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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the

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Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's

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Speaker 2: works some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.

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Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling.

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Speaker 2: True crimes, and I weigh in using modern forensic techniques

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Speaker 2: to bring new insights to old mysteries.

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Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime

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Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.

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Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.

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Speaker 1: This is buried Bones.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Kate, how are you doing today?

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Speaker 1: I'm doing so well. I've been such a perky mood.

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Speaker 1: We're kind of nearing the end of summer, which is

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Speaker 1: just so hot in Texas. What about you in Colorado?

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Speaker 1: Is it already? Fridge? I picture snow already and it's August.

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Speaker 2: No, we're still always away from snow, but we can

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Speaker 2: get snow as early as in like mid October. But

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Speaker 2: like you know, at Colorado, the weather's always getzophrenic. You know,

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Speaker 2: right now it will get warm, it gets into the

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Speaker 2: mid nineties, but it can be down into the fifties overnight.

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Speaker 2: It's just that you never know what you're going to

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Speaker 2: get when you wake up here.

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Speaker 1: So I'm trying to picture what you do over the summer,

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Speaker 1: So mountain biking, do you do some lake swimming or

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Speaker 1: do you hop in the There is there a river

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Speaker 1: that you wrestle chrisly Barren and jump into afterwards?

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Speaker 2: No, you know, I haven't. I have not gone out

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Speaker 2: on the lakes. And you know, part of I used

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Speaker 2: to be a competitive swimmer.

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Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Part of getting my shoulder repaired was with the

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Speaker 2: hope of being able to take up swimming again for

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Speaker 2: exercise for fitness, and I'm just getting to the point

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Speaker 2: of being able to swim. The problem is here in Colorado,

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Speaker 2: you know, unlike California, where you have pools on every

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Speaker 2: street corner that you can go swim laps in, you

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Speaker 2: just don't have them here. So I might have to

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Speaker 2: resort to diving in a lake and maybe, you know,

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Speaker 2: swimming around a little bit. I just have to make

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Speaker 2: sure I can still swim.

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Speaker 1: So competitive, like college competitive or what were you doing? Okay, now,

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Speaker 1: what were you doing?

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Speaker 2: It was oh, ages twelve to fifteen, Okay, and you

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Speaker 2: know I was starting to get quite good. In fact,

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Speaker 2: I went to a pre qualifying meat for the McDonald's

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Speaker 2: Junior Olympics out in northern California for the one hundred

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Speaker 2: yard fly short course, and actually, you know kind of

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Speaker 2: place in the higher end. If I had continued to swim,

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Speaker 2: I think I could have gotten really good, potentially up

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Speaker 2: into the collegiate level. It's my big regret is that

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Speaker 2: I did not to continue swimming.

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Speaker 1: I think they call it, isn't it sort of like

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Speaker 1: a lifetime sport that you can do, is swimming, unlike

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Speaker 1: mountain biking. Perhaps if you're it seems a little safer,

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Speaker 1: and I think it'd be great for you to get

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Speaker 1: back into. I mean, boy, what good exercise. But I

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Speaker 1: could see if you love the butterfly, how shoulder repair

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Speaker 1: would be tough on that.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you know, But my hope is is to be

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Speaker 2: able to do that again someday. But I have to

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Speaker 2: start slow, So that's what I'm doing.

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Speaker 1: Wow, Well, that's good. That's good. Well, we're going to

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Speaker 1: a part of the world where there's much cooler weather.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how much swimming they would have done

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Speaker 1: in this time period. It's certainly not casual swimming, but

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Speaker 1: maybe so instead of thinking of wonderful snow capped mountains

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Speaker 1: or warm lakes for you to dive into, you need

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Speaker 1: to picture dreary, drizzly England in eighteen fifty five, where

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Speaker 1: things are decidedly less positive than they are for us now,

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Speaker 1: because that's where we're going in time, dreary.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's see where this goes.

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Speaker 1: We're not starting out in a positive foot, but let's

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Speaker 1: set the scene. Okay, Paul, here's the scene. A horse race,

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Speaker 1: which I have never been into. Have you gone to

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Speaker 1: many horse races?

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Speaker 2: No? Not at all. Yeah. I think when I was younger,

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Speaker 2: every now and then, you know, the Kentucky Derby would

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Speaker 2: be on TV. But I've never in person been to

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Speaker 2: a horse race and it's not my thing.

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Speaker 1: Well, this is a story about a potential serial killer

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Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty five England, and it begins with what

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Speaker 1: is probably his first victim or maybe not.

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Speaker 2: Okay, you got my attention, I know.

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Speaker 1: And it's at a horse race and we are in Shrewsbury, England.

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Speaker 1: It's a November thirteenth, eighteen fifty five, and The man's

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Speaker 1: name is John Parsons Cook. He's twenty eight years old,

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Speaker 1: and he's a big gambler to me. I bet big

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Speaker 1: gambler pricks your ears up a little bit because we're

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Speaker 1: talking about a potentially high risk lifestyle depending on how

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Speaker 1: big of a gambler and how high profile he is.

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Speaker 2: Right, well, yeah, this is most certainly anytime we start

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Speaker 2: dealing with with gambling and the financial interest associated with it,

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Speaker 2: you know, this is a prime motive for why violent

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Speaker 2: crime occurs. So you know, if Cook ends up let's

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Speaker 2: say badly in debt, and something bad happens to Cook,

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Speaker 2: then of course suspect Pool is likely going to be

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Speaker 2: located within whoever he owed money to.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's just say the reverse happens. Oh, John Parsons

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Speaker 1: Cook is very very lucky or very smart, depending on

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Speaker 1: how smart you think you have to be to pick

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Speaker 1: the winning pony, which is what he did. He won

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Speaker 1: three thousand pounds in eighteen fifty five on this horse race,

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Speaker 1: which is one hundred thousand pounds today, which is a

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Speaker 1: little over one hundred thousand dollars. That seems like a

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Speaker 1: pretty big purse to me for a horse race. But

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Speaker 1: what do I know, I don't know anything about the

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Speaker 1: ducky Derby. I mean, that's a lot of money, no

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Speaker 1: matter what, that's a ton of money.

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Speaker 2: That's a lot of money. My understanding is, though, is

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Speaker 2: that the winnings on these big horse races can be

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Speaker 2: quite large.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And so he is over the moon, of course,

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Speaker 1: and he holds a big celebratory dinner at a restaurant.

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Speaker 1: He has a lot of alcohol. So this sounds like

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Speaker 1: a pretty bad setup already. Man who is very loud

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Speaker 1: and boisterous about winning a ton of money at a

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Speaker 1: horse race. He's throwing a big dinner and he's getting drunk.

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Speaker 1: He's got, you know, a lot of friends around him,

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Speaker 1: and he's bragging about this money. So one of the

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Speaker 1: newspapers called The Illustrated Times that Marin used as a

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Speaker 1: source for this said, this is the quote. He was

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Speaker 1: tossing off his glass. He complained that there was something

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Speaker 1: in it which burned his throat, and he left the

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Speaker 1: restaurant that night feeling very ill. And he's not feeling

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Speaker 1: any better the next day, and he tells a friend

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Speaker 1: of his that he suspects one of their mutual friends

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Speaker 1: might have dosed him, which of course, would have been

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Speaker 1: the phrase for poisoned in the eighteen hundreds. So something

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Speaker 1: burned in his throat. We know that alcohol is probably

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Speaker 1: a pretty good mask for a poison. If that's in

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Speaker 1: fact what happened to Cook.

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Speaker 2: This is interesting because in many ways this is like,

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Speaker 2: you know what the modern equivalent of being roofied would

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Speaker 2: be today, right, oh gosh, yeah, yeah, So somebody, you know,

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Speaker 2: while Cook was distracted to drop something into his drink,

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Speaker 2: and you know, if he's drinking something like what I

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Speaker 2: would do is like bourbon neat which has a burn

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Speaker 2: to it. You know, whatever this poison could have been.

