Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - "Ogress of Reading" - Amelia Dyer

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

Cunning, smart, ruthless, Amelia Dyer began a baby-farming business in 19th century England. Poverty-stricken mothers placed their children in her care trusting that she would find them loving homes. Instead, she pocketed the money, starved and strangled the babies before throwing them in the Thames river. Parcasters - If you haven’t already checked out our recent episodes on Female Criminals covering Diane Downs, check them out! Downs staged a murder involving her own children, listen now at parcast.com/criminals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Infants, newborns, babies, whatever word we choose to use, they are our most precious creations on earth. As we cradle our young child, we watch in awe as they attempt to understand the world around them. We become happy when we hear a baby's laughter, scared when a baby cries, exilient. as we watch them sleep peacefully in their crib. All we want is for our children to be healthy and happy.

As parents, we learn that our most important duty is to protect our baby. Fathers, cautiously driving with their infant from the hospital, mothers nervous to breastfeed for the first time. It becomes instinctual to want a shield and shelter these defenseless beings. Which made it all the more heart-breaking when in March 1896, the body of a baby was discovered in the River Thames. A shock rippled through London when the killer was unmasked. Her name was Amelia Dyer,

and she was paid to find adoptive parents for unwanted children, only she didn't actually care for the infants she took in. Quite the opposite. She murdered them for profit. I'm Greg Paulson. And I'm Vanessa Richardson. Welcome to a special crossover of serial killers and female criminals on the Pardcast Network.

Today, the show where we delve into the minds and madness of notorious killers meets the show where we examine the psychology, motivations, and atrocities of female criminals. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and today we're joined by my female criminals co-host, Sammy Nye. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. I've brought together my co-hosts, Greg and Sammy, to explore the crimes of Amelia Dyer, one of the most prolific serial killers in British history. and a notorious female criminal.

She murdered between 300 and 400 babies over the span of nearly 30 years in Victorian England. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe to female criminals to hear Vanessa and Sammy explore the stories in psychology of other dangerous women. You can find female criminals, serial killers, and all of Parcast's other shows

on your favorite podcast directory. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and on Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy either show, the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you listen.

Now let's get into the horrifying story of Amelia Dyer. Police Captain Mike Roberts tells the Associated Press that Megan Huntsman was heavily into meth addiction when she strangled or suffocated the infants from 1996 to 2006. He says she wasn't worried about

potential health problems caused by her drug abuse while pregnant. She simply didn't want to care for them. In 2014, when the story of a Utah mother smothering and suffocating her newborns over the span of 10 years hit the news, it was met with horror. There is something so otherworldly and sinister about women killing babies that it seems impossible to believe. And yet, one of the world's most prolific serial killers did just that. For 30 years, from 1869 to 1896, Amelia Dyer murdered as many as 400,000. babies while working as a baby farmer in Victorian England.

Why would a trained nurse charged with the care of newborns murder them instead? For Amelia Dyer, it was profitable. Throughout her adult life, Amelia was a baby farmer, a profession that allowed women to make decent income at a time when their only other option was the workhouse. For a small fee, Amelia would take unwanted babies into her home and foster them, with the promise of finding a loving adopted family. But instead, she would kill the children, allowing her to cycle dozens of babies through her home every year, accruing substantial wealth in the process. Amelia Dyer was born Amelia Hobbley in 1837 in Pile Marsh, a small hamlet just outside of Bristol, England.

She was the youngest of five children, born to Samuel and Sarah Hobbley. Amelia didn't grow up in poverty, but her family was rather well off. Her father, Samuel, worked as a cord wainer or master shoemaker, a trade that her older brother Thomas would eventually follow. Not much is known about Amelia's early life, but we do know that she was an educated woman. Her parents took education very seriously and sent Amelia to a church-operated national school for working-class children until she was around age 14. Unlike the vast majority of children of her time, Amelia was able to read and write at a

competent rate. It was during this time that she would develop a love of literature and poetry. Despite Amelia's comfortable childhood, she wasn't able to escape tragedy. One of her most influential moments as a young girl was witnessing the deterioration of her mother, Sarah, who contracted typhus fever at the age of 45. Once sick, Sarah began to go mad. The disease caused her to experience delusions, hallucinations, and bouts of mania. Amelia, who was at times tasked to care for her mother, watched firsthand as Sarah slowly lost her mind. Epidemic typhus was common in overcrowded, impoverished areas like Pile Marsh, and carried a 60% chance of mortality. Given the poor, unsanitary conditions of Victorian England, it isn't hard to imagine Amelia's mother succumbing to the disease quickly.

