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Maybe you are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey Bundy, Stalhmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good evening on a cool spring day in eighteen ninety seven, Alfred Haney left his Williamston, Michigan home to earn a day's wage. He knew his wife's peculiar behaveavior had become more frequent, and yet he'd had planned on seeing the town doctor, but she assured him she was feeling much better. They would go the following day instead. When returned home that later that day, he discovered a macabre murder so bizarre that it shook the entire community to its core.
His mother's severed head was set on the dinner table, adorned with a knife and fork on either side. Lying nearby was the old woman's body, soaked in kerosene and set ablaze. Screaming, Alfred Haney ran from the house in search of the law, and while neighbors tried to extinguish the smoldering beheaded corpse, Haney's wife, Martha, removed herself to
the backyard and began digging wildly with her hands. Shortly after the discovery, a sheriff's deputy arrived, taking Martha into custody and lodging her in the local jail at the village hall Ingham. County Sheriff John Rayley, known as JJ among his constituents, arrived by train and surveyed the carnage. He and his deputy discovered the murder weapon, an axe,
hidden behind some boards under the rear stoop. Rayleigh organized a coroner's inquest that was held inside the house where the old woman's body lay, in an attempt to determine her state of mind at the time of the crime. Local doctors interviewed the murderess. She told them she spoke frequently with her own dead mother, and her mother had told her to kill the old woman. Over the next several days, court hearings decided her ultimate fate. A panel
of three doctors were commissioned to determine her sanity. In the end, there would be no prosecution. Deemed insane, she was sentenced to the Michigan Home for the Dangerous and Criminally Insane. In Ionia, What made Martha Hainey snap and behead her mother in law? The book that we're featuring this evening is to Hell I Must Go, The True Story, The True story of Michigan's Lizzie with my special guest, journalist and author Rod Sadler. Welcome to the program, and
thank you for agreeing to this interview. Rod Sadler.
Oh, thank you very much for having me. I've been looking forward to it.
Thank you very much. Very very interesting tale again one of those that bringing back the history of true crime. Amazing, very story. Amazing story. So let's get right to this and tell us a little bit about I guess first off, we have to describe sort of the area and the time,
and we are talking about eighteen ninety seven. So let's go back to the lateeent eighteen nineties and tell us a little bit about Williamston and the state of the nation at that time before we talk about Mariah and her son Alfie and Martha Well.
Williamston is actually situated in the mid Michigan area within Ingham County. At the time, it was just a small village located in the northeastern part of the county. It really had become kind of a hub of commerce over the previous thirty or forty years. The railroad had finally come through town. Obviously, transportation was by horse and buggy or by train. There was not a lot of telephones at the time, although I think the following year that
there actually was a couple of them. But at the time, as far as I've been able to tell, communication outside
the Walliams scenario was done with telegraph. The political climate at the time it was an election year the previous year, and JJ Railey actually was my great great grandfather, and he had actually run for sheriff in eighteen ninety and been defeated, and then ran again in eighteen ninety six and won under the People's Union Silver Democratic Party, which actually was an offshoot of the Democrat the original Democratic Party, so they were kind of split down the middle over
the free silver issue in the political arena. But he was part of the Free Silver Party and he was elected in eighteen ninety six and he ended up actually investigating this murder.
Interesting, now, tell us just a little bit about the state of the economy at that time, especially in this area, but just in general in the United States, and tell us maybe what you know. Again you've spoken to it a little bit, but tell us a little bit more for people that again, this is all new to many many people. What happened one hundred and twenty years ago.
The nation had gone through a depression in the early eighteen nineties, and that's what actually split the Democratic Party in how they wanted to address the issue and the recovery from that depression, and one of the ways was to coin what they called free silver at a ratio of sixteen to one or I can't recall the exact number. And the other half of the Democratic Party, if you will, they wanted to just support the farmer. So it really
was it split that party down the middle. They had slowly started a recovery from that depression, but I think overall at the time it was still it was still very hard times. They were slowly making their recovery.
Now, tell us a little bit about Mariah. Where you haven't in the book is that she you don't talk too much about her married life, but she had another husband. She's a widow. So tell us a little bit about Mariah and her husband before we talk about her son, Alfie.
Well, Mariah and her husband they had actually been some of the first settlers in the area. One of the townships near they actually this murder occurred in Wheatfield Township, but an adjacent township was called Locke township, and she had been along with her husband, some of the original settlers there. Her husband actually had been a Civil War veteran and he had survived the Civil War but ended up passing away in the eighteen seventies, so he had
been gone a number of years. And they were farmers. They were a farming family, and she ended up moving in with her son and his young bride in Williamstown in a very small shack, if you will. They essentially were paupers. She was very poor, as was her son and his wife, and they essentially lived off the community, if you will. Now exactly what that means as far as eighteen ninety seven, maybe it was the original form of welfare in that maybe they just you know, begbarn
or stole, you know. I really don't know beyond that, but all the newspaper articles in the research that I did, indicated that they were very poor and they were supported by the community. So they actually she had moved from the country into the city or right on the edge of the city the village with her son and his wife.
