Old Blood

The first ‘Murder by Mail’ was sent to Mrs. Josephine Barnaby in 1891 in the form of an arsenic-laced whiskey bottle. When she and a friend drank the whiskey, both fell violently ill. The resulting murder trial would tear families apart for decades to come.

Sources:

Conrad, Barnaby. A Revolting Transaction (New York: Arbor House, 1983).

Day, Martin C. Death in the Mail (Providence: The Journal Print, 1892).

Galpern, Jennifer L. “Happy New Year…in April?” The Rhode Island Historical Society. 13 April, 2017. https://www.rihs.org/happy-new-year-in-april/

Newspapers: 

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)

Fort Worth Gazette

Morning Journal and Courier (New Haven)

Narragansett Herald

New York Times

Pawtucket Tribune

Providence News

Portland Daily Press

Rock Island Daily Argus

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

A fatal 1869 shooting at the New York Tribune led to a contentious debate about love, divorce, and women’s rights in America. 

Sources:

Cazauran, A. R. The Trial of Daniel McFarland for the Shooting of Albert D. Richardson (New York: W. E. Hilton, 1870).

Cooper, George. Lost Love: A True Story of Passion, Murder, and Justice in Old New York (Pantheon Books: New York, 1994). 

Ganz, Melissa J. “Wicked Women and Veiled Ladies: Gendered Narratives of the McFarland-Richardson Tragedy.” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism. Vol. 9. 1997.

McAvey, Marion. “Abby Sage Richardson.” EBSCO. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/abby-sage-richardson

Richardson, Abby Sage. Old Love Letters (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1883).

The Richardson-McFarland Tragedy: Containing all the letters and other interesting facts and documents not before published. (Barclay & Co. Publishers: Philadelphia, 1870).

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. “Speech on the McFarland Trial, Apollo Hall,” Speeches & Writings File. May 17, 1870

Wilhelm, Robert. “The Richardson-McFarland Tragedy.” Murder By Gaslight. 10 July, 2010. https://www.murderbygaslight.com/2010/07/richardson-mcfarland-tragedy.html

Newspapers:

Buffalo Express

New York Times

New York Tribune

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

Texas authorities arrested George Hassell on Christmas Day of 1926 after his wife and her eight children went missing. George cried, “I did it,” then confessed to the murder of another family ten years prior in California. This is his story.

Sources:

Churchill, Marlowe J. “Hassell offered detailed confession.” The Eastern New Mexico News. 3 September, 2019. https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2019/09/04/news/hassell-offered-detailed-confession/162888.html

“George J Hassell’s Murderous Ways.” Texas Genealogy Trails. https://genealogytrails.com/tex/panhandle/parmer/news_crime_hassell_murders_story.htm

Guy, Fiona. “Family Annihilation: The Crimes and Psychology of Familicide.” Crime Traveller. 13 May, 2019. https://www.crimetraveller.org/2019/05/family-annihilation-crimes-psychology-familicide/

Hanlon, R.E., Brook, M., Demery, J.A. and Cunningham, M.D. (2016), Domestic Homicide: Neuropsychological Profiles of Murderers Who Kill Family Members and Intimate Partners. J Forensic Sci, 61: S163-S170. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.12908

Ortlieb, Tracy Collins. “Inside the Mind of ‘Family Annihilators.’” 19 January 2023. https://www.parents.com/parenting/dynamics/inside-the-mind-of-family-annihilators/

Roth, Mitchel P. Man with the Killer Smile: The Life & Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2022).

Wight, Pam. “‘Death House’ Slayings gain attention.”24, February, 2007. https://www.whittierdailynews.com/2007/02/24/death-house-slayings-gain-attention/

Newspapers:

Douglas Daily Dispatch

Los Angeles Times

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

A deadly shooting at London’s extravagant Savoy Hotel in 1923 prompted a murder trial that pitted East against West. Was the tragedy the result of a pharaoh’s curse or merely the consequence of a lover’s quarrel?

Sources:

Bland, Lucy.  “Mme Fahmy’s Vindication: Orientalism, miscegenation fears, and female fantasy,” in Modern Women on Trial: Sexual Transgression in the Age of the Flapper (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). Pp. 132-175

Leake, Natasha. “How a beguiling French courtesan captured the heart of a young British prince, in a love affair that scandalised the Royal Family.” The Tatler. 19 February 2023. https://www.tatler.com/article/prince-harrys-memoir-love-affair-edward-viii-and-french-courtesan

Rose, Andrew. The Woman Before Wallis: Prince Edward, the Parisian Courtesan, and the Perfect Murder (New York: Picador, 2013).

