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Speaker 1: think you Yeah, well, hi there, Welcome to another episode
Speaker 1: of Thinking Sideways. I am your host, Joe, joined as
Speaker 1: always by Steve and by Devine, and together we are
Speaker 1: the terrific trio tripid. Yeah yeah yeah, Star star walls.
Speaker 1: Oh it's what they say in the old time heat
Speaker 1: like radio things and it's star walled man servant our gyle.
Speaker 1: But I can't. I can't say it's fine, doesn't matter, Okay,
Speaker 1: going on, a good star, Moving on, Kevin, what's this
Speaker 1: word here? So I can't that's right, sorry, Joe, continue on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do this. So for this week, we decided to
Speaker 1: reach way back in time, clear back to the seventeenth
Speaker 1: century as a matter of fact. For our mystery, it
Speaker 1: begins on the six of August in the year sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty when William Harrison UH set off on foot from
Speaker 1: the village of Campden Chipping Campton. I guess, I said,
Speaker 1: I think that's Camden. What do you guys think? I
Speaker 1: think it's camp as Campden spelled Campton. But I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's once again our British listeners trying to trip us
Speaker 1: up with yet another tricky spelling force. Now, so he
Speaker 1: leaves his village towards the village of charing Worth or
Speaker 1: suit charing Worth, about two miles away, and he's going
Speaker 1: to collect rent money that's owed to his employer, who
Speaker 1: was the Viscountess Camden. And so so she, being the
Speaker 1: you know, rich titled nobles, owns all the land. It's
Speaker 1: everyone's got to pay her rent. And so he's off
Speaker 1: to collect some rents. William Harrison was the steward Diverse
Speaker 1: states uh in which is Chipping Campton, Cloucester, Gloucestershire, which
Speaker 1: is a small town in the middle of England somewhere okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's about eighty miles northwest northwest of London, so converted
Speaker 1: that kilometers about a hundred and thirty kilometers six and
Speaker 1: forty flong's it's in the cots Wall just kind of
Speaker 1: like the very northern tip of the cots Walls, which
Speaker 1: you may have heard of. Yeah, back to its Back
Speaker 1: to our guy, William Harrison. He set out, he did
Speaker 1: not return by the usual time, so that evening between
Speaker 1: about eight and nine o'clock, his wife sent their servant,
Speaker 1: John Perry to go looking for him on the road
Speaker 1: from charing But Perry didn't come back that night either,
Speaker 1: and Harrison didn't come back obviously either. So early the
Speaker 1: next morning, William Harrison's son Edward set off in the
Speaker 1: direction of Sherrington also to look for his father, and
Speaker 1: he ran into John Perry on the road. So Perry
Speaker 1: tells Edward that Harrison was not in charring Worth, so
Speaker 1: they went together to Ebrington, which is a small village
Speaker 1: kind of between Cherry and Worth and Camden. Can interrupt
Speaker 1: you for saying, Joe, Yeah, so all of these places
Speaker 1: are what a mile or two apart? Yeah, park Ish Yeah,
Speaker 1: right now, I just want more than two or three
Speaker 1: miles apart walking distance, walking away from one another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to have people understand the short distances
Speaker 1: that are being traveled here. And I'm sure you know,
Speaker 1: it probably was a little bit slow going because you're
Speaker 1: walking on roads, seventeenth century roads which were probably mud.
Speaker 1: There was a foot yes, yeah, no, this is August actually,
Speaker 1: so they probably weren't all mucked. They were just dirt paths.
Speaker 1: Yeah they were, but they were dirt paths. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it wasn't didn't take that long to get
Speaker 1: from one or the other. And so they went to Abrington.
Speaker 1: There they were told by at least one person that
Speaker 1: Harrison had been there the day before but didn't stay.
Speaker 1: They found not much other word word of him. They
Speaker 1: go back towards Camden. On the way they hear news
Speaker 1: had a hat, collar, band and comb were found on
Speaker 1: the road between Ebrington and Camden. And when they finally
Speaker 1: found that found the person with the hat and comb
Speaker 1: and collar, they recognized him as being William Harrison. So
Speaker 1: and there was blood on the collar by the way,
Speaker 1: and that yeah, the hat and the hat and the
Speaker 1: collar had had both been had had some slashes on
Speaker 1: him indicating you know, so all this kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, kind of indicating maybe some foul playing. So
Speaker 1: the hat collar is just not they had no So
Speaker 1: it's the hat and the collar, so that the collar
Speaker 1: was excuse me, it was a shirt collars they used
Speaker 1: to Yeah, they s collar, yeah, because they had that.
Speaker 1: And then they had also those like long garter sleeves
Speaker 1: that you see the cuffs and they're like these big
Speaker 1: just like tie here and tie over the shopkeepers and
Speaker 1: stuff like yes accounts the green build hat on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so those were to protect their shirt sleeves so they
Speaker 1: didn't have to wash them as much. And then the
Speaker 1: collars were also detachable because that's like where you sweat,
Speaker 1: so you didn't because you have like the one or
Speaker 1: two shirts at the time, right, so you just remove
Speaker 1: your collar and wash that, wash your shirt sleeves, hat
Speaker 1: a shirt collar, and the comb is just a regular
Speaker 1: regular combs like yeah, exactly. Yeah, it really is funny
Speaker 1: actually closing those days this is pre industrial revolution. They
Speaker 1: really were a lot more expensive. Yeah they were, I
Speaker 1: mean they were more expensive, but they were like more
Speaker 1: durable and then you know they were more kind of yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But anyway back to our story though, So news gets
Speaker 1: back to Camden and Harrison is missing and presumed dead.
Speaker 1: So everybody, of course rushes out to the countryside and
Speaker 1: starts beating the rush looking for him, because this was
Speaker 1: what was popular entertainment at the time. Of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't have TV in the internet, so what the hell? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they found nothing, nothing at all. Uh n. Actually,
Speaker 1: of course suspicion fell on John. Parry says he had
Speaker 1: gone out that night and not come home, and that
Speaker 1: was kind of hanky, which didn't make any sense. No,
Speaker 1: not entirely. Now. So the next day Perry was brought
Speaker 1: before a Justice of the Piece who asked him why
Speaker 1: he stayed out the night that he went out to
Speaker 1: find Harrison. And Parry tell us this kind of strange story,
Speaker 1: which you guys are familiar with, com Peter for our listeners.
Speaker 1: So he sort of left left the house and ventured
Speaker 1: out a little ways and then comes back because he
Speaker 1: was afraid of the dark, doesn't go back inside the house,
Speaker 1: so it just comes back to the gate and and
Speaker 1: then the local guy stops by, and together they venture
Speaker 1: out into the weeds a little bit, and but then
Speaker 1: Pierce had to leave, so Parry goes back to the
Speaker 1: gate and then he goes inside the handhouse, lays down
Speaker 1: for an hour or so. Um, and then around midnight
Speaker 1: the moon was out, so he he got out again
Speaker 1: and left and went down the road because well there's moon,
Speaker 1: so I can see who's Pierce. Pierce was just some
Speaker 1: random local dude. You just said it like we were
Speaker 1: supposed to know that person. Yeah, I think so. And
Speaker 1: uh and and also he verified actually some of what
Speaker 1: Perry said, although there wasn't much because he just basically
Speaker 1: ran into him and they went off in the weeds
Speaker 1: and came back. And so that's it really sounds like
Speaker 1: maybe somebody was shirking their duties and drinking. It could
Speaker 1: have been. That's really that's what I like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got a little i'll take, i'll treate like time off.
