So Supernatural - MYSTICAL: The Red Barn Murder

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

When Maria Marten disappears in 1827, her stepmother begins having unsettling visions. She dreams that Maria is dead, and buried in a nearby barn. 

When you're dreaming, it's like you can be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want. Nothing is off limits. Of course, once you wake up, you realize none of it was real. But sometimes the line between what's real and what's imaginary gets blurred. A dream or nightmare feels a little too lifelike, too tangible. Like it was a genuine vision? What would you do if that nightmare came true? This is Supernatural. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

This week, I'm covering the disappearance of Maria Martin. In the spring of 1827, she ran off from her family in England, supposedly to travel the country with her new husband. But in a dream, her stepmother saw a horrifying truth. Maria was dead. I have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. Polstead, England is this little farming community where everyone knows everything about everyone else. At every dinner party or local watering hole, the gossip flies. like who stole a litter of pigs from the Smith family's farm, or which ladies the most eligible bachelors

are talking to. In fact, out of the 900 or so residents of Polstead in the 1820s, one woman is on almost every guy's mind. Her name is Maria Martin. By the time Maria is 17, her heart has been won by a man named Thomas Corder. The problem is, Thomas comes from one of the wealthiest families in town. And Maria is beautiful, but she's the daughter of a lowly mole catcher. Thomas knows that his parents, in particular his mother, won't approve of the match. So Thomas and Maria keep their relationship a secret until Maria is 21 and she gives birth to a baby girl. At that point, cat's out of the bag. This is a huge scandal. I mean, having a child out of wedlock is bad enough, but no one even knew they were courting each other in the first place. The worst part is, the baby dies soon after being born, and Maria's relationship with Thomas crumbles. But Maria is still young, and she has a lot of life left to live. Within the next year or

so, she moves on to another guy. His name is Peter Matthews, and he is way more loaded than Thomas. But history keeps repeating itself, and when Maria is 23, she becomes pregnant for a second time. The good news is she gives birth to a healthy baby boy they name Thomas Henry. The bad news is Peter is not willing to marry Maria and be the father, so the two eventually break up. But he agrees to send Maria a quarterly allowance of five pounds, which is enough to support her and the baby. Pretty soon, Maria bags another well-to-do young man. He's about two years younger than her, and his name is William Corder. That's Thomas Corder's younger brother. Given all the complicated history, William knows his family won't approve of this relationship, so he pressures Maria to keep their romance a secret. Instead of going on proper

dates in town, the two meet at the Corder family barn for late night trysts, which unsurprisingly leads to another pregnancy. William is apparently a little more chivalrous than his brother, so when he finds out Maria is pregnant, he starts taking the relationship a little more seriously. He even promises to marry her after she gives birth. William says he isn't ready to tell his family just yet. He knows it's going to cause a lot of drama, which is not something the very pregnant Maria needs to deal with at the moment. So he convinces her to travel about 10 miles away to the town of Sudbury, where she can deliver the baby in peace. When she comes back, they'll tell everyone the truth and get married. Which sounds a little sketch to me,

but remember, Maria's past two lovers just tossed her aside like she was nothing. She's desperate to believe things will actually work out this time. Unfortunately, her hopes are dashed right after the baby's born. Maria comes back to Polstead, but within a few weeks, the baby dies and William starts to get cold feet. To rub salt in the wound, William doesn't even want to give the infant a proper burial. With all the secrecy around Maria's pregnancy, a formal funeral would attract too much attention. So he reportedly convinces Maria to bury their son in a random field, which is pretty awful, but there's kind of a bigger reason. A few weeks later, on the morning of May 18th, William arrives at Maria's cottage and tells her that there's a warrant out for her arrest.

In 1820s England, having a child out of wedlock isn't just bad, it's actually somewhat criminal. When unmarried women have babies, local parishes often end up shouldering the cost of raising the children. So to keep that from happening too often, parish constables can intervene and arrest these women. Conveniently, it seems not the men who helped make the children, but what do I know? Of course, William doesn't want Maria to go to jail, so he comes up with this elaborate plan. If they can tie the knot before she's arrested, Maria will become a member of the highly regarded Quarter Clan. Money will no longer be an issue, and Maria and her children will all be protected. The problem is they can't get hitched in Polstead. The constable is already on the lookout for Maria

and it's doubtful that any priest would marry them now. Fortunately, William managed to get a marriage license in the town of Ipswich, which is about 15 miles away. But getting there will be difficult. The constable has eyes all over town, so they need to be careful. William gives Mary some men's clothing and tells her to put it on as a disguise. She runs upstairs to get changed, and meanwhile, William tells Maria's stepmother Anne not to worry. By the time they come back, they'll be married, and this whole nightmare will be over. Anne finds this reassuring enough, but Maria is a complete mess. When she

trudges back down the stairs with William's green handkerchief tied around her neck, her cheeks are tear-streaked. She's terrified of being arrested, and to make things worse, she has to leave her three-year-old son behind with her parents. It's a lot to deal with, but there's no time to question William's plan. Maria says her goodbyes and they head out for the Corder family's barn. The plan is to hide there until nightfall and then under the cover of darkness, they'll leave town. Anne and Maria's father, Thomas, spend the next couple of days waiting anxiously. Maria and William seem to have made it out of town,

so they're hoping that the next time they see them, the couple will be happily married. But two days later, Anne runs into William and Maria isn't with him. When Anne asks what happened, William explains that his marriage license fell through and he needs a month or so to get another one in London. In the meantime, he says Maria is staying at a friend's place in Ipswich, so the authorities can't find her. Over the next few weeks, William periodically comes back to Polstead to do work on his family's farm. And every time he sees Anne and Thomas, he's like, yep, still working on getting that license. Maria's fine. Nothing to worry about. But those weeks turn into months and there's still no progress on the marriage. William always has some new excuse for why they haven't tied the knot yet. He says Maria has been traveling around

England, having the time of her life, but oddly, Maria never writes to her parents, so they just have to take William's word for it. And after a few months without a peep from Maria, something feels off. Then finally, in October, William writes to the Martins, informing them that he and Maria are officially husband and wife. For Anne and Thomas, this is amazing news. Now that the two are hitched, Maria can return to Polstead, but she doesn't. Which, by this point, isn't just irresponsible, it's downright weird. Remember, Maria still has a toddler at home who she hasn't seen in half a year at this point and she doesn't seem like the type who would just run off and abandon her kid she's always put her family first. Anne can't shake

the feeling that whatever's going on William isn't telling them the whole truth. Then one night just before Christmas Anne has a terrible nightmare it's vivid, it doesn't just seem like a dream. It feels more like a vision. And what she sees is that Maria didn't just pack up and leave. She was murdered. Coming up, the Martins' search for Maria. Now, back to the story. In the winter of 1827, Anne Martin dreams that her stepdaughter Maria is dead. Unfortunately, the details we have about the dream are pretty vague, but

Anne gets the impression that someone killed Maria and buried her in William's family's red barn. It's not so unusual that Anne would have a dream like this. I mean, she hasn't seen Maria in over half a year, and obviously she's a little worried, at least subconsciously. What does make this notable is that Anne has had premonitions before. She's known around town to have second sight. Again, sadly, there aren't a lot of details because as far as I can tell, Anne doesn't love to talk about her abilities. She knows that they attract a lot of

attention and judgment. And her husband Thomas doesn't believe in the supernatural, so he won't believe a word she says either. So Anne just keeps the visions about Maria to herself, even as they keep happening repeatedly over the next few months. And slowly, the dreams get more detailed. By April, even though she's never been inside the barn, Anne knows exactly which part of it Maria is buried in. Finally, Anne can't take it anymore. She musters the courage to tell her husband about these visions. As expected, Thomas doesn't take her seriously. To him, a dream is just a dream. He's sure that Maria is fine.

And like, why would William want to kill her anyway? Right after he jumped through all those hoops to marry her. But Anne keeps pushing and eventually she wears her husband down. Thomas and a friend agree to go search the Corder family's red barn. They paw through piles of straw and mounds of earth, looking for anything suspicious. Eventually, they come across a patch of ground that's a lot softer than the surrounding area, like something is buried beneath it. Thomas, if you remember, is a mole catcher, so he grabs his mole-catching spike and plunges one end deep into the ground.

According to one report, when he lifts it up, something rotten comes out with it. It's not a vegetable or a clump of fertilizer. He realizes it's a piece of flesh. The men continue to dig until they uncover a human body. The remains are badly decayed and the body's face is unrecognizable. But when Thomas sees a green handkerchief wrapped around the neck, he knows that he is staring at his daughter. Over the next few days, Maria's body is exhumed and examined. Investigators find stab wounds on her neck, between her ribs, and one in her heart, but Maria likely died of a gunshot wound to the head. Of course, everyone has a pretty clear idea about who pulled the trigger. William is the last person who saw Maria, and for close to a year he's been spinning this elaborate lie about why Maria couldn't come home.

And now it all makes perfect sense. Three days after Maria's body is found, William is arrested in London, which comes as a complete shock to his wife, Mary Moore. The two recently got married and even started a business together in the town of Brentford. Completely sketchy, right? It turns out the whole time that William was supposedly trying to marry Maria, he was taking out personal ads looking for a woman with quote, the power of some property. Needless to say, this all looks bad for William, but he is adamant that he had nothing to do with Maria's death. At one point, he even tells the arresting officer that he doesn't know who Maria is, which is such an obvious lie, it really doesn't help his case and the prosecutors don't really need a confession from him. When his trial begins a few months later numerous witnesses take the

stand and paint a startling picture. From the outside looking in William and Maria were the perfect match but in reality the two fought constantly. Even Maria's family knew this, but I guess they didn't realize how serious it was until it was too late. When Anne takes the stand, she reveals that one of the couple's biggest arguments revolved around a missing five-pound banknote, which, adjusting for inflation, is worth over $740 today. That money was from the allowance that Maria's ex was still sending her,

basically as child support. But in January of 1827, this is a few months before she went missing, the quarterly payment apparently didn't arrive. Now, Maria started digging into it and she finds out that the banknote did arrive. William had gone to the bank and taken out all the money for himself without telling her. Maria is beyond upset. William not only stole from her, he stole money that was meant for her child. Now right after this all unfolds, Maria gives birth. The baby passes away and she's wondering if William still is actually going to marry her. And Maria apparently holds the money he stole over his head as a bargaining chip, like keep your promise or I'm going to go to the police. Anne even testifies that she once overheard Maria say to William,

if I go to prison, you shall go too. But at this point, marrying Maria is the last thing William wants to do. He's desperate to get her out of his life for good, and the only way he sees to do that is to murder her. You see, it turns out that the parish constable never had an arrest warrant out for Maria. He didn't care about her pregnancies and never intended to haul her off to jail. William made the whole thing up as a ruse to get Maria into the barn and explain her disappearance to her family. And during the trial, it comes out that on the day Maria went missing, several locals saw William carrying a loaded gun. They also saw him

walking back and forth from the red barn, once with a spade over his shoulder and another time with a pickaxe. When William was confronted with all of this evidence, he changes his story. He explains that yes, he was in the barn when Maria was shot, but he didn't pull the trigger. According to him, they argued and he tried to end the relationship and in response, Maria shot herself. William says that he knew he'd be blamed for the death, so he had no other choice but to cover it all up.

He admits he was stupid, but he's no killer. Of course, no one believes this version of events. I mean, in addition to the bullet wound, Maria was stabbed several times. Like, did she do that to herself too? To the jurors, this is just one more lie from a guy that they already don't trust. Within two days, William is found guilty of murder and he's sentenced to hang. With death looming, William is tormented by what he's done. After some conversations with the prison chaplains, he decides to clear his conscience. So on the day before his execution, he signs a confession. He explains that the murder wasn't

premeditated. On the day Maria went missing, they had a terrible fight. At some point, the confrontation turned physical and Maria allegedly grabbed him. On instinct, William says that he pulled out his gun and fired, but I'm not sure I believe him. He still denies stabbing Maria, which someone obviously did, but he does admit to shooting her. On the next day, August 11th, thousands gather around the gallows and watch as William makes his way up the scaffold. A cap is placed over his head, and moments before he's about to be executed, William says, I am guilty. My sentence is just. I deserve my fate, and may God have mercy upon me. Soon after that, the hangman pulls the lever. The authorities

leave William's body on the scaffolding for a good hour before bringing him down. As part of his sentencing, the presiding judge has William's corpse donated to science. And this is really gross, but it's too bizarre not to mention his skin is actually used to bind a book about Maria's case. No joke. Unsurprisingly, the gruesome details of William and Maria's deaths make international headlines. Not to mention Maria's body was only found because of a psychic vision. I know it sounds too wild to be true, but this isn't the only time that visions have helped solve a psychic vision. I know it sounds too wild to be true, but this isn't the only time that visions have helped solve a murder case.

A century later, another disappearance in England was uncovered by a mother's dream. Coming up, the mysterious case of Eric Toome. Now, back to the story. In the spring of 1922, a young man named Eric Toome goes missing. The last time anyone sees him is in London on April 20th, when he tells a friend that he's on his way to stay with a guy named Ernest Dyer. Eric and Ernest had met years earlier while working

together at the British Air Ministry. Over time, the two realize how easy it is to scam the ministry's system and they become partners in crime. In 1919, Eric and Ernest set up a string of shell companies selling supplies to government agencies. One of the men submits an invoice for work that he's never done. The other approves the bill and cuts a check from the administrator's desk. When the money clears, the men shut down the shell company

and start all over again. This makes them a lot of money. Enough that by the next year, the two eventually decide to call it quits and go back to the straight and narrow. They purchase an estate known as the Welcomes. It comes with a huge house and stables, which is perfect for their next business venture, training racehorses, which isn't as easy as they thought it would be. Within a year, the racehorse business is underwater. In the hopes of recouping their

losses, they decide to scam the insurance agency by burning down their own house. But when the insurance agent arrives to investigate the claim, he can't help but notice all the empty oil cans littering the property. It's abundantly clear that Ernest and Eric are trying to rip them off. They're not getting a penny. Now, Ernest's name is the one on the deed to the house, so he's the one who takes the hit. He ends up completely bankrupt, while Eric pretty much walks away scot-free. Ernest doesn't hold a grudge about it, so the two men keep working together, pulling scam after scam. But for Ernest, it's never enough to get himself out of the red. That is, until the spring of 1922, when the two find an unlucky investor they hope to bleed dry.

To set the scam in motion, on April 20th, Eric heads off to the town of Purley, about 13 miles from London. But he's never seen or heard from again. At first, his disappearance doesn't raise any red flags. Eric is always on the move, so it's not unusual for him to vanish for even weeks at a time. At one point, Ernest shows everyone a telegram that's supposedly from Eric, announcing that he's overseas. But when one of Eric's friends reads the letter, she thinks it doesn't sound like him at all. She's pretty sure the message is a fake, which obviously casts suspicion on Ernest. Eventually, all of Eric's friends and confidants get the feeling that something sinister happened to him,

and Ernest had something to do with it, but they have no way to prove it. So after a while, they all just kind of move on. But Eric's parents can't let this go. In the months after Eric's disappearance, his father George starts investigating on his own. He goes to the tailor shop and discovers that Eric still has suits there that have never been picked up, which is a big red flag that he didn't just disappear on purpose. Then when George goes to Eric's bank, a manager shows him a signed deed that says Eric granted his power of attorney to Ernest. George knows that his son would never do anything that foolish. He's convinced that something terrible has happened, so he keeps

digging until he finds Ernest's last known address, the Wellcomes property. When George goes to the partially burnt house, he meets Ernest's wife. She tells him that her husband died that year, and since then, she and her children have been living in the house alone, which is understandable. I mean, she's a widow with no money to her name. She doesn't have very many options. But there's something about the interaction that rubs George the wrong way, and he's not the only one who feels that something is wrong. At some point Eric's mother starts having these intense dreams that she thinks are actually visions. She's convinced that Eric is dead and he's trying to communicate with her. She sees Eric

trapped in a deep dark place like a basement or a well. And she hears him saying, let me out. Even though she's never stepped foot on the Wellcomes property, she's sure that Eric's corpse is buried somewhere on the estate. Later that fall, George goes to the police with their suspicions. Officers do a thorough search of the welcomes and they find four sewage pits. They pry them open and discover that one of the pits has been filled to the brim with rocks, almost like someone buried something in it. When officers clear out the pit, they find Eric's corpse, just like his mother predicted. It was almost like his

soul was speaking telepathically to his mother from beyond the grave, which I know sounds wild, but it's not a new idea by any means. Even some modern day psychics are convinced that we can communicate telepathically through our dreams. But research shows that our dreams are affected by what we're doing and worrying about while we're awake. So basically, if all you think about is death and murder, you're probably going to dream about it too. Now, put yourself in Ann Martin's shoes. She had to know that something fishy was going on with Maria and William. She knew that the last time she ever saw Maria, she was heading to the Red Barn. So her brain might have put the pieces together in a dream. As for how she knew exactly where Maria was buried, I mean, it could have been a lucky guess.

The same goes for Eric Toome. His mother probably couldn't get the eerie description of the burned Wellcomes property out of her mind, and guessing that he was buried somewhere dark and underground isn't exactly shocking. How many stories do you think there are where prophetic murder dreams don't turn out to be true? Probably too many to count. We just don't hear about those. We only talk about the few rare instances where dreams do come true, but whether or not these visions are the real deal, they helped solve two murders. Maybe that's a sign that whatever your subconscious is telling you, you should listen. It could be something you need to hear. Thanks for listening.

I'll be back next week with another episode. To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all Audiochuck originals.