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Speaker 2: If that's what's going on, just that natural alcohol burn

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Speaker 2: might mask. If this poison provides a burning sensation as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And we don't know enough about it yet. We

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Speaker 1: just know he's complaining he doesn't feel well. He drank

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Speaker 1: something that burned his throat. It doesn't kill him. And

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Speaker 1: he says, nuts to this, I'm leaving, I'm getting out

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Speaker 1: of this area, and he goes back to his hometown

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Speaker 1: in England, which is about forty miles away from where

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Speaker 1: we were Shrewsbury.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you this in terms of so

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Speaker 2: he wins this three thousand pounds.

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Speaker 1: Three thousand pounds.

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Speaker 2: So does he actually walk away from the horse track

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Speaker 2: with this money in cash? Is he given some sort

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Speaker 2: of note to where he would go to a bank

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Speaker 2: and get money. You know, That's what I'm trying to

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Speaker 2: figure out, is why is he a target at this

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Speaker 2: restaurant bar area.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like he has cashed in when he is

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Speaker 1: on his way to his hometown. But he has a ticket,

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Speaker 1: so he cashes in. He's got his money, and he

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Speaker 1: heads to ruge Lee is where it's called, and he

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Speaker 1: goes to his hometown. He asks a friend to come

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Speaker 1: with him, William Palmer, who's a doctor. Palmer is a

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Speaker 1: great choice to go with him because he was at

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Speaker 1: the racetrack with him and he also lives in that town.

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Speaker 1: So Palmer goes with him, and Cook continues to feel sick.

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Speaker 1: He got over it, and then he felt sick again,

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Speaker 1: same sort of icky feeling. There's a lot of Now

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Speaker 1: he's complaining of a tremendous amount of stomach pain. And

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Speaker 1: at this point, you know, if I were Palmer, I

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Speaker 1: would be thinking, yeah, this probably is more than food poisoning,

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Speaker 1: because wouldn't you get over food poisoning within generally twenty

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Speaker 1: four hours or so, we're talking about a couple of

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Speaker 1: days later.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think, for you know, food poisoning in which

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Speaker 2: it impacts the stomach, like where you're throwing up and

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Speaker 2: stuff that could actually hit you pretty quick because it's

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Speaker 2: you know, the bacteria is inside your stomach and now

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Speaker 2: you're throwing up as your body is trying to get

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Speaker 2: rid of whatever is releasing a toxin into your system.

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Speaker 2: With food poisoning, it can progress through your digestive track,

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Speaker 2: and so you may end up developing additional symptoms. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: it sounds like if he has got ongoing for like

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Speaker 2: for days afterwards, and this maybe it's not food poisoning.

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Speaker 2: Maybe he was right and that somebody slipped him something

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Speaker 2: in his drink.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that this makes a lot of

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Speaker 1: sense because this is lasting a long time, and this

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Speaker 1: would make me uncomfortable. Doctor Palmer is watching all of

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Speaker 1: this happen. His friend really an agony. We have another

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Speaker 1: friend who joins mister Jones, who comes in and everybody

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Speaker 1: is trying to pay attention to cook and then he

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Speaker 1: recovers and he feels good. But sometime a few days

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Speaker 1: after that, so this is about eight days after the

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Speaker 1: first incident. He has a huge setback. We see a

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Speaker 1: recurrence of the symptoms that he had when he was

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Speaker 1: at the racetrack. We have a lot of hurried response,

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Speaker 1: including from mister Jones and doctor Palmer. So a little

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Speaker 1: after eleven o'clock on November twenty first, Jones contacts Palmer

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Speaker 1: and says, listen, Cook is in major pain. You have

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Speaker 1: to do something. So he gives him morphine and these

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Speaker 1: are morphine pills. That seems like not a great way

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Speaker 1: to treat stomach ailment. But maybe I'm wrong. I guess

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Speaker 1: if he's treating the pain that's coming with the stomach ailment.

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Speaker 1: I'm just trying to think of the thought behind in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty giving someone morphine pills.

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Speaker 2: That's what it sounds like to me. Morphine has historically

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Speaker 2: been used for pain, and it's a very good pain reliever.

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Speaker 2: And also, just like any opiate, can cause constipation, and

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Speaker 2: I know some people will have an upset stomach as

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Speaker 2: a result of taking an opiate like morphine, so it

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Speaker 2: could compound his symptoms. If he's one of those individuals

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Speaker 2: that doesn't tolerate the morphine, well.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm a little looking side eye at Jones because

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Speaker 1: it seems like every time something is happening to Cook

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Speaker 1: in this room, he's calling doctor Palmer to respond to

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Speaker 1: some trauma that Cook is going through. Again. About an

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Speaker 1: hour later, after the morphine had kicked in, Cook calmed down,

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Speaker 1: seemingly went to sleep. Doctor Palmer went to sleep. Jones

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Speaker 1: comes knocking again and says, you need to respond. He's

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Speaker 1: crying out. Now. Palmer throws on his clothes and he's

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Speaker 1: down the hall. Within three minutes, he addressed so quickly,

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Speaker 1: and he hands Cook two more pills to take. Now,

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Speaker 1: these are ammonia pills, and I know I gave this

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Speaker 1: to you as an assignment. I am so clueless about

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Speaker 1: why you would ever use ammonia pills for anything, and clueless,

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Speaker 1: frankly that these even existed. What's your idea.

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Speaker 2: I did take a look about the ammonia pills because

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Speaker 2: I hadn't heard of ammonia pills before. But it sounds

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Speaker 2: like just like today where you have smelling salts, okay,

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Speaker 2: where somebody is about to faint. You know, you crack

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Speaker 2: the smelling salt ampule, and now you get that ammonia

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Speaker 2: release and the person is able to come to a

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Speaker 2: little bit better. And some athletes will use ammonia, you know,

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Speaker 2: before an athletic event in order to try to get energized.

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Speaker 2: And it turns out that ammonia is a respiratory stimulant.

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Speaker 1: Huh.

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Speaker 2: So for these emmonia pills, this isn't something that you ingest,

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Speaker 2: you know, orally, it's actually you put them up your nose.

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Speaker 2: What I did not know that you imagine?

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Speaker 1: So what the casing dissolves or something like a capsule.

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Speaker 2: I don't think this is something in which you are

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Speaker 2: completely absorbing these pills nasally? Nasally? Am I saying that right?

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Speaker 1: I think that's a word. Will say it's a word.

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Speaker 2: It's close enough. But it's just like you know, imagine

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Speaker 2: the ammonia salts. It's going to be where now you

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Speaker 2: have this off gassing of ammonia that's you. Of course,

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Speaker 2: you know, the nasal cavity will absorb that rapidly in

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Speaker 2: order to get that respiratory stimulant. You know. I'm not

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Speaker 2: sure why ammonia pills would be used in this particular

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Speaker 2: set of circumstances, but maybe doctor Palmer thought he just

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Speaker 2: was struggling to breathe was about to faint, was lightheaded,

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Speaker 2: and decided the ammonia pill was the way to go.

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Speaker 1: Would ammonia pill up the nose kill him? If I

255
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Speaker 1: just said, Paul, give me one of those ammonia pills,

256
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Speaker 1: I'm going to give it a shot. There's a way

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Speaker 1: it's going to poison me.

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Speaker 2: Right, I could probably kill me if I cried it.

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Speaker 2: But I couldn't imagine as far as I know. No,

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Speaker 2: you know, this was something that would would be a

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Speaker 2: typical medication back in the day.

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Speaker 1: Okay, this is not helpful at all. These ammonia pills

263
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Speaker 1: make him go into fits. There's a lot of wild shrieking.

