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

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Speaker 2: This seems so anomalous, and the house had seemed so

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Speaker 2: well secured with the great wall around it, and it

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Speaker 2: seemed like the safest place to have a child and

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Speaker 2: to protect a child.

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

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

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Speaker 1: true crime podcast Tenfold War Wicked and the co host

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Speaker 1: of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled

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Speaker 1: around the world interviewing people for the show, and they

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Speaker 1: are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true

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Speaker 1: crime stories, and now we want to tell you those

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Speaker 1: stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold War

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Speaker 1: Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make,

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Speaker 1: good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories

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Speaker 1: behind the stories. The brutal murder of a three year

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Speaker 1: old shocked Victorian England, not only because of how it happened,

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Speaker 1: but because of who the police suspected. Could one of

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Speaker 1: Britain's most famous detectives solve the case. Author Kate Summerskille

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Speaker 1: tells us the story at the center of her book,

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Speaker 1: The Suspicions of Mister Witcher. Let's start with where we

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Speaker 1: are in time, what year are we talking about, and

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Speaker 1: where does the central action take place in your story.

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Speaker 2: This murder took place in a village in the English

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Speaker 2: countryside in Wiltshire in eighteen sixty, so it was the

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Speaker 2: height of Victoria's reign over Britain and a time when

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Speaker 2: the domestic ideal was at his height as well, the

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Speaker 2: idea of the sanctity of the home and the perfection

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Speaker 2: of the sort of bourgeois middle class family.

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Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the village, because we

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Speaker 1: have a largely American audience who I'm sure is picturing idyllic,

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Speaker 1: you know, British countryside and the thatched roofs and just

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Speaker 1: the beauty of it. Is that what we're talking about.

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Speaker 2: It's not so much that thatched ruse in that part

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Speaker 2: of west of England, but very lovely, yes, very sort

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Speaker 2: of lush fields and in the summer of eighteen sixty

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Speaker 2: all the sort of harvests were being cut, lots of

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Speaker 2: as a wild flowers and birds, and it's a pretty

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Speaker 2: idyllic hamlet, mostly stone houses and the house in which

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Speaker 2: the murder took place was the grandest house in the village,

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Speaker 2: a Georgian building with its own grounds and enclosed with

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Speaker 2: a high stone wall.

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Speaker 1: Tell me what the family dynamic was for people in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties in this particular village. Are we talking about,

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Speaker 1: you know, a husband who's a laborer predominantly, or are

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Speaker 1: we talking about wealthier people.

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Speaker 2: We're talking wealthier people. The patriarch, the father in this household,

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Speaker 2: was a factory inspector, so there was some resentment against

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Speaker 2: him in the village because it was part of his

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Speaker 2: job to stop children going into the factories to work,

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Speaker 2: which left many families hard up because they've been relying

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Speaker 2: on their children's wages. And he was a bit sort

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Speaker 2: of bad tempered and quite private man who was not

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Speaker 2: much liked by the family. And he lived in the

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Speaker 2: house with his second wife, formerly the governess to his children,

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Speaker 2: his first wife having died apparently insane, and with the

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Speaker 2: four children of the first marriage and also two new children,

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Speaker 2: and his wife was pregnant with a third so it

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Speaker 2: was a big family and a mixed family. Two families

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Speaker 2: in one.

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Speaker 1: Really tell me more about the ill tempered part of

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Speaker 1: the patriarch of the family before we talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about all these children and everything that's happening

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Speaker 1: in the house. Is someone we would label as physically

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Speaker 1: and verbally abusive in modern times.

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Speaker 2: He was the standards of his time, conventionally harsh, and

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Speaker 2: it was more that he was reputed to be harsh

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Speaker 2: with the villagers, with the people of the lower classes,

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Speaker 2: than with his own family. Traditionally people have been able

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Speaker 2: to fish in the river on his land, and he

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Speaker 2: banned them from doing so. He excited quite a lot

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Speaker 2: of resentment among the locals.

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Speaker 1: Now, I would like to go down the rabbit hole

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Speaker 1: of the factory inspections. How young are we talking about

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Speaker 1: of kids entering the workforce in these factories, and I'm

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Speaker 1: assuming it's dangerous work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, extremely young children went into factories from the age

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Speaker 2: of eight or so, and the New Factory Act limited

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Speaker 2: the time that young children could work, but also the

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Speaker 2: age from which they could work. So I think it

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Speaker 2: was they couldn't work at all in the factories until

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Speaker 2: they were fourteen, and then there was a limit on

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Speaker 2: how many hours per day they could do. It was

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Speaker 2: intended to be a humane law that stopped the exploitation

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Speaker 2: of child labor. But it hit some poor families very hard,

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Speaker 2: and it was Samuel Kent's job, the patriarch in this family,

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Speaker 2: to enforce the act, to go into the local mills

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Speaker 2: and factories and stop people from working if they were underage.

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming that he was someone who had been offered

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Speaker 1: many payoffs in his career. Did you find anything about that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm assuming people were really trying to get

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Speaker 1: him on their side.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think perhaps his harshness was part of I

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Speaker 2: think he was a fairly effective factory inspector and played

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Speaker 2: by the rules, which is why he was so resented.

