Speaker 1: This special episode of Thinking Sideways is not brought you
Speaker 1: by your wife who's trying to kill you. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: brought you by T and T s new limited series
Speaker 1: The Alienist. When a series of gruesome murders grips New
Speaker 1: York in eight, Dr Laslow Chrysler and his team must investigate, analyze,
Speaker 1: and capture the killer. Inspired by The Alienist, this week,
Speaker 1: we're going to delve into the death of Thomas Edwin Bartlett,
Speaker 1: who was discovered dead at four o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: on January one, eight six of apparent chloroform poisoning. The
Speaker 1: general consensus was that his wife Adelaide Blanche Bartlett was
Speaker 1: the one who administered the poison, but to be honest,
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure who did it, so that
Speaker 1: is our mystery. And just a quick little ears warning,
Speaker 1: there is going to be some talk about sex in
Speaker 1: this episode, so if you don't want the little ones,
Speaker 1: here are little ears here and that save it for later.
Speaker 1: Do you want to introduce ourselves? We probably should because
Speaker 1: that would be great since I just gave away the story.
Speaker 1: Who were the players? Well, I am Steve, I'm Joe,
Speaker 1: and this is Thick Sideways. The podcast. Good job. It's
Speaker 1: like we do that all the time, like that enthusiastic damn.
Speaker 1: So let'sen I've read into the story, give a little
Speaker 1: background on the players that we've got. So there's really
Speaker 1: there's three main players in this story. First off, there
Speaker 1: is Edwin and Edwin the husband. He was a successful grocer.
Speaker 1: I'm looking actually on several stores, right, like a chain
Speaker 1: or something. Right, Well, he was a grosser. I guess.
Speaker 1: I guess I meant that isn't the business owner, not
Speaker 1: the guy who was behind the counter. He has a
Speaker 1: successful bag checker, checker, either of the two. But their
Speaker 1: business was in London. He was twenty nine years old
Speaker 1: when he married Adelaide in eighteen seventy five. At the
Speaker 1: time of their marriage, she was just nineteen years old
Speaker 1: and she had had a bit of a tragic past.
Speaker 1: Both of her parents had died by the time she
Speaker 1: was eleven. She was taken in by a family and
Speaker 1: they raised and educated her. And yeah, it was and
Speaker 1: that plays into part of the marriage terms or the
Speaker 1: dowry terms, because it was an arranged marriage. Not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: they weren't in love, which wasn't really a thing at
Speaker 1: the time. Marrying for love well for some people thought
Speaker 1: all of them. But one of those stipulations of her
Speaker 1: dowry was that Edwin had to pay to complete her
Speaker 1: education and he almost immediately sent her away to school
Speaker 1: for about two years. So happy romantic newlyweds go to
Speaker 1: school an el see you later. She actually came home
Speaker 1: on holidays for business. Yeah, it wasn't if she was
Speaker 1: gone completely, but they were. When they were together again,
Speaker 1: they were reported to, you know, have a happy relationship,
Speaker 1: though they didn't have much of a sexual relationship. Platonic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: platonics is the way you see it described a lot.
Speaker 1: Uh there there though there is some disagreement on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is, there is, and that's something that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about in a bit. But one of the
Speaker 1: signs that points to the fact that it was not
Speaker 1: entirely platonic is the fact that Adelaide got pregnant and
Speaker 1: had a child in one which would have been six
Speaker 1: years after their marriage. Unfortunately, the child was still born,
Speaker 1: and she vowed never to get pregnant again. Apparently it
Speaker 1: wasn't an easy pregnancy for her. Yeah, the child was
Speaker 1: still born. I mean that's a pretty good sign. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's nothing to say that their
Speaker 1: relationship was had an inherent sexual component. There's there is
Speaker 1: evidence obviously she pregnant. I would say that's more evidence
Speaker 1: that Edwin was like, you know what, I need an
Speaker 1: air to give all this money to or something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, more than for practical reasons rather than reasons
Speaker 1: of pleasure. Yeah, but also maybe pleasure who I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean that some people said they only had sex
Speaker 1: once in their entire relationship, which she got pregnant. But
Speaker 1: then then I think it was their chambermates said her.
Speaker 1: She thought that she believed that actually they only had
Speaker 1: unprotected sex once once she got pregnant. Correct, Yeah, correct.
Speaker 1: I think their relationship was not quite as abnormal as
Speaker 1: some people like to know. No, And and that's that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that, as with all these older stories,
Speaker 1: you gotta be careful of the accountings and the reporting.
Speaker 1: But let's continue on. So the couple lived in several
Speaker 1: different houses in London, but in October of eighty five
Speaker 1: they moved to the Pimlico area, which is in central London.
