Hey weirdos, I'm Ash, and I'm Elena, and this is Morbid.
This is Morbid, and we're going back to the 18 motherfucking hundreds today.
Oh, it's old timey.
We haven't done it in a little bit.
In a minute.
Let's fucking go.
We've been in the 1800s for a minute.
Let's go.
And this one's crazy, y'all.
Tell me, sister.
Um, first of all, it really upset me today because Ice used a five-year-old kid as bait.
There is actually, people don't know if he's five or if he's four.
Okay.
A tiny little beautiful boy in his little backpack with a bunny hat on.
His blue little hat.
And if those images don't fuck your entire world up, then I don't understand your life.
No.
So just wanted to start with that.
The thing is, I think...
A good-ass majority of people are upset.
I think people who are not upset are luckily in the minority, but it's wild that they exist.
Yeah, because I can't imagine looking at the photos of that little boy standing there with his little backpack knocking on his front door, while an ICE agent is literally crouched next to him.
Yeah, waiting to ruin his entire family's life.
I don't understand looking at that and not feeling... anything so that's i just had to get that out because that image has really a lot of things has bothered me but that one just really got me today yeah that's definitely something that would get you so yeah fuck that shit and um i really hope everything gets better man and if you're in maine right now hang tight i hope i hope you guys are all right there and um and if you're in the south good luck with this storm yeah that's the other thing there's a fucking huge winter storm happening and i know we're gonna be getting like up here in massachusetts we're gonna get mostly just a lot of snow um but i think in the south it's gonna be like a ton of ice storms yeah um and so like i think there's gonna be a ton of power i would just just be careful yeah it's gonna be gnarly so hopefully everybody that i keep seeing people being like And like meteorologists and ships saying it's like a once in a generation type of storm.
And I'm like, what?
That's insane.
What?
Yeah.
So stock up if you can.
Get the bread and the milk.
Get the bread and the milk.
It's not a joke.
Really do it.
Get the bread and the milk.
And get some water and all that good stuff.
Stock up if you can.
Yeah, get a few gallons.
And yeah, I hope everybody, I hope we come back next week and we're like, that wasn't that bad.
That was a fun little winter storm.
I know, right?
And maybe ice will be abolished once that's over.
Ice will melt.
Yeah.
All of the ice will melt away.
That's what we hope.
But yeah.
So I just had to mention that adorable little boy.
And we wanted to tell you to be safe in the winter storm.
That's a coming.
Yeah.
And also Ghost is touring again right now.
Oh.
We're supposed to go to a show.
I wonder if you will.
I hope they're being safe when they travel because they're kind of traveling like with the storm.
They're in the eye of the storm.
So be careful, Ghost.
Yeah.
If you're listening, Ghost, as a whole, be careful.
I know.
But yeah, I think that's really all the updates unless you got anything.
Harry Styles is releasing new music tomorrow.
There you go.
Hello.
There you go.
What's the name of the album?
Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally.
That's a great name.
Great name, great advice, words to live by.
There you go.
Kiss all the time.
Disco occasionally.
Disco occasionally.
You didn't get to see this, but Ash did a disco move while she said that.
Yeah, you better disco occasionally.
And I don't know if they said the song name that's being released tomorrow, but I have a doctor's appointment in the morning and that's going to sing me there.
It's going to get you ready.
Let's go.
I like it.
See, that's a good thing.
Yeah, Harry.
That's positive.
Harry.
Harry.
I'm so excited.
Well, you know who we're going to talk about right now.
That's completely the opposite of Harry Styles.
A woman named Lizzie.
Lizzie Halliday.
That's all I knew.
Also known as the worst woman on earth.
The worst woman on earth.
Literally deemed the worst woman on earth.
I feel like so many women, probably including ourselves, have been deemed the worst women on Earth.
It's true.
But she might be.
Lizzie, she's a good contender.
Okay.
All right.
She's up there.
You don't feel like we're good contenders?
But I feel like, honestly, we're all good contenders, you know?
But you know what?
She was known as the worst woman on earth and ended up being the first woman ever to be sentenced to die in the electric chair.
Oh, shit.
Yeah.
Sentenced.
I saw.
I heard that.
You heard that little emphasis.
So let's get into this, shall we?
We shall, bitch.
So Lizzie Halliday, who was she?
I don't know.
Who was Lizzie?
I only know the two things you just told me so far.
Well, she was born Eliza McNally.
Make that three.
Make that three. was born eliza mcnally in county atrium ireland in 1864 an irish we got an irish i don't know why i rolled i liked it uh lizzie was one of nine children her parents were john and pam mcnally the mcnally's decided to leave ireland for the u.s after dealing with more than a decade of the potato famine and the oppressive british occupation in ireland so they said bye They arrived in Philadelphia in 1867 and they left part of their family in Ireland, which was very common.
Yeah.
And they were hoping to make enough money that they could send for the rest of their family.
Yeah, I feel like that happens so frequently.
So often.
Now, once they got there, John McNally found a job as a laborer and Pam got a job as a barmaid in a pub owned by family friends, the McQuillans.
They'll come back.
Super Irish.
Remember them.
They were actually doing pretty well financially, but they were working their butts off.
And with this influx of income they were able to send for the rest of their children to come live with them pretty quickly, which was great.
Yeah.
Within a few years, John and Pam had not only saved enough money to bring all their family over from Ireland, but also to relocate them to a less densely populated region of the Northeast, eventually settling in Newburgh, New York, in 1872.
All right.
Making moves.
Yeah.
They had a home that was not far from the McQuillans, who also relocated to that area.
I remembered them.
Remember them.
Continue to remember them.
I will.
Now, newly arrived in the United States, Lizzie, who was then known as Maggie.
Okay.
So her name is Eliza, called Lizzie, also known as Maggie.
Makes sense.
Yeah.
She focused hard on her schooling and, you know, she really helped her parents out around the house.
She was just, she was great that way.
And by the time she was 14, she started dating Nathaniel McQuillan.
Okay.
But they broke up sometime in 1879 when the McNally's relocated again.
Damn, they do be moving.
They do.
They ended up moving further up the river into the Hudson Valley in Greenwich, which was a small village along the border with Vermont.
At this point Lizzie had finished her schooling and was now pretty much expected to find work to help support the family or go find a husband and settle down and start her own family.
Lizzie decided she wanted to go out and find work for herself.
So she started a series of jobs, mainly as a domestic worker, for some of the wealthier families in the area.
Now, this is when some behaviors began to emerge that now would likely be recognized as symptoms of a severe mental illness.
Okay.
She's like late teens, early 20s?
Yeah.
Checks.
According to author Kevin Owen, some relatives and employers reported at times she would make poor choices and destructive decisions which would alienate her employers, her family and everyone she came into contact with.
So everyone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So literally all the people.
In a report given to the press after Lizzie's arrest, one of her former employers told the press that Lizzie's employment started well and she performed like pretty satisfactorily.
But at the end of the third week, quote, something went wrong with the baking.
The employer called Maggie's attention to it mildly, whereupon she flew into a violent passion, using violent, vile language to her mistress, whom she threatened to have arrested at once.
Whoa.
Yeah.
She said, I made it.
Nice.
She did.
Now, according to a lawyer familiar with her behavior at the time, he said, quote she seemed to know the difference between right and wrong, but was quite indifferent as to which turned up first.
That's scary.
And that's the thing.
She is very mentally ill.
Yeah.
Like that is clear through this.
But you can tell she makes moves that are very cunning and are very much used to keep herself from being caught.
Right.
So there is that idea that she is sane, but she's got a severe mental illness for sure.
