Thinking Sideways: Witchcraft Murder

we'll get to understand what exactly they do. If you use the code sideways twenty, you'll get off your purchase and there are some deals. You know, it gets more expensive the closer you get, So buy your tickets now, No, seriously, buy your tickets now. Um, and then we'll be there and we'll get to meet you. So sideways twenty at crime con dot com. Uh. You can find links to that on our website as well. I just want to remind you Crimeen, whoa oh, I don't know stories of things.

We simply don't know the answer too. Hi there, welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I'm your host for this week, Joe, joined as usual by and Steve and uh, the team this week there, we're going to tackle another really awesome mystery. H First off, I'd like to thank Sean who suggested this like two years ago at least. So thanks Sean. Appreciate it. Kind of an interesting little story here. It's great, Yeah, began murder is always fun

ours definitely. Yeah. I just picked up a book about the Victorians and murder and the evolution of the murder mystery, and the authors I think sums it up very nicely, is that people really love murder. In this author of this book, it's called The Invention of Murder, and she describes it quite well. It's that people really love murder. It's like listening to to a big rainstorm when you're inside your house and the heaters on your warm and snug and dry. That's why it's like murders great when

it's happened to somebody else, and it's really true. I saw that book at your table, and that thing will hold your door open. It's a huge book. It's a big old book. It got a lot of great blurbs. There we go. Yeah, so that's a sign of success. It must be good. I'm only about five pages in so far, so we'll see. Uh back to our thing though. Uh So our murder mystery began on Valentine's Day, that would be February fourteen, and it happened in the village

of Lower Quinton in Warwickshire, England. Lower Quintin is about six miles south of Stratford upon Avon, whish we will all know is the birthplace of the sex Pistols. Yeah, that's all it's known for him. Yeah, this is This might be the closest I've been to one of our European mysteries. Actually, I was in Stratford upon Avon once. I've also been there. Yeah, so about six miles away from from the murder. I probably drove by it, he probably did. Yeah, it's kind of in the middle of everything,

so it's very easy to drop through there. Uh, national to place. I like Stratford. I think that's where I saw my first European McDonald's. Yeah, but it was tastefully done. They did a good job, Thank God for that. Yeah, now that now that we've got that out of the way. Yeah, they did a good job of incorporating into the local architecture. Uh. I'll back to Clinton or Quinton. Lord Quintin is a tight, tiny village of four hundred nine three people at the time.

Of course it's a little bigger today. And it was as the scene of a murder. And actually it was a pretty horrific murder. You guys have read about this. It was pretty nasty, pretty brutal on February four and but as if the murder wasn't bad enough, soon there were allegations and rumors of supernatural activities and witchcraft that began circulating around town and coming to the attention of the police and the press, and the case became known

as the witchcraft murder. So that's what we're talking about. Yeah, the witchcraft murder pretty well known in Britain. I think, yeah, they've been running with it for a while. Uh, yeah,

they have been. Uh and it's yeah. Scotland Yard actually did a very extensive investigation of this murder because originally that the local constable called the Stratford police to come and investigate and they felt like they were in a little bit over their heads, so they called in Scotland Yard to investigate this and uh, and I guess who shows up but Robert Fabian, fame detective. They did a TV show about him called Fabian of the Yard. I think it was two years that ran in or during

his ten year as a detective stuff. I think that might have been actually retired and they started writing books about his too much longer though, yeah, not not much longer. I'm sure he was still alive and so they That wasn't one of the earliest TV shows in the BBC. Yeah, as Joe would say, he parlayed his career at Scotland Yard into a lucrative career as an author and then

turning that into this TV series. That's my plan with this podcast actually, yeah, it's probably I'm gonna give it about another year and then I'm gonna cut and run and just like turn it into some Nancy Grace ask. Yeah, I can steal the domain from this and all the passwords. Yeah, I'm going to start writing novels about it, like you know, like say, dB keeper gets winned the fact that I'm hot on his trail and he starts to murder us all. You know. So that would be a kind of a

good Hardy Boys esque kind of mystery. Yeah. So I'll probably never get around to it, actually, but it would be fun go back to our mystery here called in ye Robert Fabian was called in. Much investigating was done, and they came up with basically nothing. And it didn't really help that none of the people of Laura Quinton

were actually willing to admit knowing anything about the murder. Uh. And I think that this episode, the whole thing about Laura Quinton and the Witchcraft murders, I think it became a basis for a theme that we've seen in movies and TV shows, et cetera, which is the tiny town with the dark, dark secret, you know, the I'm talking about, you know, and the protagonist, like you know, it gets some guy out of the corner who's about to tell the truth, and then somebody else shouts him down and says,

shut the hold up. Such a bloody goot, you know what I'm talking about? Right, Yeah, yeah, we're all seeing that. And I think that might have originated here, the big wall of silenced. I just can't imagine that this is the first time that's ever happened. But maybe, yeah, probably not. But yeah, I didn't start out with ken McElroy. It actually happened earlier than Kenya believe it or not. Realistically, like I said, I bet it happened before it could

have been. And I know we're going to bring it up. But the press really got a hold of this, the British press, and so there's a lot of stuff in here that is kind of fun to unpack and see where the truth really lies. Yeah, and part of that the villagers wouldn't talk, I feel is in there. Yeah. I think we get a little little ahead of ourselves here, and she probably start with the victim and we're here. Yeah. I guess we haven't even said who died yet. I know,

I know that's that's talk about that. Charles Walton, a K. Charlie, I was born in Lower Quenttin in eighteen seventy And did you have a prinsity for biting fingers? That's a good question. I don't know's that cultural reference I'm not getting. Yeah, I figured as much. Yeah. So I've got his biography here, I've I've drotted it down and I've condensed it to about ten pages, So settle in. It's gonna be about

three hours now, just kidding. Uh. There was a period Charlie's adolescence when he went off to a boarding school called ward Hogs or something, like that was that for witches and wizards and a train station nine and three quarters nobody really knows, okay, but yeah. After his return to Lower Quentin And, Charlie had a fairly normal life working as a farm laborer. Uh. He was reported to

have a gift for animals. In his youth. He was a good horse trainer, and it was said that birds would flock to him and eat out of his hand. So he was a disney princess apparently. Uh, he could tame wild dogs with a few words. Disney princess. Yeah.

And although he wasn't a friendly guy, and he was generally well regarded by the villagers, he kind of kept to himself, and when he was seeing at the local pub, he was usually sitting at a quarner by himself, sipping on an ail and puffing on his pipe with his perfectly normal red bluing coals where his eyes should have been inserted. That yeah, um line, It's hard to know with Charlie's bio exactly where the life ends and the

fiction begins. I could I could guess by the things that he was dealing with in life that he might have been a little standoffish, just because of the things that he went through, which I knew we're gonna talk about here shortly. But I don't think that he was some crazy lunar, no, no. I think he was sociable enough, but he just he just wasn't the kind of guy that actually got out and hung out in the pubble lot.

For one thing, he wasn't that wealthy. He probably didn't have a lot of money to spread around, so he probably didn't go down there and waste a lot of money on on guinness and stuff. But he was generally, like I said, pretty well regarded by the villagers. Charlie lived in a rented cottage in Lower Quinton with his wife Uh and then when his sister died, they adopted her daughter, Edith, who was also known as d And that was she was at the age of three right then.

