June 24, 2025 • 45 mins
Imagine a very large, very old, decomissioned sewage tank buried underneath the grounds of a long since demolished home for unwed mothers that may contain the remains of nearly 800 babies and small children. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the story of the "Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home" in Tuam, Ireland....providing shelter for young women from 1925 until it closed in 1961. Nearly 800 children died at the facility run by Nuns but there are only one or two actual burial records, the rest may have been tossed into an old septic tank buried on the property and turned into a mass unmarked grave. Professor Morgan explains how the tank would have been tested, the condition of the remains, and the daunting task to identify and properly bury the children who were tossed away like rubbish.
Transcribe Highlights
00:05.83 Introduction "Bon Secours" means "Safe Harbor"
03:23.12 Homes for "single mothers"
05:00.85 Historian research indicates nearly 800 babies died, only one burial record
09:59.19 Death certificates were found
14:43.31 Bones sticking up from ground
20:12.78 Description of septic type system used at the time
25:09.84 Opening on top referred to as a "Thief Hatch"
30:07.44 The nuns are not the only ones responsible
35:02.15 Using methane probes in very small area
40:04.25 Permission has been give for full excavation
44:36.01 Need help with DNA and identifying the remains. Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quody diamonds. But the Joseph's gotten more. There's a little
place down on Mobile Bay in South Alabama, within view
of the Gulf of Mexico, and it's a peaceful spot.
If you think about Mobile Bay, it's kind of shaped
(00:23):
like a horseshoe, and of course the opening of the
horseshoe opens out into the gulf. Great battles have been
fought there. As a matter of fact, that's where the
Admiral famously said, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, right
that very spot. But the bay that I'm referring to
(00:46):
is just to the east of where that famous battle
took place during the Civil War. And the name of
that bay is called bond Secure. It's French. The French
initially explored and settled that part of Alabama. But here's
(01:09):
the thing. The term bond Secure translates into English as
safe harbor. I'm going to talk about another bond securt today,
a place that you would think would offer a safe harbor,
a place of protection, even a place of peace. Nothing
(01:36):
could be further from the truth. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
and this is body backs. I don't know about you,
brother Day, but I tell you what, there are many
times in my life when I've needed a safe harbor.
I've needed someplace I could flee to, someplace I could go,
(01:58):
you know, and you look for those places throughout life
because you know when you're particularly I don't know about you,
but particularly when you're a young person and you're just
getting started and let's face it, the world it's exciting,
but it's terrifying. It's terrifying at the same time because
you know how to pay a light bill or sewage
(02:20):
or you know, those are minor things. Not to mention
having to make a monthly note on a house or
rent or car, all that stuff that mom and Dad
took care of for so long. He never gave it
a thought. And there were scary times early on, and
not to mention the occupation I was in. I needed
a safe harbor many times. I needed a place where
I could kind of anchor my proverbial ship, where free
(02:44):
of any kind of I don't know, outside fear that
might seep in. And today's today's discussion centers around some
of the most vulnerable, i'd say the most vulnerable in
our population, and that's unwed mothers and.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Goodness this is in we're talking Ireland here, where there
were homes that were run by nuns for unwed mothers,
single pregnant young women. And until you hear what we're
about to tell you, you think, well, that's probably a pretty
(03:27):
good organization, you know, a pretty thoughtful thing to have you.
They've got eighteen of them in Ireland that were run
between the nineteen twenties up through the early sixties. I
don't know quite how they pronounced things over there, Joe.
I know it looks one way, but it's pronounced another.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Tall on Ireland, Okay, Galway, Galway, Yeah, County of Galway. Yeah,
it's actually in Galway's beautiful. It's on the western side
where all the rugged coast are. And that's okay, you
know there's things. Yeah, yeah, that's the little village you
know where this place was tom Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Okay, Well in this little village. In the seventies, these
guys are playing in an area and they find skeletons.
You don't normally find skeletons just you know, hanging about,
but they did. And they reported finding these skeletons near
a concrete slab, and they estimated there were about twenty
(04:28):
of them and nothing was ever really done. It's kind
of you know, Oh well, okay, thanks for telling us, guys.
It was a historian in twenty fourteen who had her
fill of following different stories along the way, and she
does some research project on these homes and the number
of children up to from birth to the age of
(04:49):
about three that died in this one single unwed mother
home run by nuns between the nineteen twenties and nineteen
sixty one. And she found that there were nearly eight
hundred deaths. Nearly eight hundred, actually seven hundred and ninety
six deaths took place between the twenties and nineteen sixty one.
That's thirty plus years that eight hundred babies died. And
(05:16):
so she's trying to research how would that happen, you know,
what kind of care was going on? That seems like
a high number. And lo and behold, she's trying to
research this show, and well, she could only find burial
records for one.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Wait, give me the number I've just found.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Eat that number, seven hundred and ninety six out of
seven hundred and ninety six deaths are too because they
registered the deaths. The deaths were not covered up you
got seven hundred and ninety six deaths with like how
they died, why they died, what it was, you know,
that kind of thing, but only one burial. Notice, where
(05:55):
are the graves for the seven hundred and ninety five
children that? Yeah, and she's a historian, she can't find them.
So they start tying together one story after another, and
lo and behold, it seemed like the babies, the little
children up to the age of three, might never have
(06:17):
left the premises of the unwed mother's.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Home up to the age of what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Three?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Did you say three years old?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Three years old?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah? That's actually so you're talking about a child. Yeah
that is ambulatory, can walk about, yep, can talk, can
feed themselves, should be at about three, getting into They're
(06:46):
right on the cusp of being toilet trained at that
point time. You know, some lags somewhere a head. Yeah,
so you I don't know that I have memories from
being three. I might I know four, But you're right
there on that that cusp. And the fact that you've
got babies that I think per the study, you've got
(07:10):
thirty three week gestational age. That's the youngest up to
three years old. And here's the thing about it is
these and they're called they're called mother and child homes.
That's the way that they were referred to. And each
one had a different name. This one was, in fact
(07:31):
the bond succor mother and child homes. Just just yeah,
just imagine that term. And you're you know, we've and
you particularly because this story is close to your heart
because of your own personal experiences. But you know, I
was born to a teenage mother. My parents got married,
(07:57):
you know, and there were different times back then. But
you're scared and you want to be protected. These young
women have something, and very young women probably have something
that was occurring to them that had never happened before.
They don't have any frame of reference because you know,
(08:18):
with if you've got a teenage mom, there's a high
probability if they're sending you to a home like this,
there's a high probability they've been rejected by their family.
So you talk about being scared the only home that
you've ever known. Now you have a life growing within you.
Oh and by the bye, your family is rejecting you,
(08:41):
we're going to send you to you know, to this
mother and child home. Sounds very Becolic, you know when
you see them, you say that, and it's run by
a particular order of nuns, and you.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Say that the country is mostly Catholic, right.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, it's primarily a Roman Catholic country. It's the Republic
of Ireland, not norther in Ireland. They occupy the same island,
but you know Northern Ireland, you know where Belfast is
and whatnot. That's part of the that's part of the
United Kingdom. This is the Republic of Ireland and it's
stringently Roman Catholic and has been for years and years.
(09:18):
And so you've got these moms and this place is
open from the twenties until nineteen sixty one and then
they shut it down. Dave, it's ten years later and
they're tearing the structure down. Now. That defies everything I
(09:39):
can possibly imagine about a religious order, particularly one like
the Roman Catholic Church, that is so committed to life.
