Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: So I didn't necessarily want to make American filth a
Speaker 2: true crime podcast, but we're going to do a hint
Speaker 2: of true crime today.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to talk about a murderer.
Speaker 2: That's exciting, And shout out to the listener who suggested
Speaker 2: this guy. His name is Edward Ruloff, and he's really
Speaker 2: fucked up but also a bit of a nerd. And
Speaker 2: also I do want to say up top that he
Speaker 2: is technically he is Canadian, okay, but he lived here
Speaker 2: in the United States and that's where he did all
Speaker 2: of his murdering. You know, maybe he came here to
Speaker 2: live the American dream and instead became an American nightmare.
Speaker 2: And let's get a little sense of this guy. So
Speaker 2: he was finally hanged in eighteen seventy one, what spoiler.
Speaker 2: And while he was sitting in jail waiting for his execution,
Speaker 2: here's how another prisoner described him. Rulloff is now fifty
Speaker 2: one years old, about five feet nine inches in height.
Speaker 2: He weighs about one seventy to one eighty pounds. He
Speaker 2: has an extremely large head, small and delicate hands, which
Speaker 2: do not show hard labor. His eyes are black, and
Speaker 2: when he is animated in conversation, they shine like diamonds.
Speaker 2: He has heavy dark hair and whiskers, but none on
Speaker 2: his upper lip. They are slightly silvered from his advancing gears.
Speaker 2: His voice is sweet and musical, and his manners those
Speaker 2: of a perfect gentleman. As a conversationalist, he has no
Speaker 2: superior He is fascinating and possesses a power of personal
Speaker 2: magnetism that quickly draws to him the hearts of all
Speaker 2: with whom he comes closely in contact. So I guess
Speaker 2: he has that riz as the kids say. If you're
Speaker 2: one of those kids, let me know if I use
Speaker 2: that word correctly. And the thing is in this description,
Speaker 2: the prisoner did mention how big his head was, and
Speaker 2: Ruloff had an enormous head, like a big ass head
Speaker 2: ahead you'd never seen a bigger head, honestly. In order
Speaker 2: to pay for his burial expenses, they actually gave his
Speaker 2: head to science because they're like, we know you want
Speaker 2: this head, give us some money for it. And it
Speaker 2: turned out that his brain was like ten ounces heavier
Speaker 2: than the average brain, and also it was just thick
Speaker 2: and juicy as hell.
Speaker 1: That's right, a thick ass brain. But the thing is.
Speaker 2: While Ruloff could present as a nice, intelligent, interesting man,
Speaker 2: let's not forget.
Speaker 1: That he is a criminal. Hell yeah.
Speaker 2: When he finally did hang for his crime, the Ithaca
Speaker 2: Journal said this about him. Seldom and our civilization has
Speaker 2: the combination of high gifts with low brutality been found
Speaker 2: in one person. His mind was misdirected and allowed to
Speaker 2: grow in the rankest weeds of crime and villainy. Not
Speaker 2: only did this article say he was an evil man,
Speaker 2: it also said something that would have offended Ruloff to
Speaker 2: his core, because some people had dubbed him the Genius Killer,
Speaker 2: but the article said he was no such profound and
Speaker 2: erudite scholar. Wow roasted. So let's learn about some murder.
Speaker 2: Cue the theme song, This is American Filth. I'm Gabby Watts.
Speaker 2: Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history.
Speaker 2: This week's episode at the not so Genius Killer. So
Speaker 2: Edward Ruloff was born in Canada in eighteen nineteen or
Speaker 2: eighteen twenty, and his two main passions in his life
Speaker 2: were philology, which is the study of language through a
Speaker 2: historical lens, and his other passion was committing crimes and
Speaker 2: being in prison. And the thing is, it seemed like
Speaker 2: he had a pretty normal childhood with normal parents and siblings.
Speaker 2: He was pretty smart, he was able to read by
Speaker 2: the age of four. But his nefarious ways came on
Speaker 2: quick as well, like when he was a young rascal.
Speaker 2: He worked at a clothing store and while he was
Speaker 2: employed there, the store burned down twice, and a lot
Speaker 2: of people got to.
Speaker 1: Thinking, I think Edward might be burning it down.