Well, let's go back a little bit because we have to introduce Martha Alfie's wife. And Martha had been married when she was sixteen and her husband was twenty one, John Woodward. And there is the story that you chronicle about that when Alfie meets her, she has no children. He asked the story about it. And then you also include the story of Reverend Sly and his Rocky Beach benevolent association. So tell us about Martha and her marriage to John Woodward. It didn't last too long? In the
three children, and what happened to the three children? How did she deal with those children? And why is it that she came to the marriage with Alfie and there were no children.
Well, what had happened was she did mary very young at the age of sixteen, to a gentleman from Ohio by the name of John Woodard, and together she and John Woodard had three children. The original research that I did, one of the newspaper articles indicated that when her youngest child was just old enough to sit up, essentially, she disappeared with that child and on foot, and she was gone for several days, and when she returned, the child was gone. And the implication was, or the suggestion was,
that she had put the child out of existence. And this was this came to light as a result of the murder article that the book was about. They were highlighting the murder, and then they mentioned the fact that she had married this John Woodard. John Woodard eventually abandoned her, I have to assume, probably because of her mental illness, although I don't know that for certain, but he did abandon her, and soon thereafter, within probably three years, she
remarried a gentleman by the name of Alfred Haney. That would be Mariah's son, and he was known around town. His nickname was Alfie Alfy, and so throughout the book I refer to Alfie. I learned later in my research for the book that in fact, she had not put her youngest child out of existence. She had actually turned the child over to a gentleman by the name of Reverend Sly. Reverend Sly ran an orphanage in Lansing, which
is Michigan State capital. He ran an orphanage for children, and she had turned that child over to him, and the child was subsequently put up for adoption. I was actually able to locate in my research an original ledger from the orphanage and actually found the original document that she signed over custody of that child to Reverend sly, So that was kind of a fascinating aspect of the
whole story. But she did not kill her children. They were all turned over for adoption to the Rocky Beach Benevolent Association.
What did she tell Alfred when she I alluded to it or I mentioned it that she didn't have any children until when she married Alfie. What did she tell Alfie about the children and her husband?
You know, I had to make some assumptions there the actual conversation between her and him regarding the children. I really don't know. The article or the research articles that I read mentioned nothing about Alfie's concern about the children, So I have to assume that that he made the assumption that, hey, they're not here. I never really asked
about them. But obviously the three children, even though they had been turned up or turned over for adoption, in essence, played an essential role in the cause of Mariah Haney's murder, And we can discuss that in a little bit here. But I think that it was all over the children.
Let's also talk about what you do describing the book too. Is when when you talk about they were poor, we're talking about a whole I mean, we have to you have to qualify that basically is that these were dirt poor. This is a dirty squalor that they're living in. And he doesn't work. You say that they have to live off the charity of the community. But at this point in later on, he does get some work through the community, some labor work, and so he is busy for a
change where he hasn't been busy for years. He's busy. And you also talk about the relationship between Mariah, his mother and Martha, and right from the very beginning you say that they really didn't get along. Can you tell us did you find out why initially Mariah didn't like the daughter in law Mark?
Well, I think that that she recognized early on that that Martha had some emotional issues, some mental health issues. Martha frequently spoke with her dead mother. The research indicates that she would break into religious fervor quite frequently and at inopportune times. It also alluded to the fact that she had suffered epilepsy throughout her entire life. You know, does that qualify as mental illness today to you and me,
not by any means. But back then, before they probably knew what it was, that was probably part of it. And maybe maybe because of that she was treated differently and and her mental illness just went downhill from there. But Mariah did not like Martha, and Martha Uh in turn did not like Mariah. In fact, on the morning of the murder, she had made the statement to Alfie that that that she wanted Mariah out of the house. And Alfred obviously was not going to turn his mother out.
He just kind of ignored the issue. But there was a there was apparently we've lost our connection. I'm going to try to reconnect with you here shortly. Good evening, Henry there.
Yes, we've had I got dropped here in the phone in the in the queue here, So I'm glad we're both back at it, and I'll do some edity. Oh absolutely, that's anyway where we were last speaking about. Maybe take it from there. We were talking about the living conditions with Mariah and Martha, that they didn't like each other, and you noted that she probably noted that she didn't like Mark because of the mental illness that she had noted so, and I also mentioned that that Alfie for
a change, was working steadily. So tell us about as you described in the book, that there was they were right next door to a bunch of workmen, and so tell us about some of the things that the workmen saw even weeks before. In terms of the relationship between Mariah and Martha.
