of the most that he would
Speaker 2: have understood, one of the most painful poisons he could
Speaker 2: have given his wife, his children, and his then friend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: plus the other people that he There were other children
Speaker 2: that he had, like illegitimate children, Yeah, and other people
Speaker 2: that he was around that he also allegedly allegedly poisoned.
Speaker 2: There's also evidence to suggest that the one of the
Speaker 2: one of the babies that he Now this is horrible,
Speaker 2: but one of the babies that he poisoned was seen
Speaker 2: to have had some sort of seizure. That's why they
Speaker 2: described what was happening the convulsions, which, from what you've
Speaker 2: described with strychnine is likely what he'd used at the
Speaker 2: time as well. So Strick nine was his poison of choice.
Speaker 2: I know, so to kill a baby with strict nine,
Speaker 2: to kill anyone, but a baby with strict nine, Like,
Speaker 2: from what you've just explained, it is beyond excruciating. I
Speaker 2: can't even imagine that. Yeah, and to have the performance
Speaker 2: enhancer on top of that, so your brain is not
Speaker 2: even aware, it's hyper aware as you away. This man
Speaker 2: clearly was not just in this for the gambling na.
Speaker 2: He was clearly in this for some level of he
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. Palmer at this point starts to spiral. The
Speaker 2: authorities are like, you know, this is this is suspicious,
Speaker 2: we should start investigating.
Speaker 1: And what you know, a.
Speaker 2: Man screaming as he convulses to death I am poisoned
Speaker 2: would generally make you think maybe you should open an investigation.
Speaker 2: But Palmer immediately this is what I'm talking about bowling
Speaker 2: china shop earlier. He immediately makes this situation worse, like
Speaker 2: he has a talent for that. What what?
Speaker 1: What what did he do?
Speaker 2: So the first thing he did, because there's multiple things
Speaker 2: to this, the first thing he did is he tried
Speaker 2: to bribe Cook's betting agent to hand over Cook's winnings.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, he tried to brabe a bookie.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the smooth the body of a man who
Speaker 2: had just won three thousand pounds that day or the
Speaker 2: day before and had died. I mean, authorities ended up
Speaker 2: exhuming Cook's body because they had already worried him.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, an interesting thing about that as well is they
Speaker 2: exhumed him to the hotel room. Like, they took him
Speaker 2: back to a hotel room and did the autopsy there.
Speaker 2: And when they were examining Cook for the second time, yes,
Speaker 2: Palmer went marching straight up to the corner and he said,
Speaker 2: are you going to open his stomach?
Speaker 1: No, it's not suspicious at all. What I'm sorry, Captain
Speaker 1: Obvious just strikes again.
Speaker 2: I mean he basically may as well point and say
Speaker 2: I put it there. It's like walking into a police station.
Speaker 2: It's like, just out of curiosity. How long does it
Speaker 2: take to test a murder weapon for fingerprints?
Speaker 3: Asking for a friend? But okay, I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: He wait, he goes to his Bookiy. Yes, so he
Speaker 3: goes to his bookcase. Yes, he's like, oh, give me
Speaker 3: the weddings.
Speaker 1: He goes to the bookie. Yeah, to try and bribe
Speaker 1: a bookie, right, already a bad idea, already a bad idea.
Speaker 1: You know, it feels like if he had just waited
Speaker 1: a day, you know, he could have gone with Cook,
Speaker 1: he could have or just waited near by. He could
Speaker 1: have waited for Cook to get his money and then
Speaker 1: poison him and then take the money. I feel like
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be here given criminals advice or suggestions.
Speaker 2: But I feel like that's common sense. Sounds like William
Speaker 2: Palmer was not that common.
Speaker 1: I know, I know it was definitely, I mean, uncommon, abnormal, abnormal.
Speaker 1: So I might even say, and listen, if I can
Speaker 1: get a young friend could say, drunken here doing it.
Speaker 2: I don't encourage this behavior, courageous behavior. But no, this
Speaker 2: man didn't only murder the person who had just his
Speaker 2: so called friend who had just won three thousand pounds.
Speaker 2: He didn't even wait, like you said, till the money
Speaker 2: had been collected and then Like, I'm not a gambler.
Speaker 2: I've never really been in the bookies. But they don't
Speaker 2: seem like the kind of people that you can just
Speaker 2: bribe I think type of kies. Do they seem like
Speaker 2: the people that you can just bribe to get over?
Speaker 2: So do you think even in eighteen fifty four Victorian England.
Speaker 2: Those people were like, yeah, just take the money. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: those people didn't want to hand over the money in
Speaker 2: the first place. So now you think they want to
Speaker 2: hand over the money to you, Yeah, to the person
Speaker 2: who's not And then they would have done some investigating
Speaker 2: or maybe even heard at that point and travel fast
Speaker 2: through the grape fine in the Victorian England that a
Speaker 2: man in that town had now died after winning three
Speaker 2: thousand pounds and there was only one person with him.
Speaker 1: I mean, some mate put two and two together.
Speaker 2: Well they did, and the trial ended up being absolutely huge,
Speaker 2: Like James and the Giant Peach. That's a very random
Speaker 2: way to put this trial. But sure people were obsessed
Speaker 2: with this case, like James was with the Peach, absolutely massive.
Speaker 2: For reference, Katie just hit her hand off off a
Speaker 2: dresser of a side table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's like one hundred years old of a
Speaker 1: hundred year old that antique off an antique, Katie just
Speaker 1: it's adad. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: People were obsessed with this case. It was a Victorian
Speaker 2: equivalent of a true crime documentary dropping on Netflix.
Speaker 1: One of the good ones. Yeah, the good ones, like you.
