Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Sometime around nineteen fourteen, Walter
Speaker 1: traveled across the Atlantic with thousands of other brave Canadians
Speaker 1: to join the fight at the start of World War One.
Speaker 1: For many, it would be a one way trip, but
Speaker 1: Walter managed to stay alive for four straight years. In fact,
Speaker 1: no bullet or landmine would send him home. In nineteen eighteen, No,
Speaker 1: that would be blamed on something far more strange. He
Speaker 1: was on patrol in the area of Belgium known as
Speaker 1: Flanders Fields when a bolt of lightning flashed out of
Speaker 1: the sky and struck him off his horse. When his
Speaker 1: fellow soldiers found him, he was laying in the mud
Speaker 1: beside his dead horse, and half his body had been paralyzed.
Speaker 1: As a result. He was put on the next ship
Speaker 1: back to Canada to begin his recovery process. It would
Speaker 1: take Major Walter Somerford many years to become self sufficient,
Speaker 1: eventually learning to walk with the help of a cane.
Speaker 1: But he was still young, still drawn to adventure and
Speaker 1: still full of life. So when a group of his
Speaker 1: friends decided in nineteen twenty four to hike into the
Speaker 1: mountains to fish in a nearby lake, Walter happily joined them.
Speaker 1: I imagine the steep hike was grueling for him, but
Speaker 1: he kept up. Walter was a fighter, after all, But
Speaker 1: when they arrived at the lake, he decided to take
Speaker 1: a seat while his friends unloaded their gear and set
Speaker 1: up camp. Right near the water's edge was a tall tree,
Speaker 1: so he sat himself down against it under the shade
Speaker 1: of the branches, But the sun quickly faded away as
Speaker 1: a storm rolled in. When Walter his friends found him,
Speaker 1: he was laying on his side at the base of
Speaker 1: the tree, trembling and in pain. The tree itself told
Speaker 1: them everything they needed to know. A dark, smoldering streak
Speaker 1: ran down the bark from high above all the way
Speaker 1: to the ground. It had been a lightning strike, and Walter,
Speaker 1: against all odds, had been struck again, just like the
Speaker 1: first time. Walter seemed to have been paralyzed by it,
Speaker 1: and as a result spent a long while in the
Speaker 1: hospital doing his best to recover. It took him two
Speaker 1: years before he could walk again. But he did it.
Speaker 1: Like I said, he was a fighter and giving up
Speaker 1: wasn't an option, so he pressed onward in life. As
Speaker 1: the story goes, Walter took a trip to a park
Speaker 1: in Vancouver in the summer of nineteen thirty. He was
Speaker 1: probably there with family or maybe those same fishing buddies.
Speaker 1: We don't really know, but I have a feeling you
Speaker 1: could guess what happened next. Right against all the laws
Speaker 1: of probability, Walter Somerford was struck by lightning for the
Speaker 1: third time in his life. They say this one was
Speaker 1: the worst, or perhaps it was just so devastating because
Speaker 1: it was the third time in twelve years that it
Speaker 1: had happened. Whatever the reason, Walter never walked again and
Speaker 1: spent the last two years of his life in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1: When he passed away in nineteen thirty two, still very
Speaker 1: much a young man, he went to the grave as
Speaker 1: a member of a very special club. Lightning rarely strikes twice,
Speaker 1: but for Walter Somerford, it did that and more. You
Speaker 1: would expect the story to end there, wouldn't you No more? Walter?
Speaker 1: No more lightning? Right? Well, not exactly, because in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four, Just two years after he passed away, lightning
Speaker 1: did strike again in his hometown. Now, I know what
Speaker 1: you're thinking, without Walter, where could it possibly strike? The answer, though,
Speaker 1: might be more obvious than you were expecting. It struck
Speaker 1: his gravestone naturally. When the trap door of the gallows
Speaker 1: was opened, the entire crowd held their breath. They were
Speaker 1: about to watch an innocent man die, and there was
Speaker 1: nothing they could do to stop it. It was February
Speaker 1: of The person on the platform was a young man
Speaker 1: named will Purvis, who had been sentenced to death by
Speaker 1: hanging for the murder of a local farmer named William Buckley.
Speaker 1: The trouble was Purvos claimed he was innocent. He swore
Speaker 1: to it thanks to a bit of circumstantial evidence, though
Speaker 1: the jury ruled unanimously against him. Purvis was stunned. He
Speaker 1: hadn't committed the crime, and yet no one believed him.
Speaker 1: Angry and bitter, he lashed out in the courtroom. I'll
Speaker 1: live longer than a lot of you, he shouted, regardless.
Speaker 1: On a cold February day in mississip Be, Will Purvis
Speaker 1: was escorted to the gallows for his execution. He was
Speaker 1: led up the stairs where a noose was lowered over
Speaker 1: his neck and then tightened, and then a black sack
Speaker 1: was slipped over his face. Finally, the trap door was
Speaker 1: triggered and will Purvis dropped to his death. Well sort of.
Speaker 1: He actually fell a few feet and landed on the
Speaker 1: soft grass below the platform. The crowd glanced back up
Speaker 1: at the rope and immediately spotted the reason why the
Speaker 1: noose had come untied. Sure, Purvis had a bit of
Speaker 1: rope burn around his throat, but he was alive and breathing,
Speaker 1: so the crowd went wild. The executioners tried to rebound
Speaker 1: from their failed attempt. They rushed down and scooped Purvis up,
Speaker 1: and then hauled him back up to the platform, where
Speaker 1: they reset the trap door. After a moment, though, they
Speaker 1: gave up. Maybe it was the nervousness of retying a
Speaker 1: noose in front of thousands of angry onlookers. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: was a desire to do things on their own terms,
Speaker 1: at their own pace. Maybe they could hear his words
Speaker 1: to the jury echoing in the back of their minds. Somehow,
Speaker 1: despite the odds, he had survived. So they tossed Will
Speaker 1: Purvis back in jail. He had already spent two years
Speaker 1: in prison waiting for his trial, and now he was back.
Speaker 1: He made an appeal for a new trial, but they
Speaker 1: denied him. He made another appeal and received yet another denial.
Speaker 1: This went on for two long years. All Walpurvis had
Speaker 1: to endure hard labor alongside the other prisoners. But finally,
Speaker 1: in January of eight something changed. Actually it was someone.
Speaker 1: Mississippi had elected a new governor, and when the new
Speaker 1: man and slum McLaurin took office, he changed Purvis's sentence.
Speaker 1: The executioner's noose no longer loomed in his future. Two
Speaker 1: years after that, enough evidence and public outcry had flowed
Speaker 1: in that he was actually pardoned. Roughly six years after
Speaker 1: his life fell apart, Will pervos Us was a freeman.
Speaker 1: Two decades later, the true killer of William Buckley came
Speaker 1: forward and confessed, closing the case for good. Purvis went
Speaker 1: on to live in another four decades. He never found
Speaker 1: himself back inside the courthouse or at the center of
Speaker 1: another murder trial. He eventually received a large payment from
Speaker 1: the state as restitution for his time in prison, and
Speaker 1: lived a full normal life. Will Purvis passed away in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty four years after his failed execution and just
Speaker 1: three days after the death of the final member of
Speaker 1: his jury, Will Purvis It turns out was a man
Speaker 1: of his word. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.