December 1, 2020 • 25 mins
Bertha Gifford was well-known throughout her community for her cooking skills and her compassion. She acted in the role of nurse for her sick family and neighbors, and was eventually accused of murdering with arsenic a total of 17 people in her care. But what's most interesting about Bertha is that she also became one of America's first female serial killers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia.
This season, we are exploring the lives and motivations of
some of the most notorious lady poisoners in history. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Maria Trumrky and in today's episode,
(00:20):
we are talking about the life of Bertha Gifford. Bertha
was born Bertha Alice Williams on October seventy one in
morse Mill, Missouri. She was the daughter of William Poindexter
Williams and his wife Matilda, and she was the ninth
of their ten children. The Williams family worshiped in the
(00:48):
Church of God, which was the Fundamentalist church and was
considered one of the areas and we quote, finest and
most respectable families. Bertha would grow up to be a
country nurse. She didn't have any formal schooling in medical care,
but that really wouldn't have been especially unusual at this
time in the history of America. But what is really
(01:09):
interesting about Bertha is that she also became one of
the United States first female serial killers. That is the
most interesting I think. So let's talk a little bit
about Bertha when she was younger. We're going to start
when she's in her twenties. So Bertha was actually considered
(01:30):
to be one of the prettiest women in her county
where she lived. She wasn't very tall, she spoke with
a light lisp, and she was best known for her
cooking skills, which was something she was known for her
entire life. When she was twenty two, in eighteen ninety four,
she married Henry Graham in Moore's Mill, where they both
grew up, and about a year later they had one daughter, Lila.
(01:54):
I imagine that a lot of people I know I did,
might picture a town such as more Smell, Missouri in
the late eighteen hundreds is like a quaint, quiet farming community. Oh.
I completely pictured it that way, like and farming, yes, yes,
But the reality was that it was actually a resort
town that catered to the St. Louis elite. Although one
(02:17):
story suggests that the Grahams ran a boarding house of
their own, nearly all of the history around Bertha actually
indicates that she worked at the Morse Mill Hotel, which
was a very popular place for tourists to stay. As
a side note, to that when I was looking at research.
There is today a Morrise Mill Hotel, and I'm not
sure if they're open or if they're about to reopen,
(02:38):
but they do paranormal activities there and they I'm not
sure that they have have any visits from her victims,
but they're looking for visits from them. So if you're
ever in the area in Missouri, the Morris Mill Hotel
is one of your destinations. I'm now putting it on
(02:58):
my so we can have a Criminalia road trip when
the pandemic is over, because that when we can leave
the house. So after a few years, her marriage to
Henry ran into trouble. And that's because sometime around nineteen
o five or so, Bertha started spending a little too
(03:18):
much time with a local man named Eugene Gifford. Eugene
went by Jeanne, so we'll be calling him that from
now on. Jean by all accounts, was a really popular
man around his community. He was a good worker, he
was entertaining when he told stories. He was considered to
be a good friend. And he also was and this
was the scandalous part of the story, about ten years
(03:41):
younger than Bertha. As you can imagine Bertha and her husband, Henry,
started arguing a lot around this time. Some reports suggest
that it was about Bertha's affair, but others kind of
indicate that both Henry and Bertha were not really faithful
to the marriage. A mad their arguments. One night, though,
(04:02):
Henry suddenly became ill and then became weak and developed
violent stomach cramps. He died shortly thereafter, at the age
of thirty four, of what was thought to be pneumonia. Honestly,
nobody thought much about his cause of death, and Bertha
collected on the life insurance money and went about grieving
her late husband. Now that a year or two after this,
(04:28):
she and Jean got married, and then shortly they moved
away from morse Mill and settled in the nearby Kattawissa area.
Jean took to farming and they had one child. James,
one of the local neighbors, is quoted saying that Eugene
Gifford was a successful farmer, and everyone knew the Giffords.
Katta Wissa was a very rural area and there was
(04:50):
just one physician for the whole county. Bertha took on
the role of country nurse for her sick family and
neighbors when they needed it, and at first wore a
white apron when she called on her patients. That's the
term we're using pretty loosely here. But later she started
to wear a nurse's uniform. The community described Bertha as
(05:11):
we quote, a tireless attender of funerals, a visitor of
sick persons, and a connoisseur of stories dealing with violence,
illness or blood. That's actually how I hoped my biography
goes after I die, violence, illness, and blood stories. Holly
was a connoisseur of all the stories, especially the ones
(05:35):
with blood. I like to think that she later started
to wear her nurse's uniform because she was really getting
the character. Um you know, I mean, I have no
obviously reason to be like this is a fact, but
in my mind, she was really sort of honing her skills,
and she's like, I am a nurse now. So she
was known to pay visits to sick neighbors. She brought food,
(05:55):
she stayed to administer medicine, all the kinds of things
did you expect a nurse to do. She would often
dispense what the doctor had prescribed, but she had all
sorts of medical and non medical things in her satchel,
and it's said that Bertha made her own potions, as
she called them, interesting notions. In her new community, she
(06:17):
had established herself as always willing to help, and she
was always there when someone was ill or injured, even
if it meant that she had to travel for miles
to be there. She frequently took sick people into her
home and nurse them, although this was not a case
of nursing them back to life. Right, she sounds like
such a lovely woman until you find out you realized
(06:38):
nobody got out of her house alive. Right, until you
realize that among her patients had turned out they were
more likely to die in her care than they were
to get well. Um, and then you kind of go
not the best Samaritan that I thought she was. Her
victims ranged in age from fifteen months to about seventy
two years. And those are the victims that we know of.
