1
00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:05,359
Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

2
00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:15,800
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much wrapped up in the acts

3
00:00:15,920 --> 00:00:19,520
Speaker 2: with this streak of insurgent power, something where people who

4
00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:23,520
Speaker 2: are disempowered can take it back under the guise of

5
00:00:23,640 --> 00:00:26,079
Speaker 2: labor and use it to strike out.

6
00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:36,800
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

7
00:00:36,880 --> 00:00:39,599
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

8
00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:43,479
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

9
00:00:43,720 --> 00:00:47,479
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

10
00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,760
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

11
00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:55,560
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

12
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:59,920
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

13
00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:03,760
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

14
00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:06,760
Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

15
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:13,039
Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. When Rachel McCarthy James and

16
00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:16,000
Speaker 1: her father wrote their best selling book The Man from

17
00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:20,000
Speaker 1: the Train, Rachel became fascinated with axes. Were they actually

18
00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:22,720
Speaker 1: good weapons during murders or what kind of killer would

19
00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:25,479
Speaker 1: use them? She wrote about the story of the acts

20
00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:28,840
Speaker 1: in her book Whack Job, The History of axe murder,

21
00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:34,800
Speaker 1: and yes, we talk about Lizzie Borden. Tell me about

22
00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:40,040
Speaker 1: what your first interest was with axe murderers. I have

23
00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:42,160
Speaker 1: to assume it goes back to, you know, the book

24
00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:44,640
Speaker 1: that you did with your father, The Man from the Train. Yes,

25
00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:48,080
Speaker 1: give me a brief overview for anybody who doesn't know

26
00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:50,040
Speaker 1: that story. And then you know, I know you're a

27
00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:51,760
Speaker 1: researcher and then a writer on it.

28
00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:55,320
Speaker 2: Of course. Yeah, it's really kind of the companion piece

29
00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:57,440
Speaker 2: and the origin story for this book in a lot

30
00:01:57,440 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 2: of ways. So about twelve years ago, my dad, baseball

31
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:05,760
Speaker 2: writer Bill James, had recently published his first true crime book,

32
00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:08,240
Speaker 2: Popular Crime, in which he talks about Lizzie Borden as

33
00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:12,919
Speaker 2: well as another famous axe murder, Helen Jewett, And so

34
00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:16,680
Speaker 2: he was looking into the Veleska axe murders. He had

35
00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:20,760
Speaker 2: seen a documentary about it and was like, I bet

36
00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:23,320
Speaker 2: I can find some more crimes. As he started looking

37
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:26,080
Speaker 2: into it, he found one more crime and then he

38
00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:28,399
Speaker 2: was like, all right, well, this takes a lot of

39
00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:33,320
Speaker 2: messing around with different archival newspaper databases. I really don't

40
00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:35,840
Speaker 2: want to do that. I'm going to hire my daughter,

41
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:38,640
Speaker 2: who recently graduated from college and it's a good researcher

42
00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:39,600
Speaker 2: to look into that.

43
00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:41,760
Speaker 1: In cheap, in cheap, I'm assuming.

44
00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:44,239
Speaker 2: In cheap, yes, very cheap. And I needed a job

45
00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:47,519
Speaker 2: because I was moving back to my hometown where my

46
00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:50,200
Speaker 2: dad lives just a block away from him, and so

47
00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:53,280
Speaker 2: he hired me. And you know, my dad's had a

48
00:02:53,320 --> 00:02:55,799
Speaker 2: lot of projects. He's had so many different things where

49
00:02:55,840 --> 00:02:57,720
Speaker 2: he's like, I'm working on this, this is my next thing,

50
00:02:57,800 --> 00:02:59,320
Speaker 2: and then you ask him about it two weeks later

51
00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:01,160
Speaker 2: and he's like, don't ever mentioned that to me again.

52
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:03,840
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about that. Know that exactly.

53
00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:05,720
Speaker 2: We all have a lot of projects. I could know

54
00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:07,840
Speaker 2: how that goes. So I kind of thought that this

55
00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:09,560
Speaker 2: was going to be one of those where I worked

56
00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:11,320
Speaker 2: with him for a couple of weeks and then it

57
00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:15,280
Speaker 2: didn't really go anywhere. But almost immediately once I started

58
00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:18,720
Speaker 2: looking at this, I started finding a lot of events

59
00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:22,359
Speaker 2: that looked a lot like the Vellesca axe murders and

60
00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:25,480
Speaker 2: the other murders that had been identified by other researchers

61
00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:29,640
Speaker 2: like Beth Clennen Smith and the Rundles and at Eberley

62
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:34,280
Speaker 2: as connected to this crime in June nineteen twelve, whereas

63
00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:36,160
Speaker 2: eight people were murdered in the middle of the night

64
00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:38,440
Speaker 2: with an axe with the back of the axe. So

65
00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:40,480
Speaker 2: I started looking for crimes that looked like that, and

66
00:03:40,520 --> 00:03:43,120
Speaker 2: almost immediately started finding quite a few of them. I

67
00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:45,800
Speaker 2: think I found ten or twelve events that ended up

68
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:48,400
Speaker 2: in the book within a couple of weeks, and within

69
00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:50,800
Speaker 2: a couple of months. That research led me back to

70
00:03:51,040 --> 00:03:56,080
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety eight where Paul Mueller killed the Newton family

71
00:03:56,240 --> 00:04:00,000
Speaker 2: three people in west Brookfield, Massachusetts. We are pretty sure

72
00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:02,480
Speaker 2: it was him because he was there were they had

73
00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,480
Speaker 2: visitors that night the night before the Newtants were murdered,

74
00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:11,200
Speaker 2: and Paul was seen walking towards the train after the

75
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:14,080
Speaker 2: murders were committed that night. So that's a pretty clear

76
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:16,240
Speaker 2: clear case for his guilt. And there's a lot of

77
00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:21,400
Speaker 2: similarities between the Newtons and the Veleska axe murders, a

78
00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:25,240
Speaker 2: lot of weird things like locking the door after covering

79
00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:28,760
Speaker 2: the windows, putting bedclothes over the body, things like that.

80
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:32,280
Speaker 2: So within a couple of months we knew that we

81
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:36,440
Speaker 2: had a narrative here for sure. Throughout that one of

82
00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:38,200
Speaker 2: the things that we were looking for, and it was

83
00:04:38,279 --> 00:04:40,599
Speaker 2: just one on a list of things. It wasn't really

84
00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:44,000
Speaker 2: something that stood out. We were looking for big families

85
00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:47,840
Speaker 2: being killed in the middle of the night, isolated farmhouse,

86
00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:51,839
Speaker 2: trained nearby, clothes on the body, and one of the

87
00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 2: last things, the big thing was the back of the

88
00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:58,000
Speaker 2: axe being used. So the axe was a consistent thing

89
00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:02,279
Speaker 2: throughout this. And we believe that Paul was a lumberjack.

90
00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:04,279
Speaker 2: We know it was a lumberjack, so he was using

91
00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:07,520
Speaker 2: the acts for his labor throughout this. And then he

92
00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:10,920
Speaker 2: would you know, there were axes everywhere in America at

93
00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:15,880
Speaker 2: this point in our country's history. Every working farm had one.

94
00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:18,680
Speaker 2: There was often one just left in the woodpile on

95
00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:21,280
Speaker 2: the back of the in the backyard. So he would

96
00:05:21,320 --> 00:05:24,719
Speaker 2: just pick up an axe from a neighbor's woodpile, break

97
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,280
Speaker 2: into a house, kill the whole family, and then leave.

98
00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:31,000
Speaker 2: So that was that story. It's a very long book.

99
00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:34,080
Speaker 2: It's much longer than Whackjaw because there's just so many crimes.

100
00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:37,760
Speaker 2: He killed. We believe about one hundred people from eighteen

101
00:05:37,839 --> 00:05:41,720
Speaker 2: ninety eight to nineteen fourteen, so this was a very

102
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:46,880
Speaker 2: active serial killer, mass murderer. And after we published the book,

103
00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:49,400
Speaker 2: while we were talking about it, I fin found myself

104
00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:53,480
Speaker 2: talking about an axe murderer a lot, and I started

105
00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:57,960
Speaker 2: noticing jokes about axe murderers in popular culture and just

106
00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,200
Speaker 2: people using it around me random as kind of like

107
00:06:01,279 --> 00:06:03,640
Speaker 2: a joke, And I was like, where's that come from?

108
00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:07,560
Speaker 2: Why is that a joke? Why is this phrase so sticky?

