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Right now, I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and I just cannot get enough of it.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid.
but you know what's a not morbid what we have a freaking coffee that is launching and like realistically what goes better together than true crime and coffee time truly truly you know how much We love coffee.
And we get to introduce the first morbid coffee with Dead Sled Coffee.
The absolute most perfect and badass collab out there.
I have been loving Dead Sled for literal years at this point.
I've been a fan girlie of Dead Sled Coffee.
An OG. They've collabed with some of my favorite people like Elvira.
They have Rob Zombie, Coffee.
I'm losing my mind at this collaboration.
Well, guys, now they have us.
Because in honor of National Coffee Day, we are launching not just one, but two morbid brews just for you weirdos.
One is just for me and the other is just for Alayna.
Alayna's is really exciting.
It's got like luxurious black packaging and it's called Alayna's Death Brew.
Hell yeah. It is a blend so strong it will actually wake the dead.
And I think we're kind of hoping that you savor this dark roast. We're kind of hoping that you savor this dark roast, though, so you can enjoy the notes of tiramisu as you energize your inner creativity.
Hell yeah. I'm so excited about my packaging.
I can't wait for you to see it.
I'm even more excited possibly because Ash's packaging is ash to a T.
It is literally spellbinding pink packaging.
Pink! and it's called ashes witch's brew which is made for all you witches on the go go go on the go go go go and we love it because it's a medium dark roast which has an essence of lavender and honey in it very ash and it's the perfect blend to harness the power of your fucking higher self and not only this so that we we have this coffee coming out the two different ones you can also get one of the new zodiac mugs out of our zodiac mug collection that we're launching it's going to go along with your coffee blend of choice because we said we can't just give them coffee we have to give them something
to put the coffee in hell yeah so you get to choose between zodiac mugs that channel either your inner elena with a dark goth vibe or you can channel your inner me ash and those mugs have a bright and groovy vibe and more exciting you can also Also personalize your star sign on your mug with your name or for like a fellow weirdo that you love.
Where are my fellow cappies out there?
Gemini's. And what's exciting too is this is also going to come with a coffee tray that can hold all your coffee accoutrements, all your essentials.
And it comes in two different styles.
Hell yeah. One's ashy and one's Elena -y.
Yeah. This is the most exciting thing ever.
And I actually, I'm not even joking you, it's so gray outside right now that I need a cup of our coffee.
and we brewed Alayna's roast this morning.
Yes, get the gray away.
Oh, seriously, so gray.
It's morbid and it's rainy.
Rainy, rainy, rainy.
It's very gray up. It is very gray up.
It's very gray in, too.
It's gray in, it's gray out.
I feel gray. It's gray all around.
Gray all day. Gray all day.
Gray all freaking day.
But you know what? We're bringing it.
Oh, yeah. We may be feeling gray right now, but we're bringing it.
Bringing it right to ya.
We're bringing you some gray old timey shenanigans.
You know what's funny?
Whenever you tell an old timey story in my head, I see it in black and white.
So it is gray. I love that.
So it is. It's like grayscale.
Yeah. You know what this is.
Brought to you by gray.
We said that word so many times.
I think it just lost all meaning.
It did. But yeah, today's going to be an old timey one.
it's an interesting one because it's just got so many old timey elements to it like it's got heirs and estates and land owning and i just slammed my head into my microphone land owning you know so old timey wait i think the writer's strike just ended oh shit that's what somebody just texted us so someone someone just texted somebody told us it's true they had come to um A tentative agreement.
Oh, so it's still tentative.
Well, everybody's got to sign off on it.
Oh, okay. But hey -o, sounds good.
Okay, let's go, brothers.
Sorry, I knew you were looking forward to that.
Let's go, brothers.
I was. Thank you. That is exciting.
Let's hope that it all continues going in the right direction.
There you go. You know, because then it's the actors next.
They've got to get on board. Oh, gosh.
But that's exciting.
I know. We love to hear it.
And this case is called the Stanfield Hall Murders.
And it's very, it's in England.
It's very, like if you, I want you to look up Stanfield Hall.
Okay. And if you look up Stanfield Hall Murders, you will get a picture of the place that this happened as it looks today.
Okay. It is the most gorgeous estate I have ever seen.
So that's why people were fighting over it.
And I'm pretty sure it sold like recently for like 5 .25 million or it was on sale for 5 .25 million.
Is it this? Yes. It's gorgeous.
I love a building covered in greenery and moss and ivy.
Give me an ivy covered stone building with a moat around it and sign me the fuck up.
I love that you said there has to be a moat around it.
There has to be a moat around it.
This place has a moat.
Look at the fucking foyer.
I'm saying it's gorgeous.
Oh my god. would so this happened so on november 28th 1848 a guy named isaac jeremy and his son found themselves under attack at their windman ham estate stanfield hall in england i think it was norwich where it was what led to their murders was a long feud that like i said involved estates rightful heirs and angry land tenants oh the worst of the worst a lot of messiness involved here so and the guy The guy that did it, that was convicted of doing it, and at the end we'll obviously tell you who, he had a lot of stuff go on in his life that you're like, there's a lot of coincidences around you.
That when you look back on it, you're like, huh.
Oh, coincidences? Air bunnies, air bunnies, quote unquote.
Yikes. So, let's get into it.
Well, first let's talk about the Jeremy family, because these are the victims. These are the ones that only stayed at the time.
okay so born isaac preston on september 23rd 1789 isaac jeremy had resided at the family's estate which is stanford hall for pretty much all of his life wow um there were some years in between where he spent some time training at westminster school to become a lawyer but other than that it was stanfield hall or bust he was living there i feel that but after he graduated from westminster and and he got admitted to the bar, bully for him.
That's pretty great.
He practiced law in Norwich, and after this he ended up taking a seat on the Norfolk Circuit Court and then became appointed as recorder of Norwich in 1838, which was a pretty good position, and he held it until his death.
He's a big deal. Yeah.
Now when his father, Reverend George Preston, died in 1837, Isaac inherited the family estate, which included Stanfield Hall.
Because he's the eldest boy.
I'm the eldest boy!
And it was then that he took the name...
And this is where it gets a little like you're like, what the fuck's happening right now?
Because old timey shit gets weird. It does.
When he inherited this estate in Stanfield Hall, he took the name of his ancestor, William Jeremy, which was necessary for him to take ownership of the family estate.
You got to change your whole ass name if you get land transferred to you.
So instead of being a Preston, he now had to be a Jeremy.
Because the Jeremy's owned the estate?
Yeah. So it's like, it was, like, necessary by law.
Weird. And so he also had to take on the Jeremy coat of arms for it to become legally his.
I kind of like the tradition of it all.
It's kind of fun. Yeah, I mean, it would suck.
It's kind of complicated and fun.
I love it. It would suck if you're, like, what, like, 30 and then all of a sudden your name's William and it used to be Isaac.
Yeah. Like, that might be a bit concerning.
I mean, it's going to get weird. Isaac, but he had to be Isaac Jeremy now.