Speaker 2: Why maybe he's trying to cover up the fact that
Speaker 2: he's stealing merchandise, But there was never any evidence for that.
Speaker 2: After the second time the store burned down, Edward ended
Speaker 2: up being caught red handed. He was also working as
Speaker 2: a clerk for a law firm, and he had broken
Speaker 2: into the house of one of the lawyers.
Speaker 1: And then they just saw him.
Speaker 2: Struting around town wearing that lawyer's nice ass suit.
Speaker 1: They're like, you stole that. He's like me, what, I
Speaker 1: just found this?
Speaker 2: And so he had his first stint in prison. He
Speaker 2: was sent to a juvenile prison for two years. After
Speaker 2: his juvenile prison stay, we don't exactly know what was
Speaker 2: going on, but by eighteen forty two, he had moved
Speaker 2: to New York State to a town called Dryden in
Speaker 2: Tompkins County. He was around twenty two or twenty three
Speaker 2: at the time, and that's when he really started getting
Speaker 2: up to no good in Dryden. You know, everyone was
Speaker 2: so impressed by his intelligence, and he started teaching school.
Speaker 1: One of his students was seventeen.
Speaker 2: Year old Harriet Shoot and whoops, I guess they had
Speaker 2: feelings for each other because they wanted to get married,
Speaker 2: but Harriet's family didn't approve, not because Edward was older
Speaker 2: and also her sipipe he or you're in the classroom,
Speaker 2: so there was a weird power imbalance.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that was fine.
Speaker 2: They disapproved because yuck, he was a teacher, ergo, not
Speaker 2: a suitable husband of means and status. Disgusting, But despite
Speaker 2: her family wishes, Harriet and Edward did get married, and
Speaker 2: then they moved to a nearby town called Lansing, and
Speaker 2: their rule off began working as a doctor, despite not
Speaker 2: having any doctor experience. That's right, kids, don't go to
Speaker 2: med school. Just start doctoring, You're fine. The couple had
Speaker 2: a baby that they named Priscilla, and then it was
Speaker 2: the summer of eighteen forty five when everything got pretty
Speaker 2: suss because on the night of June twenty second, eighteen
Speaker 2: forty five, a neighbor, Miss Robertson, saw Harriet and Priscilla
Speaker 2: walking around outside, but then after that no one ever
Speaker 2: saw them ever again, Dad dud da, was I a
Speaker 2: good true crime read?
Speaker 1: I don't know?
Speaker 2: Okay? So yes, basically what happened June twenty second, Miss
Speaker 2: Robertson sees them, But then the next day, June twenty third,
Speaker 2: Edward rule Off goes over to the Robertsons and asks
Speaker 2: Tom Robertson if he can borrow their horse and wagon.
Speaker 1: He's like, I got a bunch of stuff in.
Speaker 2: This crate that I need to take over to a relative,
Speaker 2: so please give me your horse and buggy, and Tom
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, no problem, Yeah, for sure borrow it.
Speaker 1: Then Tom saw.
Speaker 2: Edward struggling with a large wooden box, presumably filled with
Speaker 2: tools and supplies, and Tom was like, hey, you want
Speaker 2: a little bit of help.
Speaker 1: With that, and Edward was like yeah, thanks.
Speaker 2: So then with this crate slash wooden box, Edward drove off.
Speaker 2: But then the next day Edward came back and he
Speaker 2: pulled that same box off of the wagon, but it
Speaker 2: looked pretty light, so everyone was like it must be
Speaker 2: empty now. But meanwhile the neighbors and the people in
Speaker 2: the town, they're like, where's your wife And Edward was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: she just went on vacation at the lakes with her
Speaker 2: family and the baby. And yet we're actually moving to
Speaker 2: Ohio and so that's where we're gonna be. So like,
Speaker 2: don't worry if no one is home ever. Again, I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, guys, if anyone ever says I'm moving to Ohio,
Speaker 2: you know something suspicious is going on, because.
Speaker 1: No one would do that by choice. Anyway.
