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

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Speaker 1: On January first, eighteen forty five, a group of concerned

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Speaker 1: neighbors and a doctor stared down at the lifeless body

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Speaker 1: of Sarah Hart. Her children continued to sleep inside the

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Speaker 1: cottage as their mother their protector, laid dead, murdered by

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Speaker 1: their father, John Tall. There were two glasses on the

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Speaker 1: kitchen table. One contained porter, another was empty. Tall had

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Speaker 1: vanished into the winter night after rushing past a concerned

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Speaker 1: neighbor who noted his dark, distinctive Quaker garb. He was

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Speaker 1: racing to catch a train at the nearby station, the

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Speaker 1: seven forty two PM that would pull up shortly. Remember,

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Speaker 1: he knew the schedule well because he had visited and

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Speaker 1: Sarah frequently over the years to pay her child support.

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Speaker 1: The doctor's cousin was a local reverend and he had

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Speaker 1: sent for the local parish constable. The pair raised to

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Speaker 1: catch the Quaker before he disappeared on a train to London.

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Speaker 1: Toll had been in trouble before, He had been caught

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Speaker 1: being devious, and yet, as Meg Edward says, this didn't

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Speaker 1: seem to deter him.

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Speaker 2: He knows what this feels like.

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Speaker 3: He knows this.

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Speaker 4: He was quite comfortable entering that feeling again.

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Speaker 1: But perhaps it's because the last time he was caught

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Speaker 1: his punishment was actually a benefit.

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Speaker 4: I feel like you are punished to a point where

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Speaker 4: you are transported for fourteen years, and let's face it,

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Speaker 4: the only thing that comes of that is that you

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Speaker 4: make an incredible.

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Speaker 2: Life yourself, You better yourself.

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Speaker 3: You make an impact.

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Speaker 4: He comes back arguably more successful than he was before.

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Speaker 4: Why would he learn that punishment was ever going to

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Speaker 4: affect him in a supernegative way.

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Speaker 1: As John Toll ran to the platform, the only thing

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Speaker 1: he was likely thinking about was escape, But he could

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Speaker 1: sense that he was being chased. The men were in pursuit.

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Speaker 1: They were trying to catch John Tall.

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Speaker 2: The clock is ticking.

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Speaker 5: The train, the seven forty two pm train from Slough

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Speaker 5: is heading.

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Speaker 2: Off to London.

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Speaker 1: That was his train? Was he on it?

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Speaker 2: They look around and they can't see him.

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Speaker 5: Then suddenly, just before the train is about to depart,

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Speaker 5: they see his distinctive quaker garb coming out of the

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Speaker 5: railway house, the place that people stood in to keep

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Speaker 5: away from the weather, the reception area or whatever. They

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Speaker 5: saw this man in Quaker garb come out of their

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Speaker 5: head to the first class carriage hop on. The bell

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Speaker 5: jangled and the siren whistled, and the train pulled out

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Speaker 5: of the station and was gone. What did they do

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Speaker 5: next because they didn't know who he was or where

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Speaker 5: he was going.

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Speaker 2: London in those days.

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Speaker 5: And still is is the hub for all these railway

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Speaker 5: lines crisscrossing the countryside. They all it's like a like

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Speaker 5: a spider in its legs. London is the body and

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Speaker 5: the legs go in all sorts of directions.

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Speaker 2: We'll be crawling out of.

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Speaker 6: Only so tell me again, this would be so that

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Speaker 6: he would have gotten on this train, So he wouldn't

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Speaker 6: He wouldn't have had stops then.

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Speaker 2: Right, going from Slough to I don't think so.

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Speaker 1: Meg Edwards and I are on the train back from

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Speaker 1: our visit to Slough and now we're riding the same

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Speaker 1: line that John Tall took that night back in eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty five. It's a direct trip into the heart of London.

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Speaker 6: Do you think Paddington would have been busy the station

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Speaker 6: in eighteen forty five, saying.

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Speaker 4: Stations it wouldn't be comparatible to like what we see

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Speaker 4: is busy today.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, absolutely, for the.

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Speaker 1: Time She's right. Paddington Station was one of the main

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Speaker 1: hubs in the London train system. It would be a

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Speaker 1: busy place, the sort of place where a murderer could

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Speaker 1: vanish into the crowded train station, or even change trains

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Speaker 1: and disappear in any direction. I'm sure that as John

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Speaker 1: Tall sat there on this same train line, he was

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Speaker 1: planning his next steps.

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Speaker 6: And you said that he was in a first class

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Speaker 6: as all right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he boarded, bought a first class ticket and was

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Speaker 4: almost certainly the only Quaker in first class, so it's

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Speaker 4: quite easy to spot which was a faux pas.

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Speaker 6: I still understand that.

