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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.

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Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring

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Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.

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

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Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.

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

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Speaker 1: This is Buried Bones.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Kate, how are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm great, Paul, how are you?

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Speaker 2: I am doing good. What's going on with you?

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Speaker 1: Well? I know we have a part two in the

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Speaker 1: William Freeman case, but I wanted to give you a

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Speaker 1: little update on I know it's hard to believe I

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Speaker 1: have another show or two here, but I do have

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Speaker 1: another show, What Tenfold More Wicked. I always have people

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Speaker 1: ask when is the show coming back? And you know,

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Speaker 1: we had season ten, which was so much fun to

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Speaker 1: do set in Virginia. Season eleven. The trailer is out

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Speaker 1: now and season eleven is a humdinger, as my dad

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Speaker 1: would say. I know, I use that phrase all the time.

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Speaker 1: It is right up your alley. It is fire. It

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Speaker 1: is sixteen hundreds, which is not exactly up your alley.

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Speaker 1: I would definitely say nineteen hundreds are up your alley,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, sixteen hundreds. It is a woman, the matriarch

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Speaker 1: of a family, has a very troubled relationship with her

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Speaker 1: eldest son and things turn really badly for everybody in

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Speaker 1: this family. There is a fire, There is a ghost

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Speaker 1: who is a witness to what may or may not

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Speaker 1: be a murder. And it is a case that people

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Speaker 1: still talk about in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. It's part of

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Speaker 1: their history. So I have a forensic chemist, I've got

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Speaker 1: fire experts. I mean, we really try to dig into

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Speaker 1: this case. Have you worked a lot of fire cases,

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Speaker 1: arson cases involve death.

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Speaker 2: I've worked a few, you know, responded out, you know,

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Speaker 2: in a CSI capacity, and you know it's typically either

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Speaker 2: a car or a house has been set on fire

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Speaker 2: and then there's a body and that's when I got called.

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Speaker 2: But those are tough, tough cases to work.

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Speaker 1: Well, what I've learned is just because you think fire

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Speaker 1: is going to be a wonderful way to cover up

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Speaker 1: a murder, does not mean that is what's going to

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Speaker 1: happen for you, because this, if it was a murder,

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Speaker 1: did not work out. Fire is always a big mystery

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Speaker 1: to me. And I know people think it's gonna solve

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Speaker 1: all the problems and you could cover up evidence, but

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Speaker 1: oftentimes it doesn't.

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Speaker 2: It all depends on what gets burned up.

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Speaker 1: Yep. And this case is a wonderful time period. It

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Speaker 1: is the growing of the colonies. It is founders of

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Speaker 1: Rhode Island involved here, and whether or not somebody was

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Speaker 1: railroaded for something he never did. And that is the

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Speaker 1: best kind of case, I think, is to try to

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Speaker 1: figure out a puzzle from you know, four hundred years ago.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm on the edge of my seat right now.

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Speaker 1: Well, you need to go over and listen to the

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Speaker 1: trailer of tenfold more Wicked season eleven. I'm happy to

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Speaker 1: have all of our listeners, you know, come over and

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Speaker 1: check it out, let me know what you think, and

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Speaker 1: the first episode will drop the following Monday. So I

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Speaker 1: know you're on the edge of your seat about William Freeman,

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Speaker 1: So let's jump right back into that story. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: just as a reminder, because I know a lot has

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Speaker 1: happened in the week or so that I've seen you.

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Speaker 1: This is eighteen forty six and it's in March, and

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Speaker 1: the Van Nest family, almost all of them, have been

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Speaker 1: murdered by a mysterious offender late at night. You have

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Speaker 1: Sarah who was stabbed in the backyard, her husband John,

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Speaker 1: who was stabbed in the doorway, her mother Phoebe, who

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Speaker 1: was stabbed in the stairwell, their son who was two

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Speaker 1: years old, George, who was brutally stabbed in their bedroom.

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Speaker 1: And then the offender is confronted with his large knife

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Speaker 1: with a man who is a farmhand named Cornelius holding

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Speaker 1: a broom, who is stabbed, but effectively with the broom

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Speaker 1: kicks the offender out. The man hops on a horse,

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Speaker 1: which collapses. He stabs the horse out of what we

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Speaker 1: presume is anger. He finds another horse and rides out

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Speaker 1: of town. He is tracked down, it seems like, because

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Speaker 1: he was trying to sell this stolen horse, and he

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Speaker 1: is quickly arrested. This is all happening in the backdrop

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Speaker 1: of a lot of racial tensions in upstate New York

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Speaker 1: between black people and the white people. So that's where

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Speaker 1: we are, and I imagine you remember all of these details.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this case is fresh in my mind.

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Speaker 2: And you know, we pretty much ended the last episode

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Speaker 2: with this black man, William Freeman, being arrested. And you

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Speaker 2: know at that point the one descriptor that the living witness,

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Speaker 2: Cornelius said it was a black man. Now you know

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Speaker 2: this is where, okay, I have to dig into the

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Speaker 2: veracity of that statement. You know, this is nine thirty

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Speaker 2: at night inside a house in eighteen forty six. It's

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Speaker 2: not like there's light bulbs on inside this house. So

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Speaker 2: what was the lighting conditions? How well could Cornelius see

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Speaker 2: the offender that's attacking him. I have a case to

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Speaker 2: two girls inside a house at night were sexually assaulted

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Speaker 2: by the same man. One girl said he was black,

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Speaker 2: another girl said he was white. They couldn't see the man.

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Speaker 2: How confident am I with this statement right now? I

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Speaker 2: need to be able to evaluate that. And then, of course,

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Speaker 2: you know, William Freeman is rested with a stolen horse

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Speaker 2: that is presumed to be stolen by the offender who

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Speaker 2: killed this entire family. But that stolen horse is not

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Speaker 2: from the crime scene. It has no nexus to the

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Speaker 2: actual homicides. Is it possible or coincidental that William Freeman

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Speaker 2: did steal a horse at night and it was presumed

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Speaker 2: it was stolen by the killer? So there needs to

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Speaker 2: be more information that links that. When William Freeman is arrested,

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Speaker 2: does he have any does he have the knife on him?

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Speaker 2: Does he have the bloody knife on him? Does he

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Speaker 2: have any of the victim's blood on him? Does he

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Speaker 2: have defensive ends? You know from dealing with Cornelius. Was

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Speaker 2: Cornelius able to provide descriptions of the offender's clothing that

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Speaker 2: matches what William Freeman has found with? You know? So

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Speaker 2: this is all part of me just okay, I need

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Speaker 2: to know, you know, how strong of a case do

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Speaker 2: they have against William Freeman At this point.

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Speaker 1: They don't seem right now to have much of a case,

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Speaker 1: only because they haven't interviewed witnesses yet. But they will,

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Speaker 1: And I will frustrate you by saying we're going to

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Speaker 1: have to go back because this is their main suspect.

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Speaker 1: I like your instincts about a wrongful accusation, because this

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Speaker 1: is not the first time that William Freeman has been

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Speaker 1: accused of something that he might not have done. Oh,

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Speaker 1: so let's talk about our main suspect here, William Freeman.

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Speaker 1: I want to go back and get some background on him. Okay,

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Speaker 1: about two decades before the murder of the Van Nest family.

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Speaker 1: William Freeman was born in Auburn, New York. His the

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Speaker 1: other is described as black and indigenous Native American, and

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Speaker 1: William was described by the very racist newspapers as having

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Speaker 1: strongly marked with distinctive features of the North American tribes.

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Speaker 1: His dad was enslaved until eighteen fifteen before becoming a freeman,

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Speaker 1: which becoming a freeman meant, of course, being in servitude

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Speaker 1: much of the time to white people and being paid,

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Speaker 1: if at all, appendance. So his dad died in nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty in eighteen twenty seven, when William was just a toddler.

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Speaker 1: So here's where things get really interesting with William's family.

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Speaker 1: Who was our main suspect. The dad's cause of death

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Speaker 1: is said to be disease of the brain caused by

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Speaker 1: what was supposed to be a fall. Disease of the

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Speaker 1: brain caused by a bad fall. What would that be today?

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Speaker 2: Well, how long did he live after this fall? Was

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Speaker 2: the injury so severe that you know he died right

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Speaker 2: away or did he live for a significant period of time.

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Speaker 2: And then it was so obvious that he had this

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Speaker 2: brain injury that contributed to his death, even though it

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Speaker 2: was well after the time that he had the fall.

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Speaker 1: We could just assume right now he had fallen in

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Speaker 1: hit his head and maybe this was a brain injury

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Speaker 1: and that was it. I can't say for sure. You know,

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Speaker 1: we've talked about this before, how underreported people of color

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Speaker 1: were in newspapers, in good news and bad news, and

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Speaker 1: so we don't have a lot of details. Unfortunately, I

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Speaker 1: wish I knew more, so more about William himself. He

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Speaker 1: was seven or eight years old when he was put

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Speaker 1: to work as a domestic servant, so he was working

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Speaker 1: in white family homes. People described him as having some

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Speaker 1: behavioral issues, but I mean, a six or seven year

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Speaker 1: old forced to perform labor probably would have behavioral issues.

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Speaker 1: I would guess. They just said that he would wander

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Speaker 1: aimlessly while he was on the job. Despite being playful

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Speaker 1: and energetic, he did not want discipline or instructions, and

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Speaker 1: you know, moving forward in his teens, it becomes more potent.

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Speaker 1: He's unsteady at times, he has a temper, He cycles

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Speaker 1: through jobs, oscillates from being cheery to being depressed. He

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Speaker 1: even winds up committing a few petty crimes here and there,

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Speaker 1: but none are really serious or really violent crimes at all.

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Speaker 1: So he steals some chickens before actually then returning them

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Speaker 1: to the owner. So it just sounds like a little unstable.

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Speaker 1: It also could sound like a teenager in some ways,

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Speaker 1: just a typical teenager.

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Speaker 2: You think, Well, with what you've said, I mean, there's

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Speaker 2: nothing that you've described that I find alarming or predictive

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Speaker 2: of future violence. You know, it's just okay. Maybe he

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Speaker 2: is a struggling teenager. Maybe there's more going on, but

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Speaker 2: right now, none of the red flags that I would

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Speaker 2: be looking for. You know, what kind of you know,

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Speaker 2: physical violence is he getting in as a young boy

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Speaker 2: with classmates? Of course, when we start getting into somebody

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Speaker 2: who's slot during a whole family you know, is there

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Speaker 2: any fantasy aspect? Is there? You know, this whole serial

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Speaker 2: killer triad. You know the biggest component of that in

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Speaker 2: my mind is the harming of animals. Is there anything

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Speaker 2: like that in his past? At this time? We know

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Speaker 2: he killed a horse or at least the offender. I'm

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Speaker 2: still reserving judgment on William Freeman as a as the

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Speaker 2: actual offender right now. But we know the offender took

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Speaker 2: the time to kill a horse on the escape, you know,

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Speaker 2: is that indicative of somebody who has previously purposely hurt

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Speaker 2: animals for no reason?

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Speaker 1: We have no indicators that he did this if he

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Speaker 1: is the offender before the stabbing of the horse. No,

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Speaker 1: it just seems like typical hormonal teen stuff. Even the

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Speaker 1: stealing the chickens that he subsequently returned. This is childhood

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Speaker 1: teenage stuff. Now an interesting note, people later on would

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Speaker 1: connect a lot of mental illness throughout his family. But

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Speaker 1: this is going to be maddening, so to speak, for

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Speaker 1: you to hear these descriptions, because in historical context, their

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Speaker 1: idea of mental illness is much different than our idea

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Speaker 1: of mental illness. I think by the mid eighteen forties,

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Speaker 1: William had been preceded in death by a sister who

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Speaker 1: is described as quote unquote insane. His brother was still

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Speaker 1: alive at the time this all is happening, but they

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Speaker 1: called him a quote wandering lunatic, and he had reportedly

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Speaker 1: an aunt and an uncle who were both quote crazy,

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Speaker 1: and then of course his father was described as dying

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Speaker 1: with disease of the brain. Now, this is also a

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Speaker 1: time period when they considered epilepsy to be a mental

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Speaker 1: health issue. So I have no idea what all of

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Speaker 1: these people did to earn these labels, but I do

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Speaker 1: know that what they described as things that were very

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Speaker 1: unstable types of behavior might not be considered that now,

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Speaker 1: or he might legitimately have a history of mental illness

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Speaker 1: in their family. I do, I mean most people do.

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Speaker 1: I think when I.

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Speaker 2: Think you're making a good point, is you know, today

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Speaker 2: we have kind of the modern psychology, psychiatric evaluations, you

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Speaker 2: have diagnoses, you have standards DSM, you know, the standards

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Speaker 2: that these medical professionals use in order to evaluate somebody's

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Speaker 2: mental health. Here these descriptions insaying crazy back in eighteen

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Speaker 2: forty six. That sounds like lay people who are just

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Speaker 2: watching going, yeah, I'm going to stay away from that

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Speaker 2: person because they're just a little off, they're a little crazy.

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Speaker 2: There's no weight that I can put on, you know,

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Speaker 2: these descriptions of the families and their characteristics to say, yeah,

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Speaker 2: there is a pervasive mental health aspect within this family tree.

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Speaker 1: I agree with you, so far, I think that that's

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Speaker 1: definitely the case. You know, I have probably mentioned this before.

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Speaker 1: One of the seasons for Tenfold involved a man who

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Speaker 1: killed his family probably months before doing this. He was

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Speaker 1: is really complaining loudly about Catholics. Catholics this, They're ruining everything,

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Speaker 1: They're wanting to take over the country, I mean, going

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Speaker 1: on and on. And I talked to a forensic psychologist

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Speaker 1: and said, you know, isn't this part of sort of

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Speaker 1: a delusion? I know there's a religious aspect and she

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Speaker 1: said often there is. And she said, but tell me

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Speaker 1: about the time period. And I said, this is, you know,

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Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds. And when I talked to someone

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Speaker 1: who was an expert in Catholic history, he said, everybody

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Speaker 1: said that that didn't mean you were crazy. Everybody hated

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Speaker 1: the Catholics in the late eighteen hundreds. So I told

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Speaker 1: the psychologist that and she said, that is why historical contexts,

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Speaker 1: and not just historical cultural context what we think is

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Speaker 1: weird in this country is different than what they might

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Speaker 1: think is weird in a Latin American country or Europe.

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Speaker 2: You know, absolutely, And I think that's part of what

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Speaker 2: you're bringing to these stories as you are providing not

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Speaker 2: only the time period and what's going on in the

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Speaker 2: world world or in that particular location, but also you

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Speaker 2: know the social and cultural aspects that is so huge

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Speaker 2: to evaluate. You know what's going on in the case.

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Speaker 1: I agree, So let's move forward. Let's talk about where

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Speaker 1: things go wrong for William. So he can't keep a job.

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Speaker 1: He's flitting from one place to the other. Get in line.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people can't keep a job. But he

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Speaker 1: starts having really really bad luck. So six years before

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Speaker 1: the murders of the Van Nest family, he's sixteen years

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Speaker 1: old and he's living with his sister and his brother

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Speaker 1: in law in Auburn. There is a horse that belongs

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Speaker 1: to a local woman named Martha Godfrey, who is white.

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Speaker 1: And the horse goes missing, and the witnesses say that

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Speaker 1: the thief is you can guess, a black man. He

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Speaker 1: is quickly accused of the crime just because he lives nearby.

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Speaker 1: He is not only black like the alleged thief is.

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Speaker 1: But it's also known that William has done the dastardly thing,

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Speaker 1: which is steel chickens. Nobody mentioned and said he returned

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Speaker 1: the chickens, but he stole chickens in the past, so

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Speaker 1: now he has this bad reputation, and if you've stolen chickens,

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Speaker 1: you've obviously stolen this horse. He says, I didn't do it,

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Speaker 1: don't bug me. He's arrested, but then the magistrate eventually

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Speaker 1: lets him go because there's no evidence he had anything

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Speaker 1: to do with the animal's disappearance. And the horse is

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Speaker 1: found later on in a different county, and another black

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Speaker 1: man named Jack Urman is arrested after records show that

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Speaker 1: he had sold the horse after the theft. I guess

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Speaker 1: they're busting a lot of people like that. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a horse that's reported missing and then somebody tries

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Speaker 1: to sell it and they say, you know, you're the

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Speaker 1: one who obviously stole the horse.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is sounding a little like something

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Speaker 2: out of the TV show yellow Stone.

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Speaker 1: Don't steal horses.

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Speaker 2: Steal horses and sell them and make money.

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Speaker 1: No, Yeah, they didn't mess around about theft in the country, especially,

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Speaker 1: So Jack Verman is arrested. This other man he knows, William.

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Speaker 1: He finds out that William had been briefly questioned, and

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Speaker 1: Jack Furman says, wait, that's the guy who did it.

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Speaker 1: I didn't do it. It was him. It was the

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Speaker 1: other black man. And they go back and believe Jack Verman,

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Speaker 1: and they jail William for this with seemingly no evidence

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Speaker 1: whatsoever except that a horse thief says he's the one

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Speaker 1: who did it. I didn't do it, remember the chickens.

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Speaker 1: William is scared, and it sounds like rightfully so, that

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Speaker 1: he is going to be scapegoaded for this horse theft.

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Speaker 1: That's what happens. He is put on trial and despite

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Speaker 1: having no evidence, he's convicted. He does not get the

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Speaker 1: death penalty. He does get something that is not so

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Speaker 1: far off of it. He is sentenced to five years

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Speaker 1: hard labor at Auburn State Prison. Now you don't know

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Speaker 1: anything about Auburn State Prison. I do because Edward Ruloff,

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Speaker 1: the killer I know the most about, spent years in

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Speaker 1: this time period at Auburn State Prison. He was at

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Speaker 1: Auburn State Prison the exact same time that William Freeman was,

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Speaker 1: and it was not a good place to be. The

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Speaker 1: spoiler alert here is William Freeman is tied directly to

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Speaker 1: the Van Nest murders, and there are witnesses, so we'll

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Speaker 1: be able to talk about that. But this time in

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Speaker 1: his life might have been the breaking point for him.

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Speaker 1: And I just wonder if what you're about to hear

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Speaker 1: about Auburn State Prison we can connect to what ends

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Speaker 1: up happening with the Van Nest family, because there is

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Speaker 1: cruelty and then there is awful cruelty. And you know,

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Speaker 1: Edward Ruloff did not have a terrible time at Auburn

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Speaker 1: State Prison. I'm presuming because he was white, he was quiet.

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Speaker 1: He actually made a lot of money because he was

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Speaker 1: an excellent carpet designer. And one of the things about

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Speaker 1: Auburn State Prison during this time is it was an

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Speaker 1: experimental prison, which meant that they were silent. They were

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Speaker 1: never allowed to talk, They had to eat in silence

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Speaker 1: when Ruloff was there, they had their own cells. There

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Speaker 1: was no communication at all. And Edward Ruloff loved it

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Speaker 1: because he was able to do his studies. And you know,

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Speaker 1: he eventually writes this groundbreaking, you know, manuscript that he

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Speaker 1: thought was going to change the world about linguistics. But

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Speaker 1: for someone like William Freeman, who was black, this begins

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Speaker 1: a really difficult five years for him. So let's just

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Speaker 1: start with let me tell you what the silent part

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Speaker 1: is they're required to go about their days in complete silence.

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Speaker 1: If they speak out of turn, they are lashed, particularly

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Speaker 1: the black prisoners. But William, unlike Edward Ruloff, refuses to

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Speaker 1: remain silent. He never stops saying that he was innocent.

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Speaker 1: He's extremely vocal about it. And on top of that,

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Speaker 1: he'll often get so upset that he either refuses to

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Speaker 1: perform the labor, which is like breaking rocks. Rule Off

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Speaker 1: was in a nice little carpet manufacturing room, but the

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Speaker 1: rest of the guys were breaking rocks. It was awful.

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Speaker 1: He would get so upset that he would say, I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to do it, and the prison staff hated him,

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Speaker 1: and the other prisoners hated him, and everybody, it sounds like,

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Speaker 1: including people who had no reason to lie, was increasingly

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Speaker 1: abusive to him as the years went on. So the

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Speaker 1: silent part is that a solitary confinement thing. They're all together,

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Speaker 1: but they can't talk.

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Speaker 2: Of course, there's been, you know, studies, observations on solitary

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Speaker 2: confinement and how that impacts a human I don't know

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Speaker 2: from the lack of the ability to be permitted to

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Speaker 2: speak to others. You know, there is obviously a denial

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Speaker 2: of a fundamental social interaction that we do. So maybe

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Speaker 2: that could have an impact that would be on the

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Speaker 2: spectrum of what somebody would experience if they are totally

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Speaker 2: isolated from social interactions. But I don't know for sure,

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Speaker 2: you know, but it sounds like it could be. But

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Speaker 2: I think just everything about this environment for William most

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Speaker 2: certainly would have an influence on his behavior.

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Speaker 1: Well all Warren listeners. Some of the stuff that he

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Speaker 1: went through, while not sexual in manner here, is really upsetting.

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Speaker 1: So he is, admittedly by the staff, subjected to horrible punishments.

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Speaker 1: One is what they called showering, which is waterboarding. Can

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Speaker 1: you explain waterboarding for people who don't know.

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Speaker 2: I do not know waterboarding to any great detail, but

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Speaker 2: in essence, this is where somebody is held, has a

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Speaker 2: cloth over there their face, and then water is poured

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Speaker 2: and it gives the subject a sensation of not being

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Speaker 2: able to breathe, like they're going to drown. And it's

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Speaker 2: you know, the controller, the one who's applying the technique.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're an essence like what I've talked about

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Speaker 2: in other episodes, like with offenders, in essence, they're they're

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Speaker 2: playing God. They choose when they stop pouring the water.

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Speaker 2: And of course, you know this type of torture is

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Speaker 2: to try to elicit some sort of response to get

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Speaker 2: information or is a form of punishment.

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Speaker 1: Another thing that happened is that he was often flogged

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Speaker 1: with something called a cat o nine tails. Do you

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Speaker 1: know what that is?

379
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Speaker 2: No, I see you've put a picture up. Yeah, it

380
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Speaker 2: looks like you had like a short whip that has

381
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Speaker 2: multiple ends on it, like a lash. So obviously with

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Speaker 2: a single blow you have multiple sights on the victim's

383
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Speaker 2: body that's being hit by these different strands.

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Speaker 1: It's awful. It would have been very painful. So the

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Speaker 1: description that these guards are admitting to of what would

386
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Speaker 1: happen to him was that he was flogged with this

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Speaker 1: cat of nine tails. And they said a man named

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Speaker 1: William Smith, who was a foreman in the prison's carpet factory,

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Speaker 1: said he witnessed William being whipped and beaten, and on

390
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Speaker 1: one occasion he was flogged so severely that a hole

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Speaker 1: had been cut between his ribs so that he could

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Speaker 1: lay the end of his fingers in it.

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Speaker 2: What I'm kind of assessing, let's say, you know, William,

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Speaker 2: you know he's truly innocent of stealing this horse, and

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Speaker 2: now he is being subjected to this prison punishment, which

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Speaker 2: is obviously very extreme. Imagine the distaste that he is

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Speaker 2: developing for you know, the people responsible for putting him

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Speaker 2: in that prison, for the people who run that prison.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like he's having negative interactions with the other prisoners.

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Speaker 2: He is really going to develop a disdain, you know.

401
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Speaker 2: So when he's released, he's a changed person.

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Speaker 1: That's an understatement. And here's where something changes. And you

403
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Speaker 1: can tell me what you think about this. The real

404
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: culprit here, besides you know, the other staffers who were

405
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Speaker 1: witnessing this and not stopping it, or the people who

406
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Speaker 1: are doing things to him, is this man who is

407
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Speaker 1: a staffer named James Tyler. Tyler says, yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: what I did to him. He says, William came at

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Speaker 1: him with a knife. Conveniently, he says this after you know,

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Speaker 1: William is suspected of killing somebody with a knife. He says,

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Speaker 1: William came at him with a knife. Tyler picked up

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Speaker 1: a thick wooden board. It is fourteen inches wide, half

413
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Speaker 1: an inch thick, and two feet long. Tyler grabs the

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Speaker 1: board and smacks it against William's head flat wise. He

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Speaker 1: said that William was hit so hard that it split

416
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Speaker 1: the board. And he said that the prison doctor looked

417
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Speaker 1: at William, he had lost most of his and he

418
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Speaker 1: was of course impaired cognitively. And so when he finally

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Speaker 1: left prison after five years, he was very different. Like

420
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Speaker 1: you just said, confused is the way most people described him.

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Speaker 1: He was in a confused state. Well, no shit, after

422
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Speaker 1: being hit on the head with a board like.

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Speaker 2: That, I just have to assume that, just like his

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Speaker 2: his father had with the fall, that he ended up

425
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Speaker 2: having a traumatic brain injury as a result of being

426
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Speaker 2: hit in the head. He lost hearing out of one ear.

427
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Speaker 2: I mean, that does sound like there was forces being

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Speaker 2: generated inside his skull that disrupted his ability to hear.

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Speaker 2: Imagine those forces are also having an impact on other

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Speaker 2: functional areas of his brain.

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Speaker 1: So he is released after five years, and as I said,

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Speaker 1: he comes out in what people described as a confused state,

433
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: and that is about six months before the murder of

434
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: this family. Now I will tell you that he is

435
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:05,639
Speaker 1: arrested and when he gets a kick ass attorney, the

436
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 1: attorney will go for the very first instance of the

437
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:13,919
Speaker 1: United states of the insanity defense. Oh okay, we'll go

438
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: ahead and say that William Freeman is not denying this happened,

439
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 1: that he did this, but the attorney wants to explain

440
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: what happened, and this is something that is connected to

441
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:30,239
Speaker 1: the way he grew up being in servitude, and of

442
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: course the prison is what they think was his breaking point,

443
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 1: because up until prison he had been falsely accused of

444
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: stealing a horse and did a silly chicken theft thing

445
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: and had just been sort of a flitty kid and

446
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: a flitty teenager. And then he comes out of this

447
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 1: prison and murders for people and almost kills a fifth.

448
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:53,360
Speaker 1: What a change.

449
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,919
Speaker 2: You know, this is where cause and effect. You know,

450
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 2: what he was subjected to in prison, objected to growing up.

451
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,639
Speaker 2: You know, did this really cause him the slaughter of

452
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 2: this family? Kate? You know, like in eighteen forty six,

453
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 2: what the criteria was to establish insanity where legally the

454
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 2: defendant couldn't be tried for the crimes.

455
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: There wasn't in eighteen forty six, Okay, there was after

456
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: this case was done because his attorney, who was an abolitionist,

457
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this in a minute, is the

458
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: one who said, let's look to Britain, let's look at

459
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: something called the mc naughton test, and that was the

460
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 1: test that would become kind of the hallmark of how

461
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 1: to figure out if somebody was legally insane. And we

462
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: will talk about that in a minute. Let me tell

463
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: you what happened that day first, because maybe that'll kind

464
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: of contribute to whether or not you think how much

465
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: what happened at Auburn would frame what would end up

466
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,199
Speaker 1: happening with the Van Nest family, which is, this is

467
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: a man who went into Auburn seemingly not a brutal person,

468
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: but certainly came out and did something absolutely horrific and

469
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to deny it. Okay, you're ready, There's a

470
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: lot going on here. Six months before the murders, he's released.

471
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: He looks and acts very differently. He seems fixated on

472
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: the idea of revenge. He doesn't talk a lot, but

473
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:27,880
Speaker 1: when he does, it's always about revenge for his wrongful

474
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: conviction for stealing that horse. He tells his brother in

475
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: law someone has to pay for what he's been put

476
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: through for the past five years. There's a magistrate who

477
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: testifies later on about William's obsession with revenge. He said,

478
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: on the Saturday previous to the murder, William came to

479
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: my office. He opened the door. He advanced four or

480
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 1: five feet, stood half a minute, and then said he

481
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: wanted a warrant. I asked him what he wanted to

482
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 1: warrant for. He advanced nearest to me. I asked him again.

483
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: He said, for the man who put him in the state.

484
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: He acted strange, but I attribute it to deafness and ignorance.

485
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: That was not the Van Nest family. He had no

486
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: idea who they were. They were strangers. The end of

487
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: this story, nobody knows why he picked that house. But

488
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: this was not a personal thing against the Van Nest family.

489
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: So they said that he was almost completely deaf and

490
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: kind of dazed. And then I have more of his movements.

491
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: But what do you think about that, this obsession with revenge, as.

492
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 2: I kind of talked about, you know, when you were

493
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 2: describing the homicides, you know, these elimination homicides where the

494
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 2: offender is not spending a lot of time with each

495
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 2: of the victims, but in essence trying to wipe out

496
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 2: a family. You know, part of the early theory I

497
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 2: was proposing, is this could be a vindictive offender. So

498
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 2: this is adding up now the fact that the Van

499
00:29:54,920 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 2: Nests family, they're unknown to William. But the key thing

500
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 2: that I'm focusing in on is John, the husband who

501
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 2: was killed, was a justice of the peace. So in essence,

502
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 2: in William's mind is a possible John represented the very

503
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: people that put him in prison, caused him to be

504
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 2: subjected to all this physical abuse and mental abuse, and

505
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 2: so by proxy, John is who William chose to carry

506
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 2: out his revenge on.

507
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: I think that's a good thought. I don't know if

508
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: there's proof that William knew who John was or what

509
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: he did for a living, Okay, but white man represented

510
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: a lot to him.

511
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's just another form of victim by proxy.

512
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: Okay, listen to this. So now we have some more

513
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: movements and some more confusion. A blacksmith reported that three

514
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: days before the murder, William stopped by his shop and

515
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: purchased a knife. The man said that William was clearly

516
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: hard of hearing and didn't have any money, and so

517
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 1: he gave him the large butcher knife at a discounted price.

518
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: A day or two after that, a shop owner said

519
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: that William came in the store with a large butcher

520
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: knife and asked to have it grinded. Around the same time.

521
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: So this is a day or two before the murders.

522
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: William stops by Martha Godfrey's house, and if you remember,

523
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: Martha is the one who owned the horse that he

524
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: was accused of stealing. He comes and she says, sit down,

525
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: and she gives him a piece of cake, and he

526
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: asked her about the horse theft. So he starts saying,

527
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: do you really think that I stole this horse? I

528
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: was wrongfully convicted of stealing your horse. I don't know

529
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: what would have happened. But a neighbor showed up a

530
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 1: man and asked William, what do you want from Martha,

531
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: because everybody knows the connection between Martha and William. William

532
00:31:56,120 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: reportedly responded that he didn't really know he was there,

533
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 1: and when the neighbor said, are you looking for a horse?

534
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: He said that. William sat awhile didn't say anything, looked around, smiled,

535
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: and then finally said, no, I don't want a horse.

536
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: He said, I've been in prison for stealing a horse

537
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: I didn't steal, and now I want a settlement, and

538
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: of course looked squarely at Martha, but he leaves and

539
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 1: he doesn't return, so ominous. I guess he seemed confused.

540
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 2: Well, at this point, he's already got the knife. Martha

541
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 2: in many ways, in William's mind is his accuser that

542
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 2: got him into prison. So you can see if he

543
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 2: is now wanting to seek revenge. Well, Martha could potentially

544
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 2: be one of those individuals. Now, did he go into

545
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 2: Martha's place with the intent to kill her and then

546
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 2: the male neighbor coming by kind of caused that to

547
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 2: go sideways? Or in his mind getting revenge? Was Hey,

548
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 2: I want money, I want a settlement. I just spent

549
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 2: five six years in prison doing hard labor and miserable conditions.

550
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 2: You owe me, you know, kind of that, you know.

551
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 2: I don't know what William's intent was when he went

552
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 2: to go see Martha, but in some ways, she's probably

553
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 2: lucky she was left alive.

554
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: I think lucky that the neighbors showed up for sure. Yes,

555
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the day of the murder. He

556
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: is wandering around aimlessly this town of Fleming, and then

557
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: he looks at a large house and he stops and

558
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: he looks at it, and people noticed him looking at it,

559
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: and it is the Van Nest's house. And then the

560
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 1: murders happened hours later.

561
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: So I think it's possible. You know this, you know,

562
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 2: lying in wait where you know, he's seeing a house

563
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 2: the family represents, you know, the people that he's mad at,

564
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 2: you know, victims by by proxy, and he's probably going

565
00:33:56,040 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 2: to go, Okay, I've chosen my target. Now I'm going

566
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 2: to sit back and watch, possibly with the intent of

567
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 2: breaking into the house in the middle of the night

568
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 2: to kill the family. But then Sarah happens to step

569
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 2: outside and he just happened to be right there.

570
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: It's awful. And when he is arrested, he shows I think,

571
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: an interesting reaction, physical agitation. He trembles and he shakes,

572
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: he looks like he was going to cry. When I

573
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: read this, I thought, not surprised at all. This is

574
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: a black man in the mid eighteen fifties. You think

575
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: this is the first time he's been cuffed and agitated

576
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: and arrested and hurt.

577
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's had many negative interactions, but at this

578
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 2: point that he's being arrested, he's just killed a family.

579
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 2: You know, he must be starting to realize, uh, oh,

580
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 2: you know, his future is bleak.

581
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'll tell you the press really framed this

582
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: as blacks versus whites, which isn't surprising. The press runs

583
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,320
Speaker 1: well with stories that completely vilify and to humanize William

584
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: before there's proof that he did it. He barely escapes

585
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: being lynched. Again, not a surprise. It captures the attention

586
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 1: of the entire state because it is so well publicized,

587
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 1: including a very very powerful, politically connected lawyer who is

588
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: an abolitionist, an Auburn resident named William H. Seward. He

589
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 1: was a huge deal. He was New York's governor. He

590
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 1: would later serve as President Lincoln and Andrew Johnson's secretary

591
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:30,720
Speaker 1: of State. You know, he was a really big deal.

592
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: And he and his wife also sold land to Harriet

593
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: Tubman when she arrived in Cuga County. So you know,

594
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 1: this is someone who wanted to take up the cause

595
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,760
Speaker 1: for William, which is for William a miracle that somebody

596
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: wanted to represent him. And I don't Paul want a

597
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: loose sight of the fact that we're talking about an

598
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,720
Speaker 1: entire family, including a two year old boy who's been murdered.

599
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,600
Speaker 1: How do you feel at this point, knowing everything he

600
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,800
Speaker 1: went through, but then, knowing what he did to that family.

601
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 2: I was going to ask a question, are there's no

602
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 2: controversy regarding William and his involvement in killing this entire family?

603
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: Now? I don't know if he's admitted to it, but

604
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: he's connected to it, and he's not denying it. He's

605
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: not saying anything really and Seward, when he takes up

606
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: this case, is not denying it either. He's just saying,

607
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: look at everything this man has gone through, are you

608
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 1: really surprised that he has this level of rage against

609
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: white people? And it was a unique defense.

610
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 2: I break evaluating William up into two components. I'm evaluating

611
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 2: him and his involvement in this quadruple homicide of an

612
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 2: entire family, including a two year old boy, pleasant attempt

613
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 2: homicide on the farm hand Cornelius. For me, I want

614
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 2: to know William's mental state at the time of those homicides.

615
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 2: I mean, is he truly psychotic or is he just

616
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 2: filled with rage? We have so many murders that are

617
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:07,280
Speaker 2: committed because somebody is filled with rage for one reason

618
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:11,879
Speaker 2: or another. It doesn't absolve them of the crimes, nor

619
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 2: does it cause me to have compassion for them because

620
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 2: they've committed a horrific act. Now, typically after somebody's convicted

621
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 2: of the crime in today's court system and the type

622
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,839
Speaker 2: of sentence that is going to be levied out, well,

623
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,240
Speaker 2: that's when the defendant's background comes into play to try

624
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 2: to get sympathy, you know, to try to whether it

625
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:41,280
Speaker 2: be the judge or the jury, to get them to

626
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 2: provide a level of leniency because of their upbringing what

627
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,280
Speaker 2: they are exposed to. So with William, of course, nobody

628
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 2: should be subjected to the type of torture that he

629
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 2: was subjected to in prison, both physical as well as mental.

630
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 2: And is there cause an effect why William because of

631
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 2: that experience, why he killed this family? Or if William

632
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 2: never had this experience, would he still have acted out

633
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 2: and committed some level of homicide in his future. I

634
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 2: don't think anybody could could predict one way or another.

635
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 2: So for me, of course, there's a level of compassion

636
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 2: for another human being subjected to what William was subjected to,

637
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 2: but absent true mental health issues for the homicides, I

638
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 2: don't have compassion for William. He killed a family and

639
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 2: that's kind of how I look at it.

640
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:37,479
Speaker 1: Well, William Seward has a tough road ahead of him.

641
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 1: They As I had mentioned before, there was no real

642
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: criteria in the United States for evaluating someone's legal sanity

643
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty six, just a few years earlier, I

644
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: mentioned McNaughton, which I've written about many times, so just

645
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,439
Speaker 1: to shorthand a lot of this, because there's so much

646
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: detail here that we can talk about. Just a few

647
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: years earlier, there was a man, Daniel McNaughton, who in

648
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:06,880
Speaker 1: England murdered the then Prime Minister's secretary when he was

649
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: in the throes of paranoid delusions. He was found not

650
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 1: guilty by reason of insanity. He was sent to a

651
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 1: mental health institution instead of prison, and this set up

652
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 1: what we now know as the McNaughton insanity rules or

653
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: the insanity test. Are you familiar with this?

654
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 2: You've heard of this before at a very superficial level. Okay,

655
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 2: you know, so that is sounding familiar to me. And

656
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 2: I can think of several cases that I had small

657
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 2: roles in as an expert in which you know, the

658
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 2: defendant ultimately was found to be mentally incompetent, you know,

659
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,720
Speaker 2: stand trial. You know, so I have seen a little

660
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:47,320
Speaker 2: bit behind the scenes in terms of how the courts

661
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 2: approach that type of situation.

662
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 1: So the McNaughton rules, just as I said to Shorthand,

663
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 1: it is that all defendants are presumed to be sane

664
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: unless they can prove at the time of committing the

665
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: criminal act the defendant state of mind caused them to

666
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 1: number one, not know what they were doing when they

667
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: committed said act, or number two that they knew what

668
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: they were doing but did not know that it was wrong.

669
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: So those were the two. William Seward said, let's do it.

670
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: I Am going to prove one of those two with

671
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: him in the United States first time it was tried.

672
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 2: Yep. And that's you know again, when it comes to

673
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 2: today's process and justice system. I don't know precisely what

674
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 2: the legal standards are, but those two criteria typically factor

675
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 2: in even today. Do you know what you're doing and

676
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 2: do you know it right from wrong?

677
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: The one note here that I thought was interesting is

678
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: point number two they knew what they were doing but

679
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 1: did not know that it was wrong. What I see

680
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: is that a common example of that is if someone

681
00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 1: is acting on orders from quote unquote God does right

682
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 1: to you too, like they know this is wrong, but

683
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: something is making me do it, the devil God something.

684
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's I think there's a variety of different types

685
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 2: of permutations. You know, in terms of okay, they're fully

686
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 2: cognizant of the act that they're doing, you know, it's

687
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 2: just that they're not recognizing the legal implication. This is

688
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 2: something that is considered a crime as well as the

689
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 2: moral standard of our society is being breached. So when

690
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:35,479
Speaker 2: I start evaluating William, you know, I'm looking at well,

691
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 2: he's methodically killing an entire family. He's doing an essence

692
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 2: after killing Sarah, outside killing John, he's doing a building search.

693
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 2: You know, he's killing Phoebe, kills George, the little boy

694
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 2: gets into the fight with Cornelius. You know, he is

695
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 2: showing cognitive function. But I think it's also significant is

696
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 2: he has his wits about him to know he has

697
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:03,720
Speaker 2: to escape. So a truly psychotic individual would be somebody

698
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 2: who goes and kills his family and could be wandering

699
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 2: down the middle of the street with the victim's blood

700
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 2: all over them. They're not obviously aware of what's going on.

701
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 2: That's in fact, I have a case a woman broke

702
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 2: into a house using a hanging potted plant smashed a window,

703
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 2: grabbed knife out of the kitchen, climbed on top of

704
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 2: a sleeping woman and just started stabbing her and then left. Well,

705
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 2: she was found completely soaked in the victim's blood, wandering

706
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 2: down the middle of the street. She was high. She

707
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 2: was absolutely zombied out on meth, you know. But there

708
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 2: is a level of that type of psychosis, if you will. So.

709
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 2: Evaluating the offenders acts as they're committing the crime. Post

710
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 2: offense behavior is important. Are they trying to hide the

711
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 2: fact that they commit the crime. They're demonstrating knowledge of

712
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 2: right and wrong. They know I'm going to get in

713
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 2: trouble if I get found. William by escaping to me,

714
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 2: is recognizing that he did something wrong.

715
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you something that was interesting when you

716
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: were talking. I was thinking about a man that I

717
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: interviewed a couple of years ago for tenfold. He was

718
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: a survivor in a case at the University of Texas

719
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: where a young man who was a student took a

720
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: knife and started stabbing people in a very populated area

721
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: right during lunchtime. And the young man that I interviewed

722
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 1: who was a survivor, one didn't and he did, one didn't.

723
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: One young man didn't survive, and this one did. I interviewed.

724
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 1: He said, he turned around, he grabbed the knife with

725
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,240
Speaker 1: his hand and almost cut through all of the tendons

726
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: in his hand. He turned around and he had the

727
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,320
Speaker 1: blade of a knife in his hand. He turned around

728
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: and he looked at the offender in the eyes and

729
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,720
Speaker 1: I said, what did you see? And he said nothing.

730
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: He's like you know when you make eye contact with

731
00:43:57,840 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 1: somebody on the street and you both look away. It's

732
00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: just like you make a quick He said, it was blank.

733
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 1: He didn't try to run. Police came. He just would

734
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: have kept going if somebody didn't stop. But he didn't

735
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 1: try to escape. And he said, there was no one home.

736
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: You just could see it.

737
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 2: And that's the type of behavior I would expect when

738
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 2: somebody truly is in that psychotic break. Don't know how

739
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 2: the person would necessarily be diagnosed in terms of what condition,

740
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 2: but there is a mental health issue, and at the

741
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 2: time that they're committing the crime, they are not understanding

742
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 2: you know those two parameters. You know, what are they

743
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 2: doing and or what they're doing is it wrong?

744
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 1: I know these days judges are the ones who decide

745
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:47,879
Speaker 1: whether someone is competent to stand trial. Is that right?

746
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 2: That's my understanding. Yes.

747
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: So in eighteen forty six it was a jury. The

748
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:54,839
Speaker 1: defense attorney had two juries he had to deal with

749
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: if he made it past the first one. You know,

750
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:01,240
Speaker 1: his goal was to say that this man, and William Freeman,

751
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: should not stand trial. The first jury disagreed. They said

752
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 1: he was competent, so he goes on trial. And it is,

753
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: of course, we always say this the battle of the experts.

754
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: The defense attorney's goal was to say that his sanity

755
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:19,399
Speaker 1: at the moment of the killings should be what we

756
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: use to decide whether or not he would be held

757
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: criminally liable for these deaths. And he says, William clearly

758
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,959
Speaker 1: now has mental illness. And he said that he had

759
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 1: racist violent mistreatment at the Auburn State Prison and he

760
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: was there wrongfully, that he did not steal this woman's horse,

761
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: And this is where everything began. His number one goal

762
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: is to say the abuse is what amplified the existing

763
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: mental illness that led to the murders. Now, you and

764
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: I already said that we were not quite sure it

765
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: was proven that William walked into Auburn State Prison with

766
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 1: a mental illness.

767
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 2: Right right, And again you know this is that is

768
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 2: it causal to the homicides? You know, That's where I

769
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 2: separate into the two components. You've got his background, and

770
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 2: you've got the crime, and what was William's mental state

771
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:22,319
Speaker 2: at the time he committed the crime. There are so

772
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 2: many people who have grown up into abusive environments that

773
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 2: don't go and slaughter a family, you know, So you

774
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 2: can't absolve somebody from this act of multiple homicides, this

775
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 2: act of you know, quadruple murder because they had a

776
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 2: bad experience in their past. For me, it's what was

777
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 2: his mental state at the time of committing the crime,

778
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:48,440
Speaker 2: you know. And I can be sympathetic to William for

779
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 2: what he experienced as a human, but I am not

780
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 2: going to take that leap and say, well, he shouldn't

781
00:46:56,080 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 2: be held accountable because of what he experienced inside at

782
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 2: that prison.

783
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 1: Well, the prosecutor is the New York State Attorney General,

784
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: a guy named John Van Buren. And if you recognize

785
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: Van Buren, he was the son of President Martin Van Buren.

786
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:14,919
Speaker 1: And these are two powerful men going against each other.

787
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:19,239
Speaker 1: So Van Buren says, listen, he was so degrading. I

788
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: wanted to say mean but degrading to William. He says, listen,

789
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: this man is ignorant. He of course used not very

790
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:30,799
Speaker 1: kind language for a black person. He is ignorant, He

791
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 1: is awful, he is stupid. He is the basis of

792
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:39,800
Speaker 1: the based people. But please don't misconstrue that for mental illness.

793
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 1: He knew exactly what he was doing. He did it

794
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: with intention, he tried to escape. Don't get confused and

795
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 1: don't fall for this defense of I was beaten so

796
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 1: badly and been given brain damage in Auburn that I

797
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,359
Speaker 1: should be absolved and murdering an entire family. So those

798
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,320
Speaker 1: are the two sides were looking at. Does the abuse,

799
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: and we've just finished talking about this, does the abuse

800
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 1: in Auburn State Prison do so much to his brain

801
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:11,719
Speaker 1: and so much to just his soul that it has

802
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: triggered this six months after getting out.

803
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 2: Well, that's obviously what the defense is trying to put

804
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:22,399
Speaker 2: out there. I think the Van Buren and the prosecutor,

805
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 2: you know, he's basically making the argument that I was

806
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 2: just making myself. Assessing William's actions at the time of

807
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 2: committing the crime. Post offense behavior is demonstrating William knew

808
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 2: right from wrong. He was aware what he was doing.

809
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 2: He's not meeting that McNaughton set of standards for insanity,

810
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,920
Speaker 2: you know. So, in my opinion, I agree with that

811
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 2: argument based on what I know about the case. But

812
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 2: it'll be interesting to see how this plays out, because

813
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're going to tell me how the trial proceeds.

814
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: I'll tell you there were a lot, a lot of witnesses.

815
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: There were more than seventy prosecution witnesses, thirty six defense witnesses,

816
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:09,840
Speaker 1: nine different physicians, Lots and lots of stuff happening, including

817
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: experts on the prosecutor side who contend that he's probably

818
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 1: faking mental illness. For William's part, he looked confused. He

819
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:22,719
Speaker 1: laughs out of turn. He claimed he didn't have counsel,

820
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: when his council, Seward, is sitting right next to him,

821
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: and he is unable to answer most questions beyond I

822
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm assuming when the judge asks him questions.

823
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: So the judge does something interesting, and I don't know

824
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:37,879
Speaker 1: if you think this is right or not. Even though

825
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 1: witnesses continue to litigate William's sanity and the history of

826
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 1: his mental illness, the judge restricts medical testimony to facts

827
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 1: discovered prior to July sixth, when the previous jury found

828
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:57,959
Speaker 1: mister Freeman, say so facts discovered before July sixth.

829
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 2: You're part of what I wonder William's behavior in court

830
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 2: Has that significantly changed? Where now the prosecution's going he's

831
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 2: faking this right, and so now they're trying to reset

832
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:13,400
Speaker 2: and say, okay, well, yes, he was found mentally competent

833
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 2: to stand trial. And then the defense has employed this

834
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:22,479
Speaker 2: behavior in front of the jury as a strategy. What

835
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:28,360
Speaker 2: may happen here is Williams's behavior is so bizarre. During

836
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 2: the course of the trial, the judge made, in essence

837
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 2: declare him mentally incompetent. At this point in time, the

838
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 2: defendant needs to be aware of the court process, and

839
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 2: when the defendant, let's say, has a psychotic break and

840
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 2: is obviously not understanding what's going on, trial can be

841
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 2: suspended or mistried, and then the judge declares mentally incompetent.

842
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 2: But then the defendant, once that defendant is clear and

843
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 2: determined to be competent again, then they can be tried

844
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:05,359
Speaker 2: for the crime. That's my understanding of the power that

845
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 2: the judge has so you know, in this situation, sounds

846
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:11,920
Speaker 2: like if William is acting so bizarre, you know, he

847
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 2: may get at least a temporary suspension of the trial

848
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:19,239
Speaker 2: process just because he's considered incompetent. He's not aware of

849
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 2: what's going on.

850
00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: Well, the explanation I'm reading is that determinations made by

851
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 1: a lot of medical and psychological experts who observed William

852
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:34,720
Speaker 1: after he was declared competent are not allowed to say

853
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: he is insane currently. So they said that the judge's

854
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: reasoning here is that the preliminary trial had found William

855
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 1: to be competent. So medical testimony arguing right now that

856
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: William is currently insane is not relevant to this trial

857
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:56,720
Speaker 1: because at the time when the preliminary hearing happened, they said,

858
00:51:56,800 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 1: he's good to go. Does that sound right to you.

859
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:03,800
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds right in terms of assessing William's mental

860
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 2: health at the time the crime was committed. But if

861
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 2: let's say William does have a genuine psychotic break during

862
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 2: the course of the trial, and now you have experts

863
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 2: are they don't want to prejudice the jury based on

864
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 2: William's current mental state. It's what he was at the

865
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 2: time of the crime, but he could be found even

866
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 2: though he was found competent to stand trial during the

867
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 2: prelim process, he could still transition into being mentally incompetent

868
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 2: to stand trial at this moment as they are truly

869
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 2: litigating the trial itself. I mean, you can have individuals

870
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:42,479
Speaker 2: that they end up into a mental health crisis during

871
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:44,759
Speaker 2: the middle of their trial, and the judge can go,

872
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:47,839
Speaker 2: hold on, this person is not aware of what's going

873
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 2: on right now.

874
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting point because here we go, the

875
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: jury goes out and discusses it all and comes back

876
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 1: and he has found guilty, so there was no pause.

877
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,399
Speaker 1: Sentenced to death. That is not the end of this though.

878
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 1: So William Sewart filed an appeal that pointed out several

879
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 1: procedural errors, including what we were just talking about, whether

880
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 1: or not to include current testimony about the way he

881
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:18,720
Speaker 1: seems now. And it goes to an appellent court and

882
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: the court sides with Sewart, and you know, it's written

883
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: up pretty extensively, and his conviction is overturned. Sewart wanted

884
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 1: the McNaughton kind of solidified and said, these are the

885
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: rules that I think we should go by. This is

886
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 1: applicable to this case, and the judge had said, I

887
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:39,399
Speaker 1: don't think so, but the appeals court disagreed and said

888
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:43,359
Speaker 1: McNaughton would be a wonderful addition to American courts. So

889
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: when his conviction was overturned, quoting McNaughton rule was considered

890
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,759
Speaker 1: appropriate by the appeals court. It became the standard for

891
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 1: establishing insanity and New York courts. So that's interesting. That

892
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: was an interesting part of this case.

893
00:53:57,280 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 2: This is the case. It had a very significant impact

894
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 2: done our legal system very much.

895
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 1: And let me tell you the end of this because

896
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:06,280
Speaker 1: he gets a new trial, which sounds great for William,

897
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:10,399
Speaker 1: except he dies at twenty three years old while he's

898
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:13,399
Speaker 1: in custody before he can go on trial a second time.

899
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: So the cause of death is attributed to tuberculosis, which

900
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me in a prison one bit in the

901
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:25,359
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. Here's what's interesting. A subsequent autopsy revealed that

902
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:30,520
Speaker 1: William was experiencing quote advanced brain deterioration at the time

903
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: of his death. It's said that he had quote hardened

904
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: leathery scar tissue from the beatings in prison, which showed

905
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: a severely damaged brain. So, of course Seward is saying, Doy,

906
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 1: this is the insanity defense at its finest. So what

907
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:49,520
Speaker 1: do you think about all that?

908
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,680
Speaker 2: It is interesting to have that anatomic find to get autopsy.

909
00:54:53,960 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 2: You know, there seems to remove the question that William

910
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 2: had some brain injury that obviously could have impacted his behaviors.

911
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:13,760
Speaker 2: But I don't know if that anatomic finding demonstrates legal

912
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 2: insanity at the time he's committed the homicides. But it

913
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:22,839
Speaker 2: is an interesting aspect. And you know, what's popping into

914
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,840
Speaker 2: my mind is more like the current to day football

915
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 2: players and the CTE and you know, the repeated brain

916
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 2: injuries from the concussions and how that has impacted behaviors

917
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 2: over time. Can you say that that type of injury

918
00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 2: as I've had a concussion, I still to this day

919
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:43,880
Speaker 2: can get what I call my concussion headache. You know,

920
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 2: did that concussion impact me behaviorally as a person as

921
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:50,319
Speaker 2: I got older? I don't know. I haven't gone out

922
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:53,880
Speaker 2: and committed a homicide. You know, at what point do

923
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 2: you have, you know, brain injuries that you can point

924
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:04,560
Speaker 2: to and say that causes this person to commit homicidal violence.

925
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:08,640
Speaker 2: And it's not necessarily just the fact that you have

926
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 2: a brain injury, It's like, well, what areas of the

927
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 2: brain were impacted? Henry Lee Lucas, you know this famous

928
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:17,960
Speaker 2: serial killer in the book I read about him. You know,

929
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:20,799
Speaker 2: he had been hit so hard by his mom. It's

930
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 2: kind of a similar thing. It was either with a

931
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 2: baseball bat or you know, some object. You know, he

932
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:28,400
Speaker 2: lost consciousness, you know, and did that cause him to

933
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:31,680
Speaker 2: be a serial killer. How many people are actually hit

934
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 2: in the head and they don't ever become a serial killer.

935
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:38,920
Speaker 2: So with William, you know, I think the autopsy finding

936
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 2: gives me pause about assessing his mental state at the

937
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:45,840
Speaker 2: time of the homicide. But there still seems to be

938
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 2: enough cognitive function as well as the realization of right

939
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:54,120
Speaker 2: or wrong that I don't think it meets the legal

940
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 2: standard of insanity that he should just be absolved from

941
00:56:58,200 --> 00:56:59,360
Speaker 2: committing those murders.

942
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 1: Talked to a law professor at Columbia who's an expert

943
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:06,799
Speaker 1: in the brain defense, and I said, God, are people

944
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 1: getting off really serious crimes because of brain injuries that

945
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: they've had. And she said, we really mostly see it

946
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:18,480
Speaker 1: in the punishment phase. She said, it's mostly used as

947
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 1: a mitigating factor to get people off of the death penalty.

948
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 1: It's not to get them released or to get them

949
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 1: out of something. It's like, let's not kill this person.

950
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:30,440
Speaker 1: Sort of situation which made sense to me. Does that

951
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:31,360
Speaker 1: make sense to you.

952
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and that's that's where I was talking about that.

953
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 2: Like the two in assessing William, the two components, it's

954
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:40,560
Speaker 2: his background and it's at the time of committing the homicides.

955
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 2: And most certainly it's okay, did he commit the homicides

956
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 2: and did he know right from wrong? Did he know

957
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:50,400
Speaker 2: what he was doing, and if he did, then he

958
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 2: deserves to be convicted. And now the sentencing comes in

959
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 2: and his background, that's when his background comes in. That's

960
00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 2: when now it's seeking leniency. You know, they're there's mitigating

961
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 2: factors that need to be taken into consideration, and of

962
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:07,240
Speaker 2: course there's going to be arguments on both sides as

963
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:11,160
Speaker 2: to whether these are truly mitigating factors to give a

964
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 2: level of leniency to the sentence.

965
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,440
Speaker 1: Well, one note for me, this is such a complicated case.

966
00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 1: You know, I went back and I looked at the time.

967
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: So he was in Auburn State Prison from eighteen forty

968
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: until eighteen forty five. He was released six months later.

969
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 1: He murders the family, and then he dies about a

970
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 1: year and a half or so after that. So when

971
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: you read this autopsy report, advanced brain deterioration at the

972
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 1: time of death, hardened leathery scar tissue from the beatings,

973
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: severely damaged brain. A twenty three year old, just two

974
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 1: years out of that hell hole of a prison, and

975
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:53,160
Speaker 1: that's what they did to his brain. I am not

976
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 1: defending what he did to the Van Nest family. I'm

977
00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 1: saying that's hard to read, that's difficult.

978
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, though, I would be interested to see what a

979
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 2: modern pathologist if they if a modern pathologist had conducted

980
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:12,160
Speaker 2: William's autopsy, what they would attribute this deterioration of his

981
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 2: brain to. I mean, because William died of tuberculosis, is

982
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 2: there a different type of pathological condition that William could

983
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:25,400
Speaker 2: have been exposed to that could have caused this type

984
00:59:25,560 --> 00:59:29,919
Speaker 2: of anatomic finding that has nothing to do with the

985
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:34,080
Speaker 2: physical punishment that he received in the prison system, you know,

986
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:38,959
Speaker 2: So that's something maybe I'm just skeptical of the medical expertise,

987
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 2: you know, back in eighteen forty six. And also, you know,

988
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 2: the other point I think that popped into my head

989
00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:46,960
Speaker 2: is is that this is a year and a half

990
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 2: after the crime was committed. Is when they have this

991
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:53,360
Speaker 2: anatomic finding of the deteriorating brain. You can't say that

992
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 2: it was present at the time of the homicides, and

993
00:59:56,320 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 2: that may be kind of a moot point in the

994
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 2: overall picture of this case, but it is interesting anyways

995
01:00:02,520 --> 01:00:05,360
Speaker 2: that there was that post mortem finding.

996
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting, Paul, we're having this discussion

997
01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:13,360
Speaker 1: and it isn't often when I feel like you're very

998
01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 1: clinical and I'm very emotional about this. I'm just going,

999
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is horrifying what this guy went through.

1000
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 1: I don't think it justifies at all what he did

1001
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 1: to the family, but just to read the details of

1002
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:27,040
Speaker 1: that and to think that had to have something to

1003
01:00:27,080 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 1: do with it, and you know, you're basically just saying,

1004
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:33,640
Speaker 1: what was his state of mind when he killed those people?

1005
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that counts is was he legally

1006
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:39,240
Speaker 1: insane when he killed those people? Did he know right

1007
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 1: from wrong? And it sounds like the answer was yes

1008
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 1: to that. So I think we just have two approaches.

1009
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:47,920
Speaker 1: I think we both think that this was you know,

1010
01:00:48,000 --> 01:00:51,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a sad ending for anybody, for the

1011
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:55,320
Speaker 1: van Nest family. For William, all of this was pretty horrible,

1012
01:00:55,720 --> 01:00:57,840
Speaker 1: But I do think it's interesting to kind of debate

1013
01:00:57,880 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: a little bit about what are those circumstances, what is mitigating,

1014
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: and what is just sort of an excuse.

1015
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of the world that I come out of,

1016
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 2: you have to kind of detach, you know, an assessing,

1017
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,240
Speaker 2: you know, is this person responsible for the crime. You

1018
01:01:13,240 --> 01:01:17,920
Speaker 2: have to detach from the emotions of the sympathy for

1019
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,840
Speaker 2: that individual. What William went through as a human inside

1020
01:01:20,840 --> 01:01:25,200
Speaker 2: that prison, nobody should ever be subjected to. I'm definitely sympathetic,

1021
01:01:25,680 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 2: but for me, it's I've got victims that lost their lives.

1022
01:01:29,640 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 2: William took those victims' lives absent him being truly psychotic

1023
01:01:34,200 --> 01:01:37,160
Speaker 2: at that moment. He needs to be held accountable. No

1024
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 2: matter what his upbringing was, no matter what abuse he

1025
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:44,920
Speaker 2: was subjected to, he still is committing a horrific act

1026
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:49,280
Speaker 2: of violence. And if I get into that mode of

1027
01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 2: I'm going to feel sorry for this person, then eventually

1028
01:01:54,120 --> 01:01:56,720
Speaker 2: I think with like from a law enforcement perspective or

1029
01:01:56,760 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 2: even a prosecutorial perspective, you end up possibly leaning in

1030
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:07,720
Speaker 2: a direction and where you are no longer performing your job.

1031
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 2: Looking out for public safety.

1032
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:12,440
Speaker 1: Well, this has been an interesting story, a historic case.

1033
01:02:12,840 --> 01:02:15,280
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about those often here. I like

1034
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 1: to pick up on historic cases just because I think

1035
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:21,600
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you now know kind of the history

1036
01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 1: of the insanity defense here in the United States. It's

1037
01:02:25,200 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 1: so odd to think that Edward Ruloff, who was at

1038
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:31,120
Speaker 1: the center of my attention for so long. I've written

1039
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:33,320
Speaker 1: a book about him, I've done the podcast on him,

1040
01:02:33,320 --> 01:02:35,960
Speaker 1: I've done research on him. It's interesting that they were

1041
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 1: in the same prison at the same time and it

1042
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: was completely different experiences. Ever, Ruloff loved that prison. Everybody

1043
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:45,520
Speaker 1: was quiet, nobody bugged him, He made money, he wanted

1044
01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:47,959
Speaker 1: to write. He wrote an entire book while he was there.

1045
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:50,800
Speaker 1: And what a different experience for William Freeman.

1046
01:02:51,160 --> 01:02:51,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

1047
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:54,480
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for going down this road. We'll go

1048
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:57,400
Speaker 1: down a different road next week. I've got lots of roads, Paul,

1049
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:01,000
Speaker 1: We're bring with roads. Thanks for joining me, and I'll

1050
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 1: see you next week.

1051
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 2: No, thanks once again, Kate, take care.

1052
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production for our sources

1053
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com, slash Buried

1054
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:19,560
Speaker 1: Bones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.

1055
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:24,120
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.

1056
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:26,640
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

1057
01:03:26,960 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.

1058
01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:31,520
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

1059
01:03:31,760 --> 01:03:35,920
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.

1060
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at

1061
01:03:39,800 --> 01:03:40,800
Speaker 1: ary Bones pod.

1062
01:03:41,280 --> 01:03:43,840
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded

1063
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:45,840
Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decode the

1064
01:03:45,880 --> 01:03:47,640
Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now

1065
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:52,240
Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's

1066
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 1: cold Cases, is also available now