June 20, 2024 • 43 mins
On today’s episode, Karen tells Georgia about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Great Wyrley Outrages.
For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.
Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hell, hello and welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstar. That's Karen Kilgarriff.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I can't tell her voices apart at all. I heard
a clip the other day really and didn't know who
was talking.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh no, that's insidious.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's tough when you're editing a clip. I'll tell you that.
It was just weird. It was like a surreal feeling
of like, wait, who's And then I also couldn't remember
who talked, so it was like the current experience and
then like I didn't I was like, what is this from?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I recently listened to an episode first project we're working on,
and I listened to it at one point five speed
because I just wanted to get through, you know. And
then I listened to another one and at normal speed,
and I was like, these chicks are so fucking slow.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, hurry the fuck up, which is insane because we're
so fast.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We're so fast. That's how my brain works. My brain
works better at one point five.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
It might be good at a nice three. Just really
get it up there.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Oh no, that's meth Georgia. She's uh, she's gone.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
She had her place, she had her use.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Sweet baby Angel Rip.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Wait wait, so this is just real quick a vacation episode.
So we're recording these. We pre record them slightly shorter
than the normal episodes so that we can go on
vacation and you guys still have content. So it's basically
the same as a regular show.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
We're just doing less quick intro and then one of
us is going to read a story only and that's
going to be for two weeks, and then we're back
in your arms.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You won't even have time.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
To post and reddit. It's funny. But just as we
get back in the studio, it's.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Like, bye, we have got to go.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh, I have something I re comment I wanted to
read you. Someone put on our Instagram account. Her hand
is Babe on the go go and it says, Hi,
Georgia and Karen, I've been a murderino from day one.
I'm competing in the Miss New York USA pageant and
my platform is missing and murdered indigenous people as well
as ending the backlog whoa whah. As a twenty twenty
four the Miss USA contest change the rules to allow
(02:17):
women over twenty seven I'm forty and married women as
well as moms, mother of two to compete, So I've
decided to go for it because if not me, then
who shruggy emoji. I say this all to say I
would love if you both would go to Miss new
YORKUSA dot com and vote for me for People's Choice.
My name is Andrea Hill number sixty nine. Also, followers,
(02:39):
if you're reading this, vote thank you in advance. Maybe
a long shot, but I really hope you all see this.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I mean sorry, that's a forty year old woman of
color who already made it and she's now just running
for like it sounds like she's representing New York already.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, and missing and murdered indigenous women.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
And has a platform that actually could affect real important change.
That's not your dad's beauty pageant. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's definitely not your red hat beauty pregnant. So yeah,
let me say it again. It's Smiss new York USA
dot com. Her name is Andrea Hill number sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Andrew, thanks for being a Day one listener. Yeah, we
have all kinds of questions about vacolining your teeth and
hairspraying your bathing suits, your butt, but congratulations on you know,
breaking me well, maybe she didn't do it, maybe it
already got done.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
But I mean it's just cool, part of a really
cool change.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
A miss contest that a forty year old is in.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh can you imagine forty year olds can still fucking
work their shit?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Hell yeah, can still twirl a baton with the best
of them and fucking represent I mean amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Do you have anything?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I just have a really good attitude.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Do you have anything, uh going for it?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It's not real. Yeah, I know this has been It's
the day before we go on vacation and it has
been a long several weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
What are you going on your vacation?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Staycation? Oh nice?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I really I realized that all of my time spent
at my house for the past four years has been
deemed does work. Yeah, so I'm gonna clean out. I
have junk drawers that almost can't be closed. They're so
full of junks.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Oh the satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I have so many wires to my phone, cord charger,
phone jack charger that don't fit the phone anymore, or
don't fit the jack anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, but you don't know which because you haven't tried them,
so you just leave them off for now.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
So it's like they're all in a drawer and they've
become entwined, and they're like a rat king, rat king,
a rat king in my drawer. Yes, I'm going to
try to go in and fight them.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Okay, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Vincent going to Michigan and we're going to have like
a little Michigan road trip to like the pretty places.
Oh nice, like lakes and stuff they have there, did
you know? Yes, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous. I think he's
just like, let's take a look here. Yeah, wants to
show me another way to live.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
He's yeah, he's like, can you can you imagine in
a life outside of southern California?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I don't think he can, honestly anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So it's okay, you're like, where all the freeway overpass?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yes? All right?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So short episode short.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So yeah, so that's the end.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And now that's the end. But also we need to
actually tell you we're back on with full episodes July fourth, Yeah,
which is a holiday, your favorite holiday, it's number one
in my book.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And also you can find merch including t shirts, stickers,
and tote bags for all exactly Right Podcasts at exactly
rightstore dot com, So please check that out.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And if you want to support this particular podcast using
promo codes, which kind of is the name of the game.
I don't know if we've ever given that away, but
I mean advertising is what makes podcasts happen free. And
so when they give promo codes and the ads that
we do, when you use those promo codes, they track
it and then they go, we love that podcast because
(05:52):
they actually use their promo code.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So use ours well, and you can go to my
favorite murder dot com slash promos and you can find
all that yeah, and use anyone you want. It doesn't
have to be simultaneous. Yeah, absolutely, again that discount.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Also, you guys did this last time. We asked for it,
and it was so fucking incredible. If you could rate
and review this show wherever you like to listen to podcasts,
especially if it's on Apple Podcasts. We got screen grabs
from last time you guys did this, the nicest messages lovely,
thank you so much. It meant so much. I know
you don't think of doing that very often, but that
is another thing you can do to support your favorite
(06:27):
podcast is rate and review.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
That's right, And you don't actually have to write anything.
You can just review it and accounts and it just is.
It's good to show that your audience is active and stuff.
You don't have to compliment us. You don't have to
say how pretty our beautiful black hair is. You don't
have to do any of that.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Five stars is great for if you don't like the cursing.
I totally understand the three.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
If you're sick of the talking at the beginning, I
don't care.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean it could just fast forward though. Okay, express yourself,
all right, you're going this week?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I go first this week? Oh that was weird? You moving?
That can move mine?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
That's oh my god. The hon is grabbing her hair.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Just a slight slide. If this microphone doesn't work the
whole time, this podcast is over. Okay, this is actually
I'm so excited for to tell you this story. It's
perfect for a short episode. But I do have to
do a kind of an intense listener warning at the
top because this story mentions the killing of horses and
the mutilation of livestock. Oh no, none of the stuff
(07:32):
we talk about is nice ever, but we all understand
the content. We get what's coming at us sometimes things
like that, especially horses. I mean, have you ever seen
the play Equis.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's horrifying majestic creatures.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Okay, so we start with the name everyone knows, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, the man behind one of literature's most
iconic characters, Charlotte Colmbs. Of course, one of the several
television shows I fall asleep to the old Sherlock Holmes PHOEBC.
I think, starring Jeremy Brett unbelievably wonderful. I think like
(08:08):
late seventies, early eighties British television could be the nineties.
It all looks so long ago. Anyhow, if you're at
all familiar with Sarthur Conan Doyle, whose name I can't
seem to break up comfortably, I'm not going to call
him Arthur Artie Conan Doyle is odd, but that's what
I ended up, That's what Maren ended up writing.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So we're going at sa CD call him that sacked sacked.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So the Sherlock Holmes series is just one part of
Sarthur Conan's Doyle's varied and very rich in varied life.
He was a complicated man on one hand, he was
larger than life. He was a prolific writer of both
fiction and nonfiction. He was a practicing doctor, which is
that's a lot. Andy was an avid sportsman. He was
(08:57):
also a world traveler at a time when world was
very difficult and a huge undertaking, and he did it.
More controversially, he is remembered for cheating on his dying wife,
passionately supporting British imperialism, and fully endorsing spiritualism, which we
talked about in the Harry Houdini episode. If you want
to go back and listen, it's episode three sixty three
(09:20):
landed in Marshmallows and just you know, spiritualism was a
popular belief in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It's
a belief that the living can communicate with the dead.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Essentially, I think sciences with old you know, Victorian people
and Luigi boards and.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, crystal ball type shit got very, very popular at
the turn of the century. Houdini was a huge skeptic.
