Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is buried bones.
Speaker 2: Vakate. How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm great, Paul, how are you?
Speaker 2: I am doing really good.
Speaker 1: I have a big sports story for you. Not really,
Speaker 1: it's big for our family. One of my girls, Quinn,
Speaker 1: is a big athlete. She loves basically every sport. We
Speaker 1: are not a basketball family, okay, we just you know,
Speaker 1: I played soccer, Quinn plays volleyball. She's great at volleyball.
Speaker 1: You know, We've done a lot of different sports. Basketball
Speaker 1: has never been one of them. Did your kids ever
Speaker 1: play basketball or did you ever play basketball? And no, tall,
Speaker 1: short jokes whatever you're about to say, not being qualified
Speaker 1: to play basketball because of your height.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, during I would say, like the sixth
Speaker 2: to eighth grade, basketball is my favorite sport.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I was out in San Antonio and there was a
Speaker 2: basketball hoop out there on the street and I would
Speaker 2: go and do like one hundred labs with my right hand,
Speaker 2: hundred labs with my left hand, you know, and a
Speaker 2: lot of pickup games and never played it after that,
Speaker 2: you know, So I have experience with basketball. I kind
Speaker 2: of wish I had done it in high school, you know,
Speaker 2: instead ended up playing football, and my body just did
Speaker 2: not hold up very well to football.
Speaker 1: So football ruined you essentially for other sports.
Speaker 2: Is yes, that pretty much. I had a my junior
Speaker 2: year during hell week, you know, helmet to helmet collision,
Speaker 2: you know, the pick a hole, and ended up getting
Speaker 2: a pretty significant concussion.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: I still get what I call my concussion headache today,
Speaker 2: which is right here. This is a weird thing, And
Speaker 2: in hindsight, I am very happy that I did not
Speaker 2: continue to play football because in you know, what kind
Speaker 2: of injuries or even concussive effects would I have now
Speaker 2: that I'm getting older.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I mean, how awful, awful awful, And your
Speaker 1: kids did not play in high school? I assume no.
Speaker 2: You know, my older kids they both played volleyball, My
Speaker 2: oldest daughter played water polo o. My younger kids just
Speaker 2: never took up sports. They just were not interested in it.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I have one kid like that, and then Quinn,
Speaker 1: who will play anything. So Quinn got talked into playing
Speaker 1: basketball because she's friends with these two seniors who were
Speaker 1: wonderful and they're on the basketball team, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to come play basketball. So she said, okay,
Speaker 1: I've never played before. We'll go to the park and
Speaker 1: shoot hoops a little bit. But neither of us. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not good. She's not particularly good either, so she
Speaker 1: is petrified to play. I think it was the second game.
Speaker 1: I was sitting there watching her and I was talking
Speaker 1: to one of the other parents, and I saw her
Speaker 1: sitting next to the head coach, listening to him really intently,
Speaker 1: and he had a notepad, and I asked one of
Speaker 1: the parents, who's really into basketball? I said, what's happening?
Speaker 1: And she said that the coach is teaching your kid
Speaker 1: how to play right before she goes on because she
Speaker 1: didn't know the difference fall between offense and defense in
Speaker 1: terms of basketball. She didn't understand. Yeah, so I said
Speaker 1: to her, I gave her the ageous device I could
Speaker 1: come up with, which is win in out, steal the ball,
Speaker 1: don't touch the person, but steal the ball and get
Speaker 1: it to somebody who can shoot. Because I think it's
Speaker 1: unrealistic for her to think that she's going to be
Speaker 1: shooting three pointers immediately. We have to kind of build
Speaker 1: up to that. Yeah, and the coach of Green with
Speaker 1: my technique, and so we said that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: So she's playing. She's playing, she's doing what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: She's not really stealing the ball, but when she does
Speaker 1: get the ball, she's feeding it to the right people.
Speaker 1: So there's three seconds left and we are just getting killed.
Speaker 1: Like it's pretty awful. I think it's like ten to
Speaker 1: forty eight or something else. Really Okay, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: really bad. But she's just happy to be on the
Speaker 1: court and just trying to figure out the way this
Speaker 1: game works. And all of her friends says she's doing
Speaker 1: a good job. So she's on the court. There's three
Speaker 1: seconds left. There's somebody I don't remember the technical term.
Speaker 1: What is it when you get the ball and you go,
Speaker 1: you know, across the line and then you like throw
Speaker 1: it in, you do like a chess throw or whatever
Speaker 1: in and then the person on your team can throw
Speaker 1: and could shoot. What is that? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Taking an inbound or something like that?
Speaker 2: Inbound pass? Yeah, for sure, I think that's what you're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So her teammates on the sideline with the ball
Speaker 1: and their team is crowded up. The kids who are
Speaker 1: on the court are all crowded up. There's three seconds left,
Speaker 1: and the girl looks at Quinn, her teammate, and starts saying,
Speaker 1: I'm going, oh god, Quinn's going to get the ball,
Speaker 1: and there's three seconds left. Maybe she can turn and
Speaker 1: shoot and salvage something from this terrible game. So the
Speaker 1: clock starts, the girl has the ball, she looks at Quinn.
Speaker 1: She passes Quinn the ball, and Quinn ducks.
Speaker 2: Of course she does.
Speaker 1: I've never seen that happen before. And the buzzer is
Speaker 1: so dramatic, and then the buzzer goes off and I
Speaker 1: started laughing, and luckily her coach laughed too. You know,
Speaker 1: we were like a smart art school. The sports is
Speaker 1: not their big priority. We love sports, but you know,
Speaker 1: we give that same kind of energy to like the
Speaker 1: art shows and the bands that they have. So sure,
Speaker 1: luckily nobody really ribbed her too much about it. But
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I mean when she did that, I
Speaker 1: just thought, that's my kid. Boy, she just and then
Speaker 1: she said she got into the car and she said, Paul,
Speaker 1: she said, it's three seconds. What am I supposed to
Speaker 1: do it through? Was I really supposed to take a shot?
Speaker 1: And I said, yes, you weren't. You were supposed to
Speaker 1: do a shot.
Speaker 2: For her, though, you know, that's that's a tough position
Speaker 2: to be put in.
Speaker 1: I know. And she said, well, I didn't think she
Speaker 1: was throwing it to me at all. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: well I understand that, but when you done right, well
Speaker 1: I thought that was funny. It was a very typical
Speaker 1: kind of Quinn story that was lovely.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, when and yeah, I would say, like basketball,
Speaker 2: the worst injury I ever got from basketball was the
Speaker 2: ball to the nose. Oh that hurts so bad. You know,
Speaker 2: it bangs off the rim and now it hits the
Speaker 2: square in the face. You're done at that point. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: I never broke my nose as a result, but I
Speaker 2: had that happen several times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a bad a couple of bad injuries
Speaker 1: with soccer. I mean I felt like, you know, I
Speaker 1: had a separated shoulder and broken ankle, broken foot, things
Speaker 1: like that. But yeah, I don't know Quinn. She's gotten
Speaker 1: better for sure. But when she ducked, I just thought,
Speaker 1: that's she's comic relief. I think for sports.
Speaker 2: Teams, is she going to be continuing to play? Is
Speaker 2: this something that's ongoing?