Speaker 2: A day or two later, Edward left, but then weirdly
Speaker 2: he came back. But by that time people were already
Speaker 2: thinking that he had done something to Harriet and Priscilla,
Speaker 2: maybe even murdered them. Apparently he was also just laughing
Speaker 2: at people being like you murdered your wife and child.
Speaker 2: He was just like, gffa, gufaw, that's so silly. I
Speaker 2: would never But then Harriet's brother, Ephrium, was like, you
Speaker 2: better show me where they are, and Edward was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: come with me to Ohio. I'll show you where my
Speaker 2: wife and child are. You silly goose, You're freaking out
Speaker 2: for no reason. So Ephriam was like, yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go with you. But then when they got to Buffalo
Speaker 2: to catch a boat to Cleveland. After Ephriam boarded the boat,
Speaker 2: Edward ran away and disappeared into the crowd sus But
Speaker 2: again he did a weird thing.
Speaker 1: Edward.
Speaker 2: Instead of going rogue, what he did was he took
Speaker 2: the next boat to Cleveland, where Ephriam was waiting for him,
Speaker 2: being like, my sister and my niece aren't here you sicko.
Speaker 2: And then Ephriam got him arrested and brought him back
Speaker 2: to New York. But the problem was no one could
Speaker 2: find a body, not of the wife, not of the baby.
Speaker 2: Everyone in Tompkins County had been searching for them. They
Speaker 2: even searched the bottom of the nearby lakes. So technically
Speaker 2: the only thing that they could the rest Edward for
Speaker 2: was for the abduction of his wife. There was a trial,
Speaker 2: and he was convicted, and he was sentenced to ten
Speaker 2: years at a state prison in Auburn, New York. But
Speaker 2: the thing with this, it didn't seem like prison was
Speaker 2: that much of a punishment, because Edward seemed to be
Speaker 2: having a pretty good time. He had a lot of
Speaker 2: time to study the classics, which he loved, and then
Speaker 2: there were these Sunday lectures that guest professors and clergymen
Speaker 2: would give, and Edward would just dazzle his fellow inmates
Speaker 2: with his mastery of Greek and Latin. And at one
Speaker 2: point an inmate was like, Wow, do you have a
Speaker 2: Latin dictionary? You're so good at it, and Edward was like, no,
Speaker 2: I don't need one. I am a Latin dictionary.
Speaker 1: Ten years later, Edward was released.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, everyone in Tompkins County still hated
Speaker 2: his but so he was immediately arrested for the murder
Speaker 2: of his wife once he came out of prison. But
Speaker 2: then he was like, you can't arrest me because of that,
Speaker 2: remember the double jeopardy rule. You can't charge me with
Speaker 2: two crimes related to my wife. And the district attorney
Speaker 2: was like, actually, Edward, rule off is right on this account.
Speaker 2: How about instead, let's indict him for the murder of
Speaker 2: his child. Haha, God is ass But again, so many
Speaker 2: people in the county felt passionately about this case that
Speaker 2: they couldn't find an unbiased jury, so then they had
Speaker 2: to move the trial to a different county. Edward's lawyer
Speaker 2: Joshua Spencer was like, Hey, you can't convict him.
Speaker 1: There's no body.
Speaker 2: There's not even a little portion of a body, not
Speaker 2: even an inch. You can't say the baby's dead just
Speaker 2: because of circumstantial evidence. Find me a dead baby, and
Speaker 2: maybe you have a case. But instead of being convicted,
Speaker 2: Edward decided to skidaddle. It seemed like he was in
Speaker 2: cahoots with one of the guys who worked at the jail.
Speaker 2: His name is Albert Jarvis. And Albert Jarvis he unlocked
Speaker 2: edward cell door. Then a carriage driven by several black
Speaker 2: horses rode up to the jail and Edward jumped inside
Speaker 2: and was taken away. Once the carriage and horses reached
Speaker 2: the hills, Edward and the driver jumped out and ran away.
Speaker 2: Edward made it to Pennsylvania, and there under a pseudonym,
Speaker 2: he got a teaching job by impressing the faculty.
Speaker 1: Of a college.
Speaker 2: They're like, Wow, you know so much about classical literature
Speaker 2: and words.
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
Speaker 2: Why don't you just be a professor here at Southern State.
Speaker 1: You're so smart.