264
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Speaker 1: Cook tosses about in fearful convulsions. This is the description,

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Speaker 1: the physical description of what happens next. His limbs were

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Speaker 1: so rigid that it was impossible to raise him, though

267
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Speaker 1: he entreated that they would do so, as he felt

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Speaker 1: that he was suffocating. Every muscle was convulsed, his body

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Speaker 1: bent upward like a bow. They turned him over on

270
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Speaker 1: his side. The action of the heart gradually ceased, and

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Speaker 1: then he's dead. Wow, that's a dramatic death. And I

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Speaker 1: bet they're not exaggerating. They exaggerated a lot in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundredths dramatized. But this sounds terrible.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what sounds like he was absolutely miserable in the

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Speaker 2: last moments of his life.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean does that all tally with a poison

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Speaker 1: like a painful poison death, just feeling completely out of

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Speaker 1: control on your own body.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, to have such a rapid impact on

280
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Speaker 2: the body, This sounds like a very large doze of

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Speaker 2: an acute poisoning.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, John Cook's stepfather thought the same. So his

283
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Speaker 1: stepfather is a man named William Stevens, and he comes

284
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Speaker 1: to rouge Lye and is immediately suspicious because Cook is

285
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Speaker 1: only twenty eight years old and he died very suddenly,

286
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Speaker 1: very violently. And William Steven's the stepfather, says, I want

287
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Speaker 1: an investigation. So now we know that Cook's horse race

288
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Speaker 1: winnings have been taken by another person. So someone who

289
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Speaker 1: was with him at that horse track, who knew he

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Speaker 1: had that money, had taken the money.

291
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Speaker 2: Okay, So just maybe to clarify, at this point, Cook

292
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:49,240
Speaker 2: is living with Jones, or they're at least in the

293
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Speaker 2: same building together.

294
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Speaker 1: Yes, so Jones and Palmer are staying with Cook. Okay,

295
00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,200
Speaker 1: and they're all kind of from the same area, so

296
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Speaker 1: they're looking after him, is what it's like. But you

297
00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:04,240
Speaker 1: do have two men who eight days after he initially

298
00:16:04,400 --> 00:16:08,360
Speaker 1: has the stomach issues, eight days later it's repeated. So

299
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Speaker 1: it seems unlikely these are from his original conditions, right.

300
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Speaker 1: It seems like he got better. Something must have happened

301
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Speaker 1: between the time that he recovers and the time that

302
00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:19,120
Speaker 1: he does.

303
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Speaker 2: No. As I'm thinking about this, you know, when you

304
00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:27,160
Speaker 2: were dealing with poisonings, especially if it's something that appears

305
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:32,080
Speaker 2: to be repeated over time, generally, that's where you start

306
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:36,280
Speaker 2: looking at people who have access to the victim versus

307
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Speaker 2: you know, somebody sends something or doses the victim from

308
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Speaker 2: afar with the hope that that single dose will kill.

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Speaker 2: We see this when let's say a spouse kills their

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Speaker 2: partner with chronic dosing of a poison. It's usually over

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Speaker 2: time and they do it in a way because they

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00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:01,680
Speaker 2: have constant access. Now with Cook, it sounds like he

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00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:05,480
Speaker 2: was dosed away from his residence and then but he's

314
00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:09,080
Speaker 2: now being dosed inside his residence. Yep, So this is

315
00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:12,199
Speaker 2: where who has access to him. Of course, you've got

316
00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:15,920
Speaker 2: Palmer and Jones. And then is there anybody else flowing

317
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Speaker 2: in and out of this building? Is there you know,

318
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Speaker 2: food being brought in or different, you know, drink something

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Speaker 2: that he would be ingesting.

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Speaker 1: Well, the police don't pay much attention to other suspects

321
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:31,159
Speaker 1: because weird things start popping up and they are alarmed.

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Speaker 1: So there is a postmortem. There is a doctor who's

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00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:38,960
Speaker 1: working on his stomach contents, and there is a mystery

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Speaker 1: man who made access to this building and who barged

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Speaker 1: the doctors from behind, pushed the doctors from behind, and

326
00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:50,199
Speaker 1: spilled the contents of his stomach all over the floor

327
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:53,440
Speaker 1: to try to ruin it. Then took off and nobody

328
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Speaker 1: really could identify this mystery man.

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Speaker 2: This is during the autopsy.

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Speaker 1: Yes, somebody entered the building and essentially pushed over the

331
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Speaker 1: entire cart to try to ruin the contents. I mean literally,

332
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Speaker 1: you know, we hear of a people trying to derail

333
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Speaker 1: an investigation, and that they're obviously trying to send this

334
00:18:12,760 --> 00:18:16,600
Speaker 1: out for toxicology results and this is not working very well.

335
00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:19,320
Speaker 1: They also find out that there was a boy who

336
00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:22,600
Speaker 1: was supposed to be carrying the samples kind of delivering

337
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:24,760
Speaker 1: them to the person who is going to do the testing.

338
00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:29,800
Speaker 1: Some mystery man tried to bribe this boy into giving

339
00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:33,320
Speaker 1: him the stomach contents before the county coroner could get

340
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:36,160
Speaker 1: a hold of it. So somebody's really inserting themselves into

341
00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:36,920
Speaker 1: this investigation.

342
00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:40,760
Speaker 2: Well sure, now is this mystery man? Do they get

343
00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:42,160
Speaker 2: a description of him at all?

344
00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:45,800
Speaker 1: Well, it's someone that people know. So here's what we

345
00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:48,280
Speaker 1: come down to. We have a doctor who has been

346
00:18:48,359 --> 00:18:52,200
Speaker 1: treating Cook, and we have a friend, mister Jones, who

347
00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:54,720
Speaker 1: is there every time Cook is in paid and then

348
00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:58,240
Speaker 1: requests help from the doctor. Of these two people, I

349
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:00,359
Speaker 1: know you're going to say a poul hole saying I

350
00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:02,760
Speaker 1: don't have enough information yet. But of these two people,

351
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:05,720
Speaker 1: who seems like the likelier person. You have a doctor

352
00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:08,040
Speaker 1: who probably knows about poisons. But you have a guy

353
00:19:08,080 --> 00:19:10,920
Speaker 1: there who probably doesn't have a lot of money, who

354
00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:14,399
Speaker 1: could use these winnings and who's there? So what would you,

355
00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:16,959
Speaker 1: as an officer, who would you concentrate on? First?

356
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:24,439
Speaker 2: I don't have enough information. No, Well I think you

357
00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:28,080
Speaker 2: have to consider both, right, Yeah, Because again, if it's

358
00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:32,239
Speaker 2: looking like there has been repeated poisonings of Cook, it

359
00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 2: is going to be people who have access and it's

360
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:40,320
Speaker 2: Jones and Palmer. What stands out to me is after Palmer,

361
00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:45,000
Speaker 2: I'm assuming, puts these ammonia pills into Cook's nasal cavity,

362
00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:48,000
Speaker 2: that's when all of a sudden, he really goes into

363
00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:51,920
Speaker 2: a convulsive fit where now the muscles are stiffening up

364
00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:55,920
Speaker 2: and he dies from this. And I'm now wondering where

365
00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:59,800
Speaker 2: these truly ammonia pills that Palmer gave Cook.

366
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:02,320
Speaker 1: That's a really really good question because now we're going

367
00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:05,640
Speaker 1: to talk about what ends up happening with the discovery

368
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:08,320
Speaker 1: of this mystery man. So the police go and they

369
00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:11,160
Speaker 1: start questioning everybody who is at this racetrack, and they

370
00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:13,840
Speaker 1: go and meet a man named Ishmael Fisher who is

371
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:17,480
Speaker 1: friends with Cook. Cook told Fisher I think somebody is

372
00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:19,680
Speaker 1: trying to poison me that night where he drank something

373
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:22,760
Speaker 1: that burned his throat, And Ishmael said, who do you

374
00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:25,200
Speaker 1: think would have ever done this of all the people here,

375
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:30,919
Speaker 1: and he said, my friend, doctor William Palmer. Really, my

376
00:20:31,119 --> 00:20:36,120
Speaker 1: question is why would he then allow Palmer to attend

377
00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:39,639
Speaker 1: to him, because remember he recovered Palmer traveled back to

378
00:20:39,720 --> 00:20:43,000
Speaker 1: his hometown with him. Jones met them there. He said,

379
00:20:43,119 --> 00:20:45,119
Speaker 1: I think William Palmer is the one who did it,

380
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:47,320
Speaker 1: so I don't know why he would then allow Palmer

381
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:50,560
Speaker 1: to give him things. But stuff starts, you know, picking

382
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:52,679
Speaker 1: up against Palmer at this point in the story.