Speaker 1: Then the seniors are making her so yes, I think.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So then we ended up playing a team where it
Speaker 1: was reversed. I mean, we really like ended up stomping
Speaker 1: this team and they were great sports about it. She
Speaker 1: ended up scoring, and I kind of think she's like,
Speaker 1: that's great. And I told my friend, I said, this
Speaker 1: is like Vegas. You know, she hit the jackpot one time,
Speaker 1: and hopefully she'll continue to go back, but there's no
Speaker 1: guarantee depending on the team, so you know, she'll try
Speaker 1: any sport essentially, But she's excited her sister doing rock climbing.
Speaker 1: She's in a rock climbing club. So yeah, okay. One
Speaker 1: of the things that my kiddos. Love is. We spent
Speaker 1: a part of our summer in London every year, and
Speaker 1: they do all kinds of activities outside, and we are,
Speaker 1: for this story going to be in London, nineteen twenty two, London.
Speaker 1: So you and I to go back to London where
Speaker 1: we were.
Speaker 2: That's great. You know, I've gotten to know London a
Speaker 2: little bit better since you and I met up there,
Speaker 2: and you were with me when the hotel caught fire, right,
Speaker 2: that was dramatic.
Speaker 1: I don't know was it that dramatic? I can't remember
Speaker 1: was it really? I guess it was.
Speaker 2: You had the fire engines coming, they had their homeland
Speaker 2: the equivalent of their homeland security people showing up being honest, like,
Speaker 2: are we dealing with a terrorist act here? You know
Speaker 2: which over in London. That's that's something. But then we
Speaker 2: all end up petting to a bar and waiting the
Speaker 2: fire out.
Speaker 1: It was a pub, but yes, that's exactly what.
Speaker 2: We same thing. Speaking of which, I got my bourbon
Speaker 2: for this episode, so.
Speaker 1: Oh you did? You did your American bourbon for this
Speaker 1: very British story.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, they need to have more more bourbon
Speaker 2: over in London. There's too much Scotch.
Speaker 1: I can't even get into the difference because I'm clueless
Speaker 1: about the difference and frankly not that interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you don't like bourbon, you would struggle with
Speaker 2: Scotch at all likelihood.
Speaker 1: I struggle with all hard liquor. They're not my friends
Speaker 1: for sure. Okay, Well, I'm going to get a cider
Speaker 1: and we're going to head to London and let me
Speaker 1: set the scene. We are in nineteen twenty two UK,
Speaker 1: and this is a story about a couple and their
Speaker 1: relationship and kind of what ends up happening, and the
Speaker 1: police really trying to piece some things together. It's just
Speaker 1: after midnight. It's Wednesday, October fourth, nineteen twenty two, and
Speaker 1: there's a young married couple named Edith and Percy Thompson.
Speaker 1: You gotta love a good Percy. We don't get a
Speaker 1: lot of Percy's here in the United States, I think, right.
Speaker 2: No, you know, I can think of one football player
Speaker 2: Minnesota Viking, Percy Harvin. Okay, that's probably the only purse. No,
Speaker 2: I can think of somebody in high school. I think
Speaker 2: I was also Percy.
Speaker 1: Okay, very old school name, or at least in the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: I think it would be ye.
Speaker 1: So Edith and Percy are walking home from a trains
Speaker 1: to their house in the London suburb of Ilford after
Speaker 1: an evening out of the theater. You know, they're pretty
Speaker 1: close in age. Edith is twenty eight and Percy is
Speaker 1: thirty three. So getting right to the incident, here witnesses
Speaker 1: here a woman's scream and she says, according to some witnesses,
Speaker 1: she says, oh dear, what should I do? My husband
Speaker 1: has fallen and cut his head. And they also then
Speaker 1: hear the sound of vomiting. If we take this at
Speaker 1: face value, I don't think we've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: What happens to your body to trigger vomiting when you've
Speaker 1: had some kind of a head injury. What is that exactly?
Speaker 2: You're really testing my medical knowledge on this question. It's
Speaker 2: I think, you know, when you start talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: that nauseous feeling, I think there's a lot of things
Speaker 2: that could cause that. You know, first of course, maybe
Speaker 2: a brain injury, traumatic brain injury, but also you know,
Speaker 2: there's weird things like with the cranial nerves, like like
Speaker 2: there's a vagual nerve reflex where you can have all
Speaker 2: sorts of different types of reactions to injury, whether it
Speaker 2: be like to your neck, and that's something where the
Speaker 2: medical evaluation would have to consider all sorts of different
Speaker 2: things for this symptom. You know, it's if it truly
Speaker 2: is a result of this traumatic you know, this fall
Speaker 2: where it's at least significant enough that there's a laceration
Speaker 2: on the scalp and you've got you know, this vomiting
Speaker 2: that's occurring pretty quickly afterwards.
Speaker 1: Okay, so sorry for testing your medical knowledge. Ball. We'll
Speaker 1: see what comes of this though. Yeah, I understand, and
Speaker 1: you know. So they hear the sound of vomiting. Edith
Speaker 1: rushes to find some people to come to help, and
Speaker 1: she finds two people who have also been walking back
Speaker 1: from this train around midnight. She says, come quickly. She says,
Speaker 1: her husband's blood is all over her. And they get
Speaker 1: back to Percy. He's laying the ground, he is bleeding heavily,
Speaker 1: and one of them runs to get a nearby doctor.
Speaker 1: So the street is very dark, so I would assume
Speaker 1: no street lights. One of the people who's come back
Speaker 1: to help strike a match, and the only thing they
Speaker 1: could really see is that Percy looks dead and there's
Speaker 1: a large amount of blood on the ground around him.
Speaker 1: A doctor gets to the scene about twelve forty am,
Speaker 1: so this is, you know, thirty forty minutes afterwards, and
Speaker 1: he says, this is interesting, Percy has appeared to be
Speaker 1: dead for about ten minutes. So I looked it up.
Speaker 1: The nineteen twenties. They just said rigor and body temperature
Speaker 1: were used to determine time of death. Ten minutes seems
Speaker 1: pretty specific. How would he know that? Is that based
Speaker 1: on body tibe? What was it? What is that?
Speaker 2: No, ten minutes. There isn't going to be anything that
Speaker 2: would indicate that short duration of time. There's just no
Speaker 2: way that doctor would be able to say he's been
Speaker 2: dead ten minutes. Weird, you know. Of course, back back
Speaker 2: in the day, you know, liver temperature would be used,
Speaker 2: you know, but that's also been shown to be completely
Speaker 2: unreliable because there's so many variables that impact how fast
Speaker 2: a body cools. And then rigor takes longer for rigor
Speaker 2: to form than ten minutes. You're talking on the order
Speaker 2: of several hours. And that's in the smaller muscles, and
Speaker 2: then it progresses into the larger muscles of the body.