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Speaker 2: I didn't come across anything to suggest that he colluded

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Speaker 2: with the villagers or the people in the mills. Quite

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Speaker 2: the reverse. He was very strict at enforcing the rules,

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Speaker 2: which was why they were so cross with him.

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Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about his wife. What's her name?

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Speaker 1: And she was the governess, which I know we've throughout

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Speaker 1: history heard about, you know, women coming in and taking

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Speaker 1: care of the children or the family, and then when

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Speaker 1: the why dies, she marries the husband. What's the feel

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Speaker 1: you have of the dynamic between Samuel Kent and his wife.

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Speaker 2: Well, she was a much loved governess, especially by Constance Kent,

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Speaker 2: the younger daughter, when the mother was alive, but there

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Speaker 2: were rumors that she had been having an affair even

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Speaker 2: during the first wife's life. Her first wife was apparently

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Speaker 2: confined to one wing of the house. They were living

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Speaker 2: in a different part of the country then, and Mary

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Speaker 2: and Samuel Kent were having an affair which her children

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Speaker 2: were unaware of. When Constance later found this out, she

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Speaker 2: felt very much betrayed by the governess who was now

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Speaker 2: her new stepmother, and even more so when the new

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Speaker 2: stepmother started having her own children and became less affectionate

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Speaker 2: towards the children that she had looked after as a governess.

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Speaker 2: The children of the first marriage.

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Speaker 1: Remind me the distribution between the children from the first

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Speaker 1: wife and the children from Mary Kent. Is it two?

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Speaker 1: She has two of her own? Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Yes, she has two of her own, and she's pregnant

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Speaker 2: with a third. In the summer of eighteen sixty and

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Speaker 2: there were four from the first marriage, two older girls

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Speaker 2: who are very close in age and very close to

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Speaker 2: one another, and then the younger ones, which were Constance,

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Speaker 2: who was sixteen at the time of the murders and

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Speaker 2: her brother William, to whom she was very close, who

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Speaker 2: was fourteen.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we have a lot of people in the house.

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Speaker 1: So all of these people are in the house. You've

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Speaker 1: got four kids from a previous marriage, two kids from

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Speaker 1: the current marriage, plus you know, she's pregnant. Everybody's in

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Speaker 1: the same house. And it's a large house.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's servants too, of course, because it was

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Speaker 2: that kind of a house. So there was a cook

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Speaker 2: and a maid, and there were gardeners coming and going,

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Speaker 2: and cobblers and so you know, there was there was

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Speaker 2: a lot of traffic from the servants in the house

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Speaker 2: and a nurse, a nursemate called Elizabeth Goff who featured

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Speaker 2: in the story.

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Speaker 1: And a factory inspector would earn that type of income

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Speaker 1: to be able to afford this sort of lifestyle with

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Speaker 1: all of these servants and kids in a large house.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, he was the factory inspector of the whole

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Speaker 2: of the West of England. He wasn't just supervising the

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Speaker 2: factories and mills in his immediate vicinity. And it was

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Speaker 2: a very prosperous kind of wool country. Lots of sheep,

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Speaker 2: lots of wool, lots of people making fabric, and it

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Speaker 2: was the main trade round there, so he was a

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Speaker 2: busy man. He was constantly touring the various different wool

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Speaker 2: mills and factories, and it was a highly responsible job,

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Speaker 2: reporting directly to the government.

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Speaker 1: And you have the impression that he was a father

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Speaker 1: who was a good father, who was affectionate with his kids,

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Speaker 1: even if he was absent for a large part of

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Speaker 1: the time.

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Speaker 2: I don't think he was very affectionate towards his kids,

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Speaker 2: but that was standard for a Victorian, middle class patriarch.

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Speaker 2: He was very, very fond of his youngest son, Savile,

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Speaker 2: with whom he constantly played a lot of horseplay and

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Speaker 2: so on. Less interested in the girls, I would say,

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Speaker 2: who he allowed to just sort of get on with it.

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Speaker 2: He wasn't tyrannical. He was distant and busy, and they

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Speaker 2: were left very much in the care of their step

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Speaker 2: mother and the nursemaid.

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Speaker 1: Okay, will you lay out whichever day you think becomes pivotal,

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Speaker 1: you know, all the way through the murder. Where do

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Speaker 1: we start with that part of the story.

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Speaker 2: Well, the family woke up one day at the very

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Speaker 2: end of June and the former governess new stepmother discovered

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Speaker 2: that her son, her youngest son, Saville, was missing from

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Speaker 2: his cot. He was just three years old and seemed

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Speaker 2: impossible to believe he'd climbed out. It was a high

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Speaker 2: sided cot, so she so raised the alarm. She asked

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Speaker 2: the nursemaid where he was. She rushed around looking for

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Speaker 2: him and raised everyone else from the staff, her stepchildren,

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Speaker 2: and everyone was searching for Savil. Eventually villagers were roped

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Speaker 2: in invited to come and help search the grounds, and

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Speaker 2: eventually two local men found him dead. His throat had

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Speaker 2: been cut horribly and he'd been stuffed down and outside

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Speaker 2: toilet as privy as they called it, just outside the house.