They purport to be at least protecting those that are
in harm's way, valuing the sanctity of life, those sort
(10:00):
of things. They talk about it all the time. But
yet you've got one death certificate out of almost eight
hundred bodies. Well, you've got multiple death certificates, but only
one grave rather.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Right, And that's the key, because I was kind of
confused on the numbers, you know, and when I saw that,
I'm like, okay, wait a minute, we're talking nearly eight
hundred children that are dead. And what prompted this, you know, investigation,
And it's because there was only one burial. And again
(10:39):
I want to make sure we're crystal clear on this show.
While the nuns running the Safe Harbor Home for unwed
mothers and children, they were responsible and they took care
of filing death certificates. That's why the when it came
right down to the research, they were able to find
out seven hundred and ninety six children died, but only
(11:02):
one was buried.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So they let me tell you about another certificate that
exists day. There is actually a burial certificate as well
that and I'm wondering if what you're referring to with
the one burial, I wonder if they had a burial
certificate because that's something that happens in the US. And
also if you have a local, if you're in if
(11:27):
you think about a parish, a church parish, Catholic church parish,
it encompasses a geographic zone. Okay, So those that are
part of the Catholic Church that wish to be buried
on the ground, they want to be buried in consecrated earth.
They want to be buried in the churchyard. And that's
a graveyard. That's not a cemetery. Cemetery is an open place,
(11:50):
is a public place. I wonder if because this thing
smacks of it smacks of deception to me, because these
children should have been well, some of them probably should
have been baptist, baptized, There should have been baptismal records,
(12:12):
There should have been burials within a church yard somewhere
that would have been officiated by a priest, and there's
no evidence of that.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Right. That's what's so shocking about this day historian. Her
name is Catherine Corliss. Now she was the one and
again it's really interesting to note this is a historian
who was trying to match up doing research, and that's
why they have an exact number of the death certificates
because they have that seven hundred and ninety six, but
(12:44):
there was only one burial record, and I don't know
what records they keep, but that was the kick was,
wait a minute, you've only got records of one of
these seven hundred ninety six deaths being buried. Where are that?
And that's a legitimate question. I mean, you've got a
certificate of death. There has to be some kind of
(13:06):
whether I mean, I don't know rules and rags on
what you do with the body in the thirties, forties
or anything else, but you know, I mean there's got
to be a record, like even today, if somebody is cremated,
you have a record of that.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah. I trace my family. I've traced my family all
the way back to Wales and back like during the
Tutor era. And my ancestors over there on both sides,
my father's side and my mother's side are both Welsh
Morgan and Edwards. And so there are burial records for
(13:39):
my ancestors. And that's going back to the fifteen hundreds. Wow,
that are easily tracked now you know they're in America.
We have we seem like we always have problems with
courthouses burning down, but you know, and you lose records
over here. But you know, with back then, the Church,
who has always been rather fastidious about documentation, writing things down.
(14:05):
You know, all you got to do is go to
Trinity College and see the Book of Calves, to see
those old manuscripts that the monks sat and toiled over
translating the Bible. All you have to do is bear
witness to this, and you're left with a huge question,
why did they dismiss the lives of these precious little babies.
(14:42):
So you're out and you're with Pow and you look
down in the ground and you see maybe a skeletal
remain protruding through the earth. You contact the local authorities,
They come out survey the area and they believe that
(15:02):
they have found twenty skeletons. Well, it's interesting because that
discovery was made in proximity to the mother and Children's
home there in tom in Galway, Ireland. My question is
(15:24):
why did they never move forward? Why did they never
move forward and see what else was there? Because Dave
obviously there was a whole lot more there.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's why I think this was one of those open
secrets generationally where one generation knows what's going on, but
they don't tell the kids. And if you don't tell
the kids, as the other generation grows up and realizes
that they don't have to share it, I mean that
happens all the time, and when you're dealing with a
close knit community. Yeah, but they did in the seventies.
(15:55):
You got two guys to find it's estimated they found
twenty skeletons, Joe twenty skeletons, and according to the Irish Times,
they actually found him near a sewage tank that was
operated on the site. Now you told me, and it's
very important to note that the Safe Harbor nun Home
was torn down. They evacuated, they left it in nineteen
(16:18):
sixty one, shut it down, and then they just tore
it down gone. Don't know exact data when they did it,
but based on this story here about the guys finding skeletons,
I'm pretty sure that it was already gone by then,
because according to the Irish Times, a sewage tank was
creating a problem, an old sewage tank, not a current one,
an old sewage tank that was operated on the site
(16:42):
in the early twentieth century, now early meaning nineteen twenties
and up. And the minutes of the town meeting Joe
actually reflect that on the board one of their board meetings,
they talked about the problems of this sewage thing overflowing,
creating problems smelling it I'm sure. Oh, so they were
(17:06):
really just dealing with the symptoms, well just cover it
with some more dirt or something, you know, that kind
of thing, and not addressing a skeleton issue or anything else.
So they know there's something over there, but hey, put
the blinders on and let's keep on trucking. So it's
twenty fourteen. You've got the historian who is doing research
and I don't know what her genesis was. I don't
(17:27):
know if it was the nineteen seventies and finding those skeletons,
and it kind of you know, how historians think differently
than the rest of us, you know, and it's really cool.
I admire historians because they those who failed to remember
the past are doomed to repeat it.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Historians live that, and they tell you they're so passionate because,
like Dave, you, if this doesn't get out, we're going
to do it again, you know. Anyway, And so I'm
thinking that something came up and she decided to look
into it, because again, these are public rerecords. You find
seven hundred and ninety six children died, and you've got
burial records for one. There's a story there, and that's
(18:09):
what was reported in The Daily Mail, the Irish Daily
Mail in twenty fourteen. Now after it was reported, the
historian really caught grief. It was it was pretty rough
because that was a home front web mothers run by nuns.
And she's been getting comments for the last eleven years.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
It wasn't just bad then, it's bad now. It was
bad this past Sunday. She's still getting emails, Miss Corlis.
Is you believe that?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, yeah, I can believe it.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Okay, Well, in twenty fourteen, this story gets printed and
there is a lot of hubbub. You know, a lot
of people are washing hands and saying, hey, give me
away from here. But they had to find the bodies.
They got to find there's god to be bodies somewhere
happened to them that led them to, well, we had
(19:04):
these skeletons, and we got that sewage thing over here
led them to the tank and Joe. In twenty seventeen,
they decided to run a test on the tank, on
the sewage tank. And I don't know if that's the
I'm kind of getting it messed up between a septic
tank and a sewage dump. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, I think that these these are not like modern
sewage areas, okay, Like when you think of a septic tank.
So you have a standalone home that is off county
water and whatnot, and you have a field. You know,
they build the field in the back of the house,
they put in the tank, and the tank is there.
(19:47):
And this may have predated the toms in in this
particular area of Ireland, and the western port of portion
of Ireland was markedly poor, particularly you know, back in
that period of time. I mean literally when this place started,
the Irish were going through revolution, you know, during that
(20:09):
period of time, and they didn't they probably didn't have
what we would consider to be modern plumbing. My suspicion
is is that there is a area that was built subterranean,
and I have visions of it being kind of a
(20:30):
bricked area, maybe even domed, and then all of the
sewage water would run into this thing, you know, all
of the you know, solid waste and everything else that's
being produced. Maybe they were counting on it kind of
seeping down, you know, like a modern field does, you know,
(20:53):
where things seep down, And they didn't really think about
groundwater as much back then there. So you've got the
sewage area, and they were probably all over the place,
and all of a sudden, the thing's getting backed up
now and it's probably floating up and you see the
slot in areas that are low lying where sewage feels
(21:16):
again to wet the ground above and it gives off
a horrible odor, as you imagine.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And remember remember the first uh meet the Fokker's movie. Yeah,
and at the wedding, the very first one when they're
parents meet the parents, Yeah, oh yeah, and the eceptive
tank backed up and it flooded their yard and it
stunk because and when what does that smell? It's us?
