My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 299 - London & England

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

On today's episode, Karen covers Scottish serial killer Dennis Nilsen and Georgia tells the story of Detective Jack Whicher and the Road Hill House murder.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. And here we go again for another week of true crime reportage. Oh, we're reporters. That really could mean anything. I just was kind of the first thing that popped into my head. I mean, it could, you could stick anything on that definition right there. You know, I'm actually going to look it up right now. Make sure that it doesn't mean anything bad.

Reportage. And this is what we guarantee to you. Oh, the reporting of news for the press and the broadcast media. Reporters. That's us. No, it's the action of reporting. Oh, okay. Well, it's a verb. You're right. It's a noun. It's a noun. But it's the reporting of news. I guess that's the trans the translation makes it a noun even though it sounds like a verb. But then you were exactly right. Boom. Name and network after it. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Yeah. We had our exactly right Halloween party this weekend. That's right. We had all our hosts and all our incredible employees and like a 99% dressed up. And that was so much fun seeing a bunch of people, you know, who didn't

dress up. I'm not naming names. It's you rarely go to a Halloween party where almost everyone is dressed up. Oh my God. I was really impressed. Totally. I'm like, well done too. And fuck it. Nick Terry and Nick Terry and his wife were there, which is so exciting. They flew all the way in. Oh my God. Yeah. Make sure you watch your researcher. My researcher Haley from Kansas. Haley Gray flew in. I mean, and turned in her research the night before, which I was really impressed with. She did her homework and then she understood the assignment of the Halloween party, which was she was wearing the Frank what's his name costume from its only sunny in Philadelphia. And it was pretty spectacular. Amazing. So good. All around. Very cool. I'm proud of our network,

you know. The Fly-Ins were, I just, it's an effort that I can't make that effort when I'm in the same town as the party. And there were people who were like, had to come to your Halloween party. It's beautiful. And I think we delivered. I think we did a good job. I think that exactly right is a network full of witches. And so if we hadn't brought a strong Halloween party, there was a tarot card reader. We brought it. So thanks to everybody who came and really made it something special. You know, maybe in a couple of years, we get enough practice under our belt and we go public. Public Halloween party. Public Halloween party. $5 at the door. You have to get the stamp on your inner right wrist. Yeah. You get a solo cup, one solo cup.

Yep. Then that's yours for the night for the kegs. And just please leave by 9.30. That was the funniest part is I can't remember who I think I was saying it to our producer, Hannah Creighton, which was this is our basically my first like party party out of quarantine or wherever we are right now, which is neither in or out of quarantine. Right. And I was like, I can't, I got there and wanted to leave about an hour later where I was like, we shouldn't be expected to stay very long at parties right now. It's so early. Yeah. No one's ready socially to like go tell two in the morning. Right. No, not at all. Yeah. No, I'm gonna get there early, leave early person for sure. And a lot of people, it was funny because

everyone equally had the same exact type of social anxiety. So it was almost like everyone was kind of free. Yes. To not worry about it. I think here's the thought because having the costumes made something gave you something to talk about with other people. So maybe every party from now until the quarantine is officially over should be a fucking costume party, no matter what. It released just a full mask, full wig. Yeah. Yeah. What are you dressed as party? Yeah, just to make it up. It's an icebreaker. You can also feel a little separate from your own whatever you think your own identity might be. Just different walking someone else's shoes for the evening. And then go home. Yeah. Karen, my heart is so sad for you and the sweetest pup I've

known for a long time. And I'm so sorry about George's passing. Well, thank you. You know, it's people have been so lovely on social media. Of course, our listeners are such animal people. And so thank you to everybody who has been sending me lovely messages. I didn't expect to get so many. I just kind of wanted to put it up all at once so that it wouldn't have to be like a staggered message. And of course, George was fiercely private. So it's not like a lot of people knew who she was. But yeah, she was a 15 year old dog that had basically full body cancer. So she was on a clock from when she, you know, got her leg amputated last Christmas. So we kind of made the most of her life from that point on. And yeah, it came it was a little

sudden because I had a whole plan, which of course you do when you're a pet owner. So it was it was a it came sooner than I wanted. But then, of course, in the end, it was like she needed it. She was ready to go and it had to happen. And then it was really beautiful. It was like, luckily, I got to do it. Someone came to my house, so she didn't have to go back to the vet. And it was a really she she was finally was out of pain because she had been in pain for a long time. Yeah. So for all as awful as it is to have a dog die, which everyone knows it's truly the worst. It was best case scenario. So thanks everybody just their people have been so lovely and so supportive and so verbal with their outreach. It's it's a really nice thing to have

that many friends I don't actually know I have. Yeah, I was a beautiful thing when Elvis passed to get so many people reach out and realize that like, yeah, that everyone understands what it's like to have a pet pass and how heartbreaking it is and to make it feel like you're not just crazy for, you know, it's a family member and George was I can attest to what a sweet angel she was. And I love I love seeing her and she had an incredible life. You gave her a beautiful life. And so she's you guys are lucky to have had each other. Yeah. Yeah. So it'll be a little depressing for me for a while, but, you know, we'll power through it. Yeah. We'll do a quick exactly right update for you. Oh, well, first of all,

I hope you guys are listening to the Celebrity Hometowns. It's our new third episode of the week where we have our celebrity friends tell us their hometowns, whatever that may be. And this week is Michelle Bouteau, who is so freaking hilarious and wonderful and has a really awesome interesting story to tell. So please check out that third episode of my favorite murder. Celebrity Hometowns edition. Celebrity Hometowns. Yeah, you can't you really can't beat Michelle Bouteau. She's just she's everyone's favorite person. You might know her from the circle. You might know her from her stand up specials. You might know her from she's basically the sassy best friend on every TV show you've ever seen. And she is our guest this

week for Celebrity Hometowns. So we're really excited for that. That was a very fun episode that we were felt like we recorded it in seven minutes. It went by so fast. And then let's see over on the exactly right network, just a couple things to mention to you. Murder Squad is covering the unsolved Cleveland torso murders from the 30s. Always a fascinating case that they're going to get into, dig into with all their forensic technical specialties. Should we tell everyone what what Billy and Paul were for Halloween at the Halloween party? They were, they were, Stephen, what were the names from Jurassic Park? Uh, Jeff Goldblum, Billy was Jeff Goldblum's character Ian Malcolm and Paul was Alan Grant,

Samuel's character. It was like the perfect, they got all the details right. It was brilliant. It was so perfect. Should we tell them what we were, Karen? Sure. You were Megan Foxx and Vince and I were Margo and Richie Tenenbaum. You were Megan Foxx and then Frank came along and Frank was Machine Gun Kelly. It was dead on. It was. It was unbelievable. Oh, and this, this week on Waiting for Impact, a Dave Holmes passion project, I think everyone's going to want to tune in because it's episode four and Joey McIntyre makes an appearance. It's an interview for the ages. So you're going to want to listen to that. He talks all about what it was like to be a baby pop star in the early nineties. So amazing. And Dave Holmes was the Marivies town as someone

who had never seen the Marivies town. So he just made up what he assumed Kate Winslet was wearing and it was dead on and hilarious. And I really, I love costumes like that or it's like, it's this, but it's this. Yeah. Like how Bridger was. Bridger was a woman having a horrible time on her vacation. That's just such a great costume. Yeah. Cool. And then oh, we have beanies. If you want a beanie for the winter in the, in the, my favorite murder shop, go get a beanie if you want. It's time. It is the season. It's freezing in Los Angeles right now. It is like 70, 69 degrees beanie weather for sure. All right. Well, let's start this thing. Sure. Let's do it. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled,