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Speaker 2: So it was an absolutely horrific scene, and the mother

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Speaker 2: was beside herself with distress.

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Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that Samuel Kent had a similar reaction.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he got on a horse and raced off to

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Speaker 2: fetch the local policeman to come and see what had

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Speaker 2: happened and work out who had done it. The police

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Speaker 2: came quickly and they interviewed the staff, the family, the

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Speaker 2: villagers looked for clues tried to work out who it

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Speaker 2: might be. They spent two weeks on the case, with

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Speaker 2: finding any leads whatsoever. Was such a horrific murder, so

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Speaker 2: inexplicable and mysterious and striking at the heart of this

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Speaker 2: rather affluent, well to do, respectable family that it was

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Speaker 2: a national news story. It was reported in the national papers,

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Speaker 2: and eventually there was an outcry about why the police

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Speaker 2: had not got anywhere with it.

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Speaker 1: Do you think a lot of this has to do

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Speaker 1: with their class and of course their skin color.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. It was very shocking and it felt

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Speaker 2: like an assault on the Victorian domestic ideal. The fuss

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Speaker 2: was so great that people were writing to the papers

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Speaker 2: and very agitated, sending in their own suggestions for who

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Speaker 2: might have killed the boy that eventually the government dispatched

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Speaker 2: to detective policemen from Scotland Yard to go down to

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Speaker 2: Wiltshire to try to solve the case themselves, and one

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Speaker 2: of those was Jack Witcher, who had joined the Detective

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Speaker 2: Division when it was first formed in eighteen forty two

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Speaker 2: and who was known as the Prince of Detectives. He

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Speaker 2: had a great reputation as an investigator and a kind

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Speaker 2: of visionary who could detect crimes that no one else could.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think it'll be interesting because of course I'm

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Speaker 1: very interested in the forensics and who has access to

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Speaker 1: what and all of that. But I think we can

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Speaker 1: probably talk about through Jack Witcher's eyes, right, because he's

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Speaker 1: the one who's investigating the case. Can we talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about where we are with detectives at this time,

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Speaker 1: you know, specifically with Scotland Yard. The Moost Street runners

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Speaker 1: are gone, I'm assuming right.

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Speaker 2: Right, And these detectives in the division set up in

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Speaker 2: eighteen forty two were the first plane clothes police officers

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Speaker 2: in Britain and they were very exciting figures in a way.

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Speaker 2: To begin with, there were only eight of them. By

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Speaker 2: eighteen sixty there were twelve, you know, very elite call,

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Speaker 2: but they were all working class men. They were ordinary

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Speaker 2: coppers who had been elevated to this role because they

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Speaker 2: were so good at their jobs. Charles Dickens, for example,

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Speaker 2: was extremely thrilled by the detectives and the idea of

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Speaker 2: the detectives. He liked to consort with them, drink with them,

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Speaker 2: ask them about their adventures because they had this extraordinary

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Speaker 2: access in a very stratified society. The detective could go

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Speaker 2: anywhere from the slums of London to palaces and stately homes,

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Speaker 2: and like Dickens himself, they could range across the different

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Speaker 2: strata of society. But they were also to others threatening

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Speaker 2: figures because they were working class and they had this

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Speaker 2: unprecedented access and power, and the British had of long

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Speaker 2: held mistrust of surveillance and spies, and these playing clothes

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Speaker 2: officers who were unable to cross the threshold of the

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Speaker 2: family home, who had had this kind of access, were

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Speaker 2: seen as sinister and threatening to some.

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Speaker 1: What is the difference in the access between you know,

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Speaker 1: a regular copper, regular officer who might have to go

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Speaker 1: and look into a murder and a detective no warrants

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Speaker 1: needed if you're a detective, or no permission needed essentially, well, I.

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Speaker 2: Think you'd need a warrant. But the local police in

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Speaker 2: Wiltshire who first investigated this crime, they were very polite

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Speaker 2: and deferential to the family. They understood that the family

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Speaker 2: were superior to them in social class and that they

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Speaker 2: would need to be invited into the home. They would

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Speaker 2: ask to come in, they wouldn't demand it, they wouldn't

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Speaker 2: take it as a right. So their attitude and the things,

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Speaker 2: the questions they asked, the evidence they sought was very different.

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Speaker 2: So it was more as sort of attitude and custom

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Speaker 2: than the legal force of it that had changed.

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Speaker 1: So let me do a quick summary here. So we

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Speaker 1: have an eighteen sixty end of June. A three year

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Speaker 1: old boy from a wealthy family, savl Kent has gone

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Speaker 1: missing and then has found at the bottom of a

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Speaker 1: privy with his throat cut and everybody is in despair.

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Speaker 1: It's a couple of weeks and the police have no clues,

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Speaker 1: and there's all of this public outrage in the newspapers.

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Speaker 1: Not surprising, and we have two detectives from Scotland Yard

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Speaker 1: come in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So Jack Witcher and his sidekick, Dolly Williamson, they

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Speaker 2: arrived at the house, went in interviewed all the members

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Speaker 2: of the family in more detail than the local offices had.

