Futility Closet - 261-The Murder of Lord William Russell

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from a self-directed execution to Lewis Carroll's nighttime alphabet. This is episode 261. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In May 1840, London was scandalized by the murder of Lord William Russell, who'd been found in his bed with his throat cut. The evidence seemed to point to an intruder, but suspicion soon fell on Russell's valet. In today's show, we'll follow the investigation and trial, and the late revelation that decided the case.

Starting point is 00:00:47 We'll also marvel at Ireland's greenery, and puzzle over a foiled kidnapping. In the early morning of May 6, 1840, a frantic housemaid ran out the front door of No. 14 Norfolk Street, London, and began pulling at the bells of nearby houses. As servants answered the doors, she begged them to summon the police and a surgeon. She told one, The word spread quickly through the city. The dead man was Lord William Russell, uncle of the Duke of Bedford and of Lord John Russell, who would later become prime minister. By noon, word had reached Buckingham Palace. The 20-year-old Queen Victoria wrote in her diary, this is really too horrid. It is almost an unparalleled thing for a person of Russell's

Starting point is 00:01:38 rank to be killed like that. It certainly was. Russell appeared to have been murdered in his bed. His throat had been cut so deeply that his head had been nearly severed. The motive seemed to be robbery. It appeared that the killer had been ransacking the house when he had taken fright and fled out the front door. and had withdrawn to his home in the respectable Mayfair district. He was growing deaf and had to wear a truss, but he was still actively interested in the worlds of art and scholarship. The house in Norfolk Street was large enough to accommodate his books and art, but small enough to be run by two women servants and a valet. The women were a housemaid, Sarah Manser, and a cook, Mary Hannell.

Starting point is 00:02:22 The man was François Benjamin Courvoisier, a Swiss immigrant who'd been on the job only five weeks, but who had come with high recommendations from his previous employers. The previous day had seemed ordinary enough. Russell had gone out to pay some calls, then went to his club. He came home just before six, walked the dog, and dined alone. He spent the evening in the back drawing room and went to bed between 11 and 12. The only irregularity was that Courvoisier, the valet, had neglected to send a coach to pick up his master from the club. When he finally arrived by hackney cab, the cook and the maid thought they heard him upbraiding the valet for this, but Courvoisier told them, quote,

Starting point is 00:02:54 his lordship was angry at first, but good-tempered afterwards. I soon persuaded him that the mistake had been entirely his own. The housemaid had supper alone with Courvoisier, who she said seemed out of temper. He said he couldn't understand why either of the women had stayed so long in Russell's service. He said, I shall not remain in it long. His lordship is too fussy. And he scandalized her by saying, Billy is a rum old chap. If I had half his money, I wouldn't remain long in England. That night, Courvoisier volunteered to fetch some beer for the cook to drink with her supper, the first time he'd done so. In fact, he gave some to both of them. The housemaid slept soundly that night, but on going downstairs in the morning, she found the house in disarray. She ran upstairs and

Starting point is 00:03:33 found she had to shake the cook in order to wake her. She told her to get up and dress. When she knocked on the valet's door, he opened it at once, fully dressed. She said, I have found all the silver lying about in the dining room. Do you know anything of what happened last night? She said he looked very pale, but gave no answer, and she followed him downstairs. He didn't seem to be listening to her, but went down to the bottom level, where the chaos was even worse. He said, my God, someone has been robbing us. Something about his behavior seemed strange, and with a sense of foreboding, she cried out, for God's sake, let's go and see where his lordship is.

Starting point is 00:04:07 Courvoisier went into Russell's room without knocking. Instead of going to the bed, he just gestured at it, said, There he is, and moved toward the windows. In the darkness, the housemaid could see only the outline of Russell's body. Knowing he was deaf, she said loudly, My lord, my lord. At that moment, Courvoisier opened the shutters, and she saw that a bloody towel was spread over her master's face and a bloody pillow thrust behind his head. She screamed and ran downstairs and into the street, calling for help.