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It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even The Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply

private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva will tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even The Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. I'm going to go first this week. And I will be covering the horrible story of the British serial killer, Dennis Nielsen. Oh, yeah. I kind of can't believe we haven't done this before. I'm surprised, especially over when we were overseas, although that's a rough one to do live. It is. Well, yeah, it's really dark. It's it very much reminds me it goes right along with John Wayne Gacy murders with Dahmer, where he's he's praying on a cross

section of people that he knows. He thinks in his mind, people won't miss or people, you know, they won't prosecute the crimes if they're found, if they go missing, no one will look into it. Right. It's really, really dark. So let's get right into it. It goes right along with our theme. The sources for this are an unbelievably well researched Wikipedia page of Dennis Nielsen. Also, the Murderpedia page, which has tons of victim information, pictures, all the kind of collected info that you might want about all those men that were murdered. There's also a BBC article with no byline about him. Then there's a Esquire article by Lauren Crank, K-R-A-N-C, the true story of British serial killer Dennis Nielsen. There is an evening standard article

with no byline serial killer Dennis Nielsen confesses to first murder. Okay. So in the evening of February 8th, 1983, a plumber named Michael Katrin of an emergency drainage and plumbing company called Dino Rod, which is basically the British Roto-Rooter, responds to a call at 23 Cranley Gardens in the Muswell Hill District of North London. So four days earlier, the tenants of this building, it's a three-story building, and they had sent a letter to the property manager complaining about blocked drainage pipes and saying that the whole situation with the blocked pipes had become intolerable. So this plumber, Michael Katrin, checks out a drain cover on the side of the building. When he pulls it up, he is very alarmed to find a quote unquote flesh-like

substance and a few small bones inside. So he calls his supervisor a man named Gary Wheeler, and they agree that since it's late at night, Michael should leave, and then the two will go back and take a closer look the next morning. But before he leaves, two tenants from the building joined Michael at the drainage cover and look at the drain pipe with him, and he tells them that he thinks it might be human flesh. And one of the men says, it looks to me like someone's been flushing down their Kentucky fried chicken. The tenant that makes this observation is a man named Dennis Nielsen. So when the two plumbers come back the next morning at 7.30 in the morning, they find the bulk of the fleshy substance is now gone. So Katrin looks deeper into one of the

connecting pipes, and he finds traces of that substance and some small bones. Because Katrin and Wheeler think the bones could have come from a human hand. And that along with the fact that the fleshy substance was removed in the night are enough for them to call the police. So when the police arrive, they collect everything that's left in the drain pipe and they send it for examination. And at the mortuary, the pathologist David Bowen confirms these are indeed human remains. He even finds a piece of flesh from a human neck with obvious ligature marks on it. So they know that someone has been strangled. So the police ask plumber Michael Katrin to trace this clogged pipe to the apartment of origin. And they find out that basically doing the math of one of the

apartments empty, it's not a very big building, it's pretty small. So it must be from the building's top floor unit. And that's the unit belonging to Dennis Nielsen. So the chief detective chief inspector Peter Jay, and two fellow officers just stay there and wait for Dennis to return home from work. They just sit out in front of the apartment and wait for him to get back. And so that night, when he does walk up, they question him about the drain blockage. He gets kind of KG, he asks why police are so interested in the drains. And Jay explains that they're all police officers and they'd like to go up to Dennis's apartment with him. And without much choice, Dennis leads them upstairs. And the moment they walk into the apartment, they smell rotting flesh.

So DCI Jay turns to Dennis and says the substance in the drain pipe has been confirmed to be human remains. Dennis acts surprised saying good grief, how awful. But Jay immediately doesn't buy it, he just immediately says, where's the rest of the body? And Dennis Nielsen drops the act and points over to the wardrobe and says, they're in there. So the officers open this wardrobe in a second room. And the rotting flesh smell immediately grows stronger. Inside the wardrobe, there are two plastic bags both filled with human remains. They ask Dennis if there's any other bodies that they should be aware of. And Dennis tells them, it's a long story. It goes back a long time. I'll tell you everything. I want to get it off my chest, but not here at the police station.

So the officers cuff Dennis, they read him his rights, they escort him out to their patrol car. And once they're inside, an officer asks Nielsen if the remains they found are from one or two victims. And he replies 15 or 16 from 1978. Whoa. Yeah. Okay. So I'll tell you just a little bit about his early life. Dennis Nielsen was born on October 23, 1945. The middle child of three, his dad Olaf Möksheim moves to Scotland in 1940 as a member of the Free Norwegian Forces after Germany occupies Norway. Olaf and his fiance, Elizabeth, marry 1942. And then they start having kids and they raise them in Elizabeth's parents' home. And at some point, Olaf changes his last name to Nielsen. So this marriage is tumultuous from the start. Olaf's were rarely

there. When he does, he barely pays attention to his wife and kids. So the two get divorced in 1948. And Dennis's maternal grandparents help raise him and his siblings. Dennis is said to be a quiet child whose early childhood consists of family picnics and walks through the countryside with his grandfather. So it's weird because in some instances, Dennis recalls being very close to his grandfather, calling him, quote, a great hero and a protector. But other times, Dennis describes a darkly stoic religious man. And he also claims that he was sexually abused by his grandfather. So he kind of is all over the map about him. So in 1951, Dennis's grandfather dies of a heart attack at 62 years old. He says he's deeply affected by his grandfather's death. And

then in 1955, his mom moves out of her parents' house and into the family's own flat. She starts dating a new man. And they move to strike in Scotland. And the couple proceed to have four kids in four years. So when Dennis hits puberty, he realizes he's gay. He's too ashamed to act on it. But he's also ashamed of his family's home and his low economic status. So he doesn't have a lot of friends. He doesn't invite friends over. He wants to be a soldier in the British Army. And so in 1961, he drops out of school when he's 16 years old, and he enlists and he begins training to be a chef with the Army Catering Corps. And his first assignments in West Germany in 1964. And he would later refer to that as the happiest time of his life. But his sexual urges are creating trouble

for him. He's still very much in the closet. He showers separately from the rest of the men because he's afraid he's going to get an erection. He drinks to excess basically to combat both his shyness and his loneliness. And so he has a really strange near death experience. When he's in the Army, he gets kidnapped by a taxi driver who knocks him unconscious before stuffing him into the trunk of his cab. But when the driver goes to pull Dennis back out, he's now conscious and he grabs a tire jack and beats the driver with it and then stuffs him into the trunk of the cab. So Dennis spends 11 years as a caterer in the British Army. He leaves the service in 1972, moves back in with his mom and stepdad while he figures out what he's trying to do with his life.

And his mom, of course, is much less concerned about him finding a career and much more concerned about him finding a wife. So one night he goes to the movies with his brother, his sister-in-law, and two friends. And it turns out to be a documentary about gay men. So when they walk home afterwards, the group expresses disgust with homosexuality and Dennis defends it. So his brother says that he's gay and even outs him to their mother. So basically from that point on, Dennis stops talking to his brother completely as little to no contact with the rest of his family. And he moves out of his mother's house two months later and he gets an apartment in London and he applies to join the Metropolitan Police. So he completes his training in April of 1973 and he likes the job but he does

not like his co-workers mostly because of the rampant homophobia, which you can imagine was pretty horrible in the 70s in the London Police Department. So he drinks by himself after work and he goes to gay pubs alone. He's depressed and dissatisfied with his personal and his professional life. And he ends up leaving the Metropolitan Police having worked less than a year on the force. And he eventually finds himself work as a civil servant in 1974 basically at a job placement service. So this is, it's the 70s in London. So it's really hard time, you know, it's there's a lot of poverty. There's a lot of whatever. It's not a good time. There's a lot of unemployment. There's a lot of poverty. It's a pretty dark time. So in November of 1975,

Dennis meets 20 year old David Gallachan and they end up actually becoming a couple. They move into a flat together at 195 Melrose Avenue. And Dennis actually ends up negotiating their lease so they get exclusive private use of the backyard. But soon, the two men start to have terrible arguments. They're never physically violent with each other. But Dennis is particularly cruel and verbally abusive. He ends up kicking David out. And by 1978, he's alone again. And that's the year his murderous rampage begins. So basically, we're back to 1983. After Dennis has taken into custody, he sits down with authorities two days later to tell them where the remains of the three victims are hidden. So officers search his attic apartment at the

Cranley Gardens. And just like Dennis described, they find human remains in the like all over the house. So in the drawer in the bathroom, there's a drawer that's like flipped over. And inside that they find a lower half of a torso and two legs. There's a t chest where they find another section of torso, a skull and some miscellaneous bones. So there's just body parts all over this apartment. So he didn't even try to get, get rid of the bodies. He just fucking kept them like. Well, he couldn't. So in the other, in the first apartment he lived at on Melrose, at Melrose Avenue, he had a backyard. So I'll explain it to you, but he had a whole system at his other apartment. And then he was forced to move. So in this apartment, he didn't,

there was nowhere for him to put the bodies. So essentially, here's, here's how it went. Each victim had been strangled to death. But as he's trying to explain it to the police, he can only remember the full name of one victim, 20 year old Stephen Sinclair. He calls another victim John the guardsman. And the third, he can't remember the name at all. So Dennis confesses to 12 more murders dating back to December of 1978. At the time, he can't remember exactly how many people he's killed. But the final count of confirmed victims would later be determined to be 15. So most of the murders took place at the 195 Melrose Avenue apartment because there was a private yard. He basically, he took the bodies out after

storing them under the floorboards for sometimes months at a time. And then he would burn them in the backyard with a tire on them to cover up the smell. That's impossible. Like that nobody would have been tipped off to that smell, either the keeping them in the apartment or the burning. Well, in the Melrose Avenue apartment, he had the ground floor. So he was putting bodies that he would basically wrap up and then he would wrap them up and put them under the floorboards. So I guess it worked because he didn't get caught for a really long time. Yeah, wow. So basically, he ends up taking the police back to the Melrose Avenue apartment so he can point out these burn sites in the backyard so that the police can later go over them for

further investigation and for to see if they can find any remains. So that plumber Michael Catran, he leaks the story about human remains being found in the drain pipe to the Daily Mirror the same day that Dennis confesses the 10th. So the Daily Mirror rushes to print the stories and basically that then it's on because it's the tabloid media frenzy, of course. It's a huge story too, like the 15 people. And then it's gory too. It's everything that those kinds of stories are looking for where it's like, this is how they found it, what has been going on in here. So back in the interrogation room, investigators listen intently as Dennis describes these gruesome killings and what he did with

the bodies afterwards in great detail. So over the next two days, they gather more than 30 hours of information from Dennis. And when they ask him why he brutally murdered so many innocent boys and men, he flatly replies, I was hoping you would tell me that. So Dennis meets his first victim on December 29, 1978. He spent the evening drinking alone at his apartment on Melrose Avenue. But he decides to then go to the local Cricklewood Arms Pub. But outside he bumps into a 14 year old named Stephen Holmes, who'd just been denied service for being underage. So Dennis invites the boy back to his apartment saying they can drink and listen to music there. So Stephen agrees, follows Dennis home to his ground floor apartment. They spend the night drinking and listening to

music, and then they pass out together in Dennis's bed. And the next morning, Dennis realizes that Stephen will leave once he wakes up. So he decides that he's going to make the boy quote, stay with him over the new year, whether he wants to or not. He grabs a necktie, straddles Stephen's body and strangles him with it. Stephen wakes up and tries to fight, but it's no use. When he loses consciousness, Dennis fills a bucket with water and drowns him in it. So that's how he actually dies. Oh, God. He then takes, and this is, I'll just say this this time, because this is basically what he does to all the victims. He takes off Stephen's clothes, bathes the dead body, puts the body back on the bed, and then basically kind of spends time caressing it and staring at it and

masturbating next to it. He claims that he never had sex with any of these bodies, but he basically did everything but that. Then he wraps the body in plastic and hides it under the floorboards, where it remains for about seven and a half months. Holy shit. Then Dennis takes it out into the backyard and burns it with a tire. You're right. I mean, that part of it is so horrifying where it's like, as the neighbors, wouldn't you complain even if someone was burning a tire in the backyard aside from looking into it? It's like, that's the worst smell except for the smell that tire is trying to cover. Yeah. You would think one person would know what the smell of decay is. There's got to be one person on the block who's like, I know what that is, but I guess in working

class London in the 70s, everyone mind their own fucking business, right? Mining their own business, and then I think whatever he was doing to cover the smell in his apartment was working, but the tire is the worst smell ever. It covers everything and you're just attributing all the bad, the whole bad situation to that this dipshit's burning a tire. Okay. So his next victim is also the first known survivor of these attacks. Yeah. He's a college student from Hong Kong, and he meets Dennis on October 11th, 1979 in a pub on St. Martin's Lane. Dennis convinces him to go back to his flat for casual sex, including like a little light bondage essentially was kind of in the agreement. But things quickly take a turn when Dennis wraps a tie around his neck and tells him

that he's now, he now wants to play a quote dangerous game. But this student is older and stronger than Dennis's last victim, and he is actually able to fight Dennis off and escape. And then he goes and reports the incident to police, but he never ends up pressing charges. Oh no. Which we can probably pretty safely assume was had a lot to do with the reception he got when he tried to file that report. Totally. So a few months later on December 3rd, 1979, Dennis meets 23 year old Kenneth Ockenden at a West End pub. Kenneth is a student from Canada in town to visit family. So Dennis offers to take him on a tour of some London landmarks. So Kenneth accepts and then afterwards the two go back to Dennis's apartment where they have some drinks

and listen to music. So Kenneth is wearing a set of headphones. And while he's listening, Dennis takes the cord from the headphones and strangles Kenneth with it. And when he's dead, Dennis puts the headphones on himself, pours himself another glass of rum and spends some time listening to music next to the dead body. He then bathes, does the whole MO with Kenneth's body. And then the next day he buys a camera and takes photos of the body set in suggestive positions. And then he hides the body underneath the floorboards. Over the next five months, Dennis spends time, this is really awful and upsetting, he takes the body out from its hiding place and puts it in a chair. According to his own report, he watches TV with it and talks to it

and pretends that it's a real person there. Wow. Yeah. Super, super awful. This is the reason that we never did the story before. That's the one. But like, yeah. Yeah. So on May 17, because it's just, it's also unimaginable anyway, if it was just simply a murder, and then the body was taken somewhere else. But there's just this, these layers of depravity that are just there, like almost hard to say. Yeah. Because it's so, so gross. It's very a dumber ask. Yeah. Yeah. So on May 17, 1980, Dennis kills his third victim, a 16 year old boy named Martin Duffy. Martin was a runaway from Northwest England, and he hitchhiked into London and ended up sleeping on the streets, which apparently a lot of people did at this time. They would see London on TV,

and they would figure that this was the place for them and that they would get there. There were no jobs, you know, the, the unemployment's rampant. Everybody is, it's just a much more intense, difficult city to live in than they expect it to be. Right. So when he meets Dennis, he off, Dennis offers him a meal and a bed to sleep in. And of course, Martin accepts, but once he falls asleep, Dennis strangles and then drowns him. He follows the same disturbing ritual established with the previous victims and then leaves the boy's body to decompose underneath the floorboards. Three months later, Dennis meets 27 year old sex worker William Billy Sutherland and lures him to his apartment and murders him in the same way as all the other

victims. Later that month, Dennis brings home a man named Douglas Stewart. So the two party together at the apartment and Stewart falls asleep in Dennis's living room chair. When he wakes up, he sees the Dennis has tied his feet together and is wrapping something around his neck in an attempt to strangle him. So Stewart fights back, manages to escape and then reports the incident to police. But when police discover that Stewart willingly went to Dennis's flat and that the two had been drinking, they figure both men had a consensual gay encounter and that they're now trying to cover it up. Stewart never follows up with police again. And Dennis again is not charged or even investigated. Totally. In the year of 1980, he kills five men. Jesus.

And only one of these victims to be is ever positively identified as Billy Sutherland. Wow. The other four, they can't positively be identified. At the end of the year, Dennis removes the bodies. He's got hidden beneath his floor. He dissects and dismembers them. So he essentially takes like any of kind of the soft parts of the body. He gets it down to the parts that just need to be burned. Yeah. And it's really gruesome how he does that and the fact that he even does that. And he'll later tell police that he would just get blackout drunk to do it. But still it's not, it's just unimaginable. Yeah. He builds another bonfire in the backyard and burns all these remains again with a tire to mask the smell. This time when the fire dies out,

he uses a rake to spread the ashes in the grass and he sifts through it all looking for bones or anything that might give him away. At this point, he finds a skull and he ends up like smashing it with a rake to spread across the yard with the rest of the ashes. So he's, it's pretty blatant what he's doing. And no one, no one's catching on. The last victim, Dennis kills at his Melrose Avenue apartment is 24 year old Malcolm Barlow. So on September 17th, 1981, Dennis finds Barlow, who's an orphan who's been struggling with mental illness and epilepsy, finds him slumped against the side of a building near Dennis's home. Barlow explains to Dennis that the medication he takes for his epilepsy causes muscular weakness and can sometimes affect

his ability to walk. Dennis calls him an ambulance and he's taken to the hospital. The next day, Barlow shows up to Dennis's to thank him for doing that. So Dennis invites him inside and they share a meal. Afterwards, Barlow falls asleep on Dennis's couch. Dennis strangles him and the next day hides his body under the kitchen sink. So shortly after the murder of Malcolm Barlow, Dennis's landlord informs him that he'll be renovating the building and that Dennis has to move out. So now he's forced to dismember the remaining five bodies that are hidden around his flat and have one last bonfire to destroy those remains along with, of course, a tire. So then he moves into the attic unit 23D at Cranley Gardens on October 5th, 1981.

So as I said, in this attic apartment, he can't stash bodies under floorboards. His neighbors below would of course notice the stench and he doesn't have access to a private yard where he could burn bodies. So he can't, he knows he can't murder anyone for a little while, but he does continue to inflict violence on several young men. A 19 year old student named Paul Knobbs wakes up in Dennis's flat with a red mark on his neck and bloodshot eyes. He goes to the doctor who tells him that he has clearly been strangled by someone who decided not to finish the job. Knobbs, who knows it was clearly Dennis Nielsen, either never reports it or he never follows up on the report he makes to the police. Then in March of 1982, Dennis bumps into a man he previously met at a pub named John Howlett.

Dennis only initially knows this man as John the guardsman. They spend time alone together at Dennis's apartment. But when Dennis tries to attack him, 23 year old John fights back. And just as it seems that John is winning the fight, Dennis finds a strap of loose upholstery from one of his chairs and is able to strangle John until he's unconscious. And then he drowns him in the bathroom. So now Dennis is forced to dismember John's body immediately. He wraps the body parts in crepe bandages and stuffs them in plastic bags and hides them in the cupboard, the tea chest and the bathroom drawer. This part is truly horrible. He also boils the heads, hands and feet to remove the flesh and separate the bones. And any smaller bones or flesh that he can't destroy, he flushes

down the toilet. Oh my God. So Dennis Nielsen claims his last victim, 20 year old Stephen Sinclair, on January 26, 1983. Sinclair has been struggling with a drug addiction for years. He's last seen by his friends stumbling toward the tube on his way home. So at some point on that route, Dennis Nielsen swoops in and gets the boy to come back to his flat. While Sinclair sits stoned and drunk in the living room, Dennis approaches him with a necktie saying, Oh, Stephen, here I go again. He strangles Stephen Sinclair, bathes his body, lays it on the bed, he does the whole same ritual that he does with all the rest, then dismembers him, tries flushing some of the remains. But because he's already done this with two victims, the pipes are now backed up. So the tenants

must have smelled something because the clogged pipes, I think they're interpreting the smell they're smelling is having to do with the clogged pipes, which it does, but not in the way that they think. So they end up getting together and writing a letter that Dennis himself signs to the landlord saying you have to take care of this problem immediately. And so that's what brings that plumber around to check the drain pipe. So police are only able to identify and name eight of Nielsen's victims, although there are 15 total. And they identified victims are Stephen Holmes, age 14, Graham Allen, age 27, Malcolm Barlow, age 23, Martin Duffy, age 16, John Howlett, age 23, Kenneth Ockenden, age 23, William Sutherland,

age 26, and Stephen Sinclair, age 20. The police are only able to recover 11 of the bodies. So English law states that police have 48 hours from the time of a suspect's arrest to charge them with a crime, or they have to be released. So forensics quickly take the remains found at Cranley Gardens. They run the fingerprints they can find through the database and they get a match confirming Stephen Sinclair's identity. And this allows police to formally charge Dennis Nielsen with the murder of Stephen Sinclair on February 11, 1983. So Dennis Nielsen is sent to Brixton Prison to await his trial, but he begins to make trouble the moment he gets there. Now, there's an amazing three part ITV series called DES starring David Tennant that will tell

you the story of this basically from the DCI's point of view, basically how it unfolded for them. But it's a kind of about what this guy Dennis Nielsen was like to talk to and interact with. And the mind blowing part is the part where he just says, the bodies are in there, I did it. He actually, he ends up firing his like appointed attorney, because he's trying to confess and the attorney keeps saying, I recommend I caution you not to answer that. And he finally he's like, I need you to get out of here. I'm trying to, I'm trying to confess. It's almost like he doesn't have any conscience about or like any consciousness about what a horrible thing he's done. He's just casually like immediately not trying to deny it.

Immediately I'll tell you everything. It sounds like from a couple of things he did, he like has been like waiting to get caught and like waiting for someone to stop him. For sure. I mean, I think that he says that himself to the police that he wanted to stop doing it. But he also is described as a malignant narcissist and narcissists have no consciousness about how they seem to other people. They, they don't get it at all. So his narcissism really shows in that way where he's talking about like, I'm doing the right thing. I'm, look, I'm trying to confess he gets rid of his lawyer because in his, in his mind, everything, he rationalizes everything. He minimizes everything he does.

Everything is just, oh, look, I had to do it. I knew they weren't going to stay. It's all his point of view of I had no choice. I had no choice as opposed to your rampaging serial killer. Like he does not see it that way at all. It's very clean and clear and almost like he really is the victim here. And he just wants his story told. It's pretty mind blowing. And David Tennant as this guy is, it's bone chilling and it's really, really well acted. It's a, it's a really good series. What's it called again? Dez. Dez. Okay. Yeah, it's great. And if you're going to watch, there's another, because this guy, of course, once he was in prison for a long time started recording tapes of himself. So there's another streaming service

that has the Dennis Nielsen tapes. And before you go listen to that, which is Dennis Nielsen's version of himself, you have to watch Dez because that's like the reality version of the delusion this man was living in and how justified he kind of was. It's very disturbing. So once he gets to prison, like he starts making trouble. Like he's, he tells everyone he's really offended that he's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. And yet he's being forced to wear the clothes of a guilty man of a prisoner. And he tries to say that he's going to be go naked instead of wearing prison clothes. Like he was, he's doing a bunch of shit like that. He actually basically the hymn saying he's going to be naked in protest. The guards say,

fine, then we're just not going to let you leave your cell. So then he throws basically a chamber pot type of thing that's in his, in his cell, he throws it and it hits several guards. The contents hit several guards, which land him in solitary confinement for 56 days. So holy shit. Yeah, they're not fucking around with this narcissist. So as the pretrial investigation continues, authorities are able to add five more murder charges and two attempted murder charges onto this case. He agrees to plead guilty to all these charges. But then he changes his mind once more before trial, hires a new attorney and changes his plea to not guilty by reason of diminished responsibility, which is the British version of not guilty by reason of insanity. So the trial

begins on October 24th, 1983. But the overwhelming evidence of Dennis's guilt is damning. So the defense doesn't argue whether or not he's he committed these murders. They argue whether or not he was of sound mind when he did it. Several survivors end up taking the stand to basically tell their side of the story and explain the ways in which he was of sound mind when he attacked them. One of those survivors, Douglas Stewart, the man who awoke in Dennis's apartment with his feet tied, he tells the court that after he overpowered Nielsen, that Nielsen screamed out, take my money, take my money. And Douglas believes that this was Dennis's cover in case neighbors overheard them fighting and called the cops. That way, Dennis would be the victim. And Douglas

would be the attacker. Oh, that's sound mind, motherfucker. Yeah, that's sound mind. DCI Peter Jay also testifies describing how calm and matter of fact Dennis was when he was questioned about the bodies in his cramley apartment, how he hid the bodies, he hid the details of the body's composition. So clearly there was planning, there was forethought, there was he wasn't out of his mind. The defense calls two different psychiatrists who've evaluated Dennis Nielsen. They argue that he suffers from a number of mental and emotional disorders. One psychiatrist believes Dennis suffers from an unspecified personality disorder. The other believes he suffers from schizoid attacks. But a third psychiatrist called by the prosecution argues that one of Dennis's many

troubling characteristics is his ability to manipulate others. This doctor claims that Nielsen is capable of forming relationships, but that he chooses to objectify his victims to the point where he makes them his own sexual props. On November 4, 1983, after just one day of deliberation, the jury finds Dennis Nielsen guilty of all six counts of murder and both counts of attempted murder. And he sentenced to life in prison. He makes no appeal attempts during this imprisonment. He fully agrees with the court's decision. And he also never expresses any remorse for his crimes. He's designated a category a prisoner, meaning that he can have his own room and roam freely with the other inmates. In December of 1983, another inmate cuts Dennis on the face and chest

with a razor blade in a fight. He gets 89 stitches, but he survives those injuries. And then in 2018, Dennis reports having terrible pain and he's taken to York Hospital. The doctors discover he has an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which is essentially, you know, the aorta is the valve that goes up the middle of your body to your heart. And basically, right below your rib cage, it just like it basically looks like it puffs out. I look this up because I'm like, how do you have an abdominal aorta thing? But I didn't realize the aorta goes all the way through. It's supposed to be insanely painful. He has emergency surgery that he survives. But a couple of days later, he dies of a blood clot and he's 72 years old. And mercifully, that is the end of the horrible

story of serial killer necrophile and all around creepy bastard Dennis Nielsen. Wow. Wow. That's that's so heavy. I'm glad you covered that though. And yeah, wild dude. Just horrifying. It's one of those ones you want to take a shower after it's so it's just it's so awful. Yeah. Well, don't worry. I've got an awful one for you today too. Perfect. Like an awful palette cleanser of more awful. Yeah, more awful on awful on top of awful. Perfect. And this one actually takes place in London and in England as well. And there's an involved London and England. That's crazy. Yep. And both of those coincident and involves the Met, the London Metropolitan Police. So look at us go boom, boom. All right. So today I'm going to talk about

the renowned English detective Jack Witcher, who's known as the Prince of Detectives and the case that completely changed his life, the Roadhill House murder. The sources I use today are History by the Yard, a Guardian article written by Kate Somerscale, a Medium article by Chloe Wells, the Dark History's podcast by Ben Cutmore and a Guardian article by Ian Rankin, and of course, our friend Wikipedia as well. So Karen, let's start in August of 1842. And this is when the London Metropolitan Police creates the very first detective force in the English speaking world, which is headquartered at Scotland Yard. Before there were detectives, this is the first time there's ever like actual detecting detectives. Before this crimes were