Speaker 1: So he goes out and finds his stats and the
Speaker 1: hedge row, you know, and you know, pulls out his
Speaker 1: bag and makes himself a generous joint lights up, and uh,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know who knows what he was into.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could have been scared of the dark,
Speaker 1: but also like too scared to say he was scared
Speaker 1: of the dark, and also too scared to come back
Speaker 1: without anything. I mean, maybe he would just hang out
Speaker 1: and just just come back and say, no, I looked
Speaker 1: all over it couldn't find him, I know. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: actually in those days, of course it was more dangerous
Speaker 1: to be out on the road. And now for sure,
Speaker 1: yeah it wasn't that there were street lights. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: were no street lights, and they were definitely I mean,
Speaker 1: robbery and all kinds of stuff was going on. So
Speaker 1: it's understandable that he felt a little reluctant to go
Speaker 1: out there. But it's still kind of weird story. Yeah
Speaker 1: it is a weird so you go, but yeah, his
Speaker 1: story is weird. He goes out down the road again
Speaker 1: the moon, the moon is out now, but damn it,
Speaker 1: some mist comes up. So he was lost in the mist,
Speaker 1: which I don't really understand because these roads in Britain
Speaker 1: at the time, we're all surrounded by hedges. So how
Speaker 1: do you get lost, you know, if you're just bounced
Speaker 1: off the hedges one side or the other, I guess.
Speaker 1: But so he slept under a hedge that night, and
Speaker 1: then at dawn the next morning on Friday, he continues
Speaker 1: on to chairing Worth, where he spoke to a few
Speaker 1: locals who had seen Harrison and then he heads home,
Speaker 1: meets Harrison's son Edward on the way, and they then
Speaker 1: he went to Everton, etcetera. As we know, he was
Speaker 1: asked why by the justice of the piece, he didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, at midnight when he got up to leave again,
Speaker 1: why he didn't just go inside the house to check
Speaker 1: and make sure that Harrison hadn't come home. And he
Speaker 1: gave this story like, well, there was a light on
Speaker 1: in the bedroom and I knew that if that light
Speaker 1: was on, then then that's because Harrison wasn't home, because
Speaker 1: it would have been out. Okay, so you know it's understandable. Ye,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You think he would check, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: It was not exactly incriminating. It didn't quite make total sense.
Speaker 1: And so he was kept in custody and campden for
Speaker 1: about a week because of this. Uh and while in jail,
Speaker 1: apparently told some people that a few stories which want
Speaker 1: to tinker had killed Harris, and uh another story one
Speaker 1: of the servants in the neighborhood had killed and robbed
Speaker 1: and killed Harris and his body had been hidden somewhere
Speaker 1: in camped And it sounds like he's just a blowhard blatherer.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think so. Yeah, and maybe not
Speaker 1: much to his detriment. Maybe not that smart. You know.
Speaker 1: That's the first first rule of thinking sideways is when
Speaker 1: you're when you're under arrest, keep your mouth shut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but also don't plead the fifth at the same time. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that looks bad. Just don't talk. Yeah, just pretend to
Speaker 1: be mused. Yeah, exactly, hand car. Yeah, he loves the lamp,
Speaker 1: loves lamb. You asked for a pencil, like a pencil
Speaker 1: and paper, and when you get it, you just grabbed
Speaker 1: the pencil and make a big ax and then look
Speaker 1: at it like you're really proud. Yeah, okay, anyway, I
Speaker 1: totally so. On August, Parry is again brought before the
Speaker 1: Justice of the Piece, and this time Perry Stell tell
Speaker 1: us the Justice that Harrison had been murdered, so totally
Speaker 1: different story, but but not by John. Perry said that
Speaker 1: his mother Joan and his brother Richard had done the deed. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so to make this sort of long story short,
Speaker 1: he said that never since he took this job with
Speaker 1: the Harrison's, and the Harrison's were well off people because
Speaker 1: they worked for the Vicountess, right, and so he got
Speaker 1: this job as their servant. So ever since then, his
Speaker 1: mother and his brother, he said, had pestered him uh
Speaker 1: to help them, to help steal from them or or
Speaker 1: whatever rob from no, because they need the money. And
Speaker 1: so they wanted him to basically tell them in advance
Speaker 1: when Harrison was going to go out to click rent
Speaker 1: money so they could wale him on the road and
Speaker 1: rob him. So on the Thursday morning that Harrison went
Speaker 1: to Charrington, uh, John Perry told his brother Richard where
Speaker 1: Harrison was going. And then later that evening about when
Speaker 1: he was heading out to look for him on the road,
Speaker 1: and that was about John Perry met Richard Perry at
Speaker 1: the gate and they went down the road looking to
Speaker 1: intercept Harrison, Richard being his brother, Richard Being's brother Richard
Speaker 1: Perry uh, until they spotted someone they assumed was Harrison.
Speaker 1: And I got to interrupt this to say this is
Speaker 1: this is again a little odd feature of his story,
Speaker 1: which is why did Richard wait until this late which
Speaker 1: is after actually Harrison was supposed to be back home
Speaker 1: And then he finally shows up and says, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go do some robbery that that doesn't quite make sense
Speaker 1: to Yeah, there's things about John Perry's story. Again, they
Speaker 1: just don't quite add up. So John Perry tells Richard
Speaker 1: to go rob Harrison while he just ambles around in
Speaker 1: the fields a little bit. I'm not sure what this
Speaker 1: is about. Maybe he thought Harrison would recognize his voice
Speaker 1: in the dark or something. I'm not sure. But so
Speaker 1: he tells his brother to go do the robin and
Speaker 1: then he comes back and he finds Harrison is on
Speaker 1: the ground with Richard standing over him, and his mother
Speaker 1: is standing nearby. So so William Harrison was not dead
Speaker 1: at this point, but Richard Perry finished him off by
Speaker 1: strangling him. Uh. And Richard and John carried the body
Speaker 1: to a nearby cesspool and tossed it in after taking
Speaker 1: all the money out of the pockets, etcetera. And this
Speaker 1: was not that far outside of Camden. So John Perry
Speaker 1: goes back to the house. This is where he runs
Speaker 1: into that guy Pierce that I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: Runs into Piers just to see it, said earlier and uh.
Speaker 1: And after that went into the hand house and stayed
Speaker 1: there till about midnight. But the differences is he had
Speaker 1: kept Harrison's hat, collar band and comb because after the
Speaker 1: moon came up, he took him back out on the
Speaker 1: road a little ways out and dropped him on the road,
Speaker 1: so it looked like, you know, he had been actually
Speaker 1: way laid in the cost is somewhere different from where
Speaker 1: it actually happened. And uh yeah, crime scene staging, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then of course he sets off towards
Speaker 1: Charrington to complete his fishy story. And he also confessed
Speaker 1: that just the year before, William Harrison's house had been
Speaker 1: broken into and someone has stolen a hundred forty pounds
Speaker 1: from it. The prips were never found, and Perry told
Speaker 1: the Justice of the piece that well, Richard had done
Speaker 1: it using information that John had given him about where
Speaker 1: to find the money. Okay, so he fasted up to
Speaker 1: that too, And so of course Joan, mother Joan, and
Speaker 1: brother Richard were arrested, and of course the cesspool was
Speaker 1: dragged and searched for Harrison's body. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they put a guy in a scuba suit or what
Speaker 1: to set him down to search the bottom. Yeah, probably,
Speaker 1: but they didn't. Oh yeah, just not disgusting. But well,
Speaker 1: they didn't find his body, and they checked every other
Speaker 1: pool in town, also fish pools or at ponds, or whatever.
Speaker 1: They found nothing, and then they searched the entire town.