Starting point is 00:04:35 When she returned to the house, Courvoisier was sitting abstractedly at the dining room table. She said, what the devil do you sit there for? Why don't you do something or get a doctor? He said, I must write to Mr. Russell, meaning Russell's son. But she could see he'd written only about three words, and soon he retreated to his pantry. The coachman and a neighbor's footman later found him there, sitting with his face in his hands. He said, oh my God, what shall I do? I shall never get another situation. He said he was sure that people would think that he'd committed the crime. But when the parish constable arrived, he did stir himself and start to cooperate.

Starting point is 00:05:03 He said, we have been robbed. Here's where they came in. He indicated that the door into the backyard had been damaged, and in the backyard, a ladder stood against the wall. The murder had been conducted with surprising skill. Russell's carotid artery had been severed, apparently while he'd been sleeping. That should have sprayed everything nearby with blood, including the killer, but when Inspector John Tedman asked Courvoisier to show him his hands and forearms, there were no suspicious marks or stains and no blood on his clothing. Where the killing had been skillful, the theft had been remarkably clumsy. The intruder seemed to have stolen some items but left behind even more obviously valuable ones. It was as if two people had been in the house, a smart killer and a stupid thief.

Starting point is 00:05:40 Further, the disarray in the lower floors seemed suspicious. The inspector was sure that the condition of the back door had been contrived to suggest a forced entry, and that the front door had been unlocked and some objects piled just inside to suggest that the robber had been alarmed and fled that way. Despite this, it seemed clear that robbery had been the motive, because all of Russell's money was gone. And he made one last discovery. In the sideboard in the dining room, he found four carving knives, and one of them bore a small, rust-colored stain just where the blade joined the handle.

Starting point is 00:06:10 An inquest was opened the following morning. The coroner and 12 jurors viewed the body and toured the house. They concluded pretty quickly that the death couldn't have been suicide, both because of the violence of the act and because no weapon was to hand. They returned an immediate verdict of willful murder against some person or persons unknown, and suspicion settled pretty quickly on Benjamin Courvoisier. As police searched the house, some of the missing valuables began to come to light, hidden in places that were most accessible to the valet. He had been confined to the house since the murder had been discovered, and it appeared that he'd been trying to hide the loot even while under police observation.

Starting point is 00:06:43 Courvoisier maintained his innocence and said he had no idea why the thief had hidden these items around the house, but the evidence continued to mount that this had been an inside job. Scratches were discovered on the pantry windowsill, indicating that someone had climbed out of the window in order to break in at the door. And using the primitive forensics of the day, the authorities agreed that the carving knife had been the murder weapon. By the end of the search, the inspector decided that he had enough evidence to arrest Benjamin Courvoisier. The investigation seemed to show that he had left his master, settled for the night, and gone downstairs,

Starting point is 00:07:12 where he disordered the rooms and damaged the back door while he waited for Russell to fall asleep. Then he'd taken a knife from the sideboard, made his way upstairs, and killed his master. After he returned the knife to the dining room, he'd collected the valuables he wanted, hid them on the premises, and gone back to his own room. That picture was pretty compelling, but the evidence was entirely circumstantial, and the bulkiest of the stolen objects, 14 silver forks and spoons, were still missing. And there remained the puzzle of the blood. If Courvoisier had cut his master's throat, how had he managed to do it without getting any blood on his own clothing? Courvoisier was charged formally and remanded in custody.

Starting point is 00:07:47 At 14 Norfolk Street, the search went on, but the missing table silver seemed to have vanished. The search extended to local pawnbrokers and metal merchants, but there was no sign of it, no indication of when it had gone missing, and no proof that the valet was responsible. During the six weeks between the arrest and the opening of the trial, the murder was the talk of London, and betting ran high on the outcome. The diarist Charles Greville wrote that the case, quote, frightened all London out of its wits. Visionary servants and air-drawn razors or carving knives dance before everyone's imagination, and half the world go to sleep expecting to have their throats cut before morning.