383
00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:56,520
Speaker 2: Okay, And during this conversation out at the horse track,

384
00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:59,840
Speaker 2: does he indicate why he thinks Palmer is trying to

385
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:01,680
Speaker 2: He doesn't.

386
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 1: But we start learning a lot of information about William Palmer.

387
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,520
Speaker 1: A lot of it is pretty disturbing. Trust me. At

388
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 1: this point that Cook knows what the issue is and

389
00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:14,600
Speaker 1: that's why he's concerned about Palmer. But let me tell

390
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,320
Speaker 1: you some very simple things that the police start to

391
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:20,160
Speaker 1: put together. Number One, they start tracking once they hear

392
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:24,399
Speaker 1: this from Ishmael. They start tracking William Palmer's movements and

393
00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:27,960
Speaker 1: they find out a couple of interesting things. One is

394
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: that ammonia pills have to be prepared for in advance

395
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:37,920
Speaker 1: because otherwise, you know, they evaporate. Again, I know nothing

396
00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:39,840
Speaker 1: about emmonia pills. I didn't know that. But this is

397
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 1: not something that you can kind of just put up

398
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 1: on the fly. There's not a bottle of ammonia pills

399
00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:45,679
Speaker 1: that you can pull out and give someone. You have

400
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:50,159
Speaker 1: to prepare them, and remember When Jones asked Palmer to

401
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:53,639
Speaker 1: respond that last time, Palmer said, I'll be right there,

402
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 1: and he was there in three minutes. He just threw

403
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:58,960
Speaker 1: on his dressings with these emmonia pills. So the police,

404
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,120
Speaker 1: after talking to x Berts, say those can't have been

405
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:05,520
Speaker 1: ammonia pills. They had to have been something else because

406
00:22:05,560 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 1: he didn't have time to prepare them correctly.

407
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 2: Oh you know what, that makes so much sense. Ammonia

408
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 2: is volatile, That's why you can inhale it. Yeah, and

409
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:17,040
Speaker 2: so if it just sits there, then this volatile chemical

410
00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:20,320
Speaker 2: eventually just evaporate and now you're just left with a

411
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 2: tablet of binding material.

412
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:26,760
Speaker 1: Now, putting a pill up someone's nose, is it feasible

413
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,200
Speaker 1: that something else other than ammonia got into his system?

414
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 1: I mean, could you just shove any kind of poison

415
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: up a person's nose and it would go quickly into

416
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: their system as quickly as going through your stomach.

417
00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't say that, you know, just any poison

418
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 2: would be absorbed through the mucous membranes, but you know

419
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,439
Speaker 2: many could be. I mean, you think about just you know,

420
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 2: recreational drug use, you know, cocaine, salt now, people snort it.

421
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:55,399
Speaker 2: There's other drugs that are ingested by putting up in

422
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:58,720
Speaker 2: the nose because it has such a large surface area

423
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:01,919
Speaker 2: of this mucous membrane, and you get that big rush

424
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 2: as that drug is being absorbed into the body because

425
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:08,640
Speaker 2: it's going straight to the brain in essence, So poisons

426
00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 2: that would be soluble that could pass through the mucous membrane,

427
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 2: any of those poisons could potentially be Now I don't

428
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:17,680
Speaker 2: know off the top of my head which ones would

429
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,720
Speaker 2: be more prone to being absorbed than others, but I

430
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:22,440
Speaker 2: imagine that there's a wide variety.

431
00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:24,200
Speaker 1: I think I can tell you one.

432
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 2: Oh, here we go.

433
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:29,760
Speaker 1: So you remember that in the eighteen hundreds. In the

434
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, too, is very common that if you were

435
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,719
Speaker 1: a doctor and you were requesting something very strong as

436
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: a poison or of medicine, that when you went to

437
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:39,639
Speaker 1: a chemist you would have to sign a book and

438
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:41,719
Speaker 1: how much you got and how much you spend, and

439
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: what the amount was. So they discovered, after canvassing this

440
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 1: town where both of these men were from, Palmer and Cook,

441
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 1: they discovered a chemist had had a book signed by

442
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: Palmer and he had bought Strych nine, oh, just days

443
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: before Cook died. Okay, so I'm going to guess that

444
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,920
Speaker 1: strych nine might be one of those pills or one

445
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 1: of those poisons that you're talking about that might dissolve

446
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: well into the nasal cavities. But I'm just assuming.

447
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 2: Strychnine is actually absorbed in a variety of ways in

448
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 2: the body. I'm not seeing specifically if it's absorbed across

449
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,399
Speaker 2: the mucous membrane, but it can be orally in jested,

450
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 2: it could be inhaled, it could be injected. I would

451
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 2: imagine that strych nine is a molecule that will probably

452
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 2: rapidly pass across the mucus membrane in the nasal cavity.

453
00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 1: Okay, Well that's enough for police. Once they see that

454
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 1: log with the chemist, and they find out about ammonia pills,

455
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 1: and they know that John Cook was suspicious of doctor Palmer,

456
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:44,159
Speaker 1: all of this convinces them to arrest doctor Palmer. Even

457
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: though the evidence is starting to look a little shaky

458
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: because the autopsy they were able to gather up the

459
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: stomach contents and blood and everything else they needed to

460
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: send it off, the test did not show evidence of strychnine.

461
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:01,959
Speaker 1: You had to do homework here this said, the only

462
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: of note substance that was found in his body was

463
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: of antimony, which is a metallic compound that was used

464
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: in medicine at that time. Now this was part of

465
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: your homework. What did you figure out about that a

466
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: metallic compound.

467
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 2: Well, antimony is part of this class. It's a heavy

468
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 2: metal like lead is. Of course, lead is something that

469
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 2: you can be poisoned with. Antimony also can be used

470
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 2: as a poison and was frequently used as a poison. Okay,

471
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 2: it does happen to cause the types of symptoms to

472
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 2: really painful stomach cramps, inflammation of the stomach, eventually diarrhea,

473
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 2: But most importantly it causes this muscle spasms that Cook

474
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 2: was displaying after receiving these so called ammonia pills.

475
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 1: Well, this is the problem they're having is because in

476
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifty Strict nine was really difficult to test for.

477
00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: This must have been a great time for poisoners because

478
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: it so available, and like I said, toxicology had not

479
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 1: caught up yet. So you have all of these poisons available,

480
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: especially to a doctor. The police are having a hard

481
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 1: time using just the circumstantial evidence but they've arrested Palmer

482
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,239
Speaker 1: and he's definitely going to go on trial. So what

483
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: happens in the eighteen fifties is that investigators and doctors

484
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: have to go off the symptoms, just as what we've

485
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 1: talked about if the medicine the poison doesn't show up

486
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:31,160
Speaker 1: in a toxicology report. So in this case, many experts

487
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 1: are convinced that it was a deliberate poisoning, but that's

488
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: not the unanimous conclusion. There are some experts that say

489
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 1: Cook's death is something like tetanus, which produces almost the

490
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: exact same symptoms as strychnine poisoning. Does that sound right? Tetanus?