And then in next seven Charlie's wife died and and he and Edith continued to live on in the same cottage and they lived there for years up until he died and uh and by the way, he edith dad apparently was still alive. Apparently he was not interested in raising her, So that's why Charlie and his wife adopted Edith. Yeah. Yeah, nice of them, I thought, Yeah, yeah, stepped up. Yeah. And also, as I mentioned, the year was, which is most of you probably know, that was when the war

in Europe was when down World War two. That's what it said in all the newsreels. Yeah, yeah, the other Great war. Yeah, the next Great War. Yeah, it wasn't that great. It was big, but it wasn't great. It was great for some people, but it really sucked for most people. Yeah, yeah, big time. But V Day, which was victory in Europe, that was just a few months away. The Allies were doing really well. They were winning all over the place, and the world was pretty much a

done deal. Everybody seemed to agree. Germany had not yet surrendered, but it was just a matter of time. And at that time there were some Italian POWs who are being held at a prison camp nearby called Long Marston. The Long Marston I was able to find. They keep talking about it when I hear about it. Is Long Marston was nearby. The only one I can find in Google

is like fifty miles away, like to the southeast. But there must But you know, there could have been another Long Marston that was closer or isn't about far away. That's true. It isn't really because there's you know, automobiles are everywhere, that's true. And yeah, and so you know it could have been. But uh, And the only reason I mentioned that the Italian POWs is because they actually do play a small part in this mystery, as you

guys probably know. Yeah, because they're foreigners, and hey, there's murder. Obviously you look at the foreigners first, right, That's the way it was. Yeah, it kind of is. And so anyway, at this point I probably really offended our Italian listener, Luigi. I'm very sorry. I'm just kidding, guy. Uh, the Italians didn't do it. Actually, I'm pretty sure they were prisoners, but they were actually being held under pretty relaxed conditions and they could actually leave and come and go say please.

And actually on the day of the murder, some of the POWs went into Stratford to watch us Shakespeare play and some other ones want to see a movie. That's how relaxed it was. I mean, if you were going to be a pow in World War Two, you wanted to be these guys. Did you do any reading on the camps in Britain at that time, so I did a lot. I didn't do a huge amount, but I did. I was just kind of curious about how they were running because this whole they were free to kind of

come and go. Things struck me a little strange. And this isn't the first time we've talked about this, I'm pretty sure, but what I found is that the Italians were being brought into Britain from about nineteen forty or forty one forward, and they had pretty lax rules and they were pretty willing to go ahead and be laborers for the community. That's kind of how they were. That was their job while they were in the area, so they were doing farm labor, So they were they most

of them seemed to be okay with it. They were probably happiest hell to be out of the war. Well yeah, and that's the thing is that there was there's stuff that you find where there's some who were still they'll see on the wall still written Viva Mussolini, But most of the guys are like, we don't know who wrote that. No, we're we're totally happy. It's really but it's funny is

that the tone from camp to camp changed. I found in the reading from about forward, because the camps that German soldiers were sent to suddenly had a much stronger security on them. And I'm sure that that is because the Italians were just these kind of nice guys, but the Germans are demonic and we've we can't let them lose though, old the women and children kind of thing. So I'm sure that this uh, this what is this

camp name again? Yeah, long Marston. I'm sure that it was probably one of the ones that didn't have any German po or many German POWs, and therefore they were going out working in the area on farms, and that's how the system kind of got a little loose. Yeah.

Crazy what happens when you start thinking about the fact that soldiers are just like human beings by and large, like young men probably are totally cool dudes who just happened to be fighting for the country they happened to be born in, and like don't really have any kind of serious thing against the people they were fighting against. You know that some of those POW's in the Italians,

there was some rule. I want to say it's for the Geneva Convention, but it's probably not, but there was some rule where it became a thing that Italian men their wives could emigrate over and live with them in the pow camp so that the family wasn't separated. That was an okay thing, that it was common enough that you find it in the writings. It's not as if it was a weirdo one or two off thing. Again according to you know, compared to the experiences of most

other POWs you know, that were being held by the Axis. Yeah, it should probably be noted too that at that time nineteen I mean, I think Mussolini was deposed, but in ninety three he eventually was rescued by the Germans and they reconstituted us sort of many fascist republic in northern Italy. When the Germans invaded and took over that part of it, and there was an anti fascists, you know, anti Mussolini faction in the southern parts. So Italy was the middle

of the Civil War at this time. It might have been that that all of these guys, if not most of them, actually felt no loyalty at all to Mussolini at this point in time. Well, and I'll just point out that as far as I know, as far as you know, there was no huge like crime wave that came of these being in that area. So we can pretty much discount that. We're not in theories the Italian

I think. So you never know, I mean, there could be outliers in there, but yeah, well population, yeah, yeah, do we want to keep talking about Charlie's Let's talk more about Charlie and off off the Italians for a while. Let's talk about Charlie. He at this time was working, Uh, he was. He didn't have a farm of his own. He was a laborer, but he worked at various farms in the area. And at this time he had been working at a local farm called the Furs and he'd

been there about nine months. And his job that day was to clear hedges. And so, as you know in Britain, they've got those head hedgerows that sort of separate fields and separate roads from fields and stuff like that. And of course with hedges, you know you wanted to grow up, not out, but they being hedges, they want to grow out. So you gotta cooperate. Now you gotta whack him back, and so that's what he was doing. He left his house around nine am and by the his house is

still there. You can see pictures of it on the Worldwide Web. It is still there. Yeah. I must not have even just made the connection when I saw the picture. Okay, yeah, and it's still there. Uh. He had it was like a like three interconnected cottages that eventually somebody bought combined him into one nice big house. But apparently so the structure is still yeah. Yeah, it's cool. Well, nobody got murdered there. They got murdered somewhere else, thank god. So

he headed up on the furs. There's this thing called Mayon Hill. Although I might be mispronouncing that. It might be me On, but I think it's may On. And so he started clearing hedge and this is at nine o'clock in the morning. On Apparently he was seeing walk in that direction about not between nine and nine um. And he was carrying his walking stick because he had arthritis too. He was he was like seventy five. He was born in eighteen seventy, so he was seventy four

and still working in the fields. This is nineteen huh. So his birthday was in May eighteen seventies, so this is February. So yeah, he had turned Yeah, see it his walking stick. I got his walking stick as he had already and uh, he also had him with him that he just abbreviated our you do. Don't don't be abbreviating like that. Yeah, let's see what else. The ide had a pitchfork and he had a slash hook, which were his tools with the trade. Uh. And I know

you all know what a pitchfork is. If you don't hold your hand up in front of you with your fingers extended. Now rotate your hand now, is it a two or three pronged pitchfork? I never question. I mean most of the ones you see are like, are like four prong ones. I saw one on the BBC that was actually a two pronged pitchforks. That's why I'm asking. I think the older ones were too prong I believe it was a two prong Yeah. Again, hard to say,

but I think it was. As far as the slash hook goes, I've seen pictures of the slash hooks and they're all they come in all different style. A lot of them are sort of shaped like a sickle, like curvesickle with a long hand knife on one edge and straight edge on the other. Yeah, kind of like that, kind of shaped almost like a cowboy boot. Yeah, and kind of yeah, kind of kind of a nice little thing for clear and broun. Okay, you look at me. Funny. It was just not a way I would have thought