Oh, okay. So now, maybe I wasn't clear about that, but he, yeah, Isaac Preston became Isaac Jeremy.
So it's like you're marrying the house.
I was just going to say, so it's like, yeah, you're taking someone else's name.
You're taking the house's name.
The surname. Yeah, okay.
I like that, you know?
Stanfield Hall should.
It deserves that. You know, I would marry that place.
Why not? So he became Jeremy.
He has the Jeremy coat of arms. and at the time of his death he lived in the house with his son isaac jeremy jr oh my god i know he also lived with isaac jeremy jr's wife who was pregnant at the time of the murders and several domestic workers who lived on the estate so this guy lives with his son and his daughter -in -law exactly okay uh and like a bunch of people who worked in the house sure sure now following the death of reverend george preston so the dad dead exactly in 1837 thomas jeremy and his cousin john larner part of the fam both members of but not direct heirs of the jeremy family they
were like wait a second no no no why is isaac preston now jeremy getting this entire shit why is he taking possession of the estate i want to claim it for me I'm a Jeremy but you're not you're not but he's not a director yeah that's what they're like fuck that's so simple to me right they want to try to take it claim it for themselves and I say nice try Duderson's but it's not gonna happen the bloodline just doesn't work that way exactly I'm the eldest boy and Thomas said me too but of a different family uh and then Jeremy said ah he said no it's mine now I have the coat of arms he said you may be
an eldest boy but I'm I'm the eldest boy.
That's a succession, you know, reference, by the way, in case you're like, why are you screaming that?
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So when they tried to convince the courts that they were the rightful heirs, meaning Thomas, Jeremy, and his cousin John Larner, that was in September 1838, the courts were like, no. Uh, no, you're not.
Yeah. So, not one to sit down and, you know, listen to logic, Thomas Jeremy gathered a group of laborers and attempted to take the estate by force.
Oh my god, like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast?
Yeah, they tried to storm the castle and be like, it's mine, it's so true.
They brought a big old tree lump with them?
I mean, a tree lump.
I meant to say stump.
I told you. I told you I was gray inside.
A tree lump and stump.
All right, men, we have our tree lump.
Let's go. Get your torches and your tree lumps.
Your tree lump. I don't know why that was so funny.
No, that is funny. Yeah, he gastoned it and everybody had torches and shit and they were going to take that shit by force.
But they were turned away by a man, by a name.
A name? A name came strolling out and was like, no, no. I'm sure he had a name.
He did. His name was James Rush.
He served as Isaac Jeremy's bailiff at the time And he came out and was like no no no Because Isaac Jeremy said bailiff Bailiff Just like Judge Judith Scheinluv She calls the bailiff I'm sure it was just like that It's similar So they got turned away James Rush was like I don't think so I'll fuck you all up And Thomas Jeremy was actually brought to trial But was ultimately acquitted For this whole thing damn but still was not satisfied even though he got acquitted he got away with almost taking that estate by force yeah is that like conspiracy to commit burglary like yeah not even burglary just
like conspiracy to commit home invasion yeah like grand larceny of house of home of the state but like conspiracy because he didn't ever get there because you just didn't get there he just planned to just had to take your tree lump and go home and then the bailiff said nah but he wasn't satisfied with that so he returned to after getting acquitted getting away with it like take your take your lumps and leave he returned to stanfield hall on september 24th and this time he brought a much larger group with him and a bigger tree and they've in a bigger tree lump like and they broke into the mansion with crowbars
oh shit and once inside they forced all the workers to flee the house and barricaded themselves inside damn so they took over this this house and we're like this is mine now now rather than try to convince them to come out like coax them out isaac jeremy called for military assistance and uh they were forcibly taken out of the house by military assistance this is insane and they were put on trial what the fuck eventually they all pleaded guilty to minor offenses of rioting which is a minor offense in in comparison to what they could have gotten because Thomas Jeremy and John Larner each only served
three months for the offense against Isaac Jeremy, and the laborers that they assembled for the purpose of breaking into this house, they got even lighter sentences.
And Isaac Jeremy was in, like I said, he was the recorder for Norwich, so he was in a pretty big position in the county.
He was the county recorder, and he could have easily pursued sued very tough sentences against these especially thomas and john right the ringleaders because they had seized his home like that you could have fucked them up after trying multiple times he had all the right to and he had all the power to but he chose not to it's family and even with that even with isaac being like i'm gonna let you just serve a little bit of a sentence and hopefully Hopefully that kind of knocks some sense into you.
Still, the animosity over the incident got really bad.
And there was still the continued belief that Isaac Jeremy wasn't the rightful heir.
So it created a huge rift between the families that continued until Isaac's death in 1848.
Wow. So during the first attempted takeover of the Stanfield estate, James Rush, who I talked about before the bailiff, His name is James Bloomfield Rush.
He actually played like a huge role in stopping the men from trying to take over the house.
Like that was him who stopped that.
But even though he was still in employment with Isaac Jeremy at the time that this all ended, like when like, you know, Thomas and John were sentenced to three months and all that, the relationship between them had kind of soured.
It had become a little complicated by this time.
So even though he was a huge role in stopping that whole thing in the first place, things were not going as smoothly as they could.
Uh -oh. He was born in 1809 to Mary Bloomfield, and he was the product of a rather illicit affair between Mary and a gentleman farmer in Windmanham.
Uh -oh. And that affair ended pretty quickly when he was like two years old.
Oh, that's sad. And when it came to an end, she actually, Mary sued this man man for breach of promise and was awarded a lot of money like a good amount of money by the courts because he was supposed to marry her right but she used that money to care for her son and james never really ended up knowing who his father was like he didn't want anything to do with him what a sad like sad start yeah so she ended up luckily mary ended up meeting another man james bloom james rush and he was like you know what i like this little kid i want to marry you so she She convinced him like, you know, this can be
your father. Okay. This is your father figure now.
And Mr. Rush, I'll call him Mr. Rush just to make it easier because James Rush.
Yeah, yeah. So the father, Mr. Rush, he basically treated him as his own child and even amended his name to include his surname.
Wow. Because remember, he was James Bloomfield before this, but now he's James Bloomfield Rush.
Gotcha, gotcha. So his parents got married, his stepfather and his mom got married.
and James and his mother moved in with Mr. Rush, who was a tenant of Reverend George Preston, who was Isaac Jeremy's father.
Father, okay. Yeah, I know.
No, you're doing a good job because I would be so confused right now.
I'm glad, I'm glad that it's making sense.
And Reverend George Preston had given them this home which they could rent.
It was like a modest house adjacent to the Stanfield Hall Estate.
Like a guest house kind of?
Yeah, it was kind of like that whole thing.
So, again, Mr. Rush, the stepfather, he didn't have any children of his own at the time that he married Mary.
Right. So he really did treat James as his own son.
He sent him to the best school in the area.
And upon completing schooling, James Jr. there returned to Norwich in 1828 and he got married.
Nice. After this, he began working as a tenant farmer for W .E .L.