Speaker 1: There's some ruins of the original estate, the Campdas state
Speaker 1: and they want to do all that stuff. And so
Speaker 1: they found no body. But anyway, the rest of the family,
Speaker 1: Joan and Richard, the mother and the brother, denied all
Speaker 1: the charges. Of course, they said it was all just bs,
Speaker 1: which was what you'd expect them to say. John stood
Speaker 1: by his story. And there was one incriminating piece of
Speaker 1: physical evidence was which is a ball of blenden tape
Speaker 1: that was founded on Richard Pairing, and a policeman showed
Speaker 1: it to John Perry, and John Perry said, oh, yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the strain that my brother used to strangle my
Speaker 1: master with. So that's the only physical evidence they've got. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they don't have the body, don't they maybe have
Speaker 1: a murder weapon? And as far as evidence of the burglary, well,
Speaker 1: Richard had told John after the burglary that he buried
Speaker 1: the money in this garden and they were just going
Speaker 1: to leave it there and tell everything cooled down it
Speaker 1: was safe to spend it. So it was still buried
Speaker 1: in the garden. At the ends of this point, right,
Speaker 1: they went and dug up the garden authorities did they
Speaker 1: found They found no money. Yeah, I know. Uh so
Speaker 1: John's stories. He's confessional these major crimes. There's no evidence
Speaker 1: to back up anything he's actually said. And of course
Speaker 1: his mother and his brother deny everything. But nonetheless, in
Speaker 1: September and the following month, after the disappearance of Harris,
Speaker 1: and all three of them were indicted for burglary and
Speaker 1: also for robbery and murder. Yeah, and the judge refused
Speaker 1: to try them on the robbery murder charge because the
Speaker 1: body had not been found and this is like less
Speaker 1: than a month after he disappeared, and so that he
Speaker 1: thought it was just not quite right to charge somebody
Speaker 1: with murder when he could just be off somewhere gallivanting
Speaker 1: around the country, right, yeah, yeah, And so so he
Speaker 1: wouldn't charge him on that. But they were still tried
Speaker 1: for the charge of robbery and they pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 1: But then they changed their pleading guilty because this came
Speaker 1: after This is where we get you get a little
Speaker 1: free English history lesson which I'd sure all British listeners
Speaker 1: are gonna love to hear. Yeah, refrained from Yeah, they
Speaker 1: haven't heard this before tell me I got everything wrong.
Speaker 1: But they changed their police to guilty and asked the
Speaker 1: court to grant them amnesty for the crime because there
Speaker 1: was a pardon in the Act of Oblivion of King
Speaker 1: Charles the Second that had recently come down, and so
Speaker 1: they got a pardon and that was that charge is dismissed. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the case you're confused about that, I'll give you
Speaker 1: a quick background. This happened right after the end of
Speaker 1: the English Civil War in se Charles the First was
Speaker 1: beheaded and the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished.
Speaker 1: England was declared to be a commonwealth with the more
Speaker 1: representative form we've got it makes sense. Cromwell and people
Speaker 1: hated Cromwell. Well, this is before Cromwell. Actually he was
Speaker 1: like this, yeah, yeah, Cromwell was around. But but the
Speaker 1: things that he really didn't like with the Protectorate, which
Speaker 1: came after the Commonwealth. But the Commonwealth didn't work out
Speaker 1: so well. In sixteen fifty three all over Cromwell was
Speaker 1: declared Lord protector and this period is called the Protectorate,
Speaker 1: and Cromwell ruled with all the powers of a king,
Speaker 1: but he was totally not a king. Got it. Totally,
Speaker 1: not at all, not even close. But it turns out
Speaker 1: life down the life under the protectorate was more repressive
Speaker 1: than it had ever been out of the monarchy, almost
Speaker 1: like it was a dictatorship. Yeah and so so eventually
Speaker 1: Parliament proposed to restore the monarchy, and the offer that
Speaker 1: thrown the Prince Charles, son of Charles the first. Oh
Speaker 1: like Charles, the one that prince that we have now, yeah,
Speaker 1: the same, the same Prince Charles. He looks like I
Speaker 1: was going to say, because that Prince Charles is actually
Speaker 1: prince under his mom, the Queen. Alright, so different Charles,
Speaker 1: different Charles. But yeah, well no, the English made this
Speaker 1: confusing by naming all of their same humans, the same people, things,
Speaker 1: the same people. It made sense. Shut up, Why, I mean,
Speaker 1: why isn't there why is there not a King Javier
Speaker 1: or King Man? Well, yeah, or king anyway? Sorry, So,
Speaker 1: how does this affect the guilty plea? Well, okay, So,
Speaker 1: so when Parliament offered to restore the monarchy and give
Speaker 1: him the throne, they made it a condition of his
Speaker 1: return that he issued a general pardon for all crimes
Speaker 1: committed during the Civil War. The Commonwealth and the protectorate,
Speaker 1: and the idea was just kind of a reconciliation, you know,
Speaker 1: like you just washing wash the slate clean, like first start. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much every crime, every crime except regicide. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I could have gone and murdered someone like a bunch
Speaker 1: of people probably in the middle of the didn't kill
Speaker 1: like a king or a prince, and they would have
Speaker 1: been like, well, actually it's okay now it would have
Speaker 1: been yeah, because we got a king again, so it's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody awesome. Okay, Well I know where I'm going in
Speaker 1: my time machine now, I know I know about yeah
Speaker 1: six six that's a good time. Yeah. But anyway, that's
Speaker 1: how that's why they were able to plead guilty to
Speaker 1: this burglary and get pardoned for the crime because just
Speaker 1: under the tag and he had some good lawyers. Okay, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know if they had a lawyer.
Speaker 1: It might have been the justice himself and said, hey, look,
Speaker 1: why don't you spare us all aheadache and just plead guilty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably more likely what happened. So they were guilty,
Speaker 1: So they did it. No plead pleading guilty. They all
Speaker 1: denied later that they're actually guilty of this crime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: John took back all of his confessions. You have to
Speaker 1: wonder if maybe John wasn't under a little bit of
Speaker 1: dressed by the police, kind of kind of pondered that
Speaker 1: maybe he was given the old rubber hose treatment. Perhaps. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, the guilty plea might have made some sense,
Speaker 1: and it saved everybody the bother of a trial. It probably,
Speaker 1: from their point of view, in a sense, was a
Speaker 1: smart move because it means it meant that the justice
Speaker 1: who was sitting on their case was probably more more
Speaker 1: inclined in their favor because he had just saved They
Speaker 1: had just saved him some hassle, you know, so scratch
Speaker 1: my back, I scratched yours kind of Yeah. But but
Speaker 1: it was bad optics with the public because in the
Speaker 1: eyes of all the locals who were the future jury
Speaker 1: pool for any trials that might happen foreshadowing. Uh, it
Speaker 1: confirmed that the parish they were guilty. Yeah, they were scallowags,
Speaker 1: they were there were nearly wells. Yeah, it confirmed that
Speaker 1: not only had they wanted to rob William Harrison, but
Speaker 1: they actually had robbed him and so and so well necessarily.
Speaker 1: But but it made it easier to believe later on
Speaker 1: down the line that they had way lad him and
Speaker 1: robbed him and murdered him, and eventually they were tried
Speaker 1: on those charges. Of course, that didn't happen for until
Speaker 1: the next year, in March sixte By this time, of course,
Speaker 1: there's still no body. But people felt a little more
Speaker 1: comfortable about the situation because it has been like eight
Speaker 1: months a year in a while, and so and no word,
Speaker 1: no side of him. And he had a wife, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had a wife. Yeah. And he had a nice job,
Speaker 1: which he presumably would have he would have probably sent
Speaker 1: a letter to his wife. Yeah, he was him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean in those days, and you know those days
Speaker 1: in the Europe or you know anywhere in America even
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people just just mosied off.
Speaker 1: There are people who are kind of foot loose and
Speaker 1: just mosied off. Yeah. It's a giant convenience. I really
Speaker 1: hate the way things are working right now. And you
Speaker 1: can be better somewhere else. Grass is greener. I can
Speaker 1: just easily leave absolutely, hop on a horse and ride. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: But but somebody like him, yeah, I know, I remember, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: somebody like Harrison. Yeah, and uh, they all pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 1: That is the Paris John and Joan and Richard. John
Speaker 1: of course said that he recapted his confession, said he
Speaker 1: had been insane and didn't know what he was talking about.