Speaker 2: So I, yeah, I'm a little bit confused as to
Speaker 2: how this doctor is saying he's been dead ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really odd, but he confirms he's dead.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So at twelve fifty, ten minutes after that, Percy's body
Speaker 1: has been taken to the Ilford Mortuary and an ambulance
Speaker 1: and Edith is brought down to the police station. And
Speaker 1: the reason she's brought down is and she's hysterical, by
Speaker 1: the way, the reason she's brought down to the police
Speaker 1: station is that when an ambulance it comes and they
Speaker 1: start to look at Percy's body, it looks like there
Speaker 1: are cuts and not I just fell down and gashed
Speaker 1: my head. Cuts, like actual cuts on his body, Okay,
Speaker 1: which is alarming of course to you know, the doctors
Speaker 1: with the ambulance and then the police show up. So
Speaker 1: I have more information about that. We just know we
Speaker 1: have an hysterical wife who is saying her husband fell
Speaker 1: in hit his head, and then you've got a dead
Speaker 1: man who has been taken and he's in his early thirties.
Speaker 1: So the cuts, you want information about the cuts? Once
Speaker 1: they get all his clothes off and start examining him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are these cuts to his head? You know? Part
Speaker 2: of in listening to this is when you start dealing
Speaker 2: with like paramedics. You know, they're not forensic pathologists, and
Speaker 2: of course they've got exposure to a wide variety of different,
Speaker 2: you know, types of injury. But are they truly assessing
Speaker 2: the nature of this injurre Oftentimes people will think somebody
Speaker 2: has been cut and it's actually a laceration from a blow.
Speaker 2: It's the skin has been split. A pathologist knows how
Speaker 2: to diagnose the differences between an incision and laceration. So
Speaker 2: if these cuts are just about Percy's head, I would
Speaker 2: go are they lacerations? And do you have multiple blows
Speaker 2: occurring to his head? But now if you have what
Speaker 2: appear to be cuts to other parts of the body,
Speaker 2: that's inconsistent with what Edith said happened.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about inconsistencies. Let's go through this. So I
Speaker 1: had said before the doctor had said about fifteen cuts
Speaker 1: on his body. Okay, So when his clothes are removed,
Speaker 1: the corner says that all but three of the cuts
Speaker 1: are superficial. So most of the superficial cuts were on
Speaker 1: his face and on his Torso there are three deep
Speaker 1: cuts and here there right There's a cut measuring three
Speaker 1: and one quarter inches long on the inside of his forearm.
Speaker 1: There's a stab wound at the back of the neck
Speaker 1: two inches deep and one in a quarter inch wide,
Speaker 1: which was toward the side ending near the right ear.
Speaker 1: And there's a stab wound on the right side of
Speaker 1: the throat which was one inch long and two and
Speaker 1: a quarter inches deep. This cut penetrated both the carotted
Speaker 1: artery and the jugular vein. So those are his injuries.
Speaker 2: What do you think homicide?
Speaker 1: Is that your expert opinion? Homicide?
Speaker 2: You know, the twelve roughly twelve superficial cuts to the
Speaker 2: face and torso, you know, it appears that would tend
Speaker 2: to suggest that you have a sharp edged weapon, and
Speaker 2: the superficial nature. I'm not sure why those are just
Speaker 2: superficial unless there's actually I could see a struggle between
Speaker 2: Percy and the offender and the knife is just not
Speaker 2: getting close enough to cause deeper cuts to the face
Speaker 2: or torso area. The deep and eat very long incision
Speaker 2: to his forearm that is entirely consistent with a type
Speaker 2: of defensive injury, as Percy's trying to ward off a knife.
Speaker 2: Unless the knife just happens to cut, you know, just
Speaker 2: randomly cut hit his forearm. But then when you have
Speaker 2: the stab to the back of the neck and the
Speaker 2: stab to the right throat, you know, obviously this is
Speaker 2: a in all likelihood an intentional act to kill eat.
Speaker 2: A story is completely wrong, just completely wrong. So what
Speaker 2: the hell's going on?
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you before you get all on
Speaker 1: top of the Edith here, let me tell you more
Speaker 1: information about the blood boy. You target people so early
Speaker 1: polls for Edith. Okay, let me tell you what. The
Speaker 1: police they go back after they get all this information,
Speaker 1: they go back to the crime scene. Because we have
Speaker 1: real police officers, thank goodness, in London in nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about like the Bow Street Runners or
Speaker 1: this is not that long ago. So we have an
Speaker 1: organized police force, the Metropolitan Police. So they go back
Speaker 1: to the street corner to figure out what happened. I
Speaker 1: can't emphasize this enough. It's very dark, you know, there's
Speaker 1: just no lamps anywhere. It's three in the morning, and
Speaker 1: they can see now using torches flashlights that the coverage
Speaker 1: of the bleeding. There's a trail of blood about forty
Speaker 1: four feet long. I mean, I know, I talk to
Speaker 1: you sometimes about distance and me being confused by distance,
Speaker 1: But forty four feet seems like a long distance to
Speaker 1: me from the street corner up the road.
Speaker 2: So Percy's got some significant bleeding injuries the forearm and
Speaker 2: the neck wounds right, and the superficial cuts may or
Speaker 2: may not be significantly bleeding. So is this, you know,
Speaker 2: Percy after being stabbed, stumbling and falling. Is this the
Speaker 2: offender during a stab cutting himself and you know, running away?
Speaker 2: So that's, you know what I'm tossing around in my
Speaker 2: head right now and waiting to hear more information about this.
Speaker 1: It looks like he's trying to get home because the
Speaker 1: end of this trail is about one hundred yards from
Speaker 1: his house, which is at forty one Kensington Gardens. It's
Speaker 1: a Victorian townhouse. So what they're saying is that there's
Speaker 1: this trail forty four feet long from the street corner
Speaker 1: up the road, and it starts and stops pooling about
Speaker 1: every three feet, So I think exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Then at the end of the trail there's a big puddle,
Speaker 1: and that's where they think he was stabbed in the throat.
Speaker 1: So tell me if this is something they could really know.
Speaker 1: They said, it looks like the blood spurted out in
Speaker 1: a six foot arc six feet and then nearby at
Speaker 1: the garden wall he was found slumped against. There's more blood,
Speaker 1: including a puddle, which is the vomiting that they think
Speaker 1: people heard after the cut to his throat began to
Speaker 1: fill his stomach with blood. Okay, does that all make
Speaker 1: it to you? Six foot arc?
Speaker 2: Gosh, yeah, you know there's because you have the stab
Speaker 2: wound that goes through the carotid artery. When the heart
Speaker 2: is still beating, of course, there's pressure within the arterial system,
Speaker 2: and when there is a cut a breach in an artery,
Speaker 2: if circumstances are right, when the heart beats the next time,
Speaker 2: the blood instead of going through the artery, sprays out
Speaker 2: of the artery. And so this is what we call
Speaker 2: it an arterial spurt. And so this arcing pattern might
Speaker 2: suggest that that's what that is. It also could be
Speaker 2: something like with this forearm injury, if he's got the
Speaker 2: significant bleeding from his forearm, him moving his arm is
Speaker 2: going to cause a cast off what we call a
Speaker 2: cast off pattern, and that also could potentially look like
Speaker 2: this arct pattern just depending on his movement.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, this just sounds like a nightmare. They
Speaker 1: say the attack began at Belgrave Road, which is where
Speaker 1: they were, and you know, like I said, it was
Speaker 1: about ended about one hundred yards from the house. They
Speaker 1: said that the couple had followed Belgrave Road from the
Speaker 1: train station and then they were about to turn on
Speaker 1: to Kensington Gardens. So again really dark area. And the
Speaker 1: house is in an area that has front gardens, which
Speaker 1: I love. They have little walls, some of them have hedges,
Speaker 1: great places to hide, and the hedges have a little
Speaker 1: cutout so that you can kind of like somebody could
Speaker 1: squat down. And it looks like the police are saying
Speaker 1: whoever attacked Percy waited in one of these little sort
Speaker 1: of like alcove cut out things at a house on
Speaker 1: Belgrave Road and then attacked him there. So then the
Speaker 1: police of course want to talk to Edith. So now
Speaker 1: we have to figure out if Edith's story makes sense.