He thought that basically spiritualism was hijacked by frauds, and
he fought against it vehemently. It was around the time
of some big war. Oh, it was after the Civil War,
(09:58):
some big fucking war.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
He was kind of the original like canceler if you
think about it, like trying to cancel people.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yes, he was also like the original fight Back with
David Horowitz.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Did you ever watch that show? Oh my god, like
care's a wrong and David Horowitz like I'm going to
write it, and the audience like, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Small business It's like, yes, exactly, this used car lot
made this lady pay this much money. Oh fuck fight
Back with David Horowitz. It's like that's why in the
early eighties were also like placid. It was like, well,
someone's going to take care of it. Some dude in
a weird tie and a bad blazer is going to
take care of this.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
My news, We'll do an undercover. Come on, can I
get David Horowitz on the show?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh could you imagine?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yea, I just interview what was life like done? How
many fraudulent bullshit claims did you guys?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Wait a second, I'm going to cover fucking David Horowitz
on this show. Get out of my dog, Get out
of my area.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I'll never bring it up again.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Don't look at don't look at my paper. Wait okay,
and it was either Houdini's fight or it was Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle's kind of insists in believing spiritualism that
ended their once close relationship. Sorry they're once close friendship.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Say it that way, I got it.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
But there is another part of Conan Doyle's life and
legacy that a lot of people don't know about, and
that's his real life investigation into a grisly Victorian era
crime where he played the part of a real life
Sherlock Holms. This is the story of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle and the Case of the Great Worly Outrages. The
(11:27):
main sources of this story are the book Conan Doyle
for the Defense by Margolt Fox Margolit Beautiful and the
book The Mystery of the Parsi Lawyer written by Shrabonni
Basu and Shrabonni's a Woman with sheher Pronouns. And then
also from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's own writing and what
he basically wrote about for all this the ultimate source
(11:50):
and then the rest are in our show notes. So
just to start us off, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was
born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in May of eighteen fifty nine.
He's the second oldest of nine children in a you
guessed it, devoutly Catholic household. He has a not great
relationship with his father, who's an alcoholic, but he is
(12:11):
very close with his mother Mary. As a boy, Conan
Doyle is sent off to be educated in Jesuit schools
and that's where he discovers his love of writing, and
it's probably influenced by his mother's love for books and stories.
But ironically, Mary encourages her son to take a different
career path. She wants him to study medicine, so he does.
(12:32):
He enrolls at the University of Edinburgh. He finds his
studies super boring, but there is an instructor who completely
fascinates him, and it's a surgeon named doctor Joseph Bell.
Conan Doyle describes doctor Bell as quote a very skillful surgeon,
but his strong point was diagnosis not only of disease,
but of occupation and character end quote. So doctor Bell
(12:56):
has this remarkable ability to figure out the details of
a patian's life just by observation. In one instance, doctor
Bell correctly guesses that a new patient was recently discharged
from the military served in a Scottish regiment and was
stationed in Barbados.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
The fuck it's crazy when you shut the fuck up
and listen that someone will give you just like.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
They just know it. It's right there on you, he
explains to his students. Quote, you see, gentlemen, the man
was a respectful man, but he did not remove his hat.
They do not in the army. But he would have
learned civilian ways had he been long discharged. He has
an air of authority and he is obviously Scottish. As
to Barbados, his complaint is elephantiasis, which is West Indian
(13:38):
and not British.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Wow, click, fucking deduction junction.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Me saying click? Was that doctor Bell taking a selfie
right after he said that? Because he's just like, what
else you fucking want to know? It is really cool?
So obviously doctor Bell is the man that Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle based Sherlock Holmes on Nice So cool.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
By eighteen eighty seven, Arthur Conan Doyle is not only
a practicing physician, he's also writing stories. He's regularly submitting
those stories to magazines, and this is the year he
debuts the first Sherlock Holmes mystery a study in scarlet.
It's a colossal hit. People go nuts. It immediately spawns
a rabbit fan base. Yet despite the extreme popularity, Conan
(14:25):
Doyle soon gets tired of Sherlock constantly overshadowing his other books,
especially his historical novels boring.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Everyone's like, no, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Get to the mysteries, get to the talk about what
is their fingernails look like and how that means that
they're from France.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
They're like, sacked, Am I right?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Sacked? Get out here. In fact, Sherlock Holmes has such
a hold on the public the people sometimes mistake Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle for Sherlock Holmes writer Sherbonni Boss, who says, quote,
when a delivery of shirts Conan Doyle had ordered arrived
marked to Sherlock Holmes, it was the last straw. So
(15:05):
in eighteen ninety three, Conan Doyle kills off Sherlock Holmes
in the story The Final Problem. Damn, that's six years
after his debut, and of course they all freak out. Yeah,
everyone goes crazy. It's reported that after the story's published,
quote young citymen in London went about with black crepe
in their hats and morning bands on their arms, woh goth,
(15:28):
which is actually, did you ever watch the new series
with Benedict Cumberback.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
No, No, I know, I should.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It's really good. If you ever have a long weekend
and you want to lay around, it's so good and
well done and all the people in it are so good.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Andrew Scott I know is I found that out recently.
A hot priest is in it, and I was like, well, okay,
maybe I can watch this.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
He plays a villain that is so scary you get
scared in your house of him, that he's going to
come somehow into your house.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
He's so creepy. Putting it off because my mom's the
one and keeps telling me to watch it. So I'm like, no,
I'm not having a baby, and I'm not watching some
of the new slock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I'm not going to do either anytime soon. Well, don't
don't make the mistake I made when for like three
years my sister said you have to watch Friday Night
Lights and I was like, futtle coue about.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Come on, do you care about great writing and acting?
Do you care about being alive? Cinematography, humanity? Okay, So
now Conan Doyle shifts his focus to his historical political
writings Snooze and then at the turn of the century,
I'm sure it.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Was really good. Sure it's great, but probably pretty good.
But you can't beat the stuff that Sherlock's Sherlock Holmes
is the best idea. He's like a detective on cocaine
that's kind of in love with his partner. Yeah, doctor Watson,
Like it's the.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Best, I mean, and like ride those royalty checks, end
of the Wild Wild West man, like do your best,
don't make it, try have there be a point.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But like it's like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was like
in the band Pavement, yes, where it's like, don't fucking
sell out.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, oh we're not oning on and it's like, okay,
it's been forty years and like you and Mi what now.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, just we're all here to sell out. Sorry, everything's cringe.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Sorry, No, don't sell out, but buy in.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Right, greed is good.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
No, it's terrible.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
We're going back to the eighties.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Now, We're going back to our past now. Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
So then at the turn of the century, Conan Doyle
volunteers to be a doctor during the Boer War in
South Africa. He writes extensively about this war and Britain's
role in it, and it earns him a knighthood in
nineteen oh two. This is when Sir actually gets added
to his name. And if you don't know, like I
didn't know, the Boer War was a conflict between the
(17:49):
British Empire and the two Boer republics in South Africa,
which were set up by Dutch speaking settlers, and they
basically did it so that could get access to the
goal minds and expand the British Empire colonialism. It's everywhere.
So basically, thanks to a mix of the public's ongoing
desperation for more Sherlock Holmes stories and the huge payday
(18:14):
from publishers, Arthur Conan Doyle brings back Sherlock Holmes in
the now classic story The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
How does he explain away that he's dead? Is this
like a misery type of situation?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Well, if I am Kathy Bates, he just points to
Kathy Bates and says, he says, you're welcome. You're welcome.
I did it now, if I am correct, based on
all the episodes I've seen, He goes and fights Moiriarty,
his ultimate enemy, and they have this fight near a
waterfall and then everyone sees them both fall off the
(18:48):
waterfallt and like basically to their desks.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, he knew it was coming back.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, he left it open for sure. And then it
was like then to basically prove that Moriarty did the
thing that he did, Charlocks had to go live somewhere
else for like three years, you know, and like collect
the evidence or whatever. Okay, please write in and tell
me all the ways I was wrong about that. But
that's my guest actually, and she reats me. Sherlock Holmes
(19:13):
Paul F. Tompkins has a bit about praying to Sherlock
Holmes because he's atheist. Dear Sherlock Holmes. It's one of
my faves. So even though he seems jaded by the
success of his detective novels, Conan Doyle does start emulating
Charlock Holmes in real life in nineteen oh seven, when
a disbarred lawyer named Georgia Doalgy who's in his early thirties,
(19:36):
writes Conan Doyle a letter, George and sis, He's been
wrongfully convicted for a horrible crime, and he wants Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle to help him clear his name so
he can practice law again.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
It's like the Wrongfully Convicted podcast.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Right exactly, but just these guys in the late eighteen
hundredspe podcast. It's just the two. So when he reads
this letter, Conan Doyle's interest is piqued, and before along
he is knee deep in Georgia Dalgy's case. So Conan
Doyle describes Georgia's story as quote a chain of circumstances
which seems so extraordinary that they are far beyond the
(20:11):
invention of the writer of fiction. And as Conan Doyle
sifts through the documents and letters that relate to the case,
this is what he learned. That the Adalgy family live
in a small English town called Great Worley. It's a
farming mining community that's right in the middle of the country.
George is biracial. His mother, Charlotte, is a white english woman.
