The Motion Picture Murder

In 1874, the father of motion pictures stood trial for murder. Most people know Eadweard Muybridge as a pioneering photographer and inventor whose work sparked the birth of movies. But Muybridge had a dark side: he was once accused on murdering his wife's lover. Would a Western jury, comfortable with the idea of taking justice into one's own hands, let Muybridge get away with it?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Listener discretion advised. On May fourth, eighteen eighty a crowd
gathered at the Art Association on Pine Street in San Francisco.

(00:22):
They dutifully paid the fifty cent admission fee, filed into
the gallery room, and took their seats. They had been
drawn in by a newspaper advertisement that promised a show
unlike any other, and it was true. The viewers there
that night were about to witness history being made. At

(00:45):
the back of the room stood a man with a
long gray beard. He was Edward Moybridge, the noted photographer.
People had always said Moybridge seemed older than his actual age,
though he looked to be in his sixties. Now he
was only forty nine. Moybridge was bent over a device

(01:08):
three feet tall and three feet wide, a wood and
brass and glass contraption of his own invention. Once the
crowd was settled, Moybridge dimmed the gaslights. He ignited the
gas jet inside his device, directing the flame towards a
brick of lime, which generated a bright light. The light

(01:30):
illuminated a glass disc, projecting its images onto the screen.
As Moybridge spun the disc, and then the magic happened
on the screen in front of them. The crowd watched
in astonishment as the image of a horse appeared and
then miraculously began to run. For two seconds, the horse

(01:54):
galloped across the screen, then did it again. It looked,
said one reporter, like a living moving horse. Nothing was
wanting but the clatter of the hoofs upon the turf,
and an occasional breath of steam from the nostrils to
make the spectator believe that he had before him genuine

(02:16):
flesh and blood steeds. And the wonder did not end there.
Moybridge switched the disc and now came a horse leaping
that a bull charging, a greyhound racing a bird's soaring
through the air. The audience was astonished. They had just
seen something that almost no one alive in eighteen eighty

(02:39):
had ever seen before, real living animals in motion, photographed
and projected in front of them. People were familiar with zootropes,
small toys with illustrated or photographic strips that you could spin,
producing the illusion of motion, and they may have seen

(03:01):
magic lantern shows in which early projectors cast images onto
a screen But Edward Moybridge's machine, which he would come
to call the zoapraxoscope or life action view in Greek,
was something new. He had done something revolutionary. First, he

(03:22):
had figured out how to photograph animals in motion, using
an inventive series of trip wires and fast shutters. You
might be familiar with some of these photos. The most
famous is a black and white set of a man
riding a horse. Then he had worked out how to
transfer these images to a glass disc and project them

(03:44):
in sequence, playing back the moment in time he had captured,
preserving and replicating it. He had set into motion a
series of inventions and innovations that would lead soon enough
to the birth of the movie. But our story today

(04:04):
is not about what happened on that May night in
eighteen eighty It's about a crime that happened six years earlier,
in eighteen seventy four, a crime that led to a
dramatic trial that caught the nation's attention and sparked discussions
on the role of the law. It's an incredible tale,
one of love, betrayal, vengeance and justice in the still

(04:29):
somewhat wild West. And at the heart of it all
was the man you've just met, because Edward Moybridge was
not just the father of motion pictures. He was also
a murderer. Welcome to history on trial. I'm your host,
Mirah Hayward. This week California v. Edward Moybridge. Edward Moybridge

(04:59):
was not always Edward Moybridge. Born April ninth, eighteen thirty,
Moybridge was christened Edward James Muggeridge, the second of four sons.
Throughout his life, Moybridge changed his name several times. For
consistency's sake, I'll call him Edward Moybridge throughout, since this

(05:20):
was a name he was known by. At the time
of the trial. As a child, friends and family called
him Ted. A cousin described Ted as an eccentric boy,
rather mischievous, always doing something or saying something unusual, or
inventing a new toy or a fresh trick. His family

(05:40):
was lower middle class, and life in Kingston upon Thames,
the small town fifteen miles southwest of London where Moybridge
grew up, did not offer many opportunities. In eighteen fifty,
age twenty, Moybridge decided to seek his fortune in America.
He arranged with a London publisher to become their sales

(06:03):
representative in New York and headed across the Atlantic. In Manhattan,
Moybridge got his first taste of the photography business after
befriending a man named Silas Selik, who worked in Matthew
Brady's photography studio. Selik and Moybridge became close, and when
Selik decided to move to California, Moybridge eventually followed him,

(06:26):
heading west in the autumn of eighteen fifty five. On
arrival in San Francisco, Moybridge subtly changed his name, shortening
his birth name of Muggridge to Muggridge. Less than a
year later, he changed it again, this time to Moygridge.
It was under this name that he applied for U

(06:46):
s citizenship in November eighteen fifty six. Moybridge did well
for himself as a publisher in San Francisco. He had
a knack for knowing what would sell. He joined the
board of the Mercantile Library, an oasis of culture in
the rough and tumble town. He made social connections. He prospered,

(07:07):
but then in early eighteen fifty nine, Moybridge decided to
return to England. Why exactly he did so is unknown,
but over the course of the year he sold off
his remaining inventory and wrapped up his business in San Francisco.
On July second, eighteen sixty, he boarded the Butterfield Stage

(07:29):
bound for Saint Louis. Traveling by stagecoach was miserable. The
Butterfield Overland Mail Company and other companies like it contracted
with the Post Office to carry mail across the country.
Passengers could hitch a ride along the way, and the
price was cheap for a reason. The small horse drawn

(07:52):
wagons took twenty five days to complete the twenty eight
hundred mile route, three weeks of bone shaking travel across
rocky roads, breathing in dust and your fellow passenger's stench.
The ride was also dangerous. The coaches were attacked by bandits,
vulnerable to bad weather, accident prone. On July twenty second,

(08:17):
three weeks into the journey, Moybridge's coach was traveling near
what is now Fort Worth, Texas, when the horses panicked
and broke into a wild run. The driver could not
control the coach and it sped down the road, going
faster and faster until it hit a stump and sent
its passengers flying, Edward Moybridge was thrown from the coach

(08:42):
and landed on his head. He would not regain consciousness
for nine days. When Moybridge came to, he found that
both his vision and his hearing had been impacted by
the accident. After resting for several weeks in Arkansas, Moybridge
of eventually made his way to New York, where, after

(09:03):
filing a suit against the Butterfield Stage Company, he boarded
a ship for England. Upon his return to England, Moybridge
gave up the publishing business and tried his hand at inventing.
When he failed to make money from his inventions, he
turned to business, joining a relative in banking, but his
time as a banker was a disaster, his investments evaporated.

