Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 17 - Lydia Sherman - The 1860s Sucked

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

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C-H-I-L-L. Now, on to the show. MUSIC All right. Let's just jump in, then, as we always do. Hello, hello, hello, everybody. To the Chilluminati podcast, episode 17. Today and next episode, we will be diving back into the world

of true crime I'm excited to. It's been since the Tommy Patera trilogy, since we've touched true crime. And one of our most listened to batch of episodes by a large margin. People loved the Tommy Patera stuff. Apparently... Whoa, whoa, whoa.

More than the talk of Alex and Space Beatles or whatever the... My nose did a mongoose that rides the bus on Round Town. The Jeff the Mongoose one was great. My gossipy mongoose isn't as popular as this awesome crime. We've stand in a place of privilege to say none of our episodes really do poorly. All of them do really well.

The Tommy Patera stuff, however, does particularly well because I think he's still alive. And the facts are... My memory's a little cloudy because I remember reading it a while ago, but Tommy, the whole Bonanno crime family killed somebody relatively recently. I heard about this. They actually, they're still around, they're still doing things

and they murdered somebody a couple months back. To which I say, hey guys, looking good. You're all sharp, sharp dressers, all of you, every last one of you. Exactly, you all look great. Oh man, such a cool guy. That Tommy was a piece of shit though, right? Yeah.

He was a... I have no opinion either way. Hopefully it doesn't affect you. Can't believe they... Can't believe he did that to the Bonanos like that. Oh what? Yeah, no, that's... No, no, no, no.

He stayed loyal to the Bonanos in prison. He never ratted out anybody. Which is why I am... I have no opinion. He's neither, neither do I. You know what it is? You know what it is? I think it's the macabre.

I think people just want to hear about brutal... Yeah, well, I think that's what's... Honestly, God, you're right. Like, we're horror podcasts overall, right? We do a lot of weird shit. We talk about all the weird things, but real life horror is scarier than anything fake or perceived as fake. And people just, you know, horror is just a lot of fun.

I am a self-admitted kind of just fan of the psychology of serial killers and it really interests me. But that brings us to today. But before we worry about any of that, we've got a few things we have to talk about. One, a lot of this research came from a book called Fatal by Harold Schechter. Great book, phenomenal, phenomenal book. It talks all about the Jane Toppin. However, Jane will be reserved for the next episode.

But also, I want to give a personal shout out and thank you to two of our two volunteer researchers that helped tremendously on this episode, Deanna Davis and Nathan Leonard. I sincerely appreciate it. You'll be hearing those things. Oh, do we know their credentials? Do we know who these people are? Yes, I have their credentials and everything.

I know everything. I'm just saying, I... These are vetted sources. Vetted sources? Sources? Yeah, well, in a way. Oh my God, they were there. They were there.

They were the killers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you'll be seeing or hearing those names and maybe a few others over the course of however long we end up doing this. It's just been very nice to have other people be able to help me. Oh my God, is this going to be like on Coast to Coast AM when they have the people call in for the first 30 minutes and it's like, our old friend of the show, Lisa, the star lady

and she's like, you know, the stars are in good position tonight, George. Is that... Are these going to be... I'm down for it. I'm down for it. I'm ready. They're just... They help me go through a lot of the garbage stuff that I have to read

and sift through good and bad. The number eight is in your astrological side tonight. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh my God. Do you know that they changed the fucking... What are those? The Zodiacs?

Did you hear about this? Did they change them? They did a while ago. Yeah. Like NASA like published something and it like officially changes everyone's Zodiac a little bit. Like I'm like, according to them, I went from being a cancer to a Leo or something like that.

Congrats. Once a Taurus, always a Taurus. Mine does not change. No, no. I'm a Gemini now. I'm a Gemini now. I think that means you and I are not supposed to mix well. But are you...

Is that your new Zodiac or is that your old Zodiac? I don't freaking know. I was a Taurus. I was always a Taurus. April 20 to May 21 is Taurus. All right. I'm always a Taurus. That's the thing though is if it changed and people are still like, oh my God, that's totally

me, it means the whole thing's bullshit. Exactly. Because the other time everybody was wrong. Are you saying that horoscopes are fake and just generalizations meant to make you believe that you're both an introvert and extrovert? You're an introverted extrovert. I believe in a higher knowledge. That would make me an extroverted introvert, right?

You know what I believe? Yeah. I believe that I'm a Taurus and so is Dwayne Johnson, George Clooney, Megan Fox, and Queen Elizabeth II. So please, and thank you very much. And me and Dwayne the Rock Johnson have the same birthday. And I am the same Myers-Briggs as Tyrion Lannister. So...

Exactly. Well you know what's not fake gentlemen, serial killers. That's a good segue, right? This is actually an episode I'll be like, this happened. This is real. This all happened. I believe this. I believe this.

But I believe it. So the first question I want to ask you boys is when you guys think of serial killers, don't look at the notes because I wrote the examples obviously. But when you think of serial killers, who do you or do you mostly think of? When the word serial killer comes to mind. Literally a picture like a dude in a white shirt and a mustache. Right? Yeah.

Like a beautiful person. A beautiful person. Like especially a man, like a very attractive man because it's easier for them to lure in people when they're like... You're thinking like, what's his name, right? Ted Bundy or whoever. Who's the hot one? Yeah, Ted Bundy was a hot one.

Jeffrey Dahmer wasn't even that bad of a looking guy for his time. But Dahmer I think of him because he ate people. One day we'll tackle those big boys, but we're not going to get there quite yet. And what's the clown guy? John Wayne Gacy is the clown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like the archetyper. The guy from that show on Netflix, Mine Hunters or whatever.

Oh yeah, I actually haven't seen it. The co-ed killer. The co-ed killer, yeah. But you always think of something like American Psycho or Dexter. The guy who's very clean cut and very precise and is like, what I do, I do because I must. Like that kind of weird shit. And like literally clean. They're clean.

Not just clean cut, but like meticulous. Yeah, like John Wayne Gacy's house as an example was immaculate, pretty good looking, but under the floorboards of his house is where he kept all the bodies. But exactly, what you guys said is males, mostly middle aged, maybe a little younger, but they're always in adulthood. Likely suspects that you guys all mentioned, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy. And these all happened in the period between the 60s and the 80s. And news cycles were dominated by these people, making them big names and big entertainment pieces.

The classics. Yeah. The hits. Exactly. Top 40 serial killers. Yeah. Serial killers were in a... Rock and roll, I love John Wayne Gacy serial killers.

Is this a serial killer radio show? Kid coming later live on the serial killer charts number five, John Wayne Gacy. Oh my God. What's up? Nothing bad. I killed the guy. How you doing? Hey.

Oh my God. Is this our favorite caller, John Wayne Gacy? It's me. What's up? Me too. Serial killers back then and still are to a lesser degree, obviously, a weird fascination. And some people, myself included, it still kind of stays that way. They're very fascinating psychological profiles to delve into and kind of figure out.

Undeniably, their curiosity is overwhelming in cases like that. Exactly. So when I ask you, what do you guys, when I ask about female serial killers, does anybody come to mind? Charlize Theron. So Alienware knows. What? What?

