WEBVTT - Lydia Sherman: Connecticut's 'Lucrezia Borgia' 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:12.719 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia, 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.600 where this season we're exploring the lives and motivations of 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.680 some of the most notorious lady poisoners in history. I'm 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.720 Holly Fry and I'm Maria Trumki, And in today's episode, 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.239 we're going to look at the life of Lydia Sherman, 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.200 who in total poisoned probably as many as three of 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.479 her husband's and more upsettingly, eight children before she was 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.559 convicted of second degree murder. So Lydia's span of crimes 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.600 actually ran from around it was right around the Civil War. 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.479 It was between about eighteen sixty three to the early 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.080 eighteen seventies. She was the first woman in the United 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:54.040 States to total up a double digit body count. That's 0:00:54.120 --> 0:01:03.000 quite a claim to fame. Yeah. So, Lydia was born 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.920 Lydia Danbury on Christmas even four in Burlington, New Jersey. 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.640 She was orphaned when her mother died just shy of 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.280 a year after her birth, and at that point she 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.120 was sent to live with her uncle, who was a 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.520 farmer named John Clay. Game. Why her uncle, your guess 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.160 is as good as ours. There is no record of 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.080 who her father was or why he himself did not 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:29.440 care for his infant daughter. By the age of sixteen, 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.240 um she left the farm as she went to live 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.160 with her brother in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and that's 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.360 where she began working as a seamstress. It was her 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.840 first job. And it was while she was living in 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:44.480 New Brunswick that Lydia became heavily involved with the Methodist Church. 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.680 And it was through the church that she met Edward Struck, 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.160 who was a widowed blacksmith and he was raising six 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:57.320 children alone. Lydia is described as charming. Descriptions of her 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.040 list her as slim and pretty, with dark hair and 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:04.960 blue eyes and porcelain skin. Smitten by her, it did 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.880 not take long for Edward, who was twenty years older 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.920 than her, to propose marriage and Lydia, who at the 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:15.840 time was only eighteen, accepted. So after they got married, 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.040 we don't know if they had a long courtship or not. 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.639 We do know that they got married. Edward and Lydia 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.600 moved to a middle class neighborhood in Harlem on d 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.640 Street in New York City, and they went on to 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:31.440 have eight children of their own. And for those keeping score, yes, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.919 that is in addition to the six children that Edward 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.840 had from his previous marriage, and that would be a 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:43.040 grand total of fourteen mouths to feed. That's a whole 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.760 lot of kids. Can you imagine the chaos? I cannot, 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:51.160 oh my gosh, haveing kids at home just to school 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:58.520 right now as chaotic cricketship. But after relocating, Lydia started 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.720 working as a housekeeper, and with so many children at home, 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.040 Edward decided that he was going to leave work as 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.560 a blacksmith and get a different job, so he became 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.280 a New York City police officer. So about six years 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.720 into this new line of work, though, Edward was accused 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.160 of cowardice on the job, and it was at the 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.880 scene of a hotel robbery in Manhattan, but other accounts 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.440 report that it might have been a barroom fight either way, 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.280 though regardless of which crime was being committed, he lost 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.520 his job and when this happened, he sank into a 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.800 very deep depression. With a husband refusing to leave their 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.720 home or get out of his bed, Lydia decided that 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.440 she needed to take matters into her own hands. And 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:49.720 you know what that means around here means boys. Then yeah. So, 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.880 according to her eventual confession, I know we're jumping ahead, 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.920 but we'll loop back around. Yes, Instead of getting Edward 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.520 medical care, and we should point out this was not 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.200 a time when things like depression were really treated with 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.360 any any sort of insight, she decided instead too and 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.320 we quote put him out of the way, as he 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.960 would never be any good. Yeah. So she did what 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:20.200 every I say, sarcastically caring wife does. She got herself 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.600 a bag of arsenic. And if it seems like we 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.880 talked about arsenic a lot around here, it's because we do. 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.720 For a very long time, it was really very easy 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.200 to acquire arsenic, and that's mainly because it was used 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.000 as a rat poison or like bed bugs or any 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.400 sort of ants insects that you had in your house. 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.120 In the nineteenth century in the United States, Lydia was 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.880 able to just get hers at the local drug store. So, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.159 twenty years into what had been a fairly uneventful marriage, 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.680 she mixed a thimbleful of the poisonous powder into her 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:59.600 husband's oatmeal. It took several hours of abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:05.120 ant convulsions before Edward passed away. Man, Poor Edward. But 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.679 she might not have thought things through so completely because 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.520 now that she had, and I'm using air quotes around 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:19.479 this folved her husband's depression, albeit not as most wives would. Uh, 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.480 Lydia realized she had another problem, and that was that 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.000 she had many children at home who were hungry, and 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.200 Edward had been the family's primary source of income. Not 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.080 a lot of consideration of like cause and effect here, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.600 probably pretty impetuous. Yeah, so let's look at the children's 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.560 situation for a moment. At this point, their eldest son, John, 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.160 who was sixteen, had a job. He had moved out 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.560 of the house, and in hindsight, that was probably the 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.400 luckiest thing he did in his life. I was imagining 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.320 poor John having his he's just forced, he hates his job. 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.880 He does this, but hey, he's still alive because he 0:05:55.000 --> 0:06:00.760 moved out. Uh yeah, good on your John. So they 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.400 also had a younger daughter named Josephine, and Josephine had 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.440 passed away years earlier from illness, so there was one 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.360 for Lydia, fewer mouth to feed. Uh. Their two year 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:16.680 old daughter. She contracted measles. But what's interesting about the 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.760 measles that she had was that she didn't actually die 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.560 from the symptoms that you would expect from that viral illness. 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:28.800 She died of the same symptoms as Edward. So Lydia 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.919 did what she thought was and again what she thought 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.080 was the humane and rational thing to do. Are you 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.280 ready for this, because it is, it's rough, and it's 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.279 hard to consider someone reaching this decision. Yes, But about 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:48.400 six weeks after edwards poisoning, Lydia poisoned her three youngest children. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.080 Those were Martha Ann, aged six, Edward Jr. Who was four, 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.120 and William, who was just nine months old. And she 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:00.200 did this all on the same day. So keeping I'm 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.960 here that while this is unfathomable to those of us 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.080 who are talking about it and listening, Lydia clearly saw 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.760 things very differently than the rest of us do. The 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.840 three youngest, she said in the eventual confession that we've 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.240 been talking about throughout this episode so far, were the 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.680 most burdensome in her opinion, and she said that they 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.160 were the three who would not be able to contribute 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:28.520 anything to the family. Now, you might be wondering how 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.000 come no one would notice such a thing going on? 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.840 Someone's husband dying, and a few months later, three children 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.880 in one day. This was a time in history when 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.440 it wasn't super strange for children to become ill and die, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.200 or have an accident and meet an unfortunate end. Childhood 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.640 mortality rates in the nineteenth century were quite grim, and 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.400 no one really raised an eyebrow when all of these 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:58.640 kids passed away. I feel like there's also probably a 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:00.560 numbers game, right, I don't know there were a lot 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.280 of kids over there. I feel the same way, like, 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.400 how can you keep track if you're not part of 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.200 the family who those fourteen children are unless you're close 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.160 to the family, right, But if you just lived on 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.360 the street, when your next door two houses down, I 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.800 wouldn't know. I'd be like, there's just kids, there's a 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.040 lot of kids. But now there weren't a lot of kids. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.440 Lydia had three remaining children to care for in her home. 