Speaker 2: Not a criminal, for sure, But while he was there, Edward, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: he did not have any money really, you know, he
Speaker 2: had been too busy murdering his wife and child and
Speaker 2: being in prison that he didn't really have anything saved up.
Speaker 2: And one day he got a letter from Albert Jarvis,
Speaker 2: remember the jailer who let him out, And Albert was like, hey,
Speaker 2: me and my mom don't have any money, so if
Speaker 2: you don't find us some, we're gonna tell on you.
Speaker 2: So what did Edward decide to do? Get a job,
Speaker 2: work hard? No, he robbed a jewelry store. He got
Speaker 2: all the jewels, put them in a satchel, and as
Speaker 2: he was skirt skirting away from the robbery, he saw
Speaker 2: a man with some horses and he was like, hey,
Speaker 2: can I ride one of your horses?
Speaker 1: And the guy was like, hell, yeah, for sure, hop on.
Speaker 2: But then when they got to their destination, the guy
Speaker 2: with the horses got arrested because apparently this guy was
Speaker 2: actually a horse thief and they were riding on stolen horses.
Speaker 2: So Edward got arrested again, and the cops were like,
Speaker 2: what's up with this jewelry?
Speaker 1: And He's like, I don't know, it was already here.
Speaker 1: I have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: These aren't my horses, I swear to God and they
Speaker 2: were like, okay, fine, we believe you, and he was
Speaker 2: released on bail that someone at the college paid for.
Speaker 2: Some time later, Edward went back to Ohio, but unfortunately
Speaker 2: for him, a man who had been in prison with
Speaker 2: Edward in Auburn saw him and was like, Wow, there's
Speaker 2: that guy with a huge head. The reward for him
Speaker 2: is really high. I'm going to go tell on him
Speaker 2: and get him arrested. So alas for Edward, he was
Speaker 2: caught again and brought back to Ithaca to restart the trial.
Speaker 2: So Edward Rolloff was back in jail waiting for his trial,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately for him, his lawyer, John Spencer, had died,
Speaker 2: so he was looking for a new one. But then
Speaker 2: there's his other lawyer who went to his jail cell
Speaker 2: just to get some background info on him, And this
Speaker 2: guy wrote, I expected to see a monster in human form.
Speaker 2: In fact, I was a little timid about going at all.
Speaker 2: It was a long time before I could be convinced
Speaker 2: that this gentle manly and mild mannered man that I
Speaker 2: saw in the cell was rule Off the murderer. One
Speaker 2: thing impressed me. It was the way in which he
Speaker 2: carried his head, A little to one side and not
Speaker 2: a KOI but a gentle, winning and winsome manner, while
Speaker 2: his voice was gentleness itself. Wow, sounds like someone's trying
Speaker 2: to fuck Rule off. Anyway, that guy didn't end up
Speaker 2: being Edward's next lawyer. Instead, this younger man named F. M.
Speaker 2: Finch took over the duties. Finch took a different approach
Speaker 2: in the courtroom. He was like, yeah, I don't actually
Speaker 2: think you need a dead body to prove that someone's dead. Like,
Speaker 2: I think you can definitely use the circumstantial evidence. Everyone
Speaker 2: in the courtroom was shook by this argument because it
Speaker 2: was the opposite of what Spencer had argued. But then
Speaker 2: Finch was basically like, yeah, but I also don't think
Speaker 2: you have enough circumstantial evidence. He said, quote, I assert
Speaker 2: that the circumstance of mere absence in and of itself
Speaker 2: is not sufficient in a criminal case to establish death
Speaker 2: en quote. In this argument, apparently it was good enough
Speaker 2: to get Edward Ruloff off on all charges. They're like,
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess we can't charge him with anything
Speaker 2: because we can't find any evidence at all, and also
Speaker 2: it's been fifteen years since all of that happened.
Speaker 1: Alas, so, I.
Speaker 2: Guess we have to let him go. The public, though,
Speaker 2: was really pissed off about this decision. They're like, Edward
Speaker 2: Ruloff is a fucking murderer, and now you're just letting
Speaker 2: him go about in Blick. Some folks distributed a pamphlet
Speaker 2: that said, shall this monster be turned loose to glut
Speaker 2: his tiger appetite for revenge and blood?