Speaker 1: And again, who knows. I mean, maybe he did have
Speaker 1: some mental issues, even I don't know. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they weren't really diagnosing those at the time, not really
Speaker 1: all that well. And I still kind of believe that
Speaker 1: most likely the police kind of leaned on him hard probably, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so okay, sorry, I think we were just busy
Speaker 1: kind of like uh laughing. Yeah. To be clear, they're
Speaker 1: being tried for the murder. Yeah, okay, yeah, they were
Speaker 1: the whole burder. Everything is long in the past. It's
Speaker 1: the murder now, it's the robbery and the murder. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were all found guilty. They were all sensed to
Speaker 1: hang and then yeah, I know, and then they don't.
Speaker 1: They didn't do it in those days like we do
Speaker 1: it now in America, where you wait like thirty forty
Speaker 1: years before it actually happens. You know. There was two days, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: two days. It's a quick and expedient trial, very execution.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Two days after the trial they were strung up.
Speaker 1: This was on the hill outside Camden. Legend has it
Speaker 1: Joan was executed first because some people thought she was
Speaker 1: a witch and that she had cast a spell over
Speaker 1: her sons. So well, she did float yeah, water, so
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know if they tried that or not.
Speaker 1: So if she was dead, the spell would be broken
Speaker 1: and John and Richard would finally tell the truth and
Speaker 1: they would find out what happened to Harrison's body. For example. Well,
Speaker 1: that didn't work out. They still said they didn't do it,
Speaker 1: and still said they had no idea where the body was, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Even after the mother was dead. It seems like they
Speaker 1: could have. I mean, do you think they would have
Speaker 1: been free if they had been like, she cast a
Speaker 1: spell on us? Oh my god, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: We did it, and we fed his body to the
Speaker 1: pigs and there's no evidence. Yeah, I don't know how
Speaker 1: that would have worked out. You know, they should have
Speaker 1: thought that, I mean, I mean, what the hell do
Speaker 1: you have to lose? Yeah, that's true. I mean they
Speaker 1: would let you go. I would totally if it were me,
Speaker 1: and I would I'd just be like looking around, what
Speaker 1: am I doing here? Oh? My god, what where else
Speaker 1: is going on? Oh? My god, my mother's dead? What happened?
Speaker 1: Yea dead for years? Yeah, my mother died in childbirth. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. So um yeah. Anyway, so if
Speaker 1: you go back in time to get to give these
Speaker 1: guys a little coaching, OK, yeah, that would when probably yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1: They So they also were hung with Richard next and
Speaker 1: then John the last. Yeah hanged. Yeah. So that was
Speaker 1: the end of it. Harrison was presumed murder and gone
Speaker 1: his killers that had had been killed, and they were executed,
Speaker 1: I guess as a more appropriate words. So okay, So
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Uh, I guess I'm confused about the mystery
Speaker 1: is here because it sounds like this guy got murdered.
Speaker 1: Granted they didn't find his body, so is that the thing?
Speaker 1: Or is it because they denied they thought, they said
Speaker 1: they were innocent until the end? Is that they so? Mean? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well our story is not quite over actually, okay, because
Speaker 1: the following year, late summer sixteen sixty two. Uh, guess
Speaker 1: who guess who comes back to town William Harrison. What
Speaker 1: does he say is going on? Yeah? Because obviously everybody's
Speaker 1: curious to know, really curious to know just where the
Speaker 1: hell he'd been, because after all, I mean, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but three people are dead now. But he actually had
Speaker 1: a good excuse. He had been unavoidably detained, and he
Speaker 1: put the whole story into writing, which is by the
Speaker 1: way out there. You can find it if you look around. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's not made up. It's actually part of the
Speaker 1: historical record. And just i'll just it's a long document,
Speaker 1: so i'll just paraphrase and here repletely because it's quite lengthy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when he sat out that day August sixteen, sixteen sixty,
Speaker 1: he was accosted by three men on horseback on the
Speaker 1: road who stabbed him with the sword and then grabbed
Speaker 1: him and put him on the back of one of
Speaker 1: their horses and headed off to the east. And they
Speaker 1: rode for about three days, staying the night in various
Speaker 1: isolated places, and we'll finally wind up on the coast
Speaker 1: on the English Channel in a town called Deal, was
Speaker 1: still exists today, by the way. It's about eight miles
Speaker 1: northeast of Dover. And at Deal, he couldn't really tell
Speaker 1: for sure, but it looked like it was a negotiation,
Speaker 1: and he believes he was sold for seven pounds as
Speaker 1: a slave, apparently, so he was taken out to a
Speaker 1: ship off the right, off the coast. They're put on
Speaker 1: the ship along with a lot of other people in
Speaker 1: a similar situation as him, and then he estimates he
Speaker 1: spent about six weeks on the ship, just sailing around
Speaker 1: the seat. I don't know where they were going, because
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess around they were sailing towards the maniature.
Speaker 1: Seems like six weeks would have been plenty of time
Speaker 1: to get you anywhere you wanted to go, anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, really, But anyway, they were on that
Speaker 1: They were on the ship for about six weeks, and
Speaker 1: then one day they came into contact with three Turkish ships.
Speaker 1: It's not clear if these were pirate ships or if
Speaker 1: they were just slavers or what, but he and all
Speaker 1: the passengers who have fellow slaves, I guess, were transferred
Speaker 1: across to one of the Turkish ships and they spent
Speaker 1: an undetermined amount of time on that ship before they
Speaker 1: made landfall, which it turns out was in Smyrnatt, Turkey,
Speaker 1: which is where modern day is Mayor and now is
Speaker 1: now And so he was sold. It was it was
Speaker 1: as some sort of a slave market. He was sold
Speaker 1: at this this very old doctor who happened to speak
Speaker 1: a little English, and basically the doctor, I don't know
Speaker 1: how much he paid for him, but he wanted him
Speaker 1: to run his distillery. So that's what he did. For
Speaker 1: over a year. He ran this old guy's distillery and
Speaker 1: the old guy was kindly gave him this nice silver
Speaker 1: bowl to use for drinking or drinking, eating soup or whatever.
Speaker 1: And that was basically his his only thing, his only possession.
Speaker 1: And uh, after about he says, about a year and
Speaker 1: three quarters, the old guy, his master died, and so
Speaker 1: Harrison made a break for freedom and lifted to the
Speaker 1: port at Smyrna and tried to try to put passage
Speaker 1: on a ship. He managed to get on a ship
Speaker 1: that was going to Lisbon, Portugal and return for his
Speaker 1: silver bowl. So thank god for the silver bowl, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean really, uh so he traded that for passage
Speaker 1: to Lisbon. Once he got into Lisbon, he was totally
Speaker 1: at louci as he had nothing, I mean, not a penny,
Speaker 1: and but he was hanging out and he was this
Speaker 1: guy walks up to him and starts talking to him.
Speaker 1: When it turns out he's an Englishman. And so this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, here's a sad story, and he takes pity
Speaker 1: on him, and so he puts him up, you know,
Speaker 1: gives him a place to stay temporarily, and and then
Speaker 1: finds him passage on a ship to Dover back in England. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then before he goes, gives him some wine and
Speaker 1: some brandy for the road and and a little money
Speaker 1: and sends him on his way. And so he made
Speaker 1: it back to England. We never found out the name
Speaker 1: of this guy. But that's a that's quite a story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting story, don't you think It's a way
Speaker 1: to put it. That's not the way I would have
Speaker 1: put it, but that's a nice way to put it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but but it accounts for a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's unfortunate that three people were killed, but you know,
Speaker 1: what could he do? He was enslaved back in Turkey,
Speaker 1: so you know, and so hey, what's it. What's the
Speaker 1: guy gonna do? Right? And and well that's it. It's
Speaker 1: like the story actually was not that well received a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Frankly, I don't know if anybody believed it.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody and people have been wondering ever since,
Speaker 1: and that's why this story is usually called the Camden Wonder.