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't fall down and hit his head.
Speaker 1: No he didn't. But it's dark, Paul, maybe she doesn't know. Maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's pitch black. They said they're.
Speaker 2: Walking together right now. Stabbings can be shockingly fast in
Speaker 2: terms of the amount of time it takes to commit.
Speaker 2: And you know when when people often see numerous stab
Speaker 2: wounds are thinking this was a prolonged attack. Well, just
Speaker 2: watch a jail shanking. You know, the surveillance cameras pick
Speaker 2: up the victim being approached and next thing you know,
Speaker 2: ten stab wounds are done in a blink of an eye.
Speaker 2: I think about Edith's statement, It's like, well, is it
Speaker 2: possible that you know, at a certain point, you know,
Speaker 2: an offender could have come up and very quickly attack
Speaker 2: Percy with a knife and Edith not be aware that
Speaker 2: this is happening. I wantn't rule out that possibility, considering
Speaker 2: how you've stated that this is a very dark alley
Speaker 2: and then Percy the blood trail with you know, in
Speaker 2: all likelihood, after this arct pattern, you're going to have
Speaker 2: a lot of drip pattern. And then you say there's
Speaker 2: small blood pools when he's pausing, and now you have
Speaker 2: bleeding injuries that are stationary over this location for a
Speaker 2: period of time because he suffered a mortal injury, right,
Speaker 2: he is slowly bleeding out as he's struggling to get home.
Speaker 2: How does Edith not really observe that aspect of Percy's movements.
Speaker 2: Now at the very end, if he collapses, then her
Speaker 2: statement of yeah, he fell down and hit his head
Speaker 2: is possibly an accurate statement. You mentioned at the beginning
Speaker 2: that there is vomiting. Was that Percy vomiting or was
Speaker 2: that Edith vomiting?
Speaker 1: Well, the police that gets him because of there's blood
Speaker 1: all in it, but don't know, we'll see if we
Speaker 1: get more information about that. So they were saying blood
Speaker 1: was going seeping into his stomach and that was causing
Speaker 1: his vomiting. It just seems awful.
Speaker 2: What some of these victims experience is horrific in terms
Speaker 2: of lungs filling up with blood there you know, every
Speaker 2: time they're trying to breathe, you know, they're expiring blood
Speaker 2: and they're trying to suck in air and they you know,
Speaker 2: it's imagine how miserable that would be in the last
Speaker 2: moments of your life.
Speaker 1: It's awful. Well, let me tell you as we continue on.
Speaker 1: So this is Edith, this is Edith's story to hang
Speaker 1: on tight. It's interesting. So the very early morning hours,
Speaker 1: the police take her to her house and they want
Speaker 1: to get her story about what she saw that night,
Speaker 1: she appears really shaken, She's dazed. Her clothing is caked
Speaker 1: with blood. It's all over her, all over her handbag,
Speaker 1: all over the contents inside the handbag, which the police
Speaker 1: look inside, you know, just in case, but there's nothing
Speaker 1: in there, but everything in there has blood all over.
Speaker 1: So Edith says to the officer who walks her initially
Speaker 1: to the house, they're going to blame me for this. Uh,
Speaker 1: I would think, yes, of course, They're like, you're the
Speaker 1: only person in your story. Doesn't make any sense. But
Speaker 1: she says that immediately, and then she talks about what
Speaker 1: her side of the story is. So what do you
Speaker 1: think so far?
Speaker 2: Well, I think because the just the huge inconsistency between
Speaker 2: what she said happened and what they're finding truly happened
Speaker 2: to Percy. It's now they have to get to the
Speaker 2: bottom of why is she so wrong, you know? And
Speaker 2: is this an intentional thing that she's saying to mislead
Speaker 2: police or is there a true explanation for how wrong
Speaker 2: she is, you know? And that's what you have to
Speaker 2: kind of tease out from her statements.
Speaker 1: Okay, so she's covered in blood. Everything that she has
Speaker 1: is covered in blood. She says, they're going to blame
Speaker 1: me for this. She says to the officer walking her home,
Speaker 1: we were just coming home from the theater and walking along.
Speaker 1: My husband said, oh, then fell against me. I said,
Speaker 1: bear up, thinking that he had had one of his attacks.
Speaker 1: She says that he has heart issues and I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's an arrhythmia or what that means, but
Speaker 1: sometimes he'll sort of like you know, freeze up or fall,
Speaker 1: but he always recovers. And she basically said, suck it,
Speaker 1: it's fine. She said that we walked a little further,
Speaker 1: he fell against the wall and slid to the ground.
Speaker 1: She said that he would recover from these little attacks
Speaker 1: without getting any medical attention from a doctor. But of
Speaker 1: course the police in their heads say this makes no sense,
Speaker 1: and the officer doesn't say anything and just listens to her,
Speaker 1: essentially because they know there's blood everywhere, so there's more
Speaker 1: suspicion of course around Edith. And she makes another statement,
Speaker 1: and this is one where she's now picking up on
Speaker 1: the fact that the bleeding is an important part of
Speaker 1: this story and she needs to address the bleeding. She says,
Speaker 1: we were coming along Belgrave Road, just past the corner
Speaker 1: of Inslee Gardens, and I heard him say oh, and
Speaker 1: he fell against me. I put out my arms to
Speaker 1: save him and found blood, which I thought was coming
Speaker 1: from his mouth. I tried to help him up. He
Speaker 1: staggered for several yards toward Kensington Gardens and then fell
Speaker 1: against the wall and slid down. He did not speak
Speaker 1: to me. I cannot say if I spoke to him.
Speaker 1: I felt him, found his clothing wet with blood. He
Speaker 1: never moved after he fell. And then she says, we
Speaker 1: had no quarrel on the way. We were quite happy
Speaker 1: you together. Immediately I saw blood, I ran across the
Speaker 1: street to the doctors. I appealed to a lady and
Speaker 1: a gentleman who were passing, and the gentleman also went
Speaker 1: to the doctors. The doctor came and told me my
Speaker 1: husband was dead. Just before he fell down, I was
Speaker 1: walking on his right hand side, on the inside of
Speaker 1: the pavement, nearest the wall. We were side by side.
Speaker 1: I did not see anybody about at the time. My
Speaker 1: husband and I were talking about going to a dance.
Speaker 1: All of that information kind of all in one statement,
Speaker 1: which again seems odd. What do you think about all that?