Speaker 2: Know, making a murderer, making murderers good. I love that,
Speaker 2: I said, like, you know, and then struggle to name
Speaker 2: crime documentary. It's a really good shape crime documentary.
Speaker 1: You just remember don't fuck with Cats. Oh, I haven't
Speaker 1: watched that one because I don't want to watch cats.
Speaker 2: Get that was the hard part of episode one, because.
Speaker 1: That was the hard part of the very beginning of
Speaker 1: this documentary. It's three episodes.
Speaker 2: If you can get through Luca Magnatta killing cats in
Speaker 2: three different ways, then you can get through.
Speaker 1: And they don't know.
Speaker 2: To be fair, they don't show. They don't show. They
Speaker 2: show the start of the video where they are very
Speaker 2: much alive, and then they don't show anything else on
Speaker 2: the documentary.
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm like, I'll don't show me the
Speaker 1: dead animals. No, yeah, like I love that.
Speaker 2: We're like. He then went on to kill a man
Speaker 2: and record it and put it online with an ice
Speaker 2: pick by the well with a screwdriver that he painted.
Speaker 1: Like an ice pick. What a choice.
Speaker 2: There's reasons behind. You have to watch it too, Okay,
Speaker 2: Like anyway, my point is there's this trial was a
Speaker 2: big deal at the time, was like people were flocking
Speaker 2: to this yeah, so yeah, but the jury ended up
Speaker 2: taking only seventy minutes to find Palmer guilty.
Speaker 1: That's about as fast as he played cough before seeing guilty.
Speaker 2: Did they just go into the room and go, what
Speaker 2: do you guys think?
Speaker 1: You know? Basically that as long as it took him
Speaker 1: to fill out the paper and get everything stamped, I.
Speaker 2: Know, honestly, seventeen minutes, an hour and ten minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they came back out and said guilty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wanted to make it look like they were
Speaker 1: doing something. Delay went and then played a game of chess. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They probably had a whole tournament in there. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the time that.
Speaker 1: It took, but it was pretty obvious.
Speaker 2: I mean, the man did not help his case, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad he didn't, but he did not help his case.
Speaker 2: He was the most obvious poisoner in the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just like, oh, did you check his
Speaker 1: stomachs for poison? By the way, he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: can I have his money?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, can I have the money? And by the way,
Speaker 1: he didn't check his stomach for poisons? Are you gonna
Speaker 1: you gotta check it?
Speaker 2: Though, Like I'm glad he was an idiot but yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, he got arrested. I would appreciate criminals continuing
Speaker 1: to be idiot, Yeah, so would I.
Speaker 2: But he was sentenced to hang, which was still obviously
Speaker 2: very big public entertainment at the time, and on June fourteenth,
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty six, outside of Stafford Prison in front of
Speaker 2: a crowd of thirty thousand onlookers.
Speaker 1: Right now, that's even a lot for Victorian times.
Speaker 2: Yeah. See, the Victorians love the good public execution that
Speaker 2: we know did though, but this was unprecedented even for
Speaker 2: the prison. He was extremely hated for good reason, of course,
Speaker 2: but he was extra dreamely loathed.
Speaker 1: That is wild right, That's like stadium concert tout level crowds.
Speaker 2: Honestly, for anyone in Ireland, that's you know, half of
Speaker 2: Crook Park turning up to watch someone get hanged.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But this man, this man, like obviously in the two
Speaker 2: years from when he killed John Parson's cook, yeah, it
Speaker 2: all came out, Like he killed his children, he killed
Speaker 2: his wife. Yeah, all this came out and the children
Speaker 2: were honestly the driving factor to the hate, like the
Speaker 2: real hate.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like, And so for his final act, because he had
Speaker 2: to go out with a bang, I guess.
Speaker 1: Oh, because they always have to, don't they They.
Speaker 2: Have to get their final words or something. But anyway,
Speaker 2: he stood on the gallows, looked out on the crowd,
Speaker 2: and he was asked to he have any final words,
Speaker 2: and he says, what does I am innocent? Sure, Jan, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's so innocent. So the jury thirty thousand onlookers in
Speaker 2: the rope said otherwise, Oh that's nice. Yeah yeah, us off.
Speaker 2: So Katie, what do you think? What do you What
Speaker 2: have we learned today?
Speaker 1: Oh that if your doctor is really invested in your
Speaker 1: life insurance policy, you should run.
Speaker 2: That gambling debts and medical degrees are not a fantastic.
Speaker 1: Mix to have. Oh and if your murder victim literally
Speaker 1: starts shouting I am poisoned, you should probably start packing
Speaker 1: your bags.
Speaker 2: Wise words and DKT thanks for listening today and night should.
Speaker 1: And we will see you next day. Stay safe, stay skeptical,
Speaker 1: and if your doctor starts recommending your life insurance, maybe
Speaker 1: finding your doctor quickly.
Speaker 2: If you've made it to the end of this podcast,
Speaker 2: thanks you so much for listening today and night Shade,
Speaker 2: please like it.
Speaker 1: I guess written review of five styles if that's an option.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to give us five styles. You
Speaker 1: can just not do anything at all. Because we like
Speaker 1: the We like the compliments.
Speaker 2: We would appreciate compliments.
Speaker 1: That would be great. It'll be great, So don't forget
Speaker 1: to like share and of course subscribes you can find
Speaker 1: out another tale of an infamous poisoner from.
Speaker 2: History, maybe one even inspired by the one we just covered.
Speaker 1: Ah Intrigue, you've been listening to Day in Nightshade episodes
Speaker 1: written by j mc laughlin and Katie Charlewood.
Speaker 2: Theme music by Zachary Logan and Micah Salvanas.
Speaker 1: Podcast art work by Anna Farba.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening and remember as for arsenic