Well, the house was actually located next to what was known as the Stave Factory. They made barrels that were shipped all over the United States and worldwide, and it was a pretty big business for Williamston at the time. They sold several thousand per year, and the house literally sat right next door to that, and the workers quite frequently would see Martha and Mariah arguing and going at it, if you will, And they would also often see Martha
outside wandering around singing religious songs. As a matter of fact, on the morning of the murder itself, they saw Martha outside singing and swinging what they described as a ladle over her head while she walked around the yard. So they were familiar that with Martha and her and her mental illness, and they were familiar with the animosity that
she had towor her mother in law and vice versa. Again, they sat right next to the house and in fact played a pivotal role in the discovery of the murder.
Now, let's backtrack a little bit, because of course we have to get to the day in question. Now, as Alfie's working, he's actually getting steady wage. One day he sees this Doc.
Way.
So tell us how this conversation comes and what is the impetus for for Alfie to suddenly think and consider that maybe he should talk to a doctor. What was it was a coincidence? Tell us about this incident with doctor Shumway.
I think it was happenstance quite frankly. I think that he saw the doctor and he took he took the initiative to say, hey, you know, I've got some problems with my wife. She needs to she needs to see a professional, she needs to seek some professional help. And pardon me, the doctor of course said, you bet bring her down. The townsfolk knew about Martha two. They knew that that that she suffered from some mental instability. They had seen her around town too, So Doc Shumway, I'm
sure was familiar with her also. And when when Alfred finally took the initiative to say, hey, can I bring her in to see you?
Uh?
He was he was all about it. You know, he was gonna he was gonna he was going to try to help Alfred out.
Did he did? He did, Alfred, because you didn't mention it, but you do mention in the book. Did Alfred say very much about the condition of his wife and the behavior's wife at that short little happenstance meeting.
You know, I don't. I don't think that he did. I think that he just said that that she had some problems. You know, there may have been he may have alluded to some of the problems that she had, but essentially he wanted to get her in the next day if that was possible, and of course the doctor said, sure, bring her in because he was he I think the doctor knew based on what he'd seen her of her around town, that that she suffered from some sort of mental illness.
To so.
The exact conversation that that was not something I was able to track down right just.
For the audience as well. What was Martha's mother died? You say in eighteen ninety I believe, and she died in Ionia where there is the asylum for the criminally insane. So did you that's his mother died. Did her mother die in the asylum for the criminally insane? Or just in Ionia.
Well, that's one of the mysteries of the book. I have to tell you that the research indicates that she died in Ionia. Does not say the the home for the dangerous and criminally insane, but I will I will say that Martha came from a farming family. They lived just south of Williamston on Lynn Road, and to go anywhere back in those days, you know a long distance, the ideal way is to do it by train if you're a farming community or a farmer in a small community.
I'm wondering what they would be doing in Ionia. And so, based on Martha's mental illness and what I was able to find out later once the book was actually completed, I truly believe, although I don't have any proof, I truly believe that her mother may have been institutionalized and may have died at the same asylum where she ended up being sentenced to. Again, I don't have any proof of that. I did try to find some of Martha's mental health records, and those under Michigan law are all sealed.
It doesn't matter how old they are. Due to the Patient Privacy Act. You don't have access to him. So I was not able to find that out, but I do know that her mother died in Ionia, and I have to assume that it was probably at the asylum.
Now, there was some indication that Alfie had seen as well, and obviously Mariah had seen this as well, that she did have a hair trigger temper. Martha that there was some indication of of violence. So there was that, wasn't there.
I think that there was, Yes, I've indicated that in the book, because because the two hated each other, they had that animosity. It had reached the boiling point. And I think that that there was probably that that one point that pushed her over the edge, and how violent it go before that, There was nothing to indicate any physical violence. I think it was strictly mental anguish or mental violence, if you will, the yelling, the screaming at each other, the hate for one another.
Let's get to back to the conversation with the doctor. So this is a Thursday. Alfie says that he would like to bring her in, and the doctor agrees that the next day might be a good idea. So Thursday night he goes home his mother and Martha. So tell us how what hall about incident? Unfolds and tell us how he gives her this bit of information. He's not asking her, he's giving her their information about the doctor and the visit. So tell us how that conversation transpired,
and what is her reaction and the mother's reaction. Tell us about what have you written in the book.
Well, I think that that Alfred was essentially afraid to probably confront her about it, and so he said it more in passing Hey, while they're sitting there at the dinner table. Hey, by the way, we're going to see Doc Shumway tomorrow, whether you like it or not. I think that that Mariah, also being at the dinner table, feared that conversation, feared that that Martha may lose it,
that she may become aggressive or violent. And so if you can imagine an old woman sitting there, you know, a very slight old woman in her eighties, trying to avoid a confrontation with her daughter in law, you know, trying to eat and probably watch out of the corner of her eye for some sort of reaction. Uh. That's
that's how I pictured that conversation going. Martha didn't want to go she obviously she knew that if she did she would be found out, the doc would determine that she was mentally unstable, and so she kind of shut down to the point where she went and laid on the floor in the living room, and she laid there all night wondering how she could get out of this doctor's appointment, if you will, How she could avoid going
to see the doctor the next day. And the only way that she could do it was try to convince Alfred or Alfie that she was fine. And so that's what she went about doing. The next morning. She convinced him, Hey, I'm much better. She put on a good show. She was smiling, something that Alfred hadn't seen in a very very long time, and she convinced him, Hey, we'll go tomorrow.
