After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Britain's Coldest Murder Case

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Eugene Aram was an 18th century schoolmaster who got away with murder for fourteen years. Then a skeleton was unearthed and a case that had been forgotten burst into life & created a legend.Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story this week.Research by Phoebe Joyce. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, we're your host's Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling. And if you would like After Dark myths, misdeeds and the paranormal, ad free and get early access, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. In 1744, in a sleepy market town in North Yorkshire, a respected and newly married shoemaker by the name of Daniel Clark suddenly vanishes. Gone. Simply declared missing. For the next 14 years, the case was cold. Then, an unsuspecting farmer unearths a human skeleton.

Just like that the investigation was back on, and the finger of blame landed on the most unlikely suspect. Today, we are exploring the life and crime of Eugene Aram, the man who would become the Victorian prototype for the Scholar murderer, paving the way for literary villains like Dr. Jekyll. This is after dark, and here is the most infamous cold case in British history. It's the summer of 1758 in God's own country of Yorkshire, and a farmer is digging down into the earth. He pauses in the heat of the day wiping his brow.

In the hedgerows behind him, the white, yarrow flowers and yellow ragworts dance in the summer wind. He turns back to digging, and it's then, in the middle of this bright day, that the land reveals a dark secret. Bones. Human bones, a skeleton still joined by ligaments, bent in on itself as if forced into a narrow grave. On that warm summer day, the coldest of cold cases is about to catch fire. Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony.

And I'm too busy taking a sip of tea. But she's Maddie. And for some reason, I'm very upbeat today because we're back and we're doing some true crime history. This is one of the earliest true crime cases that we've covered. And you should go back and listen to one of our favourite, Sarah Malcolm, very early on in After Dark, of course. A classic. That's like After Dark Law. That is if you've heard that one, you're a proper fan. However, Dick Turp and I do not remember, but it says in my notes that he's in there.

Yes. And before we came when I was saying that we need more hot high women in our lives. Hot high women. Anyway, this, I could barely say it once. This is a cold case story, which we're not actually really done before. We like to have answers or solutions at the end of our cases. So this is an interesting one for us. It is also potentially a really confusing one because we've got two timelines going on.

We've got the story of Daniel Clark, which Maddie is going to tell us when he goes missing in 1744. Spoilers. Well, here we go. And then we're also looking at 14 years further down the line in 1758. Well done with the math. Thank you. It's in my notes. When the mystery is finally solved and the skeletons, yes, more than one, are dug up and

a murder is noted and then there are arrests. So this then turns out to be a closed case, but is it actually a closed case? Maddie, give us the bare bones of the case. Oh my God, I winked to the camera, cut that or leave it in, whichever, but terrible. That will be the opening shot of every video we ever do if you watch on YouTube. If you didn't before, you got to now. Do you know what? I think you've just given the bare bones essentially.

So we are in the, we're beginning the story in the 1740s and 50s. We're in Nersborough. In Yorkshire, if you've ever been to Nersborough? Sure, why not. I have no idea. Do you know Yorkshire really well? Not Nersborough, I don't, but I could have been there. It's got a huge, I want to say aqueduct, viaduct.

I'm thinking it's an aqueduct. I think the canal goes over it. There's the River Nid that goes through it. I haven't been there. It's beautiful. We did a whole episode on Mother Shipton's Cave. Oh, yeah. Do you remember her?

I've seen the signs for it, yeah. Yeah, and the cave water, all the minerals turn things to what looks like stone and people hang things. They still do, like teddy bears and shoes and they turn to stone. I haven't been there, but yeah. It's a really magical place. So. Daniel Clark. Murder in Yorkshire. So we're in the 1740s and 50s.

This is the age of enlightenment that you and I are always banging on about. The rise of the Jacobites is. taking place in this period, 1745. Your favourite TV show? Outlander. Is it your favourite TV show? Yes. Okay. And I know it's flawed.

I know that it's sometimes inaccurate, but I don't care. No. It's wonderful. It's sexy. It's got lovely people in it, yeah. Yeah, it really has. We've got the 1745 to 6 uprising that culminates in the Battle of Collodden, ever heard of it. We have the seven years war happening, 1756, so 1763, which is the French Indian War.