(20:33):
His father, Shapergi, was born in India and is a
devout convert to Anglicanism, so he's the vicar at the
local church. It's reported that Shapergi is the first South
Asian person to hold this position in all of England.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Shit.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So we're in Victorian England. It's a small town at
the height of Britain's imperial influence in India. Yeah, well
imperial dominance in India. It's all to say that there's
a lot of locals believed in deeply racist stereotypes. They
are very racist about Indian people. They do not like
(21:09):
having an Indian man, or a man of Indian descent,
or just a man that's not white as the head
of their church. So now it's eighteen eighty eight Jack
the Ripper's year. Oh but also this is the year
after Arthur Conan Doyle published a study in Scarlet. So
just getting you the timeline of like we're kind of
switching back and forth, but it was basically right after
(21:30):
Arthur Conan Doyle kind of exploded onto the seam In
Great Worley. The Adulgies start receiving increasingly threatening anonymous letters
in the mail. In one, the writer says that they're
watching the family and they threaten to quote shoot Reverend
Adulgy dead.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Damn. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
So then one morning the family wakes up to a
broken window on the property. Then soon after that another
letter arrives promising more windows would be broken, and it
has the same handwriting as the first letter. Then someone
comes onto the family's property and scribbles the words quote.
Most of the adulgies are wicked on the wall of
(22:09):
an outhouse, so most of the adulgies are brown except
for the one, so it's obviously what that's about. The family,
of course, is understandably upset by the letters and by
this racist harassment. They reported all to the police and
investigation is opened. Officers interview everyone at the church and
(22:29):
the people who work in the Adalgies' home, and they
eventually arrest a domestic worker named Elizabeth Foster because they
prove that she was the one who wrote the message
on the outhouse. So the police claim that Elizabeth had
paper and writing materials that matched those used by the
anonymous letter writer, and she's also reportedly caught trying to
burn documents. It's unclear what they were or if they
(22:52):
were letters. In eighteen ninety nine, Elizabeth is tried. She
pleads not guilty. Her lawyer directly implicates her in the
letter writing, perhaps to minimize her actions in court. So
Conan Doyle notes quote her solicitor pleaded that it was
all a foolish joke, and she was bound over to
keep the peace. An attempt had been made to contend
(23:13):
that she was not guilty, but I take it that
no barrister could make such an admission without his client's consent. Yeah, yeah,
end quote. So can't know for sure whether Elizabeth was
the letter writer, but it at least seems possible that
she escapegoaded by the investigators because they had no other
viable suspects. Conan Doyle later cites people who knew Elizabeth
(23:36):
and say that she was quote animated by bitter feelings
of revenge after the verdict. That said, the letters stop
following her conviction, only to resume again a few years
later in eighteen ninety two. So that year hundreds of
letters smearing and threatening the adulgies are sent to multiple
addresses in great worry. Got hundreds, yeah, Arthur, Conan Doyle writes,
(24:00):
quote many were directed to the vicarage, but many others
were sent to different people in the vicinity. So malevolent
and so ingenious that it seemed as if a very
demon of mischief were endeavoring to set the perish by
the ears.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So the letters seem to be written by someone other
than the author of the first set of letters. This
handwriting is not the same. The language used by the
new writer indicates he or she is more educated than
the first writer. But what really differentiates the batch of
letters is how fixated these ones are on George, who
is just a teenager at the time.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Oh shit.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So it's unclear why the letter writer went after George,
but Conan Doyle suggests its discrimination on multiple levels. The
darker color of the Adulgy's skin already made them stick out,
but George is also described as having unusual facial features,
specifically large bulging eyes. This might have made him more
of an outcast. But these letters are and heartbreaking. Conan
(25:01):
Doyle book marks one addressed to George's father, and it
says this quote. Every day, every hour, my hatred is
growing against Georgia. Doalgy I would dispatch him to hell
in five minutes. Do you think that, when we want,
we cannot copy your kid's writing. Our only reason for
not forging their signatures and yours is that you all
write such a vulgar hand that no manager of newspapers
(25:24):
would suppose it was written by a parson. May the
Lord strike me dead? If I don't murder Georgia, doalgy,
your damned wife, your horrid little girl, I will descend
into the infernal regions, showering curses on you all and
quote my god, crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
So then they reference that thing of forging signatures. Well,
then that actually starts happening. So someone starts placing orders
using the reverend's name, and the family receives alcohol. They
get clothes, books, furniture, even musical instruments that they didn't
order and that they cannot pay for. Worse, clergymen are
(26:05):
told to travel to burial sites for funerals or to
visit dying parishioners on the reverend's orders, only to arrive
and find that the parishioners were never sick and there
is no funeral.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Good they am.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, so George is also the victim of forgery and impersonation.
Paid advertisements run in the local paper under his name
that he did not write, and in them quote unquote,
George claims to have sent the first batch of letters
himself and apologizes to Elizabeth Foster, suggesting that she's been
wrongfully accused.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Again. The police struggle to identify a suspect The letters
were mailed from various locations across England, sometimes delivered by hand.
They just couldn't track them, They couldn't track how many
people were involved. Just they did not know what was
going on. And then in eighteen ninety five, the letter
stop again. But before they do, the anonymous writer makes
one last disturbing threat that sticks with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
(27:02):
He reports, quote on March seventeenth, eighteen ninety three, this
real or pretended maniac says in a letter to the father, quote,
before the end of this year, your kid will be
either in the graveyard or disgraced for life. Unquote. So
now it's nineteen oh three. It has been fifteen years
since the first batch of letters arrived at the Adology House.
(27:25):
It's been eight years since they finally stopped. George is
in his late twenties. He's still living in Great Worley,
working as a lawyer at his own legal practice, and
things seem to have finally quieted down for this family,
even though no one's been arrested for the second batch
of letters or for the forgeries. But this peaceful stretch
ends abruptly with a series of bizarre live stock killings
(27:48):
that take place in Great Worley. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
describes the first event as a horse being quote ripped
up during the night.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
God horrible.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Over the following weeks, horses, cows and sheep are all
killed in a similar way. They're attacked with a sharp
instrument and left to die in the field, so the
towns in shock. This situation draws comparisons to Jack the
Ripper's White Chapel murders from fifteen years earlier, and just
like their counterparts in London, the residents of Great Worley
(28:22):
are furious, terrified. Following police investigation very closely, they just
want to find out who is doing this. Then the
letters begin again, come on man, and this time they
blame George for the brutal animal slangs, which are now
known as the Great Worly outrages. So not catchy, too
hard to say. But George has no history of violence.
(28:44):
He is just a humble, hard working lawyer and he
does not fit the profile for someone capable of such
a heinous crime. Still, investigators focus on him as a suspect.
Conan Doyle writes, quote now here, the results of the
police are absolutely illogical and incompatible. Their theory was that
of a moonlighting gang. Idulgy is condemned as a member
(29:07):
of it end quote, So they're kind of like putting
a story together to justify how this could be happening.
There's no proof that Georgia Dalgy was ever part of
a gang, and as Conan Doyle reviews the case, he
becomes convinced that the consistencies between the killings indicate that
they were carried out by a single person, not by
a group of men. Despite this, another horse is found
(29:29):
dead and Georgia Dolgy is arrested within hours. So the
morning of the arrest, police search through George's belongings and
they find dirty pants, a razor, and an old housecoat
stained with reddish marks. The pants in the coat are
described as quote damp, which stood out because it had
rained in the daytime hours before the horse was killed,
(29:51):
and the ground would have still been wet that night.
So investigators also discover short fibers on the coat that
they thought looked like pony hairs, along with muddy boots
that they claim matched some shoe prints found at the scene.
So police take all that circumstantial evidence and build a
theory George Adalgy was wearing his house coat and boots
(30:12):
when he killed the horse in the rain. They believe
he used the razor for the killing, and in the
process of committing this crime, George stands both the blade
and his coat with the animal's blood, picks up a
few pieces of pony hair on his clothing, and tracks
mud onto his boots. So George is like, this is
not true. I am innocent, completely maintains his innocence. He
(30:34):
actually tells police he was home the entire night and
his family can validate his alibi, but public opinion quickly
turns against him. One newspaper reporter, in particularly racist language, writes, quote,
many and wonderful were the stories I heard propounded in
the local alehouses as to why Idalgy had gone forth
(30:54):
in the night to slay cattle, And a widely accepted
idea was that he made nocturnal sacrifices to strange gods
zeer end quote. So Georgia Dalgy is tried and found
guilty and sentenced to seven years hard labor.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, So because of this he loses his ability to
practice law. They let him out after three years in
nineteen oh six, because so many people make a stink
about the fact that this case is so weak, but
officially he is still considered a violent felon once he
gets out and the police continue to surveil him. So
now it's nineteen oh seven, and this is when George
(31:34):
writes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the letter and Conan Doyle
joins Georgie's fight for justice. So the really brilliant thing
is that the Adalgy family identifies Conan Doyle as someone
with a large platform who could really make a difference
if he was investigated and was on their side.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Yeah, is an influencer.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, completely, It's very smart of them. So once Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle looks at this case, he almost immediately
is able to poke holes in almost every single piece
of evidence that they have, starting with that house coat.