I think that her plan was, Hey, well, i'll convince him we'll go tomorrow, and maybe he'll just forget about it, or he'll get caught up doing something else and we'll just keep putting it off and it'll be forgotten, and I'll try to keep him convinced that I'm okay. And she did a good job of that. She convinced him that morning, Hey, I'm fine, I don't need to go see the doctor. Well, you have to understand that they're living, they're living as paupers, and they have no money. And
Alfred has the chance that day to go out. He's got a job working on the streets. He goes out to earn a day's wage, and so he's he's satisfying. Hey, she seems okay today. All right, we'll take her tomorrow. You know, what's one more day I've got tomorrow off, I'll go out work on the street today. I'll learn a little bit of a wage. That way, maybe I've got some money to pay the doctor. And so that's
how that's how that all came about. He had an appointment for her to see the doctor, and she convinced him that she was okay.
Now, soon after he leaves for work, because he's coming home for lunch at noon or so, so he's coming home for lunch. The two women are arguing, and now it becomes a little testy, or more testy, because what Mariah sees is that the the framed photo of the frame that she has with her husband in this frame, and now that frame, the husband's photo is not in there, and it's replaced with Well, tell us what it's replaced by. And why Mariah is so upset. What did Martha do?
Well, Mariah had a picture of her deceased husband, her Civil War veteran husband who had been gone for a number of years. She had that in a frame, and Martha took that frame and tore out the picture of Mariah's husband and replaced it with a picture of her three children. When Mariah saw that, she too lost it.
She had had enough. She lost it. And when she and Martha got into it, they began to shove each other, and at some point Martha went out the front door of the house and Mariah locked her out, and that was all over, the picture of the kids that she had put in that frame, replacing the picture of Mariah's dead husband.
And we've got quite the scene here, because this Mariah is eighty five years old at this time, and she's not a big woman, and Martha is a kind of frail and not a big woman as well. But Mariah hits Martha and they get into a shoving match, and like you say, they lock her out. So what does
Martha do now? And before you you also included again we talked about the stave business next door and those workers that would usually be witnessing their arguing between these women, and so they didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary. They did hear them arguing that day, and even did see Martha briefly outside, but they didn't see what she did next. So tell us what Martha does next.
Martha, once she gets locked outside, her her temper is boiling. She's reached the breaking point, if you will. She she goes around the house and she gets an axe and she because she's now locked out of the house. The workers at the stave mill saw her locked out. They had heard the two women arguing, but it was it was an everyday occurrence. They thought nothing of it. Okay, Martha's locked out, locked out of the front of the house,
let's go back to work. Big deal. So so what they don't see is Martha go around to the back
of the house and grab an axe. Martha brings that axe back around to the front of the house and she begins to She begins to hack away at the front door while Mariah is inside, and she can Mariah can now hear this, this loud banging on the front door, and suddenly she sees the head of this acts coming, you know, slashing through the door, and essentially Martha ends up taking the door right down, all knocking it completely off. I think there was one hinge left that was hanging
on one hinge. And then she's face to face with her mother in law in the living room and she's got the axe in her hand.
And go ahead, So I didn't want to stop.
I'm sorry dramatic pause there. So she swings the axe and she knocks Mariah down. And I have to preface this by saying that the newspaper articles were very, very descriptive on some of the injuries to Mariah. And so Martha knocks Mariah down, and she swings a second time and misses her, but then connects the third time and essentially knocks knocks Mariah out. She then stomps on her
with her feet. She tells later in an interview when this this crime is being investigated, she tells the people that she's talking to, I stomped on her as hard as I could with my feet. So now you've got Mariah laying there in the living room near death, and Martha realizes, hey, I've got this axe here, and she's getting You have to assume that she's probably a little ticked off it at Alfie two because Alfred wants her
to go see the doctor. So she wants she wants to give Alford a little present, a little wife's gift. She takes the axe and she commences to chop off her mother in law's head. And I can tell you that if you're beheading a person, it's not an easy task. It's not unless you're using a guillotine or a guillotine you're not going to get it in one whack. And the newspaper articles describe several hack marks in the floor with embedded flesh and gray hair into this living room floor.
And once Martha succeeds in chopping off her mother in law's head, she begins to panic. She's like, now, what do I do? What am I going to do with this? What if someone figures out that I did this? You know, She's got a million emotions running through her mind. So
she decides, hey, I'm gonna give Alfred a present. She picks up her mother in law's head and she carries it to the kitchen table and she sets it at Alfred's place, setting on a plate, and then she adorns the plate on both sides with a knife and fork silverware. Then she looks at her handiwork her mother in law's bruised and beaten head on this plate. And then she goes back to the living room and she drags Martha's
body to the kitchen, her headless body, Mariah's body. Then she takes a kerosene lamping.
