WEBVTT - How Her Illicit Love Letters Got Edith Thompson Hanged for a Murder 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:04.640 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:05.640 with iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.680 The story begins when a young ship's steward named Frederick 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:19.079 Freddie Bywaters became involved with a married woman named Edith Thompson. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.400 They had known each other growing up in the same 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.599 London suburb as her husband, Percy Thompson. The families all 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.360 grew up together and Freddie was in the same class 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.680 at school as one of Edith's brothers. At the age 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.519 of thirteen, he joined the British Merchant Navy. It was 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:41.479 generally considered that Freddie would marry Edith's sister Avis, but 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.200 life doesn't always work out the way you think it will. 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:49.519 He ended up being executed for Percy's murder, and so 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:54.360 did Edith. But did the murderous duo deserve it? Historians 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.000 now suggest maybe she wasn't any more than a witness 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.080 to the event. Let's look whether or not Fredda and 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.880 Edith were partners in crime, or if Edith faced a 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:08.800 wrongful and unfortunate death for adultery. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:10.080 Maria Tremarky. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.920 And I'm Holly Frye. She was born Edith Grayden and 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.120 grew up imagining a life for herself different from the 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.120 one that working class women were expected to live in 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.800 early twentieth century England. She was born in the East 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.160 London suburb of Manor Park on Christmas Day in eighteen 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:31.880 ninety three, the eldest of five children. She was educated 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:36.039 and said to have been especially talented in mathematics, and 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.520 as soon as she was able, she headed into London 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.080 for work, where she joined the wholesale milliner's firm of 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:46.240 Carlton and Pryor. She began as a bookkeeper, but quickly 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.040 rose within the ranks to become the firm's chief buyer. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.440 Most often, she spent her evenings with friends, visiting West 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:58.160 End theaters and restaurants. Biographer Laura Thompson, who is no relation, 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.520 said of her ambition quote she was a sort of 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:05.440 so called ordinary woman who wanted to be extraordinary. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.960 In nineteen oh nine she met shipping clerk Percy Thompson, 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.960 and after a six year engagement, they married. They bought 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.919 a house at forty one Kensington Gardens in the fashionable 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.440 town of Ilford and Essex, a spot not far from 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.240 where they both had grown up. With her work at 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.760 Carlton Empryor. Edith earned more than her new husband, and 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.840 she also earned more than her father too, since we're 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.520 pointing out finances here. And though she contributed more than 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.560 half the cost of the property, the deed legally had 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.840 to be in Percy's name. Women wouldn't be given the 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.160 right to hold property in the UK until nineteen twenty six. 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.520 She was expected to settle into domestic life, but Edith 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:52.560 had other ideas, says biographer Laura Thompson of her quote, 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.000 She's a girl about the town. She's ambitious. She wanted 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.359 to own her own home, which she did, even though 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:01.960 it had to be an her husband's name. But the 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.240 thing Edith wasn't so good at in the conventions of 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:09.080 her time was maybe she wasn't such a good wife. 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.799 During a visit home in June of nineteen twenty one, 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.760 Freddie hollidayed with Percy, Edith and Avis on the Isle 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.280 of Wight. After they all returned back to London, the 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.440 couple invited Freddie to live with them as a paying lodger, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.520 giving him a place to call home when he wasn't deployed. 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.880 But unknown to Percy, a romance had sparked between Freddie 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.200 and Edith, and it only flourished when Eddie was invited 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.880 to move in with the Thompsons as a border. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:42.120 Freddie was handsome and he told amazing stories of his 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:47.800 adventures around the world that piqued Edith's interest. Percy, by comparison, 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:53.920 was reportedly a calm, proper, conventional person, and he was 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.600 kind of a bore. Freddie, not Percy, was the one 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.800 who closely resembled Edith's romantic eye deal because he was 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.080 a way a lot. They wrote frequent letters, and Edith 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:10.240 insisted their correspondence must be destroyed after reading. With roughly 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.280 seventy letters remaining today, clearly Freddie must not have heard 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:15.600 her request. 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.560 While Freddie's letters are lost to history, surely Edith destroyed them. 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.400 We do have access to many that Edith wrote. She 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.360 often jumped around in her writing from topic to topic, 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.599 from describing the mundane ins and outs of daily life 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:35.680 to sharing her thoughts about everything from sex, pregnancy, termination, 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.839 and even suicide. She referred to Freddie as darlingist and 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.839 darlint she wrote in a place between fact and fantasy. 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.719 Historians have noted an avid fiction reader. She would sometimes 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.000 imagine herself as a character from a novel, and sometimes 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.320 in her imagining so she would hint at wanting to 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.760 be rid of Percy. Not often, but it did come up. 