Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
The story begins when a young ship's steward named Frederick Freddie Bywaters became involved with a married woman named Edith Thompson. They had known each other growing up in the same London suburb as her husband, Percy Thompson. The families all grew up together and Freddie was in the same class at school as one of Edith's brothers. At the age
of thirteen, he joined the British Merchant Navy. It was generally considered that Freddie would marry Edith's sister Avis, but life doesn't always work out the way you think it will. He ended up being executed for Percy's murder, and so did Edith. But did the murderous duo deserve it? Historians now suggest maybe she wasn't any more than a witness to the event. Let's look whether or not Fredda and Edith were partners in crime, or if Edith faced a
wrongful and unfortunate death for adultery. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarky.
And I'm Holly Frye. She was born Edith Grayden and grew up imagining a life for herself different from the one that working class women were expected to live in early twentieth century England. She was born in the East London suburb of Manor Park on Christmas Day in eighteen
ninety three, the eldest of five children. She was educated and said to have been especially talented in mathematics, and as soon as she was able, she headed into London for work, where she joined the wholesale milliner's firm of Carlton and Pryor. She began as a bookkeeper, but quickly rose within the ranks to become the firm's chief buyer. Most often, she spent her evenings with friends, visiting West
End theaters and restaurants. Biographer Laura Thompson, who is no relation, said of her ambition quote she was a sort of so called ordinary woman who wanted to be extraordinary.
In nineteen oh nine she met shipping clerk Percy Thompson, and after a six year engagement, they married. They bought a house at forty one Kensington Gardens in the fashionable town of Ilford and Essex, a spot not far from where they both had grown up. With her work at Carlton Empryor. Edith earned more than her new husband, and she also earned more than her father too, since we're
pointing out finances here. And though she contributed more than half the cost of the property, the deed legally had to be in Percy's name. Women wouldn't be given the right to hold property in the UK until nineteen twenty six. She was expected to settle into domestic life, but Edith had other ideas, says biographer Laura Thompson of her quote, She's a girl about the town. She's ambitious. She wanted to own her own home, which she did, even though
it had to be an her husband's name. But the thing Edith wasn't so good at in the conventions of her time was maybe she wasn't such a good wife.
During a visit home in June of nineteen twenty one, Freddie hollidayed with Percy, Edith and Avis on the Isle of Wight. After they all returned back to London, the couple invited Freddie to live with them as a paying lodger, giving him a place to call home when he wasn't deployed. But unknown to Percy, a romance had sparked between Freddie and Edith, and it only flourished when Eddie was invited to move in with the Thompsons as a border.
Freddie was handsome and he told amazing stories of his adventures around the world that piqued Edith's interest. Percy, by comparison, was reportedly a calm, proper, conventional person, and he was kind of a bore. Freddie, not Percy, was the one who closely resembled Edith's romantic eye deal because he was a way a lot. They wrote frequent letters, and Edith
insisted their correspondence must be destroyed after reading. With roughly seventy letters remaining today, clearly Freddie must not have heard her request.
While Freddie's letters are lost to history, surely Edith destroyed them. We do have access to many that Edith wrote. She often jumped around in her writing from topic to topic, from describing the mundane ins and outs of daily life to sharing her thoughts about everything from sex, pregnancy, termination, and even suicide. She referred to Freddie as darlingist and darlint she wrote in a place between fact and fantasy.
Historians have noted an avid fiction reader. She would sometimes imagine herself as a character from a novel, and sometimes in her imagining so she would hint at wanting to be rid of Percy. Not often, but it did come up. In one letter, she fantasized about perhaps adding small pieces of glass to his food. That section read quote, I was buoyed up with the hope of the light bulb, and I used a lot big pieces too, not powdered,
and it had no effect. I quite expected to be able to send you that cable, but no, nothing has happened from it. She pleaded in her letters for Freddy to quote do something desperate. What scholars today want to know is is this a real request or is it just an outpouring of emotion, fact or fantasy. Were these two just play acting in imaginary scenario or were they discussing real actions. No one knew then, nor do we
know today. Scholars, including University College London professor Renee Weiss, who has studied this case for decades and authored the book Criminal Justice, The True Story of Edith Thompson, believes that Edith's letters show no more than the quote workings of an overwrought romantic imagination.
Another letter from Edith to Freddie reads quote, Yesterday I met a woman who lost three husbands and not through war. Two were drowned and one committed suicide. And some people I know can't lose one. How unfair everything is. Bess and Regg are coming to dinner Sunday.
Late summer. A fight broke out one night when Freddie, home from sea, demanded that Percy divorce Edith. Percy ordered his lodger out of the house. Edith later described her own confrontation with Percy, stating that her husband struck her several times and threw her across the room, leaving her badly bruised.
On October third, nineteen twenty two, Percy and Edith spent their evening watching the comedy The Dippers at the Criterion Theater near Piccadilly Circus. Freddie was home, having recently returned from several weeks at sea. As the couple walked toward their house, Freddy confronted them and, according to reports, set upon Percy, stabbing him repeatedly. Within seconds, Percy lay motionless on the ground, having sustained several knife wounds to his neck.
Edith had been knocked to the ground, and Freddie fled before she could summon for help. Neighbors later stated hearing a woman screaming hysterically and shouting quote, no, don't several times. By the time police arrived, she had not yet been able to pull herself together. The morning light would reveal Percy's blood had splattered across a forty four foot stretch.
Of the road. Later in court, Freddie testified to the evening's events, saying just about the same thing quote I waited for missus Thompson and her husband. I pushed her to one side, also pushing him into the street. We struggled. I took my knife from my pocket and we fought, and he got the worst of it. The reason I fought with Thompson was because he never acted like a man to his wife. He seemed several degrees lower than a snake. I loved her and I could not go
on seeing her leading that life. I did not intend to kill him. I only meant to injure him. I gave him the opportunity of standing up to me like a man, but he wouldn't.
At the police station, Edith implicated Freddie as the killer. The police never did consider her as a witness. They always considered her an accomplice. By all accounts. Edith appeared to be distressed at Ilford police station after the murder, and understandably so, as her husband was just murdered by her lover and all of it happened right in front of her. Believing herself to be a witness, not an accomplice, she confessed to the details of the nature of her relationship with Freddie.
Detectives at the police station had also staged it so that Edith and Freddie would pass each other in a hallway, a plan in which they hoped that she would incriminate herself when she saw him. Instead, though after the encounter, Edith cried out, quote why did he do it? I didn't want him to do it? Oh God, what can I do? I must tell the truth. That was not exactly what they were hoping for, but they carried on,
unswayed from their belief that Edith was guilty. As she was being led back to her house by a police sergeant. After questioning, Edith remarked to him that she knew she would be implicated that quote, they will blame me for this, and as we'll see, they absolutely did. We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, and when we return, we will walk through the investigation and the travesty that was Edith's trial.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Edith was called vain and arrogant at her trial, but that's no reason to convict a person of murder. It was the content of her love letters that convinced the court of her guilt. But let's talk about why that's super suspect.
As the investigation moved along, Percy's brother also suggested the police speak to Freddie. All signs pointed to Freddie, and we know he also confessed. He was arrested and during a search of his property, investigators discovered the first of a series of love letters from Edith. His cabin on his ship, the SS Maria was also searched and more letters, reportedly up to sixty, were discovered locked in a box. Included in this pile of letters were some that mentioned
Edith's apparent desire to be free of Percy. Those love letters were taken and later the prosecution produced them as evidence at the trial. They arrested Edith on the spot, but.
There really was no clear evidence she was involved in Percy's killing. In fact, the only tangible evidence against her were those love letters, and were they really evidence she was a killer. In them, she fantasized about escaping her marriage to Percy. One note mentioned she'd fit him broken glass, as we said earlier, and in another claimed to have attempted to poison him, but authorities could not establish that
she had in fact done either of those things. Percy's body was tested post mortem for poison and traces of glass, but nothing incriminating was found.
One questioned about the letters, Freddie stated that he had never believed that Edith had attempted to or would attempt to harm her husband. Instead, he explained he believed, as did others in support of her, that she had a vivid imagination and fueled by the novels she read. She often wrote of herself in her letter as a fictional character. When he was told that Edith was also to be charged with Percy's murder, Freddie replied, quote, why her missus Thompson was not aware of my movements?
The important thing about the letters is this. The correspondence allowed for the consideration of what's known as common purpose, which legally means if two people consider the murder of a third person, and one of those two people acts on the expressed intentions of both, Both are equally guilty by law. Because of that, Edith's letters became the star.
Of the show. Intimate details from those letters were splashed across newspapers in their reports of the pre trial hearings. The entire folio of letters was later published by Philson Young in notable British Trial series in nineteen twenty three, although the letters do not appear in any kind of chronological order.
Edith and Freddy's murder trial began on December sixth, nineteen twenty two, at the Old Bailey. Freddie, as he had been pleaded guilty and cooperated completely with investigators. He led police to the murder weapon and consistently maintained that he had acted without Edith's knowledge.
Crowds of people arrived early to queue outside the London Court to get a seat, and it was standing room only. People hoping to make a buck or two queued outside the building each night, and then they sold their places in line the next morning, sometimes for more than the average weekly wage in Britain at the time. Edith and Freddy's trial was a hot, dramatic event. It's often said that from affair to execution, that the fascination with the
case was quote inexhaustible. Beverly Nichols, a writer present at the trial, had noted that the case had an air of quote the days of the Roman Empire, when the Christians were thrown to the lions. Years later in nineteen seventy three, he also described how the old Bailey quote
had the atmosphere of a first night. He continued, quote you had all these people who might be in the dress circle or the stalls, a great many society women, sensation seekers, and they were all treating it as if it were a thing for which they paid for their seats.
Professor Renee Weiss, who we mentioned earlier, said of the situation quote the public came to admire Freddy and intensely dislike Edith, a siren who had seduced a young man and thus set in motion a chain reaction that resulted in one man's death and the certain execution of.
A lad During the trial, Freddy stated multiple times, and we can emphasize that that Edith had known nothing of his plans and couldn't have because of the very simple reason that he had not intended to murder Percy. His plan was to confront him and force him to deal with the love triangle situation, but Percy had reacted in a superior manner, which caused Freddy to lose his temper. Witness accounts to the court support this story that Edith had been taken by surprise on the night her husband
was stabbed. The prosecution, though claimed Edith had insisted Freddy do it.
Edith's counsel, Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, urged her not to testify. He felt the burden of proof lay with the prosecution and that there was nothing they could prove other than that she had been present at the murder. It was best if Edith just stayed silent. But Edith took the stand anyway. Of that. Author Laura Thompson has stated, quote that to me was a sign of innocence that you would be so adamant that you would want to do that.
But Edith walked into a pit of vipers. The prosecution manipulated what she had written in her letters, finding and highlighting false narratives and giving misleading time periods to quote tie her up in knots. Edith's testimony did her no favors, as she contradicted herself regarding the contents of her letters. Her demeanor, it was reported, varied from flirtatious to melodramatic, and it was also reported that she made a poor
impression on the judge and the jury. In reply to several questions relating to the meaning of some of the passages in her letters, including when asked what she had meant when she had written to Freddie asking him to send her quote something to give her husband, she stated simply, I have no idea.
Her own counsel later stated that the vanity and arrogance she brought to the stand destroyed her chances for acquittal. Her testimony, too, had been unfortunate. Her demeanor negated the positive testimonies of neighbors who had heard her cry out in horror as her husband was attacked, as well as the statements from police who dealt with the immediate investigation, who'd reported that she'd appeared to be in a genuine state of shock and disbelief, saying things like quote, oh God,
why did he do this? End quote I never wanted him to do it.
Renee Weiss, convinced of Edith's innocence, has written quote, Edith Thompson paid a terrible price for daring to be ruled by her passions and for behaving out of her social class. If confirmation were needed that it was her perceived immorality that brought her to perdition, it is proved by the foreman of her jury, who said, quote, it was my duty to read them the letters to the members of the jury. Nauseus is hardly strong enough to describe their contents.
Missus Thompson's letters were her own condemnation.
The letters were crucial evidence, but should have been flimsy evidence for the prosecution. Author Laura Thompson has stated of their use, quote, the horror of having them read out in court. That's what kills me, those private, intimate words and the public gallery behaving like crazed lunatics listening to this private, private stuff. It's like trying to torture someone.
I think from court reports, it's also clear that the trial judge, mister Justice Sherman, was not impartial when it came to Edith's case. He repeatedly interjected on the side of the prosecution. He told the jurors, whom he would only address as gentlemen, despite there being two women on the jury exactly how he felt about Edith's adultery. All was adultery, not a thing about the murder charge. Quote. I am certain that you, like any other right minded person,
will be filled with disgust at such a notion. Not biased at all.
The judge labeled her an adulterer, deceitful, and by implication, surely capable of murder. Sir Bennett attempted to cast her immorality as defensible in the context of the quote glamorous aura of a quote great love, and tried to overlook the point continually being made by the judge that the case concerned only an adulterer and an adulterous wife. In his final address, Sir Bennett said of Edith, quote, this is not an ordinary charge of murder? Am I right
or wrong in saying that? This woman is one of the most extraordinary personalities that you or I have ever met? Have you ever read more beautiful language of love? Such things have been very seldom put by pen upon paper. This is the woman you have to deal with, not some ordinary woman. She is one of those striking personalities met from time to time who stand out for some
reason or another. You are men of the world, and you must know that where there is a liaison which includes someone who is married, it will be part of the desire of that person to keep secret the relations from the other partner. It is not the sort of thing that they would bring to the knowledge of their partner for life.
Opinion pieces began to appear in newspapers, and most of them were not written in Edith's favor. In fact, they were scathing. The Times in London, for example, published a piece that read, quote, there were no circumstances in the case too of the slightest sympathy. The whole case was simple and sordid. Still people couldn't agree whether Edith and
Freddy were partners in murder or not. And on that we're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll talk about the events on the day of the execution, and you might want to brace yourself.
Welcome back to Criminalia. The day of Edith's execution. Honestly, hattison tears. Prepare yourselves for an especially terrible day before and at the gallows.
On December eleventh, the jury reached a verdict after two hours of deliberation, Edith, terrified, was carried into the courtroom. Both she and Freddie were found guilty of murder. Amid the commotion that followed, Freddy yelled out quote, the jury is wrong, that woman is not guilty. They were both sentenced to death by hanging.
There were appeals in late December, actually not long after
the trial ended. The Court of Appeal held that Edith was indeed guilty, stating that quote incitement to murder revealed in her letters, combined with her extraordinary catalog of lies about what happened on the night of the murder told to several witnesses up until her second witness statement, which was open to being found untrustworthy, her meetings with Bywaters on the day of the murder, and the content of her last letter was sufficient to convict her of arranging
the murder. The Court of Appeal also took a narrower approach to the concept of quote principle in the second degree than the court had, but not in Edith's favor. A principle in the second degree is legally defined as a person who is present at the scene of the crime and aids, abets, or encourages that crime. A principle in the second degree might also be an accomplice, an accessory, or an accessory after the fact. It differs from principle in the first degree in that they didn't carry out
the crime. It was concluded Edith and Freddie were untrustworthy end quote. So besmirched were their reputations before they had even entered the witness box. The relationship was considered one of quote culpable intimacy.
It had been widely expected, even by the hangman himself, that Edith would escape execution, but according to her biographer Laura Thompson, Edith quote never stood a chance in front of that jury. Additionally, continued Thompson, quote, women disliked her because they feared her. She was one of those women that other women think men fancy, and she was troubling, and she couldn't be pitied.
Neither would escape execution. The lovers were executed on January ninth, nineteen twenty three, for the murder of Percy Thompson. Freddy was hanged at nine o'clock in the morning at the hands of hangman William Willis. Edith's execution followed just a few minutes later, about half a mile away. She was executed by hangman John Ellis.
It's reported to have been an icy cold Tuesday morning when the hangman and his team arrived at Edith's cell of London's Holloway Prison. She had spent the last few days of her life in a state of near constant hysteria, falling between crying and screaming, and unable to eat. She was heavily sedated the morning of her death, barely conscious
before her execution. According to author Renee Weiss, doctor John Hall Morton, who was both the governor and medical officer of Holloway Prison, was the one who administered the following medications to Edith. Forty five minutes before her death, she was injected with two milligrams of strict Five minutes later, she was given a zero point five milligram dose of
scopolymene morphine and ten milligrams of morphia. Yes, in case you're wondering, Strick nine is a poison, but at that low dose it can also be used as a tonic or analeptic, and the other drugs would have sedated her quickly.
One of the executioners team lifted her by the waist, telling her quote, come on, it'll soon be over. She was carried to the gallows by assistance of the executioner. They had bound her arms and ankles, though she was so sedated that hardly mattered. She had to be held upright while the noose was fitted to her. Edith was unconscious when the trap door opened. This next detail is graphic, so prepare yourself for skip ahead about thirty seconds or so,
depending on whose version of events you believe. As we reach this part of Edith's story, she may or may not have bled from her vagina after her hanging, after she'd fallen through the trap door, and the question remains today. Did she hemorrhage during her execution, and if so, why it goes without saying. There is a lot of speculation here.
Famed pathologist Sir Bernard Spillsbury claimed the bleeding was likely caused by her being pregnant and miscarrying. After her execution, Spillsbury carried out Percy Thompson's autopsy. He may have carried out Edith's post mortem exam too, but that's unclear. We know that he wrote about her case. He thought her trial was an injustice, but there's no evidence of a post mortem from him. If he didn't examine her, his comment on a pregnancy would be no more than mere speculation.
And as we've seen, many people speculated many things about Edith for many following the case, wouldn't the whole event have been that much more tragic or immoral depending on how you felt about Edith if she was pregnant with Freddy's not Percy's baby.
But then if she did bleed, it could have just been how bodies work and nothing more than a side effect of her cause of death. Hangings can be bloody in addition to common things like cerebral hypoxia, cervical fracture, and the spontaneous evacuation of urine and feces from the body.
For instance, bleeding is not unusual. A person may bleed from the nose, mouth, or ears bleeding in the lumbar region called Simon's Bleedings, hemorrhages under the plura of the lungs, and bowel wall hemorrhage are all characteristic signs of death by hanging in some countries today but not during Edith's time. By law, women are dressed in adult diapers before they're hanging to contain fluids, including uterine blood that escapes during the trauma of the event, and as the uterine muscles
relax as the body dies. Uterine bleeding doesn't necessarily mean a woman was or wasn't pregnant during her execution.
Elizabeth Cronin, who was the Deputy governor Holloway Prison and was present at the time of the execution, refuted those pregnancy claims, stating nothing quote untoward happened during the execution. We know that Edith was not visibly pregnant while in prison. We know she did not give birth in prison either, and there are no hard facts to suggest she was
pregnant when she was hanged. To that point reported in House of Commons answered of March twenty seventh, nineteen fifty six, the then Home Secretary, Major Lloyd George stated that Edith was indeed sedated and had to be carried to the gallows and supported on it. But he had also concluded and reported to Parliament that he had examined all the available evidence, including post mortem reports, and concluded that again, nothing quote untoward had happened. There were no references to pregnancy.
There's a lot of documentation involved in an execution, and one known as the LPC four form is required to be completed by the warden after a hanging, it records basic facts of the death. Edith's LPC four form, for instance, notes dislocation as the cause of her death and mentions bruising of the neck from the rope. It does not mention that she was pregnant. In fact, it doesn't mention
anything about uterine bleeding. It's not mentioned on any report even once, though it appears in unsubstantiated accounts of her death told later on.
After Edith's trial and hanging, several of the prison officers took early retirement. In fact, John Ellis, who you'll recall had been her executioner, stated quote, I never dreamt missus Thompson would hang. I really believe the authorities would bow before the storm of protest from the public. He retired shortly thereafter, in nineteen twenty three. A quick trigger alert here regarding suicide, So jump ahead ten seconds or so
if that is not something you want to hear. Ellis went on to end his own life nineteen thirty one. His closest friends and associates later stated that he was never able to shake off the horrors he'd felt of Edith's final sedated moments at the gallows.
Every woman sentenced to death during the previous decade had been reprieved, yet please and appeals on Edith's behalf had all been rejected. According to author Laura Thompson, quote when you see the contortions which the Home Office underwent to
ensure that she was executed, it's really quite terrifying. Thompson believes, as many now do, that Edith's adultery was seen as quote an attack on morality and the sort of behavior in a woman that risked quote destroying the institution of marriage and destroying all that was good to that point. After the execution, Home Secretary William Bridgeman received notes from women thanking him for defending the honor of their sex by not allowing the death sentence to be commuted.
Novelist and screenwriter and contemporary of Edith, Edgar Wallace stated quote, if ever, in the history of this country a woman was hanged by the sheer prejudice of the uninformed public, and without the slightest modicum of evidence to justify the hanging,
that woman was Edith. Thompson. Edith's crime was not murder, quote, it was that she was an attractive, unfaithful woman, and, according to one expert on the case at the time, she was quote a victim of a societal intolerance of women who did not obey the moral codes of the day. Modern historians frequently describe Edith's fate as an unmistakable act of quote gendered social prejudice. Her lawyer would later state, quote missus Thompson was hanged for immorality.
Those who believed and still believe she was not a partner in this crime held that police and prosecutors in this case found her adulterous behavior to be such bad behavior that she deserved to die, regardless of whether she
was involved in her husband's murder or not. In his book Verdict in Dispute, Edgar Lustgarden examined the controversial trial and execution and stated that quote the Thompson verdict is now recognized as bad, and the trial from which it sprang stands out as an example of the evils that may flow from an attitude of mind.
Another critique of her trial was made by author Lewis Brod, whose book The Innocence of Edith Thompson, a study in Old Bailey Justice, published in the early nineteen fifties, gives us several arguments of her innocence as well as a look at problems surrounding her trial. So to paraphrase his
points from his work. First, Broad points out the judge's use of morally prejudiced language with the jury and that he used it to incite the prejudice of the jury and allowed the jury to be influenced by prejudice on account of her immorality. Second, Broad suggests that prejudice was allowed instead of what should have been the place of proof of meaning, motive, and intention in respect of her letters.
And notably, he also stated that Edith was done at a service by having to appear alongside Frederick Bywaters in a single trial, and that she should have been granted a separate trial of her own.
Broad also criticized the prosecution for the unfair use of her letters at the trial and pointed out several problems, and we're paraphrasing him again here on four things. The first is that many of Edith's letters were censored by the court during the trial because the judge felt subjects like menstruation and orgasm were not proper for public discussion of the available twenty five thousand words in total from her letters, only a fifteen hundred word extract was used
at her trial. That's it. That's all the jury heard too. There was only one unambiguous reference to poison in the five months preceding the murder, yet it overwhelmed the judge and prosecution's view of her involvement in her husband's death. Three Nothing regarding the context of the murder suggested an element of planning, and Freddy's version of events never wavered. He admitted he entered into what he thought would be
a scuffle, but it ended in a death. Despite a meandering and very casual discussion of the fantasy of Percy's murder, there is nothing in Edith's letters that amounted to any sort of agreement or conspiracy to kill. And the fourth that the letters were part of a fantasy between two enamored parties was not disclosed to the jury. They should have been treated like what they were, love letters. Instead, the judge and prosecution saw them as mission directives.
Edith's body was buried quote within the precincts of the prison in which she was last confined in a court with her sentence, but then on November twenty second, twenty eighteen, she was finally formally reinterred alongside her parents in accordance with her mother's wishes, at the City of London Cemetery
at Manor Park. A partner in crime to murder through modernize this is one time when we get to report likely not we never get to report that, where I was like, probably, would you like to make it a double.
I would love to.
This is a horrible, horrible story, it is. I kept thinking about a number of things as I was trying to come up with a drink for this, because it's not a particularly joyous story, and I kept thinking about two things in particular. One is a weird detail and
one is just about the nature of Edith's personality. So one this may sound a little grizzly, but I wanted to get something with a reddish tinge because I kept thinking about how much blood was reported at the crime scene, and then this whole idea of blood after the fact just all kind of gruesome, but it made me just
feel like that was right. And blood is also you know, red is also the color that we think about when we think about passion and romance anyway, And I really find myself it's not identifying, but sympathizing quite deeply with Edith Right because she is clearly this person who envisions a life of greater passion and excitement than the one that she is in, which I think a lot of people experience and a lot of us have had those moments where we're just like, I would like more thrill
than what I'm living right now, And so it's pretty natural to have, you know, fantasy ideas of like what your life could be. Oh yeah, and the idea that you could potentially commit some of those fantasy ideas, you don't think of them as reality. There are things you work through to kind of give yourself the you know,
dope mean hit of what if. And the idea that something that is so personal like that could then become not just evidence but also published in folio form, could be like shared throughout the country and the world is horrifying. I mean, I just find myself going, oh my gosh, if like my texts among my closest friends are like between me and my husband were ever shared, I'm sure someone could like twist something to make it sound like
I was a monster. Even if like, you know you're you're saying something sarcastic, but when you're reading it straight, people don't know that. Similarly, when Edith is like in this relationship where she feels safe sharing her imaginary thoughts with someone else, the whole thing just sounds horrifying.
To me and right frontage news.
And I wanted to think about all of this in a way that would create a drink that is pretty strong, a little unexpected if you know what's in it, an extra unexpected because it kind of looks like something it's not, which we've done a little bit on previous seasons, but I really wanted to lean into this this time around.
This is called romantic imagination. The first drink that comes to mind when I think of something very red is, of course the Negroni, which is, as we know, is not really my big fave, but many people love it. No shade if you do. But I wanted to do something that was a little bit sweeter maybe, but also had a tartness. I wanted it to be one of those drinks that as you're drinking it, you're like, is this a sweet drink or a tower drink? And also one that looks like a negroni more or less, so
it's very easy to put together. You are going to use one ounce of sweet vermouth, which would be in an a grony, but that's the only crossover. One ounce of crem de noio, which is a liqueur that we've used before, although not very often. It has like an almondy flavor to it, one ounce of vodka because you want a neutral spirit there, and then one ounce of lemon juice. And you just shake this and strain it
into a glass of ice. And it is a strange one because as you're sipping it, the sweet and the tart of the citrus are they're not at odds because you're not like this feels unbalanced or weird, but it is hard to decide which one you're tasting More of that make we're all sip it and be like this is quite tart, and then I'll have another sip and go, no, it isn't. Now I taste the sweet almond no and some of that I think is just the aromas that you're getting from it as well that are feeding that.
But it does kind of make this very oddly sippable, considering it is a lot of alcohol at that point, right, You're three ounces of alcohol with a little lemon juice added to my palate. It did not taste super alcoholic. It really the lemon juice really undercuts all of that. But that makes it also, you know, a little bit dangerous,
so be careful. But I wanted something where you were not sure and it didn't quite make sense because Edith's entire trial and execution did not quite make sense, right, right, So that is the inspiration for the romantic imagination. To make the mocktail. You will still use your one ounce of lemon juice, but obviously beyond that everything's got to change.
So you will do one ounce of almonds syrup, one ounce of a grape juice, and you do want like a dark grape juice for this, not a white which comes up frequently and will come up in a future segment. And then you're gonna take those three things, shake them with ice, strain them over ice, and then you'll top it with one ounce of club sodas. So the mocktail has a little bit of bubble to it. Similarly, it is like, am I getting more almond or more lemon? Is this tart or is this sweet?
I'm not having the same effect.
That's nice. I actually really like the mocked out version. I'm like, Oh, we can make a bunch of those, and then we'll add vodka to that. I don't know, we'll see, but in any case, if you make it, I hope that it is delicious to your palette. We're so grateful that you spent this time with us, and we will be right back here next week with another tale of criminal duos. Will they actually be criminals?
We don't know.
Well, you can figure that out later. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.