(09:28):
The only souvenir that would remain from this time was
a new name, Edward Moigridge. Ney Muggridge had now become
Edward Moybridge, But it was not as Edward Moybridge that
he returned to San Francisco in eighteen sixty six. It

(09:49):
was as Helios. Helios was his new name and his
new persona an artist, a photographer to be exact. During
his stint as an inventor, Moybridge had spent time in Paris,
where he crossed paths with three French brothers, the Berteaux,
who ran a photography studio called Maison AliOS. For a time,

(10:14):
Moybridge used Mason Elios as his nailing address in Paris.
Edward Ball, in his book The Inventor in the Tycoon
feorizes that the Burteaus taught Moybridge their craft. The Englishman
borrowed more than just the brother's technique. He also borrowed
their name, using the English pronunciation of AliOS to become Helios.

(10:38):
While working as a publisher, inventor, and banker, Moybridge had
always appeared like a conventional man. He wore suits, trimmed
his hair, and maintained a neat appearance. But now as
an artist, Moybridge changed. His beard, grew long and unkempt.

(10:58):
His hair sprouted in unruly waves. He wore ragged clothes,
floppy hats, a hostile expression. His appearance seemed to say
that he cared for only one thing, his art, and
his actions backed up this impression. Moybridge had become obsessed
with photography. He even designed a portable dark room in

(11:22):
a wagon so that he could develop prints whenever he wanted.
His breakthrough as an artist came with pictures he took
of Yosemite. Moybridge's photos captured the splendor and the scale
of the valley, its awe inspiring rock formations and waterfalls,
and newspapers around the world printed the pictures. He also

(11:44):
gained recognition in San Francisco for his photographs of houses.
California's railbarons, including Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker, built sprawling
mansions in the city and commissioned Moybridge to document their opulence.
Within three years of returning to California, Moybridge was likely
the best known photographer in the state. In April eighteen

(12:08):
sixty nine, he signed with one of San Francisco's most
prestigious galleries, run by the Nall Brothers. It was at
the Knall's gallery that Edward Moybridge met Flora Downs. Flora
worked as a photo retoucher for the brothers, a job
that in those days meant fixing scratches in photo negatives

(12:29):
or using wax and paint to apply color to photographs.
Born in eighteen fifty one, Flora had had a difficult childhood,
her mother had died young and her stepmother had been
uninterested in raising her. At twelve, Flora was sent to
live with her aunt and uncle in Kentucky. Two years later,

(12:51):
the family moved to California. Upon the family's arrival in Marysville, California,
Flora's aunt and uncle left the girl with another aunt
and traveled to Oregon. Flora Downs, only fourteen years old,
had now been left behind by two families. Some historians

(13:11):
have claimed that Downs was next sent to Mills Seminary,
a boarding school for girls, but there is no record
of her attending the school. There is, however, a record
of Downs getting a job as a sales clerk at
a store in San Francisco. She would not work there
for long. At some point, sixteen year old Flora met

(13:31):
twenty four year old Lucius Stone, scion of a wealthy
saddle making family. Flora married Stone in July eighteen sixty
seven and went to live in his family home, but
the marriage was not a happy one. Flora hated her
mother in law, who she called cruel and tyrannical, and

(13:53):
less than two years after the wedding, Flora moved out,
possibly using a small settlement from the Stone family to
pay for a rented room. With little formal education and
few family ties, Flora needed to learn to support herself. Somehow,
she discovered a talent for photo retouching. When Edward Moybridge

(14:16):
and Flora Downs met, he was thirty nine and she
was eighteen. She was petite and pretty, with wavy brown
hair and a doll's face. He was a committed artist
with little interest in personal grooming. She liked the theater, nights, dresses,
nights on the town. He preferred the wilderness, his work,

(14:39):
and solitude. We don't know what drew the unlikely pair together.
Perhaps Flora was lonely. Her last family member in California
died in September eighteen seventy, and her divorce from Lucius
Stone was finalized three months later. Perhaps she was attracted
to Moybridge's success or perhaps she didn't have much say

(15:00):
in the matter. Flora would later claim that Moybridge paid
for her divorce from Stone and coerced her into marrying
him by threatening to get her fired from the gallery.
Or maybe, against all odds, this was a love story. Okay,
maybe not, but whatever the case. On May twentieth, eighteen

(15:23):
seventy one, twenty year old Flora Downs and forty one
year old Edward Moybridge were married. Two months after the wedding,
Moybridge began traveling for work. He was away from home
for more than half of the first year of their marriage.

(15:43):
Flora grew increasingly lonely, a pain that only compounded when
she suffered two stillbirths in a row. In the spring
of eighteen seventy two, the Nall Brothers closed their gallery.
Moybridge moved to Bradley and Rulufsen, a gallery and photography
studio known for taking pictures of celebrities. Flora got a

(16:06):
job a retouching photos for the studio. She enjoyed the work.
She collected copies of the pictures of stage actors who
Bradley and Rulefsen photographed, and made her own album, pasting
the glamorous celebrity shots next to princes of Moybridge's nature pictures.
The moy Bridges may not have been a perfect couple,

(16:27):
or even a particularly happy one, but things were fine. Fine,
that is until the arrival of Harry Larkins, and then
things would fall apart with deadly consequences. Harry Larkins was
well known in San Francisco, though few people knew his

(16:51):
true background. They knew he was handsome, with a charming
British accent and charisma to spare. They knew he dressed well,
if flashily, sometimes wearing a peacock feather in his hat.
They knew he'd fought in some war somewhere, or at
least he told people to call him Major Larkins. But

(17:12):
just exactly who he was and what life he'd lived
before he arrived in San Francisco was a bit of
a mystery, and would remain a mystery until the present day.
But we'll come back to that. In eighteen seventy three,
there were only two things San Franciscans knew for sure
about Harry Larkins. He was excellent company, and he had

(17:35):
trouble staying on the right side of the law. In
March eighteen seventy three, Larkins was thrown in jail for
charges of obtaining money under false pretenses. The charges had
been brought by Larkins's former friend, one Arthur Neil. The
two men had first met in London and reconnected by

(17:56):
chance in Salt Lake City in mid eighteen seventy two.
They then decided to travel to San Francisco together. For months,
they'd lived it up, Larkins providing the entertainment and Neil
providing the funds. Neil said that Larkins claim to have
a wealthy family who would cover his expenses eventually, but

(18:17):
after five months without repayment, Neil grew impatient. He filed
a police report against Larkins and then took his story
to the newspaper. The San Francisco Chronicle jumped on the
juicy story, publishing Nil's tale of woe with the headline
financial genius the Prince of Confidence. Men in limbo Major

