August 23, 2023 • 58 mins
Today, we step back in time to Victorian England, unearthing a sinister chapter in history. We pull back the curtains on a gruesome tale that reveals the intersection of societal norms, economic pressures and criminal intent. We dissect the grim narrative of the infamous Amelia Dyer, known as the baby farm killer. The episode paints a vivid picture of the 19th century, where the stigma of illegitimate children and the desperation of single mothers birthed a shocking practice – baby farming. We explore the chilling case that unfolded because of this institution, the horrifying case of Amelia Dyer.
Hosted by Dominika Best and Christopher Gordon.
Visit thebeststorytellingnetwork.com where you’ll find show notes, my books, links to sources for this episode, social media and much more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey everybody, welcome to the Deviant Mind.
This is Dominika.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
And this is Christopher.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And sorry that we've been gone for the last six weeks
, but my entire family got hitwith COVID one by one, like we
all dropped, and it has takenthis long for me to actually be
able to talk for any length oftime.
So thanks for being patientwith me, chris.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And thank you for keeping in touch.
I'm just glad you guys are onthe men's you know yeah, so it's
.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's been a really crappy summer, but I guess you
know it sounds like COVID is onthe rise everywhere, so should
be a fun, fun, fun fall.
It's going to be a fun fall,yeah.
So we have kind of a reallyinteresting case today that I've
(01:30):
actually been very interestedin for a number of years.
I actually had a producer fromEngland come contact me about
maybe making a feature film onthis woman and never went
anywhere.
But I always was so likefascinated is not really the
(01:52):
best word to use, but it waskind of this very strange time
in history where you just don'tthink you just don't think
things like that ever happenedand the way that we see children
is so different than they did along time ago.
(02:13):
So, without further ado, thisis Amelia Dyer and she was, I
think, dubbed the baby farmkiller.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yes, and so baby farms.
That's a weird word, or weirdtwo words put together.
So I think maybe what we shouldstart with is this is back in
the 19th century and there were.
What was that?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Victorian England.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Victorian England.
However, I did find out thatthere were also baby farms in
the United States that's correct, which was kind of interesting.
So a baby farm is essentiallycame from the fact that there
was a lot of societal pressureand stigma associated with
illegitimate children, and sounmarried mothers would find it
(03:06):
extremely difficult to keep andraise their children because
many of them had to work andthere was no means to care for
the child and there was only somany workhouses and orphanages
that were around.
So in the 19th century, babyfarming emerged as a business
(03:27):
and a baby farm was a woman orcouples would take in multiple
children and would get paid bythe government or the mothers,
and they promised to providecare or to arrange adoptions for
those children.
But really most of them weredriven by profits and most of
(03:47):
the time the children were oftenneglected, malnourished or
deliberately killed because deadchildren did not require food,
care or attention.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I also want to throw out here that in 1834, victorian
England had a poor lawamendment act, which is when
women were to get food and goodliving conditions from the
parish, a lot of them workingfor wealthy families because
(04:17):
that was the best job for mostwomen at the time.
But they did not want mothersworking for them.
So this is what prompted themto sometimes go to work and
leave babies with these farmswith the idea that they would
come back later.
So if you got off work or acouple of days later, you go
back and check on your kid, makesure they were okay.
(04:38):
And a lot of these women andmothers were overwhelmed by
taking care of all the babies,and the baby farmer needed the
money because without the moneyto feed and clothe them properly
, that's when the children felloff and to neglect.
And a lot of these farms haveway more babies than they can
(04:59):
care for.
There was no breast milkreadily available, which already
can alter a child's upbringing.
And in a lot of cases, as we'lldiscuss, if the baby passed
away, they just kept the moneyand allowed a new baby into the
farm, so they would just keepgoing.
That was common practice.
(05:19):
If the baby passed away at thebaby farm oops, sorry, you just
keep going.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And from this case because thiswas the most infamous case
because she is believed to havemurdered hundreds of infants
over a 20-year period there wereregulations and acts that were
put in place.
There was a Infants LifeProtection Act of 1872, even
(05:49):
though she was caught in whatwas it?
1890, hold on a second.
I think I believe it was 1896.
Yeah, she was caught in 1896,because, well, we'll go into how
she was caught, but there wereacts that actually started
looking into baby farming and itwas again.
(06:10):
There was the Infants LifeProtection Act that happened and
the Adoption of Children Act of1926, which was the first law
in Britain that regulatedadoption, and before this, the
adoptions were often informalagreements which were going
between baby farmers and, as wesaid before, there was Australia
(06:33):
and the United States also hadbaby farming going on.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Interesting stuff, that at this time, men were
completely okay to impregnatewomen at a wedlock, yet they had
no responsibility.
Yes, so in other words, theywere able to leave, they could
do what they want, and they boreno responsibility on the child
more than the mother.
Yeah, they created a baby withthem.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yes, exactly.
So she, as we said, was thekind of the base of this
throughout time, and let's, whydon't we start with how she was
(07:23):
finally, like the case thatfinally caught her, and go from
there?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
By the way, interesting to note that, quote
unquote, a strangle adopting wasa term that got around the
practice of killing babies andchildren.
I mean, we have to understandwhen we step back.
There were approximately 2000baby farms at one time, the 19th
century, in England, and if thebaby passed away, they
(07:56):
oftentimes didn't know who tocontact.
You know they were unable tocontact these single mothers.
You know single mothers, you'rean outcast basically.
Yeah, it was unforgivable.
So, by the same token, what'sthe difference?
They lost their baby.
They dropped it off with us.
So that became a common thing.
You just dispose of the babiesand you bring in new money.
(08:16):
Yeah, I mean, let's, let's diveinto how she was caught and then
we can back up into what shewas doing, because her life is
just really fraught with a lotof abuse and craziness.
Her mother suffered mentalbreakdowns and she wound up
taking care of her mother and inthe process she felt the need
(08:42):
to take care of others and gotinto nursing.
So that's really interesting.
That was kind of thespringboard.
Her mother's own healthprompted her to become a nurse.
But diving, let's dive into howshe's talking 400 bodies.
Okay, we're talking 400.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
That's what they estimate, oh right, which they
estimate, but that most of thosewere not found.
The case that she was caught onwas they found six infants in a
river, and this happened inreading.
Most the place where she wasworking was reading in Bristol,
(09:23):
and on the 30 March, 30th 1896,in reading he, there was a
bargeman who was navigating up ariver and he was towing a boat
and he, when they were comingclose to the towpath, they
spotted a brown paper parcel inthe water and so they grabbed it
, and when they unraveled itthey found this is very specific
(09:49):
they cut, and it was a dampparcel, it was tied with macrame
wine, and when they cut throughtwo layers of flannel and
fabric, they found a child'sfoot and part of a leg.
So they found a tiny baby in thewater, and so they of course
called the police constable,which they came within 15
minutes from the reading policestation, and they took her back
(10:13):
to the mortuary and theyunwrapped it to find a body of a
baby girl who was aged betweensix months and one year.
And so she was.
She had been strangled withtape and she was later
identified as Helena Fry.
Now there were three detectivesthat were on this case there
was a detective constable, jamesAnderson, and there was another
(10:37):
one named George tools Lee andSergeant Harry James, and so
when they unwrapped the paper,they were able to decipher very
faint handwriting and it readMrs Thomas, 26 Piggots Road,
(11:00):
caversham.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I also want to point out that it was her common
practice in exposing the bodiesto tape them, suffocate them,
wrap them in paper, and then sheoften put a rock or a stone,
and in this case that was notthere and Elena Fry's body did
not sink, so her body wasfloating.
(11:24):
So we have the mistake of herhaving her address on the inside
of the paper and she also failsto put the rock in and the body
doesn't think, making it easy.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
That's right, that's right.
So when the police went to thataddress they found that this
Mrs Thomas no longer live there.
But one of the detectiveconstable, james Anderson, said
hey, you know what, let's takethis parcel to the reading
railway station to see where itmight have come from.
(11:57):
And because the package bore aMidland Railway stamp and a date
, and so the railway clerk foundthe entry of the parcel in his
ledger and he was the one thattold Mrs Thomas's real name was
Mrs Dyer and she now lived at 45Kensington Road, which was on
(12:17):
the other side of reading.
Now they didn't immediately goand arrest her, they decided to
watch her house.
On the 3rd of April, when sheappeared at the property, they
(12:37):
used the female decoy to comeand see about adopting a child,
because Amelia Dyer was alreadya well-known baby farmer and
baby farms were not against thelaw.
So this decoy, she made anappointment and she said that
(12:59):
there was able to adopt.
And when the lady arrived forthe appointment, detective
Constable Anderson and HarryJames were on her doorstep and
they actually brought her intocustody on suspicion of murder.
Now, while she was in custody,there were five other bodies
(13:24):
that were washed up.
There were bodies of two morebabies that were together in a
carpet bag, hold on a second, ohand If I may.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
If I may also, I'd like to back up a little bit to
18th.
Let's see if this happens.
In 1895, right In 1879, she hadbeen caught by some doctors
that noticed a number of deathsweren't actually reported in her
(13:57):
ledger and they thought thatwas very suspicious.
So they kept an eye on her andshe eventually did six months of
hard labor for neglect of thosechildren.
From the doctor's report andafter release she continued that
this time she didn't report anydeaths on the ledger.
And she continued to do thatand instead she hid the bodies
(14:20):
in the tanks, which is wherethis body was seen, where Alina
Fry's body was in the tank.
That was her choice of dumpinggrounds, what the tanks were.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's right.
Yeah, I actually read aboutthat and she had originally
thought that starving the babiesto death would be fine, because
then that's natural death andbecause there were so many that
were happening, the doctors didnot want to sign off on the
death certificates because Imean, essentially the children
(14:51):
were dying of starvation.