(21:41):
What do you think? You know? Yeah, it overruns the septics,
over ran the septic system, and then the field lines
you know, got covered up, and that's what you end
up with. I'm on a septic system, so I know
the drill here. That's why I was really curious about this.
And what well, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Over a period of time, though, this is going to
get layered and you're going to have, you know, kind
of the earth is going to begin to kind of
collapse in on this thing exactly. And if it is
like a brick structure that the walls have collapsed or
anything like that. Now you're getting into where the sediment
has kind of dropped down, because look, I'm not trying
(22:17):
to be grotesque here, but you're talking about human waste
that is commingled with human remains, and it's kind of
stacking on top of one another. So every time a
toilet would flush, then that's another layer that goes on
top of any kind of bodies that may be there.
(22:38):
But I got to tell you, Dave, you know, I've
worked cases where I've had moms give birth in toilet
stalls and they flush the toilet and the baby of
course backs up the toilet. Just happens in high schools.
I've had several of those over the course of my
(22:58):
career where I've had to go out to the high
school because baby was actually trapped in the toilet and
it wouldn't go down. And of course this young lady
that has given birth is petrified, scared and everything else,
and somebody finds her in there. Authorities come in, they
(23:19):
found a baby. But we're talking about kids that are
up to three years old day. We're not talking about
merely stillburse. And the youngest child is at thirty three
weeks gestation, which is a rather substantial from a developmental standpoint,
It's a rather substantial baby. By that point in, Tom.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Had one thing that we've got need to be clear
on is as they were the children actually had their
death record that indicated how they died. So you had
mentioned something because you were explaining to me that the
difference in what we have now a septic system versus
(24:02):
what was going on then these nuns. Am I wrong
when I say the nuns got rid of the bodies
by putting them in the septic. There's a hole that
probably allowed access to this huge underground tank and they
placed these babies in that tank because you.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Know, standing jok mode and pull in a chain right,
you know, and the baby's going because you're talking about
Dave their kids in here. And remember we started off
by talking three years old. Yeah, developmentally that's rather substantial.
You're not flushing the child three year old now all
down the toilet. And you know what this made me
think of. It made me think of Chris Watts. And
(24:46):
the reason is is that out there at those petroleum
tanks and that high desert area there in Colorado. You
know what he did with both those little angels. He
went to the two tanks and these things. I'll never forget.
I had this discussion on the air because I'd never
heard the term, and it's I was on the air
(25:09):
with a guy that was working in the petroleum industry
and he was going through describing what these openings are
on the top and here's an interesting term day he
referred to as thief hatches. I'd never heard that term.
It's a unique hat term, a thief hatch. And so
my thought was, I know that in the Chris Watts case,
(25:32):
the oldest child had her back was scratched up post
mortem because he had jammed her down through that thief
hatch and she fell into that muck in there, that
highly toxic, toxic raw petroleum muck in there. And you know, Dave,
I got to tell you, I think that the sisters
(25:52):
had access to probably something similar to a thief hatch,
and it had to be big enough so that it
can actually accommodate up to a three year old child
if we are to believe what they're the information that's
coming out now that sounds that sounds like the case.
And once this this can go to a really dark area.
(26:17):
And the reason it's dark is I I think about
I think about these children, and I wonder if these children,
first off were viable after birth where they being killed
(26:45):
because no one was watching. Because to the church back then,
perhaps an unwed mother giving birth to a child is
a grievous sin, and so that child which is born
(27:09):
is a product of that and not worthy of life.
Now I don't know that that happened. However, they would
let me give you a little bit bit more insight
into this if you had. I do know that with
these mothers that would give birth in these homes, if
(27:31):
they and this is the way it was termed, Dave,
if they repeat offended, they were sent to what was
referred to as the Magdalene Magnaline washer washer women. I
think it's what it was called. And essentially their punishment
(27:53):
for getting pregnant once again was to be sent and
come almost like indentured servants, where they're having to work
processing laundry. And the nunneries ran multiple of these places
around the country. Of these you know, the I don't know,
(28:14):
it's I don't know if I want to call it
a laundry mat, but it's where people would go and
have their clothes cleaned and so these women would occupy
these spaces, and of course they were being lorded over
by the nuns that were put in charge of it. So,
you know, the whole thing, the whole thing. I can
understand why why these people are attacking, attacking this this auto,
(28:42):
I mean this historian, because they looking they're looking into
the eyes of something that is pure evil here that
took place in their community. And Dave, this place was
shut down in nineteen sixty one, Bro, there's still people
that are out there that have memories of this place.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, and knew what was going on, or at least
knew there were young women there that you know, having children. Again,
going back to the recovery process, we're talking ten eleven
years after the place is closed down. You got skeletons
that are being found being pushed to the side. And
then years, all these years later, you know, we're not
talking you're talking ten to fifteen years after it's closed down.
(29:22):
There's a hint that there's something going on, but they
covered that up. So now flash forward all these years decades,
now decades, it's twenty fourteen in the Historian. To be
honest with you, Joe, this is a pretty simple thing.
How many people died there? We got death records? Yeah,
how many people are buried? Where is the cemetery where?
(29:43):
And you don't have it. So it's so sad that
it came down to that that.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, yeah it is. And you've got listen in this.
Also involved in this. It's not just the nuns, the
local priests, whoever, the the rector was of that particular
parish that this thing was assigned to, and I'm sure
that it had a connected parish because what would happen
is that the priest from that parish would come to
(30:11):
that location and conduct mass on site. Okay, any kindspiratual needs, confession,
anything that was going to happen, you know, and of
course they're trying to quote unquote get these women on
the right path. They're going to have to hear confession,
They're going to have to have Bible lessons and everything
else that comes along with that. The priest is involved,
(30:32):
that would mean the bishop would also have to have
knowledge of it as well, because it's part of the diocese.
And you know who else is involved the people that
are the local politicians and these are signed death certificates, Dave.
That means that there were physicians out there. There were
(30:53):
physicians out there that were listening, and these are very
specific causes of death. You've got things like diphtheria, which
is a horrible, you know, kind of airway disruption. You've
got bronchitis. These are the causes of death. Pneumonia. I
saw one that was like a tuberculosis. So you've got
(31:14):
a whole variety of these kids that are dying from
things that in today's day and age are survivable, I think,
But where they ill equipped? Could they not? Mean? Because
there were people that survived pneumonia back then. There were
kids that survived, There were kids that survived at THEEA,
I mean, it has a high mortality rate. But you've
(31:35):
got all of these people kind of, for lack of
a better term, cloistered in this particular area, and they're
there and they're all dying. I guess my question as
a death investigator is is what we're hearing that's listed
as a cause of death officially? Was it something else?
Maybe something much more sinister. So authorities have these old
(32:10):
records going back to the seventies of when skeletons are
discovered Dave, when they started to do the testing around
this area. Based upon this, they were in for quite
the shock, weren't they.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Well, I'm really curious, Joe, because what we you know,
in looking at how it turned about twenty fourteen, We've
got the death certificates, but no burials. We already had
the history of the skeletons. But now as they start looking,
this historian is really pushing. Missus Corlis is pushing for
something's got to be done. Yeah, And three years after
(32:49):
the article is printed, three years they actually go and
look in the septic tank. Well, well, i'll call a
septic tank. It was the septic system used by that
nunnery that the home. And because they knew where it was,
you know, even though it had been abandoned from that building,
it was still in the ground. The building might have
(33:09):
been raised, but this was still in the ground. And
so they went out and did testing. Now the testing
happened eight years ago, twenty seventeen, and they came up
with results. And I really don't know how this, you know,
could happen, because Joe, when I'm thinking of digging down
(33:30):
into the earth to get core samples, you know, to
determine age and things like that, I mean, they send
a pipe down there, We've got an area that appears
to possibly be a tomb of a mass grave. It
is underground. We know that it is commingled. Probably, How
(33:51):
are you going to get a sample? How are you
how do you go about doing that?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Well, the first thing is you're not going to put
shovel to earth at this point. You're My suspicion is
is that they you know, you talked about like from
a geological standpoint, how people do core samples of the
earth and that brings out like a solid piece of earth.
