After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Ménage à Murder: 1920s Love Triangle Killers

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Edith Thompson was the model 1920's flapper girl. Her husband Percy was more suburban. When young Freddy Bywater entered the marriage home, things became deadly.This week Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story of a murder case that gripped the nation.Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited and Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code AFTERDARKYou can take part in our listener survey here.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

Buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing hundreds of names, photos, addresses and specific instructions for their murders. Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. Follow Kill List on the Wanderer app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Kill List and more exhibit C Truecrime shows like Morbid early and ad free right now by joining Wanderer Plus. And Or was it a horror movie come horribly alive? I'm thinking he killed him. I need to film the murder. I'm Keith Morrison and this is Dateline's newest podcast, The Man in the Black Mask. Listen for free each week or unlock new episodes early and enjoy ad-free listening by subscribing

to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or datelinepremium.com. Spotify or Dateline Premium.com. Today we're discussing a 1920s murder that became a national sensation, but I just wanted to let you know that this episode contains a graphic description of an execution. So if you'd rather skip it, then go catch up on one of our amazing back catalogue episodes. If you're sticking with us, then let's begin. It's a gloomy evening in Ilford, a middle-class suburb of London, on the 3rd of October 1922, and a heavy fog has descended to settle among neatly cut box hedges and rows of brick houses in this respectable neighborhood. It's late and aside from the dim pools of orange light cast by streetlights,

the darkness is all encompassing. But the street isn't empty. Moving along it now are Edith and Percy Thompson, walking arm in arm, Edith's shoes clicking on the pavement, the only sound hereabouts. They've been into town and to the theatre, and Percy listens now as Edith recounts the elements of the night she enjoyed the most. She loves a good performance. The couple, fashionably dressed, not unhandsome, though otherwise unremarkable, are almost home.

Just a few yards to their door and the evening will be over. But one of the two of them will never set foot inside again. Suddenly, from the shadows, a figure, a man leaps out in front of them. Edith is pushed to the ground, hitting her head on the pavement. Percy shouts. She scrambles to her feet. The men are fighting now, fists flying, limbs locked together, then pulled apart. They struggle for a moment.

Then in the stranger's hand, something glints. A knife. In a second, it's plunged into Percy. He cries out, so does Edith. The struggle continues, Percy gasping for air, as his assailant drags him along the street, blows raining down, and blood marking their progress. Then, as quickly as he appeared, the man from the darkness runs, vanishing into the night.

Edith rushes to Percy's side, he's slumped on the ground, bleeding out. Above them, the gas lamp flickers, and Percy breathes his last. When the police arrive, they're shocked by the scene, but it will not simply be the violence of this crime that goes down in history. This is, it will soon become clear, a tale of love, betrayal'm Anthony. And I'm Maddie. And this, of course, is After Dark. In this episode, as you heard there, we are exploring one of the most scandalous and controversial

murder cases from the early 20th century, the story of Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters. As Maddy was explaining, it's a tale of love, there's betrayal in there, and then of course murder. And it's a murder that captivated the British public in 1922, even prompting a petition signed by over a million people. And it's still causing controversy today. As you might remember, we've done a couple of other episodes set in the 1920s. They've been about the supernatural. We did the Cottingley fairies, i.e. pieces of paper on a stick, and Harry Houdini's

ghost-busting escapades. But this is slightly different because there are absolutely no fairies and no ghosts in this one. That is absolutely right, Anthony. The Thompson-Bywater case does have everything else though. It's a torrid affair, an unsuspecting husband and an almost unbelievable series of love letters that are going to seal Edith Thompson's fate. But the question will be whether the people accused of this murder are guilty or innocent.

So let's dive in without any further ado to this tragic tale and attempt to uncover the truth. So we're in the 1920s, Mari. This sounds like it's going to be quite a complex case in itself, but let's zoom out for a second and give me some of the context that's happening at this time in the UK. So the thing that I really want to talk about, and's relevant to this case is women's rights at the beginning of the 20th century. We know that the suffragettes begin their campaign well before the First World War and it's during that conflict that they really ramp up their efforts and that women begin to enter the workforce, filling in the gaps of men who are away fighting. And this really changes society. In the moment of this case at the beginning of the 1920s, we're in a post-war world, there is quote

unquote, a surplus of young women in Britain, because so many of the young men have died. And so there's a real sort of gender imbalance here. The role that women have, particularly women who now cannot look forward to getting married, having children, the traditional things that their mothers and grandmothers in the Victorian period would have expected from their lives, are for many not going to be an option. There are simply not enough men. And not only this, but women are starting to reassess what they're capable of in the world, what they can go and do. And we start to see real social, real legal, real cultural change. So the representation of the People Act in 1918

means that women, some women, women over 30, women who own property can vote. But it should be said that not all women over the age of 21 were allowed to vote until 1928. So we're in the middle of those two big changes. In the US, the 19th Amendment is granted in 1920 that also gives women the right to vote. So on both sides of the Atlantic, there is huge change taking place. Now there are changes to property rights, employment protections, women are, as I said, entering the workspace more and more, but also are getting more control over the money that they earn. Women who are married, for example, have their income protected in a way that they didn't before. It's not necessarily

going all the way to their husbands. As a result of all these changes and this new level of empowerment, we start to get this very modern idea of what a woman is. And we start to get the idea of the flapper. This is a fashionable young woman, someone probably with bobbed hair, with a hemline that is getting shorter and shorter and shorter. The way that women present themselves in the world is changing, the way that they operate, the power that they have is all changing. And Edith Thompson, the woman at the centre of this case, is absolutely at the forefront of this.

She becomes in the eyes of the press and the public, the absolute embodiment of the flapper of this modern woman for better and for worse. Oh God, the fact that she is becoming the embodiment of this modern woman for better and for worse. God, the fact that she is becoming the embodiment of this modern woman when I know what's coming, that's going to be problematic. But tell us a little bit more about her specifically. OK, so Edith is born at the end of the Victorian period in 1893. She's born on Christmas Day. I know someone who's born on Christmas Day, actually.

It's always very nice. Oh, no, I think it'll be terrible. No, I like it. I think there's a, it feels magical. It feels lovely and magical. Anyway. Right, like you're Jesus. Edith is Jesus. That's the twist in the case. We've solved it. Goodbye. The end. Thank you for listening to After Dark. She's born on Christmas Day, 1893, in London. She's born Edith Jessie Graydon. She grows up in this lower middle class, respectable family. Her father William is a clerk and her mother Ethel is a homemaker. She's a housewife

but from a lower middle class family herself. They have a good standing in the society that Edith is born into. She goes to grammar school and she's very academically talented. She's a very vibrant, outgoing person. She takes dance lessons growing up and dreams of a career on the stage. She never gets there, but she's obsessed with theatre, with the music halls, with seeing people sing and dance and perform on stage. She's absolutely just enchanted by that. And I think that's something that we need to sort of bear in mind with her. She's someone who has one foot in reality and one foot in maybe something of a sort of fantasy life. She's, she imagines herself elsewhere in the world. I don't know who this

reminds me of. I couldn't possibly say. Who? Me? I haven't killed anybody. Oh, don't judge, don't judge Edith yet. Don't judge her too soon. What I was going to say is, does she have an interest in just the performance element, or does she have an interest in the fame element? I think it's both. And I think we're going to see that fame does eventually come for her, not in the way that she hoped. And I can imagine that it was particularly hard for someone who did dream of that, of

that world. She leaves school when she's 15 and she goes to work in the fashion industry, very glamorous in the 1920s. You were thinking about women entering the workplace. She goes to work in London for a millinery firm. That's Hatmakers. And she does really well. Because she's so outgoing, energetic and vibrant and theatrical, she's promoted several times and she even gets to travel to Paris for work. We've got Edith in Paris now. She speaks a little bit of French. She's the ultimate sort of it girl of the moment. Yeah, wow. You know, really, she earns her own money and good money too. She's the ultimate sort of it girl of the moment. Yeah, well, you know, really, she earns her own money and good money to she's

traveling, she's fashionable. She is living on the outskirts of London, but getting to work in its center. And she has this really sort of exciting, new young life. And that's the context in which she meets her husband, Percy, who we heard about in the opening who a man is going to ruin it, isn't it? Yeah, unfortunately, he comes to obviously a sticky end himself, but Percy is a little bit less glamorous, shall we say, than Edith. He's a shipping clerk. He's respectable, solid job, but they've known each other for years. They grew up as neighbours and they have this

really prolonged courtship and eventually they get engaged. But Percy doesn't like to rush things. He moves at a snail's pace and he's described later on as being very staid, very conventional, very conservative with a small C and probably a large C. He is the absolute opposite of Edith, who's this very outgoing and imaginative person. He's a little bit older, I think, than Edith. I think she sees him probably as a safe bet. Don't forget, there's an absolute lack of young men at this moment. We were in this post-war world of there's still ringing with the shock of what happened on the continent and all that death, all that violence, all that horror, really, frankly. I guess Percy's there in front of her. She possibly

feels that she wants that stability, that she wants the excitement of romance as well. I can imagine her as being someone who got caught up in the idea of falling in love. That's what happens. She marries Percy and they set up home. Interestingly, when they buy their first house together, it's Edith's income that pays for the majority of the property and not Percy's. I think that power dynamic that at the time is very untraditional and that is challenging and maybe undermining Percy's status in the world, certainly the status he has in his own home, that's going to become troubling for both of them, I think.

I love this. That's a really I don't think I've ever heard of that in the context of the early 20th century before that it was Edith's income that facilitated the mortgage. I will say right now, just to flag as a professionally boring person myself, that just because Percy's a little dull, if he is, in Edith's size maybe, doesn't mean he necessarily deserves what's coming, right? I'm going to fly the dull flag for a moment and just be like, OK. I would not describe you as a professionally dull person, Anthony. Oh, listen, all I want to do is ever wrap up in warm clothes and sit in the house. That's all I ever want to do, Mary. They won't let me do it. But there's a professionally theatrical side to you as well.

I think you're more Edith than Percy, let's be honest. Oh, God. Oh, God. Well, I do love a short skirt. But yeah, no, it's like he's he sounds like a nice man. Okay, you're on Percy's side. Well, no, Edith sounds nice too. She really does. I'd be friends with Edith without a shadow of a doubt. I'd be hanging out with her. But like, and then she'd be the boring husband that I'd be like, oh God, does he have to come? But I'm sure he's a lovely guy. Do you know what I mean?

You have a soft spot for him. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't, he doesn't necessarily deserve what's coming from him. I think that's fair, but there is something coming for him because there is going to be another person. There's going to be a third person entering the marriage. Frederick, Freddy by waters was when Edith Thompson met him in 1919, a handsome, young merchant seaman of just 18 years old. He was a friend of Percy's and that year he, Edith, Freddie and Edith's younger sister all holidayed on the Isle of Wight. But if the plan had been for Freddie to fall for Edith's sister, it failed. By the end of the holiday, Freddie and Edith had fallen firmly in love. He deeply attracted to the

same adventurous spirit and energy that so bored her husband Percy. At first Percy did not suspect a thing. In fact in 1920 Percy invited Freddie to lodge with them at their home at Ilford during his shore leave. On the days and some evenings when Percy was out at work, Edith and Freddie continued their relationship, even going out on dates together. Freddie was, to Edith, everything her husband was not. Handsome, thoughtful, attentive and fun. She longed for escape from her domestic prison and with Freddie found some of that freedom. When at the end of Freddie's stay, Edith and Percy fell into an argument, Freddy stepped

in to defend her, and even suggested to Percy that he should ask for a divorce. Percy, growing suspicious, threw Freddy out. But that did not stop Edith, by now so enamoured with Freddie, she could not bear the separation. Over the next year, she penned sixty long love letters to him, each filled with erotic charge, longing and fantasies that would, eventually, prove her downfall. I'm Matt Lewis, host of the Echoes of History podcast where every week we'll be delving into the real-life history that inspires the locations, characters and storylines of the legendary Assassin's Creed franchise. Join us as we explore the narrow streets of Medici-ruled Florence, cross sand dunes in the shadow of ancient pyramids, climb the rigging of 18th century brig sailing across

the Caribbean and come face to face with some of history's most significant individuals. Whether you're a history fan, a gamer, or just someone who loves a good story, Echoes of History is the podcast for you. Make sure to catch every episode by following Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by HistoryHit, wherever you get your podcasts Out of nowhere there it was sudden shocking terrifying I have never in my life felt fear like that was this someone's idea of a sick prank or was it a horror movie? Come horribly alive. I'm thinking he killed him. I need to film the murder I'm Keith Morrison and this is Dateline's newest podcast, The Man in the Black Mask.

Listen for free each week or unlock new episodes early and enjoy ad-free listening by subscribing to Dateline Premium on Apple podcasts, Spotify or datelinepremium.com. Okay, hashtag team Percy. But before we get into that, we have a picture as we do in After Dark tradition that Maddie has provided me with. I'm just clicking onto it now. And I'm going to make a little bigger for myself because my eyesight is not what it used to be. Hold on. That's a very Percy thing to say. What did I tell you? So I'm looking at three people sitting on some kind of garden furniture, it appears. It's two men and a woman in the middle. That's speaking volumes. On the

right hand side of the picture, as I look at it, I'm assuming I'm seeing Percy. He seems to have this black and white picture, so it's hard to tell, but it seems he has light colored hair. He's wearing a cardigan. he has some nice trousers on, and he's reading the newspaper. Bliss. Absolute bliss. Beside him is who I presume is Edith, who looks utterly miserable. Absolutely demonically unhappy. And she is staring off into the middle distance. She's the picture of just not happiness. And then number three we have, who I would imagine is Freddie. And Freddie looks every inch the, what's his name? Harry Styles or the Timothy Chalamet, something like that.

He's very that. Oh, he's totally Timothy Chalamet. Yeah. Right. He's quite loose. The hair is a bit longer. He's reading something as well, but it looks like a little diary maybe or something like that. Quite well dressed, relatively handsome, and certainly looks younger than the two people to his left who are the married couple. Fascinating picture. I could look at it for a lot longer, but it's certainly not one of happy domestic contentment, I wouldn't think. It's really weird, isn't it, that Freddy comes to live with them and Percy just has no suspicions at all that he moves Timothy Chalamet into the house and his wife's miserable all the time with him anyway.

And he doesn't foresee this being an issue. Well, here's the thing. I was thinking about this as you were describing the narrative. And I thought to myself, right, or are we looking at that with real early 20th century eyes and going, well, the husband didn't have a clue what was going on. Here's the thing, the husband could well have had a clue what was going on and could have been okay with that arrangement for X amount of time. Obviously, he becomes less and less okay with it. But we have this thing that the early, in terms of sex and sexuality, that this is something that potentially an early 20th century man couldn't possibly have fathomed, that his wife had another partner. But we know for certain archivally that this was happening, was certainly happening

in the 1920s. What I guess what we don't see very often is that it's happening in the suburbs, but of course it's happening in the suburbs. So I wonder if Percy maybe was a little bit more clued in on the counter argument to that. Having a lodger is not that unusual for a lower middle-class family. It's an extra source of income. It wouldn't be seen as odd, especially if it's somebody who is in the forces and not there all the time. It might suit everybody quite nicely. So yes, there could be a very traditional setup where they just have a lodger and that's how Percy sees it when it begins. But there's also a world in which let's not underestimate how understanding or cosmopolitan Percy actually might have been. He might just have been a bit like, yeah, that's fine for now,

but then it gets out of hand. Yeah. And think about the Bloomsbury group, Virginia Woolf and all of her circle. You know, we're living in this very big open relationship with these complicated interconnections between them all. So we know that people are living like this at the beginning of the 20th century. I will say as well, this photograph is one of several that the three of them take together in the garden of Edith and Percy's Ilford home. It seems slightly strange to me that these aren't just, I suppose, candid photographs. We're in the early stages of photography still, particularly sort of home photography. You mentioned at the beginning, the Cottingley fairies case, and that is very early in terms of photographic experimentation and fakery. But these photos feel

very staged, thinking about Edith's interest in performance and all of that. And it seems to me that the three of them want to document their time together, their relationship seems important. And so I think you're right, Anthony, I think there's an undercurrent of something other than the suburban middle-class respectable traditional family setup going on here. And I wonder if Percy did know. Well, I didn't know these pictures were staged, because that was going to be our next question, who on earth took this? And what did they think they were taking a picture of. If this is staged by the trio themselves, then that adds a whole other element of knowing to it. And in that sense, each individual is playing a deliberate part in this picture. Percy is not just reading the paper, he is

pretending to read the paper. And then Edith's not necessarily miserable. She's, although, you know, not smiling in pictures in the early 20th century isn't exactly that unique. But yeah, like this then becomes that so interesting, that piece of information that you just said there, that this is them. And they've stayed. They stage many of these. Yeah, there's there's at least three images that I've seen from the same day

in the garden, sat on the furniture. Or or this one where I think Percy and Freddie are sort of like discussing a tree and they're pointing up and standing together, which is interesting. And I wonder if that was another element of the relationship maybe has been slightly overlooked. And, you know, you just look at the body language of these people in the photograph, Percy reading the paper, he's absolutely twisted away from his wife. It's just there is something of theatricality about it. I think there's some thought that's gone into it in the way that they're portraying themselves. Yeah. Oh, I'm looking at these, Maddie. I'm looking at these pictures. I've just Googled them.

Yeah. At the other pictures. And there's one where Percy is in the center looking directly to the camera. And then Freddie is kind of hanging on him like he's lying into him. Yeah. The connection in this picture, if I were to call for a connection, the connection is between Percy and Freddy in this particular picture. Edith is looking off to her right as if she's almost ignoring what's happening beside her. Yeah, it's almost confrontational. It almost looks aggressive. And then Freddy is again, loosely, he's touching Percy. They're making bodily contact and this and he's lounging.

This is unusual. This isn't even, you know, normal for 20th century photographic portraiture. Amazing. They're fascinating, aren't they? Now, the received narrative that we have is that Percy and Edith have this argument because they're so unhappy in their marriage together and that Freddie steps in and defends Edith, which again, not really the behaviour of a lodger. And the narrative is that Percy is taken aback by this, he's offended, he starts to suspect there's something more between Freddie and his wife and he kicks Freddie out of the house. This seems to coincide and I'm not quite clear on the precise details of the timeline here, but it seems that this coincides with Freddie going back to sea. So I wonder if it's simply

that relationship, the time they have together as maybe a threesome, as maybe a more formal lodger set up, who knows? And I think there is a legitimate question mark over all of that. It seems to me that Freddy's shore leave is simply finished and he has to go back to sea. I don't know if the argument really bears up under scrutiny. There's ambiguity there, definitely. But either way, we know that Freddy leaves the house in the living situation. He is now back on a ship. In the months that he's gone, Edith writes him these 60 long love letters. You can read them online now. I'm going to read a couple of extracts from them that are used against her later on, but I will say they are quite explicit. They're filled with really intimate details of the experiences that they've had together. Lots of references to having sex outside, particularly in public places.

The park seems to be a favourite of theirs. But they're also full of things like sort of romantic fantasies. She references a lot the books that she's reading. And I actually heard about this on another one of my favourite podcasts, Caroline Crampton's She Done It, which is a fantastic exploration of the relationship between literature and real life true crime in the 20th century. On that, Caroline Crampton talks about Edith's fascination with murder mysteries in the period. A lot of her letters are evoking fantasies of murdering a husband and running off with a lover. This narrative is so important. The question mark of whether, for Edith, this

is simply a fantasy and part of the intimacy that she shares on paper with Freddie or whether this is something else. In some of her letters, she actually says, I'm terrified that people are going to find and read these letters and get the wrong idea. Make sure you lock them away. Make sure you keep them safe. Maybe destroy some of them. She knows that they are potentially explosive, not only in terms of the sexually explicit content, but some of the other things that she's writing about. Here are two extracts that I'm going to read to you. These are later taken up by the police and we're going to see them actually read out in court. So one of them says, this is from Edith DeFreddy, yesterday I met a woman who'd lost three husbands and not through war, two were drowned and one committed suicide and some people I know

can't lose one. How unfair everything is. The other extract, which is a little bit more telling, this is something that she actually, as far as we can tell, really does. She starts not only to fantasize about Percy's death, but she actually starts to, at least on paper, and we don't necessarily know that she actually ever did this, but she says on paper that she you know we don't necessarily know that she actually ever did this but she says on paper that she started to do this she's starting to put things in Percy's food including a smashed up light bulb she says I was buoyed up with the hope of the light bulb and I used a lot big pieces too not powdered but it had no effect I quite expected to be able to send you that cable. But no, nothing has happened from it.

Oh, my God. OK. Hmm. I don't know. We always say we have to believe we have to take people at their word, because what else can we do? It's written there in black and white. We can't go, well, maybe this is what they meant, because we can. But that moves into the world of literary criticism and we're historians. So that's not our world.

And we do speculate at times based on the evidence, but I can understand how a judge and jury would find her guilty because that's pretty damning. But I do have a question. Do we have any letters from Freddie back to Edith or Percy for that matter? Not that I could find researching this. And I'd be really interested if anyone does know if they exist, because as far as I can tell, we only have Edith's side of the relationship set down on paper, which I think is interesting as well, because I think if we had Freddy's side, there might be, I suppose, more evidence of if they were plotting something,

or if this really was just fantasizing. She's joking at the beginning in the first extract saying, oh, I've met this woman whose three husbands have died and I can't even kill one for God's sake. Not necessarily about husbands, but we all maybe talk in that jokey language sometimes about things that we don't necessarily mean or we don't actually want those kinds of things to come true. I don't, I just, I don't know if this is enough to put Edith in the frame, but Freddie himself very, very quickly becomes a suspect in Percy's attack and murder. Yeah, I need to know more about him specifically. Okay, so on the night that Percy is killed, immediately the police arrive on the scene and

Edith herself is taken to the police station to give a statement. Straight away the police become suspicious because she's really unable to give a coherent narrative, not just because she's in shock, but she's giving these details. First of all, she says that she didn't see the attacker at all and then she says, oh, he had a specific kind of hat on. Then she can't remember who it was. Did you look him in the face? I don't know. I'm not sure if I saw him. She's just giving all this very strange, jumbled story. They start to get suspicious. Now, Freddy's name seems to have cropped up really, really, really quickly as a potential attacker. Not from Edith, but presumably, and I'm just

guessing here, but I'm guessing that the police go and knock on the doors of neighbours, ask if there's any young men who've been sniffing around the house, anyone that Percy knows who could wish him harm. Maybe the neighbours have seen Freddie and Edith together when Percy's been out, but whatever happens, Freddie's name comes up. He's arrested the same night. He is taken to the police station. So we have him oneself, Freddie, being questioned for the attack, and the other Edith who will not give a straight story. And so the police, in a very morally dubious move, force Edith's hand. They show her that Freddie is here in the police station, already arrested, and they tell her that Freddie has confessed to the killing of Percy

and that he says he plotted it with Edith. Now, this is not true. Freddie never confesses to that. Later on, he does confess to the attack, but he never, ever, ever implicates Edith. Quite the opposite. He is always firm in asserting that Edith was never involved. Now, the police go to Freddie's lodgings. He's not living in the Ilford house with the Thompsons anymore, but they go to where he's been living and they find the love letters. And when they read them, of course, they see all this evidence, Edith talking about, why can't my husband just die? I've been putting smashed up lightbulbs into his mashed potato. He's not dead. This is so frustrating, what are we going to do? They read all of this information and they now feel they have enough evidence to arrest both Edith

and Freddie. And so that's what happens. The story breaks in the press and public opinion absolutely turns on both of them. I can see that that would, this is of course, if this happened now, this would just capture the imagination of the public. I want to get to the trial and I want to know how this media frenzy continues. So, Maddie, can you give us a little bit more information about that? In the run-up to Edith and Freddie's trial, a media storm is ignited. Newspapers fly off the shelves with the salacious details of the couple's extramarital affair and speculation about the crimes they may or may not have committed. Despite his early confession, Freddie gets off lightly in the eyes of the press, though.

People even start to feel sorry for the young, handsome sailor. Instead, it's Edith who bears the brunt of public disapproval. For, in the eyes of many, Edith is that most dangerous thing – a modern woman. To a Briton still reeling from war and the loss of so many men, this glamorous, sexually and morally liberated woman who helped herself to not one but two of those surviving seems just a little bit greedy. With her short hemlines, her bobbed hair and her independent income, Edith is seen as the enemy of all that is good and traditional. By the time the trial begins at the Old Bailey in early December 1922, crowds clamour in the street pressed up against iron bars, desperate

to catch a glimpse of the infamous murderess and the man with whom she risked it all. But inside the courtroom, when Edith finally takes the stand, she's reticent, nervous, and speaks so quietly she's berated by the judge more than once and no wonder. This is an intimidating space for a woman with little authority and whose most intimate moments are about to be exposed to a room full of men. First she's asked about her marriage. Will you try keep your voice up? Were you married to Percy Thompson on the 15th of February, 1916? Yes.

I think at the time of your marriage and for some years before, you were employed by Mrs. Carlton and Pryor. I was. Did you continue in that employment after your marriage? Yes. Was your marriage a happy one? No, not particularly so.

Can you keep your voice up a little, Mrs Thompson? I think I was never really happy, but for perhaps two years it was better than it had been. After a lapse of two years, were there constant differences and troubles between you? There were. And then the letters are read out and combed over with mortifying precision. Details of Edith's relationship with Freddy, set to paper by the accused herself, are now made public.

The private ways she spoke and wrote to him are made audible for all present. There's talk of sex in public places, passionate longing and even a suicide pact. But there's one area more than any other that the judge and jury latch onto that more than once in her letters, Edith Thompson fantasises about killing her husband. Remarkably, even with the evidence before the jury written in her own hand, Edith denies these charges, claiming instead that these were nothing more than the imaginings of a lonely, frustrated housewife. Have you ever administered any poison to your husband? Never.

Have you ever given him ground glass? Never. In his food? Never. Or in any form? Never. Have you ever broken up an electric light bulb and given him that? Never. I'm Matt Lewis, host of the Echoes of History podcast where every week we'll be delving into the real-life history that inspires the locations, characters and storylines of the legendary Assassin's Creed franchise.

Join us as we explore the narrow streets of Medici-ruled Florence, cross sand dunes in the shadow of ancient pyramids, climb the rigging of 18th century brig sailing across the Caribbean, and come face to face with some of history's most significant individuals. Whether you're a history fan, a gamer, or just someone who loves a good story, Echoes of History is the podcast for you. Make sure to catch every episode by following Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Out of nowhere, there it was. Sudden, shocking, terrifying. I have never in my life felt fear like that.

Was this someone's idea of a sick prank? Or was it a horror movie come horribly alive? I'm thinking he killed him. I need to film the murder. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Dateline's newest podcast, The Man in the Black Mask. Listen for free each week or unlock new episodes early and enjoy ad-free listening by subscribing to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

or datelinepremium.com. Right. This is very, very interesting, because two things don't match up for me. The description of Edith as this modern, gregarious, stage-obsessed, outgoing woman who is forward-thinking and she is going for what she wants. And then this meeker woman on trial who seems to be intimidated. Edith does not strike me prior to the trial as somebody who's easily intimidated. I like her for that. But that disappears. Now I understand the argument that, oh, it's a room full of men and it's difficult for her. And it's intimidating. And I'm just speculating around the facts that we have.

But Edith doesn't look to me like she's easily intimidated. From what we see in the archives so far. If you said this was Percy, if he hadn't been dead, I'd be going, well, that kind of adds up with his personality from what we know. He's meek, he's quiet, he's whatever else. But not Edith. I think there are two possible explanations on there. That on the one hand, she lives this sort of fantasy life. She has a fantasy version of herself that she likes to perform sometimes. And with Freddie, she finds an opportunity to really express that and really live it. She's taking these risks. She's having sex in public. She's having an extramarital affair with her man living under her husband's nose. If we take at face value that Percy knew nothing

about the affair and that when Percy is killed, it's simply for Edith that that life, that fantasy has gone too far, that she's shocked that Freddie has actually attacked Percy. We know on the night when Percy is attacked that Edith is supposedly heard by the neighbors shouting, oh no, don't do it. So maybe there's a sense that things have gone too far and now she's gone back into her shell, that she's terrified and she's lost this theatrical spark in this fantasy life. On the other hand, we could suggest that she has been living the life that she wants to lead. She's, as you say, very independent, forward thinking. She's a go-getter. She's gone and got herself this career. She earns an independent income. She got married and then she went after the

man that she really wanted and got him and continued this affair. And possibly if we go with the police narrative at the time, the press narrative has potentially, according to the press, manipulated Freddie into committing this crime on her behalf. That she is the mastermind behind it, that she's been actually trying to kill her husband in different discreet ways around the house for months anyway. And that now this is her moment on the stage and she's playing a character. She's playing this meek, innocent woman who's just been caught up in this violence between two men fighting over her. I'm really, really stuck on this case. I don't know which version of this I buy,

but I think it's fascinating that in the press, Freddie has really let off the hook. There's a petition signed by over a million people to commute his sentence and let him off. There is no petition for Edith. I mean, we know he killed him, right? We know Freddie killed him. So Freddie confesses to it. When Freddie's brought in on trial on the stand, he says, Edith had nothing to do with this. It was me. It was me. It was me. And I don't really care about that because the Edith had nothing to do with this. It was me. It was me. It was me. And I don't really care about that because the Edith had nothing to do with it. Because of course he's going to say that, right? Like, if this was kind of a love pact, he's not a good character witness for Edith himself, right? Of course he's going to say that. But he did do it.

Yeah, he did do it. I mean, I guess, you know, he could turn on Edith and, you know, the public opinion is with him and not with her. He could say, Oh, she manipulated me. She was so, you know, he could really kind of slut shame her here and say, Oh, she was kind of too sexy and seductive. And, you know, people in the press kind of call her like this siren. She's this sort of morally bankrupt woman who's manipulated, don't forget this guy who's a lot younger than her. I think he's nearly 10 years younger than her. And so there's a sort of power imbalance there. And it's interesting that Freddie doesn't play that card. And I imagine that his defense would have been encouraging him to do that.

So I think he probably really did love her. And I think either she wasn't involved and he really did do this independently, or he really wants to protect her right up until the bitter end. And I think there's something, I mean, it's not a great situation, but I think there is something a bit romantic and heroic in that. It's pretty grim circumstances. But I'm assuming they're both found guilty, not just Freddie. Yeah. On the 11th of December, the pair of them are found guilty and they are both sentenced to death by hanging. Now, when Edith, this is really tragic, when Edith gets this news in court, she immediately becomes hysterical. She's screaming. She loses all self-control. She can't stand up straight.

She's, you know, no judgment. I can't imagine what it would be to receive a verdict like that. When Freddie hears this news, he is shouting, Edith Thompson is not guilty. Edith Thompson is not guilty. He's screaming this in the court. There's this huge drama. Of course, the press are absolutely loving it. Then when the press see Edith's reaction and they see how vulnerable she is, there's a kind of shift in the public opinion towards her. These calls start to happen to let them both off. I think people fall in love with this idea of the romance of them both. In this post-war world, there's been so much misery. I think this passion between these two young people and Edith, of course, representing that modern woman and the

forward-thinking moment of the 1920s, I think right at the last second, people do hope for a reprieve. They sort of see the hopefulness of what's passed between Freddie and Edith, and they don't want to see it extinguished. But the Home Secretary refuses to commute the sentences and the date is set. And what's so sad is that in the days leading up to her execution, Edith actually spends all of that time in this hysterical state and she really can't be calmed. They're having to sedate her. She can barely stand up. She's in a really, really terrible state. I just think it's so, so sad. Then on the 9th of January, 1923, the two executions of Edith and Freddie happen at the same moment at 9am. They're only about half a mile apart. So Freddie's

in Pentonville prison and Edith's in Holloway prison and they're only about half a mile apart. So Freddie's in Pentonville prison, and Edith's in Holloway prison, and they're really close to each other in London. It's a struggle to get Edith onto the scaffold. She collapses. She's actually put into, I think it's called a boson chair, almost like a swing, suspended on ropes, just to get her up onto the scaffold and to get the noose around her neck. She has to be strapped into this chair, she's tied to it because she's just trying to get away. It's such an ordeal that actually her executioner, who was a man called John Ellis, said of all the executions, this is the one that haunted him the most of his whole career. The really haunting thing about this, and warning here that this is a bit gruesome, but when she hangs her body hemorrhages and

she's bleeding really dramatically. There is some discussion that she may have been pregnant at the time of her death. Of course, the tragedy is, had she been pregnant, her sentence would have been commuted. It's likely that she wasn't even aware of it and certainly no one else was. It just, she maintains her innocence to the very last second. She's so overcome with fear. Is this a case that she was involved in this crime and made a terrible mistake and regretted it and justice was served? Or is it simply that public opinion really went against her and that she was seen as a woman who overstepped in a moment when women's rights were changing, that she was seen as stepping out of her lane, wanting too much for herself, behaving too confidently, dressing too sexily,

conducting herself sexually in a way that went outside the traditional norms of the time and that she's punished for it. What is the truth of this case? I really think it's so hard to get to and it's just such a tragic end. I want to know who attended Percy Thompson's burial. I would like to know where he's buried. I would like to know who misses him. I would like to know what he might have done with the rest of his boring life but didn't get a chance to do it. And the reason I'm saying all of this is because, I mean, what you just described, the end of her life is utterly barbaric and it says something about what humans can do to humans. But what has happened here is that Percy is totally forgotten in this. We've just left him behind.

And it's because he's boring and because he's not sexy and because it's not necessarily passion-filled. But his life was taken by Freddy at the very least. And I would argue that there is significant blame to be placed. If we accept, as Freddy has admitted, that he committed this murder, if we accept that that's the case, and I think why would we doubt it, then Freddie is obviously to blame and should have gone to jail. Obviously the death penalty is egregious and absolutely barbaric as I said, so let's leave that to one side for a second. Edith has responsibility here, because even if she's writing this fantasy of a life without Percy and talking about crushing things

up, i.e. she's feeding this idea of, listen, if Freddy was one year younger, we'd be talking about this in terms of grooming. That Edith was in some way grooming him passively, but potentially knowingly, to commit this crime on her behalf. I love that detail that you said about the neighbours reportedly have said, that they could hear her say, no, don't do it or whatever. And you've suggested a couple of times, Maddie, that potentially there was this back and forth of, oh, what would life be like without him?

Maybe he should die, blah, blah, blah. But when it came down to the act, Freddie was so pumped up and ready to do it that he did it. But actually, Edith was going, oh, my God, no, wait, this is not on the page anymore. This is a real thing. Is she guilty of murder in that case? Well, that's not for me to decide. Personally, I don't think so. So a murder charge seems a bit much. At the same time, what happens that woman at the end of her life is utterly unconscionable and it's harrowing. Should it's, it's, it's absolutely awful regardless of how involved you think she is. Yeah. That's that I, I'm not so much talking about the hysterics as cause cause again, there's a world with Edith in which there's the element of

performance. Like we've, we were seeing many faces of Edith here, but the, the execution, that's one of the worst details I've ever heard in any execution. And we've come across some bad executions and nobody deserves that. That's not how we deal with other people, thankfully, anymore. Was she involved? From my perspective, yes. Did she murder him? As a legal expert, I am not. But I would say no, she probably didn't murder him. Did Freddie? Yes. But where is Percy? I think on the other hand, you could argue that, you know, we talk so much on this podcast

about male violence. We've just done our mini series on Jack the Ripper and I'm not comparing Freddie to Jack the Ripper necessarily, but is Edith or any woman guilty of or responsible for the violence done by a man. I think certainly there's suggestion in her letters that she is thinking about a world without Percy and even thinking about the ways that she would kill him and the violence that she would do to his body. But I think there is a leap between fantasising about that and we see it that's buried in amongst her sexual fantasies and her commentary on the fiction that she's reading and all

of that. And I don't know if we can treat her as guilty for this crime. I think she has guilt within the crime. I don't think she's guilty of murder. Well, Anthony, this is a case that still is proving controversial. So there has actually been a campaign to pardon Edith posthumously. So in January 2023, an application was submitted to the Ministry of Justice made on her behalf by her heir, the UCL Professor Renee Weiss. And the application itself was actually, there was a previous application that was rejected in 2022 by the then Justice Secretary Dominic Raab. But this campaign is still ongoing to pardon Edith. I just think it's fascinating that we're still talking about this now.

I think it's so interesting to me that this is a case that really marks a landmark in terms of a cultural shift for women, a legal shift for women in the early 20th century. I think we're very much undergoing our own cultural shift in terms of women's rights today. We're still campaigning for some of the rights that our ancestors in the 1920s were campaigning for, and women all over the world are still fighting to protect those rights. And I think it's fascinating that Edith's name is still being talked about in those contexts. So it's something to bear in mind that, you know, history is, it remains with us and we still have these questions of justice and guilt playing out today. Incidentally, I can see that Edith would be, that that sentence would be commuted and she'd be

pardoned for murder because there's no evidence that she committed murder, I don't think. So I can see the grounds for pardon there. I think it makes logical sense. Yeah, so fascinating. That's really one of the brain scratchers. That's that's a really great case. Thanks, Maddie. And thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this history that has all kinds of sex and the endless anxieties around sex at the heart of the story,

then you will probably love Betwixt the Sheets with Dr. Kate Lister, sister podcast of ours that explores the history of sex, scandal and society. If you've enjoyed this episode or any of our other episodes, please leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. We love hearing from you and it helps other people to discover the podcast too. If you want to get in touch with ideas for episodes, don't DM us. We don't see them, but email them please to afterdark at historyhit.com.

That's afterdark at historyhit.com. Buried in the depths of the internet is The Kill List. A cache of chilling documents, containing hundreds of names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for their murders. Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger. Follow Kill List on the Wanderer app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Kill List and more exhibit C true crumb shows like Morbid early and ad free right now by joining Wanderer Plus. Out of nowhere, there it was, sudden, shocking, terrifying. and ad free right now by joining Wandery Plus. Keith Morrison and this is Dateline's newest podcast, The Man in the Black Mask. Listen for free each week or unlock new episodes early and enjoy ad-free listening by subscribing to Dateline Premium on Apple podcasts, Spotify or datelinepremium.com. you