investigated by regular old police or the Bobby's. And with this new branch of detectives, crimes will be investigated by a group of what starts as eight men who are completely different from their predecessors. These men, it said, will make sense of a crime like no one else. And they're playing close so they're not these like forceful, you know, dudes with nightsticks and stuff they're like, kind of undercover in a way. 27 year old Jonathan Jack Witcher, who has been on the police force for five years is one of these eight men. He's a former laborer, and he joined the Metropolitan Police, which was then just eight years old at 22 years old. He quickly builds a reputation as a detective who is able to solve like even what's considered the most unsolvable cases, he brings

down a thief who stole multiple art pieces, including Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin and Child. He also tracks down the revolutionaries who tried to assassinate Napoleon the third in 1858. In 1859, he helps investigate the case of Reverend James Bonwell, and his lover, Ms. Lizzie Yorith, a clergyman's daughter, so super scandalous, they had an illegitimate baby and are accused of murdering that baby. So he becomes really well known. And the most well known detective on the team actually, the public love him and the public are fascinated by this new type of crime solving. And so he becomes kind of famous in his own right. And the public becomes obsessed with reading about investigations in the newspaper. So essentially, every time we get asked, why is

everyone so obsessed with true crime right now? And we always say, it's not new. This is proof of that. Everyone is obsessed with reading about all the details of these sorted cases that the detectives try to solve. And what year is it? This is 1850. Right now it's like 1860-ish. So even Charles Dickens is fascinated by Witcher after he meets him. He describes him as shorter and thicker set than the other officers, and that he's marked with smallpox scars, and that he is quote, reserved and thoughtful air as if he were engaged in deep arithmetic yield calculations, meaning he seems like he's always thinking about something. According to the article written by author Kate Somerscale, quote, the idea of detection quickly

caught on amid the uncertainties of the mid 19th century, a detective offered science conviction and stories that could organize chaos. In July 1860, now 45 year old Jack Witcher is at the height of his fame when he's asked to help investigate the murder of a three and a half year old boy from a middle class family in the village of Rode. So it's a rural village. On June 30th, little of Francis Savile Kent had been found. And so this is going to get, I'm not going to get too graphic on this, but this is upsetting. He had been found murdered in an outside toilet located on the grounds of the family home. And local police weren't making any progress on the case and Witcher's expertise is requested. He accepts the job and travels a hundred miles away to the house on

Road Hill and the small village of Rode. He arrives on July 14th and immediately starts investigating the death of little Savile. He finds that many people were living or working in the Rode Hill house at the time of the murder. So here's who lives there and works there. The father of that was a Samuel and he had been married to his first wife, Mary Ann, and they had four kids together. Now, 29 year old Mary Ann Alice, 28 year old Elizabeth and 16 year old Constance and 14 year old William. So Mary Ann had died and then Samuel had married a woman named Mary Drew and they had children together. They had five year old Mary Amelia, three year 10 month old Savile who was the victim and one year old Evelyn. And there were three female

employees at the location, nursemaid Elizabeth Goff, housemaid Sarah Cox and cook Sarah Curslake. And there were also three male groundskeeper that lived there. Now, Samuel, the head of the house, isn't well liked in town. He's a factory inspector in charge of enforcing the 1833 Factory Act, which according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, restricted the working day in textile mills from 12 hours for persons aged 13 through 17 and eight hours for those aged nine to 12. So basically, it's like laws against child labor and children working long hours. So both employers and the employees hated Samuel for enforcing this act. Employers obviously because it cut into their bottom line by not having child labor and kids able to work long hours, but also because

the workers weren't able to send their kids off to work long hours. And so they didn't make as much money. So everyone hated him. Samuel was so afraid of the townspeople that he erected like big walls and fences and a high gate around his property. And there's also lots of gossip about Samuel and his household in town. So Samuel and his first wife, Mary Ann, they had 10 children had 10 children together between 1829 and 1845. Sadly for the children had died in infancy. And so Mary Ann had been really upset. According to medium, Mary Kent was diagnosed with weakness, bewilderment of intellect and various, though harmless delusions. So due to these diagnoses, Samuel hired the woman 24 year old Mary Drew to be the family's governess,

which is basically like a tutor and to help raise the older children. So essentially, Mary Drew raised the younger children Constance and William from birth. And then so Samuel's wife, Mary Ann, dies suddenly in 1852. And so Samuel marries the governess like 15 months later. So there's like a huge scandal. Everyone's like, were they in like having an affair when Mary Drew was still alive? So the he and his new wife, Mary Ann, have multiple children together, including little Savile. So now that he has some background info, Witcher speaks with everyone to get the full picture of what happened to Savile. He finds it on the evening of June 29. The groundskeepers leave for the night,

they lock up the tall gate as usual. Nurse made Elizabeth put Savile to bed around 8pm as usual. Two hours later, the only person still awake in the house is the father, Samuel. Before going to bed at 1130, he makes sure all the doors and windows are locked. The next morning around 5am, Elizabeth, the nursemaid, realizes that little Savile isn't in his nursery. His cot's empty and the sheets had been neatly folded. But she's not worried because sometimes the mother, Mary Drew, will take Savile into bed with her when he's crying at night. So she goes about her business at 7am. She knocks on the parent's door to pick up Savile, but he isn't there. So they kind of freak out. Elizabeth checks with the other children to see

if they've seen the little boy. No one's seen him. And by 730, it was realized that he's nowhere to be found and everyone starts to panic. So Samuel, the father, orders one groundsman to get the village policeman. He orders his son, William, to get the local parish constable and his daughter, Constance, to get the local priest. And the rest of the staff, he orders them to start looking around the grounds. And he rides five miles to Trowbridge to get police superintendent John Foley. So meanwhile, two local men, by the name of Nut and Banger, they arrive to try to help search for the missing boy and they find a small pool of blood outside the staff's outdoor toilet in the garden. So yeah, trigger warning. The men like reach into the toilet and pull out a bundle.

It was Savile wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket from his cot. I know. He's still wearing his night shirt. He had knife wounds and bruising around his mouth. Banger carries Savile's body into the house. When the family doctor looked him over, he estimated the time of death to be around 3 a.m. And he will leave the bruising around the boy's mouth meant he'd been smothered or suffocated prior to being stabbed. So superintendent Foley arrives and looks over the property. They don't find anything suspicious. Immediately, the local police focus on the nursemaid Elizabeth. And she was the last person to see Savile alive. She slept in the same room as him but hadn't been awoken. You know, if someone had come in, she maybe would have woken up. And it wasn't just

police who had theories. Of course, the locals did. It becomes huge news in the town. Locals couldn't go anywhere without hearing conversations about his murder. Everyone knew about it. Everyone had their own theories. And most everyone agreed that Elizabeth the nursemaid was guilty. So cut to which are showing up. He doesn't believe that Elizabeth is guilty. And so once he shows up, the story gets, you know, huge all over the country because he's famous as well. So this guy Wilkie Collins, who's the author of The Moonstone, which is known as the first modern English detective novel, describes the whole thing as detective fever. So hundreds of people write to Scotland Yard and newspapers with their theories of who the killer was. But again, the only person who

doesn't think Elizabeth is guilty is Witcher, but also Mary Drew, the mother, doesn't think she did it either. But regardless, Elizabeth's arrested on June 10th. And when no further evidence is found, she's released. So there's no evidence against her. And there's really not a lot of evidence at all. So she's cleared. And so local police then bring in Jack Witcher, right? Yeah, they need an expert from the city. Exactly. And they knew it. So once he has all the information, he agrees with Mary Drew that Elizabeth is not the killer. So everyone tries to convince Witcher that Elizabeth did it. And he's like, I'm a fucking detective. I will not be swayed or whatever. You know, he doesn't believe in gossip. And so. God, I do. I do. I really love it.

It's my religion. But but Witcher does think that someone, of course, living in the house is guilty. It's almost impossible that it's not someone from the house. And the person he owns in on is Samuel's 16 year old daughter, Constance, who civils half sister. So he has multiple reasons why he thinks Constance is the murderer. So Constance's mother, Mary Ann was mentally ill. Remember, she had passed away, which Witcher just immediately theorizes that Constance inherited her mental illness through genetics. So that's just like his immediate reaction, you know, isn't great. And so back when Constance was 13, she ran away from home with her younger brother, William, who was 11 at the time. She cuts off her hair, she puts on boys' clothing,

and she gathers up her brother. They had 30 miles northwest of road to the port city of Bristol. They were going to board a ship to leave the country. Like they were fucking 13 and 11 and out. They were out of there. Also sorry. But dressing like a boy at that time to to run away is the smartest thing you could do. Yeah, it's the only way. It's very intelligent. And yes, totally. So so they're found in a hotel in Bath and returned home. But here's the thing, when she had cut her hair and gotten rid of her clothes, she had gotten rid of them inside the same toilet or outdoor privy where Savile's body had been found. So that's huge red flag. To me, that's the strongest evidence. And then as you just said, in addition to her

physical strength, she had a quote, strong enough mind to murder someone. So she was fucking smart and savvy. Not that that not that smart savvy people murder people, but well, like tricky, maybe. Maybe a little bit like, oh, how did you think of that type of person? Totally. Like I could get away with something kind of thing. She also sleeps alone in her bedroom, meaning she could have killed him without anyone noticing she was not in her bed that night. And to top it off, her nightgown is missing from that night. And they're wondering if it's because she disposed of it because it was covered in blood. So Witcher doesn't know why Constance would kill her three year old half brother, but it doesn't matter. You know, he tells the local

magistrate what he suspects. They tell Witcher he can arrest her any seven days to figure out the motive while she's in jail, or she'll be released. On July 20, Constance is arrested crying, I'm innocent, I'm innocent, as she's dragged away from the Road Hill House. So Witcher tries to figure out the motive and find the elusive nightgown. And meanwhile, Samuel, the father hires like a high powered attorney to defend Constance, and she's released on bail. So after seven days, Witcher thinks he has a motive, but he never finds the nightgown. And it doesn't matter. The motive is enough on July 27. And in an inquiry into Constance, basically a grand jury, he tells the jury that Constance killed her brother because she was

jealous that Samuel was her dad's favorite child. And that basically, you know, the whole older sister thing, she got replaced by the new stepmom. The stepmom had basically raised her and as soon as her mom was out of the picture, they just completely forgot about her, sent her to boarding school. But multiple people testify that Constance never spoke ill of her baby brother. And then Constance's attorney kind of goes on this like, this like heartfelt plea saying, there's not a tittle of evidence against her, this young lady has been dragged like a common felon, a more unjust, a more unjust, a more improper, a more improbable case was never brought before any court of justice in any place. And the very dramatic overstated.

It's a little dramatic. But it works. And the jury rules that there isn't evidence for Constance to go to trial. And I agree with that. They can't just be like, you're jealous, the end, totally. That seems fair. You hid something in the privy once. And, yeah, you're smart. You're smart and your mom is crazy. Like, yeah, you can't. I think a lot of women have have suffered because of all those, all of those reasons. Hi, me. I'm really smart. And my mom, no, my mom's so crazy. So, okay. So at the time, it's this like Victorian society, where women are these like delicate flowers. And there's this like kind of understanding that the middle class like women can do no wrong. And like how and it's just like, there's monsters out there.

So which are accusing this like nice 16 year old middle class lady of murder makes and when the public finds out about it, they're totally outraged by it. And the public's mind and accomplished intelligent upper class lady would never commit a murder, especially when this horrendous. So many felt that Witcher had violated the upper middle class home. So his fucking reputation is tarnished. His main suspect that he was like sure did it is free. And so he kind of tucks his tail between his legs and goes back to London. Londoners no longer put the detective branch on a pedestal and the age of glorifying detectives for the time being is over. So they're now these anti-heroes who take things too far. So Witcher suffers a nervous breakdown and retires from the force

citing quote congestion of the brain. Whoa, like me too, dude. Same. So now that he's out of the picture, local police go back to pinning Savile's murder on nursemaid Elizabeth. So they're back to her. Luckily for her, they're unsuccessful. And after being arrested and released for a second time, Elizabeth finally quits working for the family. Goodbye. Goodbye. One time I can forgive, but this is true bullshit. Roadhouse, the Road Hill House. With no other suspects, the magistrate judge opens his own investigation of the murder. So remember Constance's missing nightgown? Well, the magistrate judge, Thomas Bush Saunders, it turns out he finds out that on the day of Savile's murder, police had actually found

the nightgown hidden in the chimney that day. What? And no one's talking about it? Well, the nightgown was, quote, dry but very dirty. It had some blood on it, end quote. The officer who found it told Superintendent Fowley, but he dismissed it as evidence saying it's probably menstrual blood and had been, quote, hidden out of shame. But why would you? So that's that then. Your guess is no fact. Yeah. And also like maybe not telling this. I think they resented this big time detective coming in from London. And so maybe they were just like, it's not evidence, don't worry about it. He's just gonna pin it on. Like maybe they were defending Constance because they also had these preconceived notions about upper middle class 16-year-olds. So they were

like, forget it. It's gonna mislead. It's an odd hill to die on, the 16-year-olds of the upper class. But also just like then knowing that he had a whole, the witcher had a whole theory, he had the, like this one cop had the evidence, but it was just kind of like, no, that's okay. Yeah. I mean, it can't be the first time someone's fucking hidden evidence because I think someone's screw over the like incoming gut. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So the nightgown revelation, though, doesn't really lead anywhere at this point. I feel like the investigation is kind of over. It fizzles out. In 1861, the Kent family moves to Wales. Constance is sent to finishing school. And her younger brother, William, sent to boarding school. So in 1863, 19-year-old Constance leaves

finishing school and moves to St. Mary's, a house for religious ladies in Brighton. So while she's there at St. Mary's, she confesses to Savile's murder. Constance, the half-sister. Oh. Remember her? Yep. From just a minute ago? Never forgot her. Remember that upper middle class 16-year-old who couldn't hurt a fly? Shit. She tells the principal of St. Mary's, named Arthur Wagner, that she waited until the family and staff were asleep before she took Savile from his room. She wrapped him in a blanket, left the house, and killed him with her father's razor in the outdoor toilet. I know. But she never gives a motive. On April 25, 1865, 25-year-old Constance enters London's Bow Street Magistrates Court and hands in a handwritten confession

that reads, quote, I, Constance Emily Kent, alone and unaided on the night of the 29th of June, 1860, murdered at Road Hill House, one Savile Kent. Before the deed, none knew of my intention, nor after of my guilt, no one assisted me in the crime, nor in my invasion of discovery. And Constance pleads guilty and is sentenced to death. Wow. Even with her confession, many people still think Constance is innocent. Constance is innocent. Many people still think Constance is innocent. So people think it's her father who killed his son and that Samuel, a known adulterer, was sleeping with the nursemaid and that maybe Constance is covering for them. So a lot of people also think that maybe

Savile, this three-year-ten-month-old, interrupted his father's affair with the nursemaid Elizabeth. Like they were hooking up this three-year-ten-month-old saw and to keep him quiet, they killed him, which is like the most absurd. Like a three-and-a-half-year-old is not going to be like at the breakfast table fucking saying what he saw. Also, it's just so extreme to kill a child that like it's... Yeah. Exactly. So there's all these fucking stupid theories like that. So in 2008, author Kate Somerscale releases a book called The Suspicion of Mr. Witcher. And she has a new theory that Constance's younger brother, William, was the actual killer and Constance was covering for him with her confession. But also if William wasn't the killer,

he at least aided his big sister Constance. And Kate actually found while she was researching the book that Witcher actually thought that William was involved as well as an accomplice, but kind of kept it to himself or that he was at least a confidant and knew what a sister had done. Either way, Somerscale believes that the motive was revenge against Samuel who favored the children he had with his second wife. And that of those kids, Samuel was his favorite. I mean, classic story, it's like sad, but true, you know. Yes. Yeah. So now back to the 1800s. Luckily for Constance, Queen Victoria saves her from being hanged. And instead of a death sentence, Constance serves 20 years in prison. She's released in July of 1885 at 41 years old.

I know. Wow. The next year she moves to Australia, she starts with a new identity, of course. And there she becomes a nurse. She works with a leper colony and a home for young offenders. And she dies in 1944 at 100 years old. Whoa. I know. So she kind of was, at least she did have a conscience and she was basically like, this is what I'll do to make up for this horrible thing I did. I mean, we can only guess, but it sounds like becoming a nurse and working at a leper colony is a little bit of like redemption on her part, right? Absolutely. That's some service to the Lord if I've ever heard about it. Right. I mean, seems like. Yeah, for sure. So what about Detective Jack Witcher? You just asked me in your mind, probably. Well, after Constance confesses killing

her brother, of course, he's totally been vindicated because he was fucking right all along, even though he had been lambasted in the fucking public and in the papers. So now his reputation as a genius crime solver is restored and he becomes the assistant superintendent of police. And he goes back. He goes back, baby. And like even better than before, you know. Did he go back and as he walks in the office, just start screaming, I fucking told you. I told you. Everyone gets an in your face with her by him. Just walking right up to people and just screaming it in their face, in your face, in your face, slams his office doors twice in a row. I mean, that would be because the fact that he had a nervous breakdown. Yeah, like that his world

ended. Yeah. And it probably wasn't even that easy. It's not like he was like, this is great. I'm loving saying that your daughter killed her half brother. Like it's all he's just doing it to solve the crime. Yeah. And he like knew it because he was so good at what he did. And everyone's like, you're full of shit. You're wrong. And there you have been like fucking Charles Dickens, like was his band. Like he had been how high the mighty fall and all that shit. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So he becomes the assistant superintendent of police. And in 1881, after a 40 plus year career in law enforcement, he dies at the age of 67. Wow. Yeah. So he fucking, he's the comeback kid, but his legacy doesn't die with him. He's the inspiration for early detective novels and

psychological thrillers in Charles Dickens 1853 novel Bleak House, which the inside are classic. I want to talk about all these. Well, just because there's a bleak, there's a version of Bleak House. There's many, you go on to like Amazon Prime. There's many. But Jillian Anderson stars in one of the more recent Bleak Houses and it is so good. I think I've watched it five times. It is so well made. It is so, it is so like, it's such good TV and it's a series. So I think there's like the episodes or something. It's beautifully made. I'm sure it's from the BBC. It's one of my favorite, like of the period piece series. It's one of the best ones. Yeah. I mean, that's some Karen Kilgara fucking, what's it called right there? And then I have a surprise one for you at the end.

Okay. That goes along with this. I love surprises. So it's like the, so basically Encyclopedia Britannica says it's the first important detective novel in English literature. And there's a featured character based on Witcher named Inspector Bucket. Yep. Yeah. So that's fucking Steven Ray. Steven Ray plays Inspector Bucket in the Bleak House that I'm talking about and he's great. That's crazy. That's based on Jack Witcher. Hey, and even today, Witcher's Legacy is one of the first great detectives and that lives on in 2008. Kate Somerscale wrote the suspicions of Mr. Witcher and a TV series based on the book was released three years later. That was my surprise. That was my surprise. When you first started telling

this one, I was like, oh my God, this is the suspicions of Mr. Witcher. Oh my God. Patty Constantine is the star and it is so good. I think there's only four of them though. What? And Olivia Coleman stars in one of them, not this one, but like the fourth one, I think. It is such a good, it's again, period piece. Yes. But really, like if you want to know more about Mr. Witcher, this is the TV show for you. Connoisseur is the word I was thinking of, is what you are. And if you're fucking saying these are the best, then these are the fucking best, people. Here's some of the things I love. I love period pieces. I love Victorian England. Yeah. I love crimes and mysteries. Yeah. All of those things take place in the suspicions of I love what?

High tea. I love tea. I'm drinking some PG tips right now. Are you really? I am. I love Patty Constantine. That's wild. I can't recommend this series more, but Bleak House, I think Bleak House number one. Okay. Suspicions of Mr. Witcher, a close two. Okay, great. But also, I'm going to end this by telling you that Witcher did more than just inspire books and TV shows. His protege day was Frank Williamson, who would go on to establish the criminal investigation department and lead the search for Jack the Ripper. So it goes all the way to the fucking top, baby. It all goes all the way to the top. Although, gotta say, Mr. Williamson didn't do the best job. Oh, but I will go ahead and agree that he actually didn't solve it. So it's not that great of a

fucking legacy. Hey, we can't all be a Mr. Witcher. We can't all be problem solvers. Yeah. So that is the story of Jack Witcher, the Prince of Detectives, and the case that completely changed his life, the Road Hill House murder. Amazing. Whew. Thank you. Oh, I loved that one. That's like you telling me one of my favorite TV shows. I know. When you first started saying it, I was like, I could see it really clearly in my mind. And then I was like, hold on a second. I feel like I stole that one out from under you a little bit. Well, but no, that's better because also there's four other ones. If you want to watch them, you can pick other ones too because there's some real, it's like it's and it's really fascinating

how they had so little to go on back then in terms of like, you know, forensics in terms of actually getting hard evidence, all that stuff. Right. You had to be basically a Sherlock Holmes type to put stuff together and be like, wait, you said this on that day. And to put stuff together and also pick other things apart because there's so many red herrings. Like in this story, there's so many little things that don't have anything to do with the case, but you have to look and do it and then decide what what's either just happens to, you know, just has nothing to do with the case at all. What's something that the murderer maybe was trying to do to mislead you? What's, you know, what actually is part of the, you know, the investigation. Yeah. And like, and for this one,

the class system that dictated how people, what people assumed about people's lives where the public was like, there's no way a 16 year old rich girl could do anything like this. So just take that off the table. How dare you? Yeah. You lose your reputation because of that. You lose everything. You would have a nervous breakdown because of it where it's like, no, that guy was actually seeing really clearly. Yeah. But also like every step of the way, I just kept noticing like people like people would like, they had to like turn people away from the trial, like the trials, that every pub, everyone was speculating, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing the story. Everyone knew about it. And it's like, yeah, people have been murderinos and into true crime

for fucking forever. It's not new. No, no, no, it's, it's not new. And it's also a combination of every, you know, we're joking about loving gossip. Everyone does. Everyone wants to know the thing that isn't known. Everyone wants to know a secret to hear a forbidden thing or a thing that like, brace yourself, you won't be able to handle this. It's like, it is so upsetting to think a child murdered and then put into a privy. That is terrible. It's so extreme that then you're having people react to that information. Yeah. A girl like that could never do it, blah, blah, blah. Like the depravity of it. It has to be, it has to be someone that is obvious. It can't be, you know, who would do such a thing, not this person. Oh my God, you know, which actually, sorry,

but it reminds me in the, because I was rewatching does just to see if there's anything I missed or whatever. And apparently when the, when the, when the police went down to his place of work, to go like investigate his, to see if they could find anything there or when I talk to people, they wouldn't let the police in because they did not believe he could do anything like that. Always. It was just another one of those things of like monsters in plain sight, monsters right there in front of you. But if they're quiet and shy and kindly in the day to day, then people will swear up and down that there's no way they could do a thing like that. Yeah. See, this is why I suspect every single person in my life. Just a healthy suspicion. Yeah. Like the suspicions

of Mr. Witcher. Right. And then you'll be pleasantly surprised at the end of the, at the end of life that nobody you suspected. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's nice. I was the asshole. No one else was. Great. That's much better. I'd rather be the asshole than my, like, then my best friend's sister be the murderer. You know what I mean? Yes, exactly. Let me be paranoid instead of you be guilty. Right. In that episode, I just want to double check. Yeah. But I believe that your friend. Uh-oh. Are they Targaryens? Who are the, oh, not the Starks. Lannister. Okay. You know the Lannister dad that finally shows up? Charles Dance. Is his name? Yeah. And he's like the one that bosses everyone around. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm there with

you. He plays the dad in the Mr. Witcher episode where he's the dad everyone hates. Oh, wow. From Roadhill. Oh, I could see. He's a dick dad. He's good at that role. Yep. He's a, he's a British. I also think he might be in Bleakhouse. He is. He's the, I'm not kidding. He's the lawyer in Bleakhouse. And this is why I love British television. Yeah. There's about 30 people that are in every single thing and they're all the best actors you've ever seen. Can I tell you something that reminds me? Go, I'm going to go back to our Halloween party. I'm going to call back to our Halloween party. We're doing the beginning of the show at the end. We just needed a little time to warm up. Because it was so sad in the beginning with George. We just needed to warm up. It's okay.

Baby. Um, okay. Kerpranahler and Lauren Cook. Kerpranahler from the podcast Bananas and Lauren Cook. Bananas and Lauren Cook. Who's amazing. And his wife, star of NCIS. I was talking to her about that. That's right. She's on NCIS. It's the, it's the best. She's like, it's really cool to try to be an actress for 20 years and then finally have it kick in. I know. It's so awesome. I'm so stoked for her. So they came. Lauren was Jon Snow and Kurt was the Queen of Dragons, Mother of Dragons. Daenerys. Daenerys. Daenerys. Which was a spoiler for me. Because I didn't know they hooked up. Oh, wow. I was like, who are you guys? And she seemed really offended that I couldn't tell. But then I was like, well, I didn't know because I didn't know they ever even met. Like,

of course they do. But also, Lauren is a blonde who has, I actually had a picture of her hair on my phone for a while to show a hairdresser of like, this is the goal we're trying to get to. Because she has such good hair. But she had it up in this hilarious Jon Snow brown curly wig and then she had a knitted beard on her face. Yes. And then Kurt, so Lauren's like my height and Kurt's like Vince's height. So Kurt's like a six, four fucking Queen of Mother of Dragons. Yes. Lauren is this little Jon Snow. Little Jon Snow. But I was like, oh, they hook up. I'm like, it made me want to watch more. And then they're, and then they have two kids, Lauren and Kurt, and they dress them up as dragons. Did they really? For Halloween. And what? Is that the cutest thing

you've ever seen? I love that. Usually you see parents that they dress up around the kids. Right. But they're like, no, no, you're going to be in our thing. You're a motherfucking dragon. Yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah. So I love it. I didn't think of that. So that was a spoiler, Halloween costume, but it made me want to keep watching because I'll watch them hook up. Shit. Is that sexy? Yeah, but it comes up. It's later and the phrase hook up is, you know, it's like you have to see, but it's good. Okay. You should definitely see it. All right. And then once you do, please tell me so I can send you one of my favorite memes that I've ever seen. Okay. But that's all like later. Yeah. Okay. Worth it for a meme. I'll do anything for a good

meme. I really love it. Because it means you get it. It means you get it. It means you've consumed enough pop culture. Yes. Whatever that you get the meme. Yes. 100%. The goal of all of life. And then you go, oh, the internet's not that bad. If it's smart, if it's smart people like this. And then, and then you look over and do better. Right. There are the corner of your eye. Right. And then the news, then you, then you read the news instead of memes and you're like, why did I do that? It's rough. It is rough. But we're keeping this on a positive note at the end. That went like my story, of course, took us way down. And then there was like a ticking roller coaster up, up, up with Mr. Witcher. Yeah. And I think and then the baby delivered us. Yeah.

It delivers us right out of the pit of despair. I mean, it's sad. Should we do a fucking hooray just to like bring it to the top? Absolutely. Ended on the highest of highs. Yes. All right. Let's do a couple fucking hoorays. Let's do it. Do you want me to go first? Sure. I like this one. This was from Twitter from Day Lily. Her handle is at Day Lily 234. And she said, how'd you share my fucking hooray? Is that after many years of inactivity, I've started walking every day. My town, right? I know. My town has, I know. It's good. I love hearing stuff like that. Yes. My town has beautiful trails and lots of yep, you guessed it. Bogs. And then there's like the, the, my favorite emoji, which is the one where they're gritting

their teeth, like. Yeah. And then they wrote, I was walking the bog, listening to the pod when I heard your episode of Bog Body. What? Yeah. I love that because it's such the little things that make a huge difference. And I fucking need that in my life. And it's so hard for me to like get, it started even though I know like mentally it's, it's so needed. And it's all it is is that little step of like actually putting your shoes on so day lily 234. You're our hero, you're kicking ass. You're inspiring both of us. I'm going to emulate you, except not, except not with Bogs, but with city fucking pollution and traffic. Okay. I'm going to walk until I find a bog. That's my commitment. And we never saw Karen again. Okay. This one's from

our email says, I'm drinking bubbly out of the Waterford crystal toasting fluids from my wedding to celebrate my first year of not having to be married anymore to someone who cheated and lied and emotionally abused me. Of course, while wearing my fuck you, I'm divorced pants. Hey, I got a job using my degree after being a stay at home mom of four for 10 years and went through a nasty divorce all during the pandemic. And by the way, there's a lot of exclamation marks in here. So I think they're like really, it's positive. I am proud of how far I've come and I'm so excited to see what life brings me next. So cheers. Stay sexy and don't marry a douche canoe. El. El. That's amazing. Proud of you. Bust out that Waterford crystal. Fuck yeah.

And then sell those things on fucking eBay for you. That's your little uh, yeah, you could that's your nest egg. Yeah, go get a facial after you sell those fucking glasses you don't need. You raised four kids and now you're doing it Waterford crystal style. Hell yes. Yes. I love it. Well, here, them thematically this goes along with this. Okay. This is from the fan quote forum. And it says, Hi, I adore you. Let's get to it. I've been a stay at home quarantine mom for what seems like 75 years. So just BT dubs. We haven't done these in a while. So if you sent this last fall or something like, you know, that's what we're reading. Right. But anyway, I've been a stay at home quarantine mom for what seems like 75 years and my husband is a healthcare worker going doing

60 plus hour weeks and then in parentheses because fuck COVID. Again, we may not be banging pots and pans anymore because we're all pretending that quarantine's over but healthcare workers are still overwhelmed and getting it from all sides. So do what you can for your healthcare workers please. We're both at the end of our sanity at this point, get fucking vaxed and wear a mask. There's lots of parentheticals in this email. But I have convinced him to listen to MFM during his one and a half hour commutes to escape this hellish job. And not only have you provided him in a distraction, but now we have a new shared obsession and he's a proud murderer. Instead of just being overtired assholes, we're now overtired assholes that can talk shit for

hours over whichever episodes he binge today. I've even caught him stealing my fan cult gear and wearing it with pride. Stay saved and do God's mission or sunset or some such crap. XOXO Maria. And the subject line of that email was fucking hooray, you saved my marriage. Yeah, I'm going to take full credit for that. Full credit. Absolutely. You're welcome. Can you imagine having to be in the medical field and work 60 hours a week and fucking drive an hour and a half each way? It's just so much for people to deal with. It is just ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And like no one and they're not doing the thing that would make it at least a little bit better, which is to get fucking why is it an argument to get vaccinated? Just get fucking

vaccinated and maybe you won't fucking die and overwhelm the health care system. Like come on. One of my favorite comedians and people on Twitter is a comic named Robert Yosemura and he tweeted today, liberty is also fucking responsibility. Like you don't just do, I have liberty. It's like now you're part of the social fabric. Selfish piece of shit. But go ahead and have your mental illness publicly, whatever. Breakdown on fuck. Too strong. No. Too strong a statement. It's important. I'm thinking of these people because you see all these articles. People are so rude now. Everyone's so blah, blah, blah. Well, a lot of them have to commute an hour and a half to go to a place where then they have to fight with people who won't wear a mask or who on

their deathbed, you look up at them and say, I was told this was a hoax. Imagine how horrifying it is. So fucked up. All right. I got one more. Okay. This is from Brit Mags on the fan cult forum, I think. Yeah, on the fan cult forum. It's all Brit Mags. Brit Mags. What's up? My fucking array is that right before the start of COVID, I decided to chase my dreams and was accepted to the master beekeeping program at my local college. Oh, Georgia. Moving there. Then COVID hit and despite homeschooling my three small children in a language I don't speak, I finished my first year with a 98%. Whoa, wait. Where are they going to school? I have no idea. I have no idea the details. Maybe English is in her first language. Maybe they're living abroad. I don't know, but this person.

This is a compelling... I can barely watch TV in my native tongue. It's too difficult sometimes. That's right. If we left in all the words we got wrong during this podcast that Steven is now editing out, we would not. It would sound like it wasn't our native fucking tongue. Then it said yesterday, I received my acceptance letter for year two of the program. Thank you for giving me the courage to chase my dreams and giving me a safe space to feel proud of myself. Yes. Yay, Brit Mags. Fucking beekeeping. Brit Mags killing it in the international beekeeping industry. Platform. Industry. What's the word? Industry? I don't know. Study program. Study program. International study abroad beekeeping. What if when she says it wasn't in a language that she

speaks, she means the language of the bees. No, no, no, no. She taught her. She homeschooled her kids in bee speak. They all have like a very light yellow fur on their face. Did I read that right? In the homeschooling my three children in language, I don't speak. I finished my first year in any group. No, that's right. Yes. But for her. Amazing. Hope and dreams and excitement and like let's fucking build a better world connection. Let's support each other. Let's let's give people a break. Let's also band together. Let's try to make people feel less lonely so they don't have to go to weird websites and fill their heads with terrible things. Let's bring them to Mr. Witcher's house. Let's bring them to Bleak House. Let's bring them to the Charles Dickens. Yes. Let's

bring a fucking game of thrones. Yes. Let's make a better world for for she, him, they, them, there. Like let's fucking do this. We can do it. No reason not to. That's what is what we're kind of here to do, everybody. Yeah. And we're doing it through true crime. It doesn't make sense. We know that. We know that. Podcasts are supposed to be funny and fun and quick and just like get you out of your head. But Karen and I are fucking taken to the streets. We're doing it backwards and we're doing it against the odds and without proper understanding of the English fucking language because we dropped out of college. Both of us. We can't pronounce your town in England. It's going to be a bloodbath. We blame it on you. Yes, we do. That's right. That's right. That's our guarantee

to you. Zoom high five, Georgia. That was a great episode. Zoom high five, Karen. Boom. Stephen, thank you once again. Yep. Let's all stay sexy. And let's all don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton, associate producer Alejandra Keck, engineer and mixer Stephen Ray Morris, researchers J. Elias and Haley Gray. Send us your hometowns and your fucking arrays at my favorite murder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder. And for more information about this podcast or live shows, merch or to join the fan cult, go to my favorite murder.com. Rate, review and subscribe.