The Pimlico Mystery: Chloroform, Secrets, and a Victorian Acquittal

0:00 We are, we are. We are Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, we are Cultivate. Hello and welcome to Your Crime, where we discuss the funny, strange, and obscure crimes of yesteryear. I'm your host, Lindsay Valenti, and with me is my sister and co host Matti Stangel.

0:41 Hello. Hello, it has been a hot second, it has. Been a minute. M It's good to see your face. It's good to see your face too. You got a good looking mugania. Ah, so do you look Our chins are starting to look more similar. They did a little bit. That's kind of funny. It's funny. Well, I'm just gonna jump right into it. We've got two things in the not corrections, cubby, the whatever. The good thing is that we called it once upon a time. It's called like that. I was gonna say chill out chamber, but that sounds ominous, doesn't It sounds like.

1:22 A place you would not see yeah, CD. Like the like the van with candy free candy on the side. I used to think of chamber of secrets. And it's not ooh snakes. No, yeah, not. Not a jam the feel good Fortress. Just kidding, that sounds even worse the feel good for it. Whatever it was called, I should just don't know hard to figure out what that was and go back and find it one of these days. Anyway, Dashery is our new merch vendor. They are a part of Tea Public in the sense that the back end is all Tea Public, but from the forward facing end it's the same great stuff, but we get a bigger kickback on the sale of our products.

2:19 So as a creator, it is a better platform for us because we really don't get a whole lot from each sale, so we don't beat like a dollar. Sorry, now we'll get too moving on up yep, And speaking of dollar dollar bills, y'all, I need to think, as always our lovely buy me a coffee sisteiners, who are Charlie, Elizabeth, Sarah, Cheryl and Mariam. So thank you, ladies, thank you so much, appreciate you. Mm hmm. In this week's episode is a long one. Full disclosure.

3:03 There were some sources that I ended up not using because they were so intensive. I skimmed them. But I was like, I can'kay, I can't dive. Are you gonna include them so our listeners can dive deep. Yes, yes, I am going to include links to all of the rabbit holes. So if you are super like I need to learn all the things, you will have the resources to do. So nice, I got you, fam Nice. All right. We will be discussing the Pimlico mystery. Oh mm hmm, I think I'm saying that right. Let's let's see.

3:45 Let's see, right, what is happening Pimlico. Pimlico. That sounds better, Pimlico. So it's one word, not too Yes. The Pimlico mystery. It's a town. It's the name of the city, all right. Information was pulled from the following sources. A twenty twenty two Historic Mysteries article by Lauren Dillon, twenty twenty two Mayfair Times blog post, twenty twenty two, Providentia blog posts by doctor Vitelli, twenty fifteen, Strange Tales blog post by Sarah Hapgood, nineteen twenty six, Sunday Mercury article, nineteen nineteen, Sunday Dispatch article by Philip Curtin eighteen eighty six, Auckland Evening Star eighteen eighty six, The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, Western Countries and South Wales Advertiser eighteen eighty six, Cambridge Weekly News eighteen eighty six, The Hampshire Advertiser eighteen eighty six, The Leeds Mercury eighteen eighty six, Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper eighteen eighty six, The North Star eighteen eighty six, The Times. See a as Pree blog post historic UK article by Ben Johnson, Kent Maps online article trial transcripts that I will not spoil like I did last time.

5:12 And Wikipedia, dang, that's thorough yep. I think I know what year this happened too. You know it was a good year. Context clues. I think I might have an idea. Yeah, slight spoilers. Thank you to Kiri Inn for her research assistance on this episode, and the show notes will include links to all of the articles that were used to write this episode. Now. The key players in this story are Thomas Edwin Bartlett who went by Edwin interesting Wesleyan Minister, George Dyson not to be with the vacuum guy.

6:02 And I'm familiar with this a little. Bit, maybe heard of this. I think I might have heard of this, okay. And Adelaide du La tremoil de fura descrie. That was French and dem best that was the name. Yeah. Wow, Thomas so the main slash. Edwin was born on October sixteenth, eighteen forty five and would become a wealthy grocer from a very proper and close knit English family. He had six shops and conducted business at Herne Hill with his partner, mister Baxter.

6:50 Interesting, he was known as. A hypochondriac with a delicate constitution, at times believing he had dysentery and suffered from mercury poisoning. Spoiler alert, he had. Neither right because he would be dead. Yes, but to media picture to paint, okay, picture of who this man is. I don't know why I'm using these hand motions, but I am here for it. Okay. So he but he wasn't like working in the grocery store. Right he owned and managed six. Yeah, Okay, because I was like, I was like, there's no way he's like manning a store. No, and being afraid of in a hypochondriac. There's just no way.

7:33 No, No, he runs the thing, he runs things. He's like, just feed the little. People, you do you, mister Baxter, and bring me money yep. Adelaide, the daughter of Clara Chamberlain and Adolphus Kulo de Fura Discuri, was born in Orlan, France in eighteen fifty five. She was one of four children, having an older brother named Henry Edward, who was born in eighteen fifty three, and two younger siblings, Frederic born in eighteen fifty eight and her sister, Clara Amelia, who was born in eighteen fifty nine.

8:17 Okay. Thomas Edwin Bartlett and Adelaide were married on April seventh, eighteen seventy five, at Saint John's Church in Croydon, when Edwin was thirty and Adelaide was twenty. So kind a typical age gap at that time. Yep, pretty common. Yeah. Their unusual union resulted from an arranged marriage by Adelaide's father, who was never publicly named. So even though like I listed a dad, it may or may not be her dad. Mmmm so maybe well, I mean during that time, people died constantly, so she might have had like a welster adoptive situation, maybe like an.

9:04 Well, it was rumored that her dad was a nobleman. Oh so she was. Like a mistress kid maybe maybe Okay, as a result, neither here nor there, Adelaide came with a rather sizeable dowry, and her father hoped this marriage would ensure his daughter a proper place in English society because she may or may not have been a bit of a bastard. So it was a way of getting close to his daughter without kind of shaming any of them.

9:45 Yes, we'll go with that. One of the stipulations of their union was that Edwin must ensure that Adelaide finished her education. So for the first two years of their marriage, remember she was nineteen slash twenty when they got married, Adelaide was shipped off to a convent in Belgium to finish her education. Interesting, Yeah, so definitely a nobleman or something, because like nobody just goes to a convent to be educated as a woman like that. That's like being shipped off to a real nice college and. Not not having to worry about any monies. M M, I'm not. Everyone was a fan of Adelaide, including Edwin's father, Edwin Senior, and according to Adelaide, her marriage to Edwin was platonic and her only pregnancy was the result of a single act of quote unquote unprotected coitus after much begging on her part for a child. She really wanted to have kids.

10:55 Yeah that makes sense. I mean, if he's a hypochondriac and stuff, it would make sense that he would be less inclined to be more like physically intimate. Sure, potentially, I mean. She gave birth to a stillborn baby in November of eighteen eighty one. The pregnancy had been challenging, and Edwin refused to allow a male doctor to assist her during her pregnancy and the labor because he didn't want another man near her. Okay. A midwife, Annie Walker, who had been present at the birth, confirmed this point, and although she had begged him to reconsider, he firmly refused and understandably, the death devastated Adelaide, and the couple never again tried for another child. That's too bad, she was like, I can't go through that again. So in early eighteen eighty five, So four years later, the couple met minister George Dyson, who would become a frequent visitor to their two room flat at eighty five at Claverton Street, Pimlico, London. So it's like a little hamlet of London.

12:14 Okay. He would soon become the couple's spiritual advisor and close friend. He was described as quote a young man of medium height with dark hair, heavy mustache and close cut whiskers end quote. M Minister Dyson was a graduate of Trinity College in Dublin, the son of a Wesleyan minister at Ghoul and placed in charge of a Wesleyan chapel in Merton, which is where the Bartlets met him, because they went to that chapel, got it. Minister Dyson and the Bartlets would form a rather unique relationship. Edwin, for reasons only known to him, encourage the minister and his wife to have an open romantic relationship with his blessing in trusting adelaide to Minister Dyson if he should pass away. What h.

13:19 What? Yeah? Edwin also believed that he should have two wives to serve two purposes, one for work and one for companionship. So just to kind of work work is in like keeping up appearances. Work as in like keeping house, like doing the work of a wife, and the other one is like for sexy times. Got it, got it, got it? So it can't be the same, separate but equal it. Oh, I'm assuming I don't know. Probably not probably.

14:01 Adelaide later admitted to her and minister Dyson's unusual relationship and Edwin's part in it. Quote he requested us in his presence to kiss, and he seemed to enjoy it. He had given me to mister Dyson. End quote. Hmm okay, all right, I mean this is this. Is a Victorian era. Who knows that's really funny? How scandalous this is for them? Mm hmm. I mean, I mean it would still be pretty scandalous for a minister to do this and have it be in the papers right now too. Yeah, it wouldn't be great. No, Minister Dyson would often be seen entering the home early in the morning and staying late into the afternoon.

14:47 He even kept his coat and slippers at the Bartlett home and would join them on vacations. Yeah, that's a relationship. My friend Edwin just minister Dyson a season railway ticket so that he could quote unquote Tutor Adelaide. Oh boy, okay, this is just getting real. G see. All right, okay, this teacher student relationship didn't fool the bart What's made who would often catch the pair in positions that were certainly uncommon for such an academic education. One might say hands on from the sounds of it.

15:29 Yeah, very hands on. There you go, mainly studying biology, dedicated dedicated to the sciences of yes, the body and the mind. Interesting mm hmm for a man of faith, but okay, And. For Edwin he seemed pretty serious about this, as he went so far as to redraw his will on September third, eighteen eighty five, making minister Dyson the executor of his will, stating that Adelaide could only claim his estate if she married minister Dyson. First, that's crazy.

16:13 Yeah, And before this, his will had stipulated that Adelaide could only claim the entirety of his estate on the condition that she remained a widow for the rest of her life. Well, at least she had an option. Now now she can have a companion, I guess. Edwin became deathly ill at the start of December of eighteen eighty five, so Adelaide sent for a local doctor, doctor Alfred Leitch, who came to see Edwin at the Bartlett home. Immediately suspicious, How did he get so sick so soon after his will change?

16:56 Yeah, And fun fact, doctor Leech is a bit of a question. So great perfect, Yes, just what the story needs exactly. There you go. As his illness progressed, doctor Dudley was called in on December nineteenth to provide a second opinion on Edwin's symptoms and prognosis, which is good. I'm not a real doctor, it's really sick. Asking for a friend. Yep. It's also been stated in some places that Edwin may have been suffering from tapeworms, which isn't outside the realm of possibility, considering the couple bred Saint Bernard's which they would regularly treat for worms.

17:46 Well and he I mean London at this time. Yeah, it was disgusting, like if we get a tapeworm from just about anything back then. Yeah, didn't have to real hard to get one. Now. At Edwin's insistence, doctor Leech reluctantly agreed to prescribe him chloroform. Yeah, this story is a wild one for sep No. At this time in history, you had to sign a chemist's book at the pharmacy to provide a record when purchasing medical poisons, which chloroform was considered to be. However, this law only applies when purchasing large doses. So we'll come back to that later, great great so Edwin's illness was exacerbated by a dental disaster that he had suffered a decade earlier. In eighteen seventy five. Edwin back then had gone to the dentist, excuse me to get dentures, but in instead of pulling all his teeth, the dentist sawed them down to the gums.

19:06 No, he did not. This caused the stumps and roots to rot, which caused him excruciating pain from that point forward for a decade. For yeah, a decade he lived like that. And given the time and even today, the extent of his dental disease could have proved fatal. And it's likely his teeth and jaw were riddled with infection. Yeah. Yeah. When Edwin's father came to visit his son, kind of learning of his poor health in the middle of December, Adelaide refused him entry.

19:49 Yeah, I bet you looked real miserable at that point. Yeah, if not already dead. Potentially well. On December twenty fourth, so Christmas Eve, perfect timing. Following a checkup by doctor Leach, Edwin was told that his health had greatly improved, and the doctor was confident that he wouldn't need any more medical intervention. In fact, this was substantiated because Edwin traveled to the seaside, he went for a drive, and each day his health seemed to improve, so things were looking up like even his the landlady and his landlord agreed that his health seemed to have improved, improved greatly.

20:38 Yes, crazy, okay. Doctor Leach accompanied Edwin and Adelaide to Edwin's dentist on December thirtieth, where the couple were quite affectionate with each other. In several articles that it noted very saply that Adelaide has said that she wished that they could get a so that they could have the enjoy the joys of getting married all over again. Something to that effect. Grouse. Yeah, there were no such thing as EO of vow renewals. Yeah. The following evening, the couple had a hearty dinner, and Edwin asked their landlady, missus Doggett, if she could prepare a large breakfast for him tomorrow, saying, quote, he should get up an hour earlier at the thought of having it end quote, So he was. He had gotten his appetite back. He was excitedly again and then the copper the cupper. The couple would later retire to bed all right. Early on January first, eighteen eighty six, Adelaide shook the family made awake, telling her to call the doctor immediately. Edwin's father was also called for Following this, Adelaide ran upstairs to get her landlord mister Frederick Thomas Doggett, saying, quote, come down, I think mister Bartlett is dead end quote

22:09 no great. Not a good way to start the new year. No. Adelaide had woken that morning to discover her husband face down on the bed and unresponsive. Ew. Yeah. She would later go on to say that, in an attempt to revive him, she had turned him on his back and poured a pint of brandy down his throat. What Yep. However, her efforts were for naught. He was already dead at the age of forty one. There's so many things wrong with that. A pint of hard alcohol mm hmm to revive him, yep, just like it splash a cold water smack to the face. You're just gonna pour a bunch of brandy down in dead man's throughout.

23:02 Apparently it's something that he would have at like a snifter of brandy before ben, So that was like right there. So he drank a pint of brandy at night. No, a sniffer like so like like you know, like a shot glass, but the brandy was there. Took Yeah, she just took the whole thing. Yeah, she probably just grabbed it and like was you know, I don't know how. So mister Doggett would recall that Adelaide stated, quote, I had fallen off to sleep with my hand around his foot because she hadn't actually been sleeping in bed with him. She had been sleeping in a chair next to the bed, kind of at his feet. Interesting, And I awoke with the pain in my arm and found him laying him lying on his face. I put him in the position in which he now is and tried to pour brandy down his throat end quote now Edwin's father, who later came after viewing his son's body, stated that he believed he had been poisoned using prussic acid.

24:12 Who and witnesses who entered the room, such as the landlady Missus Dockett, described the room as smelling strongly of chloric ether. Reason for the brandy to be poured. Everywhere, So Edwin's father demanded that an autopsy be performed, which was granted following an inquest. Yeah, I bet, I bet it was. I mean, just all that alone, having that in the same room, you want something to happen. He immediately suspected that Adelaide had something to do with his son's death, especially after he'd accused her of cheating on her husband with his younger son, Frederick.

24:56 War This is a new player in the game. Yep. I couldn't find out much about that, but that allegation. He had said that like early on in Edwin's marriage to her, and Edwin was like, not cool, dad, you need to send her a letter and apologize and actually mean it. So then he did write her a letter like saying, I'm sorry I slandered you. That wasn't cool. I'm sorry. I don't think you're an adulteress. But at one point, now that he's dead, he's like he did think she was. Interesting. Also, the timing was also very convenient, as Edwin had recently passed an insurance examination which insured him for four hundred pounds or around forty four thousand, two hundred and eighty six pounds today.

25:48 Interesting. Yeah, it's not a lot of money though, considering like how much he was worth alive. Yeah, yeah, So the post mortem was conducted by doctor Green of charing Cross Hospital, doctor Murray, doctor Dudley, and doctor Cheen on January second, so the following day. At first, everything appeared normal. His organs looked great, his heart, his liver, all that stuff classic poisoning, at least until they opened his stomach and discovered it was full of a leafful dose of chloroform m between eight and nine drops or four ounces, which is one hundred and thirteen point four grams depending on who you reference. Okay, Sir Thomas Stevenson confirmed this and that it was the only poison present in his system, following an analysis that was conducted on January eleventh. So like a medical analysis of the contents of his stomach.

26:56 I wonder if they did the alcohol to try to burn it, or just try to kill the chloroform hayde the smell or something. So the reason his manner of death was so peculiar is that his body didn't present any of the tailtale signs of chloroform poisoning. Chloroform is caustic and will damage any soft tissue it comes into contact with. In this case, if he had ingested it, there would be chemical burns on his throat and larynx, but there weren't. It was in the brandy. Also, there was no chloroform in the Bartlet home when it was searched. None at all.

27:38 Chloroform. Tapeworms soaked in chloroform? No, no, no, no no. The newest diet graze. Adelaide would go on to admit that yes, she had had chloroform, but she had not killed her husband. Also, she had not purchased the chloroform. She had asked Minister Dyson to pick up some for her on December twenty seventh so she could rub it on Edwin's gums to ease his toothpain. Hmmm that's the reason. Yeah. Minister Dyson had honored Adelaide's request and provided her with four ounces orero point one kilograms of chloroform. Now, remember how I said you only had to sign the chemist book at the pharmacy for large doses. Minister Dyson skirted this by purchasing four small bottles of chloroform in various shops, claiming he needed it to remove grease stains.

28:47 How did they find all this out? Well, police, particularly mister A. Braxton Hicks, which is a hilarious coincidence, by the way, what a name. Ye yeah, really, who led an inquest into the unusual death of Edwin. This was all the evidence they needed to charge Adelaide with quote wilful murder end quote and the minister with quote accessory before the fact end quote. Both were arrested, and Minister Dyson later admitted that he didn't realize how suspicious his method of purchasing chloroform was at the time.

29:27 Sure, exactly, Oh that looks weird. That's crazy, that's crazy. Ah me, I love God, God doesn't kill, I don't kill. I'm just a Wesleyan minister. Jesus saves and said, do I you. Know Adelaide's trial at the Old Bailey started on April twelfth of eighteen eighty six. It would be the first murder trial regarding the alleged misuse of chloroform. Really, Yes, that's crazy, mm hmm. The trial into the death of Edwin took a strange turn from the get go. See the charges against Minister Dyson were dismissed right away, leaving him a free man. Who would go on to testify against Adelaide during her trial as a prosecution witness.

30:26 So he doesn't want the inheritance anymore, apparently because didn't he have to marry her. To get I don't know. He just got like let off and they were. Like no, no, because he was the executor of the estate. So he gets to go. Oh now, that's dirty man. Now, due to the law of the time, Adelaide was not allowed to take the stand to provide her testimony and speak for herself at her. Trial because she's a woman. This law wouldn't be changed until years later with the introduction of the Criminal Evidence Act of eighteen ninety.

31:09 Eight, because she was a criminal, yes, got it. So, as a result, her future hinged on the testimony of doctor Leech and her lawyer, Sir Edward Clark, who worked to convince the jury that she was innocent of the crime. I bet he worked hard. Oh yeah, oh yeah. And as was customary at the time, the Attorney General, Sir Charles Russell led the prosecution for the Crown. Now, during the trial, Adelaide's lawyer told the jury that in the eleven years that she and Edwin had been married, the pair had been intimate only once.

31:53 That's insane. So according to Adelaide, they had a platonic relationship and enjoyed zero in intimacy. But before his death, Edwin had begun requesting his quote unquote marital rights to sex. In fact, following his death, no less than six condoms were found in his pocket, which horrified court attendees because at this time condoms were considered crude. And he also had in his possession a quote marriage manual end quote, which contained explicit references to sexuality and birth control, both of which were considered pornographic in the Victorian era.

32:44 Yeah, I bet, and the condoms would have alluded to him not having sex with his wife. Mm hmm. So the presiding judge, Sir Alfred Wills noted the dangers of such a book in the hands of a woman and encourage the jury to pity Adelaide for having to be subjected to such literature, let alone being forced to read it. Yeah, sounds pretty pretty ridiculous. M h. However, this also casts doubt upon her claims that her marriage was quote unquote platonic. The judge noted, quote when a young wife and a younger male friend get discussing in or out of the presence of the husband, the possibilities of his decease within measurable time, and of the friend succeeding to the husband's place. According to all experience of human life, the life of the husband was one that an insurance office would not like to take end quote out. So according to Adelaide and her and via her lawyer, because obviously she can't speak on her behalf, she had acquired the chloroform as a way to subdue at when he attempted to force her into having relations.

34:04 According to her, she had later to confessed to her misdoings and turned over the bottle of chloroform to Edwin out of guilt and atonement. So she she would use it on a rag and like kind of wave it to give him a case of the vapors so he would pass out, so then she wouldn't so she so she. Kept him sick steadily, just so she wouldn't have to deal with him. That's what they're trying to allege, that she poisoned him over time. So oh no, she. Did it like every time.

34:47 So so this testimony offered one reason as to why there was chloroform in the home, but not as to whether this was the one that used and his death. Yeah, so forensics wasn't as developed in eighteen eighty six as it is now. What surprise, he was barely developed in the nineties. Let's be in the nineteen nights. But the trial hinged on how exactly liquid chloroform was able to get into Edwin's stomach without burning his throat and larynx. Yeah, like that's crazy. How did it get there? So Adelaide's lawyer, he wasn't the best barrister in England for nothing, Like he was like the best that money could buy.

35:37 Oh okay. He was able to put forth a strong case that Edwin had taken his own life, stating that he had believed he was terminally ill. What this Okay? Now I can see why all those newspapers were watching this story. What is happening? Yeah, because because as we've pointed out, he's he was a hypochondriac, right, he was regularly sick, he had tapeworms, he's got rotten teeth.

36:17 Like, there's just a lot of weird things. A lot of weird things. So a week after the trial began, after two hours of deliberation, the jury rendered a verdict of not guilty. Yeah, I mean, what else are you to do? Like if it would not guilty, you'd like have a mistrial like. So, although the trial had been a long one, the prosecution could provide no solid proof, evidence or explanation as to how she poisoned her husband, and that reasonable doubt led to her verdict in the court of law. So following the reading of the verdict, cheers and applause rang out inside the courtroom and outside because crowds of people had come to watch what had become known throughout the country as the Pimlico poison mystery. Dang so, public opinion seemed to flip overnight from viewing Adelaide as the young murderess to Edwin as this villainous pervert. Essentially, woh, but that doesn't mean that everyone thought she was free of guilt.

37:36 Right at the close of the trial, Sir James Pageant or Peget, who was a well known surgeon, was quoted as saying, quote, now that she's been acquitted for murder and can't be tried again, she should tell us, in the interest of science, how she did it. End quote damn. The Birmingham Daily Times published the following about Adelaide's acquittal. Quote. Since missus Bartlett's committal, the correspondence which has been addressed to her at Newgate has been of an extensive and curious character. For the first week of her incarceration, anonymous letters of abuse largely predominated, but latterly these have fallen off and have given place to expressions of sympathy and condolence.

38:23 It is stated that during the last six days no fewer than seventeen offers of marriage conditionally of course, on her acquittal, have been directed through the post to the unfortunate woman, and that among the claimants are an ex MP, a foreign marquis, a clergyman of the established church, and three members of the medical profession end quote. Yeah, no, that sounds about right, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. People are weird, man, doesn't matter what era you're from. Yeah. Following Adelaide's acquittal, three major theories emerged on how Edwin died.

39:05 Am Ready. One was that he had completed suicide, as was theorized and postulated during the trial. Okay, so, in this theory, Edwin had heard the dentists say that his gum tissue was necrotic as he removed his teeth or saw them off, And given that the tooth pain before the procedure was making him sleep deprived, delusional, and likely depressed, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility that he would panic when the term necrosis was mentioned. Yeah, well, especially since he was already such a hypochondriac, you know. And considering Edwin was sick for nearly a month, likely an excruciating pain, and in a depressive state. The suicide theory alleges that since he was under the impression he was already dying, he chose to go on his terms rather than suffer longer. This could explain why there weren't any chemical burns on his throat. If he drank it of his own accord, he may have swallowed it so fast that it didn't have time to do any caustic damage on its way down, because if you're drinking normally, you would just you know, take slow, leisurely SIPs, whereas if he took it sort of like a shot, maybe then it wouldn't have had enough time to do a lot of damage as it was going down his throat. Still,

40:37 doctor Leech, his quack doctor who treated him in the past, proposes his theory regarding the idea of suicide. Okay, as he noted in the Lancet, which was a medical journal, he believes that Edwin drank the chloroform not to end his life, but to get back at Adelaide. And here's what he proposed. So doctor Leach proposes that after Adelaide confessed to Edwin that she had chloroform, she had confided to doctor Leach that she planned to use the vapors to subdue him so she could avoid having sex with him.

41:17 As we've already mentioned in the trial, when she confessed to her husband that she intended to use the chloroform so she wouldn't have to have sex, Edwin simply rolled over and refused to say anything. He did keep the bottle, and doctor Leach theorized that Edwin drank the chloroform not to end his life, but to induce vomiting, forcing Adelaide to take care of him. Oh, so it was just a he thinks it's just a feeble attempt at attention. Yes, so he didn't think he did it to end his life, but to gain sympathy and perhaps sway her opinion on being intimate with him. I don't know. I don't know how that kind of.

42:04 I don't know how that would work. That seems like a bit of a stretch, But yeah. Who knows at this point though, Yeah, he seemed like a kind of strange dude. Mm hmm. The second most popular theory is that the whole thing was a mistake. As I mentioned before in December of eighteen eighty five, Edwin frequently took medicine to combat his illness. This second theory alleges that at one point he woke up to take his medicine, grabbed the wrong bottle and down to the chloroform before realizing too late what he had done. Given how inflamed and rotten his mouth was at the time, it's entirely possible that he couldn't have tasted the liquid or even noticed the burning sensation of ingesting it compared to the pain that he was already suffering.

42:53 Right or honestly too, if he thought if he just grabbed blindly on his nightstand, expecting like the brandy mm hmm, the brandy would have burned, he wouldn't have noticed a difference. Yeah, However, this theory doesn't seem to hold as much weight given what the chloroform would have done to him. Yeah, it would have been more sense. It would have heard a lot more. Yeah. Yeah. If he had drunk the chloroform, he would have been screaming in agony from the pain. And as we heard during the trial, no screaming had been heard in the home the night that he passed away.

43:36 Right, because other people would have noticed. It wouldn't have just been her. Yeah, they would have woken up to his screams, and we wouldn't have had a trial, you know what I mean? Like, Yeah, the third and final theory is that it was, in fact the perfect murder, and here's how it could have gone down. I feel like I'm kind of doing like the whole oj Simpson if I had done it type of thing. It kind of feels that way a little bit yet, a little bit yeah, Yeah. So, as we know, Adelaide and Minister Dyson have already developed a close relationship thanks in part to Edwin's intervention in the matter, and she knew she would marry him if Edwin were to pass away, So why not kill two birds of one stone? Literally?

44:25 This theory alleges that Adelaide used the chloroform vapors to get Edwin to pass out, rendering him helpless. At this point, it speculated that she inserted a length of rubber tube or something like it into Edwin's throat to pour the poison down it and into his stomach, preventing the caustic substance from eating away at his throat on the way down. But wouldn't they have seen something, I like seeing a damaged thing. Yeah. Then once he confirmed dead, she used the same tube to pour brandy into his mouth to mask the smell of the chloroform. Yeah.

45:10 I caught that immediately of like the brandy the alcohol smell overwhelming the chloroform spell, or like trying to cover that. Up to this day, there has been no concrete evidence linking Adelaide to the murder of Edwin. If he was murdered, I. Feel like this should be an episode of MythBusters, like how Diddictate in there. Yeah, And it is also just as likely that he passed away from the medicine he had been taking to treat his illness. One of the most common chemicals prescribed in the eighteen hundreds to cure many maladies was mercury, which we now know to be highly toxic.

45:56 Yep. So the problem. Drinking chloroform wouldn't have caused instant death, but if you were given it over some time, mixed in with a drink or hidden in your food, it could have killed you. It's entirely possible that Adelaide had been mixing it into Edwin's nightly brandy snifter without him knowing. That's kind of what I was assuming, But like I don't know, it is clarify. I would assume that they don't. It doesn't blend. I don't know. I don't know man, and the illness that Edwin was suffering from matched all of the symptoms of chloroform toxicity diarrhea, drowsiness, stomach pains, and weakness. So following her acquittal, Adelaide and Minister Dyson quickly vanished from public notice.

46:54 I would not be anywhere near that man, No are you. I would be peacing out like deuces. Good day to you, sir. Sure. It's unclear if the pair went on to marry or if they went their separate ways. There have been claims that Minister Dyson, who was twenty seven at the time of the trial, so he was three years younger than Adelaide. Oh man that he emigrated to the United States in nineteen thirty nine and changed his name to John Bernard Walker. There are also claims that he emigrated to Australia. And I couldn't find anything else about what happened to Adelaide after she was acquitted, of course not So what do you think did Adelaide get away with murder or was it something else?

47:49 I think it was probably both. I think from the sounds of it, it sounds like it was like a slow poisoning over time, and then something happened that was just kind of the last little bit. But to me, from the sounds of it, is she had she had started poisoning him, and then she backpedaled in time for him to be healthy enough for the insurance inspection, and then when she was going to get him sick again, she fucked up and killed him. That's my thought, is like she was already like the plan was already in motion for a long time, and the only reason why he got better was because they were going to try to get more money. She needed him healthy for the insurance appraisal, so that she could get the most money.

48:51 And then when she was like, Okay, well he got approved, everything's fine, I'll just start making him sick again one little bit and she killed him. Yeah, I kind of I feel the same, like it was a case of like lunch housens by proxy kind of, you know, she because the doctors that came to check on him were always commented on what a good nurse and wife she was to take such good care of him and all this stuff, and she was just and she had this guy, this younger gentleman waiting in the wings for her husband to pass away, with her husband's blessing.

49:32 So and with her husband's money. Yep. Yeah, I just feel like it was a case of, yeah, she perhaps got a little too heavy handed with the chloroform. And either that or after he got better, decided he wanted to live again, like maybe he had interpreted his miraculous recovery to some sort of miraculous second chance, And so she knew she had to kill him because suddenly he was wanting sex again, and he was wanting to do more things, and her plan was quickly unraveling, So she could have just like killed him out of panic.

50:16 That then too of like he just needs to be dead, like yep, it just needs to be done yep. And then what better way to do it than New Year's Eve for poisoning? I mean, it was all in all, whether she predicted it or not, just a good, good old story. Well. This week's podcast plug is Castles and Cryptids, a podcast hosted by two Canadian chicks Alana and Kelsey. Follow them down the rabbit hole as they explore Lauren Legends, murder and true crime, the unsolved and the unexplained, where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic af They are part of the cast Network and we will have a link to their show in the show notes.

51:04 Nice and this week's listener question comes from Carrie in no, you wake up to find yourself being tried for witchcraft since people found you with your phone and with insulin? Oh no, no, she had an insulin, No she did. How would you try to get yourself out of trouble? Oh? I would inject them all with insulin and kill them all and then start new with the natives. Have a good twenty eight days with the natives before my insulin would run out. Yeah, and they would welcome me in because I'd kill all the narsty ones with just a narsty white men, just a tiny little dose of my insulin, just a little, just a little prick and hi, bye.

51:58 How about you? I think I would just try to run away because have an asthma attack, and then I would just like fall over and die before they could do anything to me. Just be like go along and just like chuck look over there, and then run away. Ta mesmerism with something on your phone? I mean, what would you do? There's no internet, Like, what could you do with your phone? You could still potentially use the AI. Right, No, No, I could use my calculator app and be like, look I can new math. Look at not quickly? I can do math. I don't think you can use the AI function without Wi Fi.

52:42 No, I've used to with data. Yeah, Like if you had no data and no Wi Fi, yeah, I mean maybe. It's just a really expensive brick. Maybe you could show pictures that you have saved on your. Phone, videos, record things. You could record things and play it back and they'd be. Like, yeah, do it in like slow motion or something. Freak them out. This is what the sky really looks like. Put a filter on it. They're like, oh, I can do this. Whow Yeah that was a fun love. I can't believe she edited slid to it that she did. She was like, emmana, she got me. She got me this time, said and Maddie's insulin.

53:38 That's amazing. All right, what's something good you'd like to share? Mm hmm. I do have something good, but I will keep this something good to myself for a little bit. Yeah, O, there's something good this week. So tomorrow I have I'm going to head up to as part of our job, we have the opportunity to be a part of training program with one of the sovereign nations that's in Minnesota. So I get to spend two days at a training with the Ojibwa tribe, oh Carlton up in Carlton. So yeah, so you get to do some I don't. They had the itinerary up. I didn't want to look at it because I kind of want to like surprise, because like our boss, our whole team gets to go like we we actually made our work. We shifted our work around so that we could have this kind of like quote unquote week off almost like we actually published things earlier faster.

54:51 A couple of weeks ago so that we could be ready for this. But like my whole small team is going. We're going to carpool together and it's a training that several sovereign nations provides to state employees that we're all welcome to, like the state can we'll pay for our trip there, which is really nice. But different tribes offer clatt the course throughout different times of the year, and this one worked out with our group that we were all able to go. So yeah, I guess you do that this week, and I'm excited to go. I haven't been super north really despite living here forever, so there was talk of going up to Duluth for a little bit too, and I've never been to Duluf, so it'll be nice to nice spend a little bit of time. Yeah, how about you.

55:51 I'm excited to hear about that when you get back. I know, I'm really excited. I think it's going to be really cool. Awesome for me. Ask gone, what's what's been happening. You've been really busy. I have been really busy. Something good is this past weekend was crazy busy for both my girls. So it was prom for my oldest, which I think she had fun. There were some mishaps along the ways, is there always is so, but she still had fun. And my youngest, she and most of the girls in her troop. One of them couldn't come because she had a fever. They sewed their own vests for next year for when they bring it. So my my co leader, Lisa, her mom is part of a sewing circle. So the women came and brought their sewing machines.

56:52 And that's so sweet. And showed the girls how to sew their own vests. And we did have to do a little bit of intervention on some parts because the. I bet some of them are just stuff on this stuff. On the X on the outside, the little like kind of breeding thing that goes like that was kind of an issue. But for the most part, the girls did them all themselves and it looks really great. So it's very proud of the cool So I'm very proud of the youngest and the girls in her troop for sticking with it and doing it. And it was a lot of work, but they did it. And now they have their vests already for bridging in a couple of weeks, which sounds crazy, but.

57:36 It does sound crazy. That it's already time for that. June will be here before we know it. But yeah, yeah, all right, shall we let's do it. We wouldn't be here without support from listeners like you. If you're interested in supporting us financially, you can leave a one time or monthly donation over the buy me a Coffee or our VMO page. Links are in the show notes, and we make a point of reaching out to send you a thank you note and stickers to show our appreciation. Want to show your support in a more concrete way, pick up some yield Crime merch over at our tea public shop. We shout out whenever there is a sale each month, and we work to make sure we're creating new designs and changing it up whenever possible. And hey, thanks for listening.

58:24 We love to hear from you, and there's a couple of ways you can reach out to us. You can email us at yield Crime Podcast at gmail dot com, where you can send us story ideas, share any spooky stories you may have, fun gifts, or even just to say hello. You can also reach out to us via snail mail. Remember mail. Our mailing address is yield Crime Podcast. Pobox three four one, Wyoming, Minnesota five five zero nine two. Fun fact. We like to send out thank you cards with fun stickers you can't get at our shop, so it's worth the cost of a stamp. If you love the show, the best way to support us is to leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Good Pods, cast Box, podcast, Addict, and or audible. Links to all of these are in our show notes, or if you're already listening on one of these platforms, you know.

59:16 What to do. Oh and while you're at it, shoot us a question you'd like to hear us answer on the pod. We'll give you a special shout out and address your burning questions all at the same time. The weirder the better. Submit them via link in our show notes or shoot them to us and our dms. Want to be social with us. You can see picks from this week's episode, bonus content and funny memes on x at ye Old Crime Pod or on Facebook, Instagram, threads, TikTok, and YouTube at ye Old Crime Podcast. Speaking of YouTube, we have a special playlist just for our can You Crack the cramp word segments with our guest podcasters. To see who can correctly guess the meaning of some obscure Victorian slang terms. If that's your thing, check it out.

1:00:02 And on that note, as always, I'm Lindsay and I'm Madison, and we'll see you next time with another tale as all this crime