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Speaker 2: Jack Witcher realized that the killer must have been inside

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Speaker 2: the house because although a window had been firmed open,

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Speaker 2: it would have been impossible for anyone to take the

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Speaker 2: boy out to gain access through the window, and so

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Speaker 2: he thought that the open window was a decoy to

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Speaker 2: try to suggest that someone had broken in. He was

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Speaker 2: absolutely convinced that the killer was one of the people

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Speaker 2: within the building. He interviewed the staff and the family

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Speaker 2: very closely, and he asked to see their clothes, especially

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Speaker 2: their nightclothes and their underwear, the things they might have

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Speaker 2: been wearing at the time of the murder in the night,

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Speaker 2: And this in itself was seen as outrageous, especially when

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Speaker 2: he asked to see the nightclothes and shifts of the

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Speaker 2: young ladies in the household. He was literally going through

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Speaker 2: their underwear, taking it into public view, and there was

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Speaker 2: a certain amount of horror, certainly from Samuel Kent, the father,

283
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Speaker 2: but also people became quite uncomfortable at his intrusion and

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Speaker 2: his apparent insensitivity, because most people assumed that this family,

285
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Speaker 2: or each and every one of them was in terrible

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Speaker 2: grief over the death of the boy, and he was

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00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:56,000
Speaker 2: just sort of barging in and asking for intimate questions

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Speaker 2: and making it clear that every one of them was

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Speaker 2: under suspicion.

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Speaker 1: How many viable suspects does he have in that house

291
00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:07,880
Speaker 1: based on the kid's age, because I can't remember the range.

292
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Speaker 1: I know we have a sixteen year old girl, But

293
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Speaker 1: who else is capable in that house besides the parents

294
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Speaker 1: of doing this.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's the fourteen year old boy, William. They're also

296
00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:20,879
Speaker 2: the two older sisters, mary Anne and Elizabeth, who were

297
00:17:20,920 --> 00:17:24,440
Speaker 2: in their late twenties and lived on the top floor.

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Speaker 2: Constance and William were just along the corridor from Saville's room.

299
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Speaker 2: Saville's mother was pretty much ruled out as a suspect

300
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Speaker 2: because she was well. Not only was she his mother,

301
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Speaker 2: which was thought impossible that she should want to harm

302
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Speaker 2: her child, but she was also heavily pregnant. But the

303
00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:46,600
Speaker 2: nurse maid came under suspicion she had access to the nursery.

304
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Speaker 2: She had been the first one the mother turned to

305
00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:52,439
Speaker 2: and asked where he was. She was the one who

306
00:17:52,520 --> 00:17:55,040
Speaker 2: was expected to know where he was. And of course

307
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:57,920
Speaker 2: it was possible that the cook and the maid downstairs

308
00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:01,399
Speaker 2: had been somehow involved, but there were suggestions that the

309
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Speaker 2: nurse maid in particular. There was one story that went

310
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Speaker 2: around that perhaps she'd had a lover, a man from

311
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Speaker 2: the village, and the little boy had woken Because she

312
00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:15,800
Speaker 2: shared a room with younger children, so somehow the boy

313
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Speaker 2: had been spirited out of the room while she was there.

314
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:22,119
Speaker 2: There was one theory the boy had woken up and

315
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Speaker 2: seen her in bed with a man, and that in

316
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Speaker 2: order to silence him, they had between them killed him.

317
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Speaker 2: Another theory was that it was the father who'd been

318
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Speaker 2: in bed with the nursemaid, and again that the boy

319
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Speaker 2: had woken up and that they had killed him so

320
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Speaker 2: that he wouldn't report it to his mother. So there

321
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 2: were some very wild theories going around the name of

322
00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:51,800
Speaker 2: this family, and all the speculation and rumor and fantasy

323
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Speaker 2: about what might be happening was being sort of dragged

324
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Speaker 2: through the mud, and all the stuff came out about

325
00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:02,119
Speaker 2: the fact that the boy's mother had previously been the governess,

326
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Speaker 2: that she'd been having an affair with the father before

327
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Speaker 2: they moved to the village, and it was all very

328
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Speaker 2: disgracing and shaming for the family. And the news about

329
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:17,280
Speaker 2: the previous wife having been insane, people started speculating about

330
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Speaker 2: whether one of her children, Mary Anne Elizabeth Constance William,

331
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:26,000
Speaker 2: might have inherited her insanity and killed the boy for

332
00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,159
Speaker 2: that reason. The idea that this family who'd been struck

333
00:19:29,200 --> 00:19:34,480
Speaker 2: by tragedy were also being speculated about when libel laws

334
00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:37,439
Speaker 2: were very weak, very freely in the pages of the

335
00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:41,800
Speaker 2: press and apparently in the minds of the detective officers.

336
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Speaker 1: So which of these theories did Jack Witcher and his

337
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:03,320
Speaker 1: partner subscribed to the most strongly. What did they believe?