Starting point is 00:08:20 Courvoisier would be represented by Charles Phillips, and John Adolphus would be counsel for the Crown. Adolphus wrote in his diary, I have not the slightest doubt of the wretch's guilt, but many are of the opinion that the jury will not convict on circumstantial evidence. In his opening argument, Adolphus said the crime couldn't have been committed by a burglar because the marks on the backyard door and the doorpost had been made by someone inside the house, not outside it. The backyard was surrounded by a high wall that had recently been whitewashed, and it showed no signs of having been scaled. Also, interestingly, a footman at the house next door pointed out that it hadn't rained in some time, and so dust had collected on top of the wall, and this hadn't been disturbed. Adolphus also argued that Courvoisier's

Starting point is 00:08:59 behavior on the morning of the murder wasn't consistent with innocence. He'd gone to open the shutters in Russell's room and allowed a maidservant to wake him, and some of the stolen items had been found in his pantry. The housemaid testified that on more than one occasion she'd seen Courvoisier looking into his lordship's property, not in one room but all over the house. She said she'd drunk a small amount of the beer he'd supplied and felt very drowsy, and she'd had considerable difficulty rousing the cook the next day, who'd had considerably more. But all of this was circumstantial. Courvoisier's lawyer, Charles Phillips, said, The prosecution has no case beyond suspicion, and they cannot carry it further.

Starting point is 00:09:34 In the London clubs, the betting tended to favor Courvoisier's acquittal. It was possible that he was guilty of theft, but not of murder. Since the silver was missing, he might have acted with an accomplice, who perhaps had been the actual murderer. The defense called various of Courvoisier's past employers to serve as character witnesses. And now a very dramatic thing happened. While the trial had gone on, a man named Joseph Vincent had read an account of it in a French newspaper in a hotel off Leicester Square. He showed the story to Charlotte Puleyn, the manager of the hotel, and she remembered that some weeks earlier a man had given her a parcel, 18 inches long, wrapped in brown paper, and asked her to hold it for him. The man was Benjamin Courvoisier, and the parcel contained the missing

Starting point is 00:10:13 silver. Charlotte Puleyn went to the authorities and identified Courvoisier in the prison yard. This was a thunderbolt coming so late in the trial. The great criminal lawyer Sir Harry Poland wrote later that he couldn't recall a single other instance in the history of English courts where such conclusive evidence was produced on the final day of a capital trial. Courvoisier's lawyer had been planning to make his address to the jury that morning. This new evidence was not just a catastrophe for his case, but an immediate and grave ethical challenge for him. Courvoisier asked to see him and admitted that the parcel contained the missing silver and that it was he who had deposited it with Madame Piolein.

Starting point is 00:10:46 This was tantamount to admitting that there had been no accomplice in the house on the night of Russell's murder, and if Corvoisier himself had disposed of the missing silver, then all the evidence pointed to him as the murderer. Unfortunately, he didn't admit this in so many words. Phillips wrote much later, Up to that morning I believed most firmly in his innocence, and so did others as well as myself. When I could speak, which was not immediately, I said, Phillips wrote, My position at this moment was, I believe, without parallel in the annals of the profession. How could he present a conscientious defense when he couldn't honestly tell the jury that his client was innocent? Miserably, Phillips approached one of the judges for his advice. Even this violated his client's confidence and put the judge, Baron Park, in a very painful position. Park told him

Starting point is 00:11:34 that since the prisoner did not intend to relieve him of the defense, he must go on with it and, quote, use all fair arguments arising on the evidence. Madame Piolein testified that Corvoisier had given her the parcel. Phillips tried lamely to denigrate her hotel and to suggest that she was after the reward of 50 pounds that had been offered for discovery of the missing property. But the prosecution called a succession of witnesses to confirm that the items in the parcel did indeed belong to Russell, and Russell's art dealer even identified the brown paper. Regrettably, Phillips made a speech in which he said, the omniscient God alone knows who did this crime. The best defense that can be made of this is that he'd prepared his remarks before learning that his client was guilty and had little time to amend

Starting point is 00:12:13 them, but still they come very close to being an outright falsehood. He spoke for three hours in defense of his client, but the case was now hopeless. The jury took only an hour and 25 minutes to find Courvoisier guilty, and the judge sentenced him to death. Some people claimed that this was a miscarriage of justice, still convinced by Courvoisier's winning personality and good reputation, the lack of bloodstains on his clothing, and the late production of the clinching evidence. But in fact, Courvoisier confessed to the murder. He had intended at first only to rob Russell. He had stolen the silver and taken it to the hotel, but on the night of the murder, as he was faking a robbery in the lower part of the house, Russell came downstairs unexpectedly and saw him. He said he would discharge him from his service and publicize

