WEBVTT - Amy Archer-Gilligan: Sometimes Predators Look Like Pious Grandmas 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:12.080 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.200 latest episode of Criminalia, where this season we're exploring the 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.320 lives and motivations of some of the most notorious lady 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:23.040 poisoners throughout history. Holly Fry and I'm Ranchre Markie. And 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.640 the poisoner that we're talking about today is Amy Archer Gilligan. 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:28.840 And you might know her name. She was the real 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.880 life inspiration for the story behind both the play and 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.320 the film Arsenic and Old Lace. And this today is 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.279 the true story behind the eccentric comedy that came out 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.280 of Hollywood as a result of it. And it's absolutely 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:47.519 not a comedy, it's not at all. Um So a 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.120 little bit about Amy's story. So from her birth through 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.440 her death, Amy's entire story takes place in the state 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.880 of Connecticut. She was born to James and Mary Duggan, 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:02.720 probably on Halloween, but definitely in October in eighteen seventy 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.440 three in the town of Milton, which at the time 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.319 was sort of the northwestern part of what is now 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:12.640 the town of Litchfield, and all accounts suggest that Amy 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.440 grew up in kind of a modest circumstance, and there 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:21.760 was really nothing about her childhood that particularly stands out. However, 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.600 there was a legacy of mental illness in her immediate family. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.520 Amy's brother John became a patient. He would have been 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.760 called an inmate then, which is obviously outdated terminology at 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.840 the Connecticut General Hospital for the Insane, and that happened 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.640 in nineteen o two and so outdated terminology. And then 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.440 one of her sisters was listed as residing there as well. 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.560 That was during the ninety census, so there is a 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.880 strong streak there. There were between eight and ten children 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.560 in the Archer family, and as many as seven are 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.840 believed to have had mental health issues. It's amazing, um. 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.760 So as an adult, Amy married James Archer when she 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.200 was twenty three years old, and about five years later 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.560 they relocated with their young daughter to Newington, which, as 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.480 I was saying, also a town in Connecticut. There they 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.079 lived with a man named John Seymour who was frail 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.080 and elderly um and they cared for him in exchange 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.079 for room and board. When John died in nineteen four 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.680 the house went to his heirs, but the Archers decided 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.359 to rent it and they turned it into Sister Amy's 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.639 nursing Home for the elderly. And yes, you probably could 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.079 hear something of an air quote around the word sister, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.360 because Amy certainly did not take any religious vows, although 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.400 she was known to be a very pious woman. They 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.640 were kind of trading on that name as kind of 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.200 a marketing plan. Three years after they started this, though, 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:56.560 John's family decided to sell the property, so the Archers 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.640 moved to Windsor, and with their savings, they bought a 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.600 red brick house at thirty seven Prospect Street. It's still 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:04.560 there today and you can tour through all that they 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.680 asked you to really not take photos. It was in 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.600 this house that became the Archer Home for elderly people 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.680 and chronic invalids. That is the name of the house, 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:18.480 not a name that we will keep repeating through the episode. 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:23.560 Right in this unassuming red brick house, this business that 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.480 they started, uh, did not seem particularly out of the ordinary. 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.120 Amy was reportedly a doting Christian woman who took care 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.320 of those who were unable to care for themselves. She was, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.520 or at least seemed to be a positive fixture in 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.360 her community. It's really true, Like if you you know, 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:42.680 if you if you look at some of the things 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.360 that she did, minus the killing, she was very caring. 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.040 She was very um willing to give money to the 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.200 church for variety of reasons. So if you, if you 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.200 didn't know what was going on in her life, you 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.000 might think that she was a positive fixture in her community. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:03.360 So in comparison, today there are a bit more than 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.400 fifteen thousand nursing homes and more than twenty eight thousand 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.720 assisted living residencies in the United States, and together they're 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:15.680 occupied by about two and a half million people. But 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.360 in the early twentieth century when the Archers opened their doors, 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.640 this was not the case at all. Most of the time, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.000 caring for your elders was the responsibility of family members, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.920 And basically the Archers were really establishing a brand new 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.320 field when they did this, and they were also trying 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.359 to make a place in it. They are known to 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.480 even advertise their services in the local newspapers, and the 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.920 Archer Home for elderly people and chronic invalids worked basically 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:46.520 like this. Patients would either sign their life insurance policies 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.279 over to Amy, or they could pay a large amount 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.760 of money. By all accounts, This was right around a 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.800 thousand dollars up front, but Amy did not only cater 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.200 to the well off. If there were people who could 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.760 not pay that lump sum up front, they were given 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.520 an option to pay weekly. But no matter how they 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.600 chose to pay. In return, what they got was residents 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.159 and Amy's care. And there were generally anywhere between ten 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.800 and twenty residents in the home at a time. So 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.599 these residents Amy called them inmates, and we referred to 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.320 that earlier when we were talking about her brother, and 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.880 it sounds wrong to our twenty century years, but it 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.800 was completely in line with the convention of the time. 