(06:59):
They weren't strange, they were neighbors, friends, relatives, and there
was no discernible pattern to her victims other than the
fact that they had been ill. Initially, Bertha was not
suspected of anything, but as her victim list began to grow,
authorities did begin to suspect her, specifically of three murders.
(07:19):
The first and second suspected murders were both of children.
First Lloyd Shamel, who was around nine years old, whose
mother had died two months earlier, perhaps through Worth's care,
but maybe not. It's a little unclear, unclear. And then
Lloyd's brother, Elmer, who was either six or seven, and
he died less than six weeks after his brother Lloyd.
(07:39):
And Elmer's father, whose first name completely escaped me and
all of our research, said at the time that he
didn't suspect anything was going on, and we quote him
as saying that he liked the Gifford's fine and he
thought that it was just his bad luck. He had
a lot of territory to cover. But the deaths of
those boy has aroused the suspicion of the county doctor,
(08:02):
doctor W. H. Hemger. We mentioned there was only one
doctor there and that's why Bertha was so leaned upon
for her nursing care. He recommended an autopsy after Elmer died. However,
the boy's father did not agree to this procedure, so
Hemker reported the cause of death as acute guestritis. So
the third person who Bertha was suspected of killing was
(08:25):
a man named Ed Brindley, who was a known alcoholic
around town. One night, he fell inebriated on the concrete
walk outside of the Gifford's home, and of course they
took him in and they cared for him until he
passed away. Ed's death was the one that renewed Dr
hemkers suspicions about Bertha, and he consulted with another physician.
(08:46):
The two were not able to agree on a cause
of death, and Ed's death certificate reported that he died
also of acute gastritis. That's really not a bad diagnosis
if there's no suspicion that poison is involved. Symptoms of
guest tritis include many of the symptoms that we've talked
about over and over with arsenic poisoning, right, So, stomach pain, vomiting,
(09:08):
diarrhea sometimes bloody, and a burning sensation in the stomach,
which can make a diagnosis of poisoning even if the
doctor is suspicious, kind of difficult. Those are issues that
pop up with a lot of other problems. Exactly. One
of the great things about arsenic as a poison is
it mimics everything else. Right, So I think it's a
(09:30):
good time to take a break from our talking about
poison for a word from our sponsor, and we came back.
We'll talk about how the community began to suspect foul play.
Welcome back to Criminaliam. Let's get to talking about whether
(09:51):
Bertha was the quote angel of mercy of her community.
So after the three death the community rumor mills started
to talk about foul play, and many suspected that there
were more than just these three victims, and some of
them urged the county's prosecuting attorney to open investigation into Bertha,
(10:14):
but there was no official action taken at that time.
It wasn't until after a St. Louis newspaper printed an
article about patients mysteriously dying while under Bertha's care, that
the prosecutor ordered a grand jury to look specifically into
ed Brindley's death. Bertha, at this time, though, tried her
(10:36):
hardest to scare off anyone who considered testifying against her
by threatening libel lawsuits for one and all, like like Oprah,
you know, you get a lawsuit, you get a law suit.
You know, it's just everybody in town is gonna get
a lawsuit, and it must have worked, because the jury
failed to indict her. At this point, Bertha and Jane
(10:56):
moved not too far away, but far enough to hopefully
get out of the spotlight of all of this controversy. Still,
though the prosecutor summoned another grand jury. The bodies of
Ed Brindley and the Shamel brothers were all exhumed during
the second investigation into Bertha, and large quantities of arsenic
(11:17):
were found in the vital organs in each body. Shortly after,
on August, Bertha was arrested at Eureka, Missouri, and she
was charged with murder. Until then, their neighbors found the
Gifford's to be and we quote, such nice people, everybody
like them. She was also called, and this is another quote,
(11:38):
one of the best biscuit bakers in the county, poison free.