There's a lot of going on. those are fighting. This is a time of violence. But it's a time of smaller-scale violence in the small town of Nersborough. So this is a rural town in North Yorkshire. It's not far from Harrogate. Oh, I know Harrogate. Yeah. I've been there. Stayed in a terrible hotel there once. Oh, shout out to the terrible hotels of Harrogate. It's a very Victorian Edwardian place, Harrogate, whereas Nersbris is not. Nersbris is a much older, has a much older feel for it. Okay. I need to go there then. I can't believe you haven't been. I feel like you'd love it. Okay, so we've established, we have

Mother Shipton's Cave. That is not the only cave. Although, I will say, it is the oldest tourist attraction, supposedly, in England. And it was charging, it was charging, the cave was not charging. People in charge of the cave were charging people to go into it since 1630. Mother Shifting's cave? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. So there's that one. There is also, and this is important for our story, so there will be a test. Listen. Another cave. Yeah, so listen, please. There's another cave called St. Robert's Cave. Now, St. Robert is not an officially canonized saint. Right. He was one of those. Yeah, one of those sort of local people who everyone loved. He was a holy man slash hermit, which good for him, I guess. I always think might be so boring. People just did

it for the crack, like they were, especially in the 18th century, but this is not an 18th century hermit, obviously. No, this is a much, so 12th century. He was born around 1160. And he was kind of famous for healing people. The cave became associated with healing, with health. Good old Bob. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, same Bob. Now, Bob is one person that we're talking about, but we probably won't mention him again.

Spoilerly, he's not the murderer in this story. But Bob is not who we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about Daniel Clark. We're in 1744, not 12 anything. So who is Daniel Clark? Okay, so Daniel Clark is a youngish man. He's recently married. He's a shoemaker and a businessman in,

Ayersborough. Would I fancy him? I have a feeling I might. I think based purely on the name, yes. And the shoe, there's some reason, shoemaker. Oh my God, you would, that's your perfect husband. Is it? Sorry, Shane. No, but, sure. Yeah. I can just see you swinging your little feet. My feet are quite big. Okay, fine. Swinging your little feet. 11s. Oh, then. Yeah. My dad's 13. No. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, that we digress. Wow. Wow. Humble bragg there. I found my dad's feet. That's niche. Okay. Go on, Daniel. Daniel Clark. Okay. So he has married well. And he's recently. come into some money through his marriage. And he's started to buy up the kind of accoutrements

of the 18th century that you do if you want to see more middle class. So he's buying things like silverware. He's buying jewelry. But he is outliving his means fairly quickly. Remember, he is only a shoemaker as much as you might fancy him and being married to someone of that trade. He's not earning a huge amount of money. And pretty soon he is buying a lot of this fancy stuff on credit. And then in 1744, he disappears. Okay. So we have somebody who is maybe getting themselves into a little bit of debt or quite a bit debt. But, you know, there's no reason for him to be disappearing. Yeah.

Like, as we say, he's married, like newly married as well. Got a trade. There are, there's every reason in his life to be cheery and hopeful. Then we have another name, which I would like you to extrapolate on. And this name is Eugene Aram. No, I hate myself for this, but I would fancy this guy. Okay, go on. Oh, God.

Okay, so he... From now on, we need episodes where at least one of us is attracted to somebody in the story. If we're not, we don't care. Only write in with histories of people we would fancy. Okay, so he's the schoolmaster in Nersbrough. He is a self-taught scholar of languages and ancient histories. He's very intellectually gifted. But do we trust him?

Apparently, I don't care. I'm imagining a Ben-Wishaw type. Yeah, straight Ben-Wishaw. Ben-Wishaw is very attractive, but it wouldn't find me attractive. So we want a straight Ben-Wishol. He's born in poverty, interestingly, and he teaches himself Greek, Latin, Arabic, Celtic languages, Hebrew and French. and more languages later down the line as well. So he's very, very gifted, very clever.

