¶ Spooky Stories and True Crime Chats
it's gonna be all right , all right , with a little beer , everything's gonna be all right all right , is it hot in here ? It's getting hot in here , so take a couple hold on before I am so hot , I'm gonna take my clothes off .
Ew , don't be freaking weird I would think you'd like it when you breathe like , like that in your ear .
There was actually a TikTok about that where it's like the girls are like , they hear , like , and then the husband actually does it . It's like ew .
Also . I tried to get Dave to do the like arm up , lean into and he would not do it . He was so awkward about it .
What's the arm up lean into ?
Well , not do it . He was so awkward about it . What's the arm up lean into ? Oh well , no , like she's leaning up against the wall , and then you go up to her put your arm above her rob and lean into her , like you're gonna kiss hannah yeah , rob would be awkward about and giggle he like , oh god .
So I'm like re-listening to the ACOTAR series . Yeah , so I'm on to the second book , which is like one of the spiciest books , and I was driving home yesterday listening to it .
I'm like oh , my God .
I need to pull over . I'm going 90 . I got to slow down .
Maybe I should listen to the second one you need to it's free until May 31st when you have to lose .
Oh , that's right Okay .
Hi I'm Jess and I'm Hannah .
Join us as we delve into true crime , paranormal encounters and all things spooky . So grab your flashlight and get ready to wander into the darkness with us . This is Wicked Wanderings . Hi jessica , hi hannah , hi rob hi are you guys ready for my episode ?
yes , are you ready for your episode ?
I am so ready now . This is so local , so local .
You can't really get more local like murder in the building , like the show no like murder in this building oh okay , we're not that local .
This is from holyoke massachusetts what ?
yeah , crazy before we jump in , we should mention our fan mail .
Oh , that's right , Did we get another one ?
No , we only have . We got one fan mail . So if you listened to last episode , we introduced fan mail . So if you go to the show notes right now and click on it , it says send us a text message . You can click on it . It will open up your text app in your phone and you can send us a text message . You can click on it .
It will open up your text app in your phone and you can send us a text message . We got one from last time , so Jess is going to read it .
So it says hey , it's Heather , great episode . Thanks , hannah . I liked how Hannah said tequila makes my clothes fall off . It was by Miranda Lambert , very funny . Okay , bye . Thank you , heather , for roasting Hannah Thank you .
It was deserved .
Yeah , so if you want to send us a text , go in the show notes , click send us a text and we'll read it on the next episode .
Heather , you're awesome .
Thank you . So let's go to Holyoke , massachusetts . Holyoke , massachusetts , was a booming city in the 19th century for textiles and paper mills . And I will say that I've been in the mills in Holyoke because there was a brewery like on the upteenth floor and I remember walking up with one of my good guy friends like ten floors up just to go to this brewery .
So I mean they're there , they're huge .
They're still there .
They're still there , that brewery . No , that brewery closed .
That's what I said .
Yeah , you said , they're still there .
Yeah , I was wondering if the brewery was still there . Oh , I thought you meant the mills .
No , I think the mills are still there . Yeah , the mills are still there , but no , the brewery is not there anymore . But it used to
¶ Immigrant Tragedy in Western Mass
be a lot of fun . So we had immigrants and migrants flocking to Western Mass in the 1800s wanting to build a name for themselves . A lot of Irish canals were being dug by hand in order to get product out to be sold , which is kind of an interesting fact because I didn't know they were dug by hand .
Some of the items on those barges were steam pumps , blank books , silk goods , hydrants , bicycles and trolleys . Around 1870 , a second wave of migration came from Canada and then the Irish from the South and Boston .
There was a lack of being able to build infrastructure and that causes a lot of issues when you're trying to house and employ a new wave of people and families . The person we're going to talk about is John Kemmler . John Kemmler is an immigrant we are going to talk about today and he was German-born and had been in the States for about 17 years .
Kemmler had a job at a textile factory in South Holyoke that specialized in wool . The Kemmlers had twin girls and then had triplets , so two girls and one boy . The boy was unfortunately stillborn and one of the girls died from unknown causes about a month later . I know really sad right .