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She douses the body in kerosene and or what's left of the body, and she then takes up pan from the stove, and it's got some small potatoes in it, and she dumps those out onto the floor in this pool of blood. And she reaches into the stove and grabs some hot coals and puts them in this pan. She then lays the pan on the floor between her mother in law's legs, hoping that the heat or the coals will set her body on fire. And it does, it does, and at that point she disappear essentially into
the bedroom. Just about that same time, Alfred Han's coming home for lunch. He's walking along. Alfred had this way of walking. He walked kind of hunched over with his hands behind his back. He was known around town to walk that way. And so he's walking kind of hunched over, kind of looking at the ground, doesn't really notice little wisps of smoke coming from inside the house, doesn't really notice as he walks in that the front door is only hanging from one hinge. And he walks in, and
he's aghast at what he sees. Can you imagine that site? Literally? Can you imagine how horrific that site would be? I can't. I was a police officer for thirty years. I've never seen anything like that, and I've seen some pretty bad stuff. But he sees that, he screams and he runs from the house. He's going to find the local deputy who's assigned to this little village of Williamstown. About that same time, the stave workers next door. They hear the pardon me,
They hear Alfie scream and you're looking. He's running away, and they notice the wisps of smoke coming from the house. They figure Alfie's discovered that his house is on fire. They've got no idea what's going on inside. They've completely forgotten about the two women that were arguing, and so a couple of them run over and they grab buckets of water and they start throwing it through a side window of the house, trying to put out whatever is
burning inside. They can't see it there because of the smoke. At this point, a third guy runs around to the front of the house and he runs in past this front door hanging on the hinge, and he is stopped in his tracks by the grizzly, horrific scene that lays before him. He's got Mariah's hat on a plate, He's got a heap of something burning on the kitchen floor. He grabs a bucket of water and pours it on Mariah's corpse, if you will, and extinguishes that. And now
he's trying to take it all in. He is frozen and he's looking over at Mariah's hat on this plate. And yet I sometimes people hear this story and they're like, is this true? Yeah, this is a true story. I gotta tell you, I was astounded when I read this. He looks over, he sees the head on the plate. He's now extinguished the body which is on fire or
was on fire. And he looks up just as Martha comes out of the bedroom and she's in her what they call back then is princess union suit or her underwear, if you will, And they make eye contact and he's frozen. He's he's not can you imagine. You must think you're in a dream or something, But he's frozen there. She turns around and goes back into the into the bedroom, and he is still trying to take it all in.
And she comes back out, and she goes into the living room and kneels on the couch and begins to peel wallpaper off the wall. She moves the potatoes around a little bit before she heads into the into the living room. The potatoes that are laying in Mariah's blood on the floor. She goes into the living room, she starts peeling the wallpaper off at that time, the witness, mister Robinson, he decides, I think it's time to go get the law, so he exits the house. After he leaves,
he's going to look for the sheriff. Martha ends up going out the back door to the house and she begins to dig in her in the backyard. Quite frankly, I have to tell you, I think that she was probably planning on bearing going to try to bury the body. When the deputy arrived, she was, as the papers put it, digging wildly in the backyard with her bare hands, and they confronted her with an eerie grin. Yeah, yeah, can
you imagine that? Because the deputy's already been informed at that point by Alfie what's happened, and he's it, I mean, his backup's probably thirty miles away. So he and the witness approach her and he asks her. He says, Martha,
what's going on? And she says, I killed my mother in law, and so he has the witness stay with her and he goes in the back door and he too is astounded at the site that lays before him, the head on the plate, the burned corpse laying on the floor, and he immediately steps back out and they put the handcuffs on Martha and take her down to the local village jail.
Now, by Michigan law, you talk about that there needed to be an inquest when there's a death like this, and so they have to cobble together six male men jures and this quest is just basically to determine guilt and what happened, and so there's only a couple of witnesses, including Sheriff John Railey JJ. So just briefly tell us how that what happens at this inquest before we get to what how Martha reacts in prison.
Well, what happens under Michigan law, and it's much like today, only it's done differently today in a courtroom, it's called a preliminary examination, where it's like a mini trial, where evidence is presented and the only thing the prosecution has to prove is whether or not a crime was committed and whether or not there's reason to believe that the person there committed the crime. That's all they have to prove.
They don't have to prove any elements of the crime essentially, So back in eighteen ninety seven they had to the law required that an inquest be conducted in front of the body. That tells me at the house. It had to be done at the house. And in my research I learned that the that the sheriff didn't leave with the prisoner till late that afternoon or early evenings, so that tells me they had the inquest. They essentially round up six local men and they have the sheriff testify
about what he saw when he got to town. And they had the first witness in the front of the that went in the front door and discovered the head on the plate. They had him also testify, and this was in front of the Justice of the peace, the local town justice of the peace, and clearly there was no question. Yeah there's been a crime committed, and yeah, she's already admitted that she did it, so there's reasonable
cause to believe that she's the person responsible. So she's essentially remanded to the custody of JJ Railey, my great great grandfather, And so he loads her on the train and he'd take her back to the small town of Mason, which is in Ingham County. It's actually the county seat for Ingham County where she's lodged. Excuse me for the murder of her mother in law.