Speaker 1: They had been living in another part of the city. Uh,
Speaker 1: and what motivated him to move I don't really know,
Speaker 1: and that's not really important to the story, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's close to their Their play was close to the Thames,
Speaker 1: actually a stone so away, so maybe they liked it
Speaker 1: for the dead bodies. I don't know that was it,
Speaker 1: but I did. What is important to note here is
Speaker 1: that before the move, actually since January, they had been
Speaker 1: going to the Wesleyan Chapel in Merton Abbey, which was
Speaker 1: about eight miles or thirteen kilometers away from their new home,
Speaker 1: the one that they just moved into. And that's important
Speaker 1: because when they started attending that church, they met the
Speaker 1: Reverend George Dyson, and he and the couple became quick friends,
Speaker 1: and they would spend a lot of time together. And
Speaker 1: some accounts would say that he would minister them individually,
Speaker 1: while others would say that he was hired to tutor
Speaker 1: adelaide um. And by tutored, I mean, well, I don't
Speaker 1: actually know what it means, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: conflicting accounts. I mean, it sounds like she was interested
Speaker 1: in in education and you know, be being educated and
Speaker 1: learning stuff. I mean grant, I mean, you know, if
Speaker 1: that was part of her dowry, was that she was
Speaker 1: to continue her education. The only reason she could get
Speaker 1: married was if she were guaranteed that continue education. If
Speaker 1: she was into that, I mean would be yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't know. We don't know what was going on
Speaker 1: here in terms of what was taught or what actions
Speaker 1: were taken. Well, according to the testimony of the Reverend himself,
Speaker 1: he said that he said too, I believe to Adelaide
Speaker 1: at some point that he felt that Edwin was actually
Speaker 1: sort of trying to push them together, meaning George Dyson
Speaker 1: and Adelaide. He felt that he was trying kind of
Speaker 1: trying to push them and and yeah, and you see that,
Speaker 1: you see that in a lot of places, because I mean,
Speaker 1: as we talked about the resources of the sources on
Speaker 1: this say that Edmond himself apparently wasn't all that interested
Speaker 1: in sex, but he did he had this belief in
Speaker 1: the power of animal magnetism, which is a force sometimes
Speaker 1: referred to as mesmerism. It's kind of a life force
Speaker 1: that can be held by It's held by all animals
Speaker 1: and can be transferred to others with healing properties. This
Speaker 1: is when that kind of stuff was going on, it
Speaker 1: was popular, and again, we don't know if that's true.
Speaker 1: Because there's only a couple of players who say that
Speaker 1: it's it was not as if it was a widely
Speaker 1: known belief that he did this. So it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: But what we do know about the pair is, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of who liked. What we do know that
Speaker 1: apparently she had more of an appetite for intercourse than
Speaker 1: he did because supposedly, according to Edwin's father, she took
Speaker 1: up almost immediately with Edwin's brother after their marriage and
Speaker 1: an affair with him, although Edwin's father really didn't like
Speaker 1: and so he was throwing mud. All. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: some straw disagreement over that particular issue. But there's there's
Speaker 1: also uh information that says that she was having intercourse
Speaker 1: with the George Dyson. And the reason that that it
Speaker 1: said that way is that Adelaide and Dyson were, according
Speaker 1: to the maid, found multiple times on the floor in
Speaker 1: positions quote unquote unusual for pupil and teacher. That that
Speaker 1: was a great way to say that he was actually
Speaker 1: also supposed to tutor her in judo. They were just
Speaker 1: paper clip Yeah, um, but you know, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not entirely clear if Edwin was how much of
Speaker 1: this he was aware of or on board with um.
Speaker 1: And as we said, you know, his father didn't like her,
Speaker 1: and so he said a lot of bad things and
Speaker 1: she made some strange statements about her husband. So his
Speaker 1: his letters to the reverend seemed to indicate that he
Speaker 1: was okay with it. No on board, but it's I'm
Speaker 1: not positive. Towards the end of his life, the past,
Speaker 1: at least the last couple of years of his life,
Speaker 1: his health was really bad. Yeah, it was waning. Yet
Speaker 1: he expected to be to die and to leave his
Speaker 1: wife a widow. And you know, he apparently thought that
Speaker 1: Dyson would have been at the ideal husband for the future,
Speaker 1: and that's what he seems to think. Yeah, what's was
Speaker 1: noble of him. Yeah, so we're almost at this point,
Speaker 1: we're almost up to talking about Edwin's death. But there's
Speaker 1: just a little more that we need to share about him.
Speaker 1: Joe had you were just talking about his health and yeah,
Speaker 1: it had been poor for years ahead of time. Um
Speaker 1: he had been diagnosed by his regular medical doctor as
Speaker 1: having subacute gastritis, which is an irritation of the lightning
Speaker 1: of your stomach UM and subacute means that it came
Speaker 1: on rather rapidly. He also supposedly had issues with his
Speaker 1: gums and his teeth with left in a lot of
Speaker 1: pain and discomfort, at least for the latter part of
Speaker 1: the year of eighty five, and part of the reason
Speaker 1: for that is his choice of dentist, because he picks
Speaker 1: a complete and utter nut job dentist. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't have the Internet. You couldn't look like reviews
Speaker 1: on your dentist friend. I wish that he could have,
Speaker 1: because this guy believed that the best way to prepare
Speaker 1: Edwin's mouth for receiving dentures was too I kid, you
Speaker 1: not saw his teeth off the gums. It's like leaving
Speaker 1: the healthy aside it. I was so much rather have
Speaker 1: a tooth pulled than have it sawed off. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: broke out, Yeah, decided the health of considerations aside. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would you would think that that having rotting stumps
Speaker 1: in your job would not be a healthy thing? Oh god, no,
Speaker 1: exposed nerves. No, this whole thing sounds bad and it's
Speaker 1: and think about it. It was a handsaw, not a
Speaker 1: power saw. Okay. The other problem that Edwin had was
Speaker 1: apparently it was determined that he was suffering from mercury poisoning.
Speaker 1: And when his regular you know, medical doctor asked him,
Speaker 1: you know what's going on. He was taking some pills
Speaker 1: and he said, well, why are you taking him? And
Speaker 1: he admitted that he didn't know they had been prescribed
Speaker 1: to him, and so he was taking them well, and
Speaker 1: so he was getting mercury poisoning, which is not good. Well,
Speaker 1: also back in the old I mean, murcury was used
Speaker 1: in amalagam in dentistry for fillings for a long long time.
Speaker 1: But also I mean he actually might have it might
Speaker 1: have been other things. Apparently Edwin strongly believed that he
Speaker 1: had worms. He was totally conness he had worms and
Speaker 1: worms or excuse me, and mercury actually in those days
Speaker 1: was considered a good treatment for parasites. So he might
Speaker 1: have actually been taking mercury including yeah, by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm not recommending this if you think you have worms.
