Futility Closet - 064-Murder at the Priory

Episode Date: July 6, 2015

In 1876 London was riveted by the dramatic poisoning of a young barrister and the sordid revelations that emerged about his household. In today's show we'll review the baffling case of Charles Bravo's murder, which Agatha Christie called "one of the most mysterious poisoning cases ever recorded." We'll also get an update on career possibilities for garden hermits and puzzle over how the police know that a shooting death is not a homicide. Many thanks to Ronald Hackston for his evocative photo of The Priory, Balham, the site of Charles Bravo's unsolved 1876 poisoning. Sources for that feature: James Ruddick, Death at the Priory: Sex, Love, and Murder in Victorian England, 2001. Chirag Trivedi, "Victorian Whodunnit Solved," BBC, Jan. 13, 2003 (accessed June 28, 2015). "The Bravo Inquiry" and "The Theory of Suicide in the Bravo Case," Medical Times and Gazette, Aug. 19, 1876. Joyce Emmerson Muddock, Pages From an Adventurous Life, 1907. Listener mail: Amanda Williams, "Wanted: 'Outgoing' Hermit," Daily Mail, May 5, 2014 (retrieved July 3, 2015). Greater Manchester News, "Hermit Wanted for Historic Gardens," July 3, 2009 (retrieved July 3, 2015). "Hermit Wanted for 'Ivory Tower'," BBC, July 1, 2009 (retrieved July 3, 2015). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Sam B., who sent this corroborating link (warning: this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Enter coupon code CLOSET to get $5 off your first purchase at Harry's. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Futility Closet, a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This is the audio companion to the website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to Episode 64. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1876, London was riveted by the dramatic poisoning of a young barrister and the sordid revelations that emerged about his household. In today's show, we'll review the baffling case of Charles Bravo's murder,

which Agatha Christie called one of the most mysterious poisoning cases ever recorded. We'll also get an update on career possibilities for garden hermits and puzzle over how the police know that a shooting death is not a homicide. Our podcast is brought to you by our fantastic patrons. If you like Futility Closet and want to help support the show, check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or look for the link in our show notes. Thanks so much to everyone who helps support Futilitycloset or look for the link in our show notes. Thanks so much to everyone who helps support Futility Closet.

You are the reason we can keep on making this show. The murder of Charles Bravo. This is about as close as you're going to get to a real-life game of Clue. A young barrister was poisoned to death somehow in a mansion in South London in 1876, but under special puzzling circumstances that no one was ever charged or even arrested, and the case was never solved. Agatha Christie called it one of the most mysterious poisoning cases ever recorded, and the Scottish lawyer William Ruffhead called it the prize puzzle of British criminal jurisprudence.

And I'm certainly not going to solve it now, but I can tell you what happened. This all happened in a large mansion in South London called the Priory on the night of April 18th, 1876. I should say the man who died was named Charles Brabber. He was a 30-year-old barrister who only four months earlier had married his new wife, Florence. She was in bed in her own room with her lady's companion, a woman named Jane Cox. And he was sleeping in another room because Florence had recently miscarried and she just wanted to be on her own. So the day had passed relatively uneventfully.

The housemaid, Marianne Keeber, was just withdrawing downstairs, and Charles had gone into his own room when suddenly he came, dashing out onto the landing in his nightshirt and shouted, Florence, Florence, hot water. Florence was his wife's name. And disappeared back into his room. Hot water? Yeah.

Okay. Marianne went running back upstairs and went into Florence's room and found Florence asleep in her bed and Jane Cox sitting beside the bed knitting and said something had gone terribly wrong with Mr. Bravo. So Mrs. Cox went into Charles's room and found him at the window vomiting onto the roof.

He turned around and shouted again for hot water and then fainted. So they summoned doctors because it appeared he was in a very bad way. Altogether, eventually they're going to summon six doctors, but the first two show up named Harrison and Moore, and they examine him and find that it's very likely he's been poisoned, though it's impossible to say with what substance.