Now, what's surprising to me is that in eighteen ninety seven the courts are as sophisticated it would seem as today. I'm very, very surprised in eighteen ninety seven that there just wasn't that there wasn't an assumption that there was no such thing as insanity. So they really take her defenders take this insanity defense, and she's going to get
examined by a psychologist. So tell us how seriously they take this insanity defense in terms of assessing her and having that as part of the trial that's going to happen.
Well, the insanity defense actually goes back to the eighteen sixties, and I briefly discussed that in the book back over
in England, and that's where the insanity defense. In order to use it insanity defense, there are certain stipulations that have to be met, and once that was set back in the eighteen sixties, that was the basis for the insanity defense here in the United States, and that was essentially did she know did she realize at the time of the crime whether or not she did anything wrong.
In fact, during one of the interviews with JJ Railey, she is asked, or it might have been with one of the doctors if she had killed her mother in law, and she said yes, but I didn't do it to be mean. Well that obviously there's there's some mental issues there. If I had done it to be mean, she makes, she audes to some statement if I had done it to be mean, then it would have been wrong or
something along those lines. But clearly, I think even without statements like that, you have to you have to look at the totality of the of the crime. And clearly that is not a woman. You know, a twenty seven year old woman who beheads her mother in law and sets it on a plate. I mean, I don't need a doctor to tell me that that woman's got some mental issues.
You have a mess. So everybody go ahead.
Sorry, I was just gonna say so. Everybody recognized that the obviously JJ Railey, the sheriff recognized that. The Justice of the Peace when she was arraigned, recognized that. The Circuit Court judge when she was taken the following Monday
up into Lancing for the Circuit Court. The judge recognized that, and it was his responsibility to appoint her an attorney, which he did, and her attorney recognized that, so they weren't working in concert against her, they were really working in concert for her, knowing that she had some mental issues.
And so the doctor, I'm sorry that the judge had to take it upon himself to appoint a commission of three doctors to determine her sanity, and they essentially were briefed on the crime, talked to the people involved, interviewed her family, and discovered that, in fact, she wasn't sane. You have to understand that this crime occurred on a Friday. She goes to jail on a Friday afternoon. Saturday and Sunday she's in jail while the sheriff prepares the paperwork.
She's arraigned on Monday. She goes to court on Tuesday, where a commission is established to determine her sanity, and on Wednesday morning, she is declared insane based on the three doctors on the commission, and she is shipped off to the Home for the criminally Insane on that same Wednesday. You're talking about five days time, including two weekend days. That is virtually unheard of in today's society, Absolutely unheard of.
Oh yeah, you just woman in custody for improper lane change for three days.
So yeah, yeah, exactly exactly what.
I was going to ask is when when did Martha speak to doctors about or to JJ John Rayley about the voices commanding her? She said she spoke to when is it exactly?
Is it is?
Is this something that came out later or was there a record of witnesses to say, yes, she spoke about speaking to her mother and then after she was arrested, when was it that she spoke specifically of the voices from emanating from her own mother?
Well, when she was originally locked up at the village jail immediately after the murder. When JJ got to town, he knew based on the crime and what he had seen, that she probably had some mental issues. So he cornered two doctors that he knew, and they were the only people that she would talk to in the jail. Uh, And she admitted to them I killed her, and she said, my mother told me to do it. My mother said
kill her or she's going to kill you. So she spoke of that within hours of the crime, while she was still in the local village jail. It wasn't something that she had time to you know, Well, when they talk to me next week, I'll just tell them that my dead mother told.
Me to do it.
No, she she.
She admitted to that immediately at the jail, that that her dead mother had told her to kill the old woman. And she maintained that position throughout the weekend. When when JJ talked to her, she she didn't recognize her own brother. Her brother had come to visit her at the jail on Saturday. She didn't recognize him. She would at the jail, she would break into religious fervor. Again. It was it was just a very bizarre situation. As a matter of fact. The title for the book is based on a song
that she sang at the jail. She she would stand there in her cell and she would sing, I can't go to Heaven. To Hell I must go. Murderers don't go to heaven, so that's where I must go. And I thought that's the perfect title, right there, to Hell I must go. So that's actually a part of the ditty that she would sing at the jail, and then she would then she would just collapse in the middle
of her cell. So to answer your question, yes, she did, immediately after the crime speak of her dead mother and how her dead mother had told her to kill the old woman, to kill Mariah.
Now you talked about the three doctors in her defense speaking to her mental illness or insanity or schizophrenia. But yet at the same time you said, unlike most cases of trials where there's adversarial system, the prosecution was kind of going along with the defense in that there was
an agreement that this woman was insane. So that being said, and being the time of eighteen ninety seven, and surely some kind of even though it's a short trial, why did they need three doctors testimony that may have been.