You know, that's multi it's stratified. You know when you
(34:16):
look at it, it's not what they're going to do here,
because this is a surface Yeah, it's a septic tank,
but in the whole grand scheme of things, this is
a surface burial, all right. So what they're going to
do is they're going to put in the ground. They're
gonna put methane probes, and the methane probe sniff out. Obviously,
methane and methane is a is an element that is
(34:40):
found in the process of decomposition. Okay, as a matter
of fact, the body of a human body. When you
when a body swells, for instance, the primary gas that
it's given off as methane. I have actually seen, I've repeated,
I've stated this before. I've actually seeing a ten gauge
(35:03):
needle inserted into the stomach of a bloated of a bloated,
deceased person, and a lighter struck over the end of
the needle, and it gives off a blue flame, and
that's the methane burning off. It's real, it's a real thing.
So once they start to get hits, if they're using
(35:24):
methane probes, that's when in a very small section, you
just don't you don't, you don't bring in a bacco,
all right, You're going to now, as delicately as possible,
take it down, layer by layer by layer. And I
would imagine if they still have the notes from where
the skeletons were found, they might start there as the
(35:48):
outer boundary and then move back into where they knew
that septic cank was located, and they would start off
very surface. And once they get hit on those first
few skeletletans, then the real work is at hand. And Dave,
I got to tell you, because this story is actually
(36:08):
this is occurring in real time as you and I
are chatting right now. That's one of the reasons I
want to cover it because I couldn't believe what I
was reading when I read it, and I knew that
you would certainly be interested in this. This is going
on right now, and Dave, I got to tell you
these co mingle remains. I'm so glad you used that word.
(36:29):
By the way, I feel like I've taught you. Yeah,
well you've learned the term commingle. And so just imagine,
let's just say the idea that I have. If they're
dropping baby skeletons in through a thief hatch or some
kind of access point like this, not fleshing them down
the toilet, then you've got one centralized area of impact. Okay,
(36:54):
like maybe maybe you've got a stillbirth or another child
that dies and I don't know, I don't know. Let's
say January of nineteen twenty two, PLoP. Well, there's another
one happens in February of twenty three, PLoP, like this,
and they're just dropping in that one spot. If there's
(37:14):
one central deposition area in that space, I have to think,
because I can't imagine a nun walking down through some
rusty door in her habit and depositing these bodies in
a sewer. It just seems to me more logical that
they would have access from above and drop them in there,
(37:35):
and no one's going to be any of the wiser.
No one's going to question a nun when they didn't
back during that period of time.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Simple math. Yeah, if you look at it, they shut
it down in nineteen sixty one. We know that it
was roughly opened up in the nineteen twenties. So let's
just say forty years, okay, and in forty your period
of time to have eight hundred bodies yep, that's going
to be one every other week, yep. And so you're
right if they're putting them in the same area and
(38:03):
it's a large enough pre septic system sewage system where
it's interesting that it would fit that they would basically
be in that area. Now, one thing that did catch
my attention, Joe, is that in twenty seventeen they I
was wondering how they did the you know, the excavation
(38:24):
when you were talking about using the methane before they
put shovel to ground, right, which didn't occur to me.
But they did a test excavation after they had results,
and that was so in twenty seventeen, they knew, okay,
this we have found. We have found what we're looking for.
But they stopped. And I don't know if they stopped
(38:47):
because you're now dealing with graves. We don't know how
many you're in there. We don't know. We know that
we found at least a couple, but they don't know
how many they have. All they really know is we
have a number of death certificates that we're done. They're
not hiding the deaths. We don't have burials, and so
(39:09):
we don't know if they're all in there. They could
be they could have been buried in unmarked graves. They
could be any there. You know, they could be anywhere. However,
when you go back to the nineteen seventies and you've
got people finding twenty skeletons and throwing that number out
there like it's nothing, twenty skeletons is a lot of
people to be finding skeletonized people. I mean, that would
give me nightmare on Elm Street kind of nightmares for
(39:32):
a while.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Well, so I think that's bad. The area where this
place was torn down is now surrounded by modern apartment companients. No,
it is and come on, yeah, and so you've got
this kind of concentrically located in the middle right there.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
We take a hiatus from taping you and I are
going over there with a digital camera in a film
crew and we're making a scary movie.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
We're now I'll be going to the pub to have
a pint of guinness, So you can go out there
if you won't say no, I you know it's goodness.
There's going to be multiple universities involved in this because
they what they're saying right now, what has happened is
that the government officials have finally given the go ahead
for full on excavation of this area. And Dave, to
(40:15):
give you an idea of how vast this is, they're
estimating that it will take them to beyond years in
order to facilitate this. So right now as we're speaking,
we're looking out toward twenty seven or twenty eight before
(40:36):
this might be complete. And the problem is is that
you don't know the scope of this. When you get
into it, you know, yeah, you've got these missing remains.
The skeletons will in fact be I think disarticulated, so
you really are going to have a jumble a comingled
(40:56):
jumble in this area. And the one other thing that
their purpose to do here, Dave, is that they're going
to do DNA. They're doing DNA on these and you know,
I think of course about our friends at the author them,
you know, because this is going to be a case
that will involve forensic genetic genealogy, because there are descendants
(41:21):
of the same family line that are out there that
might not know that there was a child, you know,
that came into this world and that there was a
teenage mom that was part and parcel of you know,
of their family.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And Dave, you gave me it gets worse.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, yeah, please, because I got to tell you, get ready, folks.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
As bad as it is to think that we've got
this one place run by nuns and seven hundred and
ninety six children that are unaccounted for in their death,
thankfully one historian opened this door. Yeah, here are the
other numbers that are associated with this, because this wasn't
the only home run by nuns in the Republic of Ireland.
(42:06):
I did say that, right, correct, Yes, yeah, okay, yep.
A major inquiry has been done in the time since
this first came out in twenty fourteen, they've been studying
and it's been determined the mother and baby homes found
in the Republic of Ireland. There were eighteen total different
(42:28):
homes run in this same time period and a total
of about nine thousand children dead. Nine thousand children amongst
the eighteen homes, and the death certificates are there, Joe.
We've got them dying from things like respiratory infections, gastro enteritis.
(42:52):
Isn't that stomach flew? Yeah, okay, and a few other
things like that. But nine children dad over eighteen of
their homes and they got to figure out where the
bodies are.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, that's and again, how do you make account for
these Do some of these homes or at least the
structure still stand? Is there an area that had been
designated previously, you know, as a graveyard. It reminds me
of the Doser School in Florida, which was the boys
(43:34):
home down there, and there's been several documentaries absolutely heartbreaking
where these these young men were young boys actually were
sent to state home and they were, you know, delinquent
and that sort of thing. They would keep them there
for years and literally treat them like slave labor and
take them out into windowless building and beat them. And
(43:57):
many of these kids died, and they were buried and
unmarked graves, and there was a big push. And I
think that going back in time, as we dig deeper
down into records, I think that you'll find more of
these events. Right now, the spotlight is on the Republic
of Ireland, and you know what else, the spotlight is
(44:17):
on the Catholic Church. And I would make a plea
right now to the new poplio who seems receptive of things.