to describe it. But it's pretty good. Or it looks like Italy for Italy, if you grabbed Europe and turn it upside Yeah, alright, so yeah I say that, you know I did that. Italy totally looks like a slash hook. Yeah, and they're totally right. Yeah, yeah, And uh, of course the slash work, besides being a great brush clearing tool, would be a great murder weapon. Apparently, yeah, it really

would be. And actually, when you think about the walking stick that he was carrying, and also the pitchwork wouldn't be such bad murder weapons either. And as it happens, Charlie carried all the murder weapons to the place where he was killed, because appears that all of them were used on him. And that's that's what I did. I

say it was a murder. Yeah. The last reports of him alive were between about twelve new and twelve thirty and those were by Alfred J. Potter, who managed the first again that was the farm that Charlie was working on that window isn't firm. Yeah, now he changed his time quite a few times. Yeah, I was gonna say I saw it. It felt like it could have gone all the way out to one o'clock, possibly depending on his versions. Yeah, and so it's a little and so yeah,

a little bit. Well, I think one of the ways they sort of fixed at one pm, because it was believed was concluded later on that the murder probably happened between one and two pm on that day. And he said that he saw that at about twelve thirty and it appeared that he had X number of yards of hedge left to clear at that time. Of course he

saw from like five hundred yards away. That's a long ways, but when he actually found his body, about four more yards of hedge have been clear heard, and it was at Potter's estimate that it would take about half an hour to do that work. So one o'clock that kind of works. And you said he had been working for

Potter for how long? About nine months, although that's kind of actually that at this time, but he actually had been working for him on and off for about five years, because yeah, Potter had been managing this farm for about five years, and so he had lots of experience with Charlie and some of the other local labors. Apparently he managed it for a company that was owned by his dad,

So it's a family business. Family business. Yeah. So okay, So sometime around one to the population of Lower Quentin dropped from four ninety three to four ninety two. So that's not a surprise. I guess we knew it was coming. Oh yeah, we kind of did. Yeah, it's kind of to be expected when you hear the words, you know, witchcraft, murder. Yeah. And so Edith remember eating his niece. She she was working in a factory and she got home about six

and I guess what, Charlie wasn't there. And because Charlie was pretty regular in his habits, she became a little bit worried about him. So she went and found her neighbor, guy named Harry Beasley, and they went looking for Alfred Potter and started looking on the farm for the body. And since Potter was the last guy to see him, and since Potter had a pretty good idea of where we was supposed to be working, they had it out there that direction. And guess what they found him. I'm sorry,

I'm giggling. To myself over here, because you primed me to be thinking about Harry Potter. Now you've got part Potter and you've got Harry Beasley, which is just kind of like, that's a good point, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter and that and this is where J. K. Rowling got the idea she changed the name. Oh and and and my my previous reference when he went off to ward Hog School does adolescence? Okay, wait, it was Harry. It was Harry J. Potter, So this is even closer,

was it? Okay? So yeah, maybe this is where she got all the names for her little for her books for my story. So they it was of course, it was six pm, after six pm, so it was dark. They took some torches, I presumably by torches. They're talking flashlights and not seeing Frankenstein movies with the angry villagers and the pitchforks. Yeah, and they found his body and uh, he was all he was all beaten, and he had

been pinned to the ground with his pitchfork. The pitchfork was driven either around his neck or through his neck, pending on the version of the sea here, and so his body and then the pitchfork itself was had been sort of twisted forward and wedged into the heads that he was working on, which is weird. Yeah. And then well they might have whoever did it, might have wanted to expose his throat because his throat had been the

Remember I talked about the slash. They found the slash work buried in his throat, and they also found his walking stick nearby, with you know, blood and hair on it because he'd been beaten with a walking stick. Also, so yeah, whoever did this really well I don't know what to say about they had a good time or else they were really angry about really worked something out on it. Yeah, it was the conclusion actually the Scotland yard chap said there wasn't there was a maniac on

the lose of course, is reasonable enough. I guess it just kind of a maniac kind of murder. Yeah. Yeah. Also also most creepy an ominous of all is across had been carved into Charlie's chest. Uh. Yeah, and he lost a lot of blood, most of his blood which had drained into the soil. Yeah, there was a lot of blood there. So there was an investigation by Stratford Police. Of course, they set the time of death. The forensic examiner did between one and two pm, and they noted

that he was missing his pocket watch. He had a fairly cheap tin pocket watch that he carried with him all the time. It was gone, which made robbery is a murder, but I don't know. And Stratford, of course, as I mentioned earlier, they decided to call it in Scotland Yard and of course Chief Inspector Fabian arrives um that was two days after the murder. He arrived in the sixteenth. Yeah, of course he was all after it. They they besides interviewing everybody in town, and they did

interview the entire village. They also called in an r a F plane that had an aerial camera on it and they photographed the entire village and including the murder scene, just looking for any possible clues. So what I love about the whole rif angle is there's some things that you see that say and the pool of blood around him was so big it could be seen from several hundred feet above in the air. That's a little hard to believe. I've heard that one too. Yeah, I don't

think that. I think the blood would soak into the ground before it was spread big enough to be seen hundreds of feet in the air. I would agree with this,

unless you know extreme drought. Yeah that's a good point. Yeah, but yeah, it was mid February in that and it's you know, England, so yeah, really doubting that that kind of Yeah, what else they Hey, they called data ground Sear's local police and I think they were assisted by military in this, and the military came in with metal detectors and everything because they were looking for the watch,

because that was their only lead. They didn't have much to go on here, and yeah, the watch, well maybe they were hoping possibly to get a fingerprint or two off of it, but they never found it. There are reports the watch was found like like fifteen years later when they were tearing down the outhouses at the cottage where they were Dye and Charlie were living. Supposedly they found the watch in the outhouse, although I've heard that

that's also not entirely confirmed. Also, it feels like it'd be hard to confirm it was his, who was a fairly generic just tin watch. Yeah. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would have been monogrammed or anything like that. So it actually had been monogramed, but he had bought it used, so it had somebody else's name in it, and so it could have been positively identified in his because it did have another guy's name in it. But again, Charlie was not a rich guy,

not at all. The closest he came to wealth, which was not much, is when his wife died seven she left him about three hundred pounds about seven and what he put in the bank, and by the time of his death, I think it was down to about eleven pounds. So it wasn't as if he was living lavish. Oh no, not at all, because it was he had lived on

that almost three hundred pounds for nearly twenty years. Well, yeah, I'm sure he just pulled it out for you know, extra expenses, emergency yeah something, Yeah, yeah, something like that. That's what the savings accounts for totally. And but but for the most part, I don't think he needed it. He worked all the time and so he usually can support himself. Okay, now, quickly, let's a quick look at the autopsy. When they when they examined him, they found

that his tricky had been cut. That's you know, yeah, not surprising. Uh. He also had broken ribs and bruises on his chest, presumably from the walking stick, because uh, he had sustained blows to the head which were matched to the walking stick, So the broken ribs and stuff could have also come from the walking stick or one of the other weapons, or somebody just punching. He's a seven five year old man. He's worked his whole life. I mean, you know, not lived an easy life. Yeah, yeah,

he he was. He was probably tougher than he looked. Yeah, sure. Yeah. He also had some defensive wounds. He had to cut in his left hand, He had extensive bruising on his right arm in hand, and so he was obviously trying to fend off whoever was attacking him. He didn't quite succeed. And also his shirt had been opened and his fly had been unbuttoned. It makes no sense, not really. Oh no, he he was wearing pants that had a button fly. Yeah. I've had pants that have come undone when I'm working.