So when they questioned her about why she poisoned these people,
Bertha had an explanation, and she tearfully went on to
talk about that her intentions were to help anyone who
was sick, not not to kill them, and actually to
(12:00):
give her a tiny, teeny tiny bit of credit. At
this time, people actually used arsenic for medical reasons, so
her argument wasn't necessarily a total lie. This is where
that medical training might have come in handy probably right,
you know, um yeah, dosing. Anyway, when she signed a
(12:24):
statement confessing to her crimes, Bertha reported she had placed
arsenic into the medicine that the doctor had provided for
both Lloyd and Elmer Shamel. She stated that she had
done the same for Ed Brimley. However, learning that her
confession had been made public, Bertha became hysterical, and she
began with great effort to deny everything about it. Her
(12:47):
husband suggested she was just nervous when she confessed, and
she didn't know what she was saying, and so he
hired a lawyer who entered a plea of not guilty
on her behalf. Bertha was put on trial in nearby Union, Missouri,
and once it finally began, her trial lasted for three days.
On the first day of the trial, more than one
thousand people crowded into the courtroom. That made up a
(13:10):
crowd that's billed into the hallway outside. Can you even imagine? Um? So,
in the courtroom, it's reported that Bertha was actually really
quite well put together. She she came in wearing a
black coat. Her dark hair was freshly bobbed, and she
was made up with two bright spots of rug on
her cheeks. But she also sat slumped in her chair,
(13:32):
and some among the community who had known her well
said that her eyes seemed dead. After testimony that Bertha
had several times purchased arsenic at drug stores around the county,
she defended herself by saying it was all for getting
rid of barn rats that had been bothering the chickens
on their farm. Sure, M, yeah, I mean people used
(13:54):
arsenic for that specific purpose that time. But circumstantially her purchase, says,
seemed to coincide with the deaths of her patients. That's
a little more problematic. The jury indicted her for first
degree murder in the poisoning deaths of Elmer Shamel and
Ed Brindley. The charge of murdering Elmer's brother, Lloyd was
added to the indictment, but not until subsequent investigation. So
(14:18):
during the trial there were many, many people to take
the stand, and there were five doctors who were sent
to testify that they had determined the mental health of Bertha,
and they said all five we quote insane in rebuttal
to psychiatrists, which were known as alienists at this time
in history of them, I love in which we still used,
(14:42):
we're also called to the stand. But they didn't disagree
with the assessment of her mental health. Both of them
actually concluded the same as the other five doctors, that
Bertha was not of sound mind. So it took just
three hours for the jury to find Bertha had indeed
fatally poisoned her vict him. They agreed she had been
insane at the time, and they considered that she still was.
(15:05):
She was found not guilty by reason of insanity. She
was sentenced by Circuit Judge Brewer and committed to the
Missouri State Hospital Number four that was a psychiatric institution,
and she lived there until her death on August. Her
death certificate lists her as having lived with paranoia precox psychosis,
(15:26):
which today we would know better as schizophrenia. But getting
back to her victims, Elmer, Lloyd, and Ed weren't the
only three who died under mysterious circumstances while in Bertha's care.
There's actually quite a list, so maybe settle in while
we name some of them, and this list is not complete.
(15:47):
So there was Emily Gifford, who was Bertha's mother in law,
And then there was James Gifford, her thirteen year old
brother in law. And then Sherman Pounds, the fifty three
year old uncle of her husband, as well as sherman
three year old granddaughter Beulah, the Gifford's fifty three year
old hired hand around the farm. A man named James
Ogil also became a victim. Then there were the Stolefelder children,
(16:12):
Irene who died at age seven, Margaret at age two,
and Bernard, who was just fifteen months old. Bernard was
Bertha's youngest known victim. Mary Brittley was only seven years
old when she was poisoned and died. Leona Slocum, thirty seven,
died under Bertha's care. The oldest victim, Grandma Bertie Unterstall,
(16:34):
was seventy two when she was Bertha's victim. By some counts,
Bertha may have been responsible for between seventeen and nineteen
fatal poisonings over the span of about twenty years. So
here we are with Bertha. Bertha is buried in an
(16:56):
unmarked grave at the Soul Sleepers Cemetery in her hometown
own of more smell, and in the years since her death,
the Missouri Department of Mental Health has permanently sealed her record,
barring a court order or request to open them from
immediate family. When we come back, we will talk a
bit about what makes a serial killer. Welcome back to Criminaliot.
(17:32):
Let's get into talking about the profile of a serial killer,
specifically a female serial killer, which is different. According to
a newspaper article from the time of the trial, we quote,
interest in the cases nationwide, and stories of the trial
are being carried in all of the great newspapers of
(17:52):
the country. This interest in Bertha was not only because
of the number of deaths that had occurred, but also
because the serial murderer was a woman, which was and
still is rare. It's really easy to call many of
the women that we've talked about so far this season
as to call them serial killers, but during our research
(18:13):
we see that term applied so often to those who
actually are not serial killers. It's true many of them
did kill more than one person, but most of the
time they didn't fit the profile. Eartha, however, is interesting
because she is considered a serial killer by the defining characteristics.
(18:34):
She is the fourth female serial killer identified in the
United States, behind Lydia Sherman, who is included as part
of our season of Poisoners, Jane Toppin, a nurse who
killed thirty one people, and Nanny Dass whose favorite pastimes
included reading romance novels and killing her relatives eleven of
them in total. What's not true about serial killers is
(18:56):
that there are always men. Granted, it's just a mall
percentage of serial killers who are women so small though
that back in a former FBI profiler was quoted saying
there are no female serial killers. But that's not really true.
Female serial killers do exist, they are few in number,
(19:17):
and they aren't motivated in the same way as their
male counterparts. Unlike male serial killers, who usually target people
they don't know, female serial killers tend to kill people
who are emotionally and physically closest to them, So victims
of female serial killers are often lovers. Um Also, very
(19:38):
often they include children and the elderly, which are two
groups that are very unlikely or unable to fight back
for themselves. And as we just mentioned, while male serial
killers tend to choose victims they don't know, studies of
known female serial killers suggest that as many as eighty
percent knew they're victims. In fact, nearly two thirds were
(20:00):
related to their victims, one third killed their significant others,
and nearly half killed their own children. According to the
FBI's profile of a serial killer male or female, these
are people who have killed a series of three or
more victims. But it doesn't end there. While male serial
(20:21):
killers are more likely to use violent methods such as
a gun or strangulation, female serial killers are much more
likely to use a more low profile methods such as
suffocation or as we see a lot, poisoning. What we
do know about the profile of female serial killers is
that they're typically white and conventionally attractive, and one of
(20:44):
known female serial killers identified as Christian. They typically have
killed between seven and ten people, so more than twice
the requirement to qualify for their title. Right two to
three is not going to get to a serial killer
title into the profile, so this is really interesting, especially
to Birth's situation. Nursing is an occupation that is overrepresented
(21:10):
among female serial killers, so nearly had worked in health
related fields as nurses or aids, and about worked in
caregiving rules such as mothering and nanning or caretaking of
an elderly relative. And also, interestingly, one of the main
motivations for female serial killers is to get attention or sympathy,
(21:33):
such as following the death of a relative or someone
that they've cared for. So while it's difficult for any
of us to get into the mind of a male
or or female serial killer, we can take a minute
to remember that in birth is confession, she said in
all three cases, the patients were suffering from severe pains,
(21:55):
and I put arsenic in their medicine to quiet their pains.
At all I think of when I think of of
Birtha talking about her confession and her in court, is
that that phrase to quiet their pains. It's quite haunting,
it is. She's a tough one to to research and
write about because of the whole serial killer factor and
(22:17):
the fact that she was well. But but I mean,
I like, I'm addicted to watching serial killer documentaries, so
but I was really they don't they don't do many
documentaries on female serial killers, you know. So, uh, knowing
how well she was liked in her community and what
she was practicing was really sort of difficult to get
(22:38):
my head to wrap around. Yeah. Uh, yeah, she's She's
one that it's we have talked so many times about
how usually in a lot of these cases there's something
about the person involved that we come to like or
delight in, but it's quite difficult with her to find one.
She's one of those few that it's like, there's nothing
in this story that's like comfortable or laughy exactly exactly. So, Holly, Yeah,
(23:04):
which poison this week? I hear it might be a
little appily it is. It's a little apply and a
little lemony. Um. I wanted to make a cocktail for
Bertha that reflected her image as an angel of mercy
um and as a nurse. So this drink is sweet
and it's quite pleasant when you sip it, but it
(23:26):
will really knock you on your key st um. And
I am calling it the Angel of Mercy exactly. So uh.
I started with a spirit that is not one of
my usual go too. But this entire season has been
a good lesson in trying new things to gin drain in.
So two ounces of gin, two ounces of unsweetened apple juice,
(23:49):
one ounce of simple syrup, and a splash of lemon juice.
Just mix that together real quick and then also stir
in about six ounces of lemon lime soda and it's um. Yeah,
just put it with some ice in there and stir
it it so it's a little bubbly. It tastes like
apple juice. The reason that I went with unsweetened apple
(24:10):
juice is because by the time you include the soda
and the simple syrup, it would get really chloying if
you used sweetened apple juice. So makes sense. It's also
a recipe. You can dinner with the amounts of certain
things to your taste. So if you prefer a little
more of a crisp, bity flavor rather than a sweet
you can up the lemon juice and drop the simple
(24:32):
syrup to a half ounce. Um, as it is. It's
it's sweet, but to me not too painfully sweet. But yeah,
it's um. It's very yummy. It does taste like just
fizzy apple juice. And then I was like, oh, yeah,
I can't tolerate gin the way I can tolerate other things. Hello,
I can't stand up like. So that is the angel
(24:53):
of mercy, which will help you quiet your pains. I
suppose please drink responsibly. Um. Thank you for once again
joining us on another episode of Criminalia. We will see
you again here next week. Criminalia is a production of
Shonda land Audio in partnership with I heart Radio. For
(25:14):
more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia.