Starting point is 00:12:52 what had happened. Courvoisier sat in the kitchen and realized that the only way to prevent this was by murder, so he took a knife from the dining room, went upstairs, and killed the old man while he slept. So he was indeed guilty. The execution gripped London just as the trial had. Ballads were composed about the crime, and Courvoisier's hanging at Newgate was attended by 40,000 people, including Charles Dickens and William Thackeray, both of whom used it to inveigh against capital punishment. Afterward, Madame Tussaud made a waxwork from Courvoisier's plaster death mask. The puzzle of the blood was not resolved until the very end. At the last moment, Courvoisier revealed to an undersheriff how he had managed to cut a man's throat without getting

Starting point is 00:13:29 any stain on his clothing. He had committed the murder in the nude. He had removed his clothing, crept naked into Russell's bedroom, cut his throat, then gone to the basement to wash before donning his clothes again. Interestingly, this had actually been witnessed on the night of the murder. A nobleman had happened to look out from the house across the street and seen a naked man bearing a lighted candle go by a window. The nobleman hadn't come forward because he'd been visiting a married woman. Apparently, number 14 wasn't the only house on Norfolk Street that held a secret that night. We discussed the topic of political colors in episode 255 and how, unlike the U.S., many countries have several major political parties,

Starting point is 00:14:20 each with its own color. Meredith Raley wrote, Hi, Greg and Sharon. You were talking about political party colors and how they can be confusing. political parties, each with its own color. Meredith Raley wrote, Hi, Greg and Sharon. You were talking about political party colors and how they can be confusing. In Ireland, three parties all claim green as their party color, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, and green. And Meredith included some pronunciation help for the Irish parties, including that green is pronounced, mm, green. Newer parties tend not to choose names in the Irish language. She also sent an article from the Irish Times on some recent local elections and said,

Starting point is 00:14:51 as you can see in this graphic, each party has to have a different shade of green assigned to them. So that's not confusing at all. The article shows how many seats each party won in the elections, using eight colors, including the three shades of green. It is rather more interesting to look at than the U.S. is just red and blue and makes our system seem rather simplistic in comparison. I wondered how many political parties Ireland has and learned that it does have even more than just those eight parties, just like the U.S. does actually have more than two parties, just some of those parties don't tend to win many elections. does actually have more than two parties, just some of those parties don't tend to win many elections. A Wikipedia article shows 12 Irish political parties that have at least one member

Starting point is 00:15:29 in the Oireachtas, the Irish legislature. So that got me wondering how many parties we actually have in the U.S. besides the two that we always hear about. Wikipedia has a list of over 60 currently active political parties in the U.S., although several of them seem to be primarily active only in some specific area, such as one state or Puerto Rico. Some of them, such as the Libertarian and Green parties, I was familiar with, as they do put up candidates in many elections. But most of them I was not familiar with, including the Rent is Too Damn High party, which apparently is primarily active in the state of New York, and the United States Marijuana Party, which actually has sometimes managed to get a candidate for the U.S. Congress on a ballot in a couple of states, which really isn't that easy for minor parties to do in the U.S.

Starting point is 00:16:15 The colors of the United States Marijuana Party are listed as red, white, blue, and green, which would make showing them on an election results graphic a little tricky, while the rent is too damn high party doesn't seem to have any official party color that I could find. And as of August 8th, when I was looking into this, the composition of the U.S. Congress is 530 members who are Democrats or Republicans, three independents with no official party affiliation, and two vacant seats. So really not nearly as diverse as many other countries. No, that's interesting. We don't even have that many independents. No.

Starting point is 00:16:50 We have discussed how age is reckoned in South Korea in episodes 155 and 161, after it was the answer to the puzzle in episode 152 about how a child who'd been born yesterday could be called two years old. In South Korea, children are considered to be one when they are born, and their age advances on January 1st each year, so that a child born on December 31st will be called two years old the very next day. Vicki Berryman from Sydney, Australia wrote, Hi Sharon, Greg, and Sasha. I love the podcast.

Starting point is 00:17:21 It entertains me on my commute and work travel, and I always feel like I learn something new and interesting. I found the story on Korean age conventions fascinating and recently read, with interest, this article about an MP in South Korea introducing a bill to adopt Western age conventions in line with other Asian countries who have changed in the past. Thanks again for the fascinating content. And Vicky sent a link to an article from The Guardian from June titled, South Korea Mulls Ending Arcane Age System to Match Rest of World. The Guardian notes that many South Koreans currently give both their Korean age and

Starting point is 00:17:58 their international age when asked how old they are by non-Koreans. Hwang Jung-hong, a member of South Korea's National Assembly, has recently introduced a bill to require using the international age for all official documents and encouraging its use in all other respects, noting that currently the international age is used in some places, such as hospitals and courts, while the Korean age is used in people's daily lives, leading to what he termed a lot of confusion and inconvenience. Hwang has said that his bill has widespread support among both members of the National Assembly and the public,

Starting point is 00:18:32 and said that parents of babies who are born in December worry that their children are at a disadvantage when they are mixed in with kids who are actually significantly older than they are. Hwang also noted that South Korea is behind other Asian countries such as China, Japan, and North Korea in changing from its traditional age system to the more common international one. An article on CNN states that the Korean age system has its origins in the traditional Chinese system, as the Chinese language was once widely used in Korea and

Starting point is 00:19:01 influenced the modern Korean language. That article says that in traditional Chinese and Korean, a baby is said to be in its first year, starting at birth, similar to how we usually regard the years 0 to 100 as the first century, rather than the 0 century, and why we call the 1900s the 20th century. A Korean child is then said to be in its second year, starting at the new year. And I guess that does make some sense, though I usually find that I have to stop and think for a second to remember that the 20th century refers to the 1900s. Me too. I think a lot of people do. It's funny, I was just researching this story I just told about William Russell. He died at age

Starting point is 00:19:40 73, but contemporaneous sources tend to say he died in his 73rd year, thinking that means the same thing, but it doesn't. If you're 73 years old, you're in your 74th year. Ah. Because for the first year of your life, you weren't yet one. Yeah. If you're one year old, you're in your second year. Yeah. It's a small thing, but it's common.

Starting point is 00:19:59 And I should note that while the CNN article states that the Chinese system is the basis for the Korean age system, some other sources I read said that the origins are not really clear. But whatever the origins are, the Korean system results in some South Koreans trying to plan their pregnancies so they won't have babies born late in the year or waiting to register a baby's birth until January to avoid putting their child at a disadvantage with its age cohorts. So while some express reluctance at being forced to give up a part of Korea's traditional culture,

Starting point is 00:20:29 others would like to see the system changed. But it seems that the South Korean legislature has been deadlocked recently on some other issues, and so the National Assembly hasn't been considering other legislation, meaning that it's likely that Hwang will have to try again next year to get his bill considered. And while I was looking up a little bit about the South Korean National Assembly, I saw that currently two major political parties, the Democratic and the Liberty Korea, hold about 80% of its 300 seats, but that there are five other parties also represented in the legislature, in addition to a few independent members. So not counting the gray for independence, that's seven colors for the South Korean legislature.

Starting point is 00:21:10 While I was looking into the topic of Korean ages, I came across an oddly related legal case here in the US. A Pennsylvania man was given a life sentence for murder 27 years ago, but is now contending that he was actually only 17 when he committed the crime, and thus a minor, rather than the 18 that he was thought to be because he was originally from South Korea. So the story here is that in 1992, Todd Hyung-Rae Tarselli pleaded guilty to repeatedly shooting the 17-year-old night manager of a fast food restaurant that Tarselli was robbing. But Tarselli is now claiming that although everyone, himself included, thought he was 18,

Starting point is 00:21:50 and thus legally an adult at the time of the murder, he came to realize that he was actually only 17 at the time, after seeing a TV documentary on Asian culture while in prison and learning about the South Korean age system. Tarselli says that he entered a South Korean orphanage on November 14, 1979, and told the officials there that he was six years old. As they didn't know his specific birth date, the orphanage listed it as November 14, 1973. If Tarselli had given his Korean age as six, but actually had been only five by Western standards when he entered the orphanage, then he would have been 17 when he committed the murder. While his conviction would

Starting point is 00:22:30 still stand, he would need to be resentenced, as juvenile murderers can't receive mandatory life sentences as Tarcelli did. He'd still be looking at a sentence of 35 years to life, but that could be an improvement on his current life sentence without parole. Tarcelli did acknowledge that he's known about this possible age discrepancy since at least 1998, but didn't take any legal action until recently. And the prosecutors pointed out that there isn't any evidence that his age was calculated differently, only speculation that it could have been. The judge who heard this case decided not to rule on it immediately in order to give each side more time to file briefs detailing their arguments, so I don't know the final outcome. I just thought it was really interesting to hear that this case was even being made.

Starting point is 00:23:13 And it seemed to me that since no one knows Tarselli's real birthday, this could work in the other direction too, and he could actually be up to almost a year older than they think. If he said he was six on November 14th when he was taken to the orphanage, for all anyone knows, he might have been about to turn seven the next day. But by being given that date as his birth date, he could have lost as much as almost a full year off of his age. Or it could be as he claims, and he really was five by Western standards. Though it seems to me that that would mean assuming that the South Korean orphanage hadn't taken their own country's age system into account when assigning

Starting point is 00:23:49 his birth year. Yeah, the whole thing is unfortunately really important, these tiny questions, you know? I mean, he was only, even if he was six, you're relying on a six-year-old to know exactly how old he was. You know, the whole thing was kind of tenuous back then, but it has huge important consequences now. Right, that's true. But it does seem to me that in any case, age is actually somewhat arbitrary in any system that you pick. In all of them, you gain a whole year of age when the clock strikes midnight at some date during the year. So while the legal system makes a big distinction between certain ages, it's not like people suddenly gain a significant amount of extra maturity or cognitive development between the day before they're 18 and the day they turn 18. So in any of these systems, there is a certain amount of arbitrariness and,

Starting point is 00:24:34 I guess, lumping together of people who are likely not at the same levels of development. Yeah, and that's just the world we've built. And lastly, Kevin Clark wrote to us, I have been a listener for a long time and my daughter Penelope is a new listener. She wrote you a note and drew a picture which I've attached here. My whole family loves the show and we're proud supporters. Keep up the great work. And Kevin sent us a drawing of Sasha showing a plump and happy cat and servants, which were two happy, pleasant looking people. And this handwritten note, Dear Greg and Sharon, I love Futility Closet. I listen so much. I'm listening right now while writing this. Literally right now. You've been talking about

Starting point is 00:25:18 the book a lot. I'm getting it from the library. I hope you keep making podcasts. A listener, I hope you keep making podcasts. A listener, Penelope C., age 10. P.S. In the picture, sorry, Sharon, you look like you need coffee. And it is summer, so my spelling isn't great. So thank you so much, Penelope. And we'll have your drawing of Sasha and her servants in the show notes so people can judge for themselves whether I look like I need coffee or not. There are several things that I'm really bad at,

Starting point is 00:25:48 and drawing is definitely one of them. So I thought your picture was great and better than anything I would be able to do. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We really appreciate getting your feedback, updates, comments, and pictures. So if you have any you'd like to send, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me an interesting sounding situation, and I have to work out what's going on, asking yes or no questions. This is from listener Ken Murphy. Some kidnappers abduct a person, blindfold them,

Starting point is 00:26:25 and put them in the back seat of a car. They then drive out to a remote hideout and put the victim in a dark windowless room. The kidnappers call the family of the victim and demand a ransom and put the victim on the phone to prove that they're unharmed. While talking on the phone, the victim is able to slyly hint at their location, which ultimately leads to their rescue. How did the victim know where they were? Oh my. Okay. Did this really happen? No.

Starting point is 00:26:50 Okay. So it's theoretical. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. All right. Does the victim have any unusual abilities or skills that I should know about? No.

Starting point is 00:26:59 Okay. Can the victim hear something from where he or she is? I will say no. Hear something helpful, you know? No, not in the sense that I think you were asking. Okay, because like if you can hear an airport or you can hear the ocean, you can see what I mean. Then you can guess where you are. Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Starting point is 00:27:17 Yeah. No, it's not that. So it's not like that. Is it that there's a lack of sound? Normally you can hear the airport from anywhere in the city, but you can't hear it where they are. No. Okay. Would you say that the victim is using one of their other senses primarily, like they can smell something, so they know they're near a hog farm or a chocolate factory or something. No.

Starting point is 00:27:49 I'm presuming the victim can't see anything by the way that you've set up the puzzle, that the victim hasn't seen anything or has the victim seen something? Okay. I'm presuming, if I ask this as a negative, it's harder. Did the victim somehow manage to use their sense of sight to determine something? No. Okay. Because I could imagine even with a blindfold on, maybe lights or lack of lights or... Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:08 Okay. So... Anything about temperature? No. Lack of oxygen? We're on top of a mountain. I can't breathe. No. Okay. Did this have anything to do with the victim? They're in a car but maybe they can keep track of, like, how many turns they made, in which direction they were turning, or whether they were going west by where the sun was, or...

Starting point is 00:28:33 It's something like that, yes. Is it something like that? Okay. Is it germane that they were in a car? I'll say yes. As opposed to some other kind of vehicle? No. No. Would being in any motorized vehicle have given the same information? I'll say yes. Okay. So there isn't something specific about this vehicle? No. Okay. But the victim was able to deduce something while in

Starting point is 00:29:01 transit? Yes. More so than from where they are now. Like they're picking something up from the location that they're at now. That's right. Okay, so something while they were in transit, but it's not like what turns they were making or is it somehow related to what turns they were making? It is related to what turns they were making.

Starting point is 00:29:19 It was related to what turns they were making. Like whether they were turning right or left, like you could sort of feel the car turning or how many of them there were. Or something else. They did something else, like they went around in a circle because there's one roundabout in the whole city and they did this

Starting point is 00:29:37 traffic circle. I like that, but no, that's not it. Okay, did the car, would you say that the car was only on regular type roads the whole trip? Yeah, let's say yes. Okay. So it's not like they could tell they were going over a gravel road or they were off road or. Okay.

Starting point is 00:29:57 So this could have happened if they were on regular paved roads. Yes. Pretty typical roads. Yes. Hmm. Okay. But they did something something would you say they did something unusual no no but it was just that the victim sensed they were doing something and kept would you say he or she kept track of something yes they kept track of something how many stop lights they

Starting point is 00:30:19 went through how many times they stopped no no it's more to do with turns that's the closest i've been and i'm trying to think what else you could sense from a car yes anything to do with elevation no so turns is the closest i'm getting yes but it's not quite right um no i mean yeah there's more to it there's more to it on the right track so does this have to do something with some specifics about the location that they're in? Like there's something I need to know

Starting point is 00:30:52 specifically about their location. Not specifically about the location but the kidnappers themselves weren't familiar with the hideout. He could tell they got lost? No. Or they were confused?

Starting point is 00:31:08 And I'm assuming it's nothing he heard them say. No, he didn't hear them say anything. He didn't hear them say anything. But you're close. There were kidnappers in the car, driving. Presumably, at least one. Yes. Driving in the car.

Starting point is 00:31:23 And he didn't hear them say anything. He heard them using a GPS. He heard the directions from the GPS. Oh, my. Ken writes, the somewhat incompetent kidnappers used turn-by-turn voice navigation during the drive to the hideout, which the blindfolded victim was able to hear from the back seat. I was assuming, OK, that he felt for himself where the turns were. Yeah, you were really close for a long time.

Starting point is 00:31:44 Because I guess I didn't assume that they were that stupid. No, thank you, Kat. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is supported entirely by our incredible listeners. If you would like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the support a section of the website at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:32:13 Or you can join our Patreon campaign, where you'll get more discussions on some of the stories, extralateral thinking puzzles, peeks behind the scenes, and updates on Sasha, the official Futility Closet podcast. You can find our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see our website for the link. At our website, you'll also find over 10,000 bite-sized distractions, the Futility Closet store, information about the Futility Closet books, and the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered. And this week, a special hand-drawn picture. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and

Starting point is 00:32:56 performed by Greg's awesome brother, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 261-The Murder of Lord William Russell

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