338
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:09,600
Speaker 2: Jack Witcher? He came to believe that Constance Kent, the

339
00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:14,280
Speaker 2: sixteen year old half sister of Saville, the boy who

340
00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:18,520
Speaker 2: had died, had killed him, and he backed up this

341
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:22,040
Speaker 2: belief with a story about how she had a missing

342
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Speaker 2: a night dress missing. The number of night dresses in

343
00:20:25,560 --> 00:20:30,360
Speaker 2: her drawers was incorrect, it was one short. She insisted

344
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,879
Speaker 2: that the correct number of night dresses had gone to

345
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:38,040
Speaker 2: the laundry that week, but that one had not been returned,

346
00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:42,680
Speaker 2: and the lawn dress seemed to confirm this. But he

347
00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:47,000
Speaker 2: was convinced that somehow, by some sleight of hand, Constance

348
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:51,320
Speaker 2: had hidden and destroyed a bloodied night dress, and that

349
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Speaker 2: she was the perpetrator.

350
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Speaker 1: What was the motive? What did he think was the

351
00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:56,439
Speaker 1: reason behind it?

352
00:20:56,920 --> 00:21:00,800
Speaker 2: He thought that she wanted to hurt her stepmother because

353
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:05,160
Speaker 2: she had loved her so much as a child, loved

354
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 2: her more than her own mother, and had felt deeply

355
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:12,960
Speaker 2: betrayed when the stepmother married her father and more or

356
00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:17,560
Speaker 2: less abandoned her. She became much more interested in her

357
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 2: actual children, her new babies, than the children of Samuel

358
00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:26,680
Speaker 2: Kent's previous wife, which's theory was that Constance was burning

359
00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:30,560
Speaker 2: with rage against her stepmother, and she knew what would

360
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 2: hurt her more than anything and hurt her father too,

361
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 2: was to take their favorite child and kill it. And

362
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 2: I suppose the boy, which had thought the boy represented

363
00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 2: everything that she resented as well, because he was the

364
00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:50,760
Speaker 2: apple of his parents' eye, and the previous family had

365
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:55,439
Speaker 2: become secondary. They were more or less ignored. They weren't

366
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 2: given new clothes, they had to sort of make do

367
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 2: with what they had, and she felt neglected and enraged

368
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:05,760
Speaker 2: on the behalf of her brother to her brother, William,

369
00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 2: her younger brother fourteen years old, who she was extremely

370
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:13,400
Speaker 2: fond of. She and William previously a few years earlier,

371
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 2: had once run away together. They tried to run away

372
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:20,119
Speaker 2: to see Constance had chopped off all her hair and

373
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:23,080
Speaker 2: she'd thrown it in the privy, the same privy that

374
00:22:23,119 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 2: Saville was found. And Wicher thought this was very significant

375
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:32,520
Speaker 2: and that it also indicated her capacity for rebellion and

376
00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:35,919
Speaker 2: the depths of her anger with her father and her stepmother.

377
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,119
Speaker 1: Tell me about access again. You said, there's a large

378
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 1: wall around the house, right, but there was a window open.

379
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:46,479
Speaker 1: But Wicher felt like the window was a decoy, and

380
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 1: did he feel strong like there is no way anybody

381
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,000
Speaker 1: from the outside world could have gotten into this house

382
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:54,159
Speaker 1: without a key or something.

383
00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 2: Samuel Kent went round the building every night making sure

384
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 2: that all the windows and doors were locked, and he

385
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:04,439
Speaker 2: confirmed that he had done that on the night before

386
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:08,119
Speaker 2: his son was murdered. And it was impossible to open

387
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 2: this window from the outside. It was impossible to open

388
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 2: it from the outside.

389
00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: And did you say the privy was within the wall,

390
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:19,119
Speaker 1: within the property or is it a separate place.

391
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 2: It's separate. It was an outhouse. It was next to

392
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 2: something called the knife house and the boothouse. There were

393
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 2: little sheds just beyond the kitchen outside the building itself.

394
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 2: The buildings very sort of elegant and had various outhouses

395
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 2: for different purposes. So this was a privy not used

396
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 2: by the family, but used by the laborers, the people

397
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 2: who worked in the grounds.

398
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 1: Could constance with what you know have done this? Did

399
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 1: she have the access? Could she have slipped away? Could

400
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,199
Speaker 1: all of this reasonably happened based on what you know

401
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: of how tightly locked up this place was and where

402
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:57,880
Speaker 1: everyone was located at the time.

403
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 2: It seems possible one thing. Another thing which concluded, which

404
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:07,160
Speaker 2: seems right to me, is that whoever took Savile from

405
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 2: his cot in a room where his nursemaid was sleeping,

406
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,640
Speaker 2: he must have known whoever took him, because they were

407
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 2: confident that he would make no noise unless it was

408
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 2: the nursemaid herself, or, as people speculated, a lover. It

409
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 2: had to be somebody who savel would willingly be taken

410
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 2: by in order for them, and or who could explain

411
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 2: their presence if he did wake up and cause a fuss.

412
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 2: There was suggestions that he'd been anesthetized. There was no

413
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 2: evidence of this, but this was one of the speculations

414
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 2: as a way of getting him out of the house silently.