Bulwer at Dollingwood Farms. but Rush thought that farming was going to be a little easier than it actually was I don't know what gave him that idea because farming to me looks really hard Sounds like a lot of hard work and within a year he was losing money on his farm and in an attempt to get back some of these losses he actually ended up setting fire to a bunch of stacks of wheat and submitted an insurance claim saying that they had caught fire by accident That's fake as fuck And there were definitely rumors everywhere and gossip that he had definitely set that fire.
And even rumors that he was going to be arrested for arson, but there was no proof of him being the arsonist. So the company did pay out the claim.
Probably like so begrudgingly.
Yeah, and it definitely gave him a false sense of confidence, like, oh, I got away with it.
So a few years later in 1830, while still living under that tenancy agreement with Bulwer, with the farm where he was living, james again found that he was losing money he was struggling financially but this time uh he started blaming outside sources not like his inability to farm now he was blaming the competition other farmers for his inability to make a profit it was all their fault that's not that he couldn't do it and so he decided you know what instead of working harder or trying something else that i might be better at uh i'm just gonna turn to more felonious behavior so he assembled a mob
of laborers which seems like something that a lot of people enjoyed doing back then i guess yeah you get mad and you just assemble laborers call up some laborers and he led them to a farm in nearby fulsham where once they got there they destroyed a ton of pieces of huge farm equipment and then And they all ran in opposite directions.
So they fucked up all the farm equipment and then left, basically trying to make it so this farm would get, wouldn't be able to function.
So he was trying to fuck up the competition instead of just doing better himself.
That's not a good way to win.
He did end up, Rush was arrested a short time later and he was tried, especially for leading the mob, but no verdict was ever returned.
And he was released into his own recognizance to keep the peace.
What? So it's just like, yeah, you can just leave. They were like, don't do that again.
Yeah, there's no one to fuck around.
So it's, like, cool.
This guy just keeps getting away with this shit.
Damn. Now, his tenancy agreement with Bulwer came to an end in 1835, probably to everyone's, like, few.
And that's when he entered into a new tenancy agreement with Reverend George Preston, Isaac Jeremy's father.
Okay. He had known him as a child because, remember, he had grown up on that property with his stepfather and his mom.
So he knew this man.
He knew the Preston family, knew all of them.
And so they were like, yep, we'll give you a tenancy agreement to live on our property.
So with this new agreement, he was allotted a parcel of farmland and a home.
And that was in exchange for a fee of 110 pounds per year and in a percentage of the profits from farming for a period of 18 years.
So he would have to pay rent and he would also have to give a percentage of whatever he he got from his crops for 18 years damn uh that's a shitty agreement i guess it was kind of this is another little like side note because it's weird that i'm doing this one right now because this makes weird sense to me now um i'm reading slew foot by brahm it's a really good book you guys should read it check it out i think i posted it on my stories but i'll post it again and uh in that it's from like the 16th or 1700s yeah they they have a similar agreement of like all tenant and owe this farmland to you,
you have to pay me rent and also give me a percentage of the profits for, like, 10 years.
Okay. And that's part of the story in Slew Foot.
So, hearing this now, I'm like, this is weird that this is coming back.
Yeah, that's always weird when that happens, when you find out, like, random information and then it applies, like, somewhere else in your life.
Yeah, I didn't mean for that to line up like that.
Life is a simulation.
So, you know, he's got a deal.
He's living on there.
He's got his own farm.
He's just got to share some of it.
So what he did was he also entered into a second tenancy agreement for his father -in -law under the same conditions.
But this time he was going to be paying 130 pounds per year.
So he's under a tenancy agreement with Reverend George Preston and he's under a tenancy agreement for like another farm for his father -in -law.
Okay. So he's paying out but he's making money.
It's one of those things that used to happen very often back then.
And the next year he actually entered into a third agreement for tenancy with Preston, again, for another farm on the Stanfield Hall estate with similar conditions, but this one was at 500 pounds per year.
Oh, wow. And at that same time, he accepted a position as Reverend Preston's steward and advisor in all matters of business.
Wow. So now he's under three tenant agreements.
He's got a place on the Preston estate.
He's he's given two different rents to and then he's paying off his father -in -law but he's also got this new position now advising Reverend Preston so he's like he's getting there he's doing good seems like it's going to be like all right let's go right and you know what for Rush this whole thing was good in life and working with George Preston was good but when he died in 1837 and possession of the family estate passed to Isaac Preston now Jeremy and it ended It ended up being discovered that the three tenancy agreements that he had actually entered into had actually been illegally executed.
Oh. So is that like a get out of jail free card for him?
It's not good for any.
It's like his land is technically like.
Oh, yeah. so although isaac did keep rush on as his steward once his father had died he rescinded the illegal tenancy agreements and issued new leases for the three properties okay but he issued these leases at slightly higher rates from the other oh it's a different time i do like inflation legal one so it sounds like reverend george preston was like kind of doing him a little bit of a solid yeah and isaac was like i'm gonna run things a little different here yeah which at least he was he was like i'll give you new ones like for the right price now despite the increased fees being more or less
comparable to the rates of the day the increase was the first issue in their relationship the first issue in a series of events that would eventually lead to to Isaac Jeremy being murdered.
Oh. So several years later in late 1843, Isaac got his eye on a potash farm.
I think it's how you say it, potash.
Okay. That abutted the land on the place where Stanfield Hall was sitting.
Okay. And he directed Rush, his steward, to go assess the land's value and to make an offer of purchase to the seller.
So he was like, go get that land for me.
and what jeremy didn't know was that rush also had an interest in the land and hoped to get it for himself so rush valued the property at 3500 pounds and at isaac jeremy's behest he made a bid on the man's behalf for 3500 dollars but immediately after that rush went back and and submitted his own bid on the property for $3 ,750.
Outbidding Isaac Jeremy and taking the property for himself.
And was he just going to wave to his employer from the land?
He just outbought? Stole out from under him?
Yeah, like what the fuck?
What's your plan there, dude?
And Isaac Jeremy was pissed.
He was not pleased by this because he was like, you're duplicitous, what the fuck?
Yeah. yeah but even then he agreed to lend the man the money to purchase the land he was like well you outbid me but i have to give you the money yeah that doesn't even make any sense exactly because he's like under his tenancy and so he was like all right sure and he wrote up a new agreement for the amount of five thousand pounds and under the terms of the new agreement the sale was was charged to the Jeremy estate and mortgage to Rush at 4 % interest per year, which was roughly, I think, around like 200 pounds.
And this was with the understanding that the mortgage would be paid off as of November 30th, 1848.
So I think by now you can see it's getting messy.
This is messy business.
We're intertwining a lot of things.
There's a lot of faith being placed on people's, you know, honesty and in which they have none of which it doesn't look like there's a ton going around um and also then here's where the side note comes in about uh james rush he owned he ended up owning this land along with his stepfather mr rush okay and on october 24th 1844 they the two of them mr rush and his son james bloomfield rush they went out hunting together alone and when they they returned alone.