Conan Doyle argues that if George had been out the
night before maiming horses, his housecoat would be damp with rain,
(32:13):
water and blood, but the reddish stains were dry and
set into the fabric when police found them the next morning,
suggesting they weren't fresh. As Conan Doyle notes, the inspector
quote had only to touch the blood stains and then
to raise his crimson finger to the air to silence
all criticism, but he could not do so. So not
only do you have somebody on your side, but you
(32:34):
have somebody that's so good at like deduction, making these statements, yeah,
and like making it all clear. Then there's George's muddy
boots and wet pants. George had admittedly been outside hours
before the horse was killed, when it was still daytime,
while it was raining. This, Conan Doyle explains, is why
the pants and shoes got wet and muddy. Plus, he
(32:54):
points out quote it is an interesting point that the
mud at the place of outrage was yellow red, a
mixture of clay and sand, quite distinct from the road
mud which the police claimed to have seen upon George's trousers.
It's like he's getting into forensics super early. And finally,
the pony hairs. Conan Doyle discovers that the police never
(33:15):
actually took samples of those hairs. They simply looked at
them while they were searching Georgia's things and then decided
that they were pony hairs. So whether or not they
actually were, whether or not there were something else like
thread which is what Georgia Dhgy's family claimed it was.
It's unknown because the police didn't take in evidence or
(33:36):
preserve evidence. Most importantly, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who has
extensive ophthalmology training, points out, yeah, right, points out George
has terrible eyesight. This never comes up in George's original
criminal trial. Conan Doyle writes, quote, the idea of such
a man scouring fields at night and assaulting cattle while
(33:57):
avoiding the police was ludicrous to anyone who can imagine
what the world looks like to eyes with mister Adalgy's myopia.
Then Conan Doyle alludes to the racism tied up in
this case, adding quote, but such an operation so hopelessly
bad that no glasses availed in the open air grave.
The sufferer a vacant, bulge eyed, staring appearance, which, when
(34:21):
taken with his dark skin, must have made him seem
a very queer man to the eyes of an English village,
and therefore to be associated with any queer event. There
in a single physical defect lay the moral certainty of
his innocence and the reason why he should become the scapegoat.
So in nineteen oh seven, Stars or Conan Doyle wraps
(34:41):
up his review of George's case, and then he publishes
his findings in the Daily Telegraph, and then he requests
that they run it with a headline that reads quote
no copyright, which means other newspapers can freely reprint that article.
Dam So, unsurprisingly, Conan Doyle's cover bridge makes waves. It's
(35:01):
a Sherlock Holmes case come to life, and readers devour
his first person true crime commentary. The story of George's
case becomes a sensation and the public is outraged by
his shoddy trial, and it puts pressure on the British
government to get involved. So within months, the Home Secretary
orders a review of this case, and the conclusions are strange.
(35:24):
George is exonerated for the animal mutilation charge, but the
review still claims that George wrote the letters, except the
letters blame George for the mutilations.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
It makes no sense, and most frustratingly, the Home Secretary
uses this claim that George did commit an offense by
writing the harassing letters to deny him any compensation for
the three years he spent in prison.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
There we go, Yeah, there.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
It is Conan Doyle reacts to these conclusions by stating, quote,
it is a blow upon the record of English justice.
So even though George is exonerated for the most serious
charge against him, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle still can't let
the animal slaying case go. He is fixated on identifying
the real culprit and he begins to zero in on
(36:09):
a young man that works as a local butcher's apprentice.
Conan Doyle even hires private detectives to trail him. The
apprentice has a bad reputation and a documented history of
animal abuse. According to a Conan Doyle biographer named Russell Miller,
he also quote had a hankering to go to sea
and found a berth on a ship out of Liverpool
(36:31):
in eighteen ninety five when the hoaxes and letters ceased,
and he did not return until nineteen oh two, shortly
before the first horse was made damn. So Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle feels confident that he has solved this case,
but he doesn't reveal the young man's name, believing that
the police and the legal system should handle the matter,
(36:51):
so he hands his findings overdue investigators, but the information
goes nowhere decades later, in nineteen eighty five, Conan Doyle's
investigation is published and a book and this person's name
is revealed. However, as the Great Worly Local History Society
points out, quote ironically, Conan Doyle's suspicion was based on
(37:12):
circumstantial evidence. It was an over reliance on this type
of evidence in the first place that had resulted in
Idalgy's flawed conviction. So officially, the Great Worly Outrages are
still unsolved to this day. And as for the anonymous letters,
Conan Doyle thinks some of them, particularly that last batch,
could have been linked to the person who was killing
(37:35):
the animals, written either by the culprit himself or someone
close to him in an attempt to frame George to
protect the real killer. But Conan Doyle also believes that
some of the letters, as well as certain forgeries, are
linked to Elizabeth Foster or someone close to her. Conan
Doyle points out that the second batch of letters quote
(37:56):
openly championed Elizabeth Foster not to mention the forged public
statement that was attributed to George and ran in the
newspaper went out of its way to exonerate her. So
the theory is that she because she was so filled
with bitterness and wanted revenge. That's what she it was
happening in those letters. So on the upside, with the
(38:16):
help of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his crusade, Georgia
Doalgy is finally reinstated to the bar. The two men
maintain a lifelong friendship, and when Conan Doyle marries his
second wife, Jeane Leckey, George actually goes to their wedding.
According to biographer Daniel Staschauur quote, Conan Doyle claimed that
there was no guest, he felt prouder to see. Oh
(38:37):
my god, I know it's not sweet. Georgia eventually moves
to London to practice law, and meanwhile, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle maintains an active life until his passing in nineteen
thirty at the age of seventy one. George dies in
nineteen fifty three at the age of seventy six. He
never receives any compensation for his wrongful conviction, and according
(38:58):
to Shrabani Bassu, he dies in semi poverty.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
But all these years later, George's case continues to be
deeply important to English society and not only opened the
public's eyes to failings in the country's criminal justice system,
especially connected to race, but this is the case that
directly leads to the creation of a criminal appeals court.
It hadn't existed in England before this case. So the
(39:25):
Criminal Appeal Act of nineteen oh seven formally established England's
Court of Criminal Appeal and is introduced the same year
that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes about George's case in
the Daily Telegraph. And that's the story of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's real life investigation that exonerated an innocent man.
Georgia Dolgy.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Wow, never heard it, right?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, they made a tap like a four part TV
series some British people did. I've seen it so many
times because I started. Every time I look at it,
I go, oh, I've I've ever seen that? And then
I started and then I'm like, yes I have, and
then I watch it again.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Anyway, Wow, that was amazing, great job, great standalone story. Right,
So that's what we're doing for you guys, that's what
we're trying to do so we can have our VAKA. Yeah,
should we see what what are you guys even doing
right now? While? Are you listening to this? So you
guys have been telling us, So here's here's one. Oh,
this one is good for Pride Month. Oh good, Hi
lovely people. You asked what we were even doing while listening?
(40:27):
So I am listening right after coming out as trans
to my family. Wow, I told them my new name,
and I feel like I'm finally living as myself. This
podcast has been alongside me throughout my teenage slash early
adult years and has been a grounding feature during some
really tough times. Thank you and Happy Pride Lee.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
They them, congratulations Lee, Yeah, well done, you did it. Wow?
What a strong Pride month. What are you even doing
right now?
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Know you guys hashtag on our whatever you know when
you comment on our instagrams or tiktoks, tell that's what
you're even doing right now when you listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Here's another one. This is from Tony Underscore b Underscore
nine to eighty three, and it says, hashtag what are
you even doing right now? Spiraling at work? Because after
forty five years on this planet, I am just now
learning that the classic Mayo with the blue label I
know as Hellman's is actually called Best Foods and renamed
for the East Coast. What is even real? Please tell
(41:23):
me you have heinz ketchup.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
We got so much more mayo feedback than any other
feedback we've ever gotten.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Were people's like fighting between mayonnaise and miracle whip.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
They wanted us to know that miracle whip is a
fucking dressing and how dare you right? What's the one
that took you tasted? I was super sugar. That's actually
a dressing. It's not even claiming to be a Mayo.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yes, it is claiming to fucking be a Mayo. You
don't just get to change how people interpret. Keep going,
miracle whip.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
This is a great way to get keep getting comments
and like getting people's algorithms.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
He starts to keep going, start starting, fucking asshole, how
dare you touch?
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Don't touch my fucking mail. I'll make What about aoli?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Let's go, I'm so.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Sorry, so fucking aoli.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Now it's a dressing. It's a dressing. So you're reading
this small print on the front of that label and
telling me that that missus Packard did not put miracle
whip on a Boloonean cheese sandwich and fuck up my day.
You're saying that didn't happen, and that's not.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Val sounds like they're questioning your memories. Now.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It sounds like you sink a dress. Just the words
dressing somehow vindicates anything.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
And we need a vacation. I'm so free and c
this is why we're going on a vacation exact, and
don't get murdered by Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 1 (42:50):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
This episode was mixed by Leona scuolace.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Our researchers are Mareon mcclashan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Fave Murder boyebye
Hell, hello and welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstar. That's Karen Kilgarriff.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I can't tell her voices apart at all. I heard
a clip the other day really and didn't know who
was talking.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh no, that's insidious.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
It's tough when you're editing a clip. I'll tell you that.