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:31.320 Everything appeared fine on the outside of this business, yet 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.320 there were stories about how Amy's inmates were crowded together 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.440 in rooms and often left to fend for themselves. Um 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:40.880 and as I was just talking about, remember, the industry 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.440 at this time was so brand new, and that means 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.400 there were no regulatory agencies set up yet to monitor 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.680 anything anything from the quality of care or anything that 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.680 was going on inside the home. And in nine nine, 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:59.840 Amy had her first brush with the law. The mc 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.240 talk family of West Hartford sued the Archers over their 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.799 perceived lack of care that was given to an elderly 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.120 family member. They settled out of court and the Archers 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.520 paid five thousand dollars to the mcclint talks. We know 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.520 it's unreliable always when we talk about trying to figure 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:20.680 out how much money in nineteen ten would equal to 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.360 today's currency, but we always like to do it just 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.480 kind of as a a little bit of a benchmark 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:28.400 so you get a sense of it. So it's a 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:33.400 little fun. Five thousand dollars in nineteen ten was a 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.800 pretty tidy payout and roughly, very roughly, that's kind of 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.719 the equivalent to like a hundred and thirty seven thousand today, 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:46.280 which is really nothing to really laugh at. Um. So, actually, 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.840 right now we're going to take a quick break, and 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.560 when we return, we're going to talk about the mysterious 0:06:52.560 --> 0:07:12.840 and numerous deaths happening at the Archer Home. Welcome back 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:18.040 to Criminalia. Let's get to talking about Amy's quote unquote inmates. 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:23.040 So in nineteen which was about three years after the 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.960 Archers opened the Archer Home for elderly people and chronic invalids, James, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.800 if you remember, that's Amy's first husband, suddenly died of 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.640 what was at the time called Bright's disease. So Bright's 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.760 disease is kidney disease. And this at this point, we're 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.880 gonna do some really high level medical talk here. It's 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.800 basically what happens when your kidneys become inflamed. So ultimately, 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.000 if it's left untreated, that can lead the kidney failure. 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.280 Today it would be called nephritis, and it has several 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:57.040 causes such as an infection or high blood pressure. And 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.280 we're just gonna put this out there and it probably 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:05.960 won't surprise you. Exposure to arsenic not arsenic? What what's that? 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:14.520 I've never heard him? I wonder what the symptoms. After 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.080 James died, Amy began having some financial trouble, but she 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.920 was still able to manage the home, and that's because 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.400 she had taken out quite a hefty insurance policy on 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.560 her husband just about a week or two prior to 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.080 his death. A few years later, in nineteen thirteen, Amy 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:36.040 got remarried her new groom, fifty six year old Michael Gilligan, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.840 was a healthy and vivacious man with a hefty savings account. 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.160 Like Amy, Michael was a widower, plus he had four 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.439 adult sons. In February nineteen fourteen, which was just about 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.640 three months after they had gotten married, Michael suddenly died. 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:55.480 The official cause of death was listed as acute bilious attack, 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.880 which basically means he was likely suffering from some kind 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:02.120 of liver or dysfunction. Right, it's really hard to come down. 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.319 I mean, some people will call it severe indigestion, but 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.679 it was a little bit more major than that. Um. So, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.800 when he died, he had willed his entire estate, which 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.720 was valued at about four thousand dollars. Uh, that would 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:22.040 be very, very roughly the equivalent of say about a 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.680 hundred thousand dollars today. So he willed all of this 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.120 to his wife. Um. You know, husbands will their estates 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.720 to their wives all the time, it's not weird. But 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:35.160 despite that, the authorities were suspicious, and they later determined 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.000 that Michael's will was a forgery and that the handwriting 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:42.800 it turned out matched Amy's. So at this point, there's 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:47.040 a pattern emerging regarding the Archer home, and neighbors were 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.360 starting to take notice of the high death rate among 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:54.360 the residents there. And unlike other stories that we've shared 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:56.880 on the show, where shady things kind of went on 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.760 for a long time without anyone really getting too concern. 