So starvation.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Also a drug by the name of Lantana, which was a
painkiller and it was basicallythe aspirin of 19th century and
it was used by a lot of babyfarms to silence babies.
However, folks' constipationand greatly impacted the bowels.
It was an opium-based drug andit basically provided no way for
(15:18):
these babies to survive,because they used this in place
of food, like, stop crying,you're not going to eat, they'll
be okay.
But they became malnourishedand would often pass away from
this painkiller who, whichrather she took herself.
She eventually became addictedto this painkiller and sometimes
she'd cover the nose and mouthof newborns, so it appeared that
(15:42):
they were stillborn.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I see, yeah, so sorry , this is a dark one, guys, it's
a real dark one, it's a realdark one and after 1879, when
the doctors come, they do thisthing.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
She serves six months and she starts the process of
drumming up all these aliases,changing her location.
She knows that eventually, ifshe was caught now, she has to
change her location.
She continued to put ads in thepaper hey, are you a mother?
Look?
Her ads were extremely popularand she had at one point, I
(16:21):
think, over 600 babies at onepoint.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, which is again where do you even house all
those children?
Unbelievable, yeah.
And when she got released fromthe hard labor, she actually
tried to resume her nursingcareer and unfortunately she was
completely nuts.
So she was a former asylumnurse, so she was both a nurse
(16:51):
and she also was in mentalhospitals because she was kept
being put in there for mentalinstability and suicidal
tendencies.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yes, which spawned from her upbringing.
Yes, if I can to dive back, shedid come from a large family
and they were more fortunatethan most.
Her father, samuel Hobley, wasable to send his children to
school, and this is at a timewhen only 25% of children
(17:21):
attended school, so she and hersiblings were able to go.
She's one of, I believe, sevenkids.
She had three brothers andthree sisters.
Two of her sisters had diedwhen she was five and the
youngest, rather, sarah, passedwhen she was nine.
It was around this time themother that she loved, sarah,
(17:43):
got typhus and fever, headaches,delirium.
She had a death with diseasebasically declined so slowly,
with the father at work, thesiblings at school, amelia
actually became her.
That's when she becomes hermother's full-time caregiver and
at 11, her mother died.
So at nine she was as a sister,at 11, she was as her mom and
(18:06):
she continued school until shewas 14, moved to Bristol to
become an apprentice.
And that's when she becomes anurse and meets a friend.
She befriends an Ellen Dane whois a trained midwife and she
not only delivered babies butran not a baby farm but a house
(18:32):
which was pretty much controlled, and she stayed there until the
birth, and then she was to berecharging faith.
So, basically, amelia saw thisstrategy and adopted it.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So yeah, and she did also have a daughter who she
used in the scheme, but they Idon't think she was ever charged
, even though there was alwayssuspicion that she knew exactly
what was happening.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
And because she was pregnant.
She worked at Dane's houseuntil eventually she and until
she had gotten pregnant with herfirst daughter, and that was in
1864.
She's 26 years old, gives birthto Ellen and then her husband,
amelia's husband, passed away.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Oh, no, no, no, I'm not the same husband, a William
Dyer.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Well, I think it was George Thomas.
She marries first, okay, she's24 and he's 59.
And then, in 1869, when Ellenis five, george Thomas dies.
So she immediately became anincome and then rather than the
nursery.
That's when she first openedher baby phone.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Right right.
So she.
They were able to discover itwas so.
When they finally brought herinto custody, they were able to
discover that she had taken in20 children in the previous
months that were nowhere to befound, and so they felt that she
(20:25):
you know that they had they hadgotten the right woman.
And they calculated and this waswhen they calculated that,
because she had done this overdecades that it was over 400
babies and children, and she wasarrested on the 4th of April
and charged with murder, and herson in law, arthur Palmer, was
(20:47):
charged as a necessary, and sothe themes was dredged, and
actually that's when they foundthe six more bodies.
After the two bodies werewashed up in the carpet bag,
some of them were identified.
There was the door, dorisMarmon and Harry Simmons, who
(21:09):
were supposedly her last victims, and at this point her modus
operandi was strangling withwhite tape, which was tape that
was used like edging tape usedin dressmaking, and she said she
found that just wrapping ittwice around the baby's neck and
(21:29):
tying a lot would would do thedeed.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Going back to what you said earlier, yes, she does
in fact re marry William Dyerand he loses his job.
She marries in 1872.
In 1870, a Margaret Launderswas hanged for a baby killing on
her baby phone.
This set shock, shock wavesthroughout the entire baby farm
(21:56):
community, including Amelia, andthat's actually what prompts
her for getting back intonursing and she goes to the
Bristol Lunatic Assignment aloneJust because she's so like
everything's happening.
These baby farms, I got to getout but maybe they'll catch me.
That's when she gets back intofarming.
But then her husband, hersecond husband, loses his job
(22:22):
and that's when she's like I gotto get back into the baby farm,
like it's just way morelucrative than what I'm doing
now.
Also, at this time in VictorianEngland interesting to note
there was kind of like thisweird ghetto where anyone who
was born impoverished, theywould all look because
apparently the government saidhey, if you're downtrodden,
(22:43):
don't worry, we have a place foryou to get your act together.
You go through training, you'llhave me no jobs, but at least
you'll be doing something.
No beds, hardly any bathrooms,and there were thousands of
people that were sort ofgathered into this huge
institution and it was insane.
And you had families sleepingtogether, horrible conditions
(23:04):
and they would work for nothing,like they got very little paid.
So these people were just kindof ignored.
So that's.
Another thing is that you know,you have the mothers living in
this place.
You have these fathers who aredesitu.
They give the babies to thebaby farms and they actually
don't care what happens, right?
I mean, to me it reminds me ofadopting a pet and then just
whatever and letting the pet goNow.
(23:26):
But now we're dealing withbabies Like, oh, I can't do this
baby, so whatever happenshappens.
And there was just such a greatdivide between the wealth and
the poverty during this time intraining that it's just
horrifying that this notion ofbaby farming I mean it's not
even an orphanage, because we'renot talking about adopting out
(23:49):
to families who want to takecare of these kids, we're
talking about charging up to 80pounds a baby a week to continue
.
Hey, we need money for food,hey, we need a clothes, and they
keep getting money from thesesingle mothers.
Horrible system and a horribletime in the 19th century for the
20th century.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, and this is also the time of Jack the Ripper
.
So she was actually.
There were some Ripperologistswho put her name down, like she
could be one of them.
Obviously there's no proof ofthat, but and she doesn't figure
prominently among the Jack theRipper suspects, but her name
has been thrown around by that.
(24:30):
Now, when she was arrested andtried, she was actually the one
who oh that they.
Actually there was no evidencefound that her daughter, mary
Ann, or Arthur Palmer, herhusband, had acted as her
(24:50):
accomplices and she actually, umArthur Palmer, was discharged
because she wrote a confessionum about it that neither of them
had anything to do with whatshe was doing, which is not the
case, because the murder thatshe pleaded guilty to was that
(25:11):
of Doris Marmon.
It was not even Helen Fry whobrought the cops to her door.
So Helen um, sorry, dorisMarmon.
So her mother was named EvelinaMarmon and in January 1896, she
gave birth to her illegitimatedaughter, doris.
(25:36):
She was a very popular 25 yearold barmaid and she quickly
started looking for offers ofadoption and, like we talked
about, she placed anadvertisement in the
miscellaneous section of theBristol Times and Mirror and the
?
Um advertisement said wantedrespectable woman to take a
(25:57):
young child.
She wanted to go back to workand she wanted to get her child
back.
So she just wanted to like havesomebody look over her child
until she could get back on herfeet again and then she could go
and reclaim her daughter.
Um, next to her advertisementwas the advertisement from
(26:18):
Amelia Dyer which said marriedcouple with no family would
adopt a healthy child, nicecountry, home terms and 10
pounds.
So Evelina responded to thatand she uh was going back and
forth with a Mrs Harding andthis Mrs Harding.
She replied saying that theywould love the.
(26:41):
I should be glad to have a dearbaby girl, one I could bring up
and call my own.
And she said also in the letterwe are plain, homely people in
fairly good circumstances and Idon't want a child for money's
sake, but the company and homecomfort.
I and my husband are dearlyfond of children.
I have no child of my own.
A child with me will have agood home and a mother's love.
(27:04):
And so Evelina was very excitedabout that.
But she couldn't um pay 10pounds a week.
She wanted something moreaffordable.
But Mrs Harding said that theywanted justa one off payment in
advance.
And because Evelina was like indire straits, she decided to
(27:26):
finally pay those 10 pounds.
And so, uh, mrs Harding, quoteunquote, um came to Chal Chalton
to pick up the baby, andEvelina was really surprised
because she was so old, becauseAmelia was the one who showed up
, and but she said that Ameliawas affectionate towards the
(27:48):
little baby and so she handedher over, along with a cardboard
box of clothes and 10 pounds.
But she was extremely upsetabout having to give up her
daughter and she followed, umAmelia to the station and then
onto Gloucester.
She really just didn't want togive up her child.
And, um, when she returned toher lodgings, everybody said she
(28:11):
was like a broken woman.
And a few days later, evelinagot a male from Amelia, which
was under Mrs Harding, sayingthat everything was well.
But when she wrote back shenever heard from her again.
And so, um, she had lied, ofcourse, about where she was
(28:32):
going and, um, she killed thebaby, probably that day, and
they brought the clothes thatMormon had packed to a
pawnbroker and, um, they werethe ones that, uh, that she was
one of the ones in the carpetbag, that, as you said, there
(28:55):
was bricks for added weight.
So when they um dragged theriver.
That's when they actually foundthem.
So I was wrong as far as that.
It was like found right afterthe package.
So that was actually the murderthat she was tried for and that
was the one that she had um shehad confessed to.