“The Perfect Murder.” Royalty Magazine. Vol. 23/01. https://www.royalty-magazine.com/books-film/the-perfect-murder-2.html

Verdict Press. Crimes of Passion (London: Verdict Press, 1975).

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

Six nurses threatened to storm out of the Swope mansion in Missouri at the height of a 1909 typhoid epidemic, claiming that “people are being murdered in this house.” Was the Swope family dying of typhoid, or was it something more nefarious?

Sources:

Carus, W. Seth. Bioterrorism and Bicrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents since 1900 (Amsterdam: Fredonia Books, 2002).

Deel, Karla. Storied & Scandalous Kansas City: A History of Corruption, Mischief and a Whole Lot of Booze.(Lanham, MD, Globe Pequot, 2019).

Duke, Thomas Samuel. Celebrated Criminal Cases of America (The James H Barry Company, 1910). 

Fowler, Giles. Deaths on Pleasant Street (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2009).

Martin, Mackenzie. “The strange case of Mr. Swope and Dr. Hyde: Kansas City’s great unsolved murder mystery.” KCUR. https://www.kcur.org/history/2023-10-25/thomas-swope-park-murder-trial-bennett-hyde-kansas-city-mystery

“Medicine: Murders in Missouri.” TIME. 20 August, 1934. https://time.com/archive/6894959/medicine-murders-in-missouri/

Newspapers:

The Kansas City Star

St. Petersburg Times

St. Louis Globe Democrat

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Detroit Times

The Pittsburgh Press

The New York Times

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

Chicago crime reporters descended upon Ruth and Carl Wanderer’s Chicago home after the war hero’s wife was shot dead in a holdup at their front door. Who was the Ragged Stranger who assaulted them? And why did he have Carl Wanderer’s service weapon?

Sources:

Bigge, Lauren. “‘Shell Shock Treatments During World War I: A First Step Towards Modern Military Psychiatry.” National Museum of Health and Medicine. https://medicalmuseum.health.mil/index.cfm?p=media.news.article.2018.shell_shock_treatment

Eghigian, Greg. “ The First World War and the Legacy of Shellshock.” Vol. 31, No. 4. Psychiatric Times. 28 February, 2018.

Hecht, Ben. Charlie: The improbable Life & Times of Charles MacArthur (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957).

Lesy, Michael. Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007)

Murray, George in The Chicago Crime Book Ed. Albert Halper. (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1967).

Nash, Jay Robert. Bloodletters and Badmen: A Narrative Encyclopedia of American Criminals from the Pilgrims to the Present (New York: M. Evans & Company, 1973).

Schechter, Harold. Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects (New York: Workman Publishing Co., 2023).

As well as articles from the Washington Times, The Manning Times, Richmond TImes-dispatch, Chicago Tribune.

And the Chicago Homicide database entry https://homicide.northwestern.edu/database/5270/

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston. Also featuring “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” by Jack Judge and “Old Pal” by Henry Burr.

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

A boy’s shortcut through a Kentucky fruit farm in 1896 uncovered the headless body of a woman, later identified as Pearl Bryan. How did she get there? Who killed her? And where is her head? 

Sources:

Gold, Rachel Benson. “Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past Be Prologue?”Vol. 6. Issue 1. Guttmacher Institute. https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2003/03/lessons-roe-will-past-be-prologue

The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan, or: The Headless Horror. (Barclay & Co., 1896).

Wilhelm, Robert. So Far From Home: The Pearl Bryan Murder (Schroon Lake: Night Stick Press, 2021). And https://www.murderbygaslight.com/2012/01/mysteries-of-pearl-bryan.html

Young, Andrew. Unwanted: A Murder Mystery of the Gilded Age (Yardley: Westholme, 2016). And “Our Rich History: Shoe dealer solves ghastly murder of Pearl Bryan, found missing her head, in 1893.” Northern Kentucky Tribune. 17 August, 2020. https://nkytribune.com/2020/08/our-rich-history-shoe-dealer-solves-ghastly-murder-of-pearl-bryan-found-missing-her-head-in-1893/

The Most Notorious! Podcast Episode 248: The Murder of Pearl Bryan w/ Robert Wilhelm https://www.mostnotorious.com/2022/06/18/the-murder-of-pearl-bryan-w-robert-wilhelm/

As well as articles from the Dayton Daily News, the Evening Bulletin (Kentucky), the Indianapolis Journal, 

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

Check out my girl Lizzie's podcast, Historical True Crime here: https://open.spotify.com/show/5EoajP8947TJKmjEsCy5o8?si=64dbe3a2bc9b42f7

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

The 1906 assault of a white woman in Chattanooga led to a murder and the U.S. Supreme Court’s first and only intervention in a state criminal trial.

