SYMHC Classics: William Palmer

This 2021 episode covers William Palmer, who was convicted in 1855 as a poisoner though there wasn't any hard evidence. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Holly Frey?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argonix, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 00

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• 1:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune into Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can

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• 2:47Holly Frey?

  Happy Saturday. Today, we are returning to an episode full of poison and murder. William Palmer, who was a convicted murderer, whose story went on to inspire an assortment of fictional characters and dramatizations.

• 3:01Tracy V. Wilson?

  This episode originally came out October 13, 2021.

• 3:07Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 3:18Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey. And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 3:23Holly Frey?

  Okay, I don't know why humans are wired this way, but the idea of serial killers is almost always gruesomely intriguing. So what better topic to trot out for Halloween? This particular case is one that's often talked about when poisoners come up. When we were doing a season of Lady Poisoners for Criminilia, we couldn't do it because it involves a man, but it kept showing up in relation to things as a comparative. And even though it's generally considered a settled case, there's a lot about it and how it turned out that doesn't really involve any hard evidence at all. We are talking today about William Palmer, who is also known as the Rushly Poisoner. And we do want to give a little heads up here that while there is obviously murder in the mix, there is specifically

• 4:08Holly Frey?

  brief mention of children dying. So just know that going in.

• 4:13Tracy V. Wilson?

  So William Palmer was born on August 6, 1824, to Joseph and Sarah Palmer in Rushly, Staffordshire, England. Joseph was employed as a sawyer and died when William was 12. That left Sarah with an estimated 70,000 to 75,000 pounds and eight children. William was the sixth of the Palmer siblings.

• 4:36Holly Frey?

  Yeah, that was a significant amount of money, but she did also have to raise a lot of children on her own after that. William went to school near his home in Rushly, and he developed a reputation as a trickster at an early age. He was not a good student. His peers often accused him of cheating. And well before he had reached his teenage years, he was in the habit of engaging in petty theft. He wasn't the kind of boy who would shake down anyone or do anything violent, but if he found money unattended, even if he knew that money belonged to someone, and even if that someone was a family member, he just took it. And in some accounts of his life, the event of his father's death is pointed to as this moment where he may have started justifying his stealing habit

• 5:21Holly Frey?

  as a means of helping his mother. But that sort of seems like conjecture, or like, kind of backwards engineering, a gentler version of his personality. But as he grew into a young man, in addition to continuing his perpetual obsession with money and stealing, William also developed a reputation as a womanizer.

• 5:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  When he finished school, William took up a position as an apprentice to a chemist in Liverpool. That was roughly 80 miles northwest of where he'd grown up, at a firm called Evans and Company. Initially, this seemed to go well, although he was once again getting into some trouble not long after. As a young man, instead of a child, and this was way more criminal than trickster-like, before long, the chemist was getting complaints about orders that people had paid for but had never been filled. Apparently, William was taking the orders and then pocketing the cash and never actually filing the requests with the chemist. He denied any wrongdoing, though, and was fired after just three months.

• 6:25Holly Frey?

  Next, William studied medicine in London, first as an apprentice to surgeon Edward Tilecoat. But this also soon went awry. For one thing, Palmer was scamming Tilecoat's patients in small-time money cons. And he was also rumored to have gotten mired in a scandalous scheme where he had promised to marry a young woman, took her father's small life savings, which he was given to plan the wedding and get the couple started in life, and then he broke up with the young lady in question and just kept all the cash. And he had developed a fairly extensive gambling habit, which people knew about. And none of this was good for the reputation of his mentor Tilecoat, and William was dismissed from his apprenticeship.

• 7:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  He kept pursuing a career in medicine, though, and moved to the Stafford Infirmary to work as a student. He wasn't very interested in actual study, though, and was more likely to be out drinking than focusing on medical texts. He did manage to barely pass his exams and qualified as a doctor in the late summer of 1846.

• 7:29Holly Frey?