Speaker 1: Shall the end of justice be defeated? We trust not,
Speaker 1: we hope not.
Speaker 2: We implore you, citizens of Tompkins County, Let it not
Speaker 2: go out to the world that there can be no
Speaker 2: justice had in our midst. In the name of humanity,
Speaker 2: in the name of the relatives of the murdered wife,
Speaker 2: whose heartstrings have been lacerated by this fiend in human shape,
Speaker 2: in the name of the murdered wife and child, whose
Speaker 2: pale ghosts calls you from the silent tomb to do
Speaker 2: your duty, we ask you. Shall the murderer go unpunished?
Speaker 2: Shall we let this convicted felon escape? Will you allow
Speaker 2: Edward H. Wool Off to breathe the same pure air
Speaker 2: of freedom we enjoy? Will you allow this man who
Speaker 2: bears the mark of Cain upon his brow to go
Speaker 2: forth in this community and add fresh victims to the grave.
Speaker 1: No, you will not, you cannot. Wow. The people were
Speaker 1: so pissed off.
Speaker 2: In fact, they were so pissed off that they were
Speaker 2: constructing their own gallows because they were planning on having
Speaker 2: a public lynching of Edward rule off. The sheriff in
Speaker 2: Tompkins County was like, damn, this is annoying.
Speaker 1: I might have to.
Speaker 2: Hire some more deputies to protect this guy from this mob.
Speaker 2: So what the sheriff did instead, he was like, I
Speaker 2: gotta get Edward back to Auburn so everyone will simmer down.
Speaker 2: And so he was like, hey, Edward, I'm gonna take
Speaker 2: you somewhere else. But Edward was like, I don't want
Speaker 2: to go somewhere else. I'm safer in the jail. They're
Speaker 2: gonna get me if I step one foot outside of
Speaker 2: this jail cell. But the sheriff was like, bitch, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna take you to Auburn or I'm just gonna let
Speaker 2: you get lynched.
Speaker 1: Okay, do what I say.
Speaker 2: So a couple of days before the lynching of Edward,
Speaker 2: what the sheriff did is he got in a coach
Speaker 2: and drove away and at the time. There were a
Speaker 2: lot of citizens guarding the jail just to keep their
Speaker 2: eyes on Edward, and once they saw the sheriff leaving,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, it's probably a good time to take
Speaker 2: a lunch break. But then right as they left, the
Speaker 2: coach came back and Edward was thrown into the carriage.
Speaker 1: As well, and they drove away.
Speaker 2: The sheriff then took him to a steamboat landing, and
Speaker 2: Edward got on the boat and made it to Auburn.
Speaker 2: The mob was super mad at the sheriff. They were like,
Speaker 2: I wanted to have a lunching, But the thing is
Speaker 2: Edward is still going to die by hanging, so let's
Speaker 2: see what happened to get him there after these soothing advertisements.
Speaker 2: So I remember that lawyer who visited Edward rule Off
Speaker 2: in jail and sounded really horny for him. Well, that
Speaker 2: guy wrote a whole story about Rulof's case, and he
Speaker 2: made this amazing roast that really doesn't have that much
Speaker 2: to do with the story, but it is hilarious to me.
Speaker 2: So he said, I believe that criminals, like poets, are born,
Speaker 2: not made. No amount of punishment could prevent rule Off
Speaker 2: from continuing his criminal life, and I sometimes think that
Speaker 2: no amount of punishment will prevent some people from writing
Speaker 2: poetry lol boo poetry anyway. Based on that quote, though,
Speaker 2: I don't know if that guy was really into restorative
Speaker 2: justice of being like, oh, if you're a criminal, you're
Speaker 2: always a criminal, But it did seem that that was
Speaker 2: true for Edward rule Off, because you would think, after
Speaker 2: all the stuff he went through in Tompkins County, he
Speaker 2: might stop doing crimes, but no. After he left Auburn,
Speaker 2: he moved to New York City with Albert Jarvis, his
Speaker 2: jailer buddy, and while he was there, Edward did another
Speaker 2: burglary and was sentenced to two more years in prison
Speaker 2: at sing Singh. After he served that, he was in
Speaker 2: Connecticut and was caught with some stolen goods, so he
Speaker 2: was sentenced to another year of imprisonment, but somehow he
Speaker 2: was able to get a pardon from the governor of Connecticut,
Speaker 2: so he only served about two months of that. Then
Speaker 2: he was in New Hampshire and he went to this
Speaker 2: one college and was like, Hey, I'm a graduate from
Speaker 2: Oxford and a retired episcopal minister, and the people at
Speaker 2: the college were like, oh my god, that's awesome, You're
Speaker 2: so talented. Why don't you be a serious scholar at
Speaker 2: our college?