Speaker 1: But and apparently he didn't. He didn't have much of
Speaker 1: a real doctor exactly. His wife kind of was his nurse,
Speaker 1: and he didn't exactly have even his regular doctor once
Speaker 1: in a great while. So that was about it. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not surprised, being people took mercury for
Speaker 1: uh syphilius, and you know, like I said, parasites and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff. It was kind of the fix. Well,
Speaker 1: the trick is is it will fix everything and then
Speaker 1: you will not be suffering from those things anymore because
Speaker 1: you will be dead, right, I mean, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess there's something to be said for having that
Speaker 1: unquestioning kind of demeanor of well, maybe this is just
Speaker 1: you know, I've never been to another dentist. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is how things are done. But you would think, for
Speaker 1: the first one I was gonna say, you would think
Speaker 1: the first time somebody started sawing your teeth, you would
Speaker 1: be like, just kidding, this can't be right. Just the
Speaker 1: whole idea of like, it seems kind of awkward to
Speaker 1: get a saw into somebody's mouth. Also, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was a little dental saw. Well yeah, I'm sure it was.
Speaker 1: Still it just sounds like an uncomfortable knife, yea. And
Speaker 1: not much in the way of So all of this
Speaker 1: is going on, and Edwin is getting sicker and sicker,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, in the month of December,
Speaker 1: his health seems to rally. Uh and the couplers scene
Speaker 1: around town and they're happy. And he goes to his
Speaker 1: regular doctors apparently, who says, oh, yeah, I know you're
Speaker 1: doing much better. Good prognosis. And then on New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: Edwin went to see his quack dentist again for for
Speaker 1: what reasons I don't know, uh, and then came home
Speaker 1: and he and his wife they spent the evening together
Speaker 1: in their house. She then woke up at about four
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. They feed fall asleep in a cot,
Speaker 1: and she was sitting near the cot and it fall
Speaker 1: asleep next to it room fireplace face and so we
Speaker 1: could keep warm. And then when she woke up, she
Speaker 1: noticed something wasn't right, and so she said that she
Speaker 1: tried to pour brandy down his throat in an attempt
Speaker 1: to rouse him, and then when that didn't work, she
Speaker 1: called for help and and people came and they figured
Speaker 1: out very quickly which he had passed, which was strange
Speaker 1: thing to do because apparently, I mean the southern landlord
Speaker 1: who lived upstairs. She wasn't got him first. This is
Speaker 1: a bit four am and uh, and said the maid
Speaker 1: maybe she said the maid up, but whatever it was,
Speaker 1: he came right down and he said, well, he touched
Speaker 1: the body of the body was just cold as hell.
Speaker 1: It was cold. And so I was like, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: got this body here that's laying there, stone cold and
Speaker 1: the eyes are wide up in a staring at nothing,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna poor Brandy not a stroke. Now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make a lot of it's her defense. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: bodies get really cold, panic she was young, but also
Speaker 1: um no, she actually she was. She was in her
Speaker 1: thirties at this point. She scratched that from the record anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: one thing I will say is that I have very
Speaker 1: poor circulation as a as a role. My blood pressure
Speaker 1: is really really low, and there are times where my
Speaker 1: hands in feet are like ice cubes. So we shouldn't
Speaker 1: just bury you. We should probably check or something. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, my core stays warm, but my limbs
Speaker 1: get really really cold. And I'm convinced that if I
Speaker 1: did pass in the night and my fiance was like
Speaker 1: just went to touch, you know, my hand and just
Speaker 1: felt it cold, he would just think, Wow, she's like
Speaker 1: passed out or sleep or something, and he's right, yeah,
Speaker 1: he would just be like, wow, she's still asleep. Must
Speaker 1: have been really tired. It's so weird. No, I mean yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously he's smart enough he would check for
Speaker 1: a pulse blah blah blah. But I'm just saying, if
Speaker 1: you're kind of in a panic and all, and he
Speaker 1: was in bad health already, and you know, I suspect
Speaker 1: his circulation wasn't particularly great if all she did was
Speaker 1: kind of touch his hand and then she thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll give him some brandy that usually warms him up
Speaker 1: and wakes him up, and then that didn't and then
Speaker 1: she was like, oh, that's why he's so cold. Okay, Dan,
Speaker 1: So obviously he's found dead. That that I think it
Speaker 1: was about ten or eleven o'clock that morning. Edwin's father
Speaker 1: comes over because he was in town at the time,
Speaker 1: and as soon as he heard about it, he came
Speaker 1: over and he, like we talked about, he was suspicious
Speaker 1: of Adelaide and he didn't like her. And so the
Speaker 1: first thing he said he did was go and smell
Speaker 1: his son's mouth, you know, for signs of poisoning, and
Speaker 1: he reportedly smelled something that was sweet, and you know,
Speaker 1: made a big ruck as saying, I want an official
Speaker 1: examination done of the body and the doctors when they
Speaker 1: did the examination, there was no obvious cause of death
Speaker 1: until they opened Edwin's stomach, at which point they found
Speaker 1: a sixteenth of an ounce of chloroform in it. Now,
Speaker 1: presumably there had been more chloroform in his stomach before that,
Speaker 1: but because it evaporates so easily, it was probably escaping
Speaker 1: out of his mouth to a degree. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it will. And to be clear, chloroform is not something
Speaker 1: that naturally occurs in your stomach. No, absolutely not no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not like mercury will kill you. Correct. And the
Speaker 1: cause of death at this point was pretty obvious, but
Speaker 1: how the chloroform got into him was not. Because the
Speaker 1: thing is chloroform will burn skin after it is left
Speaker 1: in contacted with it for a second or two. Oh,
Speaker 1: Edwin's mouth and throat didn't show any signs of burning.