  Just a few months after that, he was once again in the middle of a scandal, and this one had fatal consequences. In October 1846, William was drinking with a plumber and glazier named George Abley. Palmer had invited Abley to a pub called The Lamb and Flag. And there are a couple of different ways the particulars of this story are told. In one version, Palmer just continuously kept brandy refilled for Abley until, well after the man was intoxicated, he bet the plumber half a sovereign that he could not drink one more glass, which Abley did. In another version, the bet was offered that

• 8:11Holly Frey?

  Abley couldn't drink two tumblers of brandy, one right after the other. Whichever way this played out, Abley took the bet, drank the brandy, and then stumbled out of the pub. And two hours later, George Abley was dead. Whether Palmer had intended for the man to meet his end, he was implicated in town rumors, although he was never charged with any crime.

• 8:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  Not long after this incident, William Palmer moved to London, maybe to get away from this whole thing. He got a job at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and he started a courtship with a woman named Anne Thornton, who sometimes went by Annie. Anne Thornton was the daughter of Anne Mary Thornton, who is often referred to as Mary in recountings of Palmer's life, and will follow suit to keep things from getting confusing. Anne's father was Colonel Brooks, who had not been married to Mary when Anne was born. Brooks did acknowledge his daughter. She's listed in some records as Anne Brooks, and she was provided for in his will. The Colonel died by suicide in 1834, and at that point, Annie inherited 8,000 pounds.

• 9:19Holly Frey?

  So Annie's fortune was not a secret, and it may well have been the source of Palmer's attraction to her. William Palmer was consistently described as charming, and when Anne Thornton met him, she definitely found him so as well. But Palmer's reputation was also not a secret. A lot of people viewed him with suspicion, and Anne's family was pretty direct in telling her that this suitor was bad news and that he was probably just after her money. So when he initially proposed marriage, Anne did not accept. But William was persistent.

• 9:53Tracy V. Wilson?

  After an almost two-year courtship, to which Anne seemed to have proven that this man truly cared for her, the two of them were finally married in 1847. They made their home in Rusheley, renting a house on Market Street for a reported 25 pounds a year, and William's medical practice was run from there at the house.

• 10:13Holly Frey?

  The marriage was tense from the start. I feel like this is a recurring theme in recent episodes. It wasn't because of anything between William and Anne, but because William and Anne's family did not get along. Anne's mother, Mary Thornton, had always been suspicious of Palmer and had been pretty vocally against this match. So when her new son-in-law immediately started borrowing money from her once they were officially family, she lent it to him for Anne's benefit, but she was ceaselessly irritated.

• 10:43Tracy V. Wilson?

  Anne and William welcomed a son, William Brooks Palmer, in October of 1848. Three months later, in January of 1849, Mary went to the Market Street House to stay with her daughter and son-in-law. Sometimes this is characterized as a visit, but you'll also see it described more that she was moving in with them because of her failing health. Regardless, it was a brief stay. She died on January 18th, two weeks after arriving. Her cause of death was listed as apoplexy by the doctor who examined her. That doctor's name was Bamford.

• 11:18Holly Frey?

  Bamford is going to show up a lot. He was an elderly doctor that was friends with William Palmer. There was a payout for Anne after Mary's death of 12,000 pounds, although it seems that this was not in a lump sum. And William had been expecting more. He clearly viewed his marriage to Anne as a source of income, and between what he believed to be a weak inheritance and his ongoing frustration at Anne's larger fortune being parceled out in quarterly payments, he felt like he was being cheated. This was particularly the case because he spent all of the couple's money far faster than it was coming in. So even though his wife was very wealthy on paper and should have kind of been set for life,

• 12:02Holly Frey?

  in reality, there was a massive debt accruing.

• 12:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  To complicate the family finances even further, Palmer, who already had a propensity for gambling, started becoming interested in horse racing. And through this interest, he became acquainted with a man named Leonard Blayden. Before meeting Blayden, William had gotten himself into even deeper trouble with money because he had become the owner or part owner of several racehorses. He made some pretty desperate sales of horses at a loss because he kept finding himself in need of quick cash.