Speaker 2: Well, believe it or not. I can see where some
Speaker 2: of what Edith is saying could line up really. Percy
Speaker 2: walking and he goes, oh, you know, is he being
Speaker 2: stabbed in the neck? Right? Most people, I shouldn't say
Speaker 2: most people. I actually talked to a stabbing victim who
Speaker 2: was a friend of my first wife, and he had
Speaker 2: been out walking and got basically robbed and stabbed. He
Speaker 2: had no idea he had been stabbed. Oh ye, he said,
Speaker 2: it felt like punches. And this has to do with
Speaker 2: your internal organs. The pain nerves aren't set up to
Speaker 2: register like cutting injuries. They're set up to register like expansion. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know. That's why when you get really bloated, it
Speaker 2: can really hurt. So Percy could have been stabbed in
Speaker 2: the neck not realize he had been stabbed. But he's,
Speaker 2: you know, receiving what would ultimately be a fatal injury
Speaker 2: with the jugular and crowded being severed on one side
Speaker 2: of his neck. That aspect, if it truly, is just
Speaker 2: somebody pops out from the shadows and stabs Percy and
Speaker 2: somehow Edith doesn't see that. That is I think plausible.
Speaker 2: But she has twelve superficial incisive injuries to his face
Speaker 2: and torso you know, he has a large, incisive injury
Speaker 2: to his forearm. You know, it seems like there's a
Speaker 2: little bit more prolonged interaction between the stabber and Percy
Speaker 2: that I still have a hard time seeing Edith not,
Speaker 2: you know, at least observing some aspect of that interaction.
Speaker 1: That's going to be important for us to establish with
Speaker 1: the story. I think, how much do we think that
Speaker 1: Edith knew? So you're saying that there is some sort
Speaker 1: of like possibility that Edith might not know what's going on.
Speaker 1: You're saying that her story is more plausible than it
Speaker 1: was before, but we're not saying we believe her one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still struggling to correlate Edith's lack of observing
Speaker 2: Percy having an interaction with somebody that is stabbing him
Speaker 2: for the amount of injuries that he has.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Fifteen of Edith's statement is, you know she's talking about
Speaker 2: at certain points like Percy ends up slumping down, you know,
Speaker 2: is that location consistent with the blood trail? You know,
Speaker 2: because she's not going to know the blood patterns at
Speaker 2: this scene. You know, she may observe blood, but she
Speaker 2: doesn't have the expertise to actually know what what the
Speaker 2: blood patterns mean. So you know, she's saying, Percy slumps
Speaker 2: down at a certain location. Okay, now do I have
Speaker 2: a drip pattern there? Do I have pooled blood at
Speaker 2: that location that would support it, would corroborate Edith's statement?
Speaker 2: Doesn't sound like they followed through with that type of assessment.
Speaker 2: Edith having blood all over her as well as on
Speaker 2: items within her purse, is that what you had indicated? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 2: So of course, now there has to be a question
Speaker 2: as to Okay, how did she interact with Percy after
Speaker 2: he's received bleeding injuries? Is there you know, because a
Speaker 2: loved one, you're going to go up and you're possibly
Speaker 2: going to be touched, hugging, you know, blood is on
Speaker 2: your hands. You're diving into your purse to see if
Speaker 2: there's anything that you know could help you know the situation.
Speaker 2: You know, that's where doing a proper interview is so critical.
Speaker 2: Does she have an explanation for the types of blood
Speaker 2: patterns and the locations of the blood patterns that are
Speaker 2: on her person?
Speaker 1: Well, there's more information, so let's let's go through it.
Speaker 2: Of course there is.
Speaker 1: Okay, now the police who have talked to Edith and
Speaker 1: gotten her wacky story. I want to go back to
Speaker 1: the scene now that the sun is up and they
Speaker 1: can actually see. As the sun rises on Wednesday, the
Speaker 1: press of course descends and I'm a contaminated area. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I don't think they had yellow tape. At that
Speaker 1: point they are looking at the bloody pavement on Belgrave Road,
Speaker 1: and the investigators really start looking more at the Thompson's
Speaker 1: and who they are. So this is what we know.
Speaker 1: Edith had grown up in East London, in the suburbs
Speaker 1: of East London, and she is the oldest of five children.
Speaker 1: After school, she moved to London to work for a
Speaker 1: wholesale hat shop called Carlton and Pryor. Eventually she rose
Speaker 1: through the ranks to become the chief buyer at the company,
Speaker 1: which is a huge deal. In nineteen sixteen, she marries
Speaker 1: Percy and they buy a house in the London suburb
Speaker 1: of Ilford, and Edith keeps working and she actually makes
Speaker 1: more money than Percy does. This is kind of unconventional,
Speaker 1: but this is, you know, the way women in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, you know, are starting to move forward in careers.
Speaker 1: She likes to go out to London's hotels and dance halls,
Speaker 1: and you know she likes to spend money, and she
Speaker 1: likes to spend evenings at the theater in the cinema.
Speaker 1: This is a couple who is close to a young
Speaker 1: man named Fred Bywaters. He's twenty and he had been
Speaker 1: a schoolmate of one of Edith's younger siblings. So Fred
Speaker 1: is twenty and Edith is twenty eight, Percy is thirty three.
Speaker 1: Just so we know where everybody's ages are here, at
Speaker 1: least three people become friends. But Fred had become close
Speaker 1: with Percy and Edith and had spent some time living
Speaker 1: with them, and I'm sure Percy must have looked at
Speaker 1: him as sort of like a little brother. And Percy's
Speaker 1: brother is the one who actually tells police that they
Speaker 1: need to talk to Fred to get some more information.
Speaker 1: You probably know where this is heading, because you know,
Speaker 1: you have a couple and an attractive young woman and
Speaker 1: you know younger man who moves in. I feel like
Speaker 1: we've done this story four or five different times. Police
Speaker 1: find out fairly quickly that Edith and Fred had been
Speaker 1: sleeping together and they have been for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: From when Fred was eighteen and Edith was in her
Speaker 1: mid twenties. And when police searched the room that Fred
Speaker 1: used to live in, they find a love letter from Edith.
Speaker 1: They essentially, you know, start putting some pieces together here
Speaker 1: and again, I'm sure you know where this is heading.
Speaker 1: The accusations that you know, Fred and or Edith did
Speaker 1: this to get Percy out of the picture and why,
Speaker 1: And that is one question is if that is the case,
Speaker 1: who knew what and who did what? In a couple
Speaker 1: who is under suspicion at this point.
Speaker 2: Well, it's naturally something that has to be looked into,
Speaker 2: you know, because we have seen these lover triangles that
Speaker 2: is a motive for homicide, But there's plenty of you know,
Speaker 2: these scenarios where you'd never have any type of issue,
Speaker 2: you know, but you just have to explore Fred. Where
Speaker 2: was Fred that night? You know, because as I was listening,
Speaker 2: you know, and evaluating the information out at the crime scene,
Speaker 2: I was thinking, yeah, this sounds like potentially an ambush
Speaker 2: on Percy. But with Edith's inconsistent statements to what happened,
Speaker 2: suggests that this may be something that she arranged or well,
Speaker 2: actually that's where she understood what was likely going to
Speaker 2: ha happened, and.