415
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 2: But there was no evidence of that, and it does

416
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 2: seem likely that somebody who he knew would have been

417
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 2: able to lift him out of his cot and take

418
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 2: him away without his complaining, and if they had been caught,

419
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 2: could have explained it as oh, they were just playing

420
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 2: or just visiting, or something like that, if they'd been

421
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 2: caught in the act of taking him from his room.

422
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 2: On that score, it seemed possible. Also, she was a

423
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 2: strong young woman. She was quite unlike her younger brother William,

424
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 2: who was quite slight. She was reputed to like doing

425
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:21,359
Speaker 2: boxing matches with other girls at school. She was quite

426
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 2: she was quite a tough girl, and which had deemed

427
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:29,639
Speaker 2: her physically capable of taking the boy, though he was

428
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 2: puzzled by how she'd managed to both carry him and

429
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 2: open the window and hustle him out and take him

430
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 2: to the privy and carry the knife. It did all

431
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 2: seem quite difficult, but not impossible. And yes, physically it

432
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 2: did seem that whoever took him must have been sleeping

433
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 2: in the house that night, must have been staying in

434
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 2: the house that night. He seemed absolutely right on that.

435
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: But Elizabeth, the nurse maid, was sleeping in Saville's room.

436
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: Is that right?

437
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 2: Yeah? Wow, So again these speculations that it could only

438
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 2: have been her. For a while, they had a lot

439
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 2: of traction. She came under a lot of suspicion, she

440
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 2: was arrested, she was taken to the magistrates court. There

441
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 2: was for some time she was the chief suspect. And

442
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 2: it was Witcher really who intervened and said, no, I

443
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 2: don't think so. I think it's Constance.

444
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,120
Speaker 1: I just don't see how a shift in a kind

445
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: of a tough girl would have convinced him over an

446
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 1: adult who's sleeping in the same room next to this

447
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: boy who's not a member of the family.

448
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, although he sort of proceeded with kind of quite

449
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 2: forensic care, and the theory came up with about the

450
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 2: night dress and how it had been concealed was very ingenious. Really,

451
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 2: what he was about was psychology. He talked to these women,

452
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 2: and he believed Elizabeth Goff. There was no evidence that

453
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 2: she'd had a man in her room, and he didn't

454
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 2: think she had. He believed her, and when he spoke

455
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 2: to Constance, he detected something in her, something angry and defiant,

456
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 2: and he fixed on her in an almost in an

457
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:21,200
Speaker 2: intuitive way. And it was his downfall really that he

458
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: could not find the night dress. They trolled the nearby river,

459
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 2: or the knife, the murder weapon was not found, and

460
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 2: he couldn't find any evidence to prove his suspicions. They

461
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 2: were suspicions, they were his reading of character and body

462
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 2: language and mannerism and speech. He couldn't back it up

463
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 2: with evidence, and as a result, when he put his

464
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 2: case to the magistrates, he was put under a lot

465
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 2: of pressure to come up with a solution. Quickly. He

466
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,719
Speaker 2: said he needed more time, and they wouldn't give him

467
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,239
Speaker 2: it because of the national scandal of this case and

468
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:01,360
Speaker 2: the outrage of it not being sold. He accused Constance,

469
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 2: admitted he didn't have any physical evidence, and was severely

470
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 2: censured by some of the magistrates and the press and

471
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 2: so on for the terrible aspersions he was casting on

472
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 2: this bereaved sixteen year old girl without any evidence to

473
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 2: back it up.

474
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming the Kent family, so Samuel and Mary

475
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: and these kids, are they all saying the same thing.

476
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: There's no way she did it, A stranger must have

477
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: done it, or does anybody cast suspicion on Constance at

478
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: any point in the media, at least from the family's

479
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 1: point of view.

480
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 2: Samuel Kent, the boy's father, he said, of course she

481
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,239
Speaker 2: couldn't have done it, but there was some ambivalence in

482
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 2: him which Richard detected, and in a local doctor who

483
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: knew the family well and who said things about Constance

484
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 2: that suggested that she was unstable. Samuel Kent seemed to

485
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 2: be playing a sort of bit of a double game

486
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 2: of sometimes defending her but sometimes saying things that suggested

487
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 2: he didn't trust her, and that she had been resentful

488
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 2: of the young child. The others in the family all

489
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 2: fiercely defended her and said, of course it was impossible

490
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 2: that she could have done such a thing, but the

491
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 2: mother that Saville's mother, was very uneasy about her and

492
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:25,479
Speaker 2: feared that she might have been capable of doing it.

493
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: So Constance is never charged, right, and Witcher has been

494
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: severely censured. Is there anything that happens in this case

495
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: while Witcher is still alive, while Constance is still living

496
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: in the house.

497
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 2: Well. Costance was briefly charged and her father went to

498
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 2: see her in prison where she was being held, but

499
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 2: she was then discharged after the magistrates basically throughout Witcher's case,

500
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 2: which of them went back to London pretty much in disgrace.