It looked like he was fatally ill, and they thought he would only live for perhaps an hour. And they said it looks like, we can't tell exactly what he's taken, but it looks like it's some kind of irritant poison such as arsenic. They asked Florence about that. She said the only rat poison she knew of was in the stables. rat poison she knew of was in the stables. So it was kind of a puzzle how he could have contrived to wind up being poisoned with no access to a poison. The doctor searched the room and found various preparations and things on the mantelpiece, but nothing nearly strong

enough to have caused these types of symptoms. Two new doctors appeared while they were doing this, so now there's four doctors, and the striking thing about this case is that the dead man doesn't die. Normally, if you poison someone, he's dead, and you can't get any more information about what happened to him. The remarkable thing here is that at about 2.45 a.m., Charles began to come to himself and opened his eyes, and in fact, would live for 55 hours in agonizing pain, but was awake and alert and could answer questions. It's like interviewing a corpse or a ghost. They could actually talk to him about what had happened.

But even with that help, the whole thing is just a complete puzzle about what must have happened. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he did was leap out of bed, apparently stricken with panic, and seemed to be trying to get out of the room. The doctors calmed him down and got him back into bed. He seemed for a while unable to comprehend his surroundings or the people around him, but eventually he sort of came fully to himself. One of the doctors, whose name was Roy's Bell, who had known him for years, said, Charles, do you know who I am? And Charles said, yes, you are Roy's.

He said, you've swallowed something. What have you taken? And Charles seemed confused and said, I rubbed my gums last night for toothache. I used laudanum. I may have swallowed some, which made perfect sense. Laudanum in Victorian times was a popular painkiller. It's basically a combination of alcohol and opium. But the other doctor said, laudanum will not explain your symptoms. You must have taken something else.

And Bravo thought for a long time here and said, no, I only swallowed laudanum. If it isn't laudanum I don't know what it is that can't be the case he must have taken laudanum in any dose won't create the symptoms that he was having he must have taken something much more irritating like arsenic but he himself didn't seem to know how he could have done that one of the things we have to consider here is that perhaps he did intend to kill himself it's possible that he deliberately drank poison and then lost his nerve and ran out on the landing to get help

and then sort of dissembled about what had actually happened. Why did he want hot water? I'm still puzzling on that. I don't know that. Okay. Possibly at the time it was thought that that was, or at least he believed that that something would help him. That would help, yeah.

No one at the time seems to have questioned that, so I guess maybe it was just that that was something appropriate to do in a situation like this. The suicide theory is tricky because Charles may have been embarrassed or felt it was a sin to have tried to kill himself, so he may have been sort of hiding that fact if it was the case, but the problem is that if he did try to sort of hiding that fact if it was the case. But the problem is that if he did try to kill himself and didn't confess it, then someone else is going to be charged with murder. So Johnson, one of the doctors, said, if you die without telling us more than we already

know, then someone will be accused of your death. And Bravo nodded and said, I am aware of that, but I've told you all I can. I've swallowed only laudanum. So the doctors are discussing the case, and if this isn't puzzling enough, now Mrs. Cox, the lady's companion, asked Belle if she can speak to him privately. He's one of the doctors. She says, I must tell you that Mr. Bravo has poisoned himself. He told me that he had taken poison when I went into the room just before he collapsed. He said to me, I have taken poison. Don't tell Florence. Then he fainted. Make of that what you will. It just sounds kind of suspicious. So Johnson

was outraged at this, went back to the sick room, and confronted Bravo. He said, Mrs. Cox tells us that you have confessed to taking poison. What is the meaning of this? And Charles said, Did I? I don't remember. Johnson said, You do not remember telling her that you have taken poison? And he said, No, I don't remember at all. I only remember taking laudanum. I rubbed it on my gums. So Bell thinks something's wrong here. Either Cox