Speaker 1: That is going to be a big question because the
Speaker 1: death penalty is in play here in the UK in
Speaker 1: this time period, so that'll be important. We have had
Speaker 1: a couple of different stories involving couples. One in particular,
Speaker 1: I remember a couple. It was a man and a
Speaker 1: woman having an affair. Do you remember this? And the
Speaker 1: intended victim had been he was a real jerk. He
Speaker 1: was like the head of a gambling hall, and he
Speaker 1: had already been shot twice in the past, you know,
Speaker 1: I think he still had a bullet in his body.
Speaker 1: People have been trying to kill him, and he finally dies,
Speaker 1: but they could not figure out who did it. It
Speaker 1: was like she poisoned him and the lover shot him
Speaker 1: or beat him with a baton. I can't remember which one,
Speaker 1: and they could not prove which were the what was
Speaker 1: the thing that killed him? And so both of them
Speaker 1: essentially got like attempted murder and didn't serve very much
Speaker 1: time at all. So I find that confusing. I guess
Speaker 1: that is you actually have to know who actually did
Speaker 1: the killing killing to charge with first degree murder. I
Speaker 1: didn't think that was the case. Oh that was a
Speaker 1: big eye roll.
Speaker 2: Well, because you know this is now getting to where,
Speaker 2: you know, when you start getting into kind of the
Speaker 2: weeds on the elements of the crime and different das,
Speaker 2: Some das are much more aggressive than others in terms
Speaker 2: of I can prove this case. You know, now, when
Speaker 2: you have a scenario where let's say you have two
Speaker 2: that you think are involved, but you don't know which
Speaker 2: one actually inflicted the fatal injuries, I can see where
Speaker 2: there would be a DA that will go, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: charging both of them. You know, there's enough proof for
Speaker 2: both of them, and possibly another DA going you keep investigating,
Speaker 2: you know it's not clear. I want something clear, you know,
Speaker 2: to take in front of a jury.
Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you that police in London in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two are very alarmed by the discovery of Fred.
Speaker 1: The way this goes is in intervening two years when
Speaker 1: Fred and Edith starting to have an affair. It sounds
Speaker 1: like Percy doesn't know Fred rented a room from them.
Speaker 1: He was in between jobs as a storekeeper on ships.
Speaker 1: Sometime in the year leading up to Percy's murder. Percy
Speaker 1: had evicted Fred because he suspected that Fred and Edith
Speaker 1: were having an affair. Fred says when the police interviewed
Speaker 1: him that on at least one occasion Percy had hit
Speaker 1: Edith in front of Fred, and despite this, Fred and
Speaker 1: Edith continued to see each other at hotels after Fred
Speaker 1: was evicted, and police get a lot of this information
Speaker 1: also from the tenant. So there's a female tenant who
Speaker 1: moved into the extra room once Fred moved out, and
Speaker 1: she confirmed this. She said, yeah, Percy hit Edith and
Speaker 1: there was definitely arguments over Fred. So the police tracked
Speaker 1: Fred down and he is, as I said, he worked
Speaker 1: as a storekeeper on ship, so he's had a job.
Speaker 1: He has a job on the S s Morea, which
Speaker 1: is a ship he's supposed to be on and it's
Speaker 1: going to set sail pretty much now, and it's docked
Speaker 1: at Tilbury, which is at the mouth of the Thames River.
Speaker 1: They find a lock box in his cabin and there's
Speaker 1: love letters. So here's kind of the question that we have.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear that somebody killed Percy Thompson.
Speaker 1: I think it's clear that it's probably either Edith or
Speaker 1: Fred or both. Do we agree on that so far?
Speaker 2: I think that's most likely scenario.
Speaker 1: Yes, So the question will be important in that what
Speaker 1: evidence do we have, like real evidence going forward that
Speaker 1: both were involved, because they're both being focused on at
Speaker 1: this point. And you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: rumblings about wrongful convictions, and I'll tell you that this
Speaker 1: case is one of the cases that potentially led to
Speaker 1: the abolishment of the death penalty in the UK. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we'll see. Okay, So they find this lock box.
Speaker 1: There are love letters in the lock box, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like Edith in one of these letters is alluding
Speaker 1: to an attempted poisoning of Percy. She said in a
Speaker 1: kind of an accusatory manner. It says, sounds like to Fred,
Speaker 1: she writes, Fred, you said it was enough for an elephant,
Speaker 1: meaning to kill an elephant, I to I mean, I
Speaker 1: see this all the time. Being a poisoner is not
Speaker 1: that easy. You really have to know what you're shaking
Speaker 1: your head, you can know what you're doing, I mean,
Speaker 1: not anybody. It's just so she said, basically, you know,
Speaker 1: you messed up your dosage. It didn't work. It sounds
Speaker 1: like they've been plotting, or at least she's been plotting this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is obviously a major clue, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of pointing the finger at both Edith and Fred
Speaker 2: in terms of what happened to Percy that night, kind
Speaker 2: of wondering is her life insurance policy on Percy?
Speaker 1: I have not seen that that there is a life
Speaker 1: insurance policy, but it does sound like as things kind
Speaker 1: of go forward, she is pretty miserable with him and
Speaker 1: wants to be out of that relationship. Not that I
Speaker 1: have seen now, but that's definitely a possibility. They find
Speaker 1: also in this cabin that Fred's overcoat is there, and
Speaker 1: it is also caked with blood. It's not a rocket
Speaker 1: science to figure out it. I'm sure it's Percy's blood.
Speaker 1: So this is more hard evidence. So Fred is clearly
Speaker 1: at least there, if not the one holding this knife,
Speaker 1: I assume, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so of course in this day and age,
Speaker 2: we have to show that that's Percy's blood. Yeah. Was
Speaker 2: Fred given an opportunity to explain where that blood came from?
Speaker 2: And typically they'll make up something you know, I ran
Speaker 2: over an animal, or you.
Speaker 1: Know, I'm a butcher, something like.
Speaker 2: That, the butchers. So I'm assuming if that if Fred
Speaker 2: has a coat that has Percy's blood on it. Then
Speaker 2: Fred is out there at the homicide scene. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: likely is the one that is got the knife. Yep.
Speaker 1: Okay, now this is interesting and you have to tell
Speaker 1: me the morals about this. Okay. So it's now Thursday, Thursday,
Speaker 1: and Edith is already being held in the matron's quarters
Speaker 1: of a local jail where all the ladies are, and
Speaker 1: Fred is brought to the same building. The police decide
Speaker 1: to walk them past each other to see how they're
Speaker 1: going to react, and Edith says, why did he do it?
Speaker 1: I didn't want him to do it? Oh god, oh god,
Speaker 1: what can I do? I must tell the truth? Roh
Speaker 1: for Fred sounds like.
Speaker 2: She didn't to make a big turn on him.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: That's why. That's why you know the police did that
Speaker 2: is they recognized, you know, they've got two people, and
Speaker 2: now it's well, how loyal are these two people to
Speaker 2: each other? And it turns out Edith jumped on the
Speaker 2: opportunity to start pointing a finger.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, listen to this. So she said, yes, I
Speaker 1: saw him attack Percy. I did not want him to
Speaker 1: do it, but she also didn't want to implicate him,
Speaker 1: and that's why you know she did and say something further.
Speaker 1: This seems risky though, because why believe her. I guess
Speaker 1: sty'll look at the evidence. But I know it's sort
Speaker 1: of like the first one who puts her hand up
Speaker 1: gets the deal. But this still seems pretty risky. She
Speaker 1: doesn't know what friend's going to say. Maybe Fred's gonna deny,
Speaker 1: who knows, you know, it just seems risky to me.
Speaker 2: Well, she's she's trying to preempt Fred. You know, when
Speaker 2: she sees that Fred is now you know, essentially if
Speaker 2: he's being taken into this this ward area, she sees
Speaker 2: that he's with law enforcement, what's he saying to law enforcement?
Speaker 2: You know, she's now her wheels are spinning going, uh, oh,
Speaker 2: he's going to dine me out. I bet her front
Speaker 2: information that minimizes my role in the homicide and maximizes
Speaker 2: Fred's role. You know. And so now this is self preservation.
Speaker 2: But just because she's the first one to offer information,
Speaker 2: that's not like, Okay, well she's going to get the deal.
Speaker 2: You know, now you take that information and now you're
Speaker 2: telling Fred Edith has just dimed you out. What do
Speaker 2: you have to say? And see what he says, you know,
Speaker 2: and this is that classic uh oh, the movie La
Speaker 2: Confidential where they have, you know, two different suspects and
Speaker 2: two different interview rooms. And I think it's Russell Crowe
Speaker 2: going back and forth or one are the investigators going
Speaker 2: back and forth and in essence playing each guy off
Speaker 2: of each other, and then next thing, you know, somebody's
Speaker 2: actually telling the truth, you know, And that's that's what
Speaker 2: I think these investigators were starting the process. And at
Speaker 2: least right now in the case, Edith is the one
Speaker 2: that took the bait.
Speaker 1: Well, let's see if Edith's telling the truth, you know,
Speaker 1: Fred is surprised to see her. Edith says what she says.
Speaker 1: Fred had initially said, I have no idea what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. I didn't have any part of this. They
Speaker 1: tell him, you know, that Edith had said I didn't
Speaker 1: want him to do it. This is what Fred says.
Speaker 1: Fred says, I killed him, and he says Edith had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I put some veracity on that. Okay, you know,
Speaker 2: now part of the concern. Let's say Fred is in
Speaker 2: love with Edith.
Speaker 1: And he's twenty paul.
Speaker 2: Just to remind us, so this is where you know,
Speaker 2: he is letting his emotions kind of dictate protecting Edith,
Speaker 2: So that would be my concern. But the fact that
Speaker 2: Fred is fronting I did it. I put some weight
Speaker 2: on that because he could have just denied, denied, or
Speaker 2: he could have said, she asked me to do this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And the fact that he didn't say she asked me
Speaker 2: to do this, it's like, Okay, well he's he's putting
Speaker 2: himself into this homicide. It's just now, is he protecting
Speaker 2: Edith because of his romantic relationship with her? Or is
Speaker 2: he telling the truth and he just acted alone and
Speaker 2: decided to eliminate the husband so he could have Edith
Speaker 2: all to himself.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the mystery. It is not who killed
Speaker 1: him necessarily, it's does Edith know what happens? So this
Speaker 1: is the statement. It's not too long, but I want
Speaker 1: to read the whole thing. Fred says, I wish to
Speaker 1: make a voluntary statement. Missus Edith Thompson was not aware
Speaker 1: of my movements. On Tuesday, third October, I left Maynor Park.
Speaker 1: So now I need you to make sure all everything
Speaker 1: he's saying lines up with the evidence. Paul I left
Speaker 1: Maynor Park at eleven PM and proceeded to Ilford. I
Speaker 1: waited for Missus Thompson and her husband. When near in
Speaker 1: Sleigh Gardens, I pushed her to one side, also pushing
Speaker 1: him further up the street. I said to him, you
Speaker 1: have got to separate from your wife. He said no,
Speaker 1: I said you will have to. We struggled. I took
Speaker 1: my knife from my pocket and we fought, and he
Speaker 1: got the worst of it. Missus Thompson must have been spellbound,
Speaker 1: for I saw nothing of her during the fight. I
Speaker 1: ran away through in Gardens, through Wanstead, Leytonston, Stratford, got
Speaker 1: a taxi at Strafford to Aldgate, walked from there to
Speaker 1: Finnchurch Street, got another taxi to Thornton Heath, then walked
Speaker 1: to Upper Norwood, arriving home about three am. The reason
Speaker 1: I fought with Thompson was because he never acted like
Speaker 1: a man to his wife. He always seemed several degrees
Speaker 1: lower than a snake. I loved her and I could
Speaker 1: not go on seeing her leading that life. I did
Speaker 1: not intend to kill him, I only meant to injure him.
Speaker 1: I gave him an opportunity of standing up to me
Speaker 1: as a man, but he wouldn't. I have had the
Speaker 1: knife sometime. It was a sheath knife. I threw it
Speaker 1: down a drain when I was running through en Sleigh gardens.
Speaker 1: And that is his statement. What do you think, does
Speaker 1: it ring true to you?
Speaker 2: I called bullshit?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, First.
Speaker 2: Kind of dissecting the statement, you know, he's an since
Speaker 2: pushing Edith away, minimizing her involvement in the homicide, and
Speaker 2: now he is confronting Percy, and he's bringing up an
Speaker 2: excuse as to why he feels he has to confront
Speaker 2: Percy to give Percy an opportunity to be a man.
Speaker 2: You know, So it's such a self serving. Look at me,
Speaker 2: I'm the man in this scenario. Now, this whole thing
Speaker 2: about his escape path and everything else that could be accurate.
Speaker 2: But part of assessing what Fred is doing here is, well,
Speaker 2: we have to take a look at the totality of
Speaker 2: the information that we have, and we have evidence that
Speaker 2: Edith and Fred conspired to poison Percy. Edith was fully aware.
Speaker 2: She's like the one that is actually administering the poison.
Speaker 2: Sounds like Fred's the one that told her this is
Speaker 2: what is going to work to kill your husband. So
Speaker 2: you have a prior act that the two were involved with.
Speaker 2: Then we have Percy and Edith walking home, right, they
Speaker 2: get off the train and they're walking home, and now
Speaker 2: I start to question as to well, did Fred know
Speaker 2: that ahead of time? How did he know that ahead
Speaker 2: of time?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did Edith tell him this is where we're going to
Speaker 2: be at And it just so happens that Fred finds
Speaker 2: what sounds like the perfect location to be able to
Speaker 2: jump out and ambush Percy.
Speaker 1: I think you're right, Paul, because Percy knew Fred. Obviously
Speaker 1: they had lived in the same, you know, apartment, So
Speaker 1: I guess you could say Fred was maybe stalking him
Speaker 1: and Edith didn't know. But he would have been spotted.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's twenty, he's not some CIA agent. He
Speaker 1: would have been spotted. So yes, I think you're probably right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, And then you know, part of what
Speaker 2: I'm kind of curious about, you know, how Fred is
Speaker 2: saying that him and Percy got into a physical fight,
Speaker 2: you know, and that that Percy got the worst of it. Well,
Speaker 2: was there any injuries on Fred? And do we have
Speaker 2: any information on that? It doesn't sound like there is.