So , the Kemmlers had seen tragedy in the last year and now dealing with an unstable income . With the ebb and flow of new people coming to the area , kemler was feeling a little over his head and realizing how many mouths he had to feed .
Kemler said that he went out west to denver to find a job , but he also took his family's entire savings up to 260 and was gone for six months . Of course he did the dickwad I do not think it was uncommon for a man to go out west to try to find a better way of life , because we do hear about that .
But to take the whole savings seemed odd and strange . And he just got up and left his job . It wasn't said like he lost it and then he went to look , or if , like he just left it and was like . This isn't going to work out . I'm going to go out west .
Doesn't he know ? You don't quit a job unless you have another one lined up .
Most of the factories at the time had apartments which is a nice way of putting it because they were trash for the workers to live in so they could be close to the factories .
And I kind of just kind of a random thought , but I think about Hershey in Pennsylvania , because he actually made really nice towns for his employees to live in , but I don't think that's cool , yeah you know about that .
No , I've never been to hershey , but we're going to gettysburg , which is kind of by hershey so hershey , pennsylvania .
I me and rob watched a documentary . It was pretty amazing he wanted to build . If I'm gonna build this big kind of factory , I'm gonna need to house and have a whole town , which is why it's hershey Pennsylvania for all my people .
I think the show was called how the Food Built America , or something along those lines .
It was really interesting .
It's on the History Channel .
When Kemmler came back in June 1879 , the factory business finally said you got to go , you aren't working for us anymore .
So we need our place back .
Oh they need the apartment , the apartment back Right , because you don't work for us anymore . It's kind of like , hey , you have a company car Like six months later you're still driving it Like , hey , dude , like you can't have our car anymore .
Yeah , it is unclear , like I said , if he was fired or let go , or he just ghosted them and then went west for a while , but needless to say , he didn't have a job . Currently , Kemmler has three girls twins who were six years old and a 15 month old . He didn't know how to tell his wife that they were homeless .
So he said to her go buy a hat for our youngest child . Just go out , go to the store . And she did . He said to his three daughters I have candy upstairs .
Let's go . What child wouldn't follow their dad if he had candy ?
I mean , they follow strangers with candy all the time , unfortunately . So kemler instead prepared a type of gruel that they were eating , which I picture more like a mush , like a , like a porridge yeah , nasty with a special ingredient no cyanide of no . Rat poison . He made one of the children take a bite , but it didn't work because she threw it back up .
Kemler decided this would not work , duh , and decided on another plan . He dragged one of the twins to the front bedroom where he shot her in the back of the head , behind the earlobe .
You know , this is not where I thought this episode was going . Even though we talk about murder all the time , yes .
He then took the other twin to the rear bedroom and did the same to her . The youngest , I imagine , was petrified by this point . Her father then took her , put her on the bed face down , put a pillow over her head and fired two shots , one behind each ear .
What kind of fucked up Chris Watts bullshit is that ?
each year . What kind of fucked up chris watts bullshit is that ? Now , when I'm doing this episode and in the show notes it'll say what book I read I was like there's got to be more to this story , because it was . It was such a short portion of this book .
Yeah , and I found an article and I was flabbergasted about this guy and it's not over yet and and I have no words .
I really have no words I can tell .
So Kemmler then locked the apartment door behind him and walked to the bar , where he paced back and forth for about 20 minutes . He then ordered a beer , drank it and asked the bar owner to come outside . He handed his house key to the bar owner and said I have just killed my three children .
I have taken my last glass of beer and walked away , and so his wife comes back and is like so the bar owner , okay , okay .
Was like what ? The fuck ? Went to the house , got there about the same time the mother did , and they saw that their children were dead , but the youngest was somehow still alive at that point and she got two shots to the head .
Kemmler was not hiding from the law by any means , because he decided to go to a different bar to drink after giving his keys away and confessing to his crime .
So he lied . He just said he had his last beer .
Not only is he a murderer , he's a liar word got around of what he did and a gentleman named adolph engel saw kemler and bombed the sheriff's station .
Kemler still had the weapon on him , with four chambers empty and a piece of paper in his pocket that said cyanide and potassium , which I don't know if it's because he's like okay , this is what I have to look for at the store .
