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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: They were constantly punished, and you.

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Speaker 3: Know, their hair was cut off and they were like

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Speaker 3: collar epidemics because it was an image just awful and.

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Speaker 2: Just another run of the mail Victorian school, I guess.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers made, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Occasionally we interview fiction authors

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Speaker 1: who use true crime stories as jumping off points for

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Speaker 1: their novels. Virginia Fato wrote a book called Victorian Psycho,

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Speaker 1: and it's based on several cases you've likely heard of.

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Speaker 1: There's a lecherous head of house, a jealous wife, and

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Speaker 1: a violent governess. Very violent Fato uses Gallo's humor to

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Speaker 1: take real stories and craft them into herowing tales. We've

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Speaker 1: done this a couple of times where we have a

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Speaker 1: novelist come on who has had an inspiration from real stories,

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Speaker 1: true crime stories. So I mean, let's start with You've

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Speaker 1: got these two novels we really want to concentrate. I

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Speaker 1: think on the second one, which is Victorian Psycho, one

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Speaker 1: of the best book titles ever.

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Speaker 3: I have to say, thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 1: And then the first one's Missus Yes, right, Missus March.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Missus March.

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Speaker 1: And so you know you have mentioned to me that

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Speaker 1: you have used real stories as inspiration, but I know

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Speaker 1: these are two really different books. Do you want to

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Speaker 1: give me kind of a quick summary of Missus March

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Speaker 1: and then sort of the way that that maybe you

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Speaker 1: thought maybe you pulled some details without having to go

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Speaker 1: through the stories if you want.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So Missus March is about a New

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Speaker 3: York Upper East Side housewife who's apparently very well put together.

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Speaker 3: She's married to like an important author, and she kind

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Speaker 3: of lives her life projecting this image of privilege and

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Speaker 3: wealth and perfection, and then one day she's in this

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Speaker 3: pastry shop, and the woman who the manager, the owner

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Speaker 3: of the pastry shop is kind of congratulates her on

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Speaker 3: her husband's latest novel, and she's like, this is the

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Speaker 3: first time he's based a character on you, right, and

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Speaker 3: missus March goes kind of, you know, she freezes because

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Speaker 3: the character in question is this like awfully, like the

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Speaker 3: ethetic sex worker nobody wants to even sleep with. Everyone

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Speaker 3: laughs at you know, which is disgusting and stupid and

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Speaker 3: all the things. She wouldn't, you know, be just terrified

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Speaker 3: of anybody considering her to be So she essentially just

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Speaker 3: starts to go insane. She starts to obsess about it awfully,

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Speaker 3: and she thinks that everybody knows that everyone's laughing at

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Speaker 3: her behind her back, that her husband has betrayed her

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Speaker 3: in this ultimate way, and she just starts to go insane.

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Speaker 3: And at the same time, in parallel, she starts to

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Speaker 3: obsess over the fact that her husband may have murdered

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Speaker 3: this young woman in Maine whose like body was found

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Speaker 3: in a place where her husband had a cabin very

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Speaker 3: very close by. So she starts to believe, you know,

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Speaker 3: if he did this to me, he probably murdered this

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Speaker 3: young woman as well. Because he's clearly Satan. That's the

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Speaker 3: beginning of the essence of Missus March.

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Speaker 1: I've been working kind of on my own on a

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Speaker 1: mystery thriller, and as somebody who does nonfiction, you have

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Speaker 1: to it's so hard to bring out of that. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're given this sort of like constrained set of rules, your.

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Speaker 3: Sources or your sources, and that's it.

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Speaker 1: I can't make up who this person is, and then

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're unridled from that. So was

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Speaker 1: that what you thought with the first book? Were you thinking, Okay,

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Speaker 1: how do I get into this person's completely screwed up mind?

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Speaker 1: Did you definitely, you know, start considering looking at true

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Speaker 1: crime stories or anything like that the stranger than fiction.

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Speaker 3: There were a couple of things that kind of bled

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Speaker 3: into the story accidentally, so to speak. Like, firstly, as

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Speaker 3: I was kind of crafting it, I remember I was

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Speaker 3: watching the documentary series of The Keepers, about the murder

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Speaker 3: of a nun and teacher at an old girls Catholic

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Speaker 3: school in Maryland, Kathy Sesnik, and I remember her body

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Speaker 3: was found in a wooded area by hunters. I vividly

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Speaker 3: remember the cause of death was Blanck forced trauma of

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Speaker 3: the head and something about like maggots being found like

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Speaker 3: in her throat, in her mouth. I remember those details,

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Speaker 3: you know, and the fact that it was never officially

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Speaker 3: even though you know, there's a pretty clear yeah theory

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Speaker 3: which is absolutely probably what happened, but you know where

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Speaker 3: this this priest was sexually abusing the girls at the

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Speaker 3: school and trafficking them. And the theories that Kathy was

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Speaker 3: murdered because she was going to tell the archdiocese. But

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Speaker 3: the fact that it was never officially closed and just

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Speaker 3: these tiny details kind of seeped into Missus March kind

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Speaker 3: of accidentally because I was kind of listening it to

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Speaker 3: it and watching it as I was writing it. And

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Speaker 3: so this plot line of like this young girl goes

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Speaker 3: missing in Maine and is found in a wooded area

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Speaker 3: by hunters close to this cabin, blown first trauma to

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Speaker 3: the head. Those little details that I that I picked out,

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Speaker 3: But it wasn't like Spitz. I didn't want to like

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Speaker 3: base it on anything specific. I didn't want it to

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Speaker 3: be like a plotty like murder mystery. And actually, but

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Speaker 3: one of the things that most affected me was that

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Speaker 3: it was never officially solved, and so without wanting to

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Speaker 3: spoil Missus March, but it's not really about this murder.

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Speaker 3: It's a murder that isn't really necessarily ever solved, something

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Speaker 3: that I was very, very frustrated by, and it's a

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Speaker 3: very big feeling. I think in true crime, isn't it

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Speaker 3: where a lot of times it's just you're kind of

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Speaker 3: stuck with that forever. And then I remember I was

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Speaker 3: reading a lot about Truman Capote's Swans at this time,

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Speaker 3: you know, because Missus March is kind of a swan

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Speaker 3: want to be, you know, she's a she, and there

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Speaker 3: are mentions to several detail like she has a soap

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Speaker 3: dish that allegedly belonged to Babe Paley, and she wants

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Speaker 3: to be one of these women. I remember I was

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Speaker 3: reading and very affected by the story of Anne Woodward

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Speaker 3: and how Truman Capodi wrote the short story about essentially

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Speaker 3: accusing her of murdering her husband, who she accidentally shot

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Speaker 3: one night she believed it was a burglar. They slept

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Speaker 3: in different bedrooms and she heard a noise at night

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Speaker 3: and she had they were both avid hunters, and so

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Speaker 3: she came out of the room and shot him and

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Speaker 3: killed them, and Truman Capoti wrote a story about it,

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Speaker 3: you know, and she and she then kind of it's

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Speaker 3: rumored that she read it and that is why maybe

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Speaker 3: she killed herself. You know. The thing is she was

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Speaker 3: shunned by New York high society for the rest of

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Speaker 3: her life after her husband died, and everyone just gossiping

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Speaker 3: about her, and so that that had a lot that

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Speaker 3: has a lot to do with Missus March and the

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Speaker 3: character and the fear of being ostracized by you know,

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Speaker 3: everything you hold dear, which is New York high society essentially,

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Speaker 3: and gotten the force of gossip for these for these women.