109
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,800
Speaker 2: Why do we say axe murderer when we don't say

110
00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:15,040
Speaker 2: knife slayer or gun killer or anything like that. But

111
00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:18,240
Speaker 2: generally ax murderer has, you know, really stayed in the

112
00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:23,200
Speaker 2: lexicon well past the age when axes were a very

113
00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:28,640
Speaker 2: common instrument of violence, almost kind of emerging as the

114
00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:34,440
Speaker 2: acts stopped being such a major player in domestic violence

115
00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:38,839
Speaker 2: and other violent situations. And so I started looking into that.

116
00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:42,000
Speaker 2: I started wondering, what is it about that phrase? What

117
00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:45,320
Speaker 2: is it about the axe? And I started researching the

118
00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:49,120
Speaker 2: axe itself, which I didn't realize how far back it

119
00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:52,280
Speaker 2: went into history, that it's basically our first tool. And

120
00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:56,200
Speaker 2: I became fascinated by that and just started digging it down,

121
00:06:56,279 --> 00:06:58,320
Speaker 2: and I was writing an article about it, kind of

122
00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:01,000
Speaker 2: about just about the phrase ax murder, and once a

123
00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:03,680
Speaker 2: balloon to ten thousand words, I was like, all right,

124
00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:05,320
Speaker 2: I think I've got a book here. I think this

125
00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:07,120
Speaker 2: is a book I would like to read. And when

126
00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:08,800
Speaker 2: you think of a book you'd like to read that

127
00:07:08,839 --> 00:07:11,280
Speaker 2: doesn't exist yet, you should be the one to write it.

128
00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:14,800
Speaker 2: So I started going into that looking for different AX

129
00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:18,240
Speaker 2: murders that I could kind of collect into an overall narrative,

130
00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:21,320
Speaker 2: kind of like Mary Roach, and try and look at

131
00:07:21,320 --> 00:07:24,840
Speaker 2: it as a concept as well through these different narratives.

132
00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:27,480
Speaker 2: So that took a long time, and now after about

133
00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:28,720
Speaker 2: seven years, here I am.

134
00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:32,640
Speaker 1: When you're describing sort of why X murderer is a

135
00:07:32,640 --> 00:07:36,040
Speaker 1: phrase we use. There's such a specific connotation to me,

136
00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:40,000
Speaker 1: a crazed, out of control person to me, because there's

137
00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:43,240
Speaker 1: so much blood, there has to be a now, you know,

138
00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:45,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a misconception would be is you

139
00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:47,360
Speaker 1: have to be strong to be an AX murder. You

140
00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:50,720
Speaker 1: can be a small, tiny person with you know, as

141
00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:52,600
Speaker 1: long as you have the right leverage and you've got

142
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:55,640
Speaker 1: your hands in the right place, it can be very deadly,

143
00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:58,200
Speaker 1: very easily. But I really do think it is that

144
00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:03,239
Speaker 1: crazed person versus the serial strangler. And I often don't

145
00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:08,560
Speaker 1: think of the father who kills his whole family as

146
00:08:09,080 --> 00:08:11,400
Speaker 1: the person who's using the axe, even though I've done

147
00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:14,400
Speaker 1: several of those stories. It really feels more of like

148
00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:16,800
Speaker 1: the person kicking in the door and breaking in and

149
00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:20,800
Speaker 1: their hair is disheveled and they're you know, just wildly swinging.

150
00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:23,600
Speaker 1: So that image is very much like kind of like

151
00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:25,480
Speaker 1: the chainsaw massacre image.

152
00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,360
Speaker 2: To me, it's funny you bring up chainsaws because that's

153
00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:31,320
Speaker 2: also an implement for wood cutting as well as murder.

154
00:08:31,320 --> 00:08:34,920
Speaker 2: But what's interesting to me is that chainsaw murderer. Chain

155
00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:37,480
Speaker 2: saws are not very often used in murder.

156
00:08:37,520 --> 00:08:39,319
Speaker 1: You can't hide them, I mean, where do you go.

157
00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:41,520
Speaker 1: You can put a hatchet in your pocket.

158
00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:44,720
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it's loud as well, and it's also you know,

159
00:08:44,760 --> 00:08:46,960
Speaker 2: this is true to a certain extent of big axes,

160
00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:51,720
Speaker 2: less so hatchets and smaller, lighter implements, but you know,

161
00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:54,360
Speaker 2: it's hard to You're as likely to hurt yourself as

162
00:08:54,400 --> 00:08:56,600
Speaker 2: you are to hurt the other person with the chainsaw,

163
00:08:56,800 --> 00:08:58,800
Speaker 2: so you really don't see that being used very much

164
00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:02,880
Speaker 2: as natural implement or whereas the axe absolutely was very

165
00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:06,440
Speaker 2: much an implement of violence and as well as a

166
00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:09,760
Speaker 2: household tool. So to go back to your point about

167
00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:13,599
Speaker 2: the wilely swinging axe murderer, I want to address that

168
00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:15,800
Speaker 2: because I think it very very much gets to something

169
00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:19,040
Speaker 2: about the axe that's very true, which is the brutality

170
00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:21,000
Speaker 2: of it, the fact that you have to be really

171
00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:24,000
Speaker 2: up close and personal and really pretty. I mean, you know,

172
00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:26,520
Speaker 2: it's accessible for a lighter person, but you do have

173
00:09:26,559 --> 00:09:28,520
Speaker 2: to put a lot of force into it to make

174
00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:31,920
Speaker 2: that kind of impact on their head or neck or whatever.

175
00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:35,120
Speaker 2: So it is something that requires a lot of passion,

176
00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:37,640
Speaker 2: requires a lot of brutality, and it's very up close

177
00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:41,840
Speaker 2: and personal, especially contrasted with you know, sniper rifles or

178
00:09:41,920 --> 00:09:44,760
Speaker 2: drone strikes. And I think what it gets back to

179
00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:47,120
Speaker 2: in terms of a joke, I think it really goes

180
00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:49,440
Speaker 2: back to I mean the phrase is older than this,

181
00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:53,400
Speaker 2: but why it continues to persist into the twenty first century,

182
00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:56,560
Speaker 2: it's two reasons. First of all, the shining, I mean,

183
00:09:56,600 --> 00:09:59,120
Speaker 2: you can't that's what you're thinking of when you're thinking

184
00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:01,240
Speaker 2: of an axe murder. I think the less true for

185
00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:03,720
Speaker 2: a lot of people. Is as much as any real

186
00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:07,840
Speaker 2: axe murderer. You're thinking of Jack Nicholson, hair, crazy, manic,

187
00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:11,959
Speaker 2: breaking down that door. Absolutely. And then the comic element

188
00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:14,280
Speaker 2: of it, which has always been an element of the

189
00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:16,640
Speaker 2: phrase axe murderer. You know, going back to the forties

190
00:10:16,679 --> 00:10:20,160
Speaker 2: and fifties, we saw Raymond Chandler and sure Lee Johnson

191
00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:22,800
Speaker 2: using it as a joke. But what made it a

192
00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:25,880
Speaker 2: joke into the twenty first century parody by Simpsons and

193
00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:27,880
Speaker 2: things like that, what made it kind of a staple

194
00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:30,840
Speaker 2: was also the Mike Myers movie So I Married an Axemur.

195
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:35,160
Speaker 2: That's what really brought it into our lex con which

196
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:37,080
Speaker 2: is funny because it's not you know, it was a

197
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,679
Speaker 2: lot of hit at the time. It's become a cult phenomenon,

198
00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:44,560
Speaker 2: but it's also very recognizable. I think most people have

199
00:10:44,720 --> 00:10:47,200
Speaker 2: heard of that movie at some point, even though it's

200
00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:49,760
Speaker 2: nearly forty years old at this point. And I think

201
00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:53,640
Speaker 2: that that, you know, it's such a goofy movie and

202
00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:56,320
Speaker 2: such an absurdist movie, and I think that brings a

203
00:10:56,360 --> 00:10:58,720
Speaker 2: little bit of it to that. But I wanted to

204
00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:01,120
Speaker 2: go back where I was going before or that, which

205
00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:04,480
Speaker 2: was to say that, you know, we have this image

206
00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:06,559
Speaker 2: of the axe murder, who's more like the man from

207
00:11:06,559 --> 00:11:10,800
Speaker 2: the Train Pomula, where it's randomly finding people extremely brutal.

208
00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:13,760
Speaker 2: But what I found in looking at this was not

209
00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:17,360
Speaker 2: that usually I kind of wanted to stay away from

210
00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:20,520
Speaker 2: serial killers after having such a long serial killer book.

211
00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:24,600
Speaker 2: But also what I found is that most axe murders

212
00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:30,520
Speaker 2: are not premeditated. Like most murders, it's an object of convenience.

213
00:11:30,679 --> 00:11:34,560
Speaker 2: That's why it was used so often in interpersonal conflict.

