Murder: True Crime Stories - UNSOLVED: Jane Stanford, Pt. 1

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Jane Stanford and her husband Leland were one of the most powerful couples of the 19th century, and the founders of Stanford University. Along the way, they made a lot of enemies. After Leland's death, Jane was left on her own to fight them off. And in February 1905, it seemed like one of them finaly got to her. Murder: True Crime Stories is part of Crime House Studios. For more, follow us on Instagram @crimehouse To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. Like the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The idea is that if we know our adversaries on a deeper level, vulnerabilities and all, we can fight back if they decide to hurt us. It's a pessimistic view to take, but the truth is, you can never be too cautious. Especially if you wield a lot of power. But what happens when your enemy is disguised as a friend? But what happens when your enemy is disguised as a friend?

When Jane Stanford was fatally poisoned in 1905, she knew there were people who wanted her dead. But she never could have imagined their true identity. And thanks to an elaborate cover-up that reached the highest ranks of the San Francisco Police Department, Jane's killer would never be brought to justice. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending.

I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House original. Every Tuesday, I'll explore the story of a notorious murder or murders. I'll be bringing awareness to stories that need to be heard with a focus on those who were impacted. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. This is the first of two episodes on the murder of Jane Stanford,

the former First Lady of California and co-founder of Stanford University. At 76 years old, she died under mysterious circumstances while on vacation in Hawaii, leading many to believe she'd been murdered. Today, I'll walk you through Jane's life, her beliefs, and finally her death. Then next week's part two will be dedicated to the fallout of Jane's life, her beliefs, and finally her death. Then next week's part two will be dedicated to the fallout of Jane's murder and the ensuing investigation from Hawaii to California. We'll discuss the likeliest suspects and their possible motives, as well as Jane's enduring legacy.

All that and more, coming up. Hey everyone, it's Carter. I have a favor to ask you. If you are enjoying Murder True Crime Stories, I would be honored if you took a moment to rate and review us on Apple and Spotify. to rate and review us on Apple and Spotify. Your valuable feedback helps us improve and expand our reach so other true crime fans can find us too. Your support means everything. Like many upper-class women born in the Victorian era, Jane Stanford's early life followed a predictable pattern. She was born in Albany, New York in 1828 and raised in a stable household with her six siblings. Jane received a good education and by the time she was 22, she'd met and married her husband, Leland Stanford. And this is where Jane's story really began. After Leland worked as a lawyer for a few years, he decided to pivot careers. He joined his brothers in San Francisco, where he started

selling mining equipment to take advantage of the California gold rush. Meanwhile, Jane stayed back in Albany to help take care of her sick father. After around five years apart from Leland, Jane stayed back in Albany to help take care of her sick father. After around five years apart from Leland, Jane's father died in 1855, and 27-year-old Jane joined Leland out west. Leland saw how the gold rush inspired people to travel more, and he wanted to capitalize on the newfound interest. After thinking it over, he decided to start work on the nation's first-ever transcontinental railroad. Along with a few other businessmen, he formed the Central Pacific Railroad Company and became its president. But he knew that a project of this scale would require a lot of money and influence to get off the ground. Leland was active in the local Republican Party, and in 1861,

he decided to run for the governor of California. Like most women at the time, Jane didn't work, but she supported all of her husband's entrepreneurial goals. She turned their home in the state capital of Sacramento into a social hub, hosting dinner parties and lavish luncheons to spotlight Leland. With Jane's help, he won the bid for governor, and he quickly started using his newfound political power to push the railroad project ahead, securing a huge financial investment and land grants from the state. But when his two-year term finished, Leland didn't bother to run again. Land grants in hand, he turned his attention back to the Central Pacific Railroad. Thanks to Leland's time in government, his business was thriving. The firm acquired a competitor and Leland bought a bunch of the construction companies that were

building the railroad. He and Jane were getting richer and richer. And Leland became known as one of the Big Four railroad barons of the time. As their fortune grew, so did the Stanford's ritzy lifestyle. Jane and Leland lived in a palatial mansion and had a dedicated entourage of servants waiting on them hand and foot. They spent months at a time vacationing in Europe, hanging out with famous artists, philosophers, and politicians. As one of the richest women in America, Jane's life was anything but boring. But she still wasn't fulfilled, because most of all, she wanted to start a family. she wanted to start a family. In 1868, 39-year-old Jane Stanford gave birth to Leland Stanford Jr. Jane and Leland were thrilled. In the 19th century, it was very rare that a woman of Jane's age would become pregnant, but Junior was born without any health issues. Given all that, Junior quickly

became the center of Jane's world. While maids, servants, and cooks took care of the heavy lifting around the house, Jane was free to dote on Junior. And before long, Leland had even more money to spoil his son with. In 1869, the railroad was completed and the Stanfords became one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in America. In 1874, when Jane was about 46, the Stanfords moved to a whopping 50-room mansion in San Francisco to be closer to Leland's office. Junior was around six, but he knew his father was an important railroad figure, and he quickly became obsessed with

trains. His room was covered with artwork and intricate drawings of steamships and rail cars. The Stanfords even had a dedicated workroom where Junior could experiment with his own small steam engines. And they were eager to share other aspects of their lives with him too. Two years after the family moved to San Francisco, Leland bought a 650-acre farm in Palo Alto. Leland and Jane wanted Junior to experience a taste of the childhood they had growing up in upstate New York, and the Palo Alto stock farm quickly became a little boy's paradise. Over the next few years, Leland bought an additional 8,000 or so acres of surrounding land where they started training and breeding racehorses.

Junior had his own pony and spent his days riding, shooting, and fishing to his heart's content. And although they encouraged Junior's rough-and-tumble adventures, Jane and Leland also wanted their son to be able to hold his own in polite society. also wanted their son to be able to hold his own in polite society. When he wasn't out exploring, Junior took lessons with the best tutor money could buy. He excelled at almost every subject, easily learning Latin and becoming fluent in French. He was an encyclopedia of European history and skilled at math and science. Jane and Leland included him in almost everything they did. They took him along to Europe, bringing him to the finest opera houses and art museums, and introducing him to famous painters and even the Pope. In 1883, when Junior was around 15, he and Jane embarked on one of their European

vacations, spending several months exploring Great Britain, France, and Italy. In January of the following year, they were in Greece visiting some ancient ruins, when Jane noticed her son looked pale. The snow was knee-deep, and they figured the winter weather didn't agree with him, so they hightailed it to Florence, Italy, where it was a little warmer. But when they arrived, Junior only got worse. Jane called a doctor who diagnosed the boy with a deadly disease called typhoid For three weeks a team of doctors tried to nurse him back to health Hoping his fever would break But it never did

Leland Stanford Jr. passed away in March 1884 At just 15 years old. Jane and Leland were heartbroken about losing their son. Jane turned to God for guidance, trying to make peace with the tragedy, while Leland found solace in another way. According to some reports, Leland had a dream after Junior died in which his late son urged his parents to keep living for the good of humanity. So, Jane and Leland decided to honor Junior's memory by giving a new generation of students a world-class education, just as they

did with Junior. After laying their son to rest, Jane and Leland founded Leland Stanford Junior University in 1885. They granted their Palo Alto stock farm to the university, and it became Stanford's new campus. For Jane, Stanford University would become her life's work, but it would also be her downfall. Hey there, Carter Roy here. If you're enjoying the chilling tales of murder true crime stories, then you'll love the Crime House original Mind of a Serial Killer. What sets Mind of a Serial Killer apart is its focus on the twisted psychology of the world's most notorious serial killers. Names like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, the Night Stalker, featuring expert

psychological analysis from licensed clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Engels. Mind of a Serial Killer will take you into their stories like never before. So get ready to uncover what drives someone to commit the unimaginable. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original. New episodes drop every Monday. Just search Mind of a Serial Killer and follow wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're fascinated by the darker sides of humanity, join us every week on our podcast, Serial Killers,

where we go deep into notorious true crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree. Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts and get new episodes every Monday. In 1885, Jane and Leland Stanford founded a university to honor their late son, Leland Jr. To cope with the loss of her only child, Jane, who was either 56 or 57 at the time, poured herself into running the university.

Her goal was to create an institution that was progressive and affordable, that taught both traditional liberal arts and the most cutting-edge science and engineering. And even though co-education was rare at the time, Jane insisted on allowing both men and women to enroll at Stanford. While Jane was busy with the university, Leland turned back to politics to fill the void that Junior had left. In 1885, Leland became a U.S. Senator. All the while, he continued heading up the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads. But Leland had been struggling with his own health for a few years now, and in 1893, at 69 years old, he passed away from heart failure. Jane was devastated.

In a 10-year span, she lost her son and her husband. Once again, she turned to the university to honor them, overseeing the construction of a stone compound that became a memorial to Junior and Leland. It included a huge memorial arch, a church, a museum, and a mausoleum where Junior and Leland were buried. Once the compound was complete, Jane spent most of her time in the mausoleum, praying and talking to her departed family. Jane was a spiritualist, which was both common and controversial in Gilded Age America. As a spiritualist, Jane believed she could communicate with the dead through seances and regularly used mediums to speak to Junior and Leland. She went to a non-denominational church and believed Christianity should be non-sectarian, a principle she extended to Stanford which had no religious

foundations. Although Jane still felt like she had a relationship with Leland after he passed, his death left her vulnerable in more ways than one. Throughout Leland's business career, he'd made a lot of enemies, and now they set their sights on Jane. Since the Transcontinental Railroad's completion in 1869, Leland's relationship with his business partners had been strained. They accused him of using company money to build his and Jane's many lavish homes, as well as to fund the university. And after his death, Leland left Jane with a lot of debt. The company had taken out massive loans to build the railroad, and they needed to pay up. Collis P. Huntington, who succeeded Leland as president of the Southern Pacific Railroad,

demanded that Jane help pay off the railroad's private creditors. To add fuel to the flames, the U.S. Attorney General sued Jane for over $15 million that Leland owed to the federal government. If the government won, it would completely bankrupt the university. But the Stanfords had very important political allies, and one of them was a former justice on the Nevada Supreme Court, John Garber. Jane tapped Garber to lead her defense, and with his help, the government lost the suit and never got repaid. Even though Jane managed to come out of the financial maelstrom unscathed, her troubles weren't over. There weren't just people coming after her money. They were coming for her reputation. Around the time of the court case, a Stanford University employee publicly spoke out against Jane and Leland. The employee pointed out that

Leland had only gotten as rich as he did by exploiting workers during the construction of the railroad in the 1860s. Although the accusation didn't seem to impact Jane standing at the university, it was a harsh dose of reality. 66-year-old Jane had her fair share of skeletons in the closet, and if she wanted Stanford to succeed, she'd have to go on the offensive. Jane was a divisive figure. Many described her as unpleasant and unlikable. Others thought she was generous and forward-thinking. Whether people liked her or not, it was clear Jane wasn't afraid of ruffling feathers,

especially if she thought it would benefit the university. As co-founder, Jane micromanaged Stanford, consulting with university president David Starr Jordan on every single decision that was made. Jane was especially opinionated when it came to hiring and firing staff, which was supposed to be Jordan's territory. One time, she demanded that Jordan fire a professor who supported presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. It caused a huge scandal in the press as people questioned the university's stance on academic freedom. Jane and Jordan's relationship was strained to say the least. They were civil in public, but behind closed doors, he criticized her

overbearing approach to leadership and questioned her choices. Since Leland's death, Jane had leaned into spiritualism in a serious way and felt that the occult sciences were essential to higher education. She even thought about hiring a spiritualist minister and having the church lead the academic departments. Jordan was not happy with this idea. He was fervently anti-spiritualist and thought mediums were frauds. To show that Stanford was a place of logic and reason, he even started publishing articles in popular science magazines criticizing spiritualist practices. But Jordan had his own fringe beliefs that Jane took issue with. He chaired the Committee on

Eugenics of the American Breeders Association and co-founded the Human Betterment Foundation. In short, the theory behind eugenics was that undesirable traits could be selectively bred out of the human race through forced sterilization, and Jordan wanted Stanford to perform these procedures on campus. Jane was no saint, but she had no interest in Jordan's controversial agenda. By the early 1900s, she was at her wits end with him. Jane didn't trust his decision-making and thought he was a liability for the university. She even enlisted her close friend, a German professor named Julius Goebel, to spy on Jordan for her. Goebel kept a paper trail of Jordan's movements and writings and reported them back to Jane. Things between 75-year-old Jane and 53-year-old Jordan came to a head in June 1904. Golbo wrote to Jane that Jordan was

playing favorites and letting his political affiliations affect who he hired onto the faculty. After years of arguing and undermining her, Jane couldn't tolerate it anymore. She wanted Jordan out of Stanford. And she was willing to go to great lengths to make that happen. After getting some concerning intel from her confidant, German professor Julius Goebel, 75-year-old Jane Stanford was livid. In her opinion, David Starr Jordan was abusing his power as Stanford University president. Jane didn't trust him to lead the university and desperately wanted to find a way to oust him, and in early January 1905, she seemed to find her smoking gun. Goebel was investigating a number of scandals surrounding Jordan. At some point, a professor was reported for acting inappropriately toward a young woman at the library.

Instead of punishing the professor, Jordan disciplined the librarian who reported the incident. It turned out the professor was one of Jordan's close friends. It was just the opening Jane was waiting for. Acting in her capacity as president of the university's board of trustees, she convened a meeting in her San Francisco president of the university's board of trustees she convened a meeting in her san francisco mansion on the night of january 13 1905 she urged her fellow trustees to support her motion to fire jordan it's not clear how the rest of the board responded but it soon became apparent that someone was very upset about the meeting. The following evening, January 14th, Jane was preparing for bed. One of her servants always placed a bottle of Poland Spring water on her bedside table,

and Jane poured some of it into a glass and took a sip. But it tasted strange, bitter. Panicked, Jane ran to the bathroom and made herself throw up. Then she called for her personal secretary, Bertha Berner, and a maid. Jane asked them to try small sips of the water. They both agreed that it had a weird, bitter flavor. Sensing something was off, Jane sent the bottle of water to the pharmacy for analysis.

A few weeks later, Jane had the results. The water was poisoned with enough strychnine to kill her in a matter of minutes. After the poisoning attempt, 76-year-old Jane was distraught. She knew she had enemies, but she didn't think they would stoop this low. She tried to plan her next move, but her brain was foggy. It was winter and she had a bad cold, which only made it more difficult to wrap her head around what had happened. Jane decided she needed a long vacation, somewhere warm.

There was a steamship headed for Japan by way of Hawaii, and Jane thought it would be the perfect escape from all the drama in San Francisco. So, on February 15th, 1905, she set sail with Bertha and a group of servants in tow. But Jane's getaway was going to be anything but relaxing. By the night of February 28th, Jane had settled in at the Moana Hotel in Honolulu. As she was getting ready for bed, she started feeling sick. She and Bertha had a picnic earlier that day, and Jane had eaten too many sweets. Her stomach didn't agree with all the desserts, and Jane asked Bertha to bring her a laxative and water with baking soda to help with her digestion. Bertha prepared the drink and brought it to Jane. Then everyone went

to sleep. At 11.15 p.m., Bertha and the other servants were woken up by screams coming from Jane's room. Jane was shouting that she didn't feel well and asked them to call the doctor immediately. She said she had no control of her body and believed she had been poisoned again. Bertha contacted the hotel who called local Dr. Francis Howard Humphreys. When he arrived at Jane's room, Dr. Humphreys found Jane lying on the bed, struggling to breathe. Acting quickly, he gave her a tonic to prevent her body from spasming, but Jane complained that her jaws were too stiff to drink the solution. She cried out how horrible it would be to die like this. Just then, she was seized by intense spasms that were so bad, she couldn't move her body.

Jane's jaws were clamped shut, her thighs were frozen in an open position, her feet twisted inwards, and her hands clenched into fists. In the span of a few minutes, the spasms overtook her body and Jane stopped breathing. Moving fast, Dr. Humphreys called for backup. While he waited for the other physicians to arrive, he tried giving Jane medicine to get her to vomit, but it was no use. By then, the other doctors were on the scene, and Dr. Humphreys had one of them pump Jane's stomach. Still, it wasn't enough to revive her. 76-year-old Jane Stanford passed away a few minutes later.

With Jane dead, Dr. Humphreys and the other physicians switched gears. They knew Jane hadn't died of natural causes. It seemed as though someone had poisoned her drink, which meant they were now likely in the middle of a crime scene. While Dr. Humphreys waited for the local authorities to arrive, he and his colleagues carefully gathered up all the evidence. They took the baking soda water, the glass and spoon used to prepare it, the chamber pot, an ounce of vomit, and the laxative capsules on Jane's nightstand.

They gave everything to the sheriff while a judge watched. The sheriff then handed the items off to the chief sanitary officer of the Hawaii Territorial Board of Health. of Health. An autopsy was conducted by seven doctors, four of whom were with Jane the night she died, as well as a toxicologist. A mortician and morgue assistant acted as witnesses. Once the autopsy was complete, there was an inquiry by a coroner's jury to determine Jane's cause of death. After reviewing the autopsy report and hearing three days of testimony, the jury concluded that Jane died by strychnine poisoning, the same poison that was in the Poland spring water

nearly a month earlier. But not everyone was satisfied with that conclusion and they would do everything in their power to make sure that the truth about Jane Stanford's death was never revealed Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next week for part two of our series on Jane Stanford. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios.

Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Murder True Crime Pod on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts.

Your feedback truly makes a difference. We'll be back next Tuesday. Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios, is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Murder True Crime Stories was sound designed by Ron Shapiro, written by Natalie Pertsofsky, edited by Alex Benidon, fact-checked by Catherine Barner, and included production assistance from Kristen Acevedo and Sarah Carroll. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by Carter Roy.

you may know a serial killer's crimes now uncover the psychology behind them mind of a serial killer is a crime house original new episodes drop every monday just search mind of a serial killer and follow wherever you listen to podcasts. crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree. Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts and get new episodes every Monday.