Yeah, in the movie Monster. Yeah. And that is it. And that is literally it. Lizzie Borden. Lizzie Borden is the only one I can think of. Oh yeah. How is she alive, right?

Yeah. And she wasn't a serial killer though, was she? She just had a... I guess you're right. She had what do you call a killing spree in the moment. Yeah. All right. I guess you're right.

Yeah. I don't really... You never really think of female serial killers because it's usually guys. Yep. Exactly. Weird. Men just love to kill shit. Well, when you said Alienware knows, that's exactly it, right?

Alienware knows who was a late-stage serial killer in 1989 is when she started doing her crimes, which would make sense too that that's who you think of because she was dubbed after her arrest the first female serial killer. That's what every book, every TV show really marketed her as, is the way to sell things. And she was brutal and showed all the signs of her male counterparts, clearly killed for the thrill and the sexual urge that it gave her, the sexual thrill it gave her, very messy was more of a, but very much like a gun to the hedge kind of shot. She didn't torture her victims.

Who is the... Who is the woman who was, was it the angel of death? The person who would go around and like kill people in the hospital because she's like I'm putting them out of their misery. Who was that? We're going to get to her in the next episode. Really? Jane Toppin is the angel of death.

Yeah. She's the angel of skies, angel of death. That is her nickname. But before we get to Jane Toppin, we're going to talk a little bit about serial killing in the late 1860s. What? And specifically a female serial killer that operated before Jane Toppin did, who killed in a very similar way.

Interesting. So let's, let me pull you boys back. Time machine time. We're going far away. All right. Hold on. Perfect. If you guys had a visual, you would just see Jesse and Alex making fingers at the camera.

No, they would have seen the camera going wavy as we traveled back to the 1860s. And now it's black and white. Now you hear the gap. You hear the clopping of horse, the chattering of people on the streets, bells as doors open and close. Welcome to a post civil war America. A time where the industrial revolution had been rolling for a while now and the USA was catapulting itself into a proper world power that it would eventually become as we know

it. The 18 mankind's drive work hand in hand to push itself further in a time where medicine was still working out some kicks. Born burning wood to make you feel better. As an example, let's talk about arsenic in this particular time period, something that we're going to get very, very familiar with over the course of these two episodes. And over the counter purchase at the time that it was sold and used for a sort of cure all.

There was no FDA during this time. I just don't even understand how it's like, like right now, nowadays, we know arsenic to be like it's a poison that literally it's a deadly poison, the worst poison poison that oh, this is like a comedy, almost like a trope when you're going to poison somebody arsenic. How did it ever get used for anything? Like when you give it to somebody to fix them, aren't they just like, and then they die like what happens? I mean, more or less, I mean, that's exactly what it was, it was a poison.

However, back then, it was used for multi-purpose things. People would use arsenic for rat poison, obviously. You could just buy it and poison, you know, a rat problem. That's a solid use of arsenic. But you could also find arsenic in common beauty products, as an example, one known as Bella Vita arsenic beauty tablets. Tablets? Tablets, where taking the tablet was claimed to eliminate pimples, blotches, freckles,

sunburn, discolorizations, eczema, blackheads, roughness, redness, and to restore the bloom of youth to faded faces. Let's be clear. Just before we start mocking these people for their insane use of things that are dangerous. People inject Botox into their face, like, Botox is the thing we do now. Yeah, but this is like, I'm of the understanding that when you eat arsenic, then you die, right? We're gonna, what happens? Yeah, and usually what it is, and we're gonna talk about the amount that it usually takes

to kill somebody, and understand that they, putting in those beauty tablets, granted there was arsenic in them, but never the amount that one tablet would kill you. Let's also point out that, just for those of you at home, Google old ad for cocaine. And just like, the things that pop up are like, cocaine, toothache drops, instantaneous cure, 15 cents, registered 1885. This is just, in the past, things were a little different. This is going to be multiple stories, this today's story and next story, of a mix of uneducated in the top, and knowing what arsenic really does, and all these things that Jesse

cocaine and morphine, all this stuff was over the counter. There was just not any knowledge, or full knowledge as to what it does. People basically knew it made you feel better, so it's good for you, take it. However, there's gonna be a mix of that and a bunch of just incompetence at play as well, that allowed these people to get away with what they did for as long as they did. However, like I said, the beauty tablets, it was arsenic in general is incredibly cheap to make, was incredibly cheap to purchase, and no one would have batted an eye if you bought a good bit of it all at once.

And one such person to make such a purchase is the topic of our discussion today, Lydia Struck. Lydia was a Taylorist by trade, with big beautiful blue eyes, chestnut hair, and a milky complexion. And at the age of 17, married a man by the name of Edward Struck, who was almost 40 at the time. He was a widower, had six children, and from his previous marriage. God damn dude. He married 17 year old Lydia, putting a vast difference in their age, and Lydia would then

go on to have seven more children with Edward, making their total 13 all together. Didn't people live to be like 40 years old at this time? But also keep in mind, child, infant death rates were very, like you had a lot of kids because you expected to lose like three or four along the way. And we are also living in a, remember, this is a time where we're slowly transitioning into the modern age, and life expectancy is slowly going up, and people are living longer, unlike the early 1800s, where people were just dying at the drop of a hat. But yeah, he would go on to have seven children with Lydia, bringing a total of 13 children

all together. And with a wife and 13 children to support, Ed needed a damn job, as his previous one had been lost. Jesus, yeah. 13 kids? I can't even afford to support a dog. That was too real. That's too real for our day and age.

What the hell? So luckily in 1857, New York was in the midst of redoing its entire police force, and Edward applied for a job as a beat cop. He was luckily given that job, and for six years, patrolled the streets of Manhattan. However, the job would not last, and after those six years, Edward would be let go from the force. A bar room brawl had broken out, and as the story goes, an enraged drunk with a pistol had been causing a huge problem inside a local hotel, and Ed was right outside the hotel

when it all went down. And instead of intervening, because he's a cop, he apparently ran away. He peaced out? He peaced out. Now, it's also important to keep in mind that cops at this time didn't carry firearms, they only had a baton. They weren't allowed to carry pistols in the 1850s and 60s. The story then continues that shortly afterward, another police officer would arrive, and the

whole thing would be brought to a close. No lives lost. However, after hearing of Edward's reaction, the police force immediately fired him, let him go, no investigation or anything, they just peaced him out that day. Ed tells a different story, however. He says that he was not near the hotel at the time, and had heard the commotion a few streets away, and quickly made his way there, but by the time he arrived, another officer had already been on the scene, and had de-escalated the situation, and he wasn't needed for it

any longer. But no matter what the truth is, the end, he lost his job and sunk into what would become a very, very terrible depression, something that, at the time, people didn't really have a diagnosis for. They just thought he was really sad. I wonder which one he did, man. I wonder whether he actually ran away or not. That's crazy.

Well, so the details a little bit more go about that there's belief that Ed had evidence on some of the higher ups in the police force that they were acting corrupt, and they were just looking for any reason to get rid of him. But a lot of that comes from Ed's side of the story. But the fact that there was no investigation and they let him go, and what we'll learn about the captain a little bit later, leaves me to believe that it's kind of up in the air, and each one seems plausible. You think they were just kind of like, just quit, bitch.