Okay.
She would often get fired for things like stealing or violent or verbally abusive behavior.
She even threatened a child with a knife.
Oh, my God, Lizzie Maggie.
For unknown reasons, Lizzie Maggie.
What the fuck?
And at the time, Lizzie's relationship with her family also, as you can probably guess, started to deteriorate.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I know.
It's crazy.
She was thriving?
Yeah.
According to her brother John, quote she was inclined so much to quarreling that the family all disowned her.
She could not stay in a place any time when working out on account of her violent temper.
So later down the line, after she was arrested and put on trial, which we'll get to, more information about Lizzie's behavior during this period started to come to light.
Okay.
Painting a very scary but very sad picture of a woman who was clearly losing her grip on reality and losing her ability to control her increasingly aggressive behavior.
On top of this, her work was tied to her place to live because she was a domestic worker.
Right.
So if she was fired, she was kicked out of the home and needed to find somewhere to stay.
She got fired a lot.
Yeah.
So a lot of instability here.
And that doesn't help mental health either.
No, of course not.
When she was evicted in 1879, her sister, Martha said Maggie, from this time on, became so reckless in her conduct, especially in her dealings with men, that her employer had to deny her the house, leaving her both unemployed and homeless.
Damn, that's sad.
Yeah.
So she couldn't hold a job for very long.
I mean, the thing is like she was clearly mentally ill but, like I said, she was also being very destructive and very aggressive and very violent to people.
Yeah, she's going after children with knives.
Yeah, so you're getting kicked out for a reason.
Right.
It's not like they just don't like her.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Now.
She couldn't hold a job for very long, so she sought out the only viable path for women in the late 19th century.
And in 1879, she married Charles Hopkins, a carpenter who was very much older than her.
She was 20 years old at the time.
Um, there's not a lot that's known about the marriage or really Hopkins himself.
Cause.
Again, this is a long time ago, but it is believed from some digging that he was a deserter from the British army who was living under the name Keatspool Brown when he and Lizzie married.
Alrighty.
Although he did officially make his living as a carpenter Kevin Owens, who we will link in the show notes.
He said he also had a history of shady and criminal behavior.
And in one instance he romanced a local married woman and convinced her to steal money from her employer for him.
Damn.
He ended up receiving $200 from the women in the 1800s.
That's a lot of money.
And then just skipped out on the relationship.
Oh, so he was only romancing her for himself?
Oh, yeah.
For his own shit?
So after her arrest and incarceration later Lizzie explained that Hopkins quote always had some woman coming about and visiting with whom he had once been acquainted.
Oh, that's shitty.
Hopkins was making it seem like he was just manipulating these women for money, but he was also trying to make Lizzie feel like it wasn't a mistress situation.
But it clearly was.
It was pretty much both.
Yeah.
But either way, Lizzie was clearly understandably very jealous of this.
Curiously and a little suspiciously, Hopkins' acquaintance there.
The woman was found dead in her bed not long after this began.
Hello, 911?
Yeah.
I'd like to report a tip.
She was found with a bottle of poison on the nightstand beside her.
And under the circumstances, the death was ruled a suicide.
But no note was ever found.
Weird.
And aside from the position by the bed, there was no other evidence to indicate she had taken her own life.
Ooh, I don't like that.
And when you look at what Lizzie does later, it's a little interesting.
Oh, so it could have been Lizzie.
It could have been either one, I think.
So, like, it could have been Charles or it could have been Lizzie.
Now, in interviews, Lizzie frequently referred to Hopkins as, quote, a bad man.
And following the death of his mistress, he, quote, was never happy afterwards.
And I heard him say often he was tired of living.
Oh.
So it was like he was just manipulating her for money, huh?
Yeah.
Which that makes me think... It was Lizzie, perhaps.
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
Don't come after us, Lizzie.
Yeah, Lizzie from the 1800s.
Whatever the case, Hopkins and Lizzie were married and Lizzie became pregnant pretty soon after.
Oh, I don't love that because of the situation that we have at hand.
Yeah, and she eventually gave birth to a boy, Charles Jr, And she appears to have possibly suffered from either postpartum depression or maybe just a worsening of her, like symptoms that she already had.
Yeah.
According to her sister Martha, she never and this is a quote she never acted right after her boy was born.
She acted so strangely that sometimes I would be frightened.
I didn't know what ailed her.
Because obviously they didn't know anything about this.
Yeah, that's scary.
During this period, Lizzie claimed to experience, among other things, quote singing in her ears and seeing lights around the house that no one else could see.
That feels like more than just postpartum.
Yeah.
Seems like psychosis.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
But the doctor that examined his body stated that, while he did have a fever at the time of his death quote And he did work in a brush factory.
So it seemed a little plausible, and it was widely accepted at the time.
But years later suspicion did fall on Lizzie for his death when his physician reported that Charles had confessed having some fear of his wife and believed she might one day kill him.
Oh, fuck.
Yeah.
So it's like, did she or did life just catch up with her?
Exactly.
It could have been either one.
Now a widow, Lizzie and her son Charlie moved back to Greenwich and found a room above the shop of a local blacksmith.
Not long after moving back to the village, she met her second husband, Artemis Brewer.
Artemis!
Artemis, a disabled Civil War veteran who required two crutches to walk and suffered from several other ailments.
According to Owen, Brewer was, quote, That's a read and a half.
What a description.
The library is open.
What a description.
Damn, bitch.
You really got me at an unusually large head.
And just like real big feet.
Aw.
And unkempt whiskers.
Really short.
Yeah.
So the marriage lasted less than a year and came to an end when Brewer died unexpectedly in the night.
Years later, Brewer's doctor would tell others that he suspected that he had been poisoned with the opium-based medicine he took for his pain.
But Lizzie maintained it was edema that killed him.
When anyone asked, she would say, it can be proved how he died.
It was dropsy, dropsy of the heart.
The doctor will tell you.
Everything was dropsy back then.
Dropsy is basically edema.
So in her version of events, Lizzie claimed her second husband was, quote a bad old man who was inclined to let me support him.
Okay.
Well, like he didn't have a lot of means of supporting her.
So, And as she told it, she was a victim of Brewer's abuse and unreasonable demands and expectations.
But everyone else in Greenwich were like...
No, we don't remember it that way.
And this is actually really sad.
Owen writes quote it was not uncommon to see Lizzie in public pulling Brewer's hair or beard, yelling viciously at her husband and even beating him with his own cane.
I'll get her ass.
Right?
Not our short king.
Not Artemis.
No.
You know?
Also she would hide, and this is so sad.
She would hide or withhold his pain medication and seem to delight in causing him distress or discomfort.
She's fucked up.
That's the thing.
Reports from Artemis' brother Albert seem to confirm this, with Albert telling authorities that on a number of occasions he'd heard Lizzie threaten his brother's life.
The timing and manner of death was definitely suspicious, particularly since he'd seen his doctor one day earlier and was found to be in reasonably good health.
Yeah, I feel like if he had edema the doctor would probably notice that.
Yeah.
Now, very little time had passed after Artemis's death when Lizzie took up with a new man.
Damn.
She is young and getting it.
She can get him to marry her real fast.
We all know a lady like that.
Yep.
Now, a widower named, this was a widower named Hiram Parkinson.
The two met through Lizzie's cleaning lady and the relationship moved quickly, like they all are, with Parkinson moving into the room above the blacksmith shop and proposing marriage within the span of like a couple of months.
Jesus Christ.
But unbeknownst to Lizzie.
Hiram wasn't so much a widower as he was estranged, but very much still married to his first wife, Ada Gunn.
A philanderer, you say.
A philanderer.
So, unaware of this fact, Lizzie accepted the proposal and they married, and shortly after that they moved to Arlington, Vermont.
According to Owen, the marriage ran into trouble in like five months, basically when Hiram told Lizzie he was going on a short trip to visit his children back in Greenwich for Christmas.
Lizzie said, fuck no, you're not.
That's too expensive and I don't want you leaving.
And a physical altercation ensued.
She said, you're not going to go see your whole ass kids on Christmas.
That's exactly what she said.
It was during the argument, when Hiram went to collect his money for the trip, that he realized Lizzie had stolen the 180 he had saved.
What a biatch.
So he immediately went to his lawyer and was like, what the fuck can I do about this?
Yeah.
Days later, Lizzie was confronted by the authorities and admitted to stealing the money, saying she'd given it to another lawyer for safekeeping.
But it's not yours, babe.
No.
Parkinson called off the relationship immediately and told Lizzie he was going to see his family and they would be getting divorced.
As soon as he got back.
I'm like, does your marriage even count?
Well before he could return, Lizzie packed up everything and sold the entire house and everything in it.
The 1800s go crazy.
Like furniture, clothes, dishes, fixtures, sold all of it.
And then she said, buy it as is.
Yeah.
And then she left town.
What?
Yeah.
Since Parkinson was already married though.
Right.
And Lizzie married him.
Like you just asked, the marriage was never legal.
And so she, it was immediately dissolved and they just never spoke again.
Oh, Well, he made it out alive.
Like, damn.
So after her marriage to Parkinson fell apart in 1886, Lizzie returned to Greenwich and found work as a wash woman.
And then she found another man.
One day, not long after returning, she was visited by George Smith.
Another one.
Another one.
A former friend of her first husband, Charles Hopkins.
Curly.
He'd served in the army with him and was at his bedside when Hopkins died.
According to Lizzie quote, George Smith brought me his laundry and in a few weeks he wanted me to marry him.
Wow.
He was an old soldier and drew a pension, so I married him.
That motherfucker was rich.
He had money, so I married him.
Little is known about this marriage, but there is documentation from this period that indicates that her bizarre and violent behavior
Maybe got a little worse.
That's nuts.
I didn't expect that.
Yeah.
In July 1886, Lizzie was arrested and charged with assault and battery after she forcibly entered the home of Mary Barringer, a local woman.
And this woman I guess Smith had her husband now, had been staying with her for a period of time and had left a large feather bed in her home.
Okay.
And Lizzie wanted to get that feather ass bed back.
According to the complaint, Lizzie showed up at Berenger's door on July 24th and, after telling the woman, quote by God, I'm going to have that feather bed.
She pushed her way into the house.
Can't say I wouldn't say the same.
Knocked Mary to the floor, dragged the bed onto the street and tore it in the process, and feathers went everywhere.
She said, I gotta have it.
She said, that's my feather bed.
I don't know why.
It just reminded me of that Big Ang video where she's like, you gotta have it.
Feather ass bed.
Feather ass bed.
You gotta have it.
It's true.
Like just.
By God.
By God, I must have it.
And then she just knocked Mary onto the ground and heave hoed that bed right outside.
Heave ho.
And feathers went everywhere.
So she got that feather ass bed, but she was that feather ass bed.
A feather ass bed doesn't seem like the best idea.
You gotta sew that feather ass bed.
You did a lot to get it.
Yeah.
But she got charged for assault and battery for that.
You can't be pushing people.
Now, within days of their wedding, Lizzie's relationship had turned predictably violent and abusive.
No way.
And she had once again started seeing Hiram Parkinson.
Who's that again?
There's so many of them.
Who's shit she sold.
Wait, like whose whole ass home?
What?
With the whole ass kids?
He forgave her.
For selling his whole home?
What does this woman have that that man is forgiving her?
Yeah.
On nights when Lizzie would... So Lizzie would sneak out to see Hiram while being married to George.
Okay.
Who has the feather ass bed.
Does he really?
Because I think it exploded.
On nights when Lizzie would sneak out, George would send the police out to look for her.
No.
But other... No, no, no, no.
What are you going to say?
But other than reporting back that she was with Hiram, there was...
Nothing they could do.
So they would just go back to him and be like... She a hoe.
She's with Hiram.
But, like, we can't go get her.
Like, she's a grown-ass adult.
Like, that's it.
So before long, Lizzie had tired of George.
And seemed more interested...
In reconciling with Hiram.
But now she's got to get divorced.
But of course she was still married to George Smith and she had done that relationship.
So one morning George sat down to eat breakfast and Lizzie had prepared the breakfast.
No, thank you.
And he became a little suspicious because she was like, hey, drink your tea.
And he was like, I will.
And she was like, drink your fucking tea.
We say it all the time.
You had to be so careful of this shit back then.
You got to be on your toes about poisoning.
And what's wild is George was like, you put milk and sugar in it.
That's not really how I take my tea.
So I'm good.
Like he was like, I don't really want that.
And she was like, eat your food and drink your tea or I will throw that feather ass bed outside.
Like she was pissed.
She said, I'll explode that shit all over again.
So in order to appease his wife, and he was like, she wouldn't do anything.
I just want to, you know, I'm suspicious, but that's just me being kooky.
Like baby girl, you literally just had those feelings two seconds ago.
He took a large drink of the tea and almost immediately started getting ill.
After thinking over the entire scenario, he was like, you, you poisoned me.
Yeah, go make yourself felt.
You poisoned me.
And you know what her reply was?
She said, if I didn't.
Ready for it?
She said... And then ran from the room.
That's what happened.
She lolled and left?
She said... And then just ran.
That's so scary.
That's...
And he's sitting there, lurched over.
Am I about to die?
Just dry heaving tea.
Oh, you gotta throw up, babe.
And she's... She's lollin'.
She's lollin' and leavin'.
And then runs, lolls, out the door.
Just gone.
So George Smith was able to get a neighbor for help, was like, hi, help.
What do you even do when you've been poisoned?
They went to the doctor and George was given a solution to puke out whatever had caused the sickness.
Both the doctor and the authority searched for the tea to try to find what he had consumed.
But both the tea and Lizzie disappeared.
Oh, she took it while she lolled.
Yeah, she said, you can't have that.
She lolled and left, and then she took the tea.
She returned home a few days later and offered no explanation for anything.
What would not tell him about poisoning him and would not say where she had been.
Okay, you could just leave and stay gone.
George forgave her.
That's a.
That's a nice man, So he forgives her.
You gotta get you a George.
Okay.
And then a few days later.
She poisons him again.
He returns home in the evening and found the house was locked and no one was inside.
So he had to make his way through a window in his own house to get inside.
And he was shocked to find that Lizzie was not there.
She had disappeared.
And this time she'd stolen everything that he owned.
Even his feather ass bed.
Even his feather ass bed.
And he never saw her again.
And that's why you don't forgive people.
Do not forgive people for poisoning you.
That's a cautionary tale.
No, not even, just don't forgive people.
Just a blanket statement, don't forgive people.
Don't forget and don't forgive.
Don't forgive.
It's not worth it.
Because you'll lose your feather aspect.
Yeah.
And you'll lose your feather ass head.
It's right.
It's right.
And you might get poisoned.
It's true.
Now, it turned out that after abandoning George Smith and absconding with his belongings and money.
I love that word.
Absconding.
It is a great word.
I looked that up the other day, in fact.
You did.
I thought of it.
That's funny.
Lizzie fled to bellows fall vermont, which is a small town along the new hampshire border.
Before long she took up with a local painter by the name of charles playstow, and the couple were soon married.
She said paint me on this shocker.
I got a feather ass bed.
You want to paint me on it?
Almost nothing is known about this relationship, but just two weeks after the marriage she packed up her son and left.
They just left.
Oh, my God.
I forgot she has a whole ass child.
Oh, has a whole ass child.
Didn't say a word to anyone.
Just said, leaving.
Two weeks after.
Oh, no, doll.
Now, years later, after her arrest and trial, authorities tried to locate Playstall, who she had married.
Yeah, the painter.
They couldn't find anyone in Vermont living under that name and he was never remembered by anyone in Bellows Falls.
I'm deeply obsessed with that.
Right?
That lore?
Deeply, deeply obsessed with that.
I feel like that's like a separate lore that needs to be looked into.
Or do you think that any of that ever happened?
Yeah.
Could that just be in Lizzie's memory?
I don't think so.
I feel like she really did.
I feel like he exists and we just got to find him, you know?
Maybe.
Maybe.
Now previously, when Lizzie's relationships or jobs had fallen apart, she would just kind of return to the familiarity of Greenwich.
But by the time she abandoned Charles Playstall she caused so much havoc and had broken so many laws in Greenwich that she really couldn't go back.
All right.
Instead, she packed up her son.
Remember, she does have a son.
And they headed south, eventually settling in Philadelphia.
And that's the city where her parents had first arrived decades earlier, remember?
Yeah, I remember.
So without any job, resources or social connections.
Lizzie, who was then going by the name Maggie Hopkins.
Of course.
Turned up at the door of the McQuillan's family pub.
Whomst I remember.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She arrived in what has been described as, quote, Oh.
Now...
Apparently, the McQuillans thought that she was someone else, but then they figured out at some point that she was like an old, like she was their family friend's child.
So they had actually let them stay in the guest room.
And even when they realized that she wasn't who they thought that she was, they were like, oh yeah, like remember your parents.
I'm like, it's fine.
It was like a weird thing.
I think they thought she was like a sister they hadn't seen since they were little.
And she went along with it?
And she just went along with it.
She was like, oh, yes, it is me, your sister.
Meanwhile, I'm like, you were family friends.
Like, you have that connection.
You could just say that.
But they let her stay anyways.
They were like, whatever.
They're like, oh, you're not our sister, but you're this little girl we used to know.
Yeah, they were like, oh, shit.
Now, as always, it didn't take long before Lizzie got into an altercation, this time with McQuillan's wife.
And within a short time of arriving, she was asked to leave.
Yeah.
So she is now without a place to stay again, and she found a small home for rent on Kensington Avenue.
And in January 1888 she paid two months' rent in advance, telling the landlord her mother and her son would be joining her in the coming weeks.
After filling the house with furniture she bought on credit from a local store and, ensuring everything was around 600, Lizzie began setting up the first floor of the house as a kind of general store.
And she set out barrels of onions and potatoes, loaves of bread, other sundries.
She was like, you know what?
I'm turning over a new leaf.
I'm going to run a general store.
All right.
Why not?
Unfortunately, the store did struggle within the first few weeks and nothing really improved in the months after that.
So it didn't end up being a good thing.
Her business finally came to an end when, on the morning of March 14th 1888, the fire department was dispatched to Kensington Avenue, where they found the entire building that contained the store and Lizzie's home was up in flames.
Oh.
Fortunately, the families living on either side of her managed to escape with their lives, but they had a lot of property loss.
Aw.
Now, after the firemen had managed to get everything under control, they made their way into the first floor, where the store had been, and were surprised to find that it had been emptied of all of its furnishings.
That's crazy.
But the only thing that was there was quote several pots and kettles set in the middle rooms, containing burning rags which had been doused in coal oil.
That little bitch.
Investigative techniques of the day may have been pretty unsophisticated, but not so much that it wasn't immediately apparent that this is arson.
It's literally a smoking pot.
Yeah.
Also, given that the fire had clearly started in Lizzie's home, she was immediately identified as the prime suspect for the arson.
Awesome.
It took investigators some time to track her down after the fire.
And when they finally did, she had a weird story to tell.
I'm sure she did.
According to Lizzie, it was not her who had started the fire.
Never is.
It was two unknown attackers who swore they would kill her if she went to the police.
Oh, obviously.
She said oil was poured out of a lamp over the floor and a match set to it.
I saw it all, but I didn't do it.
I didn't speak because I was afraid I would be killed.
But I lay in bed with my eyes open watching the whole thing.
Okay.
Investigators were like, no.
And then they got more convinced of her guilt when they learned the insurance policy she had taken out on the furniture, which was in the name of Mrs Miller, an acquaintance of Lizzie's, who lived in New Jersey.
Oh, good.
It was Miller who directed detectives to Lizzie after the fire.
And they found her hiding in a hospital in New Jersey where she claimed she was being treated for peritonitis as a result of medical malpractice.
Wow.
There's a lot to unpack there.
So much that is layered.
They were further convinced of her guilt when they learned her son had told one of the nurses in the hospital that his mother had set fire to the house before they fled for New Jersey.
One thing about kids is they will rat you out.
Kids are going to rat you out.
They're usually honest.
Yeah.
Now, although they had hoped to question her further about the fire hospital, staff in Camden refused to let them continue to speak with her, saying that she was medically fine, but they believed her to be feeble-minded quote-unquote.
That's not my quote.
Less than average intelligence and possibly even insane.
Okay.
After everything they'd learned in their investigation, detectives didn't doubt what they'd been told by the hospital staff, but they did bring Lizzie back to Philadelphia to stand trial for arson.
Yeah, because you do have to stand trial for arson if you arson.
So if you do arson, you know.
Yeah.
Lizzie's trial was held in late March 1888, and there was a lot of compelling evidence against her.
And she really didn't have anything to say in her defense.
And instead, she rambled incoherently and periodically cried out for her son, Charles.
That's sad.
Who had been placed in the custody of the society to protect children from cruelty.
With no coherent defense, she was quickly found guilty and sentenced to two years in the Eastern State Penitentiary.
Oh shit, we covered that, I'm pretty sure.
Having been estranged from her family or anyone else who might come to her defense, she had alienated everyone in her life.
No one spoke on her behalf in the trial or sentencing phase.
And on May 4th, she began serving her two-year sentence.
That just reminded me of, you know, an Ever After when they're like, will no one here speak for her?
And then Drew Barrymore comes around the corner and she goes, I will speak for her.
Except no one did that.
Yeah, that didn't happen.
Drew Barrymore was nowhere to be found.
Drew.
Drew, where were you?
Come on.
So this is just like oh, because Charles Jr there and Lizzie.
They didn't know it at the time, but they would never see each other again.
Yeah.
That's sad, but probably good for Charles.
But I also hope that, like the Society of Protecting the Children Against Cruelty, did actually protect the children from cruelty.
Yeah, you hope.
Now little is documented or really known of Lizzie's time at Eastern State Penitentiary, but her prison record does say that she was a model prisoner, which is wild when you find out how she was later.
Yeah, well, and how she just was.
Yeah, and there was no infractions of prison rules.
And two months before her release she was transferred to the quote Department for the Insane at Blockley.
That's what it was called.
And they should workshop that name.
They absolutely should.
Where she was diagnosed as being mentally ill.
Okay.
She finished her sentence at Blockley and was discharged in 1891, after which she was transferred to like a kind of halfway house in Philadelphia.
Now, although the halfway house would have provided lodging and essentials like food, she fled almost immediately.
I know.
I don't know why I said food like that.
Food.
Food.
I don't know why I said it like that, like essentials, like food, food.
She got some food, but she immediately fled after her discharge, she even from the food, even from the food, and she started making her way back to new york, presumably with the intention of probably landing in greenwich again.
She, She loves Greenwich.
She does.
Now, whatever her plan, she arrived in Newburgh in January 1891.
And through an employment agency she got work as a live-in domestic worker, like she started out, as in the home of the Vaughn family.
Oh, the Vaughns!
The Vaughns.
You know, I love a Vaughn.
Now, within a week of her starting, the Vaughns complained to the agency about Lizzie several times.
They said this bitch.
They said on two occasions she stayed out all night at what Mrs Vaughn believed was a quote, and this is a quote.
Gypsy camp.
That's what they believed she was doing.
And again quote at this time it was common for Romani and other traveling groups to make their way through the Catskills and Hudson Valley area.
And in the wake of her arrest, a lot was made of her supposed association with these travelers.
I don't know.
It was just like a thing, because I think people were so shitty about them that they were like and she's part of this whole thing, you know.
It's unclear how well she was acquainted with any of these groups, but author Kevin Owens says after Lizzie's arrest and while awaiting trial in 1893, she confessed to knowledge of specific events that led to the death of a peddler, believed to have been murdered by one of the travelers.
All right.
So there's no conclusive evidence linking her to the murder, but Owen believes Lizzie not only witnessed the murder but probably participated in it as well.
Okay.
Either way, a lot was made of her association with this group after she was arrested.
After being dismissed from the Vaughn house for repeatedly violating their rules, Lizzie returned to the employment agency and was sent to the work in the home of Paul Halliday, where the relationship quickly escalated.
I don't know if you know that this is named Lizzie Halliday.
Bells did start to ring in my mind.
Quickly escalates from employment to romance.
Romance!
Like several of the men who played an important role in her life, Halliday was widowed.
He was a Civil War veteran.
And he was more than 40 years older than her.
Wow, that's an age difference.
And if she was attracted to anything, it was likely his pension.
Yeah.
And the large farm that he owned on the outskirts of Newburgh.
Who doesn't love a farm?
Who doesn't love that?
What she was likely disappointed to find out was that Paul suffered from rheumatism and was a heavy drinker with a bad reputation around town.
Okay.
So also Halliday still lived with his two adult sons, and one of them was a person with cognitive disabilities, which apparently annoyed Lizzie.
That checks that she would be.
Which, like, doesn't shock me that she would be annoyed by that.
But it should be shocking.
It should be.
Now, despite the fact that nearly everyone in Paul's life was like, don't get close to this lady.
He was like, I think I'm going to get close to this lady.
Especially his children who hated her.
Oh, what are you doing, Paul?
Paul proposed to Lizzie for not long after having met her.
And on March 26, 1891, they married.
You know what?
From first-person experience, don't marry somebody your kids don't like.
Don't do it.
Just don't do it.
That's shitty.
Yeah, not surprisingly, it didn't take long before Lizzie fell into the usual pattern of domestic abuse.
And it's domestic abuse like she's abusing them.
Yeah.
This time, her wrath wasn't limited to just her husband, though.
On many occasions she would fly into a rage over anything or nothing and become verbally abusive, and several times she assaulted Paul's son James, choking and hitting him.
But it was Paul's son with cognitive disabilities Johnny, who was most often the target of her violence and cruelty.
That's disgusting.
Yeah.
She's a piece of shit.
When she got deemed the worst woman in the world...
She's up there.
Signing off on that.
What a bitch.
On the morning of May 4th, 1891, Paul departed the farm with a team of horses and a load of coal.
At that time, Lizzie was apparently sick and she was in bed.
Okay.
And the only other person in the house was Johnny.
Oh, you're going to ruin my fucking life.
Not long after Paul left, Lizzie claimed that Johnny came running into the bedroom shouting that the house was on fire and he helped her to her feet and safely out of the house.
Once Lizzie was safe, she claimed Johnny ran back in the house in order to save some belongings, but after two or three trips in and out he didn't return.
And after hearing Lizzie's story, the coroner ruled the death accidental suffocation.
Oh, no.
Paul was also convinced by Lizzie's story because why would you think anything else?
Because she's terrible and hits your child.
And apparently they all concluded that the fire had been Johnny's fault.
That's nice.
And apparently what was said was he was careless with the lantern while whittling.
Okay.
In addition to Johnny's death, the fire also destroyed the house, the barn and killed several of the horses.
Yeah.
Now, as had happened many other times, Lizzie just grew tired of married life.
And it only worsened after the fire.
And eventually she left Halliday, Paul Halliday, and she took up with a neighbor, John Glenn.
Oh, my God.
So she probably murdered his child and then got with the neighbor?
Yeah.
Damn.
Like Lizzie, John Glenn had a reputation as an unsavory character.
And in June 1891 they both stole a team of horses and took them to Newburgh where they were trying to sell them.
I always wonder how people steal horses like stealthily.
Unfortunately, they were quickly arrested and tried for second degree grand larceny.
That's good.
Larceny of horses.
Yeah.
It's unclear what happened to Glynn, but Lizzie was brought before a judge in Newburgh and she acted out violently and made a number of bizarre statements before pleading insanity.
Okay.
Based on her behavior in the courtroom and the conclusions of the psychiatrist, Lizzie was sentenced to treatment at the asylum the state asylum at the time.
Quote unquote.
Sure.
Until doctors believed she was no longer a danger to society.
They were incorrect.
Correct.
Yeah, I had a feeling.
They were incorrect.
It was during this time that Glynn reported to investigators that Lizzie had informed him that the fire that had killed Johnny Halliday was in fact no accident.
Yeah.
It also wasn't the right cause of death.
According to Lizzie, she cut Johnny's throat with a bread knife.
And they didn't catch that?
And then she burned the house down in order to cover her crimes.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A bread knife?
Yeah.
I cut my finger with a bread knife recently.
Lizzie served a little over one year in the asylum and was released in the spring of 1893, due almost entirely to Paul Halliday's constant efforts to secure her release.
What does she do to these men to get them to forgive her?
She digmatizes them.
It's wild.
Paul had forgiven Lizzie after she left him.
Set his house on fire and murdered his child.
And she returned home with her husband.
And after leaving him for John Glenn, going on a crime spree.
Larceny.
He's like, it's fine.
And he gets her out, lives with her again.
They rebuilt the farm.
Little did he know though, that Lizzie was harboring a lot of resentment towards him and had begun plotting revenge against him for some perceived wrongdoing.
I was gonna say, for what?
In fact, while Paul seemed convinced that Lizzie had been cured, other family members recalled that her behavior became even more erratic than before.
After Lizzie's arrest... People love to try to fix people.
Oh, yeah.
After Lizzie's arrest, Paul's daughter Mary, told reporters in one moment she would be talking about pieces of fabric in a sewing project and quite suddenly she should be angry and full of rage, muttering about someone who had wronged her terribly.
Sounds like the president of the United States.
It literally does.
Like, that was her.
It very much does.
And one day in September, Paul's son, Paul Jr, became concerned about his father's well-being and paid a visit to the farm.
He was met by Lizzie at the front door.
No thanks.
Lizzie claimed that Paul had purchased some property in Bloomingburg and had gone there to inspect the land, and she didn't know when he was going to be back.
Doubt it.
Certain his father would have mentioned this to him.
Paul Jr went right to the police because he was like this bitch did it.
And asked if they could check on his father and confirm that he was alive and well.
The constable agreed to go to the farm and check.
But when they went there with another officer they were met by Lizzie and she said you're not coming in.
So they didn't want to escalate the situation at that moment.
So they went back to the station to come up with what they could.
After conferring with some other officers at the station, they determined that they were able to get a search warrant.
And on the morning of September 4th, 1893, they went back to the farm with the warrant.
And despite having a warrant in hand, Lizzie said, no, you're not coming in.
And then she hit one of the officers with a stick.
So I feel like at that point they probably could have arrested her.
Yeah.
Now apparently they didn't want to keep escalating.
But they did come up with a good plan.
One constable asked if Lizzie would accompany them to Bloomingburg so they might speak with Paul together.
Okay.
And weirdly, she agreed.
Okay.
So they were like, okay, let's go.
And while Lizzie's gone away with the constable, a large team of officers descended on the farm to search the place.
At first glance, Paul Halliday did not appear to be home and nothing really was unusual.
But the further they searched, investigators were finding very ominous and very alarming evidence of a lot of foul play having occurred in that house.
On the first floor they discovered a bucket that appeared to contain a blood-stained rug that Lizzie had been scrubbing with a stiff brush.
In another room they discovered a bloody axe handle a crowbar, a bloody board and two shovels that had been recently used.
What the fuck?
And in another room, investigators found the floor covered with a large amount of dirt and hay which, when they brushed it aside, revealed a giant blood stain on the floor.
She just covered it with dirt and hay?
Also, when they searched the bedroom and removed the piles of clothing from the bed, they discovered the sheets were covered in bloodstains.
And it looked like someone had tried to clean it.
So all of this evidence of literal carnage in that house and the discovery of the shovels, investigators are like fuck.
Paul Halliday is probably buried on this property.
Yeah.
So they finish searching the house.
They move on to the barn.
And in the crawl space underneath the building, they discovered what they believed to find a body buried under a shallow pile of dirt and manure.
Uh-huh.
Another one?
What?
What?
What?
What?
So they don't want to destroy evidence here.
Wow, smart.
Early 1900s people not wanting to destroy evidence?
That's cuckoo.
The investigators called the coroner and under his direction, both women were removed from the quail space.
As far as the coroner could tell Coroner Roche, one of the bodies had been under the barn slightly longer than the other.
Both were bound at the ankles, wrists, and knees, and both had been shot to death.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
Jesus.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In the meantime, now dealing with a double homicide, the search team returned to the house and started combing for evidence.
Inside, detectives found what they believed to be the two women's clothing in the bedroom, and one spent 32 caliber shell was discovered near the bed.
Just one?
Which led investigators to believe at least one of the women had been shot while she was lying in the bed.
That's why the bloodstains were there.
Yep, yep, yep.
Now, Lizzie was taken into custody and transferred back to Newburgh in the company of the constable.
She was physically abusive.
She was verbally abusive the whole way.
Refused to answer any questions.
Elsewhere in town, investigators kept searching for Paul Halliday, who many people remembered seeing in the days before the discovery at the farm, but no one had seen him since the bodies had been found.
Now, although she refused to cooperate with the police following her arrest, she was definitely not quiet.
After being locked up in a jail cell in Monticello, New York, I saw that you can say it Monticello or Monticello.
I'm going with the Hamilton way of saying it.
I like it.
Lizzie continued to act out aggressively and at one point ripped a large piece of her dress off and tried to choke herself with it.
Oh, fuck.
Under the circumstances, the constable was like oh, she might be a suicide risk and started keeping a closer eye on her.
A day or two after arriving at the jail, she was accompanied to the outhouse And standing outside the door, the guard heard a thud, as though something had fallen to the floor.
And concerned she might be trying to harm herself.
Again, he opened the door of the outhouse and found Lizzie preparing to drop a 32 caliber pistol and a large quantity of shells into the toilet and was able to prevent her from destroying evidence.
They were just on her person this whole time?
It's unknown how she still had that.
And you know what?
I don't want to know.
Yeah.
And after taking her back to her cell, a further search of the outhouse was conducted.
Investigators found additional 32 caliber shells, as well as several women's rings and a gold pocket watch inscribed with the initials SJM on the back.
What the actual fuck?
Sorry, how long had she been held at this point?
Was this just like a few hours or was this days had gone by?
It was a day or two.
What the fuck?
Yeah.
I'm like, was that before you guys searched people?
I think they forgot.
But during a further search of the Halliday property because they were like we still can't find him.
Yeah.
And this is in the days that followed.
Investigators finally learned what happened to Paul Halliday.
During a search of the kitchen, one of the men noticed one or two of the floorboards was loose.
When the boards were removed, they discovered what looked like recently disturbed soil.
And driving the crowbar into the earth about 18 inches, they felt it hit something.
Oh, okay.
After removing the dirt, investigators found the body of Paul Halliday.
His arms were crossed over his chest, his wrists were tied together and a burlap bag was over his head.
And he's just buried beneath his kitchen floor.
And she was just in the kitchen.
This is haunting.
As far as Coroner Roche could tell, Paul had been dead about two weeks.
Oh, that's a long-ass time.
Killed by any one of the .332 caliber bullets that pierced his chest.
Oh.
Roche theorized that Paul had been killed while laying down and was shot at close range.
Also, a large contusion was found near his left temple and that indicated he'd been struck in the head with a heavy blunt object.
I believe it.
So hard, in fact, it fractured his orbital socket and knocked loose his left eye, which was now hanging loosely on his cheek.
Thank you for that.
I need everyone to understand what I just said about Lizzie motherfucking Halliday.
I do.
She hit him with something so hard on the side of his head that she fractured his orbital socket and knocked his fucking eye out of his head.
And then she shot him several times in the chest.
I really hate eye shit.
I really hate eye shit.
She knocked this man's eye out of his head.
Do you know how hard you have to hit somebody?
I can't even begin to imagine.
And then she shot him in the fucking chest and then buried him under her kitchen.
Oh my God, brother.
Yeah.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
Lizzie, Maggie, Halliday.
While Roche was conducting his autopsy of Paul Halliday, detectives had managed to identify the two women discovered on the farm as Margaret and Sarah McQuillan.
Oh, you told me to remember.
The wife and daughter of Thomas McQuillan.
What, did she go kidnap them or something?
She literally, so...
That, I was like, when I read that, I was like, what?
What?
Yeah.
Because the whole reason she got kicked out was because or asked to leave was because she had a fight with the wife.
Yeah, with the wife.
Now, days later, we'll get to it, don't worry.
So days later, a coroner's inquest was held, after which it was determined that Lizzie was responsible for the deaths of both women.
In their conclusion, the jury wrote we do say upon our oath that Margaret J McQuillan and Sarah J McQuillan come to their deaths by bullets fired from a pistol in the hands of Lizzie Halliday.
The balls entering the heart were the immediate cause of death.
That said, Margaret was killed on or about August 30th and Sarah McQuillan on or about September 2nd.
When investigators visited Lizzie in her cell and told her the identification of the two bodies on her farm, she responded Mrs McQuillan, Mrs McQuillan.
Oh, yes, I remember Mrs. McQuillan and her daughter who murdered them.
Curly.
According to Lizzie.
Why are they on your farm, girl?
She says they both showed up at her farm several weeks earlier with some men and they brought whiskey with them.
So she allowed them to stay but refused to drink with them and she just went to bed.
She doesn't know what happened.
That's nuts.
She just went to bed and then they ended up shoved in a crawl space.
Yeah, just used my house.
Why not?
Shot.
Yeah.
And wrapped up.
Now, from this point forward, Lizzie became increasingly difficult to deal with at the jail.
Under the best of circumstances, when she had visitors or anyone tried to talk to her, she quote talked in a rambling, incoherent way and avoided looking at anyone in the face.
I need to know who the fuck was visiting Lizzie in jail.
I'm saying.
Give me names.
During this time, she frequently reported seeing quote a large woman with a big mouth who was trying to harm her.
It me.
It just kidding it me.
He said that was me.
He said girl.
I said put some respect on my name.
Oh lord, that's that's.
I'm picturing.
All seriousness.
That's sad and also i'm picturing that hallucination.
That's fucking, that's horrifying.
A large woman with a big mouth.
So under the worst circumstances she was completely unruly and a danger to herself and in the days leading up to her court appearance she refused to eat, tried to strangle the sheriff's wife who delivered her food.
Why the fuck is the sheriff's wife out here in these streets?
Apparently delivered food.
Do it yourself, sheriff.
She tried to set her bedclothes on fire.
She loves fire.
She repeatedly tried to cut her arms and face anytime she was given an implement that was remotely sharp.
Stop giving her sharp implements.
And the sheriff said it has been necessary to keep her chained to the floor.
I believe it.
What are you going to do at a certain point?
Like, that's awful.
Yeah.
Now, as the trial neared the summer of 1894, Lizzie's case had become very sensational and very closely watched.
Yeah.
The press was saying, quote, it will almost in interest be as famous as that of Lizzie Borden.
I'm here to tell you in 2026 it's not.
But I get it.
Her name is also Lizzie.
Yeah.
The trial of Lizzie Halliday, not Borden, you know, she was called the Burlingham murderess.
The trial for the murder of Sarah McQuillan began June 18th 1894 in New York with Judge Samuel Edwards presiding.
Assigned to Lizzie's defense was a prominent local attorney named George Carpenter, who the New York Times referred to as quote.
A lawyer of more than ordinary talent and has been frequently identified with intricate litigation.
Imagine being described as they have more than ordinary talent.
That's nice.
Not extraordinary, but more than ordinary.
Given all that had happened in the months leading to the trial, the press speculated, quote, Yeah.
In fact the case against her seemed very strong and given her behavior and frequent violent outbursts, everyone pretty much assumed she was going to get that insanity defense.
Given the considerable press coverage and the anticipation of a very wild hearing, people that came to the first day of the trial were probably a little surprised, and probably because we're human beings and we're kind of the worst.
They were probably disappointed to find the so-called quote to have quote lost much of her former strength and vivacity during her imprisonment.
During the first day of trial, she sat quietly beside Carpenter and never said a word.
That's nuts that she was quiet.
Yeah.
I wonder how they accomplished that.
The trial came to an end just three days later, and the jury deliberated for four hours before turning and handing down a guilty verdict.
After the verdict was read aloud for the court, many wondered whether Lizzie fully understood what it meant, because she said nothing on her own behalf and quote, only jerked her head up and down and stamped with her heel.
Oh.
After the case was adjourned and she had been returned to her cell, Lizzie quote threw herself on the little bed in the corner of the cell and slept the sleep of the just and innocent.
So she slept real good that night.
Apparently.
I want to sleep the sleep of a just and innocent.
The just and innocent, yeah.
I'm manifesting that.
I feel like I did last night.
I had a good night's sleep.
You know what?
Retweet.
Having been found guilty of first-degree murder, she was returned to the courtroom the next day for sentencing and again had no response when asked if she had anything to say in her defense.
Okay.
When the judge asked her to stand so he could pass sentence, Lizzie again failed to respond and it took four men to lift her to her feet, where she quote, swayed in the grasp of the officers, but there was no expression on her face.
That's scary.
I'm like, well, she drugged.
I was going to say.
It kind of feels that way.
But the judge then turned to Carpenter and asked whether he had any additional comments.
He replied, quote, I have nothing further to say.
So with all that out of the way, he returned to Lizzie and sentenced her to death by electricity in the place designated by the state in the week beginning Monday, August 6 1894.
Shit.
She was let out of the courtroom quietly.
So I think she was for sure drugged.
Although everyone who had followed the case was certain of Lizzie's guilt and her wrongdoings.
When the verdict and sentence was passed down, there was still like a wave of shock, probably due to the fact that she was sentenced to die in the electric chair, which was a first for a woman in New York.
But that wasn't really like.
They didn't think that she shouldn't be held accountable for the murders.
Yeah.
But given her history and behavior, a lot of people assumed she would just be deemed insane and locked away in an institution.
Right.
For the rest of her life.
Right.
After all was said and done, it seemed that, despite her obvious guilt, the idea of putting such a disturbed woman to death was something that a lot of people were like.
I don't know about that.
I get feeling that way, but as I'm sitting here, I'm like, what's worse?
Yeah, do you know what i mean exactly?
But it's like i understand that thought for sure.
It's the morality of the whole thing.
It's like there's a lot, it's one yeah, there is a lot that it's like something's wrong clearly, and like something's off.
And she did a lot of wrong.
Yeah, and there are times where she knew what she was, that she was doing was wrong, so she should be punished.
But I think an institution is where she really needed to be.
She probably would have been in an institution at that time.
Yeah.
And one reporter wrote, Yeah.
Yeah. quote, quote, quote.
Also, she continued exhibiting bizarre behavior like insisting upon wearing her shoes on the wrong feet and throwing a basin of water at a visiting doctor.
I mean, if she wants to wear her shoes on the wrong feet.
I mean, let her do it, you know.
But on June 28, 1894, she was transferred from Monticello to Dannemora Prison in upstate New York.
I feel like we end up talking about that prison so much.
We do.
And she was held there.
She was going to be held there until her execution.
Only a few weeks into her sentence, Governor Roswell Flower, influenced by the prison reform movement,
I'm sorry.
What a gorgeous name.
Roswell Flower.
That's a gorgeous name.
He was influenced by the prison reform movement and public opinion about Lizzie's case.
He assembled a commission to review her medical records and make a definitive determination as to her present mental state.
Yeah.
This was not to determine whether she was sane at the time of the murders, like I was saying before.
It was to determine whether she should continue to be held in prison or have her sentence commuted and be transferred to a psychiatric hospital.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They knew she did it.
They knew she knew she did it.
She knew it was wrong.
But obviously there's something here.
The commission began their investigation on July 12th and they started with a thorough review of her long legal and mental health history.
Other studies included physical examinations, interviews and making a plaster cast of her head.
Huh, phrenology was very popular at the time and many people believe the size and shape of a person's head could reveal something about their intellect and psyche.
Interesting, very popular thing i got a big old head.
In lizzie's case.
Doctors were particularly interested in the fact that her quote unusual head was asymmetrical and her forehead high and tapered.
Oh shit Finally.
That's a read.
That is a read.
But honestly, a high and tapered forehead.
Yeah.
That's model-esque.
Exactly.
That's, I mean, yeah.
Asymmetrical, not so much.
Now finally, interviews with prison guards and staff were conducted, which confirmed that, since arriving at Dannemora, Lizzie was quote noisy destructive, dirty in her habits and frequently profane and obscene in her speech.
The staff also noted that she was often disruptive in the evenings and engaged in self-mutilation and lashed out at others.
Oh, that's sad.
Before and during her trial, many believed her symptoms of mental illness were an act.
They thought she was, Which I get, because they probably thought that she was just trying to get out of trouble.
They're just lasting so long.