Speaker 1: That is the official name, because it makes everybody wonder
Speaker 1: what the hell happened? Obviously, the story is a bit
Speaker 1: questionable about slavery and everything. So the mystery is here,
Speaker 1: what really happened to William Harrison? Where did he go?
Speaker 1: His hat, comb and bloody shirt color were really found
Speaker 1: in the road for real? And so did they fall
Speaker 1: off during his subduction, assuming his story was real, or
Speaker 1: did Harrison plant them there to fake his own death?
Speaker 1: And what the hell was Perry doing? What? Then? Why
Speaker 1: the hell did Perry claim he planted them there? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if Harrison did fake his death and run
Speaker 1: off to start a new life, then where did he go,
Speaker 1: why did he do it well? And why the hell
Speaker 1: did he come back? And also, of course I've already
Speaker 1: said this, but why did John Perry confess to a
Speaker 1: murder that never happened? This is so that's why this
Speaker 1: is why it's called the Wonder because it's freaking there's
Speaker 1: lots of wondering. Yeah, and I left out a few
Speaker 1: details here. I'll just mention him. Rumor has it Harrison's
Speaker 1: wife committed suicide by hanging right after he came back.
Speaker 1: If that happened, we don't. We don't know for sure
Speaker 1: that that happened. But and like any any one of
Speaker 1: these things, I mean, certain things do get added to
Speaker 1: the story. Another one was at in her possessions after
Speaker 1: she died. There was a letter from Harris and William
Speaker 1: Harrison found in her possessions that was dated after his disappearance. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true or not, but if
Speaker 1: if those things are true, then it certainly adds to
Speaker 1: the intrigue. Don't you think how he comes back and
Speaker 1: she killed herself. Yeah, and by the way, I want
Speaker 1: to get a hat tip to a guy named Peter Clifford. Well,
Speaker 1: we will link to his website, but this is a
Speaker 1: guy who is, oh yeah, he's done some serious historical
Speaker 1: research on this mystery. I mean, he's he's definitely gotten
Speaker 1: down in the weeds. He's not a tinfoil hat guy
Speaker 1: at all. A good website. But hat tip to Peter.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Peter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, good point. Uh So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's our mystery. What the hell really happened? So it's now,
Speaker 1: as you know, time for the series. But first let's
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Speaker 1: we're back. So let's tell in a series here. Um first, oh,
Speaker 1: let's start from the top. Here. Here's a theory, the
Speaker 1: new the return William Harrison wasn't impostor? Oh like Bobby
Speaker 1: what's his name? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's been
Speaker 1: a bunch of them. Who's that guy that was in that?
Speaker 1: Was that? Was that Bobby Dunbar? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. Uh, it's it's happened. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of stories like that. Usually it's a
Speaker 1: little kid that's brought back where'd added with his family
Speaker 1: and if the kids spirited age not a seventy year
Speaker 1: old man. Yeah, and his wife was of course still alive,
Speaker 1: you know, at least it's long enough to hang herself. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you believe that story. So I don't really buy
Speaker 1: this one, you know, of course, unless maybe old Harrison
Speaker 1: had a twin somewhere. Even then, is this an actual
Speaker 1: theory out there that anytime there's something like this happens,
Speaker 1: you know where you know, there's at least somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: be saying, well, could he be an impostor? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a theory about this. Actually, um, it was that
Speaker 1: they never found the body, but it was really well preserved,
Speaker 1: and then the ghost of one of the Perry brothers
Speaker 1: came back and inhabited the body and just took over
Speaker 1: his just just a mess with people's heads. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the idea. Wow, that's not witchy at all.
Speaker 1: It was Joan, You're right, it was could have been Joan.
Speaker 1: Joan actually did that one of the boys. Could have
Speaker 1: been a witch you don't know? Yeah, yeah, sorry, which
Speaker 1: is yeah, I don't think it was. I don't think
Speaker 1: it was Joan and her witchery because she probably would
Speaker 1: have just messed with everybody's heads a lot. More like,
Speaker 1: isn't it really a shame that he strung those three
Speaker 1: people up just over me, silly old meat? Isn't it
Speaker 1: a shame? Just? I mean, he was constantly messing. As
Speaker 1: far as I know, that didn't happen because nobody, nobody
Speaker 1: shot him. Well, next sory, Well, Harrison really was kidnapped
Speaker 1: and enslaved, which totally explains everything. I mean, you got
Speaker 1: to admit, you know, but even at the time, a
Speaker 1: lot of people find this found the story kind of
Speaker 1: hard to swallow because why the hell would anybody a
Speaker 1: kidnap him. He was seventy years old, not exactly you know,
Speaker 1: prime material for the slave market. He's not exactly on
Speaker 1: the coastline where he's an easy nabbing distance. Well, he's
Speaker 1: from from where he was. He was like a good
Speaker 1: hundred miles at least, if not more, from the town
Speaker 1: of Deal, And of course, with the roads in those days,
Speaker 1: it was not a straight shot so much more than
Speaker 1: that on hors back. A lot of England is a
Speaker 1: hundred miles away from the coast. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there was a lot of slavers. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: There were actually ships raiding the English coast and grabbing slaves.
Speaker 1: It slavery was totally a thing, but not that far inland. No,
Speaker 1: It's definitely, yeah, and so and so that's that's one
Speaker 1: reason to wonder about this. Uh. It was also you know,
Speaker 1: another part of his story I really didn't like is
Speaker 1: he was he had this guy who befriended him in
Speaker 1: Lisbon and really basically saved him. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: took care of him and got him got a passage
Speaker 1: on a ship and gave him money and all. He
Speaker 1: never said who the guy was. That's weird. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think it's weird, Like seventies seventy is pretty
Speaker 1: old for this time to be enslaved. Just like for humans,
Speaker 1: material you're not a good thing. You mean, you could
Speaker 1: catch sick and die immediately at the drop of a hat.
Speaker 1: Why would anybody invest any money in somebody at that age? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, so the whole idea for that is, the
Speaker 1: whole idea is like ludicrous, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: at that time felt the same way. But you know,
Speaker 1: he had to invent something though, because supposing he did
Speaker 1: to scan with the red money and want to shack
Speaker 1: up with his girlfriend a few counties over, uh, he
Speaker 1: would have had a lot to answer for because three
Speaker 1: people had been killed over this whole deal. So he
Speaker 1: had to come up with some sort of a story. Um,
Speaker 1: And so you know, he made up a story that
Speaker 1: you know, accounted for everything. But frankly, I think he
Speaker 1: did make this story up. It can't possibly be true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just don't think so. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's a possibility. Slavers coming in a hundred miles
Speaker 1: from the coastline and then stealing a man who is
Speaker 1: going to cost them more to keep alive and put
Speaker 1: on the auction block, then he's going to fetch on
Speaker 1: the auction block does not make any sense. It really doesn't.
Speaker 1: Although there is there is one possibility that there is
Speaker 1: a possibility, and that is that William Harrison's son Edward,
Speaker 1: actually stayed the abduction because he wanted his father out
Speaker 1: of the way, because he wanted his dad's job as
Speaker 1: steward of the viccounts as is a state, because that
Speaker 1: was a nice job and he felt like he would
Speaker 1: inherit the job if if his dad disappeared. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. There's there's actually no record
Speaker 1: that he did he if he did, he didn't do
Speaker 1: it for very long, because I know there was there
Speaker 1: is a record of another steward who's started the job
Speaker 1: no later than like sixteen sixty five. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: kind of seems like the Viscountess would be like, but
Speaker 1: I don't know, this is another guy I trust Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be. Wouldn't just be like, oh, yes, the
Speaker 1: son of course he will do it. Yeah, the sun
Speaker 1: does not necessarily, particularly if if he got murdered or
Speaker 1: disappeared in some weird circumstance, right, and then the sound
Speaker 1: the sound of course not being totally heartless, he doesn't
Speaker 1: want his dad killed, so he just has these guys
Speaker 1: have ducked to him and sell him into slavery and stuff.
