Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2: Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. I'm ready to get into this case again.
Speaker 1: This missing woman who goes to find her fiance on
Speaker 1: his chicken farm and then vanishes and her parents are
Speaker 1: so upset about it. And then we make some pretty
Speaker 1: big discoveries. And I know I left you hanging on
Speaker 1: this case the last time, and we know that things
Speaker 1: have gone very badly for Elsie.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say so, I mean, considering she's dismembered
Speaker 2: and scattered around Norman's potato farm and chicken coop areas,
Speaker 2: so it's not a good place to be.
Speaker 1: I want to give a little trigger warning. We have
Speaker 1: some talk of suicide in this half of the episode,
Speaker 1: so I just want everybody to know that we will
Speaker 1: be talking about someone taking their own life. So we're
Speaker 1: in England nineteen twenty four. There's a young woman you know,
Speaker 1: named Elsie Cameron. She's engaged to a guy named Norman
Speaker 1: Thorne who who has a chicken farm outside of London.
Speaker 1: She lives in London there, as I said, engaged, but
Speaker 1: he is creating some distance and after a few years
Speaker 1: of dating and then they become engaged, maybe about a
Speaker 1: year earlier. She says I'm pregnant. He says I'm in
Speaker 1: love with someone else, and she says, I'm coming up
Speaker 1: on December sixth. We know she shows up on December
Speaker 1: fifth instead, and then her parents don't hear from her,
Speaker 1: and it's total devastation I'm assuming from her parents when
Speaker 1: the police do a search of his chicken farm and
Speaker 1: they see some freshly dug dirt and they dig and
Speaker 1: they find several key pieces of evidence, so her jewelry
Speaker 1: a suitcase, and then of course they come up with
Speaker 1: a human torso, which we were assuming is going to
Speaker 1: be Elsie's. So Norman, when approached by the police, says, okay,
Speaker 1: let me tell you what happened. First, I'll show you
Speaker 1: where the rest of her body parts are fine, And
Speaker 1: they find her legs, in her head and essentially enough
Speaker 1: information to give them some idea of what happened. So
Speaker 1: I think my big question was why would Norman do this?
Speaker 1: I know that he's caught with a human torso on
Speaker 1: his property. He's not admitting to murder. He is saying
Speaker 1: I dismembered her. So then the big question is what
Speaker 1: is Norman going to say happen to Elsie? Where he
Speaker 1: is so willing to turn over all of this information
Speaker 1: to the police and let them search wherever they want
Speaker 1: on his chicken farm when he had denied even seeing
Speaker 1: her before.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, obviously he's caught in a lie, you know.
Speaker 2: So now he's the evidence has been found, Elsie has
Speaker 2: been found, and he's offering up information, you know. And
Speaker 2: of course is he minimizing during you know, this stage
Speaker 2: of confessing, there's always that possibility he may admit to
Speaker 2: select acts that he think are relatively minor and try
Speaker 2: to point the finger at somebody else who's actually the
Speaker 2: one responsible for the homicide. Now, I think, did you
Speaker 2: say that he admitted to the dismemberment.
Speaker 1: He will admit to the dismemberment.
Speaker 2: Yes, got it, But he's pointing the finger somewhere else
Speaker 2: for the actual homicide.
Speaker 1: Sounds like it. So I'll tell you what Helena Normanton,
Speaker 1: the barrister, says, because she was really heavily involved in
Speaker 1: observing this case with this you know, kind of ilegal
Speaker 1: eye on it. So Helena says that Norman had severed
Speaker 1: the head halfway up the back of the neck, but
Speaker 1: low down by the breastbone in front. Yeah, what is
Speaker 1: that exactly? Because then they found the torso, and I
Speaker 1: guess I assumed sort of, I don't know, maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know the boundaries of what's considered a torso versus
Speaker 1: a decapitation, you.
Speaker 2: Know, at least the way that Helena is describing that,
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure it's indicating the direction that you know,
Speaker 2: the cutting occurred, but she's describing that you have a
Speaker 2: c that's halfway up the back part of the neck
Speaker 2: and then it's angled downward to the front to where
Speaker 2: your breastbone. This is your sternum. So for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: this decapitation took that path to remove Elsie's head. Now,
Speaker 2: typically a torso is usually just the upper body the
Speaker 2: rib cage down to the pelvis, and that the extremities
Speaker 2: have been removed, so the arms, the legs, and the
Speaker 2: head have been removed. That's usually how a torso is defined.
Speaker 2: And oftentimes you'll see where a torso is further dissected
Speaker 2: into an upper and lower part.
Speaker 1: Okay, so at least we have information because we have
Speaker 1: these body parts. Like I remember reading how all pieces
Speaker 1: of the body would be valuable, but a torso would
Speaker 1: be value vulnerable organs, we will know if she was
Speaker 1: actually pregnant. Is that right? Is that what we can
Speaker 1: assume here with.
Speaker 2: The torso very possibly know with such a large part
Speaker 2: of the body. Oftentimes the injuries that cause death are
Speaker 2: present within the torso area, like a stabbing to the
Speaker 2: heart or a gunshot wound, but not necessarily and with
Speaker 2: Elsie's case, yes, it provided that the reproductive organs are
Speaker 2: still present, that they would be able to determine if
Speaker 2: she had been pregnant.
Speaker 1: What Helena says, which is interesting, is that he had
Speaker 1: put her head in a tin, and she believed it was.
Speaker 1: And I think the prosecutors eventually will say that he
Speaker 1: put her head in a tin to prevent its quick
Speaker 1: decomposition as part of evidence, because the way he severed
Speaker 1: her head preserved the neck. So the prosecutors believe that
Speaker 1: he put this head in the tin so that they
Speaker 1: will be able to clearly see her neck. Okay, do
Speaker 1: you see where this could be going? What his defense
Speaker 1: could be here?
Speaker 2: Well, at least with the way I'm interpreting that he's
Speaker 2: wanting to preserve the neck as evidence that indicates that
Speaker 2: the neck is demonstrating possibly cause of death ligature and
Speaker 2: or manual strangulation cut throat stabbing to the neck, which,
Speaker 2: considering in my assessment of Norman, he's stupid from a
Speaker 2: committing crime standpoint. At this point, we don't know if
Speaker 2: he's one who actually killed Elsie, but in essence to
Speaker 2: scatter her body on his property, the suitcase is buried
Speaker 2: on his property, her jewelry's on the property. You generally
Speaker 2: don't want to do that because it just points the
Speaker 2: fingers right back at you. And it doesn't sound like
Speaker 2: he did really all that great of a job of
Speaker 2: getting rid of this evidence in terms of hiding it.