She did not confess to anyother killings.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
That's right.
And you know what's interestingis, during that trial, she
initially tried to use theinsanity play, but it didn't
work.
Um, and neighbors testifiedthat they'd often see her take
up to six babies a day into herlife.
Um, and yeah, she confessed.
(29:37):
And, um, this case actuallyhelped change laws with regards
to these baby farms.
And it wouldn't be, I guess, afew decades before they realized
oh, instead of baby farms, whydon't we have orphanages?
We can just call theseorphanages or foster homes, and
with the goal of what we cometoday, I also wanted to point
(30:00):
out that prostitution, goingback to Jack Ripper, was huge at
this time, I mean, with women,uh, single, wanting to work,
needing money.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
well, they needed money and they had no other way
of doing it because there was noway, like there was no jobs.
You couldn't work as a woman,unless, of course, you were
working as a maid or a teacher,and from the poorer classes you
can't be a teacher because youcan't.
You didn't go to school, um,and it was hard being a maid,
(30:32):
and so these women would havestarved otherwise.
So that's all they had to turnto was prostitution, which is
horrifying, and again going intowomen's rights, like one of the
reasons why this case was sofascinating to me is because
this just comes down to women'srights and the stigma of not
(30:54):
having a man.
And, as you said, you know, alot of these men were married,
were above class, like a lot ofmaids were getting, like you
know, impregnated by theiremployers, but they're, I think,
under the law you didn't haveto put the name of the man down
that impregnated, and it just, Ijust, I just find, however
(31:17):
horrifying this case is, I findit fascinating by how little
children were thought of in thistime as well as women, like
both the babies of these womenand the women themselves were
just disposable.
And I think that goes back, youknow, again, to women's rights
of not being able to actuallywork for yourself, right?
(31:41):
And as, as you were talkingabout, like the government said
oh hey, all you poor people,some work here for a piton's
that you can't even feedyourself.
I just yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's interesting going back to the suspicions of
the doctors back in 1879.
She used to with every death orevery murder she committed,
rather, she would fake cry whenthe coroner or examiner would
arrive and check out whathappened, and the examiner, nine
(32:20):
out of ten times, would justput natural death.
So that's what enabled her forso long.
It's also interesting to notein 1873, she has her second
child, that's Mary Ann, and thenshe has a boy in 1876 and then
eventually leaves her husbandlater that year when her boy is
(32:41):
born.
So I don't understand, I don'tknow what the circumstances were
for her leaving her husband.
Maybe it was so she cancontinue acting in this way
without having anyone over hershoulder.
However, she did have anassistant and a woman that moved
in with her to help her, andthe woman was always extremely
suspicious of her.
(33:01):
And she proved instrumentalwhen the cops finally came down
on Amelia.
She offered a ton ofinformation, A ton you know,
about the aim killers, about theclothes, about she would go on
these trips out of nowhere.
I'll be right back.
So she again I'm blanking onthis woman's name.
(33:22):
But she was extremelyinstrumental Because she knew
something was wrong, didn't wantto get in trouble, needed to be
in trouble, but then, once thepolice came, she was free to
tell you everything.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, she was like I'll tell you everything.
So this horrifying person was,of course, found guilty in four
and a half minutes and she spentthree weeks in a cell and she
filled five exercise books withher quote, last true and only
confession.
And a chaplain visited her thenight before her execution and
asked if she had anything toconfess and she gave him the
(33:53):
exercise books.
She was a peanut to appear as awitness in Polly's trial, set
for a week after her executiondate, and so it was weird,
because they ruled that dire wasalready legally dead one
sentence and that therefore herevidence would be inadmissible.
She found out on the night that, or the night before her
(34:17):
execution, that her, the chargesagainst Polly had been dropped
and she was hanged at Newgateprison on Wednesday, the 10th of
June, at 1896.
And she had nothing to say whenshe was asked.
Now, as we said before, adoptionlaws were subsequently made
stricter and gave localauthorities much more power to
(34:39):
please baby farms.
However, of course, because youknow women's rights, we didn't
get rights until what?
The 1970s.
So the traffic and abuse ofinfants did not stop.
And actually there was aninteresting case where, two
years after her executionAmelia's execution railway
(35:01):
workers found a parcel with athree week old girl inside.
She was thankfully still aliveand the daughter who had given
the baby away said that she hadbeen given to a Mrs Stewart for
12 pounds and she had picked itup at Plymouth.
(35:24):
And there was claim in thepapers that Mrs Stewart was
actually Polly, the daughter ofAmelia Dyer.
So most people feel that thedaughter was completely in
cahoots with her mother and thatwas the way she had been taught
to make money again at thistime where or women like just
(35:46):
could not work.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I mean, I think it was this philosophy, or this
ideology, rather, that Ameliadeveloped, that we're living in
a time maybe she figured that,you know, these mothers don't
really care.
A lot of these mothers aren'treturning to check on their
babies.
I can't support all these kids.
I get the money but, like youknow also, I think a lot of this
has to do with her deep rootedloss of childhood.
(36:11):
She had siblings who passedaway.
She finds herself taking careof her mother and I think that
there is a quick somethinghappens where it's like you know
, maybe it's like protection.
I don't want these babies togrow up in the same situation I
did, like everything's terrible,I was neglected, and so I shall
(36:32):
inflict the same pain, becausethere's something that's.
There's something that youdon't go zero to 60 and kill all
these babies over.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I mean, my, my thinking is a little bit
different is because this is1800s and like, remember, this
was the Victorian times where,like, as the industrial
revolution was starting to gearup, right, or was it in the
middle of the industrialrevolution?
Now I'm like, right, so youknow, I remember reading about
(37:03):
that time and okay, so theindustrial revolution was from
1760 to 1840.
So I mean, this was the time ofchild laborers, like parents
had more children to send thechildren to work when they were
six, seven and eight.
There was this.
The way that we see kids nowwas completely different than
(37:24):
the way kids were seen back then, and they were more of a way to
make money, right, so sendingthem to the factories or sending
them out to the farms to work,or new nuisances of like, I
don't have this many mouths tofeed.
And because there was, ofcourse, no birth control, right,
(37:47):
you know, there were familiesthat had large amount of
children, and I just think thatwe abortion was deadly, exactly,
and so I think that just it was.
Yes, it's a stretch to kill somany babies because you are
(38:07):
essentially killing something,and I don't think children were
seen, I mean the way that we see, just see children now as these
like precious objects to, likeyou know, kind of push through
the world.
So I do agree.
Obviously she was mentallyderanged and came from trauma
(38:29):
and abuse to make her a serialkiller of this magnitude.
At the same time, I think thesociety allowed her to function
like this because, again, thefirst 10 years of her baby
farming experience she had maledoctors signing off on children
(38:52):
who had been starved to death.
Like what does that say about adoctor?
Absolutely, and I mean, I meanI think that's really like
numbers and numbers of them.
So I just, you know, I, I, yeah, I mean it's so hard to imagine
what that time must have beenlike for anybody who didn't have
money.
(39:13):
I mean between like the diseases, the filth, the lack of any
sort of resources and whatpeople were driven to to survive
, and I it's hard for me to kindof bring myself there.
And then I'm like, well, ofcourse, some crazy deranged
(39:35):
woman who's like high on loudand I'm being like, hey, I'm
going to get 10 pounds for ababy, like done, because like 10
pounds back then was a lot ofmoney.
So this was like, oh, this is aperfect scheme.
And it's interesting becausewhen they talk about serial
killer women, they do tend tosay like they kill for money and
that's, they need the money,whereas men have their own kind
(39:58):
of vices, but for women, youknow, like, if you think of the
black widows, they're killingtheir husbands for money.
So this was a woman who waslike, oh, this is perfect, I
have these beings that are justborn and I can just, you know,
get rid of them really quicklyand take the money.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
And also a lot of female killers have fallen in
the category of in healthcare.
You see a lot of nurses whokill elderly patients, right,
and there are no doctors in theroom.
They put air into them or nays,and that was the case of that
British nanny with the death ofthe child.
So I find that, in addition tothe money grab, there's also
(40:43):
this thing where it's slow, likenot wanting the responsibility
that's put onto them and theydon't know how to deal.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, but of course in Amelia's case is like I will
take that responsibility forlike a couple of hours so I can
get my hands on the child, so Ican just take your money.
And by the look of Evelina youknow these moms didn't want to
be doing this, they just had nochoice and no choice.
When I was doing this Iactually thought that there was
(41:13):
a law in the UK that said thatunmarried mothers couldn't
actually hold onto theirillegitimate children, but I
couldn't find that law.
So I'm just wondering if it wasmore societal pressures and
standards.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I think it was this law because of the, because of
the stigma right being a singlemother.
Yeah, I think it goes back tothis and it's more competitive
than they're saying.
It's this.
It's the excuse me, I just hadit with 1830.
(41:56):
I think it's that 1834 law.
It was put into law.
It was in 1834 for law, aMemonac, okay, where they're
able to get women, are able toget food and help them to perish
and they work for the holiday,but they can't be a mother,
(42:18):
correct, that's, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
That was the law.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
They can't be a mother if they're single or the
child is illegitimate out ofwedlock.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Oh, and because this is the parishes, then we can
probably lay down this also painon the church, whichever, I
guess, is the church of Englandbeing down on women, which again
, hey, and doesn't that not thesounds familiar?
It's two hundred years laterand you were like, wow, okay,
(42:52):
women's rights are going gettingflushed down the toilet by
certain factions of her societyand there's always these
horrible consequences ofhorrible demented people taking
upon themselves to make moneyoff of others misfortunes, and
this is Again such a horrifyingcase.
(43:13):
But also, I do find it sofascinating because of the time.
You know, like I know, a lot ofpeople are so obsessed with
Jack the Ripper, but like thisis to me like a hundred billion
times worse and just kind ofshow all the problems of society
.
You know, yeah, really darkheads.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
It's just just very dark and it's just it's
incredible.
It's incredible that she wasable to get away with this long
with this for so long.
And again, going back to yourpoint about child protection,
animals were protected both inNorth America and Victorian
(43:57):
England prior to children havingany sort of protection, weren't
allowed to abuse your pet, theyweren't allowed to just sort of
toss their body into the gutteror whatever.
You really had to respect yourpet and a baby.
Well, you know it does go backto today, because I don't know
(44:18):
if you're aware of this horriblecase where an African American
girl at age 13 in Mississippithis recently happened.
They do not allow abortion andshe was raped and she was forced
to have this baby.
The nearest abortion clinic wasso far away, she couldn't
(44:38):
afford lodging, she couldn'tafford to get there.
She just started seven gradeand she has a baby.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Oh, I, yeah, I, I have no words, I just have no
words.
I just have no words.
And we have so much history togo on of what happens when you
(45:10):
don't have access to jobs,medical care, help for a child,
because, guess what, these girls, they're not virgins with
immaculate conception.
They're not virgins withimmaculate prostitution, where
the women are the ones that arearrested.
Where are the John's.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
It's their fault, it's their fault.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Where are the John's?
Why aren't you going after theJohn's?
Oh, that's right, becausethey're dudes.
So, and that's the same thingwith the doctors Like why didn't
the doctors who had given her apass for those first 10 years,
like why were they not put in asaccomplices?
So they're one of the ones thatfind off on starving children.
So I just it's just this and Iagain going back to this
(45:53):
horrifying case, I just find itso fascinating by how many of
the themes that were going onback then for something like
this to happen.
We still have those themes, westill have those problems in
society.
We don't have the baby farms,but I mean we have sex
(46:14):
trafficking.
Yeah, exactly so, it's, it's.
And just the men never seem tobe.
And again, I'm Amelia.
Dyer was a complete monster,but I feel that society enabled
her to take away so many lives,like if that one doctor being
(46:34):
like hey, you've starved threechildren, I'm going to go pop
the cops on you.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, like, actually this isn't a natural death,
amelia, you know.
Yeah, so I just see that.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
And what's really creepy?
Creepy listeners.
If you're out there, listen, goto Google and just look up an
image of an Amelia Dyer I I shedoesn't smile.
(47:03):
There are these real.
She is so creepy, I mean.
You look at her, you know she'sdone something wrong, right,
you know it's really rare.
You know you look at a killer,their monk shot or whatever and
you're like, oh, this is likebona fide.
You look at her and you're likeshe's either really this run
sold post, so we're, I don'tknow what it is, but you look at
(47:27):
her and her eyes are just deadand I think, it's going back to
healthcare and everything likethis.
And if her mom received proper,proper healthcare, maybe this
would have helped change herlife.
Maybe she wouldn't have to feelat 11 years old, I have to take
care of my dying mother.
You know, it just goes on andon, you know, and also.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
I'm like imagine how desperate the women had to be to
hand over their newborns to awoman who looked like that.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Horrible, I know.
I mean I like just because it'sso astonishing and I think it's
a case that it's.
I'm really glad that we'retalking about this case because
you know the infirmity.
I didn't, I didn't see much outthere.
You know this is a case thatdefinitely needs to be covered.
You know they have a lot of all.
(48:18):
The most prolific killer here,the most prolific, this woman is
the poster lady for them formultiple, multiple counts of
murder and I don't think she,she should not be forgotten and
I think it's really easy toforget her in this day of
sensationalist serial killingsand it's happening all the time.
(48:41):
We see it.
But you do have to go back andI remember in your early
episodes where you're focusingon the Long Island murders that
had been going on forever andever, and now we're starting to
write see some some resolutionsto it.
But you've got to go back tothese old cases just because,
also, it's interesting to seehow authorities were working at
(49:01):
that time and I bet these copswere like whoa, okay, now we're
going to do something about this, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, and again, the doctors never flagging anything.
And then it just shows howdisposable women and children of
a certain class were at thistime.
They weren't respectable.
They, you know, were mothersout of wedlock, which, again,
going into religion, makes them,you know, like illegitimate
(49:30):
babies are like the worst thingever, like a bastard.
God forbid, you're a bastard,right?
Yeah, there's so much stuff inthe Bible about that and you're
just like that's a soul.
It doesn't know that.
It's like born and again.
Where the hell is the father?
Like I, just in all of thisabortion talk now currently back
(49:51):
then I'm always like what ittakes to to make a baby, yeah,
where is the father?
Where is the father?
And why is he not beingpenalized for sleeping for with
a maid in, you know, under hishousehold, like which, again, is
also, you know, sexualharassment, because guess what?
Can she say?
(50:12):
no, probably not because she'snot going to get fired and she
won't be able to find anotherjob.
So it's like this.
This case is just so interwovenwith women's rights and, again,
when women don't have rights orare looked down upon, they are
then prone to falling in withthese monsters.
(50:32):
And, you know, it makes methink of the case in Vancouver
with those hundreds ofprostitutes that were killer sex
workers, that were killed bythe pig farmer.
Like, is it because they weresex workers?
You know, again this like ideaof what a disposable person is
in our society, which tends tobe women, and then they're poor
(50:54):
and then maybe, you know, due totheir trauma, and now they're
drug addicted.
Like it's just again.
It's like the same problemsdifferent year, like 200 years
later.
And it's just, it's it's, andespecially because we're seeing
such a hard pull towards gettingrid of women's rights, it's
(51:16):
like, I think, even moreimportant to look at history and
see what happened when womenhad very little rights.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Absolutely.
I mean the fact that this waseven a law right With hand in
hand with with religion.
Yeah, you can get help, you cango to the parish, but can't be
a mom, can't be a mom, you justcan't be a mom.
Possible?
Well, I hope you didn't really.
But you know, yeah, this is ait's it's.
(51:47):
It's shameful.
And what's most shameful is youthink you learn that we would
learn from these events, fromthese cases?
You know what a horrible societyto allow that during Victorian
England, in 19th century.
But then also, who are we now?
You know, it's it's case bycase, it's society by society.
We pick and choose our battles,but you can't forget, in the
(52:10):
1970s, nypd referred to murderedprostitutes and sex workers as
non human on the reports thatfill out non human.
Yeah, so that's only a fewdecades.
We're only a few decadesremoved from that and today they
are still deemed non human.
As far as I'm concerned, yeah,man, again, I'm a dark subject,
(52:33):
but I'm really I'm happy thatwe're shining light on this
subject because you know, we gotto learn from this you know,
yeah, exactly, or at least haveit become a knowledge that a
monster can do something likethis in the correct conditions.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
And obviously the correct conditions were
happening because there werebaby farms all over the UK and,
as I said, australia and theUnited States as well.
So that actually existed, andthat in itself is horrifying.
I mean, just the existence of ababy farm is horrifying, and
then, of course, you just needone demented person to take it
(53:12):
to just the most horrifyingconclusion.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
So I tried having conversations with my friends
and family who are completelyunaware of what a baby farm even
is.
No one believes me.
They're like you're creatingcabbage patch kids.
I'm like, no, no, we're notgrowing the baby farm, it's,
it's, it's.
(53:39):
That's how shocking it is.
People are just like you'remaking this up, but it's no no,
yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And again, the consequence that mothers did not
have the support to keep theirchildren Period Full stop, and
yeah, anyway.
And so for somebody to havelike 600 children at one time,
like where do you?
How?
Like I don't, I don't even havethe imagination to figure out
like what that could possiblyeven look like.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
And also, it's interesting, dominique is like
she she herself is a mother,yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
But again, I think that when you have a society
that sees a large part of theirpopulation as disposable
nothings, it's easy and, as yousaid, she came from a family
that she could go to school.
So you know there was there'sclass issues in this as well,
and I mean what the atrocitiesthat happen in India with, like
(54:34):
their class situation goes withthe intangibles, so it's like,
again, it's such a microcosm,like you know, turned up to 100
of what could happen under theseconditions.
So, hey, we're back with withsome darkness to start your
middle of August with.
Yeah, please let us know on onInstagram and YouTube, like what
(54:59):
you think about this and doyour research on the baby farms
too, because it is such ahorrifying but fascinating topic
as to again like what we ashumans permit to happen in our
midst, in our society, and maybewe can go forward trying to
change some of that.
So I don't know if you can goany further than this episode.
(55:23):
I'm not sure what we're goingto do next week, but it'll
definitely be lighter than this.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
And again.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
it's not not not possible to go deeper and darker
than this one.
And yeah, thanks for listening,and we're back weekly again.
So check us out next week and,as I said, we'll try to do
something a little bit morelighthearted when it comes to
murder.
That's even possible.
(55:54):
I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
That sounds good.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
Until we're like so we're doing a case of 20 people.
That I was like oh, sorry,sorry, sorry, there's, there's,
no.
There's no lightheartedness andmurder, except for if you're
watching only murders in thebuilding.
So maybe there's a lighthardness there.
And in a cozy mystery, he gothit in the head with a
candlestick.
(56:20):
As lighthearted as murder getsright.
Accidental death stories, youknow or you know that dude who
falls over the cruise ship onhis like on his honeymoon.
Is that light heart?
I don't know?
Sorry, covid brain, and justlike lost it.
(56:42):
But thank you for sticking withus and, yeah, we look forward
to hearing what you guys thinkabout this episode and see you
next week.
This episode was sponsored bythe Creek killer book one in the
(57:28):
Harriet Harper thriller serieswritten by me, dominic Abast.
What would you do if you read?
The police found your body in acreek?
Find out in the creek killeravailable on Amazon.
Thank you for joining me andlistening to this episode.
If you like my show, pleasegive me a rating and review.
It helps other listeners findthis podcast.
(57:49):
Follow Dominica best presentsthe deviant mind wherever you
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(58:14):
forward.
Slash the deviant mind podcastUntil next time.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Deviant Mind.
This is Dominika.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
And this is Christopher.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And sorry that we've been gone for the last six weeks
, but my entire family got hitwith COVID one by one, like we
all dropped, and it has takenthis long for me to actually be
able to talk for any length oftime.
So thanks for being patientwith me, chris.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And thank you for keeping in touch.
I'm just glad you guys are onthe men's you know yeah, so it's
.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's been a really crappy summer, but I guess you
know it sounds like COVID is onthe rise everywhere, so should
be a fun, fun, fun fall.
It's going to be a fun fall,yeah.
So we have kind of a reallyinteresting case today that I've
(01:30):
actually been very interestedin for a number of years.
I actually had a producer fromEngland come contact me about
maybe making a feature film onthis woman and never went
anywhere.
But I always was so likefascinated is not really the
(01:52):
best word to use, but it waskind of this very strange time
in history where you just don'tthink you just don't think
things like that ever happenedand the way that we see children
is so different than they did along time ago.
(02:13):
So, without further ado, thisis Amelia Dyer and she was, I
think, dubbed the baby farmkiller.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yes, and so baby farms.
That's a weird word, or weirdtwo words put together.
So I think maybe what we shouldstart with is this is back in
the 19th century and there were.
What was that?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Victorian England.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Victorian England.
However, I did find out thatthere were also baby farms in
the United States that's correct, which was kind of interesting.
So a baby farm is essentiallycame from the fact that there
was a lot of societal pressureand stigma associated with
illegitimate children, and sounmarried mothers would find it
(03:06):
extremely difficult to keep andraise their children because
many of them had to work andthere was no means to care for
the child and there was only somany workhouses and orphanages
that were around.
So in the 19th century, babyfarming emerged as a business
(03:27):
and a baby farm was a woman orcouples would take in multiple
children and would get paid bythe government or the mothers,
and they promised to providecare or to arrange adoptions for
those children.
But really most of them weredriven by profits and most of
(03:47):
the time the children were oftenneglected, malnourished or
deliberately killed because deadchildren did not require food,
care or attention.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I also want to throw out here that in 1834, victorian
England had a poor lawamendment act, which is when
women were to get food and goodliving conditions from the
parish, a lot of them workingfor wealthy families because
(04:17):
that was the best job for mostwomen at the time.
But they did not want mothersworking for them.
So this is what prompted themto sometimes go to work and
leave babies with these farmswith the idea that they would
come back later.
So if you got off work or acouple of days later, you go
back and check on your kid, makesure they were okay.
(04:38):
And a lot of these women andmothers were overwhelmed by
taking care of all the babies,and the baby farmer needed the
money because without the moneyto feed and clothe them properly
, that's when the children felloff and to neglect.
And a lot of these farms haveway more babies than they can
(04:59):
care for.
There was no breast milkreadily available, which already
can alter a child's upbringing.
And in a lot of cases, as we'lldiscuss, if the baby passed
away, they just kept the moneyand allowed a new baby into the
farm, so they would just keepgoing.
That was common practice.
(05:19):
If the baby passed away at thebaby farm oops, sorry, you just
keep going.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And from this case because thiswas the most infamous case
because she is believed to havemurdered hundreds of infants
over a 20-year period there wereregulations and acts that were
put in place.
There was a Infants LifeProtection Act of 1872, even
(05:49):
though she was caught in whatwas it?
1890, hold on a second.
I think I believe it was 1896.
Yeah, she was caught in 1896,because, well, we'll go into how
she was caught, but there wereacts that actually started
looking into baby farming and itwas again.
(06:10):
There was the Infants LifeProtection Act that happened and
the Adoption of Children Act of1926, which was the first law
in Britain that regulatedadoption, and before this, the
adoptions were often informalagreements which were going
between baby farmers and, as wesaid before, there was Australia
(06:33):
and the United States also hadbaby farming going on.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Interesting stuff, that at this time, men were
completely okay to impregnatewomen at a wedlock, yet they had
no responsibility.
Yes, so in other words, theywere able to leave, they could
do what they want, and they boreno responsibility on the child
more than the mother.
Yeah, they created a baby withthem.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yes, exactly.
So she, as we said, was thekind of the base of this
throughout time, and let's, whydon't we start with how she was
(07:23):
finally, like the case thatfinally caught her, and go from
there?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
By the way, interesting to note that, quote
unquote, a strangle adopting wasa term that got around the
practice of killing babies andchildren.
I mean, we have to understandwhen we step back.
There were approximately 2000baby farms at one time, the 19th
century, in England, and if thebaby passed away, they
(07:56):
oftentimes didn't know who tocontact.
You know they were unable tocontact these single mothers.
You know single mothers, you'rean outcast basically.
Yeah, it was unforgivable.
So, by the same token, what'sthe difference?
They lost their baby.
They dropped it off with us.
So that became a common thing.
You just dispose of the babiesand you bring in new money.
(08:16):
Yeah, I mean, let's, let's diveinto how she was caught and then
we can back up into what shewas doing, because her life is
just really fraught with a lotof abuse and craziness.
Her mother suffered mentalbreakdowns and she wound up
taking care of her mother and inthe process she felt the need
(08:42):
to take care of others and gotinto nursing.
So that's really interesting.
That was kind of thespringboard.
Her mother's own healthprompted her to become a nurse.
But diving, let's dive into howshe's talking 400 bodies.
Okay, we're talking 400.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
That's what they estimate, oh right, which they
estimate, but that most of thosewere not found.
The case that she was caught onwas they found six infants in a
river, and this happened inreading.
Most the place where she wasworking was reading in Bristol,
(09:23):
and on the 30 March, 30th 1896,in reading he, there was a
bargeman who was navigating up ariver and he was towing a boat
and he, when they were comingclose to the towpath, they
spotted a brown paper parcel inthe water and so they grabbed it
, and when they unraveled itthey found this is very specific
(09:49):
they cut, and it was a dampparcel, it was tied with macrame
wine, and when they cut throughtwo layers of flannel and
fabric, they found a child'sfoot and part of a leg.
So they found a tiny baby in thewater, and so they of course
called the police constable,which they came within 15
minutes from the reading policestation, and they took her back
(10:13):
to the mortuary and theyunwrapped it to find a body of a
baby girl who was aged betweensix months and one year.
And so she was.
She had been strangled withtape and she was later
identified as Helena Fry.
Now there were three detectivesthat were on this case there
was a detective constable, jamesAnderson, and there was another
(10:37):
one named George tools Lee andSergeant Harry James, and so
when they unwrapped the paper,they were able to decipher very
faint handwriting and it readMrs Thomas, 26 Piggots Road,
(11:00):
caversham.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I also want to point out that it was her common
practice in exposing the bodiesto tape them, suffocate them,
wrap them in paper, and then sheoften put a rock or a stone,
and in this case that was notthere and Elena Fry's body did
not sink, so her body wasfloating.
(11:24):
So we have the mistake of herhaving her address on the inside
of the paper and she also failsto put the rock in and the body
doesn't think, making it easy.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
That's right, that's right.
So when the police went to thataddress they found that this
Mrs Thomas no longer live there.
But one of the detectiveconstable, james Anderson, said
hey, you know what, let's takethis parcel to the reading
railway station to see where itmight have come from.
(11:57):
And because the package bore aMidland Railway stamp and a date
, and so the railway clerk foundthe entry of the parcel in his
ledger and he was the one thattold Mrs Thomas's real name was
Mrs Dyer and she now lived at 45Kensington Road, which was on
(12:17):
the other side of reading.
Now they didn't immediately goand arrest her, they decided to
watch her house.
On the 3rd of April, when sheappeared at the property, they
(12:37):
used the female decoy to comeand see about adopting a child,
because Amelia Dyer was alreadya well-known baby farmer and
baby farms were not against thelaw.
So this decoy, she made anappointment and she said that
(12:59):
there was able to adopt.
And when the lady arrived forthe appointment, detective
Constable Anderson and HarryJames were on her doorstep and
they actually brought her intocustody on suspicion of murder.
Now, while she was in custody,there were five other bodies
(13:24):
that were washed up.
There were bodies of two morebabies that were together in a
carpet bag, hold on a second, ohand If I may.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
If I may also, I'd like to back up a little bit to
18th.
Let's see if this happens.
In 1895, right In 1879, she hadbeen caught by some doctors
that noticed a number of deathsweren't actually reported in her
(13:57):
ledger and they thought thatwas very suspicious.
So they kept an eye on her andshe eventually did six months of
hard labor for neglect of thosechildren.
From the doctor's report andafter release she continued that
this time she didn't report anydeaths on the ledger.
And she continued to do thatand instead she hid the bodies
(14:20):
in the tanks, which is wherethis body was seen, where Alina
Fry's body was in the tank.
That was her choice of dumpinggrounds, what the tanks were.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's right.
Yeah, I actually read aboutthat and she had originally
thought that starving the babiesto death would be fine, because
then that's natural death andbecause there were so many that
were happening, the doctors didnot want to sign off on the
death certificates because Imean, essentially the children
(14:51):
were dying of starvation.
So starvation.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Also a drug by the name of Lantana, which was a
painkiller and it was basicallythe aspirin of 19th century and
it was used by a lot of babyfarms to silence babies.
However, folks' constipationand greatly impacted the bowels.
It was an opium-based drug andit basically provided no way for
(15:18):
these babies to survive,because they used this in place
of food, like, stop crying,you're not going to eat, they'll
be okay.
But they became malnourishedand would often pass away from
this painkiller who, whichrather she took herself.
She eventually became addictedto this painkiller and sometimes
she'd cover the nose and mouthof newborns, so it appeared that
(15:42):
they were stillborn.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I see, yeah, so sorry , this is a dark one, guys, it's
a real dark one, it's a realdark one and after 1879, when
the doctors come, they do thisthing.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
She serves six months and she starts the process of
drumming up all these aliases,changing her location.
She knows that eventually, ifshe was caught now, she has to
change her location.
She continued to put ads in thepaper hey, are you a mother?
Look?
Her ads were extremely popularand she had at one point, I
(16:21):
think, over 600 babies at onepoint.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, which is again where do you even house all
those children?
Unbelievable, yeah.
And when she got released fromthe hard labor, she actually
tried to resume her nursingcareer and unfortunately she was
completely nuts.
So she was a former asylumnurse, so she was both a nurse
(16:51):
and she also was in mentalhospitals because she was kept
being put in there for mentalinstability and suicidal
tendencies.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yes, which spawned from her upbringing.
Yes, if I can to dive back, shedid come from a large family
and they were more fortunatethan most.
Her father, samuel Hobley, wasable to send his children to
school, and this is at a timewhen only 25% of children
(17:21):
attended school, so she and hersiblings were able to go.
She's one of, I believe, sevenkids.
She had three brothers andthree sisters.
Two of her sisters had diedwhen she was five and the
youngest, rather, sarah, passedwhen she was nine.
It was around this time themother that she loved, sarah,
(17:43):
got typhus and fever, headaches,delirium.
She had a death with diseasebasically declined so slowly,
with the father at work, thesiblings at school, amelia
actually became her.
That's when she becomes hermother's full-time caregiver and
at 11, her mother died.
So at nine she was as a sister,at 11, she was as her mom and
(18:06):
she continued school until shewas 14, moved to Bristol to
become an apprentice.
And that's when she becomes anurse and meets a friend.
She befriends an Ellen Dane whois a trained midwife and she
not only delivered babies butran not a baby farm but a house
(18:32):
which was pretty much controlled, and she stayed there until the
birth, and then she was to berecharging faith.
So, basically, amelia saw thisstrategy and adopted it.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So yeah, and she did also have a daughter who she
used in the scheme, but they Idon't think she was ever charged
, even though there was alwayssuspicion that she knew exactly
what was happening.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
And because she was pregnant.
She worked at Dane's houseuntil eventually she and until
she had gotten pregnant with herfirst daughter, and that was in
1864.
She's 26 years old, gives birthto Ellen and then her husband,
amelia's husband, passed away.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Oh, no, no, no, I'm not the same husband, a William
Dyer.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Well, I think it was George Thomas.
She marries first, okay, she's24 and he's 59.
And then, in 1869, when Ellenis five, george Thomas dies.
So she immediately became anincome and then rather than the
nursery.
That's when she first openedher baby phone.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Right right.
So she.
They were able to discover itwas so.
When they finally brought herinto custody, they were able to
discover that she had taken in20 children in the previous
months that were nowhere to befound, and so they felt that she
(20:25):
you know that they had they hadgotten the right woman.
And they calculated and this waswhen they calculated that,
because she had done this overdecades that it was over 400
babies and children, and she wasarrested on the 4th of April
and charged with murder, and herson in law, arthur Palmer, was
(20:47):
charged as a necessary, and sothe themes was dredged, and
actually that's when they foundthe six more bodies.
After the two bodies werewashed up in the carpet bag,
some of them were identified.
There was the door, dorisMarmon and Harry Simmons, who
(21:09):
were supposedly her last victims, and at this point her modus
operandi was strangling withwhite tape, which was tape that
was used like edging tape usedin dressmaking, and she said she
found that just wrapping ittwice around the baby's neck and
(21:29):
tying a lot would would do thedeed.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Going back to what you said earlier, yes, she does
in fact re marry William Dyerand he loses his job.
She marries in 1872.
In 1870, a Margaret Launderswas hanged for a baby killing on
her baby phone.
This set shock, shock wavesthroughout the entire baby farm
(21:56):
community, including Amelia, andthat's actually what prompts
her for getting back intonursing and she goes to the
Bristol Lunatic Assignment aloneJust because she's so like
everything's happening.
These baby farms, I got to getout but maybe they'll catch me.
That's when she gets back intofarming.
But then her husband, hersecond husband, loses his job
(22:22):
and that's when she's like I gotto get back into the baby farm,
like it's just way morelucrative than what I'm doing
now.
Also, at this time in VictorianEngland interesting to note
there was kind of like thisweird ghetto where anyone who
was born impoverished, theywould all look because
apparently the government saidhey, if you're downtrodden,
(22:43):
don't worry, we have a place foryou to get your act together.
You go through training, you'llhave me no jobs, but at least
you'll be doing something.
No beds, hardly any bathrooms,and there were thousands of
people that were sort ofgathered into this huge
institution and it was insane.
And you had families sleepingtogether, horrible conditions
(23:04):
and they would work for nothing,like they got very little paid.
So these people were just kindof ignored.
So that's.
Another thing is that you know,you have the mothers living in
this place.
You have these fathers who aredesitu.
They give the babies to thebaby farms and they actually
don't care what happens, right?
I mean, to me it reminds me ofadopting a pet and then just
whatever and letting the pet goNow.
(23:26):
But now we're dealing withbabies Like, oh, I can't do this
baby, so whatever happenshappens.
And there was just such a greatdivide between the wealth and
the poverty during this time intraining that it's just
horrifying that this notion ofbaby farming I mean it's not
even an orphanage, because we'renot talking about adopting out
(23:49):
to families who want to takecare of these kids, we're
talking about charging up to 80pounds a baby a week to continue
.
Hey, we need money for food,hey, we need a clothes, and they
keep getting money from thesesingle mothers.
Horrible system and a horribletime in the 19th century for the
20th century.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, and this is also the time of Jack the Ripper
.
So she was actually.
There were some Ripperologistswho put her name down, like she
could be one of them.
Obviously there's no proof ofthat, but and she doesn't figure
prominently among the Jack theRipper suspects, but her name
has been thrown around by that.
(24:30):
Now, when she was arrested andtried, she was actually the one
who oh that they.
Actually there was no evidencefound that her daughter, mary
Ann, or Arthur Palmer, herhusband, had acted as her
(24:50):
accomplices and she actually, umArthur Palmer, was discharged
because she wrote a confessionum about it that neither of them
had anything to do with whatshe was doing, which is not the
case, because the murder thatshe pleaded guilty to was that
(25:11):
of Doris Marmon.
It was not even Helen Fry whobrought the cops to her door.
So Helen um, sorry, dorisMarmon.
So her mother was named EvelinaMarmon and in January 1896, she
gave birth to her illegitimatedaughter, doris.
(25:36):
She was a very popular 25 yearold barmaid and she quickly
started looking for offers ofadoption and, like we talked
about, she placed anadvertisement in the
miscellaneous section of theBristol Times and Mirror and the
?
Um advertisement said wantedrespectable woman to take a
(25:57):
young child.
She wanted to go back to workand she wanted to get her child
back.
So she just wanted to like havesomebody look over her child
until she could get back on herfeet again and then she could go
and reclaim her daughter.
Um, next to her advertisementwas the advertisement from
(26:18):
Amelia Dyer which said marriedcouple with no family would
adopt a healthy child, nicecountry, home terms and 10
pounds.
So Evelina responded to thatand she uh was going back and
forth with a Mrs Harding andthis Mrs Harding.
She replied saying that theywould love the.
(26:41):
I should be glad to have a dearbaby girl, one I could bring up
and call my own.
And she said also in the letterwe are plain, homely people in
fairly good circumstances and Idon't want a child for money's
sake, but the company and homecomfort.
I and my husband are dearlyfond of children.
I have no child of my own.
A child with me will have agood home and a mother's love.
(27:04):
And so Evelina was very excitedabout that.
But she couldn't um pay 10pounds a week.
She wanted something moreaffordable.
But Mrs Harding said that theywanted justa one off payment in
advance.
And because Evelina was like indire straits, she decided to
(27:26):
finally pay those 10 pounds.
And so, uh, mrs Harding, quoteunquote, um came to Chal Chalton
to pick up the baby, andEvelina was really surprised
because she was so old, becauseAmelia was the one who showed up
, and but she said that Ameliawas affectionate towards the
(27:48):
little baby and so she handedher over, along with a cardboard
box of clothes and 10 pounds.
But she was extremely upsetabout having to give up her
daughter and she followed, umAmelia to the station and then
onto Gloucester.
She really just didn't want togive up her child.
And, um, when she returned toher lodgings, everybody said she
(28:11):
was like a broken woman.
And a few days later, evelinagot a male from Amelia, which
was under Mrs Harding, sayingthat everything was well.
But when she wrote back shenever heard from her again.
And so, um, she had lied, ofcourse, about where she was
(28:32):
going and, um, she killed thebaby, probably that day, and
they brought the clothes thatMormon had packed to a
pawnbroker and, um, they werethe ones that, uh, that she was
one of the ones in the carpetbag, that, as you said, there
(28:55):
was bricks for added weight.
So when they um dragged theriver.
That's when they actually foundthem.
So I was wrong as far as that.
It was like found right afterthe package.
So that was actually the murderthat she was tried for and that
was the one that she had um shehad confessed to.
She did not confess to anyother killings.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
That's right.
And you know what's interestingis, during that trial, she
initially tried to use theinsanity play, but it didn't
work.
Um, and neighbors testifiedthat they'd often see her take
up to six babies a day into herlife.
Um, and yeah, she confessed.
(29:37):
And, um, this case actuallyhelped change laws with regards
to these baby farms.
And it wouldn't be, I guess, afew decades before they realized
oh, instead of baby farms, whydon't we have orphanages?
We can just call theseorphanages or foster homes, and
with the goal of what we cometoday, I also wanted to point
(30:00):
out that prostitution, goingback to Jack Ripper, was huge at
this time, I mean, with women,uh, single, wanting to work,
needing money.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
well, they needed money and they had no other way
of doing it because there was noway, like there was no jobs.
You couldn't work as a woman,unless, of course, you were
working as a maid or a teacher,and from the poorer classes you
can't be a teacher because youcan't.
You didn't go to school, um,and it was hard being a maid,
(30:32):
and so these women would havestarved otherwise.
So that's all they had to turnto was prostitution, which is
horrifying, and again going intowomen's rights, like one of the
reasons why this case was sofascinating to me is because
this just comes down to women'srights and the stigma of not
(30:54):
having a man.
And, as you said, you know, alot of these men were married,
were above class, like a lot ofmaids were getting, like you
know, impregnated by theiremployers, but they're, I think,
under the law you didn't haveto put the name of the man down
that impregnated, and it just, Ijust, I just find, however
(31:17):
horrifying this case is, I findit fascinating by how little
children were thought of in thistime as well as women, like
both the babies of these womenand the women themselves were
just disposable.
And I think that goes back, youknow, again, to women's rights
of not being able to actuallywork for yourself, right?
(31:41):
And as, as you were talkingabout, like the government said
oh hey, all you poor people,some work here for a piton's
that you can't even feedyourself.
I just yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's interesting going back to the suspicions of
the doctors back in 1879.
She used to with every death orevery murder she committed,
rather, she would fake cry whenthe coroner or examiner would
arrive and check out whathappened, and the examiner, nine
(32:20):
out of ten times, would justput natural death.
So that's what enabled her forso long.
It's also interesting to notein 1873, she has her second
child, that's Mary Ann, and thenshe has a boy in 1876 and then
eventually leaves her husbandlater that year when her boy is
(32:41):
born.
So I don't understand, I don'tknow what the circumstances were
for her leaving her husband.
Maybe it was so she cancontinue acting in this way
without having anyone over hershoulder.
However, she did have anassistant and a woman that moved
in with her to help her, andthe woman was always extremely
suspicious of her.
(33:01):
And she proved instrumentalwhen the cops finally came down
on Amelia.
She offered a ton ofinformation, A ton you know,
about the aim killers, about theclothes, about she would go on
these trips out of nowhere.
I'll be right back.
So she again I'm blanking onthis woman's name.
(33:22):
But she was extremelyinstrumental Because she knew
something was wrong, didn't wantto get in trouble, needed to be
in trouble, but then, once thepolice came, she was free to
tell you everything.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, she was like I'll tell you everything.
So this horrifying person was,of course, found guilty in four
and a half minutes and she spentthree weeks in a cell and she
filled five exercise books withher quote, last true and only
confession.
And a chaplain visited her thenight before her execution and
asked if she had anything toconfess and she gave him the
(33:53):
exercise books.
She was a peanut to appear as awitness in Polly's trial, set
for a week after her executiondate, and so it was weird,
because they ruled that dire wasalready legally dead one
sentence and that therefore herevidence would be inadmissible.
She found out on the night that, or the night before her
(34:17):
execution, that her, the chargesagainst Polly had been dropped
and she was hanged at Newgateprison on Wednesday, the 10th of
June, at 1896.
And she had nothing to say whenshe was asked.
Now, as we said before, adoptionlaws were subsequently made
stricter and gave localauthorities much more power to
(34:39):
please baby farms.
However, of course, because youknow women's rights, we didn't
get rights until what?
The 1970s.
So the traffic and abuse ofinfants did not stop.
And actually there was aninteresting case where, two
years after her executionAmelia's execution railway
(35:01):
workers found a parcel with athree week old girl inside.
She was thankfully still aliveand the daughter who had given
the baby away said that she hadbeen given to a Mrs Stewart for
12 pounds and she had picked itup at Plymouth.
(35:24):
And there was claim in thepapers that Mrs Stewart was
actually Polly, the daughter ofAmelia Dyer.
So most people feel that thedaughter was completely in
cahoots with her mother and thatwas the way she had been taught
to make money again at thistime where or women like just
(35:46):
could not work.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I mean, I think it was this philosophy, or this
ideology, rather, that Ameliadeveloped, that we're living in
a time maybe she figured that,you know, these mothers don't
really care.
A lot of these mothers aren'treturning to check on their
babies.
I can't support all these kids.
I get the money but, like youknow also, I think a lot of this
has to do with her deep rootedloss of childhood.
(36:11):
She had siblings who passedaway.
She finds herself taking careof her mother and I think that
there is a quick somethinghappens where it's like you know
, maybe it's like protection.
I don't want these babies togrow up in the same situation I
did, like everything's terrible,I was neglected, and so I shall
(36:32):
inflict the same pain, becausethere's something that's.
There's something that youdon't go zero to 60 and kill all
these babies over.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
I mean, my, my thinking is a little bit
different is because this is1800s and like, remember, this
was the Victorian times where,like, as the industrial
revolution was starting to gearup, right, or was it in the
middle of the industrialrevolution?
Now I'm like, right, so youknow, I remember reading about
(37:03):
that time and okay, so theindustrial revolution was from
1760 to 1840.
So I mean, this was the time ofchild laborers, like parents
had more children to send thechildren to work when they were
six, seven and eight.
There was this.
The way that we see kids nowwas completely different than
(37:24):
the way kids were seen back then, and they were more of a way to
make money, right, so sendingthem to the factories or sending
them out to the farms to work,or new nuisances of like, I
don't have this many mouths tofeed.
And because there was, ofcourse, no birth control, right,
(37:47):
you know, there were familiesthat had large amount of
children, and I just think thatwe abortion was deadly, exactly,
and so I think that just it was.
Yes, it's a stretch to kill somany babies because you are
(38:07):
essentially killing something,and I don't think children were
seen, I mean the way that we see, just see children now as these
like precious objects to, likeyou know, kind of push through
the world.
So I do agree.
Obviously she was mentallyderanged and came from trauma
(38:29):
and abuse to make her a serialkiller of this magnitude.
At the same time, I think thesociety allowed her to function
like this because, again, thefirst 10 years of her baby
farming experience she had maledoctors signing off on children
(38:52):
who had been starved to death.
Like what does that say about adoctor?
Absolutely, and I mean, I meanI think that's really like
numbers and numbers of them.
So I just, you know, I, I, yeah, I mean it's so hard to imagine
what that time must have beenlike for anybody who didn't have
money.
(39:13):
I mean between like the diseases, the filth, the lack of any
sort of resources and whatpeople were driven to to survive
, and I it's hard for me to kindof bring myself there.
And then I'm like, well, ofcourse, some crazy deranged
(39:35):
woman who's like high on loudand I'm being like, hey, I'm
going to get 10 pounds for ababy, like done, because like 10
pounds back then was a lot ofmoney.
So this was like, oh, this is aperfect scheme.
And it's interesting becausewhen they talk about serial
killer women, they do tend tosay like they kill for money and
that's, they need the money,whereas men have their own kind
(39:58):
of vices, but for women, youknow, like, if you think of the
black widows, they're killingtheir husbands for money.
So this was a woman who waslike, oh, this is perfect, I
have these beings that are justborn and I can just, you know,
get rid of them really quicklyand take the money.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
And also a lot of female killers have fallen in
the category of in healthcare.
You see a lot of nurses whokill elderly patients, right,
and there are no doctors in theroom.
They put air into them or nays,and that was the case of that
British nanny with the death ofthe child.
So I find that, in addition tothe money grab, there's also
(40:43):
this thing where it's slow, likenot wanting the responsibility
that's put onto them and theydon't know how to deal.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, but of course in Amelia's case is like I will
take that responsibility forlike a couple of hours so I can
get my hands on the child, so Ican just take your money.
And by the look of Evelina youknow these moms didn't want to
be doing this, they just had nochoice and no choice.
When I was doing this Iactually thought that there was
(41:13):
a law in the UK that said thatunmarried mothers couldn't
actually hold onto theirillegitimate children, but I
couldn't find that law.
So I'm just wondering if it wasmore societal pressures and
standards.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I think it was this law because of the, because of
the stigma right being a singlemother.
Yeah, I think it goes back tothis and it's more competitive
than they're saying.
It's this.
It's the excuse me, I just hadit with 1830.
(41:56):
I think it's that 1834 law.
It was put into law.
It was in 1834 for law, aMemonac, okay, where they're
able to get women, are able toget food and help them to perish
and they work for the holiday,but they can't be a mother,
(42:18):
correct, that's, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
That was the law.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
They can't be a mother if they're single or the
child is illegitimate out ofwedlock.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Oh, and because this is the parishes, then we can
probably lay down this also painon the church, whichever, I
guess, is the church of Englandbeing down on women, which again
, hey, and doesn't that not thesounds familiar?
It's two hundred years laterand you were like, wow, okay,
(42:52):
women's rights are going gettingflushed down the toilet by
certain factions of her societyand there's always these
horrible consequences ofhorrible demented people taking
upon themselves to make moneyoff of others misfortunes, and
this is Again such a horrifyingcase.
(43:13):
But also, I do find it sofascinating because of the time.
You know, like I know, a lot ofpeople are so obsessed with
Jack the Ripper, but like thisis to me like a hundred billion
times worse and just kind ofshow all the problems of society
.
You know, yeah, really darkheads.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
It's just just very dark and it's just it's
incredible.
It's incredible that she wasable to get away with this long
with this for so long.
And again, going back to yourpoint about child protection,
animals were protected both inNorth America and Victorian
(43:57):
England prior to children havingany sort of protection, weren't
allowed to abuse your pet, theyweren't allowed to just sort of
toss their body into the gutteror whatever.