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.800 So there was George, who was fourteen, who unfortunately contracted 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.120 lead poisoning from his job as a painter. Sick in bed, 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:38.160 his mother nursed him with tea laced with arsenic And 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:42.439 then there was Anne Eliza who was twelve and reported 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.360 they called her kind of a weak and sickly child. 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.680 She was never able to work to contribute to the family. 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.400 And at twelve, you know, whether she was a weaken 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.640 seekly child or not, I'm not surprised she wasn't contributing 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.600 to the family. But none of this helped her at 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:02.079 all to stay alive and Lydia's home. And then there 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.040 was their other daughter, also named Lydia, who was eighteen, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.560 and she worked as a retail clerk. But when Lydia, 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.960 the younger, fell ill with something as innocuous as what 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.280 is apparently a cold or a flu, her mother also 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.320 nursed her with tea poisoned with arsenic so, hating to 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:24.200 see each child as she, she would say, suffer, as 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.000 she confessed, Lydia thought that it was actually best to 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.800 instead poison them all. The death certificates, though, of many 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:37.160 of these children, listed a very not suspicious reason typhoid 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.520 fever was the cause of their death, which would have 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:44.280 been common at the time. Still living in New York City, 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.800 but now without the responsibility of caring for a number 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.880 of children and with no husband, Lydia convinced a sympathetic 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.040 doctor to hire her as a nurse. Was a job 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.240 she had for several years. We're going to take a 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.800 quick break for a word from our sta, sir, but 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.400 when we come back, we'll be talking about how the 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:18.680 now single and childless Lydia's life was going. Welcome back 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.480 to Criminalia. Let's get to talking about how Lydia was 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:27.480 almost investigated by the District Attorney's office but got really lucky. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.680 Now you'll remember, Edward was a widower before he married Lydia, 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.120 and he had several children before meeting her, and some 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:41.199 of Edward's children from his previous marriage were now adults. 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.000 They were all alive, and we presume, well, while this 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.800 was going on, Lydia's stepson, Cornelius, stepped forward because he 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.080 thought the number of deaths in such a short span 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:58.199 of time was really quite suspicious. Thank you, Cornelius, somebody 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:03.240 is raising a flag. Cornelia shared his concern about Lydia 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.760 with the District Attorney. Yet while the d A promised 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:11.679 an investigation, nothing happened. So this was the time of 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.280 Civil War in the United States. And when the war 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:18.400 ended in eighteen sixty five, Lydia was now forty one, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.600 and she was single, and she was childless, and she 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.920 took a job selling sewing machines. And it's this job 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.160 that she had that she met a man named John Curtis, 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:35.040 and John was especially impressed with Lydia. He found out 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.320 about her nursing skills and so he hired her to 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.800 do that job again. In eighteen sixty seven, she would 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.480 be caring for his elderly mother. Lydia moved from her 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.520 home in Harlem to his home in Stratford, Connecticut. Lydia 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.920 lived in Stratford, which is really small town that situated 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.760 along the Long Island Sound, and for just about eight 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.280 months she was there. That's when she met a man 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.920 named Dennis Hurlbert, who was a rich widower. And she 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.240 met him at the grocery store. A rich widower, you say, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.600 I know, right, so our Lydia, of course, as we 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.160 can see the pattern here, turned on her charm and 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:17.640 soon Dennis hired her as his housekeeper. And we presumed 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.080 she left her job caring for John Curtis's mother, and 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.120 we also presumed that his mother was still alive when 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.920 she left, but we don't have that information. So shortly thereafter, 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:35.480 Dennis proposed marriage. The pair married in eighteen sixty eight. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.520 After Lydia made sure that Dennis made her the sole 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.280 beneficiary in his will. Dennis, by the way, was eighty 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:48.640 years old, a rich widower who's also elderly. Right sadis 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.880 and so, which stinks because I bet Dennis loved her 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.480 just a little more into this marriage, Lydia noticed one 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.320 morning that Dennis's hands were a little shaky while he 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:04.160 was getting ready to go to church. Now, shaky hands 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.280 can be a symptom of a lot of different things, 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.400 everything from dehydration and anxiety to an early warning sign 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.600 of some neurological or degenerative condition like Parkinson's disease. In 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.280 my case, it's ten cups of coffee. I was about 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.000 to say, I have shaky hands all the time, but 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.840 I drink coffee all day, and that's maybe I might 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.840 be a little dehydrated, like I I please don't poison me. 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:30.000 I'll drink more water. I'll be home right. I'm not ailing, 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:34.720 I'm just caffinating. I'm just buzzing. But for Lydia, the 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.720 actual reason, whether it was dehydration or Parkinson's disese, didn't 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.040 matter at all. She took the whole shaky hands thing 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:46.000 as her cue to put Dennis out of his misery. 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:47.960 As we've been seeing, those are short of the words 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:52.240 that she likes to use. It took three excruciating, I 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:56.439 assume days for Dennis to die after he ate the 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:01.319 arsenic laced clam chowder that Lydia had prepared for him, 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.360 And so she inherited twenty thou dollars worth of real 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.800 estate and ten thousand dollars in cash. It's always a 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.120 little rough to convert money across time, but today that's 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.080 estimated to be worth about a hundred and sixty thousand dollars, 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.600 give or take. But it's definitely more than ten thousand dollars. 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.200 So she was now single, childless, and sitting pretty with 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.840 her hundred and sixty thousand dollars in cash and real estate. 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.040 But it was only eight weeks later, in eighteen seventy, 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:35.480 that Lydia met a mechanic. His name was Nelson Horatio Sherman. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.360 He went by Horatio. He lived in Derby, Connecticut, and 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.440 he was really all reports seemed to suggest, a really 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.160 well liked and generous guy. Her husband's all seemed like 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.520 very nice men. He was also a widower, and he 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.800 had four children of his own at home, and he 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:56.440 needed a housekeeper. Man enter Lydia. She's like, I can 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.080 do that job. She's like, I've been a housekeeper at 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.600 least eight times, said I can help you with the children. 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.280 So in the pattern that we're seeing, she's tired as 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.960 a housekeeper. But they ended up getting married just a 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:15.400 few weeks after she moved in, so it had only 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:17.680 been a little more than a year and a half 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.120 before he met Lydia that Horatio's wife had passed away. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.640 His eldest child was a son named Nelson, and he 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.800 was seventeen. His daughter Addie or possibly Aida, was fourteen, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:34.200 and a second son, Natty, was four. There was also 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.240 a toddler in the home, very young, named Frankie. And 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.240 he bets on who the first victim was. I'd love 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:43.400 to bet that it was for Ratio, but let's talk 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.880 about her Ratio for a minute, because he actually was 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.400 not the first victim. Hor Ratio liked to drink, and 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.160 he really liked to spend Lydia's money, and these are 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.640 two things that she did not really particularly like very 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.520 much at all. And one afternoon, while her Ratio had 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.840 been drinking, he started talking about how he felt terrible 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.200 that little Frankie had been recently unwell and he wished 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.280 there was something that he could do to make things 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.000 better for his toddler son. So this to Lydia was 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:19.440 like a hint or some kind of strange, poisonous, murderous nudge, 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.760 because she mixed a little arsenic into the baby's bottle 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.680 that night, and Frankie tied very quickly. Just the very 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.160 next month, Horatio's fourteen year old daughter fell ill with 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.240 the flu. Doctors were called, but there wasn't much anyone 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.440 could really do for the flu at the time except 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.760 wait it out. Unless you were Lydia, then you definitely 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.040 knew what to do. We're going to take a quick 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.680 break on that sober note for a word from one 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:50.960 of our sponsors, and when we returned, we were going 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.520 to talk about how Lydia poisoned the rest of the 0:16:54.560 --> 0:17:08.320 Sherman family. Welcome back to Criminalia. This is where it's 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.199 going to get super interesting, because Lydia