WEBVTT - Hammersmith Ghost Murder 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.000 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:20.640 Frye and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Happy Almost Halloween. Yeah. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:25.159 As I mentioned on an earlier episode this month, I 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.840 haven't been as halloweene, I feel like as usual. I 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:33.280 don't know if that's just the time anxiety lurking in 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.080 the air everywhere around, or if I'm just more of 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:39.479 a skeptic than ever. I don't know, but anyway, this 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.600 one is probably our most Halloween. Today's episode covers a 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.080 case of a lot of people believing there was a 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:51.240 ghost hanging around and something that happened as a consequence 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.320 of that concern over a ghost that then became a 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:59.639 huge legal battle. This is a case of mistaken identity 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.320 and I feel like it also uh needs a little 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:05.399 bit of a heads up that there is some gun violence. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:11.280 But it's also legally an interesting story because this is 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.000 a case that brought to light a problem in British 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.479 law that would have ramifications for a long time before 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.600 it was conclusively settled. And we'll get into all of 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.120 that today as we talk about the Hammersmith Ghost murder. 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:29.880 So in late eighteen oh three, frightening accounts started circulating 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.880 in Hammersmith, England today that is a borough of London. 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.720 The stories were all really similar, and they were told 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:41.200 by a variety of local residents who all appear to 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:45.280 have witnessed the same thing. That was a tall figure 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:50.040 draped in white, described as an apparition. This apparition was 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:54.160 seen in town, often in the churchyard, but occasionally moving 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.160 outside of that space. Some people claimed to have been 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.400 attacked by this phantom. As these accounts became more and 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.680 more common, they also became more and more detailed. The 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.880 ghost was said to appear right after the town clock 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.080 struck one am, although it could also pop out at 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:17.600 other times. It was associated with Black Lion Lane, specifically 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.360 which was at the edge of the neighborhood, near undeveloped fields, 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.600 and soon the ghost even had an identity and was 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:26.680 believed to be the spirit of a man who had 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:31.079 died by suicide in eighteen oh two, allegedly by slitting 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.400 his own throat. Some accounts even stated that this apparition 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.320 occasionally appeared with horns. Others said that he had glass eyes, 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.040 and sometimes instead of all white, he was said to 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.520 wear the skin of a beast in an account that 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.160 was written mere months after the events were talking about. 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.960 In this episode, which was part of the series of 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:58.120 books cataloging the interesting happenings of the time called Kirby's 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:02.400 Wonderful and Scientific Museum, there was even the assertion that 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:07.160 locals believed there might be multiple ghosts. These accounts persisted 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.840 to the point that the whole area started to be 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:14.720 genuinely concerned. In one instance, a mister Russell, who was 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.239 the driver of an eight horse carriage, was so frightened 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.840 by the ghosts that he abandoned his team and a 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:25.720 carriage filled with sixteen people and just ran away. Those 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.840 passengers were just left hanging with the ghost. I guess 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.680 as the ghost things got worse as rumors spread that 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.800 people were even dying of shock upon seeing or interacting 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.400 with the ghost. In one such case, a pregnant woman 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.640 was described as having fainted when she saw the ghost 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.240 after passing near the graveyard at Saint Paul's, and then 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.480 it is said to have reached out and put its 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:53.720 arms around her. She was found unconscious on the ground 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.040 and taken to a home of a nearby resident. She 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.120 reportedly died there a couple of days later, although there 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:05.280 isn't any real substantiation for this story. For example, nothing 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.720 ever mentions her name. Because of all this, though there 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:12.480 were very real fears about being on the street, people 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:16.640 started staying inside after sundown. In an effort to put 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.640 an end to the perceived threat that was holding the 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.800 town in a state of constant fear. Armed patrols were 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.000 made up of citizens and they started mounting these patrols 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.919 at night. This was more than twenty five years before 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.719 London got its official police force, the Metropolitan Police, so 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.200 this was not an unusual means of dealing with a 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.760 problem involving public safety. Some of the men in these 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.400 patrols did not think there was a ghost. They suspected 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.080 a very real person was just scaring the area's residence 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.840 and they wanted it to stop. On one patrol, a 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:57.440 ghost was chased, but this supposed ghost was able to 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.279 elude his pursuers, he said, who have removed the sheet 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.520 as he ran, but then could not be identified. In 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.560 a lot of cases, it seemed that the purported ghost 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:11.119 knew which roots the patrols would take and then stuck 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.039 to alternate streets. And paths. Yeah, this is often described 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:20.040 as being a neighborhood that had a lot of alley's sideways, 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.200 et cetera. So it was kind of amaze and it 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.640 was easy for someone to evade capture. On January third 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.800 of eighteen oh four, one of these patrols was out 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:31.960 and about, but in this case it was not a group. 