214
00:11:34,600 --> 00:11:38,600
Speaker 2: In interpersonal violence, it's because there was always one in hand.

215
00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:42,880
Speaker 2: That's true in like crime and punishment, Raskolnikov raps An

216
00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,920
Speaker 2: acts from the kitchen. Nothing could have been simpler. It's

217
00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 2: simply because there were so many actses. They were so

218
00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:52,199
Speaker 2: heavily in labor, They had so many different applications, there

219
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:55,000
Speaker 2: were so many different kinds of axes that it was

220
00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:58,920
Speaker 2: very likely that a labor setting, domestic setting, especially if

221
00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:00,880
Speaker 2: it was at all rural, there was going to be

222
00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:04,079
Speaker 2: at least one axe on the property, if not several axes.

223
00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:06,880
Speaker 2: So it's really just something that was grabbed in the

224
00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:09,200
Speaker 2: heat of the moment as much as something that was

225
00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:11,839
Speaker 2: a fetish, as it was for the man from the train.

226
00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:14,760
Speaker 1: Thinking about on history, you know, I've written a book

227
00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:17,000
Speaker 1: about the Great Smog of nineteen fifty two, which was

228
00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:19,720
Speaker 1: my first book that involved a serial killer who strangled,

229
00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:22,360
Speaker 1: so he's not actually part of the story, but you know,

230
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:26,200
Speaker 1: I have to assume that with the emergence of coal

231
00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:30,560
Speaker 1: as the main fuel source, rather than would maybe actses

232
00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:33,520
Speaker 1: weren't as available as we start approaching, you know, the

233
00:12:33,559 --> 00:12:35,400
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Do you think that's right.

234
00:12:35,679 --> 00:12:38,199
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. That's absolutely a huge part of it.

235
00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:43,640
Speaker 2: I mean, industrialization really took so many different applications for

236
00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:46,520
Speaker 2: the acts that had been there for thousands of years,

237
00:12:46,679 --> 00:12:49,800
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of years. I took that and it

238
00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:52,719
Speaker 2: made it into something that was quick, that did not

239
00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:57,360
Speaker 2: happen in your house, that was a mechanical process rather

240
00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:00,959
Speaker 2: than something you did personally. Heating your house is definitely

241
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,480
Speaker 2: one of the primary applications for that, you know, the

242
00:13:04,520 --> 00:13:09,559
Speaker 2: switch to electric and coal heating rather than having to personally,

243
00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:12,040
Speaker 2: you know, not just chop down a tree for wood,

244
00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:15,520
Speaker 2: but then break down the wood into kindling was a

245
00:13:15,520 --> 00:13:17,959
Speaker 2: big task for which people would have access because even

246
00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:20,600
Speaker 2: if you bought the wood from somewhere else, you would

247
00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:23,720
Speaker 2: have to go and process it yourself to a certain extent.

248
00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:28,200
Speaker 2: But there's also you know, there's butchery, there's barrel making.

249
00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:32,000
Speaker 2: There's so many different applications that were once a part

250
00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:35,679
Speaker 2: of the home, once a part of normal labor process

251
00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:39,200
Speaker 2: where you would do it yourself. That were just taken

252
00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:42,480
Speaker 2: away from that. And in the mid century especially, one

253
00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:44,560
Speaker 2: of the things was that, you know, a lot of

254
00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:48,280
Speaker 2: the steel steel axe heads were melted down for the

255
00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:50,840
Speaker 2: World War II effort as well. In addition to that,

256
00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:53,480
Speaker 2: there's also the chainsaw, which we were talking about earlier.

257
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:58,079
Speaker 2: You know, the chainsaw became really professionalized and also available

258
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:02,160
Speaker 2: to home use in the mid century, especially the mid sixties.

259
00:14:02,640 --> 00:14:04,719
Speaker 2: Part of the appeal of axes, I think, and part

260
00:14:04,760 --> 00:14:07,600
Speaker 2: of the resurgence of them in the last twenty years

261
00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:10,280
Speaker 2: or so. We're seeing a resurgence of people who are

262
00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:12,800
Speaker 2: interested in acxes, people who are interested in using it

263
00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:15,679
Speaker 2: for hobby and for tearing for their home. You know,

264
00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:19,760
Speaker 2: that's part of returning like a reaction against technology, whereas

265
00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:22,200
Speaker 2: in the mid century people were very much wanting to

266
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:26,680
Speaker 2: lean into technology. And the chainsaw seems so fun. It's

267
00:14:26,680 --> 00:14:29,040
Speaker 2: so you know, it's big and loud, it's kind of

268
00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:31,200
Speaker 2: like a motorcycle. So I think a lot of people

269
00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:34,640
Speaker 2: who were diy ing it or like doing repairs around

270
00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:36,840
Speaker 2: their home would want to go out and get that

271
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:39,280
Speaker 2: the same way one hundred years earlier, they had wanted

272
00:14:39,320 --> 00:14:42,280
Speaker 2: to go out and get an axe, because that wasn't

273
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:44,600
Speaker 2: as accessible as it had been, you know, in eighteen

274
00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:46,320
Speaker 2: sixty it was a lot more accessible than it wasn't

275
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:49,080
Speaker 2: seventeen sixty. So it was a novelty to be able

276
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:51,920
Speaker 2: to go out and buy this big axe for not

277
00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:54,200
Speaker 2: that much money and take it home and use it

278
00:14:54,240 --> 00:14:56,320
Speaker 2: however you want it. That's part of the story of

279
00:14:56,400 --> 00:14:58,960
Speaker 2: you know, George Washington and the Cherry Tree too, is

280
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,080
Speaker 2: this little boy who's got the fascination with the axe,

281
00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:04,120
Speaker 2: wants to chop it down and play with it. By

282
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:08,080
Speaker 2: the mid century, that novelty had definitely worn off, and

283
00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:10,080
Speaker 2: the chainsaw had a lot more novelty.

284
00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:12,040
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I was thinking about the axe as

285
00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,360
Speaker 1: a weapon. You can get hurt really easily. You're not

286
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:18,080
Speaker 1: getting out of there most likely without getting blood all

287
00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:19,960
Speaker 1: over you, and you have to it's it's got to

288
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:22,120
Speaker 1: be almost like unlike a gun. It's like hand to

289
00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:25,360
Speaker 1: hand combat. You have to get close enough to really

290
00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:28,480
Speaker 1: get the person, and you're risking whether you're a man

291
00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:32,040
Speaker 1: or a woman, the person catching the wood and you know,

292
00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:34,800
Speaker 1: being able to turn it on you. So like when

293
00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:38,160
Speaker 1: your theory about the crimes of passion that seems more

294
00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:41,400
Speaker 1: likely to me than somebody who just grabs an axe,

295
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:44,520
Speaker 1: you know, with the intent of murdering people he doesn't

296
00:15:44,520 --> 00:15:48,280
Speaker 1: even know, because man, it's risky. And knives are risky

297
00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:49,920
Speaker 1: to me too, because you know, you can cut your

298
00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:51,800
Speaker 1: hand and all kinds of bad stuff. But the axe

299
00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:56,360
Speaker 1: just seems like so brutal that you're mad or something.

300
00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:01,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, especially with certain kinds of acts.

301
00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:04,760
Speaker 2: Is like the labyris the double sided axe. That's an

302
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:07,200
Speaker 2: axe where it's got two different sides, which is great

303
00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:10,560
Speaker 2: for woodsmand because once one side gets dull, that can

304
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:13,160
Speaker 2: just turn it around and keep going. But there's twice

305
00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:14,960
Speaker 2: it's twice as likely you're going to stick your own

306
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:17,160
Speaker 2: axe in your back if you've used it a double

307
00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:20,240
Speaker 2: sided axe. And yeah, you have to be very careful

308
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:22,280
Speaker 2: to not chop off your own toe when you are

309
00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:25,400
Speaker 2: using especially a big axe, but hatchets too. I mean,

310
00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:28,800
Speaker 2: you swing too hard and you can definitely make impact

311
00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:29,520
Speaker 2: with yourself.

312
00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:32,120
Speaker 1: It's just risky. Don't you think it's risky as a weapon.

313
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:35,640
Speaker 1: But again, your point is people are not thinking about risk.

314
00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:37,920
Speaker 1: They're just thinking they're mad. And this is the closest

315
00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:38,520
Speaker 1: thing to them.

316
00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:42,080
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, And I think that's part of the interesting

317
00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:44,960
Speaker 2: thing about Lizzie Bordon too. One of the biggest mysteries

318
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:47,760
Speaker 2: is that her dress was so clean after that. You

319
00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:51,840
Speaker 2: couldn't kill someone with an axe and have addressed that clean,

320
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:56,760
Speaker 2: you know, ten minutes later. A very hard thing to imagine.