• 12:37Holly Frey?

  Yeah, exactly what somebody with a gambling problem needs is to buy into the system that he gambles in and also in a way that is very expensive. Like, horses are not cheap to keep. And Blayden, who worked for Charrington's Brewery, loaned William Palmer money after the two had become acquainted. But it very quickly became apparent that getting that money back was going to be difficult. In early May 1850, the two men went to the Chester Races together. Blayden had a very lucky day of betting and came away from the races with several hundred pounds. On top of that, Palmer told him that if he came back to Rusheley with him, he could finally pay him back the money he was owed. And Blayden agreed, and he wrote a note to his wife

• 13:21Holly Frey?

  that he was going to stay with the Palmers.

• 13:24Tracy V. Wilson?

  But after arriving at William and Anne Palmer's home, Blayden started to feel unwell. He was in really a lot of pain pretty quickly, and then he died. The cause of death was listed as "injury of the hip joint five or six months, abscess in the pelvis."

• 13:42Holly Frey?

  That is, once again, that same elderly doctor writing that death certificate. After that death, William actually claimed that Blayden had owed him money, and he was brazen enough to ask Leonard Blayden's widow for it. He said that he was owed 60 pounds. Mrs. Blayden was immediately suspicious of William Palmer. She knew that he had owed her husband money when he died. Leonard had included that information in his letter to her. And she was also suspicious that no money had been found in her husband's effects when he died because he had also told her that he had won money at the races. His betting book was also missing. And she gave Palmer no money,

• 14:25Holly Frey?

  kind of made it clear that she suspected him, and he backed off.

• 14:29Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 14:39Speaker 10

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• 14:42Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 15:10Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 15:23Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 15:34Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 15:40Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 16:25Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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• 19:45Holly Frey?

  In 1852, Palmer's uncle, Joseph Bentley, died. That was on October 27th of that year. He had allegedly perished after having been challenged to a drinking contest by his nephew. But Joseph was 62. He was not in great health to begin with, so even if those were the circumstances of his passing, this was not looked at as a particularly odd situation.

• 20:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  Before Joseph Bentley's death, starting in late 1850, the Palmers had four more children, but none of those babies lived past infancy. Their daughter Elizabeth died at 10 weeks old on January 6th, 1851. A son named Henry died exactly a year later to the day when he was one month old. Another son, Frank, died on December 19th, 1852, which was the same day he was born. And finally, a baby named John, he was born on January 24th, 1854, died three days later. All of the infants' causes of death were the same, which was convulsions. At the same time, these were considered to be normal, if tragic occurrences.

• 20:54Tracy V. Wilson?

  It was thought of as just a run of bad luck for the Palmers.

• 20:59Holly Frey?

  Yeah, infant mortality was a kind of common occurrence at this point in this area, so even though it looked terribly awful, nobody really suspected anything. But that bad luck that they were having seemed to continue in their finances because they were falling deeper and deeper into debt. William's gambling had, of course, continued. It had only gotten worse. And then he started forging notes in his mother's name to keep borrowing money. And he was very aware that he could end up in debtor's prison.

• 21:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  And that's why, seven years into Ann and William Palmer's marriage, the husband took out a life insurance policy on his wife that was worth 13,000 pounds. He actually tried to take out several policies with different companies, but was only able to secure one with the Prince of Wales Insurance Company. The year he took out the policy, which was 1854, he made the first premium payment in the amount of 750 pounds.

• 21:58Holly Frey?

  Ann died on September 29th of 1854 at the age of 27. There was a cholera outbreak in England at the time, and Ann Palmer was believed to have died from it. She was buried in the Palmer family vault, and William quickly put together the paperwork to claim the payout on her insurance policy, which he received in very short order. And he used that cash to pay off the many people that he owed money to.

• 22:24Tracy V. Wilson?