Speaker 1: His tongue was kind of bleached white, which is an
Speaker 1: after effect and is a known effect, But there was
Speaker 1: no burning. So our mystery is how did it get
Speaker 1: there and and who did it. To finish the story,
Speaker 1: before we get into all the theory section, Adelaide and
Speaker 1: George Dyson. They're charged with Edwin's death. Dyson is almost
Speaker 1: immediately actually is at the trial, is immediately released from
Speaker 1: the charges in exchange for testifying against Adelaide. What he
Speaker 1: tells the court is that he had gotten her or
Speaker 1: ounces of chloroform that she said she was going to
Speaker 1: use on Edwin to help him sleep because he had
Speaker 1: been in so much pain. Because if you know anything
Speaker 1: about chloroform, people used to put it on a rag
Speaker 1: and you put it over your mouth and you inhale
Speaker 1: that stuff and it'll knock you out. It's one of
Speaker 1: your all the time, it really does. She did the
Speaker 1: story about why that happened. We'll get into some of
Speaker 1: that a little later on. But the long and the
Speaker 1: short of it is is that they went to trial.
Speaker 1: She was put on trial, he testifies against her. The
Speaker 1: jury cannot make it stick. That or the prosecution can't
Speaker 1: make it stick, and therefore the jury cannot come back
Speaker 1: with a charge of guilty. Uh So they say, and
Speaker 1: this is the great the foreman says of the jury says, um, actually, Joe,
Speaker 1: here you read this all right. Here we go quote.
Speaker 1: Although we think grave suspicion is attached to the prisoner,
Speaker 1: we did not think there's sufficient evidence to show how
Speaker 1: or by whom the chloroform was administered. Quote, dune, dune
Speaker 1: done exactly, so we don't know how it got there.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of puzzlement over that. Actually, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you read that quote by Sir James
Speaker 1: pet Oh, yeah, that's a great quote. It is a
Speaker 1: great quote. Yeah, I said, after the trial was over,
Speaker 1: she'd been she had been found not guilty, and so
Speaker 1: she could be retried. And so he supposedly said, quote,
Speaker 1: she should tell us, in the interests of science, how
Speaker 1: she did it. She can't be tried for it again.
Speaker 1: Obviously he was not convinced of her innocence. Obviously not. Well,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's almost theory time. But before we go
Speaker 1: to theories, let's take a quick break. We hope you're
Speaker 1: enjoying the Mystery of the Death of Thomas, Edward and Bartlett.
Speaker 1: Here's a sneak peek into the Alienist, premiering January. A monster,
Speaker 1: unleashed God, a man obsessed, he's watching, a city in fear.
Speaker 1: Monday's on T and T, the Hunt for Pure Evil
Speaker 1: begins combined Killer swacklem on us, based on the best
Speaker 1: selling novel Daniel brul Lukevitt and the coda, Fetti compels
Speaker 1: him to do e be a new limited series Mondays
Speaker 1: at ninety central on T and T. And we're back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and let's get into those theories. Yea. So the first
Speaker 1: theory is suicide. The theory is that and some people
Speaker 1: say that the only way that that the chloroform could
Speaker 1: have got down his through his mouth and his throat
Speaker 1: into a stomach fast enough and not cause any visible
Speaker 1: burns was if someone were to have willingly and quickly
Speaker 1: drank it. Yeah, next to put some brandy or something
Speaker 1: and just check it right down. Yeah. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: the problem is is that, you know, back, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is eighteen six at this point, so other than
Speaker 1: a visual inspection of his throat, you know, today they
Speaker 1: could take a microscope and they could probably do some
Speaker 1: analysis to figure that stuff out, like how long did
Speaker 1: it take to actually swallow it all? But today we don't.
Speaker 1: At that time, they didn't have that ability, So we
Speaker 1: can't do like a fine, a fine examination of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, as we talked about before, he is supposedly,
Speaker 1: uh you know, he had been in ill health, and
Speaker 1: he had been told that he only had one year
Speaker 1: to live. And there's the fact that he had, so
Speaker 1: he hasn't his he hadn't his will for a long time,
Speaker 1: that everything went to his wife with stipulation, which was
Speaker 1: common in that time, that she didn't remarry. Strangely, he
Speaker 1: changed his will about three months prior to that, at
Speaker 1: the encouragement of George Dyson. So people say, well, that's
Speaker 1: that's an odd bought about that. Um, And we talked
Speaker 1: about this before, is that it may have been that
Speaker 1: he wanted them, as Joe had pointed out before, to
Speaker 1: hook up and become a couple, and if he were
Speaker 1: just to remove himself from the picture, that would be
Speaker 1: the most expedient way to make that happen. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: does make sense, It does appear, and it's been said
Speaker 1: by any various people that he thought Dyson would be
Speaker 1: the ideal husband after his death. And the other thing
Speaker 1: to keep in mind is people say, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: drinking chloroform apparently tastes really hideous. And there's that whole
Speaker 1: thing about remember the brandy. There's that glass of brandy
Speaker 1: in there. There's a bottle of brandy in the room
Speaker 1: and a glass with brandy in it. So people say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe he poured it into the brandy to cut the flavor,
Speaker 1: and that helped prevented from causing burns. I mean, the problem,
Speaker 1: the hard part about chloroform is that, and this applies
Speaker 1: to all of our theories, is there isn't a whole
Speaker 1: lot of data about how quickly it will take it
Speaker 1: will kill someone. So I don't know if he was
Speaker 1: intending to take his own life, would he have known
Speaker 1: if he had enough, and how long it would take
Speaker 1: doesn't take much. My understanding that that's clarifying apparently, and
Speaker 1: it's very fairly small doses can stop your heart, We'll see.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. I saw stuff where a guy had
Speaker 1: had about about like a quarter of an ounce and
Speaker 1: had had died, And there was a guy who had
Speaker 1: had four ounces of the stuff and had lived. So
Speaker 1: it's all over the mountain. Now. The other problem with that,
Speaker 1: of course, is that it's the error that it happens.