Speaker 1: And he was like, wow, I thought you would never ask.
Speaker 2: But then when he was at that college posing as
Speaker 2: a serious scholar, he was actually working with a little
Speaker 2: gang on a bank robbery. And now, while Edward might
Speaker 2: have not participated in that robbery, he did get caught
Speaker 2: with stolen goods from the bank. So again he was
Speaker 2: convicted and was sentenced to another ten years in prison.
Speaker 2: But Edward rule off, He's pretty prison savvy at this point,
Speaker 2: and three months into his sentence he escaped, most likely
Speaker 2: because the jailers were bribed by the gang that he
Speaker 2: was working with, so he in this game. They did
Speaker 2: some other robberies, some other crimes. But let's take a
Speaker 2: little pause for a second, because, of course, while he
Speaker 2: was doing all these robberies, committing crimes, etc. He was
Speaker 2: still very much invested in Latin and Greek and the languages.
Speaker 2: He wanted to be a serious philological expert so bad.
Speaker 1: In fact, he had written.
Speaker 2: A whole book about his theory on the origin of languages,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately, even with his robbing, he never made enough
Speaker 2: money to publish it. So in eighteen sixty nine, he
Speaker 2: went to a philological conference and submitted his manuscript to
Speaker 2: a panel and they were all like, wow, this is
Speaker 2: actually pretty good. But also this this guy is really
Speaker 2: freaking weird. So they went back to him and we're like, oop, sorry,
Speaker 2: we can't publish it. We don't have any money. Also,
Speaker 2: I want to say, during this time, most people who
Speaker 2: knew Edward rule Off, they thought he was just a
Speaker 2: normal guy. You know, he lived in a little house
Speaker 2: in a respectable neighborhood. He paid his rent on time,
Speaker 2: he didn't do anything crazy like drinking and having sex yuck.
Speaker 2: He didn't have that many visitors. And his landlady was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's a nice dude. He's definitely not someone who would
Speaker 2: burgle anyone. But you know, Edward Rulloff. He was still
Speaker 2: doing plenty of crimes, robberies, but his luck ran out
Speaker 2: when he did a robbery in Binghampton, New York. So
Speaker 2: Binghampton at the time was a bustling little town getting
Speaker 2: bigger and more.
Speaker 1: Commercial by the day.
Speaker 2: And what happened was in the wee hours of August seventeenth,
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy, between one and two in the morning, three
Speaker 2: burglars broke into a dry goods store called Halbert bros.
Speaker 2: Edward was one of the burglars, another was his frequent accomplice,
Speaker 2: William Dexter, and the other guy was Albert Jarvis. Edward
Speaker 2: and his cronies collected three bags of silks, and they
Speaker 2: were about to collect some more when suddenly the two
Speaker 2: clerks who were sleeping in the store, Frederick Merrick and
Speaker 2: Gilbert Burrows, woke up and confronted them.
Speaker 1: Holy mackerel did they say that back then? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Anyway, they all started fighting. The burglars were not expecting
Speaker 2: such a matchup. The two clerks were strong and ready
Speaker 2: to kick some ass. Edward and his boys were getting
Speaker 2: beat So what Edward did is he ran up the
Speaker 2: stairs and shot his gun at Burrows. Unfortunately for him, though,
Speaker 2: the bullet ran into the banister of the stairs, which
Speaker 2: caused all these splinters to fly in Burrow's face. Burrows
Speaker 2: thought he was shot, so he let go of Jarvis
Speaker 2: and retreated, but Marek continued beating the hell out of Dexter.