501
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 2: I mean, the backlash from this case and the sense

502
00:29:55,880 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 2: of the impropriety and insolence with which he'd behaved, the

503
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 2: tactless nurse and cruelty as it was perceived of his

504
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 2: investigation basically ended his career. He was never put on

505
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 2: another major murder investigation. He just did desk work and

506
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 2: behind the scenes stuff for the next five years and

507
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: eventually retired from the detective force with a condition He

508
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 2: called congestion of the brain. I think he had a breakdown,

509
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 2: a nervous breakdown. Constance continued to live at home for

510
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 2: a bit, but then her father sent her off to

511
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 2: various places, to finishing schools, to a convent in France.

512
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 2: There was a sense that the family were trying to

513
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 2: sort of get her out of the way. The cloud

514
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 2: of suspicions still hung over all of them. So Samuel

515
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 2: Kent was treated with contempt at the factories he visited

516
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 2: and so on. He had to move away from the

517
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 2: area because many people believed the story that he had

518
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 2: killed his son because he'd been having an affair with

519
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 2: the nursemaid. So this carried on for a few years.

520
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,959
Speaker 2: But when Constance was twenty one, so five years after

521
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 2: the murder, she suddenly came forward. She went to London,

522
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 2: which had retired from the force, and she made a confession.

523
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 2: She said that she had killed her brother. She didn't

524
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 2: really give her a good reason for it. She denied

525
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 2: completely that it had been jealousy, but she said she'd

526
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 2: done it, and she very calm about it. She was tried,

527
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 2: sentenced to death, but then the sentence was commuted to

528
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 2: life imprisonment, and she served the next twenty years in prison, wow,

529
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 2: which it was vindicated, and he had a sort of

530
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 2: second wind in that he became a very pioneering private

531
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 2: investigator in London, and rather late in life he married

532
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 2: his landlady. But yes, he'd been broken by the case,

533
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 2: but her confession partly redeemed him. When I read the

534
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 2: files on the case in the Metropolitan Police archives, I

535
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 2: could see all his original notes, all his expenses files,

536
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 2: his notes on his interviews with Constance and everyone else,

537
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 2: his reports to his officers back in Scotland yard while

538
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 2: he was down in Wiltshire, and I realized that something

539
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 2: he'd not said at the time, but that he thought

540
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 2: that someone else had been involved in the murder too,

541
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 2: not only Constance. And when she confessed, he wondered if

542
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 2: her confession had actually that she had carried out the murder,

543
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 2: but the purpose of the confession was to shield the

544
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 2: other person who had been involved, and that she has

545
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: still not told the complete truth.

546
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: Why would she come forward after five years? I know

547
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: it was sort of always speculation, but nobody's reopened this case.

548
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: I'm assuming at that point she had.

549
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 2: Come under the influence of an Anglican priest and she

550
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 2: had become slightly spiritual in her beliefs, more spiritual than

551
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 2: she had been. But she said that wasn't the reason.

552
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 2: The priest said he hadn't urged her to confess, but

553
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 2: there were some things about the timing of it. Without

554
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 2: divulging who exactly she may have been protecting, as I said,

555
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 2: she had, this cloud had been hanging over her entire family,

556
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 2: and perhaps she wanted to lift that cloud and to

557
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 2: enable her family to have some freedom. Perhaps that was

558
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 2: the thing, rather than contrition for the murder itself. It

559
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 2: was more about the fates of living people that she

560
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 2: cared at that point, and she realized she could do

561
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 2: something about it. She could clear their names by coming

562
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 2: forward herself.

563
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: Did it clear the Kent family name?

564
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 2: Yes, it did. They made it easier for Samuel Kent

565
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 2: and his wife Mary and their children to live a

566
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 2: life free of suspicion, and Constance's older sisters were also

567
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 2: completely cleared of any suspicion that had attached to them,

568
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 2: and her brother William was able to pursue his ambitions

569
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 2: to be a marine biologist and naturalist, and he moved

570
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 2: to Australia, where he became one of the first people

571
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 2: to chart and paint the Great Barrier Reef and did

572
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 2: some very beautiful work in terms of his observations and

573
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 2: sort of artistic renderings of the flora and fauna he

574
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 2: found out there.

575
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: Well, not to get too detailed, but I'm still stuck

576
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 1: on Witcher back in eighteen sixty on Witcher being focused

577
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: on how could she have carried out a sleeping savile

578
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: through a window? Did she give any insight on the

579
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: actual procedure, what she did, where she killed them, how

580
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:57,320
Speaker 1: all of it worked without anyone in this house knowing.

581
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 2: Her story didn't quite add up. That was part of

582
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 2: the thing that, you know, when she eventually confessed, it

583
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 2: still didn't really make sense. It physically didn't work what

584
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 2: she was describing, which confirmed which is suspicion that there

585
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: might have been someone else involved, because of course, if

586
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:18,280
Speaker 2: somebody else had been there, another person could have carried

587
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 2: the knife, opened the window, open doors, because she had

588
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 2: to go downstairs and outside and then get rid of

589
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 2: the evidence, And she didn't really account for quite a

590
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 2: lot of that. She didn't really explain quite a lot

591
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 2: of that. It was as if, you know, there were

592
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 2: gaps in her confession in terms of the plausibility of it.