But I thought that was very strange . His shopping list yeah .
Kemmler admitted what he did and was locked up for further investigation . The sheriff and Mr Engel listened to him confess and say quote my fear was out of . The girls grew up . They might be led astray . They would be happier in heaven . I have been meditating on this crime for 10 days . I too , heaven . I have been meditating on this crime for 10 days .
I too want to die now . I intended I truly did to kill myself after them , but seeing their dead forms .
I shrank from it . Oh , what a pussy . He went to denver , got another family and then came back to take care of this one you think ?
did I ? Oh , you're fired , you're fired . You got it part right , I had no idea anyway , okay as the evening progressed , someone came to the jail to let kemler know that his youngest daughter was alive and fighting for her life . Kemler then made a scene asking if he could be let out so he could finish the job wow what the fuck .
Yeah , yeah , this man did not show any remorse for what he did . Obviously , he slept fine . He ate good portions of his food and debated with the officers if his mugshot was good enough . Wow .
Wow , he's a piece of work .
He certified insane . His youngest daughter did not survive , unfortunately , but before he was hanged he wrote a letter to the wife of an overseer of his old job . It was determined that he wrote the letter before he committed the crimes . So he was literally afraid of his daughters becoming prostitutes in the street . That's what his fear was .
Okay , so I'm sure my dad had that same fear but he didn't kill me , nor did I become a prostitute . People did not pay me .
So it was weird that he wrote a letter not to his wife but to another woman , but it said what I have done is the last act of my life . I wish I could have died today . I give up life because of its trouble . I went west to begin another life but could not because I couldn't forget my children .
I went into business with a partner but couldn't stay and returned to holyoke to wind up my family affairs , poison my , my children and shoot myself through the chest Lies . This life is not worth living for any longer and I can't live without my children . My wife knows nothing about this . She believes we are going away .
He's an idiot . Yes , he is . So I can't live without my children , so I'm going to murder them in cold blood . My life is so hard .
Kemmler wanted to be hung for his crimes within a week of going to court , but the judge said he had to wait for his trial date in december . And you know where he awaited trial in holyoke , at the springfield jail oh , that is now tore down . They used to be on the water , no shit . And if he was gonna be , he would have fucking hung around here .
Right here .
He would have fucking hung . Fuck hung here , mother fucker .
Right here Before this high school
¶ The Story of John Kemmler
was built . We don't talk about where we live , Rob .
I think people know by now , after all the stuff we've talked about .
Dude . When they were like he waited trial at the Springfield Jail , I was like , oh my god they just tore that place down like what ?
five , ten years ?
ago . Was it really ? At this point , it might even been more than that 10 , 15 years ago . Come at me , john kemler .
Fuck you man you're what year was this again .
He's a pussy 1879 1879 okay long time ago . I mean , I guess in retrospect of life it's not that long ago right A little over 100 years , 150 . Yeah . So , jessica Hannah , remember how Kemler took all his family's money to go west to find a job Because he had a hoochie out there ?
Apparently , that is not the whole truth of what he was doing and apparently you called him out on it already . Yeah , called him out on it already . Yeah . Two months after the trial day was set , the chicago police received a letter from a doctor telling them about this german man who had just killed his three children in holyoke , massachusetts .
The doctor then goes on to say that he's looking into a case of insanity for this patient and wanted to know if a man named rudolph bernard resided in chicago and owned a bar . The chicago police responded back and said yes , rudolph had bought a bar back in march and then married a woman shortly after and he's rudolph .
Five days after the marriage he left for holyoke , massachusetts , telling his wife he had to attend to some family business and she hadn't heard from him since family business , aka killing my fucking children pictures were sent to chicago and the wife was able to identify kemler as rudolph bernard .
Because of this , the judge ruled insanity and he was put into an asylum and was said that he had bright's disease , which I had to look up because I'd never heard of it , yeah , so what is that ? It's an old term for kidney disease .
Oh .
And they thought he would die sooner rather than later . But if you look into death records you may find a John Kemmler who died in 1897 at the Bridgewater State Farm in Massachusetts , which is an asylum of suicide by strangulation . So he eventually hung himself .