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Speaker 4: I think it just wouldn't have occurred to him to

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Speaker 4: wear anything else. It's it was his everyday clothing.

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Speaker 1: So this would have been a very.

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Speaker 2: Nerve wracking trip for him. For John Toll coming back.

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Speaker 6: Or maybe he thought this was going to be easy

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Speaker 6: because nobody had.

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Speaker 4: Been caught before those Yeah, I mean you've yeah, I

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Speaker 4: got to get your head into that zone of it

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Speaker 4: wasn't a given that you commit a crime and you

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Speaker 4: get caught. It was probably much more likely that he

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Speaker 4: would never get caught. Maybe I'm just a bit cynical.

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Speaker 4: I would have imagined that this was quite an exciting

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Speaker 4: trip as well as nerve wracking. But yeah, he's certainly

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Speaker 4: feeling a lot of emotions on this train.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, approaching London.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we've just bought it and we're already there. Basically,

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Speaker 4: whereas it would have been forty minutes, why.

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Speaker 1: Would it could just have been slower or slower?

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Speaker 4: I think probably with new tracks as well.

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Speaker 5: This is pretty direct.

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Speaker 1: Back in Slough, the reverend and the parish constable were frantic.

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Speaker 2: So they're standing around, going what on earth do we do?

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Speaker 5: And then somebody noticed the electric telegraph lines running beside

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Speaker 5: the railway lines, heading towards London, and they realized that

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Speaker 5: this was the.

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Speaker 2: Solution to their problem.

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Speaker 4: By some stroke of luck, the telegraph line was between

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Speaker 4: those two stations.

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Speaker 1: The telegraph is a mystery to me. I knew that

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Speaker 1: it was a quick way to pass on a message

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Speaker 1: without having to carry it miles away by hand, but

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Speaker 1: I assumed that the telegraph was a twentieth century invention.

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Speaker 1: It was developed in the mid nineteenth century, and it

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Speaker 1: might not have caught on had it not been for

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Speaker 1: Sarah Hart's murder.

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Speaker 5: So until Newsday eighteen forty five, the designers or the patent.

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Speaker 2: Holders of the world's first.

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Speaker 5: Patented electric telegraph were struggling to get commercial interest.

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Speaker 1: Why people didn't like.

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Speaker 5: The number of zeros attached to the idea of the

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Speaker 5: costs of establishing this electric telegraph, and so even though

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Speaker 5: it was going to be incredibly useful for people, they

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Speaker 5: were unable to grasp the advantages in a way that

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Speaker 5: outweighed the costs, and they mainly saw it as a toy.

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Speaker 1: So not for practical use.

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Speaker 5: People used to come along to the electric telegraph office

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Speaker 5: and send a message as a bit of fun and

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Speaker 5: a message would come back.

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Speaker 2: And while the government.

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Speaker 5: Started to see its advantages and the Admiralty was setting

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Speaker 5: an electric telegraph line that traveled from London down to

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Speaker 5: the Southampton or one of the other ports down there,

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Speaker 5: so they could send messages to the naval authorities.

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Speaker 1: Carol Baxter says that the general public in England had

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Speaker 1: not yet embraced it, and that included the directors of

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Speaker 1: the railways.

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Speaker 5: And they were the ones who most needed to understand

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Speaker 5: the advantages of it, because they could run the electric

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Speaker 5: telegraph wires along the lines beside the railway lines, and

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Speaker 5: the corridor was already there.

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Speaker 2: So until this day the.

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Speaker 5: Electric telegraph operators were hardly getting any interest.

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Speaker 1: So they got no financial support, and in.

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Speaker 5: Fact, the Times newspaper, as an example of advertising the

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Speaker 5: product in terms of press coverage, was barely ever mentioning it.

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Speaker 5: And then this day this man committed this murder, and

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Speaker 5: everything changed.

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Speaker 1: John Tall sat inside his first class carriage, quietly gazing

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Speaker 1: at the towns as they sped along.

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Speaker 4: He has a ticket, He has a first class ticket.

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Speaker 4: A number of respectable people saw him, people who didn't

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Speaker 4: know each other.

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Speaker 1: John Tall sighed he had gotten away with it as

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Speaker 1: he watched the small villages pass by his window. It's

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Speaker 1: unlikely that Tall noticed something running alongside the train tracks

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Speaker 1: those electric telegraph lines. Despite the lack of general interest,

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Speaker 1: the inventors of the telegraph had tried one last time

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Speaker 1: by appealing to the English government, and they had their

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Speaker 1: first small success.

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Speaker 5: So they established a single electric telegraph line that ran

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Speaker 5: from pet Rington railway station in London to Slough near

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Speaker 5: Windsor Castle. The idea being that Parliament and the Queen

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Speaker 5: Queen Victoria could communicate very quickly between them if they

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Speaker 5: needed to.