  In early 1855, just a few months after Ann's death, Palmer was once again forging bills in his mother's name to get creditors to give him money, but that wasn't working particularly well anymore. Some of the creditors were suspicious and asking to speak with Sarah Palmer about her son's assurances that she could cover any money that he borrowed. William was really backed into a corner. He could not let his mother find out about this gambling debt.

• 22:52Holly Frey?

  And in 1855, a repeat of the circumstances of Ann's death played out, this time with William's brother Walter Palmer. William insured his sibling's life for 14,000 pounds, made one payment on the policy, and then suddenly Walter died. Walter was living alone at the time. He was married, but he and his wife had separated due to Walter's alcoholism. And while William had attempted to take out a whopping 84,000-pound policy on Walter, he was turned down for that. But once again, Prince of Wales Insurance Company was there with a policy approval in that 14,000-pound amount. That single premium, as we said, had been paid, but this time it was paid directly by one of William's creditors.

• 23:36Holly Frey?

  He basically said like, hey, I don't have the fast cash for this. Could you go ahead and pay for it? And that payment was made just before Walter's death on August 16th, 1855. Because of Walter's history of alcohol misuse, this was also not entirely a shocking demise. Because he lived alone, there weren't a lot of people to say otherwise. William had, at the end of his brother's life, made sure that Walter always had plenty of gin on hand.

• 24:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  But this time, Prince of Wales Insurance was not so quick to turn around the payment on the claim. Walter's death and the fact that Palmer had filed paperwork to take out another policy, this time on an undergroomer who cared for Palmer's horses, led the insurance company to open an investigation. That policy had some problems in the details that investigators found puzzling. It listed his regular occupation as farmer, indicating that he had a farm of his own. But the reality was that he was more of an on-again, off-again field hand and just drifted from job to job as needed.

• 24:39Holly Frey?

  When that worker in question, who is named George Bates, was interviewed about this policy, he thought it was only for 4,000 pounds, not the 10,000 pounds that appeared on the application. To top off all of the suspicious aspects of the policy, while it was signed by George Bates, it was witnessed by two of Palmer's friends from the racetrack. So it appeared that William Palmer had offered to help Bates set up a life insurance policy, had lied about the amount intending to take the overage for himself, and named himself as a beneficiary. He had also promised to give Bates 1,000 pounds in the next year as an early payout.

• 25:19Tracy V. Wilson?

  The two inspectors on the case, whose names were Simpson and Field, thought this whole situation was shady, and they suspected that Palmer had poisoned his brother. They were not going to pay out on Walter Palmer's policy, and they were going to suggest to the authorities that a legal investigation begin into the matter. So Palmer was panicked. He needed to pay off his debts. He needed to find a way to do it without relying on an insurance payout. And that sealed the fate of a man named John Parsons Cook.

• 25:49Holly Frey?

  So Cook and William Palmer had been friends for a couple of years by 1855. They were racing buddies. Cook had been one of the men who signed the application for George Bates's life insurance policy. And like William Palmer, Cook owned a horse, and he liked to bet. But he was apparently luckier than Palmer in that enterprise. And he had an inheritance, and he was not carrying a huge debt.

• 26:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  On November 13th, 1855, the two men attended the Shrewsbury races together. Cook won an estimated 3,000 pounds that day when his horse, named Polestar, had a good run. To celebrate, the winner had a party at the inn where he was staying, which was the Raven Hotel. Palmer attended but left early and headed home.

• 26:36Holly Frey?

  The next day, though, he went right back to Shrewsbury. That's because in the interim, he received another ultimatum from a creditor who was very ready to visit his mother about all of his outstanding debts. So he met that night with John Parsons Cook and several other of their racetrack friends. They kind of hung out and ordered a round of brandies. But Cook, after tossing his back, noted an unusual burning sensation in his throat. William Palmer kind of mocked his friend openly for saying so, kind of hinting like that he was being a wuss, and asked one of their companions to check his Palmer's glass to see if they thought it looked suspicious. That glass was empty, and it looked to have no residue in it. Before long, Cook, who was just getting worse, was escorted to his room by two other men

• 27:21Holly Frey?

  of the party, where he began throwing up a great deal. And he also told the other men that, quote, "I believe that damned Palmer has been dosing me." Cook was seen by a doctor, but he did not improve.