Speaker 1: You know, in a modern age, if somebody drinks that,
Speaker 1: they're able to pump your stomach and and give you
Speaker 1: all kinds of medication helped revive you fifty seven years
Speaker 1: ago that wasn't available. If he drank four ounces and
Speaker 1: then immediately threw it all up, you might live too. Right,
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know so, but that's the problem with
Speaker 1: the accounts of you know, when I see these numbers
Speaker 1: and don't know how much it's gonna take. Um, but
Speaker 1: that's all I have on that. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: really I don't know. I don't know about that theory. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's entirely possible. I mean, it sounds like he
Speaker 1: was probably miserable. It's healthless. It was pretty bad. He
Speaker 1: had no teeth, he was gumming everything. Yeah, well in
Speaker 1: the worst stubbing everything. Hum. Well, let's move on to Actually,
Speaker 1: this story really does make me want to go see
Speaker 1: my dentist frequently and often. We do have dental insurance
Speaker 1: through the podcast. Right. Well, actually, the same kind of
Speaker 1: guy that Edwin had, probably that's what we can afford.
Speaker 1: That's what I got, just the cheapest plan possible. So
Speaker 1: let's move to the next theory, which is that his wife,
Speaker 1: Adelaide was the one who did it. That's a popular theory. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with a lot of people, including as we
Speaker 1: said before, Edwin's father. Um. Now, the reason why to
Speaker 1: do that, in a way seems easy because she'd been
Speaker 1: married to him for fourteen years and she was tired
Speaker 1: of him, and she had this new boyfriend that she
Speaker 1: would rather be with. And supposedly, as we've kind of
Speaker 1: talked about before, there's the fact that apparently they didn't
Speaker 1: have a sexual relationship where she did with Dyson. Other
Speaker 1: countess said that he actually did want to have sex
Speaker 1: with her, but she didn't want to because for one reason,
Speaker 1: because of all the stuff that was going on in
Speaker 1: his mouth, apparently his breath was really foul. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the reasons that we'll talk about
Speaker 1: this now. Is the chloroform. Where did the chloroform come from? Well,
Speaker 1: Adelaide had Dyson procure it for her, And what happened
Speaker 1: at the time is the requirements were that you had
Speaker 1: if you were going to get any more than I
Speaker 1: believe one ounce at a time, because it's a toxic substance,
Speaker 1: you had to sign the book saying you got two
Speaker 1: or five ounces or whatever the heck amout it was.
Speaker 1: So he went through to four different locations over the
Speaker 1: course of two days and it procured it in one
Speaker 1: ounce quantities and then poured it all into one bottle
Speaker 1: and gave her that big bottle. She and then, according
Speaker 1: to some people, what she said was that she wasn't
Speaker 1: going to use it to help her husband sleep, but instead,
Speaker 1: when he came at her in a quote unquote lustful way,
Speaker 1: she was gonna put it on a handkerchief and wave
Speaker 1: it in his face until he passed out, there by
Speaker 1: sparing herself from having to endure his breath, which I've
Speaker 1: known some people had some pretty bad breath, So I
Speaker 1: kind of understand that. I kind of you too, but
Speaker 1: like maybe just turn your head or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But the but the problem with that all is that
Speaker 1: this whole they never almost never had intercourse thing is
Speaker 1: that she appears to have occasionally slept with him, because
Speaker 1: condoms were found in Edwin's belongings, which would indicate that
Speaker 1: he was having sex with someone used condoms, new condoms,
Speaker 1: so presumably he had been using condoms, and therefore it
Speaker 1: had been together. And the whole thing about like, remember
Speaker 1: we talked about when she got pregnant. She had made
Speaker 1: a statement to somebody at one point that the one
Speaker 1: time they didn't use protection, she got pregnant, So that
Speaker 1: indicates that they might have actually had a sexual relationship.
Speaker 1: Sounds like, yeah, I think that would be a little
Speaker 1: more well, I mean, you know, or or he was hopeful,
Speaker 1: you know, he was thinking or I mean even in
Speaker 1: terms of like he had been having these really bad
Speaker 1: health problems and so probably while that was going on,
Speaker 1: they weren't really being physical with each other. Then yeah,
Speaker 1: he thought, oh yeah, this is gonna be my chance.
Speaker 1: And maybe he went to go have some sort of
Speaker 1: you know, breath freshening procedure done or something like that
Speaker 1: at the dentist and he was like, this is this
Speaker 1: is how we're going to ring in the new year.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be amazing. I'm in such good health and
Speaker 1: we're just turning a new leaf and everything's great. And
Speaker 1: that's why he had new condoms. Maybe, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: it didn't normally happen. Problem. My problem here, though, is
Speaker 1: is why did why would she kill him? I mean,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, she's got a boyfriend on
Speaker 1: the side, it appears to have been given the blessing.
Speaker 1: She's with a man who can provide for her in
Speaker 1: a manner that she has been a customed to, So
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense to me. But then again there's
Speaker 1: also like, okay, well, why did dison go around and
Speaker 1: get the chloroform in such a sneaky fashion. If everything
Speaker 1: was going to be on board and it was all
Speaker 1: none of it was pre planned. Here's one thing I
Speaker 1: will say is in Portland, Oregon, proper you have to
Speaker 1: to buy spray paint and they'll write your name in
Speaker 1: the log or you can drive like fifteen minutes up
Speaker 1: into Vancouver or even like just a little bit outside
Speaker 1: of Portland, and I have to do that great job
Speaker 1: telling all the taggers where to go. Well like, but honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't use spray paint. Well, I mean, I don't write.