is about to 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:16.880 make her fatal mistake. So Horatio, her husband, was naturally 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.520 heartbroken over the deaths of his children, and his drinking 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:25.560 began to worsen. Lydia not especially happy with his brandy drinking, 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.560 habits or the drinking binge that he had embarked upon 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.879 following the deaths of his children, decided she would spike 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.879 his bottle of brandy with arsenic. So we all know 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:42.159 where this is heading clearly. In eight the generally very 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.440 healthy Horatio suddenly became quite ill and the family doctor, 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.399 Dr jac Beardsley came to treat him, but during the 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:55.720 examination became really suspicious of his symptoms. When Horatio died, 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.360 Dr Beardsley asked Lydia if he could order an autopsy. 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:05.040 Truly amazingly, Lydia said yes to it. We're gonna talking 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.240 about this somewhere at the end. So her Ratio's organs 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.000 were sent to Yale for analysis, where Yale professor George 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.000 Frederick Barker found out that, yes, large quantities of arsenic 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.560 were in the remains of the body, and because of 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.560 those results, more bodies were exhumed, autopsies were performed, and 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.960 this happened for Dennis Hurlbert as well as Frankie and 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:33.760 Addie Sherman, and if you can all probably guess arsenic 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:38.080 was indeed found. So confronted with the evidence of poison, 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.040 it turned out there was no need to launch into 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:45.479 an interrogation because Lydia confessed to murdering every single one 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.760 of them, and she was apprehended on June seven in 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.960 eighteen seventy two. So at the time she was still 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.560 living in Connecticut. She was in New Brunswick, but authorities 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.320 moved her to New Haven to await her trial. And 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.320 while she did for her trial to begin, Lydia wrote 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.080 a book about her alleged crimes. The title of her 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.280 best selling confession is as long as her victim list. 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.159 It's crazy and we're going to do our best to 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:16.359 carry to the exclamation points of this title, which there 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:21.280 are more than fine. Which is the poison Fiend, life, 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.600 Crimes and conviction of Lydia Sherman, the modern Lucretia Borgia 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.119 recently tried in New Haven, Connecticut, for poisoning three husbands 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.880 and eight of her children. Her life in full, exciting 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:38.000 account of her trial, the fearful evidence, the most startling 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.679 and sensational series of crimes ever committed in this country. 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:47.399 Her conviction, it's quite a title. It's like the title 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.400 and then all the chapter headings, I know, like she's 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.240 like her conviction and then appendix. Um. So anyway, that 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:59.000 title aside. It was believed at the beginning of her 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:04.440 trial that Lydia probably poisoned about a dozen people then. 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:10.200 That included three husbands, Edward Struck, Dennis Halbert, and Horatio Sherman. 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:15.600 And it's also believed that she poisoned between five and 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.840 eight children, six of whom were her biological children, the 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.400 others being her stepchildren. It's more likely that it was eight, 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.360 possibly one or two more. It's really hard to know 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.240 because of these records. I also have many question marks 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.159 about her time as a nurse. I do too, I 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:36.240 have very many questions. Is a nurse, Yes, But when 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.200 she confessed, Lydia calmly explained that she only meant to 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.600 kill her ratios children. That's right, you're hearing it correctly. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.720 She confessed to poisoning four children, but the killing her 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:53.840 ratio himself was just an unfortunate accident. Her story was 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:58.159 that Horatio, who was often drunk, must have mistakenly mixed 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.040 that arsenic she kept in their home for controlling the 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:04.320 rat population into the brandy that he kept next to 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.760 his bed. I always like to mix a little poison 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.160 in with my Her story doesn't make anything Lydia's trial 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.520 began in April eighteen seventy two, and it only lasted 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.080 eight days. The tabloids, doing what they do best, called 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.040 it the Horror of the century. A newspaper headlines named 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:26.680 Lydia America's queen killer, the poison fiend, the modern day 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:31.480 Lucretia Borgia, and simply the Derby Poisoner. So the Derby 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.400 Poisoner really stuck as her nickname. But I actually personally 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:40.440 like the poison fiend. It's just my opinion, wasn't there. 