My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 417 - A Nervous Nose

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

This week, Georgia and Karen cover the Crouch family murders and the murder spree of Thomas Samon. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to automatically download new episodes. Goodbye! Goodbye! My favorite love. Hello. Hello. And welcome. That's my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar.

That's Karen Kilgariff. Oh. Hi. Oh. Oh. Now she's taking a sip of tea. Karen Kilgariff. Oh, hey. Oh, now she's taking a sip of tea. She likes to take a sip of something right after the intro.

Right when talking is supposed to start. Yeah, that's our thing. I need to clear my instrument and get the shit going. My instruments a cello. Oh, that's right. Yeah. How are you? What's going on? What's new?

I'm good. I, um, what's good to talk about? There's so much bad. There's a lot of bad, a lot of tough stuff. And I think maybe that has a lot to do with, and I feel like a lot of my friends and people that I have seen lately are saying the exact same thing. I'm not doing it for attention anymore. I truly never know what day it is.

I can't track the date anymore. I love that you said, I'm not doing it for attention anymore. I love the admission. Yeah, we all, you know, we do that thing like, what is it, Tuesday? Oh my God, I just hear you. It's Friday. Oh, everyone gather around and tell me what day it is.

It's not like that anymore. I truly get a feeling where I'm like, oh, thank God it's Sunday. It's like, it is Thursday. That kind of shit. If you could have one day, be every day, would it be Sunday? Is that your favorite? Because Sunday has got the Monday coming up real hot. Right, hot on its tail.

I do love the religiousness of Sunday. That is your favorite. You've always said, you and Jesus on Sunday are like this. Me, Jesus, no fun, no talking, sit down. Some must kneel. Those wafer crackers you guys loved. Oh, we love to stick them right to the roof of our mouths and then just think about being bad, inherently, intrinsically bad.

Yeah, that's why this heat in like Saturday's the best. Oh, enjoy your Saturday before you burn in hell. You know, Saturday's good, although I think if I had to pick, I'd pick Friday. Why? Because you still have to work, but it's anticipation of it all. It's like you get the half and half combo of work and fun.

Okay, so like you've earned it. If you do that. Yes, exactly. You earn it with your day, and then you almost like in my past lives, that would be the night I would burn a little hotter because it'd be like, get me away from that would be the night I would burn a little hotter because it'd be like, get me away from that job or building or whatever thing.

You need penance. We're going back to the religion thing. You need the Friday. I can't get away from it. That's how Catholicism is. You need to pay on Friday so that you deserve it on Friday night. That's right. And then suffer Saturday, Sunday.

I think I just came up with this metaphor right now. I swear to God, I didn't pre-write this. I feel like Catholicism is like that blue exploding ink that robbers get on their face and hands when they steal money from the bank. They bank robbers, they should call them. Covers your entire existence. Face and hands.

And you're just, that's even no matter you go to jail, you do whatever, it's still on you. Kind of for the duration. Yeah. And the harder you try to scrub it off, like the worse it gets and smoothers and stuff. And then you kind of start to like the scrubbing. And then you're like, I can never get clean.

And maybe I deserve this and I do deserve this. Maybe I've always deserved it. Yeah. Wow. It's very strange, but I do think that the effect, because religion is kind of going away, structured religion like that, it seems to be culturally going away in America.

And it's, mm-hmm. Okay. Well, fascism isn't religion though. They're using religion. Right. To basically justify human horror. Okay. We all agree that like, we don't believe

that you like God or that God likes you. You're just using it to squash an entire people. Yeah. And their rights. Yes. They don't get to claim God. Well, it could have started sincerely. And we could be talking about really any religion right now.

Sure. But when you start getting into the thing of like, the religion is the rationale, well then you're done for. Yeah, to do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah, to whoever the fuck you want. Specifically stated in the Bible, you're not allowed to do. Very clearly, if that is what we're talking about.

And the Torah. All of it, yeah. OG Bible. Why am I, why? This is a true crime. I really wish you guys would leave the politics. So you're like, I wish wish I'm done with them. I claim publicly once again that I am done because A, B, C, D.

Yeah, keep it. Do yourself. We're not that interested because we're trying to talk to the people who agree with us. We don't care because this is our lives, minds, experiences. Yeah, yeah. I mean, don't be a fucking snowflake, right? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Oh, what a time. What's going on with you? I have a podcast to recommend. Yeah, it's called My Favorite Murder. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. And thanks for showing up for it. And I'm gonna stop listening to My Favorite Murder and start listening to my favorite murder

and start listening to my favorite murder instead. I was playing the character and myself in that one moment. What's your podcast? It's called One Song and it's hosted by these big music dudes. This is what guy Luxury and this guy Diallo Riddle and they basically break down a big song and tell you all about it. And the reason I found it is because they did Grooves in the Heart. And you know...

Yeah, I watched that on TikTok. You did? I watched it. Oh my God. Where they say where those samples are from. Yeah, yeah. I saw that and I was like, goodbye and went immediately to the podcast. Nice.

Because you know I'm an old school rave or fucking delight head. Fucking delight. And then I realized that they do like other episodes, they do like Marvin Gaye and New Order and like Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. Like they tell you about important interesting songs like Grooves in the Heart. And it's so entertaining.

And you'll like find out so much information, you're going to be a fucking know it all, all the time. Well, also it is so fascinating, but it almost feels like, from my experience, stuff like that of samples that are used, how DJs put a song together and make a hit or whatever, is like, oh, I don't know about stuff. I'm always like, oh, that's not for me, because I don't know about stuff like that already. And it's like, oh, yes, but I would love to learn it. I would love to hear about it. Just tell us. And it's so brilliant the way they do it

and the way, like, you know, DJing, people put it down, but it's actually kind of, it's a skill, obviously. Oh my God. Are you kidding? I am in a vein of TikTok, where I just get clips of DJs. I think we are on the same algorithm. I've got where we are. It's like, do you like this song by like a recent, you know, artist? Well, here are the samples they use, you know, like for example, Doja Cat using Walk On Bye

by Deon Warwick in her new song. That's amazing. I love that. I love that. It's the coolest thing. Also, did I just belch in the microphone like without even thinking about it? I think I did. Apologies to Alejandra and Aristotle for doing that. Please edit it out. Or don't. Did you go straight into the mic? I think I didn't turn my head,

which is like, how do we usually do it? We say, excuse me, wait a minute and we burp. But were you distracted by? I was excited. You're excited for DJ talk? Yes. Well, that's a great one. It's called One Song, so definitely listen to it.

And I bet your favorite song's on it. They do fucking Mo Money Mo Problems, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Maps, which is great. Like so many good songs. That Maps is my karaoke song. Oh. I'll never do karaoke, but if someone made me do it, that's the song that I do. I could see you doing that. What do you have?

Okay, so this show, I found a TV show, a British comedy that is from now, like it's not, I didn't dig for it or anything. And it is written by a woman named Kat Sadler who also stars in it. And the show is called Such Brave Girls. I can't remember where I found it, but it's on one of your major streaming services. Sure. And it is so fucked up and so hilarious and so insane. What's that?

I see the cut. It's like gothy looking girls or like kind of badass. Well, Cat Sadler plays Josie, the older sister, an actress named Lizzie Davidson plays her younger sister named Billy. And the two of them and then their dad left them And this actress Louise Brealy Plays the mom and she I don't know if you ever watched Sherlock But she was the scientist woman that was kind of in love with Sherlock that would help them in the lab Yeah, so she's done everything and she was also in the TV series, Back That I Love with David Mitchell and the guys from Peep Show.

She has been in a ton of amazing stuff. And in this thing, it is the craziest show of like a dysfunctional family, but beyond. It's so dirty, it's so funny, it's so insane. It's like, you have to watch it. Okay, I will. It's called Such Brave Girls, right? Such Brave Girls. And I keep doing the thing have to watch it. Okay, I will. It's called such brave girls. Such brave girls.

And I keep doing the thing where when a friend comes over, I'll be like, I need you to see just the first episode of this, just so you see it with me. It's hilarious. And then you just stare at them the whole time while they're watching and be like, right? Right? It is the most relatable.

Every character, you're like, yep, I've been that person. I've been that person. Yeah, we contain multitudes, meaning we've all been in our 20s. And 30s. And 40s. And 40s, Jesus. Anything else? Should we do exactly right corner?

That's all I got. Okay. Hey guys, we have a podcast network called Exactly Right and here are some freaking highlights. That's right. It is Black History Month, all during the month of February, the shortest month of the year. Over on, I Saw What You Did, Millie DeCerico and Danielle Henderson are going to be covering the movie Burglar from 1987 and a classic from 1986, Jump and Jack Flash. Both films star the iconic Egot winner, Whoopi Goldberg.

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Georgia goes first. And so I will. Oh, Karen, you're going to like this one, even though it's unsolved. Okay. But it's a mysterious quadruple homicide that took place in the 1800s. Oh. A family annihilation.

And it took place in Michigan and it's still one of Michigan's most mysterious unsolved murders. And it looked everyone baffled. This is the story of the Crouch family murders. Okay. The main sources used in today's story are a 1943 article from the Detroit Free Press

by Donald F. Shram and Ralph Gull. So shout out to their grandchildren listening. And an article from Michigan Live by Leanne Smith and all other sources are listed in the show notes. Let me tell you about the Crouch Family. Originally from New York State, the patriarch of the Crouch Family is Jacob. He moves to Jackson County, Michigan in 1830, which Vince told me is near Ann Arbor.

But at the time, it's just like farmland, right? So he buys himself a farm and he grows wheat. He raises cattle, all the farm stuff that you would expect from a farm and a farmer. For a second, I thought you said he grows weed. And I was like, progressive. He was going to make a bunch of rope, hemp rope. Because the land is prime, weak growing territory, he does very well for himself,

eventually securing a thousand acres of land in Michigan, lots of cattle, even some farmland and livestock in the state of Texas, which you know, just immediately makes you a millionaire probably. Right? Yeah. And then of course, with all that land comes the need for some helping hands. So of course, he hires help and pays them a fair wage plus benefits. J.K. He has a bunch of children. The children have to do it? Yes, like has children.

I mean, you know, like you have children to help you on the farm back then, right? Oh yeah, that's a given. But a thousand acres. That's a lot of acres, right? It's so much land. Like I can't even picture it in my mind. I'm used to like tract housing, you know?

Like square footage, not acres. It's like 500,000 small backyards. Oh, okay. All laced together by barbed wire fences. Now I see it. So he and his wife, Anna, have four children, Eunice, Susan, Dayton, and Byron, and they grew up working on the farm.

But the birth of their fifth and final son, Judd, takes a toll on Anna's health. And so sadly, she passes away just six days after his birth in 1859. I know heartbreaking. Jacob is so overcome with the grief of losing his wife that he has a hard time being around the new baby. So he sends the baby to live with his older daughter, Susan. So she's grown up. She got married to a man named Daniel Holcomb. They take in this tiny baby Judd and they live on a farm and they raise him as their own.

It's just two miles up the road from Jacob's house. And he doesn't find out, Judd doesn't find out until his 10th birthday that, you know, what he thinks are his parents is actually his sister and brother-in-law. I mean. They used to do that stuff so much, like in the very recent past, where we're all talking about like therapy these days and who needs it and blah, blah, blah, but it's like, it's so new to be handling anything with emotional intelligence or awareness or anything. Empathy, vulnerability, yeah.

It's crazy. It is brand new. Which is why we all need therapists is because no one had it. Yeah. And now we do. Maybe the gen-alpha's, that's why they're flourishing, I don't know.

So that daughter, Susan raises the baby, she's doing well. The older sons, Dayton and Byron, on the other hand, are Jacob's pride and joy. They go to fight in the Civil War and he's so proud of that. But after they returned from the war, they decided they'd rather move to Texas and make names for themselves raising, you know, sheep. Instead of working for their father and taking over the family farm.

So he, you know, in old fashioned times is totally against it and like basically has a rift with them and it never quite bends. Then Dayton the Sun dies in 1882 under mysterious circumstances and so Byron takes over their Texas operations and remains strange from his dad. And at this point, Jacob by some accounts is like a millionaire which back in the fucking 1800s has to be a lot of money. A triple billionaire? A triple billionaire. So yeah, he's got all this valuable land,

he has this working farm, but he's also known as a hard-ass and a curmudgeon. I feel like we've heard this story a million times. I don't know if there's a ton of farmers from back in the 1800s who were like just super, like kind of a softy. I don't think you could do it that way. No, that's true.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think you'd be a softy at all back then, or you were just trampled. Or you'd immediately be eaten by Mountain Lion the second you were soft. Oh, okay. So this leaves the other daughter, Eunice, to become and take over the role of favorite child

in Jacob's heart. So she's a graduate of St. Mary's College at Notre Dame, like fucking amazing. Oh, wow. But she sticks close to home. Mary's a man who does well for himself named Henry White in 1881. And so now Jacob is in his 70s and his health isn't great. And so Eunice and her husband move into the farmhouse with Jacob to take care of him and the land. And then the new couple, it can't be that romantic there at that farmhouse living with the dad, you know?

But they somehow managed to get pregnant. So on the night of November 21st, 1883, like any other night on the Crouch Family Farm. 74 year old Jacob finishes all his work for the day and comes inside and their 22 year old housekeeper named Julia Reese prepares cider and a snack for everyone. And everyone is Jacob, his 33 year old daughter, Eunice, who's eight months pregnant, her husband, Henry White, and their house guest who's a visiting cattle buyer, an old friend named Moses Pauley. So they're all there. And also in the house is a 16-year-old boy who works for Jacob named George Boyles.

Though George and Julia are the help, they live on the premises and Jacob shares his home and food with them. So it can't be that much of a curmudgeon, right? If he's like, live here. Well, I bet you he's like, if you put in a good 19 hour work day, he'll go ahead and give you some grits and biscuits, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So they all spend the evening chatting about fun stuff, agriculture, cattle, politics,

and our favorite local gossip. And at around 9 p.m., everyone turns in for bed. Jacob, the visiting Polly and Eunice and Henry sleep in bedrooms downstairs on the first floor and the help Julia and George go upstairs to their bedroom to go to sleep. So that's how the layout is. I think I have a nervous nose.

It runs when you have to do stuff. It only runs when I'm like doing things, yeah, like in the middle of something. Mm-hmm. Okay, here we go. It's of something. Mm-hmm. Okay. Here we go. It's about 11.30 at night, a storm kicks up, the howling wind wakes George, the farm hand up,

but even if it hadn't woken him up, the sound that comes next around midnight would have. It's the sudden bang of a gunshot from below and scares George half to death. So he hides in the covers and listens as several more gunshots are fired. And he hears what sounds like a muffled groan. And then a brief argument over whether or not

to move some heavy furniture, which I don't totally understand that, followed by footsteps on the farmhouse's first floor. George peeks out his bedroom window from the second floor and looks down to see a glow of light, like a lantern, shining out of one of the houses downstairs windows. And then he thinks he sees an unidentifiable man with a lantern walk out of the house through the front gate

and out into the storm. He's gone. George, who's like 16, is so freaked out by what happened and doesn't know if anything else is about to happen. So he actually goes into a trunk of clothing on his bed from floor to hide, hides there, like 16 is so freaked out by what happened and like doesn't know if anything else is about to happen. So he actually goes into a trunk of clothing on his bed from floor to hide, hides there until the morning and then slowly gets up and tiptoes downstairs. Oh.

You know, hiding in the trunk. So scary. But you had a pee, yeah. He first goes to Jacob's bedroom. Ordinarily at this point, Jacob should be awake by now, but his door is shut and there's no sounds coming from the room. So he cracks open the door and finds Jacob lying dead in his own bed with a bullet wound in his forehead.

George is terrified, he runs out of the house and a half mile down the road to the nearest neighbors for help and the neighbors who are three men who are also farm hands themselves rush over, follow George inside the Crouch family home. And as soon as they walk in, they find Julia, the housekeeper, at the stove making breakfast.

And they ask her who had been murdered. And she's completely unaware, seemingly. And she just says, nobody's been murdered that I know of. Like she has no idea, even though like George heard a bunch of gunshots in the middle of the night, right? That's weird. Right.

So George leads the neighbors past Julia and into Jacob's bedroom. They see Jacob dead. And then they check on the remaining bedrooms that are downstairs and are horrified to find that Moses Pauly, the guest, Henry, the husband, and even pregnant Eunice have all been similarly shot to death. Oh. When George and the neighbors inspect the scene, they find no signs of a struggle. It appears as though the killer or killers

shot their victims in their sleep, murdering them before they had a chance to fight back, except for Eunice, sadly, who probably heard the gunshot go off for her husband and woke up to that. So George goes to the other daughter, Susan, and her husband, Daniel Holcomb, who lived down the road, member with baby Judd,

who's now not a baby. They go to get them and let them know what happens. And then they get the sheriff to come help as well. But of course, this is a small town, news travels fast. The crime scene is already swarmed with people by the time Sheriff gets there. The Sheriff and his team did their best to investigate, but the crime scene had been like trampled by onlookers, and so there isn't much usable evidence.

It's the way they love to do it back then. Hey, let's walk on everything. Here's a horrifying thing that never usually happens. Could you get some neighbors in here? We just want to see how they react to horrifying murder. Yeah. They do manage to see that Jacobs and Polly's wallets are still in their pockets, they're full. Everyone's money is still there,

so it didn't seem like robbery was their motive, whoever killed them. Police also say that the bullets used to kill all four of the victims of the same kind, but they appear to have come from two different 38 caliber pistols indicating the possibility of there being two killers. So George and Julia, being the only two survivors in the house, of course the sheriff's first suspect and his name is Sheriff Eugene Winnie.

So Julia claims to be a light sleeper, which is odd because she says she didn't hear anything and didn't wake up. So that's a super red flag. And then George tells the sheriff that he had hidden in the trunk because he was scared and police asked him to get back inside the trunk to make sure he fits and he refuses. But it's also like maybe he's traumatized, right? Could be traumatized, but also could be that he maybe wouldn't fit and is afraid to get,

is that like the other possibility? That's a possibility, yeah. Yeah. So police theorized the two worked together to kill their boss, his family, and his houseguest by drugging the cider that they had had the night before to incapacitate them and shoot them dead. But when the bodies are tested for sedatives,

nothing turns up. So they have no evidence against George and Julia and they are released. And this is so wild. In fact, the sheriff has no other leads to follow up on. And he is so stumped that he hires a special photographer to come and take pictures of Eunice's eyes post mortem, because at the time there was this theory, right, that the reflection of the killer, the last thing Eunice saw would have been left on her eyes like a photograph. Right, remember that?

Yeah, in our very, we're so smart these days way, looking back on something like that, it's like, oh please, but then it's like, they have nothing. Nothing to go on, nothing. They have nothing to go on. And also you've heard the horrifying stories of people who believe that they will be caught because their image will be reflected

in the eyes of their victims. So they like poke out people's eyes. Yeah, wow. A misconception I wish they had cleared up years and years before. I mean, I wonder how long it lasted. Oh, God. We should do an episode story on that itself, right?

Right. Of course, the photographer tries. Guess what? It doesn't work. So their backs are against the wall. The Jackson County Sheriff's Department issues a $10,000 reward for anyone who can provide information leading to the killer's capture. And I don't have the amount, but $10,000 and second, what is it?

1880s. 1883. And the 1880s is a ton of money. Do you want me to do the math and make you guess? Yeah. You want to do the math and I'll guess. It's my story. I know.

I should make you. I get to guess. I get to be the guesser. But it seems like it's like $500,000. Yeah, I would. Something big. Right. So this leads to an upswell in amateur citizen detectives.

Hey. Heard of them? I have. Trying their hand at cracking the case. And these wild theories come out because there's no real evidence. Maybe Jacob Crouch was robbed by violent drifters. But again, nothing had

been stolen. Maybe the guest Moses Polly bragged about how much money had with him to buy stuff. It's just like money stuff, but none of it pans out because there's no money stolen. There's no robbery. There's no way Noah though. You know what I mean? What if he had a hidden compartment and maybe the furniture being moved was about that and that's the money and they left the money in the wallets because they had gotten this fortune elsewhere. There was a safe somewhere, yeah.

Right, right. Look at me being an amateur citizen detective. I mean, it's one of the easiest things in the world where you're like, here's a theory. Yeah, love it, I love it. And then a more reasonable theory arises that maybe Jacob Crouch had angered one of his former farm hands and they had come back to get revenge.

He wasn't the friendliest man, right? So it's perfectly possible that an old employee who wasn't fond of him came back and killed him and his family. But it's a successful long time farm. So there's so many. There's a huge list of ex-employees. So it kind of, they would take months or years to go through that list. So they don't. I mean, if it's gonna take time, then you might as well quit immediately. Yeah, right? Yeah. But the most intriguing theories start to arise

when Sheriff Winnie learns more about the Crouch family, because Jacob was a successful man, he of course had this fortune. And with five children and many who had spouses and children of their own standing to inherit that fortune, there's like a lot of possibility and room for the motive to have been the inheritance. So it's possible that Byron Crouch, the guy who had been in the Civil War, whose brother died mysteriously, you know, he had been the favorite child, they were not on good terms anymore. And the sister Eunice is now the favorite child and moves into the house and

looks like she's set to be the inheritor of everything. Like he might cut everyone out of everything except for Eunice. But at the same time, Byron has actually done quite well for himself down in Texas. So it doesn't really make sense that he would have needed that money. And then in early 1884, Susan Holcomb, who lived down the street, who raised Judd, the baby, she dies of mysterious circumstances. So now that makes Sheriff Winnie concentrate on her husband, Daniel Holcomb.

And Judd Holcomb, the son who was abandoned by his father, right? The coroner concludes that Susan's death, the wife, came about by natural causes. He thinks her heart just gave out, but of course the rumor mill is like going off. People think perhaps she was wrought with guilt by her involvement in the murders or didn't want to testify against her husband if it ever came to it, so perhaps she took wrought with guilt by her involvement in the murders or didn't want to testify against her husband if it ever came to it, so perhaps she took her own life because of that. Or maybe she threatened to come clean and Daniel killed her, but none of these theories are ever confirmed, but there's a lot going on around this family at this point. And the thing is that

Susan's husband, Daniel Hoekum, Jacob never really liked him, didn't approve of his daughter marrying her. And then, so there's, you know, that. And then also, Judd felt discarded by his father. Maybe he felt entitled to the money, his inheritance. And so if Judd wanted his father's inheritance, he would also have to get Eunice out of the way who lived there. So that's maybe why they killed her as well. So then two days after Susan's passing,

the Holcomb's farmhand, James Foy, allegedly shoots himself. And on the day he died, he was seen drinking at a saloon in town and talking about the Crouch family murders. And one man accused him of being involved. He shoots that man, goes back to the Holcombe's residence and allegedly shoots himself. Of course, this whole ordeal throws suspicion onto the Holcombe's residence and allegedly shoots himself. Of course, this whole ordeal throws suspicion onto the Holcombes even more. Like, why would this farmhand kill himself? Was he involved? Did he get paid, you know, as a hitman?

Like, what's going on? Or is that true? And they killed him for like gossiping too much at the saloon, you know? Yeah. So one amateur sleuth by the name of Galen E. Brown decides to investigate this theory. And on February 8th, 1884, while walking back to the main road after inspecting the Crouch Family Farm for clues, which somehow they were able to get in and do,

Brown is stopped by a buggy with two male drivers and one of the drivers pulls out a pistol and shoots Brown, the amateur sleuth. Like everyone's getting fucked up. I'm so sorry. When you started talking about the amateur sleuth, I immediately assumed it was like 2017 or something like that. You're talking about the OG, the first wave got you.

1884. So this guy just is like, I'm going to go try to see what I can see and goes to wander around on their farm. Yep. Wow. I'm gonna go try to see what I can see and goes to wander around on their farm. Yep. Wow. I'm gonna go look for clues. Like a maybe still active crime scene, but probably not.

He's stopped with this buggy. He's shot at. He doesn't die, but when he recovers, he names the man he believes shot him from the buggy as Jud Holcomb. Oh. Yeah. So Jud is promptly arrested for shooting Brown and because police believe his motive for shooting Brown is to stop him from investigating the Crouch family murders,

that leads them to charge both Judd and Daniel Holcomb with the murders of Jacob Crouch, Moses Pauley, Eunice White, and Henry White. It's just so sad, like the son who was given away and you know what I mean like terrible and also it almost seems like a movie. Yeah. In that way. So Daniel the older one is first to be tried and the prosecution bases their case around three main points. First that footprints surrounding Jacob's home matched a unique shoe belonging to Judd the son and second that Jacob was leaving his inheritance to Eunice only with nothing for the rest of the children, and third, that James Foy, the farmhand, drunkenly implicated

both Judd and Daniel in the murders. So that's the only evidence they have. There are 145 witnesses who testify in court against Daniel. That's a lot, right? Yeah, that is. And all of their testimonies provide nothing more than circumstantial evidence and in the end it isn't enough to convict Daniel. He's found not guilty of all the murder charges. Wow.

And because he's found not guilty, the charges against Judd are dropped all together. They don't even bring it to trial and he's released as well. So they don't believe he shot at Galen? I guess not. The citizen detective, or they were just like, this whole thing's a wash. Maybe the whole thing's a wash, yeah. It's weird.

Yeah. So there's just kind of nothing else for the investigators to look into. So the police dropped the matter, and the case goes cold, your favorite. And it remains unsolved today. But the mystery and intrig matter and the case goes cold. Your favorite. And it remains unsolved today, but the mystery and intrigue of the case has led to local Michigan folklore about ghostly sightings.

Oh, yeah. According to local legend, every year on November 22nd, the day they were shot, Eunice's spirit rises from her grave at St. John's Cemetery and meets up with her father, Jacob's spirit, at his grave in Reynolds Cemetery in Spring Arbor Township. So like, I don't know why they were buried separately, but they like meet up. Oh, which is so creepy, right? Oh, yeah, I've never heard of that one of, like a ghost story like that where it's like two ghosts trying to meet each other. Yeah.

Yeah. So. Yeah. So curious residents journey to the site on that day hoping to see what's supposedly a ghostly mist that allegedly floats over their graves each year. Like people have said that they see it and that's what happens every year. Wow. Yeah.

And that is a sad story of the unsolved Crouch family murders. Who did it? Ugh. They did it, right? They did it. Well, it feels, yes, it makes a lot of sense that the sent away young son. Because also, how horrible to be given to your sister

to be raised and your dad literally lives down the street. Yeah. And he just can't look at you. Yeah, and it's basically, you know if that was the case, then there probably wasn't a ton of like at Christmas, he was super nice to him or something like that. Or if everyone gets together and yeah.

Like I would love to know what the actual details of the family dynamic were. Because it's like, then your two older sons just move as far away as they can or was that could have been just because of the civil war but I don't know, there seems to be a lot there. I mean, if you cut your older sons out of your life because they wanna go be their own people,

then maybe you've got some issues. You don't have a mug that says, world's greatest dad probably. You definitely don't. Or a tin cup that hasn't etched into the side. That's like made of lead. That's just quietly poisoning you. Wow, that's crazy.

I really wanted it to be the business friend that was there as a guest, but then he was a victim too. Oh, what about the housekeeper? Yeah, I'm not buying it from her that she was like, what? I'm just making breakfast. Yeah, feels like the kind of lie that a kind of a dumb liar would say, like, oh, this will cover me.

Yeah, I didn't hear anything and I'm going to act like nothing's wrong where it's like, oh, you can, but it's weirder that you act like nothing's wrong than you saying you heard shots in the middle of the night too. Right. Yeah. Oops, sorry, we'll never know. Oops. Until we do, until somebody wanders onto that property and digs something up or whatever. I mean, couldn't somebody look up like what his last will and testament actually said? I think it ended up saying it was all for Eunice, but did the kids know that?

I don't know. I think it ended up saying it was all for you, Ness. But did the kids know that? I don't know. But also, maybe someday that photograph I thing will actually work. Maybe they just haven't found the right film yet. And it actually works, you know? Sure. I don't know if I want to live in a world like that.

Yeah. Click. I took a picture of you with my eye. Click. No. No, it's bad enough with all these phones. Truly. Well, please keep your eye on that.

If anything breaks in the news, do we have a Google alert set for that? For the 1880 murder of the cold case murder, I'll make sure to update you. You know there is someone out there that's like, I have been working on this for 30 years. You know it. Or like the great grandson, whatever,

is going to find letters hidden in the fucking attic. Yes. This is like, I did it. I'm the one. I hope so. That would be incredible to hear. This is where deathbed confessions can really come in handy. That's right.

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Well, here's what's weird. My story also takes place in the 1880s. Holy shit. And it also involves a trunk. So should we just roll right into the story I'm going to tell you today, which is about a triple murder from the late 1800s at the Indianapolis Journal called, quote, one of the most fiendish crimes ever committed in New Hampshire.

I need to give you a little backstory before we start. So this story starts in Laconia, New Hampshire in 1883, because this is one of 59 year old women named Jane Ford, recently married for the third time, decides to have an affair. So Jane was born in the Hoxton neighborhood of Hackney, England in 1824. That's a very poor area. We don't know much about her young life, or what it was all about, but we do know that when she's 17 She marries a man twice her age named Clarence Chauncey. So was Clarence Jane's ticket out of poverty? It's possible. The one thing we know for sure is that the two of them decide to move to the United States together After they get married. So he was definitely her ticket out of Hackney.