is lying or Bravo is dissembling, but they're not getting the whole truth here. He and Charles had been best friends for a long time. He said, I knew that Charlie was the last person in the world to do something like this. He told me emphatically that he had swallowed only laudanum and I believed him. So now this heroic Dr. Bell went out through the grounds and searched the stables and the greenhouses and took away all the poisons that they did find there, and he questioned the servants one by one, but the servants can't shed any light on this either. Each of them told him the same thing. They said Bravo had seen himself the night before. The marriage, his marriage with Florence, was unhappy, which I'll get to in a second, but it didn't seem unhappy enough to cause someone to kill someone. They themselves all had good relations with both Mr. and Mrs. Bravo, and

relations between Bravo and Jane Cox had been cordial. No one could think why he'd want to kill himself, and no one could think why anyone else would want him dead. Bell said, I was not satisfied then, and I am not satisfied now. Someone in the house knew the truth. There were 11 people altogether who lived and worked in the house. The tricky thing about poison is it's very hard to investigate. Like if you kill me, we live in the same house, if you kill me with a lead pipe or a knife or a gun,

you have to have an alibi and you have to dispose of the weapon. It's just a lot trickier to accomplish that. If you poison me, you don't really need an alibi because you belong in the house naturally, and there is no weapon to dispose of because I've consumed it. So it's just a lot harder to solve these sorts of cases.

Are you trying to give me ideas in case I... Never mind. Yes. If you didn't have them already. So now, that's four doctors in the house now. Now a fifth one arrives. This is Sir William Gull, who is maybe the most distinguished physician in England.

He examined Charles and said, this is not disease. You're poisoned. Pray tell how it happened. Charles said, probably wearily at this point, laudanum. I took it myself. Gull said what everyone else said. You have taken a great deal more than laudanum, sir. It must be some kind of irritant poison like arsenic.

He said, if you reveal the name of the poison, we could try an antidote on you. Charles said nothing, closed his eyes, and turned away. Gull at this point said, well, look, we've run out of time here. There's really nothing more we can do for him. At this point, the poison has penetrated into the tissues, and he's just about certain to die. I'm guessing somebody checked the laudanum to make sure it really was laudanum? Yes. Because, I mean, that would have been, you know, switch out the laudanum for something else, you know. Good theory. But theory but no unfortunately that's not either so gold said i'm sorry we can't we can't help him and and was preparing to leave and bravo actually summoned him back into the sick room and said emphatically i wish to tell you that i have told you the truth

and nothing but the truth i have taken laudanum but i have not taken anything else goal who said later that he felt very very deeply moved at this said I am afraid that laudanum will not account for your symptoms. You must think of the gravity of your situation. You must think of all you say and do. Charles said, I know that, but I cannot tell you anything more. I have told them all that I only took laudanum, but none of them will believe me. I took it to rub on my lower jaw like this, and he feebly touched his mouth with his forefinger and said, before God, it was only laudanum. His voice cracked, and he began to weep. He says, if it wasn't laudanum, so help me God, then I don't know what it was. At this point, his system began to shut down. He made a will in his wife's favor, and that was witnessed by Dr. Bell and by the butler. At 5 a.m., he lost consciousness, and he died at 5.20 a.m.

on Friday morning after 55 hours of real agony. I guess the other thing is that laudanum can confuse you. I mean, it's a combination of alcohol and opium, and people can, like, hallucinate or be confused after taking it, so... That's possible. You know? That's true. I mean, he could, like, not remember that he did something or drank something or... Well, I can shed some light on it.

Okay. After two days, someone thought to look out on the roof where he had vomited and found that there was still some traces of the vomit that he'd turned up there when Jane Cox first discovered it. Oh, it took them two days. Wow. Anyway, the pathologist looked at that and found that what he'd swallowed, in fact, was a massive dose of tartaremedic, which is a derivative of antimony, which is an irritant poison and a very nasty one. His large intestine had virtually disintegrated, eaten away by this poison. The largest dose you can take of antimony is three grains. He had taken between 30 and 40. So the pathologist, Payne, said it must have been an agonizing death.

He also said, I am certain that Mr. Bravo was not poisoned during the evening meal because he would have been violently illicitly taken. Also, everyone else at the table had been eating the same food. He'd partaken of the burgundy alone, but that would have been clouded by the antimony. Okay. So we know the weapon now, but we don't know who had delivered it. Or how. Or how.

Well, they figured out finally how. Marianne thought, the housemaid thought, realized that the last thing, his habit was the last thing he did before getting into bed was to drink out of this water jug in his bedroom. Okay. And other people who lived with him elsewhere previously said that that was just how, that's just something he did. And it turns out, for any aspiring poisoners out there, water is the only thing you can actually dissolve anemone in that will dissolve it and where it'll be tasteless.

So it seems very likely that what had happened was that he had drunk, he'd retired for the night, say goodnight to everyone,

drank from the water jug and then immediately became ill because he drank a huge dose of this irritant poison. And he thought

it was just water so he didn't bother mentioning it to anybody because it was just water. Because he didn't taste

anything. So that, as far as that goes, it explains exactly what killed him. He was poisoned with anemone. Do you have any idea how easy it is to get a hold of anemone or how many people would know that it dissolves So as far as that goes, it explains exactly what killed him. He was poisoned with antimony.

Do you have any idea how easy it is to get a hold of antimony or how many people would know that it dissolves well in water? Like, is that a tricky thing? Yes and no. There's some clue about at least one source of it, but I'll get to that in one second. Okay. The question is who did it. So it seems like someone put 30 or 40 grains of anemone in his water jug.

Okay. But there are at least five people who might have done that. There's no way to tell which one it was. To begin with, again, it might have been Charles himself. He might have tried to kill himself. He was unfortunately not a nice man. He didn't seem like the type to try to protect other people or to keep a secret, especially in circumstances like that.

So he might have had some personal reason not to speak. William Goll, this distinguished physician, said, I saw not the slightest indication in his manner that he ever suspected anyone of poisoning him. He did not behave like a man who thought he was being murdered. So his theory was that Charles had taken the poison, lost his nerve, and called for help, told Jane Cox the truth, but then lied to everyone else, which is possible. He said, I can only speak of what I saw. Mr. Bravo was indifferent to his plight.

If I were to tell a man that he was dying of poison and he showed no surprise, then that would lead me to think that he knew it already. But then it's not clear why Charles would tell Jane Cox and then tell everyone else something else and why he would hide the truth. Yeah, and he might have surmised he was dying of poison, so it wasn't a big surprise. I mean, and if you're in agony, you might be thinking, okay, let me just die already. Yes. Some of the other main suspects are his wife, Florence, who had inherited a huge amount of money,

40,000 pounds from her first husband. This was her second marriage. At a time when the average couple lived on 30 pounds a year. And shortly before the wedding, she had invoked this new law that let her keep control of the money. Normally in Victorian times, her fortune would have gone under his control, which made him very angry. He said, I cannot contemplate a marriage that does not make me master in my own house. So they fought over money. They also fought over sex. Apparently, he very badly wanted children so badly, in fact, that she had miscarried twice in two months,

and he was pressing her to try again. And she thought a third pregnancy might kill her. and he was pressing her to try again, and she thought a third pregnancy might kill her. So if that's sufficient motive for murder, then that's one possibility. Also, she was one of the few people who, you know, had access to his bedroom and could conceivably have put the poison in the water jug if she wanted to. Another suspect is Jane Cox, the lady's companion, who was under threat of dismissal. She was very close to Florence, and he was kind of jealous of that and wanted to just fire her. He thought she was too expensive. And she didn't have the benefit of Florence's huge fortune.

She was just a woman in Victorian England who has very little resources to fall back on. She had three sons, and so she was very concerned about her position. So conceivably, she might have wanted to see him dead for that reason. very concerned about her position. So conceivably she might have wanted to see him dead for that reason. Another suspect is James Gulley, who was a physician, celebrated Victorian physician. His patients included Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale, the Prime Ministers Disraeli and Gladstone, and Charles Darwin. Florence had had an affair with him before throwing him over to be with Charles.

So he was jealous himself. This is all very complicated. Also, you can mix and match these people, too. Yeah. This Dr. Gully had been seen in town at least five times with Jane Cox when previously he had sworn that he would never talk to her again. So there's all kinds of skullduggery and stuff. It's hard to know.

It might not even be that one person is the guilty party here. It could be some conspiracy or some combination of them. Agatha Christie favored the idea that he was the one who had done it. And the last one, this is sort of my favorite one because he's so floridly guilty. The police traced the antimony, this goes back to what you were asking before, to a chemist in Streatham who had sold a large quantity of tartar emetic to George Griffiths, who had been a coachman at the Priory before Charles had fired him. Charles fired him for getting into a road accident.

He had bought the antimony to use it to worm horses, which is a legitimate reason for using antimony, and he kept it in the stables. But he was overheard after he'd been fired saying that Mr. Bravo would be dead in a few months, and he said that like four months before Mr. Bravo was dead. He's just got this blinking neon sign. So he has the motive and the weapon, but unfortunately he doesn't seem to have the opportunity. He doesn't have any way to get in there. He would have had to have conspired with somebody else.

So all of this came out in a huge, this is one of the most sensational criminal trials in Victorian history. The Times called the inquest the most disgusting exhibition to have been witnessed in this generation. Because all these horrible secrets of naughty business among the upper classes was coming out into public view. All these infidelities and hatreds and crimes

actually. So they did two inquests. The first one delivered an open verdict and the second one returned a verdict of willful murder. They said someone contrived to get a huge fatal amount of poison into charles bravo's water jug but there's just not an evidence to pin this on anyone so not only did they not charge anyone they didn't even arrest anyone and the whole thing kind of everyone whose life was going to this basically died even apart from charles i mean just the whole thing fell apart uh his wife died only two years later of alcohol poisoning. Dr. Gulley sort of shrank back into Austria because his reputation was just

ruined. It was just complete ruination for everyone who was involved in it. But they never did get to the bottom of it. And it seems accurate that the conclusion of the inquest is correct, that someone deliberately killed Charles Bravo in 1876, but to this day, no one knows who it was. This episode is brought to you by our patrons and by Harry's, who remind you that for many of us, shaving is a pain. It's uncomfortable, you get nicks, cuts, and razor burn if you don't have good blades,

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In episode 61, Greg told us about how some 18th century British landowners would hire garden hermits to live in primitive solitude on their estates. Fred Carnes wrote in and said, I enjoyed your account of 18th century hermits. This practice has not entirely died out. I was reminded of an advertisement that appeared in the late 20th century appealing for a volunteer to be a hermit at a stately home for a period of three years, as I recall. Fred looked for the ad he was thinking of on the internet and didn't find it, but he did find some more recent articles about places that were hiring hermits. Good. Yay, the hermit profession still lives. Good. The BBC reported that the Manchester Museum was looking for a hermit to live for eight weeks in the summer of 2009 in complete isolation in its ivory tower. The BBC said that the hermit would have to spend the entire eight weeks at the top of a spooky 120-year-old tower.

and 20-year-old tower. He or she would be expected to have deep thoughts on topical issues and further would be expected in the eight weeks to create a piece of art that would reflect those thoughts. So somewhat stiffer requirements than a traditional garden hermit. Yeah, but you get a tower.

You do get a tower. You do get a tower. And I guess museum hermits would have more expected of them than garden hermits. The director of the museum was quoted as saying, It'll take a particular type of person to be up there on their own during the day, and particularly at night, I think,

because a museum and a gothic tower can be a bit creepy. I wouldn't like to be doing it myself. Fair enough. There was another opening for a professional hermit in 2009, and this one was in Tatton Park, a historic estate in Cheshire, England. The Manchester Evening News reported that the job of garden hermit was now suddenly available after being vacant for the last 150 years. The head gardener at Tatton had decided that he wanted a hermit to reside in his Hermit's Grotto garden for the Royal Horticultural Society flower show. So it looked like this hermit would only actually be needed for five days, which isn't really very long. But during the five days, the hermit would

need to present what the Manchester Evening News called an unkempt natural appearance. And the applicant would also have to take a vow of silence for the entire duration. The last requirement was that the hermit must be able to live alongside an iconic skull at the mouth of an underground labyrinth, the skull being an essential addition to the hermit's environment to encourage human reflection. In order to apply for this job, applicants were told to send an email or call a hermit hotline. Oh, good. And say why they would make a perfect hermit.

It does honestly sound sort of like some of this connects back to the traditions, you know, from the 18th century. Like, it's not a totally new thing. They're just reviving an old... Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. And there have been even more recent job openings for hermits, even more recent than 2009, if somewhat oxymoronic ones. According to the Daily Mail, in 2014, a Swiss council was looking to hire a more socially outgoing hermit,

if such a thing exists. Yeah, that's a vivid order. This one was going to live in a hermitage at the Verena Gorge. This particular hermit would need to both like solitude but also enjoy meeting people and be prepared to dispense wisdom to the various visitors to the cavern. Apparently the previous hermit, who was the first woman to hold the position in its 600 years, so this one goes back 600 years, she stepped down after five years in part because she was disturbed by the flow of visitors to the area. So maybe she was more of a hermit than they were looking for.

Right, exactly. So they just needed a more extroverted hermit. According to the Daily Mail, the other job qualifications for this specific position are a desire to tend a small garden and the teaching of a meditation class three times a week. It sounds like if I were willing to travel, I could make a career out of it. Right? Because they're all relatively short gigs. They're just... That's true.

You could string them together. Well, no, this one, they wanted you to do it for several years. I mean, the previous woman had done it for five, and the person before her had done it for 25 years. I mean, you actually live there, and you're kind of cut off from the rest of the world, except this one, you got to teach meditation classes and dispense wisdom to whoever strolls by. So kind of some specific requirements depending on the job. It sounds like you wanted the ivory tower one though. We also heard from a number of listeners recently about our feature on the German author Karl May.

But there was so much to say on that topic that I'm going to need to be covering that in a separate segment next week. So tune in for that. And thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. If you have any questions or comments, you can send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. All right. I'm going to be trying to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg's going to give me an interesting-sounding situation, and I have to figure out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is contributed by listener Sam B.

A man is found shot dead in an open field. No gun is found near him, but police are able to determine that he was not murdered. How did he die? He was not murdered. In an open field. Okay, does this matter where it is? No. Okay, this is a human adult male? Yes.

He's alone? Yes. There were no other people nearby? He was shot dead, but no gun is found. That's right. Shot dead. Was he shot with a gun? Yes.

He was shot with a gun. He was shot with a gun, but he wasn't murdered. That's right. They believe he committed suicide? Yes. But there's no gun. No gun is found near him,

but police are able to determine that he was not murdered. Do they find a gun somewhere else? Yes. They do. The gun that they believe shot him. Yes. Okay.

A man is... So how do you shoot yourself and get rid of a gun? Is that the gist of what I'm trying to solve here? Yes. Was he on ice? No. The classic ice suicide. No, no, no.

Because then the ice melted and the gun sank to the bottom of the pond. Oh, yeah. That's a perfectly honorable question. I'm just trying to think how you could get rid of a gun. Okay. So, okay. Do I need to know anything else about his suicide other than he shot himself with a gun? I do need to know something else about the suicide.

Do I need to know? Yeah, yes, you do. Did I ask already? Do I need to know what kind of gun it was? No, you didn't, but no, you don't. I don't need to know what kind of gun it was. So I don't need to know anything more about the gun. I do need to know something more about the gun.

Other than its location, I need to know the location of the gun. Yes, let's say that. Yes, okay, but I don't need to know anything else more about the gun itself um maybe i do kind of do i kind of do oh so i need to know what what kind of gun it is no no something else about the gun had he done something to the gun to customize it or change it or. He had done something to the gun. Okay. To allow him to kill himself more easily? No.

To allow him to dispose of the gun? Yes. Is there a reason? Like, do I need to know the reason why he didn't want them to find the gun? Um, there is a reason and it might be nice to know it, but you don't really have to figure that out. Do I need to know why he was committing suicide? No. And I already asked, I don't need to know where this is right right okay this could be anywhere pretty much yeah okay um okay so it's not like the top of a mountain or outer space yeah no no outer space you let the gun float off okay um okay so so this all turns on i need to figure out what he did to get rid of the gun?

That's right. Okay. So he used the gun to shoot himself. That's right. And then the gun removed itself from the scene somehow. Yes. Was there any animals involved? No.

Okay. And no other people involved? That's right. Okay. there any animals involved no okay and no other people involved that's right okay but he did something to the gun to allow the gun to remove itself from the scene somehow yes okay um would you say this involves electronics no anything involving wheels no little remote control robot thing um and no animals involved you could train a pigeon to swoop in and take the gun um or a dog um okay uh so how would you shoot yourself was it after he was dead that the gun left the scene yes okay so he he's dead so he's not doing anything and the gun leaves the scene yes on its own somehow yes okay is there something else involved

i mean there's got to be something on the gun with the gun yes yes yes and guns don't go off take off by themselves but you said it's nothing electronic or involving wheels, anything that would need like power, like batteries or anything like that. Okay. Trying to think what to ask. So, okay. Did it leave on land? Did it like travel across land?

No. Did it leave on water? No. Did it leave in the air yes okay and you said there are no animals involved um uh and there's nothing involved using power so he like tied it to a kite or something uh or something or something. Or something, yeah. Or something. Something that would float? Yes. A balloon! A balloon! A balloon! He tied a gun to a balloon?

This actually happened. This actually happened? In 2008, Sam sent a news story, which I will now read. A man who tried to fake his own kidnap and murder was found out when he failed to attach enough helium balloons to the gun he used to shoot himself with. Copying an episode of hit TV show CSI Crime Scene Investigation, Thomas Hickman tied helium balloons to the gun so it would float away and look like someone else had done it.

The Red Lobster Seafood restaurant chain executive drove from Texas into New Mexico and put gaffer tape over his mouth before shooting himself in the head. and put gaffer tape over his mouth before shooting himself in the head. But the giveaway to his suicide was the bundle of white helium balloons with a gun still attached found snagged on bushes and cactus near Mr. Hickman's body. The grip of the Smith & Wesson air weight had been removed and the trigger guard ground down. Lieutenant Rick Anglata of New Mexico State Police said he took as much weight off as he could to make it as light as possible. The gun and balloons led police from that field back to Mr. Hickman's house in Dallas. This was apparently an elaborate attempt to make it look like he was murdered, Lieutenant Anglato

said. Investigators were able to show that he purchased the balloons and purchased the gun. We also found shavings from the gun in his garage. The investigator obtained a copy of an October 2003 episode of the television drama CSI Crime Scene Investigation and noticed that there were several similarities between that show and Mr. Hickman's case. Mr. Hickman had recently lost money on the stock exchange. He leaves a wife and son. So was this like so they could get insurance money or something? Presumably, yeah. He wanted to kill himself, but I'm guessing then wanted his family to be able to get the

insurance money. Wow. Which they wouldn't get if his suicide were known. Who do we thank for that? Sam Bee. Thank you, Sam Bee. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to use, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's another episode for us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, check out our books on

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If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and produced by Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.