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Speaker 1: This is incredible. John Toll was in the only place

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Speaker 1: in the world that had a telegraph with someone who

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Speaker 1: could work a telegraph at both ends.

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Speaker 5: Of all the places in the entire world at that time,

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Speaker 5: there was only one electric telegraph line that could communicate

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Speaker 5: a random message at a moment's notice.

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Speaker 1: There were other electric telegraph lines in the world, but

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Speaker 1: they were what's called stop and go signals. They told

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Speaker 1: the trains when they could proceed or when they needed

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Speaker 1: to stop.

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Speaker 5: It couldn't communicate anything else. So this is the significance

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Speaker 5: of that stretch of railway telegraph. There were only two

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Speaker 5: electric telegraph machines. It was one stretch of wise and

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Speaker 5: they went between Slough and Paddington railway station.

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Speaker 1: By this time the superintendent of the railway had rushed

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Speaker 1: to the station.

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Speaker 5: So by this stage they had the support obviously of

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Speaker 5: the railway staff at Slough station, and they crafted the

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Speaker 5: message that was to be sent along the telegraph lines

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Speaker 5: to London in the hope that somebody could identify him

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Speaker 5: at the other end.

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Speaker 1: Crime historian ANGELA Buckley says that police had another stroke

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Speaker 1: of luck because the two operators at Slough and Paddington

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Speaker 1: were on duty that evening and they were brothers.

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Speaker 7: What's also interesting about this case is the fact that

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Speaker 7: the two operators of the telegraph are brothers.

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Speaker 3: So you get Thomas.

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Speaker 7: Home, who's the one at Paddington who's the license holder

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Speaker 7: of the telegraph there, and his brother Richard is the

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Speaker 7: operator at Slough station.

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Speaker 1: The superintendent at the Slough station dictated the message to

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Speaker 1: the first brother, Richard Holme, who was sitting at the telegraph.

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Speaker 5: A murder has just been committed at Salt Hill and

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Speaker 5: the suspected murderer was seen to take a first class

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Speaker 5: ticket for London by the train which left Slough at

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Speaker 5: seven forty two pm.

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Speaker 2: He is in the garb the Quaker.

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Speaker 1: Richard Holme paused at the word quaker, but the superintendent

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Speaker 1: finished the sentence.

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Speaker 5: He is in the garb of the Quaker with a

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Speaker 5: brown grapecoat on which reaches nearly down to his feet.

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Speaker 5: He is in the last compartment of the second first

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Speaker 5: class carriage.

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Speaker 1: But the clerk had stopped because he couldn't type Quaker properly.

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Speaker 1: There was a problem.

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Speaker 5: The message was not clear at all because in these

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Speaker 5: early days of the electric telegraph they didn't have the

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Speaker 5: letter Q as one of the letters that they could

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Speaker 5: sound out.

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Speaker 2: On the machine.

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Speaker 1: No Q available. How odd, particularly considering who the British

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Speaker 1: monarch was at the time.

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Speaker 2: There's no Q on the board.

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Speaker 4: You would have thought, in a time working Victoria's on

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Speaker 4: the throne, that would have been the first latter they

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Speaker 4: put in.

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Speaker 5: Now I find this particularly odd because the country was

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Speaker 5: ruled by a queen, and the whole point of putting

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Speaker 5: the electric telegraph between Paddington and Slough was so Parliament

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Speaker 5: could communicate with the queen.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, there was no use in quibbling over a missing letter.

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Speaker 1: That New Year's Day, a suspected murderer was about to

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Speaker 1: get off the train in Paddington and disappear. Richard Home

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Speaker 1: at the Slough station made a quick decision.

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Speaker 5: They couldn't send the letter Q. So the guy did

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Speaker 5: the obvious thing. The letters QU represent the sounds kW,

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Speaker 5: so he sent the message down with the letters KWAKR,

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Speaker 5: and of course his partner on the other end in Paddington.

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Speaker 2: Thought, what is going on? What is this word?

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Speaker 5: So he sent back a message that essentially said doesn't compute.

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Speaker 1: So Thomas Home at Paddington station sent his brother and

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Speaker 1: Slough a message back inviting him to try again.

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Speaker 5: The electric telegraph operator at the Slough End sent it

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Speaker 5: back again and the guy got exactly the same letters.

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Speaker 5: And that's when he sounded out the letters as children

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Speaker 5: are told to do.

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Speaker 2: And when you do it, you get Quaker.

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Speaker 5: And suddenly, when you realize someone's dressed as a Quaker,

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Speaker 5: it makes sense.

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Speaker 1: Thomas Home had figured it out. He snatched up his

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Speaker 1: pencil and pad.

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Speaker 5: So the rest of the message came through and the

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Speaker 5: electric telegraph operator in Paddington picked up the bit of

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Speaker 5: paper and raced it through to the superin attendant of

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Speaker 5: the railway station.