Right now. I think that it would be a great
start if the Catholic Church would put their full might,
power and finances into solving this mystery that is certainly
(44:39):
a stain on the beautiful country of Ireland. Help with
the DNA, Help with getting these young children, you know,
buried properly. Send your priest out there, do last rites,
do whatever you need to do to make it right
with the community, because there's no replacing these precious little ones,
(45:03):
none whatsoever. But there's a chance that healing could begin,
and you never know in this old crazy world where
that healing are, what that healing will lead to. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body Bags
Quody diamonds. But the Joseph's gotten more. There's a little
place down on Mobile Bay in South Alabama, within view
of the Gulf of Mexico, and it's a peaceful spot.
If you think about Mobile Bay, it's kind of shaped
(00:23):
like a horseshoe, and of course the opening of the
horseshoe opens out into the gulf. Great battles have been
fought there. As a matter of fact, that's where the
Admiral famously said, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, right
that very spot. But the bay that I'm referring to
(00:46):
is just to the east of where that famous battle
took place during the Civil War. And the name of
that bay is called bond Secure. It's French. The French
initially explored and settled that part of Alabama. But here's
(01:09):
the thing. The term bond Secure translates into English as
safe harbor. I'm going to talk about another bond securt today,
a place that you would think would offer a safe harbor,
a place of protection, even a place of peace. Nothing
(01:36):
could be further from the truth. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
and this is body backs. I don't know about you,
brother Day, but I tell you what, there are many
times in my life when I've needed a safe harbor.
I've needed someplace I could flee to, someplace I could go,
(01:58):
you know, and you look for those places throughout life
because you know when you're particularly I don't know about you,
but particularly when you're a young person and you're just
getting started and let's face it, the world it's exciting,
but it's terrifying. It's terrifying at the same time because
you know how to pay a light bill or sewage
(02:20):
or you know, those are minor things. Not to mention
having to make a monthly note on a house or
rent or car, all that stuff that mom and Dad
took care of for so long. He never gave it
a thought. And there were scary times early on, and
not to mention the occupation I was in. I needed
a safe harbor many times. I needed a place where
I could kind of anchor my proverbial ship, where free
(02:44):
of any kind of I don't know, outside fear that
might seep in. And today's today's discussion centers around some
of the most vulnerable, i'd say the most vulnerable in
our population, and that's unwed mothers and.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Goodness this is in we're talking Ireland here, where there
were homes that were run by nuns for unwed mothers,
single pregnant young women. And until you hear what we're
about to tell you, you think, well, that's probably a pretty
(03:27):
good organization, you know, a pretty thoughtful thing to have you.
They've got eighteen of them in Ireland that were run
between the nineteen twenties up through the early sixties. I
don't know quite how they pronounced things over there, Joe.
I know it looks one way, but it's pronounced another.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Tall on Ireland, Okay, Galway, Galway, Yeah, County of Galway. Yeah,
it's actually in Galway's beautiful. It's on the western side
where all the rugged coast are. And that's okay, you
know there's things. Yeah, yeah, that's the little village you
know where this place was tom Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Okay, Well in this little village. In the seventies, these
guys are playing in an area and they find skeletons.
You don't normally find skeletons just you know, hanging about,
but they did. And they reported finding these skeletons near
a concrete slab, and they estimated there were about twenty
(04:28):
of them and nothing was ever really done. It's kind
of you know, Oh well, okay, thanks for telling us, guys.
It was a historian in twenty fourteen who had her
fill of following different stories along the way, and she
does some research project on these homes and the number
of children up to from birth to the age of
(04:49):
about three that died in this one single unwed mother
home run by nuns between the nineteen twenties and nineteen
sixty one. And she found that there were nearly eight
hundred deaths. Nearly eight hundred, actually seven hundred and ninety
six deaths took place between the twenties and nineteen sixty one.
That's thirty plus years that eight hundred babies died. And
(05:16):
so she's trying to research how would that happen, you know,
what kind of care was going on? That seems like
a high number. And lo and behold, she's trying to
research this show, and well, she could only find burial
records for one.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Wait, give me the number I've just found.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Eat that number, seven hundred and ninety six out of
seven hundred and ninety six deaths are too because they
registered the deaths. The deaths were not covered up you
got seven hundred and ninety six deaths with like how
they died, why they died, what it was, you know,
that kind of thing, but only one burial. Notice, where
(05:55):
are the graves for the seven hundred and ninety five
children that? Yeah, and she's a historian, she can't find them.
So they start tying together one story after another, and
lo and behold, it seemed like the babies, the little
children up to the age of three, might never have
(06:17):
left the premises of the unwed mother's.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Home up to the age of what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Three?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Did you say three years old?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Three years old?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah? That's actually so you're talking about a child. Yeah
that is ambulatory, can walk about, yep, can talk, can
feed themselves, should be at about three, getting into They're
(06:46):
right on the cusp of being toilet trained at that
point time. You know, some lags somewhere a head. Yeah,
so you I don't know that I have memories from
being three. I might I know four, But you're right
there on that that cusp. And the fact that you've
got babies that I think per the study, you've got
(07:10):
thirty three week gestational age. That's the youngest up to
three years old. And here's the thing about it is
these and they're called they're called mother and child homes.
That's the way that they were referred to. And each
one had a different name. This one was, in fact
(07:31):
the bond succor mother and child homes. Just just yeah,
just imagine that term. And you're you know, we've and
you particularly because this story is close to your heart
because of your own personal experiences. But you know, I
was born to a teenage mother. My parents got married,
(07:57):
you know, and there were different times back then. But
you're scared and you want to be protected. These young
women have something, and very young women probably have something
that was occurring to them that had never happened before.
They don't have any frame of reference because you know,
(08:18):
with if you've got a teenage mom, there's a high
probability if they're sending you to a home like this,
there's a high probability they've been rejected by their family.
So you talk about being scared the only home that
you've ever known. Now you have a life growing within you.
Oh and by the bye, your family is rejecting you,
(08:41):
we're going to send you to you know, to this
mother and child home. Sounds very Becolic, you know when
you see them, you say that, and it's run by
a particular order of nuns, and you.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Say that the country is mostly Catholic, right.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, it's primarily a Roman Catholic country. It's the Republic
of Ireland, not norther in Ireland. They occupy the same island,
but you know Northern Ireland, you know where Belfast is
and whatnot. That's part of the that's part of the
United Kingdom. This is the Republic of Ireland and it's
stringently Roman Catholic and has been for years and years.
(09:18):
And so you've got these moms and this place is
open from the twenties until nineteen sixty one and then
they shut it down. Dave, it's ten years later and
they're tearing the structure down. Now. That defies everything I
(09:39):
can possibly imagine about a religious order, particularly one like
the Roman Catholic Church, that is so committed to life.
They purport to be at least protecting those that are
in harm's way, valuing the sanctity of life, those sort
(10:00):
of things. They talk about it all the time. But
yet you've got one death certificate out of almost eight
hundred bodies. Well, you've got multiple death certificates, but only
one grave rather.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Right, And that's the key, because I was kind of
confused on the numbers, you know, and when I saw that,
I'm like, okay, wait a minute, we're talking nearly eight
hundred children that are dead. And what prompted this, you know, investigation,
And it's because there was only one burial. And again
(10:39):
I want to make sure we're crystal clear on this show.
While the nuns running the Safe Harbor Home for unwed
mothers and children, they were responsible and they took care
of filing death certificates. That's why the when it came
right down to the research, they were able to find
out seven hundred and ninety six children died, but only
(11:02):
one was buried.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So they let me tell you about another certificate that
exists day. There is actually a burial certificate as well
that and I'm wondering if what you're referring to with
the one burial, I wonder if they had a burial
certificate because that's something that happens in the US. And
also if you have a local, if you're in if
(11:27):
you think about a parish, a church parish, Catholic church parish,
it encompasses a geographic zone. Okay, So those that are
part of the Catholic Church that wish to be buried
on the ground, they want to be buried in consecrated earth.
They want to be buried in the churchyard. And that's
a graveyard. That's not a cemetery. Cemetery is an open place,
(11:50):
is a public place. I wonder if because this thing
smacks of it smacks of deception to me, because these
children should have been well, some of them probably should
have been baptist, baptized, There should have been baptismal records,
(12:12):
There should have been burials within a church yard somewhere
that would have been officiated by a priest, and there's
no evidence of that.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Right. That's what's so shocking about this day historian. Her
name is Catherine Corliss. Now she was the one and
again it's really interesting to note this is a historian
who was trying to match up doing research, and that's
why they have an exact number of the death certificates
because they have that seven hundred and ninety six, but
(12:44):
there was only one burial record, and I don't know
what records they keep, but that was the kick was,
wait a minute, you've only got records of one of
these seven hundred ninety six deaths being buried. Where are that?
And that's a legitimate question. I mean, you've got a
certificate of death. There has to be some kind of
(13:06):
whether I mean, I don't know rules and rags on
what you do with the body in the thirties, forties
or anything else, but you know, I mean there's got
to be a record, like even today, if somebody is cremated,
you have a record of that.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah. I trace my family. I've traced my family all
the way back to Wales and back like during the
Tutor era. And my ancestors over there on both sides,
my father's side and my mother's side are both Welsh
Morgan and Edwards. And so there are burial records for
(13:39):
my ancestors. And that's going back to the fifteen hundreds. Wow,
that are easily tracked now you know they're in America.
We have we seem like we always have problems with
courthouses burning down, but you know, and you lose records
over here. But you know, with back then, the Church,
who has always been rather fastidious about documentation, writing things down.
(14:05):
You know, all you got to do is go to
Trinity College and see the Book of Calves, to see
those old manuscripts that the monks sat and toiled over
translating the Bible. All you have to do is bear
witness to this, and you're left with a huge question,
why did they dismiss the lives of these precious little babies.
(14:42):
So you're out and you're with Pow and you look
down in the ground and you see maybe a skeletal
remain protruding through the earth. You contact the local authorities,
They come out survey the area and they believe that
(15:02):
they have found twenty skeletons. Well, it's interesting because that
discovery was made in proximity to the mother and Children's
home there in tom in Galway, Ireland. My question is
(15:24):
why did they never move forward? Why did they never
move forward and see what else was there? Because Dave
obviously there was a whole lot more there.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's why I think this was one of those open
secrets generationally where one generation knows what's going on, but
they don't tell the kids. And if you don't tell
the kids, as the other generation grows up and realizes
that they don't have to share it, I mean that
happens all the time, and when you're dealing with a
close knit community. Yeah, but they did in the seventies.
(15:55):
You got two guys to find it's estimated they found
twenty skeletons, Joe twenty skeletons, and according to the Irish Times,
they actually found him near a sewage tank that was
operated on the site. Now you told me, and it's
very important to note that the Safe Harbor nun Home
was torn down. They evacuated, they left it in nineteen
(16:18):
sixty one, shut it down, and then they just tore
it down gone. Don't know exact data when they did it,
but based on this story here about the guys finding skeletons,
I'm pretty sure that it was already gone by then,
because according to the Irish Times, a sewage tank was
creating a problem, an old sewage tank, not a current one,
an old sewage tank that was operated on the site
(16:42):
in the early twentieth century, now early meaning nineteen twenties
and up. And the minutes of the town meeting Joe
actually reflect that on the board one of their board meetings,
they talked about the problems of this sewage thing overflowing,
creating problems smelling it I'm sure. Oh, so they were
(17:06):
really just dealing with the symptoms, well just cover it
with some more dirt or something, you know, that kind
of thing, and not addressing a skeleton issue or anything else.
So they know there's something over there, but hey, put
the blinders on and let's keep on trucking. So it's
twenty fourteen. You've got the historian who is doing research
and I don't know what her genesis was. I don't
(17:27):
know if it was the nineteen seventies and finding those skeletons,
and it kind of you know, how historians think differently
than the rest of us, you know, and it's really cool.
I admire historians because they those who failed to remember
the past are doomed to repeat it.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Historians live that, and they tell you they're so passionate because,
like Dave, you, if this doesn't get out, we're going
to do it again, you know. Anyway, And so I'm
thinking that something came up and she decided to look
into it, because again, these are public rerecords. You find
seven hundred and ninety six children died, and you've got
burial records for one. There's a story there, and that's
(18:09):
what was reported in The Daily Mail, the Irish Daily
Mail in twenty fourteen. Now after it was reported, the
historian really caught grief. It was it was pretty rough
because that was a home front web mothers run by nuns.
And she's been getting comments for the last eleven years.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
It wasn't just bad then, it's bad now. It was
bad this past Sunday. She's still getting emails, Miss Corlis.
Is you believe that?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, yeah, I can believe it.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Okay, Well, in twenty fourteen, this story gets printed and
there is a lot of hubbub. You know, a lot
of people are washing hands and saying, hey, give me
away from here. But they had to find the bodies.
They got to find there's god to be bodies somewhere
happened to them that led them to, well, we had
(19:04):
these skeletons, and we got that sewage thing over here
led them to the tank and Joe. In twenty seventeen,
they decided to run a test on the tank, on
the sewage tank. And I don't know if that's the
I'm kind of getting it messed up between a septic
tank and a sewage dump. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, I think that these these are not like modern
sewage areas, okay, Like when you think of a septic tank.
So you have a standalone home that is off county
water and whatnot, and you have a field. You know,
they build the field in the back of the house,
they put in the tank, and the tank is there.
(19:47):
And this may have predated the toms in in this
particular area of Ireland, and the western port of portion
of Ireland was markedly poor, particularly you know, back in
that period of time. I mean literally when this place started,
the Irish were going through revolution, you know, during that
(20:09):
period of time, and they didn't they probably didn't have
what we would consider to be modern plumbing. My suspicion
is is that there is a area that was built subterranean,
and I have visions of it being kind of a
(20:30):
bricked area, maybe even domed, and then all of the
sewage water would run into this thing, you know, all
of the you know, solid waste and everything else that's
being produced. Maybe they were counting on it kind of
seeping down, you know, like a modern field does, you know,
(20:53):
where things seep down, And they didn't really think about
groundwater as much back then there. So you've got the
sewage area, and they were probably all over the place,
and all of a sudden, the thing's getting backed up
now and it's probably floating up and you see the
slot in areas that are low lying where sewage feels
(21:16):
again to wet the ground above and it gives off
a horrible odor, as you imagine.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And remember remember the first uh meet the Fokker's movie. Yeah,
and at the wedding, the very first one when they're
parents meet the parents, Yeah, oh yeah, and the eceptive
tank backed up and it flooded their yard and it
stunk because and when what does that smell? It's us?
(21:41):
What do you think? You know? Yeah, it overruns the septics,
over ran the septic system, and then the field lines
you know, got covered up, and that's what you end
up with. I'm on a septic system, so I know
the drill here. That's why I was really curious about this.