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.480 Authorities were actually pretty quick to jump to the conclusion 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.400 that these deaths were probably due to foul play in 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.920 Amy's case, yet they were not so quick to actually 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.480 do anything about it. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Yeah, so, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:19.199 um Amy was known among her residents for her nutritional 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:24.720 meals and beneficial tonics. But nourishing might not be the 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.720 best word to use when we talk about these nutritional 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.880 meals that she served. And here's why Amy added arsenic 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.400 to her recipes, resulting in the deaths of many of 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.200 her residents, all of whom remember, had named her in 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.200 their wills when they moved into her home, and many 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.120 of them did not have relatives close by or any 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.240 family at all. So we're gonna look at the story 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.720 of one man who lived at the Archer home and 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.359 it is his death that actually kicked off the investigation 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.920 against her. One of Amy's residents was a sixty year 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.440 old man named Franklin Andrews, and while he had some 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.960 sort of mild disability, we don't know what kind of 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.320 illness or injury it was, he was still listed as 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.160 pretty healthy and robust. He routinely did yard work and 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.360 other chores for Amy, and Franklin was one of the 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.240 residents that did not have family nearby, but he did 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.400 right to his family pretty frequently, including stories and details 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.880 about his life at the Archer home. In one letter, 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.920 just in passing, he happened to mention that he had 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.040 noticed a surprising number of deaths among the residents. I've 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.120 wondered after reading the sources on this, every single one 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:34.520 of them says it the same way. But how do 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.000 you just put that in passing right? Just like a 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:47.280 cavalier here right? See is saturday in passing rain tomorrow. Yeah, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.400 by the way, three of my best friends just died 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.840 last night. Um, so you know, good on Franklin for 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.720 sharing that information now, because on one spring day, Franklin 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.120 was painting the fence around the property when he suddenly collapsed. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.400 Two days later, he died of what was reported to 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:08.720 be a stomach ulcer. Shortly after his death, his sister 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:14.559 Nellie Pierce found some unusual correspondence among Franklin's belongings. In particular, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:19.440 Amy had pressured Franklin to loan her five and he 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.439 had done so. Suspicious about this loan and her brother's 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:29.160 sudden death. Nelly also contacted the authorities, and initially the 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.320 district attorney was not interested in the case, but the 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:37.280 Hartford Current definitely was. The newspaper began their own investigation, 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.080 and it was their investigation that ultimately led to Amy's arrest. 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.160 So among the things that they reviewed at first were 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.360 death certificates. They compared these death certificates of the Archer 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.560 Home residence with those of residence of the Jefferson Street 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.840 Home for the Elderly in Hartford, which was less than 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.559 ten miles away. It turned out that the number of 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:05.080 deaths at the Jefferson Street Home was similar, but the 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.720 population there was way larger. It was like seven times 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.559 that of the Archer Home. In fact, they discovered sixty 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.040 residents of the Archer Home had died since nineteen o seven, 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.640 and forty eight of them had died recently between nineteen 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:27.840 eleven and nineteen six. They also discovered Amy's weapon. Carlin 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.760 Gossily was a correspondent and the oh bit writer for 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.199 the Hartford Current at the time, and had for years 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.360 been noticing a really high number of deaths at the 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.280 Archer Home. It was a home for the elderly, yes, 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:46.479 but the deaths seemed and to put it, mildly excessive. 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.560 So he did some investigating into the poison registers that 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:55.480 every drug store had to keep by law. I love 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.160 Carlin for this, how do too? He did such a 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.480 good job and this it's amazing. That's good journalism, right man. 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:05.520 He's an o bit writer. He went above and beyond, 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.760 and in doing this research he hit the jackpot in 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.280 terms of information. He found out that Amy had made 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.319 multiple purchases of arsenic at H. H. Mason's drug store 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.320 in Windsor, as well as other stores around town, and 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.840 one storage register revealed that she had purchased a huge 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.640 amount of arsenic ten ounces that is enough to kill 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.720 at least a hundred people and possibly as many as 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:35.400 two hundred. Amy cited that there were rat problems and 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.640 bed bugs at the house as the reason she was 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:43.480 making these purchases. Now, it may sound strange that the 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.600 Connecticut State Police weren't the ones who really went to 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.440 work on this case, but good and bad, there are 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.160 actually some reasons for that. The Connecticut State Police Department 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:57.560 had only been established for really only a few years 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.440 since like nineteen o three year or so. Give her 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.800 take a year, and the skills that were