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Speaker 1: John Tall had just arrived in London.

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Speaker 4: They are on the platform, so it's amazing that within

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Speaker 4: the jenny was forty minutes they got there to send

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Speaker 4: the telegraph. They had less than half an hour to

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Speaker 4: send the message, to receive the message, and to be

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Speaker 4: ready at the platform waiting for the train to come in.

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Speaker 1: The police at the London station knew which carriage he

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Speaker 1: was in.

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Speaker 4: They know he's bought a first class ticket and the

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Speaker 4: message was about him being in the second carriage, the

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Speaker 4: second first class carriage, something like that, so they know

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Speaker 4: whereabouts to look on the platform and where on the

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Speaker 4: train he'll be getting off. They see a man exactly

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Speaker 4: matching the description get off the train at the other end.

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Speaker 1: But remember they couldn't arrest him. The message read clearly

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Speaker 1: that he was a suspect, not the confirmed killer. Maybe

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Speaker 1: they could track him.

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Speaker 3: So they're already losing valuable time.

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Speaker 7: Then they go to one of the Great Western Railway

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Speaker 7: Police officers to think. That's the inspector William Wiggins, and

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Speaker 7: he takes charge from the paddington it's the railway policeman

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Speaker 7: who takes charge first and he sets off.

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Speaker 1: How many different agencies are we talking about in London

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five.

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Speaker 7: Well, first you've got the railway police that each railway

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Speaker 7: company has their own police force from the beginning of

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Speaker 7: the railways in eighteen thirty.

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Speaker 3: Their purpose is really to.

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Speaker 7: Maintain law and order and to make sure that the

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Speaker 7: trains run unimpeded, so for example, you know if there's

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Speaker 7: somebody on the line or that kind of thing. So

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Speaker 7: that's the purpose of policing the railways, and the telegraph

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Speaker 7: is partly an extension of that.

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Speaker 1: So investigating violent murders was not really in their wheelhouse.

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Speaker 7: If it is about crime, it's usually about theft and pickpocketing,

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Speaker 7: so it's not particularly to investigate serious crimes such as murder.

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Speaker 1: If you read a short summary about this case, it

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Speaker 1: seems very neat and tidy. A suspected killer is caught

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Speaker 1: at Paddington Station thanks to the telegraph, but Angela Buckley

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Speaker 1: says it was really a mess.

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Speaker 7: It's really complex because it sounds really well coordinated, but

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Speaker 7: in fact it's not coordinated at all because you've got

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Speaker 7: various police officers from different types of forces. You've got

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Speaker 7: the Railway Police there, you've got the local police, you've

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Speaker 7: got a parish constable there. It's a comtmpletely different form

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Speaker 7: of policing, and you've got then you know that the

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Speaker 7: Metropolisan police get involved as well.

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Speaker 1: So the met's there too.

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Speaker 7: It's really disparate and it's really complex and it's all haphazard.

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Speaker 3: So it sounds like it's very slick.

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Speaker 7: He was found because of the telegraph, but of course

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Speaker 7: in reality it's not quite that smooth as an operation.

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Speaker 1: Inspector Wiggins with the Railway Police wasn't equipped to investigate

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Speaker 1: a murder and this wasn't even his jurisdiction.

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Speaker 5: The problem is the message didn't say they were too

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Speaker 5: apprehend them in and even though the railways had their

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Speaker 5: own policemen, they had no control over anything except what

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Speaker 5: happened on railway.

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Speaker 1: Probably there was a jurisdiction issue, and there usually was

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Speaker 1: a communications issue. Angela Buckley described a system that the

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Speaker 1: police in London used in the eighteen hundreds called the

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Speaker 1: root system. They would write down a description of a

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Speaker 1: suspect and literally run on foot from one officer to another.

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Speaker 1: It was very inefficient.

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Speaker 7: Then in eighteen forty two there's a very shocking case

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Speaker 7: of a man called Daniel Good who murders his common

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Speaker 7: law wife in London and he goes on the run,

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Speaker 7: and because of their poor system of communication, because of

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Speaker 7: the route papers that I described, they can't track him.

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing this was a big case in the press.

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Speaker 7: It's a huge case because she was badly mutilated. It

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Speaker 7: was a horrible case. And they can't find him, and

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Speaker 7: all the police are all running about trying to you know,

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Speaker 7: trying to look for him and they can't coordinate. And

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Speaker 7: he goes on the run for about ten days and

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Speaker 7: then he's found by luck in Kent. And also there's

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Speaker 7: an attempt another attempt on their life of Queen Victoria

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Speaker 7: shortly afterwards, So at that point they decided to create

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Speaker 7: the Detective Brunch of the Metropolitan Police.

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Speaker 1: The telegraph might have been very helpful in that case.

