Episode 96 - Florence Maybrick

This week on Twisted Britain, Bob follows up on Alis Liverpool poisoners with another female poisoner for the Liverpool area only a few years later Florence Maybrick, was she a poisoner or was she the victim of a misogynistic court system

Thank you for listening

Episode Transcript

(00:34):
Hello and welcome to Twister Britain,a podcast on true crime in Britain with
the sprinkling of the weir the macaband your hosts are me Bob Dale and
me Ali Downey. Good evening,Ali Downey. How are you, sir?
I'm fabulous, fabulous. You're lookingfabulous? Might I say? I
am rocking and rolling today, rockingand rolling. Yeah, whatever's required,
whatever's required, you're you're in forit. Yeah. We didn't record last

(00:55):
week. Someone was on Well Ifelt like somebody turned me inside out.
I don't feel much better. Atleast I can talk this week. Also,
it was Halloween, Yeah, itwas I went out guysing with the
kids. Nice. Isaac was dressedas a Knight of the round table,
which one or just generic circumference.It comes round and round circumference, yeah,

(01:15):
or ceramic he went to pieces.No, I'm full in panto mode
at the moment, so we haveto So guysing is the Scottish version of
trick or treating. Yeah, butwithout the trick because Scottish people are nice.
Yeah, you just but you stillhave to do something to own your
sweets. Yeah, you can't justturn up and go I'm a fucking baby,

(01:36):
Yoda, give us a mars bar. But if for any reason you
don't get treats in Scotland, you'renot allowed to burn people's houses down,
very very true. You should alsonever do that, yeah, or toilet
paper them. Poppige, we've neverdone never. Never. Poppy was dressed
as a peacock called Jimmy. Shewanted to be Jimmy Peacock. So that's

(01:57):
the noise of the peacock. Isthat an actual thing? I love that?
Thanks very much for doing that.In my ears, it's exactly the
same. I enjoyed that a lot. Do you want to know what Isaac's
Halloween joke was, what do ghostseat for dessert? I don't know.
I scream, It's amazing. Wheredo they buy their ice scream from?

(02:20):
Marks and spooksters? Very good.I enjoyed it a lot. There you
are. So we went in thedoors of are we called the Sacon,
and all the old gins letters inand they got free sweets and stuff.
It was it was lovely actually,And then we didn't record because I felt
like dog shit. So we areback in the settling this evening. It's
actually very quiet. It's like theperfect recording night and I've jinxed it now

(02:43):
one hundred million people will turn upin a minute. But other than that,
it's my turn to tell you acase this evening. I'm looking forward
to it. Yeah, it's oneI came across because I found it when
I was doing Your Catherine Katherine Haggertayand Your Black Widows of Liverpool. Yeah,

(03:04):
the Poisoners. I was look upfor a quick synopsis of the episodes
so that i'm uploading them, Ican I can say the name of the
podcast and a quick synopsis that goeswith the episode, and I typed ten
eighteen eighties Liverpool poisoners and obviously you'rethe top hits were the ones that you
just you covered in last time's episode, and then maybe three or four hits

(03:24):
down was the case I'm going totell you this evening. So I thought,
you know what, I'd never heardof it. It turns out it's
quite a reasonably famous case poisoning inthe late Victorian era. But I'll tell
you about it in a minute.I am going to start by asking you
a question, though, have youheard of the term arsenic eater? No?

(03:46):
Neither, I I can guess whatit is. Yeah, it's somebody
that eats arsenic. Yeah, butI know we've talked about arsenic on I
mean many occasions, many many occasions. It comes up in one hundreds of
the episodes that we're talking about,But I never heard this term. Basically,
what it is is people who wereusing it kind of recreationally, so
kind of microdosing on arsenic because itwas seen as a Using it recreationally makes

(04:08):
it sound like a recreational drug.Yeah, well, they were kind of
using it for virility basically and acure all almost it didn't work. Oh
no, for either of those things. No, you're right, it didn't.
But the case I'm going to tellyou about this evening is about our

(04:30):
victim in this case for instant Yeah, our victim is an arsenic eater,
a man by the name of JamesMaybrick. Well, i'll tell you about
James the minute, but I'm goingto tell you about his wife, Florence.
Now, Florence was an American womanwho in eighteen eighty nine was sentenced
to hang, having been found guiltyof our husband's murder by poisoning. But

(04:50):
did she do it? And didshe hang? Well? I can answer
one of those questions for you lateron, and we'll have to wait and
see what your thoughts are on theother question when we get to the end,
because I'd be interested to see whatyou think about whether she was guilty
of this, whether he just atearsenic. Well that I think we can
without spoil alerting this. He definitelyate arsenic a considerable amount of it,

(05:15):
and I like, yeah, asilly amount of it and not just arsenic.
But we'll get onto that in abit. As I said, I
came across this case when we werelooking up a synopsis for the Black Widows
of Liverpool episode, and I don'tthink i'd come across this one if I
hadn't been looking for that. Sothank you to you for that, because
if you had actually sent me asynopsis, I would never find this case.
So your laxaday feel coal attitude tothis has helped me this time.

(05:36):
Thank you. Nice. Let itnever be said that my lack of attention
and commitment to not working does notsometimes yield results. It's not kind of
what I meant, but we'll gowith it. Yeah, I'll get my
dig in early, but they areour story happens in Liverpool. But we

(05:58):
don't start this evening in Liverpool.In fact, we don't even start in
Britain. WHOA For the start ofour story, this evening and the beginnings
of Florence's life, we have totravel across the flond to the USA,
specifically to Alabama and a town calledMobile Mobile. Mobile, Alabama is in
one place. Very good. Ifthat's the level of humor we're going with

(06:21):
this evening, you keep that up. Florence was born to Carry and William
Chandler in September of eighteen sixty two. Sadly, her father had died a
few months before she was born,but it was not long until her mother
married another man, who then wentoff to sea and died. She then
remarried for a third time in avery short period, but see this time

(06:45):
married a German baron by the nameof al Forse no, sorry, a
German baron by the name of Aldolphvonn Rox, who was a cavalry officer
in the German Army. Florence's motherthen assumed the title of which she continued
to use for the rest of herlife. I would yeah, yeah,
you'd be happy as a baroness forthe rest of your life. Yeah,

(07:06):
I can see you being a baroness. Baroness, Ali, I'd have that
on my bank card. The beginningsof her life, the first kind of
eighteen years of her life, arereasonably well to do. Her family would
quite well off. Her father,her biological father, was a well off

(07:27):
man, and so the family hadmoney. And then she married. Her
mother married this baron, so shewas used to quite a decent standing in
life. And as such, theytraveled on steamships around the world, and
on one occasion, when she wasnineteen years old in eighteen ninety one,
she boarded the white star liner theSS Baltic, and she was heading the
cold ship. It's really cold.Yeah, I mean, like I said,

(07:49):
keep that level of humor right upthere, cheers. The s S
Baltic Cold ship was heading from theStates to Paris on a trip. But
it was on board this ship thatshe met a man by the name of
James Maybrick who was a cotton traderand by all kounts of a wealthy one.
He was moving back and forth betweenthe States bringing cotton to Liverpool,
which it would have been big businessin the late eighteen hundreds. Massive The

(08:15):
two of them met on the shipand they were seeing kind of a courting
and being together on the ship,and there was kind of chat amongst the
other passengers. Because I didn't actuallylook up, but I would imagine that
passage took weeks. Oh would havedone weeks and weeks, so they would
have been on board that ship fora long time and probably dining in a

(08:35):
decent ball dining room and that kindof stuff, because they were well off
people. The big thing about thetwo of them is there was a twenty
three year age difference between them.James Maybrick was in his early forties while
Florence had not reached the age oftwenty yet. Despite this age gap and
the rumors and the conjecture that wasgoing on on board, the two of
them fell in love and, aswe've talked about in a few times,

(08:58):
got married very quickly on the boat. Not quite on the boat, but
it was essentially weeks after they met, you know, once they got off
the ship. It was a coupleof months after they got off the ship
that they got married. Good forthem. They got married in St James's
Church in London on the twenty seventhof July in eighteen ninety one. They
then spent the first few years oftheir marriage traveling back and forth between the

(09:20):
States, where they spent time inVirginia and when they were in the UK,
they would be in Liverpool, whichwas James's hometown. I guess Virginia
because that would have been gotten country. Yeah, and he had part of
his Enslave country. I mean,the two of them kind of go hand
in hand, don't they really.And he had a company of state or
a company premises in Virginia that hewould go back and forth to, and

(09:43):
his brothers were in the trade aswell. So yeah, they spent a
couple of years dotting back and forthacross the Atlantic, probably very much enjoying
themselves as one of them young andin love and the other one in love.
After a couple of years, thecouple have their first child, James.

(10:07):
This was eighteen ninety two, andthey continued back and forth across the
Atlantic with a small bundle in towfor a couple more years before the family
settled down in Liverpool in a ratherlovely mansion house called battle Crease House,
good name. It was a verynice house, reportedly have flushing toilets.
That's incredible in eighteen ninety one.Yeah, and when you look at the

(10:30):
picture, so I had a quicklook at the pictures of what is it's
not called battle Crease House anymore,but the mansion still stands as a singular
country house and a couple of acresof land. It's a sick house.
It's big Victorian, it's probably Georgians, the same toilet. It's a pretty
bush, yeah, and it's it'sa big, like seven bedroom house.
Lovely, lovely place. So theyhad a pretty nice setup going on,

(10:52):
and it wasn't long before another childcomes along, this time a daughter,
Gladys Evelyn. It's a bit ofan understatement to say it was a nice
house. And as I say,it's kind of seven bedrooms mansion style.
And what comes with that kind ofcountry house is, of course servants.
And they had four of them.A cook in the kitchen, a couple
of housemaids, and a nanny bythe name of Alice. And it all

(11:16):
seems quite adyllic, and it wouldhave been if it wasn't for the fact
that the family were living pretty muchwell beyond their means. They were known
in society, like in high society. They were known as a happy,
rich couple, and they were allthe most important social fund social functions going
around. They were seeing balls anddancing and horse racing and you name it,

(11:39):
and the maybricks were there. Sofrom the outside looking in, you
would have been forgiven to thinking theyhad it all. But they did,
As most do, have a fewthings going on behind the scenes that the
general public would not have known about, and a few that they possibly would
have known about but weren't saying anythingabout. James was a serial cheat her.

(12:01):
He had a slew of affairs,one of which resulted in five children
from the one mistress. Now,I think we can do the quick maths
to say that the affair had beengoing on for a while if they'd had
five children. Outside of a bit, I'm going to go out there and
say he was probably having the affairwith the mistress before he met Florence and
got married because of the time frame. One of the accounts I think I

(12:24):
heard it on one of another podcastsI listened to about this case, suggested
that they've been together in the regionof twenty years. Talk about having your
cake and eating it, though,what you mean he was just rich with
family here there and everywhere he's achieveda young, beautiful wife twenty odd years
his junior, and he's carrying onextra marital affairs. And it's interesting you

(12:48):
say that because Florence was by allaccounts like beautiful, very you know,
fair skinned, like I can showyou some of this gets drawings over and
she'd, you know, for hertime period, she's a very beautiful woman.
And he would have been like,I hate to say, trophy on
the arm, but I think probablyhow he saw it, Florence was not

(13:09):
rosy in her entirety. She wasa very beautiful young woman, and she
was probably not very happy within themarriage. And although she put up a
front at most social occasions, takingpart in liaisons outside of the marital bed,
shall we put it with something thatshe also did, she was pretty
good at putting up this front andkeeping her extramarital affairs in the background.

(13:35):
She did slip up on one occasion, however, there's one specific time that's
talked about when she was at theraces, and I think it was the
Grand National ascot or Angree, where'sthe Grand National Big horse race anyway,
Liverpool? The atry, wouldn't it, Yeah, And she was seen by
quite a few people on the armof another man. This man was a
man by the name of Alfred Brearley, And we'll come back to this in

(13:56):
a moment, as it's kind ofa turning point in this story. Alfred
Brewerley was also a content trader,and he was also if he didn't work
with James Maybrick, he certainly workedalongside same industry. They would have known
each other. Yeah, before wego back to talk about Florence's dalliances,
shall we say there's one thing thatI think we should probably talk about now,

(14:20):
James himself. Well, not justJames, his health actually and his
thoughts and treatments of his health,because by all accounts, James was a
hypochondriact, which I'm pretty sure everyonelistening to will know what that means.
But just briefly, it's a personwho is overly worried about their state of
health and everything is worse in theirhead than it actually is in real life,

(14:41):
and they may even believe that theyhave things wrong with them that they
don't in fact have wrong with them. That's a fairly generic summary of a
hypochondria. Yeah, exactly, You'llget a flu and suddenly think you're having
a heart attack, I'm actively dying. Yeah, exactly. I think it's
like at that level. I wouldgo as far to say as I think
hypochondria in itself would probably be treatedtoday alongside the illness that you thought you

(15:05):
were dying from. They'd probably treatit as a mental state or a mental
disorder. Mental disorder sounds wrong,but you know what I mean. It
would be a mental health state aswell that they would be treating you for.
But of course we're talking about theeighteen eighties eighteen nineties, and they
wouldn't have been treating the mental sideof things, and for much apart.

(15:26):
I would imagine that doctors would takehim on his word about pains and enailments
and things wrong with him, becausethe testing of such wouldn't have quite been
there. Although you're not going toget chucked in an MRI scanner to see
if you've got something wrong with you, and they would have to take on
a scale of and run bloods.They did run bodily fluid tests. There's

(15:50):
a point later on that we'll talkbriefly about it, but they talk that
they did run very simply, theyran tests for metal within your urine or
chemical imbalances within bloods and urines andstuff like that. It's one of the
ways they would find traces of poisonwithin the body. It is run.
It's not a screening blood test likewe would talk about now. No,

(16:11):
it's an add the blood to thisif their solution changes color it contains heavy
metal. Yeah, that's exactly so. Yeah, you're right, we're not
running bloods, but they could dotests upon bodily fluids. Yeah. Now,
what can we say about medication inthe late eighteen hundreds, We've talked
about itches, leeches, yep,We've talked a lot about specific medications that

(16:33):
were given out. They love leechesthough, leeches forevery then leeches. I
was about to break into peaches,remember the present went to the contree gonna
eat a lot of peaches. That'sas much as we can do. Yeah,
that's for legal reasons. We can'tbreak into It comes in a can
from a man downtown. A coupleof our old friends appear in medications of

(16:56):
the time, arsenic and strictly anda lot of other things that would not
get anywhere near a medicine cabinet nowadays. I actually watched mercury yeah, absolutely,
unless it's in a thermo matter.Yeah, okay, but not in
a medication. I actually watched theBBC did a series called Murder, Mystery

(17:18):
and My Family, and one ofthe episodes was about this and they speak
to a doctor who looks at alist of medications that James Maybrick was taking
and basically says, it's an extensivelist. It's quite impressive. On that
list, there's only two that wouldbe seen as possibly being used today and
the rest of them would just beseen as don't put that in your body

(17:40):
and detrimental absolutely would make you worse. So as I say, we've got
the presence of strychnine an arsenic inmedications at the time, and we've got
a hypochondriact and I know what you'rethinking. Poison was in the house and
it was used against him. Caseclosed. And that has been the summary
of a cases that we've done,you know. I know, I go

(18:03):
back to the Square Matle of Murderin Glasgow on occasion, and it was
a madeline that went and got Ineeded extra poison for the rats. He
was just slowly drip feeding arsenic intointo her husband and that's how she killed
him, and that would have beenthe case. But as I mentioned at
the beginning, he was an arseniceater. So the presence of arsenic in

(18:23):
the house wasn't surprising. No,it wasn't of the ordinary. It was
explainable. Yes, and on thisoccasion, we're not even halfway through what
we're telling you about, so itwould be a very odd thing to say,
and she used the poison against himand killed him and took his money.
That's absolutely not the case this time, and it's one of the This

(18:45):
is what interested me about this casewhen I started reading about it is it's
it's got that lead up to whatwe've talked about before and takes a week
funny turn. And we'll get tothat funny turn in just a moment.
So we can't just follow the moneytrail this time. No, absolutely not.
There literally is no money on thisone. I actually that is unusual.
I actually think this may annoy youmore than anything I've ever talked about.

(19:07):
But the anyway, we'll come backto that before we go on.
However, I would like to makea point of saying that the person that
was giving and indeed taking the medicinewith arsenic in it was the patience himself.
James, as I said, hewas a hyperchondriact and as such he
thought that the help that he wasgetting this from these drugs was what's keeping

(19:29):
them alive. And several doctors wouldhave prescribed him a plethora of concoctions for
him to take but also self medicateand not in a fun way, and
he wasn't shy about the way hewould do it. He would tell people
he was self medicating and using poisonsin homemade concoctions, one of which he
would regularly take a cup of meatjuice with arsenic in it in as a

(19:52):
way of treating himself for gastric problems, not on the advice about anyone,
just because he thought that's a goodidea. And I say he wasn't shy
about telling people. He certainly toldcertain people that this is what he did.
And meat juice is was a thing. Two of the worst words ever.
Yeah, when used together like that, when put together, absolutely,

(20:17):
but it was basically juice. Ilike it. It was basically a boiled
down off cuts of meat, Sothe bits that wouldn't make it to the
butchers and stuff that would boil downand put into a concoction and the awful
Yeah, it was boiled aful,absolutely, and it was given to people
who couldn't take food, and maybefor medical reasons they couldn't ingest the meat

(20:41):
itself. Yeah, but they thoughtthe goodness that would come from the meat
in this juice would help them tosurvive. Absolutely. So yeah, he
would take a cup of that ifI feel one, well, I drink
a jug of pistol. I wasgonna go borel because I was picturing ballrel
in my head. But yeah,bestill the same shit in it, like,
just with a couple of drops atarsenic in it. Yeah, brilliant,

(21:04):
so's my out every time. Explainsa few things as well. So
what do we have here. Wehave a man who is actively taking poison
as a way of helping his healthand a woman who is scorned by the
way her marriage has gone. Soback to Florence and her daliance is outside
of marriage. Now, before wego on, there's a lot made of
her dabbling outside of wedlock, butthere's not much of his. And we

(21:27):
know that he did, and sadlythat's just a thing of the time.
The Victorians were really good at overlookinga man's feelings, but not so much
the same for the women. Ohyeah, it's it's tick, it's I
believe right now, a woman havingan affair is not grounds for a divorce
yet, No, not at all. No, absolutely, it's not.

(21:48):
Sorry, No, a man havingan affair is not grounds, yes,
for a divorce yet, but awoman having an affair absolutely legal rounds for
divorce. And that's played out abit later on in the story, and
we'll can I bear more light onthat as we go on, but for
now, Florence, as I said, had been seen on the arm of
Alfred Briarly, and the fact thatshe'd done it so openly at the races

(22:08):
is what James was most angry about. So in return to the house that
evening after she had been seen onAlfred's arm, a massive row takes place
between the pair and it ends inFlorence being physically assaulted, probably not for
the first time, but on thisoccasion, not only did he attack her,
but he also informed her of hiswant for a divorce. Oh now,

(22:30):
this won't come as a shock thatthe feeling was indeed mutual, but
they didn't get to divorce proceedings asonly two weeks later, James sought the
opinion of yet another doctor, thistime for dizziness of the head and numbness
in his legs. There was nodefinitive diagnosis given, but I would imagine
there was a new Tonic or twoadded to his plethora of poisons sorry medications.

(22:56):
In late April of eighteen eighty nine, James took to his bed very
unwelcome planing of stomach problems. Hewas told to take prussic acid along with
milk to alleviate the pains. Thisdid not work. I guess probably like
an indigestion tablet. Yeh, milkis what I would have thought of that,
But I don't know what the prussicacid would have done. But that's
what he was told to take.As I said, it didn't work.

(23:19):
But by his bed was not onlya load of the medicines that he was
taking and his potions and concoctions thathe'd made himself, but his wife was
there as well to nurse him.She did so as she was well versed
in nursing James. He was alwaysquite sick, and she did play the
dutiful wife very well and brought himfood and helped him with his medications,

(23:40):
slash poisons, slash poisons. Onething that happened later. One thing that
happened in the later part of Aprilthat I thought you might find interesting was
that Florence on the twenty third ofApril went to a local chemist and bought
fly paper that she then soaked inwater in a bowl on the washstand.
Yeah, we've come across it methodof obtaining arsenic before, and that's exactly

(24:02):
what she said she was doing withit. She said she was soaking the
flypaper to obtain the arsenic out ofit and use it as a solution to
help with her complexion and clear upspots. And it's worth noting that arsenic
was in women's cosmetic products at thetime, absolutely, and a chemist,
when questioned in the trial later onthat we'll get to, said it was

(24:23):
quite common that outside of fly seasonthat women would still buy flypaper and soak
it and use it as that becauseit was cheaper than buying the beauty product.
Yeah, they believed that arsenic wouldmake them look younger. It's not
even just a belief. It activelyworked. It would have killed the back
and everything. And it was usedas drops for the white to meet your

(24:45):
eyes whiter. And it was usedher teeth, and I don't know if
it was used for bleaching like pigmentof skin it was, but it's certainly
used for clearing up outbreaks of acneand spots and and eruptions of the skin.
Yeah, I thought you'd like thatbecause we talked about fly paper before.
So this was her no excuse forhaving it. That's why she says

(25:06):
she had it during this period ofillness of James's. Florence gave the nanny
Alice that we mentioned earlier a letterthat she needed posted to her lover Alfred.
Whilst on the way to post it, it accidentally fell in a puddle
and opened. That happens to meall the time. And instead of not
reading it and putting it back inan envelope, she read it and passed

(25:27):
it on to James. Maybe,well, you've got to read it because
if it's got wet, you haveto know what's in it. Is that
the rule? Yeah, I didn'tknow that rule. Yeah, never drop
your letters in a puddle, exactlyright. Fine. She passed on what
she'd read in this letter to JamesMaybrick's brothers, as it was quite damning.

(25:48):
There is a sentence that stands outin the letter that I can either
read you the letter in its entirety, or I can just give you the
sentence that stood out for me.Your choice. How long is the letter?
One hundred words? Two hundred words? Hit us with the whole letter,
Dearest, Thanks your letter, Cupcake. Dearest, your letter uncovered to
John Kay came to hand just asI had written to you on Monday.

(26:11):
I did not expect to hear fromyou so soon, and had delayed in
giving him the necessary instructions. Sincemy return, I have been nursing em
day and night. He is sickand to death. The doctor's had the
consultation yesterday, and now it alldepends upon how long his strength will hold
out. But my brothers in lawsare here and we are terribly anxious.

(26:32):
I cannot answer your letter fully today, my darling, but relieve your mind
of all fear of discovery now andin the future. M has been delirious
since Sunday, and I know nowthat he's perfectly ignorant of everything, even
of the name of the street,and also that he has been making that
he's not been making any inquiries whatsoever. The tale he told me was poor

(26:53):
fabrication and only intended to frighten thetruth out of me. In fact,
he believes my statement, although hewill not admss it you will. You
need not therefore go abroad on thisaccount, dearest, But in any case,
please do not leave in England untilI have seen you once again.
You must fear that those two lettersof mine were written under circumstances which must
even excuse their injustice in your eyes. Do you suppose that I could act

(27:17):
as I am doing if I reallyfelt and meant what I inferred in them.
If you wish to write me aboutanything, do so now, as
all the letters passed through my handsat present. Excuse this scrawl my own,
darling, But I dare not leavethe room for a moment, and
I do not know when I shallbe able to write to you again in
haste, yours ever, Flory.So the sentences stood out in that to

(27:38):
me was the since my return,I have been nursing M day and night.
He is sick until death. Nowthe reason it stands out is it
was italicized and underlined the sick untildeath part. That would make it stand
out. Yeah, but it's mwas what she called James maybrick, And
the other sentence in it is thatshe basically is saying, he's fucked.