needed to 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.040 investigate murders and forensics in general weren't really all out 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.640 developed yet, but the state police were interested though. After 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.560 the newspaper investigation really started to take off and they 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.520 did do some of their own work. They sent in 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:23.000 an undercover officer who pretended to be a wealthy widow 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.680 in need of care, and this gave them a firsthand 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.800 look at how Amy scammed her residence into giving her 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:34.480 well everything. I was really happy to see that. Once 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.120 the newspaper investigation took off, the police department was like, 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.360 we should get on this. Yeah, yeah, all right. So 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.600 they visited the nursing home after their undercover officer came 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:50.840 back with this information, and they found surprisingly arsenic in 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.200 the kitchen pantry. Amy again, though, claimed that she used 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.680 arsenic to control an ongoing rat problem in the nursing home, 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.440 but considering that she had enough arsenic you remember, to 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.560 kill more than a hundred people, it sounds like there 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.680 had to be more rats than residents. Like. It sounds 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.920 like there was quite an infestation going on in the 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:15.240 super rats yes, and bad Bucks kind of like us. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.120 The police did not believe this story about the rats 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.200 they could do math as well. They believed that Amy 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.200 was poisoning residents, but it wasn't until nineteen seventeen when 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.200 they officially charged Amy with the murder of the Archer 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.800 Home resident Franklin Andrews, that they found out for sure. 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.000 And the investigation took more than a year to complete. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.680 During that time, bodies were exhumed and autopsies were performed, 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:45.440 and arsenic YEP was absolutely found in the bodies. Franklin's 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:53.040 corpse included. There were five victims who were definitely, absolutely, 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:57.760 positively no doubt about it, poisoned by Amy with arsenic, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.920 including not only residents of her nursing home, but her 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.040 second husband as well. And although you'll hear numbers like 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.800 she she killed sixty upwards, the final tally it's still 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.160 really high. The final tally from the authorities when they 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.119 finished the investigation of the deaths was a total of forty. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.639 And when she was arrested, police asked Amy about the 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.919 high number of deaths in her home and she replied, quote, well, 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.520 we didn't ask them to come here, but we do 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.760 the best we can for them. They are old people 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.600 and some live for a long time while others die 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.719 after being here a short time. I don't even have 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.920 a comment for that. I have a comment for everything 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:46.240 and learning comment. So we're going to take a quick 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.080 break from our for our sponsor and we come back 0:17:49.720 --> 0:18:06.640 we will talk about Amy's trial. M welcome back to Criminalia. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.960 Let's get into the details of Amy Archer Gilligan's trial. 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:16.600 So the trial headlined in newspapers all across the country 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:22.560 and it really captured people's imaginations. One headline from the 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.320 Hartford Current, and this was their lead headline when the 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:31.159 trial began. Police believe Archer home for aged a murder factory. 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:37.240 Murder factory. Well, it's also the police believed part right 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:42.679 like that that presupposes guilt to some degree. Under questioning, 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.760 Amy insisted that she was innocent. I am a poor, 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.840 hard working woman and I can't understand why I am 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.880 persecuted as I have been during the last few years, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.160 The Current reported she told arresting officers. She also went 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.800 on to say, quote, this is a Christian work and 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.080 one that is very trying, as we have to put 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.080 up with lots of things on account of the peculiarities 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:11.280 of the old people. Again, so at her trial, Amy 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.399 appeared as a petite widow who was busy raising a 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.800 teenage daughter. She remember she had a daughter from her 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.360 first marriage and taking care of the elderly, and everyone 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.439 in town knew that she was a regular churchgoer and 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.600 that she gave generously to the local church. Most of 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.000 her neighbors and other churchgoers were actually quite shocked to 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.080 find that she had been arrested. Psychiatrists and psychologists who 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.800 were known as alienists at the time testified as to 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.480 Amy's mental health, and they also brought up Amy's alleged 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.639 use of morphine. So this morphine thing, we got to 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.800 talk about it for a second. This only came up. 