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Speaker 1: So in that story, you have this woman who is

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Speaker 1: living the idealized life and you know she has a

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Speaker 1: you know, a husband and a relationship with a husband.

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Speaker 1: And do you build that story like a lot of

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Speaker 1: true crime stories, you know that I would talk about

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Speaker 1: where it's you know, the on the surface, everything is

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Speaker 1: fine and then it starts to degrade. Is it a

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Speaker 1: slow process where we see faults with the husband and

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Speaker 1: then it's sort of is she really crazy or is

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Speaker 1: all of this bad stuff happening? Is that kind of

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Speaker 1: the the route you take with the book.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, that's kind of even though, I think you

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Speaker 3: can tell from the very beginning that something is not

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Speaker 3: quite right about missus Mark, just the way that she

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Speaker 3: constantly notices everything about everyone and intends to think that

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Speaker 3: it's negative, you know, towards her. It's like a personal attack.

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Speaker 3: She's clearly obsessed with people's opinions of her. So I

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Speaker 3: think you get that really, you know early on from

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Speaker 3: the first page that she's very anxious about this, and

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Speaker 3: it's slowly like degrading her mental health essentially, but it does.

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Speaker 3: It is like a slow dissent, and she just keeps

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Speaker 3: getting you know, worse and worse and obsessive, and it

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Speaker 3: starts to even you know, later later on see things potentially.

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Speaker 3: You know, you're not sure what she's because we're with

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Speaker 3: her constantly. It's her point of view, so we're not

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Speaker 3: sure whether she's filtering things through her you know, her

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Speaker 3: lens of like self destruction, or whether these things are objective.

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Speaker 3: Her husband does seem very distant, but then again, this

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Speaker 3: is what she's telling us, so we don't really know hmm,

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Speaker 3: how far she's going with it and how how true

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Speaker 3: it is. Is this first person it's not actually it

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Speaker 3: turned out third person, because there was also something about

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Speaker 3: the narrator being a little judgmental of her, and even

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Speaker 3: the narrator being like missus March says that it's you know,

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Speaker 3: there's no milk clip or whatever. You know, it felt

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Speaker 3: like we were all kind of humiliating her in a way,

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Speaker 3: both writer and readers, and we're all kind of gossiping

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Speaker 3: about her as she suspects. You know, that's what it

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Speaker 3: felt like with a third person narration. And also because

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Speaker 3: her first name is never revealed, so it's kind of

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Speaker 3: like does March this and missus March that and missing

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Speaker 3: you know, it just feels a little insulting in a way,

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Speaker 3: kind of kind of singing songy.

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Speaker 1: Interesting though, but because you don't know her first name,

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Speaker 1: you always have to refer to her in a very

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Speaker 1: formal time as if you're almost like subservient to her,

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Speaker 1: Which is that's good.

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Speaker 3: I like that twist. That's good. Thanks. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And she's always she's always the wife.

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Speaker 3: She's always her husband's wife, and you know, she likes

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Speaker 3: whatever her husband likes, and she visits the restaurants her

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Speaker 3: husband likes, and you know, that's that's who she is.

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Speaker 2: So I guess the real mystery is who is she?

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Speaker 3: Who is this woman? What year is that? Is that

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Speaker 3: a present day novel? Or Oh, it's funny you should ask,

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Speaker 3: because it's actually never really revealed where it's set, but

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Speaker 3: they are very heavy hints that it's not set in

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Speaker 3: the modern day. So a lot of people just assume

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Speaker 3: that it's in the fifties or sixties, but actually their

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Speaker 3: hints thrown in that keep getting closer to modern times.

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Speaker 3: So what I what I see it as is kind

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Speaker 3: of it's probably current, but missus March is living in

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Speaker 3: a bubble of like, you know, a nineteen fifties like

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Speaker 3: perfect housewife that she learned from her mother, and that

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Speaker 3: has been going down through all the generations.

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Speaker 1: Well, this book did well, and when your second book

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Speaker 1: came out, which is what we're going to be talking about, really,

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Speaker 1: the Victorian Psycho book with the great title, you have

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Speaker 1: to pull this up. There was an article and I

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Speaker 1: actually I think I recommended you in the book to

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Speaker 1: our which I often do a lot of times they'll

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Speaker 1: just say, hey, why don't you know interview this person?

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Speaker 1: But I found the article. What's wrong with Us is

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Speaker 1: the title from mccar which is another great time What's

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Speaker 1: wrong with US novelist Virginia Fato on our morbid obsession

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Speaker 1: with true crime, and I think that's what really caught

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Speaker 1: my attention, besides, of course, that you used true crime

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Speaker 1: as a as a way to explore this story, which

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Speaker 1: is very different. So before you tell us what you

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Speaker 1: think is wrong with us, which I'm pretty sure will

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Speaker 1: make sense to everybody who listens to our show, why

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Speaker 1: don't you tell me about Victorian Psycho. Completely different book

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Speaker 1: and a different time period.

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Speaker 3: Completely different in every way. This one is first person.

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Speaker 3: It's a very very claustrophobic first person account from a

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Speaker 3: psycho narrator. I think there's no twist there. It's in

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Speaker 3: the title, and it's the story of a young governess

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Speaker 3: who is hired at this state noble estate to teach

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Speaker 3: these two children. And she carries within her what she

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Speaker 3: calls a darkness, which is essentially trying to control her.

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Speaker 3: And I guess the mystery here is whether it will

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Speaker 3: control her or she will control it, you know, the

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Speaker 3: darkness essentially being her dark predisposition towards crime and violence.

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Speaker 1: So you went from in Missus March the main character

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Speaker 1: being annoying, I'm sure, but vulnerable and sort of something

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Speaker 1: that people can connect to in a character, that idea

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Speaker 1: of what's real what's not. And you're being gas lit

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Speaker 1: and what's happening to someone who I'm presuming you have

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Speaker 1: very little sympathy for as a reader or no, do

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Speaker 1: you make her soft at times? I mean, she's got

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Speaker 1: some pretty devious thoughts in her head.

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Speaker 3: She's pretty dark. But you know what, I love her

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Speaker 3: because she's just fearless and unapologetic. And those are you know,

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Speaker 3: qualities that I wish I possessed. You know, I wish

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Speaker 3: I didn't obsess over an email for forty five minutes.