(28:03):
He's going to die. He's goingto die. Please don't leave. He's
going to die. He knows nothing. Now, this comes across quite badly,
and it never obviously reaches Alfred becauseit's sent to James's brothers, and
they indeed decied to stay at thehouse as is indicated in the letter and
help with their brother's illness. Theyare pissed off with Florence and very suspicious

(28:26):
of her, and part of whatthey do is banish her from the room
and from caring for him, asobviously they suspect that she is the cause
of his illness through poisoning. Now, you and I, I would imagine,
would assume that if it was thecase that she was the poisoner in
this instance, that removing her froma room and not allowing her to tend

(28:48):
to him we would se an improvementin his condition. Yeah, this,
however, did not happen. Hedid not start to get better with the
removal of Florence. But was hestill taking his own menat occasions? I
don't know the answer to that Iknew you were going to answer that I
asked that, But I I don'tsee any reason for him to not be
He was certainly under the instructions ofdoctors at this time to take things like

(29:11):
the prussic acid and milk. Whetherhe was still partaking in his meat broth
and arsenic concoctions meat jus, Idon't know if that was going on,
But I think in the front oftheir heads was Florence is actively poisoning the
food or actively poisoning something, somethingthat was coming to the room, So
let's remove her from the situation andit'll get better. That didn't happen,

(29:36):
So you're left with its quandary thenof a very sick man and the thing
that you thought it was has kindof been removed from the scenario. They
did take the time out while theywere there to search the house, and
they found enough arsenic in many placesto have killed an army of people.
Yes, but in many places,in many forms, in over one hundred

(30:00):
different bottles or powders or whatever ithad been. Yeah, one account of
Red said there was enough arsenic inrout in that house to kill fifty men.
But that's fifty men who've never takenarsenic before. He's a man who,
as I say, is an arseniceater, so he would have built

(30:22):
up a tolerance, a tolerance levelto the poison in itself. Absolutely,
And as you say, you know, it wouldn't have been the surprise to
find it in the house, ina Victorian house. It was, as
we've talked about before, in ahuge number of household items, rat poison,
skincare, fly paper. So it'snot surprising that they've found some quantities
of it. It's probably quite surprisingthey found enough to kill fifty People's a

(30:47):
lot. The quantity that they foundis massive. A few days later,
on the eleventh of May, JamesMaybick died and a post mortem was carried
out on him in the thirteenth ofMay. And when he died war cause
his wife still not treating him.Was she still banished from the room?
Yeah, I guess so. Shewas certainly removed from his care yep within

(31:10):
the week before, so they removedher for a couple for a few days,
is what I read. And hishealth didn't improve in those few days.
We're talking about a matter of fiveor six days from that letter being
written. To him dying. SoI can't see any reason for letting her
back in when they found that quantityof arsenic in the house and they suspect

(31:32):
like they heavily suspected her, Sopossibleton as I say, was carried out
the thirteenth of May. Guess whatthey found That his entire internal organs were
made of arsenic? Absolutely not.Oh they did find arsenic, but nowhere
near the amount that would be usedto kill a man. About a tenth
of a grain of arsenic now thatis was founding his liver and his system

(31:59):
was a bit and is about tento twenty times less than his needed to
kill the average man. So theyfound a tenth a pittance of a pittance
of arsenic in his system. Butit's certainly not a lethal dose. No,
But it's also not going to makeyou feel well. It's not going

(32:20):
to make a normal person feel well. So that's a very interesting point there.
It's not going to make you andI with a tenth of a grain
of arsenic in our system horrible time, horrible, horrible roller coaster ride of
shit. Yeah. However, aman who has actively been taking arsenic because
he believed it made him feel betterfinding that amount of arsenic in him was

(32:42):
quite a small amount. Yeah,it actually suggested they reckon that he'd not
been taking it for a couple ofweeks, because if you've been taking the
amount that he was normally taken,they would have expected to find more than
that. That still wouldn't have killedhim, because he was had a tolerance
level above your average human. Yeah, we're assuming we know how much he's
normally taken, though, if he'staking arsenic in many different forms and he's

(33:06):
self medicating it, it's very difficultto actually know what volume in terms of
yeah, he's not melagrams, microgramshe's actually taking. Yeah, he's not
measuring out x amount every time.You're right, he's probably just putting away
half teaspoon or whatever. And yetyeah, I mean not half a teaspoon
arsenal, but you know what Imean, he's probably mixing a wee couple
of drops in. But yeah,half a tea spoon would do that,

(33:28):
would do it, even even forJames. I think he might have done
it. But yeah, it wascertainly it was. Yeah, as we
say, it's enough to make youraverage man that hasn't been taking arsenic for
years feel rope at best, butit certainly wasn't enough to kill James or
a normal man or a normal man. Indeed, there was a cocktail of

(33:49):
other poisons or medications however, dependingon how you look at it, found
in the system that are include,but are not limited to, strychnine,
hydroscene, more prussic acid, andall of these were associated with the prescriptions
that he'd been given or self administrateddrugs that he decided to give himself.
So he had a cocktail of shitthat would kill you inside of him,

(34:13):
but not enough of any of themto kill you outright. Florence was arrested
for the murder of her husband andstood trial at Saint George's Hall in Liverpool.
The trial took place over seven daysand it was a rather misogynistic affair,
shall we say. Florence, itcould be said, was put through
the trial of adultery rather than amurder trial. But will outline who was

(34:37):
called and the evidence that was givenbefore I tell you a bit about the
judge. Oh and the all malejewel jury. I'm not even sure women
could be jurors at this time.They couldn't. It was about eight years
after this that they could and theystill had to own x amount of land
before they could be considered to beallowed to be on a jury. So

(34:57):
an all male jury wasn't surprising.One of the things that was surprising,
and the first foreman of the jurywas an old workmate of James's. He
was then removed. He was removed, but it was that white, middle
to upper class level of juror thatwould have reflected the kind of people that
James was and hung around with.Yeah, so several doctors were called to

(35:22):
give evidence about the case, andthey were basically there to give their ruling
on the cause of death. Andreally they all kind of basically agreed that
it was gastro enteritis that was thecause of death. But they were not
even in disagreement, but they werecompletely at odds with each other as to
what the cause of the gastro entrotiswas. Some would have said that it

(35:44):
was due to the arsenic that hewas taking. Others argued that he was
used to taking arsenic, so thatwouldn't have caused the gastro enteritis, or
it could have been a rolling thunderthat if he'd come off the arsenic,
it would have cleared up and hewould have been fine. Others said,
oh no, this is just foodpoisoning. Others argued that it could have
been the fact that he'd been placedon a restricted diet and given supplements like

(36:08):
meat potions to try and get himoff things. Now, the worst thing
you can do to an ill manthat's you know, that's weak already is
remove all his sustenance and start givingfrom give him arsenic. Yes, well,
I say, apart from giving justa portion of meat, use at
arsenic is probably the next worst thing. So this kind of went back and

(36:29):
forth, but they pretty much concludedacross a range of medical experts, including
doctors, coroners, nurses, thatthis was not solely the result of an
arsenic poisoning administered as an attack onhis being, but that the arsenic in
his system was expected to be thereby a man who had habitual usage,
and he was using it almost asa recreational drug, remember, so that

(36:52):
it would have been there he hadn't, for example, exhibited the telltale signs
of arsenic poisoning that would have resultin his death, the swollen skin and
vomiting, and a man who usedit as much as he did they would
have had to pour in so muchthat he would have got darkened skin and
his tongue would have turned black.None of this happened, but then he

(37:15):
had built up a huge resistance,So you have to question whether those normal
symptoms would have shown in him,or whether he would have just got to
a tipping point and fallen off theedge. Would he have shown the symptoms
that your average Joe would have shown, or would he have just gone fuck
it too much dead? We don'tpure speculation. I don't know the answer

(37:37):
to that question. And there isthere is another possibility as well. There's
a distinct possibility, and I don'tknow because I'm not a doctor or a
biologist or a chemist, but there'sa distinct possibility that a tenth of the
level of arsenic that's needed to killyou, taken consistently over a long period

(37:57):
of time will do long term damagethat show the intense arsenic poisoning symptoms you'd
get from one huge dose. Soyeah, you're thinking maybe like in an
internal failings, Yeah, because ofthe continual use rather than that dump here's
a load of it shuts you offexactly. Yeah, totally not. I
don't think it was something that cameacross in the readings that that was assumed

(38:21):
that they basically said he died ofguest or enterity, So he I died
of a stomach disease or stomach failings. Excuse my ignorance on what guest or
entroritor says, but they're all prettymutually agreed that it wasn't the arsenic that
it killed him, but that couldhave been a like you say, that
contributing factor exactly, that's exactly thewords I'm looking And also, again we're

(38:45):
not focusing on the arsenic, butwe've already said he's taken a cocktail of
other things as well, So youcould be talking about a tenth of the
amount of arsenic to kill you,a tenth of the amount of strict nine
to kill you, a tenth ofthe amount of prosaic acid to kill you,
yeah, a tenth of the amountof X to k you, a
tend to the amount of why tokill you, all adding up to death.
Yeah, and it maybe doesn't takea tenth of this tenth of that.

(39:07):
You know, once you've mixed themall together, it's it's lethal.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Andthis was basically the argument that was having
court. There was loads of doctorsand nurses in the corner that did the
post morton. I interestingly, Ifound that the post morton was done in
the house. He wasn't taking away, no, just on the kitchen table

(39:27):
in the room he died in.I don't know why, but they are
random factory. So that's basically theprosecution was saying like there was a build
up of drugs, Arsenic was inthe system. He was killed by arsenic.
The defense well, sorry, thatwas it for the defense. Sorry.
Basically the signs of the use.But the prosecution, however, focused

(39:50):
very much on Florence and her shaggingoutside of marriage. This is a sin,
and a woman who sins in thisway obviously could kill. The letter
that had been accidentally opened by thenanny was used as one of the main
pieces of evidence to show that hewished him dead, which is not how
I read it. I did notread that that letter that says he is

(40:14):
sick until death. I do notread that as she wanted him dead.
I read that as she's extraordinarily worriedabout how sick he is. I suppose
it could be read as different ways, because it is to her lover about
her husband, So you can arguethat. I suppose you could argue that

(40:35):
why write that? But I supposeI read it as the same way as
saying I'm on death's door. Yeah, like that's what I would have taken
it from it. I'm so sick, I'm on death's door, but you're
not actually going to die. Idon't believe she wanted him dead at any
point. The trial lasted for sevendays. Well, he's her next egg.

(40:58):
Yeah, absolutely, he was givingher a weekly amount that she was
allowed to spend. It was theequivalent of about four hundred odd quid just
now, so you know she wasn'ton and that was just her living money.
Yeah. So yeah, there wasno reason for her to remove him
because they had children, and theestate would have probably gone to the oldest
male. It would have gone tothe honest mail. Yeah, so like

(41:22):
unless he specifically wrote a will sayingI leave everything to my wife, it
would have gone to the eldest male. And we don't know who the eldest
male was. He's been shagging aroundfor a while. So yeah, the
trial lasted for about seven days.Well, fine, you've had all the
doctors through and then you've had theprosecuted, the events doing their arguments and
stuff. During the trial, Florenceherself took to the stand and gave a

(41:45):
statement. She wasn't allowed to standon her own defense, but she was
allowed to give a statement, whichI will read at the end of this.
I'm going to read you the startand the end of her statement.
It's quite a long thing. I'mnot going to read all of it.
And at the end of the trialwe get to the judges summing up.
Now, I told you we'd comeback to the judge and we'll get We'll
get to the judge in a minute. But for a seven day trial,
how long do you think the judge'ssummation should take? Three hours? Yeah,

(42:07):
and that's why I'd have thought anafternoon, Yeah, stopping up the
trial. So two whole days isquite a long time for the judge to
sum up. As a percentage ofthe trial period, it's quite large.
You'd be after day one, you'dbe asking questions, Yeah, what are
you fucking on about? Yeah,it would be my main question. Depend

(42:29):
in this court room for a wholeday and all he's done is summed up.
Yeah, what we've literally just heardthis week yesterday. Yeah, yeah,
he probably probably maybe started on Mondayat this dart. Yeah. So,
let me tell you a bit aboutthe judge James Fitzjames Stephens, Justice
James Fitzjames Justice Stephens. His namewas James Fitz James Stephens. He had

(42:52):
a very long judicial career. Hespent time in India and he was quite
high flying. He was appointed tothe as a Justice to the High Court
and was a part of the creationof the Queen's Bench. Wow. It
is thought that he might have hada strong by moral gardens. Yeah yeah,
he just like the picnic bench outof side. Yeah yeah, just
that level of humor, Alley,that's what we're going for. Cheers man.

(43:15):
It's thought he might have had astroke and this led to his diminished
mental state. By the time weget to Florence's trial, he's declined both
physically and mentally quite a lot.And he had a wee bit in his
a wee bit of a being hisbonnet about things when he comes to his
last two murder trials. He presidesover two murder trials in the eighteen eighty

(43:35):
eight eighty eighty nine period. Oneof them was Israel Lipsky, who I
will come back to on another day. He was an umbrella sticks salesman in
London who had started reading about butthen I'd stopped reading because I had to
finish this case. Now, anumbrella stick salesman, Yes, just the
stick. So all he saw wasthe stick. You know everything I know
about mister Lipsky. Now, wewill come back to him on another time.