Speaker 1: He doesn't kill people at all to get dead out
Speaker 1: of the way. Totally healthy experience. Actually, actually, especially a
Speaker 1: seven years old, he was lucky he didn't die on
Speaker 1: the ship. Yeah, if he was actually, if he was
Speaker 1: actually on a ship, if he was actually on a ship,
Speaker 1: because I mean a lot of people didn't survive sea voyages.
Speaker 1: Frankly at seventy, kind of shocked he survived walking to
Speaker 1: a different town all the time. And saying, to be clear,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying seventy now is insanely old. My parents
Speaker 1: are almost seventy. I'm sorry mom and dad for telling
Speaker 1: everybody that, But there, I mean, seventy is like nothing
Speaker 1: four hundred years ago. Seventy was kind of like it
Speaker 1: was incredibly old back in those days. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: most people died about what age thirty five. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we're going to get a lot of emails where people
Speaker 1: are like, it wasn't that old. Calm down, But it
Speaker 1: was calmed down. I think the median age was forty
Speaker 1: five to fifty was about the average length that you
Speaker 1: could expect to live and die normally, you know, barring
Speaker 1: any accidents or diseases or whatnot. Yeah, he was, he
Speaker 1: was well outside of the bell curve. Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he actually he didn't die until sixteen seventy two, so
Speaker 1: he lived to be eighty two years old. He was
Speaker 1: even farther off of the Builker. This is why you
Speaker 1: don't great on the Bilker, because guys like this throw
Speaker 1: it off. So the theory is that his son arranges
Speaker 1: his abduction so he can take his job, which which
Speaker 1: would actually okay, so that makes sense of this whole
Speaker 1: thing you're saying. Why would they take this guy how
Speaker 1: to twenty miles inland and take them all the way
Speaker 1: to the coast. Well, it was a special order. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so that was yeah, I know, special order. But
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I have to pause for a second. Did
Speaker 1: you say it's bunk terrific. Yes, sorry, yeah it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The only problem I have with this series it would
Speaker 1: have been really expensive to arrange this whole thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: this co conspirators, the three guys on horseback to name
Speaker 1: it just three would never blabbed, which is really helpful,
Speaker 1: especially after this. This actual story actually got a fair
Speaker 1: amount of circulation. It was a big story. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say if they were slavers that kind
Speaker 1: of were in the coast or even like in the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean most of the time, if I were hiring someone
Speaker 1: to abduct one of you guys, for instance, it would
Speaker 1: not be somebody who lives locally. So, by the way,
Speaker 1: let me give you my new address. It's totally different
Speaker 1: than my old address. I don't believe you try to
Speaker 1: hire somebody out. Maybe I'll just give him both of
Speaker 1: them the tunnel under my house. That's where I'm living now, Okay,
Speaker 1: nice safe place to live. I don't blame you. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get me one of them. Yeah, oh where where
Speaker 1: we Oh? Yeah, Edward Harrison had his father affected. The
Speaker 1: problem I have with this serious It would have been
Speaker 1: so much easier just to poison him, you know, really,
Speaker 1: because the guy just I mean, just knock him off.
Speaker 1: As we just said, the guy was seven years old.
Speaker 1: If you poisoned him and he just keeled over and died,
Speaker 1: nobody would think. Nobody would think twice. Yeah, seriously, not
Speaker 1: at all. They wouldn't have been any question, was m Yeah,
Speaker 1: stack of chloroform or arsenic I don't know. Even then.
Speaker 1: Apparently you can just pump it into someone's stomach and
Speaker 1: nobody cares down their throat. Alright, so you guys, what
Speaker 1: do you think do you want to do anymore on Edward?
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on. Next theory Harrison William Harrison
Speaker 1: faked his I took the rent money that he collected
Speaker 1: that day and ran off to start a new life.
Speaker 1: What do you guys would Actually, this is my theory,
Speaker 1: This is my preferred thing. Actually, it actually makes more
Speaker 1: sense than the last three that we talked about. It
Speaker 1: actually makes more sense than all of the theories that
Speaker 1: you have in this text that we're looking at, because listen,
Speaker 1: this old man knows how much money he collects on
Speaker 1: a regular basis. He's been doing it for a long time,
Speaker 1: and he probably is sick and tired of it all.
Speaker 1: And there have been days where I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, if I came into a couple of thousand
Speaker 1: bucks in bonus cash, I might just walk I'm your wife,
Speaker 1: that fine cheos is that I can see a guy
Speaker 1: in this day and age to be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can have four hundred pounds. I could live like
Speaker 1: a king forever on four hundred pounds, not realizing that
Speaker 1: it's only going to actually last him a year. But
Speaker 1: he's likely I've only got a couple of years to live.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go off and do something fun. I
Speaker 1: would go back on forth, back and forth on that
Speaker 1: because it kind of feels like to me, his job
Speaker 1: is to collect taxes. He probably gets paid. I would
Speaker 1: assume that he gets paid more than the taxes are,
Speaker 1: or at least a fair wage enough to incentivize him
Speaker 1: not to steal the taxes. Right, Well, there's that whole
Speaker 1: beheading thing. Well, I mean I think that I I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm totally talking out of my butt right
Speaker 1: now to be totally honest with everybody, But I would
Speaker 1: just think that he would know the actual value of
Speaker 1: the money that he had. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: where you would want your tax collector to be educated
Speaker 1: on how far four pounds actually goes, or give him
Speaker 1: be paying him an annual salary that is close enough
Speaker 1: or halfway. I know, I see that you are mad
Speaker 1: about this. It just makes sense. It's to me, it
Speaker 1: makes sense that you would pay that person that amount
Speaker 1: of money or help them understand a little quote unquote.
Speaker 1: It is just because you don't want them taking off
Speaker 1: with it. Joe, I have a question. Was this his
Speaker 1: only duty? No? Actually, as stewart, he had all kinds
Speaker 1: of other duties, and so I don't know why he
Speaker 1: was just being the regular. So this was not the
Speaker 1: sole thing that he would do. So therefore, I don't
Speaker 1: believe that he would have been educated in that financial
Speaker 1: background that you're you're implying there. I think that it
Speaker 1: was a position that he had earned the trust of
Speaker 1: his employer enough to be given it. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: all you need for that job is to prove that
Speaker 1: you don't steal. Can you read? Can you know how
Speaker 1: much is written on the ledger that they owe? And
Speaker 1: can you come back with it to this single pence? Yes?
Speaker 1: Job done? How long? But how long had he been
Speaker 1: doing this for? Probably a long time? Yeah, Well I
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, I mean, he's been doing the job
Speaker 1: I understand he's been doing for decades. Yeah. And by
Speaker 1: the way, his job was not just tax collector. He
Speaker 1: was managing the estate. He had a managerial job. So
Speaker 1: that's my thing is that if it's a managerial a
Speaker 1: middle manager, and if we all, if we know anything,
Speaker 1: middle managers get bored. It's just always want to take
Speaker 1: it and run. I just think it's like a weird
Speaker 1: time and he should have known that four pounds isn't
Speaker 1: going to get him. Well, actually, it's not a weird timing.
Speaker 1: It's a perfect timing because here's the thing. For the
Speaker 1: last what eleven twelve years, the crown has been in turmoil.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what's gonna go on on and oh look
Speaker 1: now they brought back Charles the Second and it's all
Speaker 1: gonna be p g Keene. Except that's what they said
Speaker 1: when the last guy came on, and look what a
Speaker 1: crap show that turned into you know what, I'm out
Speaker 1: of here. I mean, listen, you know as well as
Speaker 1: I do that about a year ago when an election
Speaker 1: happened and all those people said that's it. We're we're
Speaker 1: gonna be expatriots, We're gonna leave the country. We're gonna
Speaker 1: live on our money in some other place because it's
Speaker 1: gonna be way better. And then they didn't do it.