Speaker 2: There's nothing significant on Fred, you know. And then I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, what you've got to stab to the back
Speaker 2: of the neck. You got to stab to the neck.
Speaker 2: This it sounds more akin to more of an ambush
Speaker 2: style attack. Fred lies and wait, you got the little
Speaker 2: cubbies if you will, along this route that the original
Speaker 2: investigators said, the offender likely weighted in one of these
Speaker 2: cubbies and he jumps out, stabs Percy and he probably
Speaker 2: runs off very quickly after that, and then Edith comes
Speaker 2: up with initially husband, you know, fell down and hit
Speaker 2: his head and that's why he's dead, possibly being naive
Speaker 2: to the types of physical evidence that law enforcement can
Speaker 2: use to discern. Oh no, this isn't a accident, this
Speaker 2: is actual homicide. He's got stab wounds, right, So I'm
Speaker 2: not buying Fred's statement. I think he is trying to
Speaker 2: prot Edith and he's trying to, you know, in essence,
Speaker 2: maximize his role. And again, twenty year old in love
Speaker 2: with the older woman, you know, I think that's what's
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, is there enough evidence he's confessed? She hasn't.
Speaker 1: Is there enough evidence to convict her of murder, which
Speaker 1: is a capital crime in England? Right now? Is there
Speaker 1: enough evidence for her?
Speaker 2: I'm going through my head trying to think about the
Speaker 2: various bits of information. There's definitely, I think proof that
Speaker 2: Edith was lying. She changes her statement from the early
Speaker 2: statement about Percy falling down to she's now seeing Percy
Speaker 2: being attacked. You know. I think it really does come
Speaker 2: down to whether or not there is sufficient evidence that
Speaker 2: would support that she arranged this homicide. She was an
Speaker 2: excessive to this homicide. Fred's the killer, He's one wielding
Speaker 2: the knife. But did Edith provide the information to Fred?
Speaker 2: Did she ask Fred to do this? And that one,
Speaker 2: I think is a much tougher sell with the information
Speaker 2: at hand. And this is where you know that those
Speaker 2: previous letters that the poisoning attempt, You know, is there
Speaker 2: a possibility, if that was even admissible, to be able
Speaker 2: to get the jury to convict her for some charge? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, almost like a murder for higher type of scenario.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, listen, nineteen twenty two, the police charge them
Speaker 1: both with first orge murder and they are both convicted
Speaker 1: in sentenced to death. Fred is stoic and he never
Speaker 1: implicates her, and she collapses and they are both hanged.
Speaker 1: In January of nineteen twenty three, a woman hanged over
Speaker 1: what I consider to be pretty shaddy evidence. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know there's stuff there, and I know there's a
Speaker 1: there there, but I don't know. I mean, put her
Speaker 1: in life in prison. I don't know. If this case
Speaker 1: makes me uncomfortable, and it is one of the reads.
Speaker 1: It's an important case in the UK because of the
Speaker 1: question of whether or not this woman should have been
Speaker 1: executed when there's a big question mark about whether she
Speaker 1: was involved at all. I think she probably was. I
Speaker 1: think you think she probably was. But legally is she responsible?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think you know, when she is not
Speaker 2: the one who's actually committing the murder and she's just
Speaker 2: asking for it to happen and possibly leading Percy to
Speaker 2: his death, you know there is criminal culpability there. But
Speaker 2: is it at the level of first degree murder with
Speaker 2: special circumstances. I'm not sure that there's a case there.
Speaker 1: I don't either. I mean, I think it's right and
Speaker 1: we don't talk about the death penalty and or feeling
Speaker 1: about it. But what a story. I know that it
Speaker 1: seemed like it was going to be pretty clear cut
Speaker 1: from the beginning. But the thing I think about with
Speaker 1: these kinds of stories are you know, there's a difference
Speaker 1: between what you know and what we can prove, and
Speaker 1: it makes me uncomfortable when there are cases where you know,
Speaker 1: you're so certain that somebody is guilty, and you know
Speaker 1: there's an enough evidence and they still get convicted. And
Speaker 1: it's like, well, okay, you know, am I going to
Speaker 1: get convicted on shotty evidence when I didn't do anything wrong?
Speaker 1: How many murderers are I've been let free? Or how
Speaker 1: many innocent people have been convicted when they shouldn't have been.
Speaker 1: And I think this is one of those cases where
Speaker 1: I just kind of go gosh. I mean, I need
Speaker 1: her to be punished, because I really do feel like
Speaker 1: she was involved. It just sounds like it. But executing
Speaker 1: someone on evidence like that just made me uncomfortable. And
Speaker 1: I like to make you uncomfortable, Paul, So I wanted
Speaker 1: to see how you were going to react to this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't feel uncomfortable in terms of the deployment
Speaker 2: of the death penalty. It's so swift in this case. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I personally do not feel that the evidence adds
Speaker 2: up to where she could even be charged with murder,
Speaker 2: you know, So that's where I think the sentencing is
Speaker 2: way off base with Edith. I do believe she is
Speaker 2: involved based on the totality of the information provided it
Speaker 2: does I can see where this case would be something
Speaker 2: where people would question the use of the death penalty
Speaker 2: and sometimes maybe the over use of it. And you
Speaker 2: can have just over time, you know, and we've seen
Speaker 2: with exonerations that have occurred with DNA, where you see
Speaker 2: truly innocent people convicted of, you know, really horrific crimes
Speaker 2: and even sentenced to death. And sometimes, you know, you
Speaker 2: have very very skilled prosecutors that can take circumstantial evidence
Speaker 2: and get a jury of twelve to convict even when
Speaker 2: the case is weak. But then that person is now
Speaker 2: convicted of you know, first degree murder with the you know,
Speaker 2: the special cirque and eligible for death. And it is scary,
Speaker 2: you know, from that perspective, we know that we've had
Speaker 2: innocent people executed in this country and over in the UK.
Speaker 2: At some point legislators over there recognize, you know what,
Speaker 2: we probably have to adjust our our sentencing structure to
Speaker 2: prevent people from being overcharged and losing their life.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, Paul, I think you should go and enjoy
Speaker 1: your bourbon, not Scotch, for sure.
Speaker 2: Because you hate Scotch.
Speaker 1: I bet you drink it if there was nothing else.
Speaker 2: But I you know, I can do it. I can
Speaker 2: do a poor Scotch. I like it. I like the PD.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what that means, but I'm
Speaker 1: assuming it's something that you enjoy. So that's good.
Speaker 2: Scott Scotch has like a smoky and imped because it,
Speaker 2: you know, it uses. I think it's the peaked out
Speaker 2: there and so it's a distinct flavor. But it's a
Speaker 2: very strong flavor. So I can do a single poor,
Speaker 2: but I have to go back to my bourbon.
Speaker 1: We'll go back to your burb and you might need
Speaker 1: a double for next week, but I'll give you a
Speaker 1: warning beforehand.
Speaker 2: Okay, as always, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Let's see you later, all right, take care. This has
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production for our sources and show
Speaker 1: notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa.
Speaker 2: Lilac, Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and
Speaker 2: Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Baried Bones.
Speaker 2: Pod Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a
Speaker 2: Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode
Speaker 2: the criminal mind, is available now, and
Speaker 1: Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life life solving America's
Speaker 1: cold Cases is also available now