491
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,719
Speaker 2: Well, and that's just like with the antimonious where you

492
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 2: know the way that it impacts the muscular system. You

493
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 2: get it's like when somebody dies and you get rigor,

494
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 2: you know, where the muscles really stiff up. With strychnine

495
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 2: and antimony, you can also get this convulsive spasms of

496
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 2: the muscles. And so now as I'm thinking about this,

497
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 2: there may have been two poisons used on Cook, one

498
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:21,719
Speaker 2: that is not detectable using eighteen fifties technology, and then

499
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 2: one that they could detect, which was the antimony.

500
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: That makes sense because he gave him a morphine pill

501
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 1: to ingest, and then he gave him what we assume

502
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: as stryck nine pills, something laced you know, ammonia, the

503
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: ammonia pills, so you've got a couple of different substances

504
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: in his body. Now I don't know what these pills

505
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: look like, but certainly you could tell the difference between

506
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: somebody swallowing a pill and someone sticking a capsule up

507
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: their nose. That's interesting. I had not thought of that,

508
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: that there were two different poisons. And god knows what

509
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 1: he got eight days earlier. We don't know. It wasn't

510
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: enough to kill him.

511
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 2: That may be why you see Palmer resorting to a

512
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,719
Speaker 2: different substance as he tried maybe several times, possibly with

513
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 2: antimony or strychnine, and for whatever reason, it wasn't a

514
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 2: high enough dose, it wasn't ingested fully, and he's getting frustrated,

515
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,199
Speaker 2: and now that he has direct access to cook with

516
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:19,479
Speaker 2: these ammonia pills, he uses the different substance, thinking, Okay,

517
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 2: now I'm going to be able to give him something

518
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:22,360
Speaker 2: that will kill him.

519
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: Yep. This is why we talk about sometimes poisoners would

520
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: practice on animals just to see what the dosage would

521
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: be like, which doesn't seem particularly accurate, but I guess

522
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: it's at least good to see that it works, that

523
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 1: a poison works.

524
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 2: Well for the poisoner. Yes, you know, that's where these

525
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,959
Speaker 2: trial runs are critical, because they need to at least

526
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 2: have the confidence that they can apply the poison and

527
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 2: then separate themselves and have plausible deniability.

528
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: Well, now let's get into the motive, because remember Cook

529
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: was suspicious of Palmer. I think that Cook knew that

530
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: Palmer was having some big problems. So when police investigate,

531
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: they find out that he is nearly three million pounds

532
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: of today money in debt twenty thousand pounds in eighteen

533
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: fifty five, almost three million pounds today.

534
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 2: In debt in debt to who.

535
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: Well, just in general, he had a bad gambling habit.

536
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 1: We talk about this all the time. Debt is not

537
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: the most sensational reason, you know that would catch the

538
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: newspaper headlines, to kill somebody, but it happens.

539
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 2: This is financial motive. You know, there's many different versions

540
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: of financial assets, whether you are trying to seek gaining

541
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 2: the asset, such as robbing a bank to uh oh,

542
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 2: you know this debt aspect. My life is in danger

543
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 2: if I don't repay that debt. So now you have

544
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:48,959
Speaker 2: to come up and try to find a source of

545
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 2: these financial assets in order to eliminate this debt and

546
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 2: lower your risk of becoming a victim of violent crime.

547
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: Yep. So the police, of course, are convinced that Palmer

548
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: did it, even though they can't get a straight answer

549
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: on how he did it, what kind of poison it was.

550
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: We see that there's something in his system. We know

551
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: that he's in lots of debt. And then the police say,

552
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is a new gambling habit. This

553
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: can't be, And I wonder if this is the first

554
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: time that he's ever been in debt. It can't be.

555
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: So they start looking at his life. And since eighteen

556
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: forty nine, and this is now we're talking about six

557
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: years later. Since eighteen forty nine, within six years, eight

558
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 1: people have died under sudden or mysterious circumstances in doctor

559
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: Palmer's circle. That's a lot, even for the Victoria era

560
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: where everything around the corner could kill you, that's a

561
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: lot of people to die. And I can give you

562
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: details on each one. I think we're looking at a

563
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: serial killer.

564
00:30:49,480 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 2: Personally, this is interesting. Do all die in a similar manner?

565
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 2: Does it all look like it's poisoning?

566
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: Yes, and these are people very close to him.

567
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 2: Okay, And the fact that he can get away with

568
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 2: this over and over again is interesting.

569
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: It is I mean again, that's the power of being

570
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: a poisoner. In the eighteen hundreds, it was hard to detect.

571
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: You're a doctor, you have a I'm assuming a better

572
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: notion of how to poison someone in the amounts you

573
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: need than the average Joe on the street. So he's

574
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: at an advantage and the investigators are at a pretty

575
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: big disadvantage.

576
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 2: No, for sure. And we're all these other victims. Is

577
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 2: this a similar set of circumstances where they have some

578
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 2: sort of financial asset that ends up going missing.

579
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: Well, let's just jump into this. I'll list them off

580
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: and you can give me your reaction to each one.

581
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: It varies, but it is all financial, it seems to me. Okay,

582
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: We're going to start with Mary Thornton, who is the

583
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: first that we know of mean, and I now absolutely

584
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: believe what you believe, which is you cannot predict when

585
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: somebody started or stopped killing people because I'll just say

586
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: this is what we know. So we know in eighteen

587
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 1: forty nine that Mary Thornton was doctor Palmer's mother in law.

588
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: She did not like him, she did not want her

589
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 1: daughter to marry him, but she did loan him money.

590
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: So for some reason, the Palmers convinced Mary to move

591
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: in with them, which seems a little off brand for

592
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: doctor Palmer, who I just can't see being generous in

593
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: any way possible. Within two weeks, the mother in law

594
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: gets sick and she dies and the Palmers receive twelve

595
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: thousand pounds in inheritance. Let me go back up here

596
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: to look and see what my costs. I know I

597
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: need to have a eighteen fifty five to twenty twenty

598
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: three calculator, but we're talking about quadruple what he got

599
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: from Cook's winnings. So they walked away with looks like

600
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand pounds of today money. She died because

601
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: she left her daughter an inheritance. This was, you know,

602
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: a big windfall for them. It was a huge amount

603
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: of money at the time. But the BBC said that

604
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: doctor Palmer was bitterly disappointed with the money because it

605
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: was paid quarterly. To his wife by the trustees. So

606
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: this was set up as a trust. So he was

607
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,479
Speaker 1: mad because it didn't come as one big chunk. But still,

608
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: I mean goodness, it sounds like he was on an

609
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: allowance a little bit from this inheritance and that probably

610
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: doesn't satisfy any sort of gambling debt that he had.

611
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he in essence, he most early is aware

612
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 2: of this potential inheritance, and in essence now it's the

613
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 2: luring of the victim, so he has direct access in

614
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 2: order to do the poisoning. He may not have been

615
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 2: aware of the terms of the trust. Yeah, and now

616
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 2: it's not Oh he's got somebody who's saying you owe

617
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 2: me x amount and he's not getting that. After this

618
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 2: first instance of poisoning Mary Thornton.

619
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: Right the next year, there's a man named Leonard Blayden.

620
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: Leonard liked horse racing, as did doctor Palmer, and they

621
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: kind of shared their love of it. They would go

622
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: to the track together. So Bladen loaned doctor Palmer some

623
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: money and Bladan wanted his money back, and doctor Palmer said,

624
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty sure, come on over. And shortly after

625
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: Bladon died. And it sounds like the same thing poisoning,

626
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: unexpected death that I'm sure was attributed to a stomach

627
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: ailment or something else or you know, tetanus or something.

628
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know he's doing this because he can yep. Yeah,

629
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 2: so's it's easy for him to do this. He figures

630
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 2: he can easily get away with it, you know. So

631
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 2: he's now resorting to this over and over again. You know,

632
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:44,240
Speaker 2: this is very different when you said when you started

633
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 2: this episode, you're talking about a serial killer. And you know,

634
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 2: for me, I use the term predator. You know, somebody

635
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 2: who is preying upon a victim in order to satisfy

636
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 2: you know, self gratification. And ess it's fantasy with doctor

637
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 2: Palmer right now, I'm not getting a censor's a fantasy component, No,

638
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 2: but he's predatory for financial purposes.