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.159 It was a man on his own named Francis Smith. 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.320 Smith was an excise officer who was twenty nine years old, 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.320 and he and another man, William Girdler, were both out patrolling, 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.360 but they had decided to separate to cover more ground. 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.840 The two men had worked out a call and response 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.800 set of phrases so that if one approached the other, 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:54.760 they would know that it was the person that was 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.640 also on patrol and nothing sinister. So one of them 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.839 would open with who goes there or perhaps a similar 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.760 sentiment like who is it? The other would respond with 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.080 a friend, and then the final confirmation was advance friend. 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.039 So this seems like a great code, but it is 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.640 all based on the presumption that no one else would 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.400 be out in the streets except the two of them 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.680 and perhaps something or someone sinister. After the two men 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.960 parted ways, to patrol, Francis Smith spotted a figure in 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:30.560 white near Black Lion Lane. Hoping to end this terror 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.120 in the community, Smith raised the weapon he was carrying 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.640 and fired, and the figure fell to the ground. When 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.960 Smith approached his target, he was horrified to see that 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.400 it was a man wearing white work clothes that were 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:48.520 white linen trousers with a white waistcoat, apron, and even shoes. 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.640 The victim was twenty two year old Thomas Millwood that 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.840 was a bricklayer who was walking home from visiting his 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.240 father after work when Francis Smith mistook him for the 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.920 ghost or a prankster pretending to be a ghost. Allegedly, 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.680 this was not the first time someone had thought he 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.360 was the ghost, but previous incidents had ended without any 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:15.280 kind of serious repercussions. After Smith realized what he had done, 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.720 he went looking immediately for help, and he ran into 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.520 two men named Stowe and Locke, and he told them 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.800 that he had shot a man that he had believed 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.559 to be a ghost. Initially, according to a statement given 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.120 by Stowe to the paper, Smith didn't really seem to 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.160 realize that he would be in trouble legally, or that 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.320 he had done anything wrong. Smith then told them that 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.240 he had spoken to that person twice and received no 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:43.840 answer before he fired. Stowe and Locke returned with Smith 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.520 to the scene of the shooting to see that Millwood 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.440 was indeed dead. Smith also put out word at a 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.720 local pub that he needed to speak with William Girdler, 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.120 the man he had been out on watch sort of with, 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.320 but not really, and then when Girdler got the message, 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.520 he too went to the scene of the shooting. The 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:07.400 coroner's examination indicated that Thomas Millwood died from a single 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.120 gunshot to the head. The bullet had entered through his 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:13.840 mouth at the left jaw, passed through his spine to 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.120 the exit at the back of his neck. According to 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.360 the coroner's report, his face was blackened from the flash 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.000 of gunpowder, and the death was recorded as a quote 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:29.120 rash act of wilful murder. Locke and Stowe had advised 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.840 Smith to go home, although he had, according to their 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.160 later testimony, asked them to take him into custody themselves, 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.200 but they wanted to wait and see how things played out, 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.320 and when the police went to Smith's home once the 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:46.200 situation had escalated with that coroner's determination, Smith went with 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.000 the authorities readily. We'll talk about how his legal case 0:08:50.040 --> 0:09:02.400 played out after we pause for a sponsor break. A 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.560 lot of people had come to Francis Smith's defense in 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.480 the course of the coroner's inquiry. He was not disputing 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.079 the fact that he had fired the shot that killed Millwood. 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.640 He acknowledged that he was panicked and agitated when he 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.080 saw the white figure. But Smith was also known to 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:23.320 everyone as a very gentle and kind man. No one 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.520 believed he went out on patrol the night of the 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:30.200 shooting with anything but good intentions. Additionally, a lot of 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.520 people willingly made statements about the low visibility in the 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.640 town the night of the shooting, noting specifically that if 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.560 you stood on one side of Black Lion Lane, the 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.320 low lighting, mist and hedges planted along it made it 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.920 difficult to see across the lane in the dark. Black 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.079 Lion was known to be dim and shadowy because there 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.760 were hedges on both sides of the lane, so seeing 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:56.760 a white form, it actually would have been pretty difficult 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.160 to make it out as a corporeal human person. This 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:04.800 is something paranormal. Based on the coroner's findings, Francis Smith 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.440 was arrested He pleaded not guilty, with the defense that 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:12.479 his actions were accidental based on a case of mistaken identity. 