He spent time in London as part of his education before returning to the north where he was born to become this teacher. So he's kind of like a local boy made good, right? Like he's really gone and made something of himself. He is married as well. And he's described as being married, unfortunately, which... That poor woman.

I know. I think the inference there is that he got her pregnant. I see. That's why they're married. So it's not particularly happy. relationship and we're going to hear from his wife in this story because she's not a fan of Eugene. Oh, she's not a huge. No, she, I mean, he doesn't treat it particularly well, but like she's not a fan. Now, Eugene, unlike Daniel Clark, is in serious debt. Oh, so more debt now.

Yeah. So this is, it's not Daniel Clark's debt. This is Eugene's debt. No, I know, but they both have debt. Everyone's got debt. Everyone's got debt. But he is in serious debt because he's too busy learning like Hebrew or something to actually like earn an income. Now, YouTube. is getting into really serious debt and his arrest is imminent. Now, before he's arrested, Clark does disappear and this is a really key part. Are these two people in any way connected

that we know at this point in the story? So we know that they knew each other. Okay. And they potentially spent some time together. Okay. A schoolmaster and a shoemaker, I mean, they're sort of, obviously one is much more well educated than the other.

But they kind of sit, I guess, in a similar strata. Broadly, yeah. Yeah. Broadly speaking. It wouldn't be unusual for them to be friends in their similar age, etc, et cetera, et cetera, in what is a small town.

So they would definitely have known each other. So Clark disappears, Daniel Clark. Now, people come to arrest Eugene Aram for his debt. They go to his house, they burst in, and they're like, pay us the money. He says he doesn't have it. So they're like, okay, we're going to take your belongings then, you know, as debt collectors do. When they go to take his belongings, they notice he has a lot of the stuff that was previously in Daniel Clark's house.

Ew. Yeah. But that doesn't necessarily mean that a crime is. been committed. No, but it's weird. It's certainly weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are suspicious.

Obviously, everyone's talking about the disappearance of Daniel Clark. Where's he gone? Who's going to clothe our feet from now on? Who is Anthony going to fancy? This is a disaster. Who is Anthony going to fancy? I should say that would be the best TV show. It's just exclusively set in 18th century nest.

Who in this tiny North Yorkshire town in the 18th century is Anthony going to fancy? Not him. No. Still wrong. Get off. Next one. Oh my God, there'd be like three people that would be it. Yeah, I'm very picky.

You are, I feel like you are very picky. Yeah, yeah. Are you not? No, I said, are you not? I didn't say you're not. I said, are you not? I'm just free and willing. No, I am, but I don't even have a type.

It's just weird. I'll just suddenly be attracted to someone. I'm like, that was a surprise. Oh, now we're married. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, sorry. Yes, that is what happened.

Okay, so what happens next in the story that we are focusing on. Yes. So Eugene, okay. Daniel's gone missed. saying, Eugene's arrested for debt. When they go into arrest, Eugene, there's stuff in his house that they're like, this belongs to Daniel or do belongs to.

Before they can take him into custody, he flees. He flees the town and he leaves behind his wife. So his wife, Anna, her name is, she's left behind and she is fuming. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, because he's the source of income. He has married her after getting her pregnant. Like, she didn't necessarily,

that wasn't her first choice of life, but that's the circumstances they both found themselves in. and now he's liked it, basically. So he goes back to London initially. Then he goes, Norfolk. Have you ever been to Norfolk? Norfolk's lovely. The North-Norfolk coast, beautiful.

This podcast are turning into places in the UK where Anthony has not been. Yeah. But that's fine. I can make a list. It's nice. Although saying North Norfolk just makes me think of Alan Partridge, so let's not do that.

He, I love this. This is a note in the script here, that during this time, when he's on the run, he teaches himself three more languages. I love that for him, though, like priorities. Yeah, yeah. People want me in jail. I want to learn more languages. I just need to speak more languages, which are going to come really helpful in mid-18th century rural Norfolk. I'm going to meet so many people that I can converse with in these different languages.

By 1750, he's settled in Kings Lynn, which is a Norfolk pork town? No. I was like, what the hell is a pork town? And do I need to move there? No, cut that. Do not use that. Right. Go again. Oh, crying now. God's sake. Okay. So around 1750, he settles in Norfolk in the port town of Kingslyn and just becomes a grammar school teacher again. So, I mean, inevitably, that's his trade. He has all that education. He's learned three more languages. Not hiding, though, in a way. I mean, obviously he's away from Nersborough. It's quite a prominent position in that society.

If they come asking, he's going to be clear where he is. Yeah, exactly. And he, but he manages for the time being to live a relatively respectable life. He writes a book called a comparative lexicon of European languages, which... Same. Yeah, no, I don't have time. You fancy him less now. I fancy him less for that. I can just imagine, can you imagine, like, being married to him, and he's like, you know,

how's your day? And you're like, oh, yeah, it was going to do this. And I'm like, how's your day? And I'm like, oh, my God, I just realized as I'm saying this is my husband, Matt's life when he comes home and he's like, what are you going to stay? And I'm like, well, I wrote this one paragraph about this really specific thing in the 18th century, and he's like, kill me now. But, you know, he's kind of living the life of a scholar.

He has this respectable job. And you could imagine in this period without technology to trace people without any kind of real ability to know where he's gone that he could potentially get away with just living there being the schoolmaster he could live out the rest of his days in Kingsland and it's a very rural place in this period.

He's gone to Kingsland, do you know what I mean? Yeah, nobody knows. Yeah, you might as well search every town in England to find him. So it's, you know, it could be effective. Exactly. But it is not going to be the end of the story he is not going to get away with whatever he has or hasn't done because remember we don't know

if that was the end of the story this would have been one of the worst episodes we'd have ever done yeah manned three more languages and lives in norfolk you moved to a different town great ever wondered what it was like to plot the assassination of julius season To stage the Boston Tea Party or to orchestrate Blackbeard's final stand on the high seas. I'm Matt Lewis. I'm Holly Mielsen, and we're the hosts of Echoes of History,

the podcast that goes behind the scenes of the iconic game series Assassin's Creed. We're on a mission to uncover just how the game creators recreate all of the most nail-biting pivotal moments in history from the bloody aides of March to the rise and fall of a pirate republic. So grab your hidden Assassin's Blade and Blueprint. And join us every week on Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits.

Okay, so now we're jumping to 1758, which you said at the beginning was... It was 14 years later, yeah. Yes, and it is. It still is. Congratulations to me. We're back in North Yorkshire again. We're in Nersprough. It's 1758 now.

And a farmer is digging stones up in his field because you don't want big stones on your field because you need to go out to plow and they're getting the way. You're looking at me as someone from Rural Island like, bitch, I know this. No, no. I really don't know this at all. I've done much farming. You family have animals and stuff, don't they? Well, they did used to like a generation ago, yeah, on both sides, but not now. Oh, okay.

Would you ever fancy being a farmer? Like in an Instagram type of way but not in an actual hard graph You'd be like on TikTok in the tractor Like hi guys Yeah yeah yeah no I come with me while I do this following Yes

Reality of getting up at 5am Absolutely not no Yeah I'd be like a late rise My farm would have like a different schedule I'd just train all the animals to get up at like 10 a.m Yeah Or the cows would be like I'm ready to be milk to now at midday

And not by you somebody else Oh god yeah absolutely Yeah yeah Yes aesthetics only Okay so this farmer is digging stones in his field And he finds, drum roll, a human skeleton. So this is our, the first of more than one skeleton. I actually don't know how many we're about to encounter,

but this is the first of more than one. Yeah, well, we're going to have two in this story. But this is the first one. Back in Nersbra, getting ready to plow, and he gets up a skeleton. He gets up a skeleton. Is it Daniel Clark? I don't know. You're in charge of this episode, is it?

Well, it could be. Okay. But it also might be anyone else from the whole of history. Fair enough. Because there's not really a way of telling in this period. But it's a skeleton, at least. We know there's no, like, see, is there going to be clothes on this skeleton? Because if there is, then there will help date it.

I don't think there is. I think it's just as, there's nothing recorded to say that there are any clothes or anything like that. And it's, you know, this is 14 years later. So he's whoever this person is, whether it's male or female, we don't know, has, you know, has, you know, decomposed enough at this point or maybe has been in the ground for two centuries. We just don't know. But this raises an interesting point for me, which I'm so obsessed with. And at some point I'd love to write, I don't know, like a series of short stories, there's not enough for a book here, but something about people, it's a really grim topic, but people who are buried in the landscape that we just don't know about across history. You think about folk songs from the 18th and 19th century talk so much about the murder of women in particular and then being buried by lovers who've murdered them in hedgerows on the edge of fields, that kind of thing, in unmarked graves. And we're going to get this a lot in this story and it just makes you think about that British landscape in this moment and how dead.

dangerous and visceral and haunted, it was actually. Yeah. So I'm still not getting what this discovery of a skeleton has to do with anything we've talked about so far. Well, no, because it could be Daniel, but we don't know. We don't know. But the people of Nesborough were like, oh, my God, it's Daniel Clark. Ah, I see. So whether it is him or not, they're like, he went missing and now we found him.

Yeah, yeah. And they're like, he was definitely murdered by Eugene Aaron because he liked it. And so therefore he must be guilty and he did up his things. This is how it's joining up, right? Yeah, yeah. So all the rumours are kind of swirling. Like all this from 14 years ago has come back and people like, where did Eugene go? Do we know? Cut to Eugene's estranged wife, Anna, who's left behind. Unhappy. Unhappy. For 14 years years. Yeah. Oh, God, she's got a 14 year old now. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, that was just more maths for me. Congratulations. She comes forward and she says that she last saw Daniel Clark 14 years ago at their house with Eugene in the early hours of the morning on the day he disappeared, which by the way, was seen. 8th of February 1744.

So she just comes forward 14 years later after this skeleton's record. She's like, I'm going to get my own book on, Eugene, you bastard, you left me. So she says, not only was Daniel Clark in my house, but another man as well. Dun, done, da. And this man is called Richard Hausman. And he is like another pal of this group of friends. Housman is a laborer, and he has been seen repeatedly drinking with Eugene 14 years ago.

So they're kind of friends. they'll go out for a drink together, just men of a similar age in the community, right, who know each other. So Anna says that all three men were in her house that night, the night before Daniel disappears, and that all three of them go out around 3am, but only Eugene and Housman come back. Okay.

So that's pretty condemning evidence. I don't know why she's suddenly started to say this now. Yeah. She does. It's condemning if we believe her, and as you say 14 years of a gap, why is she saying it now? and is it all very convenient

that a skeleton's just been Yeah. Yeah. Is she getting revenge or is she like kind of spooked by the skeleton resurfacing and she's like oh God I've got to tell the truth now.

She also says that when they got back to the house they were burning some clothes in the fireplace. So naked skeleton then? Naked skeleton that answers your question. And then she also says and this is where I'm like Anna don't overkill here. She's like and then I heard them discussing whether they were going to kill me as well.

Oh, she's lying. Yeah, and it's like Anna. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, just chill. Why would your husband suddenly murder you? Too much detail. Yeah, it's too much. So, Richard Hausman still lives in this community.

He's the only one because, of course, Eugene's fled. Clark's dead. So everyone, like the town goes around to Hausman's house, brandishing one of the leg bones of the skeleton from the field. And they're like, this is Daniel Clark. What do you have to say? And he says something super weird. And like, this is the beginning of people in the story saying really weird stuff

where you're like, that's not a normal reaction. He says, this is no more the body of Daniel Clark than it is mine. No, see, I get it. I can imagine it. It's kind of like, that's no more the body of Daniel Clark than it is mine. If you put it in an Irish accent, it makes sense. Yeah, everything makes more sense than an Irish accent. I feel like he's not Irish.

But I do think it's like a slightly weird thing to say, not like, I didn't kill him, that skeleton could be anyone, it's nothing to do with me. He's like, well, that's not his body. It's a bit like. I think it sounds a bit sarcastic to me where he's like, let's come onto yourself. There's no more his than it is mine. Now get back to your houses and get out of my door. But.

Oh, shit. Yeah. Okay. So he is taken for further questioning because people are like, we actually do need to find out what's happened here. Like, this is. There is a dead body. Yeah. Like, there is a skeleton.

And he's put into questioning. And he actually confesses to being present. He says that Eugene did kill Daniel Clark and that Richard Housman was just stood there watching, was not involved and was like, whoa, guys, let's stop doing that. I hate when people kill each other. Yeah, but he then says that that is not the skeleton from the field. Amazing. And people are like, okay, you've dug yourself at one hole and now you're going to have to dig another one. Yeah, like, what exactly?

Oh, bumch. He's like, that's not a skeleton because I know where the body is. Oh, my God. That's amazing, actually. Where is the body, Anthony? Okay, so, oh, Bob's Cave. Bob's Cave. It's in Bob's Cave.

He's like, St. Roberts Cave, we need to go there. That is where the skeleton is. So the whole of Nersborough shuffle off to Bob's cave And they find inside a skeleton So it's just been lying there for 14 years Not really that concealed Well, who knows, it could be quite concealed I suppose Squished right at the back couldn't it?

You know when you get like sort of earth deposits Of like animal mess and things Like caves always hold bones right Like some of the most ancient bones on the planet have come from caves right So I think not to give any more tips out there But was one to get rid of a body I think a cave might be a good place to put it

although it would preserve it for a long time. I don't see anything, but I feel like it holds secrets quite well. Secrets. Cates hold secrets quite well. That's a letter. Okay, go on. Oh my God. Right.

So we have now two bodies, one of which in Bob's Cave we know is Daniel Clark. Yeah, we don't know who the other one is. We don't know who the other one is. I don't know if anybody cares at this point because they know that Daniel's there. This is 14 years after the fact. They have housemen. He's part of the local community. I presume now they're going to want Eugene.

Yes. They do, and they do track him to Kingslyn. Apparently, it's easier than what he thought. They waited. They were like, God, we really need to find him. Yeah, wait until the body turns up. Look on LinkedIn. Oh, he works at Kingsling.

Grammar's gone now. Let's get there. So some people did know that he was there. Maybe Anna knew. I don't know if she'd had contact with him. Like, it's a bit unclear. But a Yorkshire constable goes all the way down to Kingslim and arrests him in August 1758. My question is, is he arrested in front of his whole class?

because I love that as a scene Stinger Yeah When you're just trying to be authoritative And telling some look it off Who's got a snot going down his face And then it's like Oh you've been arrested for a bit awkward

And he's taken all the way back to York Jail To await these sizes and his trial Have you ever been to York Jail? I have not inside but outside It's really great So for anyone who hasn't been It's kind of in this day and age It's a kind of courtyard

And there's a sort of 18th century building With these two wings And one was the women's prison and there was a debtor's prison. Personal anecdote, sidebar. Once on a night out as a student in York, this is an interesting story that involves two very beautiful Swedish girls and an act of violence.

So weird. Buckle up. I don't know we're running out of time, producer Freddy, but we're having this anecdote. Once on a night out, I've been with a group of friends. All the boys of the group had befriended these two very beautiful Swedish girls. They were like ethereal beings who were seven foot tall. What they were doing in York, we don't know.

They were gorgeous. They all went home together. Good for them. Fantastic. And I was walking home with my then-boyfriend, now husband. And we were walking back. We were both a little bit drunk. And there was no one else around. We were walking past this exact point where the prison is. And you're looking at me like I'm going to say a ghost thing and it's absolutely not going to be that. And it's also where the hangings would take place. We walk past the exact spot where the hangings take place. And we hear this voice behind us and there's this guy who's really, really, really drunk. And he starts trying to. to engage some conversation and we're like, no, sorry, mate, we're not interested. He gets increasingly annoyed. And then out of nowhere, he steps up to Matt and headbutts him in the face. Matt falls on the pavement. Stop it. Broken nose. He's unconscious for a second.

This guy legs it. And I'm like, oh my God, what's happening? So I phone my friends who've gone off with the Swedish girls who are like further down the road. And I'm like, oh my God, Matt's just been headbutted in the face. This is terrible. Matt's like semi-unconscious at this point, like on the floor. Anyway, the next thing he remembers

is coming to on the pavement with these two beautiful Swedish girls being like, are you okay? And he's like, yes, I'm fine. And the name of the man who did the headbutting was Richard Hausman. Not Richard Hausman. No, not really.

A police car came past and saw us all covered in blood, stopped, took us to A&E, we waited there for seven hours, at which point we got bored, and because Matt was still drunk enough, he went to the toilet and snapped his own nose back into position. We stuck a tampon up it to stop the bleeding, and that was the end of that.

And his nose still clicked. to this day and we never found the guy who had butted him so if you're out there I will get you one day.

That's weird yeah. That's... What a weird story but it was in this exact spot that we're talking about so there we go.

So on headbut location we are back up to Yorkshire, we're in York he's being held in York prison and he being Eugene. Him being Eugene, yes.

So he says I didn't do it it's nothing to do in me, Daniel Clark's just disappeared, this is irrelevant if Richard Hausman says that's his skeleton maybe you should be

looking at Richard Hausman as the killer Like, it's nothing to do me. My wife's lying, Richard Housam's lying. It's all nonsense. And he says also, he's like, well, you've got two skeletons, but they could be anyone's. Any point? He's like, I think this is fascinating.

He says, well, recently, on the grounds of an MP's house in Nersborough, six skeletons were found. And nobody's accusing him of mass murder. Basically, there's a shitload of skeletons everywhere. Yeah, which is so interesting. And it, like, it points to as well, like, just the rich archaeology of the period. It's actually quite clever, too, right? It's like going, so, you have a skeleton? And he's like, that MP's got, so it's skeletons in the garden, like, it doesn't prove, you don't, you can't identify who they are realistically in this period.

He has, like, the skeletons have no clothes on them, no way to identify them because the clothes were burned, of course, if you believe Richard Housman's story. And this, I love this quote. And I just think this is, this just really speaks to me. And I'm going to make you read it. So these are the words that Eugene Aram says at his trial to the judge. I just think they're so poetic and interesting. Okay. I'm going to do a Yorkshire accent.

Oh, God. Oh, heck. Oh, heck, my lord, almost every place conceals such remains. This has gone Lancashire already. In fields, in hills, in highway sides, in commons lie frequent and unsuspected bones. My lord, must some of the living be made answerable for all the bones that earth has concealed and chance exposed. Lancashire. That's Lancashire.

You've crossed over the hills there, Pat. If anyone wants to cast me in anything with Sarah, Lancashire. then that was set in Lancashire then perfect not anything in Yorkshire ever apparently not okay well you've absolutely butchered that but I

I do Basically he's saying There are skeletons everywhere Yeah I think that's such a clever defence and so does the judge He calls this ingenious And you know I think this is again like Eugene Aram

He's a little bit Genius Aram Oh he's kind of you know He's charismatic He's intelligent He's showing off all of his kind of booklet. I have a PhD, and I just looked at you with glee in my eye and said, you genius.

He did look really proud of yourself. God, I despair. Wait, so he says he's ingenious, but they still find him guilty. Yes, so the jury are like, might be ingenious, maybe. Not that ingenious. He's guilty. So he has found guilty, and he's condemned to death. I think this is really sad and probably quite common of the time.

So he's due for execution on the 16th of August 1759. And the night before in his cell He gets hold of a straight razor And he opens his veins And does attempt to take his own life But he has stopped The bleeding is stopped And the next day he's hanged

At York's Tyburn Which was a little bit outside of the city So later on The hanging is moved back To just outside the prison Which is the headbutting location But at this moment It was just slightly outside

On the road leading out of York Pass there yeah Yeah it's got like a little plaque And stuff It's a classic thing to go and visit Now, he leaves some letters written in his cell before he goes off to the scaffold Eugene does.

Eugene does. Now, in one of them, he says he did do the murder. Oh. Which, like Eugene, we've been chasing it all over the country, mate. You've had time to learn all your different languages. Intelligent, resourceful, an easy, quick learner. Why is he not liked it to somewhere more safe? Yeah.

Like, why has he just been chilling in Norfolk where people know where he is? He could have got away with this. It's just so frustrating to me. The other thing he says is that Daniel Clark, the reason why he killed him is because Daniel Clark was having an affair with Anna, his wife. I was in my head going, there's something going on between Anna and Richard Hausman. Yeah. Well, maybe there was as well, right?

I mean, she certainly didn't like her own husband. No. But either way, he's dead. He's dead. And an interesting, fun little fact, is that his head was preserved, and I believe still is, in Kingsland Museum. So it makes his way all the way back to Norfolk. Oh, so it's there now. Well, potentially.

I guess so. you are part of Kingsland Museum, if you've been there recently and seen the head, let us know, please. It must be in the collection still, I guess. So we said this as two different timelines. We said we had 1744. We had 1758. But then there's this resurgence on a third timeline in the Victorian era. And I can so imagine this like headlessness, you know, the skeletons, the mystical cave. Yeah. It's so, it lends all the things to Victoriana, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. And as well, you've got this. What I think is interesting. thing about the Victorian reiterations and it becomes this kind of melodrama almost and it is,

you know, there are kind of epic poems written about him. I think there are plays as well. And there's one published in 1831, which is technically just before Victoria comes to the throne, but in the same decade called the dream of Eugene Aram. And, you know, it's all kind of quite mystical stuff. But what's really interesting is that Daniel Clark isn't the hero of this as the wronged party, the person who's killed, that Eugene himself becomes this kind of troubled byronic hero. I see. He was like, who's just too clever for. this North Yorkshire provincial town and, you know, he kind of came across there.

Nobody more clever than Yorkshire people. Exactly. So don't fault for that. Well, you are married to one, so you would say that. Oh, yeah, that's true. I've lived there for a long time and, yes, I would say that is accurate. Canny people. Yeah, although you have offended all of them with the accent.

Oh, sorry about that. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe it's just you've offended the people in Lancashire. Yeah, probably that. Yeah, yeah. But, yes, absolutely. He becomes this kind of interesting figure, and there are kind of all these poems about him being, you know,

when he's when he's working away as the headmaster in Kingsland thinking he's got away with it and he's like this tortured soul and he's doing these big walks thinking about all his intellectual pursuits but also haunted by this crime that he's committed and he becomes a kind of like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type thing you know he is a murderous monster on the one hand but then this kind of scholar as well so you can see whether the Victorians take it up but I think what's so interesting about this is like it is a cold case because yes he he admits to the murder, but does that necessarily mean that he did do it? I mean, I think he probably did based on the evidence that we have, right? But Richard Housman also was clearly involved,

which is interesting. If he hadn't written that letter, I would have been like, he did not do this, but then he wrote a letter to say that he did. But then he also tried to take his life the same night. So who's to say what mental state he was in and what he was capable of admitting to or, you know, how he was thinking clearly or whatever. Or if it's like, you know, in terms of his intelligence, if it's like a literary flourish before he goes, he's like, I'll admit to this and I'll go down in history then as this kind of thing. I don't know. We're slightly romanticising that as well because that's very 19th century. It's easy to do, right? Because he really lends himself to that. And also, who was the other skeleton in the field? And who were the six

skeletons in the MP's God? And that's a scandal waiting to happen. There are skeletons all over the place. But I do like that as a form of defence. It's a very interesting, very poetic, actually and in that sense this is why you can see that he morphs into this other thing. If you enjoyed this episode and why wouldn't you? In the comments on either

our socials or on Spotify where there's a comment section which I've only discovered recently by the way and enjoying hearing all your comments go on there and tell us if you think Eugene Aram is a guilty man

or if he's just this kind of weird Machiavelli and also tell us which one you would have fancied. And also tell us which one you would have fancied. If you've enjoyed this episode you can leave us a five star of you wherever you get your podcast.

And if you live in Lancashire or Yorkshire, we can only apologise. Mostly to the Lancasharians. Lancasterians. Lancasterians. Just stop. Just stop talking. Okay, thank you.

Listen, we'll see you next time where I won't be doing accents.