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.520 So when Lydia appeared in court, she looked quite proper 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:50.000 and put together. She wore a black dress, a shawl, gloves, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.040 a hat with a thin veil, and in the courtroom, 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:59.760 despite having confessed too many murders, claims she was innocent 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.760 because again she thought she was being merciful. I'm guessing. 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:08.240 I yes, I believe though, So the jury faced with 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.919 an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting she in fact was 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.840 not innocent. Remember there was an exhamation in autopsy performed 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.440 with toxicology reports, right, So they convicted her of second 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.480 degree murder of her third husband, Horatio Sherman, and for 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.639 that second degree murder, conviction. She was sentenced to life 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:32.040 in prison. There is an interesting anecdote about Lydia's time 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.480 in prison. I thought this was crazy. It's a little bananas. 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.520 The reports go that about five years into her sentence, 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:43.520 she feigned an illness and escaped. And what's interesting is 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.560 she didn't escape and like go on the lamb and 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.679 assume a different identity. She actually just went back to 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.720 being Vidia. She took a job as a housekeeper to 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.520 a wealthy widower. However, she was taken back to her 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.440 prison cell about a week after escaping, and he survived. 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:02.520 The lucky man. Details on how she was identified and 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:05.440 brought back in her a little stamped, but a little bit, 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:07.840 but she did go back to her old neighborhood and 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:13.560 people will know you. Yeah. So, Lydia spent the rest 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:15.720 of her life in prison. She died of cancer at 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:19.000 the age of fifty three on May six, eight seventy eight, 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:23.960 in the Weathersfield State Prison in Weathersfield, Connecticut. So one 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:26.480 of the things that Holly and I were talking about 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.600 as we were putting this episode together is how, unlike 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:33.439 most of the women we've talked about this season, Lydia 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:38.560 is unlike Julia Agrippina, who poisoned for power, or Marie 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:42.760 Bernard who poisoned for frankly, just cold, hard cash. Lydia 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.800 didn't ever seem to poison for any particular reason at all, 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:51.200 except maybe our guest is to solve little problems in life, 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.879 like sick with a cold out of milk, just small 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:58.840 things that would happen in a household normally. Lydia's reaction 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:01.280 was clearly, we should kill the children. And this is, 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.560 as we all know, not a normal way to deal 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:07.920 with such offens in your life. And today Lydia would 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.119 have been given a mental health assessment as part of 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:13.800 her trial. But in nineteenth century America, diagnosis and care 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:16.680 for mental illness was pretty much non existent, and we 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:19.800 talked about her husband's depression, writing something that was just 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:22.720 never addressed exactly. There were some asylums, but you weren't 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:24.879 going to be in them unless you were rich, and 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:27.800 many of them were non delightful. It was not really 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:31.160 about treatment. It was about hiding people who were ill, exactly. 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:34.119 It had nothing to do with your mental illness, and 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.480 often things that were perceived as mental illness tended to 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:41.639 be considered a result of brain damage, or sometimes for 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:45.440 some folks, they would explain it as demonic, perhaps a 0:24:45.480 --> 0:24:50.200 possession issue, or some other ill spirit involved in creating 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:54.679 behavior that was not societal norm. In the US, some 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:57.560 people with mental illness were cared for and kept safe 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:02.119 by their families. Lydia doesn't to have family. She was 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:06.440 a housekeeper, perpetually married and had more children and killed them. Yeah, 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:10.320 there is obviously a mental break when you're like, oh, 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:14.080 the baby is weak, I can fix this, the baby 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:17.760 has colic, let me poison him. Yeah, it's a strain. 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:21.960 There's obviously like an issue at hand. There. What makes 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:24.480 me sad about Lydia's story is that no one really 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:26.600 stepped in at any point. But I'm not sure who 0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:29.080 that would have been. As we said, like, yeah, neighbors 0:25:29.080 --> 0:25:33.240 don't always know everybody's business, and exactly don't, and even 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:37.200