Speaker 2: So Edward pulled the trigger a second time and shot.
Speaker 1: Marek in the head.
Speaker 2: But the boys they had to skidaddle because Burrows had
Speaker 2: run outside and was shouting for help. Roll off, Dexter
Speaker 2: and Jarvis exited out the back and ran to the river.
Speaker 2: At this point, the whole town was alerted to the
Speaker 2: burglary and murder, and all the citizens took it upon
Speaker 2: themselves to find the criminals. They searched every part of
Speaker 2: the city, every nook and cranny. They searched all night
Speaker 2: and all of the next day. Trains weren't allowed to
Speaker 2: leave the town and every stranger was pulled aside and interviewed.
Speaker 2: At midnight the next night, two men were standing on
Speaker 2: guard and they saw a suspicious gentleman carrying an umbrella
Speaker 2: in a satchel. The two men were like, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: slow down, we got questions for you. But then the
Speaker 2: guy with the umbrella and satchel he ran across the
Speaker 2: train tracks just as a train was going by, so
Speaker 2: he was able to escape with renewed fervor. The search continued.
Speaker 2: Everyone was looking for the stranger, and huzzah, they found him.
Speaker 2: But then when the townspeople talked to him, they were like, huh,
Speaker 2: he doesn't actually seem that suspicious.
Speaker 1: He's got a pretty good story.
Speaker 2: And then Almost simultaneously, two bodies bobbed to the surface
Speaker 2: of the river. It was Jarvis and Dexter. It seemed
Speaker 2: that they had drowned in the river when they were
Speaker 2: trying to escape. The townspeople asked the stranger if he
Speaker 2: recognized these men, and he was like, no, I don't
Speaker 2: know them.
Speaker 1: Who are those people? That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Then a judge came to town to examine the bodies
Speaker 2: and assess the situation going on in Binghampton, and this
Speaker 2: judge was Judge Finch. Yeah, he was the same guy
Speaker 2: who was Edward Ruloff's lawyer all those years ago. Judge
Speaker 2: Finch saw the stranger and was like, oh my god, guys,
Speaker 2: that's frickin' Edward Rulloff. Remember he was the guy that
Speaker 2: everyone accused of killing his wife and child. Then the
Speaker 2: townspeople were super suspicious.
Speaker 1: And then Edward was like, yeah, it's true, it's me.
Speaker 2: I was accused of all those things, but I just
Speaker 2: happened to be in this town at this point. I
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with this situation with those two
Speaker 2: dead guys and the dead clerk at the store. I
Speaker 2: don't know anything about this. I'm just an innocent little guy.
Speaker 2: And the district attorney was like, oh, yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: you can leave now. So Edward Rulloff went on his
Speaker 2: merry way. But one of the townspeople piped up and
Speaker 2: he knew a lot of stories about Edward Ruloff. He said, apparently,
Speaker 2: one of those times that Edward escaped from jail, one
Speaker 2: of his toes got frost bite, so he had to
Speaker 2: have the big toe on his left foot amputated. And
Speaker 2: here's a bit of a coincidence. One of the burglars
Speaker 2: left behind a pair of shoes at the scene of
Speaker 2: the crime, so they went to go look at the
Speaker 2: shoes and they saw in the left one the soul
Speaker 2: didn't have an endent where.
Speaker 1: The big toe would be.
Speaker 2: So they're like, oh my god, whoever wore this shoe
Speaker 2: doesn't have a big toe, and Edward doesn't have a
Speaker 2: big toe. Ergo, these are his frickin' shoes. So the
Speaker 2: town was all excited again and they went searching for
Speaker 2: Edward Ruloff, and one group finally found him walking on
Speaker 2: the railroad line and they're like, hey.
Speaker 1: Dog, you're arrested.
Speaker 2: Sorry, and Edward was like, wait why, and they're like,
Speaker 2: pull off your boot and he was like, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: and he started pulling off the right one, but they
Speaker 2: were like, no, the left one, and so he pulled
Speaker 2: it off and they're like, oh my god, yes he
Speaker 2: doesn't have a doe. So rule Off was put on
Speaker 2: trial again, this time for the murder of Frederick Merrick.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after these soothing advertisements.