Rush Sr. was in the kitchen of this property, admiring Rush Jr.'s new shotgun when it accidentally went off.
They were alone. Oh.
Rush Sr. was killed by this.
When they were alone?
When they were alone.
And he was just admiring the shotgun?
Yep. And it just, boom.
they had a wonderful hunting trip before that together yep huh yeah and one would look at this and maybe say sus were you looking to get money yeah his estate well unfortunately for him rush senior had left his estate to his wife mary well yeah james's mom uh -oh so he didn't get any financial payout for that death not that i'm saying that he wanted it no because we don't know it's strange that they were alone and this happened and the only person to be able to tell this story is james rush who was in need of financial compensation a little troublesome but you know whatever he didn't get paid no matter
what so it didn't mean anything so now in 18 there'll be more of that by the way so now in 1844 this meant that rush now owned three farms with tenancy agreements held by Isaac Jeremy and in the years that followed Rush borrowed more money to renovate and expand his farming operation so he was under a lot of debt and by October 1847 he'd fallen very behind on his payments to Jeremy and was eventually served eviction papers from the property on the Stanfield Hall estate and at this point he went to live so So that property on the Stanfield Hall estate he got evicted from.
Okay. And he ended up moving to live on the Potash farm.
Okay. Or Potash. I don't know if it's Potash or Potash.
Somebody's going to yell at me about it.
I like Potash. I like Potash.
It just feels right.
Or Potash. Potash. No, I like Potash.
Potash seems like you're spitting.
You're like, Potash.
Yeah. You know, like, patoo.
But either way, that farm.
farm um a few months later when rush still didn't pay jeremy after he moved to that other farm uh isaac filed suit for breach of covenants and the case went to trial in march 1848 so now he's suing him for not paying him good the same year james rush's mother died mary i knew that was coming and it was said that john or that um james was incredibly attentive to her in her final days and servants in the home were quoted as saying that they witnessed him serving her soaked breads by hand right before she passed away soaked in what so i don't know i don't know what happened there uh she died though
parents die it's one of those sad things yeah at that point but you know what's strange about this one is like you know his stepfather has died under a strange and tragic circumstance not long and he said that money's mine right and they said nope it's your mom's and he said oh then his mom died under tragic circumstances with him being by her side in her last moments and then he says that money's mine right and they say no she left it to her grandchildren oh shit i wonder why she didn't leave it to him that's a little sus that's the other piece of this puzzle is like what was your problem no one
left you money like how come yeah Yeah.
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And so, you know, being not a man to sit down and let things just play out the way that they're supposed to, he forged her signature and did an amendment on the documents to make him in control of her money.
And if that doesn't tell you a little bit about what possibly happened.
i don't know what does oh no no no no no seems a little suspicious just a little suspicious you know i don't know i wasn't there maybe this is all maybe he's just being followed by very ghastly coincidences but i don't know take what you will from it he ended up getting control of the money um and yeah meanwhile as that's happening the eviction and the lawsuit with isaac jeremy me is only worsening their relationship.
It had already been crumbling and it's getting worse at this point.
Right. In a few weeks after the trial, James Rush actually published and distributed a pamphlet that claimed to present a fair and accurate representation of the trial.
Okay. Yeah. It's very Hamilton.
How could that be fair and accurate when one of the parties he's involved is writing it thank you and in it rush claimed that he only took on the tenant farming leases with the jeremy family just to improve his financial situation for his family okay and he said quote and this is no reason why i should be ruined in character by this villain as well as my property being swallowed up by him and apparently showing evidence of Jeremy's villainy.
He put forth the false claim that Isaac Jeremy had no right to the property in the first place.
Oh no. So he decided to jump on that bandwagon.
You know John Larner and Thomas Jeremy bandwagon and say he's not the rightful heir.
Even though I stopped them from doing whatever they were planning.
I may have put you know completely backed him when it benefited me but now that it doesn't, he's not the rightful heir.
That's fake. He said, this fellow Jeremy has no right to this Stanfield property.
He knows it, and he knows I know it as well.
His whole conduct in keeping possession and taking the name of Jeremy and his behavior to those poor people who have a right to it, those poor people who he chased out of the house when they were trying to take it over, has been most villainous and disgraceful to any man who have any pretension to respectability, And which I should be most happy to prove when called on to do so.
If there's any truth in the Bible, such villainy is sure to be overtaken, and that when it may be at least expected.
So he's saying, if there's any truth to the Bible, then that place is going to be taken back by the rightful owners.
And it's like, I don't know, that sounds aggressive.
Why are you bringing the Bible into that?
That's a big leap. I don't know about that.
Are you sure about that?
so he had a full plan and that he is setting into motion that he's like okay you want to fuck with me because i didn't pay you what you are rightfully owed like that's that's what i love he's like oh oh what you want to be paid right what you are rightfully owed sir how dare you no no you're gonna bring me to court to get money that i owe you huh no i'm gonna fuck with And he's like, I'm going to destroy your reputation.
And it became even clearer when they found a letter he had sent to his own son in April, just after the pamphlet had been published.
And in that letter, he said, I have at last got Jeremy in a fix and the rouge in the rужian villain knows it well how he will act now will soon be seen at all events he now knows if he ruins me I can him or you would not or you would not have seen him as you have but I do not want anyone know this except for your wife and her aunt so he's basically being like I put it out there he knows now.
You fuck with me. I fuck with you harder.
Yeah. And he's saying like basically he knows I can ruin him no matter what even if he's correct in what he's asserting.
Okay. And he's like I don't want anyone to know that I'm pulling this shit.
Okay. Which is like you're just outing yourself all over the place.
That's the thing. I'm like you don't want anyone to know this but sounds like we all know.
A big old case of the dumb.
But over the summer and into the fall of 1848 Rush got to scheming and scheming and scheming and all he wanted to do was get out of those leases with jeremy because he was like get me out of here and he's enlisted the help of none other than thomas jeremy and john larner i knew we weren't done with them yet and in a letter from october 3rd 1848 rush laid out his plan to them vaguely hinting at the idea of retaking stanfield hall and he figured what we can do is that thomas jeremy and john on Larner will take possession of it.
They're a family. So he said, after the new possessors take possession of Stanfield Hall, this whole plan would mean that they now agree to new terms for his tenancy leases at a much lower rate.
So he said, help me take over this place and give me a lower rate on my tenancy.
Exactly. Okay. Help me take over the place.
You get Stanfield Hall.
And then by taking over Stanfield Hall, you take on my tenancy agreements.
You give me a lower rate, we all win which is to them sounds must sound like a good plan I would think but they weren't exactly confident in Rush's ability to prove that Thomas Jeremy was the rightful heir to the family estate because he's just not plain and simple and they're like we've been down this road we went to court and the court just said nah so the two of them said no thank you, which is shocking they said we've had enough So they were like, no, thank you.
We're good. But then James Rush produced what he claimed to be George Preston's, Reverend George Preston's, the father, his original will, which he said named Thomas Jeremy as the heir.
That doesn't even make any sense.
That's not his child.
Exactly. Like that would never say that.
James Rush had forged this document only a couple of days before this.
Correct. So the forged documents apparently were witnessed being forged by Rush's mistress, Emily Sanford. The plot thickens, baby.
And even though they were clearly forged, and that Emily had watched the whole thing go down, Thomas and John were like, sounds good to me.
That seems like something you could prove.
So they were like, let's go.
We'll help you with this.
So, in the weeks before the actual, because they weren't just planning to just take over Stanfield Hall.
Their plan was to kill Isaac Jeremy.
Oh, shit. They needed to get him out of the way.
Forever. So, in the weeks before this all happened, and I think what their plan was to like take over the hall, but Rush's plan, I believe, all along was to get him gone.
Right. Right. So in the weeks before this all happened, Rush started showing some unusual behavior.
He would go out late at night with his gun and he would claim he was looking for poachers on the property.
But his mistress there, Emily, was like he would just go trudging off with his gun and it was like not something he did.
She was like, I think he was losing it.
yeah and on the morning of november 28th he instructed a local farmhand to please lay a path of straw from russia's homestead on his leased land all the way towards the fields behind stanford hall that's sketchy field hall excuse me and he said he so and he was like you do that while me and my family go into town for the afternoon and later it was revealed that he He had actually instructed this young farmhand to scatter the hay so that it would make sure not to leave footprints when he walked from his place to the Sanfield Hall.
I had a feeling that's where you were going with that.
Now, when they came back from an afternoon out, Emily Sanford, his mistress, began making dinner and Rush told her, there's just time for me to go into the garden and fire off my gun.
And she was like, at what?
what can you just eat my dinner motherfucker yeah like what he didn't say what he was shooting at or why he was going out to shoot he just said there's time like there's there's time and she was like nah dinner's ready motherfucker he's like oh shit emily i can shoot my gun for like a little bit couple minutes there's like time he's like a child she's like where though and he's like in the garden and she's like at one he's like nothing in particular just shooting just shooting just shooting sake that's all weird so she was just like aye aye captain like out you go and when he came back a short
time later for dinner emily noticed he seemed very irritated much more irritated than when he had left emily get out of there babe and yeah and so he also brought up this weird story he said i've been thinking a good deal about the story we read the other day about the scottish chief and what he was referring to was a well -known parable about the battle of benekburn by author robert bruce okay and he said i've tried several times and the next time perhaps i shall be successful and he was she was like what the fuck are you talking about and she later said that he appeared extremely agitated and she
supposed him to be in tears though she couldn't understand why He was rambling.
Crying. Crying. It's almost in tears, like very agitated.
He was like, what the fuck's going on?
Poor Emily. Sometime between 7 and 8 p .m., just after they finished dinner, James stood up from the table, didn't say a fucking word, but just went into his bedroom, dressed himself in a dark cloak, donned a mask to cover his face.
no then armed himself with a pistol and just left the house without saying anything put a mask and emily just watched this entire thing which i'm like emily get out of come on girl like you gotta do something here so he just leaves and puts on like a disguise like a dark cloak a mask that's scary which i guess the mask was like a face mask with like whiskers on it or some shit what yeah now that happens on the property where are we and at sanfield hall the jeremy family had just finished up dinner some sources say they were having a small dinner party but either way they had just finished up dinner
before a little before 8 p .m and isaac had just hung out at the dinner table and isaac jr and his wife went to the parlor for tea okay um and the like workers began clearing dishes and all that fun stuff and isaac senior got up left the room and he went out onto the porch to get some air which is something he literally always did after dinner it was a very routine thing for him this was almost like a ritual after dinner for him now having been employed by the family for many many years He knew that.
James Bloomfield Rush would have definitely known that at this same time, every night, after dinner, he would be out there on the porch a little before 8 p .m. Oh, no. I'm scared.
So as soon as Isaac Sr. went out the door and onto the porch, Rush stepped out from the shadows, raised a pistol, and fired a single shot into his chest without saying a word. The bullet passed through his heart and knocked him onto his back, and he died instantly oh that's so awful uh then james rush entered the house from the side door and passed the main staircase and as he did he dropped two pieces of paper from his cloak so he was messy already okay and he moved through the house and was spotted by the butler who was frightened by the sight of a gun and ran back into the darkened hallway
and hid himself out of view because he was scared imagine yeah now as james rush passed through one door into the main hall isaac jr came out of the parlor and they just looked at each other in silence and then rush raised the gun and shot him in the chest he dropped to the floor and he also died instantly oh my god now obviously people are hearing the sounds of gunshots happening so So Isaac Jr.'s wife ran into the hall from the parlor.
By the way, she's pregnant.
Yeah, I thought you had said that.
And just missed Rush as he entered into the dining room as she ran from there.
She found her husband's body and she screamed.
So her scream drew one of the maids, Eliza Chastney, or Chastney, it's seen both ways in different sources.
She ran into the hall and the two of them are standing in the hallway freaking out and Rush comes out of the dining room, sees the two women, raises the pistol and shoots twice.
He hit Mrs. Jeremy in the arm.
She's the pregnant wife.
Oh, my God. And hit Eliza Chesney in the leg.
Both of them fell to the floor and they both tried to pretend they were dead.
Oh. Now, he figured he had killed the whole family.
Right. So, he left the house through the same side door that he went into, fled into the fields and made his way back to his homestead.
Remember, via that hay -covered path that had been laid out.
But as he did this, he was spotted by several workers who lived on the estate and had been drawn out of their homes on the property by the sound of gunshots and screams. Does he still have his cloak and his mask on?
He does. They all saw a black -cloaked man escaping into the fields.
Okay. Now, but the thing would be, Emily saw him put on that cloak.
Right. Right. And so fearing the house was being attacked by the same kind of like we're going to take over shit.
A stable hand made his way to the edge of the property, swam across the moat to get to the house because it does have a moat.
Hell yeah. And went to the nearby home of a man named Coleman who sent the message to the Norwich police and they, you know, let them know what had happened.
so after sending help for help from norwich mr coleman the neighbor gathered other neighbors and they all made their way to stanfield hall to just try to help however they could um and when they got there they found isaac senior dead dead on the front porch isaac jr dead on the floor in the main hallway just outside the house and nearby they found eliza chastney who was She was wounded in the leg.
And by that time, the other workers had carried Isaac Jr.'s wife upstairs to a bedroom and were doing their best to treat her wound in her arm because she was bleeding heavily and the upper part of her arm was really badly damaged.
And they carried both men into the parlor, both the bodies of the two Isaac -Jeremy men.
And they noticed singed clothing around the bullet wounds, which indicated that they had been shot at pretty close range.
Although they had been through a wild ordeal, Isaac Jr.'s wife and Mrs. Chastney both said they thought they recognized the shooter and they said it's James Bloomfield Rush.
How do you think they knew?
So he was wearing a fake beard, a mask and a cloak, but they said that they knew his body type and they knew how he held certain things and how he walked.