(18:39):
Harry Larkins arrested for swindling, and noted that Larkins had
racked up quote hotel bills that would make a millionaire shudder.
The two men eventually settled their case out of court
and the charges against Larkins were dismissed, but his reputation
was ruined and he was broke. He began moving freight

(19:01):
at the docks, hard labor, but at least it paid
soon though, his charm and intelligence earned him the opportunity
to become the theater critic for the San Francisco Evening Post.
It was likely because of this role that he ended
up at Bradley and Rulffson's gallery, where all the theater stars

(19:21):
got their pictures taken. This, in turn, is likely how
he met Flora and Edward Moybridge. Sometime in eighteen seventy three.
Larkin started out as a friend of both Moybridges. He
got free theater tickets through his job and offered to

(19:42):
take the couple out one night. Flora enjoyed the outing,
Edward did not. Larkins invited them to another show. Edward declined,
but Flora said yes. Soon Flora and Larkins were spending
quite a bit of time together. The two found they
had much in common, similarly lonely childhood's a shared love

(20:06):
for theater. In May eighteen seventy three, Moybridge left on
a photography assignment for the U. S. Army. Upon his return,
he was troubled by reports of his wife's new friendship
and warned Larkins off I want you to let her alone,
he recalled. He told Larkins, I do not request it

(20:27):
of you, but I command you to keep away from her.
You know my rights as a married man, so do I,
and I shall defend them. Larkins agreed to stop seeing Flora,
but the break didn't last long. In the summer of
eighteen seventy three, Flora learned she was pregnant again. The

(20:49):
Moybridges hired a woman named Susan Smith to serve as
Flora's midwife and baby nurse, but Smith would later allege
that she had another role, that of go between for
Flora and Larkins. Smith said she carried notes for the couple,
who saw each other whenever Moybridge was out of town working.
In April eighteen seventy four, while Moybridge was yet again

(21:13):
got an assignment, Flora went into labor. Harry Larkins was
with her and summoned Smith. After a twelve hour labor,
Flora gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Smith wrote
to Moybridge and he returned to town, though he only
stayed for a week or ten days before leaving to
work again. He does not seem to have particularly bonded

(21:36):
with his son. Smith would later say that Moybridge refused
to name the baby. Flora eventually named the boy George
Down's Moybridge. George was the name of Moybridge's deceased brother,
but it also happened to be the name of Harry
Larkins's deceased father. Larkins visited George and Flora frequently. In May,

(22:01):
Larkins lost his newspaper job, possibly because his colleagues were
tired of people showing up at the newsroom to demand
that he pay them back for various debts. Desperate for money,
Larkins took a job as a publicist for a traveling circus.
While he was away from Flora, he wrote her secret
messages in the paper using his middle initial Tea. In June,

(22:25):
he left a note in the chronicle, f do write
to me. I am utterly miserable without you, your devoted Tea.
But by this time Flora was no longer in San
Francisco to see the message. In mid June, Moybridge had
sent her and George to Oregon to stay with relatives.

(22:46):
He said it was so she would have company while
he traveled on a multi month job, but some people
wondered whether it was an attempt to keep Flora and
Larkins apart. Absence, however, only made the heart grow fond.
Flora and Harry both wrote to Susan Smith and her
daughter Sarah about how they missed one another. There are

(23:07):
indications that Larkins and Flora were planning to start a
life together, but to do that, Larkins would need money.
He took a new job writing about mining for a newspaper.
His work took him into the mountains around California's Napa Valley,
where he reported on the area's silver mines. He had
high hopes for the future, but a dark cloud was looming.

(23:31):
In October eighteen seventy four, Edward Moybridge returned to San Francisco.
He was quickly confronted by Susan Smith, Flora's midwife and
baby nurse, who claimed that she had not received her pay.
On October thirteenth, Smith went to court over the matter,
and one a judgment of one hundred dollars against Moybridge.

(23:52):
Moybridge claimed that he had given Flora the money to
pay Smith, but Smith produced a letter from Flora that
claimed that Edward would pay the money. This letter, to
Moybridge's consternation, contained a mention of Harry Larkins. After the hearing,
Moybridge asked Smith if she had any other letters from Flora.

(24:13):
Smith apparently trying to secure her payment, said she would
give the letters to Moybridge. She gave him the letters
on October fifteenth. The next day, Moybridge showed up at
her house demanding more letters. The first batch of letters,
he said, only showed a flirtation between Flora and Harry.
He wanted letters that proved the affair that he was

(24:35):
certain existed. Smith gave him more letters. She also showed
him a picture of his baby's son, on which Flora
had written either little Harry or Little George Harry. The
next morning, October seventeenth, Moybridge went to the Arts Association,
a social club. People who saw him there reported that

(24:58):
he was quote perfectly cool and self possessed. He next
went to Bradley and Rulfson's, where he ran into an
acquaintance and the two men discussed bugs. Moybridge mentioned that
he quote had some business up country and intended to
leave by the afternoon. Boat Then he went upstairs and
had a conversation with William Rulifson, the gallery owner. Moybridge

(25:23):
gave Rulifsen a set of documents, which he said would
organize his business in case anything were to happen to him.
When Moybridge said he was going to Napa to see
Harry Larkins, rul Offsen tried to stop him, but Moybridge
would not be deterred. He left Rulufsen's office at three
fifty six pm and sprinted to the Ferry Docks, barely

(25:46):
making the four o'clock steamboat. He disembarked at Vallejoe at
six p m. Then boarded the northbound train. Three hours later.
He got off at the last stop, Calistoga. He stopped
in at a saloon, then went to a buggy. He
told the stableman he wanted to find Harry Larkins. Moybridge
thought Larkins was at Pine Flat mining camp. That's where

(26:09):
Larkins had written his last newspaper dispatch. From the stableman, however,
knew that Larkins was spending the night at a miner's
cottage by the Yellowjacket mine. The stableman tried to convince
Moybridge to wait until morning, since Larkins would be traveling
into Calistoga, but Moybridge refused. The stableman relented and told

(26:30):
one of his drivers, George Wolf, to bring Moybridge up
to the Yellowjacket cottage. The drive of the slopes of
Mount Saint Helena took more than an hour. Moybridge, Wolf
would later say, appeared calm, though he did ask if
he could fire his pistol two, he claimed scare off robbers.