It was just weird. It was like a surreal feeling
of like, wait, who's And then I also couldn't remember
who talked, so it was like the current experience and
then like I didn't I was like, what is this from?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I recently listened to an episode first project we're working on,
and I listened to it at one point five speed
because I just wanted to get through, you know. And
then I listened to another one and at normal speed,
and I was like, these chicks are so fucking slow.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, hurry the fuck up, which is insane because we're
so fast.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
We're so fast. That's how my brain works. My brain
works better at one point five.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
It might be good at a nice three. Just really
get it up there.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Oh no, that's meth Georgia. She's uh, she's gone.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
She had her place, she had her use.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Sweet baby Angel Rip.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Wait wait, so this is just real quick a vacation episode.
So we're recording these. We pre record them slightly shorter
than the normal episodes so that we can go on
vacation and you guys still have content. So it's basically
the same as a regular show.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
We're just doing less quick intro and then one of
us is going to read a story only and that's
going to be for two weeks, and then we're back
in your arms.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You won't even have time.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
To post and reddit. It's funny. But just as we
get back in the studio, it's.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Like, bye, we have got to go.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh, I have something I re comment I wanted to
read you. Someone put on our Instagram account. Her hand
is Babe on the go go and it says, Hi,
Georgia and Karen, I've been a murderino from day one.
I'm competing in the Miss New York USA pageant and
my platform is missing and murdered indigenous people as well
as ending the backlog whoa whah. As a twenty twenty
four the Miss USA contest change the rules to allow
(02:17):
women over twenty seven I'm forty and married women as
well as moms, mother of two to compete, So I've
decided to go for it because if not me, then
who shruggy emoji. I say this all to say I
would love if you both would go to Miss new
YORKUSA dot com and vote for me for People's Choice.
My name is Andrea Hill number sixty nine. Also, followers,
(02:39):
if you're reading this, vote thank you in advance. Maybe
a long shot, but I really hope you all see this.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I mean sorry, that's a forty year old woman of
color who already made it and she's now just running
for like it sounds like she's representing New York already.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, and missing and murdered indigenous women.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
And has a platform that actually could affect real important change.
That's not your dad's beauty pageant. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's definitely not your red hat beauty pregnant. So yeah,
let me say it again. It's Smiss new York USA
dot com. Her name is Andrea Hill number sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Andrew, thanks for being a Day one listener. Yeah, we
have all kinds of questions about vacolining your teeth and
hairspraying your bathing suits, your butt, but congratulations on you know,
breaking me well, maybe she didn't do it, maybe it
already got done.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
But I mean it's just cool, part of a really
cool change.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
A miss contest that a forty year old is in.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh can you imagine forty year olds can still fucking
work their shit?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Hell yeah, can still twirl a baton with the best
of them and fucking represent I mean amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Do you have anything?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I just have a really good attitude.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Do you have anything, uh going for it?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It's not real. Yeah, I know this has been It's
the day before we go on vacation and it has
been a long several weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
What are you going on your vacation?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Staycation? Oh nice?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I really I realized that all of my time spent
at my house for the past four years has been
deemed does work. Yeah, so I'm gonna clean out. I
have junk drawers that almost can't be closed. They're so
full of junks.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Oh the satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
I have so many wires to my phone, cord charger,
phone jack charger that don't fit the phone anymore, or
don't fit the jack anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, but you don't know which because you haven't tried them,
so you just leave them off for now.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
So it's like they're all in a drawer and they've
become entwined, and they're like a rat king, rat king,
a rat king in my drawer. Yes, I'm going to
try to go in and fight them.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Okay, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
What are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Vincent going to Michigan and we're going to have like
a little Michigan road trip to like the pretty places.
Oh nice, like lakes and stuff they have there, did
you know? Yes, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous. I think he's
just like, let's take a look here. Yeah, wants to
show me another way to live.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
He's yeah, he's like, can you can you imagine in
a life outside of southern California?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I don't think he can, honestly anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So it's okay, you're like, where all the freeway overpass?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yes? All right?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
So short episode short.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So yeah, so that's the end.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And now that's the end. But also we need to
actually tell you we're back on with full episodes July fourth, Yeah,
which is a holiday, your favorite holiday, it's number one
in my book.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And also you can find merch including t shirts, stickers,
and tote bags for all exactly Right Podcasts at exactly
rightstore dot com, So please check that out.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And if you want to support this particular podcast using
promo codes, which kind of is the name of the game.
I don't know if we've ever given that away, but
I mean advertising is what makes podcasts happen free. And
so when they give promo codes and the ads that
we do, when you use those promo codes, they track
it and then they go, we love that podcast because
(05:52):
they actually use their promo code.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So use ours well, and you can go to my
favorite murder dot com slash promos and you can find
all that yeah, and use anyone you want. It doesn't
have to be simultaneous. Yeah, absolutely, again that discount.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Also, you guys did this last time. We asked for it,
and it was so fucking incredible. If you could rate
and review this show wherever you like to listen to podcasts,
especially if it's on Apple Podcasts. We got screen grabs
from last time you guys did this, the nicest messages lovely,
thank you so much. It meant so much. I know
you don't think of doing that very often, but that
is another thing you can do to support your favorite
(06:27):
podcast is rate and review.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
That's right, And you don't actually have to write anything.
You can just review it and accounts and it just is.
It's good to show that your audience is active and stuff.
You don't have to compliment us. You don't have to
say how pretty our beautiful black hair is. You don't
have to do any of that.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Five stars is great for if you don't like the cursing.
I totally understand the three.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
If you're sick of the talking at the beginning, I
don't care.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean it could just fast forward though. Okay, express yourself,
all right, you're going this week?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I go first this week? Oh that was weird? You moving?
That can move mine?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
That's oh my god. The hon is grabbing her hair.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Just a slight slide. If this microphone doesn't work the
whole time, this podcast is over. Okay, this is actually
I'm so excited for to tell you this story. It's
perfect for a short episode. But I do have to
do a kind of an intense listener warning at the
top because this story mentions the killing of horses and
the mutilation of livestock. Oh no, none of the stuff
(07:32):
we talk about is nice ever, but we all understand
the content. We get what's coming at us sometimes things
like that, especially horses. I mean, have you ever seen
the play Equis.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's horrifying majestic creatures.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Okay, so we start with the name everyone knows, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, the man behind one of literature's most
iconic characters, Charlotte Colmbs. Of course, one of the several
television shows I fall asleep to the old Sherlock Holmes PHOEBC.
I think, starring Jeremy Brett unbelievably wonderful. I think like
(08:08):
late seventies, early eighties British television could be the nineties.
It all looks so long ago. Anyhow, if you're at
all familiar with Sarthur Conan Doyle, whose name I can't
seem to break up comfortably, I'm not going to call
him Arthur Artie Conan Doyle is odd, but that's what
I ended up, That's what Maren ended up writing.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So we're going at sa CD call him that sacked sacked.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So the Sherlock Holmes series is just one part of
Sarthur Conan's Doyle's varied and very rich in varied life.
He was a complicated man on one hand, he was
larger than life. He was a prolific writer of both
fiction and nonfiction. He was a practicing doctor, which is
that's a lot. Andy was an avid sportsman. He was
(08:57):
also a world traveler at a time when world was
very difficult and a huge undertaking, and he did it.
More controversially, he is remembered for cheating on his dying wife,
passionately supporting British imperialism, and fully endorsing spiritualism, which we
talked about in the Harry Houdini episode. If you want
to go back and listen, it's episode three sixty three
(09:20):
landed in Marshmallows and just you know, spiritualism was a
popular belief in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It's
a belief that the living can communicate with the dead.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Essentially, I think sciences with old you know, Victorian people
and Luigi boards and.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, crystal ball type shit got very, very popular at
the turn of the century. Houdini was a huge skeptic.
He thought that basically spiritualism was hijacked by frauds, and
he fought against it vehemently. It was around the time
of some big war. Oh, it was after the Civil War,
(09:58):
some big fucking war.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
He was kind of the original like canceler if you
think about it, like trying to cancel people.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yes, he was also like the original fight Back with
David Horowitz.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Did you ever watch that show? Oh my god, like
care's a wrong and David Horowitz like I'm going to
write it, and the audience like, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Small business It's like, yes, exactly, this used car lot
made this lady pay this much money. Oh fuck fight
Back with David Horowitz. It's like that's why in the
early eighties were also like placid. It was like, well,
someone's going to take care of it. Some dude in
a weird tie and a bad blazer is going to
take care of this.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
My news, We'll do an undercover. Come on, can I
get David Horowitz on the show?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh could you imagine?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yea, I just interview what was life like done? How
many fraudulent bullshit claims did you guys?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Wait a second, I'm going to cover fucking David Horowitz
on this show. Get out of my dog, Get out
of my area.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I'll never bring it up again.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Don't look at don't look at my paper. Wait okay,
and it was either Houdini's fight or it was Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle's kind of insists in believing spiritualism that
ended their once close relationship. Sorry they're once close friendship.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Say it that way, I got it.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
But there is another part of Conan Doyle's life and
legacy that a lot of people don't know about, and
that's his real life investigation into a grisly Victorian era
crime where he played the part of a real life
Sherlock Holms. This is the story of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle and the Case of the Great Worly Outrages. The
(11:27):
main sources of this story are the book Conan Doyle
for the Defense by Margolt Fox Margolit Beautiful and the
book The Mystery of the Parsi Lawyer written by Shrabonni
Basu and Shrabonni's a Woman with sheher Pronouns. And then
also from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's own writing and what
he basically wrote about for all this the ultimate source
(11:50):
and then the rest are in our show notes. So
just to start us off, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was
born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in May of eighteen fifty nine.
He's the second oldest of nine children in a you
guessed it, devoutly Catholic household. He has a not great
relationship with his father, who's an alcoholic, but he is
(12:11):
very close with his mother Mary. As a boy, Conan
Doyle is sent off to be educated in Jesuit schools
and that's where he discovers his love of writing, and
it's probably influenced by his mother's love for books and stories.
But ironically, Mary encourages her son to take a different
career path. She wants him to study medicine, so he does.
(12:32):
He enrolls at the University of Edinburgh. He finds his
studies super boring, but there is an instructor who completely
fascinates him, and it's a surgeon named doctor Joseph Bell.
Conan Doyle describes doctor Bell as quote a very skillful surgeon,
but his strong point was diagnosis not only of disease,
but of occupation and character end quote. So doctor Bell
(12:56):
has this remarkable ability to figure out the details of
a patian's life just by observation. In one instance, doctor
Bell correctly guesses that a new patient was recently discharged
from the military served in a Scottish regiment and was
stationed in Barbados.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
The fuck it's crazy when you shut the fuck up
and listen that someone will give you just like.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
They just know it. It's right there on you, he
explains to his students. Quote, you see, gentlemen, the man
was a respectful man, but he did not remove his hat.
They do not in the army. But he would have
learned civilian ways had he been long discharged. He has
an air of authority and he is obviously Scottish. As
to Barbados, his complaint is elephantiasis, which is West Indian
(13:38):
and not British.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Wow, click, fucking deduction junction.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Me saying click? Was that doctor Bell taking a selfie
right after he said that? Because he's just like, what
else you fucking want to know? It is really cool?
So obviously doctor Bell is the man that Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle based Sherlock Holmes on Nice So cool.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
By eighteen eighty seven, Arthur Conan Doyle is not only
a practicing physician, he's also writing stories. He's regularly submitting
those stories to magazines, and this is the year he
debuts the first Sherlock Holmes mystery a study in scarlet.
It's a colossal hit. People go nuts. It immediately spawns
a rabbit fan base. Yet despite the extreme popularity, Conan
(14:25):
Doyle soon gets tired of Sherlock constantly overshadowing his other books,
especially his historical novels boring.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Everyone's like, no, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Get to the mysteries, get to the talk about what
is their fingernails look like and how that means that
they're from France.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
They're like, sacked, Am I right?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Sacked? Get out here. In fact, Sherlock Holmes has such
a hold on the public the people sometimes mistake Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle for Sherlock Holmes writer Sherbonni Boss, who says, quote,
when a delivery of shirts Conan Doyle had ordered arrived
marked to Sherlock Holmes, it was the last straw. So
(15:05):
in eighteen ninety three, Conan Doyle kills off Sherlock Holmes
in the story The Final Problem. Damn, that's six years
after his debut, and of course they all freak out. Yeah,
everyone goes crazy. It's reported that after the story's published,
quote young citymen in London went about with black crepe
in their hats and morning bands on their arms, woh goth,
(15:28):
which is actually, did you ever watch the new series
with Benedict Cumberback.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
No, No, I know, I should.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It's really good. If you ever have a long weekend
and you want to lay around, it's so good and
well done and all the people in it are so good.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Andrew Scott I know is I found that out recently.
A hot priest is in it, and I was like, well, okay,
maybe I can watch this.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
He plays a villain that is so scary you get
scared in your house of him, that he's going to
come somehow into your house.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
He's so creepy. Putting it off because my mom's the
one and keeps telling me to watch it. So I'm like, no,
I'm not having a baby, and I'm not watching some
of the new slock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I'm not going to do either anytime soon. Well, don't
don't make the mistake I made when for like three
years my sister said you have to watch Friday Night
Lights and I was like, futtle coue about.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Come on, do you care about great writing and acting?
Do you care about being alive? Cinematography, humanity? Okay, So
now Conan Doyle shifts his focus to his historical political
writings Snooze and then at the turn of the century,
I'm sure it.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Was really good. Sure it's great, but probably pretty good.
But you can't beat the stuff that Sherlock's Sherlock Holmes
is the best idea. He's like a detective on cocaine
that's kind of in love with his partner. Yeah, doctor Watson,
Like it's the.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Best, I mean, and like ride those royalty checks, end
of the Wild Wild West man, like do your best,
don't make it, try have there be a point.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But like it's like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was like
in the band Pavement, yes, where it's like, don't fucking
sell out.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, oh we're not oning on and it's like, okay,
it's been forty years and like you and Mi what now.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, just we're all here to sell out. Sorry, everything's cringe.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Sorry, No, don't sell out, but buy in.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Right, greed is good.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
No, it's terrible.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
We're going back to the eighties.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Now, We're going back to our past now. Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
So then at the turn of the century, Conan Doyle
volunteers to be a doctor during the Boer War in
South Africa. He writes extensively about this war and Britain's
role in it, and it earns him a knighthood in
nineteen oh two. This is when Sir actually gets added
to his name. And if you don't know, like I
didn't know, the Boer War was a conflict between the
(17:49):
British Empire and the two Boer republics in South Africa,
which were set up by Dutch speaking settlers, and they
basically did it so that could get access to the
goal minds and expand the British Empire colonialism. It's everywhere.
So basically, thanks to a mix of the public's ongoing
desperation for more Sherlock Holmes stories and the huge payday
(18:14):
from publishers, Arthur Conan Doyle brings back Sherlock Holmes in
the now classic story The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
How does he explain away that he's dead? Is this
like a misery type of situation?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Well, if I am Kathy Bates, he just points to
Kathy Bates and says, he says, you're welcome. You're welcome.
I did it now, if I am correct, based on
all the episodes I've seen, He goes and fights Moiriarty,
his ultimate enemy, and they have this fight near a
waterfall and then everyone sees them both fall off the
(18:48):
waterfallt and like basically to their desks.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, he knew it was coming back.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, he left it open for sure. And then it
was like then to basically prove that Moriarty did the
thing that he did, Charlocks had to go live somewhere
else for like three years, you know, and like collect
the evidence or whatever. Okay, please write in and tell
me all the ways I was wrong about that. But
that's my guest actually, and she reats me. Sherlock Holmes
(19:13):
Paul F. Tompkins has a bit about praying to Sherlock
Holmes because he's atheist. Dear Sherlock Holmes. It's one of
my faves. So even though he seems jaded by the
success of his detective novels, Conan Doyle does start emulating
Charlock Holmes in real life in nineteen oh seven, when
a disbarred lawyer named Georgia Doalgy who's in his early thirties,
(19:36):
writes Conan Doyle a letter, George and sis, He's been
wrongfully convicted for a horrible crime, and he wants Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle to help him clear his name so
he can practice law again.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
It's like the Wrongfully Convicted podcast.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Right exactly, but just these guys in the late eighteen
hundredspe podcast. It's just the two. So when he reads
this letter, Conan Doyle's interest is piqued, and before along
he is knee deep in Georgia Dalgy's case. So Conan
Doyle describes Georgia's story as quote a chain of circumstances
which seems so extraordinary that they are far beyond the
(20:11):
invention of the writer of fiction. And as Conan Doyle
sifts through the documents and letters that relate to the case,
this is what he learned. That the Adalgy family live
in a small English town called Great Worley. It's a
farming mining community that's right in the middle of the country.
George is biracial. His mother, Charlotte, is a white english woman.
(20:33):
His father, Shapergi, was born in India and is a
devout convert to Anglicanism, so he's the vicar at the
local church. It's reported that Shapergi is the first South
Asian person to hold this position in all of England.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Shit.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So we're in Victorian England. It's a small town at
the height of Britain's imperial influence in India. Yeah, well
imperial dominance in India. It's all to say that there's
a lot of locals believed in deeply racist stereotypes. They
are very racist about Indian people. They do not like
(21:09):
having an Indian man, or a man of Indian descent,
or just a man that's not white as the head
of their church. So now it's eighteen eighty eight Jack
the Ripper's year. Oh but also this is the year
after Arthur Conan Doyle published a study in Scarlet. So
just getting you the timeline of like we're kind of
switching back and forth, but it was basically right after
(21:30):
Arthur Conan Doyle kind of exploded onto the seam In
Great Worley. The Adulgies start receiving increasingly threatening anonymous letters
in the mail. In one, the writer says that they're
watching the family and they threaten to quote shoot Reverend
Adulgy dead.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Damn. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
So then one morning the family wakes up to a
broken window on the property. Then soon after that another
letter arrives promising more windows would be broken, and it
has the same handwriting as the first letter. Then someone
comes onto the family's property and scribbles the words quote.
Most of the adulgies are wicked on the wall of
(22:09):
an outhouse, so most of the adulgies are brown except
for the one, so it's obviously what that's about. The family,
of course, is understandably upset by the letters and by
this racist harassment. They reported all to the police and
investigation is opened. Officers interview everyone at the church and
(22:29):
the people who work in the Adalgies' home, and they
eventually arrest a domestic worker named Elizabeth Foster because they
prove that she was the one who wrote the message
on the outhouse. So the police claim that Elizabeth had
paper and writing materials that matched those used by the
anonymous letter writer, and she's also reportedly caught trying to
burn documents. It's unclear what they were or if they
(22:52):
were letters. In eighteen ninety nine, Elizabeth is tried. She
pleads not guilty. Her lawyer directly implicates her in the
letter writing, perhaps to minimize her actions in court. So
Conan Doyle notes quote her solicitor pleaded that it was
all a foolish joke, and she was bound over to
keep the peace. An attempt had been made to contend
(23:13):
that she was not guilty, but I take it that
no barrister could make such an admission without his client's consent. Yeah, yeah,
end quote. So can't know for sure whether Elizabeth was
the letter writer, but it at least seems possible that
she escapegoaded by the investigators because they had no other
viable suspects. Conan Doyle later cites people who knew Elizabeth
(23:36):
and say that she was quote animated by bitter feelings
of revenge after the verdict. That said, the letters stop
following her conviction, only to resume again a few years
later in eighteen ninety two. So that year hundreds of
letters smearing and threatening the adulgies are sent to multiple
addresses in great worry. Got hundreds, yeah, Arthur, Conan Doyle writes,
(24:00):
quote many were directed to the vicarage, but many others
were sent to different people in the vicinity. So malevolent
and so ingenious that it seemed as if a very
demon of mischief were endeavoring to set the perish by
the ears.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So the letters seem to be written by someone other
than the author of the first set of letters. This
handwriting is not the same. The language used by the
new writer indicates he or she is more educated than
the first writer. But what really differentiates the batch of
letters is how fixated these ones are on George, who
is just a teenager at the time.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Oh shit.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So it's unclear why the letter writer went after George,
but Conan Doyle suggests its discrimination on multiple levels. The
darker color of the Adulgy's skin already made them stick out,
but George is also described as having unusual facial features,
specifically large bulging eyes. This might have made him more
of an outcast. But these letters are and heartbreaking. Conan
(25:01):
Doyle book marks one addressed to George's father, and it
says this quote. Every day, every hour, my hatred is
growing against Georgia. Doalgy I would dispatch him to hell
in five minutes. Do you think that, when we want,
we cannot copy your kid's writing. Our only reason for
not forging their signatures and yours is that you all
write such a vulgar hand that no manager of newspapers
(25:24):
would suppose it was written by a parson. May the
Lord strike me dead? If I don't murder Georgia, doalgy,
your damned wife, your horrid little girl, I will descend
into the infernal regions, showering curses on you all and
quote my god, crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
So then they reference that thing of forging signatures. Well,
then that actually starts happening. So someone starts placing orders
using the reverend's name, and the family receives alcohol. They
get clothes, books, furniture, even musical instruments that they didn't
order and that they cannot pay for. Worse, clergymen are
(26:05):
told to travel to burial sites for funerals or to
visit dying parishioners on the reverend's orders, only to arrive
and find that the parishioners were never sick and there
is no funeral.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Good they am.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, so George is also the victim of forgery and impersonation.
Paid advertisements run in the local paper under his name
that he did not write, and in them quote unquote,
George claims to have sent the first batch of letters
himself and apologizes to Elizabeth Foster, suggesting that she's been
wrongfully accused.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Again. The police struggle to identify a suspect The letters
were mailed from various locations across England, sometimes delivered by hand.
They just couldn't track them, They couldn't track how many
people were involved. Just they did not know what was
going on. And then in eighteen ninety five, the letter
stop again. But before they do, the anonymous writer makes
one last disturbing threat that sticks with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
(27:02):
He reports, quote on March seventeenth, eighteen ninety three, this
real or pretended maniac says in a letter to the father, quote,
before the end of this year, your kid will be
either in the graveyard or disgraced for life. Unquote. So
now it's nineteen oh three. It has been fifteen years
since the first batch of letters arrived at the Adology House.
(27:25):
It's been eight years since they finally stopped. George is
in his late twenties. He's still living in Great Worley,
working as a lawyer at his own legal practice, and
things seem to have finally quieted down for this family,
even though no one's been arrested for the second batch
of letters or for the forgeries. But this peaceful stretch
ends abruptly with a series of bizarre live stock killings
(27:48):
that take place in Great Worley. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
describes the first event as a horse being quote ripped
up during the night.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
God horrible.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Over the following weeks, horses, cows and sheep are all
killed in a similar way. They're attacked with a sharp
instrument and left to die in the field, so the
towns in shock. This situation draws comparisons to Jack the
Ripper's White Chapel murders from fifteen years earlier, and just
like their counterparts in London, the residents of Great Worley
(28:22):
are furious, terrified. Following police investigation very closely, they just
want to find out who is doing this. Then the
letters begin again, come on man, and this time they
blame George for the brutal animal slangs, which are now
known as the Great Worly outrages. So not catchy, too
hard to say. But George has no history of violence.
(28:44):
He is just a humble, hard working lawyer and he
does not fit the profile for someone capable of such
a heinous crime. Still, investigators focus on him as a suspect.
Conan Doyle writes, quote now here, the results of the
police are absolutely illogical and incompatible. Their theory was that
of a moonlighting gang. Idulgy is condemned as a member
(29:07):
of it end quote, So they're kind of like putting
a story together to justify how this could be happening.
There's no proof that Georgia Dalgy was ever part of
a gang, and as Conan Doyle reviews the case, he
becomes convinced that the consistencies between the killings indicate that
they were carried out by a single person, not by
a group of men. Despite this, another horse is found
(29:29):
dead and Georgia Dolgy is arrested within hours. So the
morning of the arrest, police search through George's belongings and
they find dirty pants, a razor, and an old housecoat
stained with reddish marks. The pants in the coat are
described as quote damp, which stood out because it had
rained in the daytime hours before the horse was killed,
(29:51):
and the ground would have still been wet that night.
So investigators also discover short fibers on the coat that
they thought looked like pony hairs, along with muddy boots
that they claim matched some shoe prints found at the scene.
So police take all that circumstantial evidence and build a
theory George Adalgy was wearing his house coat and boots
(30:12):
when he killed the horse in the rain. They believe
he used the razor for the killing, and in the
process of committing this crime, George stands both the blade
and his coat with the animal's blood, picks up a
few pieces of pony hair on his clothing, and tracks
mud onto his boots. So George is like, this is
not true. I am innocent, completely maintains his innocence. He
(30:34):
actually tells police he was home the entire night and
his family can validate his alibi, but public opinion quickly
turns against him. One newspaper reporter, in particularly racist language, writes, quote,
many and wonderful were the stories I heard propounded in
the local alehouses as to why Idalgy had gone forth
(30:54):
in the night to slay cattle, And a widely accepted
idea was that he made nocturnal sacrifices to strange gods
zeer end quote. So Georgia Dalgy is tried and found
guilty and sentenced to seven years hard labor.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, So because of this he loses his ability to
practice law. They let him out after three years in
nineteen oh six, because so many people make a stink
about the fact that this case is so weak, but
officially he is still considered a violent felon once he
gets out and the police continue to surveil him. So
now it's nineteen oh seven, and this is when George
(31:34):
writes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the letter and Conan Doyle
joins Georgie's fight for justice. So the really brilliant thing
is that the Adalgy family identifies Conan Doyle as someone
with a large platform who could really make a difference
if he was investigated and was on their side.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Yeah, is an influencer.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, completely, It's very smart of them. So once Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle looks at this case, he almost immediately
is able to poke holes in almost every single piece
of evidence that they have, starting with that house coat.