Like get out of here. Yeah, it's possible. It's possible. What were you going to say, Jesse? That's crazy. No, I was going to say, usually the truth always lies somewhere in the middle, so I feel like you probably pieced out and they used that as an excuse to finally get rid of him because they were trying to for a while.

I feel like that seems like it's not that good of a reason to fire somebody. But if you're looking for a reason to fire someone, that's a good one. Yeah. Well, he did serve six years on the force, which is good. And so by the time he lost his job, his first six children had all grown old enough to leave the home and go live lives of their own. At this point, it still left six other children, as their firstborn actually died at the age of two from intestinal illness, and Lydia and himself to care for.

While Lydia on the surface had been a model housewife caring for his children and him cooking and cleaning, doing all the things an 18 hundreds wife is expected to do, what I didn't know is that behind the veneer of goodliness lied something way scarier, something we wouldn't define for quite some time yet a psychopathic serial killer. Each. OK, wait, so hold on. So let me think about this. So six of his kids, the six kids that were Lydia's kids before or his kids before kids

before, not Lydia's kids. Yeah, his kids before were already out. So we're talking about a household with six, like very young children, six younger children in it. Yeah. OK, got it. Yep. So Ed ended up spending a lot of time at home. He couldn't find work anywhere else. And the more he failed to find work, the more depressed he became.

Eventually he would not even leave the bed anymore. And apparently at one point took his own pistol into his mouth and was going to pull the trigger before being talked down by the family and Lydia and whatnot. And, you know, to her credit, to the best we can, Lydia did seem like she was doing a lot to try and help. At one point, she even went to the police captain, hoping that she could convince them to take Ed back onto the force. And the captain had apparently already been trying to do that over the course of years

in failing. The police force just would not hire him, no matter how hard the captain tried. Or at least this was a captain told Lydia, of course, we don't know if that's all true, if Lydia, you know, did that. We do know that she went to the captain, however. His advice to Lydia, though, was simple. Ed needed to be put out of the way. What the captain said he meant in further testimonies at court at some point was that

he meant an insane asylum. Go put him in an insane asylum, he'd clearly lost his mind, he was now a danger to himself and to others, and to keep him safe away from people to go put him into an insane asylum. Lydia, however, took those words rather differently. After speaking to the captain, she went back home, scrounged about 10 cents from around the house, and then went to the local drug store and bought one ounce of arsenic. Likely getting a bit more than an ounce, though, because it was actually known that drug dealers, pharmacists and whatnot, gave liberal amounts of arsenic because of how

cheap it was and how easy it was to make. So she got an ounce of arsenic for 10 cents? For 10 cents, she got an ounce of arsenic from her local drug store. In a bottle. How much? OK, 10 cents and 18 or like 18.62 money. Yeah, which is like zero dollars and zero cents. I'm trying to think of what it would be now.

We'd have to do the conversions. Probably like 10 dollars, right? Like something like that. I imagine it's still pretty cheap. Yeah, like 10 bucks to make to grab arsenic. So. Yeah, she spent 10 cents on getting an ounce of arsenic. Now, mind you, only about one to four grains of arsenic is enough to kill a person, and

she got an ounce of it. This is also during a time where everything from cocaine, chloroform, morphine and mercury were all easily sold over the over the counter and marketed as curals of the era. Every single one of them was found in a cural of some sort, and you could just get the shit over the counter without an issue. Well, how many poisonings were happening at this time? It would have been a lot because I didn't know. Fuck ton.

But also they didn't they didn't have the scientific and medical knowledge to be like, ah, that's what killed them, right? Because if you're taking a cure all because you have a disease of some sort, they're trying to cure, or like, and so they'd be like, well, they did have scarlet fever. So, you know, that's what it's what got them. So it's interesting because like they they could tell they knew arsenic was a poison. That was not something that was shy away from.

Arsenic poisoning did happen to people. However, from my understanding, only a few doctors could recognize the outward arsenic symptoms when you get it. It's not like foaming at the mouth in your eyes. No, it's not. We'll get into what those symptoms are. And the only way they could definitely be sure is postmortems. They'd have to take the organs out.

They'd have to send them away. It would be weeks before they heard bad. And a lot of people, especially during the early 1900s, late 1800s, and for most of human history are like, don't desecrate the body or else you won't get into heaven. Like that's the I mean, that's like the basic gist of it. And so you wouldn't let them do that. And only recently were people like, yeah, maybe we should find out who killed

this person, the autopsy, please. Like, that would be great. Yeah, that's so crazy. So it was really easy to do this shit and like just get away with it for untold amounts of time. And yeah, I wonder how many got away with it. I wonder how many doctors or nurses or people who just knew what the fuck arsenic did got away with it because they didn't, you know, get lazy.

Um, however, our dear Lydia ended up buying that arsenic and heading home. Arriving home, Lydia set out to do exactly what the captain asked of her. Put it out of the way. He was in bed as he always was when Lydia got home. And she fixed him up some oatmeal and using one of her sewing needles as a way to measure it, mixed in some arsenic and then helped him get the entire bowl down. Throughout the night, she would continue to feed him mixed foods with foods mixed with arsenic and drinks mixed with arsenic as well.

And in her mind, she told herself she was believing to do him a favor, releasing him from his misery while simultaneously lessening her stress and her workload at home. Myths about female serial killers and poisoning being the humane way to go end up being the actual opposite where a lot of the atrocities of Bundy and Dahmer and all that stuff get, uh, you know, a lot of headline because it was very grotesque what they did with the bodies afterward, um, especially Dahmer and like John Wayne Gacy and the like, right? Uh, their killing methods were quick, almost always.

Maybe Bundy shot in the head, but usually shot in the head, slash in the throat, slash in the throat, choked. A lot of those serial killers are what is called product killers. They want the body. They don't want to deal with the killing itself. Um, arsenic, however, works. What a bizarre ass way to phrase it. Like, I get it, but it's like creepy, right?

They're product. They want the product. Like, yes, they're famous. They are categorized by their desire to murder people anyway. So there's like, uh, three or four different categories of serial killers, depending on what they're trying to do. And this shit, you know, as we talk about this kind of thing, obviously, like we did with Tom, Tommy Patera, like dark, gets dark.

Yeah, it gets, it gets crazy. Uh, however, like I said, they, that comparatively to none of them are humane. There is no humane way to murder somebody. If you were to compare how arsenic kills you compared to a gunshot to the head, like the son of Sam was another serial killer or killed with a pistol, um, you would take a gun to the head, a bullet to the head immediately. Because, uh, around eight o'clock the next morning on May 24th, 1864, after an incredibly long night, uh, Edward Struck finally died of excruciating

pain, vomiting, retching, seizing, fever, diarrhea. And all the while Lydia sat by his bedside, quote, unquote, tending to him the entire night, knowing what she was doing and poisoned him throughout the entire night. When the physician showed up the next day, he declared it death by consumption. That's a, yeah, that whole idea of like, well, he coughed up blood and then your old consumption got him. They don't, they don't know, they don't have the medical knowledge.