593
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: What do you think do you think there was another

594
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 1: person involved with this? And do you believe her to

595
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: begin with?

596
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 2: I believe she did do it, and I believe there

597
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:47,839
Speaker 2: was another person involved in it.

598
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:53,839
Speaker 1: Can you narrow down kid or adult kid? Okay, I

599
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: bet we could figure that one out well.

600
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 2: Constance Kent, she too ended up in Australia, like amazingly,

601
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 2: although she served twenty years in prison, which is essentially

602
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 2: a life center, she was only forty one when she

603
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 2: came out, and she went out to Australia under an alias,

604
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 2: and she became a nurse, and she worked with delinquent

605
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 2: children and on a leprosy colony. And she lived to

606
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 2: the age of one hundred and one.

607
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, she.

608
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 2: Lived right into the nineteen forties, which is quite sort

609
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 2: of astonishing. It's such a Victorian story. But her resilience

610
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 2: and I'd like to think some sort of atonement in

611
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 2: the work she did out in Australia, the way she

612
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 2: dedicated herself to helping others, especially young others, which could

613
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 2: correlate both to her young self but also to the

614
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 2: child she had killed. But it does suggest she took

615
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 2: some sort of moral responsibility for what had happened.

616
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: Is there anything that which or Scotland Yard could have

617
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 1: done in eighteen sixty more, if Witcher had been taken

618
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: seriously in his accusations against Constance, is there anything that

619
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:12,959
Speaker 1: they could have done that could have tied her more

620
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: tightly to the crime or was this some sort of

621
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: missed opportunity, because from what you're telling me, you know,

622
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: even though yes, she confessed, there's definitely not enough evidence

623
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: now there wouldn't be enough evidence, but there's a lot

624
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:26,359
Speaker 1: more that could be done now.

625
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 2: I think he was hampered both by the amount of

626
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 2: time he was given, but also by how everyone was

627
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 2: flinching at the fact he was interviewing this family at all.

628
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 2: You know, he was not really allowed to or encourage

629
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 2: to intrude on their grief, to interview them sufficiently. It

630
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 2: was like, no, you've talked to her, you've talked to

631
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 2: the father. That's enough now. So he wasn't given that

632
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 2: sort of support because of the class issues for social

633
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 2: issues around it. But I think in essence, Constance had

634
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 2: done a very good job of sticking by her story

635
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:05,760
Speaker 2: of getting rid of the evidence. He couldn't find anything

636
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 2: and his story about the night dresses, it turned out

637
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 2: was true about the way that she'd given it to

638
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 2: the lawn dress and then got someone to go and

639
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 2: get glass of water stolen the night dress back. It

640
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 2: seemed so far fetched, but it turned out in her

641
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 2: confession that that's exactly what she did. But it was

642
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:26,360
Speaker 2: such a complex little story, like a contrack, that I

643
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 2: don't think people understood it at the time and just

644
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 2: thought he was talking nonsense. The way it was reported

645
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 2: in the papers made it sound ridiculous. He wasn't given

646
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 2: enough sort of credit, or his intelligence and credibility weren't

647
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:43,720
Speaker 2: respected enough, he wasn't given enough time. But truly, maybe

648
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 2: no one could have nailed this case because it was

649
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 2: extremely difficult, and with his two weeks that had passed

650
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 2: between the commission of the murder and his arrival in Wiltshire,

651
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 2: there'd been plenty of time to concoct stories, dispose of evidence,

652
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 2: and so on. It was perhaps an impossible task that

653
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,840
Speaker 2: could only be solved by a hypothesis. Turns out his

654
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 2: hypothesis was right.

655
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Speaker 1: Tell me what you think the lesson learned is what

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Speaker 1: can we take from this story and move forward into

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Speaker 1: our time about crime, who commits the crime, How we

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Speaker 1: investigate crimes.

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Speaker 2: Well, it sort of reminds me in detective fiction and

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00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 2: crime fiction and mysteries, we get very hung up on

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Speaker 2: the and intrigued by the sort of puzzle aspect of it,

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00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 2: the clues, the forensics, all this kind of thing. It's

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Speaker 2: very absorbing and enjoyable. But in life, I think the

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Speaker 2: detective who can just read character, the intuition and a

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Speaker 2: feel for what's likely and what's possible is actually often

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Speaker 2: the thing that gets things solved.

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Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

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Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

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Speaker 1: Is Wicked and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly

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Speaker 1: right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Amerosi. Our associate

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00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: producer is Alex Chi. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

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00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 1: Curtis heath Is our composer, artwork by Nick Toga. Executive

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00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: produced by Georgia Hartstark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer. Follow

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Speaker 1: Wicked Words on Instagram and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked

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00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at tenfold more and if you know

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Speaker 1: of a historical crime that could use some attention from

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00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:41,320
Speaker 1: the crew at tenfold more Wicked, email us at info

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Speaker 1: at Tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also take your suggestions for

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Speaker 1: true crime authors for Wicked Words