You know, if you're twisting and turning, I could maybe see that, Sure, I can maybe see if he was hot, he sweat, Yeah, I mean he could have been button a shirt if it might be. He didn't even button it to begin with when he left that day, Well, I thought it was a cool day February. But he was also wearing a jacket when he was found. And so yeah, it's hard to cut across in someone's chest when their shirt is buttoned. I'll just say, true. It's

a good point. But and to the unbuttoned pants, I guess is it not possible that his attacker came upon him when he was your name? Yeah? Well, I was about to suggest that. I know that when I choose to jump somebody and murder them, I usually wait to other at their most vulnerable. Yeah, and that is one of the most That's a great time to do it. Yeah. And so yeah, I know I'm not exactly you know, your great courageous warrior here, I admit it. I'll go

for every advantage I can. Yeah. Yeah. The Loocal police also include Fabian of the yard and on some other interesting local lore that they seemed to feel might have some bearing on this case. Uh and certainly, um, it did have. If it had no bearing on the case, it certainly influenced the public perception of it. Oh, I would say that's the only thing that it really did. Yeah, as far as where that this provided him with any sort of a road map to solve the killing. Well

not really. But the first thing is he included a man on that's Fabian clud amen On murdered that had happened in eighteen seventy five, which is like what eighty years before? Yes, always before seventy years, eighty years. I don't know of a woman named and Tennant, although I've seen in one account I saw her name as a Turner, but everywhere else is and Tenants, So I think Tenant

is the correct the correct name. Yeah, she had been murdered under identical circumstances in the same space nearby, but not not in the same field or anything like that. But she had been saving Yeah, pinned, pinned to the ground with a pitchfork, and that her throat was slashed with the sign of the cross. Um. Then she was bill hook, Yeah, with a bill hook. She killed by

a guy named James, named James Haywood. Uh, And he said that he did it because she was a witch and she was trying to save the village from this. He was trying to save the village. You are, yeah, that's yeah, sorry, but uh, he was found guilty. That's James Haywood, and he was hanged because there were people around, well, there were neighbors there, yeah, yeah, yeah, and he was he was intoxicated, if I remember, he had asked some alcoholic cider, had been drinking, and he apparently was also

considered slow witted. That was what the locals considered. Yeah, I considered kind of yeah, not not really. Yeah. So that's the one story. And then there was another story, and this is taken out a book by a guy named the Reverend James Harvey Bloom. In this book he giving account of a young Charles Walton in five and he tells in the tale of this, uh, he was he was a young farm laborer and he was heading home one night and he meant a large sort of

spectral black dog on the road heading home. And then the next night he met the dog again. And then on the third night, uh, he saw the dog yet again, but this time there was a headless woman walking with the dog. I know, so yeah, I know. So Charles didn't think anything about at the time. I'm just kidding.

I'm sure he did. But then later that night, when he got home, he found out that his sister had died and also I'll, by the way, in another version of this that I've seen out there, he actually saw the dog nine nights in a row. Okay, I was just I thought it was seven. But yeah, there there's varying links there are. Yeah, Apparently it turns out the black dog and local lore is a harbinger of death. You see one of these scary, creepy black dogs and that's not good news. Yeah, in the UK, the black

dog has been around for hundreds of years. Although it's funny is that most of the time it's an evil spirit. There are a few that are benevolent, if not helpful, which those are the ones that I want to see. Oh yeah, but there's it's always it's always a black dog. Yeah, kind of. It's kind of tough on it. And say, if you're a black lab, you know you just just friendly, friendly, happy black lab and everybody thinks you're evil. You to run up to somebody to say, HOI how you doing,

How you doing? How you doing it? I'm a good boy? Are we playing cheese? Okay? Okay, Yeah, black labs are the best dogs. They are cool dogs. Yeah. There is even here in America. There's a little bit of a prejudice against black dogs. Yeah, unfortunately, really not as much as black cats. But now that's true, but it definitely is one. All right, well, we're gonna talk about a few theories here. But first, hear a black dog scratching on my door, So let me take a quick break

here and go answer that. It's pitch black. Open your eyes. This is a good start to your day. You're in bed, in your bedroom. It's a mess. It's a small bedroom with a faded rug and dirty walls. There's your robe, a screwdriver, and a toothbrush outside of your bed. You have to decide get out of bed. If you do, your friend Ford might take you on an unbelievable adventure. If you don't, well, you'll spend the whole day in bed.

If the thought of getting out of bed to travel the universe seems unbearable, you might want to talk to somebody about that. Lucky for you, you don't even have to get out of bed with talk Space. Talk Space is the online therapy company, and they make it easy to connect with a licensed therapist handpicked just for you for as little as thirty two dollars a week. Using talk Space, you can text, audio, and video message with

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Let's talk about some theories, alright. Our first theory, uh, suicide and we're talking about who, who and why he was killed, et cetera. In case you've forgotten our story the murder of Charlie Walton, the witchcraft and murder, so suicide. Either one of you guys want to go to bed for the suicide theory? Is this your the beginning of it? Suicide scene is a little unlikely. He would have had

to have been a very very determined suicidal guy. I think, yeah, we've we've we've talked about the silliness of this kind of stuff before for this kind of story. Now now we'll just rule that one right out. I think, yeah, So, okay, it wasn't suicide obviously, probably not natural causes, probably not accidental. Um, so that leaves kind of a murder um, yeah, kind of does. Let's start with some of the more sensational

and interesting ones. First. There's one theory that was out there floating around quite a bit, which is that Charlie was killed by a covenant, which is as a sacrifice, uh, to replenish the soil. And so apparently the date actually has some significance. Apparently that date under the old calendar, and I don't know which calendar that is, but that's

what they say. The old calendar that was considered candle Moss Day, and that was to day when you had a chance to influence the next growing season, and the best way to do that was to kill somebody. Let's sacrifice and yeah, let their blood drain into the soil.

I'll just say, I know you have some other stuff here, but in my understanding of which is they are not typically super akin to like Christian symbology symbolism which Ash Wednesday would be something of or like you know, the cross carved in the chest like usually be like a pentagram or something more wicked. Yeah, yeah, I mean you would think more than just a cross, which typically I think is a hindrance to witches, isn't it? Or are

there Christian witches? Is that you know? I mean, well, you know, it might it might not have been a symbol symbol of their own faith. It might have been it might have been mocking his faith. I mean, when you think about it, I imagine this in a sense. You know, it's like, well, you know, hey, we just we just did whatever with the hell we please with you, and your God didn't do anything for you, did he ha ha. So that's one way of looking at the cross.

That's true though in my guess for me, I think they're trying to make a sacrifice to their gods or their beliefs. So you would want to do as much to honor your beliefs as possible. Not dead degrade that I'm right that Yeah, he would say, oh, idy, God of the soil, here his this sacrifice to you in which we carved your symbol. And for all I know, the symbol is across. I don't know. I'm not a right here, yeah yeah, yeah, No, I I am assuming that the cross is not the witch symbol, but I

could be wrong. I've never heard you'd be wrong before. That's true. Never before in my entire life ever been wrong. So I was once I thought I had made a mistake or not. I hadn't. This would be a first. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, what were we? What is dud so so kind of a Druid ceremony? Because I see we're talking about witches and you gotta see druids and I didn't know that those were so much interchangeable. Yeah, I

I don't know either. I actually am not an expert on the druids, and nobody really is not really that remains Druids practices, So yeah, you know, not much is known. Apparently there was what was thought by many to be a Druid ruined, which is a stone circle which was at least in nineteen called the Whispering Knights, and that was supposed to be close to the murder scene. Is that what it was? Yeah? Those that had some significance

in people's minds that it was so close. And also apparently Warwick Share itself was and perhaps still even is a hotbed of witchery. And then of course the Druids apparently considered ash Wednesday to be a significant day that the day to make the sacrifice to the earth, although they didn't to them it wasn't Ash Wednesday obviously because they predated all the Ash Wednesday stuff. Right. But the problem, of course is that this what was the it's the

Whispering Knights. Yeah, isn't actually close. It's like twelve miles away, you know, I mean yeah, so, I mean that's close. I guess when you think about it the overall scheme of things, I mean, look how far the Earth is from the sun. Yeah, but yeah, now twelve miles is kind of a long way. So so we're going to talk about the bunk nous of the cross. Yeah, the cross actually is not mentioned in the autopsy at all. Apparently apparently the cross carved in the chest was sort

of made up by somebody. Yeah, I mean, big surprise. I mean, how often does that happen? This just goes to show you that, you know, everybody, everybody thinks that all this crap about fake news all began with the Internet. Tell you this, guys, it happened. Oh, it's been happening forever, I think. Okay, is that all we've got the whole? Yeah, and so that you know that. Yeah, so the con thing is like, well, okay, there was he was nowhere anywhere near some sort of juuid circle. There was no

cross um. And according to the experts, wicked experts that I've heard quoted about this, this particular thing is he was actually too old for the sacrifice. Apparently, you want young blood, Yeah, I mean you would, right, Yeah, you want young blood. Yeah, isn't it always it's the young virgin that's the perfect vessel for they have the young energy that can replenish the energy of the soil. Right. You don't want old used up energy, because then it's

like what up? You know, it's it's what's really interesting about that is that just very very recently, medical researches has found out that there really is such a thing as young and old blood. Yeah. They have found out if you if you take a transfusion from a twenty year old guy and give it to an eight year old guy, and the eight year old will have a

significant health increase. Which also that sort of argues against like old people donating blood, because if you've got a guy who's like really having a hard time trying to recover from something that you put an eight year old blood into him, it's like, that's maybe not such a great ideas than nothing, but it's not. It's not ideal. But anyway, so young blood, So Charlie was not exactly

possessing any young blood. So that's why, besides the fact that there's really nothing to support this anyway, it just didn't make sense from a whole wickened point of view. Yeah, make him a sacrifice. But there was another possibility, which is that he was murdered actually by the people of Lower Quintin because Charlie himself was a witch or a warlock. Yeah, and there was some stuff. Remember I said he had this strange ability to communicate with animals. It seemed like, uh,

he was a great horse trainer. Apparently he also had the birds flocking around him and and could some do wild dogs and and uh he also apparently had some natterjack toads city captain. Apparently these are strange little toads that don't really hip hop like other toads do. They kind of run instead. That's have you looked at these toads. They're they're wide there, their white body. It's very hard

for him to to get a good jump going. What are they called natterjack toes a t t e R. See how a toad usually their their body is the shape of it from their their chest is kind of conical. These things are more like a frisbee with eyes and legs, and they're so cute, just a little dirty things. Well that's why they don't jump very much, because they can't. So round and weird. Yeah, no, so he kept some of those. He had some of those or lived near

his house. One of the two repeatedly, he actually kept them. And apparently he was you could use an ader jack to to put a hex in your neighbor's crops. And what he did was he tied a toy, a small toy plow to one of the frogs or one of the toads, I guess, and sent it scurring off across people's fields, which caused their crops to fail. Uh. And as a matter of fact, there was a big failure in of the crop. And uh it's it's rumored that

the local towns folk blamed Charlie for this. Do you know what I would do if I was a guy who was slowly working through my savings account and having a hard time continuing to to do my farm work, but needed to steal eat, and there happened to be an abundance of toads around. I would gather them up and keep them to eat them. Yeah. That's the thing is Charlie kind of had an interest in not seeing people's crops fail. I was gonna say he was a

farm hand. His job depended on the crops being successful. And if he had, but if he in some way encourage these little telligent to be around, I'm like, that's a food source man. And probably and let's not forget this was this was still the tag out of World War two, so food was probably a little scarce the fraction, and so yeah, those things probably made good food sources,

along with local rabbits and stuff like that. You know, some of the stories too about Charlie, like he could have birds eating out of his hand and stuff like that. There they seemed to be a bit apocryphal. Yeah, and doing wild dogs and stuff. You know, there's there's people who are the dog whisperer, people who can talk in a soothing tone and they're able to calm animals down.

And there are people who can do that. The whole bird eating out of the hand thing, if he is going to the same place feeding the birds every day. It's like the old lady at the park with the pigeons, for sure. Sure, so it's entirely possible that that's what he was doing. Yeah, and it's these oh well I used to see me always would feed the birds. They would eat out of his hand, and then of course our lovely Newsy grabs that and throws it in the

weekly rag, where you got a little little indication there witchcraft. Yeah, and Inspector Fabian actually didn't talk about any of this witchcraft stuff in his his police reports and uh, but later on when he started writing books, he and he started mentioning this stuff a little bit more. But obviously he had sort of an interest in selling books, so he, you know, sexing it up with a little bit a little talk of witchcraft probably was in his own interests.

It seems so late to be doing the witchcraft. Seriously, you're going to be like, she's a witch? Were he added that like five years later? I know, But that's just seems so like the nineteen fifties. Seriously, this is the thing you're still going to bring out and say, well, he was a witch, so you know, we had to kill him. That's been thing to me. I was gonna say, I still know people who burns what is it sage when you put it in the bundle and you and

you know it's this. Okay, let's be fair. That's very different from killing someone because you think they're a witch. But there are people who still believe in and I apologize if anybody doesn't like me saying this, but there's still people who believe in googleies and ghosties and all these other things that we can't see being real and trying to defend themselves and weird stuff like that happens.

It's is not as cosmopolitan as I'm not saying. I'm just saying there's a huge difference between believing there's a ghost in your house and literally bludgeoning an old and to death and cutting across in his chest because you think he might be away bris had five hundred years of hunting. I just think it's just a cultural norse. I still just think it's crazy, and I still think it's crazy that that somebody would be like, oh, this is a good theory for why. That's the thing about it.

There might there might have been a few Liny tuners in Low Quentin who actually believed that sort of stuff, But the entire village man probably a bit of a stretch. You know. The other thing that I want that this particular theory makes me think of is you had mentioned at one time the the whole nobody in the village would talk to and say what they knew it was going on. Yeah, and it was because of this they killed the warlock. Thing is what You've seen a lot

of places. But I found the best description somewhere, which was they told they had they would share nothing with him because they knew nothing and had nothing to share. None of them were there. That was That was the thing people who worked Yeah, yeah, probably from the Scotland Yards point of view. Is like saying that nobody would talk to us. Well people, they interviewed everybody, and everybody said I don't have a clue, yeah, and so it probably told them the little bit they knew, which was

unhelpful for me. It's similar to if somebody came to one of us and said, hey, I want to talk to you about the Kiren Horman disappearance, and we'd be like, I don't know, and they'd be like the thinking Sideways crew stone walling on the same thing to me, where like we live in the same city. But like, no, you don't know anything, So what do you have to say. Yeah, I gotta tell you. I'm ashamed to admit this, but

I don't really know anything about Kiren. I mean, other than a few basic facts, I don't really really which is okay because you're not involved in the case. No, not at all, not at all, we ever choose to cover that. I might have a good source or too, but yeah, we'll put that anyway. Charlie's niece Eaty back to our story. I saw a BBC interview with here was a brief little interview and I know Steve, you've

seen it. Oh yeah, that's great. It's uh, it's just this guy, this BBC journalist has been very melidramatic, melodramatic about the whole thing. And he's actually out at the base of Mayon Hill in his trench coat and everything, with his long hair flowing in the breeze and stuff, and he's going like, it's more like puffing around in

the breeze. It's not flowing at all. Yeah, and then even he talks to Dye, it says, you know, what about all this and what about all this witchcraft, and she's like, I don't know what, don't don't do that. There's it's like I've never heard of it. Actually, the pipe has just made it all up like that every

time he does an accident it sounds slightly German. Well he watched a lot of Yeah, well and then and what Then the interview goes, I mean Warwick warwicksher is reputed to be a great center of witchcraft and sorcery. Have you ever met a witch? And she says no, I never had to. Actually, he was like, She's like,

this is all rubbish. Joe I had the best conversation on the phone the other day about the fact that this is obviously one of those things that the guys from Monty Python learned to parody because because it is so absurdly funny when you watch it, it's unintentionally kind of funny. And yeah, obviously these guys were kind of an inspiration for the Python guys. I think, I'm sure, I really do, but yeah, yeah, but Edie was great. She's just like, oh, I don't know what the heck

about that? Actually, alright, support theories, Uh, there was, of course the Italians they were Yeah, I know they did catch one Italian and with some blood in his hands, but it turned out that he had been he had just gotten out, so we can go hunt rabbits to supplement his diet. Again kind of makes sense because again wartime rationing. It can't really blame him for that. At the token Italian on this podcast, I think Italians didn't do it, do you think so? Okay, I'll buy that. No,

there was no reason for him. Again, these guys had a sweet deal going on, you know. I mean, there was no reason to go out in murders. And the weather in England is not nearly as nice as isn't Italy. But some parts of Italy are kind of girls. I gotta say one one nice thing I like about written over Italy is say, have number one, no volcanoes, number two, no massive earthquakes. Okay, But other than that, Italy's got

a lot going for it. Back to our theories. Oh yeah, this is another theory that was considered but kind of dismissed by the police. But apparently Charlie had a friend named George Higgins. They've known each other for many years. They hadn't talked for a few months, but you know they were well acquainted, and Higgins was actually working quite close by, like in a barn, like maybe three yards

for the murder scene. And obviously in a murder you obviously you really want to look at family and acquaintances first, Right, So Higgins was given them, given a little bit of scrutiny. But and maybe he did it, I don't know, But nobody, the police really couldn't find any motive. I mean, they seemed to be friends. How far away was he supposedly supposedly like three yards away or right around right there, he was close by, he would have maybe heard something, Uh,

just still a ways. I mean it's just three football fields. Yeah, that's not helpful to me. You should know that by now. Yeah, No, I know it's it's not close three city blocks. Yeah, but that's not if somebody's getting murdered three city blocks away in the outdoors, you think you might hear something, well, you know, old men. But there's a fight, right, I mean there were defensive wounds, so there was a fight. There wasn't No, there wasn't a fight. There must have

been some noise. I'm just trying to play double's advocate, right, Appreciate that but you know, you don't know. I mean, besides the distance, you don't know what the terrain was like. They might have been over a hill, there might have been all kinds of hedges in between. He could have been listening to our podcast. He could have then listening to a podcast, because he was a traveler exactly. Uh. And of course you're on a farm, so if you

hear a scream, you might just think it's an animal. Yeah, so he probably thought nothing of it, or you know, you're a few screams and just thought, well, I don't want to get involved. So yeah, I did, not knowing it was his point. Yeah, you make great point. Farm animals are amazingly noisy. Yeah. Yeah, they make a lot of noise. Oh yeah, and so somebody murdered getting murdered, I don't know that not necessarily going to stand out. Okay, so so much for George Higgins, I don't The police

dismissed him pretty quickly, just like the Italians. And uh, of course there was his niece, Eaty. I mean she could have she would have stood to inherit maybe eleven pounds, so she had a big motive. Yeah apparently, Yeah, I know, Charlie apparently did have the habit of leaving the toilet

seat up. Stop it. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, to be fair, I mean, eleven pounds in ninety five was four hundred and forty pounds like today, which is like, you know, four and fifty dollars, which people who been killed for less sadly, and I think the exchange right actually was more favorable back in the day, so dollar wise, it might have been worth more to the US dollar. Yeah, she had then left the country, which she did not do. Yeah. Well, the other reasons not to think about not to think

Dye did it again? You know, you want to look at the family and acquaintances and friends, so few Marrits will look. But I think the murder was probably a man, especially the pitchfork. I mean, the pitchfork was driven into the ground so hard apparently it took two policemen to pull it out of the ground. So I was going to ask you about that because when when I was doing the reading and I saw this stuff about the pitchfork, what I couldn't understand was was it that the sheer

act of pulling the pitchfork out of the ground. You know that the times out of the ground took two men, or had it been jammed so far in the ground and then at such a strange change, funky angle to wedge it under the hedge that it took two people.

Do you see where guys to get it at tangle from the hedge or something that's hard to see, especially well, if the ground was soft and wet, which I see it was, it's hard to imagine it being I was going to say, if the ground was wet and soft when it happened, I mean, there's a couple hours elapsed,

and it's February, so like in Portland for instance. Right, if something happens midday, heat of the day in February and then Pempters dropped down to freezing, it's possible it could have been shoved in the ground when it was kind of wet and soggy and then subsequently froze and the ground hardened around it. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of questions about this. I mean, I don't disagree that

it was done with some extreme force, so probably a guy. Also, I think he was probably strong enough that he could have defended himself against his niece probably well. And also I also don't see that she had any motive. Is literally he had raised her not it doesn't happen. But also there's the whole question of well, I think she was at her job at that time. She's where she was at her job. And then also, you know, having dual income in that time is better than having single incomes.

Killing off somebody who's bringing income into the house maybe not not a smart move, you know. And also there was just there were better ways for her to do with They were less suspicious. I mean, you could have she could have like spiked his tea and sedated him and then smothered him with a pillow. Yeah, seventy years old. No nobody if he'd just woken up dead in his bed, and he had just woken up dead in his bed, woken up to find him meant to say the top

of the morning too, and feeling kind of dead. But anyway, she had better ways, So I'm gonna rule eat out if that's okay with Yeah. Next local person was the favorite suspect, Alfred J. Potter, the guy who on the farm was actually scrutinized quite extensively by Scotland. Yard happened on his land and there were some some things about him.

Like the local constable that that came to the crime scene initially before the Stratford police arrived, said that Potter seemed nervous and kind of upset and complained about being cold, and he also wanted to get out of there. As soon as the Stratford police showed up, he left, and and the constable thought that was kind of odd. The constable thought that was odd because he shouldn't have been squeamish around death because he worked on a farm, so

he sees animals getting killed all the time. But that doesn't mean and I mean, it's a little different from a human being getting murdered. It is, but it also I guess, correct me if I'm wrong. But is was the furs an animal farm? That's a good question. I just you know, I think they were. I heard talk about him having a deal with with hafers and stuff like that, so I know they had at least some cattle, but where they slaughtered regularly for food and and what's

to say he didn't contract that workout? Well, there's all kinds of stuff that you do on farms, like castrating animals and all kinds of good fun stuff. That's got but that's different than doing it to a human. Oh yeah, oh yeah, very much, So you can be kind of in ear to the whole thing. But not only was it Charlie human being, but he was somebody that Potter had known for like five years, so obviously finding him

brutally murdered been a big shot. Maybe you might have a really good reason for being uncomfortable at the scene. That was totally normal. Yeah, pretty much. So you know, I'm gonna say, I'm not gonna yet, I'm gonna say that doesn't really mean much. Uh, And of course there was a whole time that he saw Charlie in the fields.

What's changed like several times. At first, he came out of the local pub about he said, around noontime and was walking through the village, and he said he looked up on Men Hill and saw Charlie about five hundred yards or so away working on the hedge. He said the time was twelve ten. Later he changed that time to twelve fifteen. Later on changed it to twelve twenty.

And then when they had the inquest hearing, He's he said at that time that he saw Charlie up about up on Man Hill, at about twelve thirty, and that he was standing there in shirt sleeves and not actually doing anything at the moment, just standing there. So maybe he saw Charlie, maybe he saw the murderer. I guess we've talked about this before, though, I mean, people's sense of time is so fickle and changes, especially as you're trying to remember. And if he had been drinking a

little bit, I mean it's possible. So they'd had lunch. He wasn't at the pub because he was boozing it up. He was he had met a friend after doing something that morning that I cannot but yeah, and then they but they went there and they had lunch and a couple of drinks and a couple of drinks. But I'm sorry, but if I sit down at lunch and I have two beers with by lunch, my faculties room. I'm saying

that his faculties are not in place. I'm just saying that, like even me totally sober, can think about how long something took, you know, a day or two ago, and say I think it took half hour when reality it took me ten minutes. No, No, I'm just saying that I don't think that he was. He was sauce, No, no, I'm not saying that. I just think it could have affected his yeah, for sure. And I don't know if it's the custom and the pubs in Britain is to have bar time like we have here in America, where

you sit your clocks ahead, you know. I don't know if they do that too, So that could tie. Yeah, that that can totally screw you up. There was another interesting point, which is several days after the murder, uh police said that they were going to fingerprint the weapons and see if they get idea to kill her from that. And that's when Potter said, oh, by the way, I should probably mention to you that I touched the murder weapons. I touched both the pitchfork, you know, and the slash hook,

just so you know. And the police are like, why did you do that? And then and Potter says, well, Harry Beasley, remember Harry Beasley went up there with Eadie and Potter found the body. He said, well, Harry Beasley said that I should check the body and make sure he's not not still alive. So I got quite kind of close to him, and I think I tie. I'm pretty sure I touched the murder weapons. So when police asked Harry Beasley about this, Beasley said no, I said

no such thing to him. And Beasley also said he doesn't didn't recall seeing Potter touched the weapons at all. In Potter's defense, though Beasley and um Eadie left the scene to go, he dropped her back in the house and and get her settled and then go get the constable. So you know, Potters just hanging out there by himself, So he could have possibly happened. He could have been a passing, you know, even just so much as a

sarcastic comment. You just probably tended to make sure he's alive. Huh, Yeah, that might as your as your partner might want to say something like that. Yeah, sure. And so it's entirely possible he did touch them in all innocence. That obviously raised some suspicions with the police, the fact that he waited several days, although again you know, the fact that he waited and then said, oh, by the way, you know, after the police said we're gonna fingerprint the weapons, oh,

by the way, I touched them. And by the way, they found no fingerprints on the weapons. Well, which is strange because at least Charlie should have been on there, and but then maybe the killer wiped him off. I

don't know. But again, that's also something you can kind of forget too, you know, stressful moment and all that, and suddenly you know, and it doesn't strike you as important that you touched those things, and then when you hear about the paying print, it's like, oh, you know, I should probably let you guys know that I touched these things. So and the only other thing about it that was even suspicious about Potters apparently he had been skimming.

He had been skimming. Yeah, he had been apparently over reporting the time that his laborers, including Charlie, we're putting it on the farm, and then and then pocketing the difference, which was not was done an uncommon practice, No, not really to this day do that yeah, oh yeah, yeah. So,

and that's certainly not a motive from murder. Even if Charlie had found out, Charlie might have been like, you know, that's what I would expect, or you know, I mean, certainly Charlie is not gonna go I'm gonna ratch you out and you're gonna have to pay your dad back to some of them, like, you know, twenty pounds, you know, and then he's gonna get murdered over that. I can't quite see that. And how the hell did Charlie find out? Who told him? And why did not tell the police? Yeah? Yeah,

how did Charlie get ahold of the books? Is what I want to know. Yeah. Oh, and there was another last piece of potentially incriminating information which apparently Potter's trousers had some marks on the front of them which appeared to be blood. Didn't he explain that away because he had to go get a half her out of a ditch? Uh? Well, the thing about it is is, um, he worked on a farm. I mean you're gonna get dirt, blood and

all kinds of stuff, That's what I mean. Yeah, So, I mean Potter was Potter was definitely a strong suspect, well not that strong. He was a suspect, stronger than any we've said so far, was the strongest suspect, but still not much of a suspect really. Frankly, they'd still never found a real motive. And you know, it also seems like with the kind of damage that was done, you would expect more than just a few flecks of

blood on the front of your pants. That's true. If you slice a guy with a billhook, there's gonna be blood. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. So that that's that's a good point. And obviously if he did if he did do it, he would have run home and changed. But then you know, if he had marks in his pants is because there's something else that he did in the farm. So yeah, I'm just not seeing it with Potter. I

just don't think it was him. So at least our next theory, which is maybe it was a serial killer ran maybe it was just a kind of a random thing it turns As it turns out in England there are actually a lot of people out wandering the countryside because people in some of the cities had actually been bombed out, they lost their homes, They were kind of

refugees within England. Other people decided to get the hell out of the city's just for safety's sake, because they were catching some bombs from the Germans and so they were Actually there was a lot more mobility in England at this time than they normally was, so there were there were people out in the countryside wandering around. Very easy for some ne're do well from London to pop

into some little village or another and just murder somebody. Yeah, but it was a pretty stylized murder, it really was. And if what was his name, the investigator, Fabian, if he was able to dig up something that happened over a hundred years ago that was quote unquote identical, it seems he would have been able to find if some other somebody brought that to somebody. He didn't dig it up. Somebody brought the seventy year old, sure, but there was

enough stuff around this that I don't know. I forgot to mention that that that murder from um, it turns out that was a little bit exaggerated. Yeah, it turns out that James Haywood, the murderer, actually just attacked her with the pitchfork and not didn't pain her to the ground. He just stabbed her, you know. And she didn't die right away, No, No, she was taken off to her I think her daughter's home, and she eventually died later that day, late in the evening. She did die from

the wounds. Oh yeah, she definitely died. He was tried for it, but he wasn't hanged. As the story says with the sanitarium. Yeah, he was. He was declared not guilty because of insanity, and he spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum where he died. And uh so that story was not quite correct. Um. And there was also some allegations that potentially an attendant was related to Charlie, although again it's at such a reach. Well,

it's a tenuous connection. And again it doesn't really mean much. I mean in rural England and again and probably a lot of other places to people are living in these little villages and farms, probably a lot of those people are related and a tenuous way or another second third cousins, I mean, probably all over the place. So it doesn't

mean squat really. Well, back to a serial killer, I guess, I guess there's not much to say about that except that, you know, if he went around and murdered a few people here here and there, and if he buried his m o a little bit. One of the things you got to remember about about Charlie. I said he was seventy four years old, he had been working outside his entire life. He probably looked older than he was from

just all that. Yeah, and so you see this guy, you know, walking with the cannon everything, you know, hobbling around about to work on the hedge, and you're thinking easy pickings and walk over him, shove him down, I know. And it turns out that turns out the old guy is a lot stronger than he actually looks. He puts up a fight, in which case, you know, you start, you start using all the weapons at your disposal, and so maybe turned into a sort of a bigger brew

haha than you actually intended it to. So I there's another theory on here that I think is more are appropriate for this. But calling it a serial killer I think is an incorrect naming for this entire scenario that we've just talked about. Yeah, I mean, this could be just a random attack. That's not a serial killer scenario to me. Yeah, so I'm careful to throw I just I don't want to throw serial killer on everything. No exactly. I mean, granted that gets us higher rankings and iTunes,

but it's not the truth. No, not not at all. Okay, that theory you're thinking about, I think is the one labeled thrill killed by local high school kids. That actually not that one. I like that one. Yeah, Well, yeah, that's the entire theory, right there. I know that kind of is. Yeah. So yeah, well you've heard all the evidence. I like it, but you know, yeah, and you made it up. That's why you like it. They made a movie about this. I know what you did less Valentine's

and that. Yeah. Okay, well I'll move on to our next theory, which is actually kind of similar to the serial killer, which is a robbery gone wrong. It's essentially identical. Well again, if you want of these guys and you're and you're on the road, you're kind of homeless, you've been made into her refuge and stuff. I mean, it might have it might have occurred to you to do a little robbery. Ah, the way you picked Charlie, I don't know. You didn't exactly look like a wealthy guy.

But at the same time he looked that you might have looked like really easy pickings. Uh So the only thing that I can think about to make this or not the high school kids, but the random killer bit work is Charlie was known to take his lunch with him, and so if you were walking on the road or you're walking through the area and you're hungry and you see a guy with a sandwich and he's got it in an apple, and you say, I'm sorry, I'm really

really hungry, could I have an apple please? And he cusses you out for asking for an apple because you and every other Tom, Dick and Harry you're coming through here and ask me my food. Stop it, and somebody loses their mind over that. I mean that, that's that's the best motive I can come up for with this, the random attacks scenario that I don't know he because he doesn't look rich. He doesn't look rich, but he also seems like the kind of guy who totally would

give you an apple if you were walking past. He probably at the very least would have been polite about it, although you never know his fly wasn't done. He might have he might have said, oh he didn't want the sandwich that bad? Well, oh no different, yeah, no kidding, but yeah again, it could have been like you said, it's sort of a random sort of racing and somebody

wanted to rob him. And then it turns out, like I said in the previous series, that they bit off more than they thought they were gonna be biting off, and and they had to you know, basically really do a lot to subdue Charlie and in the end wind up going a little overboard because by this time, especially if you're just kind of a punk mentality, you're ever thinking, oh,

this old guy should have been a pushover. Now I'm angry, you know, and then you go after him great guns and guess on the other hand, you know, he bought this watch used it wasn't some family and that was the only thing that was really missing from him, right yeah, And it might not have it might not have been taken from him. Maybe he didn't have it on him, yeah,

I mean, or he did have it on him. And you know when somebody said, all right, old man, give me your watch, like, you know, are you really going to I don't know. I might mean obviously because he's been dead for a longer been I've been alive. But I you know, I guess in my mind, I kind of think, like, really, you're gonna you're gonna fight somebody over a crappy little watch. I mean, okay, but I

don't know. Maybe, yeah, I I don't know. Charlie might have just like you know, especially from that older generation, I mean, people might have been more inclined to look at things in moral terms. And I'm thinking, this guy wants to rob me. You know, I'm not going to permit it, just on general principles through him, you know, and all that. And you know, Charlie might have felt like, actually he was well armed, and you know, maybe he

had one of his weapons on him. He knew how to use the what was it, It wasn't called the bill hook. He was obviously a rather handy with the slash hook. Yeah, probably could would have felt like he could defend himself. Yeah yeah, but apparently not quite capable enough unfortunately for him. Uh So, under our next theory, I mean, the robberty gone wrong is also is really a possibility, I think, but you know, who knows. Again, sad to tell you, we haven't reached quite the end here.

This one is probably not going to get solved, not for the next dirty seconds, at least until we solve it. Okay, I'm gonna name the killer Jack. The ripper Jack would have been probably at least seventy five in this time, because his last murder was in correct, I think that sounds right. Yeah, it's been so long since I've looked at his dates. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, so let's say Jack started young and it was a team. Okay, you would have been born in the eighteen seventies, same

years Charlie. Maybe he took two old cores fighting in Yeah, yeah, that's why. That's why Jack was. It was the wound from from left to right or from right to left. I'm sorry this this is fun, but that's a good one. But yeah, I know. Well, there's also, of course the Zodiac Killer, and it's not. Yeah. Yeah, so let's see what we're gonna like, Hang on a second here, I am gonna go for this one. I think that's uh, it was a random killing. I don't think anybody in

the village really had an incentive to kill him. I don't think anybody had an incentive to kill him in such a huge, horrible way. I mean, it's something if I wanted to kill Charlie and I lived in that what I would do is I would bash him over the head with a rock and leave his bodyline near a rock in the grass. So maybe it looked like possibly he just tripped and fell and bashed his head. I mean, you don't do something super spectacular in a

tiny village and then trying to make it. I mean, yeah, is this a Mr Bean scenario where he he trips on a rock and the pitchfork goes flying and the flashok hits him and bounces off and then he gets knocked in the head and then he falls. And yeah, I mean I don't think so. I just think that it was it was not somebody from the village. I I just really find it hard to believe somebody from

the village would have done that. I agree, Yeah, so I'm just taking some random, some random thrill kill murder. Perhaps that that seems like the most likely. I mean, it could. I think that the whole witchcraft angle is WHOI But I also think that there is the possibility that somebody in the village knew something or was responsible. It's really small chance, but I can't I can't rule that out entirely. Yeah, it could have it could have been I mean, actually, you know, there could have been

one person in the village who was a murderer. That could have been I mean, yeah, he could have He could have been a dirty old man for all we know. When he was pinching some girls Fani every time he saw and her dad or brother had enough. I mean that happens that used to happen. You know, you've defended her honor by taking the guy's head. Yeah yeah, but I think it was random to know most likely, but we don't think we'll ever know. Um okay, So that's

it for this this episode. So a few administrative details here at number one. You probably want to know how to get ahold of us. You can get a hold of us to our email, which is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. We also have one of these website, thinking Bobber's. It is called Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. Or you can download our episodes or listen to them. Uh,

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