Speaker 2: But for him to claim that he's preserving Elsie's head
Speaker 2: and neck because the neck is going to provide evidence.
Speaker 2: That's why he's decapitating her in the way he did.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised that he did that. I'm not sure how
Speaker 2: it can be used as a defense just yet. So
Speaker 2: I'm very interested to hear more as you go along.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't think he said that. I
Speaker 1: think that Helena, the barrister, assumed that's why he was
Speaker 1: doing it. But now you're going to know why. So
Speaker 1: the police interrogate Norman. He does admit to dismembering Elsie.
Speaker 1: He's adamant he did not murder her, and so he
Speaker 1: starts to unravel this story to explain to the police
Speaker 1: how all this came about. He says that on December fifth,
Speaker 1: she surprised him, you know, as was probably her point.
Speaker 1: She shows up at the farm a day early. He
Speaker 1: had gotten her letter saying she would be there on
Speaker 1: the sixth. She shows up on the fifth. She says,
Speaker 1: we're getting married. I'm moving in with you in this
Speaker 1: tiny eighty five square foot renal hut, and sort of
Speaker 1: that is that I don't think that this was a
Speaker 1: romantic discussion. I think this was probably kind of a
Speaker 1: threatening in some way discussion like this, you know, this
Speaker 1: is the way it is. I don't care about your girlfriend.
Speaker 1: We are doing this because this is the situation we're in.
Speaker 1: They begin arguing, and Norman said to Elsie, I'm meeting
Speaker 1: this woman. I had plans to meet her and her
Speaker 1: mother at the train station later today. Norman says that
Speaker 1: he promised to help Elizabeth and her mom carry some
Speaker 1: packages back to their house. Remember I think that they're
Speaker 1: close by, And he said, you're not moving in with me.
Speaker 1: I'm going this is not happening. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be in a relationship with you anymore. He didn't acknowledge
Speaker 1: the baby, it sounds like, at least he says that
Speaker 1: he didn't. He said, I am going to go find
Speaker 1: a room for you to stay in where you know
Speaker 1: you don't have to go back tonight if you want.
Speaker 1: But he said, you know you're not going to move
Speaker 1: in with me. He says he left the hut he
Speaker 1: met with Elizabeth. He said when he came back a
Speaker 1: few hours later, Elsie was dead. She had hanged herself
Speaker 1: in his hut using his washing line. Okay, that's why
Speaker 1: the barrister believes he preserved her head and neck so
Speaker 1: you could see the mark and it would back up
Speaker 1: his story. He said he found her body. He panicked.
Speaker 1: He thought because of their what was turning into a
Speaker 1: very acrimonious situation between the two of them, that he
Speaker 1: would be pegged rightly for her murder. And so instead
Speaker 1: of going to get help, you know, to see if
Speaker 1: she was still alive or something, he chose to dismember
Speaker 1: her body with a hacksaw. He buried her remains, which
Speaker 1: we know, and then he said he burned her clothing
Speaker 1: in his stove. And now you can react, and now
Speaker 1: we know why he did this.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it is a plausible scenario in terms
Speaker 2: of the relationship and the position Norman has taken somewhat
Speaker 2: with Elsie's predisposition to depression. I guess you know, at
Speaker 2: least with you know, some of the concerns about her
Speaker 2: mental health. But this is where it comes down to, Okay,
Speaker 2: what does this neck show. Are the injuries to the
Speaker 2: neck consistent with the hanging or is there something more
Speaker 2: going on? And my concern is is whether or not
Speaker 2: they have a reasonably competent pathologist or medical personnel who
Speaker 2: can assess that accurately.
Speaker 1: We do, but we don't know if he's on the
Speaker 1: right side or not. So this is where we have
Speaker 1: to figure out which way we want to go. There
Speaker 1: is the finding of the corner's jury, there is the
Speaker 1: corner's report, and of course the pregnancy, and then we
Speaker 1: have the experts coming in and Bernard Spillsbury, who you've
Speaker 1: heard of before because we've talked about him on several cases.
Speaker 1: He is the most well known pathologist I believe, in
Speaker 1: Great Britain history. So he ends up coming in on
Speaker 1: this case. And I'm not going to tell you what
Speaker 1: side he comes in on yet, but do we want
Speaker 1: to go in order and just sort of see what
Speaker 1: everybody's saying steps along the way, or do you want
Speaker 1: to jump the neck doesn't come in until Spillsbury comes in.
Speaker 1: I will remind you though they said advanced decomposition, even
Speaker 1: though it was December, even though he put it in
Speaker 1: a ten. Yeah, there's some difficulty in figuring out what
Speaker 1: happened in this case. It's not clear cut.
Speaker 2: Now, just go in order.
Speaker 1: So Norman makes this admission, and then of course investigators
Speaker 1: and the Crown prosecutors say well, we're going to have
Speaker 1: to figure out what's what here, because they did know
Speaker 1: about her supposed mental condition. There's all sorts of misogyny
Speaker 1: happening in the media and with doctors in this time period.
Speaker 1: I don't know truly what Elsie's condition was. You know,
Speaker 1: this is before she was pregnant, when they were calling
Speaker 1: her kind of melancholy and everything else, she could have
Speaker 1: truly been, you know, really going through something. I think
Speaker 1: that was an observation from her parents. Also, it's just
Speaker 1: hard to know because of this time period, how severe,
Speaker 1: how competent the doctors were, any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: You also just think about just her, you know, the
Speaker 2: state of the relationship and where it's at. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think the average person is going to be upset, probably depressed.
Speaker 2: This man that she loves is in love with another woman.
Speaker 2: You know, life is going to get difficult to Elsie.
Speaker 2: So just the observations of being melancholy depressed, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think that's indicative of somebody who is suicidal
Speaker 2: or somebody who's going to strike out in a rage
Speaker 2: or a violent act.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So you know, what we do know is that
Speaker 1: she ended up dismembered and dead, and we're just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out whether he was the cause of it
Speaker 1: or whether she was the cause of it. So one
Speaker 1: thing that was interesting from the book that I had
Speaker 1: just written the Senners all about was, you know, this
Speaker 1: was the story of a woman who was found hanging
Speaker 1: just sort of like this, at least Norman claims that's
Speaker 1: what happened. And the argument was that she was Sarah
Speaker 1: Cornell was incredibly depressed, very upset about, you know, being pregnant,
Speaker 1: and what she said was a sexual assault. And there
Speaker 1: was a woman who got on the stand one of
Speaker 1: the matrons. I don't think I told you this when
Speaker 1: I talked to you about the book. There was a
Speaker 1: woman who got on the stand in Sarah's case and
Speaker 1: the prosecutor said to her, do you think Ephraim Avery
Speaker 1: killed Sarah Cornell? And she was very cagy, but what
Speaker 1: she said was one way or the other, he's responsible
Speaker 1: for her death. So it's either he murdered her or
Speaker 1: what he did to her, which she says was a
Speaker 1: sexual assault and resulting in a pregnancy, resulted in her
Speaker 1: taking her own life, which I thought was one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting, you know, lines in the whole book.
Speaker 1: One way or the other, this man is absolutely responsible
Speaker 1: for her death, and I think that's what we're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out. But this body is decomposing, you know
Speaker 1: every second.
Speaker 2: With Elsie's case, you could have Norman who actually did
Speaker 2: kill her and then is trying to cover up the crime.
Speaker 2: Or if the circumstances of the relationship with Norman are such,
Speaker 2: you know, then you could say, yeah, indirectly, you know,
Speaker 2: Norman could be thought to be responsible for Elsie taking
Speaker 2: her life. But you know, from a legal standpoint, you know,
Speaker 2: homicide is defined as you know, death at the hands
Speaker 2: of another. Fundamentally, you know, just because you get into
Speaker 2: a bad relationship doesn't make that one person responsible for
Speaker 2: somebody taking their own life. So that's just an interesting thought.
Speaker 2: But again, I'm wanting the details about Elsie. I want
Speaker 2: to see if we can, you know, kind of really
Speaker 2: figure out what happened here.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the first bombshell when they do an autopsy.
Speaker 1: Elsie was not pregnant, So she could have legitimately thought
Speaker 1: she was and didn't know that she wasn't. Maybe she
Speaker 1: had an irregular period. I don't know. That's why I'm
Speaker 1: saying I'm fairly certain she didn't go to a doctor
Speaker 1: who would have confirmed it. I meane, teen thirty two
Speaker 1: a doctor confirmed that Sarah Cornell was pregnant, so they
Speaker 1: would be able to confirm it. She was certainly not pregnant,
Speaker 1: but of course the rumor was that she lied to
Speaker 1: pressure Norman into marrying her. So what you know about Elsie?
Speaker 1: I have an opinion? What's your opinion about I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is victimology, but what do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the first thing that comes to my
Speaker 2: mind is in terms of now law enforcement is investigating
Speaker 2: this case, and at a certain point, Elsie is indicating
Speaker 2: that she's pregnant. From Norman's perspective and maybe even from
Speaker 2: the parent's perspective. You know, when did Elsie conceive? Did
Speaker 2: she visit Norman three months prior? You know a Norman
Speaker 2: say yeah we had sex, you know, and the parents said, yeah,
Speaker 2: she was out there three months ago. Then I would expect,
Speaker 2: you know, at autopsy, that they would be able to
Speaker 2: even at this time frame to determine that, you know,
Speaker 2: she was pregnant. But let's say she's only a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks long. Right as she's mister period and advanced
Speaker 2: state of decomposition, it may be tough, you know, for
Speaker 2: pathologists to conclude whether she's pregnant or not. So that's
Speaker 2: where I think, you know, the first part of what
Speaker 2: I would drill down on with the medical side. But
Speaker 2: most certainly you know, this is where you know, at
Speaker 2: the very beginning, I could sense that this situation with Elsie,
Speaker 2: Norman is feeling trapped and Elsie could be using, you know,
Speaker 2: this fake pregnancy as a way to further kind of
Speaker 2: capture Norman into maintaining a relationship with her.
Speaker 1: For sure, one of the things investigators do when he
Speaker 1: says that she had hanged herself was they start looking
Speaker 1: in his hut for evidence of a hanging. So it
Speaker 1: sounds like Norman had said he found her hanging from
Speaker 1: the beams in the hut. I'm assuming this hut looked
Speaker 1: to me like if that was the hut. Low ceilings,
Speaker 1: It's seemed like though that might not be the first
Speaker 1: choice for someone to use. It seems like it could
Speaker 1: be difficult. Would it be unusual to find somebody from
Speaker 1: a beam in a ceiling rather than like a doorknob
Speaker 1: or something that's a little bit more accessible.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, and I think you just you know,
Speaker 2: stated that, Yeah, hangings can be accomplished from remarkably low
Speaker 2: items that all you have to do. You can literally
Speaker 2: be laying down on the floor and just have let's say,
Speaker 2: the ligature around the neck tied to a doorknob, as
Speaker 2: you mentioned, versus you know, the thing you typically see
Speaker 2: on TV shows or in the movies where somebody goes
Speaker 2: over a wood beam and is standing on a stool
Speaker 2: and then kicks the stool away. More of you know,
Speaker 2: like being you know hung, you know, in public executions.
Speaker 2: So at least with cases you know that we typically see,
Speaker 2: you don't generally see the you know, the hangings where
Speaker 2: somebody is hanging from something really high up. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: most really haven't had a case like that. Plenty of
Speaker 2: textbook examples of that.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well, this is an experiment. I always find
Speaker 1: experiments interesting. This I'm sure would not be allowed in
Speaker 1: a court of law, and I don't think was in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four. So the investigators want to know whether
Speaker 1: or not there's evidence in the beams, like Norman said,
Speaker 1: of maybe grooves that have been kind of cut in
Speaker 1: or impressions made from this washing line that she used.
Speaker 1: So this is what they did. They did a little experiment.
Speaker 1: They filled sacks with weights equivalent to Elsie's body weight,
Speaker 1: and then they suspend these sacks from the beams using
Speaker 1: this same type of washing line. They make a note
Speaker 1: of the grooves. They must have taken photos that were
Speaker 1: in the beams, and then they, of course they search
Speaker 1: all the beams and they find no similar grooves in
Speaker 1: the beams. That does not seem like a great experiment.
Speaker 1: Am I wrong here?
Speaker 2: Well, it's well, certainly a step to take if you're
Speaker 2: looking for some evidence. You know, if Norman saying she
Speaker 2: was literally suspended from this washing line and it was
Speaker 2: tied around the beam, what kind of wood is it?
Speaker 2: Does it compress? You think about a beam with the
Speaker 2: hard corners, you know, the squared off corners, and you
Speaker 2: have this weight that is focused in that wood. I
Speaker 2: would expect that there would be some evidence, but maybe
Speaker 2: it's more of the beam is more of like a log,
Speaker 2: it's more circular. Did she just step off of a
Speaker 2: chair and there's not a lot of swinging? You know,
Speaker 2: maybe you're not going to see a brace of actions
Speaker 2: by this washing line, and it comes down to how
Speaker 2: is the washing line actually you know, secured to the beam.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of variables here. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: you know, the experiment that they did is a step
Speaker 2: to evalue weight, but there's probably more steps that need
Speaker 2: to be thought of and looked at. But I go,
Speaker 2: you know, back to the autopsy, and I know you're you're,
Speaker 2: you're holding out on me with with the neck injuries,
Speaker 2: because you know, what they see with the neck could
Speaker 2: be pretty diagnostic in terms of whether you know, she
Speaker 2: was truly hanging with full body weight or she was strangled.
Speaker 2: You know. So that's where I'm kind of again, I'm
Speaker 2: kind of focusing in on what I think is going
Speaker 2: to answer the question.
Speaker 1: Well, just to wrap up the question about the beams,
Speaker 1: Norman's defense is later going to say this is all
Speaker 1: bs because you know, we weren't there to supervise the
Speaker 1: experiment number one, And just like what you said, there
Speaker 1: are minute details about the wage distribution, the placement of
Speaker 1: the washing line bodies are different than sacks full of
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. So I think that was not
Speaker 1: allowed in or dismissed, So don't worry about that too much.
Speaker 1: There was a big question as they're going through their
Speaker 1: investigation about her mental health. They said, you know, assuming
Speaker 1: that she was genuinely pregnant, which seems possible, would she
Speaker 1: actually take her own life and that of her unborn
Speaker 1: child's life. To be honest, don't take that seriously at all.
Speaker 1: I just think people can be in a desperate situation,
Speaker 1: and I would never predict that a lot of the
Speaker 1: people that I read about would have reacted the way
Speaker 1: they reacted. So I think, you know, in a high
Speaker 1: pressure situation where she is feeling like she's having a
Speaker 1: mental break, nothing would surprise me. But the investigators are saying,
Speaker 1: this is not really the way this woman would have reacted,
Speaker 1: and I'm not so sure.
Speaker 2: You know, that's so subjective, yeah, you know, and oftentimes,
Speaker 2: you know, where there's these questions deaths, there's what's called
Speaker 2: a psychological autopsy where they do dig into the deceased
Speaker 2: mental state, whether it be mental health issues, what's going
Speaker 2: on in the victim's life at the time, what prior
Speaker 2: psychological evaluations have occurred, you know, And these doctors, these
Speaker 2: PhD psychiatrists, you know, they have a background of dealing
Speaker 2: with a broad group of individuals where they can kind
Speaker 2: of say, this person, the deceased is demonstrating certain behaviors
Speaker 2: that would be consistent with somebody who is possibly going
Speaker 2: to take their life, but you can't say it with
Speaker 2: any type of confirmation.
Speaker 1: Okay, we have to move on to stomach contents, which
Speaker 1: you and I both have said, I mean varies. You
Speaker 1: can tell me what you think about this. The corner
Speaker 1: says that after they analyzed Elsie's stomach contents, it looks
Speaker 1: like she had eaten around two hours before her death.
Speaker 1: But I know that the rate of digestion can change
Speaker 1: based on the person or the food, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: So do you put much you know, veracity in that
Speaker 1: sort of a statement two hours is when she ate you?
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't in terms of putting it at that
Speaker 2: specific of a figure. You know, it's more of has
Speaker 2: the stomach emptied or is there still stomach contents that
Speaker 2: are recognizable food stuffs, whether it be visibly recognizable or
Speaker 2: even microscopically recognizable. And then the pathologists can say, based
Speaker 2: on sort of the averages the last meal that the
Speaker 2: victim ate is consistent with whatever this. You know, the
Speaker 2: witness statements are saying, but in terms of trying to predict,
Speaker 2: let's say, her actual time of meal, without any other
Speaker 2: corroborating investigative evidence to suggest what time she last ate,
Speaker 2: that's really tough, especially just to say it was about
Speaker 2: two hours ago.
Speaker 1: Well, our barrister Helena Ormanton, who I respect incredibly, I
Speaker 1: think is really stretching here when I tell you what
Speaker 1: she says in a second. So Norman says they ate
Speaker 1: dinner around nine ten together, Elsie stayed for dinner even
Speaker 1: though you know they were arguing in everything, and that
Speaker 1: put Elsie's death if this is right, and we know
Speaker 1: it's probably not somewhere in ten forty to eleven ten,
Speaker 1: but that's when Norman was picking up Elizabeth and her mother.
Speaker 1: Because it was a train, it was on you know time,
Speaker 1: there was a schedule there. So it sounds like he
Speaker 1: could have been lying. This is what Helena says. If
Speaker 1: Norman killed Elsie Cameron, it must have been by inflicting
Speaker 1: upon her multiple injuries just after they ate and leaving
Speaker 1: her in a dying state so as to expire in
Speaker 1: his absence while he coolly went off to meet the
Speaker 1: other girl and behaved in a manner which seems to
Speaker 1: have aroused none of her suspicions. That seems pretty specific,
Speaker 1: especially when we're relying on something that's not particularly reliable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. And then of course, the you know,
Speaker 2: the details about multiple injuries to Elsie, you know, are
Speaker 2: those present at autopsy? Even though we're dealing with a
Speaker 2: decomposed body, there could be still evidence of those injuries.
Speaker 2: So it's corroborating. It's corroborating and refuting these statements and
Speaker 2: taking a look at what the evidence says.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's get to what the prosecutor of the
Speaker 1: crown prosecutor ends up doing. He is ultimately arrested, of course,
Speaker 1: for her murder, and a few months later, in April,
Speaker 1: his case goes to trial, and everybody starts, you know,
Speaker 1: searching for their experts. From American sherlock Oscar Heinrich was
Speaker 1: asked to buy the prosecutor to come down for the
Speaker 1: David Lambson case, a man who was accused of murdering
Speaker 1: his wife in the bathtub. And Oscar gets down to
Speaker 1: their little cottage where this takes place, and the blood
Speaker 1: is for him in all the wrong places, and he
Speaker 1: tells prosecutor, I don't think this was murder. I think
Speaker 1: this was a slip and fall, and now I'm going
Speaker 1: to go call the defense team. So I wonder about
Speaker 1: that with experts, you know, do you feel like most
Speaker 1: experts have that sort of integrity? Oscar did not always
Speaker 1: have integrity, But do you feel like that or do
Speaker 1: you think that they are truly There are a lot
Speaker 1: of them that are truly kind of guns for hire,
Speaker 1: and they'll say whatever, you know, the prosecutor or the
Speaker 1: defense team, whoever's got the money, they will say whatever
Speaker 1: they need to say.
Speaker 2: Well, when you when you start talking about experts, you know,
Speaker 2: ethics is everything you know, and it's it's experienced, it's expertise,
Speaker 2: of course, you know, but it fundamentally does come down
Speaker 2: to ethics. And unfortunately, there are individuals out there that
Speaker 2: will tailor their opinions based on who's paying them, or
Speaker 2: if there's any other type of bias that they may have.
Speaker 2: And even sometimes ethical experts may form an opinion that's incorrect,
Speaker 2: particularly when it is a subject matter that you don't have,
Speaker 2: you know, the black and white, objective type of information
Speaker 2: to form your opinion with.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see, we've got Bernard Spillsbury who is the
Speaker 1: greatest pathologist in the history of pathologists, at least in
Speaker 1: the UK. And he is very very well known. I
Speaker 1: believed worked on the John Reginald Christy case, the one
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, and he's popped up in several of
Speaker 1: our cases. Now, Maren has said to me, this is
Speaker 1: going to drive you crazy. She's convinced that there are
Speaker 1: autopsy photos out there of Elsie Cameron, but she wasn't
Speaker 1: able to find them, and so that of course drove
Speaker 1: me crazy. And I searched for him. I couldn't find him.
Speaker 1: So I wish we had photos because sometimes in this
Speaker 1: time period we get well documented photos. So you know,
Speaker 1: you're just going to have to go off of an
Speaker 1: incredibly well versed, well known pathologist who is going to
Speaker 1: be for this time period. We'll have the most educated
Speaker 1: information for us. We'll see.
Speaker 2: OK.
Speaker 1: So this is what he said. He looks at the
Speaker 1: throat and the way that Norman says he cut up Elsie,
Speaker 1: and he looked at it and he says she did
Speaker 1: not have rope markings on her neck. There is a
Speaker 1: mark there and it's irrefutable, he says it. Everybody says
Speaker 1: it visible to anyone who saw her remains. There's a
Speaker 1: mark there, but he thinks it was a crease or
Speaker 1: like a wrinkle, anything that you'd find on a neck
Speaker 1: of a similarly aged person. So it seems odd. I
Speaker 1: know that she's decomposing, but would he really mistake a
Speaker 1: crease for a rope you burn or what impression whatever
Speaker 1: that would have been in her neck. That seems like
Speaker 1: two very different things to me.
Speaker 2: Norman's describing what Elsie hung herself with as a washing line,
Speaker 2: So I'm I'm thinking that this is a cordage that's
Speaker 2: roughly maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter. Is
Speaker 2: do we have any information more specific than it's just
Speaker 2: a washing line.
Speaker 1: No, just a washing line. And it doesn't talk about
Speaker 1: how thick it is or thin it is. I mean
Speaker 1: it could vary.
Speaker 2: Well, this is where you know Norman's statements in terms
Speaker 2: of how he found Elsie, and it sounds like she
Speaker 2: is fully suspended from a beam using this washing line.
Speaker 2: Her entire body weight is now being focused on this
Speaker 2: very thin cordage around her neck. These lines in a
Speaker 2: true full body weight hanging, these are very significant and
Speaker 2: deep furrows that are left behind in the tissues of
Speaker 2: the neck. In addition, the structures inside the neck show damage.
Speaker 2: So if Spillsbury is looking for these furrows under this
Speaker 2: type of hanging and he's not seeing anything like that,
Speaker 2: that's hugely significant from my perspective. He's saying, there's a mark. Now,
Speaker 2: what is that mark? Is something, you know, a normal crease,
Speaker 2: a normal anatomy of the neck skin, or is it,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe an abrasion or something else that could
Speaker 2: have happened during a struggle, you know, don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: especially without the photos. But the lack of evidence of
Speaker 2: this ligature digging into Elsie's neck, I've got concerns.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even if there were, Paul he could have
Speaker 1: done it, he could have strangled her.
Speaker 2: So let's say there's ligature strangulation. That often is you've
Speaker 2: got a different configuration in terms of how the rope
Speaker 2: goes around the neck, and there can be variants. In
Speaker 2: a hanging, a full body weight hanging, that rope is
Speaker 2: going to be up under the jaw, and if the
Speaker 2: person is like leading you kind of forward with the
Speaker 2: rope going up from behind, you'll see abrasions and everything
Speaker 2: else that show such a steep angle because the entire
Speaker 2: body weight is pulling that rope up versus strangulation. It's
Speaker 2: more parallel if you will, to the ground. If I'm
Speaker 2: going to put somebody like in a standing position, now
Speaker 2: it will vary, and you can also have it differ
Speaker 2: from side to side. But a true full body weight
Speaker 2: hanging is pretty obvious looking. That's where I'm going. Okay,
Speaker 2: how Spillsbury is, he is a very experienced pathologist, and
Speaker 2: he knows what to look for, and he's not seeing that.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, I've got concerns about Norman telling the truth.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you about the physical evidence that
Speaker 1: Spillsbury says to him proves that she did not take
Speaker 1: her own life with hanging. And then I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what he says he sees probably happened to her. Okay,
Speaker 1: so two different things for you to react to. So
Speaker 1: here's the first thing. He said. Of course, she's in
Speaker 1: a state of decomposition, so this makes it more difficult.
Speaker 1: Buddy said that had she hanged herself, there would be
Speaker 1: bruises and blood leakage into the tissue around her neck,
Speaker 1: or he said, I would have seen signs of asphyxiation.
Speaker 1: Do those make sense to you? No?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Okay, you know the signs of the blood and
Speaker 2: the tissues inside the neck as well as asphyxiation aspects.
Speaker 2: You know, you're cutting off the blood flow to the brain,
Speaker 2: you're increasing blood pressure initially when the heart is beating.
Speaker 2: So now you get the blood vessels in the eye
Speaker 2: starting to you know, kind of burst, These little capillaries burst,
Speaker 2: and its classic patikia, these little red dots as well
Speaker 2: as other blood vessels and capillaries in the face. And
Speaker 2: then the neck. You know, you've got this tremendous force
Speaker 2: in a full body weight hanging around the muscles inside
Speaker 2: the neck, and so you'll see bruising or that you
Speaker 2: know that noose is digging in the trachea, the larynx
Speaker 2: can be damaged. So this is where all of the
Speaker 2: this is absent. I was thinking, well, maybe there was
Speaker 2: manual strangulation or ligature strangulation. But if he's not even
Speaker 2: seeing damage to the neck nor you know, the signs
Speaker 2: of asphyxiation, then maybe this is not a strangulation either.
Speaker 1: Okay, now this is not me holding out on you,
Speaker 1: but I did want to delay Spillsbury's observations because I
Speaker 1: think he is the most reliable source here. And I
Speaker 1: think it would have been case closed if I had
Speaker 1: disclosed this earlier. So Spillsbury says, this is what I
Speaker 1: think happened. Her glasses were broken nearby, her necklace was
Speaker 1: broken nearby. He thinks that she was severely beaten and
Speaker 1: suffered a lethal head injury which resulted in her dying
Speaker 1: of shock. He says she had bruises on her ankles,
Speaker 1: her elbows, her shins, some hemorrhage inside her eyeballs, and
Speaker 1: a particularly large bruise on her head, which he he
Speaker 1: says is a crushing blow. And I was wondering if
Speaker 1: this memorment could have caused any of.
Speaker 2: This, But you know, well, I would say that Spillsbury
Speaker 2: probably can account for what he can see in the
Speaker 2: tissues based off of the dismemberment. Some of these bruises
Speaker 2: and stuff most certainly could indicate a struggle with what
Speaker 2: he is seeing internally is that there's a significant blow
Speaker 2: and is this from a weapon? Is this from her
Speaker 2: head being thrust up against the wall or down on
Speaker 2: the floor. But it sounds like he is attributing her
Speaker 2: death possibly to the head injury, and the other injuries
Speaker 2: indicate that there was a struggle between Norman and Elsie.
Speaker 2: You know, this is homicide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what he says. So of course Norman's defense
Speaker 1: team disagrees. They hire three well known experts who, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, are going to contradict everything that Spillsbury says.
Speaker 1: They say that the marks on are consistent with rope
Speaker 1: marks made by hanging, not wrinkles. They were able to
Speaker 1: see the body several weeks after Spillsbury saw the body,
Speaker 1: and the body had already been in the ground for
Speaker 1: several weeks, so you have to think that there. I
Speaker 1: don't know why they were so late to the game,
Speaker 1: but you have to think that the body had really
Speaker 1: decomposed at that point. So I don't know, aside the
Speaker 1: fact that they're contradicting, you know, this pathologist who is
Speaker 1: well known, I don't know. I guess I would think that,
Speaker 1: you know, they weren't given enough information to begin with
Speaker 1: because they were so late to the party.
Speaker 2: Here. Well, it also could just be battle of the experts. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, the defense. You know, over here in the
Speaker 2: United States, the defense has to put on a you know,
Speaker 2: competent trial and find find experts to contradict somebody with
Speaker 2: the reputation of Spillsbury, you know, and whether or not
Speaker 2: these other medical experts or pathology truly have any expertise,
Speaker 2: or if they do, are they altering their opinion right
Speaker 2: now at least with what you told me. They said,
Speaker 2: I mean, it sure does not add up. You know,
Speaker 2: this is again taking into you have to take this
Speaker 2: in context with Norman's statement of how he found Elsie hanging.
Speaker 2: She's not laying down on the ground from a doorknob.
Speaker 2: She is hanging from the beam, full body weight hanging.
Speaker 2: That is so informative to what kinds of injuries her
Speaker 2: neck is going to have. And Spillsbury knows that, and
Speaker 2: it would be very easy in this day and age
Speaker 2: to demonstrate that through photos of other cases, and people
Speaker 2: would see, oh yeah, that's unmistakable.
Speaker 1: Well let me just tell you for fun to you
Speaker 1: know what they said. First of all, one interesting piece
Speaker 1: of information is, you know you had asked about whether
Speaker 1: the skull was fractured. It was not. One thing that
Speaker 1: the original coroner noted about Elsie in her body was
Speaker 1: that she had particularly delicate bones, so delicate that he
Speaker 1: pointed it out in this report, which had been documented
Speaker 1: in the autopsy and they were called as thin as
Speaker 1: blotting paper. That's then one of the experts for the
Speaker 1: defense said that if Elsie had been beaten to death
Speaker 1: and suffered a forceful blow to the head, surely her
Speaker 1: skull would have been fractured. Does that make sense to you.
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody could could make that statement. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the observation of her being in anthropological terms, grascile versus robust.
Speaker 2: You could have like a very robust person right with
Speaker 2: robust structure, and you can have somebody who's grascile or
Speaker 2: more petite in their structure. And yes, there's mechanical advantages
Speaker 2: for strength purposes or resistance to forces with somebody who's
Speaker 2: more robust. However, you know the skull itself. We don't
Speaker 2: know the circumstances of how the hemorrhaging inside her brain occurred,
Speaker 2: but the fact that the skull is not crushed in
Speaker 2: tells me, well, it's not that big of a force,
Speaker 2: and it's probably a very broad surface that the skull
Speaker 2: is hitting. It's not in narrow it's not like a
Speaker 2: hammer with a very focused force that can punch through
Speaker 2: the skull. You can have a significant blow and I'll
Speaker 2: use the example of somebody taking somebody's head and thrusting
Speaker 2: it really hard onto a floor. It may not even
Speaker 2: lacerate the scalp. However, the force is internal to the
Speaker 2: skull potentially could cause hemorrhaging in the brain, subarachnoid hemorrhaging,
Speaker 2: you know. And then so that's that autopsy where they
Speaker 2: will take the calberium off, they take the brain out,
Speaker 2: and they can see the hemorrhaging inside and go, yes,
Speaker 2: definitely could be cause of death. So Spillsbury, I think
Speaker 2: a spot on seeing something to his level of expertise,
Speaker 2: to his eyes, that is significant enough to be a
Speaker 2: cause of death.
Speaker 1: Well, the doctor say he's all wrong, of course, I
Speaker 1: mean they're getting this body. Several weeks later, one of
Speaker 1: them said the marks on her neck did have blood
Speaker 1: that leaked into the surrounding tissue, so that is indicative
Speaker 1: of a hanging. That Spillsbury exaggerated the bruising on Elsie's body.
Speaker 1: He said that it might have been caused as Elsie's
Speaker 1: body fell to the floor after Norman cut the washing
Speaker 1: line that she was hanging from. The hemorrhaging in her eyeballs,
Speaker 1: he said, could in fact be produced by a hanging,
Speaker 1: So I'll pause there before we get to their theory
Speaker 1: about when she died and how she died. Does any
Speaker 1: of that stuff add.
Speaker 2: Up for me to differentiate Spillsbury and what he is
Speaker 2: concluding versus these doctors, I'd have to see the photos,
Speaker 2: you know, and maybe even take those foot photos to
Speaker 2: a pathologist that I trust. If it's outside of my
Speaker 2: experience and expertise. You know, this is where now it's
Speaker 2: so hard to differentiate that kind of detail. You know,
Speaker 2: It's just Spillsbury is a very experienced and competent pathologist.
Speaker 2: I don't know the background of these other doctors. Are
Speaker 2: they even pathologists?
Speaker 1: They are, they're professional pathologists who have testified, you know,
Speaker 1: But again, even if they are being honest here, they're
Speaker 1: getting the body so many weeks later she to be exhumed,
Speaker 1: you know, her body was not being held in some
Speaker 1: secure area.
Speaker 2: And also recognize, you know, right after she's recovered, technically
Speaker 2: there should have been an autopsy done. Then you pull
Speaker 2: in this noted pathologist who's now doing his own assessment
Speaker 2: of the body, and we don't know exactly to what
Speaker 2: extent he is altering the body, And then the body
Speaker 2: goes into the ground, you know, and what kind of
Speaker 2: process did the body undergo? You know, it's dismember They're
Speaker 2: not going to embalm this body. How were these body
Speaker 2: parts handled before they were dug up? Yeah, so, you know,
Speaker 2: I think to your point, you know, you're recognizing, Yes,
Speaker 2: the defense experts are having a worse starting point, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of what they might be able to see
Speaker 2: so many weeks later.
Speaker 1: You know, they have to explain why there weren't clearer
Speaker 1: signs of damage to her neck and bringing lungs and
Speaker 1: all of that, you know, everything that Spillsbury's saying should
Speaker 1: be there with a hanging that isn't there. So this
Speaker 1: is what they say happened the defense. Instead of this
Speaker 1: being a simple hanging where she, you know, her neck
Speaker 1: breaks or she dies quickly, what they think happened was
Speaker 1: she was only partially suffocated. By the time she was
Speaker 1: found by Norman. He cut her down, she was not dead,
Speaker 1: she was unconscious. He did not know he thought she
Speaker 1: was dead, And they think she might have been alive
Speaker 1: for several more minutes and then died of shock, which
Speaker 1: is the only thing that they agree with Spillsbury on.
Speaker 1: I mean, Spillsbury thought he hit her in the back
Speaker 1: of the head and she died of shock.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a possibility, you know, but that's where
Speaker 2: you know, how long was he gone? You know, when
Speaker 2: did she hang herself relative to when he came in
Speaker 2: the door. I just go back to what I feel
Speaker 2: is the most objective evidence that contradicts Norman's statement about
Speaker 2: what happened, and that has to do with the Spillsbury's
Speaker 2: observation of the lack of a rope furrow, a lack
Speaker 2: to the damage to the next structures, a lack of
Speaker 2: hemorrhaging to the strap muscles, you know, or any of
Speaker 2: the other next structures, and these other pathologists are trying
Speaker 2: to suggest that some of these other minor injuries to
Speaker 2: the neck area are consistent with a full body weight hanging.
Speaker 2: I put so much more veracity on what I'm hearing
Speaker 2: from Spillsbury than these other doctors. And it has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with Spillsbury's reputation. I just know what he
Speaker 2: would be looking looking for and he's not seeing it.
Speaker 2: And I'm going, Okay, she wasn't hanging the way Norman
Speaker 2: says she was hanging. Mm, whether she's alive or not.
Speaker 2: When he cuts her down. I mean that becomes trivial
Speaker 2: yet O, because I don't think he's cutting her down.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So with thank goodness, we're moving finally off of
Speaker 1: the medical stuff. Norman takes the stand idiot and he
Speaker 1: taught I mean, this guy, he talks about his romances
Speaker 1: with both Elsie and Elizabeth, and he's definitely not doing
Speaker 1: himself any favors. At one point, when he's asked which
Speaker 1: woman he likes more, he says, I do not know.
Speaker 1: I was particularly desirous of marrying any at the time
Speaker 1: of the two. I suppose I thought more of the
Speaker 1: other girl, which is Elizabeth. And then Maren has a
Speaker 1: cheeky little note in here. She said, of course, it's
Speaker 1: not exactly heartwarming thing to hear from the lips of
Speaker 1: a man who had already severed one of the women's heads.
Speaker 1: So this is all to say, you know, even with
Speaker 1: the best argument from the pathologists that he hired, Norman
Speaker 1: is not looking very good. I don't think things are
Speaker 1: going well for him with this trial.
Speaker 2: No, you know, and they're hearing directly from him. You
Speaker 2: know that he was partial to this other woman, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and we just know in these lovers triangles,
Speaker 2: you know, jealousy and rage often went out, you know,
Speaker 2: and this is where Elsie was putting demands on Norman
Speaker 2: that was going to impact his ability to continue having
Speaker 2: a relationship with Elizabeth. I mean, we don't need to
Speaker 2: have motive in cases, but right there the jury is
Speaker 2: hearing directly from Norman. He has motive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, So A couple of interesting notes, you know,
Speaker 1: before we get to the verdict. One is that judge.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was classic in the UK and I
Speaker 1: don't know in this time period if the judges did this,
Speaker 1: but the judge says to the jury upon giving jury instructions,
Speaker 1: he says that Spillsbury's insight is quote the very best
Speaker 1: opinion that can be obtained. I mean, how is that? Okay,
Speaker 1: I probably agree with him, But these were similar instructions
Speaker 1: that the judge in John Reginald Christie's case in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three gave very biased, sort of like here's your verdict.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is who you should be listening to.
Speaker 2: It's definitely biasing the jury. Yeah, you know, the jury
Speaker 2: is there to evaluate each of these experts and the
Speaker 2: veracity of each of their experts per their observations. For
Speaker 2: the judge to come out and do that. Obviously, I'm
Speaker 2: agreeing with what I'm hearing of Spillsbury's opinions, but completely
Speaker 2: inappropriate instructions to the jury.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and grounds for an appeal. I would have
Speaker 1: thought the jury hands down a verdict and it's probably
Speaker 1: no surprise that it's guilty and he is sentenced to death,
Speaker 1: which you know, of course there is I will say
Speaker 1: a little bit of a ruckus over whether or not
Speaker 1: not the death penalty was appropriate in this case because
Speaker 1: some people interpreted some reasonable doubt based on these three
Speaker 1: pathologists who took the stand on behalf of Norman, Arthur
Speaker 1: Conan Doyle. You know, Sherlock Holmes, author was one of
Speaker 1: the people who said this should not be an execution case. This,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to look at the evidence. And
Speaker 1: he was not saying Norman is not guilty. He was saying,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's enough evidence to warrant this being
Speaker 1: a capital case. So the public got involved. It did
Speaker 1: not help Norman at all, and he was hanged in
Speaker 1: April of nineteen twenty five at the age of twenty five.
Speaker 1: He told his father in the last letter two days
Speaker 1: before he's executed. He writes to his dad and he said, quote,
Speaker 1: never mind, Dad, don't worry. I am a martyr to spillsburyism.
Speaker 1: The interpretation is that, you know, Spillsbury is a man
Speaker 1: who so many people respect. If he says you're guilty,
Speaker 1: you're guilty, regardless of if you are guilty or not.
Speaker 1: Of course I don't think you and I believe that.
Speaker 1: But that was his statement, was that, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: he's blaming this pathologist for all of his woes.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean he's sitting there in court and he's
Speaker 2: hearing Spillsbury, you know, testify. I got to think Norman
Speaker 2: didn't know, you know, what kind of evidence would be
Speaker 2: present if Elsie had hung herself. It's a from my perspective,
Speaker 2: it's an obvious homicide. I think whether it's a death
Speaker 2: eligible case, I think I don't know what the laws
Speaker 2: of England are in terms of differentiating a death sentence
Speaker 2: from let's say life without the possibility of being paroled. Right,
Speaker 2: But you know, most certainly he's responsible, probably killed her
Speaker 2: that evening and try to cover it up by dismembering
Speaker 2: her body, getting rid of the evidence, sending letters back
Speaker 2: to the parents' house, you know, just to stage the scene.
Speaker 2: Everything is pointing strong at Norman and his I would say,
Speaker 2: naive and ignorant perspective on what these crimes look like.
Speaker 2: He came up with a scenario that he didn't realize
Speaker 2: that pathologist would be able to differentiate what's going on.
Speaker 2: He got caught.
Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking, Paul is all of this
Speaker 1: started with her saying, I'm pregnant, and now you're going
Speaker 1: to have to step up and be a man and
Speaker 1: marry me. And if she really believed she was pregnant,
Speaker 1: then you know, rightly so, and especially in this time period.
Speaker 1: I wonder what Norman's reaction was when he found out
Speaker 1: that she actually wasn't pregnant. I don't know if he
Speaker 1: would have killed her. I think he would have said,
Speaker 1: bug off, I'm breaking up with you, like many men did.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving you and that's it. But I think it
Speaker 1: was the pregnancy thing, the being trapped thing, that triggered this.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong. He could have murdered many other
Speaker 1: people after this. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It does come down to, you know, kind of evaluate
Speaker 2: the violence he inflicted on Elsie, whether or not he
Speaker 2: felt trapped. It doesn't matter if Elsie's lying or not
Speaker 2: about her pregnancy. You know, he acts out in a
Speaker 2: way that kills Elsie, and that just demonstrates a certain
Speaker 2: type of criminal behavior that somebody down the road may
Speaker 2: be confronted with Norman's rage. They got the right guy,
Speaker 2: came with the right verdict. Now, whether or not he
Speaker 2: should have been executed, you know, I really can't say
Speaker 2: or weigh in on that. It's just I'm not shedding
Speaker 2: a tear for Norman to be frank No.
Speaker 1: I mean, the UK doesn't have the death penalty in
Speaker 1: a longer. But I do think that this is always
Speaker 1: a reminder, and I've said this with listeners all about too.
Speaker 1: There are Elsie Cameron's and Sarah Cornell's before them, and
Speaker 1: there are them that are going to happen tomorrow because
Speaker 1: of the vulnerability of women when they are pregnant and
Speaker 1: just the fear that comes up. And so you know,
Speaker 1: this is why I think cases like this are really important,
Speaker 1: and this is why we're not going to do a
Speaker 1: story like this next week. I need a break from
Speaker 1: I really felt I needed a break after Sarah Cornell's
Speaker 1: case for that book. But I feel like we keep
Speaker 1: doing these stories and there's like, I hope people finally
Speaker 1: get it that women are really vulnerable when they're pregnant.
Speaker 2: Sure, no, no question about it. So I'm looking forward
Speaker 2: to the different type of case you're going to bring
Speaker 2: me next week.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, I'll see you then.
Speaker 2: Sounds good.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kate. This has been an exactly right production for
Speaker 1: our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot
Speaker 1: com slash Buried Bones Sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Buried Bones Pod.
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now, and.
Speaker 1: Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's Cold
Speaker 1: Cases is also available now.
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