Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: One of the things that struck me when I was
Speaker 2: writing this book, Boks Scott people really put a lot
Speaker 2: of grim effort into mergency people. You didn't just shoot someone,
Speaker 2: you did really destroyed. The level of violence was really
Speaker 2: off the charts.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists,
Speaker 1: filmmakers and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious
Speaker 1: true crime cases. This is about the choices writers make,
Speaker 1: both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the unpublished details behind their stories. Some of my most
Speaker 1: favorite true crime stories in history come from the UK,
Speaker 1: specifically London, so I was very excited to talk to
Speaker 1: author Simon Read about his book Scotland Yard, a History
Speaker 1: of the London Police Force's most infamous murder cases. Read
Speaker 1: investigated some of Scotland Yard's most interesting cases, and now
Speaker 1: he'll tell us about some of them. So I erroneously
Speaker 1: assumed that you were American or Canadian based on your accent,
Speaker 1: and I was terribly mistaken. Tell me about your background before, briefly,
Speaker 1: before we start talking about how you got involved with
Speaker 1: a book about Scotland Yard and its history.
Speaker 2: Sure, I am British by birth, born in London, North London.
Speaker 2: Actually Hendon moved out to the States when I was seven.
Speaker 2: My parents' job brought us out here. I am celebrated citizen.
Speaker 2: I am very much English at heart, although having lived
Speaker 2: in the United States for whatever is forty plus years,
Speaker 2: so I've always been an angler phile. I'm always looking
Speaker 2: for excuses to write about England or London in particular.
Speaker 2: Most of my books. If you go back and you
Speaker 2: look at the books that I've written, I think, with
Speaker 2: the exception of two of them, they all have a
Speaker 2: British theme. So any excuse i'd have to get back there,
Speaker 2: do research, sit in a pub, I'll.
Speaker 1: Go for it good well. As an American who has
Speaker 1: written about a very well known British story, John Reginald Christy,
Speaker 1: I wanted to really figure out what your bona fides were,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like you're all set. You've grown up
Speaker 1: with these stories.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, Yeah, I have, am I And by the way,
Speaker 2: Reginald Christy one of the most disturbing cases. Yeah, I've
Speaker 2: ever I've stood. I wrote about him in another book
Speaker 2: of mine. But my paternal grandfather was a detective with
Speaker 2: Scotland Yard.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, okay, what do you think he would have
Speaker 1: thought of your book? You've gotten some really great reviews,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I bet he would be thrilled. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you know, I think he would have. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this book. We much of the time talk
Speaker 1: to people who are digging into one big story for
Speaker 1: their book or for their piece of the film or
Speaker 1: whatever they're doing. So for you, because we're talking about
Speaker 1: the history of Scotland Yard, which is storied and traumatizing
Speaker 1: and wonderful all at the same time. You know, you
Speaker 1: cover a wide array of crimes and I wanted to
Speaker 1: dig into two or three or more or less, like
Speaker 1: we're just going to see how it goes that I
Speaker 1: think are pretty pivotal. And I want you to start
Speaker 1: with Ratcliffe Highway murders because it's one of to me,
Speaker 1: the most interesting and so important because you know, I
Speaker 1: know that these murders were really what led to the
Speaker 1: organization of the Metropolitan Police, which was the first organization
Speaker 1: in the world, the first police, real police organization, right right.
Speaker 1: And what's great about that story is you get to
Speaker 1: talk about and tell everybody who doesn't know out the
Speaker 1: Bow Street Runners and how they interacted with the tams
Speaker 1: River Police. And you know, I will tell you full disclosure.
Speaker 1: I took myself down a couple of years ago when
Speaker 1: I was in London teaching. I took myself down to
Speaker 1: the River Police Museum and got a personalized tour from
Speaker 1: Rob Jefferies, who is a I think he's I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's a constable there, but he's retired and
Speaker 1: he loves talking about that case and why it was important.
Speaker 1: And so I'm going to geek out pretty big time,
Speaker 1: I think on this story.
Speaker 2: And I'm jealous because when I researched this book, I
Speaker 2: was working during the pandemic, during lockdowns, so I had
Speaker 2: to rely on sort of online you know, newspapers and
Speaker 2: so to go and like chop the ground as it were.
Speaker 2: I wish I could have done more that. But you
Speaker 2: have the Ratcliffe Liveway murders an extremely important case, and
Speaker 2: you're right it does lead to eventually leads to the
Speaker 2: establishment of Scotland Yard in eighteen twenty nine. But the
Speaker 2: Raclife Liway murders actually happened in eighteen eleven. There's an
Speaker 2: eighteen year stretch between the murders and the formation of
Speaker 2: Scotland Yard. But the murders happened in December of eighteen
Speaker 2: eleven on the Ratcliffe Highway, which is the main east
Speaker 2: thoroughfare out of London, and it's a very it's a
Speaker 2: dangerous place, doesn't have a great reputation. It's known for debauchery, drunkenness,
Speaker 2: vice and violence. It's popular with sailors. In fact, it's
Speaker 2: called the Regent Street for sailors of it. Today you
Speaker 2: have a lot of men who work the Thames who
Speaker 2: live off the highway. They frequent the bars, the taverns,
Speaker 2: the shops there. The highway is the home of a
Speaker 2: gentleman named Timothy Maher. He's a he's a former sailor
Speaker 2: with the Easterndia Company and he sets up a shop
Speaker 2: at twenty nine Ratcliffe Highway. He's twenty four years old,
Speaker 2: and he establishes a lnen business on the highway in
Speaker 2: April of eighteen eleven. It's him, it's his wife, it's
Speaker 2: their three month old son, Timothy Junior, and he wants
Speaker 2: to know become a businessman and the life at sea
Speaker 2: behind him. So he sets up shot there and all
Speaker 2: is going well. Business is doing good, and he has
Speaker 2: a servant girl named Margaret Jewel. And on the night
Speaker 2: of December seventh, eighteen eleven, he sends Margaret out to
Speaker 2: fetch some oysters and pay the baker's bill. And it's
Speaker 2: around midnight when she leaves Timothy Marris's shop. Timothy's wife,
Speaker 2: Celia is down in the basement kitchen feeding the baby.
Speaker 2: Timothy is preparing for the next day's business. And Margaret
Speaker 2: leaves the shop, and like I say, it's around midnight.