It is possible that this is the same John Kemmler and his health issues had been misdiagnosed or misreported and maybe he felt guilt after all , I know he was feeling sorry for himself .
I don't think he felt guilt . That was 20 years later .
Right , Exactly Because they're like oh , he has Bright's disease . He'll die within a couple months .
You know what ? I'm glad because he wanted to hang . Then I'm glad that he had to wait it out .
looked at death records for her and they saw that she lived long and they were like . We hope you found peace . That I mean with the miscarriages .
You lost five children , five children like that's enough to fuck somebody up , right ?
because you went to buy a hat like fuck you . John kemler . Yeah , what , what a douche canoe . Yeah , that is a major douche canoe .
Major , major douche canoe .
That is the story of John Kemmler , and I'm sticking to it ?
I'd hope so .
That's very interesting , I thought that was an interesting case and you said it was 1897? . Yeah , Well that he died .
Yeah , okay , so I looked up when this building was first opened or built , it was 1898 . So up when this building was first opened or built , it was 1898 , so yeah , he could have been hung here , but he didn't hang .
They didn't hang him , no , but yes , but he could have .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , that's what I'm getting at .
Yeah , because before this was built there was a small prison , a small jail for in springfield that was here , and they used to hang everyone here on this site so I'm wondering if , like those people that were being hung , they kind of got transferred here as an end-of-life place , because they hung literally right in the parking lot .
Yeah , because right in the parking lot is where they hung people .
Not the parking lot , but it was this site that there was a jail . It wasn't as big as this building . We really should look into that . We really should . But if you're saying Springfield Jail , maybe it was the jail that was on this property , Because I don't know when that one was built . Because that was more of a modern day .
I say modern , but it was , you know , brick .
But I thought all prisons back then would have been brick I know , but this is the late 1800s . More stone and stuff like that , I don't know , I mean well , I guess they would use what they had right . So if we think about this area , it's a lot of redstone .
That's more just East Longmeadow .
Some fun facts about Holyoke . It's where volleyball was invented . On a brighter note , and I don't know for sure . Remember when I did the episode about the Springfield Witch Trials , one of the residents was a Holyoke , holyoke , holyoke . Have you been to Wisteria Hearst ?
No , it's beautiful . I've driven by it a lot of times , yeah it's a beautiful home and in one of their windows , when they redid it , the actual stained glass window is actually at the Met in New York City . Well , shit , yes , my brother has shown me it and he's , like you , recognize this and it says from holyoke , massachusetts , from a mystery hearse .
So it's pretty popular to be at the freaking met like , yeah , I , I rather enjoyed this story because it's local yeah , I love learning local . Yeah history yeah , not everything was roses . I mean , I feel bad for the children . It was kind of a very , it was very sad . I I kind of wonder what also happened with the second wife .
You know , I think it was easier back then to become someone else because there wasn't as much yeah , ways to identify you .
Well , obviously he became rudolph .
Yes , rob so I found out some information about the Springfield Jail . The old York Street Jail , which was right on the Connecticut River , was in Springfield . It operated from 1887 to 1992 , when the current Hamden County House of Corrections was built in Ludlow in 1992 .
The jail was site to several hangings , including the last legal one in Massachusetts , which took place on December 30th 1898 .
Do we know who that was ? Because that might be an interesting case . It does not say so it could have been here then , because they didn't open that one till 18 .
1887 . They opened the York Street one .
Okay , so they probably were over there , okay , yeah .
Interesting Might as well . Just give everyone your GPS location .
I know right , it's not like you can get into this building .
Okay , let's keep going .
Thank you , wanderers for a wonderful evening . Thanks , Wanderers . Thanks for the story , Hannah . I had no idea . It was a shorty , but a goody . That's what she said . Maybe , nah , no , never .
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Bye , bye .
Thanks for listening .
today , wicked Wanderings is hosted by Hannah Fitzpatrick .
And me .
Jess Gunan , and it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick .
Music by Sasha End . If you enjoyed today's episode , don't forget to leave us a rating and review , and be sure to follow us on all our socials .
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Stay curious , keep exploring and always remember to keep on wandering .
Thank you , thank you .