And what well, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Over a period of time, though, this is going to
get layered and you're going to have, you know, kind
of the earth is going to begin to kind of
collapse in on this thing exactly. And if it is
like a brick structure that the walls have collapsed or
anything like that. Now you're getting into where the sediment
has kind of dropped down, because look, I'm not trying
(22:17):
to be grotesque here, but you're talking about human waste
that is commingled with human remains, and it's kind of
stacking on top of one another. So every time a
toilet would flush, then that's another layer that goes on
top of any kind of bodies that may be there.
(22:38):
But I got to tell you, Dave, you know, I've
worked cases where I've had moms give birth in toilet
stalls and they flush the toilet and the baby of
course backs up the toilet. Just happens in high schools.
I've had several of those over the course of my
(22:58):
career where I've had to go out to the high
school because baby was actually trapped in the toilet and
it wouldn't go down. And of course this young lady
that has given birth is petrified, scared and everything else,
and somebody finds her in there. Authorities come in, they
(23:19):
found a baby. But we're talking about kids that are
up to three years old day. We're not talking about
merely stillburse. And the youngest child is at thirty three
weeks gestation, which is a rather substantial from a developmental standpoint,
It's a rather substantial baby. By that point in, Tom.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Had one thing that we've got need to be clear
on is as they were the children actually had their
death record that indicated how they died. So you had
mentioned something because you were explaining to me that the
difference in what we have now a septic system versus
(24:02):
what was going on then these nuns. Am I wrong
when I say the nuns got rid of the bodies
by putting them in the septic. There's a hole that
probably allowed access to this huge underground tank and they
placed these babies in that tank because you.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Know, standing jok mode and pull in a chain right,
you know, and the baby's going because you're talking about
Dave their kids in here. And remember we started off
by talking three years old. Yeah, developmentally that's rather substantial.
You're not flushing the child three year old now all
down the toilet. And you know what this made me
think of. It made me think of Chris Watts. And
(24:46):
the reason is is that out there at those petroleum
tanks and that high desert area there in Colorado. You
know what he did with both those little angels. He
went to the two tanks and these things. I'll never forget.
I had this discussion on the air because I'd never
heard the term, and it's I was on the air
(25:09):
with a guy that was working in the petroleum industry
and he was going through describing what these openings are
on the top and here's an interesting term day he
referred to as thief hatches. I'd never heard that term.
It's a unique hat term, a thief hatch. And so
my thought was, I know that in the Chris Watts case,
(25:32):
the oldest child had her back was scratched up post
mortem because he had jammed her down through that thief
hatch and she fell into that muck in there, that
highly toxic, toxic raw petroleum muck in there. And you know, Dave,
I got to tell you, I think that the sisters
(25:52):
had access to probably something similar to a thief hatch,
and it had to be big enough so that it
can actually accommodate up to a three year old child
if we are to believe what they're the information that's
coming out now that sounds that sounds like the case.
And once this this can go to a really dark area.
(26:17):
And the reason it's dark is I I think about
I think about these children, and I wonder if these children,
first off were viable after birth where they being killed
(26:45):
because no one was watching. Because to the church back then,
perhaps an unwed mother giving birth to a child is
a grievous sin, and so that child which is born
(27:09):
is a product of that and not worthy of life.
Now I don't know that that happened. However, they would
let me give you a little bit bit more insight
into this if you had. I do know that with
these mothers that would give birth in these homes, if
(27:31):
they and this is the way it was termed, Dave,
if they repeat offended, they were sent to what was
referred to as the Magdalene Magnaline washer washer women. I
think it's what it was called. And essentially their punishment
(27:53):
for getting pregnant once again was to be sent and
come almost like indentured servants, where they're having to work
processing laundry. And the nunneries ran multiple of these places
around the country. Of these you know, the I don't know,
(28:14):
it's I don't know if I want to call it
a laundry mat, but it's where people would go and
have their clothes cleaned and so these women would occupy
these spaces, and of course they were being lorded over
by the nuns that were put in charge of it. So,
you know, the whole thing, the whole thing. I can
understand why why these people are attacking, attacking this this auto,
(28:42):
I mean this historian, because they looking they're looking into
the eyes of something that is pure evil here that
took place in their community. And Dave, this place was
shut down in nineteen sixty one, Bro, there's still people
that are out there that have memories of this place.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, and knew what was going on, or at least
knew there were young women there that you know, having children. Again,
going back to the recovery process, we're talking ten eleven
years after the place is closed down. You got skeletons
that are being found being pushed to the side. And
then years, all these years later, you know, we're not
talking you're talking ten to fifteen years after it's closed down.
(29:22):
There's a hint that there's something going on, but they
covered that up. So now flash forward all these years decades,
now decades, it's twenty fourteen in the Historian. To be
honest with you, Joe, this is a pretty simple thing.
How many people died there? We got death records? Yeah,
how many people are buried? Where is the cemetery where?
(29:43):
And you don't have it. So it's so sad that
it came down to that that.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, yeah it is. And you've got listen in this.
Also involved in this. It's not just the nuns, the
local priests, whoever, the the rector was of that particular
parish that this thing was assigned to, and I'm sure
that it had a connected parish because what would happen
is that the priest from that parish would come to
(30:11):
that location and conduct mass on site. Okay, any kindspiratual needs, confession,
anything that was going to happen, you know, and of
course they're trying to quote unquote get these women on
the right path. They're going to have to hear confession,
They're going to have to have Bible lessons and everything
else that comes along with that. The priest is involved,
(30:32):
that would mean the bishop would also have to have
knowledge of it as well, because it's part of the diocese.
And you know who else is involved the people that
are the local politicians and these are signed death certificates, Dave.
That means that there were physicians out there. There were
(30:53):
physicians out there that were listening, and these are very
specific causes of death. You've got things like diphtheria, which
is a horrible, you know, kind of airway disruption. You've
got bronchitis. These are the causes of death. Pneumonia. I
saw one that was like a tuberculosis. So you've got
(31:14):
a whole variety of these kids that are dying from
things that in today's day and age are survivable, I think,
But where they ill equipped? Could they not? Mean? Because
there were people that survived pneumonia back then. There were
kids that survived, There were kids that survived at THEEA,
I mean, it has a high mortality rate. But you've
(31:35):
got all of these people kind of, for lack of
a better term, cloistered in this particular area, and they're
there and they're all dying. I guess my question as
a death investigator is is what we're hearing that's listed
as a cause of death officially? Was it something else?
Maybe something much more sinister. So authorities have these old
(32:10):
records going back to the seventies of when skeletons are
discovered Dave, when they started to do the testing around
this area. Based upon this, they were in for quite
the shock, weren't they.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Well, I'm really curious, Joe, because what we you know,
in looking at how it turned about twenty fourteen, We've
got the death certificates, but no burials. We already had
the history of the skeletons. But now as they start looking,
this historian is really pushing. Missus Corlis is pushing for
something's got to be done. Yeah, And three years after
(32:49):
the article is printed, three years they actually go and
look in the septic tank. Well, well, i'll call a
septic tank. It was the septic system used by that
nunnery that the home. And because they knew where it was,
you know, even though it had been abandoned from that building,
it was still in the ground. The building might have
(33:09):
been raised, but this was still in the ground. And
so they went out and did testing. Now the testing
happened eight years ago, twenty seventeen, and they came up
with results. And I really don't know how this, you know,
could happen, because Joe, when I'm thinking of digging down
(33:30):
into the earth to get core samples, you know, to
determine age and things like that, I mean, they send
a pipe down there, We've got an area that appears
to possibly be a tomb of a mass grave. It
is underground. We know that it is commingled. Probably, How
(33:51):
are you going to get a sample? How are you
how do you go about doing that?
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Well, the first thing is you're not going to put
shovel to earth at this point. You're My suspicion is
is that they you know, you talked about like from
a geological standpoint, how people do core samples of the
earth and that brings out like a solid piece of earth.