This season, we are exploring the lives and motivations of
some of the most notorious lady poisoners in history. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Maria Trumrky and in today's episode,
(00:20):
we are talking about the life of Bertha Gifford. Bertha
was born Bertha Alice Williams on October seventy one in
morse Mill, Missouri. She was the daughter of William Poindexter
Williams and his wife Matilda, and she was the ninth
of their ten children. The Williams family worshiped in the
(00:48):
Church of God, which was the Fundamentalist church and was
considered one of the areas and we quote, finest and
most respectable families. Bertha would grow up to be a
country nurse. She didn't have any formal schooling in medical care,
but that really wouldn't have been especially unusual at this
time in the history of America. But what is really
(01:09):
interesting about Bertha is that she also became one of
the United States first female serial killers. That is the
most interesting I think. So let's talk a little bit
about Bertha when she was younger. We're going to start
when she's in her twenties. So Bertha was actually considered
(01:30):
to be one of the prettiest women in her county
where she lived. She wasn't very tall, she spoke with
a light lisp, and she was best known for her
cooking skills, which was something she was known for her
entire life. When she was twenty two, in eighteen ninety four,
she married Henry Graham in Moore's Mill, where they both
grew up, and about a year later they had one daughter, Lila.
(01:54):
I imagine that a lot of people I know I did,
might picture a town such as more Smell, Missouri in
the late eighteen hundreds is like a quaint, quiet farming community. Oh.
I completely pictured it that way, like and farming, yes, yes,
But the reality was that it was actually a resort
town that catered to the St. Louis elite. Although one
(02:17):
story suggests that the Grahams ran a boarding house of
their own, nearly all of the history around Bertha actually
indicates that she worked at the Morse Mill Hotel, which
was a very popular place for tourists to stay. As
a side note, to that when I was looking at research.
There is today a Morrise Mill Hotel, and I'm not
sure if they're open or if they're about to reopen,
(02:38):
but they do paranormal activities there and they I'm not
sure that they have have any visits from her victims,
but they're looking for visits from them. So if you're
ever in the area in Missouri, the Morris Mill Hotel
is one of your destinations. I'm now putting it on
(02:58):
my so we can have a Criminalia road trip when
the pandemic is over, because that when we can leave
the house. So after a few years, her marriage to
Henry ran into trouble. And that's because sometime around nineteen
o five or so, Bertha started spending a little too
(03:18):
much time with a local man named Eugene Gifford. Eugene
went by Jeanne, so we'll be calling him that from
now on. Jean by all accounts, was a really popular
man around his community. He was a good worker, he
was entertaining when he told stories. He was considered to
be a good friend. And he also was and this
was the scandalous part of the story, about ten years
(03:41):
younger than Bertha. As you can imagine Bertha and her husband, Henry,
started arguing a lot around this time. Some reports suggest
that it was about Bertha's affair, but others kind of
indicate that both Henry and Bertha were not really faithful
to the marriage. A mad their arguments. One night, though,
(04:02):
Henry suddenly became ill and then became weak and developed
violent stomach cramps. He died shortly thereafter, at the age
of thirty four, of what was thought to be pneumonia. Honestly,
nobody thought much about his cause of death, and Bertha
collected on the life insurance money and went about grieving
her late husband. Now that a year or two after this,
(04:28):
she and Jean got married, and then shortly they moved
away from morse Mill and settled in the nearby Kattawissa area.
Jean took to farming and they had one child. James,
one of the local neighbors, is quoted saying that Eugene
Gifford was a successful farmer, and everyone knew the Giffords.
Katta Wissa was a very rural area and there was
(04:50):
just one physician for the whole county. Bertha took on
the role of country nurse for her sick family and
neighbors when they needed it, and at first wore a
white apron when she called on her patients. That's the
term we're using pretty loosely here. But later she started
to wear a nurse's uniform. The community described Bertha as
(05:11):
we quote, a tireless attender of funerals, a visitor of
sick persons, and a connoisseur of stories dealing with violence,
illness or blood. That's actually how I hoped my biography
goes after I die, violence, illness, and blood stories. Holly
was a connoisseur of all the stories, especially the ones
(05:35):
with blood. I like to think that she later started
to wear her nurse's uniform because she was really getting
the character. Um you know, I mean, I have no
obviously reason to be like this is a fact, but
in my mind, she was really sort of honing her skills,
and she's like, I am a nurse now. So she
was known to pay visits to sick neighbors. She brought food,
(05:55):
she stayed to administer medicine, all the kinds of things
did you expect a nurse to do. She would often
dispense what the doctor had prescribed, but she had all
sorts of medical and non medical things in her satchel,
and it's said that Bertha made her own potions, as
she called them, interesting notions. In her new community, she
(06:17):
had established herself as always willing to help, and she
was always there when someone was ill or injured, even
if it meant that she had to travel for miles
to be there. She frequently took sick people into her
home and nurse them, although this was not a case
of nursing them back to life. Right, she sounds like
such a lovely woman until you find out you realized
(06:38):
nobody got out of her house alive. Right, until you
realize that among her patients had turned out they were
more likely to die in her care than they were
to get well. Um, and then you kind of go
not the best Samaritan that I thought she was. Her
victims ranged in age from fifteen months to about seventy
two years. And those are the victims that we know of.
(06:59):
They weren't strange, they were neighbors, friends, relatives, and there
was no discernible pattern to her victims other than the
fact that they had been ill. Initially, Bertha was not
suspected of anything, but as her victim list began to grow,
authorities did begin to suspect her, specifically of three murders.
(07:19):
The first and second suspected murders were both of children.
First Lloyd Shamel, who was around nine years old, whose
mother had died two months earlier, perhaps through Worth's care,
but maybe not. It's a little unclear, unclear. And then
Lloyd's brother, Elmer, who was either six or seven, and
he died less than six weeks after his brother Lloyd.
(07:39):
And Elmer's father, whose first name completely escaped me and
all of our research, said at the time that he
didn't suspect anything was going on, and we quote him
as saying that he liked the Gifford's fine and he
thought that it was just his bad luck. He had
a lot of territory to cover. But the deaths of
those boy has aroused the suspicion of the county doctor,
(08:02):
doctor W. H. Hemger. We mentioned there was only one
doctor there and that's why Bertha was so leaned upon
for her nursing care. He recommended an autopsy after Elmer died. However,
the boy's father did not agree to this procedure, so
Hemker reported the cause of death as acute guestritis. So
the third person who Bertha was suspected of killing was
(08:25):
a man named Ed Brindley, who was a known alcoholic
around town. One night, he fell inebriated on the concrete
walk outside of the Gifford's home, and of course they
took him in and they cared for him until he
passed away. Ed's death was the one that renewed Dr
hemkers suspicions about Bertha, and he consulted with another physician.
(08:46):
The two were not able to agree on a cause
of death, and Ed's death certificate reported that he died
also of acute gastritis. That's really not a bad diagnosis
if there's no suspicion that poison is involved. Symptoms of
guest tritis include many of the symptoms that we've talked
about over and over with arsenic poisoning, right, So, stomach pain, vomiting,
(09:08):
diarrhea sometimes bloody, and a burning sensation in the stomach,
which can make a diagnosis of poisoning even if the
doctor is suspicious, kind of difficult. Those are issues that
pop up with a lot of other problems. Exactly. One
of the great things about arsenic as a poison is
it mimics everything else. Right, So I think it's a
(09:30):
good time to take a break from our talking about
poison for a word from our sponsor, and we came back.
We'll talk about how the community began to suspect foul play.
Welcome back to Criminaliam. Let's get to talking about whether
(09:51):
Bertha was the quote angel of mercy of her community.
So after the three death the community rumor mills started
to talk about foul play, and many suspected that there
were more than just these three victims, and some of
them urged the county's prosecuting attorney to open investigation into Bertha,
(10:14):
but there was no official action taken at that time.
It wasn't until after a St. Louis newspaper printed an
article about patients mysteriously dying while under Bertha's care, that
the prosecutor ordered a grand jury to look specifically into
ed Brindley's death. Bertha, at this time, though, tried her
(10:36):
hardest to scare off anyone who considered testifying against her
by threatening libel lawsuits for one and all, like like Oprah,
you know, you get a lawsuit, you get a law suit.
You know, it's just everybody in town is gonna get
a lawsuit, and it must have worked, because the jury
failed to indict her. At this point, Bertha and Jane
(10:56):
moved not too far away, but far enough to hopefully
get out of the spotlight of all of this controversy. Still,
though the prosecutor summoned another grand jury. The bodies of
Ed Brindley and the Shamel brothers were all exhumed during
the second investigation into Bertha, and large quantities of arsenic
(11:17):
were found in the vital organs in each body. Shortly after,
on August, Bertha was arrested at Eureka, Missouri, and she
was charged with murder. Until then, their neighbors found the
Gifford's to be and we quote, such nice people, everybody
like them. She was also called, and this is another quote,
(11:38):
one of the best biscuit bakers in the county, poison free.