• 27:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  The next day, Palmer was back at the track and had an abysmal outing. He lost a great deal of money. That night, he and Cook headed back to Rusely. Cook was still sick, but seemed to be improving slightly. He spent the night at an inn across the street from the Palmer residence. And the day after that, which was a Friday, the two men had lunch together, along with Jeremiah Smith, who was Cook's solicitor.

• 27:59Holly Frey?

  On Saturday morning, Palmer called on Cook at the inn again, and this time Palmer ordered a coffee, which he shared with his friend. According to accounts, Cook began vomiting again almost immediately. As Palmer was a doctor, he cared for his friend. And on that Saturday, he had another doctor, that was Bamford, come to see the patient. The solicitor, named Smith, also sent soup for Cook. He sent that to Palmer, who brought it over to the man. And after eating it, Cook, once again, got worse. The leftover soup was stored in the inn's kitchen, and when one of the staff tasted it, she also became ill. Still, that same soup was once again fed to John Parsons Cook, whose condition worsened.

• 28:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  As Cook continued to decline, William Palmer started to collect the winnings that were due to his sick friend from the successful bets that he had placed before falling ill. He did not bring that money back to Cook. He used some of that to pay off his debts, and then he bought three grains of strychnine from a chemist named Salt. He made those into two pills that he made up in his own office, and he administered these to Cook.

• 29:09Holly Frey?

  On November 20th, so this was a week after the day that Cook had done so well at the Shrewsbury Track, he was terribly ill, and a Dr. Jones was requested by William Palmer to stay with the patient overnight. Cook had difficulty sleeping, and his condition grew worse in the night. So Dr. Jones called for Dr. Palmer as things became more grave. William Palmer gave Cook two ammonia pills. Within an hour, after a horrific series of convulsions, and repeatedly saying that he felt like he was suffocating, John Parsons Cook was dead. Palmer had his friend, once again, the elderly Dr. Bamford, write up the death certificate, and the cause was listed as apoplexy.

• 29:54Tracy V. Wilson?

  We're about to get to how everything unraveled for Palmer after Cook's death. But first, we will pause for a word from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going.

• 30:08Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 30:53Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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  Surfing is literally the best thing to ever happen to me. It's connected to my purpose in life. It brings me the most joy and happiness, and it almost feels like I'm flying on top of the water.

• 32:17Speaker 17

  Hi, I'm Elizabeth, a surfer, advocate, and founder of the Kirby Surfer Girl Movement. When I received both the plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis diagnosis, surfing, being active, trusting my body, so much of what made me me suddenly felt harder to do. I didn't know what my future would look like. I had to learn to listen to my body so I could keep moving, keep being me, and keep showing up for the people who see themselves in my story. So I worked with my doctors to come up with a plan. That's where Cosentyx came in. Cosentyx treats both plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and helps stop further joint damage from psoriatic arthritis.

• 32:59Speaker 17

  Today, I'm still an athlete, as Kirby Surfer Girl and as part of the Women's Body Positive Movement, showing that circumstances shouldn't stop you from doing what you love.

• 33:09Speaker 07

  Cosentyx secukinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, 300-milligram dose, and adults with active psoriatic arthritis, 150-milligram dose. Don't use if allergic to Cosentyx. Get checked for TB before starting. Increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like TB or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. Some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough, had a vaccine or plan to, or if IBD symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTIX or cosentyx.com.

• 33:52Speaker 17

  Move, look, and feel better with Cosentyx. Ask a rheumatologist if it's right for you.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Hi, it's Kathleen Griffith, co-host of the Unshakeables podcast. Listen in as Ron and Kelly Moore share their story.

• 34:09Speaker 16

  I'm Ron Moore.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  And I'm Kelly Moore. And starting our own business in our 50s was a little scary, but exciting.

• 34:19Speaker 16

  The biggest advantage was our community. The whole thing about business is relationships.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  We'll say team a lot, not just our internal team. It's the team of our vendors, the team of our clients.

• 34:31Speaker 16

  We help the Veterans Resource Center, and we give scholarships. I'm doing this for my heart, for my children, for you, for your children's family. I don't want anything back. And I tell a lot of people, don't give back to me, pay it forward.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  If you work to give, you just see the world differently.

• 34:49Speaker 16

  I'm going to help as many people as we can. I can't take it with me.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  To hear more from Ron and Kelly, listen to the Unshakeables wherever you get your podcasts.

• 35:06Holly Frey?

  So Cook's stepfather came to the inn the day after his stepson died, immediately after he had been told what had happened. And William Palmer immediately told the man, who had just lost a family member, that Cook owed 4,000 pounds in unpaid bills that he could just give to him. But Cook's stepfather, William Stevens, was a bit suspicious of all this, and he asked for a coroner's inquest into the death and a postmortem exam of the body. And he also wanted samples from the body sent to a poison expert, Dr. Alfred Swain Taylor.

• 35:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  This postmortem was total chaos. For one, it was held there at the hotel where Cook died on November 26th. And there was an audience of curious locals to watch. For another, the men who performed it were young and inexperienced. One was a medical student, one was the town chemist's assistant. They did have a more experienced doctor supervising, but the two of them did not have a lot of experience themselves. And then it went poorly. These two men were nervous. It was suspected that they had had a drink beforehand to calm their nerves. So they bumped into each other, they dropped Cook's organs, they just bungled this entire thing. And as they fumbled around, William Palmer was able to get ahold of the jar

• 36:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  where they had placed Cook's stomach contents. He took that jar into another room. He returned it when someone noticed it was missing, but the seal on it had been cut. It looked otherwise intact.

• 36:40Holly Frey?

  Yeah, he gave like the very fumbly excuse of like, oh, I was getting it out of your way. You guys seem to be, you know, you had so many things going on. I just thought I would clear the area for you. Not suspicious at all. Uh, when the poison expert, Dr. Taylor, received the specimens that had been prepared there at the Talbot Arms, he found the entire collection such a mess that he asked for a second postmortem so that he could get better samples.

• 37:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  When Dr. Taylor initially wrote to the coroner saying he had found no strychnine in the samples, Palmer heard about it because he had bribed the postmaster to intercept this letter. He then wrote to the coroner and asked him to declare the death an accidental causes situation, and he tucked a 10-pound note into this letter.

• 37:26Holly Frey?

  Subtle. Uh, that bribe did not work on the coroner, William Webb Ward. The final findings of Dr. Taylor were that he did not find any strychnine in the samples, but that he suspected that Palmer had given Cook strychnine at some point, as the symptoms he had were consistent with strychnine poisoning. The inquest jury, having examined Dr. Taylor's findings, issued their verdict on December 15th, 1855, which read, quote, "Deceased died of poison willfully administered to him by William Palmer."

• 37:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  The postmaster, who had intercepted the letter to the coroner, which was a man named Samuel Cheshire, was sentenced to two years in prison for mail tampering.

• 38:08Holly Frey?

  But here's the thing, that coroner's jury was not a court of law, so Palmer still had to be tried in criminal court. He was at home in bed, sick, when the coroner's jury determination was issued. He was already under warrant on forgery charges because of all of those fake bills that he had been giving creditors in his mother's name. But he was allowed to stay at home under guard until he was well enough to be moved to the Stafford jail.

• 38:33Tracy V. Wilson?

  There was no way William Palmer could get an impartial trial in Stafford, so an act of parliament was enacted that would allow him to be tried in London instead. By the time he was arrested, the rumor mill of the town and speculation in the press had already started to link the many deaths in William Palmer's life together and to suggest that he had been responsible for all of them.