Speaker 1: I use it for totally legal, totally normal, creative reasons.
Speaker 1: But I would weigh rather drive the extra ten minutes
Speaker 1: or whatever it is to not have to deal with
Speaker 1: the whole process of the I d and like blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. It's not quite that inconvenience as long as
Speaker 1: there's somebody there to actually open the havn't get to
Speaker 1: get it to you. But YE have gone through it once. Instead,
Speaker 1: he went all over town. He went to four different
Speaker 1: vendors to not have to deal with it. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of commuting back in the day. No, I agree
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm just playing double's advocate here. I think
Speaker 1: he that was super weird and suspicious. Why did he
Speaker 1: do that? I think I actually went to three I
Speaker 1: can't remember now he went to he said, he went
Speaker 1: to four different locations. Yeah, and I taught it was
Speaker 1: that you couldn't It wasn't just that they got you
Speaker 1: to sign something without a prescription. You couldn't get more
Speaker 1: than an ounce or two. But she but here's the
Speaker 1: weird thing is she she had procured a prescription for
Speaker 1: her husband. So it again seems like they should have
Speaker 1: been able to get it. Well, now, actually what she's
Speaker 1: What he said in his testimony to the court is
Speaker 1: that when she asked him uh to do it, he said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't she get why doesn't your doctor give it
Speaker 1: to you? And she said, well, actually it's Annie, our
Speaker 1: nurse who was away on vacation. Now she usually gets it,
Speaker 1: and so I need to get chloroforms with somewhere else,
Speaker 1: so can you guess time for me? And so that's
Speaker 1: what he did. And yeah, but that's what he said.
Speaker 1: An that's what he said in court that he said
Speaker 1: to her, walk out the doctor. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: even if she did have a prescription if she wasn't
Speaker 1: going herself, and or you know, the person who the
Speaker 1: prescription was written for, Irwin wasn't Edwin. Sorry, I wasn't
Speaker 1: going himself. I don't know how. I don't know if
Speaker 1: pharmacists will fill it for just anyone, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't have prescription. I don't think
Speaker 1: there would have been a little looser back in those days.
Speaker 1: But back to your your thing about why would she
Speaker 1: kill him? Though I could think of one good reason.
Speaker 1: He's been he's been in bad health for a long time.
Speaker 1: She's been nursing it for a long time, and he's
Speaker 1: tired of it. You know, she wants a life. She's
Speaker 1: still fairly young. Alternately, sorry, go ahead, she's still fairly
Speaker 1: honestly thinking of if he dies sooner rather than later,
Speaker 1: maybe I could still have some semblance of a life.
Speaker 1: You know, for a little while, I was just thinking
Speaker 1: of going back again to him. His health getting better,
Speaker 1: maybe she maybe you know, he said, um, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: my health is getting better. Now I don't have all
Speaker 1: these limitations. We can resume our physical relationship. We can
Speaker 1: become a husband and wife again. You can stop your
Speaker 1: side thing, your side, hustle with this other guy. That's fine.
Speaker 1: Here we go. We're I mean, we're gonna do our
Speaker 1: thing and this is we're gonna be a married couple.
Speaker 1: And she was like, oh no, that's not what I
Speaker 1: wanted it all. Yeah, maybe she was actually like in
Speaker 1: the you know George Dyson better. And maybe also she's
Speaker 1: been poisoning him the entire time, the level of keeping
Speaker 1: him sick. Yeah, and uh yeah, that's that's entirely possible. Now,
Speaker 1: now how did she go about doing it? So that's
Speaker 1: part of this theory is okay, well, how did she
Speaker 1: do it? Because obviously when he was asleep, she didn't
Speaker 1: just or if she had knocked him out with chloroform,
Speaker 1: she didn't then just pour it down his gull in
Speaker 1: because that would have taken it would have taken too
Speaker 1: long ago down his throat and it would have caused
Speaker 1: the burns. There's the whole brandy thing, So there's that
Speaker 1: glass of brandy. So maybe she lied when she said
Speaker 1: she woke up and used the brandy to try to
Speaker 1: revive him, and instead she, as the theory goes, put
Speaker 1: the chloroform in his brand. He said, hey, it's new year's.
Speaker 1: It's New Year's, sweetie, Let's have a toast, and he
Speaker 1: tosses it back, unknowingly ingesting the poison. It's going to
Speaker 1: kill it. This is a really dumb question, but I oh,
Speaker 1: I keep wondering this about this case. Is um it
Speaker 1: had to have been ingestion, right, I wondered too, if
Speaker 1: it was like a needle or something. I wondered that too.
Speaker 1: I would assume that because it wasn't autopsy, I would
Speaker 1: assume it would look for needle marks. But I can
Speaker 1: I would assume that too. But I can think of
Speaker 1: two other ways you can get into the stomach, though,
Speaker 1: One is to it to intubation, just if you knocked
Speaker 1: him out. You can run a tube down his throat
Speaker 1: and and pour it in that way, although then again,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure that she was that well informed
Speaker 1: about the effects of chlorine that she would have known
Speaker 1: would have done. Another possibility is that he had eaten
Speaker 1: a meal not too long before his death. It's possible
Speaker 1: you could have put it in the food itself and
Speaker 1: not in some sort of sealed form like a capsule
Speaker 1: or something like kind of inside a kind of steak,
Speaker 1: And that would be really hard for him to chew
Speaker 1: and swallow. He's not really. Yeah, he might, he might,
Speaker 1: but I would think that he would observe that in
Speaker 1: his food unless he was on a truly liquid diet,
Speaker 1: you know, like mashed potatoes and soup. The problem with
Speaker 1: chloroform those that evaporates so fast that if you poured
Speaker 1: into his soup and he's like, I'm talking, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about encapsulated form, so he can't taste it, can't
Speaker 1: smell it. I don't remember anything about them finding anything
Speaker 1: like that in his in his stomach, at least not
Speaker 1: noted in the recordings. They think they would have noted that.
Speaker 1: But there could have been something, some natural form of something.
Speaker 1: You know. Maybe she broke up in a wall nut
Speaker 1: and filled up with chloroform and it's superglued it back together,
Speaker 1: you know, and that fed that to him, and they
Speaker 1: were on the and then the autopsy they weren't. Oh
Speaker 1: it's weird. There's an entire all nut shell in the stomach.
Speaker 1: You know, this is this is the century, of course, Okay,
Speaker 1: but obviously, and I don't seriously literally been something. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you're right. I mean, he could she could
Speaker 1: have just poisoned him in a bunch of different ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's move to our third theory, our third culprit,
Speaker 1: which is the Reverend George Dyson. Um. Now, the hardest
Speaker 1: part about this story is that, as we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: Dyson says, he went to all these places and got
Speaker 1: the chloroform, and then when everything was said and done
Speaker 1: and the cops were onto him, quote unquote, it seemed
Speaker 1: like the cops were onto him, he was walking on
Speaker 1: a path and he chucked the bottles on the side
Speaker 1: of a path. So he just he got rid of
Speaker 1: that evidence, which you know, I would imagine if he
Speaker 1: truly had gotten it from different places, they might be
Speaker 1: able to I d that I don't know, mess spectrometer
Speaker 1: or whatever they would use, but of course and have
Speaker 1: that available. She also, though she threw away the bottle
Speaker 1: that she had her chloroform in the four ounces that
Speaker 1: he had given her. I think she chucked it in
Speaker 1: a railway trash can if I remember right. So they're
Speaker 1: both they're both seemed guilty here, and they're both throwing
Speaker 1: evidence away. Yeah, and especially she liked the guiltiest of
Speaker 1: the two. If you can believe his testimony, anyway, because
Speaker 1: apparently she said one of the reasons. He asked her, well,
Speaker 1: why does he need chloroform? And and she was like, well,
Speaker 1: he's got this this internal problem that it gives in
Speaker 1: paroxyism or something, and then chloroformis for that. And then
Speaker 1: after then you get to the chloroform, and then he dies,
Speaker 1: and then there's an autopsy. And he talked to the
Speaker 1: doctor after the autopsy about the autopsy results, and there
Speaker 1: was chloroform in his body, but also no internal problems
Speaker 1: noted at all. So he confronts here and says, well,
Speaker 1: what's this all? You said he had all these these
Speaker 1: big internal issues and but there's nothing shows up in
Speaker 1: the autopsy. What was that about? And she's and and
Speaker 1: then he says, you know, by the way, a chloroform,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to have to come clean. And
Speaker 1: she was like, no, no, you can't tell anybody about chloroform.
Speaker 1: And I think Edwin was a bit of a hypochondriac
Speaker 1: because he's he's got all these illnesses and all these issues,
Speaker 1: and yet when the doctors examine him they can find
Speaker 1: no cause. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's one of those
Speaker 1: those things, you know. I shouldn't self diagnose for that reason,
Speaker 1: you know, like my psych teachers warned warned us. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, when you start reading about all
Speaker 1: these very psychological issues, don't don't start because you are
Speaker 1: self diagnosing yourself as psychotic. You aren't. Okay, well maybe something, yeah,
Speaker 1: but probably not. Yeah. I mean, I guess I can
Speaker 1: see kind of an argument of just you know, being
Speaker 1: kind of an idiot and saying, okay, listen, the police
Speaker 1: are onto us. They know that Edwin died of um
Speaker 1: chloroform poisoning, and I have chloroform. I know they're looking
Speaker 1: at me. I know I didn't do anything wrong wrong,
Speaker 1: but it sure is gonna look like I did something
Speaker 1: wrong if they find these bottles. So I'll just get
Speaker 1: rid of them and then there it won't look like
Speaker 1: I did anything wrong at all. And from his point
Speaker 1: of view, you know, he's been even if he's if
Speaker 1: he was totally innocent, even the way the law looks
Speaker 1: at it, especially in the way society that's had it.
Speaker 1: Back in those days. Women were when we were delicate creatures,
Speaker 1: they weren't they weren't typically murderous. He's almost always the guy,
Speaker 1: so it actually almost always says the guy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but and so he even though she might have
Speaker 1: totally snared him, uh he and he just decided, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'd better shut up about this stuff and get
Speaker 1: rid of the evidence. And I think that's probably what
Speaker 1: happened here. You know. The other thing I keep thinking
Speaker 1: of is Edwin, you know, with the whole chucking of
Speaker 1: the bottles. He's kind of lucky that he was in
Speaker 1: London of eighteen eighty five instead of London of seventeen,
Speaker 1: where everything is on CCTV, so they could have actually
Speaker 1: probably seen where he was. You No, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: meant George, I'm sorry. I totally got their own person.
Speaker 1: No Dyson, because Dyson is the one who says he
Speaker 1: chucked him when he was walking on a path. Well,
Speaker 1: today there is a square inch of London that doesn't
Speaker 1: have a camera unless yeah, that's that's true. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: let's move on to the last theory here. Uh and
Speaker 1: this is not an official theory, This is just a
Speaker 1: Steve theory. This is my favorite theory though, and it's
Speaker 1: the dentist, the dentist medical misadventure. Perhaps, yes, because this
Speaker 1: guy is such a nut job it's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: he's probably knocking Edwin out if he's doing any kind
Speaker 1: of procedure to him that involves sawing off of teeth
Speaker 1: with live roots. So you could see him either pouring
Speaker 1: it down through what Joe said, intubation, or maybe some
Speaker 1: chloroform tablets fall He's a klots and whoa they fall
Speaker 1: down his throat. He's like, well, it'll be okay. I
Speaker 1: won't tell him about the seven two pills and I
Speaker 1: accidentally poured down his throat. I think they would have
Speaker 1: kicked in a little sooner. Now, I was going to say,
Speaker 1: I think chloroform only takes a few hours. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: if it depends on how if the if it was innovative,
Speaker 1: but if the if it was pills, like Joe said,
Speaker 1: it might give it a longer life. I really just
Speaker 1: want to disparage this dentist as much as I can, because,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's hard to say. Well, back in
Speaker 1: those days, it's really hard to say how many people
Speaker 1: are actually killed by their doctors and their dentists. Probably
Speaker 1: quite a few. Well, and we're lucky today because we
Speaker 1: can look at these things and figure it out. But
Speaker 1: at that time. It's uh, this is my best guests
Speaker 1: all I really know. I got no good heart science
Speaker 1: to back it up. I I kind of like this
Speaker 1: theory because I kind of imagine this sort of primitive
Speaker 1: gas masks sort of thing, right with the chloroform being
Speaker 1: narrated at them, just like the smell. But it's defective
Speaker 1: because this dentist is a quack. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: just like there's a like a constant drip of it
Speaker 1: down his throat and for some reason, I don't know
Speaker 1: why it doesn't burn his throat. But you know the
Speaker 1: problem is that at that time, they didn't use the mask.
Speaker 1: It literally was they were just taking a rag. It
Speaker 1: was why people were actually dying at the debts because
Speaker 1: there was no actual you know, time scientifically figured out
Speaker 1: how long it should be there. So they would give
Speaker 1: the same amount to you, devon at your size as
Speaker 1: they would to Joe, who is a much larger person
Speaker 1: compared to you. I was gonna say, and that would
Speaker 1: just kill Joe. I mean would think it actually might
Speaker 1: be the other way around. You could be right because
Speaker 1: my science. Yeah, so yeah, they doctors were killing people
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, I mean it's hard very with
Speaker 1: annesthesia these days, they very very carefully measure all that
Speaker 1: stuff and only do it if they absolutely think they
Speaker 1: have to. I mean they I've been to several medical
Speaker 1: procedures are like, do you we don't really want to
Speaker 1: put you under? Do you do you want to go?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, fine, turn on the radio so
Speaker 1: I have to listen to it. It's fine. Yeah. I've
Speaker 1: only been under once and it was one of the
Speaker 1: most disconcerting experiences of my entire life. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: don't really want Yeah, I only wants for me too.
Speaker 1: And then I want to woke up everybody. Everybody was
Speaker 1: standing there on smiling never again. Yeah yeah, and we
Speaker 1: need to talk to you about that tattoo. Yeah, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I like the dentist theory. I agree the
Speaker 1: timeline doesn't totally line up. But you know, of the
Speaker 1: people I think he's it's just as easy to prove
Speaker 1: that he did it as anyone else, uh, and not
Speaker 1: even necessarily necessarily deliberately. I mean, he might have given
Speaker 1: him some pills for this that or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 1: and he seems to be the one that's giving Edwin
Speaker 1: the pills with mercury in him. Although you will see
Speaker 1: accounting as it written that Edwin was suffering from an
Speaker 1: STD or an s t I, which like syphilis, which
Speaker 1: mercury was used to treat that. But there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: proof of that. And you know in his examination, they
Speaker 1: didn't find anything when they examined his body, so that's
Speaker 1: the mercury was working. Yes, yeah, but also according to Ice,
Speaker 1: and though he's he did say most definitively that he
Speaker 1: had worms, and and so I'm I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: at all he was taking mercury for that, and maybe
Speaker 1: maybe he's taking his regular dosage of mercury for the
Speaker 1: worms or whatever. And then the dentist prescribed some new
Speaker 1: pills that very day which happened to have mercury in them,
Speaker 1: and the odeed i'm mercury. But then that still doesn't explain.
Speaker 1: It doesn't explain the chloroform. Doesn't explain the chloroform, which
Speaker 1: is why this story is so fun. It's just you
Speaker 1: were just running in circles. I think, no, I think
Speaker 1: what happened is it was the wife shuld just say,
Speaker 1: you know one day that they're just sitting around and
Speaker 1: it's just and she just probably said, you know what, darling,
Speaker 1: it's been so long since I've been in a chuck
Speaker 1: lug contest. Why don't we check some brandy? And and
Speaker 1: so it just so he just just chugged it down
Speaker 1: so fast he couldn't taste the chloroform in there. And
Speaker 1: then damn. Oh, well, one thing I think there is
Speaker 1: there's it's still I'm still thinking there is some possibility
Speaker 1: of some sort of clever introduction through the food into
Speaker 1: his stomach. That's a possibility to will you science that
Speaker 1: out and then come back to us. Okay, that's your homework,
Speaker 1: and I'm not eating any meals here. Most likely he
Speaker 1: just slugged down some brandy that have been spiked. Well,
Speaker 1: that's all we've got on this particular story. If you
Speaker 1: have thoughts or comments or questions about this one, you
Speaker 1: can always reach out to us by email by sending
Speaker 1: an email to Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can go to our website where you can read
Speaker 1: some of the research about this story. You can also
Speaker 1: find links to our episode history. All of that's available
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Speaker 1: this week. Uh So, I guess we're gonna get out
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