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Speaker 1: The new machine had been invaluable in this case, except

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Speaker 1: that now the police were already stymied. Carol Baxter and

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Speaker 1: Angela Buckley explain how surveillance went, which was not very well.

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Speaker 5: The murder hadn't happened on railway property, so they couldn't

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Speaker 5: actually act. They decided to follow the man and see

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Speaker 5: where he went so that they could then alert the authorities,

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Speaker 5: and the authorities decide what to do in the aftermath.

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Speaker 5: So the railway superintendent put his coat over the sergeant's

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Speaker 5: shoulders to hide his police uniform and send him off

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Speaker 5: after John Tool.

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Speaker 7: They're try and apprehend it, but they keep losing sight

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Speaker 7: of them, so they follow into a coffeehouse.

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Speaker 3: And then they lose sight of them.

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Speaker 1: They weren't having much luck, Tall was losing them even

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Speaker 1: without trying.

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Speaker 7: Not very good surveillance, has to be said. But after

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Speaker 7: remember as well, there are very few detectives at this time,

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Speaker 7: and these police officers were not detectives.

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Speaker 3: They were regular police officers. You know they weren't particularly skilled.

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Speaker 1: But the next morning things turned around for the officers.

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Speaker 7: They go into the coffeehouse and they get a description

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Speaker 7: from them and they finally just find him. From luck,

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Speaker 7: really basically casting around different places.

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Speaker 1: They confronted John Tall that morning in London. The police

359
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Speaker 1: placed handcuffs on him and explained that he was being

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Speaker 1: arrested for the murder of Sarah Hart, his former lover

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Speaker 1: and the mother of his children.

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Speaker 5: I mean, it really is utterly extraordinary that they got him,

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Speaker 5: and again he was again unmasked by his mask.

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Speaker 2: The outfit was the giveaway.

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Speaker 5: If he had just stepped onto the first class carriages,

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Speaker 5: there's no way they could have identified him. They wouldn't

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Speaker 5: have even known what to look for.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't like there was a photograph of him. It

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Speaker 1: was eighteen forty five.

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Speaker 5: So the whole Quaker uniform all along was such a

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Speaker 5: pivotal part in this story. The whole quakerism was such

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Speaker 5: a pivotal part of the story and in terms of

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Speaker 5: his crime, the reasons for his crime, and ultimately the murder.

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Speaker 1: As he stood there in handcuffs, John Tall glared at

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Speaker 1: the officers and offered a smug response.

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Speaker 4: He says, you must be mistaken. My station in life

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Speaker 4: places me above suspicion.

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Speaker 1: It's the Quaker defense.

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Speaker 4: I think that is such an arrogant thing to say,

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Speaker 4: but actually quite a quick witted thing to say. He's

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Speaker 4: got a defense ready, and that really, I think summarizes

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Speaker 4: his entire defense case.

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Speaker 1: It was as if he were saying, the Quaker saved

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Speaker 1: me to an extent once before, why wouldn't they do

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Speaker 1: it again? And perhaps they would. At the Metropolitan Police

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Speaker 1: station in London, detectives questioned John Tall extensively about the

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Speaker 1: murder of Sarah Hart.

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Speaker 5: He insists that he didn't do it. He'd never been

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Speaker 5: to Slough, he didn't know anyone at Slough.

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Speaker 1: Then police loaded Tall back onto the train leaving from

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Speaker 1: Paddington heading back to Slough.

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Speaker 5: And then they take him back to Slough, and of

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Speaker 5: course people could identify him from there, including the lady

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Speaker 5: next door.

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Speaker 2: They have the body.

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Speaker 7: And then there's the various analyzes of Sarah Hart's remains

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Speaker 7: and the lots of medicine bottles that are taken both

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Speaker 7: from her cottage and from his home in Berkhamsted.

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Speaker 1: They had a toxicology report which was a little problematic.

400
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Speaker 5: There are no signs of wounds on the body, so

401
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 5: there's no gunshot or knife wounds, or strangulation or beating

402
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:10,200
Speaker 5: or anything else.

403
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Speaker 2: So they figured that he's likely that Sarah.

404
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 5: Hart was likely to have been poisoned, so they send

405
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Speaker 5: her stomach contents. They do the autopsy in Slough, but

406
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Speaker 5: they send her stomach contents to a chemist in London.

407
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 5: And this guy has never tested a murder victim for poisons,

408
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,160
Speaker 5: so it does seem a little bit ironic that they

409
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Speaker 5: chose him, of all people.

410
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Speaker 7: The main chemist in London, I read in the Redding Mercury,

411
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Speaker 7: so that it was the first time he'd done Aliza

412
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Speaker 7: the remains of a victim who died in this way,

413
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Speaker 7: so that's not very good stancing point rarely.

