Bad Medicine

for the Hollywood set. A studio darling with both a foul mouth and a mischievous air, she seemed to be living out the fantasies of so many young girls. She got jobs, and eventually she got the man. Olive and John Pickford, one of the most eligible bachelors of the day, began carousing, partying, and gaining quite the reputation around the sets. They were madly in love, yes, but they were also

wildly volatile. Their pairing rife with a magnetic passion that bound them together and seemingly endless, passionate affairs that tore them apart. In September of nineteen twenty, Olive and Jack set sail for Paris. It was supposed to be a reconciliation of sorts, an attempt to quiet their quarrels and quell their tempers. Oh. Once they got to town, they checked into the hotel Writs and went off to explore

the city. And there they drank and danced as the night ticked on, a stumbling back to their room in the early morning hours. There's old wisdom that tells us that nothing good can happen at this liminal time between night and day. Some may beg to differ, but knowing what we know now, we might assume that our ill fated couple might agree. Jack would later claim that he had already climbed into bed, half asleep and soaked and whiskey, when suddenly, from the bathroom Olive began to scream. In

his haze. Jack stumbled out of bed and found Olive leaning against the counter holding a bottle. As he would recount later, she looked at him, pale with horror, and said, oh my god, I'm poisoned. Allegedly, Olive had been trying to take her sleeping medication, but in her drunken, exhausted state, she mixed up her medication with Jack's. At that time, Jack was treating his painful syphilis sores with bichloride of mercury, which just so happens to be extremely toxic if ingested.

It seems that Olive had grabbed the wrong bottle, poured a dose, and drank it down, but very quickly realized her mistake. Jack scooped up his wife and carried her to the bed. He grabbed the phone and called for an ambulance. Olive was taken to the hospital, and shortly afterward the story broke in the newspapers. Olive, the most beautiful girl in all of New York, died in the hospital five days later. The story of all of Thomas's poisoning made the front pages of reputable newspapers and gossip

rags alike. Some believed Jack's affairs had finally been too much for her, and that she had died by suicide by deploying the precise medication he was using to treat the infections had contracted from his string of infidelities. Others claimed it was Jack himself, who had deliberately switched to the bottles in order to avoid an expensive divorce. Police immediately launched an investigation into the starlet's death and ordered

an autopsy. As it would happen, they quickly came to the conclusion that it was, as Jack had reported, a terrible accident. For all its tragedy, this poisoning is popularly remembered not as something malicious or cruel, but in fact a fairly ordinary accident that happened to someone of extraordinary circumstances. She was known, and she was loved. There were many eyes on the case. But others who don't have the

privileges of love and fame, they aren't so lucky. Some tragic accidents, as we will soon see, have more to them than meets the eye. I'm Lorn Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. Thomas Neil Cream knew something about death. He was, after all, coming of age in the Victorian era, at a time where medicine often felt like magic and the average life expectancy was much shorter. He'd lost more than one sibling and would lose his mother shortly before he

turned twenty. Even though his family was a prosperous one. His father had risen quickly through the ranks of a Canadian shipping company, turning him into one of the cities healthiest men. Mortality was something that even they couldn't buy their way out of. By the time he was twenty one, Thomas knew that he couldn't follow in his father's footsteps. He informed his dad that he was going to become

a doctor. He enrolled in McGill University in eighteen seventy two and earned a reputation among his schoolmates as quite the dandy. He loved flash and he loved style. He was sure of himself arrogant, even knowing his life would be made easier by his charms and his family money. At McGill, he straddled the line between the living and the dead, dissecting bodies in his anatomy lessons. Most of the cadavers he worked on were probably procured by crooked

grave robbers in the middle of the night. It was an unseemly business, but it was considered the only way to unlock the body's secrets, a small price to pay to serve the living. The coursework captivated him, sparking all kinds of intense curiosities. One of the subjects of his fascination came in liquid form. It was chloroform, a new wonder drug that had begun showing up in doctor's offices

and pharmacies across the world. Was prescribed to treat just about everything from insomnia to alcoholism to sea sickness, and call it still. How it worked exactly was somewhat of a mystery. It seemed to slow the body down and put a person to sleep. As more doctors began to use it, patients began to die on operating tables. It said that on average, one in three thousand surgical patients

died due to its application. But without being totally clear on how it worked or what a safe dose was, the doctors were at a loss as how to best mitigate fatalities. It was a wildly unpredictable substance, asking all those who dealt in it to partake of a game of chemical roulette. For his part, Thomas was more fascinated

by chloroform than any other herb or drug. In his arsenal, he wrote a thesis on the effects of chloroform and graduated from University with honors in March of eighteen seventy six. Soon after, Thomas met a woman named Flora Brooks, the pretty daughter of a wealthy businessman. He observed all of the proper courtship rituals that were demanded of him, even though he wasn't marriage minded. He had bigger plans for himself. You might imagine his surprise when Flora told him she

was pregnant. He demanded that she get an abortion, and that he be the one to perform it. Soon after, Flora fell sick and her family called in a local doctor. He immediately diagnosed the consequences of the botched abortion. It was clear to all at her bedside that Thomas was responsible for this whole mess. Flora's father was livid, but Thomas and Flora married two days later under the threat

of her father's gun. It wouldn't be long, though, before Thomas get town under the pretense of enrolling in a British medical school. Flora was behind in what we can assume was a flurry of mixed emotions. She never made a full recovery. Flora took to bed dutifully following a regiment of pills that Thomas mailed her from overseas. When her local doctor asked her where they came from, she told him. He told her to stop immediately, he couldn't

identify them. Laura died soon after, succumbing to what appeared to be consumption, But those little pills later aroused suspicion in all who came to hear his story. Thomas Cream arrived back on this side of the pond in eighteen seventy eight. He had a bit of European education under his belt and a need for cash. He settled down in Ontario. It was here he thought that he would set up his new practice. He became an active member in his community of something that had long ago been

instilled in him by his father. He was a frequent presence at Sunday morning church services and tutored children in their lessons. His daytime hours would never have suggested that his neighbors should wonder what he was getting up to after dark. His habits had come with him. It was whispered that he was seen out frequenting bars and carousing with prostitutes. He drank, and it seemed that he had picked up a morphine habit along the way. This all

was wholly unacceptable for a man of his station. Even still, he was a doctor. His degree earned him clout in the eyes of those who knew him, and created a polished reputation that was sought by folks who wanted to meet him. But all of that respectability that came with his title couldn't save Thomas from what happened. In May of eighteen seventy nine, one frosty morning, a young girl

tromped outside to use Thomas's backyard privy. When she pulled the door open, she found a woman dead, slumped cold and stiff against the wall. The woman in the privy appeared to be in her mid twenties and wore a faded purple dress, and next to her sat a small, uncorked bottle. A doctor was called, who decided that she probably had died before daybreak. He turned his attention to the small bottle and gingerly took it in his hands. He turned it around and lifted it to his nose.

He sniffed it and immediately recognized the cloying fumes of chloroform. An investigation got under way and the identity of the woman was discovered. Her name was Kate Gardner. And those who were investigating theorized that she had taken her own life after becoming pregnant out of wedlock, but an inquest was held all the same. The coroner discovered marks on her face bruising it was likely they thought that this could have been from a chloroform soaked handkerchief being held

tightly against her mouth and nose. They came to the conclusion that she couldn't have done that long enough to kill herself, especially once the chloroform had taken effect. They knew they were looking for a killer, and it didn't take them long to set their sights on doctor Thomas Crean. Thomas didn't deny knowing this woman. He admitted that she had consulted with him about an abortion, but he did deny having anything to do with the chloroform found at

the scene. It was finally declared that she was killed by the administration of chloroform to her by an unknown person. The investigation couldn't prove that he was guilty, but the public opinion was of a different mind. He was extraordinarily suspect in the eyes of his neighbors and the larger community, which effectively put an end to his career in Ontario not to be wholly dissuaded. He left for Chicago, a much larger city, but he could disappear into and re

emerge anew in Chicago. Part of this new trajectory would be a rebranding. He didn't aim for the same air of respectability that had had in Ontario, but instead he set up a practice near the booming red light district. That abortion was still illegal in the United States and Canada, Thomas was playing a dangerous, albeit profitable game. He was a functional extortionist in charging what he liked by capitalizing

on the desperation of his patients. At the same time, if something went wrong, the women were out of luck. Seeking secondary medical attention for a botched abortion might cause another doctor to report them for their crime. Because of this underground illicit system, Thomas could ensure that his patients wouldn't report him, and he felt confident that he could continue to operate undetected unless something went wrong again, which

inevitably it did. In August of eighteen eighty, a resident of an apartment building on West Madison Street noticed the smell of death permeating the next door flat, and the police were summoned and summarily broke down the apartment door. There they found a young woman lying peacefully on a blood soaked bed. Her body was in a state of deep decay. The reporting neighbor told police and the attending doctor, one Donald Fraser, that the apartment belonged to an African

American nurse and midwife named Hattie Mack. The dead woman, whose name was mary Anne Matilda Faulkner, was said to have been staying with her with an unknown doctor, making frequent house calls. A note left by Hattie in the apartment suggested someone It was addressed to one doctor Thomas Neil Cream. When the police finally located Hattie, she started talking. It was a botched abortion, she claimed, and she had done everything she could to save the young woman. She

claimed that Thomas was in the business of abortions. She claimed that Thomas had used chloroform on the young woman, But when Thomas was confronted, he suggested that Hattie acted alone and that he had been the one who was called in to help. Thomas's word won out that day, which would prove to be a grave mistake. Maryanne Matilda's body wouldn't be the last associated with the doctor. The next appeared in eighteen eighty one and belonged to a

domestic servant named Ellen Stack. She had been to see a doctor who had written her a prescription. After taking the pills, she was soon writhing in pain and soon after that dead. The same doctor Donald Fraser, was brought to the scene and quickly located the prescribing doctor as one doctor Thomas Cream. Thomas naturally pointed fingers at the pharmacist, accusing them of making a fatal error. Not long after, a young woman named Alice Montgomery checked into a hotel

called Sheldon House on West Madison. She took some medicine with dinner, but collapsed to the floor not long after, screaming in pain. Doctor Seymour Knox was summoned to help her, but it was too late. He declared that she had likely died of strychnine poisoning. During the examination, he discovered that she also recently attempted an abortion, and that it was likely the same doctor who had with her medicine. The prescription was written by doctor Donald Fraser, and when

Fraser was found, he confirmed the prescription was likely and aborrificant. However, this wasn't his doing, the prescription wasn't written in his handwriting, and his name was misspelled. Fraser was still interrogated at the inquest, and though he was exonerated, newspapers continued to speculate about his guilt. Others theorized that the guilty party was indeed Thomas Cream, whose office was only a stone's

throw from Alice's hotel. They never could prove it, but the abortion method of killing, location and time period made Cream the most likely suspect. Still, Thomas carried on with his life and affairs, including romancing a married woman by the name of Julius Stott. They had met when she diagnosed her husband with epilepsy. Cream's old pills that allegedly cured his condition, and Julia picked them up for him regularly.

It's only when Julia's husband died with three times the lethal dose of strychnine in his bloodstream did the police turn more seriously to the neighborhood doctor. Thomas had promptly written to the coroner, blaming the pharmacist again for batching the man's prescription and attempting to claim life insurance funds on behalf of his mistress. He was trusting. It seems that his story would end here what they happily ever after, But Julia, crushed under the pursuit of law enforcement, turned

on her lover, pointing the finger at Thomas. He was charged and convicted guilty of second degree murder. He was handed a life sentence. Thomas was furious. He had always gotten everything that he wanted. Money, women, and the power to decide life and death. This wouldn't be the end of his story. He just knew it. It's important to understand that even in all of this, Thomas still had connections. He still had people who loved him and more importantly,

in this case, believed in him. And thanks to those people and some very crafty lawyers, Thomas was given a pardon and released in eighteen ninety one on the account of good behavior. He returned home to his native Canada and staying some time with his brother Daniel to get his bearings. It soon became evident, however, that something was not right. But the good doctor Thomas was increasingly volatile

and began lashing out at family members. He was erratic, and soon the family began to discuss what to do with him. It seemed at points that he was exhibiting symptoms of intoxication and withdrawal. It was decided that his old London stomping grounds would be a good place for him to go for a while, and so his brother

made plans to help him get set up there. On October first of eighteen ninety one, Thomas wrote a brief note to Daniel to say he'd arrived and was getting settled in Lambeth, a neighborhood with a seed reputation, though he didn't mention that in his letter. He began frequenting the restaurant's shops and other familiar amusements, including the best spots to hire working women. On October thirteenth of that year, Ellen or Nellie Donworth, a local sex worker, went off

with a tall man. When she arrived back at her rooming house, she began to shake horribly. A medical assistant was brought to examine her and explained that her condition was dire. It appeared that she had all the symptoms of strychnine poisoning. She refused to go to the hospital and begged him to let her die at home. Even still, they decided to bundle her into a carriage, but she

would pass before they reached their destination. It's important to remember that the streets of Victorian London were cold, hard places. Kindness was not found there in the twilight hours, nor was it directed toward the women who worked the streets in life or in death. They were a class of people considered to be a moral scourge, often expendable in

the eyes of those who met them. This was the attitude when Jack the Ripper had begun to stalk these very same streets in eighteen eighty eight, and the papers filled up with salacious stories of women brutally murdered. Even still, the investigators couldn't make much of Nellie's story about the tall Man and decided that she had poisoned herself. They ignored a letter from someone named a O'Brien, who offered to help in finding the killer for an exorbitant fee.

He strangely seemed to know a lot about her death. A week later, a woman by the name of Matilda Clover awoke her entire house with her screen. Matilda jerked violently as she whispered that someone named Fred had given her pills, claiming that they would prevent her from catching an even aerial diseases. The doctor who arrived at her bedside didn't believe her story. He believed Matilda to be suffering from delirium tremends. She died the next day and

alcoholism was given as her official cause of death. Soon another letter arrived to a local doctor offering help in finding the real cause of Matilda's death, again for a price. The authorities made note, but there was no follow up. Two more women friends in boarding house flatmates, would die next, but not before telling those of their bedside a tall man with a top hat, mustache, and crossed eyes who

gave them pills after their sexual encounters. In late October of eighteen ninety one, young Louise Harvey made a date with the man, claiming to be a doctor who wore a black overcoat and a top hat. She later reported that he had the strangest eyes she had ever seen. He told her he was a doctor at the local hospital, and he made note of a few spots on her forehead. He promised to bring her pills when they met the next day. That following day, he brought her roses and

they strolled along the river towards the theater. While there, he handed her two light colored pills and told her to swallow them immediately. Suspicious, Louise only pretended to put them in her mouth. The man immediately left, claiming he had an appointment at the hospital and that he would meet her later. He'd never returned. By this point, news of the so called Lambeth poisoner was starting to spread

and everyone was taking notice. One or two bodies might be chalked up to the causality of hard living, but so many reports of debts and near misses could no longer be ignored. The Scotland Yard was starting to sit up and pay attention, making inquiries around the neighborhood and hearing some disturbing stories. An American policeman soon approached Scotland

Yard after an unsettling encounter with a local doctor. It seems that this policeman had met a tall man who had taken him on a tour of where all of these women were poisoned and died. With this tip the eyewitness accounts and the letters, it didn't take long for police to turn their attention to Thomas, who perfectly matched the description of their killer. He was tall, often seen

wearing an overcoat, had a mustache, and crossed eyes. The detectives approached him and asked for his help, but not before sending for police and jail records from Thomas's time in Chicago. They told him that the killer had been writing letters. Thomas, in his arrogant delusion and willingness to tempt fate, cheerfully provided them with samples of his writing.

By the end of their investigation, Scotland Yard was confident that they had their killer, but the handwriting samples and the records of his previous conviction for murder by poison clinched it. Doctor Thomas Cream was promptly arrested. You can imagine Thomas's surprise when Louise Harvey took the stand. Despite his calculations, she had somehow survived, and her testimony was damning, especially since he had casually and confidently mentioned people that

one of the poisoner's victims died at the theater. She was supposed to have died at the theater, but here she was in London's Central Criminal Court, in telling the jurors about her run in with Thomas, and how he had demanded that she take the pills, and how he insisted on checking her hands to make sure she wasn't holding onto them. She explained to her audience that she and Thomas had planned to join up again that evening, even though she suspected something was strange about him. He

never showed up and she was fairly relieved. Prosecutors made a case that all of the women were poisoned with strychnine, while Thomas's defense insisted he was only linked through gossip. They insisted that there were many men in London who dressed like Thomas and this was all simply a case of mistaken idea entity, though they've had no explanation for Thomas and the Lambeth poisoner sharing the same crossed eyes.

It took only ten minutes for the jury to find Thomas Neil Cream guilty of murder and sentence him to hang. While he was in prison awaiting execution, he finally admitted to his crimes and claimed many others previously unknown. Thomas stepped up to the gallows and into infamy on November fifteenth of eighteen ninety two. The city breathed a sigh of relief as a noose was looped around his neck

and the floor fell out from under him. There's more to this story stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. A good nurse needs a good bedside manner. They need a warm disposition, a kind spirit, and a confident mastery of any task at hand. Jane Toppin seemed to have this. She was so good, humored and beloved at the Cambridge, Massachusetts hospital where she worked that she received the nickname Jolly Jane. What no one realized, though,

were what terrible secrets she kept. Jane was born Honora Kelly, the daughter of Irish immigrants, on March thirty first of eighteen fifty four. Her upbringing was a tumultuous one, with her mother dying and father going mad as She and her sister were sent to an orphanage when she was only six. At that time, there were few systems in place to help orphaned children, especially poor ones. The young girls might be trained as domestic servants, which was often

the only career choice they had. In November of eighteen sixty two, Honora was sent to live with the Topphin family in Lowell, Massachusetts as an indentured servant. They re christened her Jane and gave her their last name, though they never officially adopted her into the family. Jane seemed to adjust well and stayed on as a paid servant when she was eighteen after being officially released from her

indentured status. As she lived there until she was thirty three, when she decided that she would leave to take up nursing. She began her career at Cambridge Hospital in eighteen eighty seven, and though she was adored by her patients, her colleagues didn't take as kindly of a liking to her. They thought she was a gossip and dishonest, a beer guzzler with a crass sense of humor. They kept their distance and she kept her job. It would go on like this for a good long while. Patients came in and

stayed for a time to recover. But after a while the hospital staff noticed that instead of leaving out the front doors, more and more patience were shipped out through the morgue. No one suspected that during her downtime, Jolly Jane was poisoning her patience. Her friendliness was really just a cover for finding her next victim. It's thought that Jane actually despised her patients, specifically the elderly. To this end, she took to falsifying patient's medical records, mixing up drug

cocktails and injecting them into their veins. She would experiment with, keeping them in a liminal space between life and death, alive but barely conscious and most likely unaware of the power at play. It said that doctors were generally so impressed with Jane's diligence on the floor that they recommended her for a position at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of

the most prestigious medical facilities in the country. Death followed her there too, but her undoing wouldn't come from patients dying on her watch, rather for handing out painkillers too liberally. Jane was fired, but the doctors liked her, so they began recommending her as a private nurse for wealthy clients. Out from under the supervision of the hospital, Jane was

a free agent. She began earning twenty five dollars a week, a mighty sum at a time when a working woman could expect to earn at five dollars a week outside of the home, and soon the bodies began to follow her, first her landlords, then a patient, then a dear friend of hers, then finally her foster sister who she had grown up with, all found poisoned. Jane moved herself back into the home she grew up in, with her eyes set on marrying her deceased foster sister's husband, Ormond. Soon

upon her arrival, the housekeeper turned up dead. Jane got to work in the home, a familiar space with familiar tasks she had mastered years earlier, as she hoped to impress Ormond, who wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. She figured if he wasn't going to be impressed with her homemaking skills, perhaps he would be impressed with her nursing. She decided to poison him, but when he survived and suspected what had happened to him, Jane was thrown out.

She was testing her luck but saw no reason to stop, so soon took up residence with an elderly mister Davis. She killed him and his two daughters, Minnie and Genevieve, who had come to stay for two weeks, and she might have gotten away with it, as she always had if the daughters hadn't been married. Minnie's father in law grew suspicious of such a short violent illness and requested a toxicology exam for his daughter in law. Medical examiner

discovered Mannie had been poisoned. Local detectives began investigating Jane, and on October twenty ninth of nineteen oh one, police arrested her in Amherst, New Hampshire. She went to trial in the summer of nineteen oh two. As she took the stand, it all came out. She told the court room of the thirty one murders she knew about, but said there could be over a hundred. Patience from Cambridge who had lived to tell the tale spoke of Jane taking a perverse pleasure as she hovered beside them in

their beds as they fought to survive. Jane was sentenced to life in an asylum. As she got older, she only became more brazen, and it said that she could be heard at all hours yelling down the halls. Get some morphine, Dearie, and we'll go out in the ward. You and I will have a lot of fun seeing them die. Medical professionals hold an awful lot of power within their domain, and few stop to question their actions

are intent. For Jane, the tables were turned. Her life was now in the hands of fellow Nurses.