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Speaker 3: And I wish I sometimes cared less frankly, quite frankly,

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Speaker 3: you know, about the things I say or do that

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Speaker 3: might affect anyone in any way, or might upset anybody

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Speaker 3: or make anybody uncomfortable, you know. And I'm a little

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Speaker 3: more awkward in that way. And this person who is

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Speaker 3: an awful person, you know, who just who just has

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Speaker 3: a tension for violence and torture and murder and even

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Speaker 3: the most vulnerable of people, now, you know, not just

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Speaker 3: evil abusers who will also kind of go into the mix.

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Speaker 3: But she's just she's I find her very I mean

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Speaker 3: This is not very humble to say about one's character,

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Speaker 3: but what can I say. I'm going to say it.

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Speaker 2: I find her very funny.

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Speaker 3: There's I kind of use her as like a stand

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Speaker 3: up comedy, my stand up comedy. This is Victorian psycho.

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Speaker 3: You know. I was just like, because she just says

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Speaker 3: she you know, she just narrates whatever, like any intrusive

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Speaker 3: thought of any kind, and obviously coming from a psychopath,

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Speaker 3: those must be really really awful. It's like so awful

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Speaker 3: that they can become absurdly funny in a way, maybe

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Speaker 3: as a defense mechanism. But this is honestly kind of

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Speaker 3: what I felt when I was doing the research on

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Speaker 3: Victorian you know, murder case in the Victorian era and

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Speaker 3: just the abuse in the misogyny of the time. I

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Speaker 3: was getting really weird, aggressive mood when I was reading

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Speaker 3: up on this and started writing this book. I quite

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Speaker 3: like her. No, but you're right, but there are certain

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Speaker 3: moments when we also see that Winifred is her name,

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Speaker 3: the governess has had a very awful childhood in Victorian England.

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Speaker 3: She suffered at the hands of you know, abusive adults

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Speaker 3: of all kinds, and she was handed over to a

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Speaker 3: what was called a baby farmer at the time, who

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Speaker 3: basically was killing off the babies. Is that she was

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Speaker 3: supposed to be caring for and she didn't even want

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Speaker 3: her so, you know, rejected by everybody, told she was

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Speaker 3: evil and useless from a very young age. So I

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Speaker 3: guess there is there is a way to empathize with

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Speaker 3: her through through that. I guess some people could see

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Speaker 3: it as a defense mechanism, as a survival instinct, just

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Speaker 3: kill or be killed.

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Speaker 1: I guess did you feel like you had to explain

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Speaker 1: where this comes from, where Winnifred has all these dark thoughts.

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Speaker 1: Did it need to have an origin story? I tell

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Speaker 1: stories often where it's just sort of like this guy

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Speaker 1: is mean, but you feel like you need to have

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Speaker 1: an explanation, you think.

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Speaker 3: I Actually, that's a great question because one of the

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Speaker 3: biggest themes of the novel is nature versus nurture, and

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Speaker 3: I still I find it so compelling. In all the

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Speaker 3: cases of you know, famous psychopathic serial killers, none of

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Speaker 3: them have had a happy childhood, none of them, that's

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Speaker 3: the fact. But I find it very intriguing. How were

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Speaker 3: they kind of born this? Were they always going to

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Speaker 3: be this way? If they hadn't been abused in their childhood,

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Speaker 3: would they still have you know, turned out like this?

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Speaker 3: Is there something chemical in their brain that just was

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Speaker 3: never going to work? So I do offer this truth

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Speaker 3: about her past and suffering and child neglect, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: But I'm also kind of questioning, you know, whether it's

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Speaker 3: just I mean, she feels such pleasure and she's also

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Speaker 3: not out for revenge because she doesn't really do it

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Speaker 3: against the people who heurt her necessarily, she's also hurting

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Speaker 3: very vulnerable children, infants, young women who haven't really heard

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Speaker 3: her at all, you know, very very vulnerable, innocent people. Therefore,

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Speaker 3: can we really not justified? But like maybe I feel

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Speaker 3: like sometimes it's explained away a little bit or justified

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Speaker 3: through like a revenge plot or or oh, of course,

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Speaker 3: you know, what could this person possibly do other than

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Speaker 3: just murder a whole bunch of people because they had

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Speaker 3: an awful time of it. So I'm kind of with you.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes it's just like, listen, this person's just evil.

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Speaker 1: So let's go through the story of Winnifred without you know,

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Speaker 1: i know, spoiling everything she for somebody who is so

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Speaker 1: sadistic picked an interesting career, so she's a governess. So

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Speaker 1: remember we do have, of course a wide range of listeners,

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Speaker 1: but if there's anything that's particularly British esque, define it.

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Speaker 1: So a governess would be what a nanny a living name.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, essentially she was.

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Speaker 3: It was very interesting figure, the governess because she wasn't

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Speaker 3: technically a servant. She was like above servants, but she

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Speaker 3: was not because usually they were young ladies who had

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Speaker 3: like not not fallen from grace, but like they didn't

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Speaker 3: have the means to be stay at home, you know,

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Speaker 3: mothers of noble estates, etca. So they had to have

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Speaker 3: a job, but it was like the only job they

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Speaker 3: could have without resorting to like being servants. So they

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Speaker 3: were teachers essentially at home. They weren't the nannies either.

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Speaker 3: I believe those would be the nurses, who were more

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Speaker 3: in charge of like the children's I don't know, bath time,

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Speaker 3: that kind of thing. But the governess was in charge

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Speaker 3: of like their souls essentially, like the you know, teaching

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Speaker 3: them good from evil morals, and then also like English

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Speaker 3: and French. Yeah, I thought that figure was very interesting

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Speaker 3: and it was kind of the only option for women

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Speaker 3: from like more you know, middle class backgrounds who needed

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Speaker 3: to have a job. The Bronte's were governesses. I took

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Speaker 3: a lot from Bronte's from the real life accounts, and

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Speaker 3: it was awful. And a lot of them were in

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Speaker 3: various horrible situations in these homes where they were nobody

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Speaker 3: knew how to go about it. They weren't servants, but

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Speaker 3: they weren't part of the family either. They were somewhere

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Speaker 3: in between, So it was kind of was pretty awkward.

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Speaker 1: I say, when you talk about upstairs downstairs, I categorize

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Speaker 1: people like that sort of middle class first floor. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're not downstairs, but they're not unless they marry the

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Speaker 1: man of the house. They're not upstairs either. So she's

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Speaker 1: a first floor worker. How does somebody who has these thoughts,

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Speaker 1: I mean, does she get an education?

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Speaker 3: Is that what you were thinking through?

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Speaker 1: How do you end up in this type of position,

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Speaker 1: even though I know you said it's it's pretty much

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Speaker 1: one of the only options for women of a certain

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Speaker 1: background to take.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were absolutely, they were educated.

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Speaker 3: They were very you know, they would have done great

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Speaker 3: in a parlor room, as I life like to say,

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Speaker 3: but they just yeah, they had to teach it on

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Speaker 3: and in this case, there are certain flashbacks in my

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Speaker 3: novel about her going to this school like an all

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Speaker 3: like Daughters of the Clergy school, because her stepfather is

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Speaker 3: a clergyman and it's awful, and it's based on one

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Speaker 3: of the Brontes.

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Speaker 2: Well or several of the Brontes.

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Speaker 3: Actually one of them, I think their younger sister died

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Speaker 3: at this school where they went, and it was like,

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Speaker 3: you know, they were like frozen pictures of water and

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Speaker 3: they were constantly punished, and you know, their hair was

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Speaker 3: cut off and they were like color epidemics because it was,

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Speaker 3: you know, just awful and the conditions there were absurdly awful.

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Speaker 2: Just another run of the mill Victorian school, I guess.

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Speaker 1: So she ends up joining in with a family. And

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Speaker 1: so you said that this is where's the house?

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Speaker 3: It's Yorkshire?

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Speaker 1: Okay, so it's in Yorkshire. And did you have a

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Speaker 1: year in mind? Or is this just sort of the

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Speaker 1: vast Victorian era?

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Speaker 3: I never specified, but in my head it was like

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Speaker 3: the late eighteen forties. I'd say, eighteen forty seven, and

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Speaker 3: that's that's what. Yeah, that's what I I was kind

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Speaker 3: of driving towards, but I chicily kind of never said it,

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Speaker 3: so that I won't have to like get in trouble

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Speaker 3: or inaccurate situations. Do you worry about accuracy? Yeah, I got.

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Speaker 3: I got a little obsessed with with that and like anachronism,

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Speaker 3: and I had to like teach myself to stop it

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Speaker 3: because it wasn't that kind of novel, you know, And

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Speaker 3: I was starting to kind of impede like a major

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Speaker 3: like Liberty and the Pros, and you know where I

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Speaker 3: went to the just to the point where I was

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Speaker 3: like triple checking every sentence just to see like was

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Speaker 3: there gravel in the driveway where you know what kind

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Speaker 3: of TOPEI area was in style and the lane for

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Speaker 3: you know, it got to a point where I was

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Speaker 3: checking the etymology of every single word seven times in

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Speaker 3: seven different websites.

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Speaker 2: So I just stopped. I just stopped doing that. But

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Speaker 2: I did.

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Speaker 3: I did go a little overboard a little bit at first,

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Speaker 3: and then but if I feel like I absorbed it

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Speaker 3: and then I just forgot it.

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Speaker 1: So she is a governess and there's an opening at

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Speaker 1: ins Or House, right, which is the home of the

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Speaker 1: Pounds family. How are you coming up with the character names?

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Speaker 1: I mean, you have Winnifred nay, yeah, naughty. I would

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Speaker 1: say naughty in Texas naughty and then you've you've got

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Speaker 1: missus Pounds, mister Pounds. Are the Pounds also missing their

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Speaker 1: first name, like Missus March was missing a first name.

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Speaker 3: Now they're they're mentioned, but it's just not particularly interesting.

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Speaker 3: It's John and and I believe that Emily. I don't

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Speaker 3: know if I cut Emily in the end, but yeah,

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Speaker 3: I mean the yeah, the names. I mean, I don't

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Speaker 3: know if it's Dickens's influence or what, but I just

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Speaker 3: names in the in these kinds of novels just make

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Speaker 3: me very happy. The names of places as well, like

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Speaker 3: Woe on the World and grim Wolves and you know,

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Speaker 3: but I just find them really delightful, these kinds of names.

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Speaker 3: There's a mister and missus fancy as well in there,

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Speaker 3: and just everyone every name, every name has like a

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Speaker 3: double on tunder.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so she arrives at this house, you know, tell

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Speaker 1: me kind of how things start to unfold. I get

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Speaker 1: the impression pretty quickly that she is an attractive woman,

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Speaker 1: because you know, she gets sort of well, I mean

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Speaker 1: ensnared with with some issues regarding the head of house.

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Speaker 3: Oh sure, although mister Pound's we kind of get a

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Speaker 3: feeling fairly quickly that he's you know, done this before

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Speaker 3: with pretty much any and all governesses. But I don't

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Speaker 3: know if she is attractive. But she's well, she's very visceral,

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Speaker 3: and she's very like passionate, like she she's very into

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Speaker 3: all the like licking and slurping and sniffing.

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Speaker 2: You know, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I think I don't know if that's attractive, but I

432
00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:36,000
Speaker 3: think that's very animalistic in a way that could could

433
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 3: be found very sexy by men.

434
00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 1: Perhaps, Well, it would be unusual for the Victorian era

435
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: for a woman to act like that, certainly.

436
00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:44,520
Speaker 3: It would be.

437
00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she gets away with a lot.

438
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 1: And you know, being a governess must be so intimate

439
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:52,359
Speaker 1: with the family. I mean, you're living there and it's

440
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 1: you're right, you have a you're on a floor above

441
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 1: the servants, and so there's a lot more of an

442
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:01,119
Speaker 1: opportunity to sort of be with the family and have

443
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:03,240
Speaker 1: them treat you in a way that they wouldn't be

444
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 1: treating other people. So is that part of it? It's

445
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 1: getting ensnared in this life?

446
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 3: Yeah? And I read on the governess habits in life

447
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:16,920
Speaker 3: and it was pretty there wasn't like a specific situation

448
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:19,439
Speaker 3: that everybody followed, like was different in every house. I

449
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,439
Speaker 3: know in some houses they were invited for meals. In

450
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 3: other homes it was like unheard of. So I did

451
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 3: have like mister Pounds immediately taking an interest in her

452
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 3: and kind of inviting her for meals constantly, which was

453
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 3: maybe frowned upon, but it did happen. So you know, again,

454
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 3: it was like towing that limbo, and she's getting closer

455
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:42,240
Speaker 3: and closer to him, and then missus Pounds is getting

456
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 3: more and more jealous and angry and upset. He doesn't,

457
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 3: you know, he ignores her completely, and so she starts

458
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 3: to dole out little cruelties on Winnifred and Winifred's just

459
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 3: like you know, missus Pounds is unaware of how dangerous

460
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 3: Winnifred really is. And Winnifre it's just like happy, like

461
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 3: a for the ride. She just finds everything so fun

462
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 3: and fascinating. But she's she can snap pretty quickly. So

463
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,880
Speaker 3: any any any any show of anything that can which

464
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 3: I think I took this from well, most like Ted Bundy,

465
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:17,439
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Dahmer, like any any any sign of disrespect what

466
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,360
Speaker 3: she considers to be disrespect or betrayal or or rejection,

467
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 3: she can snap and become extremely violent and angry.

468
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 1: I recently saw a speaker who is a fantastic writer,

469
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 1: and he was talking about two things that really stuck

470
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: with me, So I want to ask you about both

471
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,440
Speaker 1: of them. He said, for me, a successful novel does

472
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:42,959
Speaker 1: two things. Number One, it tells you making the area

473
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: or the house, whatever you're in the character a character,

474
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 1: a main character. And he said, I think you have

475
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:54,399
Speaker 1: to explain why this could only happen here, maybe this town,

476
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:56,880
Speaker 1: it could be maybe the country or in her house.

477
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 1: In your case, how do you create a world that

478
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: I so often talk about in real life where it's

479
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: just so clear that in London this would not have

480
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: panned out the way it did, or you know, in

481
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,719
Speaker 1: another country. Were you able to kind of think that

482
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: through before writing the novel or not at all?

483
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 3: Such an interesting question. I definitely knew I wanted to

484
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 3: make the house of character, and actually, like the very

485
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 3: one of the very first lines, or the first line

486
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 3: even of the entire novel is describing it in kind

487
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,439
Speaker 3: of human terms. It's saying, it's like a class handed

488
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,360
Speaker 3: banker with like a double chin, and it's a very

489
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 3: you know, it's described in much detail, just like the tone,

490
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 3: the cues of it, and I don't know, tiles around

491
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 3: the chimney piece that I stole from Dickens, from Scrooge,

492
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 3: and the sort of confusing structure of it. There was

493
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 3: a point where my editor asked me if we wanted

494
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 3: to make it clear what the just what the floor

495
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 3: plan was, and I was like, absolutely not. And also

496
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 3: we don't want to know how many people are in there,

497
00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 3: how and how many staff members are in there, because

498
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 3: I wanted to feel extreme confusing and weird and kind

499
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 3: of cold, and and and also like Winnifred does not

500
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,439
Speaker 3: care at all about anybody who's working in there, or

501
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 3: like specific names or anything at all. And and just

502
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 3: to make it as kind of contradictory and confusing as

503
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 3: the Victorian era itself, I think is kind of what

504
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 3: I was going for. And as you say, yeah, it

505
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 3: could have happened in London. I mean, this is a distance.

506
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 3: It's like a house on a hill, like on a

507
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 3: stretch of moorland. It feels like it's far away from life,

508
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 3: so to speak, and from people. There's like there are

509
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:39,479
Speaker 3: farmhouses nearby, but not that close, and so not that

510
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 3: many people would come and check in on the you know, family,

511
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 3: apart from the staff who lives there constantly.

512
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 2: So it's kind of claustrophobic and no.

513
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: One can hear you scream essentially, is what you're trying

514
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: to say, And.

515
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 3: They wouldn't dare to like ask, you know, like is

516
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 3: everybody okay? You know it's I wasn't appropriate. Yeah, so,

517
00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 3: and there were people for that. But if all those

518
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 3: people are dead, then you know what happens and how

519
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 3: much time goes by until someone kind of there is

520
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:08,719
Speaker 3: to chance upon whatever has happened in this house. So

521
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 3: that's kind of what I was what I was going for.

522
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 3: I don't know that it's the only place it could

523
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 3: ever happen, but just that kind of structure of the house. Yeah,

524
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 3: Winifred goes kind of crazy, I don't want to spoil it,

525
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 3: but you know there is a big deaththall.

526
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: Well, you know, on my other show and Buried Bones,

527
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: Paul and I talk about with you know, real cases

528
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,679
Speaker 1: when things happen in rural areas and there are guns

529
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: that go off, much of the time, people don't respond

530
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 1: because what do you think They think it is hunting,

531
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 1: They think it's hunting, even in the middle of the night,

532
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: some idiots out there hunting something. And so that is

533
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: so different, I think than in a city where you know,

534
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: when I heard when I lived in New York and

535
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: I heard a car backfire, I would almost hit the

536
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 1: ground thinking something was going on. Yeah, so that that

537
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: place is important, right.

538
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

539
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 2: And also the people.

540
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 3: I mean, again, as with Miss March, we have a

541
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 3: character is filter and in this case it is first person,

542
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 3: so it's very very much her opinion of everything, and

543
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 3: everything is filtered through her point of view, which is

544
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 3: skewed evidently, and she treats the other characters like punching bags. Essentially,

545
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 3: she's very you know, insulting, and she thinks everyone's an idiot,

546
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 3: basically as a lot of psychopaths do. But all these people,

547
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 3: all these other characters are presented as evil, you know.

548
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 3: It's kind of like a study on evil in a way,

549
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 3: and why different human beings are evil. So it could

550
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 3: be a survival, it could be a defense mechanism. It

551
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 3: could be the Reverend that is mentioned from her childhood

552
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 3: is evil, but he thinks he's doing good. That's what

553
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 3: he has been taught is good to preach into punish

554
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 3: people who don't follow whatever he thinks is correct and

555
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 3: good and holy. And then mister Pounds is evil as well.

556
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 3: He's also had an evil and all foursive childhood, and

557
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 3: he thinks that evil is what he's supposed to do.

558
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 3: He doesn't think it's evil at all. And then you know,

559
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 3: there are other characters who are evil because they are

560
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 3: being they're under tech and so they respond as missus Pound.

561
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 3: So it's kind of each character is promoting evil in

562
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 3: their own way. Well, and then again, is what I

563
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 3: consider evil? But of course it's very subjective. It is.

564
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to challenge you with the other one,

565
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: the other point that I took away from this discussion,

566
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: So the other question, the other thing that he said,

567
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: this author said that was really important that I've heard

568
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: so many times, but for some reason it only sunk

569
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 1: in this one time when he talked about it, is

570
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: what does your character desire? And I think it was

571
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: the way he phrased it. He said because and you

572
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: might not agree with this, but he says, because you know,

573
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: if it's a serial killer from the serial killer's point

574
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: of view, and we make it clear that he wants

575
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: to get away with it. This is not going to

576
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: be some grand, you know, death by cop kind of thing.

577
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: You know, he wants to disappear like Jack the Ripper.

578
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: If that's his desire, that it doesn't matter to the

579
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: reader whether he gets it or not. The reader just

580
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: wants to know it's possible. And then you get to

581
00:29:58,120 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: the end of the book and you kind of accept

582
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 1: whatever the ending is. So did you think in those

583
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: terms at all, because now I'm starting to think about

584
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 1: everything I do, nonfiction or fiction in those terms. What

585
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: does Winnifred, who is your main thing? I don't know,

586
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: protagonist and antagonist whatever, What does she want that you

587
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: kind of make clear or or did you not make

588
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: clear at all because she doesn't know.

589
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 3: I don't know if I made it clear, because I

590
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 3: wanted to kind of upend that kind of character where

591
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 3: where everything is stated and again that she's on some

592
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 3: kind of a specific mission which can be real, you know,

593
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 3: and everything's very kind of clearly plotted out, because I thought,

594
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 3: you know, this is the first person to account from

595
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 3: a psychopaths point of view, this is going to be

596
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 3: chaos like in the area. It's going to be awful

597
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:42,719
Speaker 3: and it's going to be all over the place, and

598
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 3: it's going to be comedic, but it's also gonna be

599
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 3: really dark, and it's going to be a period but

600
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 3: it's going to be anachronistic as well. You know, there's

601
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 3: like it's like a vomit of just violence and profanity.

602
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 3: The most immediate thing she wants is pleasure. What she

603
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 3: thinks she wants is a family. But she's very deluded.

604
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 3: She's completely deluded. She thinks she's really gonna and you know,

605
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 3: there's like this other storyline that I don't want to spoil,

606
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 3: but she's in this specific house for specific reason. So

607
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 3: she's come here looking for someone. And some readers might

608
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 3: believe that it was all like a revenge plot that

609
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:23,239
Speaker 3: was very you know, carefully thought out. Knowing Winnifford as

610
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 3: I do, I'm pretty sure that she just she was

611
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 3: deluded enough that she thought she was going to come

612
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 3: to this house and find her family and it was

613
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 3: all you know, and they were going to accept her

614
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 3: and it was going to be wonderful and nobody was

615
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 3: going to get mad at her ever, and she was

616
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 3: going to be allowed to do everything she ever wanted,

617
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 3: you know, kind of like Jeffrey Dahmer thinking he was

618
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 3: going to make himself a sex slave by lobotomizing, you know,

619
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 3: the man that walked into his life. It's just it's insane,

620
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 3: it's ridiculous. So what she really is after, and I

621
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 3: don't think she would admit this to herself, is pleasure,

622
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 3: just immediate pleasure, constantly.

623
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 2: And she's breaking like all the rules.

624
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 3: And you know, she just wants to satisfy her every

625
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 3: single need and temptation, you know, be it whatever food, drank, sex, anything, beauty,

626
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 3: what she considers to be beauty. You know, she wants

627
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 3: it all. She wants to take it like a touch

628
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 3: it without consent, of course, and you know, and on

629
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 3: her own terms. And whenever someone gets upset about this,

630
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 3: she lashes out.

631
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 1: Paul and I on Barry Bones actually talked about Constance Kent. Yes,

632
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: we covered that story. You know, how much can you

633
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: talk about what the influence was? I can give a well,

634
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: I mean, can you do a quick summary.

635
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 3: What do you think? Oh yeah, sure, it was a

636
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 3: big it was a big inspiration. There's actually a lion

637
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 3: early on in Victorian Psycho where she's saying something about

638
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 3: like in my hometown, they found like a baby stuff

639
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 3: down a privy or whatever, and she's like kind of

640
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 3: blase about it, like, oh, I.

641
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 2: Had nothing to do with that, wasn't me, but yeah.

642
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 3: Constance Kent was the case of Francis Savill Kent, who

643
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 3: was four years old, disappeared from his home one day

644
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 3: and he was heavily searched for, and then his body

645
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 3: was found later hours later, shoved down the toilet on

646
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 3: the property, which was the privy right, which was this

647
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 3: essentially like wooden outhouse, Yeah exactly, but without the house

648
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 3: part exactly. Yeah, just a whole, just a whole basically

649
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 3: in the ground or in a piece of wood. So

650
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 3: his body was found shoved down the privy and his

651
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 3: throat was slashed so deeply that he was almost decapitated.

652
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 3: And so immediately I think suspicions turned to his nursemaid.

653
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 3: She was initially arrested, I believe, but then eventually they

654
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 3: called a detective from Scotland yard mister Witcher, Detective Witcher,

655
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 3: and he immediately suspected the boy's sixteen year old half sister,

656
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 3: Constance Kent. I think he zeroed in on a missing

657
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 3: night dress. She said it was. She blamed it on

658
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 3: the local woman who did the laundry, but it was

659
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 3: never found, and then she was arrested, and eventually she

660
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 3: was released because the public was outraged because she was

661
00:33:58,360 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 3: a young lady of breeding.

662
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 2: My god, how dare they?

663
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 3: And then she eventually confessed her guilt to a clergyman

664
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 3: who helped her to turn herself in, and she just

665
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 3: she's just narrated how she apparently did it. And she

666
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 3: said she done it with a razor in the middle

667
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 3: of the night, which I believe was a little weird

668
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 3: because it couldn't be done with a razor, right, it

669
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 3: was a little too deep.

670
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:24,479
Speaker 1: I think it depends on I mean, if you're talking

671
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,720
Speaker 1: like a mens straight razor, I think it could have yeah,

672
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: like what her dad used to shave.

673
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 3: It depends.

674
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: I mean, never underestimate the anger and vigor of a

675
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: young woman physical, I mean, you know, and this is it.

676
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: He was young, I mean he was, yeah, you're right,

677
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 1: three and a half four years old. So I don't know.

678
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 1: I don't know. And then she carried him out. I

679
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: don't think she did she I don't think she did

680
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 1: it outside. I can't remember.

681
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 3: She did it in the in the prevy. She said

682
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 3: she did it there, Yeah, and kind of wrapped him

683
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 3: in the in a blanket, and I guess her night

684
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 3: dress was was obviously very bloodied, and so it immediately

685
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 3: just disappeared. That night dress was never found, I remember,

686
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 3: I remember there they found a bloody night dress from

687
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 3: another woman in the house. I think she was a

688
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 3: Constance's elder sister. But it was then like a doctor

689
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 3: was called in and he was like, no, this is

690
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 3: this is a natural occurrence blood, so meaning menstrual bread,

691
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 3: which I also mentioned in the book because I just

692
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,240
Speaker 3: thought that was kind of hilarious. You know, they couldn't

693
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 3: tell the difference between you know, it was like what

694
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 3: wouldn't have been like over the neckline, Like isn't that

695
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 3: kind of absurd?

696
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 2: But anyway, so Constance confessed.

697
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 3: And I don't know when I read, because I came

698
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 3: across this case when I was in college. I think

699
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 3: it was from Kate summer Scale's incredible book, The Suspicions

700
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 3: of Mister Witcher, And I think Kate's summer Scale argues

701
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 3: that maybe Constance was protecting an accomplice, right her brother,

702
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 3: her brother William, with whom she was really close, just

703
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 3: because there were several inconsistencies that people think are weird.

704
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 3: But she never recanted her confession, and she always kept

705
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 3: silent about her motive. She moved eventually to Australia with

706
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 3: her brother and became an ur. Since she died when

707
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 3: she was like a hundred. I don't know, I remember.

708
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 3: I was always a little something bothered me about this case,

709
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 3: a little bit about the resolution. I just thought it

710
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 3: was a little there were few weird things missing and

711
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 3: a few contradictions that made me wonder, But anyway, I

712
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 3: thought it was an incredible I mean, visually, it's really

713
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 3: haunted with the fact that there was this young little

714
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,760
Speaker 3: boy with his throat cut and shoved down a privy,

715
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 3: which the whole if I'm not mistaken, it was the

716
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 3: one privy for the entire household. Mm hmm.

717
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: When you read Constance's case, did you just in your

718
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: head went with, Okay, no matter what anybody else says,

719
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 1: she's sort of my prototype for somebody who could do

720
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: something so awful to somebody so innocent. Yeah, right, I mean,

721
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 1: we're just going with the idea that she had psychopathy

722
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: or something.

723
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 3: Yeah. And there's also what you said earlier, the figure

724
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 3: of like the teenage girl, which we often underestimate. There

725
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 3: is a teenage girl character that was very important in

726
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:56,319
Speaker 3: Victuarian Psycho. The girl you know there is a brother

727
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 3: and a sister that who WINNIFREDA is going to teach

728
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 3: one of them is a is a thirteen year old girl, Drusilla,

729
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 3: And I even kind of dismissed her when I was

730
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 3: writing the novel, like, oh, a teenage girl, you know

731
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 3: whatever born And then when I went back to it,

732
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,359
Speaker 3: I really fleshed out that character because I thought, my gosh,

733
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 3: can you imagine the inner life of a teenage girl

734
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 3: in a time when you know, women, let alone young

735
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 3: young women could speak out about anything at all, and

736
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 3: you know, they were essentially property and they were surrounded

737
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 3: by violence, but they had to be super prim and proper.

738
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 3: But it was so incredibly unfair and they were being

739
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 3: i don't know, tormented in so many different ways, and

740
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 3: nobody knew what they were feeling at all, and it

741
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 3: was kind of frowned upon to talk about it anyway,

742
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 3: and they could immediately cart you off to an asylum.

743
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 3: So it's just like the boiling pot for this young girl,

744
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 3: I thought was incredibly interesting, and I did also kind

745
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 3: of admittedly obsessed over like the Privy, like just as

746
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 3: a setting. I thought it was it was kind of

747
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,360
Speaker 3: fascinating that it's just like a toilet foreveryone like hidden

748
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 3: the shrubs. I don't know, I thought it was all

749
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 3: incredibly haunting. But yeah, so the constance thing really grabbed me,

750
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 3: so to speak, and the said, but then I started

751
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 3: researching and just a lot of these kept popping up,

752
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 3: like young especially with young children and babies, which if

753
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 3: you you know, whoever reads fortorin Cycle will realize, like,

754
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 3: what is Virginia's problem with this specifically, why is she's

755
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 3: so obsessed with in fanticide? But it was just I

756
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 3: kept they kept coming up. And there's this one particular

757
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 3: one that really struck me as well. It's mentioned very

758
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 3: quickly in the same novel by the suspicions of mister Witcher.

759
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 3: But it was like about a housekeeper in London who

760
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 3: killed her a two year old illegitimate son and then

761
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 3: like put him in a box and sent him to

762
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:42,720
Speaker 3: her sister in the country. And Witcher was the detective

763
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 3: on this case, and he kind of interviewed the staff

764
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,319
Speaker 3: and discovered that like the kitchen maid had carried this

765
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,319
Speaker 3: large box to the butler's pantry to be mailed off,

766
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 3: and I just thought it was the most ridiculous, insanely

767
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 3: dark stories I'd ever read.

768
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 1: You looked at Amelia Dyer's story, all, so right, first

769
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 1: tell me her story and then how it fit in

770
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: is a you know, like amused in some way for you?

771
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 3: Yeah? Meally Dyer who is estimated to be maybe the

772
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 3: most prolific serial killer in history, who is thought to

773
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,359
Speaker 3: have possibly murdered about four hundred babies or more. She

774
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 3: was known as a baby farmer. So this was the

775
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 3: practice of adopting unwanted babies. Usually they were illegitimate babies,

776
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 3: babies the mothers could not possibly care for, you know,

777
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 3: they would risk public ruin, they would be ostracized, So

778
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 3: they would leave their babies with these baby farmers and

779
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 3: pay them. This was a common practice. But so the

780
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 3: babies started dying on Amelia very suspiciously quickly, and it

781
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:48,440
Speaker 3: led to like a doctor started to suspect. But then

782
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 3: she instead of being convicted, I think she was sentenced

783
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 3: to like hard labor, and when she finished six months

784
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 3: of hard labor, she just came out and just really

785
00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,720
Speaker 3: went for the just really went for it. She started

786
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:01,839
Speaker 3: like really murder the babies because I think she was

787
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 3: she was allowing these babies to die in her care

788
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 3: of neglect or hunger or starvation or whatever. And then

789
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:10,720
Speaker 3: she would just take the money. But what she started

790
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 3: to do was like she realized it was taking too long,

791
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 3: so she just started murdering the babies. So she would

792
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 3: just take the like a one off payment or whatever,

793
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 3: or she would take like a monthly payment. And she

794
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 3: would even write letters to these mothers like how's my bib,

795
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 3: you know, kiss my baby for me, and she'd be like, yes, yes,

796
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 3: your baby's fine, and it would start murdering them. I

797
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 3: think she would she would strangle them and dispose of

798
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 3: their bodies and the river I think that's how she

799
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 3: was caught. One package was found in the river. It

800
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 3: contained a little girl, I believe, and it led back

801
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 3: to her. And I took a lot of details from

802
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 3: Melia Dyer. I remember she vividly she strangled the babies

803
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 3: with white edging tape used in dressmaking, and I have

804
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 3: that exactly that in my in my novel. And then

805
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 3: you know, she would throw the babies in the river

806
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 3: in like carpetbags waited with bricks and then her Yeah,

807
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 3: her downfall was when they found this bagged corpse of

808
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 3: one of the infants in the Thames and leading back

809
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 3: to her and she was arrested and it was like

810
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 3: one of the most sensational trials of the Victorian periods.

811
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 2: So this haunted me to know.

812
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 3: End what I did with Victorian psychle was I just

813
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 3: in flashbacks I narrate the story of how Winnifred was

814
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 3: brought up by one of these baby farmers, and how

815
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 3: she at an extremely young age, talking.

816
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 2: One year old or even or two years old, and

817
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,760
Speaker 2: she's being allegedly taken care of by this baby farmer

818
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 2: and she's watching the baby farmer murder these babies in

819
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 2: front of her. So that's how Winnifred first kind of

820
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 2: gets a taste of, you know, externally of death and

821
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 2: violence and murder.

822
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 3: And also what they did was they would give the

823
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 3: babies this godfreeze cordial it was called, which is basically

824
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 3: opium and syrups to kind of shut them up. This

825
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 3: is pretty common practice, but you know, baby farmers used

826
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 3: it a lot. So the infant would often basically die

827
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 3: of starvation because you know the opium is just I'm

828
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 3: not hungry. So we have this character Winnifred, who, at

829
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 3: a very young age, is watching this woman strangling these

830
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 3: babies and she's potentially next. She never knows why she

831
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 3: isn't murdered herself before her mother comes for her, and

832
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 3: essentially the baby farmer throws her out. She's like, your

833
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 3: baby's weird, and you know, I can't quite kill her,

834
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 3: so just take her back. And then her mother tries

835
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 3: to kill her with white edging tape because she doesn't

836
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 3: want to lose her job. And that's the beginning of

837
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 3: a very successful psycho life for Winnifred, my character.

838
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 2: So I was very, very fascinated by Amelia Dyer.

839
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 1: You know, I think you fit in with this sort

840
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: of long line of authors who use true crime. You know,

841
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 1: we know Poe at growlm Poe, did we know Nathaniel Hawthorne.

842
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: My latest book, you know, is about the true story

843
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:02,280
Speaker 1: behind Hester Prynne and what happens, which I think was interesting,

844
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: particularly you know, of course because of this book that

845
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: I wrote, kind of thinking about what Hawthorne was doing

846
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 1: with the real case of a woman who ends up

847
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 1: dead at the hands of a Methodist minister because he

848
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted her and she was demanding child support. So

849
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 1: the way that I had interpreted in other academics interpreted

850
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: was that Hawthorne was sort of reimagining what would happen

851
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 1: if Sarah Cornell had survived all this, So she would

852
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: have had a baby, she would have still worked in

853
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: a factory, she would have been humiliated as Hester Prynne was,

854
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 1: but at the same time sort of forging a path

855
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: of resilience and grit, you know, and Sarah Cornell never

856
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: had that opportunity. So, you know, you have all of

857
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 1: these people in your books who you have all these

858
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: sort of characters who can float around and provide inspiration.

859
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: And what's so great about fiction is you can just

860
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 1: sort of pick different things, you know, even if it's

861
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 1: just the color of the carpet that somebody's wrapped up

862
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: in or something that helped move you along. Because I

863
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 1: think fiction writing for me is so difficult. But was

864
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: it your way of also kind of processing with these

865
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: real characters. You still can't one hundred percent get into

866
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 1: Amelia Dyer's head or you know, Constance Kent, So is

867
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: it sort of you're finishing their story in some way,

868
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: is that kind of what happens with Winnifred.

869
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think there's a lot of that. I think

870
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 3: there's a lot of therapy involved. Firstly, I'm trying to

871
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 3: process what I'm reading and what I'm visualizing happened. A

872
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 3: way to do that is, for me, is humor as well.

873
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 3: So Victorian psycho Is is kind of echoing these stories

874
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 3: in a humorous light because I don't know how to

875
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:39,320
Speaker 3: deal with it otherwise, because it's very frightening and disturbing.

876
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 2: And then another part.

877
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 3: Of it is why, like, how in the world could

878
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 3: a human being ever do this? It's like it's to

879
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:51,280
Speaker 3: such a degree, I mean to any degree of course,

880
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 3: but like we're talking about four hundred babies that you've

881
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 3: thrown into the river, you know, and just like coldly

882
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 3: kept the money and they're clothing, and you know, told

883
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 3: their moms that then you'd kiss someone to cheek. This

884
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 3: is insane to me. I don't understand it. So I'm

885
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 3: trying to understand it, and I'm trying to lean into

886
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 3: the theory that maybe sometimes some human beings are just born,

887
00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 3: you know, broken, and there's just no other way to

888
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 3: understand it. Like it's just their evil and what we

889
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:21,959
Speaker 3: understand that is evil and they just want to hurt

890
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 3: people or they don't mind hurting people, and it's like,

891
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 3: I don't know, there are different species almost, I don't

892
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,879
Speaker 3: understand how else to kind of accept it, but so yeah,

893
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 3: it's definitely a way to like to poke at that,

894
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,320
Speaker 3: and it's the way I was reading all these cases,

895
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 3: and I was there was kind of a point where

896
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 3: I was like, this is hope, Like it's just hopeless.

897
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 2: Like there's no way that I could do. We were

898
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 2: just describing where you're like, well, what.

899
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 3: If they had lived to tell their tale, and like

900
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 3: it could be could they hope then somehow?

901
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 2: Could you?

902
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 3: Like I felt so hopeless and desperate when I was

903
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 3: reading all of this that all I could do was

904
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,799
Speaker 3: just turn to humor and like passive aggression and just

905
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,320
Speaker 3: like like a scream of rage because I couldn't believe

906
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 3: that this would go well for anybody in any situation.

907
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 3: It was so deranged. Is this going to be a

908
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 3: series for you? I don't think so. I think the

909
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 3: story is just it's what it is. And it's a

910
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 3: pretty short book as well, because it just couldn't sustain

911
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 3: more pages because it's too violent and ridiculous.

912
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 2: So is there anything that I regret I'll putting in?

913
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:20,440
Speaker 2: Sometimes I do.

914
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 3: Sometimes there are certain scenes because the first draft was

915
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 3: I just kind of let it all out and then

916
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 3: we like I had to edit it, you know. My

917
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 3: agent was like, let's talk. You know, this is deranged

918
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 3: and it went a little too far maybe, and so

919
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 3: there were some things that I cut out and then

920
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 3: I wonder, damn it that scene. But then I'm like, well,

921
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 3: I didn't want to go so overboard that it's just

922
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 3: impossible to read. I mean, I wasn't a place where,

923
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 3: like I think I needed it for myself, like therapeutically

924
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 3: to write it. But eventually I don't know if I

925
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 3: if I did it, if I did well or not,

926
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 3: And I don't want to I don't want to say

927
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 3: specifically in case I offend any sensibilities. But yeah, there

928
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 3: was like a scene I remember from her childhood, and

929
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:05,759
Speaker 3: that's the one I questioned the most, which was I

930
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:08,720
Speaker 3: decided that like when she was a kid and people

931
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 3: around her started to notice, you know, that she was

932
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 3: a little off, and they started to either avoid her

933
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,960
Speaker 3: or in the case of her reverend stepfather, he thinks, hmm,

934
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 3: maybe I can use this, you know, for good and

935
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 3: I can like harness her evil for my own you know, benefits.

936
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 3: So basically it was like he was used like townspeople

937
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 3: would approach him if they wanted to like get rid

938
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 3: of anybody, and he would just put Winnifred in that

939
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 3: person alone in a room for like hours and just

940
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 3: hope that she would like kind of swiftly get rid

941
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 3: of them. And so there was one scene where he

942
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 3: was leaving her with like a child, you know again,

943
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:48,480
Speaker 3: a young girl from the village that her parents wanted

944
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:50,319
Speaker 3: to like take to an asylum or whatever. They just

945
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 3: wanted to get rid of her, and he kept like

946
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 3: opening and closing the door just to check, you know,

947
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 3: whether she'd done it yet. So just because I didn't

948
00:47:57,040 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 3: want to write like with fear, like I didn't want

949
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 3: to be frightened, like, oh is this too much? So

950
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 3: the ones that I wonder about are those the ones

951
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 3: where I was like, did I take this out because

952
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 3: it didn't make any sense? Or did I take this

953
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 3: out because I was afraid. I try not to think

954
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 3: about it, so I try not to regret anything.

955
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 2: I was trying to strike a delicate balance.

956
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 3: I didn't want to shy away from the violence, because

957
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 3: you know, that's not what I was trying to do,

958
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 3: and this is again first person account from a psychopath.

959
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 3: But also I didn't want it to go so far

960
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 3: overboard that it's just gratuitous as hell, and it's just

961
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,879
Speaker 3: unreadable because it's so repetitive and boring. So I tried

962
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 3: to strike a balance. I don't know if I did

963
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 3: it right. You all let me know.

964
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

965
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

966
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, and Don't Forget. There are

967
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More

968
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and

969
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has

970
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis

971
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode

972
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:18,360
Speaker 1: was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer,

973
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen

974
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 1: Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Listen to wicked Words on the

975
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:30,919
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976
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:35,360
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977
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:37,840
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