414
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Speaker 5: And they didn't know what poison, so he just started

415
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Speaker 5: with the obvious ones and went through one poison after another.

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Speaker 1: The search for poison in a bottle was quite a

417
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: laborious process.

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Speaker 7: Although there are some tests for poisons at the time,

419
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Speaker 7: toxicology is very much in its infancy, and this is

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Speaker 7: really done by not exactly trial and error, but very

421
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Speaker 7: much by a process of elimination.

422
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Speaker 3: You know, where they try one thing and they try

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Speaker 3: another thing, and then they you know.

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Speaker 7: They tried different reagents to see how the remains react,

425
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Speaker 7: you know, the substance reacts with things. So it is

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Speaker 7: kind of scientific trial and.

427
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 5: Error really, And it was right at the end when

428
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 5: they decided to test for prassic acid.

429
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Speaker 1: Do we have any idea why they waited until the end?

430
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Speaker 5: Nobody had smelt bitter araments and normally in the event

431
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Speaker 5: of anything to do with prossic acid, you would spell

432
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Speaker 5: better arments, So that was one of the reasons it

433
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 5: was left to the end of the testing process. And

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Speaker 5: when they tested it, they got the bright blue prussic

435
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,680
Speaker 5: blue flash in the liquid that told them that yes,

436
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 5: she had prussic acid in her stomach.

437
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 2: How much they couldn't really tell.

438
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 1: So the chemist in London confirmed that Sarah Hart had

439
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: been poisoned with prussic acid. Cyanide author Neil Bradbury is

440
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: an expert on deadly poisons. He says that the autopsy

441
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Speaker 1: of Sarah's body would have revealed that she likely suffered

442
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Speaker 1: a very painful death.

443
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Speaker 8: Most people, if they're poisoned with cyanide, are given a compound,

444
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 8: usually potassium cyanide, which is swallowed gets into the stomach,

445
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 8: and when it reacts with the acid in the stomach,

446
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Speaker 8: produces another chemical called hydrocyanic acid, which is a gas,

447
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 8: but it's also very toxic and will cause severe burning.

448
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Speaker 1: That sounds terrible.

449
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Speaker 8: So if you go into an individual that you suspect

450
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 8: as having cyanide poisoning and look at their stomach, it's

451
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 8: usually very corroded because the hydrocyanic acid that's produced starts

452
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 8: eating away at the stomach lining and can even go

453
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 8: up into the esophagus and will cause frothing of the

454
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 8: mouth that people typically associate with cyanide poisoning. That's because

455
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 8: the cyanide is getting into the lungs, reacting with the

456
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 8: fluid in the lungs and causing it to froth.

457
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,199
Speaker 1: Sarah Hart had been frothing at the mouth when they

458
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: found her dying. John Tall had to have known that

459
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 1: it would have been an excruciating death. Author Deborah Blum

460
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: has written extensively about poisons.

461
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 9: It's a non confrontational method of dealing with an enemy.

462
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 2: Right, you can do it, you.

463
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,880
Speaker 9: Can step away. You are going to know that you're

464
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 9: going to be doing physical harm depending I mean, you're

465
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 9: killing the person. But some poisons are acutely painful.

466
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: Right, Poisoners have control over how painful their victims' deaths

467
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: could be.

468
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 9: And so when you're picking that poison, you're picking it

469
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 9: partly in a vindictive way.

470
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 2: So when you have someone who kills.

471
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 9: With a strict nine or a Cono teene or cyanide,

472
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 9: they know they're going to cause a painful death, right,

473
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 9: And they also know that's a bitter compound. So if

474
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 9: you're going to poison someone with one of those poisons,

475
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,360
Speaker 9: you have to put it in something that covers up

476
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,679
Speaker 9: that jolt of bitterness.

477
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 1: Like a glass of porter. And as I said earlier,

478
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 1: Prussic acid was a risky murder weapon for John Tall

479
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: to choose.

480
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 7: You know, actually administering poison to somebody and watching them die.

481
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 7: It can't be an easy option, can it, Because you

482
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 7: know it might not have worked.

483
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 3: It must have been pretty traumatic.

484
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: I know he left and it didn't work the first

485
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 1: time he tried to kill her. Allegedly. For the record,

486
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: John Tall denied all of it, but after witnesses recognized

487
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: him as the Quaker who had visited Sarah Hart often,

488
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: he finally admitted to knowing her. But he certainly framed

489
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 1: their relationship as poisoned.

490
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 4: He told the police that wretched woman was in my

491
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 4: service for over two years. She was a bad woman.

492
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 4: She said she would make away with herself if I

493
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 4: didn't give her the money.

494
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 1: Make away with herself. She was threatening to take her

495
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: own life. John Tall painted a picture of a scorned

496
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: woman desperate for attention and money. When Tall refused to

497
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: give her either, she decided to die by suicide. Tall

498
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: said that Sarah Hart held a small vial of what

499
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: he presumed was a poison over her glass of beer.