And they were like, we know that that was him.
He had like a specific way about him.
So when the telegraph was sent to the Norwich police, it included a note from the local magistrate, Mr. Kan, instructing them to apprehend James Bloomfield Rush.
Damn. No. Police made their way to Stanfield Hall while Rush ran to his house a little after 9 p .m., knocked on the door to be let in by Emily.
There was no light in the front room because you have to remember this is 1800s.
It's not like they flicked on the light.
And so Emily only knew that it was James entering the house.
Didn't see how he was dressed or what he was carrying.
She said he went right upstairs, directly upstairs.
And when he came back downstairs, he wasn't wearing any boots, any outdoor attire, and he instructed her to light a fire and go to bed.
Okay. But before she retired for the evening, Rush said, quote, If any inquiries made about me say I was not out more than 10 minutes.
oh so a few hours later emily was awoken by a loud banging at the door and opened it to find rush who was now coming back he had left okay and he was trembling and seemed very upset and he said now you be firm and remember that i was only out 10 minutes okay he told her again this time she said in a much more aggressive tone so he is now returned at 9 p .m after murdering this whole family or trying to he has taken off everything that he wore he's come downstairs told her to light a fire and to go directly to bed don't pass go go to bed so she was like cool i'll just go up and as he does this he
tells her i was out 10 minutes if anyone asked she's like got it she goes to bed then hours later is awoken by banging at the door it's him arriving back from somewhere i thought you had misspoke i was like wait what he had gone out again and then he had said by the way remember i was only gone 10 minutes but more aggressive and she's like what the fuck is going on so by the morning police had completely surrounded the rush homestead and as soon as they saw the first lantern lit inside they summoned a stable boy named savory and told her to call rush to the door so as you know rush of course said
what like i how could i ever be at fault for the mayhem that happened at stanfield hall and he said good god i hope they do not think it was me and he said this to emily in front of everybody and he said it is rather a serious charge yeah and emily's like what the fuck am i supposed to say here and upstairs in the main bedroom investigators started searching and they found two guns in a closet along with rush's black cloak and boots and both of them were wet like he had been walking through a dewy field like i'm glad you're dumb but i thought when he left again it was to discard those things and in front
of the police they heard rush say to emily i'm accused of murdering jeremy and his son and he said but you and savory can clear me for he washed my boots at half past five and you know i didn't go out so now he's trying to get her to lie for him and in all the confusion and just mayhem that was happening here and probably the stress emily had forgotten exactly what she was supposed to say oh no so she told the investigators that yes james had gone out the previous evening because Because at first he had told her to say that.
Yeah. But he was, and then she said, but he was only out for about a quarter of an hour.
So she's added a little time onto that.
The model you were supposed to say 10 minutes.
And Rush is listening to this, and he stops her and says, I was not out more than 10 minutes, and you know I had my slip shoes on.
So he's like, I was not wearing those boots, and I was only out for 10 minutes.
Uh -oh. and for some reason and thank goodness emily got a little brave and she said i don't know if you had or not i did not see you put your boots on she said fuck you i'm not playing this game i'm not gonna lie for you she said i didn't see you put them on good for her so during questioning james rush repeated his story several times over saying that's emily was his alibi but he He definitely acknowledged that he and the Jeremy family had not been on good terms in recent years.
He was like, I'm not going to lie about that.
Yeah. He said, I have no doubt I shall be suspected because we have been on such bad terms. But he said, but lately, the old one and I have been more friendly.
But the young one was my greatest enemy.
That's funny, I'm sure you.
I don't know if you should say that.
Yeah, either way, both of them are dead, my guy.
And when they had no more questions, James Bloomfield Rush was taken into custody.
He was transported to the local jail.
Winmenham I think it's Winmenham Bridewell and he was questioned further by the magistrates now Rush was pretty much identified as the shooter by like many people a traditional investigation proved kind of unnecessary at that point but once the bodies had been removed from Stanfield Hall and the initial chaos had kind of subsided police officers did begin an investigation into the house and that's when they discovered the papers papers that had dropped out of rush's cloak when he had entered i forgot about those yeah he's a mess and the two papers appeared to be the covers of a book and on the back
of one was written a note this note said there are seven of us here three of us outside and four inside the hall all armed as you see us too if any of you servants offer to leave the premises or to follow you will will be shot dead therefore all of you keep in the servants hall and you nor anyone else will take any arm any harm for we are only come to take possession of the stanfield hall property okay so they were going to try to make it look like another seized kind of thing yeah and it was signed thomas jeremy the owner what so thomas jeremy oh oh okay yeah that guy yeah i know it's hard no no i
don't believe you for being like for a second i was like now because remember they had They had that whole plan.
Thomas and John were going to take it over.
Yeah, so he went against the plan entirely one night.
It sounds like he took it a little into his own hands.
Sounds like he went a little, woo -hoo, woo -hoo.
So news of the murders were reported in the press a day or two later, and the sensational language being indicative of Isaac Jeremy's important role in the community.
So the Times, London's paper of record, described the killings as the most atrocious murders ever perpetrated in Norfolk, or perhaps in any other English county.
I don't know about that.
So obviously his position is what's making this the most atrocious murder.
Of course. Similarly, the Liverpool Mercury referred to the scene at the hall as the dreadful and mysterious tragedy.
Oh, my God. Now, the coroner began his examination of the bodies and the police in Norwich shifted their focus from Stanfield Hall to now James Rush's homestead.
The initial search of the home turned up a clearly wet cloak and a set of clearly wet boots.
also a pair of recently fired guns which suggested that rush could have been involved but the discoveries made on the second search left little doubt that he was responsible in the closet in rush's bedroom investigators found a woman's black wig and long face veil hidden in a box at the back of the closet that's weird in the same closet they also found forged documents that that Rush had used to convince Thomas Jeremy and John Larner to participate in the crimes with him.
That's a big yikes.
Another search of the home, the investigators found additional disguises, including a black wig of a particular make with mustachios and whiskers coming round and under the chin.
Mustachios, you say?
Mustachios. So he had all these fucking disguises hidden in his closet like a weirdo.
Yeah, that's creepy.
Maybe he's just a Halloween enthusiast. I don't think so.
Now, on November 30th, a jury was brought together for the coroner's inquest, and they viewed the bodies and heard the results of the coroner's examination, examination and they also heard a number of from a number of the staff who was at stanfield hall on the night of the murders uh the butler who hid when he first saw them james watson told the jury at the time i saw the man passing the corner it occurred to me that it was mr rush i knew mr rush perfectly well the man i saw was like mr rush in size height and in his walk and watson also told the jury that rush was in the habit of entering the house
through the servant's door at the side of the building where the killer had also entered right and he knew that he said the reason that this is so pertinent is he said that the door was never locked before 9 p .m oh and he knew that he said the cook who was also at the estate that evening also said a similar thing he said the moment i saw the man it struck me it was mr rush who had very frequently within the last five months been at the hall.
The man was short and stout.