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.240 He was tried at the Old Bailey on January thirteenth, 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.400 ten days after the incident, on the charge of wilful murder. 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.560 The case that played out would impact British law and 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.640 change the way people talked about murder charges. Francis Smith 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.640 was adamant during the trial that his actions were born 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.320 out of a very real fear, and that he had 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.880 believed he came into the presence of the ghosts that 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.679 had been rumored to be terrorizing the neighborhood. He had 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.360 initially told the court that he wished for his counsel 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:43.880 to speak for him, but he was told that in 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.920 terms of answering the charges, he had to speak for himself, 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.199 and that his counsel was there solely to question the witnesses. 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.240 So Smith stated in his first remarks to the court quote, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.560 I can only declare that I went out with a 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.559 perfectly good intention. After calling to the deceased twice and 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.480 receiving no answer, I became so agitated that I did 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.679 not know what I was about. But I solemnly declare 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.559 that I am innocent of any malicious intention against any 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:16.559 person whatever. There are some inconsistencies in the various accounts 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.240 as to whether Smith believed he was shooting at a 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.320 specter or whether he believed he was shooting at someone 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:26.600 pretending to be a ghost to menace the neighborhood. Some, 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.000 including the testimony of John Locke, make it sound as 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.440 though Smith knew it was a person. Locke specifically said 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:38.000 during the trial testimony quote he informed me he had 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.839 shot a man who he believed to be the pretended 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.839 ghost of Hammersmith. But that leaves a little room for interpretation, 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.800 as Smith was relaying the news of the shooting to 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.680 Locke after he himself had discovered that he had shot 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.679 a man. As we'll see in a moment, the defense 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.240 made the case that there was a very real sense 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.720 of a ghost threat in the neighborhood. The prosecution's case 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.319 made the entire ghost story out to be just utterly ridiculous. 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.120 Even news accounts that ran ahead of the trial had 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.840 dismissed the apparition rumors. It's really silly. The Morning Chronicle 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.400 ran a piece about the shooting on January sixth, so 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.600 that's three days after it, which read quote the neighborhood 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.440 of Hammersmith has for some time been alarmed by a 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.480 ridiculous rumor of a ghost, which is said to have 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.000 paid its nocturnal visits to the fields adjacent to Black 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.320 Lion Lane. That same article quoted Thomas Millwood's sister Anne 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.200 Millwood as describing a snippet of speech that she heard 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.480 when she went to the door to watch her brother 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.480 as he walked away from the house. She heard a 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.080 voice say quote, damn you, who are you? And then 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.920 stand else I'll shoot you right before she heard the 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:55.120 gun being fired, and worried about her brother, but unable 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.080 to see him again because these gloomy and dim lighting situation, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.760 call her brother's name and got no answer, And at 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.840 that point she alerted her father and her mother and 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.439 a lodger who lived with the Millwood family about it, 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.440 but they dismissed what she had heard as street noise, 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.160 and still very worried about her brother Thomas, went out 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:19.000 by herself and she found him dead in the lane. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.079 A lot of witnesses came forward to vouch for Smith's 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.679 good character. Even Millwood's mother in law, missus Fulbrook, was 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.520 a witness for the defense. She told the court quote, 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.079 on Saturday evening, he and I were at home, for 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.440 he lived with me. He said he had frightened two 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.360 ladies and a gentleman who were coming along the terrace, 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.280 and a carriage. For that, the man said he dared 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:45.240 to say, there goes the ghost. That he said he 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.120 was no more a ghost than he was, and asked him, 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.520 using a bad word, did he want a punch of 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.199 the head. I begged of him to change his dress. 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.160 Thomas says, I, as there is a piece of work 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.280 about the ghost, and your clothes look white, pray do 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.079 put on your greatcoat that you may not run any danger. 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.720 I don't know what answer he made. He said he 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.880 wished the ghost was catched, or something of that sort. 