WEBVTT - Did 'Sally Arsenic' Really Poison Her Family? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:12.639 with iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalium. We're exploring the 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.560 intersection of history and true crime. I'm Holly Frye and 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.320 I'm Maria Tremarky. In this season we have been talking 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.880 about lady poisoners and we still are and in today's episode, 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:25.680 we're going to look at the life of a young 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.600 woman named Sarah Chesham. You may also sometimes hear that 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.800 pronounced this cheeshelm. And she went on trial more than 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:36.680 once after continued accusations that she didn't just use arsenic 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:47.040 to poison the rats in her house. Sir Sarah, who 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.680 was born Sarah Parker, was nineteen and pregnant with her 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.559 first child when she married Richard Chesham, a twenty one 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.880 year old farmer, in summer of eighteen twenty eight. They 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.440 named their firstborn daughter, Harriet. In the next ten years, 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.639 they went on to have five more children, who were 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.920 all boys. Philip was born in eighteen thirty, John in 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.039 eighteen thirty two, Joseph in eighteen thirty four, James in 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.960 eighteen thirty seven, and finally George in eighteen thirty nine. 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.560 They lived in Clavering, a small rural village in northwest Essex, 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.319 and we mean very small. In eighteen forty one there 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.720 were barely more than a thousand people living in the 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.720 village and most of the population was under the age 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:30.120 of twenty. Sarah and Richard eked out really a meager living. 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.240 Sarah and possibly Richard as well, was illiterate. There was 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.360 little food and little work, and most people farmed just 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.440 to get by right, and not even always on their 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.360 own farms. Sometimes they would work for farmers, they were 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:47.480 that poor. In January of eighteen forty five, two of 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.000 their boys, Joseph, who at that time would have been 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.559 about ten and James, who was probably about eight, both 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.720 came down with severe stomach pains and vomiting, and they 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.520 were seen by their local doctor. Yet they still both 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.320 passed way. Both, it was believed, had died of cholera. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.440 They were buried together in the same coffin most stories report, 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:12.120 and they were buried in their local churchyard. This is, 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.400 of course incredibly tragic, but it was also not really 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.960 out of character with the times. Cholera was a very 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.200 common bacterial disease at this point in England's history, and 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.280 it was easily spread through contaminated water. In general, this 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.680 was a time when people were unaware of the ways 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:33.920 in which diseases spread. Medicine was not really very sophisticated yet, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.840 and because of poor sanitation and poor diet nutrition, as 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.520 well as dangerous working conditions, the overall British population at 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.040 this time was actually pretty unhealthy. Life expected see was 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.720 pretty low, and the fact that Sarah and her husband 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.760 both lived into their forties is kind of remarkable. And 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.280 if you were a baby at this time, thanks are 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.200 pretty grim for you too. As many as three out 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.600 of twenty babies didn't live beyond their first birthday, so 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.760 the death of the two boys was considered a family tragedy, 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.320 and there was no suspicion at the time against Sarah 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.360 or her husband, at least not by the authorities. The 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.800 small town gossip mill was beginning to run though. The 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.640 trouble all started during the summer of eighteen forty six, 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.480 about a year after the boys died, when another young 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.880 woman in town her name was Lydia Taylor, who may 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.280 or may not have been the ex girlfriend of Sarah's husband, 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:30.800 Richard Bean, accusing Sarah of poisoning her infant son. That baby, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.920 named Solomon Taylor, was healthy when he was born, but 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.640 his good health began to deteriorate rapidly in late June 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.440 that year. His mother reported Sarah had visited Lydia and 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.160 her son three times, and Lydia was certain that her 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.160 son's death was linked to the gifts of rice pudding 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.320 and apple turnovers that Sarah had brought along. Lydia reportedly 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.360 also told authorities she was certain she saw a white, 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.800 slimy substance on her son's lips before he became ill. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.960 Sarah she could continued, insisted that that was just sugar 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.720 from the desserts, but because Solomon died shortly after eating 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.440 Sarah's food, Lydia suspected her of murder. Okay, two questions. 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:13.400 Should have baby be those sakes right for one year? Right, 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.880 like your digestive system is still forming, But absolutely have 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.440 a spoonful of rice pudding. I guess that's that's the 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.039 more likely of the two to be digestible. It's not 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.120 a high place to judge what she fed her son 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:26.839 right less than a year old, that's really young to 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.440 be eaten those any kind of rich dessert just it 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.919 just seems weird to me. Again, I'm not a parent, 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.440 So any parent that has fed your child these things, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.680 please don't think I'm judging you. My understanding is just 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.640 that babies should not be eating food that rich. But 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.240 this whole accusation kicked off a series of events, none 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.400 of which were good for Sarah. In August of that year, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.520 based on Lydia's story as evidence, Sarah was investigated by 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.880 local authorities who decided that there was enough in Lydia's 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:00.960 report to move forward. So because of the of Sarah's 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.680 guilt around town, it was at this time too, that 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.240 the magistrate requested the bodies of her two sons be exhumed. 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.560 The remains were examined by local authorities and a local 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.520 doctor who sent the stomach contents of each child to 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:22.840 London for analysis. So while we're pondering that, it makes 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:24.640 me want to take a little bit of a break, 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:26.920 and when we return, we're going to talk about how 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.880 Sarah went on trial for the deaths of three boys. 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.320 Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's get back into how Sarah's 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.200 did trial for the poisonings of three children, two of 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:53.039 her own, the infant Solomon Taylor's body was tested for arsenic, 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:57.160 but none was found. The bodies of Sarah's own children, 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.040 Joseph and James, were also tested and the outcome I 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.920 mean those tests was not so good. Expert and forensic 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.680 scientists doctor Alfred Swain Taylor, no relation to Lydia and 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.280 Solomon Taylor told the court that he had found sufficient 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.520 arsenic in both James and Joseph's stomachs to have proved fatal. 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.159 So Alfred Swain Taylor's work in this case is actually 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.479 a really big deal because he himself was a big 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.440 deal during this time in England, specifically for his work 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:30.600 in the very early days of toxicology. So toxicologists are 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.640 experts on poison and poisoning and they come up a lot, 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.920 as you can tell in our episodes. So Taylor had 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.800 become the go to expert witness for coroners in this country. 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.120 He appeared at trials and in newspaper articles so often 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.440 that he became a minor celebrity himself. Charles Dickens and 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.479 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle both used him for inspiration in 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.680 their writing, and today he's considered the father of British 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.080 forensic medicine and doctor Taylor testified that he had found 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.680 yellow arsenic in the boy's stuffe which apparently meant he 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.360 explained that they had ingested white arsenic while they were 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.320 still alive. The sulfur released by the body, he said, 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.280 was what turned it yellow. So Taylor may have been 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.520 good at his job time, but this is not exactly 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.679 the kind of testing you would get from a modern 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.200 day toxicologist. There's a little bit of guesswork involved, right. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.880 I'm still sure that it must have been pretty amazing 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.560 if you were in the courtroom and you had your witness, 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.600 you know, pulling out all of this scientific fact about arsenic. 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:33.679 Maybe there was no reason to think he was wrong. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.360 So based on his evidence, it was decided then that 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:43.200 Sarah should be arrested and put on trial. Actually, let's 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.400 talk about those trials for just a minute, because Sarah 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.640 was put on trial three times and something like two 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.720 days or a day and a half. It was really compressed, 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.280 but there were three trials, one each for each victim. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.360 While the evidence seemed clear to the court that her 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.720 two sons died of arsenic poisoning, there was no way 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.280 to prove how the boys had ingested the arsenic to 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.440 begin with. The jury deliberated quickly in both cases, and 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.600 Sarah was acquitted of the charges that she poisoned her son. 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.480 Despite the findings of the court, locals still believed that 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.200 Sarah did in fact poison her sons, and that she 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:26.040 did so to collect life insurance money. In nineteenth century England, 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.480 there were such things as burial clubs, which were societies 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.440 that had sprung up to help poor, working class families 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.160 give their deceased family members a proper funeral. So these 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.080 clubs worked like this. You paid into an association and 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.920 your weekly payments would be used to cover the funeral 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.960 expenses of your deceased loved ones when the time came. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.360 Parents were known to cover sick children under several plans 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:52.320 if they could afford it, so that they would get 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.679 a good payout. So then there was the third trial. 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.360 This one was for the poisoning of Solomon Taylor, and 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.480 if you remember, there was no train of arsenic found 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.960 in Solomon's body, so the prosecution withdrew that case too, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:10.440 and Sarah was cleared of these charges as well. And 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.520 then for a few years things seemed to go pretty quietly. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.520 But when Richard passed away, at the age of forty 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.600 three after a long illness, the rumor mill sprung right 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.679 back into action. Having been previously accused of poisoning Lydia 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.120 Taylor's baby as well as her own two sons, the 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.760 villagers were convinced, like with all caps, convinced even years later, 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:34.160 and after Sarah had been found legally innocent, that the 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.360 forty one year old farmer's wife had to be responsible 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.680 for her husband's death. So Richard had suffered from chronic 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:44.400 lung disease, which you know was probably tuberculosis, but because 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.480 he complained of stomach pain and vomiting before his death, 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.720 and because Sarah was his wife, authorities ordered an autopsy, 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.280 and that autopsy did indeed reveal that he had tuberculosis, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.200 which may or may not have been hastened by arsenic 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:03.080 poisoning because there was a scant amount of arsenic in 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:08.360 his stomach. And so Sarah was arrested again. And although 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.920 she had been cleared on all of those previous charges, 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.680 the acquittals from her first three trials were not well 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.360 received in the local community, sort of as we've been saying, 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.000 and in eighteen fifty she was brought back into court 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:25.480 and technically this was now her fourth four trials. So 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.080 during this fourth trial it was reported that Sarah cared 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.480 for Richard during his illness. That is not that unusual 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.920 at all. She was his wife, okay, and she fed 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.840 him milk that was thickened with rice, and apparently had 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.080 a strict rule that no one else was to bring 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.760 him food as in her previous trials. They brought doctor 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.280 Taylor back in to analyze the evidence here as well, 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.040 and he confirmed that there was a trace amount of 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.800 arsenic in Richard's body. Where he found a huge amount 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.640 of arsenic was actually in the bag of rice that 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.319 was retrieved from the Chresham and tested as evidence. So arsenic, 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.360 just in case you didn't know, is a naturally occurring 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:11.920 thing in rice. Right, you know, rinse your rice. It's 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:14.320 not supposed to be huge amounts of arsenic in your rice, 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.480 but it does naturally occur. So, right, we don't know 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:19.640 if that huge amount is like if it is a 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:21.960 thirty pound bag of rice, and you go, I found 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.880 X amount of arsenic, but no one's gonna eat the 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.000 thirty pounds of rice at a time, so it would 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.439 not be a fatal amount, or is it a cup. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:34.040 You know, right, Huge is a very variable word at 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.720 this point. We don't know if they're saying huge in 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.760 relation to the whole volume or just a huge as 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:45.800 if I say I've driven twenty thousand miles, you go, wow, 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.120 that's amazing, and I go, well over ten years, like 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:53.320 it's yeah, yeah, yeah it is. It is interesting that 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.439 no one in the court, or at least it's not recorded, 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.920 actually ever asked the question how much should be in 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:07.959 rice and how much was in rice? So it's cited 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.360 interestingly that Taylor noted in his report that there wasn't 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.360 enough arsenic found in Richard's body to warrant a murder charge. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.000 He just sort of noted that the arsenical rice existed. 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.680 And despite these things, the chrial just kept moving forward. 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:29.840 Why ask questions on top of this kind of dicey 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.360 arsenic evidence. Another local woman named Hannah Phillips told the 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.800 court about conversations she said that she had with Sarah 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.560 regarding how to get rid of a husband if the 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.679 need arises, and that those conversations had indicated that it 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.120 was with arsenic. It was also whispered around the village 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.440 that Sarah had a reputation for putting a special ingredient 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.760 into the mincemeat pies that she gave as gifts, and 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:59.240 that ingredient was not Brandy. The prosecution did their best 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.480 to present her as a disagreeable, angry, and quarrelsome woman. 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.640 They even had strangers take the stand against her and 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.479 appearing as her own defense. Sarah addressed the jury herself, 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.480 but her statement, which it's said was long and a 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.400 bit rambling, did not win anyone over. And although she 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:20.800 wasn't able to pull together a list of her own witnesses, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.640 which would have been in her legal right, she did 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.560 speak about how the evidence against her was based only 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.679 on and we quote her from her trial, spite and revenge. 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.400 The court, like the town, believed that Sarah had murdered before, 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.960 and also believed that unless she was executed, there would 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:43.680 be and we again quote, no safety for mankind. The 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:48.440 coroner too, couldn't see any other outcome than execution. No 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:53.440 other outcome, nothing, just execution. What kind of court system 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.760 is this? There was no court of appeal in England 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.839 in eighteen fifty one when Sarah was convicted, and she 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.240 have had no means of challenging the outcome of her case. 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.440 In any of these instances. So that's a little bit 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:09.080 of a downer, and I want to take a break 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.079 and walk away from it for a second and we return. 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.760 We are going to talk about Sarah's execution and the 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:36.320 possible problems with this whole case. Welcome back to Criminalia. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.560 We're talking about the poison panic that gripped England at 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.360 the same time as Sarah's trial. Okay, let's take a 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.600 minute and talk about what life was like in England 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.800 at this time. So this was kind of the early 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.960 end of the Victorian Age, and economic conditions in England 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.680 were pretty dreadful. As we talked about earlier, a lot 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.840 of people were living in really abject poverty. There was 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.600 high unemployment in the eighteen forties, which led to an 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.160 alarm public health crisis as the number of child and 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:09.280 infant poisonings began to increase, both accidental poisonings and intentional ones. Still, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.200 most people, though, who died from arsenic poisoning did so 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:17.160 because of accidents or mistakes, or long term exposure to 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.120 the poison in everyday items such as cosmetics. It was 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.440 a common ingredient, or often from contaminated groundwater, which still 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:29.000 happens today. Most people who died from arsenic poison weren't murdered, 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.480 but that didn't prevent growing social unease about arsenic In 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.960 nineteenth century England, the country became gripped in in poison panic. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.000 Sarah was hardly alone as an accused. Between eighteen forty 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.160 and eighteen fifty, as many as two hundred and forty 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.760 individuals were charged with murder or attempted murder by poisoning 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:54.200 right or wrong. National hysteria surrounding poisonings was growing, and 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.680 Sarah's trials caught the public's interest. They just they got 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.320 swept up in this. The Times newspaper commented that Sarah 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.120 was quote an accepted and repeated murderess who walked abroad 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:12.200 in the village, unchallenged and unaccused. We don't really need 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:14.720 to say it, but this was a time when journalistic 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:19.200 standards were a little different, very different, and if they 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.240 had clickabait back then, these headlines would have been for that. 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:24.160 We talk about that as a modern thing, but I 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.680 really do feel like Victoria, the Victorian age news industry, 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.720 was the origin point of clicking. Absolutely, it's just a 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.520 little bit different form. So they also went on to 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.600 say in these articles that Sarah just did not have 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.280 the kind of disposition that a mother should have towards 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:48.320 her child, and thus she was nicknamed Sally Arsenic. So 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.840 during the years that Sarah was allegedly poisoning three children 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.600 and a husband, the Times published one hundred and thirty 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.480 two articles about poisoning crimes in the UK, So that's 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.080 just a couple of years and press it down. So 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.600 around this time period as well, there were about five 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.359 hundred to six hundred people who died from being poisoned 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.679 each year in those years, So we don't really know 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.399 what the breakdown was of how many of the poisoners 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.280 were women and how many were men. But what we 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.800 do know about this press was that they ran seventy 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.280 three articles about women who were on trial for poisoning 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:27.680 crimes and only covered fifty nine men who were accused 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.760 of the very same crimes. What I uncovered when I 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.240 was doing this research was there's not a lot of numbers. 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.879 There's numbers of deaths, but there's numbers of trials. But 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:41.919 if you were a female and you were accused of 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:46.720 a crime, you were immediately more interested. And while it 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.800 might be an indication that women were more likely to 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.080 poison in Victorian England. Their editorial calendar may also simply 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.879 reflect that stories about female criminals, as Maria just suggested, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.160 were more sensational and would draw more readers than those 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.159 of males. Like we said, kind of like clickbait, but 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.200 nineteenth century style. Right, So let's get back to Sarah's trial. 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:14.359 Sarah was convicted in her fourth trial a single count 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:19.160 of administering poison with intent, and it's that statement rather 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:23.000 than murder. Because doctor Taylor didn't find enough arsenic to 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:27.080 prove fatal in Richard's body. She was sentenced to death 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.720 by hanging. It's reported also that thousands of people came 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.760 to watch her public execution, and possibly as many as 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:38.280 ten thousand people in March of eighteen fifty one. I 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.800 have to say that if that number is true, and wow, 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:47.800 does it feel high, like, particularly considering how small their 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.000 village was. There were a thousand people who lived there 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:51.880 and most of them were under the age of twenty. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.480 Where do these ten thousand people came from? I mean, 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.520 it's more people than can legally fit in the Miami 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.199 Beach Convention Center, so I'm not sure if they were 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:07.160 bussing them in you think, you think a little exaggerated. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.199 There was actually an illustrated verse recounting Sarah's final moments 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.439 that was distributed among the spectators. One Stanza read like 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:21.920 this wicked, base, deceitful wife, barbarous and cruel mother, doomed 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.720 to die in the prime of life. Poor Sarah. She 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.879 was the last woman to be executed for attempted murder 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.760 in England. So, as we have just uncovered, there was 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.520 a lot of gossip and only a little bit of 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.399 evidence in each of Sarah's trials. So was she just 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.639 hanged as a result of hearsay and rumor. Although she 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.040 was convicted of a single count of attempted murder, the 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.879 public believed that she was responsible for more than that, 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.000 and maybe also for teaching other women how to kill 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.040 with arsenic in a deadly poison ring in her small town. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.640 There was no proof of that, but that didn't really 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:02.800 matter who there as trials sparked a moral panic about 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.120 poison And this is kind of the interesting and important 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.040 thing about her going on trial for four times. Up 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.240 until eighteen fifty one, arsenic was really cheap and it 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.359 was really easily available around England, you know, like a 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:18.520 small town. You would have found it there too, And 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.800 although its intended uses were for things like killing rodents 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:26.520 and surprisingly treating acne, it quickly became known for its 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.479 off label uses such as killing family members and it 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.919 was often for inheritance. And again it was also a 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.680 thing to be talked about because it's very sensational. Who 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.960 doesn't love a little drama varying Victorian England was like 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:41.080 the era of the drama lama. I think we all 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.879 know and this whole set of trials fits right in yep. 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.239 So the London Medical Gazette at the time reported that 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.280 with just two pence you could buy enough arsenic to 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.800 kill about one hundred people. Two pence is the equivalent 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.639 of two and a half cents in today's dollars, so 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.160 for you know, one hundred bucks, you could kill those 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:06.320 ten thousand spectators a legend spectators. You could at least 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.280 kill everybody in your town. So Sarah's trial was one 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.240 of several actually at this time that caught the attention 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.600 of both the media as well as Parliament, and in 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.959 early eighteen fifty one, the Earl of Carlisle introduced the 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.920 sale of Arsenic Regulation Bill, and this bill put a 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.040 few rules into effect. There had been no poison rules before, 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.200 and it broke down like this. So first, it required 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.359 arsenic suppliers to keep a register of names of people 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:36.879 who bought the poison, as well as the amount they 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.880 purchased and their reason for buying it, and they had 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.680 to provide a signature. Second, there were no restrictions on 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:47.040 who could sell arsenic even under the bill, but now 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.560 sellers were only legally allowed to sell it to people 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.760 whom they already knew. And third, arsenic, which we have 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.720 talked about before, in its natural state after it's been processed, 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.960 is white and an offen resembled sugar, and so at 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.239 this point it had to be dyed with indigo or 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.880 soot before it could be sold in individual packets, no 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:12.680 more mistaking it for a household sweetener. So this bill 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.000 was intended to address the growing public concern over both 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.320 accidental and deliberate arsenic poisonings, and it was actually in 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.879 place until it was repealed replaced with the Pharmacy and 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.359 Poisons Act of nineteen thirty three, so quite a long time. 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.640 Because of the way investigations and trials are conducted today, 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:33.920 it can sometimes seem easier for us to look back 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.240 on the past and cry, you know, injustice, Sarah had 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:38.280 four trials and they didn't know what they were doing, 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:41.639 and we just cry everything was wrong. But there really 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:44.879 does just seem to be evidence in Sarah's case that 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:48.520 things could have been done better. There wasn't a lot 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.920 of evidence against her, and her one sided trial surrounding 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.240 the death of her husband found trace amounts of a 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:59.080 poison that often doesn't have to do with being poisoned. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:04.720 Conviction based on hearsay from locals, including bogus and uninvestigated 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:08.000 stories like the one that we found, which was Sarah 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:10.600 kept a stash of arsenic in a tree stump outside 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.840 her house, it's hard to see her execution as a 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.000 fine practice of law. So that said, there is an 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:19.879 interesting twist to Sarah's story that we actually did not 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:22.400 know about when we originally chose her for this season. 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:27.480 I love this Yes. Recently, Rosalind Powell, a descendant of Sarah, 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.239 approached the producers of BBC one's show Murder, Mystery and 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:34.439 My Family and asked for help in re examining the 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.439 circumstances of Sarah's case. So it's been more than one 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:41.040 hundred and sixty years since her execution, and with new 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:45.000 eyes on the evidence, investigators from that team found that 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:47.840 the tests carried out at the time of Sarah's trial 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:52.080 were actually pretty inconclusive, citing that today we now know 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.320 that it's not unusual to find small traces of arsenic 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:58.399 in a human body, like what was found in Richard's body, 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:02.719 Sarah's alleged victim. The barristers and judge determined there are 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:05.760 two barristers in a retired judge who who were the investigators, 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:10.359 had likely died from natural causes like cholera and tuberculosis, 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:14.960 like we expect it. Ultimately, Sarah's family did get an 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:18.800 unsafe verdict, and that means the original guilty verdict should 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:23.879 be overturned. And while this isn't a binding judgment, it 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:27.040