That is what we know. But soon after they arrive in America, Clarence dies leaving his young widow alone in a brand new country. So Jane finds herself a new husband very quickly. He's a successful New York saloon keeper named William Scales. William's well off and this marriage

actually seems to go very well. The couple spend their years traveling the world together. At one point they even moved to Cuba for a few years. And then when they finally return to the States in 1869, they settle down in Laconia. Eight years after that, William passes away and Jane again finds herself alone, now twice widowed, and she's at the ripe old age of 53. Hey, that's how old I am. Oh

God. This whole time I've been thinking of her in a very specific way and then I just realized I'm like, that's how old I am. Oh my God. You better get a couple marriages under your belt. If you want to get a couple more. Shit, I need at least two more. God damn, better go put my hair up in a very tight bun. Okay, so Jane spends the next five years in Laconia working at tailoring shops around town. She builds a good reputation for herself

in the community, teaching Sunday school at the Unitarian Church, and serving as a member of the Ladies Relief Corps. When she meets her third husband, John Ford, he seems like a real catch on paper. He's a carpenter. He's also the landlord of a couple local rentals. At one point it sounds like he has a boarding house

and it sounds like he has rental houses around town. So clearly he's got some money, you know, he's like he's got it together. But he is a bit of a wild card. He had recently been arrested for shooting just randomly at some boys that were in the street. The fuck? I know.

And Jane had to bail him out of jail by paying quote a $50 bond to guarantee his good behavior. So we're about six months into this new marriage and Jane, she's realizing this is who she's married to. Like, okay, he's secure, he's got his stuff together in some ways. Now he's shooting at children in the street. So what are we doing? And this is around the time she meets a tenant at one of her husbands, we'll call them rentals. He's an Irishman whose marriage has recently ended, who likes his beer and whiskey, shocker.

Turns out Jane likes him and she also likes beer and whiskey. What she doesn't realize is that this affair will unravel her life and end worse than anyone could imagine. This is the story of the murder spree of Thomas Seaman. Oh, shit. Good opening. Thanks. Those main sources used in the story today are a 2015 article from one of my favorite websites of all time, Murder by Gaslight. That's a website written and run by author Robert Wilhelm. And that article about this is called The New Hampshire Horror.

There's also an 1883 article from the Buffalo News entitled A Brutal Murder, covered by United Press Dispatches. There was also that article that I quoted from the Indianapolis Journal, all kinds of old fashioned. And it really is fun, because I got to look into the, when you belong to that like old newspaper,

you get a subscription to that. You can just go through and read the original article. And it is fascinating. So the rest of the sources are in our show notes. I recommend you support that old, old news and new news, please, in these days of journalism being threatened from every direction. Okay, so we're back into the story. We are still in La Coney, New Hampshire.

Now, it's Sunday, November 25th, 1883. It's four in the morning. And a man named Stephen S. Andrews is woken up by the sound of a woman screaming. So he runs and gets his son and they go outside to investigate. The screams are coming from the house across the street where their longtime neighbors Rosa and James Ruddy live with their 13-month-old baby Frank. A baby named Frank. A baby, little Frankie. Yeah, it's gonna get sad about Frank, so don't get attached.

Steven and his son follow the sound of the screaming to find Rosa lying on the ground beneath the shattered front window of their home. She's covered in horrible gashes. She's bleeding profusely, but somehow she's still alive. When she sees her two neighbors, she gasps, I'm all cut to pieces. Take me somewhere. Oh my God. So Andrews and his son carry Rosa next door to their other long-time neighbor, Charles Filgate. And at the Filgate's house, they tend to Rosa's wounds. She's losing consciousness because she's losing so much blood.

And it's amid all this chaos that Andrews and Filgate noticed there's now smoke coming from the Ruddy's house. So Andrews picks up the phone and calls both the police and the fire department. And instead of waiting for them to come, Andrews and some of the other neighbors, because now the neighbors are gathering, they've heard the screaming, like people are coming out of their houses.

So they run back to the Ruddy's house to try to put out the fire inside the house themselves. And when they finally put the fire out, the scene they find there is far more terrifying than anything anyone could have imagined. Again, there in the Ruddy's kitchen, beneath the ashes of a half-chart feather mattress are the bodies of Rosa's husband James

and their 13-month-old baby Frank. And those bodies are not only burned, but hacked to pieces. Oh no. Yeah. If you're the kind of person that gets really squeamish, this is not the story for you. It is horrible through and through. All right, I'm gonna get out of here then.

Oh, wait, I can't do it alone. Frank starts barking in the front room. So then they go into the next room, they find another burnt straw bed. It's on top of a steamer trunk that's also partially burnt when the trunk is opened. The neighbors find the worst thing in the world. The remains of a third victim. It's a woman.

She's been cut in half. Her upper body's been bound with clothesline. Whether it's from shock or damage done to the body, no one can identify her. So the police finally get there. Now there's a group of neighbors gathered outside. One of those neighbors is John Ford. His wife has been missing for a couple of days.

So when he hears that there's an unidentified woman's body inside, he goes inside to look at her remains, which is so 1880s of like, sorry, what? How did that conversation come to be? Where like he ends up identifying the body of his wife, Jane Ford, who is the person I started the story talking about. Oh, twist.

So given John's reputation for erratic outbursts, his recent arrest for shooting at some innocent boys that were standing in the street, the police immediately suspect that he has something to do with these murders. So they take him into custody, but John insists to the police, he has nothing to do with any of it.

He explains he hasn't seen his wife in days. The police aren't sure what to believe, but if what John is saying is true, that means there's a much more dangerous madman to blame and he's still on the loose. So let's talk about a new person and that is a man named Thomas Seaman. He is originally from Dublin, Ireland.

He was born in the 1830s, moves to Boston, Massachusetts at a very young age with his brother. When they're older, Thomas's brother opens a wholesale liquor dealership, and Thomas gets work as a prominent cook in one of the best hotels in La Cognia, New Hampshire. And this is where he meets a housekeeper at the hotel named Johanna Welch.

The two fall in love, they get married in 1882, but their marriage is far from happy because Thomas is an alcoholic with severe depression, like many of the great Irish of our time. So it's so bad that at one point, Thomas attempts to take his own life by jumping off the South Boston Bridge. So as much as Johanna loves him,

these problems are too much for her to bear. Their short marriage ends and she moves to Plymouth, New Hampshire. She finds a new job and she tries to start over away from her troubled husband. And this separation sends the roughly 50 year old Thomas into even deeper despair and even deeper drinking. And this is when he meets Jane Ford. He's lonely and depressed,

so he starts having an affair with his landlord's wife. This relationship causes Jane to start acting much differently than the Sunday school teacher that everyone in town has known for the last five years. One source from an Ohio State University paper writes, quote, Jane's downfall was recent and rapid. Wow. So she basically meets this guy and suddenly it's like party time, you know, a fair sexy time. So John Ford suspected his wife was maybe sleeping around behind his back,

but his suspicions are confirmed on Friday, November 23rd, when Jane heads out for the night with Thomas and she never returns. So from later testimony, we know that Thomas and Jane spend all of that Friday night drinking and partying into the early hours of Saturday morning. But later that day, when the booze runs out, Jane gets angry. So she wants more booze, she blames him for drinking it all. You can just imagine it's just like two horrible drunks. It starts fun, of course, it goes badly. So they start fighting and the fight escalates and in a drunken stupor, Thomas completely loses it

and violently throws Jane to the ground and starts stomping on her chest until her chest collapses and he kills her. Oh my God. Yes, horrible. When he realizes what he's done, he panics because he's murdered his landlord's wife in the house he's renting from his landlord. And he realizes he has got serious trouble, obviously.

So he panics and what he does is he tries to hide Jane's body in a large trunk. Okay. This is the worst part. The body won't fit, he grabs an axe, he chops her legs off, then he binds her arms to her torso with a clothesline. He basically is able to force the body to fit and then he shuts it. And he takes that trunk and he puts it

on top of a wheelbarrow. And because he realizes he can't keep the trunk in the same house. So he puts it on the wheelbarrow and decides he's going to take it a mile down the road to his friend James Ruddy's house so he can see if he can hide it there. So he's been to James's house many times. So when he knocks on the door, James' wife, Rosa, tells him he's welcome to leave the trunk outside until James gets home from work around 5 o'clock, and then James can help him take it into their house.

Of course, she has no idea that this man will, in a matter of hours, kill her whole family. Oh, my God. But he doesn't kill her. And under the care of doctors, Rosa Ruddy regains consciousness. Lead investigator Sheriff Story listens closely as Rosa is able to give her account

of what happened that night. And according to her, it all started with this visit. So Thomas leaves the trunk and he leaves because that's around one o'clock when he arrives with the trunk. He comes back exactly at five o'clock when James comes home from work. And Thomas asks James if he can spend the night

at their house that night, like the second he runs into him. James says, sure, no problem, come on in, you can stay for dinner. They know their friend is depressed, they know he is recently divorced and broken up with his wife. And they figure he's probably too lonely to stay.

There's kind people who offer him a place to stay, something to eat, company with their sweet little baby. With their baby. What a fucking monster. James even helps Thomas carry the trunk inside while Rosa is fixing dinner. They all end up going to eat dinner together. They go to bed around 9 p.m.

Around two hours later, around 11, Rosa is woken up by the sound of Thomas walking around. So she goes downstairs and she finds Thomas standing in the front room of their house, staring out the window. He admits to Rosa that he feels nervous and that he can't sleep, but he doesn't say why. So she makes him a cup of tea to calm his nerves

and then she goes back to bed. But then again, around 4 a.m., both James and Rosa are woken up by the sound of Thomas pacing in their front room. So he knows full well that he is going to be found out. It's only a matter of time. And in his mind, which was probably really screwed up from alcohol and anything else, mental illness,

whatever he was suffering from, now he's into a full paranoic kind of mode where he thinks they're coming to get him right then. They go down to check on him. This time, you know, he's even more erratic and Thomas walks into the kitchen and James follows him into the kitchen and Rosa is still in the front room.

And then suddenly she hears something. It sounds like something fell on the floor. So she runs into the kitchen and when she gets there, she sees her husband laying back in a chair, his arms hanging limp by his sides and his nearly severed head dangling over the back of the chair. Holy shit.

So of course she's horrified she rushes to her husband's side but as she's crossing the room, Thomas hits her on the head with a hatchet, knocking her to the ground. She tries to fight back. She grabs Thomas by the arm. He hits her again with the hatchet. She goes down again.

Of course, all this commotion, and I'm sure screaming and everything, wakes up the baby. And the sound of the baby crying draws Thomas's attention away from Rosa. Yeah. Rosa, poor Rosa. This part is horrible. I mean, like this entire story is absolutely animalistic. He just goes into the baby's room and with one blow of the hatchet, he kills the baby.

When he leaves the room to go toward the crying baby, Rosa somehow manages to get up on her feet. She has been hit in the head with the hatchet twice and then also attacked with it additionally. So she tries to get to the kitchen door to run out the back. But before she can, Thomas comes back into the kitchen holding the dead baby. He knocks Rosa to the ground once again with the hatchet. So finally she decides she's going to play dead because he's just going to keep attacking her. He then sets the baby's body next to James' body on the ground and roses what he believes dead body. He drags a feather mattress in, covers the three of them with it, takes a canister of kerosene, pours it over the mattress,

walks to the room where his trunk is, puts some bedding on top of the trunk, pours kerosene over that too. While he's again in the other room with his trunk lighting that on fire, Rosa realizes this is her chance to escape. She gets up and she runs out to the front room. She goes to the window and she thinking that she can open it and climb out, but she can't because she has 13 hatchet wounds in her body. Two of her fingers have been chopped off and her hand is nearly severed at the wrist. So she throws herself through the front window. This is the wildest story you have ever told. Isn't it insane?

This is fucking insane. It's horrifying. You know what it is? It is a horror movie. This is like Michael Myers walks up behind. Yeah, it's a horror movie. It's a horror movie. But basically she lands on the ground

and she starts screaming for help. Thomas sets fire to both the mattress on top of the trunk and the mattress on top of what he thinks is the whole family and then runs out the back door. And so that's when the neighbors hear Rosa and come to her rescue. So that's her testimony. Now that it's been secured, they search for the murder

weapon, the hatchet. There's some sources that say it was found in a nearby river. There's some sources that say it was found, the bloody hatchet was found in the, like the wood box outside the back door. So a $500 reward, which is $15,000 in today's money, is announced for the capture of Thomas Seaman. John Ford is cleared of any wrongdoing. He's released from police custody. And once police hear about Thomas's recent split from his wife, Johanna, they suspect he could be on his way to find her in Plymouth.

So they alert the Plymouth police. And around 4 p.m. the same day, they find and arrest Thomas, who is just outside of town. So they catch him before he even gets there, thank God. To Plymouth, oh my God, good thinking. So I looked in the comments section because there were people who were like,

how was that possible when the phone was just invented? Or whatever. Right, I was gonna ask you, like, did they call? Was there a phone? The invented or whatever? Right. I was going to ask you, like, did they call? Is there a phone? The phones had just been invented. And Robert Wilhelm himself on Murder by Gaslight is like, it was invented the year before and it was very popular on the East Coast and in New England. And then he writes, I don't make this stuff up.

It's like, don't come over with your weird accusations. Yeah. That made me laugh. So anyway, so Thomas Seaman does not resist arrest. He does claim to be innocent though, because in his mind, all the evidence against him has been destroyed in the house fire. So when the police ask him about his trunk, he tells them it was full of his belongings

and he planned on moving it to Plymouth once he reunites with his ex-wife. And that's just what he was doing, and he doesn't know what happened. But then the police informed him that Rosa Ruddy has survived the attack. And that's when he realizes there's no reason to pretend anymore. So it takes police three days to get him to crack, but on Wednesday, November 28th, 1883, Thomas Seaman finally confesses to all three murders. He admits to his affair with Jane Ford. He says they'd been sleeping together

for several days leading up to the violent spree. He said they'd been binge drinking whiskey and beer when he snapped and killed her. And the rest he says went exactly the way Rosa explained it. And leading up to his attack on the Ruddies, Thomas's paranoia was at an all-time high. He truly believed the house had already been surrounded and the only way out was to kill the Ruddies and get rid of all the evidence in a house fire. He says, quote, the very moment that thought came to me, I struck Ruddy.

So he was out of his mind for maybe many reasons, but also self-preservation was one of them. So this crime gets a significant amount of press attention, as you would imagine. So when Thomas is arraigned four months later on March 31st, 1884, there are upwards of 500 people outside the Laconia courthouse waiting to hear the charges and what his plea is. Wow, murdering us. Right, OG Laconia murdering us. Thomas Seaman is charged with three counts

of first degree murder for the slangs of James Ruddy, baby Frank Ruddy and Jane Ford. There seem to be no attempted murder charges or any other kind of charges for his attack on Rosa Ruddy. But before Thomas can make a plea, the judge orders a psych evaluation to rule out the possibility of him being insane. Two doctors, one JP Bancroft from Concord, Massachusetts, and another named George F. Jelly from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wow. Sorry. Epic name.

Pretty goddamn great name. George Jelly. They conclude Thomas is not now nor has he ever been insane that he is fit to stand trial. Thomas pleads guilty. He's sentenced to death by hanging. His ex-wife, Johanna, is actually in attendance at the courthouse when he enters his plea. His wife, Johanna, is actually in attendance at the courthouse when he enters his plea. And when she hears his sentence, she burst into tears and hugs him. Thomas accepts his fate saying, it is all right, my sentence is just,

I will go to the gallows like a man. Wow. The night before his hanging, April 16th, 1885, Thomas stays up late in his jail cell drinking coffee and smoking cigars. The next day, he's let out to the gallows and read his last rites. And at 1130 a.m. on April 17th, 1885,

Thomas Seaman is hanged. It's a quiet ending to a nightmarish murder spree. And that's the story of multiple murderer Thomas Seaman. Oh my God. That was the most oeve of any story you've ever done. I mean, either of us have done. You know, there's been some bad ones though. They all feel equally horrifying, obviously.

That this is kind of like part of the interest of true crime is you go, that's the worst thing I've ever heard. And then it's like, oh no, no, just you wait. Yeah, that's the worst thing I've ever heard. And how on earth could someone do something like that? Yes. Or how on earth could someone like Rosa

go through something like that? I mean, it's just unfathomable and we just keep trying to fathom it. Yeah. But then there's also, they're all kind of just keep trying to fathom it. Yeah. But then there's also, they're all kind of the same story. That's the thing. This is like a human condition situation. Hopefully we evolve.

Hopefully we get it right someday. I'm going to be great to evolve. Can I just say a great way to evolve is to make sure you register to vote and vote in all your local and other elections, please. Please, a great way to evolve is to get rid of these politicians who are trying to kill women for getting pregnant. That would be a great way to evolve, is to have men and women take action against this bizarre, criss-o-ascius takeover of this country. It's insane. It has to stop.

Yeah, so make sure you're registered to vote, everyone. I know we have some young listeners. Please. Yes, please. Please. Please. Please. And you know what?

Hmm. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Go. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! It's 1943 in the Kingdom of Bulgaria, and Boris III is on the throne.

He's a gentle king who likes catching butterflies, until he's brutally unseated. This blameless king has fallen victim to a most vulgar murder. The official story is that he dies of a heart attack. But... We have this ghastly suspicion that something was wrong. I'm convinced that something was put into his soup. As the Second World War rages, King Boris is dead.

But why kill a king? We're talking about powerful people in a very difficult point in history. I think there may be something underhand gone on. I really do. Every nation is a suspect. I think there may be something underhand gone on. I really do. Every nation is a suspect. It was wartime. There were many, many people who would have been happy to get rid of him.

I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan. And this is The Butterfly King, a new podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House. It's a cruel tale about buried truths and historical cover-ups. It's a falsifying of history. It's quite a lot of blood. About a man who's been hunted his whole life. He survived ambushes. He was the original James Bond of Bulgaria in many respects. And it's a haunting family drama about a doomed royal dynasty.

Who would want to cover up after so many years? It's disturbing. The truth is out there and I'm determined to find it. The Butterfly King premieres on March 21st on the Exactly Right Network. New episodes Thursdays. Follow the Butterfly King on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. producers, Hanukkah Creighton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalache. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com.

Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye.