Thinking Sideways BONUS: Pimlico Poisoning Mystery

on January one, eight six of apparent chloroform poisoning. The general consensus was that his wife Adelaide Blanche Bartlett was the one who administered the poison, but to be honest, we don't know for sure who did it, so that is our mystery. And just a quick little ears warning, there is going to be some talk about sex in this episode, so if you don't want the little ones, here are little ears here and that save it for later.

Do you want to introduce ourselves? We probably should because that would be great since I just gave away the story. Who were the players? Well, I am Steve, I'm Joe, and this is Thick Sideways. The podcast. Good job. It's like we do that all the time, like that enthusiastic damn. So let'sen I've read into the story, give a little background on the players that we've got. So there's really there's three main players in this story. First off, there

is Edwin and Edwin the husband. He was a successful grocer. I'm looking actually on several stores, right, like a chain or something. Right, Well, he was a grosser. I guess. I guess I meant that isn't the business owner, not the guy who was behind the counter. He has a successful bag checker, checker, either of the two. But their business was in London. He was twenty nine years old

when he married Adelaide in eighteen seventy five. At the time of their marriage, she was just nineteen years old and she had had a bit of a tragic past. Both of her parents had died by the time she was eleven. She was taken in by a family and they raised and educated her. And yeah, it was and that plays into part of the marriage terms or the dowry terms, because it was an arranged marriage. Not surprisingly, they weren't in love, which wasn't really a thing at

the time. Marrying for love well for some people thought all of them. But one of those stipulations of her dowry was that Edwin had to pay to complete her education and he almost immediately sent her away to school for about two years. So happy romantic newlyweds go to school an el see you later. She actually came home on holidays for business. Yeah, it wasn't if she was gone completely, but they were. When they were together again, they were reported to, you know, have a happy relationship,

though they didn't have much of a sexual relationship. Platonic. Yeah, platonics is the way you see it described a lot. Uh there there though there is some disagreement on that. Yeah, there is, there is, and that's something that we're going to talk about in a bit. But one of the signs that points to the fact that it was not entirely platonic is the fact that Adelaide got pregnant and had a child in one which would have been six

years after their marriage. Unfortunately, the child was still born, and she vowed never to get pregnant again. Apparently it wasn't an easy pregnancy for her. Yeah, the child was still born. I mean that's a pretty good sign. But I mean, you know, there's nothing to say that their relationship was had an inherent sexual component. There's there is

evidence obviously she pregnant. I would say that's more evidence that Edwin was like, you know what, I need an air to give all this money to or something like that, you know, more than for practical reasons rather than reasons of pleasure. Yeah, but also maybe pleasure who I don't know. I mean that some people said they only had sex once in their entire relationship, which she got pregnant. But then then I think it was their chambermates said her.

She thought that she believed that actually they only had unprotected sex once once she got pregnant. Correct, Yeah, correct. I think their relationship was not quite as abnormal as some people like to know. No, And and that's that's one of the things that, as with all these older stories, you gotta be careful of the accountings and the reporting.

But let's continue on. So the couple lived in several different houses in London, but in October of eighty five they moved to the Pimlico area, which is in central London. They had been living in another part of the city. Uh, and what motivated him to move I don't really know, and that's not really important to the story, but you know, it's close to their Their play was close to the Thames, actually a stone so away, so maybe they liked it for the dead bodies. I don't know that was it,

but I did. What is important to note here is that before the move, actually since January, they had been going to the Wesleyan Chapel in Merton Abbey, which was about eight miles or thirteen kilometers away from their new home, the one that they just moved into. And that's important because when they started attending that church, they met the Reverend George Dyson, and he and the couple became quick friends,

and they would spend a lot of time together. And some accounts would say that he would minister them individually, while others would say that he was hired to tutor adelaide um. And by tutored, I mean, well, I don't actually know what it means, because there's a lot of conflicting accounts. I mean, it sounds like she was interested in in education and you know, be being educated and learning stuff. I mean grant, I mean, you know, if that was part of her dowry, was that she was

to continue her education. The only reason she could get married was if she were guaranteed that continue education. If she was into that, I mean would be yeah. I mean, we don't know. We don't know what was going on here in terms of what was taught or what actions were taken. Well, according to the testimony of the Reverend himself, he said that he said too, I believe to Adelaide at some point that he felt that Edwin was actually sort of trying to push them together, meaning George Dyson

and Adelaide. He felt that he was trying kind of trying to push them and and yeah, and you see that, you see that in a lot of places, because I mean, as we talked about the resources of the sources on this say that Edmond himself apparently wasn't all that interested in sex, but he did he had this belief in the power of animal magnetism, which is a force sometimes referred to as mesmerism. It's kind of a life force that can be held by It's held by all animals

and can be transferred to others with healing properties. This is when that kind of stuff was going on, it was popular, and again, we don't know if that's true. Because there's only a couple of players who say that it's it was not as if it was a widely known belief that he did this. So it's hard to say. But what we do know about the pair is, you know,

in terms of who liked. What we do know that apparently she had more of an appetite for intercourse than he did because supposedly, according to Edwin's father, she took up almost immediately with Edwin's brother after their marriage and an affair with him, although Edwin's father really didn't like and so he was throwing mud. All. Yeah, there was some straw disagreement over that particular issue. But there's there's also uh information that says that she was having intercourse

with the George Dyson. And the reason that that it said that way is that Adelaide and Dyson were, according to the maid, found multiple times on the floor in positions quote unquote unusual for pupil and teacher. That that was a great way to say that he was actually also supposed to tutor her in judo. They were just paper clip Yeah, um, but you know, it's I mean, it's not entirely clear if Edwin was how much of this he was aware of or on board with um.

And as we said, you know, his father didn't like her, and so he said a lot of bad things and she made some strange statements about her husband. So his his letters to the reverend seemed to indicate that he was okay with it. No on board, but it's I'm not positive. Towards the end of his life, the past, at least the last couple of years of his life, his health was really bad. Yeah, it was waning. Yet he expected to be to die and to leave his

wife a widow. And you know, he apparently thought that Dyson would have been at the ideal husband for the future, and that's what he seems to think. Yeah, what's was noble of him. Yeah, so we're almost at this point, we're almost up to talking about Edwin's death. But there's just a little more that we need to share about him. Joe had you were just talking about his health and yeah,

it had been poor for years ahead of time. Um he had been diagnosed by his regular medical doctor as having subacute gastritis, which is an irritation of the lightning of your stomach UM and subacute means that it came on rather rapidly. He also supposedly had issues with his gums and his teeth with left in a lot of pain and discomfort, at least for the latter part of the year of eighty five, and part of the reason for that is his choice of dentist, because he picks

a complete and utter nut job dentist. You know. Yeah, they didn't have the Internet. You couldn't look like reviews on your dentist friend. I wish that he could have, because this guy believed that the best way to prepare Edwin's mouth for receiving dentures was too I kid, you not saw his teeth off the gums. It's like leaving the healthy aside it. I was so much rather have a tooth pulled than have it sawed off. Yeah yeah, yeah,

broke out, Yeah, decided the health of considerations aside. I mean, I would you would think that that having rotting stumps in your job would not be a healthy thing? Oh god, no, exposed nerves. No, this whole thing sounds bad and it's and think about it. It was a handsaw, not a power saw. Okay. The other problem that Edwin had was apparently it was determined that he was suffering from mercury poisoning. And when his regular you know, medical doctor asked him,

you know what's going on. He was taking some pills and he said, well, why are you taking him? And he admitted that he didn't know they had been prescribed to him, and so he was taking them well, and so he was getting mercury poisoning, which is not good. Well, also back in the old I mean, murcury was used in amalagam in dentistry for fillings for a long long time. But also I mean he actually might have it might have been other things. Apparently Edwin strongly believed that he

had worms. He was totally conness he had worms and worms or excuse me, and mercury actually in those days was considered a good treatment for parasites. So he might have actually been taking mercury including yeah, by the way, I'm not recommending this if you think you have worms. But and apparently he didn't. He didn't have much of a real doctor exactly. His wife kind of was his nurse, and he didn't exactly have even his regular doctor once

in a great while. So that was about it. So you know, I'm not surprised, being people took mercury for uh syphilius, and you know, like I said, parasites and a bunch of other stuff. It was kind of the fix. Well, the trick is is it will fix everything and then you will not be suffering from those things anymore because you will be dead, right, I mean, yeah, I don't know. I guess there's something to be said for having that unquestioning kind of demeanor of well, maybe this is just

you know, I've never been to another dentist. Maybe this is how things are done. But you would think, for the first one I was gonna say, you would think the first time somebody started sawing your teeth, you would be like, just kidding, this can't be right. Just the whole idea of like, it seems kind of awkward to get a saw into somebody's mouth. Also, I'm sure it was a little dental saw. Well yeah, I'm sure it was.

Still it just sounds like an uncomfortable knife, yea. And not much in the way of So all of this is going on, and Edwin is getting sicker and sicker, and then all of a sudden, in the month of December, his health seems to rally. Uh and the couplers scene around town and they're happy. And he goes to his regular doctors apparently, who says, oh, yeah, I know you're

doing much better. Good prognosis. And then on New Year's Eve, Edwin went to see his quack dentist again for for what reasons I don't know, uh, and then came home and he and his wife they spent the evening together in their house. She then woke up at about four o'clock in the morning. They feed fall asleep in a cot, and she was sitting near the cot and it fall asleep next to it room fireplace face and so we

could keep warm. And then when she woke up, she noticed something wasn't right, and so she said that she tried to pour brandy down his throat in an attempt to rouse him, and then when that didn't work, she called for help and and people came and they figured out very quickly which he had passed, which was strange thing to do because apparently, I mean the southern landlord

who lived upstairs. She wasn't got him first. This is a bit four am and uh, and said the maid maybe she said the maid up, but whatever it was, he came right down and he said, well, he touched the body of the body was just cold as hell. It was cold. And so I was like, Okay, I've got this body here that's laying there, stone cold and the eyes are wide up in a staring at nothing, and I'm gonna poor Brandy not a stroke. Now. Yeah,

that doesn't make a lot of it's her defense. I mean, yes, bodies get really cold, panic she was young, but also um no, she actually she was. She was in her thirties at this point. She scratched that from the record anyway. Um, one thing I will say is that I have very poor circulation as a as a role. My blood pressure is really really low, and there are times where my hands in feet are like ice cubes. So we shouldn't

just bury you. We should probably check or something. Yeah. Um, and you know, my core stays warm, but my limbs get really really cold. And I'm convinced that if I did pass in the night and my fiance was like just went to touch, you know, my hand and just felt it cold, he would just think, Wow, she's like passed out or sleep or something, and he's right, yeah, he would just be like, wow, she's still asleep. Must

have been really tired. It's so weird. No, I mean yeah, no, I mean obviously he's smart enough he would check for a pulse blah blah blah. But I'm just saying, if you're kind of in a panic and all, and he was in bad health already, and you know, I suspect his circulation wasn't particularly great if all she did was kind of touch his hand and then she thought, oh, I'll give him some brandy that usually warms him up and wakes him up, and then that didn't and then

she was like, oh, that's why he's so cold. Okay, Dan, So obviously he's found dead. That that I think it was about ten or eleven o'clock that morning. Edwin's father comes over because he was in town at the time, and as soon as he heard about it, he came over and he, like we talked about, he was suspicious

of Adelaide and he didn't like her. And so the first thing he said he did was go and smell his son's mouth, you know, for signs of poisoning, and he reportedly smelled something that was sweet, and you know, made a big ruck as saying, I want an official examination done of the body and the doctors when they did the examination, there was no obvious cause of death until they opened Edwin's stomach, at which point they found

a sixteenth of an ounce of chloroform in it. Now, presumably there had been more chloroform in his stomach before that, but because it evaporates so easily, it was probably escaping out of his mouth to a degree. Yeah, I mean it will. And to be clear, chloroform is not something that naturally occurs in your stomach. No, absolutely not no, absolutely not like mercury will kill you. Correct. And the cause of death at this point was pretty obvious, but

how the chloroform got into him was not. Because the thing is chloroform will burn skin after it is left in contacted with it for a second or two. Oh, Edwin's mouth and throat didn't show any signs of burning. His tongue was kind of bleached white, which is an after effect and is a known effect, But there was no burning. So our mystery is how did it get there and and who did it. To finish the story, before we get into all the theory section, Adelaide and

George Dyson. They're charged with Edwin's death. Dyson is almost immediately actually is at the trial, is immediately released from the charges in exchange for testifying against Adelaide. What he tells the court is that he had gotten her or ounces of chloroform that she said she was going to use on Edwin to help him sleep because he had been in so much pain. Because if you know anything about chloroform, people used to put it on a rag and you put it over your mouth and you inhale

that stuff and it'll knock you out. It's one of your all the time, it really does. She did the story about why that happened. We'll get into some of that a little later on. But the long and the short of it is is that they went to trial. She was put on trial, he testifies against her. The jury cannot make it stick. That or the prosecution can't make it stick, and therefore the jury cannot come back

with a charge of guilty. Uh So they say, and this is the great the foreman says of the jury says, um, actually, Joe, here you read this all right. Here we go quote. Although we think grave suspicion is attached to the prisoner, we did not think there's sufficient evidence to show how or by whom the chloroform was administered. Quote, dune, dune done exactly, so we don't know how it got there. There was a lot of puzzlement over that. Actually, I don't know if you read that quote by Sir James

pet Oh, yeah, that's a great quote. It is a great quote. Yeah, I said, after the trial was over, she'd been she had been found not guilty, and so she could be retried. And so he supposedly said, quote, she should tell us, in the interests of science, how she did it. She can't be tried for it again. Obviously he was not convinced of her innocence. Obviously not. Well, it's uh, it's almost theory time. But before we go

to theories, let's take a quick break. We hope you're enjoying the Mystery of the Death of Thomas, Edward and Bartlett. Here's a sneak peek into the Alienist, premiering January. A monster, unleashed God, a man obsessed, he's watching, a city in fear. Monday's on T and T, the Hunt for Pure Evil begins combined Killer swacklem on us, based on the best selling novel Daniel brul Lukevitt and the coda, Fetti compels him to do e be a new limited series Mondays

at ninety central on T and T. And we're back. Yeah, and let's get into those theories. Yea. So the first theory is suicide. The theory is that and some people say that the only way that that the chloroform could have got down his through his mouth and his throat into a stomach fast enough and not cause any visible burns was if someone were to have willingly and quickly drank it. Yeah, next to put some brandy or something

and just check it right down. Yeah. Yeah. And and the problem is is that, you know, back, I mean, this is eighteen six at this point, so other than a visual inspection of his throat, you know, today they could take a microscope and they could probably do some analysis to figure that stuff out, like how long did it take to actually swallow it all? But today we don't. At that time, they didn't have that ability, So we can't do like a fine, a fine examination of it.

I mean, as we talked about before, he is supposedly, uh you know, he had been in ill health, and he had been told that he only had one year to live. And there's the fact that he had, so he hasn't his he hadn't his will for a long time, that everything went to his wife with stipulation, which was common in that time, that she didn't remarry. Strangely, he changed his will about three months prior to that, at the encouragement of George Dyson. So people say, well, that's

that's an odd bought about that. Um, And we talked about this before, is that it may have been that he wanted them, as Joe had pointed out before, to hook up and become a couple, and if he were just to remove himself from the picture, that would be the most expedient way to make that happen. Yeah, it does make sense, It does appear, and it's been said by any various people that he thought Dyson would be

the ideal husband after his death. And the other thing to keep in mind is people say, well, I mean, drinking chloroform apparently tastes really hideous. And there's that whole thing about remember the brandy. There's that glass of brandy in there. There's a bottle of brandy in the room and a glass with brandy in it. So people say, well, maybe he poured it into the brandy to cut the flavor,

and that helped prevented from causing burns. I mean, the problem, the hard part about chloroform is that, and this applies to all of our theories, is there isn't a whole lot of data about how quickly it will take it will kill someone. So I don't know if he was intending to take his own life, would he have known if he had enough, and how long it would take doesn't take much. My understanding that that's clarifying apparently, and it's very fairly small doses can stop your heart, We'll see.

That's the thing. I saw stuff where a guy had had about about like a quarter of an ounce and had had died, And there was a guy who had had four ounces of the stuff and had lived. So it's all over the mountain. Now. The other problem with that, of course, is that it's the error that it happens. You know, in a modern age, if somebody drinks that, they're able to pump your stomach and and give you all kinds of medication helped revive you fifty seven years

ago that wasn't available. If he drank four ounces and then immediately threw it all up, you might live too. Right, Maybe I don't know so, but that's the problem with the accounts of you know, when I see these numbers and don't know how much it's gonna take. Um, but that's all I have on that. I mean, I'm not really I don't know. I don't know about that theory. Um, but it's entirely possible. I mean, it sounds like he was probably miserable. It's healthless. It was pretty bad. He

had no teeth, he was gumming everything. Yeah, well in the worst stubbing everything. Hum. Well, let's move on to Actually, this story really does make me want to go see my dentist frequently and often. We do have dental insurance through the podcast. Right. Well, actually, the same kind of guy that Edwin had, probably that's what we can afford. That's what I got, just the cheapest plan possible. So let's move to the next theory, which is that his wife,

Adelaide was the one who did it. That's a popular theory. Well, I'm dealing with a lot of people, including as we said before, Edwin's father. Um. Now, the reason why to do that, in a way seems easy because she'd been married to him for fourteen years and she was tired of him, and she had this new boyfriend that she would rather be with. And supposedly, as we've kind of talked about before, there's the fact that apparently they didn't

have a sexual relationship where she did with Dyson. Other countess said that he actually did want to have sex with her, but she didn't want to because for one reason, because of all the stuff that was going on in his mouth, apparently his breath was really foul. Yeah, and that's that's one of the reasons that we'll talk about

this now. Is the chloroform. Where did the chloroform come from? Well, Adelaide had Dyson procure it for her, And what happened at the time is the requirements were that you had if you were going to get any more than I believe one ounce at a time, because it's a toxic substance, you had to sign the book saying you got two or five ounces or whatever the heck amout it was.

So he went through to four different locations over the course of two days and it procured it in one ounce quantities and then poured it all into one bottle

and gave her that big bottle. She and then, according to some people, what she said was that she wasn't going to use it to help her husband sleep, but instead, when he came at her in a quote unquote lustful way, she was gonna put it on a handkerchief and wave it in his face until he passed out, there by sparing herself from having to endure his breath, which I've known some people had some pretty bad breath, So I kind of understand that. I kind of you too, but

like maybe just turn your head or something. I don't know. But the but the problem with that all is that this whole they never almost never had intercourse thing is that she appears to have occasionally slept with him, because condoms were found in Edwin's belongings, which would indicate that he was having sex with someone used condoms, new condoms, so presumably he had been using condoms, and therefore it had been together. And the whole thing about like, remember

we talked about when she got pregnant. She had made a statement to somebody at one point that the one time they didn't use protection, she got pregnant, So that indicates that they might have actually had a sexual relationship. Sounds like, yeah, I think that would be a little more well, I mean, you know, or or he was hopeful, you know, he was thinking or I mean even in terms of like he had been having these really bad health problems and so probably while that was going on,

they weren't really being physical with each other. Then yeah, he thought, oh yeah, this is gonna be my chance. And maybe he went to go have some sort of you know, breath freshening procedure done or something like that at the dentist and he was like, this is this is how we're going to ring in the new year. It's gonna be amazing. I'm in such good health and we're just turning a new leaf and everything's great. And that's why he had new condoms. Maybe, but I don't know,

it didn't normally happen. Problem. My problem here, though, is is why did why would she kill him? I mean, if you think about it, she's got a boyfriend on the side, it appears to have been given the blessing. She's with a man who can provide for her in a manner that she has been a customed to, So it doesn't make sense to me. But then again there's also like, okay, well, why did dison go around and get the chloroform in such a sneaky fashion. If everything was going to be on board and it was all

none of it was pre planned. Here's one thing I will say is in Portland, Oregon, proper you have to to buy spray paint and they'll write your name in the log or you can drive like fifteen minutes up into Vancouver or even like just a little bit outside of Portland, and I have to do that great job telling all the taggers where to go. Well like, but honestly, I don't use spray paint. Well, I mean, I don't write. I use it for totally legal, totally normal, creative reasons.

But I would weigh rather drive the extra ten minutes or whatever it is to not have to deal with the whole process of the I d and like blah blah blah. It's not quite that inconvenience as long as there's somebody there to actually open the havn't get to get it to you. But YE have gone through it once. Instead, he went all over town. He went to four different vendors to not have to deal with it. That's a lot of commuting back in the day. No, I agree

I'm sorry, I'm just playing double's advocate here. I think he that was super weird and suspicious. Why did he do that? I think I actually went to three I can't remember now he went to he said, he went to four different locations. Yeah, and I taught it was that you couldn't It wasn't just that they got you to sign something without a prescription. You couldn't get more than an ounce or two. But she but here's the weird thing is she she had procured a prescription for

her husband. So it again seems like they should have been able to get it. Well, now, actually what she's What he said in his testimony to the court is that when she asked him uh to do it, he said, well, why don't she get why doesn't your doctor give it to you? And she said, well, actually it's Annie, our nurse who was away on vacation. Now she usually gets it, and so I need to get chloroforms with somewhere else, so can you guess time for me? And so that's

what he did. And yeah, but that's what he said. An that's what he said in court that he said to her, walk out the doctor. I was going to say, even if she did have a prescription if she wasn't going herself, and or you know, the person who the prescription was written for, Irwin wasn't Edwin. Sorry, I wasn't going himself. I don't know how. I don't know if pharmacists will fill it for just anyone, you know what

I mean, if you don't have prescription. I don't think there would have been a little looser back in those days. But back to your your thing about why would she kill him? Though I could think of one good reason. He's been he's been in bad health for a long time. She's been nursing it for a long time, and he's tired of it. You know, she wants a life. She's

still fairly young. Alternately, sorry, go ahead, she's still fairly honestly thinking of if he dies sooner rather than later, maybe I could still have some semblance of a life. You know, for a little while, I was just thinking of going back again to him. His health getting better, maybe she maybe you know, he said, um, oh yeah, my health is getting better. Now I don't have all these limitations. We can resume our physical relationship. We can become a husband and wife again. You can stop your

side thing, your side, hustle with this other guy. That's fine. Here we go. We're I mean, we're gonna do our thing and this is we're gonna be a married couple. And she was like, oh no, that's not what I wanted it all. Yeah, maybe she was actually like in the you know George Dyson better. And maybe also she's been poisoning him the entire time, the level of keeping him sick. Yeah, and uh yeah, that's that's entirely possible. Now,

now how did she go about doing it? So that's part of this theory is okay, well, how did she do it? Because obviously when he was asleep, she didn't just or if she had knocked him out with chloroform, she didn't then just pour it down his gull in because that would have taken it would have taken too long ago down his throat and it would have caused the burns. There's the whole brandy thing, So there's that

glass of brandy. So maybe she lied when she said she woke up and used the brandy to try to revive him, and instead she, as the theory goes, put the chloroform in his brand. He said, hey, it's new year's. It's New Year's, sweetie, Let's have a toast, and he tosses it back, unknowingly ingesting the poison. It's going to kill it. This is a really dumb question, but I oh, I keep wondering this about this case. Is um it had to have been ingestion, right, I wondered too, if

it was like a needle or something. I wondered that too. I would assume that because it wasn't autopsy, I would assume it would look for needle marks. But I can I would assume that too. But I can think of two other ways you can get into the stomach, though, One is to it to intubation, just if you knocked

him out. You can run a tube down his throat and and pour it in that way, although then again, I'm not so sure that she was that well informed about the effects of chlorine that she would have known would have done. Another possibility is that he had eaten a meal not too long before his death. It's possible you could have put it in the food itself and not in some sort of sealed form like a capsule or something like kind of inside a kind of steak, And that would be really hard for him to chew

and swallow. He's not really. Yeah, he might, he might, but I would think that he would observe that in his food unless he was on a truly liquid diet, you know, like mashed potatoes and soup. The problem with chloroform those that evaporates so fast that if you poured into his soup and he's like, I'm talking, yeah, I'm talking about encapsulated form, so he can't taste it, can't smell it. I don't remember anything about them finding anything like that in his in his stomach, at least not

noted in the recordings. They think they would have noted that. But there could have been something, some natural form of something. You know. Maybe she broke up in a wall nut and filled up with chloroform and it's superglued it back together, you know, and that fed that to him, and they were on the and then the autopsy they weren't. Oh it's weird. There's an entire all nut shell in the stomach. You know, this is this is the century, of course, Okay,

but obviously, and I don't seriously literally been something. But yeah, I know you're right. I mean, he could she could have just poisoned him in a bunch of different ways. Yeah, so let's move to our third theory, our third culprit,

which is the Reverend George Dyson. Um. Now, the hardest part about this story is that, as we talked about earlier, Dyson says, he went to all these places and got the chloroform, and then when everything was said and done and the cops were onto him, quote unquote, it seemed like the cops were onto him, he was walking on a path and he chucked the bottles on the side

of a path. So he just he got rid of that evidence, which you know, I would imagine if he truly had gotten it from different places, they might be able to I d that I don't know, mess spectrometer or whatever they would use, but of course and have that available. She also, though she threw away the bottle that she had her chloroform in the four ounces that he had given her. I think she chucked it in

a railway trash can if I remember right. So they're both they're both seemed guilty here, and they're both throwing evidence away. Yeah, and especially she liked the guiltiest of the two. If you can believe his testimony, anyway, because apparently she said one of the reasons. He asked her, well, why does he need chloroform? And and she was like, well, he's got this this internal problem that it gives in

paroxyism or something, and then chloroformis for that. And then after then you get to the chloroform, and then he dies, and then there's an autopsy. And he talked to the doctor after the autopsy about the autopsy results, and there was chloroform in his body, but also no internal problems noted at all. So he confronts here and says, well, what's this all? You said he had all these these big internal issues and but there's nothing shows up in

the autopsy. What was that about? And she's and and then he says, you know, by the way, a chloroform, you know, I'm going to have to come clean. And she was like, no, no, you can't tell anybody about chloroform. And I think Edwin was a bit of a hypochondriac because he's he's got all these illnesses and all these issues, and yet when the doctors examine him they can find no cause. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's one of those those things, you know. I shouldn't self diagnose for that reason,

you know, like my psych teachers warned warned us. You know, it's like, you know, when you start reading about all these very psychological issues, don't don't start because you are self diagnosing yourself as psychotic. You aren't. Okay, well maybe something, yeah, but probably not. Yeah. I mean, I guess I can see kind of an argument of just you know, being kind of an idiot and saying, okay, listen, the police are onto us. They know that Edwin died of um

chloroform poisoning, and I have chloroform. I know they're looking at me. I know I didn't do anything wrong wrong, but it sure is gonna look like I did something wrong if they find these bottles. So I'll just get rid of them and then there it won't look like I did anything wrong at all. And from his point of view, you know, he's been even if he's if he was totally innocent, even the way the law looks at it, especially in the way society that's had it.

Back in those days. Women were when we were delicate creatures, they weren't they weren't typically murderous. He's almost always the guy, so it actually almost always says the guy. Yeah, yeah, but but and so he even though she might have totally snared him, uh he and he just decided, you know, maybe I'd better shut up about this stuff and get rid of the evidence. And I think that's probably what

happened here. You know. The other thing I keep thinking of is Edwin, you know, with the whole chucking of the bottles. He's kind of lucky that he was in London of eighteen eighty five instead of London of seventeen, where everything is on CCTV, so they could have actually probably seen where he was. You No, I'm sorry, I meant George, I'm sorry. I totally got their own person. No Dyson, because Dyson is the one who says he

chucked him when he was walking on a path. Well, today there is a square inch of London that doesn't have a camera unless yeah, that's that's true. Okay, Well, let's move on to the last theory here. Uh and this is not an official theory, This is just a Steve theory. This is my favorite theory though, and it's

the dentist, the dentist medical misadventure. Perhaps, yes, because this guy is such a nut job it's entirely possible that he's probably knocking Edwin out if he's doing any kind of procedure to him that involves sawing off of teeth with live roots. So you could see him either pouring it down through what Joe said, intubation, or maybe some chloroform tablets fall He's a klots and whoa they fall down his throat. He's like, well, it'll be okay. I won't tell him about the seven two pills and I

accidentally poured down his throat. I think they would have kicked in a little sooner. Now, I was going to say, I think chloroform only takes a few hours. Well, I mean, if it depends on how if the if it was innovative, but if the if it was pills, like Joe said, it might give it a longer life. I really just want to disparage this dentist as much as I can, because, oh my god, it's hard to say. Well, back in those days, it's really hard to say how many people

are actually killed by their doctors and their dentists. Probably quite a few. Well, and we're lucky today because we can look at these things and figure it out. But at that time. It's uh, this is my best guests all I really know. I got no good heart science to back it up. I I kind of like this theory because I kind of imagine this sort of primitive gas masks sort of thing, right with the chloroform being narrated at them, just like the smell. But it's defective

because this dentist is a quack. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, totally, just like there's a like a constant drip of it down his throat and for some reason, I don't know why it doesn't burn his throat. But you know the problem is that at that time, they didn't use the mask. It literally was they were just taking a rag. It was why people were actually dying at the debts because there was no actual you know, time scientifically figured out

how long it should be there. So they would give the same amount to you, devon at your size as they would to Joe, who is a much larger person compared to you. I was gonna say, and that would just kill Joe. I mean would think it actually might be the other way around. You could be right because my science. Yeah, so yeah, they doctors were killing people

all the time. Yeah, I mean it's hard very with annesthesia these days, they very very carefully measure all that stuff and only do it if they absolutely think they have to. I mean they I've been to several medical procedures are like, do you we don't really want to put you under? Do you do you want to go? And I'm like, no, fine, turn on the radio so I have to listen to it. It's fine. Yeah. I've only been under once and it was one of the

most disconcerting experiences of my entire life. Yeah, so I don't really want Yeah, I only wants for me too. And then I want to woke up everybody. Everybody was standing there on smiling never again. Yeah yeah, and we need to talk to you about that tattoo. Yeah, okay, Yeah, I mean I like the dentist theory. I agree the timeline doesn't totally line up. But you know, of the people I think he's it's just as easy to prove that he did it as anyone else, uh, and not

even necessarily necessarily deliberately. I mean, he might have given him some pills for this that or whatever, and you know, and he seems to be the one that's giving Edwin the pills with mercury in him. Although you will see accounting as it written that Edwin was suffering from an STD or an s t I, which like syphilis, which mercury was used to treat that. But there's absolutely no proof of that. And you know in his examination, they didn't find anything when they examined his body, so that's

the mercury was working. Yes, yeah, but also according to Ice, and though he's he did say most definitively that he had worms, and and so I'm I wouldn't be surprised at all he was taking mercury for that, and maybe maybe he's taking his regular dosage of mercury for the worms or whatever. And then the dentist prescribed some new pills that very day which happened to have mercury in them, and the odeed i'm mercury. But then that still doesn't explain.

It doesn't explain the chloroform. Doesn't explain the chloroform, which is why this story is so fun. It's just you were just running in circles. I think, no, I think what happened is it was the wife shuld just say, you know one day that they're just sitting around and it's just and she just probably said, you know what, darling, it's been so long since I've been in a chuck lug contest. Why don't we check some brandy? And and so it just so he just just chugged it down

so fast he couldn't taste the chloroform in there. And then damn. Oh, well, one thing I think there is there's it's still I'm still thinking there is some possibility of some sort of clever introduction through the food into his stomach. That's a possibility to will you science that out and then come back to us. Okay, that's your homework, and I'm not eating any meals here. Most likely he just slugged down some brandy that have been spiked. Well,

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