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.839 In one letter, she fantasized about perhaps adding small pieces 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:08.520 of glass to his food. That section read quote, I 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:10.880 was buoyed up with the hope of the light bulb, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.520 and I used a lot big pieces too, not powdered, 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.800 and it had no effect. I quite expected to be 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.200 able to send you that cable, but no, nothing has 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.640 happened from it. She pleaded in her letters for Freddy 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.719 to quote do something desperate. What scholars today want to 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.040 know is is this a real request or is it 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.520 just an outpouring of emotion, fact or fantasy. Were these 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.200 two just play acting in imaginary scenario or were they 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.760 discussing real actions. No one knew then, nor do we 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:50.440 know today. Scholars, including University College London professor Renee Weiss, 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.320 who has studied this case for decades and authored the 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.560 book Criminal Justice, The True Story of Edith Thompson, believes 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.839 that Edith's letters show no more than the quote workings 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.280 of an overwrought romantic imagination. 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:08.000 Another letter from Edith to Freddie reads quote, Yesterday I 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.560 met a woman who lost three husbands and not through war. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.680 Two were drowned and one committed suicide. And some people 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.359 I know can't lose one. How unfair everything is. Bess 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:21.920 and Regg are coming to dinner Sunday. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.000 Late summer. A fight broke out one night when Freddie, 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:30.839 home from sea, demanded that Percy divorce Edith. Percy ordered 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.680 his lodger out of the house. Edith later described her 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.279 own confrontation with Percy, stating that her husband struck her 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:42.280 several times and threw her across the room, leaving her 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:43.280 badly bruised. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:48.440 On October third, nineteen twenty two, Percy and Edith spent 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.960 their evening watching the comedy The Dippers at the Criterion 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.080 Theater near Piccadilly Circus. Freddie was home, having recently returned 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.560 from several weeks at sea. As the couple walked toward 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:04.200 their house, Freddy confronted them and, according to reports, set 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:09.520 upon Percy, stabbing him repeatedly. Within seconds, Percy lay motionless 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.520 on the ground, having sustained several knife wounds to his neck. 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.080 Edith had been knocked to the ground, and Freddie fled 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.480 before she could summon for help. Neighbors later stated hearing 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:24.560 a woman screaming hysterically and shouting quote, no, don't several times. 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.480 By the time police arrived, she had not yet been 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.840 able to pull herself together. The morning light would reveal 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.360 Percy's blood had splattered across a forty four foot stretch. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.320 Of the road. Later in court, Freddie testified to the 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:41.520 evening's events, saying just about the same thing quote I 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.200 waited for missus Thompson and her husband. I pushed her 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.600 to one side, also pushing him into the street. We struggled. 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.200 I took my knife from my pocket and we fought, 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.080 and he got the worst of it. The reason I 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.840 fought with Thompson was because he never acted like a 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:02.000 man to his wife. He seemed several degrees lower than 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.960 a snake. I loved her and I could not go 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.560 on seeing her leading that life. I did not intend 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.880 to kill him. I only meant to injure him. I 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.280 gave him the opportunity of standing up to me like 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:15.880 a man, but he wouldn't. 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.840 At the police station, Edith implicated Freddie as the killer. 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.080 The police never did consider her as a witness. They 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:30.360 always considered her an accomplice. By all accounts. Edith appeared 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.160 to be distressed at Ilford police station after the murder, 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.080 and understandably so, as her husband was just murdered by 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.160 her lover and all of it happened right in front 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.880 of her. Believing herself to be a witness, not an accomplice, 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.320 she confessed to the details of the nature of her 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:48.720 relationship with Freddie. 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.320 Detectives at the police station had also staged it so 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.640 that Edith and Freddie would pass each other in a hallway, 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.000 a plan in which they hoped that she would incriminate 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:03.240 herself when she saw him. Instead, though after the encounter, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.400 Edith cried out, quote why did he do it? I 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.240 didn't want him to do it? Oh God, what can 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.800 I do? I must tell the truth. That was not 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.120 exactly what they were hoping for, but they carried on, 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.280 unswayed from their belief that Edith was guilty. As she 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.880 was being led back to her house by a police sergeant. 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.360 After questioning, Edith remarked to him that she knew she 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.800 would be implicated that quote, they will blame me for this, 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.240 and as we'll see, they absolutely did. We're going to 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.360 take a break for a word from our sponsors, and 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.680 when we return, we will walk through the investigation and 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:41.840 the travesty that was Edith's trial. 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:06.040 Welcome back to Criminalia. Edith was called vain and arrogant 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.840 at her trial, but that's no reason to convict a 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.080 person of murder. It was the content of her love 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.400 letters that convinced the court of her guilt. But let's 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.560 talk about why that's super suspect. 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:23.960 As the investigation moved along, Percy's brother also suggested the 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.800 police speak to Freddie. All signs pointed to Freddie, and 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.080 we know he also confessed. He was arrested and during 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.840 a search of his property, investigators discovered the first of 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.080 a series of love letters from Edith. His cabin on 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.199 his ship, the SS Maria was also searched and more letters, 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.040 reportedly up to sixty, were discovered locked in a box. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.080 Included in this pile of letters were some that mentioned 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.280 Edith's apparent desire to be free of Percy. Those love 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.800 letters were taken and later the prosecution produced them as 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:03.880 evidence at the trial. They arrested Edith on the spot, but. 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.080 There really was no clear evidence she was involved in 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:11.440 Percy's killing. In fact, the only tangible evidence against her 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.920 were those love letters, and were they really evidence she 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.839 was a killer. In them, she fantasized about escaping her 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:23.240 marriage to Percy. One note mentioned she'd fit him broken glass, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.240 as we said earlier, and in another claimed to have 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.760 attempted to poison him, but authorities could not establish that 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:34.199 she had in fact done either of those things. Percy's 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.600 body was tested post mortem for poison and traces of glass, 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:39.760 but nothing incriminating was found. 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.760 One questioned about the letters, Freddie stated that he had 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.320 never believed that Edith had attempted to or would attempt 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:52.000 to harm her husband. Instead, he explained he believed, as 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.319 did others in support of her, that she had a 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.240 vivid imagination and fueled by the novels she read. She 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.560 often wrote of herself in her letter as a fictional character. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.440 When he was told that Edith was also to be 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:09.040 charged with Percy's murder, Freddie replied, quote, why her missus 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.520 Thompson was not aware of my movements? 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:17.160 The important thing about the letters is this. The correspondence 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.960 allowed for the consideration of what's known as common purpose, 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.520 which legally means if two people consider the murder of 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.360 a third person, and one of those two people acts 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.480 on the expressed intentions of both, Both are equally guilty 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:36.040 by law. Because of that, Edith's letters became the star. 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.559 Of the show. Intimate details from those letters were splashed 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.200 across newspapers in their reports of the pre trial hearings. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.480 The entire folio of letters was later published by Philson 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.160 Young in notable British Trial series in nineteen twenty three, 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.000 although the letters do not appear in any kind of 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:56.280 chronological order. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.240 Edith and Freddy's murder trial began on December sixth, nineteen 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.600 twenty two, at the Old Bailey. Freddie, as he had 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:08.880 been pleaded guilty and cooperated completely with investigators. He led 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.080 police to the murder weapon and consistently maintained that he 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.240 had acted without Edith's knowledge. 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.960 Crowds of people arrived early to queue outside the London 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:21.959 Court to get a seat, and it was standing room only. 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.040 People hoping to make a buck or two queued outside 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.800 the building each night, and then they sold their places 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.680 in line the next morning, sometimes for more than the 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:34.160 average weekly wage in Britain at the time. Edith and 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:38.160 Freddy's trial was a hot, dramatic event. It's often said 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.760 that from affair to execution, that the fascination with the 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:46.480 case was quote inexhaustible. Beverly Nichols, a writer present at 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:48.680 the trial, had noted that the case had an air 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.439 of quote the days of the Roman Empire, when the 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.680 Christians were thrown to the lions. Years later in nineteen 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.960 seventy three, he also described how the old Bailey quote 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.960 had the atmosphere of a first night. He continued, quote 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.000 you had all these people who might be in the 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.880 dress circle or the stalls, a great many society women, 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.280 sensation seekers, and they were all treating it as if 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.720 it were a thing for which they paid for their seats. 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.240 Professor Renee Weiss, who we mentioned earlier, said of the 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:22.760 situation quote the public came to admire Freddy and intensely 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:26.640 dislike Edith, a siren who had seduced a young man 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.160 and thus set in motion a chain reaction that resulted 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.280 in one man's death and the certain execution of. 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:38.520 A lad During the trial, Freddy stated multiple times, and 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.080 we can emphasize that that Edith had known nothing of 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.280 his plans and couldn't have because of the very simple 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.920 reason that he had not intended to murder Percy. His 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.160 plan was to confront him and force him to deal 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.120 with the love triangle situation, but Percy had reacted in 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.520 a superior manner, which caused Freddy to lose his temper. 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.680 Witness accounts to the court support this story that Edith 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:03.960 had been taken by surprise on the night her husband 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.840 was stabbed. The prosecution, though claimed Edith had insisted Freddy 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:09.160 do it. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.680 Edith's counsel, Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, urged her not to testify. 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.840 He felt the burden of proof lay with the prosecution 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.680 and that there was nothing they could prove other than 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.040 that she had been present at the murder. It was 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.000 best if Edith just stayed silent. But Edith took the 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:32.600 stand anyway. Of that. Author Laura Thompson has stated, quote 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.480 that to me was a sign of innocence that you 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.160 would be so adamant that you would want to do that. 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.080 But Edith walked into a pit of vipers. The prosecution 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.520 manipulated what she had written in her letters, finding and 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.720 highlighting false narratives and giving misleading time periods to quote 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.400 tie her up in knots. Edith's testimony did her no favors, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.440 as she contradicted herself regarding the contents of her letters. 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.520 Her demeanor, it was reported, varied from flirtatious to melodramatic, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:06.920 and it was also reported that she made a poor 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.800 impression on the judge and the jury. In reply to 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.400 several questions relating to the meaning of some of the 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.040 passages in her letters, including when asked what she had 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.200 meant when she had written to Freddie asking him to 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.720 send her quote something to give her husband, she stated simply, 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:26.440 I have no idea. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.240 Her own counsel later stated that the vanity and arrogance 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.640 she brought to the stand destroyed her chances for acquittal. 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:38.080 Her testimony, too, had been unfortunate. Her demeanor negated the 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.120 positive testimonies of neighbors who had heard her cry out 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.200 in horror as her husband was attacked, as well as 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.520 the statements from police who dealt with the immediate investigation, 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.240 who'd reported that she'd appeared to be in a genuine 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:54.120 state of shock and disbelief, saying things like quote, oh God, 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.000 why did he do this? End quote I never wanted 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:57.680 him to do it. 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:03.120 Renee Weiss, convinced of Edith's innocence, has written quote, Edith 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.280 Thompson paid a terrible price for daring to be ruled 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.360 by her passions and for behaving out of her social class. 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.320 If confirmation were needed that it was her perceived immorality 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.280 that brought her to perdition, it is proved by the 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.119 foreman of her jury, who said, quote, it was my 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.480 duty to read them the letters to the members of 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:28.280 the jury. Nauseus is hardly strong enough to describe their contents. 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.880 Missus Thompson's letters were her own condemnation. 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:37.639 The letters were crucial evidence, but should have been flimsy 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.879 evidence for the prosecution. Author Laura Thompson has stated of 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.520 their use, quote, the horror of having them read out 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.680 in court. That's what kills me, those private, intimate words 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.560 and the public gallery behaving like crazed lunatics listening to 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.400 this private, private stuff. It's like trying to torture someone. 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.320 I think from court reports, it's also clear that the 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.720 trial judge, mister Justice Sherman, was not impartial when it 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:07.760 came to Edith's case. He repeatedly interjected on the side 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.040 of the prosecution. He told the jurors, whom he would 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.960 only address as gentlemen, despite there being two women on 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.520 the jury exactly how he felt about Edith's adultery. All 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.520 was adultery, not a thing about the murder charge. Quote. 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.000 I am certain that you, like any other right minded person, 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.600 will be filled with disgust at such a notion. Not 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:30.720 biased at all. 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:36.560 The judge labeled her an adulterer, deceitful, and by implication, 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.600 surely capable of murder. Sir Bennett attempted to cast her 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.400 immorality as defensible in the context of the quote glamorous 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.240 aura of a quote great love, and tried to overlook 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.960 the point continually being made by the judge that the 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:56.879 case concerned only an adulterer and an adulterous wife. In 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.359 his final address, Sir Bennett said of Edith, quote, this 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.320 is not an ordinary charge of murder? Am I right 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:06.760 or wrong in saying that? This woman is one of 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.359 the most extraordinary personalities that you or I have ever met? 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.320 Have you ever read more beautiful language of love? Such 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.400 things have been very seldom put by pen upon paper. 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.159 This is the woman you have to deal with, not 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.399 some ordinary woman. She is one of those striking personalities 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.720 met from time to time who stand out for some 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.920 reason or another. You are men of the world, and 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.000 you must know that where there is a liaison which 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.920 includes someone who is married, it will be part of 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.800 the desire of that person to keep secret the relations 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.000 from the other partner. It is not the sort of 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:42.760 thing that they would bring to the knowledge of their 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:43.919 partner for life. 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.040 Opinion pieces began to appear in newspapers, and most of 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.719 them were not written in Edith's favor. In fact, they 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.320 were scathing. The Times in London, for example, published a 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.359 piece that read, quote, there were no circumstances in the 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:03.040 case too of the slightest sympathy. The whole case was 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.600 simple and sordid. Still people couldn't agree whether Edith and 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.800 Freddy were partners in murder or not. And on that 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:12.639 we're going to take a break for a word from 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.520 our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll talk about the 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.119 events on the day of the execution, and you might 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:19.200 want to brace yourself. 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:44.320 Welcome back to Criminalia. The day of Edith's execution. Honestly, 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:49.960 hattison tears. Prepare yourselves for an especially terrible day before 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:51.480 and at the gallows. 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.960 On December eleventh, the jury reached a verdict after two 0:20:55.040 --> 0:21:00.520 hours of deliberation, Edith, terrified, was carried into the courtroom. 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.840 Both she and Freddie were found guilty of murder. Amid 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.119 the commotion that followed, Freddy yelled out quote, the jury 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.320 is wrong, that woman is not guilty. They were both 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:13.880 sentenced to death by hanging. 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.560 There were appeals in late December, actually not long after 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.520 the trial ended. The Court of Appeal held that Edith 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:26.680 was indeed guilty, stating that quote incitement to murder revealed 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:30.280 in her letters, combined with her extraordinary catalog of lies 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:32.680 about what happened on the night of the murder told 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:37.240 to several witnesses up until her second witness statement, which 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.640 was open to being found untrustworthy, her meetings with Bywaters 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.480 on the day of the murder, and the content of 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.920 her last letter was sufficient to convict her of arranging 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.399 the murder. The Court of Appeal also took a narrower 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.639 approach to the concept of quote principle in the second 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:58.840 degree than the court had, but not in Edith's favor. 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.919 A principle in the second degree is legally defined as 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:03.560 a person who is present at the scene of the 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.080 crime and aids, abets, or encourages that crime. A principle 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.360 in the second degree might also be an accomplice, an accessory, 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.760 or an accessory after the fact. It differs from principle 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.200 in the first degree in that they didn't carry out 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.560 the crime. It was concluded Edith and Freddie were untrustworthy 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.880 end quote. So besmirched were their reputations before they had 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.680 even entered the witness box. The relationship was considered one 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:30.480 of quote culpable intimacy. 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.760 It had been widely expected, even by the hangman himself, 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:39.080 that Edith would escape execution, but according to her biographer 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:43.000 Laura Thompson, Edith quote never stood a chance in front 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.800 of that jury. Additionally, continued Thompson, quote, women disliked her 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:50.800 because they feared her. She was one of those women 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:54.520 that other women think men fancy, and she was troubling, 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:56.320 and she couldn't be pitied. 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.720 Neither would escape execution. The lovers were executed on January ninth, 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.520 nineteen twenty three, for the murder of Percy Thompson. Freddy 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:07.639 was hanged at nine o'clock in the morning at the 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:12.720 hands of hangman William Willis. Edith's execution followed just a 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.280 few minutes later, about half a mile away. She was 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:18.560 executed by hangman John Ellis. 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.879 It's reported to have been an icy cold Tuesday morning 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:25.960 when the hangman and his team arrived at Edith's cell 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:29.800 of London's Holloway Prison. She had spent the last few 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.960 days of her life in a state of near constant hysteria, 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.399 falling between crying and screaming, and unable to eat. She 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.440 was heavily sedated the morning of her death, barely conscious 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:47.160 before her execution. According to author Renee Weiss, doctor John 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.400 Hall Morton, who was both the governor and medical officer 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:54.040 of Holloway Prison, was the one who administered the following 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.800 medications to Edith. Forty five minutes before her death, she 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:01.720 was injected with two milligrams of strict Five minutes later, 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:04.320 she was given a zero point five milligram dose of 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:09.520 scopolymene morphine and ten milligrams of morphia. Yes, in case 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:12.199 you're wondering, Strick nine is a poison, but at that 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:15.160 low dose it can also be used as a tonic 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:19.320 or analeptic, and the other drugs would have sedated her quickly. 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.919 One of the executioners team lifted her by the waist, 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:26.040 telling her quote, come on, it'll soon be over. She 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:29.200 was carried to the gallows by assistance of the executioner. 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:31.919 They had bound her arms and ankles, though she was 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:35.320 so sedated that hardly mattered. She had to be held 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:38.240 upright while the noose was fitted to her. Edith was 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:42.680 unconscious when the trap door opened. This next detail is graphic, 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:45.800