Speaker 1: The trial was a huge spectacle.
Speaker 2: Everybody wanted to see Edward rule Off, and there was
Speaker 2: one funny moment because officials had done a search of
Speaker 2: his house and they found his philological book and they
Speaker 2: brought it as evidence into the courtroom. When Edward saw it,
Speaker 2: he was like, oh my god, my book. Give it
Speaker 2: to me, and then he hugged it like he was
Speaker 2: in love with it. He held the book in his
Speaker 2: hand and was like, here's a book which no five
Speaker 2: hundred men can reproduce in ten years. This is the
Speaker 2: evidence that I am not prowling around the country robbing stores,
Speaker 2: but that my life in New York City is one.
Speaker 1: Of labor and close study.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately his fill logical studies didn't make him any
Speaker 2: more sympathetic. He was convicted of murder, and when he
Speaker 2: was in jail, he continued to study his philological stuff.
Speaker 2: He also had this idea that maybe people would be
Speaker 2: so interested in his theory on the origin of languages
Speaker 2: that people would start petitioning the governor to give him
Speaker 2: a lesser sentence, but unfortunately for him, no one gave
Speaker 2: a shit.
Speaker 1: Edward Ruloff was finally executed.
Speaker 2: In being Humped in New York on May eighteenth, eighteen
Speaker 2: seventy one. You might be wondering that Edward ever confessed
Speaker 2: to the murder of his wife and daughter. Not really,
Speaker 2: but there are some people who are like, yeah, he
Speaker 2: confessed to me, but it's impossible to corroborate their stories.
Speaker 2: Like one person claimed that Edward Ruloff had told him
Speaker 2: that he had chloroformed his wife, opened an artery, and
Speaker 2: then removed a floorboard and stuck.
Speaker 1: Her in the ground.
Speaker 2: But the thing is they had searched the house and
Speaker 2: they were like, no, there's no evidence of that. And
Speaker 2: then there was a journalist at the Daily Leader who
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, Edward confessed to me. But it seemed
Speaker 2: that this confession was also not true. What the journalist
Speaker 2: said was that Edward and his wife were fighting. Edward
Speaker 2: said he was going to leave her, and was going
Speaker 2: to take the child with him, And when he tried
Speaker 2: to take the child by force, there was a struggle,
Speaker 2: and then in a fit of anger, he seized an
Speaker 2: iron pestle and struck her in the head, which crushed
Speaker 2: her skull. But it was like this also seemed unlikely
Speaker 2: because if he had crushed her skull, there would have
Speaker 2: been blood on the ground. But again they had searched
Speaker 2: the house and there was no blood to be seen.
Speaker 2: So legally, Edward Ruloff was convicted of one death, but
Speaker 2: he could have killed three people. In fact, he might
Speaker 2: have actually killed five. Like remember how Jarvis and Dexter
Speaker 2: were found dead in the river. Some people think that
Speaker 2: they didn't drown, but that Edward killed them too. What
Speaker 2: an amazing Canadian give it up for Edward rule Off. Wow,
Speaker 2: As always we learn a lesson from American filth, and
Speaker 2: I think the lesson for this episode is check yourself on.
Speaker 1: The links that you will go to do your hobbies.
Speaker 2: Because Edward rule Off fucking love philology, and maybe he
Speaker 2: loved it a bit too much because he was always
Speaker 2: trying to get that money so he could study. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, maybe give up on your dreams if you
Speaker 2: start murdering your family. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, this
Speaker 2: has been American Filth. Cue the credits. American Filth is
Speaker 2: a production of School of Humans and iHeart podcast is
Speaker 2: uppisode was written, hosted, and sound designed by me Gabby Wants.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr.
Speaker 2: You can follow along with the show on Instagram at
Speaker 2: American Filth pod and as always.
Speaker 1: Leave a review.
Speaker 2: Please give me some stars, give me one star. Tell
Speaker 2: us how we're doing. I'm not going to change anything
Speaker 2: about the show, but I might as well just hear
Speaker 2: your thoughts. Thanks so much for listening. Talk at you
Speaker 2: next week.
Speaker 1: Bye Yah. School of Humans