You know, that's multi it's stratified. You know when you
(34:16):
look at it, it's not what they're going to do here,
because this is a surface Yeah, it's a septic tank,
but in the whole grand scheme of things, this is
a surface burial, all right. So what they're going to
do is they're going to put in the ground. They're
gonna put methane probes, and the methane probe sniff out. Obviously,
methane and methane is a is an element that is
(34:40):
found in the process of decomposition. Okay, as a matter
of fact, the body of a human body. When you
when a body swells, for instance, the primary gas that
it's given off as methane. I have actually seen, I've repeated,
I've stated this before. I've actually seeing a ten gauge
(35:03):
needle inserted into the stomach of a bloated of a bloated,
deceased person, and a lighter struck over the end of
the needle, and it gives off a blue flame, and
that's the methane burning off. It's real, it's a real thing.
So once they start to get hits, if they're using
(35:24):
methane probes, that's when in a very small section, you
just don't you don't, you don't bring in a bacco,
all right, You're going to now, as delicately as possible,
take it down, layer by layer by layer. And I
would imagine if they still have the notes from where
the skeletons were found, they might start there as the
(35:48):
outer boundary and then move back into where they knew
that septic cank was located, and they would start off
very surface. And once they get hit on those first
few skeletletans, then the real work is at hand. And Dave,
I got to tell you, because this story is actually
(36:08):
this is occurring in real time as you and I
are chatting right now. That's one of the reasons I
want to cover it because I couldn't believe what I
was reading when I read it, and I knew that
you would certainly be interested in this. This is going
on right now, and Dave, I got to tell you
these co mingle remains. I'm so glad you used that word.
(36:29):
By the way, I feel like I've taught you. Yeah,
well you've learned the term commingle. And so just imagine,
let's just say the idea that I have. If they're
dropping baby skeletons in through a thief hatch or some
kind of access point like this, not fleshing them down
the toilet, then you've got one centralized area of impact. Okay,
(36:54):
like maybe maybe you've got a stillbirth or another child
that dies and I don't know, I don't know. Let's
say January of nineteen twenty two, PLoP. Well, there's another
one happens in February of twenty three, PLoP, like this,
and they're just dropping in that one spot. If there's
(37:14):
one central deposition area in that space, I have to think,
because I can't imagine a nun walking down through some
rusty door in her habit and depositing these bodies in
a sewer. It just seems to me more logical that
they would have access from above and drop them in there,
(37:35):
and no one's going to be any of the wiser.
No one's going to question a nun when they didn't
back during that period of time.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Simple math. Yeah, if you look at it, they shut
it down in nineteen sixty one. We know that it
was roughly opened up in the nineteen twenties. So let's
just say forty years, okay, and in forty your period
of time to have eight hundred bodies yep, that's going
to be one every other week, yep. And so you're
right if they're putting them in the same area and
(38:03):
it's a large enough pre septic system sewage system where
it's interesting that it would fit that they would basically
be in that area. Now, one thing that did catch
my attention, Joe, is that in twenty seventeen they I
was wondering how they did the you know, the excavation
(38:24):
when you were talking about using the methane before they
put shovel to ground, right, which didn't occur to me.
But they did a test excavation after they had results,
and that was so in twenty seventeen, they knew, okay,
this we have found. We have found what we're looking for.
But they stopped. And I don't know if they stopped
(38:47):
because you're now dealing with graves. We don't know how
many you're in there. We don't know. We know that
we found at least a couple, but they don't know
how many they have. All they really know is we
have a number of death certificates that we're done. They're
not hiding the deaths. We don't have burials, and so
(39:09):
we don't know if they're all in there. They could
be they could have been buried in unmarked graves. They
could be any there. You know, they could be anywhere. However,
when you go back to the nineteen seventies and you've
got people finding twenty skeletons and throwing that number out
there like it's nothing, twenty skeletons is a lot of
people to be finding skeletonized people. I mean, that would
give me nightmare on Elm Street kind of nightmares for
(39:32):
a while.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Well, so I think that's bad. The area where this
place was torn down is now surrounded by modern apartment companients. No,
it is and come on, yeah, and so you've got
this kind of concentrically located in the middle right there.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
We take a hiatus from taping you and I are
going over there with a digital camera in a film
crew and we're making a scary movie.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
We're now I'll be going to the pub to have
a pint of guinness, So you can go out there
if you won't say no, I you know it's goodness.
There's going to be multiple universities involved in this because
they what they're saying right now, what has happened is
that the government officials have finally given the go ahead
for full on excavation of this area. And Dave, to
(40:15):
give you an idea of how vast this is, they're
estimating that it will take them to beyond years in
order to facilitate this. So right now as we're speaking,
we're looking out toward twenty seven or twenty eight before
(40:36):
this might be complete. And the problem is is that
you don't know the scope of this. When you get
into it, you know, yeah, you've got these missing remains.
The skeletons will in fact be I think disarticulated, so
you really are going to have a jumble a comingled
(40:56):
jumble in this area. And the one other thing that
their purpose to do here, Dave, is that they're going
to do DNA. They're doing DNA on these and you know,
I think of course about our friends at the author them,
you know, because this is going to be a case
that will involve forensic genetic genealogy, because there are descendants
(41:21):
of the same family line that are out there that
might not know that there was a child, you know,
that came into this world and that there was a
teenage mom that was part and parcel of you know,
of their family.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And Dave, you gave me it gets worse.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, yeah, please, because I got to tell you, get ready, folks.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
As bad as it is to think that we've got
this one place run by nuns and seven hundred and
ninety six children that are unaccounted for in their death,
thankfully one historian opened this door. Yeah, here are the
other numbers that are associated with this, because this wasn't
the only home run by nuns in the Republic of Ireland.
(42:06):
I did say that, right, correct, Yes, yeah, okay, yep.
A major inquiry has been done in the time since
this first came out in twenty fourteen, they've been studying
and it's been determined the mother and baby homes found
in the Republic of Ireland. There were eighteen total different
(42:28):
homes run in this same time period and a total
of about nine thousand children dead. Nine thousand children amongst
the eighteen homes, and the death certificates are there, Joe.
We've got them dying from things like respiratory infections, gastro enteritis.
(42:52):
Isn't that stomach flew? Yeah, okay, and a few other
things like that. But nine children dad over eighteen of
their homes and they got to figure out where the
bodies are.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, that's and again, how do you make account for
these Do some of these homes or at least the
structure still stand? Is there an area that had been
designated previously, you know, as a graveyard. It reminds me
of the Doser School in Florida, which was the boys
(43:34):
home down there, and there's been several documentaries absolutely heartbreaking
where these these young men were young boys actually were
sent to state home and they were, you know, delinquent
and that sort of thing. They would keep them there
for years and literally treat them like slave labor and
take them out into windowless building and beat them. And
(43:57):
many of these kids died, and they were buried and
unmarked graves, and there was a big push. And I
think that going back in time, as we dig deeper
down into records, I think that you'll find more of
these events. Right now, the spotlight is on the Republic
of Ireland, and you know what else, the spotlight is
(44:17):
on the Catholic Church. And I would make a plea
right now to the new poplio who seems receptive of things.
Right now. I think that it would be a great
start if the Catholic Church would put their full might,
power and finances into solving this mystery that is certainly
(44:39):
a stain on the beautiful country of Ireland. Help with
the DNA, Help with getting these young children, you know,
buried properly. Send your priest out there, do last rites,
do whatever you need to do to make it right
with the community, because there's no replacing these precious little ones,
(45:03):
none whatsoever. But there's a chance that healing could begin,
and you never know in this old crazy world where
that healing are, what that healing will lead to. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body Bags
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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