WEBVTT - A Deadly Isle 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:06.560 You're listening to American Shadows, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:15.680 Grimm and Mild from Air and Manky. The rugged New 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.960 England coastline has seen its fair share of tragedy. The 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:24.560 Isle of Shoals, a collection of nine rocky, treeless islands 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.760 off the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, has been 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.880 cast in the starring role of the human dramas that 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.080 have played out across the centuries. The name of the 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.920 islands comes from two possible places, from the shallow shoals 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.280 long used for fishing in these waters, or the schools 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:46.040 of fish that swam heartily. When Europeans began showing up, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:51.080 and with these colonizers, as it often happens, came new monikers. 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.120 Each jut of an island became re christiened with names 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.920 such as Star, White, Cedar, Apple Door, and the one 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:05.480 where our stories take place today Smutty Nose. The islands 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.080 proved to be a lucrative fishing hub in the early 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.960 sixteen hundreds, and by sixteen forty five as many as 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:16.880 six hundred people were braiding their harsh, windswept landscapes. It 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.400 was a place that required a certain sturdiness of character 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.920 and temperament, and attracted folks who could play that part. 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:29.080 It also attracted pirates. It was said that the lawless 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:33.440 islanders were happy to host these seafaring bandits, and legend 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.639 tells us that not only did their treasures still exist there, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:41.400 but so do their ghosts. Author and resident Celia Thaxter 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.760 was among the people who wrote of these legends, telling 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.480 the story Philip Babb, the island's butcher and a rumored 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.200 pirate associate, who purportedly was so wicked in life that 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.800 there was speculation as to whether he could ever rest 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.280 in death. He supposedly dug a hole in the ground 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.160 of Apple Doore Island, where he and a friend found 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.520 a large treasure chest that stank of sulfur and gave 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.559 off smoke when they tried to open it. The famed 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.040 author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was trying to outrun his family's 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.200 association with the Salem witch trials just down the coastline, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.160 recorded this tale in his journal, attesting that Celia's father 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.040 had seen this ghost with his own eyes. According to 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.560 one tale, a shoulder on Apple Door was out walking 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.320 one night when he spotted a man running toward him. 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.359 He assumed it was a friend trying to scare him, 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.720 but when the figure got closer it became clear that 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.800 it had a corpse's face and sunken eyes. The figure 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.200 then pulled a wicked looking knife from his belt and 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.040 held it high. It looked uncannily like the butcher's knife 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.160 that Philip was known to have carried with him. The shoulder, 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.400 of course, ran some say that this phantom is guarding 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.840 a treasure chest. It's also said that Philip was buried 0:02:55.880 --> 0:03:00.440 somewhere near by. Could it be Blackbeard's treasure and some 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.680 think so. Rumors proliferate around the Isle as each island 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:09.360 claims to harbor the treasure itself. Blackbeard supposedly stranded his 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.920 wife there, though whether it was his thirteenth, fourteenth, or 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.480 fifteenth is still up for debate. Other pirates such as 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.680 ned Lowe, William Fly, and John Quelsh all passed through here, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.760 with some such as George and Rachel Wall, settling down 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.880 to stay for a while. Even still, many of the 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.680 pirate legends that continue to live on here are just 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:36.120 that legends. There's no concrete evidence that Blackbeard even visited 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.920 the Isle of Shoals, but in one of the darkest 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.360 hours on the isle, one seafaring man proved to be 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.000 more fearsome than all legends and hauntings that call the 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:59.320 island's home. I'm Lord Bobobam. Welcome to American Shadows. By 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.880 the eighteenth seventies, the Isle of Shoals was experiencing a 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.400 slow trickle of change. It had long been a fishing hub, 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:11.640 but now tourism slowly began replacing tradition. A Smuttynose island 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:14.240 is rumored to have gotten its name from its shape, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.200 which supposedly resembled the nose of a fearsome sea creature. 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.279 It had gained prominence as a workstation for passing ships, 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.200 featuring a compound that included a dock and warehouse, a 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.200 distillery and brewery, a boat house and hotel, a blacksmith 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:35.120 shop and windmill. Four fishermen who largely lived aboard their ships, 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.760 the island became a welcome reprieve where they could work 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.200 and play before continuing on back out into the cold 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.719 New England waters. If you can imagine a mirage in 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.800 the distance that could offer you anything you wanted, the 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.600 Smuttynose felt like that. To see worn sailors, but it 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.720 didn't disappear when they got close. The fishing industry, though, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.000 would be decimated by the American Revolution and the following 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.960 War of eighteen twelve. Still the island did okay. Eventually, 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.080 the proprietor of the compound decided to build a three 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.800 story hotel four summer tourists, which he called the mid 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.560 Ocean House of Entertainment by the Lady. Teen hundreds wealthy 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.600 businessmen took a gamble on the islands, buying up huge 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.359 spaths of land, raising fishing cottages and building hotels for 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:27.240 tourists to rest in. On Smuttynose Island, only one family remained, 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.159 the Hoovetts and the Christiansens, a close knit group that 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:35.080 shared one red house surrounded by the sea, six miles 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.720 from the rugged New Hampshire coast line. John and Maren 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.880 had landed on the island first, then sent for Marren's sister, 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.839 Karen A. Karen had found work and lived at the 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.240 Apple Door Hotel. Eventually John's brother Matthew joined them and 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:53.160 together they tended to their fishing schooner, the Clarabella. Together 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.520 the family thrived on their island home not so much castaways, 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.960 as they were a motley crew of seagulls and seafaring peoples. 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.039 John was a good fisherman. He was eventually able to 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.640 invest in trawling equipment the cutting edge and favored fishing 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.960 pools of the day, and occasionally was able to hire 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.880 help aboard his boat. One of those men was a 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.960 handsome six foot tall Prussian immigrant named Louis Wagner. A 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.040 struggling boat hand, John was able to give him a 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.479 job and also a place to stay for a few 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:29.960 months from April through November of eighteen seventy two. Louis 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:31.960 ended up spending a lot of time in the home 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.920 with Maren due to his rheumatism. It said that they'd 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.560 got along famously and even became as close as siblings. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.279 He eventually moved out, most likely to make room for 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.560 the arrival of Marin and Karen's half brother Ivan and 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.400 his wife Annette. It was hard for Lewis to find 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.359 work in nearby Portsmouth on the Mainland. Soon he was 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.120 sharing a cheap room in a boarding house with multiple 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.640 other men. Cash was hard to come by, and Brent, 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.719 as it always seems to, was coming due. As fortune 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:05.720 would have it, he ran into his old friends on 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.120 the Clarabella down at the docks on the night of 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.920 March fifth of eighteen seventy three. He asked John several 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.720 times over the course of their conversation whether they planned 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.600 on returning home to Smutty Nose that night. It's hard 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.040 to say now how this made John feel, but he 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.360 told Louis that yes, that had been the plan, but 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.480 now they were running behind schedule, waiting for a bait shipment, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.120 and they were going to dock for the night. This 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:35.440 represented the second change of plans for the Clarabella that day. Originally, 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:37.680 on their way back from the open Ocean, they had 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.160 planned to stop on Smutty Nose to pick up Karen, 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.600 who wanted to do some shopping in Portsmouth. She was 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.440 dressed and waiting for her ride, having collected all of 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.840 the money for her goods and tucked a little white 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.400 button in her change purse in the hopes of finding 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.120 a matching one in town. But the winds had changed, 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.520 forcing John to bypass Karen and her plans and head 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.160 straight to port. They had sent word by another boat 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.880 that they would return to the island around ten that evening, 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.600 but now they had no way of telling them about 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.040 their second delay. John decided to make use of his 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.760 time on shore and offered Louis a little bit of 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.000 money to bait trolls. When the shipment finally arrived, Louis 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.640 said he would meet him back at the dock. When 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.080 the shipman arrived, John went looking for Louis, but he 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:34.480 never showed up. He was nowhere to be found. There 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.800 was a good reason John Houtvet couldn't find Louis Wagner 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.959 among the wares and weathered boarding houses of the Portsmouth waterfront. 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.160 It's because he wasn't there. Louis had left John with 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.480 a plan in mind. Around eight o'clock that night, he 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.280 located a small boat along the wharf and got in. 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.120 He unhitched himself, threaded the oars onto their locks, and 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.760 began to pull. Louis began to row up the Scataquas 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.480 River and out into the open sea, covering the ten 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.040 long miles to Smuttynose Island. It was a clear night, 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.000 with a three quarter moon hanging high. The three lighthouses, 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.640 all long cherished beacons of hope and security illuminated Lewis 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.000 in flashes as he went, and then the light could 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:23.079 no longer reach him. He was too far gone. Lewis's 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.880 plan seemed simple. He needed money, and he knew where 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.240 he could get cash. He knew that John had been 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:32.960 saving to buy a new boat, something they had talked 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.760 about at the docks, and like many on the aisle, 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.680 he knew that John kept his cash at home rather 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.400 than dealing with banks on the mainland. When he finally 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.840 landed on the island, he likely intended to burglarize the 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.479 house without disturbing Maren, Annette and Karen, who he supposed 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.800 had gone to bed long before his arrival. He was 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.400 surely thrilled and unsurprised to find that the front door 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.360 was unlatched and it popped open easily. He crept into 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.280 the dark house and slid into the kitchen. The candles 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.280 had all grown cold, and the stove's embers faded to 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:12.880 a whisper. Everything was dark. He noticed that Marin, whose 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.520 bedroom was off the kitchen, had left her door open, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:20.560 and he quietly closed it and jammed the lock. But 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.880 he was no match for Canine's years. The family dog, Renya, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.760 heard a noise and began to bark. The barking quickly 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.559 woke Karen, who was asleep on a cot in the kitchen. 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.400 She assumed that the men had returned home, and in 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.640 her haze, began to speak. Louis realized he was caught 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.520 in a flurry of panic. Not knowing what else to do, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.320 he picked up a nearby chair and began to beat 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:47.720 Karen with it as she screamed, and they scuffled a 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.360 clock falling from the kitchen shelf. It stopped at one 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:55.559 oh seven a m Maren bolted upright in bed. She 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.720 blunched for her door, but found it jammed. The latch 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.960 eventually freed itself as as Karen screamed, a shouts of 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.240 John killed me, John killed me sliced the night's quiet. 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.320 Maren could only see a tall man, silhouetted by the moonlight, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.480 holding a chair aloft with both hands. She grabbed Karen, 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:15.880 dragged her into the bedroom where a nette was, and 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.640 slammed the door behind them. Karen leaned against the door, 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.520 trying to figure out what to do next. And there 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.680 they were three women trapped and huddling in their night clothes. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.600 Their only course of action was to try to jump 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.600 out the window and make a run for it. Karen 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.080 collapsed from her beating a Maren held her and convinced 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.280 a Nette that she had to try to escape. Nete 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.520 pushed open the window and climbed out, jumping down the 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:49.000 short distance into the fresh snow, but once there she froze. 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.040 Their attacker had stopped pounding at the door, and soon 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.559 Maren heard a new sound, a Nette's voice in the yard, 0:11:55.679 --> 0:12:00.120 screaming Lewis Louis. The two were now illuminated by the 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:02.880 light of the moon, but it was clear as day 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.040 what was about to happen. He had been identified. This 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.160 certainly would spell his doom, so he made the decision 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.640 to retrieve an axe he had seen by the front door. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.800 Maren could only watch through the window as Louis raised 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.240 the axe and began to strike Annette until she lay 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.120 dying in the snow. He headed back to the house's 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.400 front door, Now with a weapon in hand. Maren knew 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.280 her only option was to run as fast and far 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.520 as she could on their little island and find a 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.160 place to hide. But try as she might convince her 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.280 injured sister to follow her out the small window, Karen 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:43.600 couldn't muster the strength alone. Maren wrapped her night shirt 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.719 around her neck and ran barefoot out into the night. 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:51.440 Karen was now alone and save for Louis. As she 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.320 stumbled out into the house, attempting to hide under her bed, 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.439 Louis caught her, though, and strangled her with a white handkerchief. 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.520 Maren Can continued her run, searching for a place to hide. 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.000 She decided to try a small abandoned house near the water, 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.960 that is, until Rinya appeared. Afraid that the small dog 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.880 would bark and give them away, she ran past the 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.760 dilapidated building and to the island's coal Maybe she thought 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.800 she could find Louis's boat and escape, but it wasn't there. 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.360 There were no boats at all. There was nowhere to hide. 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.120 As she ran, she heard her sister cry out one 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.600 last time, and then saw a lamp and the house 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.040 turn on. The abandoned houses were going to be too 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.440 obvious to hide in. The risk was too high, so 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.160 she decided to stay hidden among the rocks. It would 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.559 turn out that Marin was right to choose the spot 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.640 that she did. Later, bloody footprints would show that Louis 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.160 had searched the island for her without success. He checked 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.679 every room in the closed mid Ocean House, hotel, opened 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.839 every door in the old store, and fish house and warehouse, 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.640 and it seems once his search turned up empty, he 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.120 returned to the house to find the money had come for. 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.760 He also made himself a cup of tea in the process. 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.440 In all, he came away with a total of sixteen 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.200 dollars roughly four hundred in a day's money. What he 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.520 didn't notice, though, as he grabbed the money from Karen's purse, 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.560 was the presence of a small white button among his 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:35.760 handful of coins. The sun rose again, but for Maren, 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.640 the nightmare continued. She waited until dawn to leave her 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.000 hiding place, afraid that Lewis was lying in wait for her. 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.000 When she heard the sound of workmen starting their day 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.200 a short distance away on Star Island, she began to 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.840 wave and jump and yell for their help. They noticed 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.680 her but did nothing. Maren took off along the sea wall, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.040 where she would be inside of apple door, but just 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.720 a quarter mile across the frigid water. She continued to 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.560 wave and yell until she got the attention of the 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.680 children of one Yorga in Yebertsen, who were playing outside 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.200 in the morning sun. They alerted their dad, and he 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.080 quickly loaded into his doory across to Maren. He was 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.840 shocked by what he found. She was frostbitten and bruised, 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.440 clothing torn and frozen, and the only thing she could 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:30.000 say when he asked her what had happened was Lewis, Lewis, Lewis. 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.400 He trundled her into his boat and brought her to 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.440 his home, where Peebe, his wife, and their neighbor, Celia Thaxter, 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.520 tended to her. Her condition was so bad they worried 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.720 she was going to die. Yorga and two other fishermen 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.440 grabbed weapons and headed back to Smuttynose, prepared for a fight. 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.560 At this same moment, John, Matthew, and Ivan were all 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.120 heading back out again from Portsmouth. There trolls baited and 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.760 ready for another round of fishing, but as they approached 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:04.120 up people hailed them frantically. Matthew and Ivan hopped into 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.480 a dory and rowed ashore, where the news was broken 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.480 to them that Marin had been found near death, nearly 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.280 paralyzed with fear, and with a horrifying story to tell. 