So everything could have been like, yes, that's exactly, we know what it is. It's one of like four things. And that's it. It's like, yeah, yeah. And if you think, and if you think poisoning, if you think poisoning is humane, like think about getting food poisoning, like, you know, you don't die from it, but that sucks ass. It's the way the media portrays a lot of female serial killers.

If you think about like the female serial killer poisoning, you think of like a lady in a dress who elegantly moves from room to room and quiet. When you think of Bundy and Gacy, you think of psychopaths who murder and torture and decapitate and all this other crazy stuff. When I think of female serial killers, I think of Xenia Onnetop from James Bond, who crushed you with her thighs. I think of, I was going to say, I'll take it, I'll take it. When's the Xenia Onnetop episode?

You know, that's, that's, that's Jesse's episode. Jesse has to leave that. Unfortunately, but he got, they, he took her out. But it's a lot of the way the more the media portrays the two. The, the, the crazy male ones get prescribed, you know, prescribed crazy. Females get prescribed mean and evil, but they're both crazy. They're both psychopaths. They're both monsters at heart.

You know, psychopathic serial killers are very shallow people. They're able to put on personas of somebody with emotion, but really they, they live to, to satisfy their inner desire to kill, which is their driving force. It's almost creepier to me, the poisoning, because you're kind of like doing, you, you're like doing an experiment. Like you're kind of like watching something happen that you did and like as what happened when you talking experiments, that's something we'll talk about Jane Toppin in the next episode.

She loved to experiment with different poisons and poison combinations, just to see what they did to the person. But that's for later. However, and if they didn't know what it was, like Jesse was saying, oh, consumption or whatever, they would call it illness of the X, illness of the intestines, illness of the stomach, illness of the head. If they didn't know what killed them or they didn't think they knew what killed them, they would label it on the death certificate, just an illness of a sight,

of a type they didn't understand. Let's fast forward time briefly. Do we all remember 1994 and Susan Smith, the lady who had her car with her two kids? Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. And how insane, how like that was crazy that she even was able to do that to her two children and, you know, what kind of crazy. Do we know? Because that's happened. That's happened since where people would like drown there.

Like like a woman would drown her kids in the tub. Yeah, I remember. I remember that one, too. That was. I can't. I can't think. Like they keep saying it's sort of like a depression or something that that like. She they always justify it to themselves in a way that she was saving her two kids from becoming crazy or. Yeah, I don't. But it's always. I don't think even doctors today know why stuff like that happens.

Yeah. The reasoning I'm like, is that how that works? Like I just I truly don't know. And it's it's dark, but also very fascinating because the the idea that a parent could do that to their own kids is like something is seriously wrong. And I like there is no scientific explanation that I can see. Yeah, other than just psychopathic, you know, I have no clue. Yeah, I guess a psychotic break, you know, like whatever. So yeah, for those who don't know,

94, a woman by the name of Susan Smith had her two kids in the car and she drove the car off the ledge and watched on the shore as a car for five minutes, she watches the car say slowly with the children down in a fucking car. Dude, that that shit is horrific and still goddamn is. That's horrible. However, 130 years before that, Lydia would do the same. However, not the two children, but to all fucking six of them. Oh, my God.

With the first kill firmly under her belt, it's as though the floodgates opened in Lydia's mind and her true desire for killing was all she lived for from that point onward. Just one month after killing her husband, she started to feel the same worthlessness in her kids that she saw in her husband, who had just been lying in bed and become a bother to her, not earning any money for the house. And basically, you know, putting them into financial despair, particularly that of her youngest six year old Martha Ann, four year old Ed Jr.

and baby William, who was no more than a few months old, since they could, as she put it in her own words, they could do nothing for me or for themselves. But Lydia didn't want to act rashly. She wanted to be sure that killing them was the right call. So in her confession at court, she said she thought it over for a few days first. She put some time into thinking about whether killing them was the right thing to do and eventually came to the conclusion that they all had to die. What the what?

Like that's she just turned into a cyborg and like decided like again, that's that's a lot of a psychopath. He's not the right like psychopath. He's a thing, but that's not the the word I'm looking for. So there's clearly a technical sociopath sociopath. Yeah, a sociopath who and these things, this is an actual thing that exists, that there are because sociopathy does not mean that you're an evil serial killer.

We put that out there. They're good sociopaths out there, but sociopathy is the inability to feel emotion towards someone else. Well, it's just a lack. It's a lack of it's a lack of empathy. It's like you you don't you do not see others as worthy of your emotions because the only person you're focusing on is yourself. And it's like every to everyone else.

It's like like they're like pieces in a game of your own like life. Like you're the most important person and everyone else just exists to either get something from or use in some way. I hear that like one in 10 people is a sociopath. Yeah, I believe that, especially nowadays. I believe that it takes a very, very specific mix to make a sociopath a serial killer. Right. It's total.

I mean, they're different things like like just in the way that a non sociopath can be a serial killer, a sociopath can. And you know, it helps that they don't have empathy. Right. That's that's and that's that's something to keep in mind for Lydia here because very much everything she does is about betterment of her of how she perceives her life and wanting to make her life better by removing the things that are in her way. And again, if you don't see people as people with their own lives and like existences,

you just see them as like things in your way to being better. That's that's, you know, that's a sociopath. I mean, a lot of I believe the stat is like almost every CEO or people on the boards of every corporation. Those are sociopaths. And as you get to step on people to get to that high. Yeah, yeah, like the most powerful people in the world usually are sociopaths. I believe they said like it also is a presidential thing to like a lot of

presidents and world leaders and sociopaths, even though they're like, you know, I promise you I'm going to do everything. At the end of the day, they had to like break a few backs to step on their way up to the top. Of course. And that's something important to keep in mind as serial killers. Like think about Ted Bundy. He got his he got all of his victims by putting on a face of caring and being friendly and luring them into a false sense of security.

And when he got them away, that all disappeared. And he just he was able to be who he truly was. Yeah. Anyway, furthering on with that, like I said, she's thought it over for a few days before she decided, you know, I imagine she sat in her room, read a book, had some tea. Is killing my children the best way to go. And she decided that it was crazy. It is.

It's insane. Like I can't imagine sitting in my office and being like, my family is kind of a pain there in my way. I could kill him, but let me think it for about a couple of nights. Let me let me let me sleep on it first. And then waking up two days later, you know what? I'll kill him. It's like moving to Austin by yourself.

It's like the same idea. It's like, I don't know. I mean, it's like, oh, yeah, I really. You know what? I'm just going to take the chance. I'm just going to take the chance. Yeah, what's the worst that could happen? So after thinking it over in the first week of July, she poisoned all three of them,

killing all of them. Her confessions at the time show a true psychopath, emotionless and speaking in terms that were clear that she only cared about herself. When she spoke of Ed Junior's death, who was the middle child in the three that ended up dying in that first week, she said the following. Jesse or Alex, you're welcome to read her confession to the most old-timey female way that you can. Anybody?

Anybody want to? You want me to do it? I'll tell me female. Read this. Okay. In the evening, Edward died. He was a beautiful boy, and he did not complain during his illness. He was very patient the afternoon before he died.

My stepdaughter Gertrude Thompson came in to see my children and spoke to him and said, Eddie, are you sick? He said, yes. Then she said, you will get better. And he said, no, I shall not ever get well. The doctors had no suspicions in this case, either. And I did not hear of anyone having any. And that is verbatim what she said in court about how she just spoke

of her son dying patiently and being a beautiful boy. The kid said, no, I shall never get well. That's crazy to me. Yeah. And Ed Jr. would die very shortly thereafter, and baby William would die a death in a great agony, even a few hours after Ed Jr.'s death. The doctors classified the death as remitten fever and bronchitis. Shout out to bronchitis.

I've had it. It is the worst. It is an unpleasant, unpleasant experience. I feel like I did have bronchitis when I was a teenager and I don't remember. I'm going to be real with you. Bronchitis is like an orgasm. If you've had one, you know. Oh, then maybe you are aware that you are aware that you went through that

because it is like the worst. Breathing sucks. Oh God. So definitely. Then I haven't had bronchitis. Sweet, hopefully I never will. I just can't believe that like this is like this is like the same. Anytime you hear a story like this where like somebody's killing their whole family,

it's like everybody's like, oh my God, your husband died. That is so shitty. Yeah. Oh my God. Let me know if you need anything. Wow. Now your son is dead. That is so crap. No, now your your daughter and two sons are dead. Oh, they died all at once, too.

She poisoned them all in the first three of them knocked out the three youngest ones. Yeah. She killed the three youngest because they were in her words like just sitting around doing nothing. How is that so crazy is exactly. We're going to because, OK, in this case, specifically, there is a heaping heaping dose of incompetence at play here, and we're going to get to that in a minute. So like we were saying before, this all seems crazy that doctors continually

classify these deaths incorrectly. But you also have to remember that at the time we were still discovering things. Right. No regulations. It was an era where we were still putting live leeches all over people's bodies because we thought it helped with damn near everything. Medicine was still very much in the dark ages in a lot of respects. It's still kind of leeches are. Yeah, no, they definitely have a medicinal purpose.

Yeah, they don't cure a fever, right? Well, I mean, now it's a different thing. It's like a holistic thing now, right? Right, exactly. We're like the fitting of the blood, you know, that kind of stuff. Well, no, Kelly Kelly uses them at work on animals all the time. Well, yeah, it helps in the blood and like Jesse was saying, and it can help like stimulate blood flow.

There are uses for them. They're just not, you know, common practicing. Well, it's one of those things where it's like, yes, we could bring leeches or doctors could just take a needle and suck like blood out of you. Yeah, computers like beep boop boop. And then it like did the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but at this time, medicine was still primitive. And besides Lydia only killed them because they were useless.

Let's keep it in mind. Unlike her 14 year old boy, George, who had gotten himself a job as a painter for two dollars and 50 cents a week. He was contributing. And as long as he was contributing, he wasn't a burden. Work hard, George. Work your fucking ass off, kid. Please, George, don't ever stop.

Oh, no. George has painter's colic. No. Painters colic is an intestinal colic associated with the obstinate constipation due to chronic lead poisoning. Oh, that's right. Because paint had went off into like the 70s. Yeah, like, all right, it wasn't everything.

And he eventually got that. You know, shout out to all the kids listening. You got it real good. Yes. Don't eat paint chips, lead paint. Like that was a worry still when I was growing up. Yeah, like, you got it real. You are living high and mighty on the hog, my friend.

Because 20 years, 30 years ago, she was not the same. Let me tell you about asbestos. That's a whole bore where it's still there. Don't worry. I was going to say, don't worry, asbestos is coming back if the regulations have gone through. Can't wait for new Donnie. But I remember living in my parents' house in the 90s.

Lead wasn't in paint anymore, but we were in an older house. So all the paint in the house almost positively had lead. And the amount of times a parent's like, don't eat the paint. Don't eat the paint. Don't eat the paint as they slowly kind of fix the house over time. Here's the good news, kids. The pipes that are underground, that shit was from the 50s. Good luck, everyone.

The 1860s are fucked up, man. The 1860s are wild. While working, you get poisoned at work. And because you got poisoned at work, you ended up at home where your mom poisoned you today. Well, hey, to be fair to Lydia, she gave her son a whole week to recuperate before she got discouraged and frustrated and thought he would.

This is the best part. She didn't kill him off because he was a burden. She was now killing him off because he was potentially going to become a burden in her words. That's very generous. And now you can see something else that you see a lot in serial killers. Serial killers always give themselves

little allowances, little allowances, little allowances until the deed is done. And then once those gates are open, they look for any excuse to do it, as long as they get to kill again. And so that's like, if you watch any sort of TV drama about murder or whatever, they always are like, once someone kills once,

you have to stop them or else they're going to do it more and more and more and more and more. To the point where they're like, come catch me. Like someone, try and stop me. And they give so many like the zodiac right there, two and two. Yeah. Yeah. And there are a bunch of killers who ended up getting caught

because they did that. They almost getting caught becomes part of the game for them. Right, because they can get away with it so much and they keep doing it. And they're like, this is too easy. Yeah, like no one's going to stop them. I'm better than you.

It's a lot of like putting themselves above the world. Yeah. So anyway, her son might have become a burden after a week of dealing with Painter's colic. So she mixed arsenic into her son's tea and killed him. Damn. The real, the local physician. That had been coming by, by the way,

over the one who has been putting the deaths on labeling the deaths of all her family was a physician by the name of L Rosenstein. He had become quite acquainted with Lydia and her family from all the death. More like L Blowsenstein. Well, Rosenstein is going to be a big reason she gets to keep doing what she does.

She continually, he continually saw Lydia at her family's bedside tirelessly caring for the family, always worried about their health and was very impressed with her work for tending to her family. And so after her son's death, he offered her a job as a full-time nurse. Oh, my God. Bullshit.

Are you kidding me? Not kidding, my God. This dude sees her and is like, well, everyone in your family keeps dying and you're fine and you're constantly watching over them. You know what? You have all the qualities of a good nurse. Literally every patient in her care has died.

How is that going to be a good nurse? Can I, time out? How old is Lydia? This is where the incompetence comes in. How old is Lydia at this point? So Lydia married, what's her space age? So Lydia married, let's see, 1857 is when she married and she was 17 years old and this is in 1864.

So she's in her 20s? It's like 22. She was 17. Well, all right, all right, time out. Let's go back. Lydia was a Taylorist by trade with big blue eyes, chestnut hair, and milky complexion. 25 years old.

So she's like, fine. I'm going to say, I'm going to say. I'm going to say as a man, this dude, L Rosenstein came up in there, like he wasn't paying attention to those kids. He just saw this woman who was like, oh, I'm counting for my children and look at my butt. And like, oh, you see my ankle?

And he was like, yo, you want to be a nurse? This dude was trying to bone down and he didn't see all the murders happening in front of his face. Oh, I see for this. You know man, he was just really impressed that she would stay up all night with these people. That's bullshit. This guy just was trying to get some like,

some that 22 years, he's like, oh, well, you know, my wife is 28 and that's far too old for me. So he saw a 22 year old was like, I'm in. I mean, you might be right. Cause his incompetence is a lot of the reason that she got to continue on. And in the summer of 1864, Lydia, a medical expert in murder became a full-time nurse.

Ridiculous, ridiculous. In the 1860s. How do you even, how do you even track? How do you even like track those deaths? When she's a nurse? Yeah, you don't. So we actually don't know much about her profession as a nurse.

We actually don't know much about what happened during her time as a professional nurse, a nurse. But it's very possible and hell even probable that she killed people under Rosenstein's watch as a nurse. It's people assume she did, but we just, we don't have enough records showing what she was doing during that time.

I can't believe that. Because she wasn't put on trial for murders she did while she was a nurse. And we'll see why. But Lydia still had two children to take care of before we're through with her time. This is not the ending where she goes and becomes a nurse and then everything's well.

She still had a couple more children. 18 year old, an 18 year old daughter named Lydia as well. And a 12 year old named Anne Eliza, who Lydia described as the happiest child I ever saw. How the hell is she gonna justify this? Younger Lydia was a good, attractive and hardworking girl who worked at a general store as a clerk and was being courted by a man named John Smith.

Of course he was. Yeah, before it's time to travel, met Pocahontas, it all makes sense. Yeah, exactly. This guy was voiced by Mel Gibson. However, the year of, this particular year, I believe we're in 1866 now, had a particularly rough winter.

And it was especially bad for Anne Eliza, the 12 year old, as she had fallen ill on and off throughout the entirety of the winter. And since Lydia was a full time nurse, it fell to the younger Lydia to care for her, which meant giving up her job as a store clerk. And so in older Lydia's, the mom's own words, she once again became, quote, downhearted and discouraged.

And still had the bottle of arsenic she had bought in that spring, in the previous spring, over half full. Whoa, time out, time out, time out, time out. It's only been a year? Yeah, man. And her whole family has died except for these two girls? Yes.

And ain't nobody being like, well, that's suspicious. Before the two girls, it was only a month. Yeah. Before the two girls, it was only a month. She, when she started, it was fast. All of this is happening between, so the final death, it basically was like a year event. 1864, she becomes a nurse. Two years later, the killings begin again.

As long as, likely she was killing while she was a nurse. So, Lydia. That is so crazy. I know dude, it's insane. She becomes downhearted and discouraged and still had the, like I said, the bottle of arsenic in her drawer that she bought that spring a couple of years back, still half full. She went home after going to the drug store

to buy a cure-all medicine that she bought for Analyza and mixed in some arsenic with that medicine and began to medicate the young girl. This time, however, it wasn't an overnight death. This one took four days for young Anne to die a violent, excruciating death that would be labeled death from typhoid fever. That's like, that's rude as shit to buy a cure-all

and then put the thing in the killer's image. And then poison the shit out of it. Yeah, that's like, that's cold. Yeah. Yeah. It's strange, man. Thereafter, younger Lydia and her mother lived together until 18, until in 1866. Oh, so that was all in 1864, I apologize.

Yeah, that was all 1864. Yeah. Then 1866, younger Lydia got sick and her mother did what was expected of by now. Medicated her daughter until she died the morning of May 19th, 1866. However, it is important to note that Lydia does claim that younger Lydia died of natural causes.

She's like, that one wasn't me? Yeah. She copped to the death of the rest of her family, but she did not cop to the death of this one. Now, obviously it's debatable because a lot of the signs of this Lydia's death are equal or equivalent to the ones of the other ones. But the fact that she's not claiming this one

and claimed everything else might be weird. But I don't know. You know, we'll never know. It doesn't fucking matter at this point. That is so bizarre. It just sucks that she did it. Well, the doctors seemed to be oblivious to everything that was happening

as everyone around Lydia was dying. Because she was gorgeous and they were all trying to get some. Let's remember this. I mean, yeah, maybe. Let's remember this. They wanted to get that 1860s poon. I know.

Who doesn't? 1860s, I'm out, dude. I'm gonna get something. I'm picking something up from that. That's the 1860s stank. That's the 1860s promise is you're gonna get an STD of some kind no matter what. And a little arson, if it's Lydia.

So as everyone around Lydia was dying, except for Lydia herself, not everyone was fully in belief of that this was what was going on. A Reverend named Payson and Lydia's. There you go, see, the one guy not trying to get laid is the guy who's like, this moment's up to some shit.

This is already married to somebody much more powerful. Yeah, God. And Lydia's older stepson Cornelius struck as well as the cast of the Chilluminati podcast. We weirdly were suspicious of her. I wonder what she looked like. I bet you there's pictures out there. Look, the way they describe her

is the way they describe throughout old timey writing. What a weird thing to say, but throughout period writing of that piece, every time someone described as like milky skin, like all that BS is just their code. We're saying like, that's a fine white woman. That's literally what they're saying. I'm imagining Nicole Kidman in the others.

That's where my head's at. There you go, there you go. So Cornelius struck specifically would end up going to the district attorney, district attorney Gavin, and urged him to exhume the corpses of his now dead family to figure out what the hell was going on and if Lydia had been poisoning him with arsenic.

Lydia, however, was far from done. Free of her family, she finally claimed to be living a life that felt good and free in her own words. Eventually, free of her family, Lydia found herself taken care of an elderly man who had recently lost his wife called Mr. Hurlbert a few towns away outside of New York.

Can we just take a second to talk about Mr. Hurlbert? Mr. Hurlbert, the guy with the worst name of all time. Yeah, it's like, you wanna, it's like, how do I make a name sound like a fart without making it sound like Audemars Pia? Mr. Hurlbert. Your name, if you listen to this podcast and your last name is Hurlbert,

what does Mr. Hurlbert look like to you? Oh, he's the guy, Harry Potter's stepdad or whatever that guy is. I was thinking of the dude from Pocahontas who's like not John Smith. Oh, there you go. Exactly, but we all know who we're talking about. You're talking about Dursley.

Yeah, we're all talking about a Dursley like figure. There's only, you are not showing up looking fine if your name was Hurlbert. That's just a fact. Hurlbert. Well, good old Mr. Hurlbert here was a recent widower. He had a large piece of land and he was relatively well off for the 1860s.

And eventually the two were married. Mere days after she had started living with him as a living aide, they had fallen in love with each other and they married one another. They got married in one of his brother's houses or something, it was like a shotgun wedding. It was very kind of quick. And for over a year on the outside,

it always appeared as though Lydia truly cared for the man. But it's important to note that one of the promises Mr. Hurlbert made to Lydia about marrying her was that if Lydia married him, he would will everything he ever owned. Instantly killed, instantly dead. Of course. Instantly kills him.

So they got married and they lived, like I said, for over a year married in their homestead. And- She gave him a year? That's- She gave him a year, year. She was the entire time just like, should I? Yeah, I know she was thinking it over.

Dinner was always ready on the table when he came home from his excursions into the city. She doted on him, took care of him and took care of the house near perfectly and even shaved his face for him as his hands trembled too much for him to shave his own face. The neighbors even truly thought

they had something special. They always kissed and had a good time and outward appearances were very, very flattering for the two of them. But one day during a routine shave, Mr. Hurlbert got rather dizzy and walked away trying to feel better and then eventually came back for the shave

and then got even sicker and quickly fell into a sickness. And what does Lydia do when someone she's friends with famed with married with? What does she do when someone becomes quote, useless and feeble? Oh my God. She fixed him a food, drink and some medicine

with her favorite ingredient, arsenic. And shortly thereafter in 1868, Lydia had suddenly inherited $20,000 worth of 1860s land and $10,000 worth of 1860s cash. She's like a million ounces of arsenic you could buy with that. Or she could just load the walls with arsenic. Poor Mr. Hurlbert fucking kicked it.

She couldn't even like, see I thought when I was reading the story she was gonna slit the throat. I'm like, oh God, here it comes. Like we could shaving razor. Constantly talk about the shaving and the razor and 1860s shaving is fucking scary. I'm good.

But no, she just, her own standby killed him with arsenic. She's like, look, these doctors aren't figuring this shit out. I'm just gonna keep doing this. That's crazy. Before we get to the end of Dear Lydia, there's still a little bit more to be done. God damn. In 1870, Lydia would marry one more time.

Two years later. Yep. And acquire the name that stuck with her until this day, Lydia Sherman. She married another widower who is desperate for a new wife to help take care of the home and his children. Horatio Sherman was a hardworking factory man

full of charm, full of charisma. Much better name than Mr. Hurlbert. Yes, agreed. And according to friends and people who know him, had quite an affinity for the bottle. My man. He was $300 in debt, but Lydia quickly found herself enjoying his company and eventually married him.

There were a lot of people out there who were like, I'd be, I'd kill to be $300 in debt. Yeah, no shit. I would poison with arsenic to be $300 in debt. If there was a shot that I could live through it, I would take that bet. And they would be married very shortly after, much similar to Mr. Hurlbert in his brother's home

and began to enjoy their life together. Two months after the marriage, Lydia killed his four-month-old child with arsenic. Jesus. Lydia, calm it down. Shit. The month following, she killed 14-year-old Ada, his other child.

She fell ill while helping to decorate the local church for Christmas. And when she went home, Lydia did as she always does and laced everything she gave the poor girl with arsenic. And at this point, if it isn't clear, literally all this Lydia looks for is an excuse. She just needs an excuse.

As soon as somebody's sick, she's like, oh shit. As soon as somebody's sick, she's out. Feeble and old, out. Here's the thing though. It doesn't matter. There's no, there's no guarantee that any of these people were ever sick, right? Or like, I didn't have a sickness that wouldn't have gone away in a few weeks

if they just stuck it out. Well, all I'm saying is like, there's no reason why she needed to play by that rule. She could just go, oh, well, she got sick, so I killed her. Like, my personal theory is she probably played by that rule because it was a way of justifying it to herself. Yeah, it was her way of saying, oh, I'm doing them a favor.

But if you give them a little arsenic, don't they just get a little sick and then... Well, yeah, if she's saying she did do that a lot, where she, some of the times, she would only give them a little arsenic over the course of many, many days to try and just like extend the torture. She would watch the entire time,

always by their bedside, watching what she was doing to them, and I'm sure enjoying it to a degree. But it would be days before poor little Ada would actually succumb to the poisoning, dying on New Year's Eve. And she started being poisoned prior to Christmas. So you look at like a week.

Do you think she also, just like trying to get into the mind of a killer, do you think she also liked the idea that everyone saw her as the doting mother who was always like watching over them and she got off on the fact that people were like, you're so kind to look after all these kids? What's it called?

Munchhausen? What's the thing? You like keep someone sick. It's like the thing from the sixth sense where you're like, oh, I don't know. You keep someone sick so that you can take care of them. Sure. Yeah.

I'm sure that it exists, that you might be Munchhausen's type. I've heard of Munchhausen's, I just don't remember what it is. Yeah, it's something like that. But no, without a doubt. There is no doubt in my mind, she was having some sort of like,

save your complex happening or, or to a degree, you know, that even though she never saved them, she killed them almost always. People always saw her as the loving, caring figure that was by their bedside every step of the way. Oh no, Munchhausen's is the one where you act,

like you're sick or have a mental illness, but you don't because you like the attention that it gets you for like, you constantly believe that you're sick. I'll try and find out what the other one is that like. Yeah, yeah. Well, we're coming towards the end of Lydia's story. So while you're research.

Munchhausen by proxy, maybe? Ah, yeah. It's induced illness by, yeah, carers. There you go. So the people that take care of them are like, you're sick and I need to take care of you. But really, they're the ones making them sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, there you go. So as I imagine it would happen to any of us, the loss of his two children sent Horatio into a severe spiral of depression. How is he not like, you did this, every single kid that you've ever had died? Like, yep, good question. Me like, you don't know.

Eventually he ended up grabbing a bunch of his, as the book put it, Cronys in left town. Cronys. Yeah, he got the bunch of his Cronys. But he was, again, he was just a drunk, he was a drunk factory worker, that he just loved drinking. And the loss of his two children

shoved him even further down that route. Eventually though, after a few weeks, he would be returned by his eldest son, by his previous marriage, Nelson, who was paid to go actually and find him by none other than Lydia. Lydia actually gave Nelson money to go find his father and bring him back home.

And he'd succeeded. He found his father, actually what he says in the book is he found his father living a life amongst low-lives, AKA, I'm sure, homeless drinking, that kind of thing, gambling, et cetera, et cetera. Crazy. Upon returning, he was almost immediately poisoned by Lydia.

Lydia. She paid Nelson to bring him home so that she could just kill him. That's what she did. And the man who would finally bring an end to her terror would arrive in a man by the name of Dr. Beardsley. Beardsley? The beard is in the name.

The dude came in and he was like, I got this. He would tend to her ratio and actually see him start to get better only to discover that every time he would come back, he had gotten worse somehow. And it didn't make any sense. And that each time he would come to tend to him, nothing he did would work.

In fact, he would continually get worse. As the symptoms were described to him, he realized it bore all the signs of arsenic poisoning. And luckily, Dr. Beardsley knew the outward signs of arsenic poisoning. Horatio was far too gone, however, when he realized that this is what was happening to Horatio. And Horatio died on May 12th, 1871,

after his death, a post-mortem was ordered by Dr. Beardsley under some massive suspicion. It was found his liver was, quote, absolutely saturated with arsenic. Insane. The bodies that were exhumed, by the way, from his family by the son after she ran off, also found the exact same thing,

arsenic in almost all, in all of them. Fearing the law had been closing in, Lydia ran. But she wouldn't last long as the, she ran to New Jersey and the cops had been alerted there in New Jersey and she would be arrested. The other family members who were exhumed had been found the exact same cause of death, arsenic poisoning, and after the trial,

Lydia was thrown into prison for life. Would have been a hanging if she was a man, however, because she was a woman, and the whole general public, at this point, mind you, the general public had been whipped into a frenzy after she had been caught and realized what was going on. Much like we see today, the newspapers were laced with just articles about this mysterious female killer,

tons of straight lies in the newspapers of the killing she'd done and just made it up to make it more sensational, so that when the people actually saw her, they were literally surprised by how plain and boring she looked. Because they thought she was gonna look like a demon or something?

Yeah, like a demon or some exotic beauty, but she was just a normal woman and that was even more fascinating to the people. However, Lydia's reign of terror did come to an end in 1871 and she lived a rather incredible life of killing. She killed, admitted to 12, I think, was the number in the end, maybe a little bit more, but we will never know how many people she killed.

All of those people who died under her care at that hospital should have their bodies exhumed. Yeah, I know, right? That's so insane. I mean, I guess it is that now, but damn. While this is insane, next week's topic, Jane Toppin, The Angel of Death, she killed so many people. She's fucked.

I've heard a little bit about her before. That is like the next level of this. She killed so many people that she couldn't even remember the details of some of them anymore and it is believed that she killed well over 100. That's insane. It's insanity. What was Tommy Patera's body count?

Believed he admitted to around 18 of them, but he talked about well over 60. Damn. Yeah. But again, a lot of his, and if you think about it, a lot of the reason he was caught, it's because he had to do something with the fucking bodies, right?

And the reason he was caught, they had to go dig up the bodies for evidence. When you're a nurse in the 1860s, murdering people, the bodies take care of themselves. Yeah, you're just like. The hospital takes care of it. Yeah. Yeah, it's nuts.

But I wanted to talk about Lydia and a little bit, kind of lay the groundwork for the 1860s for Jane Toppin because of how insane the Jane Toppin story fucking is. Is this the same time? A little after, like about a decade later. Okay. But in between, honestly, there was another killer I wanted to talk about, but I don't want to talk about

all three. There's another female serial killer that takes place just after her, who was also a nurse. However, her shtick was that she claimed to have premonitions of the people dying before they died. Oh boy. Oh boy. She would have, and every fucking person believed her.

She'd get a chill while eating dinner, and she'd be like, oh, I believe your brother's gonna get ill and never get better. And then, oh, surprise, a week later, he was dying from fucking arsenic poisoning. How did she even, that's like some, she got super cocky. She got very cocky.

Towards the end of her killing spree, she was doing shit, like just feeding the local neighborhood dog poisoning because she was annoyed with it, and everybody in town knew she didn't like the dog, and she was the only one that didn't like the dog, and she suddenly had a premonition that the dog was gonna die,

and then, oh, surprise, the dog died. Like, that was kind of like her end of the story. That is insane to me. Yeah, man. It's crazy. So, that's Lydia, that's a very quick sum up of Lydia in her life. Seems so obvious when somebody's poisoning

a shitload of people. I don't get it. And that's the thing about this particular story, too, is that the first doctor, Rosenstein, first, maybe one or two deaths, I give him a little leeway because, again, 1860s, he was really mad, like, they didn't know. Once the whole family is dead, and Lydia's alive,

but also, there's the idea of proper training and medical protocol, and none of that really existed at the time period. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong with it. That's something else we'll definitely talk about in the next episode, but with nurse training lasted like two, I think it was two years most.

Like, there's a fast, I need to watch it. I've only seen the first two episodes, but I should finish it because it was great. During this time period as well, is when pathologies and profiling and all that was coming. So, shout out to TNT for their show, The Alienist. Yeah, that show looks cool, yeah. I've only seen two episodes so far, I need to finish it.

It's like Dakota Fanning, and Luke Evans, and Dan Brule, and like, literally just, it's about the first people to really like, actually try to figure out why serial killers and why killers did what they did. And I think that's fascinating, because, and I think that's set in like, 1880? So, you know, it's one of those things that,

even at that time, they had no idea. They didn't even like, try to figure out why killers did what they did. They just assumed like, they've got bad spirits in their brain cavity. Like, no one knew, no one had a clue. There's also that Clive Owen show about medicine, like around like, in the turn of the 19th century,

20th century. Medicine is wild, man. That's, if anything, just reading this book refreshed my memory of like, history class, or just, they just had no idea what they were doing. I can't believe they didn't suspect something from this lady. I can't believe it.

From everything that I was reading, like, they should have, at least the first few deaths. Yeah, oh my God. Right. Like, they should have suspected something was going on after all the family started dying, but. So, what else is there for reasons, like, is there anything gorge liver, is there anything else?

Well, if the outward appearance is just like, tightening of the throat, incredible, endometal pains, constant vomiting until the point you're vomiting blood, diarrhea. There is nothing they could do about the pain either. Even morphine wouldn't work. Because arsenic just fucking rips you apart from the inside. That is awful.

Yeah, it is an excruciating, long, painful, one of the worst ways in the world to die. And that's Lydia. Oh my God. Oh my God. Happy notes, happy notes. I'm gonna go drink some whiskey. Holy shit.

Yeah, yeah. What fascinates me, too, about a lot of these stories of these bigger serial killers is just like, all of the coincidences that have to happen. Like, Rosenstein had to not suspect her. Bring her on as a nurse. Or he's just trying to get it in. You know what I mean?

But I was just saying, she had to have a physician that would either saw her as either an asset. He blew it. Yeah, he totally blew it. And that one could have been the turning point right then and there. But it wasn't because he either wanted to get his dick wet or whatever it was.

As much as I love that theory, I feel like he just probably wasn't a great doctor. Yeah, he probably wasn't a great doctor. But he also wanted to get some. And you have to also keep in mind, too, this is also an age where door-to-door doctors took on so many patients. So they only were in the house for a few minutes,

quickly prescribed something, and then they had somewhere else to go. It wasn't like you could go to a doctor's office and then spend however long they deemed you needed. House call doctors were in and out. But that's the episode. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you boys enjoyed the episode.

Things are gonna get a little darker in the next one. Cool. Holy shit. Yeah, a little darker and darker in the next one. Jane Toppin's early life is really funny. So I think we're gonna have a lot of fun talking about what it was like for her to live with basically as a live-in maid.

And her life is that. How she may even was broken well before she started killing. But all that stuff is stuff to talk about next episode. So usual plugs, as always. Hey, we have t-shirts, hats, and stickers, baby. Get those sexy pieces of merchandise. Yeti.com, I think slash collection slash Luminati.

So we can get the Yeti stuff. The subreddit, as always, has been coming more and more busy if you wanna talk about anything over there, stories you have or talk about all the stories people are telling or have a suggestion. There's a suggestion thread. You can head over to the Chiluminati Pod subreddit, Chiluminati Pod for Twitter as well.

Our personal Twitters are Jesse Cox for Jesse, Fasiana A for Dear Old Alex, and Mathis Games for myself. Is there anything else I'm missing, gents? I think that's it, dude. I feel good. All right. I feel good.

I wanna, I gotta look up another crazy one for levity's sake. Yeah, man. Bring on the crazy shit. We've got one more relatively heavy episode, and then we got some fun ghosty stuff coming up for that. Some Chinese ghosts. Let's go. Yeah, man.

It's gonna be great. But anyway, thank you guys so much for listening. We will return in a few weeks. Bye. Bye. Pie. Mm, good pie. Ugh, another pointless video call where nothing gets done.

I think you're on mute, David. Sorry, what did I miss? IT just approved Miro for the whole company. Miro, that's the... Online whiteboard. For team collaboration. We can make these long video meetings so much shorter with Miro boards.

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