You really had to respect yourpet and a baby.
Well, you know it does go backto today, because I don't know
(44:18):
if you're aware of this horriblecase where an African American
girl at age 13 in Mississippithis recently happened.
They do not allow abortion andshe was raped and she was forced
to have this baby.
The nearest abortion clinic wasso far away, she couldn't
(44:38):
afford lodging, she couldn'tafford to get there.
She just started seven gradeand she has a baby.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Oh, I, yeah, I, I have no words, I just have no
words.
I just have no words.
And we have so much history togo on of what happens when you
(45:10):
don't have access to jobs,medical care, help for a child,
because, guess what, these girls, they're not virgins with
immaculate conception.
They're not virgins withimmaculate prostitution, where
the women are the ones that arearrested.
Where are the John's.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
It's their fault, it's their fault.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Where are the John's?
Why aren't you going after theJohn's?
Oh, that's right, becausethey're dudes.
So, and that's the same thingwith the doctors Like why didn't
the doctors who had given her apass for those first 10 years,
like why were they not put in asaccomplices?
So they're one of the ones thatfind off on starving children.
So I just it's just this and Iagain going back to this
(45:53):
horrifying case, I just find itso fascinating by how many of
the themes that were going onback then for something like
this to happen.
We still have those themes, westill have those problems in
society.
We don't have the baby farms,but I mean we have sex
(46:14):
trafficking.
Yeah, exactly so, it's, it's.
And just the men never seem tobe.
And again, I'm Amelia.
Dyer was a complete monster,but I feel that society enabled
her to take away so many lives,like if that one doctor being
(46:34):
like hey, you've starved threechildren, I'm going to go pop
the cops on you.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, like, actually this isn't a natural death,
amelia, you know.
Yeah, so I just see that.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
And what's really creepy?
Creepy listeners.
If you're out there, listen, goto Google and just look up an
image of an Amelia Dyer I I shedoesn't smile.
(47:03):
There are these real.
She is so creepy, I mean.
You look at her, you know she'sdone something wrong, right,
you know it's really rare.
You know you look at a killer,their monk shot or whatever and
you're like, oh, this is likebona fide.
You look at her and you're likeshe's either really this run
sold post, so we're, I don'tknow what it is, but you look at
(47:27):
her and her eyes are just deadand I think, it's going back to
healthcare and everything likethis.
And if her mom received proper,proper healthcare, maybe this
would have helped change herlife.
Maybe she wouldn't have to feelat 11 years old, I have to take
care of my dying mother.
You know, it just goes on andon, you know, and also.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
I'm like imagine how desperate the women had to be to
hand over their newborns to awoman who looked like that.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Horrible, I know.
I mean I like just because it'sso astonishing and I think it's
a case that it's.
I'm really glad that we'retalking about this case because
you know the infirmity.
I didn't, I didn't see much outthere.
You know this is a case thatdefinitely needs to be covered.
You know they have a lot of all.
(48:18):
The most prolific killer here,the most prolific, this woman is
the poster lady for them formultiple, multiple counts of
murder and I don't think she,she should not be forgotten and
I think it's really easy toforget her in this day of
sensationalist serial killingsand it's happening all the time.
(48:41):
We see it.
But you do have to go back andI remember in your early
episodes where you're focusingon the Long Island murders that
had been going on forever andever, and now we're starting to
write see some some resolutionsto it.
But you've got to go back tothese old cases just because,
also, it's interesting to seehow authorities were working at
(49:01):
that time and I bet these copswere like whoa, okay, now we're
going to do something about this, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, and again, the doctors never flagging anything.
And then it just shows howdisposable women and children of
a certain class were at thistime.
They weren't respectable.
They, you know, were mothersout of wedlock, which, again,
going into religion, makes them,you know, like illegitimate
(49:30):
babies are like the worst thingever, like a bastard.
God forbid, you're a bastard,right?
Yeah, there's so much stuff inthe Bible about that and you're
just like that's a soul.
It doesn't know that.
It's like born and again.
Where the hell is the father?
Like I, just in all of thisabortion talk now currently back
(49:51):
then I'm always like what ittakes to to make a baby, yeah,
where is the father?
Where is the father?
And why is he not beingpenalized for sleeping for with
a maid in, you know, under hishousehold, like which, again, is
also, you know, sexualharassment, because guess what?
Can she say?
(50:12):
no, probably not because she'snot going to get fired and she
won't be able to find anotherjob.
So it's like this.
This case is just so interwovenwith women's rights and, again,
when women don't have rights orare looked down upon, they are
then prone to falling in withthese monsters.
(50:32):
And, you know, it makes methink of the case in Vancouver
with those hundreds ofprostitutes that were killer sex
workers, that were killed bythe pig farmer.
Like, is it because they weresex workers?
You know, again this like ideaof what a disposable person is
in our society, which tends tobe women, and then they're poor
(50:54):
and then maybe, you know, due totheir trauma, and now they're
drug addicted.
Like it's just again.
It's like the same problemsdifferent year, like 200 years
later.
And it's just, it's it's, andespecially because we're seeing
such a hard pull towards gettingrid of women's rights, it's
(51:16):
like, I think, even moreimportant to look at history and
see what happened when womenhad very little rights.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Absolutely.
I mean the fact that this waseven a law right With hand in
hand with with religion.
Yeah, you can get help, you cango to the parish, but can't be
a mom, can't be a mom, you justcan't be a mom.
Possible?
Well, I hope you didn't really.
But you know, yeah, this is ait's it's.
(51:47):
It's shameful.
And what's most shameful is youthink you learn that we would
learn from these events, fromthese cases?
You know what a horrible societyto allow that during Victorian
England, in 19th century.
But then also, who are we now?
You know, it's it's case bycase, it's society by society.
We pick and choose our battles,but you can't forget, in the
(52:10):
1970s, nypd referred to murderedprostitutes and sex workers as
non human on the reports thatfill out non human.
Yeah, so that's only a fewdecades.
We're only a few decadesremoved from that and today they
are still deemed non human.
As far as I'm concerned, yeah,man, again, I'm a dark subject,
(52:33):
but I'm really I'm happy thatwe're shining light on this
subject because you know, we gotto learn from this you know,
yeah, exactly, or at least haveit become a knowledge that a
monster can do something likethis in the correct conditions.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
And obviously the correct conditions were
happening because there werebaby farms all over the UK and,
as I said, australia and theUnited States as well.
So that actually existed, andthat in itself is horrifying.
I mean, just the existence of ababy farm is horrifying, and
then, of course, you just needone demented person to take it
(53:12):
to just the most horrifyingconclusion.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
So I tried having conversations with my friends
and family who are completelyunaware of what a baby farm even
is.
No one believes me.
They're like you're creatingcabbage patch kids.
I'm like, no, no, we're notgrowing the baby farm, it's,
it's, it's.
(53:39):
That's how shocking it is.
People are just like you'remaking this up, but it's no no,
yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And again, the consequence that mothers did not
have the support to keep theirchildren Period Full stop, and
yeah, anyway.
And so for somebody to havelike 600 children at one time,
like where do you?
How?
Like I don't, I don't even havethe imagination to figure out
like what that could possiblyeven look like.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
And also, it's interesting, dominique is like
she she herself is a mother,yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
But again, I think that when you have a society
that sees a large part of theirpopulation as disposable
nothings, it's easy and, as yousaid, she came from a family
that she could go to school.
So you know there was there'sclass issues in this as well,
and I mean what the atrocitiesthat happen in India with, like
(54:34):
their class situation goes withthe intangibles, so it's like,
again, it's such a microcosm,like you know, turned up to 100
of what could happen under theseconditions.
So, hey, we're back with withsome darkness to start your
middle of August with.
Yeah, please let us know on onInstagram and YouTube, like what
(54:59):
you think about this and doyour research on the baby farms
too, because it is such ahorrifying but fascinating topic
as to again like what we ashumans permit to happen in our
midst, in our society, and maybewe can go forward trying to
change some of that.
So I don't know if you can goany further than this episode.
(55:23):
I'm not sure what we're goingto do next week, but it'll
definitely be lighter than this.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
And again.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
it's not not not possible to go deeper and darker
than this one.
And yeah, thanks for listening,and we're back weekly again.
So check us out next week and,as I said, we'll try to do
something a little bit morelighthearted when it comes to
murder.
That's even possible.
(55:54):
I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
That sounds good.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
Until we're like so we're doing a case of 20 people.
That I was like oh, sorry,sorry, sorry, there's, there's,
no.
There's no lightheartedness andmurder, except for if you're
watching only murders in thebuilding.
So maybe there's a lighthardness there.
And in a cozy mystery, he gothit in the head with a
candlestick.
(56:20):
As lighthearted as murder getsright.
Accidental death stories, youknow or you know that dude who
falls over the cruise ship onhis like on his honeymoon.
Is that light heart?
I don't know?
Sorry, covid brain, and justlike lost it.
(56:42):
But thank you for sticking withus and, yeah, we look forward
to hearing what you guys thinkabout this episode and see you
next week.
This episode was sponsored bythe Creek killer book one in the
(57:28):
Harriet Harper thriller serieswritten by me, dominic Abast.
What would you do if you read?
The police found your body in acreek?
Find out in the creek killeravailable on Amazon.
Thank you for joining me andlistening to this episode.
If you like my show, pleasegive me a rating and review.
It helps other listeners findthis podcast.
(57:49):
Follow Dominica best presentsthe deviant mind wherever you
listen to your podcasts.
Visit the best storytellingnetworkcom where you'll find
show notes, my books, links tosocial media and much more.
Join my patreon for specialsubscriber perks like two extra
exclusive episodes a month and aQ&A with me at patreoncom
(58:14):
forward.
Slash the deviant mind podcastUntil next time.
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