You know, to be honest with you, I can't answer why there was three other than maybe that was the procedure that they had in place, rather than take one doctor's word for it, will appoint a commission. Excuse me. I know that the research that I did indicated that
the judge himself appointed a commission of three doctors. So that was the judge's doing, and I have to assume that that was based on some sort of legal precedent, maybe from some previous insanity cases, where hey, we're not just going to have one doctor, we need to have three doctors in agreement that she needs some help.
Now she's in this hospital, like after she's after she's sentenced.
So the.
Asylum for the criminally insane here of the Maybe you can tell us the exact title, because I've I don't have it right in front of me. But tell us about the conditions in the hospital and her behavior when she's in the hospital from people that are tending to her and want to feed her, want to speak to her.
I have to tell you that the because of them, because of the Patient Privacy Act. I don't know how she acted there. I have to assume that that she acted much the same as she did on the outside world. I do. I did some research on what life was like inside an institution at that time. There was a book written in the eighteen sixties or eighteen eighties by a woman with the pen name of Nellie bly Bly.
That was her pen name. She was actually a reporter and had been hired to pretend that she was insane so that she could report on the conditions within an asylum in New York. All of the asylums at the time in that time period essentially were the same as
far as the treatment. All the research I did indicates everybody used the same sort of treatments at the time, although there was some breakthroughs that the doctor Long, who ran the Home for the Criminally Dangerous, dangerous and criminally insane in Ionia where Martha ended up, was trying some new things using a homopathic approach to curing mental illness, and that was treating him more essentially, treating him more
like human beings rather than animals. But yet, with that being said, I think that the troubled employees still had not employees, but the troubled inmates were still treated much the same as they were around the country, and I have to assume that that Martha probably was one of those.
I did did find some original papers from doctor Long at the archives, and they indicate that the inmates at the asylum were allowed to roam free within the building that they were confined to, but they did have small rooms. I can't recall exactly what they were called, but for the troubled inmates, if you will, where they were restrained and things like that. So I have to assume Martha probably had good days and bad days both.
Before I before we I know, this is more of a question to we're wrapping up, but we still have a few minutes. But I wanted to ask you this question in light of the recent decision with mister Holmes the Batman movie, theaters, spree killer, mass killer, and that decision to deem him not insane, criminally responsible and sentenced him. To me, he's going to be executed, but definitely ignoring the insanity that he, you know, definitely was suffering from.
In light of what you've and this sort of not adversarial situation where a judge is recommending three doctors to confirm her mental illness or insanity, what do you think? Just what do you think from one hundred and twenty years of insanity in the courts? Any any surprises? I think you can conclude.
No, I think that the same. I think that the same. What's the term I'm looking for?
Criteria?
The same criteria is essentially used today that was used one hundred and twenty years ago. That was actually set back in the eighteen sixties with that case in England, and it comes down to did the person know that what they were doing was wrong? I have to be perfectly frank with you, I did not follow that trial
in Colorado. I'm familiar with the circumstances, I think they're horrific, and I think that given the circumstances that I'm at least aware of, there was no question that he was involved. The question is did he know right from wrong? And beyond that, I can't speak to whether or not I think he was insane because I don't know what was brought out at that trial, but obviously the courts had to support that defense attorney's decision to seek the insanity
defense just because of the magnet to the killing. I mean that it was absolutely horrific. But again they're using the same criteria essentially that they did one hundred years ago. Did the person know right from wrong?
Well, I mean using the same criteria, Not to get into a bit debate, but I just find it odd that if you were to give modern day application to that, and politicswithstanding, sometimes whether a person's insane or not, or whether they knew right from wrong becomes less of an issue,
and it's just retribution, period. And people are certainly not satisfied that a person like Holmes or anybody else in an insane killer like that would be would have any possibility of being out of an institution, and so they don't. They don't think that that person that punishment should be institutionalized as insane. So they want to guarantee that this person is given a criminal a prison conviction.
Well, maybe yes, and maybe know because there there have been high profile cases where the person was deemed responsible but insane. Uh yeah. I can think of the assassination attempt on President Reagan. I can think of the assassination of John Lennon. And those are just those are just two high profile ones where you know, those two people were loved and adored, and and those two people Hinkley and and gosh, the other guy's name escapes me. But they were deemed insane and and I think the public
want would wanted them to go to prison. I know I did, And when they were deemed insane, it was I don't know. I guess you just have to let the system. You have to let the system work.
And I just think it's very I just think it's a very cavalier and your story has it was very very surprised me this book, in the Cavalier Approach in eighteen ninety seven. That's that's really only the point I'm making is that I think that it's very very surprising that they would come to that decision quite easily and
quite readily, given you know, the heinousness of that. I mean, obviously we've been desensitized to the some of these killers over the years and discussed on this program as well. But eighteen ninety seven in a little place, it's not so common, right.
So well, that's true, and it was a completely different time back then too. Yeah, you understand that although Lancing was the state capitol and part of Ingham County rural, Ingham County was was was rural and very small, and you know, you would think that people say, oh, yeah, she needs to go to prison, but yet they recognized, you know, we've seen her around town. We know that
that she's got some issues. So clearly, I don't think there was any question that she was insane, and maybe that's why everybody supported, Yeah, you know, she needs to go to the institution for the rest of her life. It's the same as prison. They knew she wasn't going to get out, and in fact, go ahead, no, go ahead, sorry, oh I was just going to say. And in fact, she only survived a year there and what happened she
ended up dying. I think it was about thirteen months later, she died of tuberculosis.
At the institution, she was not really or taking care of herself. So she did have a pretty rapid decline in her didn't she.
She did, And and I think that that TB probably ran rampant in some of those institutions. She was a very slight woman anyway, you know, for twenty seven years old, and she was very thin, gaunt, sickly looking. So I have to wonder if maybe she had that even before, even before she committed this heinous murder. Maybe she had tuberculosis, and once she was institutionalized, it just went downhill from there.
Now in the beginning you mentioned, and you really haven't exploited this, but unless I misheard, I misheard you, you said that JJ. Raley was your great great grandfather.
Yes, he was.
He was my great great grandfather. It was I have to tell you. This whole book came about from some
genealogical research I was doing. Came I was actually just looking for old crime articles with his name in him to kind of document what he did as sheriff back in the eighteen nineties, and I came across this article titled Awful Deed, which is Actually I used that as one of the chapter titles in the book, and the subtitle was woman chops offer mother in law's head with an axe, and I thought, well, that's kind of interesting.
It's that morbid curiosity that cops have. And then I saw that the date was kind of in the range I was looking for, and I quick scanned it and saw his name, and it just stuck with me. I said, I've got to write a book about this, and so I spent years, literally years, doing research on it, on again, off again, you know, when I had time. And then when I finally retired, I said it's time to put Grandpa's story to paper, and I did, Well.
That's why we really haven't really explored. And then for those that are going to pick up the book and further look into this story because they've been compelled by this interview, is that you really do do a character.
You introduce us to this character that your great great grandfather, and you really get really intimate because it's when she's put in prison, when Martha's put in prison, it's JJ that sits out front of the cell noting that maybe she's suicidal, or thinking considering maybe she might be so he's very concerned like that, very hands on, and his wife goes and feeds her. So we're talking about a
very end. Do you bring us right into this story of this compassion for this woman despite this incredible heinous nature. And it wasn't like everybody hated this Alphie Haini or the mother. There wasn't like there was any animosity towards that. But I just I kind of marvel at this story at that time in history, that there was this compassion rather than just this disdain for this woman. There seemed to be a comprehension of her mental illness, which I think was admirable.
For that time.
Well, I have to tell you that you're not the first person that has said anything like that. I've had several people that have read the book that have said, you know, you almost feel sorry for her at the end of the book and everything that I found, And let me preface that by saying, I didn't write this book to make my great great grandfather out to be
a compassionate hero type. I put down everything that I found regarding how he handled Martha and the entire situation, and how my great great grandmother was also involved in that she was the jail matron. That's typically how it was in the eighteen nineties. The sheriff's wife was the matron and she would cook for the prisoners. In fact, later in the book, I mentioned how while he was away on a trip later after long after Martha had gone to prison, Great Gramma Ralli stopped a jail break
with a gun. She caught a guy trying to break out of jail. But the very they were very compassionate people. I found nothing, nothing to indicate that they mistreated prisoners or anything like that. That's just the way they were. And so this book really offers. It offers a glimpse into a horrific, grizzly, gruesome murder in eighteen ninety seven. It offers a genealogical look at my great great grandparents. It offers a look into nineteenth century law enforcement and
courts in Michigan. And those were the three things that I wanted to do in this book, and I think I've succeeded.
Absolutely. It's a fascinating step back in history. And of course it includes all that context that all true crime fans really strive for, because to get a comprehension of the crime you need to have a comprehension of the time, and you also need to have a comprehension of the characters involved. And so it's been a fantastic read this The Hell. I must go, and thank you very much for coming on and talking about the Hell. I must go, so thank you very much.
Rod.
I wanted to ask you if you have a website or any way for people to contact you Facebook, so they might find out any more information or any other work that you've done, or in those rare circumstances people might want to contact you.
I do.
I have a Facebook page, Rod Sadler that's r O D S A D L E R. Author, and I also have an email address. I can be contacted through Rod Sadler author at gmail dot com. And I welcome inquiries, I welcome speaking engagements, and I just wanted to take just a quick opportunity to say thank you for allowing me to talk about this. I truly enjoyed it.
Well, the pleasure was all mine and I'm sure the audience as well. So I want to thank you very much and have yourself a great evening. Thank you again for this interview.
Great Thank you, Dan, You take care, good night bye,