Speaker 1: But this guy may have had the same thought of,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's just gonna be one more of
Speaker 1: the same with a new paint job, and I've seen
Speaker 1: it before and I am out before it all burns down.
Speaker 1: I believe that Harrison was a royalist, so he was like,
Speaker 1: um so something. In other words, his side one, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's what he is. But he may have been
Speaker 1: like he may not have thought that Charles the second
Speaker 1: was the man for the job. Maybe he thought he
Speaker 1: wouldn't last. But but here's where the restoration Actually my
Speaker 1: factor into this is that and nobody actually knows the
Speaker 1: answer to this, and that is that all these all
Speaker 1: these these people with these lands that they were collecting
Speaker 1: rent when the Commonwealth went in and then protector essentially
Speaker 1: because the whole royalty thing kind of just went a way. Uh,
Speaker 1: they no longer were able to collect rents on their
Speaker 1: lands extended period. And so one of the questions here
Speaker 1: is when it's time to go out and collect the rent?
Speaker 1: Uh do these people ohe back rent for all those years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so is that the case, And so in that
Speaker 1: case that he could have been yes, he would take
Speaker 1: all that he could have actually hauled, had quite a
Speaker 1: bit of money. And of course the problem with that
Speaker 1: is if you collected that amount of money, and he
Speaker 1: would never dare to show his face back in Camden
Speaker 1: ever again, unless unless he well, I guess that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, well, unless he knew that these
Speaker 1: people had been murdered, had been not murdered, but had
Speaker 1: been executed for his murder. But I guess it really
Speaker 1: makes more sense if they had been executed for his robbery,
Speaker 1: and he could come back and say I was so,
Speaker 1: I was robbed and I was so scared and I
Speaker 1: ran away. I played dead. I played dead. They thought
Speaker 1: they killed but it too me in a cesspool. But
Speaker 1: then after they left, I climbed back out. I got better.
Speaker 1: I want to friends. Yeah, okay, so you're right, Yeah
Speaker 1: I agree, and it's but this is this is my
Speaker 1: favorite of the one. But again we don't know it.
Speaker 1: Probably realistically speaking, even if obviously they would have loved
Speaker 1: to have collected all of that back run, realistically speaking,
Speaker 1: they couldn't. They could not have held him accountable for
Speaker 1: ten or twelve years or worth of back rent. You
Speaker 1: were talking like one of the monarchy was abolished in
Speaker 1: sixteen forty nine. That's know that that would bankrupt the
Speaker 1: entire country. They knew they couldn't go that just they
Speaker 1: couldn't gouge too hard. But you know, maybe just the
Speaker 1: regular hall from rents was it would have been enough
Speaker 1: to tempt him into leaving. I don't know, or I
Speaker 1: just don't know. Um, you know. And and of course
Speaker 1: the other thing about it is that you know, he
Speaker 1: had to have heard what happened in his absence. I mean,
Speaker 1: three people get executed for you being gone, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He would have had to probably. I
Speaker 1: think this was very slow when there is no electronic communication.
Speaker 1: I just think it would have taken a lot of moxie,
Speaker 1: a lot of chefs pop excuse me for him to
Speaker 1: come back, and that's three people have been killed. I
Speaker 1: suppose maybe you're right, maybe he didn't know that three
Speaker 1: people have been executed. Yeah, I mean yeah, I really
Speaker 1: feel like he sauntered into town like, hey I'm back, everybody,
Speaker 1: I got this great story. People were oh hell um
Speaker 1: um um, and then it happened to it was the worst. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to add the details and later. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: I gonna go see my wife, who's gonna mysteriously hang herself.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why his wife hung herself. She didn't he
Speaker 1: killed her. I mean it's possible, Yeah, it could have been.
Speaker 1: So anyway, this is, as I say, so far, my
Speaker 1: favorite theory. But it's got its issues too. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: again that's why they call this the wonder. There is
Speaker 1: no clear wondering. We should just called this podcast asked
Speaker 1: the wonder. Yeah, there's a wonder thing out there that's
Speaker 1: already sort of taking it. We've been I wonder. It
Speaker 1: sounds a little too now familiar. Yeah yeah, screw that
Speaker 1: all right. Series here shall be called Thinking Sideways. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we got another series or two here, so let's get
Speaker 1: on this one. Was that it's been hypothesized by historians
Speaker 1: and and responsible people, not just your tinto types. But yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's been hypothesized that he was perhaps on some sort
Speaker 1: of a secret mission, and like, for example, one would
Speaker 1: be well, his employers the so so the Viscountess Camden
Speaker 1: knows Julianna Noel her her sons or Baptist noell Uh
Speaker 1: that was his name was bast Yeah, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: weird Baptiste. No, probably Baptist bad Spanish, it's terrible name,
Speaker 1: but maybe name in them that Spish. Anyway, it was Boptist.
Speaker 1: But any way, Baptist was known to be a party
Speaker 1: boy who apparently fathered a bunch of illegitimate children. So
Speaker 1: the thinking along this lane goes maybe, because as I said,
Speaker 1: the restoration happened, these people, a lot of their lands
Speaker 1: were sequestered, they had no income, a lot of their
Speaker 1: wealth was taken from them because of their associations with
Speaker 1: with the monarchy. And so if he had all these
Speaker 1: illegitimate children floating around out there and across Europe, um,
Speaker 1: he wasn't able to get him any money in the instruments.
Speaker 1: So now finally the restoration happens, his lands are restored,
Speaker 1: he's got his wealth back. Now suddenly he's in a
Speaker 1: position to help out his kids. So the thinking is
Speaker 1: that he may be sent Harrison on a mission to
Speaker 1: to actually take money to his two children ex girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Whatever one, Why Harrison and to where did the money
Speaker 1: suddenly appear from? This is all a good question. I
Speaker 1: don't know. This is, like I said, just a theory.
Speaker 1: I again, why Harrison, why do you choose a seven
Speaker 1: year old guy? One reason, of course, would be trustworthy.
Speaker 1: He was trustworthy, you know, he was a solid guy.
Speaker 1: One of the problems I have with this as far
Speaker 1: as him being essentially a money carrier, why did it
Speaker 1: take him two whole years to do this? Number one? Uh?
Speaker 1: Number two? Why didn't anybody, knowing that he was just
Speaker 1: out of town it was going to be back, why
Speaker 1: didn't anybody intervene to stop three people from getting hanged? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I can kind of answer that, maybe because
Speaker 1: you know, they didn't care. Well, no, I think it's
Speaker 1: possible that the Perrys were kind of yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they could have been stealing and trashing things and getting
Speaker 1: drunks of the English country. I mean, they could have
Speaker 1: been people that the Viscountess was like, I don't care,
Speaker 1: they don't contribute anything. They're kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: beating up all of my all of the people who
Speaker 1: live in my area. They're stealing from trouble my employee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically just makers and you know what, it's probably better
Speaker 1: if they're gone anyway, Yeah, snuff that line out right
Speaker 1: there and there. I mean, I'm not saying that's like
Speaker 1: a good reason, but it's as well. Actually, if you
Speaker 1: think about it, you don't rule if he left and
Speaker 1: he was not expected to come back, but he had
Speaker 1: to leave in his super secret mission. Maybe his wife
Speaker 1: was eventually going to go join and wherever he was,
Speaker 1: then it totally makes sense actually to let three people
Speaker 1: get executed, because that that puts an end of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, he disappeared, but all speculation is done,
Speaker 1: and he was murdered, three people were killed, all questioning
Speaker 1: is done, so that kind of makes sense. But again,
Speaker 1: what was his super secret mission? We don't know. Then
Speaker 1: it's hard to say. I mean, there could actually be
Speaker 1: progress on this. There are people actually all the time
Speaker 1: going through ancient libraries and old manuscripts, and you never know,
Speaker 1: somebody might stumble across a little more information one of
Speaker 1: these things. It could happen. Uh. And but on the
Speaker 1: theory or our last theory here this is this does
Speaker 1: actually kind of a possible theory too, which is that
Speaker 1: the whole story is complete BS that's never had fabrication,
Speaker 1: it's completely a fabrication. Yeah, totally possible. Well I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I mean, yeah, I mean it is possible.