500
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: As he protested, she screamed, I will, I will. When

501
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: he again refused to give her any money, she poured

502
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: the white substance from the vial into the glass of

503
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: porter and quickly drank it. He said, she laid down

504
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: on the rug and I walked out. That might sound

505
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: like a silly explanation, but it's not as silly as

506
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: what would come up at Tall's trial. At least suicide

507
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: was plausible. A good defense attorney would say, how do

508
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: we know that she didn't take the poison herself. The

509
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: chemist in London who sold Tall the Prussic acid recognized

510
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: Tall's dark cloak, but he had admitted that he bought

511
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 1: it for Verico's veins. The neighbors spotted him outside of

512
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: the cottage as Sarah lay dying, but he no longer

513
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: denied that he was there. He denied that he gave

514
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: her the poisoned porter. And without witnesses inside that cottage,

515
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: how could the police prove anything with just some circumstantial evidence.

516
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 7: You get all the different experts trying to find the evidence,

517
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 7: and you get all the crime scene examined, which is

518
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 7: very rudimentary and it's not coordinated, but it keeps coming back,

519
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 7: doesn't it to the clothing. The fact that the chemist

520
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 7: in London recognizes the identifies him. That's the croox I

521
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 7: think this case, And it's entirely true that most cases

522
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 7: at the time were circumstantial unless somebody confessed.

523
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 1: The Crown prosecutor in charge of the case had a problem.

524
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: John Tall did have a motive to murder Sarah Hart,

525
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: but she also had a motive to take her own life,

526
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: which story would convince a jury. It can be so

527
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: difficult to know what's really going on inside a person's mind,

528
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: especially when on the outside they present themselves as a

529
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: pious member of a respected faith community. You came along

530
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: earlier as I visited John Tall's Quaker meetinghouse in Berkhamsted

531
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: with Tall's great great granddaughter Hillary Fox, her husband Gerald Fox,

532
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: and her granddaughter Meg. It's an understated but fascinating place.

533
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: We didn't stay as long as we liked because the

534
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: construction sounds made it hard to talk there, so we

535
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: decided to head back towards Gerald's nearby home to continue

536
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: our discussion. Carl's just here, Oh down here?

537
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 6: What are we doing.

538
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 10: Going? Okay, let's let's he's mind. The lawn next door's right.

539
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 10: Every Saturday, all day was perfect, sort of Elizabeth and

540
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 10: the Hedge everywhere shredond all the time, someting leaf out

541
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 10: of place. Ours is rampant at the moment.

542
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: Along the way, Gerald pointed out local landmarks and we

543
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: found ourselves talking about his own faith.

544
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 10: Up and coming Baker, Oh really.

545
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: Right? Is it difficult to find?

546
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 2: Are you a posure?

547
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 8: Well?

548
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,479
Speaker 10: Semi? Hillary won't let me eat bacon.

549
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: I would call it singing, I guess.

550
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 10: But as I said to you earlier, we belong to

551
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 10: a faith which mainly Muslims. Actually an area Luton's highly

552
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 10: Muslim and they know I'm secular, and the membership is

553
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 10: people of all faiths and those of no faith. So

554
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 10: if you've got a tendency towards these sort of tenets

555
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 10: of faith and you you're brought up in that sort

556
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 10: of air because I had a very strict background. My

557
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 10: grandfather was very strict. He started a synagogue. Off.

558
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's obvious that the community Gerald finds in his

559
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: group is important to him. So faith still has a

560
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: place for him, even if he's not a true believer.

561
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: We can't know for sure what John Hall felt back

562
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five, but it's clear that he valued

563
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: his connections to the Quaker community, whether or not he

564
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: actually behaved according to their teachings. I wanted to ask

565
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: Yerald more about what he imagined John Tall was really like,

566
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: but before we could, there was the important issue of coffee.

567
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 10: Did just have on coffee duty. You've got choice of coffee.

568
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 10: You can have instant or you can have the cafetier.

569
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 10: So I don't know what you prefer, but I find personally,

570
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 10: maybe just my taste, but I find that using instant,

571
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 10: I like espressos, take seconds of a spoonful lea in

572
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 10: hot water, and you're done. They're missing about And I

573
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 10: don't know if it varies that much with the flavor

574
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 10: of making well do two different cups for you see?

575
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: What do you think.

576
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 2: I wound up like a top.

577
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: On the ride back? The real debate about John Tall's

578
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: character could begin. Gerald, Hillary and their granddaughter Meg Edwards

579
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: definitely don't see it the same way. Gerald doesn't believe

580
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:28,320
Speaker 1: that Tall was necessarily calculating that New Year's Day just desperate.

581
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: Look at his decision to wear the Quaker clothing during

582
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: a murder. So tell me, do you have a different

583
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: opinion of this story from Hillary? At least as far

584
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: as John Tall's motivation.

585
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 10: And all of this, Well, he's a very complex character.

586
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 10: There's nothing unusual about some of his behavior. What I

587
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 10: do think is that he got into a situation where

588
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 10: it was very stressful. I don't think he considered for

589
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 10: a minute that his guard would be noticed. Because he

590
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 10: was so accustomed to wearing that garb. He may have

591
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 10: just thought, well, I got a normal clothes on my

592
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 10: would anybody noticed me? So I don't think that was

593
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 10: a protection. He may not, you know, he probably wasn't

594
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 10: thinking straight at the time, And I just I just

595
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,919
Speaker 10: think it was one of those very sad things when

596
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 10: people get into a panic they do things, and he

597
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 10: was being pressurized by his mistress, so I could have

598
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 10: easily just put him over the top.

599
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: Gerald's not defending Toll's actions, just trying to understand how

600
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 1: a man who helped his community in Australia could be

601
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:47,240
Speaker 1: such a monster back in England. Once again, Meg Edwards

602
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: is far less generous than her grandfather. In her assessment

603
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 1: of John Tall, he was an opportunist.

604
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 4: He was presented a set of circumstances that he saw

605
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 4: as unaccepted. Whether he was killing her to protect his

606
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 4: family and to protect his identity, I don't know, but

607
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 4: I think the point is he was not thinking about

608
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 4: making his wife a widow when he was committing this murder.

609
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 4: It was not gosh, if I get caught, my poor

610
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:17,719
Speaker 4: wife is going to have to carry on without me.

611
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 4: There's no way that ever came into his mind. He

612
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 4: was quite happy making his children orphans.

613
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: And her children, Alfred and young Sarah, were both orphans,

614
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 1: there would be no family to take them in. Without resources,

615
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: who knows what might happen to them. Luckily, a guardian

616
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 1: angel would soon step in a very unlikely Guardian angel.

617
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: Sarah Hart's neighbors in Salt Hill despised John Tall, but

618
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 1: the people who knew him in his own village of

619
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 1: Berkhamsted refused to believe that the good Quaker was a killer,

620
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: and his dutiful wife, Sarah Appleby, stood by his side.

621
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: She couldn't be married to a murderer. She was a

622
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 1: wonderful woman, a woman who hoped to help girls just

623
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: like Sarah Hart to learn and to grow. Sarah Appleby

624
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: had a conscience, but in the back of her mind

625
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: there were doubts, and perhaps the man she loved wasn't

626
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:43,759
Speaker 1: the kind Quaker he had framed himself to be. On

627
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: the final episode of this season of tenfold More Wicked

628
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: on exactly right.

629
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 4: It is such an interesting thing that he's so self

630
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 4: sabotaging all the time, and he makes the same mistakes

631
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 4: over and over again. And I think that's best shown

632
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 4: in the fact that yeah, wasn't the first major crime

633
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 4: he committed.

634
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:06,399
Speaker 2: I don't think it's reasonable for.

635
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 4: Us to say that he was entirely driven by business

636
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 4: and entirely driven by things that made sense to him,

637
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:14,439
Speaker 4: because a lot of his actions don't make sense at all.

638
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 3: This is unusual, this kind of crime. But yeah, I

639
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 3: think people lived in a.

640
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,239
Speaker 7: State of fear and it was all very much sensationalized

641
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 7: by the press, so you know that didn't help.

642
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:26,319
Speaker 11: He may even have poisoned his first wife, Mary, because.

643
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 2: I wondered about that.

644
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 11: There are hints about it in various research, because she

645
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 11: wasn't Quaker, which is what he wanted in the end,

646
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 11: So he may have been giving up completely the wrong things.

647
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: If you love a good, real ghost story, my audio

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Speaker 1: book The Ghost Club is available wherever you get your

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Speaker 1: the head of the world old's most famous ghost club,

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Speaker 1: and how he investigated England's most famous haunted house. Please

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Speaker 1: also check out my book All That Is Wicked, which

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Speaker 1: is a deep dive into the criminal mind. This has

655
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Speaker 1: been an exactly right tenfold war. Media production producers Jason Whaling,

656
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: Alexis and Morosi and Natalie Wrinn. Editors Jason Whaling and

657
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: Kate Winkler Dawson. Researcher Kate Winkler Dawson, sound designer Eric Friend,

658
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: composer Curtis Heath artwork by Nick Toga. Executive producers Georgia Hartstark,

659
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: Karen Kilgarriff, and Daniel Kramer. Follow us on Instagram and

660
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: Facebook at tenfold war Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold

661
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Speaker 1: war and If you know of a historical crime that

662
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Speaker 1: could use some attention, especially if it happened in your family,

663
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