321
00:16:56,880 --> 00:16:59,800
Speaker 2: But also your point about get someone getting the axe

322
00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:03,080
Speaker 2: from that was a big element in the Betty Gore

323
00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:07,200
Speaker 2: Candy Montgomery murder. Was that probably Betty, who was the

324
00:17:07,280 --> 00:17:10,640
Speaker 2: victim there, introduced the acts into the confrontation and then

325
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:13,439
Speaker 2: eventually Candy was able to wrest away from her. And

326
00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:15,520
Speaker 2: just you know, she was a small woman. We're talking

327
00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:19,080
Speaker 2: about how even small people can use a big axe

328
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:20,640
Speaker 2: to do a lot of damage. She was a very

329
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:23,040
Speaker 2: small woman, did not usually use an axe, and she

330
00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:25,840
Speaker 2: was able to hit Betty forty one times, which is

331
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:28,440
Speaker 2: way more than Lizzie ever would have used. The acts

332
00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:32,680
Speaker 2: eighteen strikes altogether. For Lizzie, despite the forty.

333
00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:38,520
Speaker 1: Rumor the brutality of the acts, you know, every time

334
00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:41,840
Speaker 1: I hear struck forty one times, for a long time,

335
00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:44,800
Speaker 1: I just thought, conventional wisdom is this, this is overkilled.

336
00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:47,320
Speaker 1: This is very personal. But you know, my other show

337
00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:49,679
Speaker 1: Buried Bones with Paul Holes. He and I talk about it,

338
00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:51,440
Speaker 1: and he said a lot of times, it's not overkill,

339
00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:55,320
Speaker 1: it's you have to guarantee that this person's dead. They're

340
00:17:55,359 --> 00:17:58,720
Speaker 1: moving around, they're not just laying there unless they're asleep.

341
00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:02,679
Speaker 1: And so the number of of wax doesn't necessarily have

342
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:05,720
Speaker 1: to be mad. It's scared. It's fear, like, oh my god,

343
00:18:05,760 --> 00:18:08,359
Speaker 1: this person. I have to leave this person dead for sure.

344
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:12,040
Speaker 2: Adrenaline, and I think people who have and I think

345
00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:15,080
Speaker 2: that's especially true for people who have not used the

346
00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:19,080
Speaker 2: axe a lot. I think with people who have used

347
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:23,200
Speaker 2: the acts more as a tool are a lot more

348
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:27,240
Speaker 2: confident with it as a weapon. I would say, I

349
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:31,840
Speaker 2: think the story of Tonna Cressen and William Tillman kind

350
00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:36,600
Speaker 2: of shows that both of them were very experienced with

351
00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:40,480
Speaker 2: the Tomahawk and the Coopers Acts respectively, and were able

352
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:46,439
Speaker 2: to strike pretty true and kill them immediately, whereas people

353
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:50,720
Speaker 2: who were less experienced with the acts, which I would

354
00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:53,600
Speaker 2: say is most of the most of the other killers

355
00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:56,640
Speaker 2: in the more modern section, Lizzie Borden, if that was her.

356
00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:02,200
Speaker 2: Fred Strobel, the La Child Lester was definitely a case

357
00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:04,840
Speaker 2: of that. He used several different weapons to make sure

358
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,680
Speaker 2: that she was dead and wouldn't tell on him. Basically,

359
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:11,320
Speaker 2: then Candy and Betty definitely that was a case where

360
00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:16,159
Speaker 2: the adrenaline from the confrontation was so intense that she

361
00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:19,240
Speaker 2: was just whacking and whacking until she was absolutely sure

362
00:19:19,359 --> 00:19:20,640
Speaker 2: that Betty was dead.

363
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:23,359
Speaker 1: Since you just talked about Candy, let's talk about Candy,

364
00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:25,240
Speaker 1: so kind of set this whole thing up. How do

365
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:27,480
Speaker 1: they know each other? Who are these people? So?

366
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:32,960
Speaker 2: Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore both went to the same

367
00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:38,360
Speaker 2: church in suburban Dallas in the late nineteen seventies early eighties.

368
00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:42,600
Speaker 2: These women were in their mid to late twenties, but

369
00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:46,840
Speaker 2: they were already coming up on basically midlife crises. They

370
00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:51,240
Speaker 2: both got married early on and settled into their marriages

371
00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:54,280
Speaker 2: and were feeling kind of bored and listless and not

372
00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:57,960
Speaker 2: unfulfilled by it. Betty was married to a real piece

373
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,640
Speaker 2: of work guy named Alan Gore, who had an affair

374
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,040
Speaker 2: with Candy Montgomery. Candy was much more popular, She was

375
00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:09,159
Speaker 2: more vivacious, prettier, if we're being honest, and she was

376
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:12,359
Speaker 2: much more popular than Betty, and she decided she wanted

377
00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:14,240
Speaker 2: to have an affair because she was bored, and she

378
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:18,080
Speaker 2: decided on Betty's husband because he seemed like a safe bet.

379
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:22,520
Speaker 2: So they carried on this affair up through throughout Betty's

380
00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:26,119
Speaker 2: pregnancy and until after she had had the baby, and

381
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:30,480
Speaker 2: then ended it soon after that. And throughout all this time, also,

382
00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:35,360
Speaker 2: Betty and Candy's children are becoming very very close friends,

383
00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:37,560
Speaker 2: so they're over at each other's houses all the time,

384
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:41,119
Speaker 2: having sleepovers, going to movies, caring for each other's kids,

385
00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:44,880
Speaker 2: so their lives were very intertwined in more ways than

386
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:49,840
Speaker 2: Betty knew. And then on June thirteenth, nineteen eighty, it

387
00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:53,600
Speaker 2: was Friday the thirteenth. Both The Shining and Friday the

388
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:57,760
Speaker 2: Thirteenth had just come out in the movie theaters. Betty

389
00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:00,679
Speaker 2: was getting ready to go on kind of a second

390
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:03,760
Speaker 2: honeymoon with Allan. They were planning a trip to Europe,

391
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 2: and her daughter was over at Candy's house and they

392
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:11,240
Speaker 2: wanted to sleep over the last another night, so Candy

393
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:14,280
Speaker 2: stopped by, dropped the kids off at vacation Bible school,

394
00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:17,480
Speaker 2: told them a story about a wood chopper, and then

395
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:21,400
Speaker 2: went over to Betty's house to pick up a swimsuit

396
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:24,919
Speaker 2: and talk a little bit about childcare. That's what we

397
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:28,520
Speaker 2: know for sure. Once Candy gets to Betty's house, it's

398
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 2: all Candy's story. We don't really know exactly what happened,

399
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,960
Speaker 2: but according to Candy, they went over, chattled a little bit,

400
00:21:35,080 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 2: it was normal, and then out of nowhere Betty. Betty says,

401
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,040
Speaker 2: have you been having an affair with my husband? And

402
00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:44,480
Speaker 2: Candy goes, yes, but it's over now. I don't want

403
00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:46,959
Speaker 2: anything to do with him now, I'm done with them.

404
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:50,959
Speaker 2: And after that, Betty says, okay, wait here for a second,

405
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:54,400
Speaker 2: and then goes and grabs and acts from the garage

406
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:59,440
Speaker 2: and menaces with her with it, and then apparently goes

407
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 2: back to just normal chit chat for a little bit.

408
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 2: I don't know why Candy didn't leave at this point.

409
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:05,879
Speaker 2: It's kind of one of the most damning parts of

410
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:07,600
Speaker 2: the story to me is that she just did not

411
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:10,600
Speaker 2: get the hell out of the house when the ax

412
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 2: showed up. Eventually, Betty starts to push Candy with the

413
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:19,600
Speaker 2: axe and starts to like menace her with it, says,

414
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:22,880
Speaker 2: don't take my husband. You can't have them, Candy saying

415
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:25,640
Speaker 2: I don't want him, I don't want to. Eventually they

416
00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 2: start hitting each other with the axe, have a big struggle,

417
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:33,240
Speaker 2: and eventually candy story is that at some point in

418
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 2: this Betty shushed her and that sent Candy back to

419
00:22:38,119 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 2: an incident when she was shushed by her mother in

420
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 2: the er when she was four, and that caused her

421
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:50,600
Speaker 2: to disassociate and hit Betty forty one times with this axe,

422
00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:54,320
Speaker 2: absolutely obliterated her, like they thought it was a gunshot

423
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:57,120
Speaker 2: rather than an axe when the police first got there.

424
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:02,919
Speaker 2: Then Candy leaves, leaves Betty there. Her daughter is in

425
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 2: there as well, just crying, you know, left by herself

426
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 2: for hours and hours and hours. Alan is on a

427
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,360
Speaker 2: work trip at this point, so once they find him,

428
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 2: it becomes immediately clear. You know, her terrible husband did

429
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 2: not actually do this. He was in Minnesota at the time,

430
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 2: So who is it. They thought immediately that this is

431
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 2: some axe wielding maniac. They did not think it was

432
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:28,439
Speaker 2: going to be some interpersonal conflict. They thought it was

433
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 2: a serial killer or something like that, because that was

434
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 2: in the news a lot lately, and they just wouldn't.

435
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:35,399
Speaker 2: It's kind of funny. It's kind of the inverse of

436
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 2: a lot of stories in The Man from the Train,

437
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 2: because in the Man from the train. There's so many

438
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 2: different stories where somebody comes in kills the whole family

439
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:47,679
Speaker 2: out of nowhere, and then leaves town. Immediately everyone looks

440
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 2: at the neighbors. They want to say, Oh, this is

441
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 2: this neighbor whose wife he was having an affair with.

442
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,880
Speaker 2: This is somebody who was having a business conflict with.

443
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,199
Speaker 2: This was somebody else. And it's kind of funny because

444
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 2: in Betty and Candy, the culprit was her neighbor, it

445
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 2: was her friend, it was a member of her community.

446
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 2: But the police immediately went to this is an ax

447
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 2: wielding maniac, probably a serial killer or someone random. But

448
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 2: eventually they realize Candy was the last person there. She's

449
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 2: acting weird, she's acting squirrely, she's got to cut on

450
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 2: her foot. She can't explain, so eventually they do figure

451
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 2: out that it was her, and the case goes to trial,

452
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 2: and she is eventually acquitted because of her rather inane

453
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 2: and ludicrous to our modernized defense that it was trauma

454
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 2: from her mom's shushing her when she was four. And

455
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 2: I mean, I do want to say, I think there's

456
00:24:40,359 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 2: a whole story where Candy goes through life and she

457
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 2: never kills anyone with an axe. I think it was

458
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: probably maybe closer to manslaughter or something like that, because

459
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,479
Speaker 2: it was. I do believe that there was an argument,

460
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 2: and I do think that Betty probably introduced the action

461
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 2: into the argument.

462
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: Was it Betty's axe?

463
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 2: It was Betty's acx, Yes, it absolutely was Betty's axe. Yeah.

464
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 1: Was it some more obvious like next to the hearth

465
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 1: or was it was in the garage? You said, right, Yes,

466
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: it was.

467
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 2: In the garage, and then the confrontation where turned fatal

468
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 2: was in the utility room with the washer, dryer in everything,

469
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 2: right next to the garage. So yeah, it was just

470
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 2: an axe that her husband happened to have for like

471
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 2: taking out bushes or things like that, not something that

472
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 2: was in regular use, not something that just one of

473
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 2: the tools that a suburban man had to feel like

474
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:32,920
Speaker 2: he was in control of his property, that kind of thing.

475
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 2: So it was a huge axe, and it was you know,

476
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,119
Speaker 2: despite the fact that Candy was a really small person,

477
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 2: she was able to really brutalize Betty just with the

478
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 2: adrenaline and the force and the leverage of the thing.

479
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 2: It was a huge you know, probably two and a

480
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,719
Speaker 2: half three pound acts three feet long, So you can

481
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 2: really do some damage really quickly if you've got some

482
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 2: adrenaline behind you.

483
00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. And you know again that goes back to

484
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 1: a woman with a knife could get overpowered by another woman,

485
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: could get overpowered by you know, a teenage girl, a

486
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,239
Speaker 1: man whoever. But a woman with an axe who can

487
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: lift it. You just need one good whack with a

488
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 1: heavy axe. Three feet sounds like a pretty big x

489
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 1: to me.

490
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, it's true. You can really do a lot

491
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 2: of damage pretty accidentally. In the last chapter of the book,

492
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 2: which is about a murder in Kansas City, in double

493
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 2: murder in Kansas City in twenty nineteen, the way that

494
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 2: the conflict apparently started was that the first victim fell

495
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 2: on the ground onto the axe and accidentally injured himself,

496
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,360
Speaker 2: and then the conflict escalated from there and he ended

497
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,159
Speaker 2: up killing both batman and the homeless man who was

498
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,640
Speaker 2: sleeping rough nearby.

499
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: So tell me about the self defense case you have

500
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: in there. It's William Tilman.

501
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 2: I love the William Tillman story. It was such an

502
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 2: interesting story to me. It's it's great. You know, this

503
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 2: is a gallery of evil people as well as people

504
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 2: who are in very sad, desperate circumstances pushed to the

505
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 2: end of their ropes, which is also true of William Tillman.

506
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 2: But it's good to have one where he's fighting back.

507
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 2: He's taking his power back in a very righteous way

508
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 2: that I think we can all get behind. So I

509
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 2: actually found this via Lizzie Borden, and Lizzie Borden, the

510
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 2: acts that she was supposed to use that tripped up

511
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 2: the prosecution so much was called a who do hatchet

512
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 2: in the papers of the time, which is a way

513
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 2: to say, basically that it was playing tricks on the prosecution,

514
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 2: that it was tricky, it wasn't to be trusted. And

515
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 2: I was I was like, why are they calling it

516
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 2: a who doo hatchet? That's so weird? Is it racist?

517
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 2: Is this just some slang I don't understand? And while

518
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 2: I was looking through old newspapers, I found the word

519
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 2: who doo and hatchet in reference to William till Who

520
00:27:57,160 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 2: do had nothing to do with it. Who doo was

521
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 2: referring to a party in this case. But elsewhere on

522
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 2: the same page was the story of William Tillman and

523
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 2: his hatchet. So William Tillman was born free in Delaware

524
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 2: in eighteen thirty four. Delaware was a slave holding state

525
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 2: at that point, but he was born free. And soon

526
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 2: after that they moved to Rhode Island, and pretty early

527
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 2: on in his teens he began working on ships. He

528
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: began working mostly as a cook or a steward on ships.

529
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 2: So in the late eighteen fifties he was working on

530
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,360
Speaker 2: the SJ. Wearing. In eighteen sixty one, which was right

531
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 2: when the Civil War was really getting started, they took

532
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 2: off to go to Uruguay and Argentina transporting cargo which

533
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 2: was worth one hundred thousand dollars, which is a huge

534
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 2: amount of money that was in eighteen sixty one money.

535
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 2: So he was there with a big, big crew. And

536
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 2: then once they got to New Jersey, Confederate pirate ship

537
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 2: the USR see Jefferson Davis basically captured his ship and

538
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 2: took a hold of the ship and the cargo, and

539
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,719
Speaker 2: they considered William Tillman to be part of the cargo.

540
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 2: They told him explicitly, once we get down to South Carolina,

541
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 2: you are going to be sold into slavery. They knew

542
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 2: he was free, they knew he was never enslaved, but

543
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 2: they were going to enslave him in fact, the captain

544
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 2: of the Jefferson Davis, called Tillman to him and told

545
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 2: him to report to his house in Savanna to be

546
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 2: taken care of. So this was a very active threat.

547
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 2: But he said to one of the sailors on the wearing,

548
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 2: I am not going to Charleston a live man. They

549
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 2: can take me there dead. But basically he played it

550
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 2: very cool. He did not give any idea as to

551
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 2: the fact that he was planning on resisting. He just

552
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: pretended to comply, continued to work as his cook, continued

553
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 2: to work on the upkeep of the ship and things

554
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 2: like that, which is why he was able to store

555
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 2: a Cooper's hatchet, which is used for barrel making and

556
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,120
Speaker 2: making boxes and things like that, in a corner of

557
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 2: his room. Nobody noticed it. After a couple of weeks

558
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 2: of being captured, he was able to make a plan

559
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 2: with a couple of the sailors who were there. There

560
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 2: was one German sailor in particular who was afraid of

561
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 2: being taken as a prisoner of war in the Civil War,

562
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 2: and they made a plan together to basically, undercover of darkness,

563
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 2: go and immediately kill the captain and first mate and

564
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 2: then take over the rest of the ship, which they

565
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 2: were able to do pretty quickly because he was so

566
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 2: sure with the axe, he was so good with the axe,

567
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 2: he was able to do it quickly and before anyone

568
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 2: was able to scream or raise a fuss. So it

569
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 2: was a very efficient instrument in this case. And what

570
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 2: was especially notable about this, why we remember it, is

571
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 2: that Tillman, who was not a sailor, just a steward

572
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 2: who had lived on ships for a long time, was

573
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 2: able to pilot the ship back up to New Jersey

574
00:30:57,080 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 2: and he was going through some really rough territory there.

575
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 2: The outer banks were not far from there. He had

576
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 2: to navigate through that. He was able to get back

577
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 2: up to New Jersey and playing the bounty on the ship,

578
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 2: so he was able to you're entitled to a share

579
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 2: of the profits if you are able to recover the

580
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 2: cargo from being stolen. So he was given a big

581
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 2: sum of money and was celebrated basically across the nation

582
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 2: as a hero, even in like Phrenology newspapers. They were like,

583
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,959
Speaker 2: here's a great example of a black guy, which is

584
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 2: not great, but it's nice that he was being celebrated. Also,

585
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 2: the defender wrote about him a black newspaper as well.

586
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 2: We get some really good coverage of that. So it's

587
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 2: a really exciting story, really heroic tale. He gets right

588
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 2: off into the sunset. We're not quite sure what happens

589
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 2: to him after that. I'm sure really another researcher could

590
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 2: probably figure it out. But yeah, it's a really interesting

591
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: story of heroism and bravery and how the acts can

592
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 2: be a really handy instrument in that case, partially because

593
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 2: it does double duty as a labor instrument that's kind

594
00:31:58,240 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 2: of below people's notice.

595
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about that too, singing what's in

596
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: the corner of my bedroom? And it's a baseball bat,

597
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: which would have been an axe, I guess one hundred

598
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: years ago, one hundred and fifty years ago. Just something

599
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:10,719
Speaker 1: that is just a you know, as you say over

600
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: and over in the book that I think is great.

601
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: It's just this utilizing a common tool that would have

602
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 1: been around, but that can be deadly at the same

603
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: time depending on who's holding it. And speaking of that,

604
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: you want to talk about Lizzie Borden. I visited the

605
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: Lizzie boardon House and I'll just tell you this quick

606
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 1: little thing. I think I've probably said this on another show.

607
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: They took me to the Lizzie Bardon house because we

608
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: were talking about the book that I just released, you know,

609
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 1: like six or eight months ago, The Sinner's all about,

610
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: And we're in the basement and they have a black

611
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: light and you can see the blood that came down

612
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: from her father. We were right on the basement when

613
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 1: you know where you first walked down the steps and

614
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:49,959
Speaker 1: there's the washer and they said, this is where she

615
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: was washing out her clothes. And you know, you're sitting

616
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: in this little sitting area and you look up and

617
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: you can see with a black light blood for Andrew Borden,

618
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: who had been laying literally just right above. So when

619
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: you're talking about how bloody it can be, I was thinking, well, yeah,

620
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're going back to the basics of

621
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: Lizzie Borden, for sure, tell me. You know, I know

622
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: everybody knows the story, but tell me what your take

623
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: is after doing all this research on it.

624
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 2: What I love about the acts, going back to what

625
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 2: we're talking about just a minute ago, is that it's

626
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 2: something that is below notice. And I think that's why

627
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 2: it was. There was no popular history available to me

628
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 2: when I was first writing this book is that it's

629
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 2: just something that's existed for so long that we take

630
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 2: it for granted, not something that we think about actively.

631
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 2: And I love to kind of pick that out and

632
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: try and shine a light on it and see what

633
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 2: it reflects back on us. So Lizzie Borden, it's such

634
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 2: an old story and we almost take it for granted

635
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 2: a little bit. I think some people, including me, at

636
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 2: the start of this book, are kind of like, ah, yeah,

637
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 2: Lizzie Borden heard a million times, not that interested. But

638
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 2: it's just so fascinating. It's just such a weird case.

639
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 2: I mean, the acts is what attracts me to the case,

640
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 2: but what makes it such a puzzle is the timeline

641
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 2: is that it's such a you know, there's like twenty

642
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 2: minutes between Andrew Borden being killed and everyone in the

643
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,359
Speaker 2: neighborhood seeing Lizzie and being in the house. And it's

644
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 2: such a fascinating case too, because it's right at the

645
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:24,399
Speaker 2: beginning of there being actual, like scientific basis on which

646
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 2: to base prosecutions. You know, they had actual some actual forensics.

647
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 2: They actually had photographs of the scene, which they moved

648
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 2: the scene to take photographs of it. Which shows you

649
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 2: how early is in the history of photography and grime

650
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 2: scene photography. Fingerprints were not a thing yet, but they

651
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 2: were able to, like test blood in things like that.

652
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,800
Speaker 2: Let me just give you the basics. August fourth, eighteen

653
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 2: ninety two, very very hot day. Probably even worse for

654
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 2: them than it is for us experiencing extreme heat because

655
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 2: they did not have air conditioning. You know, of course

656
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 2: they wouldn't have air conditioning in eighteen ninety two, but

657
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 2: they also didn't have indoor plumbing, didn't have a lot

658
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 2: of electricity, were still using gas despite the fact that

659
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 2: these things were becoming very common in their neighborhood. They

660
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 2: lived in a fairly well to do neighborhood. Andrew Borden

661
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 2: was a rich man, but he wasn't living like one.

662
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 2: He was living on a very tight budget. He was

663
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 2: living with his wife, Abby of many years, who was

664
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 2: stepmother to his daughters, Lizzie and Emma. Emma had moved

665
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 2: away gotten married at this point. Lizzie was still living

666
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 2: with them. She was in her thirties and she was

667
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:37,720
Speaker 2: kind of chafing at the boundaries of Victorian society. That morning,

668
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 2: there was Abby Andrew, Lizzie, but also Andrew's brother John,

669
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 2: and there made Bridget Sullivan, who were all there that morning.

670
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 2: Just to give you an example of how close with

671
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 2: the dollar Andrew was. They were having stew for breakfast,

672
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 2: which had already spoiled, so this was bad stew, and

673
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 2: they were having it for breakfast for some reason. Andrew, Abby,

674
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 2: and John all ate earlier on and went off to

675
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 2: do their chores. Lizzie rose later and came down had

676
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 2: she was on her period at that time, which is

677
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 2: kind of her explanation for some of the very small

678
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 2: amount of blood that was on her dress. Later. So

679
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 2: they are hanging out trying to get through a very

680
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 2: hot morning and deal with the heat. Andrew goes off

681
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 2: to the post office, John goes off to run errands.

682
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 2: So it is Abby, Lizzie, and Bridget and this very

683
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 2: small house. You've been there, I've been there. It's been

684
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: a while, but it's a very tightly constrained house. It

685
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 2: is not I would be surprised if it were over

686
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 2: in a thousand square feet very narrow stairways. But somehow

687
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 2: someone was able to approach Abby around nine o'clock and

688
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 2: kill her while she was doing chores in an upstairs bedroom.

689
00:36:55,960 --> 00:37:00,280
Speaker 2: I believe there were eighteen wounds to her head. Andrew

690
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 2: comes back. He walks around the house a little bit,

691
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,359
Speaker 2: even goes up to the second floor, but somehow does

692
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 2: not see his wife lying there dead on the floor.

693
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 2: He and Lizzie have a couple of words. He talks

694
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 2: to Bridget a little bit, and then Bridget goes outside

695
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 2: to wash windows. Andrew says he's going down for a

696
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 2: nap and Lizzie question mark, question mark, question mark. She

697
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 2: doesn't even have a good alibi for this time. She

698
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 2: says that she went out to the barn and got

699
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 2: some fishing wire, which doesn't sound like her. Maybe she went,

700
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 2: she said, maybe I went and had a pair from

701
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:34,240
Speaker 2: the yard, which was visible to a lot of people

702
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 2: who did not see her outside eating a pear. She

703
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 2: was very weird in the inquest. Fuzzy memory of events

704
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 2: doesn't really take pains to find an alibi by her

705
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 2: for herself. So between ten forty five and eleven o'clock,

706
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 2: Andrew goes to take a nap in the front room.

707
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:54,839
Speaker 2: He lies down. He's got his jacket behind him as

708
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 2: kind of a makeshift pillow. At some point, somebody steaks

709
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 2: up from behind him, wax him at ten times with

710
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,760
Speaker 2: something he has killed immediately. There's no scream or anything.

711
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 2: He never even woke up. But it's a very bloody event.

712
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 2: That was between ten forty five and eleven. At eleven o'clock,

713
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 2: Bridget went up for a nap, and about ten minutes

714
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 2: later she hears Lizzie screaming, there's been a murder, and

715
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 2: there's been a murder. She says, Maggie, Maggie, come quick.

716
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:24,399
Speaker 2: Maggie was not Bridget's name, but the previous maid's name

717
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 2: was Maggie, so they kept calling her Maggie, which to

718
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 2: me speaks to One of the big theories about this

719
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 2: is that Lizzie and Bridget colluded in this.

720
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: Because Bridget skipped down with money. Yeah.

721
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 2: Now, you know, there's so many different theories and I

722
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 2: don't really land on one theory or another. I don't

723
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 2: think it's something that can be solved at this point.

724
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 2: One of the big theories, and kind of the only

725
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 2: one that makes sense to me for Lizzie's guilt, is

726
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 2: that Bridget and Lizzie worked together. If Lizzie did it,

727
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:55,919
Speaker 2: I don't see how she could have done it without

728
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 2: Bridget's help. But she and Bridget were not friends. I

729
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 2: do not see them planning a murder together. So anyway,

730
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 2: immediately the whole town basically files into the Boarden house

731
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 2: and sees this whole scene and sees the condition of it,

732
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 2: and sees Lizzie completely spotless dress, does not look like

733
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 2: she's just killed two people with an axe. And there

734
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:21,280
Speaker 2: are some interesting like friends, like I was saying, forensic

735
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 2: insights into this, Like they could tell Abby had been

736
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 2: killed an hour and a half earlier because of the

737
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 2: contents of her stomach, and also because the blood when

738
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 2: they discovered her was much more ropey and matted than

739
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 2: Andrew's blood, so they could tell that she had been

740
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 2: dead for longer than Andrew had been dead.

741
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about that is one thing that

742
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 1: Paul and I talk about on Buried Bones is if

743
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: you've got somebody who's targeting, as in I want to

744
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 1: get these murders done and steal something or I want

745
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: to get this revenge done, You're going to take the

746
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: man out first. You're not going to take the woman

747
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:53,240
Speaker 1: out first.

748
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:56,320
Speaker 2: And it's so interesting that there was never really another

749
00:39:56,600 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 2: good suspect besides Lizzie and Britt yet there was never

750
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:03,919
Speaker 2: really anyone. There was somebody who came to the door

751
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks earlier and had some kind of

752
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 2: disagreement with Andrew, but that's like the only other glue

753
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 2: really as to who could have done it.

754
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: There was a murder because I ended up doing an

755
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: episode on this for one of my last seasons of

756
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: Templemore Wicked, just like a documentary series, and there was

757
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: a woman who was murdered, you know, not far by

758
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: birth of Manchester, and I think the similarity was it

759
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: was in the same sort of vicinity, and it was

760
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 1: an axe, and that was pretty much it. And it

761
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: turned out to be you know, her father who owned

762
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 1: the farm, her father's ex employee who was really pissed

763
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:38,439
Speaker 1: off at him and just saw her. He was gone

764
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: and saw her and killed her. And the thought was

765
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:46,280
Speaker 1: the defense was was going to use that because Lizzie

766
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:49,399
Speaker 1: was in jail when that happened. So it's like we're

767
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:52,760
Speaker 1: back right back to your beginning phrase, crazed axe murderer

768
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 1: on the loose, And I get my argument has always

769
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 1: been everybody had an AX. I mean, you know, you

770
00:40:57,520 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: craze killer is about as far as you're going to

771
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: get with that.

772
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I don't really think this is that likely.

773
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 2: But what I see when I see that is an assassin.

774
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 2: There were assassins that at that point it's not super likely,

775
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 2: but that does happen. There are, you know, paid killings

776
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:17,839
Speaker 2: that goes back a long time. I see someone who

777
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 2: knew what they were doing and knew how to hide

778
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 2: and escape notice and strike when they could anyway. Getting

779
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 2: back to access. They immediately the police are immediately interested.

780
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 2: They immediately think it might be an axe because that

781
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 2: was a pretty common weapon back then. That's not like

782
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 2: now where you know, you immediately go to a gun

783
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 2: or something like that, where an ax would be an

784
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 2: exotic weapon. Immediately they thought, okay, this looks like it

785
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 2: could be an ax. There's clearly some blunt trauma as

786
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 2: well as some sharp wounds as well, so it would

787
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 2: have to be something with both of those capabilities. So

788
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 2: they go downstairs, they look at the basement, they look

789
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 2: at the different access In the basement there are I

790
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 2: think two wood cutting axes, and then there are three

791
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 2: or four hatchets that were over kind of collected, which

792
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 2: Andrew had bought to do repairs himself. Again, this is

793
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 2: a very cheap guy. He wanted to do his own roofing.

794
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 2: He wanted to chop off his own pigeons. Says that

795
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:16,839
Speaker 2: was what Lizzie thought that he had gotten them for.

796
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 2: So he was really getting them to do his own

797
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 2: things rather than just hiring out for it. And then

798
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 2: he would buy these axes for one project and then

799
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 2: put them in the basement and forget about them. So

800
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 2: they're going through these axes and they find one that

801
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 2: looks like it's got a little bit of blood on it.

802
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:37,399
Speaker 2: They're very excited about that. They go and they take

803
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 2: it test. It does not turn out to do it.

804
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 2: They go back down later and they find an axe

805
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:47,360
Speaker 2: covered an ash in this shoe box in the basement basically,

806
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 2: and they come up with this wild backstory for it.

807
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 2: They think, okay, so she got blood on the handle,

808
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 2: so she immediately a for comitting these crimes. She went

809
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:04,879
Speaker 2: out to the pried off the handle with advise, then

810
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 2: ran down to the basement, stuck the handle in the

811
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:11,800
Speaker 2: fire to burn up the evidence, and then put ash

812
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 2: on the axe head so that it would look like

813
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 2: it had been down there for a while, which is

814
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:23,840
Speaker 2: really like just from the go is very convoluted. But

815
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting because it speaks to how much

816
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 2: we want to impose our own narrative on these events

817
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 2: which are inexplicable. We want to try and find an

818
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 2: explanation for how they did this. Sometimes we'll go to

819
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:41,760
Speaker 2: some crazy places for that. Because, like I laid out

820
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 2: with the timeline earlier, it was a very quick timeline.

821
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 2: And I can accept that Lizzie did a quick costume

822
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 2: change and no, but that's why nobody too quick costume

823
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 2: changes actually, because she was seen in between Babby and

824
00:43:56,320 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 2: Andrew and her dress was completely clean and white. Okay,

825
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:04,400
Speaker 2: I can accept that in the fifteen minutes after Andrew

826
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 2: was killed, before he was found. But on top of that,

827
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 2: you got to send her out to the barn to

828
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:15,839
Speaker 2: pry off a handle. That's crazy. Then send her down

829
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,320
Speaker 2: to do this weird thing where she hides the axe.

830
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 2: That's a really that strains credulity for me.

831
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 1: Because why wouldn't she just hide it somewhere or toss

832
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: it if he had that many actses and hatchets?

833
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And so what was crazy about this was

834
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 2: once they got to the trial, they presented this whole

835
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 2: theory about the axe and how she'd secreted away the evidence.

836
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 2: And then they're interviewing one of the policemen and they're like,

837
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:42,719
Speaker 2: so you didn't find the handle, where he's like, no, no, no,

838
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 2: I found the handle. It's in the shoe box. So

839
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: the whole thing about the handle being gone and burned

840
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 2: up was just completely made up. They did not double

841
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 2: check their facts. The handle was right there the whole time,

842
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 2: and that kind of blew their theory of the case.

843
00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:03,320
Speaker 2: And after that the defense was really grasping at straws.

844
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 2: It's such a bizarre, illogical event, it's hard to impose

845
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 2: a narrative on it. There's just inherently a lot of

846
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 2: reasonable doubt. So it makes total sense to me why

847
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 2: Lizzie was acquitted for this, because it's, you know, either

848
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 2: she covered her tracks very very well, or she got lucky,

849
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 2: or this was some kind of other random event. And

850
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 2: you know, they tore that house apart. They did not

851
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 2: find another axe, They did not find an axe in

852
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,839
Speaker 2: the cistern or anything like that. They did find an

853
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 2: axe with a very new axe that was flung onto

854
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 2: a neighboring roof. A kid found it while looking for

855
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:43,240
Speaker 2: a baseball, and that one is interesting to me because

856
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 2: they found it was covered in guilt, was new acts,

857
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,240
Speaker 2: and they found a sliver of guilt in Abby's skull,

858
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 2: So that to me is a little bit of a

859
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:57,240
Speaker 2: physical connection there, but also not enough to really base

860
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 2: a case on. So I'm of a couple of mine

861
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 2: about it. To me, I don't think Lizzie did it.

862
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 2: What really, Yeah, I think the timeline's too tight. I

863
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:10,279
Speaker 2: don't think the motive is strong enough for me. I mean,

864
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 2: money is a good motive, but it doesn't explain everything.

865
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 2: And also, you know, she maintained her innocence for the

866
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 2: rest of her life. Having looked at a lot of

867
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 2: crimes people who you know, not that Obviously, people don't

868
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,359
Speaker 2: come up with false alibis and deny things that they

869
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 2: did till they're dying day. A lot of people who

870
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 2: commit crimes eventually come forward about it. I find that

871
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 2: that happened. Oh found that it happened over and over again.

872
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 2: Is that when people were caught, they will be like, yeah,

873
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 2: I did it, but here's why. Rather than just saying

874
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:44,919
Speaker 2: I did not do this, I never did this, which

875
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 2: is what Lizzie said. But really what it was and

876
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:50,240
Speaker 2: this is what Emma said when she was interviewed about

877
00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 2: twenty years later, her only interview, she was like, there

878
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 2: was no weapon. They never found a weapon, They never

879
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 2: had a weapon to pin on her. That's why I

880
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 2: don't believe it. The only thing I can see with

881
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 2: Lizzie is that if she used some other kitchen implement

882
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 2: to do this crime and then she washed it off

883
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:13,720
Speaker 2: in the sink real quick. Okay, that's something I could see.

884
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 2: Maybe a cleaver, which is often called a meat axe,

885
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 2: or maybe like she was ironing handkerchiefs right before that,

886
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,359
Speaker 2: maybe the iron she was using had a sharp edge

887
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 2: and she used that as the implement. But again, those

888
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 2: are pretty far fetched. And to me, I don't know.

889
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 2: You know, it's such a wild case. It's such a

890
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 2: tight timeline. I've never really found an answer that feels

891
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 2: satisfactory or convincing to me.

892
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: Thinking about the authors who've written books about this. But

893
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: it is a mystery, and so you know, this is

894
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 1: probably not a very popular opinion, but I don't really

895
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: want to know, and I definitely don't want to know

896
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:51,719
Speaker 1: about Jack the Ripper. I mean, you will completely deflate

897
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,879
Speaker 1: that story, and in my opinion, Fall River, Massachusetts will

898
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: be a less popular place if we find some sort

899
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: of confession letter from Lizzie or from somebody else with

900
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: you know, DNA proof that we can run. I just don't.

901
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: I think it is one of those, you know. I mean,

902
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,320
Speaker 1: I think Lizzie Borden that case is our jack the

903
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: Ripper case.

904
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what keeps people going. I think

905
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 2: people are still gonna be talking about Jean Benet and

906
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:16,760
Speaker 2: the staircase in one hundred years because there's not really

907
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 2: satisfactory answer. I mean, there's people like Lizzie, there's people

908
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 2: we think, okay, it's obviously then if you know the

909
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 2: basic facts of the case, but then things keep coming

910
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,239
Speaker 2: up and you're like, well that's weird, and that's weird,

911
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 2: and that's weird. So yeah, I mean the puzzle aspect

912
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 2: of it is what's really interesting. But at the same time,

913
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,879
Speaker 2: you know, I'm in the business of solving one hundred

914
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:40,840
Speaker 2: year old axeburger cases, and Veleska Axe murder House is

915
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 2: kind of a tourist traction. They seem to be doing fine.

916
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 2: So yeah, so maybe Falls River would be fine after.

917
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:50,960
Speaker 1: All in true crime. And you know, again, I come

918
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:53,359
Speaker 1: back to it's such a hap for me, it's such

919
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,280
Speaker 1: a haphazard weapon. It can go so many different ways.

920
00:48:56,520 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: It's really really messy. But at the same time, I'm

921
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: not sure anything expresses anger as well as an axe would.

922
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,360
Speaker 1: And I have to say, I don't know if everybody

923
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 1: else does this. It never occurs to me that people

924
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: use the blunt edge. I always think they're using the blade.

925
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: You know, the Servant Girl annihilator here in Austin in

926
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds, he would a lot of times

927
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,240
Speaker 1: stun them by using the blunt edge and then assault

928
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:23,880
Speaker 1: them and then turn it and kill them like that. So,

929
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: you know, utilizing in a lot of different ways. I

930
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 1: mean not to be so crass about it, but it

931
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:32,760
Speaker 1: just is. It seems like such an odd yeah weapon

932
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: in general, like man, can you it's risky.

933
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 2: I think what part of what it harkens back to

934
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 2: is partially the legacy of like state violence. This was,

935
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 2: you know, the axe is very associated with executions. It's

936
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 2: very much a weapon. You know, it's part of the facies.

937
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,280
Speaker 2: The word fascists come from the facies was an axe

938
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:58,239
Speaker 2: covered with rods, and if the axe was in the fascis,

939
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 2: then it showed that the lictors who cared it, carried it,

940
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 2: were able to carry out executions. So I think that

941
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 2: there's a long legacy of power associated with it and

942
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 2: with that blade of the axe, more so than the

943
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 2: blunt end, which is often a hammer. But you know,

944
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 2: that power is also something that can be taken back

945
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 2: because it's such a common weapon, because it's such a

946
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,560
Speaker 2: tool of the laborer and of the domestic world. It's

947
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 2: something where the power can be easily taken back in

948
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 2: a lot of cases. You know, one of my first

949
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:35,920
Speaker 2: earlier cases was a tyrant named Stessi Gorris who takes

950
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 2: over an area in ancient Turkey and is assassinated with

951
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 2: a concealed axe by a citizen who was tyrannized by

952
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 2: his reign. Basically, it's more complicated than that big political backstory,

953
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of that where you're able to

954
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 2: conceal it and use it as something that might be

955
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 2: used for labor, and in that way quickly take it

956
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 2: out something that's been secreted and turn it against the

957
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,800
Speaker 2: levers of power. You know, Nat Turner used an ax

958
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 2: in his rebellion. I mean, there's so much wrapped up

959
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 2: in the acts with both you know, there's labor, there's domesticity,

960
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,440
Speaker 2: there's war, there's state power, and then there's also this

961
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:22,920
Speaker 2: streak of insurgent power, something where people who are disempowered

962
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 2: can take it back under the guise of labor and

963
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:28,319
Speaker 2: use it to strike out.

964
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, never have I thought so much about a

965
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: weapon as I have now thought about the acts. You know.

966
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is so interesting

967
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 1: about it is it can be basically untraceable in a way.

968
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: And I know that I just said that. It's just

969
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 1: you know, it's a risky weapon. But with guns, you

970
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 1: can trace them, you can get blood blowback into the barrel.

971
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:52,759
Speaker 1: Knives they can cut you. I know, you can get

972
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: cut by an axe. But it just seems like a

973
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 1: pretty efficient way in a lot of ways to dispatch someone.

974
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:01,399
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess as stories move forward, it's

975
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: interesting you're talking about drones. Tell me about like a

976
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 1: drone assassinated. I mean, I don't even know if we

977
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,919
Speaker 1: want to get into that, right, we're evolving into something

978
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: We're like a gun at some point is going to

979
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 1: be as obsolete as a weapon as an axis.

980
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean there's plenty of guns that are absolutely

981
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 2: they'll talk about flit locks and things like that. But yeah,

982
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 2: I mean it's so accessible too. Even now, it's very accessible.

983
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 2: You can walk into any hardware store and buy an

984
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:29,240
Speaker 2: axe for like twelve bucks. It's not expensive, it's easy

985
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:30,879
Speaker 2: to use, and like you were saying, I never actually

986
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 2: thought about that before, the fact that it's so anonymous

987
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:37,239
Speaker 2: and untraceable the way a bolt is not, or even

988
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:40,200
Speaker 2: in the way you know, like computer paper is not.

989
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 2: You know, you could print out computer paper and they

990
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 2: can tell I can tell what computer you use specifically

991
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,799
Speaker 2: from this sheet of paper that you sent me. So

992
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 2: it is there is an annymage to it. And I

993
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 2: think that's a big part of the Man from the

994
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 2: Train too, is just the fact that he was not

995
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 2: carrying axes with him. He was just grabbing them from

996
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 2: davers wood piles and picking them up very randomly.

997
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

998
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:19,319
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinners, All Bow, The

999
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and

1000
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,879
Speaker 1: Don't Forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true

1001
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 1: crime podcast Tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,

1002
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen. If you haven't already,

1003
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:37,320
Speaker 1: this has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer

1004
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:41,799
Speaker 1: is Alexis M. Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

1005
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is

1006
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 1: our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark,

1007
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:55,000
Speaker 1: Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram

1008
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked, and on Twitter at

1009
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:01,360
Speaker 1: tenfold more. And you know of a historical crime that

1010
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,440
Speaker 1: could use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked,

1011
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:08,759
Speaker 1: email us at info at tenfoldmore wicked dot com. We'll

1012
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:12,120
Speaker 1: also take your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked

1013
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 1: Words