Speaker 1: But somebody had to go back and really fake some
Speaker 1: records and really well because they were accounts. Like one
Speaker 1: of the justices of the piece, what's his name, Jen
Speaker 1: Overbury wrote an accounted this about ten years after it
Speaker 1: happened and published it, and that's still around, is still available. Um,
Speaker 1: some other documents of surfaced, of course, the letter that
Speaker 1: Harrison wrote that still exists, the one that he wrote
Speaker 1: to explain where he'd been gone for for two years,
Speaker 1: that's still around as far as I know. And then
Speaker 1: somebody just in this century I think, found some some
Speaker 1: court records discussing the trial of the Berries for the
Speaker 1: murder of William Harrison and named them all Joan, Richard,
Speaker 1: and John and they were all sentenced to be hanged
Speaker 1: for the murder of William Harrison. So here's the one.
Speaker 1: Here's the one thing that just screws this theory, or
Speaker 1: actually backs this theory up and screws up your belief
Speaker 1: that it's real. Those names are super duper common. Yeah, William,
Speaker 1: it's crap. Harrison, Williamson, will Harrison, William, William Harrison, very
Speaker 1: very common name. Perry is not an uncommon name. Jones
Speaker 1: not uncommon, I mean John, I mean it's it's These
Speaker 1: are all common names. So it is entirely possible that
Speaker 1: the Perry's killed Harrison, but not the Harrison. Right, So
Speaker 1: these things are happening in the area, and then it's
Speaker 1: kind of conflagration of stuff, and then it all just
Speaker 1: kind of merges in the historical record because we don't
Speaker 1: know because it's crappy record keeping well, and actually back
Speaker 1: to the back of the starting of those days, they
Speaker 1: were starting to keep better records. And this is also
Speaker 1: in a time of turmoil win the anarchy is coming
Speaker 1: back and there is administrative turnover maybe, but but I
Speaker 1: mean again that one of the things that settles it
Speaker 1: for me, though, is is that Overbury wrote this his
Speaker 1: account to this whole thing, and he was privy to
Speaker 1: the the facts of the whole case, and he wrote
Speaker 1: the account of it. And so unless he was totally
Speaker 1: b s us he was an aspiring sci fi writer,
Speaker 1: maybe that's what it was. And he was, as far
Speaker 1: as I know, a respectable man who would and don't
Speaker 1: forget doing stuff like like writing sci fi. Probably back
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century was not considered respectable at all.
Speaker 1: So I think that I think it happened. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it happened, But I think that's big news. I
Speaker 1: really think that this whole thing boils down to he
Speaker 1: took off and spun a bs tale when he ran
Speaker 1: out of money, and it was running away from from debt.
Speaker 1: I think that he got himself into either gambling debts
Speaker 1: or just credit debt because look, I've got all these
Speaker 1: hundreds of pounds, lend me money. I really think that
Speaker 1: he just he ran away and spent faster than he
Speaker 1: expected to come back. Oh it's a good thing. I
Speaker 1: gave them this different name I gotta go, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: didn't know where else it goes. So he went home.
Speaker 1: Well and maybe, uh, he took a big chance, I think.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think maybe one of the reasons
Speaker 1: it worked out for him. And I don't think he
Speaker 1: got his whole job back as far as I got it.
Speaker 1: But if he did, their their very gold. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: maybe the local the local law and everything like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were all kind of like, you know, let's
Speaker 1: just sweep the sound of the rug and forget about it,
Speaker 1: because otherwise it kind of makes us look bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't think that. One of the I think that
Speaker 1: this case was sort of the basis for for what
Speaker 1: was a long tradition in English law, which is that basically,
Speaker 1: if you don't have a body, you don't have a murder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I think. This was the genesis of that
Speaker 1: whole idea. Is that, you know, because never in other cases.
Speaker 1: There was a case in American history, like back in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century where the guy was hung for killing
Speaker 1: some guy and then some years later the guy comes
Speaker 1: back to town and say, what's up. But what's up, dudes?
Speaker 1: And oh, we thought you were dead. We killed ted
Speaker 1: over there over it. H We'll see yeah, d bag anyway.
Speaker 1: But I mean, yeah, I know English law has for
Speaker 1: many many years had the nobody no hanging rule. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they've gotten away from that apparently. Well you might still
Speaker 1: be able to convict people, but yeah, you probably still
Speaker 1: thinking the bridge don't kill anybody. I don't think they
Speaker 1: execute anybody. But they also run on the shortest prison sentence.
Speaker 1: Oh you you clubbed an old lady near to death,
Speaker 1: gould be three weeks in jail. Yeah, they did kind of.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like there's only a couple of people
Speaker 1: in the whole country that are actually seriously in prison
Speaker 1: for life, Jeremy Bamber, Jeremy Bamber being one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's He's one of just a few. And that's it,
Speaker 1: I mean, just a couple really. Yeah, that's why they
Speaker 1: have a high crime rate over there. The Queen's Corgis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they hittled on the carpet. Yeah, well tied the
Speaker 1: room together. Alright. So, um, so you guys have any
Speaker 1: other theories here, other idea? What the hell I think
Speaker 1: you just ran away? Yeah he probably did. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: still a weird little story. Yeah, it's still weird. It's
Speaker 1: still weird, but especially that that that added little twist
Speaker 1: of three dead people. See. Yeah, anyway, Yeah, if we
Speaker 1: have any British listeners out there that are fans of
Speaker 1: the story and have any any input, we have an
Speaker 1: email account. Believe we finally got an email account. I
Speaker 1: thought you were going to stop it if we have
Speaker 1: any British listeners and I was going to say, you know,
Speaker 1: we do, Yeah, of course we do, but we do
Speaker 1: have an email I'm sorry, we do. It is it's
Speaker 1: one of them fancy Gmail accounts. Don't you wish you
Speaker 1: had one? But Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: send us an email. What else we are on social media?
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Speaker 1: join the group, and there's lots of fun stuff going
Speaker 1: on and read and they're read it. Oh yeah, we
Speaker 1: gotta read it. We got read it. Where we are
Speaker 1: thinking Sideways and there literally as of tonight, just joined recording,
Speaker 1: just joined Instagram. That's right to find us. We're um
Speaker 1: thinking Sideways podcast on that it would be a very
Speaker 1: very small Instagram page. Yeah, that's what you think, you
Speaker 1: guys be amazing. It'll start out small, it'll get big
Speaker 1: really fast. What else you're probably wondering where you can
Speaker 1: find our wonderful podcast and listen to it. Well, we're
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Speaker 1: will find we always have links to some of the stories,
Speaker 1: the background research stuff and research. We will definitely put
Speaker 1: a link to Peter Clifford's website that's got tons of
Speaker 1: research on this story, and you can find out all
Speaker 1: the great details that I had to leave out, because
Speaker 1: you know, I could have gone on for hours and
Speaker 1: hours on this thing. Besides our website, what else We're
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Speaker 1: but it makes you feel good. Whatever makes you feel good,
Speaker 1: all right, Okay, I guess that's it until next week.
Speaker 1: I leave it there to your lair or something. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: so I gotta go to our bank account and then
Speaker 1: I swear I'll be back for recording next week. We'll
Speaker 1: see in two years, right, dude, I promise not to
Speaker 1: kill anybody, ow