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.320 Brothers John and Matthew immediately set sail for Someboddy Nose 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.200 ivan stayed behind with Maren. When he asked her where 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.120 his wife, Annette was, all she could manage to tell 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.760 him was that she was still at home. He took 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.280 the dory and rode over to his island, where John 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.920 Matthew and the three other armed fishermen were standing outside 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:40.640 the home, a which was surrounded by blood soaked snow. Meanwhile, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.440 Louis Wagner had managed to reach the mainland in his 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.080 stolen boat, abandoning it in a less traveled waterway in 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:52.240 nearby Newcastle. He was icy and sodden, conspicuous as he 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.880 walked bedraggled along the road back home to Portsmouth. He 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:59.440 was fidgeting, angry and nervous, and unable to eat anything. 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:01.680 When he found only arrived back at his boarding house. 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.400 He made several strange comments to those who saw him 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.159 at home that morning, including that he was in trouble 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.239 and that he was afraid he was going to be 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.000 taken in. He cleaned out his room and left without 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:18.000 paying his overdue rent. By that afternoon, he had spent 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.800 most of his stolen money on a shave, a hair cut, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.359 a new set of clothes, and a one way train 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.480 ticket to Boston. Once there, he went to a boarding 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.919 house where he had once lived and asked the owners 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.080 if he could stay on credit. By now the police 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.800 were already on the case, and they didn't have to 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.920 look very hard to find him. They apprehended him at 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.480 this old address. Though he quickly denied any involvement in 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.200 what had happened on Smuttynose Island. He was taken to jail, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.600 and news quickly spread in the papers and through the streets. 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.880 A one newspaper report claimed that as many as ten 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.199 thousand people poured into the streets of Portsmouth hoping to 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:01.640 enact some mob justice. A one headline read fisherman vow vengeance. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.600 Another said the fishermen that the shoals are terribly excited 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.320 should Wagner fall into their hands while there. In their 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:13.480 present temper, he could hardly escape being torn into pieces. John, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.479 Matthew and Ivan, who had lost almost their whole family 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.399 that night, soon arrived to see Louis in jail. He 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.159 denied his crime to their faces. John screamed that he 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:27.960 ought to be cut to pieces and used as fishing bait. 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:33.240 The person who waited to come was Maren. She did eventually, 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.280 though she had to be carried in. She was in 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.280 bad shape but mustered everything she could to face Lewis down. 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.160 A man who had once been something of a brother 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.160 had killed her family and tried to kill her too, 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.520 as she knew it, yet he continued to deny it. 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.760 The betrayal, the horror was almost too much to bear. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.320 On March twelfth, it was decided there was enough evidence 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.320 to charge him with murder, just three days after the 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:06.359 funerals of Karen and Annette. Throughout his trial in June 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.359 of eighteen seventy three, he continued to proclaim innocence. It 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.840 became a local sensation and in the public opinion he 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:18.080 was already good and guilty and hanged. Spectators packed the 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.240 courtroom from all over New England. It was the biggest 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.520 event of the year. The crowd hung on the witnesses 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.800 every word. Maren was the unwilling and unfortunate star of 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.760 the show, reliving the worst night of her life in 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.840 excruciating detail for the courts. Over twenty people were called 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.119 to attest to Lewis's actions on the days leading up 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.400 to the murders. And then there was the physical evidence. 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.040 The bloody shirt dumped into the boarding house pretty, his 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.760 bloodied and blistered hands and one small white button in 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:54.920 his possession, Lewis's alibi fell short. He denied making any 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.640 strange statements and attempted to cast suspicion on others, including 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:03.520 John himself, wept that he was falsely accused. On June 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.359 twenty fourth, he was sentenced to death by hanging. He 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.560 appeared to take it in stride because he had one 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.960 more plan. The cell locks in the jail in which 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.040 he was held had been installed incorrectly. The jailers knew 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.280 that he could get out, but he promised them that 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.920 he'd stay in. He broke that promise and took two 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.080 other prisoners with him that night. His freedom wouldn't last long, 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:34.200 though he was apprehended three days later. Tired, hungry, and disheveled, 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.320 he talked about wanting a vacation and continued to deny 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.639 his crime until he hung the following June. The people 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.200 of the shoals they tried to continue on, but life 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.640 on Smutty Nose was forever changed. Maryn John, and Matthew 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.400 immediately left for the safe harbors of Portsmouth. Ivan took 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.160 up work on Appleedore Island before eventually moving back to Norway. 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.439 As for their little red house, it would never be 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.440 the same. It was no longer filled with life and family, 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.080 a holdout of a changing world. By the summer after 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:13.160 the murders, with new hotels on nearby islands ramping up business, 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:23.879 the murder scene became a tourist traction. The stories of 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.520 what happened on Smutty Nose Island eventually evolved from simple 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:32.679 news into history and legend. Celia Thaxter, one of the 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.240 women who comforted Maren in the wake of this tragedy, 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:38.280 was a well known poet with a firm standing in 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.440 the Isle community. In fact, her family owned Smutty Nose, 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:47.280 effectively making her the bed's landlords. In the days after 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.280 the murders, she wrote a letter to a friend describing 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.560 everything that Marin had told her, and in May of 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.919 eighteen seventy five, just a month before Lewis was hanged, 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.280 Celia published an article entitled an Amiable Murder in the 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.399 Atlantic Monthly. A copy was delivered to Lewis and his 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.960 cell and he said that Celia was simply telling lies 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.960 to make money, but really what Celia did was pen 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:16.040 a cornerstone piece in the canon of American true crime writing. 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:21.200 Unlike many contemporary newspaper accounts, which delighted in the blood 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.959 and gore of a crime, Celia wrote about the world 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.399 of Norwegian immigrants and those who were left behind in 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:31.760 the wake of the killings. It was a work of humanity, 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:36.520 something that's not often afforded to victims or their families. 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:41.240 Her personal letters revealed that she agonized over whether writing 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.560 about the murders was in poor taste. She intentionally focused 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.360 on the lives of Karen and Annette, reanimating them as 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:54.879 flesh and blood, living and breathing characters, not just inert corpses. 0:22:55.880 --> 0:23:00.200 The story of these lost lives continues to echo through history. 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:03.679 The way that they were written about and remembered continues 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:08.280 to shape the media we consume today. A scholar's credit 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.320 her article with being a direct influence on the modern 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:15.280 genre of true crime, especially in the case of Truman capotees. 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:20.879 In Cold Blood. Karen and Annette might not be household names, 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:26.760 but it can be argued that their fingerprints remain. There's 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:29.880 more to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:41.920 break to hear all about it. There's a particular literary 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:45.480 canon that's existed in American high school classrooms for a 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.919 long time now, and if you went to school in 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.240 the States, you've probably read the likes of Catcher and 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.440 the Rye by J. D. Salinger or Kill a Mockingbird 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:59.800 by Harper Lee. There's another book that continues to set 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:03.439 its apart as a foundational literary text for young minds, 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:08.360 The Harrowing Tale of the Lord of the Flies. Published 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.480 in nineteen fifty four, it was the debut novel of 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:14.320 British author William Golding, who would go on to win 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.880 a Nobel Prize. It details the story of British schoolboys 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:22.200 marooned on a desert island and what unfolds is they 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:26.440 try to establish a system of self governance. It's chaotic, 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:30.960 it's dark. It asks readers to deeply interrogate their own 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:35.080 morals and whether the ending is a happy one. Well, 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:39.840 it's hard to say. It's a novel, yes, but stories 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:42.720 of being marooned on islands can be found the world over, 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:47.439 from the long past through the present, and sometimes the 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:51.000 truth of these tales provides an outcome that fiction writers 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:55.040 could only dream of. On an evening in June of 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:59.440 nineteen sixty five, six boys stole a boat. They intended 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:03.000 to go for a ride. After all, their strict Catholic 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:05.800 boarding school in the Kingdom of Tonga left much to 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:09.480 be desired in the way of entertainment. The boys, ages 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:14.159 thirteen to sixteen, planned to sail five hundred miles to Fiji, or, 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:16.679