• 38:57Holly Frey?

  Palmer's wife, Ann, and his brother Walter, were exhumed so that they could be a second coroner's inquest into their deaths. Ann Palmer's body was in pretty good condition, but Walter's was so badly decomposed that the gory scene was written up in the papers. I'm going to read it, so just brace if you are squeamish, maybe jump ahead. Uh, The Times ran this story on January 4th, 1856, quote, "On the removal of the outer coffin, a hole was bored in the leaden receptacle in which Walter Palmer's body was confined, and instantly a most sickening and noxious effluvium escaped, which permeated the entire building, affected parties at the other end of the inn, and produced a sickening effect

• 39:40Holly Frey?

  on all in the immediate vicinity of the coffin. Subsequently, the leaden lid was removed, and the spectacle presented by the body was absolutely frightful. The cheeks were so terribly distended as to extend to either side of the coffin, one eye was opened and the mouth partially so, presenting the appearance of a horrible grin and grimace. Each limb was also swollen to prodigious proportions, and the sight was revolting in the extreme. Nearly all the jurors were afflicted with vomiting or fainting."

• 40:13Tracy V. Wilson?

  Ultimately, it was determined that Walter's body was just too decomposed for additional examination. But in Ann's tissue, uh, there was antimony found in multiple organs. Dr. Taylor had analyzed these samples, and that was his finding. The coroner's jury declared this to be a willful murder.

• 40:32Holly Frey?

  Yeah, there was definitely like, kind of this inference that in describing that that gross state of Walter's body, that he had decayed so much, possibly because of something nefarious. That was never proven, but like, that was kind of the way the papers were framing it. Palmer's trial for the murder of John Parsons Cook began on May 14th, 1856, at the Old Bailey, London. That is the city's criminal court. Uh, it's called the Old Bailey because that's the name of the street. The men who had been drinking with Cook and Palmer when Cook first mentioned that throat burning sensation were called for testimony. The chambermaid, who drank the soup that Palmer brought Cook, testified that she had gotten ill from it.

• 41:16Holly Frey?

  She also gave a pretty graphic account of Cook's appearance and behavior while he was staying at the Talbot Arms, including the fact that he had said the word murder twice while he was ill.

• 41:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  The defense pointed out that Cook had been fairly frail to start with. The defense attorney for Palmer offered up the possibility that based on the chambermaid's description, Cook had actually died not of strychnine poisoning, but of tetanus.

• 41:42Holly Frey?

  But it was when the chemist's assistant testified that things really fell apart for William Palmer. That assistant, whose name was Charles Newton, told the court that Palmer had bought strychnine from him on November 19th, 1855. He had not recorded that purchase in the poison records, as required by law, because Palmer and the chemist, Mr. Salt, who we mentioned earlier, had a rather sour relationship, and Newton had not wished to anger his boss. Palmer had told Newton that he needed enough strychnine to kill a dog, and Newton said that Palmer also bought a second dose of strychnine at another shop on November 20th. The assistant from that shop, a young man named Charles Joseph Roberts, confirmed the

• 42:26Holly Frey?

  second purchase and that he had also neglected to record the sale of the poison as he was legally supposed to have done.

• 42:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  The elderly doctor who had been involved, Dr. Bamford, provided a written testimony to be read in court because he was too ill to attend. He stated that he thought the death was caused by congestion of the brain. Other medical experts dismissed this statement.

• 42:50Holly Frey?

  Of course, poison expert Dr. Alfred Taylor was also called to testify. He explained that the remains had been so poorly handled in the postmortem that testing for strychnine was difficult, if not impossible, but that he did look for it just the same as well as other poisons. The stomach, for example, had been sent emptied of its contents, so he did not have one of the key samples he would have normally needed for a thorough analysis. He did find traces of antimony, though not enough to cause death.