Speaker 2: Pretty much everything is closed up. She goes to pay
Speaker 2: the baker's bill, she finds the baker's close. She goes
Speaker 2: to get some oysters, she finds the oyster shop is closed.
Speaker 2: She returns to Timothy morris shop and she's not gone
Speaker 2: very long. But when she gets back, it's very strange.
Speaker 2: The place is shuttered up. The chaser drawn across the windows.
Speaker 2: The door is locked, all the lights are out, and
Speaker 2: she knocks on the door and she doesn't get a response,
Speaker 2: and she knocks again, no response. Her knocks on the
Speaker 2: door become more panicked, and she hears a noise behind
Speaker 2: the door. She hears what she describes as a footfall
Speaker 2: on the stairs inside the shop, and then she hears
Speaker 2: the muffled cry of the baby very month full of
Speaker 2: Timothy Junior, and this sort of puts her into a panic,
Speaker 2: and she starts really like patting on the door, and
Speaker 2: this gets the attention of a night watchman who happens
Speaker 2: to be walking by. Night watchmen were sort of an
Speaker 2: early form of law enforcement in London at the time.
Speaker 2: They patrolled the streets between sunset and sunrise, armed with
Speaker 2: a rattle and a whistle, and they were meant to
Speaker 2: sort of raise the alarm if they encountered any commotion.
Speaker 2: And he comes across Margaret. He asks what the problem is,
Speaker 2: She explains the situation. He starts banging on the door.
Speaker 2: This attracts the attention of a neighbor who hops from
Speaker 2: his house into Timothy Morris's backyard and he goes inside
Speaker 2: the shop. He finds a lick candle on the stairs.
Speaker 2: He picks it up. He goes into the shop and
Speaker 2: he walks into a horrific, horrific crime scene. Timothy's Waxelia.
Speaker 2: They've been butchered, now not just murdered, but butcherd horrendously,
Speaker 2: throat slashed down to the bone. Their heads have been
Speaker 2: carved in. They have a young servant boyd His brains
Speaker 2: are actually spattered up onto the ceiling. I mean he's
Speaker 2: been beaten with such vorocity. The neighbor opens the door.
Speaker 2: A crowd that's been now gathered outside the marshop. They
Speaker 2: rush in and see this awful scene, and someone says,
Speaker 2: where's the baby, And they find the baby in its
Speaker 2: crib down in the basement kitchen. The baby's throat's been splashed,
Speaker 2: no mercy shown. This causes a huge shock. It's interesting,
Speaker 2: you know, London in this time we tend to think
Speaker 2: of it as this place where murder happened all the time.
Speaker 2: I don't have specific numbers, but throughout the nineteenth century London,
Speaker 2: seventy five percent of the crimes were theft and robbery,
Speaker 2: and murder only accounted for ten percent of the crime.
Speaker 2: So when a murder did happen, It garnered a lot
Speaker 2: of a lot of headlines and so this murder obviously
Speaker 2: sent shock waves. The city London doesn't have a police
Speaker 2: force at this time, like we discussed, they have this
Speaker 2: missmash patchwork of parish constables and night watchmen and then
Speaker 2: the Bow Street Runners who are work out of the
Speaker 2: Ball Street Magistrate's Court. They report to the Chief Magistrate
Speaker 2: Henry Building. They have the power to investigate crime, but
Speaker 2: they're they're they're a small force. And there's also the
Speaker 2: Thames River Police and try to keep all on order
Speaker 2: on the Thames. But there's no sort of there's no
Speaker 2: coordination between any of these these entities. They don't they
Speaker 2: don't talk to each other, they don't share information, so
Speaker 2: there's there would be nothing what you consider sort of
Speaker 2: coordinated investigation, certainly by today's standards, don't find really any
Speaker 2: clues that the Marti crime team. What they do find
Speaker 2: is a it's called a mall and it's a hamm
Speaker 2: are used in shipbuilding. It has like a Wesdend use
Speaker 2: for plying, hammering and spikes and playing out when when
Speaker 2: building ships, and that's found upstairs. But the crime team
Speaker 2: doesn't really yield anything else, and the city's kind of
Speaker 2: reeling from all of this, and so trying to figure
Speaker 2: out what happened. And then twelve days later, on December nineteenth,
Speaker 2: the same thing happens again.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you like a series of questions here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one thing that I wanted to make clear and correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong here. My understanding is that when
Speaker 1: we say Ratcliff Highway, which was supposedly known as the
Speaker 1: most dangerous road in the world, it's not a highway
Speaker 1: the way we think, certainly at least Americans think of
Speaker 1: a highway. What would you consider it like a large
Speaker 1: road or.
Speaker 2: It's a large road. It's a large road. It's a road.
Speaker 2: It's a road aligne with shops on either side. It's
Speaker 2: got little alleyways going off the side of it, you know,
Speaker 2: cram with tenement housing and sailors cottages. It was called
Speaker 2: a highway back in the day because it was one
Speaker 2: of the main thorough bears in an out of the
Speaker 2: city on the east end. But it's not our highway
Speaker 2: like we think of it today, with four lanes of traffic,
Speaker 2: and so it's more think of it more like a
Speaker 2: high street. A busy main road.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so in that area when there is a crime,
Speaker 1: a theft or whatever, how is the decision made between
Speaker 1: to what You've got the boat street runners, the night
Speaker 1: watchmen and the tims River Police. Did I miss anybody?
Speaker 1: Is there any other law enforcement entity?
Speaker 2: No, that's that's that's sort of yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 2: There wasn't really any sort of chain of command. This
Speaker 2: is the problem. This is one of the problems with
Speaker 2: London at that time. It doesn't have a centually organized
Speaker 2: peace force. And by that we mean a force that
Speaker 2: has the resources and command structure in place to ensure
Speaker 2: uniformity and coordination across a large metropolitan area and across investigations.
Speaker 2: So each sort of the constables, the nightwatchmen, bow street Runners,
Speaker 2: the taserra police, they're all sort of doing their own thing.
Speaker 2: And so this is one of the problems why nothing
Speaker 2: sort of happens with this case in terms of white
Speaker 2: cohesive investigation, because there's no cohesive law enforcement framework to
Speaker 2: tackle a crime of this magnitude, and this crime it
Speaker 2: generates a huge shockwave. It really generates a love look
Speaker 2: shock that won't be seen until you know the jack
Speaker 2: the Ripper killings in eighteen eighty eight. But the difference
Speaker 2: is when Jack the Rippers doing his stuff in Whitechapel,
Speaker 2: he's being hunted by a Metropolitan police force with more
Speaker 2: than ten thousand officers. Yeah, now he's you know, the
Speaker 2: Ratcliff Hyery murders being hunted by this ragtag, uncoordinated bunch
Speaker 2: of unprofessional law enforcement officers.
Speaker 1: Basically, I mean, I always got the impression that before
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Police were formed, these entities were always on defense.
Speaker 1: They were never playing. There's no offense. Like it was like,
Speaker 1: we're there if something bad happens, but we're not going
Speaker 1: to like prevent you from you if we see something.
Speaker 2: You know, that's absolutely correct, that's actually correct. They're always
Speaker 2: responding to stuff. They're never sort of like out there
Speaker 2: trying to suck stuff from happening. They you know, like
Speaker 2: I said, you've got the night watchmen who are meant
Speaker 2: to patrol the streets at night, and if they see something,
Speaker 2: they make a noise with their rattle and they blow
Speaker 2: their w That's how it's mental work. But if you
Speaker 2: read the newspaper accounts of the day, you find out
Speaker 2: most of them are sitting in their guardhouses getting drunk
Speaker 2: on gin, you know, and aren't very effective. You have
Speaker 2: the parish constables who serve a law enforcement officers for
Speaker 2: the various districts and parishes throughout London. They have law
Speaker 2: enforcement power and that they can sort of make arrests
Speaker 2: and you know, if they see trouble they can haul
Speaker 2: someone off to court. But you know it's either a
Speaker 2: volunteer gig or a low paying wage. You know, these
Speaker 2: aren't they're not very effective. And then you know the
Speaker 2: Bow Street Runners. They are sort of the first for
Speaker 2: runner to a proper police force, but they're very limited
Speaker 2: in their scope. And other magistrate offices in London set
Speaker 2: up something similar to what Bow Street is doing with
Speaker 2: these constables, but again there's no coordination. And then you
Speaker 2: have the River Police wore out on the water, so
Speaker 2: they're kind of like a forward of the identity.
Speaker 1: So let me summarize so far. So December eighteen eleven,
Speaker 1: I have to assume it's just colder than hell in London.
Speaker 1: In the most dangerous street in the world. You've got
Speaker 1: the mar family, which is just an upstanding family with
Speaker 1: their business. A young couple they are murdered brutally. I mean,
Speaker 1: just horrifically murdered, as well as their baby and a
Speaker 1: servant boy. How did we say the young boy was.
Speaker 2: Twelve or fourteen? Can he's a young teen?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Not enough to defend himself, I'm assuming. Okay, now
Speaker 1: we just jump in immediately into the mystery before we
Speaker 1: get to the second set of murders here. I have
Speaker 1: always wondered, and I don't remember if I asked Rob Jeffries,
Speaker 1: my wonderful tour guide on the river, about this, But
Speaker 1: did they really expect this was at midnight? Is that
Speaker 1: when she went out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she goes out. She goes out shortly before midnight.
Speaker 2: And if I remember on the newspaper accounts, she's only
Speaker 2: gone for about fifteen or twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 1: So is that normal that a bakery and an oyster
Speaker 1: shop would be open at midnight in this area? I mean,
Speaker 1: why would she do that? Why would he do that? Understand?
Speaker 2: I thought the same thing. So I'd heard of the
Speaker 2: Ragnifiery murders prior to writing this book, but this was
Speaker 2: the first time i'd ever sort of like researched the crimes,
Speaker 2: and I didn't know the specifics necessarily about them, and
Speaker 2: when I read that, I thought that was very very odd,
Speaker 2: you know, like the righttically by the way, like you said,
Speaker 2: very dangerous reputation back one of the newspapers said it
Speaker 2: was representative all of all that was dirty, disorderly and debased.
Speaker 2: So it seems sending out a young servant girl after midnight,
Speaker 2: at midnight to you know, track down oysters and pay
Speaker 2: the baker, it's a weird it's a weird decision to make,
Speaker 2: and that the fact that you know, a baker would
Speaker 2: be open at midnight or an oyster shot would be
Speaker 2: open at midnight, doesn't make much sense. One of the
Speaker 2: newspaper counts I found where they Margaret Jewel is giving
Speaker 2: tesscona during an inquest. She says, you know, when she
Speaker 2: stepped out on the street, the street was you know,
Speaker 2: the street was quiet. You know, stores were closed. So
Speaker 2: it seems an odd decision to do. Honestly, it was
Speaker 2: probably a lucky decision though, because if she'd been around
Speaker 2: in the house, she would have ended up suffering the
Speaker 2: same fight.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're we're at a point where now you've
Speaker 1: got who was responding to this, Who are the investigators
Speaker 1: who come to Timothy Maher's place and see this just
Speaker 1: cornage and begin to interview Margaret Jewele and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, what has happened that night.
Speaker 2: I would say, I don't have the name, but it
Speaker 2: was they were interviewed by us the night watchman who
Speaker 2: showed up local constables, and then the local corner came
Speaker 2: and there was an inquest held one or two days
Speaker 2: after the murders at a pub right across the street
Speaker 2: from the mar household. You know, Margaret Jewel gives testimony
Speaker 2: in that inquest, and she's actually overcome with emotion recounting
Speaker 2: what she saw. She breaks down on the witness stand,
Speaker 2: you know, understandably, and she actually passes out. She's able
Speaker 2: to sort of just recount the offense of that evening
Speaker 2: and being sent out to get the oysters and pay
Speaker 2: the Baker bill. And then when she starts recounting about
Speaker 2: what she saw when she was led in to the
Speaker 2: Mar home and she saw the baby in the crib,
Speaker 2: she really loses it, rightfully, so she passes out, and
Speaker 2: they do revive her, but they don't they don't make
Speaker 2: her continue her testimony. The coroner's juryous brought across the
Speaker 2: street to sort of view the crime scene. They view
Speaker 2: the bodies, the nature of the wounds are discussed for
Speaker 2: the first time. You know. The initial press reports just
Speaker 2: say they were murdered brutally. Then during the corner's inquest,
Speaker 2: they go into just how badly these people were. I mean,
Speaker 2: they weren't just murdered, they were butchered, you know, throats
Speaker 2: cut down to the bone almost at the point of decapitation,
Speaker 2: facial bones smashed. It's really really horrendous. So the corner's
Speaker 2: jury you know, returns a verdict of sort of you know,
Speaker 2: murder against a person or person's unknown, and then the
Speaker 2: family are are laid to rest in the local parish church,
Speaker 2: Saint George's, I believe, and Timothy Maher is buried in
Speaker 2: his own coffin, and then Cecilia is buried with her baby.
Speaker 2: There's a huge turnout, huge turnout. People are you know,
Speaker 2: ractive highway to bid their final respects. And during the
Speaker 2: funeral service, the preacher who presides over the funeral service,
Speaker 2: you know, he says, made God, you know, enact vengeance
Speaker 2: against whoever did this awful deed. So this family's laid
Speaker 2: to rest, but without any answers as to who did
Speaker 2: this or even even why.
Speaker 1: So what is the speculation. We don't have very much
Speaker 1: time between what happens with Timothy Moore's family and then
Speaker 1: what happens next. What is the speculation so far? Do
Speaker 1: people have any idea?
Speaker 2: They don't this And this is one of the things
Speaker 2: when I was like reading the newspaper accounts from the day,
Speaker 2: was that was one of the things that was so
Speaker 2: puzzling about the case. This guy was, you know, it
Speaker 2: was an inoffensive individual. He ran and he ran a
Speaker 2: linen shop. He was a father, you know, young father,
Speaker 2: he was twenty four years old. No one wished him
Speaker 2: ill will, and so that's one of the things that
Speaker 2: was so pleasant. There's there's nothing to point to a motive.
Speaker 2: This was a guy who was folding linens for the
Speaker 2: next day's business. His wife's beating the baby, and someone
Speaker 2: barges in and butchers all of them. Because there was
Speaker 2: no clear motive for why this happened, there is it
Speaker 2: generates real fear in the area. If it can happen
Speaker 2: to these people, it could happen again, and well and behold,
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this. I have another
Speaker 1: show with a cold case investigator named Paul Holes. It's
Speaker 1: called Buried Bones. And if I were telling Paul this story,
Speaker 1: he would say probably, I would guess if I'm going
Speaker 1: to channel Poul Holes, he would say, it is fantastical
Speaker 1: to think that there is somebody lying in wait, waiting
Speaker 1: for the servant girl at midnight to leave, not knowing
Speaker 1: when she's going to come back, and this guy has
Speaker 1: just enough time to slaughter this whole family before Margaret
Speaker 1: Jewel comes back. The more I think about it, the
Speaker 1: more I think this is bus I don't understand.
Speaker 2: It's very strange. I don't understand it either. Honestly, would
Speaker 2: your co hosts think maybe Margaret Jewel will somehow and involve.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think he would. I think he would say
Speaker 1: that seems odd. I mean, I guess, okay, was anything taken?
Speaker 1: Is there robbery anywhere in this? Do you think nothing?
Speaker 2: Was in the newspaper council and I didn't see anything of
Speaker 2: anything taken. The only thing odd that they found out
Speaker 2: was the shipping mallet the mall. But then what would
Speaker 2: Margaret jules motive? Maybe her freaking out on the stand
Speaker 2: and passing out. Maybe that was an act she didn't
Speaker 2: want to have to answer too many questions.
Speaker 1: So people are completely freaked out, even though this is
Speaker 1: the most dangerous road in the world. Where do we
Speaker 1: go next?
Speaker 2: The more murder is on December seventh, and then twelve
Speaker 2: days later, on December nineteenth, just a two minute walk
Speaker 2: from the Mars shop, there's a place called the King's
Speaker 2: Arms Tavern. This is a place. It's owned by a
Speaker 2: gentleman named John Williamson and his wife Elizabeth, and their servant,
Speaker 2: a woman named Bridget. And they've owned the place. I
Speaker 2: think it was fifteen years. They've run the place. They're
Speaker 2: very well established in the area. They're very well h liked.
Speaker 2: The press actually call out that the King's Tavern was
Speaker 2: open to one and all foreigners of all kinds. There
Speaker 2: was no discrimination. You know. Williams is a really friendly guy.
Speaker 2: It's not as a place to go get a mail
Speaker 2: and a drink and everyone's welcome. But on the night
Speaker 2: of December and nineteenth, Williams and his wife and Serbra
Speaker 2: went Bridget. They are also horribly murdered in much the
Speaker 2: same fashion as the mar family. But what's different in
Speaker 2: this case is there is a witness of sorts. So
Speaker 2: the King's Tavern, it's u pub. It has rooms upstairs
Speaker 2: that you can let. And there's a gentleman upstairs who's
Speaker 2: been living living at the pub for quite a while.
Speaker 2: He's and he's upstairs. He's he's getting ready for bed.
Speaker 2: He came home from a night out on the town.
Speaker 2: He sees John Willimson and his wife. He talks him
Speaker 2: for a bit. They seem perfectly normal. He bets them
Speaker 2: good night, and he goes upstairs and he's getting ready
Speaker 2: for bed, and he's he's naked, and he suddenly hears
Speaker 2: a commotion downstairs. He hears someone like barging into the place,
Speaker 2: and he hears John Williamson cry out, we are murdered.
Speaker 2: And there's a sound, there's there's screaming, there's sounds of
Speaker 2: all this violence happening. He hears a number of really
Speaker 2: heavy thumps, like something being bashed in and he's petrified,
Speaker 2: and he's he's up there in his room, like he said,
Speaker 2: he's naked. He doesn't, you know, because he's got ready
Speaker 2: for bed. He opens his bedroom door and he sneaks
Speaker 2: down the stairs and he gets to the bottom up
Speaker 2: the stairs, and there's a door at the bottom up
Speaker 2: the stairs, and the door is slightly ajar, and he
Speaker 2: peers through it and he looks into the room and
Speaker 2: the rooms lit by the fireplace, and he can see
Speaker 2: a body lying on the ground, and he sees a
Speaker 2: man kneeling over the body. And the man's back is
Speaker 2: to him, so he doesn't see the face. But the
Speaker 2: man appears to be wearing like a long leather trench coat,
Speaker 2: and it seems to be going through the pockets of
Speaker 2: the body. And he hears this man take change or
Speaker 2: coins out of the body's pockets, sort of jangle him
Speaker 2: in his hands and stick him in his pocket. He
Speaker 2: is he's petrified, and he sneaks back upstairs as quietly
Speaker 2: as he can, and he puts on a night shirt
Speaker 2: and some pants, and he has to get out of here.
Speaker 2: You know, he's terrified he's going to be slaughtered next
Speaker 2: and so he takes a couple of sheets from his bed,
Speaker 2: he ties them around his bed head, and he lures
Speaker 2: them out the window of his room and he starts
Speaker 2: crawling out. And as he's crawling out the window, a
Speaker 2: night washman happens to come by and see a guy
Speaker 2: crawling out the pulp window, you know, in his night shirt.
Speaker 2: This raises the alarm, and the nightwashman sounds his rattle,
Speaker 2: blows his whistle, and folks in the surrounding houses come
Speaker 2: out and they break into the pub. They break down
Speaker 2: the front door, and they smash a basement window. Call
Speaker 2: and they enter in and they find again a horrible
Speaker 2: seeing John Williamson. He's you know, his throat's been slipped
Speaker 2: down to the bone. He's been beaten balley. He actually
Speaker 2: has a broken leg. Looks like he took a tumble
Speaker 2: down a flight of stairs into the basement level while
Speaker 2: he was trying to defend himself. His wife, Elizabeth, she's
Speaker 2: been stabs, throw slat, you know, head caved in. The
Speaker 2: servant woman Bridget They said she had a huge, a
Speaker 2: huge hole in the side of her neck where you know,
Speaker 2: she'd been mutilated. And this time there's there's a clue
Speaker 2: such as it was. It probably be a gold line
Speaker 2: of the clue today back then, but there was a
Speaker 2: like a bloody handprint on a window sill that led
Speaker 2: out the back of let out the back of the pub.
Speaker 2: The way it's described in the newspapers up the day
Speaker 2: is the back of the pub fased out on. I
Speaker 2: guess you could call it wasteland. It was wet clay,
Speaker 2: and the killer climbed up this mountain of wet clay
Speaker 2: and then ran away once he got to the top
Speaker 2: of the hill. So the speculation is that this guy
Speaker 2: would have probably been covered in clay when he when
Speaker 2: he got to the top. But you know, except that
Speaker 2: he left a handprint, well he handprint on the windowsill,
Speaker 2: which today would have been a gold mine. Back then,
Speaker 2: it didn't mean anything. And so you've got you know,
Speaker 2: was it twelve days since the war murder and now
Speaker 2: it's it's happened again. And one of the London newspapers,
Speaker 2: which I caught in the book, they're almost like apologetic
Speaker 2: that they have to report. Thence the following day they
Speaker 2: actually start off with like, you know, we're sorry we
Speaker 2: have to tell you this, but it's happened again. You
Speaker 2: have you know, the Nightwatchman, the Constables. This sort of
Speaker 2: mismashed investigation with no sort of like coordinated effort happening.
Speaker 2: It kind of goes nowhere until a couple of people
Speaker 2: stepped forward and you know, with some information that I
Speaker 2: think is pivotal to the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think this is this set of
Speaker 1: murders too, is just so terrifying to think. Again, you know,
Speaker 1: a well liked business owner, you know, at home late
Speaker 1: at night into some birds cold outside the story of
Speaker 1: the lodger. It's John Turner. I had remembered is the
Speaker 1: guy's name?
Speaker 2: Thank you? Yes, thank you, yes.
Speaker 1: John Turner. And when he says that he sees a
Speaker 1: tall man in a long coat standing over Missus Williamson's
Speaker 1: body right at the bottom of the stairs and jingling
Speaker 1: money and stuff like that. Yet again you've got another
Speaker 1: character who's there who kind of a little bit like
Speaker 1: Margaret Jewel. It's sort of like to me in a
Speaker 1: little bit of a mysterious character. I mean, there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of weird things happening. You always look at people
Speaker 1: who are the survivors and think, how did that happen?
Speaker 1: You know, when you have all of these victims. So
Speaker 1: I find that interesting. And also, you know, I had thought, well,
Speaker 1: there's you know, if maybe he's mistaken or I don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't know if he's been drinking, and we you know,
Speaker 1: we don't know if he's the one who did it.
Speaker 1: There's just so many weird inconsistencies, I think, but this
Speaker 1: had to have been terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is word and when I was researching this,
Speaker 2: I thought, God, this guy had a lucky break, you
Speaker 2: know the fancas he said with a tipsoe back up
Speaker 2: the stairs without sort of sounding the a arm. And
Speaker 2: then you're thinking, you know, these old pubger maybing around upstairs,
Speaker 2: you know, aren't floor boards creaking and a massort? One
Speaker 2: thing I didn't include it in the book, but one
Speaker 2: thing also, The other person who was in the house
Speaker 2: and slept the whole thing was John Wallinson's young granddaughter. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she sleeps through the whole thing. She scares. But John
Speaker 2: Turner us seem a bit of crief for, like, you know,
Speaker 2: fleeing the place when there was a child sleeping sleeping upstairs.
Speaker 2: On the flip side of that, you can't blame something
Speaker 2: for trying to scarey out a window to escape. But
Speaker 2: it is strange both the murders, you have the survivors. Hey,
Speaker 2: who knows, maybe Margaret Jewel and John Turner were working
Speaker 2: in cahoots.
Speaker 1: I think that's just as probable as what it sounds like.
Speaker 1: We're going to learn about the main suspect here. Pretty
Speaker 1: soon it gets a little confusing when we start talking
Speaker 1: about the main suspect, because we have the victim, John Williamson,
Speaker 1: and then we've got a suspect that has a very
Speaker 1: similar last name. Well, before we get into that, is
Speaker 1: there anyone who could say definitively that anything was taken
Speaker 1: from the Williamson household, considering everybody is dead or too
Speaker 1: young to know, or you know, is a lodger who
Speaker 1: has bigger concerns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, based on the newspaper accounts of the day that
Speaker 2: I read, no one definitely said anything was taken from
Speaker 2: the pub, except for John Turner, who witnessed the pillar
Speaker 2: bending over the body of one of the victims and
Speaker 2: taking you know, coins from the pocket and jangling in
Speaker 2: his hands. And so from that point of view, the
Speaker 2: murder is again it's a motiveless crime. You had another family,
Speaker 2: a business owner, well respected in the area, well liked,
Speaker 2: but sure for no apparent reason, which really adds to
Speaker 2: the sort of terrifying nature of the crimes. You know.
Speaker 2: The barbarity obviously is one aspect that makes it solf frightening,
Speaker 2: but the fact that these people should be killed for
Speaker 2: all apparent reason sort of makes it even more disturbing.
Speaker 1: No, I know, you said that they have a handprint,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to remember or even sort of
Speaker 1: process whether or not that was going to be helpful,
Speaker 1: because I don't know if in eighteen eleven they realized
Speaker 1: there was a distinctiveness, like an actual you can identify somebody.
Speaker 1: We all have distinct handprint, fingerprint. I don't think that
Speaker 1: came into a little bit later they did it.
Speaker 2: Scullnyard does actually start using fingerprints until nineteen oh one.
Speaker 2: But I'm just gonna jump ahead very quickly here. There
Speaker 2: was actually a pretty infamous murder in eighteen forty where
Speaker 2: a guy named Lord William Russell's murdered in his bed.
Speaker 2: The butler ends up doing it. The press reports at
Speaker 2: the time report that there's a bloody pomp print found
Speaker 2: on Lord William Russell's pillow. At the time of this murder.
Speaker 2: There is a country doctor up in Norfolk named Richard
Speaker 2: Overton who has just out of his own interest, studied
Speaker 2: the weird marks that human skin leaves on surfaces, and
Speaker 2: he reads about this eighteen forty murder. You know, shortly
Speaker 2: after it happens, and he sends a letter to Scotland
Speaker 2: Yard and he says, you know, he's not very well known,
Speaker 2: but human skin has ridges which is particular that each
Speaker 2: individual and can be left on the surface. And so
Speaker 2: if you arrest the suspect and you take their pondpernt,
Speaker 2: he might be able to compare it with the pomp
Speaker 2: print found on the pillow. And as a demonstration he
Speaker 2: includes his own fingerprints on the layer and he sends
Speaker 2: off to Scotland Yard. It gets stuck in the slush
Speaker 2: file and is saying for fifty years. It's not found
Speaker 2: until eighteen ninety and that is one of the great
Speaker 2: what if What if scott Yard had opened that letter
Speaker 2: when it arrived in eighteen forty well sort of followed
Speaker 2: up in this Victorian crime fighting might have been completely
Speaker 2: completely different. So in eighteen eleven go back to the
Speaker 2: Poor Williamson's and yeah, they're pump They can't do anything
Speaker 2: with it. All they meant was that they knew the
Speaker 2: killer to escape through the back window.
Speaker 1: So they have no suspects. We don't think anything really
Speaker 1: that we can actually confirm has been taken from either
Speaker 1: of these households. They're brutal murders, including a baby in
Speaker 1: the first household. Young people that just seemed to be,
Speaker 1: you know, left with wreckage. You've got survivors, neither of
Speaker 1: whom I'm sure I believe, I don't know. We'll see.
Speaker 1: So where do we go next when we are not
Speaker 1: living in an era of CCTV credit cards. What do
Speaker 1: they end up doing next?
Speaker 2: Well, well, what happens as the investigation, if you can
Speaker 2: call it that. And three days after the Williams some murder,
Speaker 2: some people come forward and they name a guy named
Speaker 2: John Williams. So back trigger Loving, there's no man named
Speaker 2: John Williams. He's living at a pub called the Pear Tree,
Speaker 2: and he has he has two roommates he's been bunking with.
Speaker 2: John Williams is a sailor. He actually knew Timothy Maher.
Speaker 2: The two had celts together at some point in their career.
Speaker 2: And he sort of piques the suspicions of his two
Speaker 2: roommates because in the wake of these murders, he suddenly
Speaker 2: seems to have come into a little bit of money.
Speaker 2: You know, he usually doesn't have a lot, but now
Speaker 2: he's got a little bit to spend. And he's also
Speaker 2: changed his appearance. He has shaved his beard. The women
Speaker 2: who are doing his laundry at the pub, they report
Speaker 2: having found what they believed to have been blood on
Speaker 2: one of his shirts in the wake of the murders.
Speaker 2: And he was also known to have possessed a knife
Speaker 2: that had a quoe unquote peculiar blade that theory I
Speaker 2: think could have inflicted the women's fans at the crime scene.
Speaker 2: But what really sort of peaks the curiosity of the
Speaker 2: constables I want to work in the case is that
Speaker 2: the Pear Tree, the pub where John Williams is staying,
Speaker 2: had a mall one of these shipbuilding hammers that went missing,
Speaker 2: and the mall found at the Timothy Mahra residence is
Speaker 2: identified supposedly as the mall that went missing from the
Speaker 2: Pear Tree. Based on this eference, which is circumstantial. John
Speaker 2: Williams is arrested and he is put through what one
Speaker 2: newspaper calls a very thorough interrogation, and we can only.
Speaker 1: In America we'd call the third degree. Probably yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: He's put through this really brutal interrogation where we can
Speaker 2: only assume is brutal. He's taken back to his cell
Speaker 2: and he hangs himself with a handkerchief on a pipe
Speaker 2: that is used to hang clothing, and his body's found
Speaker 2: not long after he he hangs himself, So no one
Speaker 2: really knows if John Williams did it or not. In
Speaker 2: the eyes of the public, he certainly did.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the evidence before we talk about
Speaker 1: his death. I mean, again, this is one of the
Speaker 1: most befuddling cases. I've always thought about why the Ratcliff
Speaker 1: Highway murders were not as infamous as Jack the Ripper,
Speaker 1: And I think it's the taunting part of it. The
Speaker 1: murders that at least are a provable connected to this
Speaker 1: have stopped after John Williams is dead. But if we
Speaker 1: go back and look at the evidence, so the evidence
Speaker 1: really was that he knew. I know that Tom de Quincy,
Speaker 1: who was a very famous essayist, wrote and did kind
Speaker 1: of an investigation also and wrote an essay right and
Speaker 1: he said there was this definitive connection between Timothy Marr
Speaker 1: and John Williams. What was the connection between John Williams
Speaker 1: and John Williamson the victim? I feel like I read
Speaker 1: that maybe he had stayed there at some point, but
Speaker 1: I don't remember that could have been in a PD
Speaker 1: James book, the P. D.
Speaker 2: James book. I mean colors like everything that does with
Speaker 2: Williams and mar that there was a definitive connection and
Speaker 2: that they and that they sell together. I don't know
Speaker 2: how close they were, if they were friends or or
Speaker 2: what not, but I mean that was definitely a damning
Speaker 2: piece of evidence against him. The other stuff, Yeah, the
Speaker 2: shaving of the beard.
Speaker 1: I just don't think there's no evidence.
Speaker 2: There's no evidence.
Speaker 1: And people steal tools all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And the blood found on his clothes,
Speaker 2: it's not even sure it was blood. These two laundrywomen, Yeah,
Speaker 2: two ways he did the laundry. He saw it and
Speaker 2: just assumed it was blood.
Speaker 1: Yeah. My thought had been, of course, there's no way
Speaker 1: that to definitively match the mall from the crime scene
Speaker 1: unless there's fingerprints or something, and even then they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been able to use that. And people stole stuff
Speaker 1: all the time. Weren't a terrible area of London. I
Speaker 1: just don't none of this is compelling in any way
Speaker 1: at all, especially his suicide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ef theft was an incredibly common crime. I think
Speaker 2: I said the beginning of very I think seventy five
Speaker 2: percent of all crimes. Yeah, in London at the time
Speaker 2: our left and Roberty. So the evidence is purely circumstantial.
Speaker 2: I think this is one of those things where authorities
Speaker 2: just want this case to go away, so let's put
Speaker 2: on this guy and be done with it.
Speaker 1: Is there an insinuation that someone murdered him, that this
Speaker 1: was not, you know, an act of suicide.
Speaker 2: I didn't se any insinuation in the you know, in
Speaker 2: the newspaper coverage of the day. The newspapers were either
Speaker 2: like happy this guy was gone or angry that he
Speaker 2: didn't get justice in court. But I certainly wondered that
Speaker 2: when I was when I was researching it. Now it
Speaker 2: seems pretty convenient. So who who knows? You know, nothing's
Speaker 2: beyond the remay. Hey, look, we've identified Margaret Joel as
Speaker 2: a possible suspect now, so nothing's beyond the realm up
Speaker 2: right possibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, you have two able bodied
Speaker 1: people who are survivors, you know, John Turner on one
Speaker 1: household and Margaret Jewel and another. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: they did it, but I'm just saying that there could
Speaker 1: be a coordinated effort I have never thought that John
Speaker 1: Williams was a decent suspect at all. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm missing some information. I would like you to talk
Speaker 1: about the next level amount of just discussed and what
Speaker 1: they did with John Williams after it was discovered that
Speaker 1: he had died and they were not able to take
Speaker 1: him to trial. What happens next.
Speaker 2: They yeah, they he's not let off the hook, even
Speaker 2: in death. They take his body down, they strip him,
Speaker 2: they stick him on a cart. They wheel him on
Speaker 2: a cart through the East End of London. Crowds are
Speaker 2: turning out to sort of jeer him, and you know,
Speaker 2: they're throwing fruit and rocks at the guy, and it's
Speaker 2: you know, at this corpse. And they take him to
Speaker 2: an intersection, a main intersection in the East end of London.
Speaker 2: They actually they drive a stake through him and then
Speaker 2: they bury him in a hole in the road and
Speaker 2: they cover him up there and that's where they leave him.
Speaker 2: And then you're right, the case sort of after all,
Speaker 2: it's sort of disappears. I'm surprised it's not as well
Speaker 2: known as the Ripper case. But like he said, there's
Speaker 2: an other sort of reper case is kind of the
Speaker 2: first modern day serial killer case where you have the
Speaker 2: killer taunting the press. Yeah, and kind of setting the
Speaker 2: temb left for that, and the ractifying murders didn't sort
Speaker 2: of have that element to it, so it's kind of
Speaker 2: been forgotten.
Speaker 1: Well, you know a couple of points. One was when
Speaker 1: I know when John Williams was buried, he's buried at
Speaker 1: this intersection. They did it because, you know, they wanted
Speaker 1: to bury him at a crossroad so that when his
Speaker 1: spirit rose, it wouldn't know where to go, it would
Speaker 1: be perpetually confused, it wouldn't and I think they buried
Speaker 1: him face down too. It's pretty awful. Rob Jeffrey said,
Speaker 1: you should really go visit this place. The pub's out
Speaker 1: there anymore. And I thought, Okay, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to go to this intersection. That's really creepy.
Speaker 1: But you know, that idea of sort of convicting somebody,
Speaker 1: not letting it go until it was done. I'm sure
Speaker 1: people in the mid eighteen hundreds to later eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: before Jack the Ripper knew a lot about Ratcliffe Highway.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the Jack the Ripper with its
Speaker 1: criminal profiling kind of the first well known case of
Speaker 1: criminal profiling, which surprises me because you know, I think
Speaker 1: that the Ratcliffe Highway murders is ripe for criminal profiling.
Speaker 1: I think you could really have somebody now look at
Speaker 1: that case and go, God, this doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: this guy doesn't fit in at all, or oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what you would see. I just don't
Speaker 1: think you have enough information to know. But it's an
Speaker 1: enduring mystery.
Speaker 2: It is fascinating. You're right, it would absolutely be great
Speaker 2: for a criminal profiler. And yes, Scott, you know that
Speaker 2: Jack the Ripper case is the first attempt made at
Speaker 2: criminal profiling. And I'm kind of bouncing around here, But
Speaker 2: when I was thinking about writing this book, I know
Speaker 2: it's going to have to write about the Jack the
Speaker 2: Ripper case, obviously, because you can't write about Scotlan year
Speaker 2: and uncluded the Ripper. But I was trying to think
Speaker 2: of a different approach to the Ripper case, and that
Speaker 2: was one of the things when I was researching. I
Speaker 2: discovered that the Jack theap case, it's the first attempt
Speaker 2: made a criminal profiling. It's also a first attempt made
Speaker 2: at using sniffer dogs returned the scot returned Stellton Yard
Speaker 2: a merciless amount of ridicule in the press, but that
Speaker 2: sort of ties back into kind of the point of
Speaker 2: the book and sort of showing how Scotton Yard really
Speaker 2: sort of laid the foundation for a lot of modern
Speaker 2: day investigative work and the things we see today and
Speaker 2: sort of true crime documentaries and you know we read
Speaker 2: about detective thrillers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I mean developing some really innovative techniques and
Speaker 1: you know, I just think the history of Scotland Yard
Speaker 1: is so fascinating. In the old building, finding Torso's you know.
Speaker 2: That's it's one of when I actually wrote the book
Speaker 2: proposal for h for Scotland Yard. Yeah, when they were
Speaker 2: building what became known as New Scotland Yard, their new headquarters,
Speaker 2: they found a victim up the Thames Torso murder in
Speaker 2: the in the basement who was actually killing at the
Speaker 2: same time as Jack the Riper. A lot of people
Speaker 2: don't realize the Yard was like pursuing two serial killers
Speaker 2: at the same time, the Ripper in the tenth Social Order.
Speaker 2: But because they found a victiamall the Tennis Sourzew murder
Speaker 2: in the basement of Scotlan Yard's headquarters, the first. One
Speaker 2: of my book proposal was Scotland Yard is built on
Speaker 2: an nonsoul mystery because they never actually solved the Torso murders.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've mentioned this on the show
Speaker 1: before or not. I had heard of the Ratcliff Highway
Speaker 1: murders for years because I had read through you know, P. D.
Speaker 1: James book. My mom's a huge PD James fan, and
Speaker 1: so I knew about the book. But one of my
Speaker 1: favorite TV series is Whitechapel. Did you ever watch Whitechapel?
Speaker 2: No? I never. I never did, and I should.
Speaker 1: You got to watch it. I think it's on Prime now.
Speaker 1: So the reason that I am fascinated by that show
Speaker 1: is they do an excellent episode that mimics the Ratcliffe
Speaker 1: Highway murders, where you have a tailor's shop where everybody's
Speaker 1: murdered when the seamstress goes out to go get bagels
Speaker 1: late at night and comes back and you know she's suspected,
Speaker 1: and then there's like a series of other murders that
Speaker 1: are very very similar, and they use a historian, a
Speaker 1: crime history like me, a crime historian who knows all
Speaker 1: about these stories and can say this is what you
Speaker 1: can learn from the Ratcliff Highway murders to solve this
Speaker 1: case now. And so that might seem like a really
Speaker 1: silly premise, but it's an excellent way to talk about
Speaker 1: what you and I both talk about, which is that
Speaker 1: we can learn so much about current crime, current criminals,
Speaker 1: why people kill, how to stop them by looking into
Speaker 1: the past, you know. And I think that it's taken
Speaker 1: a while for some of my listeners to kind of go, oh,
Speaker 1: I get it. I see, these are real people from
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, and they are no different. They're no
Speaker 1: different than us. I mean, you know, they had different money,
Speaker 1: different jobs, different language, but the human emotions all the same.
Speaker 1: Everything's the same, you know, everything's.
Speaker 2: You know, human beings do not change. Anything that changes
Speaker 2: is that sort of the technology and the methods to
Speaker 2: catch them. And that's one of the things with this
Speaker 2: book is that, you know, it doesn't appeal just to
Speaker 2: people who are fascinated by true crime, but it appeals
Speaker 2: to sort of people who enjoy a detective thrillers now
Speaker 2: Spelpi or sort of made it up as they went along,
Speaker 2: case by bloody case. And so you do see the
Speaker 2: evolution of you know, sort of no role book for detectives,
Speaker 2: and then you see them sort of gradually developing the
Speaker 2: trade craft of detective work, and it's fascinating. You know,
Speaker 2: one of the early cases, one of the things that
Speaker 2: I found fascinating was one of their early cases in
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty seven. You know, we find this poor woman's
Speaker 2: found this membered on blong edgeware road. Her head's missing,
Speaker 2: her legs are missing. Her head eventually shows up in
Speaker 2: a canal just north of central London. Scouting the artplusts
Speaker 2: they had on display, they put it in a jar
Speaker 2: of spirits. They put it on display in the Pattinson
Speaker 2: workhouse to try and identify her, and it works. You know,
Speaker 2: a guy comes through sees and goes, oh my god,
Speaker 2: that's my sister. And then that leads to the rest
Speaker 2: of the killers. So you see these sort of like innovative,
Speaker 2: very sort of thinking out of the box approaches to
Speaker 2: solving these conflicts times. The other thing too, you know,
Speaker 2: when we're talking about murderers today, this is kind of
Speaker 2: sound where it's relatively easy to kill someone. You just
Speaker 2: have to pull a trigger, you can shoot them. One
Speaker 2: of the things that struck me when I was writing
Speaker 2: this book was Gott. People really put a lot of
Speaker 2: grim effort into murdering people. He didn't just shoot someone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the level of violence was really off the charts.
Speaker 1: I talked on my show a lot about axe murders,
Speaker 1: which I said, you know, Paul was sort of surprised,
Speaker 1: and I said, people used wood to burn for heat,
Speaker 1: and so there was an axe in every household and
Speaker 1: if you wanted to kill someone, you could probably find
Speaker 1: an axe in their house if you need it to.
Speaker 1: And that happened a lot. It doesn't happen as much anymore.
Speaker 2: You've got to make use of the tools you have available.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I guess if you're determined to kill
Speaker 1: somebody and find the weapon there, I've never understood. We
Speaker 1: could get into a whole other episode of people who
Speaker 1: do that. I still don't get it. But well, this
Speaker 1: has been really great, Simon, because I know that every
Speaker 1: policing agency has their flaws, big flaws, and I know
Speaker 1: that Scotland Yard is no exception. But between the history
Speaker 1: and as we've said them, innovativeness and the determination for
Speaker 1: a lot of the detectives who have worked for Scotland
Speaker 1: Yard and Metropolitan Police to crack some of the cases
Speaker 1: and to stop things terrorism, stop the things that they've stopped,
Speaker 1: has been really incredible to just see develop over the
Speaker 1: last you know, one hundred and fifty to two hundred years.
Speaker 1: When you read all those old documents, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: pulled them all together into a book.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Gain No, it was great. One
Speaker 2: of the things I wanted to do with this book
Speaker 2: is Scotlan Yard has a certain mistique to it from
Speaker 2: its very curious name. You know, why is it closer
Speaker 2: to the fact that it has sold some of the
Speaker 2: most infamous crimes in the history. And when I started researching,
Speaker 2: five killings quickly turned into ten, turned into fifteen, turned
Speaker 2: in I mean, it was just like a lot of
Speaker 2: murders about. One of the things that came out during
Speaker 2: the research was that the Yard did and I did.
Speaker 2: I was sort of unaware of it, but the Yard
Speaker 2: did play a pivotal part in sort of establishing the
Speaker 2: foundation for modern day detective work. And so you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of the crimes that are in this book
Speaker 2: are in there for that very reason. They show the
Speaker 2: advancement of police work and sort of investigative technique. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I hope people come away thinking, Wow, I
Speaker 2: didn't realize Scotlandyard did all this stuff.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis
Speaker 1: a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
Speaker 1: was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is our composer.
Speaker 1: Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Speaker 1: Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at
Speaker 1: tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod