Sept. 2, 2025

"The Sinners All Bow" with Kate Winkler Dawson

"The Sinners All Bow" with Kate Winkler Dawson
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We’re taking a short break and using this time to amplify the voices of other creators we love in the true crime space. While we’re enjoying our summer hiatus, we’ve got something dark and compelling to keep your earbuds company. We're dropping an episode from Ye Olde Crime hosted by twisted sister co-hosts and our friends from the midwest - Lindsay and Madison.

In this episode, Lindsay is joined by author and fellow podcaster ⁠Kate Winkler Dawson⁠ to discuss her latest work, “⁠The Sinners All Bow⁠,” an acclaimed true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to nineteenth-century small-town America. Using modern investigative advancements—including “forensic knot analysis” and criminal profiling (which was invented fifty-five years later with Jack the Ripper)—Dawson fills in the gaps of Williams’s research to find the truth and bring justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to our past as well as our present, anchored by three women who subverted the script they were given.

Visit our website! Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Patreon, & more! If you have any true crime, paranormal, or witchy stories you'd like to share with us & possibly have them read (out loud) on an episode, email us at pnwhauntsandhomicides@gmail.com or use this link. There are so many ways that you can support the show: BuyMeACoffee, Spreaker,or by leaving a rating & review on Apple Podcasts.

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We are, we Are. We are Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate,

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we Are Cultivate.

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Hello, and welcome to Your Crime, where we discuss the funny, strange,

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and obscure crimes of yesteryear. I'm your host, Lindsay Valenti,

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and with me today instead of my sister is author

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and podcaster Kate Winkler Dawson. Kate is a seasoned documentary

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producer and podcaster who's hit podcasts Tenfold More Wicked, Wicked Words,

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and Buried Bones appear on the Exactly Right Network. She

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is the author of Death and the Air, American Sherlock

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and All That Is Wicked, and is a professor of

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journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Today, Kate

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is joining us to discuss her latest book, The Sinner's

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All Bow, which is set to be released January seventh.

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Acclaimed journalist, podcaster, and true crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson

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tells the true story of the scandalous murder investigation that

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became the inspiration for both Nathaniel Hawthorns, The Scarlet Letter,

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and the first true crime book published in America. On

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a cold winter day in eighteen thirty two, Sarah Maria

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Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a

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small New England town. When her troubled past and a

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secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister refriend f from Avery

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was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah's death a suicide

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or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story,

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victorian writer Catherine read Arnold Williams threw herself into the

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investigation as the trial was unfolding, and wrote what many

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claim to be the first American true crime narrative, Fall River.

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The murder divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's The

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Scarlet Letter. But the Reverend was not convicted, and questions

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linger to this day about what really led to Sarah

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Cornell's death until now. In The Sinner's Albaugh, acclaimed true

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crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to

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nineteenth century small town America, emboldened to finish the work

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Williams started nearly two centuries before, using modern investigative advancements,

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including forensic not analysis and criminal profiling, which was invented

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fifty five years later, with Jack the Ripper, Dawston fills

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in the gaps of Williams's research to find the truth

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and bring justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to

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our past as well as our present, anchored by three

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women who subverted the script they were given. So, Kate,

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welcome to the podcast.

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Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

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So before we kind of dive into the book, what

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got you into writing?

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Oh boy, I think in high school I had an

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English teacher who thought I was a pretty good writer,

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and I didn't know what kind of writing I wanted

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to do, and she did something really interesting. Well, I've

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told this story enough where I really should reach out

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to miss Darrell and tell her thank you for this.

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I mean, I keep talking about her. Jane Darrell in Austin,

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she decided that everybody in all of her ninth grade

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students needed to learn how to interview for a job

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like an internship or anything McDonald's wherever you wanted to be.

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So she brought in all of these people who were

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in the professional world who were friends of hers, and

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one of them was a guy who managed a radio

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station here in Austin, and so he did a fake

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interview with me to you know, be an intern, and

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then at the end of the interview, I guess he

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thought I did a good job, and he said, do

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you want to like actual job as an intern at

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my radio station?

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For sure?

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And so then I ended up shifting over to television.

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And then I almost like, I almost had no choice

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but to write news because at fifteen, you know, in sixteen,

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I was hired as an editor at the ABC station here.

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At that age, I was so used to being told

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what to do still by my parents, Oh right, right,

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journalism okay, and Harry go, I'm gonna write journalism now.

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So it was so I was pretty like pitcheonholed from

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the very beginning, and then of course I loved it,

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thank goodness. So Ketch, that's the lesson for any of

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your listeners who you know, have kids. It's like, man,

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catch them early, try to get them. Trying to get

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my girls to do that. Figure out now, because that's

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what keeps you out of trouble in high school. Kept

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me out of trouble because I just said, I definitely

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want to do this. I'm not going to screw it

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up by doing something stupid exactly.

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That's The struggle I have with my sixteen year old

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is she doesn't know what she wants to do either,

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and it's hopefully she'll figure it out sooner rather than later.

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Oh yeah, you know, So what inspired you to investigate

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the focus of the story, which is the case of

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Sarah Maria Cornell.

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You know, my other books have been very male centric,

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which is sort of odd for me because I really

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do gravitate towards female centric stories. But these three the

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first three books, Looney Tune, serial Killer, Stuck in a

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Fog was my first book. The second one was about

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a forensic scientist, American Sherlock, and then the third one

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was about you know, Edward Rulov, who was a genius

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but not at getting away with crimes. So for this

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fourth book, I thought, I really need a woman at

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the center of it. And I write an awful lot

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about men killing women. And I had a listener when

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I was when I had Tenfold the podcast Tenfold More Wicked,

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I had a listener reach out to me and said,

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you need to look at the Haystack murders, and so

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I googled it and I found Sarah's story That is

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not the Haystack murder she was talking about, there's a

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completely different haystack murder that happened one hundred years later

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in Kansas. I think. So, you know, I I when

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I read Sarah Cornell's story and I just sort of

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realized how similar it is to stories today. I mean, really,

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if you break down her story, she is a woman

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who you know, is pregnant and she wants to do

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what's best for her child, and she is demanding rights,

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and then she ends up dead. And we know that

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women are out their most vulnerable when they're pregnant. Statistically,

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they just are vulnerable for being murdered. So you know,

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when I read that story on the podcast that I

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have with Paul Holes, buried Bones, we talk about it

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all the time. Man, this just seems like this could

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have happened last week. This would have happened to a

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modern day woman. Absolutely, So to show that, you know,

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as as a story of the Sarah Maria Cornell being

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the inspiration of course for hester Prnne with the Scarlet letter,

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and how much that resonates in. What to me was

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terrifying about that story was, you know, I'm looking for heroes,

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and I love looking for women heroes. In these stories,

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and I found them with the women who recognized that

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she had not taken her life most likely that she had,

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you know, had violence put upon her. But then the

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villains of the story, really the villains, the true villains

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to me, were women, and the awful people who took

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the stand us destroyed her character for you know, the

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sake of protecting a really sleazy guy. So there was

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a real for me, a real mixed bag. I was

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so proud of some of the women in the story

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and completely disgusted by other women.

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Exactly as I was reading the book and you're discussing

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the trial and like the testimonies and stuff, I physically

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went like throughout the book, just like so disgusted with

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some of the things these women were saying about her,

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And I'm like, why, you know, So it's.

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Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you saw in the

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book that I interviewed a woman who an attorney who

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represents victims of sexual harassment, and she read the whole

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transcript of everything that the defense said about Sarah Mario Cornell. Basically,

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she's a slut, she's a thief, she can't be trusted,

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she was miserable, she set him up and took her

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own life to frame him. And you know, the attorney

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in the book said, I mean this is sort of

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like flowery eight, you know, nineteenth century language. But this

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is this is absolutely something that would come out of,

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you know, a court case today. It wouldn't be allowed

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into most courts. But that is the thought process that

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is used by the defense that she deserved it or

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she was vindictive defense.

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In the book, you note that your co author is

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a woman named Catherine Read Arnold Williams. Can you tell

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us a little more about her and kind of the

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part she plays in this story as well.

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Yeah, so it's interesting to have this kind of a

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co author. She's a single mom poet turned journalist and

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you know, making her own way kind of through this world,

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trying to raise her daughter, you know, by selling books

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and doing a great job. And she hears about the

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story of Sarah Maria Cornell and decides that she wants

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to write a book about it, and she has all

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of this amazing access and I you know, I read

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her book about the story in the trial, and I

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thought this would be a fantastic co author. Of course,

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you know, the trick is that she's been dead for

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one hundred and fifty years. Yeah, she wrote she wrote

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the country's first true crime book, to me, which is

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a stunning revelation for me to have because you know,

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I think conventional wisdom is that Capodi wrote kind of

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the first mainstream you know, in Cold Blood, which I

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have a whole issue with. And then you know, really

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crime historians know about Edmund Pearson, who I adored, who wrote,

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you know, in the nineteen twenties, and he wrote throughe

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crime books. He really, to me, was sort of that

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the beginning of that genre. But Catherine Williams decides in

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eighteen thirty three that she's going to take up this case.

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She was so disgusted with the way that Sarah Maria

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Cornell was being treated after she died. I mean, quite frankly,

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she hated the Methodists. The Methodists were wild and out

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of control, and Catherine Williams was a very conventional Christian woman,

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very conservative, and so it was an it's an interesting

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juxtaposition for her to take up a case of a

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woman who you know, is being framed as promiscuous and

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deserve to be you know, to die is unusual. I mean,

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Catherine Williams came from a very very well known family,

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the Arnold family. Yep, so you know, to kind of

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have her as this co author where I was able

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to use all of her materials. She has an archive

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at Brown University. I've read. I met her descendant. It

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was her great granddaughter, a great great granddaughter who was

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just amazing and gave me, you know, access to letters

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I had never I had never even heard of before.

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So you know, the flip side of that is is

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I have all this modern technology. I had access to

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prosecutor notes that she had not. She had died by

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the time the notes from the prosecutor were released, so

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I had information she didn't have.

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It's interesting and I have to like go back and

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put on the lens of what it was like in

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history at that time, because as soon as I read

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about the Methodist I was like Methodists, like, they're really

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not that crazy, Like I was raised Methodist and I

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was like, well what, I was like, what they just

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sing a lot?

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And then I no, I'm reading this story. I was.

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I was like, apparently they were much more wild and

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crazy back back in the day. But you know, so

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it was even for me. I was like I can't

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even like fathom this weird sub sect.

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Like which as there would have would.

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Have been super shocking coming from like a Puritan lens

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as well. So it's so it's like night and day.

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Somebody asked me what was the most surprising part of

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the book, and I said, I mean that the Methodist

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who drink rape juice had these tent revivals where there

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was literally something called a tent baby because people got

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pregnant so often they called them tent babies. And you know,

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I just it's so hard for me to believe that

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they were as evangelical as they were. I will say this,

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this was really funny. I should give this, you know,

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I thought about I talked to this woman who interviewed

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me this morning, and she said that she had known

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American sign language and she said the sign for American

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sign language for Methodists is rubbing your hands together. And

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she said, I never understood the significance of it. The

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00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:13.879
significances of it was she said it was meant to

228
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show great enthusiasm. It's a very old sign. And so

229
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she said, that explains it. Your book explains why great enthusiasm,

230
00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:27.559
because she said modern Methodists, I'm not quite sure that enthusiastic,

231
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but she said they were obviously in the eighteen hundreds,

232
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and she said that the sign is a very old sign.

233
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So it's funny you don't understand the origin of certain

234
00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:38.039
phrases and everything. But she said, now that makes sense

235
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because I did not think they were enthusiastic, but apparently

236
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they were.

237
00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:44.559
Way back in the day. They were ragers.

238
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Apparently, Yeah, shocking, Yeah, and it horrified Catherine Williams, who

239
00:12:49.240 --> 00:12:53.000
was just a very staunch Episcopalian, you know, quiet and demure,

240
00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:56.320
and to have all of these people out there, you know,

241
00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:59.320
women passed out and speaking, and I know she was

242
00:12:59.320 --> 00:13:02.200
horrified by speaking in tongue, speaking in tongues. And I

243
00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:05.320
didn't even think that would be just all of this.

244
00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:06.559
The description's crazy.

245
00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:09.759
Yeah, it comes to cross as very sort of what

246
00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:13.399
today we would label us, almost like Pentecostal, as far

247
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as like denominations and so yeah, like even me reading

248
00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:21.200
the book, I was like, that's not all at all

249
00:13:21.279 --> 00:13:22.720
what Methodists are like today.

250
00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:26.440
Like you know the way that Catherine described a tent

251
00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:29.759
revival that she went to, you know, before Sarah had

252
00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:32.200
been found, before she started on the book, and she

253
00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:35.039
the way she was describing it with like people around

254
00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:37.799
the fire, it's been almost pagan like. It wasn't a

255
00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:40.080
pagan thing, and I just thought, man, she's got to

256
00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:42.279
be this has to be overblown. But then I started

257
00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:45.600
reading other accounts of these tent revivals, and they would

258
00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:48.759
mix with the bath with the crazy Baptists, those wild Baptists,

259
00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:51.200
and you know, so I'm not sure that was what

260
00:13:51.320 --> 00:13:54.159
John Wesley intended when he came to America, you know,

261
00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:57.360
fifty to seventy years earlier. I think that they had

262
00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:00.440
gotten pretty wild. But so, you know, the the kind

263
00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:04.080
of centerpiece of that story is this fight between the

264
00:14:04.120 --> 00:14:07.360
Methodists who were trying to protect a minister, one of

265
00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:12.039
their ministers, who's being accused of something terrible and the

266
00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:15.240
Fall you know, the Fall River the factory owners who

267
00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:21.320
were predominantly Congregationalist, conservative, mainstream Protestants who just said, you know,

268
00:14:22.200 --> 00:14:25.679
we can't have these men from the Methodist churches preying

269
00:14:25.799 --> 00:14:28.720
on our young girls who were working in the factories.

270
00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:32.440
And so, you know, ef Avery, the minister and Sarah

271
00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:36.360
Cornell became avatars for these different religions, and I just

272
00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:42.120
had no clue how threatened churches can be religious movements

273
00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:44.679
can be I just I didn't understand, and then I

274
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:48.080
find out that the Methodist ministers were being tarred and feathered,

275
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and just they were very threatened. The mainstream Protestants were

276
00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:52.879
very threatened.

277
00:14:53.559 --> 00:14:56.600
You also note, as you kind of mentioned already, the

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00:14:56.679 --> 00:15:00.919
connection between Sarah Maria Cornell and Hester. Pret Now can

279
00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:06.360
you dive into the similarities between Sarah Hester and Nathaniel

280
00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:09.120
Hawthorne's take on everything in The Scarlet Letter?

281
00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.159
Yeah? Well, I read The Scarlet Letter in high school,

282
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like I'm pretty sure most of America did, and you know,

283
00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:20.000
I found it to be very dense and difficul and

284
00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:23.639
difficult to get through. Yes, but I think the spirit

285
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of the story was fascinating, And you know, I think

286
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that one of the reasons why this book, of all

287
00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:34.279
the books I've written, this is my fourth, this has

288
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.080
been my favorite. Done to my editor, but this is

289
00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:39.679
my favorite because the feeling that I get of discussed

290
00:15:39.679 --> 00:15:41.639
of like a Sarah Worthing, who is one of the

291
00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:43.600
women who sat on the stand and I think lied

292
00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:47.639
frankly about Sarah having an affair with her brother in law.

293
00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:49.360
I mean, just coming up with all of these terrible

294
00:15:49.399 --> 00:15:53.039
things that were never proven. Just to get just get

295
00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:55.639
this guy out of trouble, this Methodist minister out of trouble.

296
00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:59.919
All of that echoes through the Scarlet Letter clearly, which

297
00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:03.799
was written about eighteen years or so after No scarl

298
00:16:04.120 --> 00:16:06.519
he was in written in eighteen fifty. So yeah, almost

299
00:16:06.519 --> 00:16:10.039
twenty years later, Nathaniel Hawthorne was in Salem and he

300
00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:13.480
went to this fantastic Wax Museum and there was a

301
00:16:13.519 --> 00:16:15.720
depiction of true crime of the day and there was

302
00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:20.039
a depiction of the Minister kind of like lording over

303
00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:24.320
in a figure that was supposed to be Sarah Maria Cornell.

304
00:16:24.519 --> 00:16:27.240
And Hawthorne commented on it, and he was a huge

305
00:16:27.240 --> 00:16:30.080
fan of newspapers and of true crime in general. So

306
00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:33.440
you know the parallels between hester Prinne I mean being

307
00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:36.759
just ultimately shamed by the matrons of the town and

308
00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:40.200
Sarah the same thing happening to her, you know the

309
00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:43.360
minute of course, the Minister, I mean, the main character

310
00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:47.039
aside from hester prinn is the Minister. And you know

311
00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:50.039
we have the minister in our story. They meet in forests,

312
00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:52.879
both of them, which you know, not to get too

313
00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:55.279
much into it, but the I would say one of

314
00:16:55.360 --> 00:16:58.000
the things that is the most upsetting that I think

315
00:16:58.039 --> 00:17:01.320
has been misreported about Sarah's story is, you know, she

316
00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:06.559
is pregnant when she dies, and it is often said

317
00:17:06.599 --> 00:17:10.480
I think that she had an affair with the Methodist minister,

318
00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:15.400
and there's no evidence that they had had a consensual relationship.

319
00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:18.680
There is evidence that he sexually assaulted her, and that's

320
00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:22.000
how she ended up pregnant. So you know, the scene

321
00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:25.599
in the forest to me is very important, you know,

322
00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:28.279
and then there are this is a retreat that that

323
00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:31.160
Hester Prynne and the minister have in the Scarlet Letter

324
00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:33.039
is in the forest. Of course, there's the water theme.

325
00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:35.839
I mean, Sarah works on the water, she's on factories.

326
00:17:36.519 --> 00:17:39.079
So I think a lot of this is a woman

327
00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:43.640
trying to do what's best for her child, and that is,

328
00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:46.240
for me, the centerpoint of this story is Sarah Maria

329
00:17:46.319 --> 00:17:51.839
Cornell saying, my child deserves better. I'm keeping her where

330
00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:54.240
I'm gonna put her in like a daycare system, and

331
00:17:54.279 --> 00:17:58.559
still work in the factory and you know, making demands

332
00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:02.079
and then she's dead, and so I think you see

333
00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:05.720
that kind of parallel and Scarlet Letter demands and you know,

334
00:18:05.839 --> 00:18:09.079
pride and like fighting for something even though it would

335
00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.599
be in some ways easier to kind of you know,

336
00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:14.200
go back into the recesses. And that's not what either

337
00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.359
of these women chose. And also what's wonderful about both

338
00:18:17.359 --> 00:18:21.640
of the women are both Sarah Maria Cornell and hester

339
00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:25.440
Print are gifted at you know, like weaving and selling.

340
00:18:25.599 --> 00:18:28.559
I mean, these are you know, at crafting, and they

341
00:18:28.680 --> 00:18:31.279
use them to help other people. So, you know, they

342
00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:34.559
talk about hester Print kind of you know, helping people

343
00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:36.559
in the town, even though they kind of they won't

344
00:18:36.599 --> 00:18:40.160
even really acknowledge her publicly, but they're grateful for her help.

345
00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.079
And Sarah Maria Cornell had helped what had been kicked

346
00:18:44.119 --> 00:18:47.240
out of a house because people thought she was promiscuous.

347
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:50.039
And yet a woman became sick in the house and

348
00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:52.160
Sarah volunteered to take care of her even though she

349
00:18:52.200 --> 00:18:54.960
was getting booted out of this house, and the woman

350
00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:57.400
who owned the house, who was kicking her out said

351
00:18:57.440 --> 00:18:59.519
it was just the most generous thing she had ever seen.

352
00:18:59.559 --> 00:19:02.119
She's her out and then she regretted it later on.

353
00:19:02.359 --> 00:19:04.319
But that's what I mean. I mean, she was an

354
00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:06.759
autoistic woman. She gave a lot of money to the

355
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:09.960
Methodist church, you know, to a church that ultimately turned

356
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:10.400
on her.

357
00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:14.039
So in the book, you set out to decide through

358
00:19:14.200 --> 00:19:17.519
a modern lens if Sarah committed suicide or if she

359
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:20.559
was murdered. And given that the death took place in

360
00:19:20.599 --> 00:19:23.880
eighteen thirty two, can you share with our listeners kind

361
00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:27.440
of what types of forensic tools were available at that

362
00:19:27.559 --> 00:19:30.920
time well, which was pretty much nothing.

363
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:35.440
Admitted you know. My second book, my second book, American Sherlock,

364
00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:37.079
was set in the nineteen twenties, and I thought it

365
00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:39.839
was pretty slim pickings back then. I mean yeah, back

366
00:19:39.880 --> 00:19:43.400
one hundred years more. So there was no fingerprinting. What

367
00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:47.799
they did was actually I thought an innovative, if not incorrect.

368
00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:51.799
There were very little, for very few forensic things available,

369
00:19:51.880 --> 00:19:55.799
and even fewer forensic clues available in this situation. So

370
00:19:56.400 --> 00:19:58.640
when she is found hanging from a haystack poll by

371
00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:02.440
John Durfy, immediately the men look at the knots that

372
00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:05.200
were tied. It was assumed that she had taken her

373
00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:07.599
own life. And there was a square knot, which is

374
00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:09.559
the only knot I can tie, at the top of

375
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:13.920
connecting the rope to the haystack pole. But then around

376
00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:17.640
her neck was a clove hitch knot which your listeners

377
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:21.079
might have remembered. That is the knot that Dennis Raider

378
00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:25.599
would use sometimes was a clove hitch btk. So the

379
00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:30.960
argument for murder was that you cannot tie a clove

380
00:20:31.240 --> 00:20:33.839
hitch knot yourself. You have to use like both hands,

381
00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:35.359
and you have to have a certain amount of strength.

382
00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:39.279
And I spoke to a forensic not expert as well

383
00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:42.079
as Paul Hols, and they both said that's bs. Paul said,

384
00:20:42.079 --> 00:20:44.599
I've seen people you know who have just it has

385
00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:49.240
spontaneously turned into a cloth hitch not. It's not hard. Yeah,

386
00:20:49.400 --> 00:20:53.799
So they are hinging this entire case on the idea

387
00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:56.759
that she could not have done this herself, she had

388
00:20:56.799 --> 00:20:59.839
to have had somebody else do it to her, and

389
00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:05.480
that was incorrect. You know, there was a rudimentary handwriting analysis.

390
00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:07.559
I mean a lot of this is that, you know,

391
00:21:08.119 --> 00:21:13.000
why who brought Sarah Cornell to this farm December nineteenth,

392
00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:15.920
eighteen thirty two when it was twenty something degrees outside

393
00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:19.720
and freezing and she's by herself. And there are letters

394
00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:23.519
that she kept that show somebody said, come to this place,

395
00:21:23.599 --> 00:21:26.599
we need to talk, presumably the father of the child.

396
00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:30.319
And so you know these were anonymous letters. They tried

397
00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:33.359
to compare them to efform Avery, and nobody came to

398
00:21:33.559 --> 00:21:37.279
a definitive conclusion. And so I part of the investigation

399
00:21:37.319 --> 00:21:40.839
I did was I hired a modern handwriting expert to

400
00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:44.079
compare them, and so, you know, I think that they

401
00:21:44.119 --> 00:21:47.680
were so limited it made the case really really difficult

402
00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:51.440
to tackle because there were no witnesses. There were witnesses

403
00:21:51.480 --> 00:21:53.880
in that you know, there were people that saw a lanky,

404
00:21:53.960 --> 00:22:00.000
tall guy which you know, matched Ephraim's description, but nobody

405
00:22:00.119 --> 00:22:02.799
knew him, so nobody could say ever Avery was there

406
00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:05.720
with her. I saw them together. They could just kind

407
00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:09.759
of offer vague assurances and there was not very much else.

408
00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:12.599
He had, like the dumbest alibi ever, which I describe

409
00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:15.839
as like a walk about, you know, on a tiny

410
00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:19.200
island where nobody he knew really was there and he

411
00:22:19.279 --> 00:22:21.119
just had allows the It's like a oh, yeah, I

412
00:22:21.160 --> 00:22:24.640
was asleep. I was at home by myself watching TV alibi.

413
00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:27.720
So yeah, yeah, I mean I think that they were

414
00:22:27.880 --> 00:22:31.640
very limited, very very limited at the time, and the

415
00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:35.839
defense knew that, and they were able to leverage Sarah

416
00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:38.200
had made some mistakes in the past, and they were

417
00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:41.559
able to really really exploit those mistakes to turn this

418
00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:43.640
on her character, not on his character.

419
00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:47.960
As we've kind of discussed already, Sarah's death comes at

420
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:51.599
an interesting time in history when millwork was becoming more

421
00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:54.279
common for young women. And not only that, but there

422
00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:57.920
was this religious movement that was creating some waves. So

423
00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:00.160
can you illustrate for our listeners some of them the

424
00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:02.759
unique elements of this case that sort of made it

425
00:23:02.839 --> 00:23:06.400
so popular to mainstream media if you will.

426
00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:09.720
Oh, I mean, I think the religious aspect of it

427
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:14.079
was crazy. So there there's often it is said that

428
00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:18.920
Eform Avery was the first minister put on trial for murder,

429
00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:22.079
which is not true. Somebody actually countered that years ago

430
00:23:22.119 --> 00:23:23.680
in the New York Times. There was somebody and who

431
00:23:23.759 --> 00:23:26.880
was like four months before or something. I certainly from

432
00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:30.039
Avery was the more high profile case. To have a

433
00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:33.960
minister not only beyond trial for anything, but let alone

434
00:23:34.039 --> 00:23:36.160
murder in the United States in the eighteen thirties was

435
00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:40.279
pretty remarkable to have a Methodist minister, you know, a

436
00:23:40.359 --> 00:23:44.599
minister within a religion that was so threatening that they

437
00:23:44.599 --> 00:23:48.559
were being tored and feathered by people who were threatened

438
00:23:48.599 --> 00:23:52.480
by this new fangled religion. So there's that there is

439
00:23:52.519 --> 00:23:56.799
a beautiful thirty year old girl, who young woman who

440
00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:01.519
you know, had a troubled past, who men just fell

441
00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:04.640
in love with. She was, you know, described as beautiful,

442
00:24:04.759 --> 00:24:08.200
and so there's that sort of idea that she is

443
00:24:08.359 --> 00:24:13.119
the fallen woman. And is he this lascivious, awful, you know,

444
00:24:13.200 --> 00:24:17.039
religious man who you know, a wolf in sheep's clothing

445
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:23.359
or was she this vindictive, slutty woman who was willing

446
00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:25.119
to take her own life just to get back at

447
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:28.839
him for And now we'll just say because you know,

448
00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:31.599
she had made some mistakes that followed her and she

449
00:24:31.640 --> 00:24:34.920
wanted to join a new Methodist church, but she had

450
00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:39.359
to have a certificate of good standing, and you know,

451
00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:42.759
afrol mavery have refused her. He said, I don't think

452
00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:44.759
you're a good person. He at first said okay, I'll

453
00:24:44.759 --> 00:24:46.720
do it. Then she confessed all her sins on paper

454
00:24:46.759 --> 00:24:49.759
to him, and then he used it to sexually assault her.

455
00:24:50.440 --> 00:24:54.039
But you know, in the meantime, when he said I'm

456
00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:55.920
not going to give you this certificate of good standing,

457
00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:58.400
I don't really care what you say. That is what

458
00:24:59.160 --> 00:25:01.839
the people who stand behind him, his you know, supporters

459
00:25:01.839 --> 00:25:05.240
say that's what triggered her, was that she was never

460
00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:06.839
going to get into a Methodist church. She was not

461
00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:09.400
going to help her because she was a slut, and

462
00:25:09.400 --> 00:25:12.319
that was that. So, you know, you have these two

463
00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:17.440
plausible narratives happening. You know, you have a vindictive woman

464
00:25:18.119 --> 00:25:21.680
attacking a guy who did nothing wrong except had some standards.

465
00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:24.559
And then you have, you know, on the flip side

466
00:25:24.599 --> 00:25:28.839
of a disgusting, horrible, you know, man who was using

467
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:31.920
the pulpit as a way to seduce and it ultimately

468
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:34.920
ended up, you know, sexually assaulting a young woman who

469
00:25:35.119 --> 00:25:37.359
then felt so threatened that he had to murder her.

470
00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:40.519
So there you go. I mean, there's two compelling stories.

471
00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:42.799
So what media then or now would not want to

472
00:25:42.839 --> 00:25:43.880
report on that story?

473
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:49.119
Exactly in the book you highlight when Catherine and your

474
00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:52.160
co author, when her biases are coming through in her work,

475
00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:55.559
which is faul River. So how difficult was it during

476
00:25:55.559 --> 00:25:59.680
the process of sort of compiling Sarah Maria Cornell's story

477
00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:03.119
to bat this in order to stay true to a

478
00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:05.079
neutral journalistic viewpoint.

479
00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:07.519
I mean it was awful. I had I have a

480
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:10.000
hard enough time policing myself and I had to police

481
00:26:10.039 --> 00:26:14.519
another person, and then I was telling somebody else I

482
00:26:14.759 --> 00:26:17.279
don't know if people know this, but because I've worked

483
00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:20.599
in the eighteen hundred so much. In the eighteen hundreds,

484
00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:23.519
you would have not just one trial transcript, but like

485
00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:26.279
nine different versions. You would have all of these trial

486
00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:29.240
reporters come because they would then turn around and print

487
00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:32.480
them and sell them, so they were highly motivated. You

488
00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:34.839
could have gone out and made your own trial transcript

489
00:26:34.880 --> 00:26:36.720
and have you know, paid a publisher, and then you

490
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:39.400
could have sold it. But the problem with that is

491
00:26:39.400 --> 00:26:42.599
is each one of these trial reporters had their own slant.

492
00:26:42.799 --> 00:26:44.880
They were either hired by the defense or hired by

493
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:48.319
the prosecutor. I mean, the newspapers would hire them. So

494
00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:50.960
not only do I have to police myself, which is

495
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:54.319
hard enough, then Catherine, then on top of that all

496
00:26:54.319 --> 00:26:58.759
of these numbnut reporters who all had inconsistencies, so then

497
00:26:58.759 --> 00:27:01.359
I had to figure out who's the most accurate out

498
00:27:01.400 --> 00:27:03.720
of all of it. So it was very difficult. And also,

499
00:27:04.519 --> 00:27:07.079
you know, I have a true crime podcast class that

500
00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:10.400
I teach at the University of Texas and I tell them,

501
00:27:10.599 --> 00:27:13.279
you know, we have to think about motivation when you

502
00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:16.319
hear a crappy podcast, and I mean crappy as in

503
00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:18.839
they don't care about the victim. They're glorifying the killer.

504
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.960
You know, they're saying, they're they're giving details that don't

505
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:26.359
need to be given, that are violent or disrespectful, They're

506
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:29.480
retraumatizing family members. You have to think, why are they

507
00:27:29.519 --> 00:27:31.559
doing that? That's one of the first things I think,

508
00:27:31.559 --> 00:27:33.680
why are they doing that? So when when I started

509
00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:38.079
seeing inconsistencies with Catherine and her reporting, not that it

510
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:41.160
wasn't accurate, but she was taking facts and sort of

511
00:27:41.240 --> 00:27:45.359
like mushing them to make them into the narrative that

512
00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:49.680
she wanted. You know, Sarah Maria went to her doctor

513
00:27:50.440 --> 00:27:53.440
and she was interested in terminating the pregnancy. At first,

514
00:27:53.640 --> 00:27:56.160
she had several questions about it. He said she was

515
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:59.799
considering it. Catherine really skipped over that. I mean, she

516
00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:03.519
did not acknowledge it even for a second. Really. I

517
00:28:03.559 --> 00:28:07.039
think she said basically maybe she half thought about it,

518
00:28:07.079 --> 00:28:09.799
but then realized that would be like an abomination or something.

519
00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:12.960
That's not what she said. She was scared of dying

520
00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:17.319
during the procedure. And then she revealed to her doctor

521
00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:22.440
that the minister who had gotten her pregnant had said,

522
00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:24.720
please take this oil of tansy. You can you know,

523
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:27.960
terminate the pregnancy that way. But he said, well, the

524
00:28:28.039 --> 00:28:30.039
doctor said that dose is going to kill you. He's

525
00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:32.839
trying to kill you. Yeah. So but the way that

526
00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:36.759
Catherine framed that was not there was no consideration at

527
00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:39.279
all about terminating the pregnancy because that would have not

528
00:28:39.319 --> 00:28:44.000
been appropriate for Sarah in eighteen thirty two. And Catherine

529
00:28:44.119 --> 00:28:47.519
was motivated, very highly motivated, as a lot of people were,

530
00:28:47.880 --> 00:28:52.000
to frame her as a martyr in a way perfect. Sure,

531
00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:55.839
she stole several different things. Catherine conflated them into like

532
00:28:55.920 --> 00:28:58.279
one or two events and that's it. But there were

533
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:01.279
more than one or two events, and so she was

534
00:29:01.440 --> 00:29:04.759
very very careful to show that Sarah is is I

535
00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:08.079
call it the perfect victim, you know that she and

536
00:29:08.119 --> 00:29:11.640
because she really wanted to nail the Methodists and especially

537
00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:14.519
ef Avery. But when she did that to me, she

538
00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:17.880
became an unreliable co author. She just did I I

539
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:19.799
had a flip and go, who wants to do that?

540
00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:21.920
I don't want to go double check my author? Yeah,

541
00:29:21.920 --> 00:29:23.680
and I have to because I didn't trust her. By

542
00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:25.720
the middle of the book, I couldn't trust her.

543
00:29:26.440 --> 00:29:29.480
So that's kind of the perfect segue. So how difficult

544
00:29:29.640 --> 00:29:32.680
was it to research this case. Piggybacking off, that would

545
00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:35.240
be like how long did it take you to work

546
00:29:35.279 --> 00:29:38.119
on it, like confer with other experts and authors on

547
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:41.119
the case, as well as sort of like verify the

548
00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:44.039
accuracy of the information, Like I'm a I'm picturing this

549
00:29:44.160 --> 00:29:46.519
was a very long and involved process.

550
00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:51.000
Yeah, I would say the research for me was a

551
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:54.880
couple of years. But it's very deceiving with me because

552
00:29:55.640 --> 00:29:58.079
I get bored with one book, you know, like I'm

553
00:29:58.119 --> 00:30:01.240
revising it or I'm reading over the paper or something,

554
00:30:01.279 --> 00:30:03.200
and then I decide I want to find the next book.

555
00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:06.759
And so it's receiving because there's all this crossover. And

556
00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:09.640
then I had a friend of mine, Bill Brands, who

557
00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:12.880
is a fan of hb Ransey's a fantastic nonfiction historian,

558
00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:16.160
and he always said to me, you need to start

559
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:18.720
writing as soon as possible. And he said, I know

560
00:30:18.759 --> 00:30:20.759
you want to do all this research. He's like, I

561
00:30:20.759 --> 00:30:23.440
could research till the cows come home, but you have

562
00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:26.599
to start immediately. And so took it took a long time,

563
00:30:26.759 --> 00:30:29.160
and Catherine didn't make it easy. On the other hand,

564
00:30:29.799 --> 00:30:31.720
she made it very easy because she had done so

565
00:30:31.799 --> 00:30:34.480
much work. She had you know, collected these letters and

566
00:30:34.519 --> 00:30:36.880
transcribed me. And she was accurate with her transcriptions of

567
00:30:36.920 --> 00:30:40.000
Sarah's letters from what I could tell. She had done

568
00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:43.279
interviews with Sarah's family, which obviously I couldn't do one

569
00:30:43.319 --> 00:30:46.279
hundred and fifty years later, although I did interview Sarah's

570
00:30:46.279 --> 00:30:49.400
family modern family now. So there's there's a lot of

571
00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:52.160
stuff that she made things easier on me and than harder.

572
00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:55.359
At the same time, the trial transcripts were rough. I

573
00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:58.319
mean to have that many different variations and to kind

574
00:30:58.359 --> 00:31:00.599
of just go, okay, what's the most accurate, saying there's

575
00:31:00.599 --> 00:31:04.480
a guy named David Casserman who wrote Full River Outrage,

576
00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:08.200
which is an excellent book, very good book on this case.

577
00:31:08.799 --> 00:31:11.680
And so I actually had to trust him when he

578
00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:14.200
would say, you know, I would read in his book

579
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:17.640
and he would say, so, there are gazillion trial transcripts,

580
00:31:17.680 --> 00:31:19.559
here's the one I think is the most accurate. And

581
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:21.480
then I would say, I think he's right, and so

582
00:31:21.559 --> 00:31:23.319
that's the one I would lean to. So it was

583
00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:25.559
a collaborative effort. I would say, so.

584
00:31:25.599 --> 00:31:28.319
The book and it's pacing does an amazing job like

585
00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:31.319
laying down the groundwork ahead of the murder trial. That

586
00:31:31.400 --> 00:31:35.160
took place in eighteen thirty three, and given the breadth

587
00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:38.160
of witnesses that were called over the span at the trial,

588
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:41.039
how does it compare to a trial that you would

589
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:41.640
see today.

590
00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:45.440
Well, you know, there's there were a lot of witnesses,

591
00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:48.839
and actually I think the sad fact was Catherine pointed

592
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:50.240
this out and then I had to verify and she

593
00:31:50.359 --> 00:31:54.000
was right. I think the defense literally called twice as

594
00:31:54.039 --> 00:31:58.440
many witnesses as the prosecutor did, and she describes the prosecutor,

595
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:00.640
and then I did research and she was pretty accurate

596
00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:02.759
with this too. It's just sort of this guy. I

597
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:05.599
think he died shortly after the trial. He was pretty

598
00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:08.400
sickly to begin with. He was Albert Green. Maybe he

599
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:11.039
was pretty sick to begin with. And then you know,

600
00:32:11.599 --> 00:32:15.759
the Methodist Conference had hired these dynamo like states or

601
00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:21.880
US congressman senators to represent Afro avery. So you know,

602
00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:25.240
I think that that part of the trial was longer

603
00:32:25.279 --> 00:32:28.960
than I had expected. Usually trials in the eighteen hundreds

604
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:31.200
went on like a nanosecond. They were like two days

605
00:32:31.640 --> 00:32:35.200
if that. Yes, yes, so this was very long because

606
00:32:35.279 --> 00:32:38.359
it was so controversial. I mean, it was this minister

607
00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:42.759
and this quote unquote factory girl, and they represented two

608
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:46.000
parts of society that were on the rise, and it

609
00:32:46.079 --> 00:32:50.000
was scary fall you know, factory girls on the rise

610
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:52.599
was scary. I mean, it was independence with women. It

611
00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:54.799
scared the crap out of a lot of men. And

612
00:32:54.839 --> 00:32:58.480
then the Methodist scared the crap out of the mainstream Protestants.

613
00:32:58.519 --> 00:33:01.960
So it was all. It was all very traumatizing for

614
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:04.799
a lot of very traditional people in New England.

615
00:33:05.480 --> 00:33:10.079
And when it comes to cases involving sexual assault survivors,

616
00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:13.359
how does her trial compare to others of its?

617
00:33:13.480 --> 00:33:16.240
Like today, when I talked to Sharon Vinnick, who was

618
00:33:16.279 --> 00:33:20.039
the woman I interviewed. She was a sexual harassment attorney,

619
00:33:20.759 --> 00:33:22.839
and she said, you know, she wrote through the trial

620
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.920
transcripts and said, well, this is exactly what they would say. Now.

621
00:33:26.039 --> 00:33:28.960
She said, however, this would not get into trial, all

622
00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:31.039
of this stuff. She's just slit this and all of that.

623
00:33:31.079 --> 00:33:35.200
It wouldn't get into trial. But you know, because there

624
00:33:35.240 --> 00:33:38.240
are so many laws. But she said, then it does

625
00:33:38.279 --> 00:33:42.480
slip in somehow. But this was so blatant. You know,

626
00:33:42.519 --> 00:33:46.680
what Sarah the prosecutor was trying to defend against was

627
00:33:46.759 --> 00:33:50.200
so blatant. You know, she slept with her brother in law,

628
00:33:50.279 --> 00:33:52.599
she stole all of this stuff, She acted like she

629
00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:55.759
was insane, She had numerous venereal diseases, none of which

630
00:33:55.759 --> 00:34:00.640
were confirmed. So, you know, really just systematically, if this

631
00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:03.680
were happening today, a judge would strike most of this

632
00:34:03.720 --> 00:34:07.720
stuff down as not consequential and inadmissible. And I will say,

633
00:34:07.759 --> 00:34:11.079
even you know, Catherine Williams brings up some several really

634
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:16.119
nasty stories about efhrom Avery that I'm sure we're discovered

635
00:34:16.159 --> 00:34:21.199
before trial. They're not entered into evidence because they're not consequential.

636
00:34:21.239 --> 00:34:23.480
And then I kind of thought, why are her stories

637
00:34:23.559 --> 00:34:28.039
about venereal diseases consequential in this trial? But efform Avery's

638
00:34:28.039 --> 00:34:31.760
stories about being a complete jerk and you know, really

639
00:34:31.840 --> 00:34:35.679
vilifying this poor woman in his other church and humiliating her,

640
00:34:35.719 --> 00:34:39.800
How is that not consequential? So it's interesting to compare

641
00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:40.960
those cases to today.

642
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:45.320
Yes, can you explain to our listeners how Sarah's life

643
00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:48.480
may have gone differently in the same sort of vein

644
00:34:48.559 --> 00:34:53.400
as how Hester Prynne is portrayed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's book.

645
00:34:53.679 --> 00:34:55.519
Did you kind of make that comparison a little bit

646
00:34:55.519 --> 00:34:56.159
towards the end?

647
00:34:56.599 --> 00:35:00.360
Yeah, I think that, you know, Hawthorne maybe had hoped

648
00:35:01.239 --> 00:35:04.480
that Sarah's life could have turned out like Hester Prinz,

649
00:35:04.920 --> 00:35:08.920
where she in Hester Prynne's own way, you know, gains

650
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:13.039
independence and certainly self respect, and takes control of her

651
00:35:13.079 --> 00:35:16.199
own narrative, certainly more than probably the matrons in her

652
00:35:16.199 --> 00:35:19.760
town of their own narratives. Sarah Prinn doesn't Hester Prynne,

653
00:35:19.719 --> 00:35:22.880
doesn't have a man telling her, you know what to do,

654
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:27.079
and so she's raising her daughter Pearl. And I think

655
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:30.639
that that was his hope for Sarah. I don't think

656
00:35:30.679 --> 00:35:34.440
that he ever thought there. You have to be logical

657
00:35:34.519 --> 00:35:38.000
about the time period you're living in, right, and there

658
00:35:38.039 --> 00:35:40.400
there would not be a way for him to have

659
00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:44.840
a totally absolved Hester of all of this and then

660
00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:47.239
going on and having a perfect life and marrying this

661
00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:49.360
perfect man, a rich man, and everything would be sort

662
00:35:49.400 --> 00:35:54.000
of dismissed. That's not reality for Jacksony in America, but

663
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:57.920
for someone like Sarah Maria Cornell, she really had visions

664
00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:03.239
of putting the baby to daycare during her work as

665
00:36:03.280 --> 00:36:05.400
a factory worker. I mean, she really was planning for

666
00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:09.400
the future, and that's what led her to her death,

667
00:36:10.119 --> 00:36:13.039
was making a demand and saying, you know, we have

668
00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:16.760
the brother in law, her sister, and her doctor and

669
00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:20.039
an attorney all saying you must get child support from him.

670
00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:22.840
You have to get child support. And the attorney said

671
00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:25.760
you need to move to his state to get child support.

672
00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:29.199
So she was protecting her own child when she died.

673
00:36:30.239 --> 00:36:33.239
How important was it for you to share Sarah's story?

674
00:36:33.679 --> 00:36:37.800
I think it's incredibly important because you know, Sarah Maria

675
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:43.519
Cornell is women today, I mean, you are there is.

676
00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:49.239
It is a fact that pregnant women are at a

677
00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:53.519
greater danger of being murdered than women who aren't, and

678
00:36:53.639 --> 00:36:57.480
we certainly know now that Indigenous women are at higher

679
00:36:57.559 --> 00:37:00.639
risk than most other women are. So I think that

680
00:37:01.079 --> 00:37:03.000
one of the things I love so much about true

681
00:37:03.039 --> 00:37:07.840
crime is that you are forced, very much forced to

682
00:37:07.880 --> 00:37:10.280
talk about issues that people don't want to talk about.

683
00:37:10.360 --> 00:37:13.360
You know, we talk about domestic violence, we talk about

684
00:37:13.400 --> 00:37:17.159
mental illness, we talk about you know, personality disorders, you

685
00:37:17.199 --> 00:37:19.599
talk about gun control, you talk about all of these

686
00:37:19.639 --> 00:37:24.039
different things. Women who are marginalized, women who are victimized,

687
00:37:24.079 --> 00:37:27.320
women who are survivors, And so I think that was

688
00:37:27.639 --> 00:37:31.800
really important our audience, yours in mind, our podcast audience,

689
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:36.039
as you know, is probably eighty percent women, and they

690
00:37:36.079 --> 00:37:38.280
are pretty much all, as far as I can tell,

691
00:37:38.320 --> 00:37:43.400
one hundred percent advocates, and many of them themselves or survivors,

692
00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:48.000
and they really want these stories to be told with respect.

693
00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:51.840
They don't want the killers glorified in any way. And

694
00:37:51.880 --> 00:37:55.199
we are at this inflection point in true crime where

695
00:37:55.360 --> 00:37:58.840
we have a lot of like content creators who don't

696
00:37:58.840 --> 00:38:02.760
know what they're doing and who do everything wrong. And

697
00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:05.360
you know, my true crime podcast class listens to some

698
00:38:05.360 --> 00:38:07.079
of the podcasts that I say, okay, let's listen to

699
00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:08.760
one of these episodes, and they just walk away and go,

700
00:38:08.840 --> 00:38:10.760
this is gross, And I said, that's why we're listening

701
00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:14.280
to it. You need to know not what kind of podcast,

702
00:38:14.360 --> 00:38:17.440
what kind of TV series you don't want to support,

703
00:38:17.840 --> 00:38:20.719
because it just is not good. These are real people,

704
00:38:21.119 --> 00:38:24.480
even my people from you know, the eighteen hundred, seventeen hundreds,

705
00:38:24.519 --> 00:38:26.239
people still care about them.

706
00:38:26.480 --> 00:38:28.599
So I didn't write this question down, but I really

707
00:38:28.639 --> 00:38:31.559
want to ask it. Do you think had the Matrons

708
00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:35.840
not spoken up, had John Durfy not spoken up, do

709
00:38:35.840 --> 00:38:37.679
you think we would even know about Sarah today?

710
00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:40.280
Nope, it would have been a suicide. She was in

711
00:38:40.320 --> 00:38:43.559
the ground. I mean, you know, they disinterred her twice.

712
00:38:44.239 --> 00:38:49.760
She's in her second burial spot now because because these women,

713
00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:53.920
again people I count as the heroes, because these women

714
00:38:54.280 --> 00:38:58.239
saw what they described as rash violence on her and

715
00:38:58.280 --> 00:39:01.960
said this is wrong. And then you know, John Durfy,

716
00:39:02.280 --> 00:39:06.840
the owner of the farm, retrieves her belongings from Missus

717
00:39:06.840 --> 00:39:10.920
Hathaway's boarding house and finds that ominous note which essentially

718
00:39:10.920 --> 00:39:14.400
says if I'm missing, talked to Reverend eff Or Mavery

719
00:39:15.199 --> 00:39:17.440
and you know, which is a note that echoes through

720
00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:21.719
mysteries and thrillers for you know, throughout time. You know,

721
00:39:21.800 --> 00:39:24.800
if I go missing, call my husband. He's the one

722
00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:28.119
who did it, you know. So I know, I think

723
00:39:28.199 --> 00:39:31.880
I think it really was the matrons who who saw her.

724
00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:34.840
And of course these days it would have been you know,

725
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:38.440
a pathologist or medical examiner or artici who whoever is

726
00:39:38.480 --> 00:39:40.239
in charge of which which would have could have been

727
00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:43.119
a man, absolutely, But in the eighteen hundreds, when you

728
00:39:43.119 --> 00:39:45.519
have a coroner's jury and they're all men, they're not

729
00:39:45.519 --> 00:39:47.679
going to take her dress off. I mean, they didn't

730
00:39:47.719 --> 00:39:51.280
notice anything. She was fully clothed in a bonnet and clash,

731
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:53.840
and I mean she you know, they it would have

732
00:39:53.880 --> 00:39:57.079
been in their eyes inappropriate to examine her. They assumed

733
00:39:57.119 --> 00:40:00.239
it was a suicide. Her personal physician was there and

734
00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:03.039
said she was pregnant. She was really upset about it.

735
00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:06.400
This is a suicide. And so that's the way this

736
00:40:06.480 --> 00:40:08.400
went down. And man, does that happen now?

737
00:40:09.079 --> 00:40:09.280
You know?

738
00:40:10.079 --> 00:40:12.679
Yeah, he was miserable. Oh yeah, he talked about suicide. Yeah,

739
00:40:12.679 --> 00:40:14.840
but did he do it this time? Did the guy

740
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:18.760
kill himself this time? Is that what happened? And you know, so,

741
00:40:19.119 --> 00:40:22.320
I think without these women intervening yet, this would have

742
00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:23.239
not been a story.

743
00:40:24.039 --> 00:40:26.599
I kind of want to go back to John Durfy,

744
00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:29.159
to him going and taking the time to actually get

745
00:40:29.199 --> 00:40:32.039
her belongings to kind of see if there were any

746
00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:35.039
other clues or anything in there, without really really realizing

747
00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:38.960
himself that he was going and getting clues. Probably no. Yeah,

748
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:43.199
do you think to some extent, given that she copied

749
00:40:43.239 --> 00:40:46.000
down some of the notes that she received from Ephraim,

750
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:48.440
do you think maybe in the back of her mind

751
00:40:48.559 --> 00:40:51.000
she worried that this was going to be the outcome

752
00:40:51.039 --> 00:40:53.639
of this meeting, that she was going to be attacked.

753
00:40:54.159 --> 00:40:57.000
I don't think she thought that I think that she

754
00:40:57.840 --> 00:41:00.239
they said that missus Hathaway and her daughter. She said

755
00:41:00.280 --> 00:41:02.280
she was in a great mood because she thought she

756
00:41:02.360 --> 00:41:04.079
was going to get money and this would be settled.

757
00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:06.679
You know, when she left, I don't think she thought

758
00:41:06.760 --> 00:41:10.079
she was going to her death. I had another interviewer

759
00:41:10.280 --> 00:41:15.280
asked me, say, man, doctor Wilbur, what terrible advice, you know,

760
00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:18.480
saying meet up with him to get money. And I said, well,

761
00:41:18.519 --> 00:41:20.960
doctor Wilbur said meet up with him. Don't go by yourself.

762
00:41:21.039 --> 00:41:23.159
If you're going to do that, take a man with you.

763
00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:27.639
So I don't think she thought, like many women don't

764
00:41:27.639 --> 00:41:31.840
think that he was capable of murder. And I think

765
00:41:31.880 --> 00:41:34.719
that she copied those notes as insurance policies. That was

766
00:41:34.840 --> 00:41:37.800
very smart and I don't remember if I put this

767
00:41:37.840 --> 00:41:41.719
in the book, but the handwriting analysis, it was interesting

768
00:41:41.840 --> 00:41:46.000
because you know, she Sarah copied over one of his

769
00:41:46.719 --> 00:41:51.880
letters and she was trying to the handwriting expert was

770
00:41:51.960 --> 00:41:56.599
trying to compare Sarah's handwriting to Effra Avery's handwriting because

771
00:41:56.840 --> 00:41:59.400
the idea was that the defense said, oh, well, she

772
00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:02.360
wrote all the anonymous letters herself. She was excellent at

773
00:42:02.440 --> 00:42:06.320
mimicking other people's handwriting. And she said, I've never had

774
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:10.119
an example like this where I could compare the anonymous

775
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:13.360
note the notes handwriting to Sarah's handwriting word for word,

776
00:42:13.360 --> 00:42:15.519
because she copied the note word for word. And she said,

777
00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:18.159
clearly she did not write that note. It's clear she

778
00:42:18.199 --> 00:42:22.280
didn't do it that somebody else did. So it's interesting

779
00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:24.960
how smart she was. She was very, very smart about

780
00:42:25.039 --> 00:42:27.719
these insurance policies, you know. And she does mention his

781
00:42:27.840 --> 00:42:30.440
name later on. So I think that there was a lot,

782
00:42:30.519 --> 00:42:33.920
Thank goodness for letters. I worry about people fifty to

783
00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:36.599
one hundred years from now who want to do true crime,

784
00:42:36.679 --> 00:42:38.320
and what are they going to do without all of

785
00:42:38.360 --> 00:42:40.920
these letters. I guess they can petition for emails. I

786
00:42:40.920 --> 00:42:44.480
don't know. I guess what's text messages? Yeah, I mean

787
00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:46.840
letters say so much, you know.

788
00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:49.320
Yep. And you did mention that in the book, by

789
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:49.760
the way.

790
00:42:49.960 --> 00:42:50.360
Oh good.

791
00:42:50.880 --> 00:42:54.119
So is there anything else regarding the sentaers all about

792
00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:57.039
that I may have missed that you like to share

793
00:42:57.039 --> 00:42:59.840
with our listeners as we're kind of winding down the interview.

794
00:43:00.639 --> 00:43:02.480
No, I think you know, As I said, the most

795
00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:07.000
important thing for me was to tell the stories of

796
00:43:07.039 --> 00:43:10.400
these powerful women. I don't always agree with them. So,

797
00:43:10.840 --> 00:43:13.679
you know, I think that my co author, Katherine Reid

798
00:43:13.760 --> 00:43:18.000
Arnold Williams, I feel like her heart was in the

799
00:43:18.039 --> 00:43:21.440
right place, but I definitely think she got she was

800
00:43:21.679 --> 00:43:25.760
she was manipulating the storyline, and I really wanted to

801
00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:28.840
correct that. But I think that, you know, you have

802
00:43:29.239 --> 00:43:32.239
the inspiration of these women, and I think you see

803
00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:35.760
that as a writer, I see things where I you know,

804
00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:40.119
I admire Katherine. She was the made main breadwinner of

805
00:43:40.119 --> 00:43:43.119
her house. I am in mind she's raising, you know,

806
00:43:43.239 --> 00:43:46.639
a young girl. I have two kids. She's really kind

807
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:49.199
of hitting her stride in midlife, so am I. So

808
00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:52.199
I really admire a lot about her. And then I

809
00:43:52.199 --> 00:43:55.599
could see the way that she looked at someone like

810
00:43:55.639 --> 00:44:00.480
Sarah Maria Cornell, because Katherine Williams made a terrible decision

811
00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:03.719
with whom she married. She made a bad decision. Sarah

812
00:44:03.800 --> 00:44:06.960
Maria Cornell's mother made a terrible decision about who she married,

813
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:09.119
and that that's why Sarah was in the position she

814
00:44:09.159 --> 00:44:11.280
was in. Her family got kicked out, you know, of

815
00:44:11.320 --> 00:44:15.480
their very wealthy family, the Cornell family, and then Sarah,

816
00:44:15.639 --> 00:44:19.639
you know, arguably made a bad decision by continuing, unfortunately

817
00:44:19.679 --> 00:44:22.000
to go back to you never want to blame the victim,

818
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:24.920
but boys, she you know, I wish somebody had advised

819
00:44:24.960 --> 00:44:29.320
her to stop trusting him, and you know, he was

820
00:44:29.400 --> 00:44:32.719
excellent at manipulating her. And so I felt like there

821
00:44:32.719 --> 00:44:35.320
were women in this story who I looked at with

822
00:44:35.440 --> 00:44:38.840
a lot of admiration, including Sarah Maria Cornell. But I

823
00:44:38.920 --> 00:44:41.159
and then you just think, oh my gosh, like jod

824
00:44:41.239 --> 00:44:43.800
if just one thing had changed, if something were different,

825
00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:46.400
they would be in a completely different position, you know.

826
00:44:47.440 --> 00:44:49.840
But it's it's a I think, a wonderful book. I

827
00:44:49.920 --> 00:44:52.400
really I love it. I loved writing it. It was wonderful.

828
00:44:53.280 --> 00:44:55.079
I had a hard time putting it down. There were

829
00:44:55.119 --> 00:44:56.679
times when I was like, I need to go to bed,

830
00:44:57.199 --> 00:44:59.639
I need to stop reading this for today and just

831
00:44:59.679 --> 00:45:02.519
pick it up tomorrow. But yeah, I would kind of

832
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:06.079
echo that sentiment that to me, it read like a

833
00:45:06.079 --> 00:45:12.079
classic case of narcissistic manipulation, where it's he's like tease

834
00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:16.920
in her back, trying to spin this narrative where he

835
00:45:16.920 --> 00:45:19.000
he's going to take care of her. You know, she

836
00:45:19.159 --> 00:45:21.320
just has to do this. But make sure you don't

837
00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:25.480
share share these letters with anybody, like to yourself, you know,

838
00:45:25.599 --> 00:45:28.920
and it's just I pictured so many stories that you

839
00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:33.079
hear today of domestic abuse survivors and things of that nature,

840
00:45:33.079 --> 00:45:35.559
where I was just like, man like, if if only

841
00:45:35.639 --> 00:45:37.840
she may have said something or like ask somebody to

842
00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:38.480
go with her.

843
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:40.599
You know, just yeah, But I mean.

844
00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:41.920
Would we even be talking about it?

845
00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:44.360
You know, she was not. I mean, look at this,

846
00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:46.480
I gotta tell you, I mean, look at the story.

847
00:45:46.559 --> 00:45:48.880
My kid's watching the story of Gabby Patito right now.

848
00:45:49.039 --> 00:45:52.079
It feels very much like Gabby but trusting the wrong person,

849
00:45:52.480 --> 00:45:56.280
you know. But I mean, Gabby Patito has amazing parents

850
00:45:56.559 --> 00:45:59.360
and they didn't know, they didn't know. How can we?

851
00:45:59.480 --> 00:46:03.599
How can we or how could I expect Sarah Cornell

852
00:46:03.719 --> 00:46:06.079
to pick up on anything from that guy, you know,

853
00:46:06.119 --> 00:46:09.119
when he had manipulated so many other people. So it

854
00:46:09.480 --> 00:46:11.760
is it's a really hard story in a lot of ways,

855
00:46:11.800 --> 00:46:15.280
because she had an incredibly difficult life. She was doing

856
00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:19.039
the best she could. She was a wonderful person, and

857
00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:24.239
you know, ultimately ends up dying by herself, you know,

858
00:46:24.679 --> 00:46:28.400
be in the cold alone on a farm for hours

859
00:46:28.440 --> 00:46:32.400
before somebody finally found her. And then you know, whether

860
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:37.440
she received justices is you know, arguable at this point.

861
00:46:37.719 --> 00:46:40.039
Well, I don't have any more questions, but I would

862
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:43.079
like to thank you for joining me today and before

863
00:46:43.119 --> 00:46:45.800
we go, can you tell our listeners where they can

864
00:46:45.920 --> 00:46:48.119
buy the book and if there's anything else that you'd

865
00:46:48.119 --> 00:46:51.000
like them to know about you and your future books

866
00:46:51.039 --> 00:46:51.960
that are going to be coming out.

867
00:46:52.679 --> 00:46:55.519
No, I think you can buy books wherever you buy books,

868
00:46:55.559 --> 00:46:58.000
you know, I love shopping shopping local, but you know,

869
00:46:58.079 --> 00:47:00.880
everybody has their choices there. It's an audiobook. I read

870
00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:05.599
the audiobook in case people prefer audio. Moving forward, I'm

871
00:47:05.639 --> 00:47:09.639
definitely experimenting with fiction a little bit more. I adore

872
00:47:09.679 --> 00:47:12.239
nonfiction and I won't stop doing nonfiction, but you know,

873
00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:14.320
I like to branch out. Storytelling for me is the

874
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:17.400
most important thing. The mode actually doesn't matter in some ways.

875
00:47:17.519 --> 00:47:19.280
It's more of like, can I get a story out

876
00:47:19.760 --> 00:47:21.320
that moves you and makes you think?

877
00:47:21.480 --> 00:47:21.719
Yep?

878
00:47:21.760 --> 00:47:23.119
You know, so that's the goal.

879
00:47:23.760 --> 00:47:27.039
Well, on that note, as always, I'm Lindsey and we'll

880
00:47:27.079 --> 00:47:30.400
see you next time with another tale as old as Crime.