This week Rachel decides a pirate’s life is NOT for her and takes us aboard the Essex to tell us the real-life story of Moby Dick… although this story includes a lot less symbolism and a lot more cannibalism.
Then, Emily tells the story of Timothy Evans – a man who killed his wife and daughter in 1949… or DID HE? You’ll have to listen to find out. Hopefully, you’re horrified.
Content/Trigger Warnings: cannibalism, abortion, spousal abuse
Transcript
Emily 0:13
Hi, welcome to horrible history. I’m Emily Barlean
Rachel 0:16
And I’m Rachel Everett Lozon. How you doing?
Emily 0:20
I’m good. Happy Mother’s Day. We’re recording this on Mother’s Day. My favorite mother that is on this podcast
Rachel 0:28
The only Mother on this pod. You know what I decided is Mother’s Day would be a lot better without the children.
Emily 0:36
I feel like I hear that everyone’s like for my mother’s day present. I would like to pretend that I’m not a mother for one day.
Rachel 0:43
Just one day which doesn’t happen today. My kids are very young and needy ages but I did spend an hour just by myself at Target walking around target It was amazing the sounds amazing. Yeah, I just walked around I thought shit I didn’t need I bought a fucking dinosaur letter board for play room. Like it’s a Stegosaurus slash letter board so I think I’m an Instagram influencer mom now right that’s how you do it.
Emily 1:12
The second you’ve purchased it. Urine influencers? Yeah,
Rachel 1:16
I mean, if that’s letterboard I’m an influencer now. So expect to see me on the blog.
Emily 1:21
I think you are an influencer because you’re Tik. Tok, like, has 3000 likes, views or something? Yeah. Now, so if anyone watching anyone listening right now is a new listener. Thanks to tick tock. Thank you, Rachel.
Rachel 1:36
You’re welcome. No, it was really cool, because I got to talk on Tick Tock about Helen, john list wife. And it was nice to really highlight her and her mental health struggles, because to you now, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. For those of you who don’t know, I’m not a professional podcast host. We do this for the first time. I’m a therapist. So
Emily 2:00
that’s cool to be able to do that. My company is doing some cool stuff for mental health awareness. They just sent around this big email to like, everyone in the company and it’s, we have access to the calm app, and they’re doing seminars and stuff like that. So it’s kind of fun.
Rachel 2:16
That it’s kind of fun. Today is not it’s not a great mental health story. It’s a doozy. Okay, let me just get into it. Because there’s no good way to start. today. We’re going to be back among the massholes. But not Boston. I fucking swear we’re not going to Boston. We’re going to Nantucket.
Emily 2:36
I think we can’t go back to Boston for the rest of the year. Like,
Rachel 2:39
yeah, I mean, at least until 2022. Yeah. When we start our world tour, we’ll have to start in Boston. Yeah, I think so. But Nantucket is real cute. It’s full of wealthy people. And they gas houses.
Emily 2:53
Is that where the Kennedys were? No, they were in Martha’s Vineyard,
Rachel 2:59
which is close. It’s another island, like near Cape Cod. It’s about 30 miles from Cape Cod. Okay. And so tons of lighthouses and museums, old architecture, all the things we love. If we are going to Nantucket, first of all, we’re staying at the wobba. net, which is a historic hotel with regular rooms or cottages. We could stay in cottages, Oh, that’s so cute right along the shoreline.
Emily 3:26
And there’s probably hella ghosts there, like,
Rachel 3:29
I absolutely think so. I’ll post a picture of this place. It is adorable. It looks more like a classic New England mansion than it does a hotel, which I love. So while staying in luxury, I want to take a day trip to Cisco brewers, which is my favorite kind of collaboration. It is a brewery of vineyard and a distillery all wrapped up in one. They have live music sometimes. And it’s kid friendly, and it’s dog friendly.
Emily 3:58
You can drink whatever you want. That sounds incredible. They’re just like we make everything what do you what is your preferred beverage?
Rachel 4:05
Yeah, it’s like a bunch of local liquor makers together. So it’s like one winery and one Brewer at one distillery. It might be more than one but at least one of each genius, which is cool. Mm hmm. And to get in some history, we would for sure have to check out the oldest house that’s what it’s called capital O capital H. I love it. It is part of the Nantucket Historical Association because it was built in 1686 there’s an old house. Oh my god. That’s all. Mm hmm. It’s like the first house ever built. And I’m literally veel this house that is still standing Yeah. It was built to unite two prominent Nantucket families. It was a gift for newlyweds Jethro coffin and Mary Gardner. And apparently, even though the house was built for them, their marriage was not great. So you know that place has some ghosts for sure. Lots of ghosts in Nantucket, allegedly, were editorializing, presumably, presumably ghosts. And of course, Nantucket is known for whaling, they have a whaling museum. So we would have our pickup beaches to hang out by the ocean. And speaking of wailing, today, I’m going to cover a recommendation from our newest patron and one of my favorite people in the real 3d world, Aaron, who made us all look bad, but recently voluntarily reading Moby Dick. Recently, not. She’s already. And she sent me an article about the story that inspired Moby Dick.
Emily 5:44
Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen a whale and I’m very bummed out about that. I went on a whale watching tour when I was in Maine, years ago, and they came back from like, the previous tour, and everyone was like, Oh my God, we saw five whales in there. Like, they know the spots where they are like, everyone sees whales on this tour. Our tour done. I’m furious.
Rachel 6:09
You literally paid to go on a whale watching tour and didn’t see anywhere else.
Emily 6:13
Yeah. And they’re like, Okay, if you keep this ticket, you can come back anytime in the next year and go on the tour again. And I was like, I like
Rachel 6:21
I’m not from Maine. I’m not what am I gonna be back again
Emily 6:23
to Maine? Yeah, exactly. So I did see a weird fish with a funny fin though. So I guess there’s that
Rachel 6:31
it was like a shark swimming around in a nuclear waste dump site. He just is in circles because only one of his fins. Sad. Oh, God. So for this story, I’m only using essentially the source that Aaron sent me, which is an article called the true life horror that inspired Moby Dick and it’s from Smithsonian mag. Nice. We are going way back. The ethics was an 87 foot long ship that left from Nantucket on a two and a half year whaling voyage on August 12 1819. And listen, there were some red flags from the start. Two days after they left, a sudden and violent storm descended upon the ship and nearly sank it. Captain George collar Jr. was just 29 years old. He and the 20 man crew weathered the storm, and five weeks later, made it to keep horn in Chile. And after that rough start, instead of finding easy fishing in South America, they found that they were late to the party and the waters had been pretty much fished out.
Emily 7:41
That’s a thing you can out fish the ocean.
Rachel 7:44
Yeah, apparently. I mean, I guess the fish maybe get wise to it. You know, like,
Emily 7:50
no
Rachel 7:50
name is gone. We have to find him.
Emily 7:54
These are all like Dory. They have like two seconds.
Rachel 8:00
Yeah, I wonder if it’s just like they stop procreating. They’re like they’re taking all the breeders. I don’t fucking know. You’re asking me. I googled so much for this story that I was like, What does this mean? What is this part of a boat mean? What is this?
Emily 8:14
The one thing you didn’t Google and why?
Rachel 8:19
So that’s all right. Captain Pollard and his crew decided that instead of chilling in South America, they would head toward the south pacific because you know, nobody goes there. So it’s probably going to be a lot of fish. I’m going to assume that to logic. There’s going to be a lot of editorializing because this was 1819. There’s only so much information. I I don’t know if I’m right. But we’ll see what we could do the ethics anchored in the Galapagos at Charles island to restock supplies and food. And this next part is especially horrible to me. So brace yourself. All the trigger warnings a lot in the story. Emily is literally bracing herself right now. The crew poached 60 100 pound tortoises
Emily 9:06
know why.
Rachel 9:09
I mean, this is the early 18 hundred’s. This is the thing where sometimes I’ll ask myself and how about self? Why are species endangered? or How did they get so endangered? And then I think it’s just the ignorance of we don’t realize there’s not an infinite supply of animals for us to hunt.
Emily 9:30
Right? And I really think people just didn’t, I guess I mean, still, those channels, they could live forever. Those could still be alive right now.
Rachel 9:40
I know turtles live a really long time, like human lives I think at
Emily 9:45
least hundreds of years. Sometimes it’s
Rachel 9:46
crazy. So as if deciding to start endangering a species was not bad enough. One of the crew members decided it would be hilarious to set a fire you know, like arson is a prank.
Emily 10:03
God damn. It’s like in California recently where it’s like we did a gender reveal accidentally.
Rachel 10:12
Yeah, I thought it would be so funny. Much like in California, it was the dry season. So fire spread, and Captain Pollard and his crew had to run through the fucking flames barely escaping. So even 24 hours later, as they sailed away from the Galapagos, they could still see the smoke from the islands that this dumb ass set on fire.
Emily 10:37
I hope that they were berating him the whole time like goo dome gym, like come on.
Rachel 10:42
They didn’t know who did it. Nobody knew it. And Captain Pollard was not amused and he was like, I will find out he pulled me in the kitchen. He was like, I have a very specific set of skills. I will find you and kill you. Yeah, he swore his vengeance on the arsonists. Oh my god. PS other than pissing off the captain and almost costing the rest of the crew their lives. This fire is believed to have caused the extinction of the floriana tortoise and the floriana. Mockingbird. The island is now not called Charles Island anymore. It’s called Florian Island. So
I know this is backed up. My brain always goes to humor. First in the most fucked up situation. It is my primary coping tool. And I’m just picturing this In Memoriam like at the show like at the Oscars. These like sad turtles. Which it’s not funny. Obviously killing off a species is not funny. They In Memoriam music in the background makes it a little bit more palatable for me.
Emily 11:53
I know.
Rachel 11:54
By November of 1820, about 15 months after their voyage had begun. The crew was doing what I’m assuming is mostly pirate ship. They were you know, looting you know, the same as they were like mopping and singing and wailing and shit.
Emily 12:12
It’s like for me,
Rachel 12:13
they were doing I again editorializing completely. They were chillin about 1000 miles from the nearest land. And remember, this was a whaling excursion. So already, this is horrible history, even if nothing bad happens from here on out.
Emily 12:29
Does whaling excursion mean?
Rachel 12:33
Killing the whales? Yeah.
Emily 12:35
Why? What do they need them for?
Rachel 12:38
I mean, I don’t know. It’s not like an Inuit culture where they use blubber and stuff to stay warm. But I believe whaling is killing whales, is it not?
Emily 12:46
I mean, I guess they’re not fishing for them. Because what are you gonna pull that whale up onto your ship and eat it like, no,
Rachel 12:53
hang on? Let me see. Because why else would they go out for two years? Like how many whales? Can you see? You know? Yeah,
Emily 12:59
it’s definitely not just for looking at them. That would be an extreme. Well, watching tour.
Rachel 13:07
Yeah, whaling is the activity of hunting and killing whales. not okay. Yeah. So even if nothing bad happens from here on out. It’s already horrible history. And, you know, that isn’t quite how this podcast goes. This is not a PETA pod. And it’s a horrible history podcast. Like even if things start out kind of okay, they’re going to get worse. Every single episode. Spoilers on spoilers. My story goes say horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible thing gets done. No more horrible. Yeah, it was a toss up who was going to go first, but I think you’ll see why I do. So the way that the ethics is set up, the only this is what a naive little bitch I am when it comes to boats. Okay, because when I picture this, I straight up picture that Titanic, obviously, it’s a big boat, and then they have these little lifeboats. Okay, so the SX has the big boat. And then they also have these three smaller whaling boats,
Emily 14:12
where they like the Titanic by the meaning sites.
Rachel 14:17
What it’s like 87 foot boat, the Essex it’s a big boat,
Emily 14:22
but also not the Titanic,
Rachel 14:24
not the Titanic size. So they have these three whale boats where they go and like, I don’t know what they do with the sailboats to be honest. I didn’t look at the harpoons or whatever, something like that. And then maybe they all go like back with a big boat, but they basically have three separate little boats so that they can go hunt. So one day, okay, so it’s November 18 2015 months since they’ve been out at sea. Captain Pollard is on one of the wheel boats. And one Chase. The 23 year old first mate was hanging out on the Sex fixing shit. I’m assuming doing what’s probably bitch work. I’m not exactly sure what a first mate does, but like, it’s probably a lot of bit work right?
Emily 15:12
Yeah. mopping and stuff. Yeah, so face me is like second in command. Right? Right But I’m still kind of
Rachel 15:18
picturing Smee from Peter Pan. Captain type little Captain hex little buddy. But one thing he did that was important was that he saw a big ass 85 foot whale, chillin in the distance facing the ship. What? He
Emily 15:45
must have really fucking good eyesight because how do you see a whale? In the distance there under the water? I guess you see this?
Rachel 15:53
Yeah, well, and we also can float very near the surface. Right? And so you can see a top half of a whale or a top section of a whale above the water. Yeah, the rest of it’s below because he wasn’t way below them.
Emily 16:06
But also, how did he know it was 85 feet long? Because you know you and I would be like, I don’t know, it could have been 10 feet could have been 100 yards. I don’t really
Rachel 16:15
know. It might have been a big ass swordfish. We don’t know. I think this particular whale is burned into his brain. And I’ll tell you why. So this whale is facing the ship. It’s like headfirst toward the ship. And then for some reason, this whale decides to go headfirst into the asset, the ethics at about three knots or nautical miles per hour. One of the things I googled so not crazy fast, but in the water like three miles an hour is fast enough.
Emily 16:50
And that thing is a fucking big ass fish like
Rachel 16:53
yeah, the fish is about as big as the boat.
Emily 16:56
It’s coming at you like a torpedo. Although whales not fish, not a fish a mammal, but yeah, mammals. Yeah, massive torpedo mammal,
Rachel 17:06
but it is it’s coming straight at you. Yeah. So obviously, when they get head butted by a whale, the crew is shaken, but at this point, they are also bored.
Emily 17:18
No one is severely injured. It’s not like the iceberg situation where it bashes a hole in the side.
Rachel 17:24
Now yet this whale is apparently pretty fucking angry. I don’t know, saw the harpoons but he’s Apple blood literally after the head, but it circles back and swam underneath the boat and started thrashing. Spoiler alert but oh and chase survives and he would later say quote, I could distinctly see him smile his jaws together as if distracted with rage and fury. Okay, yeah. Angry whale. Yeah, I don’t know enough about whales to know how expressive they are or how communicative with people I know dolphins who are also mammals of the sea very expressive to people. So I would imagine very
Emily 18:14
smart like pigs but I don’t right whales are that intelligent?
Rachel 18:20
I’m sure they are. I don’t know that they can feel vengeance. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to
Emily 18:25
say. I know that really? Animals can that maybe dolphins? Maybe pigs?
Rachel 18:30
cats can feel vengeance. cats can 100% feel?
Emily 18:33
Oh, yeah, for sure. My cat. I’ll see her like looking around a wall like it’s a wall and I’ll just see one cyber face. She’s like, like glares at me.
Rachel 18:43
Yeah, yeah. I knew exactly which cat because you have to sweet was without saying. Yeah, and one, not too much. So as quickly as it had begun its attack. The whale vanished. Or so everyone thought the crew was trying to fix the hole. The whale had caused the ship and getting the pumps ready to try and pump out some of the water that had been gushing into the ship. And then as if from a movie, or you know, like a novel. What have one of the crew members shout it out that the whale was coming back. Oh, no chase side again, coming at them headfirst, this time about six knots. The whale hit the bow right under the cat head and disappeared for real this time. In case you don’t know a ton about boats because I share shit don’t I google it. So the cat head is a giant beam that’s angled out to support weight of the anchor when the ship is moving. And the bow of the ship is the friendship. So after this attack wire started rushing into the ship. There was no hope of pumping it out or fixing the hole in time. So the crew lowered all of them. Presumably those little whaling boats, and they had three of them and try their best to grab necessities, navigational instruments, food, water. And then that 87 foot ship, the Essex, turned on to its side and began to sink. Makes you really want to watch Titanic? Right? That way I can play it on the piano. Amazing. Captain George Pollard saw the ship was in trouble from a distance. But he couldn’t tell exactly what was going on from wherever he was willing. So he sailed back over.
Emily 20:46
I was just say, why was he? I thought they had all the ship. So some of the boats were at the boat and some are off whaling.
Rachel 20:54
Correct. So he sails back over and he sees the capsized ship, and then chase fills his captain in on what happened with the whale. To me. It seems like these guys were in shock. The crew sat on their whale boats not willing to leave the SX as it sounded in the water. Eventually, Captain Pollard starts to bring up a plan. So there are three boats and 20 deeds. They figure that the closest land where the mark cases islands and society islands which are part of French Polynesia, but for reasons that will become clearly ironic later, the crew didn’t want to go to those islands because allegedly they were filled with cannibals. Oh, no. Oh, yes, they wanted to sail south to sail south, hoping to catch trade winds or be spotted by another whaling boat along the way. Captain Pollard wanted to go to the closer islands in French Polynesia, assuming correctly that the cannibalism was a rumor. But he was kind of outvoted and he wanted to do right by his men. He didn’t want to like make a decision that everybody was going to be unhappy with. If you know they got eaten later. I told you I fucking told you this was gonna happen. They’re all sitting in a giant pot together like one of those insanely racist cartoons that we watched it are you if you know exactly what I’m talking about? Yeah, I
Emily 22:22
was gonna say that they’re all there. And the French Polynesians are like, Oh, you look tired. Let’s give you a massage. And they’re massaging butter.
Rachel 22:32
You know, honestly, at that point, even for like Mother’s Day, if I could do it without my kids, I take a butter massage. Great about sounds pretty good. It sounds pretty nice. Like, until, until they start slowly turning up the heat like you do with a lobster. It’s like what smells delicious. It just you I smell delicious. wishes. So these boats are about 20 feet. So they’re not tiny. But they’re not huge, especially if you figure there’s like eight to nine guys for boat. So they start sailing on their 20 foot boats and things aren’t great. Pretty quickly, saltwater gets into their boats and saturates their bread. So these men are eating, obviously for survival and simultaneously dehydrating themselves, which is pretty counterintuitive to their survival. They’re gonna have to drink their pee. That’s not a good sign, which does not actually happen, at least not what I read. But maybe obviously they’re out here in the sun and the water is reflective meaning my pale ass is having a visceral response already. Like I you get so sunburned on boats because everything is like blaster yours that’s just reflecting the sun back at you. It’s just a giant prism of pain. For me, a perfect suntanning spot. Fuck yourself. So, two weeks after the Aztecs had been flipped by a whale, the crew saw a beacon of hope. Henderson Island, an island in the Pacific that still remains uninhabited. Mm hmm. So this island is like fairly barren. It’s not tamed at all. And there’s nothing really there and no one there that can help them. But regardless, three of the men decide to take their chances on the island instead of getting back in one of those votes, which honestly, I get, like, Fuck you, I’ll take my chances on land. And that means that there are more supplies for the remaining 17 men who didn’t give them a thing and we’re just like, All right, good luck to you. Later they get going. We’re gonna take our rations and go. Oh, yeah. Like they stopped at the island realized it was uninhabited. Three of the dudes were like, yeah, we’re just gonna stay here and they were like Good luck Godspeed bro see out there like I guess we’ll maybe some people for you we find land like I’m sure they would but they’re like we can’t afford to spare our ration so like I hope you can live off this land See,
Emily 25:15
I would assume I feel like living off of land would be much easier than living off of ocean soaked bread.
Rachel 25:22
Yeah and at that point you’re you’re with a lot of other people and you’re getting constantly sunburned and you have very little shelter for bad weather or whales were swimming close to the surface or sharks wanted that whale comes back. Yeah, yeah, I I probably would have picked the land but I also don’t want to be on water with nothing around me for a long time It freaks me out. The oceans a scary place freaks me the book. Yeah, as we’ve mentioned, we do multiple times space and the sea land is okay. Fire Fire.
Emily 25:58
All the elements I don’t like.
Rachel 26:00
Yeah, but then on land, you got more serial killers. So you know everybody picks pick your death final destination. It’s
Emily 26:06
why watch criminal minds. That’s why we watch criminal minds.
Rachel 26:09
So now we’re in mid December 1820. These men have been on these small boats for over a month. The boats were taking on water. whales are swimming up on them, probably giving them some pretty significant trauma after what happened. And the men are starving and dehydrated. Oh and chase. The first mate said one of the men on his boat went crazy. He stood up, demanded a napkin and water then immediately started convulsing. He died the next morning. So he was having like delirium. Oh, that’s awful. Mm hmm. Trigger trigger trigger trigger trigger warning. This next part is disgusting. The men in owensboro were obviously horrified at losing someone like that. And at the same time, they are desperate and starving. This is a quote from Owen chase about what came next. The crew separated limbs from his body and cut all the flesh from his bones. After which we opened the body, took out the heart and then closed it again. sewed it up as decently as we could and committed it to the sea.
Emily 27:25
So away they took the limbs off, took the heart out, sewed it up and put the torso into the into the floated away because it had Yeah, pockets. Oh my god.
Rachel 27:37
So I think a sea burial is pretty traditional for sailors and pirates and the legs. But they wanted all of the meat and they wanted all the organs. So that’s what they were eating.
Emily 27:49
They roasted the man’s organs on a flat stone and ate them and that one guy is alive. That means he lived knowing he ate one of his friends.
Rachel 28:00
Do you think that’s bad? Just wait. Oh no. Three more men would die and end up getting eaten over the next week Chase and Captain Pollard were on separate boats and their boats lost sight of one another and floated in separate directions. There was also that third boat I’m not sure who was on that boat.
Emily 28:20
Why didn’t they tie their boats together like you do in your in the tubes on the lake when you’re like tubing down a river? Like that’s a
Rachel 28:26
great questions like why not? I wonder if they didn’t have rope. And they weren’t willing to take out their fabric because they had to leave so quickly. Yeah, that’s a good call. They probably just grabbed like, let me find my navigation check. Let me find bread and water and whatever. Yeah, yeah. human flesh apparently was not doing much to satisfy the men’s hunger. And the more they ate of their former crew members, the hungrier the surviving crew felt because they got worms. Maybe they were weak, traumatized, and exhausted beyond all imagination.
Emily 28:58
It’s just like the always sunny where Frank says that he gave Charlie and D human meat. And then they think that they can’t survive. They’re like, I’m so hungry. It’s all I want. And they like walk past the guy and they’re like, Oh my god, I wanted to eat that guy. So
Rachel 29:18
he’s like, it was rare. gets them to think that they that’s the best. Oh my god. Oh, Frank, one of the best episodes and also the best wildcard that we ever play in evil apples. We just put it in all caps with an exclamation mark after and we always know it’s the other one. But we still always pick it. It’s the perfect wildcard for any situation always wins. always wins. If you don’t know what to play to man need. Yeah, now back to the horrible on February 6 1821. nine weeks after the whale attack. They have been floating in the ocean for nine weeks. For men on Captain Pollard’s boat, certainly for left because remember, there were 17 on three boats. At this point, I’m not sure how many men had been eaten from each boat, but I assume at least one they’ve already been symbolizing at this point. So there are four lipping men left. And they all agree that they would die without food and decided to draw lots to see who would be eaten next. What? Yeah, so they’re basically like, somebody’s got to die so that the rest of you can survive.
Emily 30:33
I would be like, I don’t want to know I don’t volunteer as tribute.
Rachel 30:39
So it was Owen coffin, Captain Pollard’s first cousin. And remember, I mentioned Jethro top coffin in the beginning, because it’s a very old house in Nantucket. But this is Captain Pollard’s first cousin, and this man, and by man, I mean, teenager who had made this suggestion Oh, as a teenager, and also Charles ramsdale. Um, drew the lot that said he had to be the one who
Emily 31:07
killed him. Oh, so they were drawing for who died and who had to kill the person?
Rachel 31:11
Yes. So obviously, Captain Pollard was upset by this, more so than everyone else. He had promised Owens mom who I’m assuming as his answer that he would look out for Oh, and one was like 16, maybe 17.
Emily 31:29
I don’t feel like he should have been included in the like, knowing he’s too little.
Rachel 31:34
But he even offered to step in Owens place. He said, pick me and said, Oh, but Oh, and bravely said that he would do it and refuse to let his cousin take his place. He essentially like lay down and put his head on the trigger of or on the barrel of the gun, and then made Charles ramsdale pulled the trigger. So a couple of weeks later on chases boat. They saw a sale. It was an English ship called Indian. Ironically, the remaining three men on the boat, were able to chase it down. They just I don’t know if they like yelled or if they had a fuckin What do you call it? They’re paddling as fast as they can. I’m sure they would. They had a you know the thing. Like I say, Oh, no, no, no, like when you signal. Like when you blow a signal up into the sky. A flare, whatever. A flare. Thank you. Like, you know the thing. I’m over here like making a motion like people could see me.
Emily 32:30
Yeah, I’m just surprised that they had would have had a flare since the 1800s. Like, I was surprised when you saw that they had a boat that had a pump in it. Like, yeah, I would have assumed they had no technology like that. But
Rachel 32:43
yeah, well remember that boats were their primary means of traveling at any place like they’d have planes. Yeah, that’s so the technology would have to be decent. I don’t know if they had a flair or not. I think they probably just like rode as fast as they could and chase this boat down until they were seeing
Emily 33:00
if they were able to cook they had to handle the makeup fire. Right, right. So they maybe could have just put smoke up.
Rachel 33:08
plumbing. Yes, that’s true. That’s true. So that boat is rescued. There are three men, including oh and chase left on that boat. There rescue. Captain Pollard’s boat at this point was 300 miles away from home and chase and his rescue crew. So Captain Pollard and Charles ramsdale Yes, the guy who shot his cousin were the only two left alive on Pollard’s boat. They were hard up for food. They only have bones left of their dead friends, which they had to smash on the bottom of the boat so they could eat the bone marrow. A week after Chase’s boat had been rescued. a sailor on the American ship dolphin saw Pollard’s boat. At this point, the two men were not even happy to be rescued. They were delirious. They stuffed the bones of their deceased crewman in their pockets, and were straight up sucking on human bones in front of their rescuers. I’d be like we we are full resolve. Now they can see flick. Can you imagine me like oh my god, shipwrecked people. They’re sunburned. They’re starving, and then they’re fucking sucking on human. Like, Ah, no, like, Dwight from the office every time he eats anything just staring. very primal.
Emily 34:44
Oh, oh my god.
Rachel 34:47
So in case you haven’t been keeping track, and I I’ve done it for us. I’ve mapped to the rescue. So there were five survivors. I counted four out of the original 20 remember These five survivors were reunited in Valparaiso, Chile. And then they had to sail back to the tucket. No. Like they were captaining the ship. I’d be like,
Emily 35:13
I live here. Now I live here. I,
Rachel 35:16
I live in Chile. That’s exactly what I put my next line is honestly, if this was me, I just live in Chile now. Like, you’re not giving me back on a fucking boat. Never. But at some point, on the trip back to Nantucket, Captain Pollard was able to get it together. Like I’m sure he got some sleep and some food and the delirium was probably partially dehydration and starvation. So he ended up I’m imagining, like, did you see Pirates of the Caribbean when they’re all just like sitting in the boat and having this big dinner like that? And they’re all sitting around and he’s telling his story to some other captains on the journey back. One of the captains went back to his chambers. He’s out doo doo doo doo doo, and wrote everything down. And he would later call it quote, the most distressing narrative that ever came to my knowledge. Wow. So if you’ll remember, oh, God was
Emily 36:12
there. I didn’t know that Moby Dick was like, involved cannibal.
Rachel 36:18
I don’t think it does. But this is the story that inspired Herman Melville. Hearing about this whale that fucking capsize this boat was like, I’m coming for your bitch. Yeah, he left the cannibalism out. So if you’ll remember, there was a third small whaling boat. It was discovered years later on deucey Island, which is in the same Island group as Henderson Island, which is the abandoned one that I mentioned earlier. The third boat contained only three skeletons. And PS that survived total is actually eight out of 20, not five out of 20 because those three fuckers who chose to stay on Henderson Island survived.
Emily 37:02
I knew it
Rachel 37:03
for four months, and they were rescued by an Australian ship.
Emily 37:07
Yeah, that seems like the obvious way to go person, right? I am super surprised that the captain wasn’t like, Fuck, y’all. We’re gonna stay here. I’m the captain. Now. Look at me. Look at me. Well,
Rachel 37:20
I think people want to go with what they’re comfortable with. And if all of your training is I know how to survive at sea. I don’t necessarily want to sign myself up for some Lord of the Flies shit. I don’t know how to deal with that. I can deal with sea. I mean, I can I understand dry land. Not me personally. But like him, though.
Emily 37:41
Yeah, I get that. They’re like we’re trained to deal with the sea. We’re not survivalists.
Rachel 37:46
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. They was wrong. Mm hmm. Yeah. So they all I think ended up back in Nantucket, all eight. But for sure. I mean, I’m assuming I didn’t read that. But the five who ended up cannibalizing their fellow crewmen were pretty much welcomed back with open arms and Nantucket. So they’re like, there have been other stories of shipwreck survivors using flesh of the dead as bait for fish. But apparently, there just weren’t a ton of fish near enough to the surface for their survivors to do this. They’re like, Oh, that would have been smarter. I’m sure they had heard these stories. But like, I’d imagine you’re only going to waste you know, the flash, if you see a fish. If you’re like, Oh, look, there’s one. Let’s try to get it to come closer so we can grab it. Yeah, um, but because it didn’t seem like there was that many fish for them to eat. And we had talked about that before. They did get a pass on eating people. Except for Captain Pollard, cuz remember, he ate his cousin. And aunt or whoever is like, cope up yourself? Yeah. And she could not be in the same room with him afterwards. She never was with him again. She could do it.
Emily 39:05
Well, how could you? I mean, I don’t feel I don’t think Captain Pollard did a bad thing. Like, you got to do what you got to do. I think he did what he had to do. But yeah, I can’t imagine being in the same room as someone who I know consumed My child, you know? No,
Rachel 39:21
yeah. I think I’m thinking about my own children and like, I love them very much and obviously hope that they’re never eaten, but I’m also like, there’s no meat on their bones. Getting kids know that nothing, but also tiny children. Yeah, they’re not going on a sea voyage. Anytime. Ever. I would be the first one everyone would be like her. Let’s see. The number one motivation to lose weight. Now. Number one is I don’t want to spontaneously combust. Right number two, I want to be cannibalized. I don’t want to be the first one eating in a cannibal situation.
Emily 39:59
No
Rachel 39:59
eating More like sweaty eating.
Emily 40:02
I’d be like y’all, you do not have to kill me for this. Let’s just scrape some power. Yeah, but like there’s,
Rachel 40:08
like, get me real drunk. shave a little off handle. I’ll just give to you. I’ll be so happy. You can help me get rid of these. Yeah. So let’s back up. What’s your free life? Let’s do it.
Emily 40:21
Keep it tight like a plastic surgeon. Okay.
Rachel 40:25
Obviously, we are joking. Everybody is beautiful. Don’t eat us. Okay, I got curves for days. Captain Pollard ended up going out to sea. Again, this dude is asking for it. He even was the captain of another whaling ship. This one got wrecked on a coral reef. Captain Pollard was basically considered a jinx. Yeah. And he lived out the rest of his life in Nantucket as like a night watchman. It kind of reminds me of Game of Thrones, where they’re like you just go to the wall. Go to the wall. You’re cursed. You can’t sit with us anymore.
Emily 41:06
Oh, poor Captain Pollard.
Rachel 41:09
Oh, I feel really really badly for him. I do. Each year on the anniversary of the Essex’s shipwreck he locked himself in a room and fasted in honor of those he’d lost slash eight. Slash. He became the inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Well, and although the whale sake the Essex, as well as in the in Moby Dick, the whale, I don’t know if he sinks the Pequod or not, like I said, I haven’t read it. I had to Google the name of the ship. Melville didn’t talk with Captain Pollard about the 92 days he sailed on the seas, going mad, eating people, and wishing for a quick death. Instead, Herman Melville just focused on the whale. He’s like, I should call you Captain Ahab, and we just move Yeah. I think he didn’t want to re traumatize him. He liked talking to him. By the time Melville met him, he was in his early 30s. And Captain Pollard, what’s the new 60 or 60. And remember, this is 1800 60, which is like 100. And today’s gears, so yeah, he was ancient, but he had to be like, haggard, and he had seen some shit. And this is not we talked about this a lot with mental health. And if you go through something that traumatic and don’t have access to therapy, and you’re just holding it And granted, he did tell everybody at the you know, at their fancy ship dinner, but I I can’t imagine just walking around with that shit for the rest of your life that’ll age you. Like trauma has physiological ramification.
Emily 42:46
It does for real. Mm hmm. Also turning 34
Rachel 42:51
also that it changes your blood we learned about Tick Tock and that means it must be true. So true. So about Captain Pollard. Melba would later write quote, to the Islanders, he was a nobody. To me. The most impressive man, though, holy, unassuming, even humble that I ever encountered. Wow. And that is the horrible fucking story of the ethics. This real life story that inspired Moby Dick.