So when they questioned her about why she poisoned these people,
Bertha had an explanation, and she tearfully went on to
talk about that her intentions were to help anyone who
was sick, not not to kill them, and actually to
(12:00):
give her a tiny, teeny tiny bit of credit. At
this time, people actually used arsenic for medical reasons, so
her argument wasn't necessarily a total lie. This is where
that medical training might have come in handy probably right,
you know, um yeah, dosing. Anyway, when she signed a
(12:24):
statement confessing to her crimes, Bertha reported she had placed
arsenic into the medicine that the doctor had provided for
both Lloyd and Elmer Shamel. She stated that she had
done the same for Ed Brimley. However, learning that her
confession had been made public, Bertha became hysterical, and she
began with great effort to deny everything about it. Her
(12:47):
husband suggested she was just nervous when she confessed, and
she didn't know what she was saying, and so he
hired a lawyer who entered a plea of not guilty
on her behalf. Bertha was put on trial in nearby Union, Missouri,
and once it finally began, her trial lasted for three days.
On the first day of the trial, more than one
thousand people crowded into the courtroom. That made up a
(13:10):
crowd that's billed into the hallway outside. Can you even imagine? Um? So,
in the courtroom, it's reported that Bertha was actually really
quite well put together. She she came in wearing a
black coat. Her dark hair was freshly bobbed, and she
was made up with two bright spots of rug on
her cheeks. But she also sat slumped in her chair,
(13:32):
and some among the community who had known her well
said that her eyes seemed dead. After testimony that Bertha
had several times purchased arsenic at drug stores around the county,
she defended herself by saying it was all for getting
rid of barn rats that had been bothering the chickens
on their farm. Sure, M, yeah, I mean people used
(13:54):
arsenic for that specific purpose that time. But circumstantially her purchase, says,
seemed to coincide with the deaths of her patients. That's
a little more problematic. The jury indicted her for first
degree murder in the poisoning deaths of Elmer Shamel and
Ed Brindley. The charge of murdering Elmer's brother, Lloyd was
added to the indictment, but not until subsequent investigation. So
(14:18):
during the trial there were many, many people to take
the stand, and there were five doctors who were sent
to testify that they had determined the mental health of Bertha,
and they said all five we quote insane in rebuttal
to psychiatrists, which were known as alienists at this time
in history of them, I love in which we still used,
(14:42):
we're also called to the stand. But they didn't disagree
with the assessment of her mental health. Both of them
actually concluded the same as the other five doctors, that
Bertha was not of sound mind. So it took just
three hours for the jury to find Bertha had indeed
fatally poisoned her vict him. They agreed she had been
insane at the time, and they considered that she still was.
(15:05):
She was found not guilty by reason of insanity. She
was sentenced by Circuit Judge Brewer and committed to the
Missouri State Hospital Number four that was a psychiatric institution,
and she lived there until her death on August. Her
death certificate lists her as having lived with paranoia precox psychosis,
(15:26):
which today we would know better as schizophrenia. But getting
back to her victims, Elmer, Lloyd, and Ed weren't the
only three who died under mysterious circumstances while in Bertha's care.
There's actually quite a list, so maybe settle in while
we name some of them, and this list is not complete.
(15:47):
So there was Emily Gifford, who was Bertha's mother in law,
And then there was James Gifford, her thirteen year old
brother in law. And then Sherman Pounds, the fifty three
year old uncle of her husband, as well as sherman
three year old granddaughter Beulah, the Gifford's fifty three year
old hired hand around the farm. A man named James
Ogil also became a victim. Then there were the Stolefelder children,
(16:12):
Irene who died at age seven, Margaret at age two,
and Bernard, who was just fifteen months old. Bernard was
Bertha's youngest known victim. Mary Brittley was only seven years
old when she was poisoned and died. Leona Slocum, thirty seven,
died under Bertha's care. The oldest victim, Grandma Bertie Unterstall,
(16:34):
was seventy two when she was Bertha's victim. By some counts,
Bertha may have been responsible for between seventeen and nineteen
fatal poisonings over the span of about twenty years. So
here we are with Bertha. Bertha is buried in an
(16:56):
unmarked grave at the Soul Sleepers Cemetery in her hometown
own of more smell, and in the years since her death,
the Missouri Department of Mental Health has permanently sealed her record,
barring a court order or request to open them from
immediate family. When we come back, we will talk a
bit about what makes a serial killer. Welcome back to Criminaliot.
(17:32):
Let's get into talking about the profile of a serial killer,
specifically a female serial killer, which is different. According to
a newspaper article from the time of the trial, we quote,
interest in the cases nationwide, and stories of the trial
are being carried in all of the great newspapers of
(17:52):
the country. This interest in Bertha was not only because
of the number of deaths that had occurred, but also
because the serial murderer was a woman, which was and
still is rare. It's really easy to call many of
the women that we've talked about so far this season
as to call them serial killers, but during our research
(18:13):
we see that term applied so often to those who
actually are not serial killers. It's true many of them
did kill more than one person, but most of the
time they didn't fit the profile. Eartha, however, is interesting
because she is considered a serial killer by the defining characteristics.