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.960 One thing the defense counsel asked witnesses was about the 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.520 many groups of men who had gone on patrol. According 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.400 to court proceedings, They asked John Locke, quote, you know, 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.920 I believe, however unfortunate, it has turned out that almost 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.600 all the young men had gone out. When Locke answered 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.960 in the affirmative, the follow up question was quote, which 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.880 was publicly known and talked about. So it seems this 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.920 line of questioning was to establish before the court that 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.360 everyone knew that armed men were prowling the streets looking 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:46.800 for a specter, so in disregarding that danger, Thomas had 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:51.320 somehow been responsible for what had happened to him. Then 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.600 the defense introduced the idea that there was potentially a 0:14:55.680 --> 0:15:00.120 legitimate ghost haunting Hammersmith. They called a man named Tom 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.000 Groom who worked for a brewer named Burgess, and Grun 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.880 stated that while he and a colleague were walking through 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:11.760 the churchyard, he very clearly felt hands around his throat, 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.240 though neither of the men could see anything. This was 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.840 laying the groundwork that there were enough credible instances of 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.640 people saying they had interactions with the Hammersmith ghost that 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.480 it was reasonable for Francis Smith to believe that was 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.480 what was before him when he pulled the trigger. The 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.880 Lord Chief Baron MacDonald gave orders to the jury that 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.480 they must decide if Smith was guilty or not. Those 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.280 orders included the instructions quote it would be impossible to 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:45.520 calculate the dangerous consequences which would ensue if men were 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.760 permitted to take upon themselves the right of shooting others 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.200 for certain crimes. If a man goes out with the 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.480 intention of shooting robbers and kills a person who is 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.920 offering him no violence. He is guilty of murder. However, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.040 are disgusted the jury might feel in their own minds 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.160 with the abominable person guilty of the misdemeanor of terrifying 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.040 the neighborhood. Still, the prisoner had no right to construe 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.680 such misdemeanor into a capital offense, or to conclude that 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.160 a man dressed in white was a ghost. In this case, 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.280 there was a deliberate carrying of a loaded gun, which 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.760 the prisoner concluded he was entitled to fire, but which 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.480 he really was not, and he did fire it with 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:31.320 a rashness, which the law does not excuse. In all 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.440 the circumstances of the case, no man is allowed to 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.720 kill another rashly. The judge also told the jury that 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:42.320 they could not take into account whether Francis Smith was 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.560 a good man or not, that they just had to 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.280 consider the facts of the case, and the facts of 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.840 the case were obvious. Francis Smith admitted to shooting Millwood, 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.960 but because of the odd circumstances, it seems the jury 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.280 tried to mitigate the outcome of the trial by fining 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:04.440 Smith guilty not of murder but of manslaughter that would 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:09.439 automatically carry a much lighter sentence. The problem, though, was 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.399 that MacDonald and the two other judges in the case, 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.520 Justices Rooke and Lawrence, stated they could not accept that 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.119 outcome because Smith had not been on trial for manslaughter. 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:23.359 This was just a matter of following the letter of 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.760 the law. So the jury was instructed to once again 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:30.760 deliberate with the option of delivering a guilty verdict or 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:35.720 an acquittal for murder based on the evidence of the case. 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.600 The judges also reminded the jurors that Thomas Millwood had 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.520 not done anything on the night of the shooting other 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.120 than walk home wearing white. He had not menaced anyone, 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.800 he had not tried to run. But they also noted 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.760 that even if he had, even if he had been 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.480 a prankster trying to scare people by feigning to be 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.680 a ghost, that could only be considered a nuisance, which 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.320 at most could be cited as a misdemeanor. After the 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:09.359 second round of deliberation, which took an hour, the jury 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.800 came back with the verdict that Francis Smith was guilty 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.600 of murder. This automatically resulted in a death sentence, and 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.439 the bench ruled that Smith was to be hanged and 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.639 that his body would be donated to a medical college. 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.800 Knowing this was bound to stoke a controversy, the Lord 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.480 Chief Baron Archibald MacDonald promised to bring the matter before 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.280 King George the Third. This was a scenario where the 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.679 facts of the case were covered in the press in 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.840 detail and everyone knew what had happened. It was perceived 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.240 by almost everyone as an accidental shooting, but also with 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.960 the understanding that in legal terms there wasn't much leeway 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.520 to find Smith anything other than guilty. Still, he did 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.760 have a lot of public support, and the King also 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.560 recognized the unusual circumstances in the way that the law 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.160 did not not really allow for any kind of nuance 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.600 in a case like this, so the monarch actually issued 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.800 a pardon three weeks after the initial guilty verdict. The King, 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.800 unlike the jury, did have the power to change the 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.080 outcome of the case and issue a guilty verdict instead 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.520 for the lesser charge of manslaughter, and to dictate the 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.480 terms of the sentencing. Francis Smith was to be imprisoned 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.359 for one year to perform hard labor. The proceedings of 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.760 the Old Bailey list a remission of imprisonment for Francis 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.200 on July twelfth of eighteen oh four, so his sentence 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.720 was reduced at that point for good behavior. But after 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.639 that he sort of vanishes from the historical record. But 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.399 what about the ghost? Thomas Millwood was a plasterer or 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.399 a bricklayer, Various different accounts call him, each of those. 