Conan Doyle argues that if George had been out the
night before maiming horses, his housecoat would be damp with rain,
(32:13):
water and blood, but the reddish stains were dry and
set into the fabric when police found them the next morning,
suggesting they weren't fresh. As Conan Doyle notes, the inspector
quote had only to touch the blood stains and then
to raise his crimson finger to the air to silence
all criticism, but he could not do so. So not
only do you have somebody on your side, but you
(32:34):
have somebody that's so good at like deduction, making these statements, yeah,
and like making it all clear. Then there's George's muddy
boots and wet pants. George had admittedly been outside hours
before the horse was killed, when it was still daytime,
while it was raining. This, Conan Doyle explains, is why
the pants and shoes got wet and muddy. Plus, he
(32:54):
points out quote it is an interesting point that the
mud at the place of outrage was yellow red, a
mixture of clay and sand, quite distinct from the road
mud which the police claimed to have seen upon George's trousers.
It's like he's getting into forensics super early. And finally,
the pony hairs. Conan Doyle discovers that the police never
(33:15):
actually took samples of those hairs. They simply looked at
them while they were searching Georgia's things and then decided
that they were pony hairs. So whether or not they
actually were, whether or not there were something else like
thread which is what Georgia Dhgy's family claimed it was.
It's unknown because the police didn't take in evidence or
(33:36):
preserve evidence. Most importantly, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who has
extensive ophthalmology training, points out, yeah, right, points out George
has terrible eyesight. This never comes up in George's original
criminal trial. Conan Doyle writes, quote, the idea of such
a man scouring fields at night and assaulting cattle while
(33:57):
avoiding the police was ludicrous to anyone who can imagine
what the world looks like to eyes with mister Adalgy's myopia.
Then Conan Doyle alludes to the racism tied up in
this case, adding quote, but such an operation so hopelessly
bad that no glasses availed in the open air grave.
The sufferer a vacant, bulge eyed, staring appearance, which, when
(34:21):
taken with his dark skin, must have made him seem
a very queer man to the eyes of an English village,
and therefore to be associated with any queer event. There
in a single physical defect lay the moral certainty of
his innocence and the reason why he should become the scapegoat.
So in nineteen oh seven, Stars or Conan Doyle wraps
(34:41):
up his review of George's case, and then he publishes
his findings in the Daily Telegraph, and then he requests
that they run it with a headline that reads quote
no copyright, which means other newspapers can freely reprint that article.
Dam So, unsurprisingly, Conan Doyle's cover bridge makes waves. It's
(35:01):
a Sherlock Holmes case come to life, and readers devour
his first person true crime commentary. The story of George's
case becomes a sensation and the public is outraged by
his shoddy trial, and it puts pressure on the British
government to get involved. So within months, the Home Secretary
orders a review of this case, and the conclusions are strange.
(35:24):
George is exonerated for the animal mutilation charge, but the
review still claims that George wrote the letters, except the
letters blame George for the mutilations.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
It makes no sense, and most frustratingly, the Home Secretary
uses this claim that George did commit an offense by
writing the harassing letters to deny him any compensation for
the three years he spent in prison.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
There we go, Yeah, there.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
It is Conan Doyle reacts to these conclusions by stating, quote,
it is a blow upon the record of English justice.
So even though George is exonerated for the most serious
charge against him, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle still can't let
the animal slaying case go. He is fixated on identifying
the real culprit and he begins to zero in on
(36:09):
a young man that works as a local butcher's apprentice.
Conan Doyle even hires private detectives to trail him. The
apprentice has a bad reputation and a documented history of
animal abuse. According to a Conan Doyle biographer named Russell Miller,
he also quote had a hankering to go to sea
and found a berth on a ship out of Liverpool
(36:31):
in eighteen ninety five when the hoaxes and letters ceased,
and he did not return until nineteen oh two, shortly
before the first horse was made damn. So Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle feels confident that he has solved this case,
but he doesn't reveal the young man's name, believing that
the police and the legal system should handle the matter,
(36:51):
so he hands his findings overdue investigators, but the information
goes nowhere decades later, in nineteen eighty five, Conan Doyle's
investigation is published and a book and this person's name
is revealed. However, as the Great Worly Local History Society
points out, quote ironically, Conan Doyle's suspicion was based on
(37:12):
circumstantial evidence. It was an over reliance on this type
of evidence in the first place that had resulted in
Idalgy's flawed conviction. So officially, the Great Worly Outrages are
still unsolved to this day. And as for the anonymous letters,
Conan Doyle thinks some of them, particularly that last batch,
could have been linked to the person who was killing
(37:35):
the animals, written either by the culprit himself or someone
close to him in an attempt to frame George to
protect the real killer. But Conan Doyle also believes that
some of the letters, as well as certain forgeries, are
linked to Elizabeth Foster or someone close to her. Conan
Doyle points out that the second batch of letters quote
(37:56):
openly championed Elizabeth Foster not to mention the forged public
statement that was attributed to George and ran in the
newspaper went out of its way to exonerate her. So
the theory is that she because she was so filled
with bitterness and wanted revenge. That's what she it was
happening in those letters. So on the upside, with the
(38:16):
help of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his crusade, Georgia
Doalgy is finally reinstated to the bar. The two men
maintain a lifelong friendship, and when Conan Doyle marries his
second wife, Jeane Leckey, George actually goes to their wedding.
According to biographer Daniel Staschauur quote, Conan Doyle claimed that
there was no guest, he felt prouder to see. Oh
(38:37):
my god, I know it's not sweet. Georgia eventually moves
to London to practice law, and meanwhile, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle maintains an active life until his passing in nineteen
thirty at the age of seventy one. George dies in
nineteen fifty three at the age of seventy six. He
never receives any compensation for his wrongful conviction, and according
(38:58):
to Shrabani Bassu, he dies in semi poverty.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
But all these years later, George's case continues to be
deeply important to English society and not only opened the
public's eyes to failings in the country's criminal justice system,
especially connected to race, but this is the case that
directly leads to the creation of a criminal appeals court.
It hadn't existed in England before this case. So the
(39:25):
Criminal Appeal Act of nineteen oh seven formally established England's
Court of Criminal Appeal and is introduced the same year
that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes about George's case in
the Daily Telegraph. And that's the story of Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's real life investigation that exonerated an innocent man.
Georgia Dolgy.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Wow, never heard it, right?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, they made a tap like a four part TV
series some British people did. I've seen it so many
times because I started. Every time I look at it,
I go, oh, I've I've ever seen that? And then
I started and then I'm like, yes I have, and
then I watch it again.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Anyway, Wow, that was amazing, great job, great standalone story. Right,
So that's what we're doing for you guys, that's what
we're trying to do so we can have our VAKA. Yeah,
should we see what what are you guys even doing
right now? While? Are you listening to this? So you
guys have been telling us, So here's here's one. Oh,
this one is good for Pride Month. Oh good, Hi
lovely people. You asked what we were even doing while listening?
(40:27):
So I am listening right after coming out as trans
to my family. Wow, I told them my new name,
and I feel like I'm finally living as myself. This
podcast has been alongside me throughout my teenage slash early
adult years and has been a grounding feature during some
really tough times. Thank you and Happy Pride Lee.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
They them, congratulations Lee, Yeah, well done, you did it. Wow?
What a strong Pride month. What are you even doing
right now?
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Know you guys hashtag on our whatever you know when
you comment on our instagrams or tiktoks, tell that's what
you're even doing right now when you listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Here's another one. This is from Tony Underscore b Underscore
nine to eighty three, and it says, hashtag what are
you even doing right now? Spiraling at work? Because after
forty five years on this planet, I am just now
learning that the classic Mayo with the blue label I
know as Hellman's is actually called Best Foods and renamed
for the East Coast. What is even real? Please tell
(41:23):
me you have heinz ketchup.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
We got so much more mayo feedback than any other
feedback we've ever gotten.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Were people's like fighting between mayonnaise and miracle whip.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
They wanted us to know that miracle whip is a
fucking dressing and how dare you right? What's the one
that took you tasted? I was super sugar. That's actually
a dressing. It's not even claiming to be a Mayo.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yes, it is claiming to fucking be a Mayo. You
don't just get to change how people interpret. Keep going,
miracle whip.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
This is a great way to get keep getting comments
and like getting people's algorithms.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
He starts to keep going, start starting, fucking asshole, how
dare you touch?
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Don't touch my fucking mail. I'll make What about aoli?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Let's go, I'm so.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Sorry, so fucking aoli.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Now it's a dressing. It's a dressing. So you're reading
this small print on the front of that label and
telling me that that missus Packard did not put miracle
whip on a Boloonean cheese sandwich and fuck up my day.
You're saying that didn't happen, and that's not.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Val sounds like they're questioning your memories. Now.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
It sounds like you sink a dress. Just the words
dressing somehow vindicates anything.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
And we need a vacation. I'm so free and c
this is why we're going on a vacation exact, and
don't get murdered by Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 1 (42:50):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
This episode was mixed by Leona scuolace.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Our researchers are Mareon mcclashan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Fave Murder boyebye
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.