(18:34):
She is the fourth female serial killer identified in the
United States, behind Lydia Sherman, who is included as part
of our season of Poisoners, Jane Toppin, a nurse who
killed thirty one people, and Nanny Dass whose favorite pastimes
included reading romance novels and killing her relatives eleven of
them in total. What's not true about serial killers is
(18:56):
that there are always men. Granted, it's just a mall
percentage of serial killers who are women so small though
that back in a former FBI profiler was quoted saying
there are no female serial killers. But that's not really true.
Female serial killers do exist, they are few in number,
(19:17):
and they aren't motivated in the same way as their
male counterparts. Unlike male serial killers, who usually target people
they don't know, female serial killers tend to kill people
who are emotionally and physically closest to them, So victims
of female serial killers are often lovers. Um Also, very
(19:38):
often they include children and the elderly, which are two
groups that are very unlikely or unable to fight back
for themselves. And as we just mentioned, while male serial
killers tend to choose victims they don't know, studies of
known female serial killers suggest that as many as eighty
percent knew they're victims. In fact, nearly two thirds were
(20:00):
related to their victims, one third killed their significant others,
and nearly half killed their own children. According to the
FBI's profile of a serial killer male or female, these
are people who have killed a series of three or
more victims. But it doesn't end there. While male serial
(20:21):
killers are more likely to use violent methods such as
a gun or strangulation, female serial killers are much more
likely to use a more low profile methods such as
suffocation or as we see a lot, poisoning. What we
do know about the profile of female serial killers is
that they're typically white and conventionally attractive, and one of
(20:44):
known female serial killers identified as Christian. They typically have
killed between seven and ten people, so more than twice
the requirement to qualify for their title. Right two to
three is not going to get to a serial killer
title into the profile, so this is really interesting, especially
to Birth's situation. Nursing is an occupation that is overrepresented
(21:10):
among female serial killers, so nearly had worked in health
related fields as nurses or aids, and about worked in
caregiving rules such as mothering and nanning or caretaking of
an elderly relative. And also, interestingly, one of the main
motivations for female serial killers is to get attention or sympathy,
(21:33):
such as following the death of a relative or someone
that they've cared for. So while it's difficult for any
of us to get into the mind of a male
or or female serial killer, we can take a minute
to remember that in birth is confession, she said in
all three cases, the patients were suffering from severe pains,
(21:55):
and I put arsenic in their medicine to quiet their pains.
At all I think of when I think of of
Birtha talking about her confession and her in court, is
that that phrase to quiet their pains. It's quite haunting,
it is. She's a tough one to to research and
write about because of the whole serial killer factor and
(22:17):
the fact that she was well. But but I mean,
I like, I'm addicted to watching serial killer documentaries, so
but I was really they don't they don't do many
documentaries on female serial killers, you know. So, uh, knowing
how well she was liked in her community and what
she was practicing was really sort of difficult to get
(22:38):
my head to wrap around. Yeah. Uh, yeah, she's She's
one that it's we have talked so many times about
how usually in a lot of these cases there's something
about the person involved that we come to like or
delight in, but it's quite difficult with her to find one.
She's one of those few that it's like, there's nothing
in this story that's like comfortable or laughy exactly exactly. So, Holly, Yeah,
(23:04):
which poison this week? I hear it might be a
little appily it is. It's a little apply and a
little lemony. Um. I wanted to make a cocktail for
Bertha that reflected her image as an angel of mercy
um and as a nurse. So this drink is sweet
and it's quite pleasant when you sip it, but it
(23:26):
will really knock you on your key st um. And
I am calling it the Angel of Mercy exactly. So uh.
I started with a spirit that is not one of
my usual go too. But this entire season has been
a good lesson in trying new things to gin drain in.
So two ounces of gin, two ounces of unsweetened apple juice,
(23:49):
one ounce of simple syrup, and a splash of lemon juice.
Just mix that together real quick and then also stir
in about six ounces of lemon lime soda and it's um. Yeah,
just put it with some ice in there and stir
it it so it's a little bubbly. It tastes like
apple juice. The reason that I went with unsweetened apple
(24:10):
juice is because by the time you include the soda
and the simple syrup, it would get really chloying if
you used sweetened apple juice. So makes sense. It's also
a recipe. You can dinner with the amounts of certain
things to your taste. So if you prefer a little
more of a crisp, bity flavor rather than a sweet
you can up the lemon juice and drop the simple
(24:32):
syrup to a half ounce. Um, as it is. It's
it's sweet, but to me not too painfully sweet. But yeah,
it's um. It's very yummy. It does taste like just
fizzy apple juice. And then I was like, oh, yeah,
I can't tolerate gin the way I can tolerate other things. Hello,
I can't stand up like. So that is the angel
(24:53):
of mercy, which will help you quiet your pains. I
suppose please drink responsibly. Um. Thank you for once again
joining us on another episode of Criminalia. We will see
you again here next week. Criminalia is a production of
Shonda land Audio in partnership with I heart Radio. For
(25:14):
more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
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