639
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. When you talk to people who study serial killers,

640
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 1: like the folks who do the database and in Florida,

641
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: you know, their definition is obviously I think it's three

642
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: or more with a cooling off period in between. They

643
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 1: don't talk about strangers. You know, gang members are considered

644
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 1: serial killers. If you've got people who are killing people

645
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: over and over again. When I say serial killer, it's

646
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 1: not our society's definition of a serial killer where they

647
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 1: get gratification out of it. In the eighteen fifties, he

648
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: would be called a multiple murderer. And these are specific

649
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: I mean, it is totally money driven. So let me

650
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: tell you about the next four, which is I will

651
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: say the most upsetting. So between eighteen fifty one, so

652
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: he's killed his mother in law, he's killed his friend

653
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 1: who's the gambler with horse racing. Between eighteen fifty one

654
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: and eighteen fifty four, doctor Palmer and Ann had four children.

655
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:02,240
Speaker 1: They all died. So Zizabeth died at two months, Henry

656
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: died at one month, Frank died within just a few

657
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: hours after he's born, and then a little boy named

658
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: John died he was just a few days old. All

659
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 1: of this within a three year period. So you know,

660
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 1: people now are saying, well, he must have done it

661
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: for financial gain because he couldn't afford these kids. So

662
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 1: you're going from insurance fraud and you know, you know, inheritance,

663
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: getting inheritance, you know, getting out of a debt by

664
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: killing Leonard, and now he can't afford these kids and

665
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: he's killing them. But also these are all kids at

666
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: ages where it wasn't suspected because you know, childbirth deaths

667
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: were common, but this mini in this time period is unusual.

668
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he's eliminating his own kids, and in part,

669
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 2: you know, the financial burden that they would pose as

670
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 2: they got older to you know, be able to support them,

671
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 2: to feed them. So he is proactively killing these adult

672
00:36:55,440 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: victims prior to his kids. Obviously financial motive. Now the

673
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 2: killing of the kids, you know, in part you could say, yes,

674
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 2: it's because they are going to have a financial burden.

675
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,760
Speaker 2: He recognizes he can't afford that because he's probably got

676
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 2: somebody that he owes money to. So in some ways

677
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 2: this is almost like a preventive type of homicide. It's

678
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 2: kind of a weird way to look at it in

679
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 2: terms of he is preventing the impact that the kids

680
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 2: are going to have on his life and his financial

681
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 2: assets by committing the homicide because he's got this debt,

682
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 2: probably gambling debt. That is an interesting twist in terms

683
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 2: of how killers typically think.

684
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:42,320
Speaker 1: And his poor wife having four children within three years

685
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: and they all die must have been devastating for her,

686
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: I mean, how horrific.

687
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, you know, and this in many ways just

688
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: shows such a lack of empathy by Palmer, you know.

689
00:37:55,719 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 2: And so now are you dealing with somebody who possibly

690
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 2: he has a psychopathy. Everything about what he is doing

691
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 2: is for himself. And this woman that he supposedly loves,

692
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 2: he doesn't care that she's suffering because he's killing their kids.

693
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:14,439
Speaker 2: He doesn't care about the kid's loss of life. It's

694
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 2: all about him.

695
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: And I will say, doctor Palmer is not restrained from

696
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: doing this simply for financial purposes. Sometimes if he just

697
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 1: doesn't like you, you could end up dead. He has

698
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: an uncle named Joseph Bentley. He's about sixty two years old.

699
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: And it sounds like Palmer just was pissed off by

700
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: this guy. And there's no financial incentive, but Palmer, it

701
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 1: sounds like poisons him. He ends up the same way

702
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: everybody else does. Now and this is in fifty two,

703
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 1: so this is let me give you the timeline here.

704
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 1: This is after the mother in law, after the gambling

705
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: friend of his, and this looks like about after the

706
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 1: second child. So he's four murders in when he kills

707
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:00,360
Speaker 1: his uncle for no good reason except the guy is

708
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 1: borish and verbally abusive towards him.

709
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 2: He's very vindictive.

710
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:08,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, extremely except now we're back to the financial motive.

711
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: So we have two more deaths. He has Anne, who

712
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: is his long suffering wife, and you probably know where

713
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:18,880
Speaker 1: this is going. He takes out a very hefty thirteen

714
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: thousand pound insurance policy on her, which is probably close

715
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: to half a million pounds or half a million dollars now,

716
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 1: and he pays the first and the only premium before

717
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 1: she dies. So let me give you more details because

718
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: it's interesting. He is very deeply in debt. They married

719
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: just two years before he killed his mother in law,

720
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: her mother, and in eighteen fifty four he is more

721
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: in debt than he's ever been. He's also having extramarital affairs,

722
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: and she, of course has had depression because she's lost

723
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: all these children. He takes out the insurance policy, he

724
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: pays the premium, and then she dies. But her death

725
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: in the middle of a deadly cholera outbreak, so the

726
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: symptoms were consistent with cholera. You know, of course, people

727
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 1: think that she was killed for a financial motive. But

728
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: we just did a season for tenfold of a woman

729
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: who was accused of killing four members of her family

730
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: using poison. But with the exception of the last death.

731
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,760
Speaker 1: In Annie Crawford's case, three out of the four people

732
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: died of what looked to be feasible natural causes for

733
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,760
Speaker 1: that time period. So cholera can really seem like poison.

734
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think about like oral ingestion of these poisons

735
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 2: and you get the really upset stomach, you got the

736
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 2: vomiting diarrhea. Now I mean that you can hide your

737
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 2: poisoning underneath this guise of this disease state that is infectious.

738
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 2: It's going around the population, and without modern instrumentation to detect,

739
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:02,439
Speaker 2: you know, the poisons, it'd be so easy to have

740
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 2: the deaths based on the symptoms that were displayed prior

741
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 2: to death, to be dismissed to this infectious agent, the

742
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 2: cholera versus Oh there's something suspicious here, and so nobody's

743
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 2: looking deep into this at all.

744
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So Ann has died, the insurance company has given

745
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: him the thirteen thousand pounds, and suddenly his brother gets sick,

746
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: and this is you know, six months later, maybe Walter Palmer.

747
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,919
Speaker 1: Doctor Palmer had taken out a thirteen thousand pounds same

748
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:34,760
Speaker 1: thing as his wife life insurance policy on his own brother,

749
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: who suffered from severe alcoholism, and when Walter died, doctor

750
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: Palmer never collected the money because he went to the

751
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: insurance company and they became suspicious. It's the same insurance

752
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: company that insured him for his wife. They had just

753
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: paid out the same policy to him for his wife,

754
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: and now he's coming for money from his brother, and

755
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: so they said, we're not paying you anything, which I

756
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: think was the impetus for him to kill John Cook

757
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: because he didn't have to go through an insurance company.

758
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: There was no policy to deal with. It was this

759
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: guy's racetrack winnings and that's it.

760
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 2: Well, Palmer got careless, very you know, he got overconfident.

761
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 2: He got careless. This also happens with your prototypical serial killers,

762
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 2: where you know, they do all this pre planning in

763
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 2: the early cases that they're doing, you know, but as

764
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 2: they have success, they start making mistakes. They don't pay

765
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 2: as much attention because they're overly confident. Well that's what's

766
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 2: going on with Palmer here. I mean, he's using the

767
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 2: same insurance company for the uncle that he just got

768
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 2: paid for by the wife. I mean, how does he

769
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 2: not think that that insurance company is going to go? Hey,

770
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 2: something's not right here.

771
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: Well, then when he is connected to John Cook, everything

772
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 1: falls apart for him. As I said, he was arrested.