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.040 It was only mentioned um this idea that she might 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.800 have had a morphine addiction in one reliable source, and 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.480 so we couldn't verify it. It might not be true 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.119 at all, but it is kind of interesting and a 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.280 little too to the leading a piece of the potential 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.920 puzzle to not mention it at all. But even though 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.359 we're including it, we also want to caution you to 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.880 take it with a green of salt. Absolutely right, there's 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.159 there's there's some There's always little bits and pieces of 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:19.800 the stories that are a little bit too good. To 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:25.520 not mention, but probably not true. You would think that 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:27.520 would have come up in more than one place if 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.480 it were a real issue, exactly. Um, And I believe 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.560 it came up in regard to her daughter saying that 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:36.879 my mom has a morphine addiction, you know. And I 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.159 like to think that that's because her daughter was like, 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.400 please don't send my mom to jail, you know. But 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.480 but I have no way to verify that. So Amy's 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.120 trial back to that. Amy's trial lasted for four weeks 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.080 and it took the jury four hours to convict her. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.600 She was found guilty of murdering Franklin Andrews. Um But 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.000 the card of public opinion, though, often has a very 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.680 very different point of view. And with Amy, they believed 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.760 she had killed at least twenty two other residents, if 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.800 not more. But the court sentenced her to death by hanging. 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:16.160 But and there's a big butt. Her defense team appealed 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:20.399 and her conviction was overturned. So there was a second trial, 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:25.800 and that began in June. This time, Amy pleaded guilty 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.800 to the lethal poisoning of resident frank Andrews. She received 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.800 a sentence of life in prison, which was a reduced 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:36.719 charge of second degree murder due to reason of insanity. 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.040 I find that amazing, um Hall, I don't know if 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.280 you know that, like most of the um most most 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.639 often when someone pleads with reason of insanity, guilty or 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.159 not usually not guilty with reason of insanity, it's like 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:54.320 it's like less than one percent. Actually it actually works 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.360 in their favor lins right, you know, like it's it's 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.480 such a difficult one to argue. So um, I was 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.560 actually really surprised to see that that that's how her 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:08.600 case played out. Um. Anyway, although she was tried only 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.199 for the murder of Franklin Andrews, Amy was indicted for 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:15.800 five poisoning murders in total, and the people on that 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:19.760 list included Franklin Andrews, which is no surprise um, Alice Goudy, 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:24.439 who was a resident, her second husband, Michael Gilligan, Charles A. Smith, 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.840 also a resident, and Maud Howard Lynch I believe, also 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.639 a resident. Each had died of arsenic poisoning. That is, 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:36.159 except Maud, who's autopsy showed she was poisoned to a 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.639 Stryck nine. During that second trial, it is reported that 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.199 Amy kept repeating the same phrase, which was simply I 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.240 want to go home. Amy was in her early forties 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.600 when she began her sentence at the state prison in Wethersfield. 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:54.560 Five years later, in July, amy situation changed when she 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:57.960 was transferred to the Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, a 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:02.520 state run institution for people with mental illness. So we 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.639 have brought this up before, but let's take a brief 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.119 moment to review some of the facts about female serial 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:12.680 killers in the United States. They definitely use poison to 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:14.639 kill their victims. That is not the only weapon that 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:17.639 female serial killers have been known to use, but it 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:20.359 goes beyond that, right we've talked about before. They usually 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:23.760 know they're victims, and most often they were actually the 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:27.560 official caretakers of those victims, such as being in a 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:31.040 situation where they were nursing them. And they often kill 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:34.159 for financial gain. And if you look at sort of 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:38.800 that basic profile, Amy really checks a lot of these boxes. Yeah. 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:43.760 Mental illness as well is also listed as a common 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:49.240 thing among female serial killers. Uh a guestimate of about 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:52.520 have some type of mental illness during the time that 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:57.720 they commit their crime. Though her psychiatric records are sealed, 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.320 there are one or two things that we do know 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.560 about Amy's stay at the Connecticut Valley Hospital one she 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:07.159 continued to read and pray with her Bible in her 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:11.600 lap daily, and to she enjoyed playing funeral music on 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:14.840 the piano there, even when no one had died. I 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:19.080 really liked that detail. It's very haunted mansion e right, 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:24.840 absolutely right, like every day she played a dirge. She 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:27.600 spent the remaining thirty eight years of her life there, 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:32.240 and she died on April nineteen sixty two of natural causes. 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:35.400 There is something interesting here in her story that comes 0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:37.760 up in some accounts of her time in the hospital, 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:41.399 and I feel like it needs to be included. Because 0:24:41.560 --> 0:24:45.720 she was convicted of poisoning many of her residents through 0:24:45.760 --> 0:24:49.240 the meals that she served to them. In prison, Amy 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:52.479 allegedly was allowed to work in the hospital's cafeteria. And 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:56.280 I'm not saying that anything was reported as going wrong. 0:24:56.840 --> 0:24:59.320 Nothing happened, but it just seemed to me like it 0:24:59.400 --> 0:25:04.080 was poor planning, right. I guess if they were confident 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:09.000 she couldn't get her hands on nine, they were like, well, 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:12.400 we need somebody to cook. There is one good thing 0:25:12.680 --> 0:25:15.479 that came out of all of this. In an effort 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.800