Amelia felt helpless to stop it. Vanessa's going to take over the psychology here and thrift. throughout the episode. Please note that Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Childhood trauma can have a lasting effect on serial killers as they develop. In the 2014 article, neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers, researchers note how psychosocial stressors included significant traumatic events during childhood, such as the death of a close family member, major surgery or illness, psychological, physical, and or sexual abuse.

Given Amelia's relatively privileged upbringing, it isn't hard to imagine how such a shocking event, like watching her mother's mental deterioration and eventual death, could have stuck with her. This trauma could have altered her understanding of the harsh world around her, and primed her to kill later in life. Yet there was one advantage to watching her mother's descent into insanity. Amelia learned what symptoms of mental illness looked like. She committed them to memory, in case she ever had to feign illness herself. After her mother died in 1848, Amelia was sent to live with her aunt in Bristol

and worked as an apprentice to a corset maker. During this period, for whatever reason, she became estranged from the rest of her family. She rarely communicated with her father or siblings. In 1859, her father died of bronchitis, and her older brother inherited their father's shoe business. At 24, Amelia moved to a lodging house at No. 2 Trinity Street. It was here that she began seeing a man named George Thomas, a 57-year-old border. George Thomas was a master carver and gilder who had recently buried his wife. He and Dyer began a relationship, and five months.

after his first wife's death, George and Amelia were married. Interestingly enough, both Amelia and George lied about their ages on their marriage certificate. Amelia, who was 24 at the time, said she was 30, and George said he was 48. The marriage itself was unusually unceremonious. They married at the Bristol Register Office, and neither had family members present at the ceremony. Amelia maintains that by this time, she was estranged from the rest of her family. though she never said why. A couple of years into their marriage,

Amelia entered the Bristol Royal Infirmary and began training as a nurse. The career move made some sense. She was a natural caregiver, as evidenced by the way she took care of her mother during her mother's illness. Nursing as a profession was becoming an increasingly respectable career, thanks in large part to the efforts of nurse

and social activist Florence Nightingale. Victorian England was in a period of massive industrialization. especially in the larger cities. Because of that, there was a huge class discrepancy between the high class, the working class, and the poor. The vast majority of people were quite poor and either lived on the streets, in cramped lodging houses, or the workhouse.

Working class men usually fell into three categories, laborers, artisans, or educated working class. There was a wide range of ways to make an honest living, from selling food and goods from carts, to finding your way, if possible, into such industries as piano manufacturing, silk weaving, or brewing. But for women like Amelia, surviving in a big city like London, wasn't always so easy, especially if you were among the poor or working class. Selling flowers, delivering milk, a profession rarely done by men in those days,

or servitude were all means to an end. But the two most common careers for women were in the factory or in the streets. Many women found themselves working in factories for long, arduous hours, operating machinery and breathing in toxic fumes. The conditions were absolutely terrible. Just as terrible was the rampant rise in sex work. It is said that one in 12 women in Victorian England was a sex worker. So when Florence Nightingale returned from the Crimean War and established the School of Nursing at St. Thomas Hospital in 1860, it opened up a new profession for women. The school drastically changed the way nursing was perceived.

Amelia eagerly dove into the burgeoning profession when she signed up to train at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. It may not have been glamorous work, but it provided Amelia with an honest living. Life as a nurse was tough. Most of the time, Amelia would work 16-hour shifts from morning until late into the evening. Amelia learned that one of the most important aspects of being a nurse

was to be emotionally distant with those under her. care. She grew a tough exterior and became quite independent. And while Amelia would never learn general medical knowledge, as that was strictly intended for doctors, she did become well acquainted with anesthetics and the ability to relieve pain and infection. And as a nurse, she would also learn the basic duties of being a midwife. At the age of 26, Amelia became pregnant with her first child. When she was unable to hide her pregnancy, she was forced to stop working as a nurse. relied on the income of her husband, George. In 1864, Amelia gave birth to a little girl, Ellen Thomas. But her bouncing new baby wasn't the only significant life change Amelia underwent.

Around the same time, she met a midwife by the name of Ellen Dane. This meeting would alter the course of Amelia's life. Ellen Dane was a midwife who briefly stayed with Amelia and George in Bristol. As a midwife, Ellen's profession was to assist a woman's pregnancy and help in the birth of the child. As part of her own nursing training, Amelia would have learned the duties of a midwife and thus be familiar with Ellen Dane's profession. However, Miss Dane usually did more than just care for the child. Many of the women who sought her out did so with the hopes of discretion given that the pregnancies were out of wedlock. Amelia discovered that Dane provided another service for these women with illegitimate babies, one that proved to be a lucrative venture,

baby farming. In 1834, three years before Amelia was born, Parliament passed the Poor Law Amendment Act, commonly known as the new poor law. Part of this law said that a father was no longer financially obligated to raise an illegitimate son or daughter. Essentially, a man could get a woman he was not married to pregnant and never have to support her monetarily. The aim, of course, was to curb premarital relationships and moral decay.

Poverty was rampant in England at the time, and one of the biggest groups to suffer from it was children, because many women couldn't afford to care for their children, they were often left on the streets. As Amelia walked around Bristol or London, she would have constantly been hounded by children, begging for money to buy food, or worse, she would have seen the bodies of dead children in the gutters. In fact, the new poor law failed to stop or slow down the rate of illegitimate births. By the time Amelia met Ellen Dane in the mid-1860s, illegitimate pregnancies and births were actually on the rise. As the problem became a crisis,

pioneering women began developing a profession that would come to be known as baby farming. Essentially, for a reasonable fee, pregnant women seeking discretion would pay women like Ellen Dane to take the newborn baby and find it an adoptive home. It was an easy way to make money and provided the new mothers with some solace,

Amelia became intrigued. Ellen was happy to show her the ins and outs of baby farming. She also bragged about the money that came with it. But that wasn't the only secret of the trade Ellen had to reveal. Amelia was about to learn that this industry was far from the humane solution it was propped up to be. It was something altogether insidious. And Amelia was ready to dive right in. We'll learn the insin outs of this heinous business in a moment.

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Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebbglis. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about ebbglis.com and visit ebglis.com or call 1-800-LillyRx or 1-850545-979. Now back to the story. In 1864, around the time Amelia gave birth to her first child at the age of 26, she met a midwife who also acted as a baby farmer. Baby farmers provided a sigh of relief for young destitute mothers who wish to keep their illegitimate pregnancies secret. But for Amelia, it quickly proved to be a way to make some fast cash. In fact, orphanages would eventually turn away a child if they knew it would.

was born out of wedlock, only accepting children from single mothers if they knew the father had passed away. In these harsh times, many mothers would have the child and then abandon it on the streets to die. A news report from the Clifton Chronicle from 1856 reads, quote, on Saturday morning, the body of an infant was discovered, wrapped in an old newspaper, lying in the path from the observatory to Clifton Down. End quote. Articles like these were not If a mother didn't leave the child on the street, oftentimes she would smother the child herself. The advent of baby farming offered a heartening alternative to the merciless realities of living in Queen Victoria's England. Ellen Dane originally hailed from Southport England before she came to live with Amelia and George as a boarder.

Shortly after moving in, Ellen Dane showed Amelia how to use her home as a baby farm. Amelia quickly learned that her friend was anything but a savior to these struggling women. While some baby farmers did act honestly, Ellen Dane was one of many who did not. Dane would neglect the baby and pocket the fee intended to pay for their care. Ellen would underfeed them, give them doses of alcohol and opiates, or smother them to death. And when the baby eventually died, the death certificate would read that the child simply wasted away. Because the mother had already abandoned the baby, no one would be acting. actively looking for the child, nor miss it.

The baby would simply vanish. It was an easy, albeit heartless way to earn some money if the situation ever called for it. That situation would come sooner rather than later. On October 18, 18, 1969, Amelia's husband George passed away at the age of 67. Amelia was now a young widow with a child to care for. By all accounts, Amelia could have returned to being a nurse

or reached out to her estranged family for help. But Amelia almost immediately turned to baby farming as a way to make ends meet. The instant payment was too tempting to turn away. Amelia fits the profile of two types of female serial killers, a prophet killer and the angel of death. Profit killers kill solely for the purpose of making money, according to Michael D. Kelleher and C.L. Kelleher in their 1998 book, Murder Most Reader.

rare, the female serial killer. The definition of this type of killer is a woman who systematically murders individuals for profit. These women are entirely emotionless and lack any kind of compassion, all things that Amelia learned how to be while training as a nurse. Before opening up her home to baby farming, Amelia decided that it would be best to get rid of her daughter, Ellen. In 1869, Amelia farmed out her daughter to someone else. Amelia's decision to to farm out her daughter didn't come from a place of protection. She wasn't attempting to shield the young child from the heinous crime she was about to commit. Rather, it meant one less mouth to feed around the house and more money in her pocket.

It's unclear exactly to whom Amelia farmed her daughter. However, in an 1871 census, Ellen Thomas is listed as an orphan living in Stoke Bishop, just outside of Bristol. According to the Kelleher's, profit killers like Amelia are also typically organized, intelligent, resourceful, and careful in carrying out her crimes. Consequently, she's slow to be suspected of foul play and will often prove to be a difficult adversary for law enforcement personnel. Amelia was all of these things, smart, organized, resourceful, and elusive. One of the key elements to her business began the moment she opened up shop.

She used aliases when placing advertisements and dealing with clients. Amelia placed her first advertisement towards the end of 1869, shortly after George's death. In her advertisements, Amelia volleyed between the names Mrs. Harding and Mrs. Smith. By using multiple fake names, Amelia was able to protect her real identity and avoid detection from the authorities. She distanced herself from her criminal activity, a smart and calculated move by any profit killer. One such advertisement read, quote, Married couple with no family would adopt healthy child, nice country home. Terms 10 pounds.

Harding, Care of Ships Letter Exchange, Stokescroft, Bristol, end quote. Amelia would charge anywhere between 10 pounds to 80 pounds per baby, or about $1,300 to $10,000 today. After an advertisement was placed, a woman in need would respond. If she was in the later stages of her press, she would move in with Amelia in her home and totter down, a suburb of Bristol. Once the baby was born, she offered to care for the child for a weekly fee, or adopted outright for a one-time hire fee. Or if the mother answering the advertisement already had the child, Amelia would offer to foster the baby and find a couple to adopt it.

It's unclear exactly how many babies she had at a time, but it's easy to assume that she had a full house. There was never any rhyme or reason as to when she decided to kill, or which method she would employ. It could be that the house was getting too full and she needed to make room, or a bill was due soon and she needed money right away. Sometimes she got annoyed with how loudly a baby cried. Her methods came straight from what she learned from Ellen Dane, suffocation, starvation, and poison. If she chose to suffocate the child, sometimes she would do it as she was helping the mother give birth. As the baby exited the womb, she would smother it and prevent the baby

from taking its first breath, so it would appear to be stillborn. This act also fits another female serial killer classification, Childcare Angels. According to criminal profiler, Pat Brown, child care angels are serial killers, primarily women with nursing backgrounds, who smother newborns. She explains that signs of suffocation will appear differently in infants than with adults. Because of this, it becomes harder to tell when a baby has been murdered when examined by a doctor. Amelia knew exactly how to fool the mother and the doctor signing the death certificate into thinking that the child was a stillbirth and not a murder victim. But if the babies were already born and fell into her care, she would sometimes starve them to death.

The cries in her house would grow louder and louder, but Amelia would just stare at the babies with indifference, ignoring their pleas for food. Eventually, the crying always stopped, and Amelia would find another baby to take its place. Unlike many serial killers who plot out their kill and make it a monumental event, Amelia's murder spree was a daily occurrence. Round the clock, she was surrounded by babies,

slowly killing them one by one. She saw them as capital. She often used a poison called Godfrey's Cordial, an opium-based medicine given to newborns and young children in the 19th century. It contained heavy doses of opium. Amelia would fill a spoon with the drug and ease it into the baby's mouth. The baby would quickly fall asleep and never wake up. It is hard to understand today how a woman, especially a nurse,

would be okay with the murder of an innocent child. But Amelia's attitudes toward infanticide reflected her time. And legally, proving that a baby was, murdered was difficult to do, making it hard to charge a baby farmer with murder. Tragically, the death of infants in Victorian England was often seen as a blessing in disguise for both the mother and the baby. Even a clergyman, when discussing the death of a baby to his congregation, preached that the child's death allowed the mother to easily have returned to the path of honest industry. Death was a daily occurrence in Victorian England. As a nurse,

Amelia had learned to stay emotionally determined. attached from her patients, babies included. Given her training and her society's general attitude towards infant death, it's easy to see how Amelia would have no remorse in taking the life of a newborn. And she was well paid for her crimes. At the time, the typical working woman could expect to make about a pound a week. Amelia's baby farm yielded her a minimum of five pounds per baby. But another element may have contributed to Amelia's remorseless attitude toward murdering children. Around the time she began her first baby farm

in late 1869, Amelia began taking a drug known as laudanum. Laudanum was cheap and popular at this time. It was an opium-based drug with morphine and codeine making it highly addictive. Laudanum was over-prescribed

to relieve pain in just about everything. Toothakes, headaches, insomnia, you name it. Addiction became rampant, especially among women. Depression, hysteria, menstrual pains, dysmorphia. If there was an ailment, all a woman needed to do was take some laudanum. Parliament would eventually pass the Pharmacy Act,

aimed to restrict the availability of drugs like laudanum. But for Amelia, a nurse, getting her hands on a bottle wouldn't have been too difficult. There is speculation that her addiction to the opium and morphine may have helped her to emotionally weather the heinous act of murdering infants. A year into Amelia's baby farm business, her mentor, Ellen Dane, would have to flee England for the United States. Word was getting out about Dane's operation, and she couldn't chance arrest. History would never hear from her again. The possible capture of her friend should have made Amelia second-guess her baby farm, but it never did.

She knew that her aliases protected her from any link to Dane, but it would be the arrest and subsequent trial of another baby farmer that would provide the first clue to Amelia's operation and send her into hiding. We'll learn which clues helped police connect the dots in a minute. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue.

Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Now, back to the story. Margaret Waters, born in 1835, was a baby farmer who lived and operated in Brixton, South London. Like Amelia Dyer, she began baby farming after her husband died to make ends meet. As Amelia was beginning her own baby farm in the late 1860s, the two kept a business correspondence

and farmed out some of the same babies together. Like Amelia, Margaret would kill the babies through starvation or poison. But unlike Amelia, Margaret had the help of her sister, Sarah Ellis. What led to Margaret's downfall was doing business with a client who wished to keep tabs on the baby being farmed, an anomaly when it came to baby farming. In May of 1870, Robert Cohen discovered that his 17-year-old daughter was pregnant, and he decided to seek out help to hide her indiscretion. He saw an advertisement that read, quote,

adoption, a respectable couple desire the entire charge of a child to bring up as their own. They are in a position to offer every comfort, end quote. Except Mrs. Willis was actually Amelia's friend, Margaret Waters. Margaret agreed to take in the child, John Walter Cohen. Not long after delivering the child to Margaret, Robert offered to give her more money, if he were allowed to come and visit John, to check and see how he was doing. Margaret didn't like this idea one bit, because little John was slowly starving to death at her house. To Margaret Waters' misfortune, Robert Cohen was becoming a rogue client and proved hard to shake.

Sensing that something was a miss, Robert Cohen and the police arrived at Margaret's house on June 11, 1870. They knocked at number four Frederick Terrace, Brixton, and made a shocking discovery. Ten babies, John Cohen among them, were on the verge of dying from neglect and starvation. In almost every case, the baby was drugged with laudanum. A doctor who was brought to the scene saw John Cohen's frail body and immediately rushed him to a trusted wet nurse. But despite being washed and cared for, John died. Amelia, now in her early 30s, would read about Margaret and Sarah's arrest in the papers. When the trial began in September, it was a media sensation.

For the first time, the public became aware of the insidious actions of some baby farmers. One of the more damning moments of the trial was the testimony of Dr. George Puckle, the doctor at the scene of the discovery and arrest. In reference to little John Cohen, Dr. Puckle said, quote, the body was extremely emaciated, the bones almost protruding through the skin. It was miserably wasted, and nothing but skin and bone. I was in the house nearly half an hour, and there was no crying or motion from any of them. End quote.

Amelia learned of revelations that, unbeknownst to authorities, directly connected her with Margaret. She got nervous. A mutual associate, Dr. William Harding, was being investigated for the death of an actress due to a failed abortion. It was during this investigation that Harding recounted a story of an illegitimate baby he delivered a year prior. The nurse who helped with the delivery was Mrs. Harding, one of Amelia's aliases. He said Mrs. Harding took the baby and eventually farmed the child out to Margaret Waters. It's unknown if the baby died while in Margaret's care, but police never bothered to investigate Dr. Harding's testimony. To Amelia's relief, she had died.

She dodged a bullet. Margaret's sister, Sarah Ellis, was ultimately acquitted of murder, but pled guilty to fraud in connection to the baby farming. She would be sentenced to 18 months of hard labor. Margaret Waters, on the other hand, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. On October 11, 1870, Amelia would wake up to learn that her business associate, Margaret Waters, was executed at Horsemonger Lane Jail, Southark. Brixton Baby Farmers' reign of terror had been cut short. And while she was only convicted of one murder, it's believed Margaret was responsible for the deaths of 19 babies, a number that would soon pale in comparison to Amelia. Not long after Margaret's execution, the newspapers began

reporting more extensively on Margaret Waters' Baby Farming Network. Letters would be discovered, always addressed to two names, Mrs. Harding and Mrs. Smith of Bristol. Despite Dr. Harding's testimony and these newly discovered letters, Amelia was never visited by police. In fact, Amelia's role in these heinous crimes was never suspected. But the media scrutiny that came with Margaret's trial made Amelia question whether it was still a good idea at a baby farm. The money was good and the work was easy, but was it worth risking the noose?

She decided it might be time to lay low and go back to more honest work, which for Amelia meant a trip to the insane asylum. In 1871, 34-year-old Amelia became a nurse's attendant at the Bristol Lunatic Asylum. Amelia found the work to be very similar to that of her nursing career. In other words, hard and arduous, brutally long hours for little pay. But it did give Amelia a place to stay, and given her background in nursing, came quite easy to her. She became well acquainted with the various means of restraint, especially when dealing with violent patients,

straight jackets, preventative gloves, metal cuffs, like something out of a horror movie. The majority of her time was spent cleaning and feeding patients, overseeing outdoor activities for patients, bathing patients. The job paid only one pound every month, considerably less than the five pounds per baby she was making as a farmer. Amelia's patients were women and generally consisted of suicidal maniacs, a descriptor no longer used in modern psychology, or those that suffered from melancholy. Some of the patients exhibited the same symptoms that her mother suffered before she died.

It wasn't long before Amelia grew tired of the job and began looking for another line of work. Yet Amelia saw the benefits of the insane asylum. The more she studied how the patients acted and how they were treated, the more she was treated, the more she was. realized that life as a patient wasn't all that bad. It may have been boring, but it provided a place to live, hot meals, and some recreational entertainment. Amelia would always keep that in the back of her mind. If she needed to get away, the asylum wasn't such a bad place to end up. Better than prison at least. She remembered the way her mother acted as she was slowly losing her mind from typhus fever. Amelia studied how the patients were treated at the Bristol Asylum. It cannot be understated how smart and calculating Amelia was.

She would make sure to use her time at the asylum to her advantage should the occasion ever call for it. Life as a nurse wouldn't last long. By the beginning of 1872, Amelia was no longer working at the Bristol Lunatic Asylum. It's unclear if she was let go or if she quit, but records indicate that she was no longer employed there. 1872 wasn't an entirely bad year for Amelia. At some point, she became reunited with her daughter Ellen. She also married her second husband that fall. William Dyer was a 27-year-old, unskilled and illiterate laborer

who worked in a sugar refinery. Status-wise, a step-down from George. He was also eight years younger than her, though he wouldn't know that since she told him that she was 29. In 1873, Amelia would give birth to their first child together, Mary Ann, who would go by Polly, and a few years later she would give birth to a son, William Samuel. During their first years of marriage, they would rely on William's meager income and make a little extra cash renting out their spare room. However, five years into their marriage, William lost his job at the sugar refinery. Eventually, he found work again in a vinegar brewery. But with a full house and a looming financial crisis, Amelia made the decision to return to her old business of baby farming.

In 1877, nearly six years since she closed up her first baby farm, her old ads went into the newspaper. She reopened her baby farm in Bristol and quickly found her stride, place an advertisement in paper, accept the baby, kill the child, pocket the money, repeat. It's hard to say how many pregnant women and newborn babies Amelia took in when she first became a baby farm. farmer, but thanks to the recollections of Polly Dyer, we're able to get some sense as to how often she was taking in babies. It is believed Amelia would house up to six babies at a time. Assuming she charged her five-pound

minimum per baby, she would have made 35 pounds every month or two, compared to the measly 12 pounds a year she was making at the Bristol Lunatic Asylum. Everything about Amelia Dyer's baby farm operation checks the boxes of a classic female for-profit killer. According to Michael and C. L. Kelleher in their book, Murder Most Rare, this is largely seen in Amelia's detachment towards her victims and ease in associating their deaths with money. But for a smart and calculated as she was, she became increasingly addicted to Laudanum, and it was starting to become a parent. It's noted that her daughters, especially Polly, were more aware that she was drinking the drug straight from the bottle.

It is very possible, too, that Amelia's addiction, to laudanum drove her need to accept babies into her home constantly. She needed money to fuel a drug addiction that left her emotionally numb, able to carry on with the murder of these innocent children, which, in turn, could have driven her need for laudanum. Even more insidious, Amelia recruited the help of her daughter Ellen to care for the children. Ellen had no idea what exactly her mother was doing. Polly would remember the influx of babies and the new mothers, but never thought, twice about the babies no longer crying in the evening. She would remember how she and Ellen would be sent to the apothecary

to pick up bottles of Godfrey's cordial. And with a little bit of the medicine, the babies would be as quiet as a mouse. For roughly two years, Amelia managed to run her baby farm without any trouble from the authorities. She was smart in how she was able to avoid the police using fake names. She never seemed to fear that the link between her and Margaret Waters would catch up with her. her. But as the old adage goes, nothing lasts forever. When a baby died, a doctor and undertaker would be

called to the house. The doctor would inspect the baby and then declare the cause of death. But in the middle of 1879, a doctor that frequented Amelia's home noticed that four babies had died in her care in the span of two weeks. The doctor found it odd that so many babies should die in such a short amount of time while in the care of a well-trained nurse, there had to be more to it. The doctor went to the authorities and raised suspicions about Amelia Dyer. A few days later, Amelia's house was raided by police and a doctor. They found the bodies of the dead infants, inexplicably still in Amelia's home. Knowing this may very well be the end, Amelia decided to take matters into her own hands. When the police returned a few days after their initial raid, they discovered

Amelia had drank two full bottles of laudanum in a suicide attempt. For most people, two bottles would have done the job, but Amelia's tolerance for the drug was sky high. It barely put her down for a nap. Between the four infantile deaths and the attempt on her own life, investigators believed they had a case. In August of 1879, Amelia was arrested and charged for violating the Infant Life Protection Act of 1872, an offense that could see Amelia walking to the gallows. But to Amelia's surprise, the evidence against her proved to be mostly circumstantial. Even though the bodies appeared to have been drugged and starved, there wasn't any actual proof that Amelia gave the baby's poison or refused to feed them.

In the eyes of the court, Amelia was just a bad caregiver. She managed to escape the hangman's noose and was instead found guilty of gross negligence, She was sentenced to six months of hard labor at the Shepton Mallet Prison. Even though Amelia dodged a capital offense, life wasn't going to be easy for her. For six months, she was going to be staying at one of the harshest and oldest prisons in England. Men, women, and even children were exposed to backbreaking work and abysmal living conditions within its walls. In February of 1880, Amelia Dyer was released from Shepton Mallet Prison, beaten, battered and bruised.

Many would claim that she lost her mind while performing hard labor. Prison didn't reform Amelia. If anything, it inspired her to change her methods to avoid detection and emboldened her to murder even more. She was going to return to her baby farm, only she would be smarter about it. Next week, we'll take a look into how Amelia continued

her killing spree, unabated, for another 16 years. Hundreds of unwitting mothers would soon hand their children over to Amelia, and each of those children would die at Amelia's hands. Soon, the River Thames would overflow with infant bodies, victims of the merciless baby killer of Bristol. Thanks again for tuning into female criminals and serial killers. Join us next time as we continue to explore the heinous crimes of baby farmer Amelia Dyer. Thanks again for joining us today, Sammy.

Of course, I'm excited to come back next week. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to female criminals. You can find female criminals, serial killers, and all of Parcast's other podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, CastBox, tune in, or your favorite podcast directory. Many of you have asked how to help the podcasts, and if you enjoy them, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Female criminals and serial killers were created by Max Cutler, are a production of Cutler media and are part of the Parcast Network.

They're produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Carrie Murphy, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler. Additional production assistance by Maggie Admeyer and Carly Madden. This episode was written by Joe Guerra and stars Vanessa Richardson, Sammy Nye, and Greg Polson. Do you want to hear something spooky? Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot.

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