Emily 43:21
Wow. Kudos, Aaron for like knowing that also, but like, Yeah, okay. You read Moby Dick. Come on.
Rachel 43:30
Just getting on air and you’re making
Emily 43:33
us all look terrible.
Rachel 43:35
prey COVID. She and I were in a book club together. And she would read like, she probably still does. You’re listening right now. I know. You’re probably still reading like, two to three books a month and I like could barely finish the one for book club. And Aaron’s got two kids too. She’s a fucking rock star. Yeah, she says people
Emily 43:51
are just like, and I used to be a very voracious reader. And now I’m just like, Hmm, I don’t know if it’s just I consume content different now. Or if it’s just because I read shit all day from stupid people via email. And like, I don’t know, something that I’m just like, I just don’t have the energy for it anymore.
Rachel 44:13
Yeah, yeah. I am with you. I really like reading but at the end of the day, when I have been with my kids all day, or when I have been, you know, with clients it it takes a lot of energy and I just kind of want to turn my brain off.
Emily 44:30
Yeah, so I effort. Yeah, Yeah, probably. Whereas I
Rachel 44:33
could just watch criminal minds. And yeah, my husband was like, do you want to watch this new HBO miniseries with Kate Winslet? And I’m like, yeah, after I finished Criminal Minds, you’re like in two to three years. 14 or 15 seasons? Yeah. Hey, I’m in season five. Now. I’m fucking tracking Emily’s about to let me but it’s fine. I’m in season two. You already finish off season one in like two days. As you can have it on in the background, though, I can’t bear small
Emily 45:03
children here. Yeah, yeah, I can have it on in the background. So it’s on anytime that I have a TV on, which is often and I’ve seen it all so many times that I don’t actually have to watch you know what’s really first time so you’re like you want to pay attention. I’m just like, Oh yeah, it’s that one.
Rachel 45:22
Ah. Oh, all right shirt off. Oh, I mean that much. All right. All right. Where are you taking us? Let’s do it.
Emily 45:32
Hi. I’m going to London today. I’m specifically the Notting Hill area, which super fun fact super fun. That’s where I stayed when I went to London. So I, you know, basic bitch girl was like, I love the movie. Notting Hill, like
Rachel 45:54
cbz,
Emily 45:55
I should say in Notting Hill. Exactly. So I decided to stay there. And so Notting Hill is obviously like, it’s a street an area. It’s an area not a street, an area within London. And London is my favorite city in the world. I’m pretty sure. So I actually didn’t do all that much research about that’s so funny. I’m like, I didn’t do any research about traveling there. Because I’m like, I’ve been there. I’ll know what to say. And now I can’t figure out what to say. But
Rachel 46:28
what did I do there? What do I usually
Emily 46:30
do with my hands? Yeah, exactly. Well, so London, and I think we’ve been to London once or twice on the pod but so London is obviously big city capital area. In the United Kingdom. It’s where the Queen and the Royals live. I went to Buckingham Palace when I was there. And I did see the little dudes with the hat. Yeah,
Rachel 46:54
did you? Did you try to tickle them? Or is that not appropriate?
Emily 47:00
They’re actually like, there by the door. And then there’s a gate. Oh, you can’t even get close to that. Oh, well, then bummer. But so Buckingham Palace is there and they have the London Eye which is like the big Ferris wheel and Westminster Abbey and all this cool stuff. And so I just had such a good trip to London when I went and I think it was probably because it was my first international solo trip and I was still kind of like, getting over a bad breakup. And so I was like, I’m gonna go prove I can do stuff again. You know, it’s like Eat Pray Love. Like,
Rachel 47:44
I’m independent. I’m gonna eat pasta.
Emily 47:47
Yeah, yeah. less of the first part more of the more of like, I’m gonna go and be in the world again. And then just like totally, and I love London because the tube so clean, so easy to maneuver to this the the subway. Yeah, okay, so nice. It’s just like, the subway in New York is so garbage compared to the tubes. So loved that and I went to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant and how was that? Oh, girl.
Rachel 48:16
Oh, what do you eat? You have to tell me.
Emily 48:18
I was just gonna say I’ll tease it. That I went there and I’ll tell the story next week on where in the world? Yeah, so if you want to hear about more about my London adventures, I’ll talk about them on our new bonus content episode where in the world is horrible history?
Rachel 48:37
Mm hmm. It’s a brand brand new for $5 not patrons if you have a story about the places we’ve gone like a funny antidote. Or will story about a place that you’ve been food stories? Yeah, food stories, always horrible history. podcast@gmail.com because we are looking for real life stories of when we’ve been there. So Nantucket or London, or wherever you live next week, Georgia or Sacramento, California, Sacramento, California. Yeah, so any of those places last night,
Emily 49:12
so I’ll talk more about London there but I did stay in Notting Hill I stared I stayed Airbnb and so I wanted to do that. So it was like getting the experience of like I live in London you know, kind of a thing. Of course, Airbnb and European Airbnb also everything’s very like minimalist and IKEA based furniture and like the Natalie’s like this thick and it was like not super comfortable. And the toilet was up on a weird stat like, whacked my feet like dangle down when I sat on it, which was odd. It was odd and I kept like blowing out the fuses there when I’ve tried to blow dry my gear now. But it was super cute and interesting. For a nice part of town, one of the nicer part of town, parts of town in London. And of course, Notting Hill, that’s ROM rom com with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. So good. And they talk in that about the little blue doors like the door to his house. He owns a store in Notting Hill and everything. And so, there’s another house in Notting Hill called 10 Rillington place at the end of a cul de sac in Notting Hill in West London. And I’m going to talk about some of the residents from that house. Okay, so this house was divided into flats, and on the ground floor lived, john, Reginald holiday, Christie fancy and his wife, Ethel, she only gets the one name Bethel. Yeah, no clue. Then on the first floor was Mr. Kitchener, and he was off in a way in the hospital. And then on the second floor, lived a young couple Timothy and Beryl Evans, barrel, which I was like, that’s a strange name, but it looks like Cheryl but with a B, instead of a CH, or an sh. Like,
Rachel 51:13
yes. So it’s probably barrel.
Emily 51:15
And I’m like, I don’t know how else that would be pronounced. But sounds like barrel. real value? Yeah, no, that’s French. That’s a British accent. I’m trying to think of what it was sound like in Britain, but barrel barrel. Maybe it’s cute. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about Timothy Evans. So Timothy, not remarkably bright. Okay. And it’s kind of important to understand this to help make sense of like some of the things that happened in that in the rest of the story. So he was super developmentally behind in general, he was like, slow to crawl, slow to walk, slow to talk. Yeah, just as a youngster, and even as an adult. It said that even as an adult, he had an IQ of a 12th grader, or snow. 12 year old sorry, not taught grammar, too 12 year old. So he’s very limited in his like, understanding of things. So he couldn’t read. And it was he got really behind in classes. Because how do you like, teach a kid to read who can’t even really talk yet he was that far behind in his developmental stages. And so he actually learned to write his name, and then left school when he was 13. So it took him till he was 13. To write his name, learn to write his name. And then he was like, I’m done with this.
Rachel 52:39
It’s like Monica wouldn’t choose like, doesn’t know how to tell time until she was 30. You can’t tell time. It is like, Oh, my God.
Emily 52:53
Exactly. A couple other things that happened to Timothy his father left his mother when he was young. And so when that happened, he and his mother moved from Wales to London. And so in London, because it was 1938. They were basically watching German bombers like pounding the city to rubble. It was bad. And so after a few years, he decided he wanted to get out of the city, and he actually went back to Wales to work as a coal miner. But not only did he have mental troubles, he wasn’t super healthy either. And so his poor health was exasperated by working in the coal mines. Yeah. And so he was only in Wales for a little while before he moved back to London again, to be a van driver. That was his job. I think I’ve got the plaque. Exactly. So when Timothy was 22, he met and married barrel and barrel was five years younger than him when they got married. So she was 17. Yeah, she was okay. But it was 1938. So I guess more okay, but still not.
Rachel 54:09
Yeah, um,
Emily 54:10
so they moved in with his mother for a little while super fun. And then barrel found out that she was pregnant. And so they decided that they didn’t want to live with his mom anymore with a baby. And so that was when they moved into 10 Rillington place in Notting Hill. It was okay. Just around the corner from mom’s house and and upstairs. Yeah, no, gotta stay close to mom.
Rachel 54:35
I mean, free childcare.
Emily 54:37
That’s right. That’s right now, this apartment, quote unquote, was almost too small to be called an apartment like it was two tiny rooms on the top floor of this three storey kind of rundown house with a really tiny washroom and toilet. There was an outbuilding outside of the house, the whole all the tenants shared not Great and so like I said they had the top and then there was this elderly guy in the middle and then john and Ethel Christie on the base floor and they go john wreckage because you know, Rajan old Raj Raj escaped while Timothy would be out for his job, sometimes barrel would go over to Reggie’s house and like, have team conversation so he kind of kept her company. So unfortunately, john, in addition to having like, tragic history, bad circumstances growing up, just also was not a nice person, you know, he would drink really heavily and then come home and beat up his wife knock around a little bit, of course, and it cited a couple stupid things that made me mad of like, apparently she was messy. And Timothy, like, was brought up in the Welch’s like values of good housekeeping.
Rachel 55:59
Hang on. You said, john. Are john and Timothy the same person? Oh, God, sorry. No. Okay. I’m like, who is john?
Emily 56:05
I just typed it wrong. I just typed around. JOHN is the debtors name. Okay.
Rachel 56:09
Yeah, sorry. I was like, really confused for a minute. I was like, why is john is he beating barrel like, Okay.
Emily 56:17
house for tea? And then he’s like,
just this conversation? Yeah, I mean, definitely should. Yes, Timothy was not terribly nice to barrel. john was fine. So Timothy, Timothy didn’t like that. She was messy. He was a good Welsh man who was like too good for her. Apparently, she resented his drinking, they were permanently broke. Like they were basically both incapable of managing a household budget. I mean, their children are children. She’s literally a child.
Rachel 57:00
And he has the IQ of one. And yeah, we I think about just like, a quick note from your friendly neighborhood therapist on brain development. It does not, your brain is not fully developed until you’re at least 25. probably closer to 28. And think about the developmental stage emotionally, socially, intellectually, that you’re at 12 you’re very all or nothing very black or white things are either like, messy or clean. It’s not like well, she’s trying it’s like, your batch. Yeah. Yeah, so he, I mean, at 12 if somebody didn’t smile at me in the hallway, be like, they hate me. Our friendship is over. You know, like you read into things in a way that they’re just not there. 100% so
Emily 57:49
on October 10, the children were birthed upon them a child named Geraldine which I thought was sort of a cute name, but also not like I say, like I get Geraldine like if you say it like that, it’s not but if you say Geraldine like in a but if I Geraldine British Yeah. And while Geraldine was still just a baby barrel found out that she was pregnant
Rachel 58:16
again. Oh, like my kids. Here’s your purpose. Yeah, I mean, mostly. Yeah. Cuz my son was six months old when I found out as expecting my daughter. Yeah, that sounds terrible. I love now so it’s all good. They they’re people who live in this house. So so like, I guess. I mean, I can’t take backs. I can get up there now. So. Yeah, no, I love them. I having your kids very close together. Like, yeah, my kids are less than a year and a half apart. They’re 15 months apart. It’s not for everyone. It’s definitely hired. And let’s just say my hair wasn’t great before COVID with two toddlers.
Emily 59:04
So love it. Okay. So she finds out she’s pregnant. And she like looks around her tiny two room flat and is like, there’s no room here for another baby. There’s no money for another baby. Like this joyful news, which was now in November 1949, by the way that she was pregnant was like, basically appalling. to her and to Timothy. And so you know, trigger warning. If anyone is uncomfortable with talking about abortion. Basically, barrel decided that she wanted to have an abortion, but Timothy was against it. And this cause the couple to really argue.
Rachel 59:50
Do you know Is he Catholic upbringing,
Emily 59:53
did you say it didn’t say what religion he was? So I’m just curious. I feel like normally they do for that time period. So makes me think maybe they weren’t,
Rachel 1:00:01
but because like, what’s the birth control situation in the 40s? Is it like, pulling prey? Is it condoms? Like, I know it wasn’t a pill?
Emily 1:00:11
Well, and even if it was condoms or any, like, I don’t feel like they’re educated enough or knowledgeable enough to understand like, oh, will we got pregnant again? Like, I don’t know how that even happens, you know, so,
Rachel 1:00:25
but we did it with the lice off. That’s not a thing. Yeah. Just don’t take your sex ed tips from podcasts. How about that?
Emily 1:00:37
More, you know. So, morning here, there’s gonna be a little time gap here. And I’m just going to preface it with a note that I promise by the time I’m done with this story, it’s going to make better sense. But here is the time job. So a few weeks later, Timothy Evans arrives at the police department to alert them that his wife had died under unusual mysterious circumstances. during questioning, his story changed several times. At first, he confessed to the police that he had, like, created this concoction, to terminate his wife’s pregnancy because she didn’t want to have the baby and it accidentally caused her death. And that he had disposed of her body down a nearby drain, like a sewer. Yeah. So I mean, no,
Rachel 1:01:35
because if it’s accidental, you’re not just like, Well, I better get rid of this body or we’re down on Miami, you’re heartbroken. you’re grieving the body, you turn yourself in, that doesn’t make any sense.
Emily 1:01:46
So for two days, the police detain him and NSL. And they go do a cursory search of number 10 Rillington place, they find nothing. They don’t find anything in the manhole under the manhole cover either. But it didn’t take three officers to pull the manhole cover off. So they’re kind of like, how did he pull this off by himself? To put right like her down there. That’s odd. And so yeah, that made it hard to believe that part of his story. So they’re kind of like, what’s this cockamamie scheme that he’s telling us about his wife like dying of an abortion? And where’s your daughter, by the way?
Rachel 1:02:24
Yeah, you can’t find your kid.
Emily 1:02:28
Your wife is dead and missing baby at this point, right? Like she’s still like, still Baby, baby. And so they talk to the neighbors, john and fo Christy. And they’re like, we don’t know, we haven’t seen or heard anything. So they’re like, okay, we’re starting to think that maybe he did not accidentally kill her with an abortion pill. Like we’re thinking he probably killed his family and is now feeling bad, and remorse and trying to like make up some story to like, tell his sins, but still be like
Rachel 1:03:00
it was an accident, which is like, a very adolescent thing to do. Like, hey, somebody clogged this toilet. That’s all like, full of cheese ran in? Who was it and you’re all talking? Are you the wreck?
Emily 1:03:30
So they decided to go and search the house again. And this time they find the bodies of a woman and the baby in the wash house. And it was of course, Beryl and Geraldine. But both had been strangled. So now the questions are on right. Was this a story of an abortion gone wrong? Like all bullshit? Did he simply kill his family and then come up with a story to cover it? They interrogate him for hours. And finally, Timothy Evans confesses he had strangled barrel during an argument over money and hid the body in the wash house. Then he’d strangled his baby before returning to Wales. There’s no part of me that understands how you could do that to a child,
Rachel 1:04:21
let alone your own child. Just no part.
Emily 1:04:25
Yeah. So Timothy Evans trial began on January 11 1950. And I should have researched this part more I’ll just say it but this article I read said in accordance with the legal practice of the time, he was tried only for the murder of Geraldine but evidence against him for the murder of barrel was presented to connect him to the baby’s death. So I don’t know if it was like a like, you can’t get tried for your wife’s death kind of thing, but it’s like the 50 it’s like 50. That seems odd. So I should have done more apologies. If anyone knows Send it to us. So Timothy at this point actually withdraws his confession. Okay, that’s different. And now he has started to allege that it was actually his downstairs neighbor, john Christie, who had murdered his family
Rachel 1:05:20
seems unlikely.
Emily 1:05:22
And so his attorney is like, well, FYI, john Christie actually does have a record. He was a habitual, petty thief. And he has served six months in jail for hitting a woman and head with a cricket bat that’s
Rachel 1:05:36
not free. So
Emily 1:05:37
you know, the defense was kind of like, what’s his motive? There’s no motive for john Christie to have done this. And his wife testified to backup that it wasn’t him. And then john testified, and was like, I heard them fighting all the time, endlessly beating her up like it was him. Yeah. So the trial lasted three days. And the judge judge summed up the arguments, the jury took 40, whole minutes to convict him. And basically, even the campaign on his behalf was like, trying to get it so he wouldn’t get capital punishment. Not so like that he was innocent. And on March 9 of 1950, he was hanged for his crimes. So super short and sweet, straightforward story about Timothy Evans. Wow, fat accepted isn’t what you see. The story I told you is the story that played out in the courts and in the media, and what Timothy Evans was hung for. But it isn’t the actual whole story. Because a few months later, john red Christy, their dancers neighbor, lost his job at the post office, because, you know, his criminal record was made public. They fired him. He keeps struggling to find a job, right. Okay. So he runs out of money. So he decides he’s going to turn back to the his thieving days, and he fraudulently sublets, his flat, and march of 1953. And then he took the money that the person like, gave him with from the rental and disappeared. And so a few months later, a new tenant moves in and starts stripping the wallpaper out of john and apples flat. And what does he find? a closet that has been wallpapered over weird, so no one knew it was there. And inside were the corpses of three women what and buried in the garden there were two additional skeletons. One whose skull was missing. And one there was a human thigh bone propping up a fence posts, like just out in the open propping up this fence. This man had literal skeletons in his closet later on the bone closet is.
Rachel 1:08:06
Oh my god. Yeah.
Emily 1:08:10
And so they totally overlooked this in the other searches. So they’d gone and searched this property and never found them didn’t see the thigh bone propping up the fence. And we’re just like, they never saw that. And then further further investigation under the floorboards, John’s wife, Ethel. Oh, yeah. who had been so kind. She had been trained as to testify on his behalf.
Rachel 1:08:36
We were rooting for you.
Emily 1:08:39
Yeah, exactly. We’re all rooting for you, john. Yeah, she did her duty of it, testifying in court that he was home and then he murdered her. So Wow, all of a sudden, Timothy has claimed that john Christie had murdered his wife didn’t seem so far off. Of course, Timothy Evans is dead already, Pa. So let’s rewind. Let’s talk about what actually happened here. So remember how Timothy and Beryl were arguing furiously about whether or not to have an abortion?
Rachel 1:09:13
Yes,
Emily 1:09:13
well, in this tiny, tiny house in Notting Hill, rickety knot belt. Well, I’m sure everyone could hear everything going on. So john Christie, who we now know, was the serial killer, heard them having these fights. And so he kind of became aware of the situation. And he of course, I’d met Timothy and could tell that he was slow, you know, that kind of thing. And so he walked himself up the stairs and offered his support to them. He explained to the couple that he had, overheard their argument and told them that he could help. He told Timothy he had been in training to be a doctor before the war, and therefore he knew how to carry out abortions. And he even showed to Timothy, the first aid book that he had, and said it was a textbook from his doctor training. And illiterate Timothy was like, impressed by the diagrams in the first aid book, and was like, okay, you can do the abortion, and they arranged for john to come and do the abortion. So their plan was that Timothy would go to work. And while he was at work, john was going to come climb the stairs again, and perform the abortion on barrel. So that was on November 8, Timothy left for work. And when he returned, he was met by john who told him that the operation had gone wrong, and barrel had died. Ah, so Timothy asks to see the body. And john said, I already disposed of it, I put it down the manhole into the drain to dispose of it, which is where Timothy got that, like, that’s why he had said she’s in the manhole or whatever. And so then John’s like, okay, or Timothy is like, okay, where’s my daughter, and john said that he had sent Geraldine away to stay with some nice people who would protect her until all the smoke had cleared from barrel dying. But he also tells Timothy, listen, as the husband, they’re gonna suspect you of causing this death. And low intelligence Timothy is like, that makes sense. And he just saw what he left and went back to Wales. So this is all what is happening in that three week time period where it was like a time Trump remember. So, you know, he kind of said, Well, this john guy is a doctor. And I guess he’d also like been a policeman. It’s one point in his life. So he’s like, he’s a policeman. He’s a doctor. He knows I should trust him. And he left whale or left London and went to Wales, even though he was worried about his daughter, of course. But his family in Wales was that super interested in him being there? They were kind of like, did you fuckin abandon your family? Like, just like your dad, dad, come on what’s going on? And so they finally persuaded him that he needed to go back to London and find Geraldine, and like, check on her welfare. But when he got there, john was like, No, you have to go away and just like turn them away and wouldn’t help them. Oh, my God. And so when he could no longer bear it anymore. This is when he decided to go to the police and tell them that he had disposed of his wife. Note that he used the word disposed of not murdered, right, because he was anxious to get this like, out in the open so he could find Geraldine like get the barrel thing figured out. So the smoke would clear and he could get his daughter back. But he also wanted to protect john Christie, because he had been so helpful. And so that’s why he said that he had disposed of the body as opposed to like, at all bringing john into the mix. So he initially told the police that barrel had died because of the abortion pills, like I mentioned, and they had disposed of her body down a large drain. But this made the police question him. They’re talking about the in consistencies. You put the body in this manhole in this drain. We looked there, we didn’t find her. So why did he say that? You know, well, he had heard from john that that’s where the body would be. So this makes him already start looking bad. Like he’s hiding something. So then, you know, as I told you, before, they went back, they find the two bodies in the wash house. But there’s not a an abortion pill death situation. They’re strangled. So now they’re like, hold up, like, well, and he’s just learning of this, too. He’s like, Wait, what? Like they’re stringing and wait.
Like, yeah, you know, and so the alarms are going off for the police, I’m sure for Timothy as well. And then basically, like, the rest of the story continued, as I described it, like, the jury was like, Buck, you know, no, you’re hanging out, blah, blah, blah. But so just for like, a little more detail. Timothy, did confess and recant multiple times. When he made these confessions, it did sound an awful lot like police talk. Not the language of an illiterate person. Like he was using these words that were very police oriented and not like what he would have ever said. And he was like Brendan
Rachel 1:14:43
dassey shit.
Emily 1:14:44
Yeah, exactly. And, and so like I said, he was tried and hung. And then, you know, months later, they found out that this downstairs neighbor was a serial killer, and they’re kind of like, what are the chances that to come? killers live in the same house, you know? Yeah. And oh, by the way, now john Christie nowhere to be found. He’s on the run.
Rachel 1:15:08
Yeah. Where is he? Right? Did they find him You have to
Emily 1:15:12
tell us Luckily, he was not in the run for very long. He spent about a week after the body’s like got discovered and he like went on the run. He spent hours and cafes and like sleeping on park benches, kind of the john list thing, like I’m just gonna go to the train station and he would just go to a cafe and hang out there all day and then sleep on a bench. But at some point, a police officer recognized him. And so they arrested him. And he confessed to the murder of barrel Evans. Although he did deny strangling the baby, but who else would have done the baby was strangled. He actually confessed four separate times to killing burial. At some point, he denied ever agreeing to perform an abortion and claimed that he had killed her during a moment of intimacy like that they were having an affair. Later, one of his confessions was that he helped her commit suicide like he was kind of all over the board to kind of be like, you know, it was this it was that it was nose. Yeah, he also suggested that he had had sex with the corpse. Although he said out loud that although he said that he was unsure, and he was unsure because I don’t think it’s easy to forget that unless you’ve done it to several other people. And so he was unsure if whether or not he had had sex with barrels dead body because as we know, now, he had killed six other women in addition to barrel and Geraldine. And because of that whole, like, I’m not sure thing. They’re like, okay, he probably killed more than the seven bodies that we found,
Rachel 1:17:05
like and defiled. Most of them, like, exactly. It’s like most people will remember their number of sexual partners if you’re a person who counts that number. And that’s with consenting relationships. And so you’re like, if you can’t remember how many dead bodies you’ve unconsented really killed and then slept not slept with defiled Fox like we’re gonna call it like sled is not even the right word of like, what is the word for that? Just like inhumanly disgust a psychopath. Yeah, like a psychopath, like necrophilia?
Emily 1:17:41
Like I
Rachel 1:17:42
usually we’re not here to slut shame but like shame, bridge,
Emily 1:17:46
shame, shame. Oh, yeah, shame on him. So let’s talk about who he killed. He killed Ruth fury just a 21 year old Austrian munitions worker, who supplement supplemented her income by occasionally a gate engaging in sex work, so he claimed to have met her while she was soliciting clients and a bar in Ladbroke Grove. And according to his own statements, he invited her to his home to engage in sex while his wife was visiting relatives, and afterward, impulsively strangled her on his bed with a length of rope. And then he initially stowed her body beneath the floorboards of the living room, and then buried it in the back garden the following evening, then, oh, when was that? That was 43. Okay, so then there’s a time period where nothing happened, aka, whatever did happen. He did not bury on the property he lived on. Then it would have been 49 would have been one barrel and Geraldine were killed. And then in 52, he strangled Ethel. And it was on December 14 1952, so like close to the holidays, and she’d been seen in public a couple days earlier than that. And so he had to really invent some stories to explain why his wife had disappeared. And so, you know, he replied to a letter from relatives writing that she had rheumatism and couldn’t write back. I hate when they do that. I know right to one neighbor, he told them that she was visiting relatives and to another he said that she’d gone to Birmingham like he just had a bunch of different stories for where she was. She was under the floorboards. FYI. Yeah. And then between 19th of January and the sixth of March in 1953. He murdered three more women that he had invited back to his home. Kathleen Maloney Rita Nelson and Hector Marina McClellan. So Maloney was a sex worker. Nelson was from Belfast and was visiting her sisters in London when she met him. She was also six months pregnant at the time. Oh, her murder. Um, and then Oh, this is so creepy to me. Um, he met McClellan, who lived in London with her boyfriend, Alex Baker. And he met her in a cafe. And like all three of them, john, Hector, Marina and Alex Baker, they would like meet up and hang out. And then at one point, john brought, oh, no, at one point, he let them stay at his apartment, because they were looking for a place to live. And then eventually, he, you know, compelled Hector Marina to come back just by herself. And that’s when he murdered her, and then later convinced Baker her boyfriend, who had come to his door to be like, Hey, have you seen the hacker arena? Like I haven’t seen her? He’s like, I haven’t seen her. Any kept up that pretense for several days and even met with Alex Baker regularly to see if he had news and ask about her whereabouts and ha search for her like, crazy. Enjoy that Creek. Exactly. So roast. What is especially I think relevant is like these final four murders. He did them after barrel and Geraldine.
Rachel 1:21:45
Yeah, he went into a buzzer mode. That was
Emily 1:21:49
four murders and four months like that’s so blow. Yeah. And so that kind of means it’s like, well, if they would have worked harder on figuring out Timothy’s trial, they could have prevented four deaths, you know? Yeah.
Rachel 1:22:04
Yes. And like the evidence pointed to Timothy, you know, I thought it was gonna be a short and sweet case to I was shot. Yes. Well,
Emily 1:22:13
we’ll talk a little more about that, because I did do some trickery there.
Rachel 1:22:19
Yes, you did.
Emily 1:22:19
I know. I’m sorry. He sort of sneaky sneaky. Luckily, I guess, luckily, is probably the wrong word. He did get sent to court, and the jury convicted him and only 80 minutes. So took twice as long as Timothy. But it was pretty quick.
Rachel 1:22:35
I got a sandwich pretty quick.
Emily 1:22:37
I had a break in the middle. That’s fine. So on July 15 1953, the same man that hung Timothy Evans hung john Christie. And it is said that john Christie because his hands were tied behind him, was complaining while he was standing there with a noose around his neck that his nose was itchy. And his hang man replied and said, it won’t bother you for long.
Rachel 1:23:06
Boom, I was like, Yes. He’s like, Listen, fucker, you may be hanging innocent man. So why
Emily 1:23:15
not help you out? No facts given, interestingly enough, this case had really big significance in the British courts. And that’s because by the late 1940s, capital punishment was becoming a big controversy there. And the House of Commons decided to continue with capital punishment and said it’s okay. Because they had heard this big debate on the floor, about the that the only way, the only way that an innocent man could conceivably be hanged, would be if the police, the attorneys, the judge, and the jury all went collectively mad. That’s the only way it would happen.
Rachel 1:23:58
That seems like it happened. Anyway.
Emily 1:24:00
That was one year before Timothy’s hanging. Whoops. So whoops. Yeah, so let’s see. Did they all just go collectively mad or were there some Miss missteps here? Let’s talk about the police investigation. Because the police focus solely on Timothy Evans, they didn’t really look deeply into the rest of the property. So like I mentioned, Christie had this like fuckin thigh bone propping up a fence. There were bodies in the garden bodies in his home like they did not search deeply the entire property. Once they found barrel and Geraldine they’re like, okay, peace out, Timothy is going to die. Okay, cool. He also had buried the head of one of his victims in the garden, as I mentioned, and a dog had dug up those remains. And so he had taken the head like the skull fragment that he found and hid it in a bombed out building because it was during World War Two and this was found by some children who handed it over to the police and the police ignored it. They’re like, that’s not important to us no big deal.
Rachel 1:25:07
They’re like, it must have been from the bombings,
Emily 1:25:08
right? I guess I don’t know. So they also obtained the employee register from where Timothy was working, which probably provided an alibi, but they lost it. So never went back to get it again. Also, builders, were making repairs on number 10. In November, when Beryl and Geraldine were killed, and they were storing their tools in the wash house. So they’re going in and out and in and out. So none of them saw anybody’s. But the police re interviewed them, and persuaded them to amend their statements, and then didn’t summon them to give evidence in court. So they couldn’t like, go back on anything. Right. And so essentially, evidence that could have saved Timothy Evans from the gallows was like, kind of staring the police in the face and they just kind of failed to see it. classic case of tunnel vision, right? Like, yeah, only accepting evidence that supports their theories, kind of ignoring everything else. And, you know, we’ve now seen that that’s not all that uncommon, happens a lot, unfortunately, unfortunately. So the Timothy Evans case was actually the case that kind of blew this hole like no innocent man will be found guilty thing out of the water. And in the early 1960s, capital punishment was suspended and then abolish in England. And in the end, Timothy Evans was pardoned in 1966 posthumously, of course, and his remains word zoomed from Pentonville Prison, and re buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in late Leytonstone, East London. So today, the gloomy rickety house at Rillington place has actually been demolished and replaced by a modern comfortable accommodation. But if you do go to that address, you’ll see there’s this little gap in the buildings where there’s a small garden, and that is where number 10 was, that’s where the garden was. And that is actually the story of Timothy as a man wrongly convicted and executed for the murder of his wife and daughter, who were actually killed by john Christie, a serial killer who murdered a known total of seven people likely more. Wow,
Rachel 1:27:44
Mike draw, twists and turns. shocker, right now I was like, But wait, no, my god.
Like, that was fucking amazing. Like, the whole time I’m sitting here will have to post some video from me listening to your story, because normally I have something smart apps to say. But I’m just like covering my mouth like add those so good. Oh, my gosh,
Emily 1:28:18
I like wrongfully convicted, boils my blood a little bit and totally so when I heard this story, I was like, That’s crazy. And so teaser, my happy hour stories. This week, I’m going to be talking about some wrongfully wrongful convictions that Oh, yeah. So if you’re a $5 patron this week, you’ll get to hear that with happier with horrible history. And then next week, like we talked about in the middle of the show, we will release where in the world is horrible history, so lots of bonus content over at Patreon. And we have a new tier which is $10 and up patrons will get to see additional additional bonus content, aka
Rachel 1:29:03
video. Whoo. Yeah, we’re gonna have some video will teach it on Tick Tock with shorter clips, but we’ll do some longer clips of us reacting to each other when we’re being especially hilarious. If you like what we’re doing here. You just want to support the podcast, Patreon is about the same as like buying us a cup of coffee every month. $5 a month patreon.com slash horrible history. But see there you can also get ahold of us on Instagram or on tik tok at verbal history pod. Send us your stories. We’re pretty receptive to dm, slide on
Emily 1:29:39
slide on into our DMS or you can email us at horrible history podcast@gmail.com as well if you’re old school.
Rachel 1:29:47
Yeah, I mean, and that’s great, too. We’ll take stories of whatever way we can get them so you have a horrible history story or you have a fun antidote about someplace that you’ve traveled with love To hear it
Emily 1:30:00
an antidote.
Rachel 1:30:03
What is that called? Anecdote?
Emily 1:30:05
the antidote. It’s like when you have poison we need the antidote you guys send it to it’s like we need it. We need more cowbell. It’s like we need more antidotes.
Rachel 1:30:25
God I’m such a stupid bitch!
Emily 1:30:25
I can’t pronounce infirmer. I still can’t pronounce it!
Rachel 1:30:29
infirmary.
Emily 1:30:32
Infirmary! Got it.
Rachel 1:30:32
This is our cue to fucking grab a coffee and just go. It’s been a long day guys.
Emily 1:30:39
Thank you guys so much for listening.
Rachel 1:30:41
Hopefully you’re horrified.
Emily 1:30:44
Give us the antidote.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Sources: