Thinking Sideways: Murder on the Herbert Fuller

up in Indianapolis, so stay tuned on social media. Will tweet out a location probably in the next day or two and m a time as well. And we'd love to see you, love to meet you, you know, just come out out and and really just celebrate with us. We really hope we'll see you then. And uh yeah, cheers. Thinking I don't know stories and things we simply don't know the answer to. Hi there, Welcome to another episode

of Thinking Sideways. I'm Joe, joined as always by Steve and and uh, of course, let me say once again, I'm Joe. So let's just have less I know, because I'm the important one. At least, I'm the pretty one. That's true. Yeah, Yeah, Devon is a smart one. Yeah that's true. Okay, well let's talk about our mystery for this week. This is another maritime mystery, which I know

everybody loves, right, and we're surprised it's Joe doing it. Surprised. Yeah, this is a fun little sort of murder on the high seas saying this is murder on the Herbert Fuller or what's your SubTime pleasantness on the high seas? Yeah, yeah, the Herbert Fuller was actually a ship, nineteenth century ship. It was a barking tea. And let me tell you first off, I know you guys are dying to know what a barkent Tea was because I don't think they

build him anymore. Frankly, I don't believe they do. Yeah, yeah, barkingtein is a ship. Yeah, it's a ship. It's well, it's it's a it's a schooner. Rig that's it's a schooner. It's a schooner. But instead of like having fore and aft sales I usually see on sailboats, it's got one of the foremast is square rigged. And that's different from say a bark bark is a similar rig but the main mast and the foremaster square ring. What's that mean?

Is it important? In the middle one? I don't know what s the mast in the very front he's the one he's talking about. And it is a square piece of canvas instead of a triangular It's really that simple, you know. No, no, no, no, no, it's it's it's got yard arms. I mean it is a square piece of Sorry, it's got yard arms hanging at right angles to the mast, but sail hangs down. But my question was that it's as simple as saying it's square rigged versus what's the other one for and aft? What's the

other kind of triangular ring? The foreign four and aft is? Yeah, that except except for for gaff riggs, which are more trapezoidal rather than triangular. Yeah, there you go. All right. So now we were in our not a lesson for the day. We know what a barcntine is. Next week we're gonna how to tell you knot for the bowl and handy knot by the way. Uh so our barcntine. The Herbert Fuller left Boston on Friday, June July third, and I had a little lumber. It was headed for

real saudio Argentina long way to go to Hallwood. But you know, hey, whatever, I thought that trees there, but I'm wrong. I was going to say the wood in America's vastly superior to any other woods. It really is. Yeah, I'm actually that was one of the things that was confusing to be at Argentina doesn't really have much of the way of hardwoods, but on the other hand, Brazil does and like not that far away, so well prices

or like size. Yeah, I mean, we had bought load of really giant old growth trees before we came in and starting to cut them all down. So maybe that was it. You know, if they needed larger lumber, probably come from North America, no, South America. Maybe that was it. Maybe they just did that the technology to mill it down to toothpicks and they had him have us do it. Yeah, so it was a ship a little toothpicks. Yeah, I don't know, but anyway, that's the story. They had lumber.

They were heading for Argentina. Uh, here's the crew members. Small crew. There was a captain Charles Nash. His wife Laura Nash went to see with him, and she was described by the press as well endowed whatever that means. We know what that means. Press why, I don't know. Well, it might have been something different years ago. I don't think so, yeah, but maybe. Well. Yeah. One of the other members of the crew was a half black guy, what they called him mulatto, Jonathan Spencer. He was a steward.

And this news account that I read, I think was a New York Times said Jonathan Steward Comma colored, Comma Steward, Steward. I didn't say that. I didn't say about white for any of the other people. Yeah, that's what I was like. Yeah, okay, back to our captain and his wife, Laura Nash, and then nine crew members and one passenger. The passenger was

Lester Monks, the old name Hawthorne, Lester Hathorne Monks. White. White, yeah, white, Harvard, Yeah, twenty years old Harvard students who was having bracchial issues apparently, and he decided that he thought that a sea journey along sea journey would be good for his bronculi issue. I bet he was. I bet some doctor was like, yeah, I know what's good for you. To get you on a ship. It's exactly what happened. His doctor told him to do it because the sea air would clear his lungs.

It's it's like when they would say, you've got tuberculosis, you should move to the country and get the clean country air and it will. Yeah, that's one of my favorite things. I watch a lot of Agatha Christie's poiro and it's like, my favorite thing is like he's suffering from obesity in one episode and they're like, do you know what you need? The sea air that'll here you. So they send him to an island, Like has nothing to do with all of the biscuits, you're you know,

it's definitely you just need to see hair. My favorite was, you're not feeling well. Let's let's take a little blood. That'll make you feel better. That'll that'll cure you. We gotta drain you have bad blood. Yeah and then yeah that I god knows how many people got killed by their own doctors back in those You gotta love a good barber. Yeah, so, Joe, Okay, we got off track. Your so how many how many people are in the crew total? Because I I thought I saw a different

number than what you have is white mask. I think, well, if you count the captain, we're talking like ten Okay, that's what screwed me up. And then there were two while there's his wife and then Lester Monks, right, and that's okay. So that's where the variance that I saw was okay, So yeah, I got it, so yeah, real quickly. Like the crew. The first mate was Thomas bram For full named Thomas Meade Chambers brown. White, yeah, white, comma yeah,

second sorry. The second day was August Bloomberg, I don't know, August Blomberg, who was a Russian Finn. Yeah, white guy. Jonathan Spencer, who was the non white guy, the steward who apparently was the only guy who had sailed with Captain Nash before on this particular voyage. And then the regular old seaman type guys, Henry j. Slice who was a German who was naturalized American, Francis Lohiuck. I don't know how to pronounce his last name, doesn't matter. He

was French, he was. It was a deserter from the French Navy. Hendrik Burdock, Holland Folk Boston, Oscar Anderson Julius Westerberg, all from Sweeden. Uh and Julius was had for some reason, it was called Charlie Brown. That's a weird nickname for a Swedish guy named Julius Westerberg. I don't know. I don't get it either, but he was Charlie Brown switter that had a zigzag pattern on it. Apparently he did.

Uh so, as I said already, the Herbert Fuller left Boston July third, headed south southeast for about ten days before things went all to hell, and then on the night of July thirteen to the fourteen was one things did take a turn for the worst. It was in the mid Atlantic, about halfway between Portugal and the United States, about four hundred miles south of Bermuda. After midnight. There are only four men away supposedly anyway, but maybe as

many as five people awake. Thomas Bram of course, the first mate, Charlie Brown, who was at the helm, Francis lahak Or, the unpronounceable French guy, and Henry Product, and they were forward as Servia's lookouts. Captain Nash was asleep in the chart room. The chart room was aft of the main cabin, between the main cabin and the steering station. Apparently the captain slept there quite often. Maybe he liked to give his wife's space or maybe his wife's snore,

but also the captain. Yeah, the captain was often very close to the helm well, but also just it happened often that I mean as recently at the nineteen fifties, it was typical for married people to sleep in separate beds. I mean, we've got a map here, and if you look at the schematic of the layout of the rooms, they look very big. I mean, I'm not surprised that they're not that big. So two people squeezed into one room,

it's kind of tight quarters. And actually, frankly, the two largest rooms are the captain's room and the captain's wife's room. That's how it looks like, right, So I mean you would as far as as far as sleeping quarters, yeah, yeah, they are, well, the captain's room in the captain's wife room with the same room you're looking at, the after cabin Yeah, the after cabinet had the couch in that he was sleeping on. Yeah. Yeah, that was not his stateroom.

Yeah okay, yeah, rewind, Yeah, and there was it's known that he was sleeping there because that was reported later by Henry Slice, who was at the wheel from before. I don't know when he began, but he was at the wheel until midnight when he was spelled by Charlie Brown. I actually just realized this guy has a very unfortunate name based on, yeah, what happened in this story. I'm surprised he didn't get arrested and like sent to jail for this hank slice. Uh. But he said there was

a there was a window. You can actually have a on here. You can see this this little window that's into the chart room right here over on the side there. But anyway, this this uh, this small window which is I take a eleven by sixteen inches about looks into the chart room. And he said, from his station at the wheel, he could see the captain's leg from about

the knee on down in the chart room. And as we know, that is the most important part of the leg for telling if somebody or telling if there the captain or not. You know, it's like or telling if it's even a huven being rather versus two prop legs that the captain put there while the captain went off and did something else that with the aliens could have been. But that's all he saw, so he assumed it was

a captain. Yeah, especially it could have just been to you know, wooden pegs, because if I learned anything about people who are captains, they all have pig legs. Don't thing we'll have one pig leg. Well, he said he could see the one leg. Yeah, I could see. It was dark. Yeah, just saying it was kind of dark. But anyway, he but he says he saw the captain news. He thought the captain was there, but then he was spelled at midnight by Charlie Brown. Our passenger, Lester Monk,

went to sleep around eight pm. Okay, yeah, sorry, I was going to make fun of the twenty year old who's like, it's a p M. Time to turn it. But then I remembered he was super sick, so I felt that I don't know if he was super sick super sick. I don't think there was a whole lot going on on board the ship. Actually, no, I imagine there was a lot of boredom. It would have been light out still, though probably I probably would stayed away a little later myself, because I said, yeah, you're right,

it was July in the mid Atlantic. There should have been some light still. But we don't. No matter whatever happened, he wants to sleep around eight and he was awoken in the middle of the night by a scream, just like in the mystery novels Who And that scream was no doubt from Laura Nash, who was being murdered. As it turns out, she does wind up getting killed in this story. Uh, And Monks said, he sat up and listened because he was well awoken by it, so he

wasn't sure if he just dreamed it or what. And he started to lay his head back down on the on the bed, and then he hears another scream, So well, it's it's real after all, he decided. So he gets up. You get to revolver out and he left his cabin. So monkst cabin opened directly onto what's the main the main cabin, and from the main cabin, it's like the chart room leads off there, the captain's stateroom leads off

of there, the pantry. It's literally just in the middle of all in the middle of a bunch of other small, big open room in the middle everything opens on to it. Yeah, he's he goes into the main cabin and then he goes aft to the chart room where the captain was sleeping or what the captain had been sleeping, because the captain you're using body terms maybe, yeah, aft, I mean he went back towards the rear of the boat of

the ship. Yeah, okay, And when he got there, it was kind of dark, but he saw that the captain's cot had been knocked over, and then he heard gurgling noises and he approached the captain and saw him in the darkness. He couldn't make him out too closely, but the captain went again, as I said, was making these weird gurgling noises and nothing else. And then he reached out to touch him and his aunt came away with blood all over it. So he has seen something really

bad had happened. He'd fallen out of his cotton, gotten a bloody nose, yeah or yeah, or bloody everything. Uh So what he said he did then is he went out or not to have went forward to Laura Nash's cabin because, as he said, Larry wanted to get her help with Captain Nash because he thought something had happened. Yeah, like he had a bloody nose. He had a bloody nose or something, and he's laying there gurgling. So so he runs to get her, and he at this point

did not realize what had happened. But I'll tell you. I'll go ahead and clear you guys in the captain got hacked up with an ax Ax murder hit in the head I think six or seven. Yeah, yeah, pretty pretty nasty gashes. But when Lester Monks gets to Laura's cabin, I finds out, well, she's been murdered too, and her arms for U C S I types had defensive wounds, so she had gouges and slashes in her in her forearms, in her hands. But she didn't help her much. She

got killed anyway. And I don't think he checked your pulse. He just wanted head and went forward, you know. Apparently she was just obviously dead, and then sometimes I happened. Yeah, So he goes out the forward passageway and up a ladder to the deck when he sees Charles Bram on deck. Charles Brown first mate, calls out to him, and but it turns out he's also got his gun with him

and he's pointing at Bram, which made Bram a little nervous. Yeah, grabs a piece of wood and throws it at him, but he actually missed it anyway, Then Lester realized what he was doing, and then so then stop pointing. He's got at Bram. But then he says the cat has been murdered, and he told Bram, you've got to come blow and see. And then, according to Monks, Bram said no, no, no.

Although I'm not exactly sure how he said that. All this stuff get is kind of subjective, and it comes back to hot Bram's later on because he becomes the main suspect. All of these statements could be said in a multitude of ways to implicate guilt or not. Yeah, how how how does him saying no, no, no, like if he sees the bodies and he goes, no, no no, you know, like like you know, people do somethings. You just kind of mutter something under your breath when you're

in a stressful situation. Or he could be the overly dramatic no no no, just like he's acting super over acting because some of the stuff he says. I looked, I was like, he is such a bad actor. I thought maybe he is just really pooping his pants. Yeah, maybe, you know, you don't really know, and maybe some people

have exaggerated a few things that he said too. I think what he said no, no, no, but he really meant was he it was dismayed because he had gone down the captain's stateroom with an axe to get a souvenir. He wanted to captain's ear, and he screwed up, didn't get it in time. Yeah, I screwed up. Yeah, yeah, okay, so say no, no, no, that's talked into going below to actually go after the chart room. Why the lamp, and well here's a captain who is still not quite dead,

still dying. Uh. And then, according to Lester Monks, Braham just stood there and said nothing and did nothing to help Captain Nash. Yeah, but it doesn't really sound like monst at anything. He kind of just stood there and they were like, well, dude, I can't do anything. I'm holding the lamp. You've got helping No, no, no, no, I have the revolver, I have the gun. Let's get his wife. She can deal with it. I guess, yeah, I guess it's fairness to both of them. Uh. You know,

there really wasn't anything they could do. He was kind of a goner. Yeah, although I'm I've been watched this has been like an ongoing discussion in my house because, as you guys know, I'm I've been like kind of progressively pursuing more and more first aid training, right, and um, my significant other who I live with, has has no certification. He wasn't a boy scout, and like that's the last time he took it, and so he now knows everything

he needs to notice survive in the actually teach you everything. Well, it's this ongoing conversation of like I'm always like why are more people trained? And why aren't why don't more people get involved? You know, we drive past a car accident and I'm like, oh my god, is someone hurt? Like we need to stop in make sure, And he's like no, there's like twenty people there, and I'm like, well, and I think that happens a lot in these situations where people just kind of are like I don't know

what to do. I'm going to make it worse. I'm just gonna stand here and I don't know, Like I don't know what to do, especially at where first aid was but existed, right, which is probably why Monks was like, well, obviously, like the first mate is going to know how to help this guy, right, He's going to know how to help him, not necessarily, and you know, and it's probably just you know, both of them standing there thinking the other guy's going to do something because they know, but

you know, neither of them did. I don't necessarily think it's suspicious, but it wasn't great, not suspicious. But you know, back in those days, you probably only make things worse. But even touching him, we'd probably give him infection just by touching him. So yeah, just leave alone. Yeah, sorry, that was a long tangent to get to my bed. That's okay, okay O. Our guys after standing over the captain for for a moment or two, they go back up on deck and then they're sort of wondering what

to you. Monks Lester Monks suggested they wake up the second mate, Blomberg. It was interesting to go back up on deck. I would have thought they would have had to go past the door to his stateroom. Anyway, Well, there's two there's two ways to egg. I could have gone aft, yeah, but I'm not sure that they want aff they went aft, that would have taken past the steering wheel where the steering station where Charlie Brown was, wouldn't they have gone out into the little hall area.

I mean, yeah, yeah, that little that little corridor leaves forward forward past of the second mate's cabin. Yeah, I know, the opposite way. But now I'm realizing that that actually also ducks out to the columns. So I'm pretty sure they went forward. Well anyway, you know, details um and then Bran supposedly told Monks that he thought there was a mute and you going on and uh and and he believed that second mate Blomberg was forward with the

rest of the crew plodding with them. And Bram said that he was afraid the crew was going to murder him because apparently he said he'd been really art on them and he thought they would be looking for a little payback. But he's a little paranoidn't But weren't Monks and and Bram's or Bram forward, They would have been about a midships I think they were on deck midship. They on deck about midship, and they couldn't see. It

was too dark. It was dark, and it was it was dark, and there's a there's a cabin up towards about that. The people could have been behind, you know, I don't know but apparently and this is this boat. The ship I guess was about two feet long, so it's pretty big. Okay, decent side, We've got a paranoid first meet, very paranoid and murdered captain and wife. Captain and wife and nobody knows what the second mate is not yet but we'll find out right now after this

commercial break. Just kidding. Uh. Bram and Monks basically sat on the deck for the rest of the night. They and in a situation like that, when you've just seen a couple of people that have been hacked to death with an axe, I think sitting back to back on the deck with your you know, your your guard up, it's not a bad idea, it would agree, especially since you watched one of them die. But it's not like you.

I mean, they walked in on one really horrific scene and then watched out to the last last of his life. I would probably sit up to Yeah, I think so. Uh. After the sun came out, though, they decided to get the ship. Stuart Spencer, who apparently fairly experienced sailor chep guy. Spencer goes after check on the captain and turns out the captain is dead. And he's been chopped seven eight

times in the head with an axe. Was Spencer the only one who had also traveled with the captain before, Yeah, exactly. And he also checked on Blomberg's cabin and the second mate, Blomberg, And it turns out Blomberg was dead too, So they've got three corpses now up as well. Yeah, so three

dead people. And as you can naturally imagine, this began kind of a long strained period for everybody on the on the ship because they're frankly in the middle of the Atlantic, they're far there, days and days sail away from anywhere, and they've got an axe murderer on board. Yeah, well I was already killed. I mean, yeah, it's a third of their Yeah, it's a good one. This is a totally like kind of a well, I won't say it,

I'll say it later. Everybody was basically eyeing everybody else, and I would be I wouldn't turn my back on anybody.

But one thing that everybody sort of agreed on afterwards was that nobody was covered in blood, and they were all looking each other over for blood, probably pretty carefully, so that we can deduce from that the killer must have changed his clothes and washed up, unless, of course, the killer was somebody else, if it was like Russian frogman who came over the side of murder, or if it was like the kraken, you know, or something like that French yeah, or the French. Yeah. Yeah, that's a

good point. It's a good point. Could have been stowaway. But anyway, whoever it was, I assume it was one of them, and he had he had clever fellow that he was, changed his clothes and washed it, washed himself up, looked, looked in the mirror and said, oh, this looks suspicious. Yeah. Yeah. You can't just change your clothes and you can have

spatter all over your friends in your hand. Although that does seem like that, would you know cleaning up right, isn't this This is the period where it's just kind of like you've got a basin of water and in your room and that would be pretty hard to clean up, it would be, and then you'd have to get rid of the basin of water and then refill it so it doesn't also look suspicious. That's a lot of yeah, not just like hopping in the shower. No, it wouldn't

be a quick down and dirty thing. I wouldn't think, you know, Yeah, whoever did it must have done it quick. But and that that was around that time, and of course Brams started acting strange. Um for one thing, they were looking around for the bloody murder weapon and they found it. They found an act with blood and gore on it, you know, and and pieces of hair and everything else where they find it. They found it on deck,

just sitting on the deck. Yeah. It was like, I wasn't like like right in the middle where everybody could see it, but it was it was laying on deck somewhere. I'm not exactly did you ever find that precisely where it Wasn't it just like it wasn't a squirreled away in like a bucket of flower or something right now, it was somewhere. It's probably next to the rail on something. And also it wasn't thrown overboard on the night of

the murder. Now whether it was thrown over the next day, but by the b or I actually said it could it could actually have been Bram. I'm calling him Bram. That's doing him. Yeah. Yeah, with a name like Bram, he must be a killer. But but yeah, they did find the acts he found. He picks up this is it, This must be the murder weapon. I'm going to get rid of it, and he throws it. Should I get rid Should I get rid of And again this is one of those those things where you could interpret it

in multiple woice. It's, you know, should I get rid of it? Or should I get I mean, it's it just he does all this weird stuff. He's such a screwball. Well, I mean, they gotta remember this too. I mean, I mean fingerprints. Fingerprinting wasn't really a thing, and there was nothing to link him. It wouldn't have been any sort of smoking gun that would have linked it to the murder. But a lot of people have said that, you know, that's another incriminating piece of evidence against him. Yeah, and

it's I mean, it's so it's worth reiterating. Right, He coast should I get rid of this? And then throws it over. I mean, I agree. I don't think it was particularly strong evidence against him. I mean, probably be very little linking. But anybody recorded statements immediately after that, he said a pederal skip three times. Okay, But here's here's the really dumb thing about chucking the axe overboard is ships at this time, in this era, there were

axes all over the place. I mean, it was a common tool because that's he fixed the ship and fixed rigging and cut rigging. It got rid of stuff. So it's not like that was the only ax around. So I seen it some of the writing that he threw the acts away so that the killer couldn't get the rest of them. I guess I would have thought more it was like a superstitious thing in the same way that like, you know, if the murder weapon is still there, the ghost of the murder murdered people are going to

come and haunt. In other cases, resulves similarly, Like I know, we're about to talk about the fact that he tried

to throw the bodies overboard. Yeah, well he suggested that he didn't actually physically try, No, I know, but yeah, and even then, I think, you know, to me, that kind of speaks of somebody who's like super superstitious and sailors back in those days, yeah, for superstition, Yeah, yeah, And so you know, it could have been as simple as the ghosts of these humans are going to come haunt us if we don't just get rid of all

this stuff. That could have been it, or it could have just been like you know, sailors are all about well this means bad luck, that means bad Yeah, I mean if it was sailors, I mean, how do they get to a day because so many things for the sailors mean bad luck. Well, I mean one of them is a woman on board usually, so I actually wondered about that. I mean, we are are a bit farther in time where it's not such a hard and fast rule. But still you gotta wonder if there wasn't chatter on

the boat. I'm sure there was. And actually another superstition apparently that I've heard anyway, was that leaving port on a friday is also bad luck. And they left on a friday. They left on the third of July, which means they didn't get to see the fireworks the next day. That's good. That was a really dumb move, that's the thing.

But so okay, so I kind of boiled this. But he then tries to throw the bodies overboard, right, uh yeah, After the entire crew had been assembled and informed of what had happened, and they go, well, what do we do next? And the first thing he says, well, let's let's throw the bodies ever board, and yeah, and that's

cleaned up this mess. And actually that's not a totally dumb thing, because when your days out and bodies are dangerous, Oh, they're not just gonna get gross, They're gonna get dangerous. I mean, yeah there, I mean all of their fluids and everything all around. I mean similarly with the ax, right, that's going to get dangerous more than just it being a weapon. Yeah, the act could be washed off though, at least you could. But if you've got more, why

not just why not just pitch it? Yeah, because I mean it could be washed off, but probably not really to like a medical satisfaction. So that was probably not the concern. They didn't know. It's not the worst idea to toss these things overboard, these things, the bodies would be I would be saying, to pitch them. I don't like having dead bodies around personally, get rid of them. Yeah.

And Henry Slice, I think, was the guy who pointed this out, that the bodies were evidence, and Bram also thought that they should clean up the huge bloody mass below decks and which is you know again, I could sort of see that maybe it was a knee freak. But Slice also felt that they leend up shouldn't happen because that's evidence down there. And so they put the bodies into the ship's jolly boat. Jolly boat being the ship's tender. You know, it's that small little dinghy that

you know exactly. Yeah, So they had the jolly but just in this case, it was hanging on the side of the ship, I think on the starboard side about the midships, and so they put the bodies in there. Well, they just sort of like you know, festered. Yeah, then they had to decide and had to decide where to go because again they're in the middle of nowhere. Bram suggested again another strike against him. He said they should continue on to South America to French Guiana, which is

kind of like where that direction they were heading. That was about fift hundred miles away. And again, as I said before, they were about four hundred miles south of Bermuda. Uh so that puts them about eleven hundred miles from Boston where they sailed out of, and about eleven hundred miles from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Yeah, and so apparently the crew decided to head straight in north to Newfoundland

and Nova Scotia. And don't understand that that is so strange to me that you just do it about face and go almost all the way back home instead of just hanging a right hand turn and go into a place he said, super close. Yeah, I was wondering about that too, at the very at least, you know, if they were going to go back north, the winds were

favorable for going north. But Boston, the city that came from it was also was about the same distance and and also pretty much north, you know, so the winds are you know, I don't know why they didn't shoot for Boston. I don't get that, or, like you said, why not shoot for somewhere further south on the east coast.

The more I think about this, the more I bet that the captain and the second mate were the only ones who knew how to navigate well, because suddenly I just I was like, I just suddenly wonder, wait, we're just going to head north and we'll find one of those places eventually. We know that into something. Yeah, I don't know. I I agree. I think it's weird that they didn't just like go to Boston. Isn't as weird that they didn't just hanger right and go for land

just because you don't. You know, this is kind of a time where you you're probably not totally certain about the government or the settlements that you might six. I mean, if you if if they had turned and gone like not do west, probably not, you don't. But if they had gone like northwest, then they would have hit like, well whatever, Carolina. Yeah, I mean, if that's true. Yeah, they weren't that far south, yeah, yeah, yeah, And so I mean, I just you know, mostly I think you wouldn't.

You wouldn't want to be landing necessarily on like you know, the Bahamas or like some kind of k in Berma, Dominica, Dominican republics, not necessarily at that time the place, but yeah, Florida or the Carolinas or I mean, all of those things. You're probably right. Probably nobody else knew him. Yeah, I mean, I'm guessing that Braham knew we're pointing in the right direction. If we just keep going, we'll hit South America and

we can finish this trip. So it's about it's a pretty big strike against him that he said, let's go this really far place away. Well, what the the prosecution said later at his trial, was that, well, of course he wanted to go sail on because his plan, his secret, covert plan, was to disappeared. Yeah, what his plan was to murder everybody else on the ships as they sailed south, and then he could just sell the cargo in the

ship and just disappear whatever. Although again, if you're bad in a crisis, I guess you can kind of I could a little bit get into his head and think, yeah, let's keep going south towards our destination because we have all this cargo and it's going to be big trouble if we don't arrive with this cargo one time. So we'll just go that way and we're just good, you know,

like just keep going that way. I don't think it's a good thought process, but I can a little bit get it if that was his thought process, But I don't think it was. Yeah, I don't know that. The whole thing is just this is a weird little story, you know. I mean, Bram was not the only one who acted oddly. I think not at all. He's just got the most attention. Yeah he did. He did. What's what's another strike against him? He came up with a

theory about the murders. Yeah, he's a great armchair detective and now I know. But so he said, he told he told us to monks, have the lester monks. He said that Blomberg, the second mate had that was this was this theory. I tried to rape Mrs Nash, who screamed, which caused Captain Nash to come running to save the days. Blomberg murdered both of them with an axe, but in the fight what he was mortally wounded himself and then

he crawled back to his cabin before he expired. So that was that was supposedly Brahm's theory about the murder. So why wasn't the captain in the same room as his wife, Well, he crawled off to the chart room to die. Yeah, they all crawled out to their respective rooms, and that's why there was that really giant trail of blood, right exactly, except well, now he crawled to his state room. He got some of you got some like rags and came back and cleaned up the and then and cleaned

up behind him. Yeah exactly. Yeah, obviously it's it's an absurd, absurd theory. But uh, you know who knows maybe he had been drinking. But actually, but that was considered strike against him because it looked like he was trying to shift the blame onto Blomberg, who couldn't who was dead and couldn't defend his name. Although I should also be noted that a lot of this stuff came from Lester Monks,

who wrote a lot of this stuff down. So there's I guess that's one thing that people should take into consideration. He who writes history can shape it however he wants. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it could be that he was the one who did it all and then he just wrote the accounts down however he wanted them to be, so he was a completely innocent guy. You never Now I've sort of wondered about old Lester monks, but we'll

talk about that in the theories. Yeah, but also, and I said, as I said, he wrote it down, and then Monks also claimed that Bram suggests at one point that they should tear up his account that he had written down. Well yeah, and uh, and Monks refused to do that. So that doesn't look good for Bram. If if he actually said that, and probably he read what was being written about unless Monks was totally misrepresenting it and he was like, that's total bunk. What are you doing.

Maybe he read it thought yeah, that he could read, and thought it was like yeah, like I say, dishonest. But still at this time, nobody was totally sure who was guilty of the murders, so it was a paranoid time. It took him six days to make landfall, and nobody wanted to go below decks, especially alone, so everybody was sleeping on deck and just spending all their time on deck. Surprise surprise, which turned had to be even less fun than you would think because it was this bad smell

coming out of the jolly boat. Yeah yeah, this random, weird yeah, I mean, totally mysterious smell. It was causing that. I wonder. Yeah, finally somebody had this bright idea to lower the boat and tow it behind the ship. It was probably a lifesaver because this is July, it's even in the mid Atlantic, it's going to be warm, if not hot. I could imagine those bodies were pretty ripe. Uh. What else happened during this time, Well, Charlie Brown got busted.

Remember him, the Swedish guy who was named Charlie Brown for one reason that nobody knows. Yeah, that's yeah. He yeah, he was caught throwing a pair of bloody pants over the rail, to which he said, oh brother, yeah, Charlie. Charlie got tossed into menacles and locked into a cabin because he was now the prime suspect, although he claimed that he had just gotten the bloody from dragging the bodies up from below decks and put him in the

jolly boat, which is entirely possible. Yeah, if he was one of the people who helped with that, yeah, and but yeah, but throwing them overboard, that looks guilty as hell. But then after Charlie was locked up in his cabin for a little while, he finally he revealed that he had seen something on the night of the murders. Remember he was steering the boat and there was that little,

that little small window into the chart room. Well, he said that when he was steering the ship during those wee hours of the morning, he saw the murders taking place. He suddenly remembered, he suddenly remembered that he saw the conveniently, I know, he saw that he saw Bram murdering the captain. He said, he also heard Mrs Nash scream. Uh. And then he said that he Bram come up on deck afterwards carrying something which was probably an axe, but it was dark as we couldn't tell for share. So that

was his story. Uh. And so the crew grabbed Bram and they changed it to a mast, and apparently he stayed there until the ship got to Halifax Nova Scotia. That was on July one, So I don't know. Yeah, well I'm not sure they changed into the mask on July like fourteen or something. Oh yeah, I was just talking without the duration of oh yeah, yeah, the whole yeah, the dead body thing. Yeah, so you know, it sounds like Bram spent at least a few days last to

the mast, maybe several could. Yeah, it must have been a great time. Yeah, And I think somebody wrote a book about this, actually, I think that, you know. And uh, but in that book actually played a small role. It was sort of a novelized Yeah, it was totally a fictionalized version. Yeah, but it did play a role later on, a slight role which I will mention. But when they got to Nova Scotia, the entire crew was arrested and locked up. So the police could sort of sort things out.

Step back to the U. S. Well, I was gonna say they were all locked up because the US, because it was a U. S ship, had to do the investigation. And so, you know, the Nova Scotia was like, we're not even going to scare around with this. You're all getting an irons. Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore. No, never, No, I mean literally, the the US doesn't tend to investigate things that happened on ships that are Yeah, we saw that with the Rebecca Korem. Yeah, that's why the the

US wasn't all that interested in high seas. That's why I do all my murdering in the high seas. Where we are we though, back in the U. S. Air, of course intensely investigated by the police, and the detective sat Bram down. Of course he was a prime suspect because of what Charlie Brown had said about seeing him

murder the captain. So the police sets him down and says to him, well, Charlie Brown has testified he saw you murder the captain in the chart room to that window from the steering station, to which Bramp said, quote, he couldn't have seen me. Where was he unquote what was taken as a slip of the tongue. It's kind of like saying, well, you could not have seen me killing the captain in my red coat because I was wearing my black coat. Yeah, he's wrong, but I don't know.

That's so that was taken as an incriminating statement, Like he was saying he could not have seen me killing the captain because I was careful to be out of

sight when I did it. And he could have also been saying he couldn't have seen me because I didn't do it well that or you know, there's the whole statement that he saw him walking out of the cabin area on deck, and you know, he might have have gone not forward where the wheel was he but he might have headed towards the rear of this ship from his own cabin because his because his room is actually directly across from the second mates, so he could have

popped out the back entrance unawares of what had happened. And he's like, how could he have seen me? I was on the other side of the of that entire area, Like that could be what he was trying to say. It could have been. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say, but it's certainly not an incriminating thing. But all of the various actions and statements from Bram we're put in front of a jury by the prosecution. These included well, of course, as I mentioned, he found a murder weapon

threw it overboard. He had tried to pen to blame on Blomberg with his murder theory. He later tried to blame Charlie Brown. He did have bloody pants, the blady pants. Yeah. He also supposedly asked monks to destroy his written account because it put him in an unfavorable light. Yeah, and that Spencer the Stewart testified that Bram had railed about Captain Nash and second Might Blomberg earlier in the voyage, and that he also said something in the effect that

he wanted to have sex with Mrs Nash. Does that sound at all out of character of what you would expect to come out of the mouth of a grumpy sailor that day and age? I hate that guy, I hate that guy. I want to sleep with that lady. Yeah, this is this is not sound unusual. I I wouldn't not expect that. Let's not forget what the paper said about Mrs Nash who was well endowed, so I'm sure

that he was not the only one on the ship. Really, it's gotta be kind of a weird thing to be the captain and know that every single guy in the crew was just lusting after your wife. Yeah, weird. Well that's a power dynamic, I would say. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's not like he didn't expect that. Yeah, they were getting into Yeah, I had to have known about it. Maybe he enjoyed it. It's like, ha ha, I can't

have it. Yeah, Well, anyway, when you were on your cruise ship, you were the only woman, right, Okay, never mind what else the prosecution, as I said, they've made the point that he wanted that longer trip to Prince Guiana so he could murder everybody and so the body's overboard and stuff, which is kind of amazing theory because there's no evidence of that. Maybe he didn't tend to do that, but I think the prosecution had a little more a little more flexibility in those things to put forward,

you know, ludicrous theories. But they also brought up some older acquintances. Come the prosecution never does that, they never, they never, or now they still do it. Yeah, well there was no forensic files to come in later and prove the case. Yeah, I think that the I think they were a little work careless back in those days, although there's still plenty of that going on today. They

played a little fast and loose. They also found some older They really dug up all the dirt they could find on him, And they found a guy who had sailed with Bram on a ship called the White Wings, who said that Bram had told him or suggested to him, that they should kill the captain, take the ship, sell the ship and the cargo. Apparently he told the same sailor.

I think this guy's name was Nicholas Alstill, the same guy, that he had been a wardership called the Twilight, and he had scuttled the ship, he delivered the cargo, collected the money, scuttled the ship, and then told the owners that well, I'm sorry the money went down with the ship. It was all I could do to get to the lifeboats. Sorry, sorry, dudes, but he kept them. They confessed this to this Nicholas guy. Leaves me to think that Bram had a big mouth.

They had other witnesses. I won't list him all. Well, I mean, it's It's obviously he wasn't afraid to just talk in front of other people, based on the statements he made about the captain in the second mate and the captain's wife story. Yeah, I don't know. He might have said. He might have said I want to kill and then the name of all every other guy on

the crew came out of his mouth. I mean, there's some people who just want around going, oh, I'm just gonna kill that guy because they're frustrated with him, simple as that doesn't necessarily mean no, no, yeah, I never do that at all. But again, I wasn't there. I didn't wasn't I could not observe his demeanor or that he might have been a really really he might have been a real scumbag, which still doesn't mean he did it, but at least it makes it a little more incredible.

It's hard to tell. The only thing I know about Bram is what I've read about him a little bit, and I've seen one photograph of him. He looks like, well, right, he doesn't look like a scumbag. Have you seen the drawing of him? Now? Oh, it's hilarious because it looks nothing like his photo. It was like a newspaper thing for the trial. Yeah, because in his photo he's got a hairline similar to mine, you know, it's very high, and he's got the bald spot in the back and

no facial hair or um. And then you see the drawing of him and he's got what looks like a full quoff of hair and the mustache, the big mustache of the time, and for something like that's weird. Wait, and I started comparing him. That's when I realized, like, I really think that somebody Internet mislabeled something and it has just been just spread everywhere. Oh yeah, that's never happened. Huh, that's that's gotta be it. I guess even back in

those days, I didn't take that much artistic license. I don't think usually. Yeah, but back to our trial. Uh, they put him on trial later that year. They were quick about things and let Charlie Brown go pretty quickly.

They kind of what did They can't think of the terminology that the wording that they use, but essentially they can sidered him a idiot um in terms of that was you know, well, he's a little mentally unsound and he's obviously not smart enough to pull this off, like maybe we should take him to the sanitarium so he didn't hurt himself. Kind of, he's too dumb to pull this off on his own. Yeah yeah, And that's that's one of the ways I get away with murder by

the way I played dumb. Yeah, you're good at it. Oh yeah, good at murder. Yeah, alright, screw y'all. Needless just say Bram was convicted of murder, because that's another thing this happens today still is you know, their juries are inclined to and there's been a heinous crime that somebody's got to be guilty, somebody's gotta pay for. Unfortunately that happened in this case, I think. But the trial was set aside in the technicality, and so he got retried.

He was convicted again. And by the way, all the first trial he was sentenced to hang and uh were the good old gallows. Yeah yeah, he never actually did get strung up. He's I think about fifteen years in prison. And as I said, there was a woman who wrote a book about this, which was apparently read by none other than Teddy Roosevelt, remember him, Yeah, President guy, Yeah,

And and Teddy was not president at the time. But apparently he was sort of sort of taken with the case of Thomas Bram and took it up with President Woodward Wilson and got Wilson to pardon him. So he got a pardon from Wilson and got out of jail. Or no, no, it would have been like, oh god, I don't remember the year he actually got busted out of jail, but oh six. Didn't Wilson get elected in nineteen Uh no, I would have been even year. No, he he was the president. He was office from March

fourth in eighteen thirteen to March fourth, nineteen one. Okay, so he was elected in nineteen twelve. So so the murders happened in ninety six, So we go, oh six to eleven. Well, yeah, god, how long that's really well, the time the years on this one don't add up for the term he served. I guess his trial took several years. Yeah, I said that in the fifteen years that I've read about it, they served in jail probably included the time he spent in jail during and between

trials and all that stuff. They could have been the whole accumulated, you know, time he spent behind bars. Well, doesn't make sense, he's say some time. I mean, in fairness, I don't know where he served, But Woodrow Wilson was also the governor of New Jersey from nineteen eleven to nineteen thirteen, and governors can part in. Wilson was president when had happened, Yeah, it wasn't was president, I don't believe, and that since the ships sailed out of Boston, I

don't think it would have had any jurisdiction. I just didn't know where the trial was happening. I don't know where any of that was happening. I think it was Boston. Yeah, never mind, really went way off of the path all about Woodward Wilson, which is pretty cool because nobody actually ever talks about Woodrow Wilson anymore. Yeah, well people should talk about Wilson. I'll tell you why and it. We'll

do that for another episode though. But as far as Bram goes, you know, he may very well have been the killer. I don't think the evidence was this positive in my mind. But if it wasn't him, unless assume for a second then it wasn't, well then who could have been time for some series maybe, but for nine other people. Yeah, about that well, not nine. Let's nine crew members in one passenger and one passengers. Yeah, well the second mate second mate eight kind of sam makes

it seven. So seven? Okay, okay, yeah, anyway, but before we get into our theories and our suspects, let's take a Please tell me you're not going to show me an ax. Yeah, good idea. I'll show you my hatchet compromise. You stare down at the pile in front of you and wonder what created this meat and vegetable application of non Euclidean geometry. Somehow you're supposed to have known how to pick out the best ones at the store, which

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off your first week of deliveries. So visit Hello Fresh dot com and enter sideways thirty when you subscribe. Delicious ingredients. You'll love to eat, simple recipes you love to cook. Get cooking. Stop alcoming, Okay, we're back after that fantastic commercial. Uh, we're gonna talk about our suspects. So many good ones. So we got, of course Bram, who was the guy who actually got convicted, who really I suppose could have

done it. My only problem with Bram is a suspect, is that well, so he murders that, he murders the captain's wife, and of course then um Lester Monks wakes up. Of course, it takes him a moment or two to get his revolver and loaded and everything, and then he leaves and go spice the captain and goes up to

the deck and finds Bram on deck. So, Ram, Ram, if you if you did actually murdered the wife last, if he murdered the wife last, then would he have had enough time to change his clothes and clean himself up, get all the blood off him and everything, and then get up on deck and then for Lester Monks to come up on deck to find him there? Would you have had enough time? Do you think? Yeah? He may have.

I mean, because we don't know how much time Monks actually spent with the captain when he first found him and yeah, or how much he spent time he spent with the captain's wife staring at her dead in the room. Usually, if I'm in a room with a chopped up, mangled body, I don't I don't carry Okay. So here's the thing, though, I I don't think that for reasons. I know we're going to talk about that Monks was moving all that fast coherently, and so I could see this taking several minutes.

And let's just think. Okay, so let's say Bram did it and he's wearing a coat let's just say he's got some kind of big overcoat smock thing on. So he walks out on deck. There's a bucket of water out there, so all he's gotta do is take off his big jacket and scrub his hands in his face in a random dirty water bucket that is outside. Yeah, I suppose if he planned it really carefully. I mean, they actually have extra canvas for patching sales and stuff

like that on a ship. So something. Here's a question is if he made himself a jacket that he then threw overboard, why didn't he also throw the axe overboard? That's a good question. Maybe he screwed up. He could have literally dropped it and when he because I think he's the one who frowned the axe. He could have very he could have had that internal monologue of oh crap, that didn't go over with my my killing jacket, I gotta get rid of this thing? Should I get rid

of this? Oh? No, splitch. He could have been that. I don't think that's it. I think he's just too easy of a he's the pretty easy Yeah. It's a favorite. You know, you might even think of as a fall guy. Yeah, in a way, So Okay, Yeah, so Bran could have done it, um, you know, but let's look at a

few other people. Of course, we've got Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown, he tells this really strange story about how he saw brand murder the captain but just you know, didn't think to tell anybody about it because then somebody pulled the football out from him and he fell. Yeah. So I mean his story is like and it could have just been like, well, you know, after he got locked in the cabin and he's the chief suspect, he wanted to

shift the blame on anybody you possibly could. But still, you know, I mean, he sees the captain being chopped to pieces, and then shortly after he hears the little captain's wife screaming, and he, just like Bob, keeps steering the boat. Got to make sure this boat doesn't thebergs around. Yeah, and so even and the stays at the station. But then after he gets off the station at two am, he still doesn't go talk to anybody about it. Yeah, which, you know, what you never see anywhere is he may

be telling the truth. He may have seen who did it, but he may have been their lookout, or he may have decided that he could extort a little cash out of him by threatening to tell. So he sees, let's just say it's it's Bram, or let's say it's Slice just because I like his name. So he sees, he sees Slice doing the slice and in the chopping, and says, oh, I'm not gonna say anything, And then later on, hey,

Mr Slice, just so you know, I saw you. I saw you doing some slicing and it looks like Mr Bram there through the acts away, so I know you're not gonna be able to use it on me. But when we keep mush ut mm hmmmmmmmmmmm that you you even said yourself that there were other ways to kill someone on that ship. I understand that. But he may have just you know what, people, people who commit who is commit black all the right way to say that,

sure there's a crime. People who commit blackmail, they don't always I mean, people see people killing other people and try to get cash out of him for it, never worrying that that person is going to actually do the same thing to them. So he may have decided, oh, no, there's too much there's too much activity. He won't come after me. Yeah, it's true, maybe, but yeah, it's on

TV all the time. Yeah, TV. But the thing the problem I have with the story too, though, is that from where the wheel was in the window and the captain's cop so the captain essentially his legs would have been pointed aft towards the stern of the boat in the front. Yeah, towards the stern. Yeah, so this is like I'm looking at it. Yeah, so this is like aft this way right, which is the front? Yeah, and

uh no after four there's four and there's apts. So why is the wheel I thought the wheel would was in front of this entire cabin structure so that he could see. Now, typically they had the wheel towards the back because that's it's it's it's those to the rudder as possible. So and on sailor ships usually the wheel

is in the back of the boat. Yeah. So so, but anyway, the captain is from what the captain's legs would have been, and Andry Slice when he was steering earlier, he said he saw the captain's legs through the window, only his legs from the feet to the knees up because they were cut off. Yeah they were. Yeah, it could have been cut off or it could have been that from that angle his that's the only part of you could see without actually leaving. Yeah, without actually leaving

a station and moving to the right and down. Yeah. Yeah. From the station, all I could see was from the knee on down. And now I can't imagine if I was going to chop somebody who was sleeping laying down, I was gonna chopped up with an AX. And remember

he was hit on the head. If you were going to approach somebody laying down to hit him on the head with an ax, would you go around to the end, to the end of where he's laying out where his feet are, and chopped from there, or would you stand next to him and chop In other words, you wouldn't be anywhere close to the bottom of his body. He would be standing next to his his head. Yeah and so and so, Bram, if he truly did this, he

should have been out of sight Charlie Brown. And unless Charlie Brown was Brown window, unless he left his station and looked through that she could have because I mean, I guess an argument of it being Bram, it's you know, he said, well, how could he have seen me? Like?

Where was he that he could have seen me, and that would be the logical step of that guy was supposed to be at the wheel the entire time, and I know that if you're standing at the wheel, you wouldn't have been able to see me chop chopping this guy's head open. Yeah, unless you weren't there. So where was he? What was he doing? Why did you see me? That makes sense. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that that, you know, Charlie Brown, for example, could have

if he really saw him. It could have been he maybe tied the wheel off just for a moment or two, so you go over the rail and urinate. Yeah, he turned around and saw him, and then turned around saw what was going on in there. But but that makes it just as likely that Slice could have done it

between the hours of eight and twelve. He could have killed the captain and the second mate because nobody else was around, and he lashed the wheel and then later on decided he was going to take, you know, finish off the captain's wife. May I mean, yeah, he yes, his name is Slice after all. So yeah, but anyway, Charlie Brown, you were saying he was kind of like simple, I think one of the words that. Yeah, so even though his story really frankly doesn't add up for me

at all. He might have just been trying to get himself out of trouble or ye know that that and more than one case has been entirely based upon the story of a unfit individual. Yeah, yeah, And and again it's it's hard to say what anybody's motive would have been. Bram. I don't know what his motive exactly would have been. He apparently didn't like anybody on the crew, didn't seem to or at least didn't like the captain. It didn't

like the second mate. But you know, there's lots of people I've done that I haven't liked that you know, haven't murdered them. So Charlie Brown, even you know, even less motive to kill somebody's. Let's move to our next suspect, who is Lester Monks. Yeah, because just what the hell was he doing there anyway? I mean, really though we know what he was doing there, But his doctor told him that he needed to go on this voyage to

get sea air because because he was ill. But I mean, when they looked in his luggage, his luggage was nothing but booze. Sixty bottles of beer, a bottle of I think it was whiskey and jin or scotch. I mean, like the guy was packing a boatload of booze literally actually for a long sea journey. That's not a huge amount of But but what I'm getting at is the fact that I have a suspicion and that he had a drinking problem. And his doctor said, if you go on a sea voyage, you can dry out. You have

nowhere to go, you can't get the booze. But he went about it in such a way He's like, well, I'll just take my booze with me. I haven't. I can just I just spread it over the journey. It'll be fun. Yeah. But like here's a question, why this ship? Why not a ship that was made for passengers, Like why not book passage? He spent all his money on beer. Yeah. I think that if you get you can actually and

there's people today even you travel on freighters because it's cheaper. Yeah, and yeah, you can actually travel all over the world on freighters. Maybe that I've actually considered it myself, I just haven't gotten around to doing it. He chose this one.

He could have chosen any ship. But even me even more than that, like, I don't know that necessarily history ads up so well, it doesn't because I mean, here's Here's one of the things that's interesting to me is that he was in the passengers room, which is immediately after the captain's and where the where the captain's wife was murdered. It's between where the captain was murdered and the captain's wife was murdered exactly. And so he's he's

awakened by a scream. He's a little disoriented, so he sits up, and then here's a second scream. So he exits the room with his revolver and into the main cabin, turns left towards the chart room, where the captain was. But if he heard that the captain's wife screaming in her stateroom, that's just on the other side of the bulkhead from his cabin, So he couldn't have been I don't think confused about the direction the scream was coming from.

Why did he turn left towards where the captain was and not right towards where the captain's If he had a couple of drinks, his his sense of direction might have been a little fouled up. I know that, but that's something that puzzles me. And I mean, if he if he wanted to go to the chart room, is that what you're calling it? Joe said, correct, If he wanted to go to the chart room, why didn't he just go out the door of his room that led directly into the chart room instead of going into the

main could have been bolted? Well, that could have been. I mean, there might actually be there and then there is there is another door there. Yeah, it's it's true. The way the story was that I read about it might have been actually confusingly worded, and maybe he did exit directly into the chart room and not maybe it

was bolted or it could have been bolted too. I don't know that if you if you were the captain and you had a chart room that opened directly into a passengers room, I don't know that you would necessarily want a door direct and I don't necessarily know as a passenger you would just want the captain to be able to walk into your room like whenever. Yeah. So yeah, it's like it's like those extra doors in hotel rooms

and interconnected interconnect them. Yeah, yeah, they're usually locked. Usually yeah, locked solid. But it's still, you know, no matter how many doors they were there, I still have to wonder why he went the opposite direction from where the screams were coming, you know. And that's that's one of the things. And the next thing I wonder about, it's weird acoustics, possibly know. The other thing I'll say is that it is never as far as I know, maybe you guys

do know. I didn't see it specified that it was a woman screaming. I thought he just heard screaming. And dudes scream too when they're getting hacked to crap for sure. But but still so it's possible to me that he did go in the direction the captain captain screaming. Yeah, that would actually make sense in terms he was still dying, captain was still dying yet the wife had obviously already expired.

But but the next stort thing of the story that makes no sense to me is that he finds the captain gurgling and dying in the darkness, and the first thing he does is goes to find his wife to help it. It's a puzzle to me why he would do that, as opposed to going to find the first mate of the second mate. He may I mean, he's a passenger. He may have no idea what anybody's edule is on the ship. He's been on the boat for like ten days. Now you should know you you're you're

assuming that servant individuals. That's true. But also the schedules don't matter. You know, when you found somebody who's been murdered, you can we can wake people up. Well, know what I mean is he may not have known if they were in their cabins or if they were about their duties. And he knows that the captain's wife will be in her room because she wasn't in the room. What's the point of getting the captain's wife. Do you want to get somebody in authority? You don't want to get the

captain's wife. Well, Frank, captain's wife has authority over the captain right. Uh. He may have thought that she would have been able to help the most because she may have had some sort of training. They may have talked about she may have you know, served as a nurse or something like that at one point. Who knows, right, Also, young men often seek out mother figures in situations like this, Right there, like, oh my god, I gotta find mom because she's going to know what to do. And fourthly,

her room is the closest. It is pretty close the first door you come to, other than his own room. But it still makes no sense to me. But here's the next thing about it about his story that makes no sense to me, uh, and that is he has he Ha's aft and had a passageway aft and and then he comes to us, comes to a ladder that takes him up to the deck where he meets with more.

He beats Bram correct well. That passageway. It takes him right past the first mates and second mates cabins, and he did not actually stop and knock on either one of their doors. And it turns out that when he passed the second mads room cabin by the way, that that door was actually a jar. It wasn't wide open, but it was a jar, and he just walked right past it. And that's the only thing I could attribute

that to. All I can say is there's that. There's the other things about monks that are a little disturbing to me, is that a lot of the incriminating information that we found and heard about Brams and his trial came from Monks. Yeah, I actually, despite my argument against you, I think monkst it. Yeah, I think I think it's entirely possible that Monks was actually like a very clever,

little psychotic serial killer. So I who just thought, you know, let's see if I can just you know, sign onto a ship murder some people and pended on somebody else and didn't write a book about And let's let's just see how good I am if I cannot just get away with it, but see somebody else hang for it, or he was just like an awful drunk. It will, but it would explain the question you asked earlier, which is, how would anybody have had time to change and clean up?

He would have had time, he would have had He totally would have been the guy because also right he he was the only one who heard the screams Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown claims that but then Charlie, but Charlie Brown only said he heard screams after yeah, long after Yeah, he didn't. So whether Charlie actually actually heard a scream or not, I don't know. And so there might there might not have been a scream. So he was the only one who heard the scream. So yeah, and I

think he didn't definitely. I mean if you look at say Bram Bram Bram, like you said, maybe he could have done it. It It would have had to be it would have had to have been really well planned, some good preparations at a time. But like I said, I mean, Monks had all the time in the world. He really could have done it. So yeah, Monks, he's one of my friends. He did it. Yeah. Let me let me toss out another one though, which is that everybody did it.

Because if all you guys have all read Murder on the orin Express right and where it turns out that everybody had a motive to kill the guy and they all participated, and so maybe that's what it was. That's a lot of motives, true mutiny. Yeah, well it's a it's a you know, it could have been that the

wife was just collateral damage. And so what's the second mate? Yeah, and although again like why they were all three in separate rooms, but okay, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, yeah, Okay, what rushed the chain of command is what you do. You rushed the captain, you rushed his wife. And because the first mate is in on it. You rushed the second mate who has said I would not you know, let's just presume he said I wouldn't take part in that. You're crazy. So you you decimate the chain of command

and you can insert yourself in there. But at that point, why didn't they just go rogue instead of going home? Why didn't they continue with the journey or become pirates or something, you know, like that's that's the problem with this theory is that they did it and then they chickened out. Yeah, that could have They could have concocted some sort of a story, like there was an outbreak of influenza the captain. Yeah, actually right, Yeah, so they could have. I mean people died on on long voyages

back in those days. They got swept overboard and drowned, or they got sick and died. I mean that things could happen. If they really were doing that, then they just had to bury them at sea. Yeah, and the whole thing went away. Just toss them all overboard. And then if everybody's story is the exact same, no problem. Yeah, pretty much. Charlie Brown was such an idiot he kept screwing up the story. Yeah, then they knew they were sunk.

Damn Charlie Brown anyway, But um, I tend to say tend to I love conspiracies, but I don't usually believe in him because usually somebody's stupid and somebody talks. Yeah, I think monks did. It was that it was Time Traveler. Could have been, because it turns out this load of wood was going to create what would eventually become the Nazi compound in Argentina in the forties. For hiding Nazis and not doing that, it didn't allow them somewhere to go,

so then they were eventually found sent Nuremberg. Yeah, it could have been. It could have been. I'm thinking of the Illuminati, because the whole thing is actually just the way to get Bram killed. They didn't want to get their hands duty by killing him. They wanted to be strung up by the stage, so they instead they murdered three other people have framed him for it. Yeah that sounds about right, Yeah, totally right. Well, it could be they made they were trying to make him a martyr.

This wasn't there wait wait, wait, there there was stuff about Bram saying he was a Mason and saying things that were supposedly Mason code of I'm in distress. You know, I'm the I'm the son of a mother who has already passed away. It was some phrase was recorded that that was a coded message from one person to the other that I need help. Well, that's why what drow Wilson. Pardon him too, because he was also a Mason, right, that could have been I don't know what was Wilson, Mason,

a lot of more. Yeah, Yeah, Wilson was a fun guy. He was also probably an elk so shriner. Yeah, any other theories there's to be in a triangle. Yeah, I don't think that. Yeah, it's sort of like sort of exercise this mojo on somebody and made him like murder these three people. And yeah, so of course the cracking and choppy. We haven't blamed anything on Chuppy for a while, that's true. Yeah, I don't think chuppy does so well in open water cheap, it's not really cheap. Yeah, and

there's no goats. Yeah, so anyway, this is gonna remain a kind of a mystery, I think. But I think I agree with Devon and maybe Steve about about Monks. I think it was probably him. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean it's it's but it's also entirely possible that it was one of the other regular semen who we never talked about, who had some acts to grind no pun in and did a good enough job that nobody saw him and had plenty of time to clean up. But because remember that Bram and Monks sat on back until

the sun rose, which was ours. So I would give that person, whoever, that unnamed person is plenty of time to change the clothes and wash up and hide away their their bloody gear. Completely possible. Yeah, it could have been. It could have been one of these things too, where somebody in the crew, like bribed the second mate to to kill the captain and his wife and then and then killed the second mate rather than pay him. Could have been that. You know, there's all sorts of possible forever.

Oh yeah we could. Well that's what we do, yes, irresponsible conjecture, Yes pretty much. Yeah, so we've got a tagline somewhere. Yeah, I think we will, probably, but more on that later. Okay, time for a little housekeeping before we go. First off, you're probably wondering how to get ahold of us, especially, want to send me fan mail. Yeah, our email is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com, or you can send it by steamship. Yeah, that too,

or morse, there's always Morse. We have a website Thinking Sideways podcast dot com where you can you can find our episodes. You can download them and listen to them. And we've got links to find merch all kinds of fun stuff like t shirts and mugs and stickers. Uh. You can also find us on iTunes where you can subscribe. You can rate us, give us a review, hopefully a good review at a high rating. And oh yeah, and and downboat all the one star ratings, would you please? Yeah,

And you can stream us. There's what, there's U, there's Stitcher, and there's biggle play. There's pod being which you yeah, yeah, so you can you can find us somewhere out there. And social media, we're we're on Facebook. Of course, we have a group. We have a page. So you joined the group and like the page and yeah, and they'll try to friend us, you know, it's not a friend thing. Joined the group your friends. Yeah, we are your friends friends,

which is we're not Facebook friends. Yeah. Twitter, Thinking Sideways without the G and of course we have a supreddit thinking sideways with It's all kinds of hot action, Devin. What's going on on the subreddit? Nothing? Okay, there you go get out there right now. You're missing out. That's all right. Well that's it for next week, so I can't think of anything maritiming, so goodbye. We should probably

just chop this one off right here. Okay. I was going to do my schooner thing, but that's okay, you already did that. It's a schooner too, sooner, you dumb kid. That's a sailboat. Sailboat is a schooner. You know what these buddy isn't real. I am totally that guy over there. It's just a guy in a suit. Okay,