(26:51):
When Wolf asked what he wanted with Larkins, Moybridge said
he wanted to quote give him an unexpected mesa. He
would certainly do that. Around eleven PM, Moybridge arrived at
the Yellowjacket Cottage, so named because of a nest of

(27:12):
yellowjackets that lived nearby. Inside, a group of men and
women were playing cards and talking. Harry Larkins was playing
cribbage with one of the miners. Edward Moybridge got down
from the buggy and greeted a group of men standing
by the door. He asked for Harry Larkins. One of

(27:33):
the men invited him into the house, but Moybridge said
he wanted to see Larkins outside. The men leaned into
the doorframe and called for Larkins, who excused himself from
the card game and walked to the door. When he
reached it, he peered out into the darkness. Edward Moybridge
stared back, I have a message from my wife Moybridge said.

(27:58):
Larkin stepped forward, Moybridge shot him in the chest. Larkins
staggered and turned, stumbling back into the house, his hands
clutched over his wound. Moybridge followed him, still holding the gun.
Larkins went back out the front door and collapsed. Moybridge
raised his arm as if to shoot again, but one

(28:18):
of the other men stopped him. Two men carried Larkins
back inside, where he lay groaning for several minutes. Then
Harry Larkins tied. Moybridge offered no resistance when the miners
surrounded him. He apologized for frightening the women present and
explained that quote Larkins had destroyed his happiness. Then he

(28:44):
asked for a glass of water and sat down to
read the newspaper. The miners decided to take him to
the sheriff's office at Calistoga. Around one a m a
local constable took Moybridge into custody. The constable found Moybridge
to be quote very cool for one who had just
killed a man. The photographer explained his placid mood to

(29:07):
the constable. Hiring a lawyer might cost a lot, Moybridge said,
but quote, I won't have any trouble to get clear.
In other words, Edward Moybridge believed he could get away
with murder. Despite Moybridge's initial confidence about being acquitted, his

(29:29):
assurance seems to have wavered in the months he spent
in jail before his trial. In December, he agreed to
an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. In the interview,
Moybridge presented a new version of the murder, facing criticism
for having shot a man who had no chance to
defend himself. Moybridge now claimed that Larkins had tried to run.

(29:53):
I did not intend to shoot him so quickly, but
thought to talk to him and hear what he had
to say an excuse. But he turned to run like
a guilty craven when I pronounced my name, so I
had to shoot him or let him go unpunished. No
other witness account of the murder had Larkins running from Moybridge.

(30:14):
Despite his attempt to reframe his actions, Moybridge still expressed
no remorse. The only thing I am sorry for in
connection with the affair is that he died so quickly.
I would have wished that he could have lived long enough,
at least to acknowledge the wrong he had done me,
that his punishment was deserved, and that my act was

(30:35):
a justifiable defense of my marital rights. This last line
was an especially important point for Moybridge to make. The
idea that killing Larkins was a justifiable defense of his
marital rights would be central to his legal defense. In
this defense, Moybridge would be assisted by able lawyers. Leading

(30:57):
his defense was William Wirt Pendegast, a man in his
thirties known for his luxuriant hair and his magnificent courtroom speeches,
and Cameron H. King, a young, ambitious lawyer whose uncle
had been Governor of California. Pendigast and King each had
an assistant attorney as well. The prosecution was led by

(31:18):
Dennis Spencer, district attorney for NAPA. The thirty year old
Spencer had trained under Pendigast, but was much less experienced.
Spencer was deeply concerned about prosecuting such a high profile case.
He begged the county Board of Supervisors to provide him
with an associate council, but they refused until the day

(31:39):
before the trial, that is, on February second, eighteen seventy five,
the board agreed to bring on Thomas P. Stoney, Pendigast's
former law partner and a current county judge, to assist Spencer.
Stoney had only hours to prepare for the case. That afternoon,
Moybridge pled not guilty to the charge of murder. After

(32:02):
his plea, a reporter noted Moybridge laughed quietly and muttered
to kill a man and yet plead not guilty. The
now offended reporter described Moybridge as carrying himself quote with
the air of a man who had done a noble action.
The next day, February third, jury selection began. In choosing jurors,

(32:25):
the defense mainly looked for married men who might be
sympathetic to their argument that Moybridge was defending his so
called marital rights. The prosecution looked for men who would
be comfortable sentencing someone to death. Selection didn't take long.
Twelve men, all either farmers and carpenters, all but one married,

(32:47):
were soon seated. Stoney gave the opening statement for the
defense that afternoon. He laid out the facts of the
case quote, there is no doubt that on the seventeenth
day of October, Harry Larkins, who was unarmed, was shot
down and murdered. Stony reminded jurors that it did not

(33:08):
matter what Harry Larkins had done. It mattered what Edward
Moybridge had done. There is no question of the rights
or wrongs of the two men with regard to their
relations with one another. The question is this, Has the
defendant violated the law in this question? Stoney said, the
answer was clear, Quote the defendant is as guilty as possible.

(33:34):
He ended by telling jurors that, in the eyes of
the law, quote, nothing but actual self defense authorizes a
man to take the life of another. No other provocation
justifies such an act. The prosecution's witnesses, including the doctor
who attended to Larkin's body, the man who had driven

(33:54):
Moybridge to the Yellow Jacket, and the miners who had
seen the shooting, laid out a clear and consistent story
of Moybridge's actions on the day of the murder. The
witnesses from the Yellowjacket cottage all described the same scene,
Moybridge's arrival, the summoning of Harry Larkin's the shot. They
only differed on one aspect. Right before shooting, Moybridge had

(34:18):
either said I have brought you a message from my wife,
or I have brought you a message about my wife.
James MacArthur, the man who had disarmed Moybridge, described Moybridge's
calm attitude following the murder. Moybridge, MacArthur testified, had said
that quote, he intended to kill Larkins, and that since quote,

(34:42):
miners were a pretty rough lot and he did not
know what the consequences would be, he had ensured that
all his business affairs were settled should he be killed
after killing Larkins. Moybridge had also, MacArthur, continued, described firing
off his gun during the buggy ride up to the
mine because the pistol quote had been laying a long time, unused,

(35:04):
and he wanted to test that it worked well. It
was a pretty picture of premeditation. On cross examination, the
defense lawyers began to raise the specter of justifiable homicide.
Did he say, as one of his excuses, this man
has seduced my wife, Pendigast asked MacArthur. MacArthur said that

(35:25):
this was what he understood Moybridge to mean. Justifiable homicide
was not a legal defense. No law permitted killing a
man because he had slept with your wife, But it
was a powerful emotional one. After the prosecution rested, Cameron
King delivered the defense's opening statement and doubled down on
the justifiable homicide argument. Harry Larkins, in King's depiction, had

(35:50):
practically asked to be killed. We will prove that Harry
Larkins was a man of bad character, King said, before
detailing how Larkins had quote slowly undermined Flora's heart and
attacked her citadel of virtue. Stony and Spencer kept objecting
to King's speech. He was making claims that would not