(43:57):
The second case that he had beinghis bonnet was the one we've just
talked about was Florence Maybrick. Hewas accused of bias and basically being an
asshole in both of them. Interesting. It's not often you get a judge
accused of bias. No, Andwe've come across a few cases as well
where judges have broken with what wewould call impartiality. Oh absolutely, and

(44:22):
essentially told the jury what verdict tobring back. We've talked about. What
was the case we talked about recentlythat was, this is the verdict you
should bring back a Camden Town Itwas something I can't remember, a Camden
Town murder. Anyway, This hein this case, he definitely laid his

(44:43):
instructions quite clear to the all malejury in front of him. He told
them basically to bear in mind thatthis was a floozy and she could be
guilty. Remember, he said,as part of his summing up, it
is horrible and incredible thought that awoman should be plotting the death of her
husband in order that she might beat liberty to follow her own degrading vices

(45:07):
fairly direct. It took the allmale jury less than an hour to find
Florence and Maybrick. I love thatyou've summed up the judges two day summing
up. I read some of itin a sentence. Yeah. No,
I read some of it. Andthe guys he basically said, she's a
floozy. Yeah, the guy's abell end man. I can't like.
I don't want to give him thistime. He basically he basically stood there

(45:29):
and went, if she's capable ofthat, she's capable of murder. Away,
use go and come back and tellus she's a murderer, which is
pretty much exactly what they did.Oh God. They went away for less
than an hour and they came backwith a sentence of guilty of murder.
She was sentenced to hang. Thejudge as he left the court was booed

(45:52):
by the crowds. Outside the courtroom, Boo James, fitz James, Boom
James and one hundred of police wererequired to clear the area as he left.
At the time, there was nopossibility of appeal because of the time
period we're talking about, but publicoutcry was so much that the Home Secretary,
Henry Matthews got involved and he concludedthe evidence clearly establishes that miss Maybrick

(46:16):
administered poison to a husband with intentto murder, but that there is ground
for reasonable doubt whether the arsenic soadministered was in fact the cause of his
death, which is quite a statement. He's going, I do believe she
poisoned him, but I don't thinkshe did it this time with the intent

(46:37):
to kill. Yeah, or's he'ssaying she did poison him, it's just
not what actually killed him. Yeah, pretty much, it's pretty much bullshit.
It doesn't matter what the Home Secretarysaid. However, what it did
do is it saved Florence from thenoose. Her sentence was commuted to a
life imprisonment, which at this timemeans twenty years. She served fourteen of

(47:01):
these at Woking Convict Prison before beingreleased in nineteen oh four. She spent
a long time in solitary confinement beforebeing put to work in the prison kitchens.
After her release, she returned tothe States, where she undertook a
tour lecturing on prison reform. Shekept a real identity fairly quiet, and
died in nineteen forty one in Connecticut, aged seventy nine. She sadly never

(47:25):
saw her children again, and shedied penniless. The judge in the case
said Justice Stevens resigned about eighteen monthsafter the trial and died not long after
in a mental home, so probablyshouldn't have been passing out death sentences when
he did. Now, I saidto you, I was going to read

(47:46):
it you a small part of Florence'sstatement in court now, if you allow
me just to find it, becauseit's in this the transcript of the trial,
which I thought you would love.Actually, it's all four hundred and
thirty nine pages, and it wasamazing. The research for this case would
have taken me weeks. Yeah,I'd have had to read it. So

(48:09):
i'll read you the I'm going toread you the start and the end of
our statement. There's loads. Imight put a post up to a link
to this at some Mordipedia. Sheopens with, my lord, I missed
to make a statement as well asI can to you a few facts in
connections with the dreadful, crussing chargethat has been made against me, namely
the wilful and deliberate poisoning of myhusband, the father of my dear children.

(48:34):
In conclusion, I have only toadd that for the levy of our
children and for the sake of theirfuture, a part reconciliation had taken place
between us, and that only beforehis death had I made full and free
confession to him and received his entireforgiveness for the fearful wrong I had done
to him. So she basically tookthe time in court to say, we've

(48:58):
already lost my husband, and thatthe father of my children. We had
our fallings out, we had ourrouse I came clean to him and I
told him what it was, andI she doesn't go as far to say,
as I loved him, but shegoes to far to say we could
reconciled for the sake of the children. Yeah, And basically I would not

(49:19):
have done this. And I findthat I just find those two bracketing statements
in her trial transcript quite honest.And fair because she's she goes on to
talk about the meat juices and whilewhy he did it to himself, and
he always took it himself, andshe never forced any of these things on
him. But it is a caseof if she'd been a man, I

(49:40):
don't think that trial would have goneany anywhere near the same as it did.
But because of because of a slightlybroken judge and inability to differentiate between
I was gonna say, medical scienceand his self medication. It's such a

(50:05):
funny wavy line that we don't know. Yes, he probably died, as
you say, as a concoction ofpoisons. I don't think Florence did it.
I doubt it. Florence spent fourteenyears of her life in jail for
something that she should never have goneto jail for, and if it had
been it wasn't even in her carefor the last five or six days.

(50:28):
Yeah, exactly. And you know, there is there's huge amounts of speculation
that go around about in this casethat maybe the brothers had something to do
with it, because they would havebeen in line to take the fortune of
the house and all this kind ofstuff. Who did so the brothers took
the house, the fortune of thehouse. Let's follow the money for rail.
So I did say earlier that thereis no money involved in this.
There is nobody involved specifically in thispart of the case. We're talking about

(50:50):
Battle Crease House did to pass tothe brothers. There is conjecture that one
of the brothers was in love withFlorence and wanted James out of the way.
These are all speculative side notes thatI just didn't think were worth bringing
into the case. I wanted totell you about Florence's story. Basically,
the house did pass within the family. There wasn't a huge amount of money
left at the end. You know, they were they were, as I

(51:12):
said quite early on, they werethey were going way beyond their means.
And I don't know specifically whether theyowned the house outright or whether it was
a long term lease of land andhouse. But yeah, we could,
we could speculate at a lot ofthings. Would you like to hear the
last piece of speculation that goes alongwith this story that is not going to
take me very long to cover.Yes, James Maybrick was one of the

(51:37):
suspects in the Jack the Ripper case. Ah, there is was there is
thoughts that Florence Maybrick may have killedJack the Ripper in a house in Liverpool.
That is all I'm going to sayabout this matter, because A we've
said we'll never talk about Jack ryeawe want, and B it's absolute horseship.

(51:59):
He was not the reasons that hewas associated with. It was his
handwriting was similar to the letters thatwere Jack's. Now we could also go
down the route that actually those lettersprobably didn't come from Jack. Blah blah
blah blah. He said something antisemitic in a pub. He certainly wasn't
a butcher or a surgeon, sohe did not kill the first two in

(52:22):
the anyway, we've gone too farinto Jack. Let's not do that enough.
So that is the very sad andunfortunate case of Florence Maybrick. I
do not believe she killed her husband, do I? That was my question
that I was going to post youat the end. Do you based on
what I've told you this evening?Absolutely not. I don't think so at
all. And that's not the circumstance. We frequently take on cases like this

(52:45):
where we were like, I'm notquite sure she No, I don't think
she did that. No, Idon't either. I think it's a case
of probably, like you said,not too long ago, I think it
was a culmination of him fucking aboutwith drugs that ultimately failed, his body
failed around him. Yeah, kids, don't do drugs. Don't do drugs

(53:06):
well, don't do arsenic and strychnineand prussic acid. Do whatever drugs you
want, just don't do the onesthat actively kill you. Don't do whatever
drugs you want. If your kidshave listened to this, what the fuck
are you doing? For a start? Kids? Why are you listening to
us? Yeah, I'm That wasmy take from all of this, And
there are there's one. Florence wrotea book I lost fifteen years. I

(53:30):
think it's called and it's talking abouther side of the story. I unfortunately
didn't get a chance to read it. I am going to I am going
to read it. I read toomuch of the court transcript and and other
bits and pieces to start reading anotherbook about it, because I was like,
fuck, I'm gonna get lost inthis. But I really enjoyed it,
and it was one that I justfound by random. In some of

(53:52):
the cases we cover that you dofind by random sometimes the best ones.
Yeah, I think it's probably amore well known case than you and I
think it is. It tends tobe the case. If we've not heard
of it doesn't mean it's nothing.What are you talking about. I mean,
I'm not the center of the universe. I didn't say that at all
and said you just hadn't heard allof it. I have been orbiting around

(54:13):
you all evening A fat joke.Yeah, sweet, you're welcome. Take
arsenic. I'll make you feel better. No it won't, No, it
won't. It will ultimately kill youafter years and years of taking it.
Yeah, and there you go.There's Florence Maybrick. That is a sad
story, Bob. Yeah, Ithought it might be one that would slightly

(54:34):
annoyed you. I think that's thefirst absolute confirmed wrongful conviction. Yeah,
possibly that we've covered certainly well.I've been here. It's certainly more more.
To me. It's more than amischaracter justice. It was just it
was pure misogyny in a trial thatcould have gone so easily away. And
this is a legal system so gearedagainst women as well. Yeah, absolutely

(55:00):
so. Yeah, I'm surprised thateven letter give evidence there was there was
something strange about that when I wasreading about it. She wasn't basically allowed,
she wasn't allowed to be questioned onthe stand, but she was allowed
to give a statement or she wasn't, and she certainly wasn't allowed to do
anything in her own defense evidence intheir own defense, so she was allowed
to give the statement. I'll tryand find a non scanned book version of

(55:23):
of of the of her statement incourt and we'll maybe post that somewhere because
it is an interesting read. I'llsend you the link because you'll probably read
all of it. But yeah,like I said, I chose those two
paragraphs in our sentence because I thinkthey just surmised a broken woman that said
I didn't basically I didn't do this. I admit my wrongs, but I

(55:46):
didn't do this. And that's asad moment to leave it on. But
shall we? Okay, I'm I'mupset by this case. Well I thought
you might be. I did wantyou. It is a miscarriage of justice,
and they are the worst. Here'sa question for you, miscarriage and
justice or unsolved? What pisces youoff more mischaracter justice? Yeah? Yeah,

(56:07):
yeah, I think so too.Unsolved. I can have the enjoyment
of speculation without knowing that some poorinnocent person has actually paid for this crime
and it didn't commit it. Yeah, well, I think that's the perfect
summary. I don't. Oh well, I suppose we'll do the normals.

(56:29):
You can if you enjoyed what youhear. I enjoyed some and an awful
word is And if you were interestedby what you heard this evening. We
have probably about one hundred episodes inthe back catalog that you can go back
and listen to. If you haven'tlistened to them already, please go back
and do. Wherever you listen tous, you can give us any kind
of review. Positive ones are verywelcome. Negative ones are also funny.
We don't mind. We'll take themboth. Yeah, fuck it, any

(56:51):
feedback? Smash that like bar.I believe, yes, smash that like
Bar. You can find us onall the social media channels by looking for
Twister Britain. If you want tojoin us on the Twist Britain discussion group,
please do so so on Facebook andyou can find it by looking for
a Twist about a discussion group.It's where we're going to do another live
before Christmas. Do you want tosee the live next time, which I
think over two hundred and something peoplewatched the last one. That's incredible.

(57:14):
On the evening we had about twohundred plus people watched Ma sift through twenty
synonyms from real Genitalia. Correct,amazing a lot of world we live in
live live. On the evening itwas about ten percent. I think we
had the twenty odd people watching usat one time. I'm still a little
bit sorry about that book. That'sfine, man, don't worry about it.

(57:34):
Of all the times you could havepicked to go live, it was
fun though, and it looked likewe were in a cave in Basra.
But never mind, we could havebeen in a cave in Basa. We'll
do it again, though, Wewill do it again before Christmas. We'll
find something. We'll find something todo. Oh yeah, I've got to
do twenty female. You don't,I do. You don't because you told
me the first one earlier and you'reout, Oh band, you might.

(57:55):
You might actually get as deep platformedagain again. And you're not allowed to
wear your platform shoes after this,Alista. That's about it, right,
We've actually descended into fucking nonsense.Now shall we call it a day,
let's close it up. Thanks forjoining us everyone. I really enjoyed your
case this week, Bob. Althoughit was incredibly infuriating and slightly upsetting,

(58:20):
it's a great story. Well,thank you. Let's find some more random
cases to tell people about another time. I've gonnaouce you. No. Well,
I shall leave you with a thankyou, love you bye, and
I thank you love you bye.Thanka you few bye. I can hear
yourself, thanka you bye. D