Sources:

Curriden, Mark and Phillips, Leroy Jr. Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching that Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism (Faber & Faber, 1999).

Hindley, Meredith. “Chattanooga versus the Supreme Court: The Strange Case of Ed Johnson.” National Endowment for the Humanities. Vol 35. No. 6. November/December 2014. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/novemberdecember/feature/chattanooga-versus-the-supreme-court

Price, Eric. “Chattanooga dedicates memorial to Ed Johnson more than a century after mob-lynching.” ABC News Channel 9. 19 September, 2021. https://newschannel9.com/news/local/chattanooga-dedicates-memorial-to-ed-johnson-more-than-a-century-after-mob-lynching

Transcript of Record in U. S. Supreme Court in Case of U. S. v Shipp, Docket Original No. 5. (National Archives). 

Webb, Michael D. “‘God Bless You All-I Am Innocent’: Sheriff Joeseph F. Shipp, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Lynching of Ed Johnson.”Tennessee Historical Quarterly. Vol. 58. No. 2. Summer 1999. pp. 156-179

White, J. Bliss. Biography and Achievements of the Colored Citizens of Chattanooga (Chattanooga, 1904).

As well as articles from the Chattanooga Times, Chattanooga News, Voice of the People (Atlanta), and the New York Times.

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

In Part II of the murder that sparked a revolution, the Chamber of Peers investigates Duke Praslin for his wife’s brutal slaying.

Sources:

“ASSASSINAT DE MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE PRASLIN.” L’Ami de la religion, vol. 134. Paris. 1847.

Eubule-Evans, A. “Letter to the Editor.” The Spectator, No. 3,396. 29 July, 1893. P. 16Greville, William Henry. Henry Greville’s Diary (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1883).

Gronek, Oceane. “Small family murder at the Duke of Choiseul’s.” Chateau Blandy. https://www.chateau-blandy.fr/en/node/303

Loomis, Stanley. A Crime of Passion (New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1967).

Lowndes, Marie Belloc. “The Praslin Murder: A Famous French Mystery Case.” Harper’s Weekly, Vol. LVII, No. 2924. 4 January 1913. 

The Mirror Monthly Magazine, Vol II, July to December 1847 (London: Kent and Richards, 1847). P. 185-188.

Savine, Albert. L’assassinat de la Duchess de Praslin (Paris: Louis-Michaud, 1908). 

The Spectator, No. 966, Vol. 20. (London: Joseph Clayton, 1847). P. 822-824.

Verdict Press. Crimes of Passion (London: Verdict Press, 1975).

Walton, Gerri. “Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin: Her Murder in 1847.” Geri Walton. 19 August, 2016. Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin: Her Murder in 1847 - geriwalton.com

As well as translated letters and journal entries by Duchess Praslin, 1840-1847.

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

In 1847, servants of Paris’s Hotel Sebastiani rushed to help Duchess Praslin after hearing her screams. This is part one of the murder that sparked a revolution. 

Sources:

“ASSASSINAT DE MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE PRASLIN.” L’Ami de la religion, vol. 134. Paris. 1847.

Eubule-Evans, A. “Letter to the Editor.” The Spectator, No. 3,396. 29 July, 1893. P. 16

Greville, William Henry. Henry Greville’s Diary (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1883).

Gronek, Oceane. “Small family murder at the Duke of Choiseul’s.” Chateau Blandy. https://www.chateau-blandy.fr/en/node/303

Loomis, Stanley. A Crime of Passion (New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1967).

Lowndes, Marie Belloc. “The Praslin Murder: A Famous French Mystery Case.” Harper’s Weekly, Vol. LVII, No. 2924. 4 January 1913. 

The Mirror Monthly Magazine, Vol II, July to December 1847 (London: Kent and Richards, 1847). P. 185-188.

Savine, Albert. L’assassinat de la Duchess de Praslin (Paris: Louis-Michaud, 1908). 

The Spectator, No. 966, Vol. 20. (London: Joseph Clayton, 1847). P. 822-824.

Verdict Press. Crimes of Passion (London: Verdict Press, 1975).

Walton, Gerri. “Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin: Her Murder in 1847.” Geri Walton. 19 August, 2016. Duchess de Choiseul-Praslin: Her Murder in 1847 - geriwalton.com

As well as translated letters and journal entries by Duchess Praslin, 1840-1847.

Music: Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com