Landslide

person's vote doesn't count for all that much. After all, what difference can one person make? Just ask Henry Shoemaker. Henry worked on a farm in DeKalb County, Indiana in the mid eighteen forties. He did what guys like him were supposed to do. He went to work every day, he paid his taxes, and he voted on election day. Now, back then, U S Senators were not elected by the people. Instead, the voters elected state representatives who would then go on

to vote for the senators of their choice. That meant electing the wrong representative might lead to electing the wrong state senator down the line. Eighteen forty two was an important year for Decalp County and its neighbors Steuben. Both counties were to be counted as one, meaning their combined elections would determine which single candidate would go on to represent them in the state legislature. Decalb had put up a Democrat named Madison Marsh, while Steuben had nominated enos

Biel from the Whig Party. The people came out and voted for their chosen candidate, well, everyone except Henry Schumacher, who had forgotten to cast his vote. He finally remembered that afternoon, but he was already over twelve miles away from his polling location. He mounted his horse and rode there, making it to the polls just before they closed. When he arrived, he asked for a ballot. It was printed with the name enos Beal on it, so he asked

for a different one, one with Marsh's name instead. He had met the candidate weeks earlier, while Marsh had been campaigning in De Calp County. Henry had promised to vote for him, but the officials didn't need to know that. Not wanting to give up his right to cast his vote in private, Henry borrowed a pen knife and several other ballots from an official, he cut out the names of the various local candidates he wanted to vote for,

including Marsh. He then folded the names he'd cut out into a larger sheet of paper and handed the bundle to the election inspector, who personally placed it into the ballot box himself. And then Henry waited around outside for another hour just in case there were issues with his makeshift ballot. Nobody said a word, so Mr Shoemaker went home. The following Sunday, the results came in and Madison Marsh had earned three hundred sixty votes. Enos Bill had also

earned three hundred sixty votes. However, Henry's strange collection of papers was not among them. Since his ballot hadn't looked like the rest, the sheriffs had tossed it out and ultimately declared Beal as the winner, but Marsh wouldn't accept defeat. He filed an appeal and the election committee reassessed Henry's vote. They found that Henry Schumacher of Decalp County had committed no fraud. He had voted only one time, and the knife he had used not only belonged to the inspector,

but the inspector himself had placed the ballot into the box. Therefore, Henry's vote would be counted and Madison marsh would be elected to the state Legislature of Indiana and a good thing too. After William Henry Harrison's death in eighteen forty one, John Tyler took over as president, leaving the vice president's seat vacant. A new problem was facing the country. The Republic of Texas had declared its independence from Mexico. It was to be annexed into the rest of the United States.

The Senate, though, had failed to pass the annexation of Texas via a treaty since it lacked a two thirds majority. Instead, Tyler attempted to annex as a resolution. He would only need a simple majority, not a two thirds. The resolution passed twenty seven to twenty five, not exactly an easy win. A single senator voting either way could have killed it since there would have been no vice president to break the tie. Among those who voted to approve the resolution

was Senator Edward Hannigan from Indiana. He had run for election in eighteen forty two against two other candidates. At the time, state legislatures voted for state Senators, and Hannigan had only needed a single vote to win, and he got it from another man who had won by a single vote, Madison Marsh Sandra Rivet disappeared at nine pm on the night of November seventh, nine seventy four. She had worked as a nanny for the Lucan family in

one of the wealthiest parts of London. Before retiring to bed for the evening, she asked Veronica Lucan, also known as Lady Lucan, if she would like a cup of tea. Sandra then went down to the basement kitchen to boil the water. Lady Lucan, irritated at how long it was taking the nanny to make her tea, descended into the basement around ten pm that night, at which time she let out a blood curdling scream. She then ran out the door to a local pub. She was bleeding and

begging for help. Someone in her house had just murdered the nanny and had tried to kill her too. It had been her husband, John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan, known to everyone as Lord Lucan. The two had met eleven years ago at a golf club where Veronica's sister and brother in law were members. Veronica and John were married less than a year later. Lady Lucan's social status grew due to her husband's standing among London's cultural elite.

Lord Lucan had sophisticated taste. He gambled, raced boats, and drove an Aston Martin. This, combined with his friendship with James Bond author Ian Fleming, led many to believe that Lucan had even served as the inspiration behind the legendary spy. Except where Bond felt right at home at the Baccarat table, Lord Lucan's luck fared much worse. His gambling losses led to credit problems and debts, which his father helped pay off as a wedding present, a way to give the

newlyweds a fresh start. The couple went on to have three children together and a happy marriage for those eleven years. Sadly, the good times wouldn't last. Lady Lucan suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her second and third child, and her husband's gambling debts returned and continued to grow. The couple were being pulled further and further apart, and by nineteen seventy two, they had separated. Lord Lucan didn't

handle the separation well. He stalked his family often and spread rumors about his wife's depression to make her look like an unfit other all in an effort to gain full custody of his children. They went back and forth for months, with the kids being pulled in and out of the home on several occasions by social services. The court required that Lady Lucan have a live in nanny, but Lord Lucan made sure whoever was watching his children

was also drawn into his wild manipulations. He called the house late at night and breathe into the phone to frighten them, or asked to speak to people who didn't live there. He even took one of his wife's nanny's out for drinks one time, pulling information from her about what was going on inside the house. Ultimately, every nanny in Lady Lucan's employ would eventually leave until Sandra Rivet

joined the home in nineteen seventy four. Lord Lucan fell deeper into debt and despair after the courts granted his wife full custody of his children. He spiraled into alcoholism. Things got so dark that he sometimes talked about killing his wife, even describing how he would get rid of the body. But it looked like things might have been turning around for him. On the night of November seven, Lucan had planned to go out on a date with

a young woman named Andrena, except he never showed up. Instead, he traveled to his old home, where he waited in the basement for his wife to appear. His fingers wrapped around a lead pipe. At nine pm, footsteps clicked and clacked down the staircase. Lord Lucan raised the pipe over his head and swung The other person collapsed into a heap on the floor. It hadn't been his wife, though, but the nanny, Sandr Rivet. He stuffed her body into an old canvas mail sack and retrieved his pipe. One

hour later, his wife came looking for miss Rivet. Lady Lucan screamed as her husband hit her and then wrapped his hands around her throat, but she fought back until she broke free. They stood opposite each other, nursing their wounds. Where was Rivet, she asked. Lucan told her that he had killed her. She told him to lay low in the house until she had healed enough. She didn't want

anyone asking questions. The two walked up to the bedroom, but while he went to the bathroom to fetch towels so that she could clean the blood from her face, Lady Lucan dashed downstairs and out the door to the Plumber's Arms, a nearby pub. The next day, detectives arrived at her London apartment to begin their investigation. They found Sandra Rivet's body in the bag, as well as blood on several surfaces. Lord Lucan, however, was nowhere to be found.

He wasn't in his own apartments either. In fact, many of his personal effects had been left behind, including his passport, wallet, driver's license, and car keys. His car was still parked outside too. The search was underway, though police dogs started tracking his scent. Family and friends were interrogated as to his possible whereabouts, but amazingly nothing was turned up. On November and across the Atlantic Ocean, police found a pile

of clothes abandoned on a Miami beach. It was believed that whoever they belonged to had gone swimming and had either drowned or been killed by a shark. In reality, their owner had been spotted in Denmark before traveling to Australia. Authorities monitored his actions for almost a month. It appeared

as though they had found their man. They arrested him on Christmas Eve of nineteen seventy four, and once he was in custody, police asked him to pull down his pants to verify that he had a six inch scar running on the inside of his right thigh, a distinguishing mark for Lord Lucan. To their surprise, the suspect didn't have a scar. Apparently, the police had not captured alleged

murder John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan. Instead, they had caught John Stonehouse, a British labor politician who had faked his own death in Miami two weeks after Sandra Rivett had been murdered. Stonehouse served five years in prison for fraud before his release in nineteen seventy nine. Lord Lucan, however, was never found. But that doesn't mean we don't know the whole story. Something that sounds straight out of the classic movie Clue, Lord Lucan in the kitchen with the

lead pipe. I hope you've enjoyed Today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,