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.199 He happened to be wearing white work clothes. He was 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.399 not a spirit lurking in the graveyard waiting to scare people. 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:02.119 So what had all those ghost sightings about. Well, initially 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.560 after the shooting, sightings of the ghost did stop, and 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.840 then the day after Francis smith sentencing, the Hammersmith Ghost 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.600 stepped forward to confess. And we'll talk about that right 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.320 after we hear from the sponsors that keep the show going. 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.359 On January fourteenth, a shoemaker named John Graham reached out 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.399 to authorities to state that he had been putting a 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:37.000 sheet over his head and then walking around Hammersmith scaring 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.439 people as a prank. This had initially started just as 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.399 a prank against his employees. The men had been telling 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.560 Graham's kids ghost stories and it really frightened the children. 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.320 So Graham thought he would frighten the grown men to retaliate, 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.439 and then it turned out he liked doing it. It 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.160 was fun to scare people, so he started going out 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:03.360 into the graveyard in his ghost disguise. Although Graham had 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.200 come forward, a lot of people in Hammersmith were not convinced. 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.280 They continued to believe that something spectral was lurking in 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.880 their neighborhood, waiting to reach out and get them if 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.480 they found themselves in close proximity to it, and there 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.880 were reports that the ghost was cited many times after 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:25.960 the trial concluded, and John Graham claimed to have been 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:30.200 the ghost. This has given rise to theories that there 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.520 may have been copycats wanting to just keep the prank going, 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.680 but finding any hard evidence about that is just about 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:40.840 impossible given that nobody else ever came forward, So it 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.720 could just as easily be that people thought they saw 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.480 the ghost even if no one was keeping up the prank. 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.120 And some of these sightings, which continued for several decades, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.919 really upped the ante on the odd details, including some 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:58.440 accounts that this ghost was seen breathing fire. I love 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.440 that he becomes much more demo on it be as 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.720 time goes on. Now he's got horns, Now he's got 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.960 glass eyes, Now he breathes fire. The idea that Francis 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:11.040 Smith's murder trial introduced that the British legal system needed 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.560 to be able to handle cases where a person truly 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:16.800 believed they were acting in self defense or for the 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.840 good of someone else against something supernatural, was actually debated 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.719 for the next one hundred and eighty years, and it 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.000 wasn't until another case in nineteen eighty three that there 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.600 was a definitive ruling on such cases, though it did 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:33.680 not involve the supernatural, but a case of misunderstanding the situation, 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:38.119 and that was Regina versus Gladstone Williams. So Regina is 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.280 the word often used in British cases to indicate that 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.399 the case is brought by the Crown. I think the 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.800 Brits might pronounce it regina. I think so too, but 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:51.000 I don't love that now, sorry to all of my 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:54.239 British friends. It sounds so much like other things to 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.040 me that I cannot do it in my soul. This 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.320 appellate case is written up with the following information as 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:05.120 its introductory explainer quote On ninth March this year, Gladstone 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.960 Williams appeared in the Inner London Crown Court charged with 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:13.840 assault occasioning actual bodily harm. After a trial, he was 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.600 convicted and was given a conditional discharge for twelve months, 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:21.840 together with certain financial penalties. He now appeals on a 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.600 point of law against his conviction. The facts were somewhat 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:29.520 unusual and were as follows. On the day in question, 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:33.959 the alleged victim, a man called Mason, saw a black 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.000 youth seizing the handbag belonging to a woman who was shopping. 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:42.040 He caught up with the youth and held him, he said, 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.280 with a view to taking him to a nearby police station, 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:50.119 but the youth broke free from his grip. Mason caught 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:52.879 the youth again and knocked him to the ground, and 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:55.600 he then twisted one of the youth's arms behind his 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:59.080 back in order to immobilize him and to enable him. 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:01.679 He said, what once again to take the youth to 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:06.239 a police station. The youth was struggling and calling for 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:09.439 help at this time, and no one disputed the fact. 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:13.920 Upon the scene. Then came the appellant, who had only 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:18.280 seen the latter stages of this incident. According to Mason, 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:20.879 he told the appellant first of all that he was 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:23.840 arresting the youth for mugging the lady, and secondly that 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:28.720 he Mason was a police officer. That was not true. 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:32.359