• 43:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  All of the medical experts who were called admitted that they had never actually seen strychnine poisoning in a human, only in other animals. So their expertise was largely theoretical on the matter. The defense pointed out that if Cook had died of strychnine poisoning, due to how closely it followed the date of the last purchase made by Palmer, it should have been found in those postmortem samples, even if they had been mishandled. The prosecution made its final case that Palmer had first weakened Cook with antimony and then finished him off with strychnine. The defense claimed natural causes, but no one could account for those strychnine purchases.

• 44:02Holly Frey?

  Yeah, there was no dog produced that he had done away with. There was no other, like, use of it that made any sense. So after just an hour and 15 minutes of deliberation, the jury found William Palmer guilty of the murder of John Parsons Cook. The judge sentenced him to death. And because of that sentence, trials for the murders of Walter Palmer and Ann Palmer did not move forward.

• 44:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  William Palmer was executed by hanging on June 14th, 1856, outside of Stafford Prison. There were an estimated 35,000 spectators, and demand for a view of the hanging was so great that a lot of people slept outside the night before to make sure they could get a good spot, even though the night of June 13th was rainy. Throughout the trial, the press had printed all the lurid and disturbing details of Cook's final days, and there was a very real desire among the general populace to see Palmer pay for the misery that he had caused his friend.

• 45:01Holly Frey?

  Ultimately, although it was not found legally the case, Palmer was believed, in public opinion, to have committed as many as 15 murders, although all of the evidence involved was circumstantial.

• 45:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  The Palmer story has made its way into media in a number of ways. Dickens called him "the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey" and used his story as inspiration in his work, basing the character of Inspector Bucket in Bleak House on one of the investigators in Cook's death. Various details about the sensational Palmer case pop up periodically in plays, television, and films, including an Alfred Hitchcock character named Richard Palmer, who kills a man with brandy in the film Suspicion.

• 45:46Holly Frey?

  In 1998, Palmer's story was adapted into a drama that ran in the UK titled The Life and Crimes of William Palmer. Oh, William Palmer, maybe a serial killer? Uh, we'll talk some about it on our behind the scenes, but there are people today who think that he was wrongly convicted.

• 46:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 46:07Holly Frey?

  More because they're just, it wouldn't hold up in a court of law today, how it played out, than necessarily believing he had never done anything wrong.

• 46:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is [email protected]. And you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 46:43Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:15Speaker 06

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything, because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:46Speaker 09

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 48:15Speaker 05

  What's that? My fresh detector. Uh, your what? There it is. What is it detecting?

• 48:21Speaker 14

  Fresh produce? Fresh meat?

• 48:24Speaker 05

  Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 48:29Speaker 14

  Apparently, we celebrate.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices when your fresh detector is going off. Head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  What do you do when things get tough? You don't give up. You stand your ground. If you've been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and have tried hormone therapy, ask your doctor about Pluvicto, Lutetium Lu 177 Vipetide Tetraxitan. Pluvicto is not chemotherapy. It's a different treatment that targets PSMA-positive cells. Pluvicto can be used before chemotherapy for some people. Pluvicto is a prescription treatment used to treat adults with prostate-specific membrane antigen-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, or PSMA-positive MCRPC, who have already been treated with hormone therapy and are considered appropriate to delay chemotherapy. Pluvicto involves contact with radioactivity, which may increase the risk for cancer and cause fetal harm.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Drink plenty of fluids, urinate often, use contraception, and talk to your doctor about ways to reduce the risk of exposing others to radiation during and after treatment. Pluvicto can cause low levels of blood cell counts, kidney problems, and infertility. Tell your doctor if you have weakness, pale skin, shortness of breath, bleeding or bruising more easily, an infection, or changes in urination. Side effects include decreased blood cell counts, tiredness, dry mouth, nausea, appetite loss, joint or back pain, and constipation. Ask your doctor about Pluvicto, because every day without cancer progression is a victory. Visit pluvicto.com to learn more.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.