(36:11):
be allowed as evidence. Judge Wallace kept up holding their objections,
but King would not be contained, relentlessly attacking Larkins. Eventually
moving on, King said, we will also prove insanity. Edward
Moybridge had initially been resistant to the insanity defense. He

(36:32):
did not believe himself insane and he did not want
to end up in an asylum if he were found
insane in court, But as the trial approached and his
confidence in his acquittal seemed to falter, he agreed to
allow his lawyers to pursue the insanity defense. King's explanation
of Moybridge's insanity was twofold. First, the lawyer said Moybridge

(36:55):
had been sent into a kind of insane frenzy by
the news of his wife's infidelity. In this state, Moybridge
was quote not himself slung up to the pitch of insanity.
The defendant made up his mind that he must slay
the destroyer of his happiness, the man who had debauched
his home. But Moybridge's insanity went back further. King argued,

(37:20):
Remember that stagecoach accident that Moybridge had suffered in eighteen sixty,
the one that had left him comatose for nine days.
That accident, King now claimed, had fundamentally changed Moybridge, perhaps
making him more susceptible to the killing mania that had
led to his crime. Having heard a day's worth of testimony,

(37:42):
it may have been hard for jurors to reconcile the
idea of mania with the prosecution witnesses description of Moybridge's
level headed premeditation. But even if the jury did not
believe Moybridge insane, King concluded, the jurors should understand his actions.
Who is the man, King asked, even though he be

(38:04):
of the soundest mind, that can say he would have
acted differently, I assert that he who would not shoot
the seducer of his wife, even if he were to
suffer ten thousand deaths, is a coward. In other words,
the real crime would have been not murdering Larkins. With that,

(38:25):
the defense called their first witness, Susan Smith. Smith is
one of the most intriguing and ambiguous people in this story.
She had begun as a perhaps unwilling accomplice of Flora's,
helping facilitate her affair with Larkins. Then she had seemingly
betrayed the pair by revealing the affair to Moybridge, maybe

(38:47):
in order to get money. After the murder, The press
had strongly criticized Smith, saying that she had doomed Terry
Larkins out of her own greed. At the trial, Smith,
perhaps to rehability her reputation, now claimed that a deranged
Moybridge had scared her into handing over the letters. His

(39:07):
appearance was that of a madman. He was haggard and pale,
his eyes glassy. He trembled from head to foot. Smith described,
I thought he was insane and would kill me or
himself if I did not tell him all I knew.
Whereas Smith had previously told the press that she had

(39:27):
last seen Moybridge on Friday night. She now alleged that
he had also come by on Saturday morning, the day
of the killing, and it was at this meeting that
she had shown him the worst of the letters. Smith's testimony,
which contained both lurid descriptions of Flora and Larkins's affair
and shocking depictions of an unhinged Moybridge, went a long

(39:51):
way towards supporting the defense's case. On cross examination, Dennis
Spencer could not shake Smith from her story. He also
was unsuccessful in trying to attack Smith's character. Judge Walter
prohibited him from introducing evidence that Smith herself was engaged
in an adulterous affair. The next defense witness was Smith's

(40:15):
daughter Sarah, whose testimony aligned with her mother's. She was
followed by William Rulifson, partner at Bradley and Rulofson's gallery,
who had met with Moybridge on the day of the murder.
Ruloffson described Moybridge as eccentric, saying that the photographer was
difficult to work with, forgetful, and prone to quote strange freaks.

(40:38):
On the day of the murder, Ruloffson said Moybridge seemed
to be in a frenzy, leaving Rulofson quote really afraid.
After Rulufsen, the defense introduced witnesses who could testify to
Moybridge's changed behavior after his stagecoach accident. These witnesses said
that whereas Moybridge had once been quote a genial, pleasure

(41:00):
and quick businessman, after the accident, he had become quote
very eccentric, not as good a businessman, and sometimes very
violent and excited in an uncalled for manner. It should
be noted that many of these witnesses did not see
Moybridge immediately after his stagecoach accident. They had all known

(41:20):
him in San Francisco in the late eighteen fifties and
had only seen him again six years after the accident,
so they could not truly say whether it was only
the stagecoach accident or the intervening years, or some combination
that had changed Moybridge. On Friday, February fifth, Moybridge himself
took the stand. He did not discuss anything about the

(41:42):
killing or even about the affair. He talked only about
the stage coach accident and its effects on him. In
response to all of this testimony, about insanity. The prosecution
called doctor G. A. Shirtliffe as a rebuttal witness. Shirtliffe
was the superintendent of the Stockton Insane Asylum. He had
been allowed to review the testimony of the murder witnesses.

(42:05):
Shirtliff contested the idea that the stagecoach accident had caused
Moybridge's actions. He also testified that given that it was
testified by the common observer that Moybridge was calm after
the homicide, it would lead to the opinion that he
was not insane. The prosecution now recalled several of the
murder witnesses, who reiterated that Moybridge had indeed been calm

(42:29):
both before and after the homicide. They also called the
Chronicle reporter George W. Smith, who had interviewed Moybridge in jail.
Smith stated that Moybridge had told him he opposed the
insanity defense. In response to this testimony, the defense brought
back William Rulifsen, who had visited Moybridge in jail and

(42:50):
now said that the photographer had not been calm, but
had been excited and distraught. The prosecution then recalled doctor Shirtliffe,
who reiterated his earlier conclusions, it would seem to me
that the act was premeditated. He understood the nature of
the act and the consequences. He was not irresistibly impelled,
but was moved by passion and had a motive which

(43:12):
goes against the idea of madness. In conclusion, Shirtliffe said
he was quote of the opinion that Moybridge was a
sane man when he committed the act. With that testimony
in the trial concluded. Thomas Stoney delivered the first closing
argument for the prosecution. He responded to the defense's argument

(43:34):
of justifiable homicide, saying that while he himself had sympathy
for the prisoner, that did not negate the fact that
Moybridge had broken the law, though Harry Larkins had done wrong.
Sony concluded, quote an adulterer does not forfeit his life.
Moybridge could not be allowed to be quote the judge,

(43:56):
the jury, and the executioner. Instead, Sony finished, the jury
must decide upon the law and upon the evidence, even
if it makes their hearts bleed to do it. Cameron
King provided the first defense closing in dramatic, flowery language.
He acknowledged that though adultery was not technically a legal

(44:17):
justification for homicide, it might be a moral one. After
discussing Moybridge's insanity and for some reason insulting prosecutor Dennis
Spencer for kneading Stoney's assistance, King asked the jury to quote,
consider all the circumstances surrounding this terrible case in the
light of merciful consideration. William Wirt Pendigast elucidated those circumstances

(44:45):
further in the final defense closing. Edward Moybridge, he said,
had loved Flora quote deeply, madly, with all the strong
love of a strong, self constrained man, And all at once,
like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, came
upon him the revelation that his whole life had been

(45:06):
blasted in such a situation. How could anyone expect Moybridge
to act responsibly? Pendigast asked the jurors to put themselves
in Moybridge's position. You gentlemen of the jury, you who
have wives whom you love, daughters whom you cherish, and
mother's whom you reverence, will not condone Larkins's crime. I

(45:30):
cannot ask you to send this man back to his
happy home. The destroyer has been there, His wife's name
has been smirched, his child bastardized, and his earthly happiness
so utterly destroyed, that no hope exists of its reconstruction.
But let him go forth from here again. Let him

(45:53):
go once more among the wild and grand beauties of
nature in the pursuit of his loved profession. Let him
go where he may perhaps pick up again a few
of the broken threads of his life, and attains such
comparative peace as may be attained by one so cruelly
stricken through the very excess of his love for his wife.

(46:18):
On this dramatic note, Pendegast sat down. Dennis Spencer rose
to give the final prosecution closing argument. He pushed back
on the insanity argument, saying, quote, there is no form
of insanity that strikes a man like a flash of lightning,
compelling him to commit an awful crime, and then passes

(46:40):
away as in a dream, leaving no trace behind. The
only witnesses who had testified to Moybridge's insanity, he continued,
were Susan Smith and William Rulifson, two people who had
business relationships with Moybridge and vested interests in seeing him acquitted.
Spencer concluded by rebutting the logic of the justifiable homicide argument.

(47:04):
If Harry Larkins could be killed with no trial, why
was Edward Moybridge entitled to one the very prisoner? Spencer finished,
after his act comes here and avails himself of all
the legal safeguards which he denied his victim. He told
the jurors that they should find Moybridge guilty of deliberate murder.

(47:26):
With that the case was finished. Judge Wallace now instructed
the jury. He explicitly disallowed them from rendering a verdict
of not guilty with justifiable homicide, but told them they
could choose from four other verdicts, guilty with a sentence
of death, guilty with a sentence of life imprisonment, not guilty,

(47:47):
or not guilty by reason of insanity. At nine thirty pm,
the jury left to deliberate. Many people expected a quick
verdict and hung around the courthouse waiting, but by three
a m. The jurors had still not reached an answer.
They decided to sleep on the matter and resumed deliberations

(48:08):
after breakfast the next morning. By noon, they had a verdict.
Moybridge was brought back from his cell, though the public
were kept out for the reading of the verdict. In
the still silent courtroom, the court clerk rose on the
charges of murdering Harry Larkins. He said the jury had

(48:28):
found the defendant, Edward Moybridge, not guilty. Edward Moybridge had
a strange reaction to the verdict. He collapsed and began
to shake, seeming almost to seize. He moaned and wept.
His lawyer, Pendegast, tried to rein him in, telling Moybridge

(48:51):
to get himself together and think the jury. Moybridge could
not compose himself and was carried out of the courtroom
for fifteen minutes. The fit seemed to rack his body
and mind, but finally, when one of Pendigast's partners told
him to stop, Moybridge fell silent. He walked unaided into
the courtroom and the judge officially released him. He walked

(49:15):
into the street, where the waiting crowd erupted in cheers.
Back in San Francisco, Flora must have been shocked. She
had filed for divorce from Moybridge six weeks before the
trial and asked for alimony and child support. A judge
had initially ruled in her favor, and then dismissed his

(49:36):
order and postponed the case after pressure from William Pendigast.
After Moybridge's acquittal, Flora filed again. She claimed that she
had been coerced into the marriage, that Moybridge had been
neglectful and even adulteress himself, and that she now feared
he would kill her. The judge ruled that Moybridge had

(49:57):
to pay Flora fifty dollars a month in alimony, but
by the time this ruling came down, Moybridge was long gone.
Two weeks after the trial, he had boarded a ship
for Central America to take publicity photographs for the Pacific
Mail Company. He stayed in Central America for eight months,
now going by the name of Eduardo Santiago Moybridge. Flora

(50:22):
meanwhile was living in a boarding house with her son,
barely scraping by. Her divorce lawyer had been providing her
with money until the alimony arrived from Moybridge. It would
never come. In July, Flora fell ill. Her condition worsened quickly,
and she was admitted to Saint Mary's Hospital, where she

(50:42):
died on July eighteenth, eighteen seventy five, nine months and
a day after the murder of Harry Larkins. She was
twenty four years old. Before the trial, the press had
excoriated her as a disgusting, promiscuous woman, and even death
could not grant Flora of reprieve from the public's criticism.

(51:06):
Death relieves Missus Flora Moybridge from a life of sin
and shame, read one headline. With Flora dead, Baby George
was placed with a neighbor's family. In eighteen seventy six, however,
Edward Moybridge arrived back in the child's life, but did
not take him in. He instead had the toddler moved
to the Hayte Street Protestant Orphan asylum. Moybridge also renamed George,

(51:31):
giving him the unusual name Florado Helios Moybridge. Besides bestowing
the boy with his artist's moniker, Moybridge also had the
orphanage record Florado as a half orphan, meaning that he
had one living parent. These both seemed to be signs
that Moybridge now believed that he was indeed the boy's father,

(51:53):
but that did not mean that he wished to be
involved in Florado's life. The two would rarely see each other.
When Florado was nine and a half, he left the
orphanage in search of work. He spent the rest of
his life as a farm laborer, gardener, and delivery man.
The mystery of his actual paternity was never solved, and

(52:14):
though we know that his mother was Flora Moybridge, Florado
himself apparently did not thanks to a mix up with
the orphanage records. Florado spent his entire life believing that
his mother was a frenchwoman. He died in February nineteen
forty four after being hit by a car in Sacramento.
Edward Moybridge's outcome was much better than Flora or Florado's.

(52:39):
In fact, for the most part, he was celebrated by
the public. After the trial, Some reporters had criticized the verdict,
with one local paper writing that the jury had outraged
the law and the facts, and violated their oaths to
set the assassin free, but the public largely seemed to
be on Moybridge's sad This position might make more sense

(53:03):
if we consider the relative frequency of men in this
period murdering their wives, lovers, and being acquitted by juries
who found their actions justified. In his book Homicide, Race,
and Justice in the American West eighteen eighty to nineteen twenty,
Claire V. McKenna records love triangles as being the cause

(53:24):
of nearly twenty percent of all murders in three Western counties,
and in many of these cases, the killers were acquitted.
It's a stereotype of the Wild West that the law
was often taken into individuals hands, but studies of Western
murder trials during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
show that juries regularly acquitted murderers if they believed that

(53:47):
the crime was justified. In eighteen ninety, the historian Hubert
Bancroft recorded that quote an average of twenty five homicides
have taken place yearly in San Francisco for the last decade,
and that out of two hundred and fifty or more
homicidal crimes, only four have been punished capitally and seventy

(54:09):
seven by imprisonment. In all other cases, the juries probably
agreed that the victim deserved to be killed. This attitude
seems to have been a Western phenomenon, though not exclusively.
The New York Times had sneeringly predicted Moybridge's acquittal, saying
that Moybridge quote now appeals to the fine sense of

(54:30):
justice and chivalry, which a California public has never been
found to lack on such occasions. But this wasn't just
an easterner's stereotype of the West. A study by the
historian Roger Lane found that conviction rates for murder increased
over the course of the twentieth century in Philadelphia. In response,
the historian Robert Tillman studied murder conviction rates in Sacramento

(54:54):
County over the same period and determined that the conviction
rate did not increase, lead being Tillman to conclude that
quote the social reaction to murder, at least as expressed
in the actions of the courts, did not change significantly.
The quote lower threshold for the tolerance of violence, found

(55:14):
elsewhere across the country toward the turn of the century,
was not in evidence in Sacramento County. One Nevada newspaper,
reflecting on both the Moybridge trial and the Beecher Tilton case,
which happened at the same time and which was covered
in episode two of History on Trial, said that Beecher
could have used a taste of Western justice. Quote. It

(55:36):
would have been much better for the world had Tilton
a year ago blown out Beecher's brains and then his own.
That isn't to say that all Westerners were so comfortable
with violence, of course. In eighteen eighty, the Sacramento Daily
Union published a scathing editorial on what they called sentimental murder,

(55:56):
saying that the regular acquittal of murderers of this type
was a sign of social backwardness, and hoping that California
would soon reach the point at which quote the kind
of crimes which have heretofore stained the annals of the
state will cease, and no one will venture to scandalize
society and outrage the law in that way with any

(56:18):
expectation or hope of being acquitted through the aid of
popular sympathy. On the very same day that this editorial
was published, Edward Moybridge displayed his zoa praxyscope in San Francisco.
His presentation received national attention, and none of the articles
mentioned the murder. In the years following the verdict, Moybridge

(56:42):
had resumed his work as a photographer. He had had
a particularly fruitful collaboration with Leland Stanford, the Railroad magnet.
Former California governor and future Stanford University founder Stanford, who
was obsessed with horses, had wanted to solve the age
old question of whether all four of a horse's legs

(57:03):
left the ground at once when it ran. The answer,
by the way we now know, is yes. This was
a technical challenge. No photographer had figured out how to
capture a horse in motion without getting a blurry blob,
but Moybridge proved just the man for the job. Using
a series of trip lines and modified shutters, he did

(57:25):
the formerly impossible. In eighteen seventy three, before the murder,
Moybridge had captured one of Stanford's horses, mid trot. By
eighteen seventy eight, he had refined his method and managed
to take twelve consecutive photos of a horse running. These
photos made international news and formed the basis for Moybridge's

(57:46):
zoa Proxyscope show. He had an artist paint his photographs
on a glass disc and then inserted a shutter between
each frame so that the images did not blur together
when he spun the disc. After his successful first day
demonstruations in eighteen eighty, Moybridge took his show on the
road he traveled first to France. It was there, in

(58:07):
eighteen eighty two that Edward Moybridge changed his name for
a final time, modifying the spelling of his first name
from the stand Edward to the archaic Anglo saxon Edward
sounds the same, but spelt ea d w ea r D.
This is the name he is best known by today.

(58:29):
In this same year, he fell out with Leland Stanford,
who published a book of Moybridge's motion photos and took
credit for the photographer's invention. Moybridge sued Stanford, but a
judge dismissed the case. In eighteen eighty four, Moybridge was
hired by the University of Pennsylvania to take more motion pictures.
At penn he transitioned from photographing animals to photographing people,

(58:52):
and then to photographing naked people. He gained a reputation
for eccentricity at the university, eating lemons by the dozen,
as well as the maggots that spawned in cheese. After
he failed to sell the photos he'd taken at penn
and in need of money, he took his zoa praxyscope
back on the road. In February eighteen eighty eight, Moybridge

(59:15):
to a motion picture show in New Jersey. Two days later,
he went to nearby Menlo Park to visit the famous
laboratory of Thomas Edison. The two men discussed Moybridge's invention.
Edison would go on to refine Moybridge's work and create
the kinetoscope box, which would in turn inspire the Loumier Brothers,
some of history's first filmmakers. By the time the Lumiers

(59:39):
projected their first motion pictures for an enraptured crowd in
Paris in December eighteen ninety five, Moybridge was old news.
He had stopped taking photographs in eighteen eighty six, and
a zoa praxyscope show at the Chicago's World Fair in
eighteen ninety three had been poorly attended. In eighteen ninety five,

(01:00:00):
Moybridge moved back to Kingston, England, where he had been born.
He died there in nineteen o four, aged seventy four,
while trying to dig a hole in his backyard in
the shape of the Great Lakes very normal today. Edward
Moybridge is best remembered for his photographic exploits and technological innovations.

(01:00:25):
These should not be discounted. His work is beautiful, transformative,
and revolutionary. He also killed a man. The justice system
allowed Moybridge to go free, and the social mores of
the time meant that Moybridge did not suffer professional or
personal consequences either. Today, the murder is largely a footnote

(01:00:46):
in his biography. Even his own son seems not to
have held the crime against him if he knew about it. Florado,
who seems not to have known his own mother's name
and believed her to be French, apparently loved to tell
new acquaintances that his father was a famous photographer. That's
the story of California v. Edward Moybridge. Stay with me

(01:01:10):
after the Break for a fascinating story of historical research
and discovery that illuminated the life of one of the
trial's less well known figures. History has not been kind
to Harry Larkins. He's been called a confidence man, a rogue,
and a scoundrel. Up until recently, historians writing about the

(01:01:33):
Moybridge case have relied on the judgments of Larkins's American contemporaries,
who all seemed to agree that the man was a
lovable rogue, who exaggerated his achievements and connections. His claims
of being an army major and winning military awards seemed
especially doubtful, but all of that changed thanks to the

(01:01:53):
work of British author Rebecca Gowers. Gowers is the great
great great granddaughter of Emma Larks, author of a famous
letter written during the Indian Mutiny of eighteen fifty seven.
While trying to track down the original copy of this letter,
Gowers stumbled upon a theory that one of Emma's children,
a boy named Harry Larkins Larkins spelled with an eye,

(01:02:17):
was the same man as Harry Larkins Larkins with a y,
who was murdered by Edward Moybridge. Digging into the archives,
Gowers was able to prove the theory true. This discovery
led her to uncover the true biography of Harry Larkins.
Her twenty twenty book, The Scoundrel Harry Larkins and His

(01:02:39):
Pitiless Killing by the photographer Edward Moybridge allows us for
the first time to flesh out the life of a
man who has for so long been defined by his death.
This is his story. Henry Thomas Larkins was born on

(01:03:01):
October eighteenth, eighteen forty three in Merritt, India, a town
northwest of modern day New Delhi. The city, like much
of India at this time, was controlled by the British
East India Company, an enormous corporation with its own private
army in which Harry's father was an officer. Four months

(01:03:23):
after Harry's birth, his family returned to England due to
his father's ill health. The Larkinses stayed for two years,
but eventually Harry's parents returned to India, leaving Harry and
his two sisters to be raised by relatives. The Larkinses
would send their next daughter back to England too, but
kept Harry's three youngest siblings with them in India. Not

(01:03:46):
much is known about Harry's earliest years. His sisters ended
up with their wealthy aunt, Henrietta, but Harry did not,
at least not yet. We aren't sure where he was
between the ages of three and thirteen. Though the four
elder Larkins children did not live with their parents, their parents'

(01:04:07):
influence was certainly felt, especially that of their mother, Emma,
who monitored their behavior via letter, using a point system
to weigh their moral worth. Harry does not seem to
have fared well in Emma's assessments. In the summer of
eighteen fifty seven, rebellion broke out amongst the Native Indian

(01:04:29):
troops of the British East India Company. The Larkinses, now
stationed in Conport, found themselves at the epicenter of the fighting.
They and other company families ended up besieged in the barracks.
Death seems certain, so Emma managed to write a final letter,
which she had a servant smuggle out. In this extraordinary letter,

(01:04:51):
she writes movingly to her daughter's telling them of her love.
Her note to Harry is very different. She seems to
blame him for his family's imminent death. Henry, dear boy,
Emma writes, My heart yearns over you, Oh dear boy,
If you saw the position your little brother and sisters
are in at this moment, you would weep over ever,

(01:05:14):
having pleased your own desires, seek your God and serve him.
It was the last letter Harry would ever have from
his mother. Sometime that summer, along with nearly all the
British families in conpor, Emma and George Larkins and their
three young children were killed. Thirteen year old Harry was

(01:05:35):
now an orphan. His aunt, Henrietta, who was raising his sisters,
took charge of his care. She sent him to boarding school,
first in Brussels and then in England. In eighteen fifty nine,
Henrietta secured Harry a position as a cadet in the army.
He sailed to India to join up in January eighteen sixty.
He bounced from position to position, alternately charming and infuriating

(01:05:59):
those around him. By the end of his second year
in India, Harry had somehow managed to wrap up two
thousand pounds in debts. His commanding officer wrote to Henrietta
that if she did not pay off his debts, he
would be sent to prison. His sister Alice wrote that quote,
as Harry has been in the habit of stealing all

(01:06:20):
his life, prison appears to be the best place for him.
Poor fellow. Henrietta managed to pay the enormous sum and
Harry kept his place, but was eventually forced to leave
the army five years later for disciplinary problems. In eighteen
sixty seven, aged twenty three, Harry returned to England. He
did not lose his habit of spending. A cousin describing

(01:06:43):
him at this time, said extravagance was evidently his weak point.
Endowed by nature with an excellent physique, good looks, and
a ready wit, he was nevertheless generally in debt, exhausting
the generosity of his friends and family in England, Harry
traveled to Paris, where he fell in love with a
famous courtisan. Wanting to impress the woman, Harry scammed a

(01:07:08):
jeweler into giving him diamonds, saying that he would pay
the man back later. When he didn't, he was arrested
for fraud. On the stand, Harry lied smoothly, promising it
was all the misunderstanding his wealthy friends in Paris, For
Harry always managed to make wealthy friends who loved his
stories and sense of fun, paid the jeweler back and

(01:07:30):
Harry was acquitted. Returning to England, Harry once again ran
out debts and got into legal trouble, but as usual,
he managed to charm everyone around him and evade punishment.
In eighteen seventy, perhaps searching for a greater purpose, Harry
signed up to fight for France in the Franco Prussian War.

(01:07:51):
For some reason, he enlisted as Harry Larkins with a
y instead of an eye, which is the name he
is now best known by. Harry fought valiantly for France,
using his facility for languages he spoke good French and German,
and his charisma to execute daring spy missions. He was

(01:08:11):
promoted to Squadron Leader, the equivalent rank of a major
in the British Army, and though historians have long doubted
his military credentials, calling his desire to be called Major
Larkins a vanity, he earned the title. He also earned
the Legion of Honor, the highest French order of merit,
which he was awarded in April eighteen seventy one. After

(01:08:35):
the war, Harry traveled to America, going first to New
York before heading west to Nevada. After Nevada, he went
to Salt Lake City, where he met up with Arthur
Neil and traveled to San Francisco. Months later, he wound
up as the theater critic for the San Francisco Evening
Post and walked into Bradley and Rulufsen's gallery, met Flora

(01:08:56):
and Edward Moybridge and sealed his fate. Harry Larkins was
a rogue yes, and even a scoundrel. He scammed people,
he lived beyond his means. He got by on charm
and false promises and pretenses of sophistication. But despite his flaws,

(01:09:16):
he did not lie about everything. He did come from
a wealthy family, he was a military hero, and he
did truly love Flora Weybridge. None of that stopped Edward
Moybridge from killing him, or a jury from acquitting Moybridge,
and none of that stopped the historical record from disparaging

(01:09:37):
his character for decades until a persistent and determined researcher
unearthed the truth. Thank you for listening to History on Trial.
The main sources for this episode were Rebecca Gowers's book
The Scoundrel Harry Larkins and his Pitiless Killing by the
photographer Edward Moybridge, and Edward Ball's book The Inventor and

(01:09:58):
the Tycoon, A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of
Moving Pictures. I am grateful to Rebecca Gowers for her
help in resolving several questions I had about the case,
and would highly recommend her book to learn more about
the lives of both Harry and Flora. For a full bibliography,
as well as a transcript of this episode with citations,

(01:10:21):
please visit our website History on Trial podcast dot com.
History on Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward.
The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with
supervising producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,
Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show

(01:10:44):
at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us
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