773
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 1: They start looking at the backgrounds of everybody who's died

774
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,880
Speaker 1: in his life, and investigators think they have a shot

775
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: at trying to connect him to the deaths of his

776
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,719
Speaker 1: wife Anne and his brother Walter because they were the

777
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,880
Speaker 1: most recent. So you're talking about eighteen fifty four, in

778
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, and we're in eighteen fifty five now,

779
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 1: So they exhum Anne in Walter's bodies and no luck.

780
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 1: They cannot find anything there. So I had a question

781
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 1: about that. Let's just say he used Strych nine on everybody.

782
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the case, but if he

783
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,600
Speaker 1: did it on everybody, do we have any idea how

784
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: long Strych nine would stay in the body? Would it

785
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 1: be years? Because I know when I dealt with John

786
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: Reginald Christy in my first book, The Serial Killer, they

787
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: showed signs of carbon monoxide poisoning for quite a long

788
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: time after they were buried, and that's how they were

789
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,280
Speaker 1: able to connect him. Is that the case with other poisons?

790
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 1: Does it stay in your system?

791
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 2: No? Every substance is different in terms of how the

792
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:56,399
Speaker 2: body treats it, how the body metabolizes it, how long

793
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 2: it will stay in the system. Stryc nine, I'm looking

794
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 2: at it right now. Nine has a very rapid half

795
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 2: life within ten hours the body. As soon as strychnine

796
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 2: is in the body, it is rapidly metabolizing it, so

797
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 2: it gets broken down very quickly. And even though let's

798
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 2: say somebody dies within a few hours after the Strycht

799
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 2: nine ingestion, that doesn't mean that the biological processes in

800
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,320
Speaker 2: the body just stop. They continue, So there is still

801
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 2: metabolic activity in this supposed dead body. So substances like

802
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,959
Speaker 2: strych nine would still continue to be degraded and there'd

803
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 2: be a smaller and smaller amount left. And now you're

804
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:41,320
Speaker 2: talking about years, several years later where they're exhuming these bodies.

805
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 2: You've got decompositional processes. This is before the days of embalming.

806
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:48,959
Speaker 2: I think, if I remember what you told me previous episodes, yeah,

807
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 2: no embal so you know, decomposition, bacterial aspects, and then

808
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 2: the lack of sensitive technologies to detect this type of toxin,

809
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 2: antimony likely would be something that would still be in

810
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,359
Speaker 2: the tissues. You know, it's not something that is going

811
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 2: to be broken down, but the Stryck nine I think

812
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 2: would be and very quickly. They probably would not have

813
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 2: been able to detect it even if they had samples

814
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 2: at autopsy.

815
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 1: Stryck nine seems like almost like the perfect poison. I

816
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: have thought about that, asking poison experts what is the

817
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: perfect poison? And then I fear that I will be

818
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: sued by the family of some husband who has been killed.

819
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 1: Kate Winkler Dawson told us all how to poison with

820
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 1: the perfect poison, so I haven't asked, but I mean,

821
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 1: just as a cursory notice here, it sounds like Stryck

822
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: nine is a pretty decent poison if it leaves the

823
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:42,240
Speaker 1: body as quickly as you say.

824
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 2: I've got my concerns, Kate. I think I'm going to

825
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 2: be very careful when we get together and have drinks.

826
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 2: If there's any burning sensation.

827
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: It's bad whiskey. Well, Doctor Palmer Boy has a hard time.

828
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 1: He is on trial in eighteen fifty six at Old Bailey,

829
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 1: which is pretty much exclusively when I talk about trials

830
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: in England, they most of the time happened at Old Bailey.

831
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:11,800
Speaker 1: It is a classic Old courthouse. That's where John Reginald

832
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: Christy was on trial, and Palmer is on trial only

833
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: for John Parsons Cook, so the gambler. And you know,

834
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: they just don't have enough evidence. They feel like they

835
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 1: barely have enough evidence here because you know, a lot

836
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: of this is circumstantial. They just cannot connect. No one

837
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 1: saw him pour the poison Strych nine into a cup

838
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 1: of this man's drink. There's just no direct direct evidence.

839
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: He is nicknamed the Prince of Poisoners, which you know,

840
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 1: is a catchy little nickname. It is caught national attention. Unbelievable.

841
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:50,240
Speaker 1: I mean, he has just become this star prisoner, somebody

842
00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: who everybody is focusing on. I think mostly out of fear.

843
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: To think that the family man who lives next door

844
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: to you, who treats your family potentially, who sees you

845
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: at your most vulnerable, has the ability to kill you,

846
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: I think is unthinkable to people now, but especially in

847
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds.

848
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we see this today, you know, with the

849
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 2: nurses or the doctors that end up killing their patients

850
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 2: over and over and over again. You know, there is

851
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 2: definitely a pathology there. There's something going on psychologically with

852
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 2: this type of offender. Palmer most certainly could have pursued

853
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 2: other resources in order to deal with his gambling debt,

854
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 2: but he chose to kill these people, and he's relying

855
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 2: on his skill set. That's offenders do. Different offenders have

856
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 2: different skill sets, and they rely on their skill sets

857
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 2: in order to accomplish the crime. In Palmer's case, you know,

858
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 2: you said that they were struggling in terms of trying

859
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 2: to prove this case against Cook and investigatively. You know,

860
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 2: one of the things I'm wondering is is well they

861
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 2: follow the money. You always in financial cases you have

862
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 2: to follow the money. So what happened to Cook's you know,

863
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 2: horse track winnings. Did they ever find.

864
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 1: That they are not saying that they are saying that

865
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 1: somebody has that money it is gone, and that he

866
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 1: was really they concentrate on way down by debt. And

867
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: I want to point this out because I don't know

868
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: if a lot of people understand this. There was something

869
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 1: called a debtor's prison in America and in the UK,

870
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,359
Speaker 1: so you would not declare bankruptcy like you could now

871
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: and say sorry. You know, this was a difference that

872
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: you would be imprisoned if you could not pay your

873
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: debt and potentially execute it at some point. That is

874
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: what he was trying to avoid by doing all of this.

875
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: And at the same time, of course, he had a

876
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: gambling issue, so all of this culminates in these desperate

877
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: acts that of course I would just say, well, this

878
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 1: is a one off. It's Sehn Cook, and you know

879
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:57,280
Speaker 1: he wanted to pay off these debts. But he's obviously

880
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,879
Speaker 1: been doing this for years, so you're right. I think

881
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: there's just something ingrained in him. I don't know if

882
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: his mother in law was the first either. I think

883
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: that's the one that they thought was the origin of

884
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: all this. I'm not so convinced.

885
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 2: I think you go back to his medical school training.

886
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:15,839
Speaker 2: At a certain point, the light bulb goes off and

887
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 2: he recognizes, oh, I can do this. So you know,

888
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:23,839
Speaker 2: when he starts getting into debt and there's this inheritance

889
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 2: with the mother in law, you know, he may be

890
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:30,600
Speaker 2: already well versed at doing this, possibly not necessarily for

891
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:34,439
Speaker 2: financial reasons. But we've seen with the borish uncle, well

892
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:36,839
Speaker 2: he didn't like him, so he killed him. So did

893
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 2: he have some enemies in the past that he decided, well,

894
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 2: I'll get rid of them because I know I can,

895
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 2: I know how to do it utilizing these substances.

896
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's interesting about this

897
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: case is the media really hated this guy. I mean

898
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 1: they really felt like he was this uppity doctor who

899
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: had gone and killed all of these people. And do

900
00:49:57,680 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 1: I think he killed eight other people besides John par

901
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,800
Speaker 1: Since Cook. Probably yes. But could some of these deaths,

902
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: particularly the ones attributed to his children, have been natural. Yes.

903
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that he doesn't deserve to be put

904
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 1: on trial for this murder. But I found this with

905
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: Edward Ruloff from you know, tenfold more wicked, where people

906
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 1: were pinning everything on him. You know, he was a boogeyman.

907
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 1: I mean I often joke that JFK shooting would have

908
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:28,240
Speaker 1: been pinned on Edward Ruloff just because everybody wanted to connect,

909
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 1: they wanted answers for these cases that were unsolved. It

910
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: sounds like William Palmer turned into the boogeyman for this

911
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: area in eighteen fifty six when he went on trial.

912
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 2: This is a natural tendency and I've actually fallen victim

913
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 2: to this myself, what I call over linkage of cases

914
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:49,240
Speaker 2: where you find an offender that is committing a certain

915
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 2: type of crime, and then you see, oh, there's these

916
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:54,720
Speaker 2: other cases in the same area, the same type of crime,

917
00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:56,840
Speaker 2: and so you think it must be this guy. You know,

918
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 2: typically for me it was your fantasy motivated it's actually

919
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 2: motivated serial predators. Turns out, well, no, there's actually more

920
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 2: than one of those types of offenders operating in the

921
00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 2: same area at the same time committing the same type

922
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:08,399
Speaker 2: of crime.

923
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: Yep.

924
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 2: Here you potentially have natural deaths such as those potentially

925
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 2: from a disease like cholera that mimic the symptoms of

926
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 2: the poisoning, and back then they couldn't differentiate these necessarily,

927
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 2: and so they just overlinked those natural deaths as being homicides.

928
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 2: They obviously didn't charge him with those homicides, but the

929
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 2: press and the people who are reading about him are

930
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 2: just going, yes, he must be responsible for all of them. However,

931
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 2: one thing I will say with Palmer is well, there's

932
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:43,399
Speaker 2: smoke there. Yeah, circumstantially there's smoke there, and I would

933
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 2: lean towards yes, he's likely responsible for a majority of

934
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 2: those deaths.

935
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: Well, the jury agreed and they found him guilty on

936
00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 1: June fourteenth, eighteen fifty six, and he was hanged. Three

937
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,879
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people showed up to watch him be executed.

938
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: I have reported on a lot of public executions. This

939
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 1: is probably the biggest crowd I've ever heard of. Three

940
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:11,879
Speaker 1: hundred thousand a town, a small city, arrived to watch

941
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:16,319
Speaker 1: him be executed. And his last words were, I am

942
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:21,440
Speaker 1: innocent of poisoning cook dot dot dot by Stryck nine.

943
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:26,760
Speaker 1: Oh and with that he lives in infamy, because what

944
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: the hell does that mean?

945
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 2: It just because it was the antimony that took about.

946
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 2: I didn't kill it with strychnine. It didn't work, so

947
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 2: I used antimony.

948
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: But you three hundred thousand rubs wouldn't understand that. I'm

949
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 1: not going to stand here and explain the difference between

950
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,799
Speaker 1: antimony and Stryck nine. So there you go. I'm just

951
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 1: gonna say, yes, I did it, but not with strych nine.

952
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 1: Ominous words, boy. And that's what makes this case such

953
00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:52,919
Speaker 1: a mystery, because there are people who say, definitive proof,

954
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:56,240
Speaker 1: where is that definitive proof? Yes, he bought the stryct nine, Yes,

955
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:59,360
Speaker 1: his signature's there. Where is the Stryck nine, Doctor Palmer

956
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 1: know it's somewhere around here. I have no idea, so

957
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: you know, it's lucy goosey. But obviously the jury seemed

958
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 1: to make the right decision.

959
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. You know, even though it is circumstantial,

960
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 2: you know, these are strong circumstances. Yes, And in this

961
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 2: day and age, with modern technologies, I always like to

962
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 2: see supporting physical evidence, objective evidence, you know. But back then,

963
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 2: the circumstances are all that they would would have been

964
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,240
Speaker 2: able to use, and the circumstances are pretty strong.

965
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 1: I agree. Circumstances certainly landed innocent people in prison and

966
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 1: kept guilty people out of prison. But I think in

967
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: this case they got it right. So boy, I love

968
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: a good poisoner case. And this was very twisty in turning.

969
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy potentially killed nine people and got

970
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 1: away with it for so long, partially because of his

971
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:55,240
Speaker 1: station in life, partially because of the time period, partially

972
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:59,760
Speaker 1: because the lack of forensics available, his reputation, the method

973
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 1: that he used. I mean, this was sort of a

974
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 1: perfect storm where he got away with it for so

975
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:06,319
Speaker 1: long and still he died in debt.

976
00:54:06,719 --> 00:54:10,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, Colin, and the fact that he I mean, he's

977
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 2: making the mistakes towards the end in terms of, you know,

978
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 2: continuing to poison people that he is directly associated with

979
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 2: alerting the insurance company by going back to the same spot.

980
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 2: I'm wondering because you know, early on you say, you know,

981
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 2: Cook is talking to Ishmael and he's saying, Hey, you know,

982
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:29,880
Speaker 2: I'm concerned Palmer is poisoning me, are going to poison me?

983
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 2: What did Cook know? He must have known something about Palmer.

984
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: I think if you are a chatting at the track,

985
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: probably money is coming up, Probably a desperate look is

986
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 1: coming up. You know, they're all there doing the same thing.

987
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:47,240
Speaker 1: And so this was too much for Palmer, he felt,

988
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: seems like to me, I mean, that felt like the

989
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 1: easy way out. It's so interesting to see the progression

990
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,800
Speaker 1: of all of these cases. He doesn't do enough to

991
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 1: John Cook the first time it progresses, you know, with

992
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:01,959
Speaker 1: his mother and lif law. There's an inheritance, there's getting

993
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 1: rid of the kids, there's insurance fraud. You know, finally

994
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I'm just not going to deal with

995
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 1: the insurance company anymore, and I'm just going to kill

996
00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:12,080
Speaker 1: someone for their money. So it's not often that we

997
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:15,840
Speaker 1: get to see sort of the span of somebody's criminal,

998
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 1: murderous career like this. And that's why I thought this

999
00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: case was really great to bring you.

1000
00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 2: No, this is this is excellent. You know, it really

1001
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 2: just strikes me. I've said this before, never underestimate the

1002
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:30,640
Speaker 2: depravity of the human male. And usually that's in the

1003
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 2: context of you know, sexual components or sexual behaviors. But here, here,

1004
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 2: you've got this this man that is resorting to just

1005
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:45,080
Speaker 2: eliminating all these lives. Yeah, just for his own purpose.

1006
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,720
Speaker 2: He got himself in trouble and he's just killing people

1007
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:50,320
Speaker 2: to try to get himself out of trouble.

1008
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 1: And now I'm going to use that phrase and tell

1009
00:55:55,680 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 1: my daughter's that in about three years, once they start dating,

1010
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:01,160
Speaker 1: once they start I like that. This is what Paul

1011
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 1: Hole says. Well, you need to take a breath because

1012
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: we're off for a week. I don't know what you're

1013
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:07,880
Speaker 1: gonna do without me. Have some more covenge.

1014
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:12,080
Speaker 2: Oh, I'll come up with something, Kate.

1015
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:13,960
Speaker 1: I'm be sure you'll take a break. You won't be

1016
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 1: doing anything between now and next week, but take a

1017
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:18,840
Speaker 1: week off and then I will see you the following week.

1018
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 2: Awesome, Take care.

1019
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 1: Thanks, This has been an exactly right production.

1020
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia

1021
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,040
Speaker 2: dot com slash Buried Bones Sources.

1022
00:56:34,239 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.

1023
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,720
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan and Kate Winkler Dawson.

1024
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Leona Scuilachi.

1025
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.

1026
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

1027
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:51,960
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarreff, Georgia hard Stark, and Danielle Kramer.

1028
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at

1029
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:56,840
Speaker 1: buried Bones pod.

1030
00:56:57,280 --> 00:56:59,760
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded

1031
00:56:59,800 --> 00:57:01,880
Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decote the

1032
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now

1033
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:08,239
Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's

1034
00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: Gold Cases is also available now