He held his head a little on one side.
Sorry, I just have to answer this.
Hello. The moment I saw the man it struck me it was Mr. Rush, who had very frequently within the last five months been at the hall.
The man was short and stout.
He held his head a little on one side, just in the way Mr. Rush carries it.
So he has a very particular way of walking and standing.
In my own mind, I think it is impossible I can be mistaken in my opinion.
I had such an opportunity of seeing his person that I cannot be mistaken.
Although I cannot, from not having seen his face, positively swear it was him.
Okay. So a third witness was a sheriff's officer named Mr. Bacon.
Hell yeah. So gave evidence, and this is a quote, gave evidence as to the certain expressions of Mr. Rush indicating revengeful feeling towards Mr. Jeremy.
Now the most important testimony came from Emily.
So she quickly abandoned any kind of alibi that he tried to force on her.
Under questioning from police, she refused to provide that alibi.
And initially she told investigators she had been, quote, reading a book which interested her very much and so she did not keep a very good accurate account of the time.
Okay. So she said she couldn't be sure how long he had been out of the house, but they pressed her.
and she caved and told investigators Rush quote was absent from the house all the evening of the murder and when he came home he appeared to be in a state of great agitation and rushed into the house saying he was very ill now according to Emily after he had gone into his bedroom she peered through the keyhole oh and witnessed him removing the various pieces of disguise because remember when she he came home she said she couldn't see him very well because there was no light he just rushed upstairs right But she looked through that keyhole and saw him taking off all the pieces of the disguise.
And she explained that he had pretended to go out looking for poachers that evening, though she very much doubted that that was what he was doing when he left the house.
So her statement was given to the police and the magistrate asked whether Rush had any questions or anything to say in response.
And he said, no, she has said enough to hang me already.
That was his response.
Damn. She got you. During the inquest, the coroner happily reported that both women were expected to survive.
That's good. And despite the severity of the wounds to their arm and leg, he hoped that they would be able to avoid any amputation.
Wow. A few days later, though, the situation definitely changed for Mrs. Jeremy, who was shot in the left arm above the elbow.
There was so much damage, it had shattered the bone in several places, and the surgeons had to amputate her arm near the shoulder.
As she's pregnant. Pregnant.
Holy shit. Now, after hearing all the evidence, the jury left the inquest just for a little bit of time to discuss what they heard. And they returned with a verdict of willful murder against James Bloomfield Rush.
And a warrant was issued for his arrest. As well as the arrest of a key witness, Emily Sanford. Why did she get arrested?
They were already in custody, so the warrant went out just because she was there and she had initially lied.
now on March 29th 1849 the trial began at the court of the sizes at Norwich Castle which was presided over yeah in a castle presided over by magistrate Baron Rolf there was a ton of news coverage about this a lot of public interest so it was packed in fact admittance into the courtroom was by ticket only wow and by 8 a .m. it was like packed full damn acting on behalf of the Crown were sergeant biles prendergast and evans james bloomfield rush was acting as his own attorney oh no honey now in addition to testimony the jury was going to see evidence that included you know a ton of stuff but some of them
were the forged documents the drawings of the property floor plans scale models of stanfield hall and rush's farmhouse they'd all been created for the occasion And before opening statements were given, the charges were read for the court.
And this is when Rush was asked to step forward and repeat his plea.
And he replied, not guilty.
He was described as resolute and set, but his hands trebled excessively, not only at first, but during the day.
Uh -oh. Reporters also said his shoulders support a short bull neck on which a large and massive head, which a craniologist would declare indicative of the possession of strong animal passions and considerable intellectual power is firmly set in such a way as to render it rather difficult for its owner to look straight before him.
So his head was slightly crooked?
Slightly to one side, just like the staffers said that the person who came in and killed all those people had.
Now, during the jury selection, the name John Beals was called and the prosecution objected and this potential juror was dismissed.
And in response to this, Rush interrupted to ask why the man had been dismissed.
And the judge explained it was because the prosecution objected.
And Rush said, I wish to make one observation to the jury.
I shall not challenge any of them, but I hope if any of them have any unfair influence in this case, they will retire of themselves.
So what he had wanted was for his comments to the jury to emphasize his cooperation and how he wanted this whole thing to be fair.
Yeah. You know, because he's so innocent.
He just wants all this to go the right way.
but he didn't understand how the process worked which just made him seem dumb yeah because that's like the whole point like that's that's what they're doing right now exactly and it's like so now you're going to defend yourself so now you've already stepped into this looking very unprepared with this whole thing yeah so that's not good and this was demonstrated again just a few minutes later because he asked the judge my lord may i make a few observations observations before the council makes his opening speech and the Rolfe replied this is not the right time to do that you'll have an opportunity
hereafter. Yeah. So he doesn't even know how this all works and he's going to defend himself.
You need an attorney.
Yeah. So they did the jury selection and Sergeant Biles took his place in front of the courtroom and began his opening remarks.
So the prosecutor laid out all the evidence against James Rush and said about the the year 1844, the late Mr. Jeremy advanced to Mr. Rush considerable considerable sums of money upon the Potash Farm or Potash Farm, who knows, the balance of which was coming due just days before the murders occurred.
Okay, so he was gonna have to pay this debt days before the murders happened.
And lacking the money to pay what was owed to Jeremy, Sergeant Biles explained that Rush had intended to kill the Jeremy family to avoid to avoid any of the negative consequences of his debt that makes sense now as evidence of motive and intent sergeant biles read aloud from the letters exchanged between rush and his son sent just after the civil trial between jeremy and rush for unpaid fees and also showed the forged documents intended to mislead the jury as as to who was the rightful heir of the jeremy estate and the ownership and like who should take ownership of stanfield hall those had been
discovered like we said hidden in a box in Russia's closets suspicious sergeant Biles told the jury now gentlemen I will call your attention to the contents of this pamphlet as showing you two things the state of the prisoner's mind and that he contemplated taking some steps with reference to the claim of these persons to the Stanfield Hall property but I shall also put in a letter put in a letter in the handwriting of the prisoner in order to show his feelings towards the late Mr. Jeremy so as far as the prosecution was concerned the case was pretty simple against Rush.
He owed a ton of money to Jeremy and he couldn't pay.
Rather than find a way to get the money or try to arrange some sort of better deal he just came up with a plan to kill the Jeremy family, conspire with Thomas Jeremy and John Larner to forge the documents and it would ultimately benefit everybody involved.
It's pretty black and white to me.
Yeah his evidence to support this theory was pretty strong and they They found the recently fired guns in Rush's bedroom closet, along with the boots, the cloak, the disguises, all of that.
And finally, most importantly, they had Emily's testimony.
Right. Which not only contradicted what Rush was saying about that night, but it also— It fit the timeline.
Yeah. It led directly to a lot of the evidence that was being presented in court, including the forged documents that were hidden in a very secret location.
So once the prosecution had finished presenting their case, James Bloomfield Rush rose and and began what became a 14 -hour speech in his defense.
14 hours. How do you, he like consecutively?
Yes, 14 hours. How do you even talk that long?
And this was described by the press as, quote, without making any impression whatsoever in his favor.
his address was his address was full of repetitions and everything really material might have been said in a quarter of the time so he just fucking rambled for 14 hours 14 hours which probably pissed everyone off unbelievable yeah at that point i'd be like well you're guilty no matter what because you're guilty of being an asshole yeah now in his version of the events he was quote innocent but admitted that he knew something about was about about to to take place at the hall before the night of the murders according to him a day before he had been approached by jeremy and larner thomas jeremy
and uh john larner who wanted to enlist him in their plan to take san phil tall by force okay just as they attempted to do years earlier he was like remember they've done this before of course they're gonna do it again but he said no no i won't help you with that okay now he's flipped it and the following evening he had gone Vaughn out after dinner to check the grounds for poachers, as he obviously did all the time, even though Emily was like he didn't do that all the time.
But when he got to the edge of his property, he felt ill and decided to turn back.
And then he heard a pistol go off and then a second shot, and it caused him to run back into his house.
okay now he said after his so after his rambling and exhaustive speech he began making several complaints to the judge and the jury about among other things the way he was treated in the press and by the magistrates and by 8 p .m that evening the judge had finally had enough and adjourned the court it was like i'm done listening i'm surprised they let him go on that long before doing that yeah and they adjourned for a few days they didn't come back for a few days and then when When they did, Rush called a bunch of witnesses, all of whom provided testimony that was irrelevant, pretty contradictory
to what would help him.
And all none of them were contradictory to the evidence that was presented by the prosecution.
So none of it helped.
That's wild. Because it's black and white here.
So Rush rested his case after six days and Judge Baron Rolfe began summarizing the case for the court.
and according to the press the process was repeatedly interrupted by the prisoner who attempted to correct him and to give different versions of the evidence and finally he dismissed the jury to review and deliberate now given how sensational the crimes had been and how crazy this trial had been the audience in the court they all waited like they wanted to hear this and they thought they were going to like wait for a while to hear this like they thought all this was going to build up but the jury returned just five minutes later with a guilty verdict of course because they were like fuck yeah
they're like fuck that rush was pissed and yelled i am innocent all the same and god almighty knows it so i don't know when you got there man everyone went into a tizzy but order had to be restored and the judge addressed rush directly he said james bloomfield rush after a trial unusually protracted you have found you've been found guilty of the charge of willful murder a crime the highest any human being can perpetrate on another the deepest under any circumstances of extenuation but i regret to say that in your case there is everything which could add a deeper die to guilt the most horrible
it appears from letters which you yourself put into in that to the father of the unfortunate victim of your malice you owe a deep debt of gratitude you commenced a career of crime by endeavoring to cheat your landlord you followed it up by making the unfortunate girl whom you had subdued the tool whereby you should commit forgery and having done that you terminated your guilty career by the murder of the son and grandson of your friend and benefactor more cannot be said it unfortunately sometimes happens that great guilt is too nearly connected with something that is calculated to dazzle the mind
but unfortunately in your case you have made vice as loathsome as it is terrible.
Whoa. Beautiful. Very poetic.
Very poetic. Rush immediately tried to argue with the judge again.
And he was like, no, no, no, I get the final word. And the judge cut him off and said, you have been convicted on testimony so clear, the observation and comment are unnecessary.
Wow. So he's like, I don't want to hear shit from you.
It's black and white that you did this.
And with that, he was removed from the court and taken back to his cell.
now after the reading of the verdict james bloomfield rush was sentenced to be hanged on the grounds of norwich castle on april 23rd 1849 and it was reported that while he was waiting for the execution date he sat quietly in his cell and didn't have any visitors he wouldn't let anyone in damn but but the night before his execution he received a short note from one of his children oh that's sad i forgot that he had kids yeah on april 23rd the excitement that had surrounded the initial trial seemed to have come back because now we got ourselves an 1800s execution and you know people love that shit.
So apparently crowds of individuals from both sexes had been hurrying throughout the morning from all parts of the county and even far beyond it to the awful scene of ignominious death.
Wow. That was from the Caledonian Mercury paper in 1849.
So a little model after 12 p .m he was let out of his cell and he walked past all the onlookers and led to the gallows and in the days leading up to this he had tried to persuade anyone who listened that he was innocent but nobody believed him um and because of that when he asked if he had any when he was asked if he had anything to say before his execution he said no and all he did was simply repeat the lord's prayer to himself quietly while the lever was pulled and the floor dropped out beneath him and he was killed instantly wow he had no family member willing to claim his body james yeah james
bloomfield rush was buried on the grounds of norwich castle and after his death the press reported thus was closed the life of him whose murderous deeds and other wicked acts have excited universal abhorrence and of whom it may be said england never furnished his parallel oh um that's haunting so just like as a closing a closing thing here um a death mask of james bloomfield rush is uh on display at the welcome collection in well in london i saw that yeah um stafford sheer potteries produced collectible figures of rush and sanford emily his mistress i don't know about that plus the locations of the farm
their homestead and and Stanfield Hall, and Norwich Castle.
So you could get collectible figures of these things.
Interesting. He was also, Rush himself was made into a wax figure and was at Madame Tussauds.
Wow. Because remember, there was a time when Madame Tussauds had a Chamber of Horrors section.
We had a couple of other people that have been in that section.
Yeah, I think. From long, long ago, like 1800s.
That's creepy. Yeah, they had a Chamber of Horrors section that would have murderers in it and crime scenes and shit.
he was on display in that from 1849 until 1971 wow that's wild there was several like I think there was a novel made about this case it was the inspiration for a film from 1948 called Blanche Fury which starred Valerie Hobson and Stuart Granger and last but not least Charles Dickens was very intrigued by these murders he was there for the execution execution he was present for it i think i feel like he's been present at other executions loved an execution yeah i think he was he was at a couple you're right yeah he went later went to stanfield's uh hall because you could you can still go and yeah it's
still house i mean you i think it's like a private residence now yeah so don't go there don't go there yeah don't do that but you could before like actually go and see it right right um and he called it which this is such Such a fucking, this is a poet -like author way of saying it.
He called it, quote, a grand place for a scoundrel's exit.
Oh, that's nice. A grand place for a scoundrel's exit.
That's deep. What a thought.
And that is the story of the murders at Stanfield Hall.
Wow. What a wild ride.
It was. because I really thought like Thomas and John yeah I thought they were going to be like the key assholes in the story yeah the main baddies the big bads if you will and then they flip James on his ear because he's the one who stops them the first time and you don't think he's coming back and then all of a sudden you're like guess what you're like well shit James I was crazy you really fucked me up I'm gonna go have a glass of coffee after that a glass of coffee I just said just go get a glass of coffee A nice mug of Dead Sled Baby.
Dead Sled. Well, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. But that's the way that you don't go buy our coffee because it's so yummy.
It's going to be so fun.
It's going to be coffee.
And delicious. Yum.
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