And the things she did are so horrific and so, like, brutal.
Yeah.
That, like, I think it's hard for anyone to understand that, like, she, you know...
Like how her brain works.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
Right.
Right.
A short time later, she was transferred to the newly completed Matawan Insane Asylum.
That's what it was called in Fishkill, which was a small town in the Hudson Valley.
Not Fishkill.
On August 30th 1895, Kate Ward, an attendant on Lizzie's floor at Matawan, was in the women's bathroom washing her hands when she was attacked by Lizzie.
Oh, fuck. and another patient named Jane Shannon.
Oh, they teamed up.
According to Ward, Lizzie had approached her at the sink with a towel in her hands, appearing as though to offer it.
But when Ward attempted to take the towel, Lizzie knocked her to the floor and Shannon held her down while Lizzie tried to stuff the towel into Ward's mouth.
Oh, fuck.
The two women then began kicking, punching and scratching Ward, with Lizzie tearing out handfuls of the woman's hair.
Oh, God.
Fortunately, her cries for help drew another attendant and, with the help of two more people, Lizzie and Shannon were subdued.
Initially, doctors believed Ward would die from her injuries.
That's how brutal they beat her.
But she was stabilized and recovered.
Lizzie never said why she attacked her, but most assumed it was because Lizzie held a grudge against her, because Ward had found Lizzie trying to pick her pockets a few weeks earlier.
Now, Lizzie's bizarre and violent behavior continued after that.
She would exhibit ongoing symptoms of psychosis a lot of the times.
At this point, it was definitely more profound.
Well, when things go untreated for so long.
Yeah, they just get worse.
And I mean, who knows what they were treating like these symptoms were by then.
Exactly.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
She believed they were deserving of compassion rather than scorn and abuse.
As a result, Lizzie developed an extreme fondness for her.
And Wicks was one of the only, if not the only staff member that she would listen to.
By that time, Lizzie was in seclusion, very isolated from the other patients.
So her contact with other people was very limited.
Which is fascinating.
Probably not great for somebody with her issues.
Yeah, so Wicks would likely have been one of the only few people she saw or spoke to on a regular basis, and was probably the only one who treated her with any respect.
This attachment became a problem in 1906 when Wicks announced to her supervisors that she was engaged to be married and would be leaving her job.
While the staff at Matawan was happy for Wicks, they did warn her.
Lizzie is not going to take this well.
So she felt she knew Lizzie better than they did.
She was like, no, it's fine.
But she was like, I'll wait until my final week here to let her know.
So when the final week came, Wicks went to Lizzie's room and told her she would be leaving the hospital at the end of the week.
And Lizzie stared directly in her eyes and said, you won't leave me.
So Wicks was like, I will be leaving by the end of the week.
And Lizzie said, I wouldn't try it.
Yeah.
Oh.
So Wicks was like, okay.
And she just went about her day.
She was like, she's clearly pissed.
But like, it happened.
So like, whatever.
On the morning of September 27th, Lizzie followed Wicks into the woman's bathroom.
And once inside, she knocked Wicks to the floor.
This part right here is where I say she knows what she's doing.
She knocks Wicks to the floor, grabs her set of keys in the process, and as Wicks lay stunned on the floor, Lizzie locked the bathroom door and left the keys in the lock so they couldn't be unlocked from the other side.
Uh-huh.
She made sure no one could get in that room.
Yeah, that's cunning.
Returning to where Wicks was laying on the floor, Lizzie grabbed the scissors that Wicks kept on her belt and started stabbing her furiously.
Oh my God.
Nellie Wicks is screaming and trying to block the more than 200 stabs that she inflicted on her.
Holy shit.
200 stabs with scissors.
And this woman was the only woman who was kind to her and was engaged to be married and leaving.
Yeah.
So the screams are drawing the attention of the other wards who ran to the bathroom.
But can't do anything.
They're trying to get in there, but they can't unlock the door.
The keys are blocking them.
So they're having to, like, break through the bathroom door.
And by the time they did, they found Nellie unconscious in...
Just brutally.
Bleeding heavily.
Lizzie was subdued and removed to a cell while doctors tried to save Nellie's life.
Unfortunately, she died from her injuries two hours later.
She was going to be married.
She was about to be married.
That's why she was leaving the job.
And she was the only one who literally, like, actually was nice to Lizzie.
Later, when the superintendent at Matawan asked Lizzie why she had done it, she smiled and said she won't leave me now.
Isn't that fucked up?
What is that logic?
Nellie Wicks was the first female corrections officer killed in the line of duty.
Wow.
But the horror of the staff at Matawan was remaining throughout this.
I mean, this changed everything.
But no charges were brought against Lizzie for the murder of Nellie Wicks.
That's completely unjustified.
But the Dutchess County Coroner made a special appeal to the New York State.
It's called it was called the New York State Lunacy Commission.
Oh, man.
Asking them to authorize extended solitary confinement for Lizzie, which they did grant.
And she would ultimately spend most of her remaining years isolated from everyone.
Her physical and mental health continued to decline after the murder of Nellie Wicks, and it's pretty reasonable to assume she was probably not treated great after that.
Yeah.
This really is one of those cases where you just think like maybe it would have been better to put her to death.
I have no idea.
That's why I'm not fully anti-
Now eventually, she was diagnosed with Bright's disease, which is a kidney disease that causes painful swelling and can be fatal.
Oh, okay.
In the fall of 1911, after an investigation into the safety and security of the hospital, new policies were implemented, including an easing of harsh punishment and isolation practices, which meant that Lizzie's extended solitary confinement finally came to an end after five years.
Wow.
She was in solitary confinement for five years.
So now she's sick with chronic illness.
That's the thing, though.
That you sit there and you think is like isn't that more cruel than just ending somebody's life?
Probably.
So she's sick with chronic illness.
She's weak from years of self-abuse at this point.
She no longer posed a threat to really anybody there.
And she wasn't but she wasn't eligible for any special privileges either.
She was allowed to return to living among the regular hospital population.
That was about it.
In 1915, she made the newspapers again, this time when she was discovered trying to hang herself in her room in Matawan.
On March 17th, hospital staff went into her room and found she had ripped a long strip from her bed sheet.
They found her very near death, but they were able to resuscitate her.
Lizzie Halliday made the news one final time on June 28th 1918, when press around the country reported her death from Bright's disease at the age of 58.
She was described as the worst woman in the world and the New York Times noted the four deaths she had known to have committed, but reminded readers, quote there was a strong suspicion that she had murdered several others, including a former husband and a peddler, which was what they had talked about with the travelers.
Yes, yes.
So there was strong suspicion that she was involved in several other murders than the four that they were able to know that she had done.
What a wild fucking case.
Isn't that bonkers?
Yeah.
Holy shit.
Like, I had no idea.
Like, obviously all of the people that lost their lives is, like, it breaks your heart.
That, was it, sorry, was it?
Nellie Wicks.
Nellie.
That is.
It's so tragic oh, it destroyed.
I was like, holy shit wow, so brutal, like so brutal and so sad, because she was about to be married, about to leave the job and and, like everyone said like yeah, she believed in lizzie enough to be like i can talk to her about this and she'll handle it.
Oh, you just wait, you almost wish, and this was just her being a good person.
You wish she just didn't tell her.
I know, just never, i know came back.
Wow, that is, that's a case where i feel they should have just put her to death when she had gotten that sentence, because the rest of her life was spent in fucking misery and another person lost their life and more, like more people were assaulted and then ultimately, another person was killed.
Yeah, it's a rough one.
It's uh yeah, it's tough wow, but you know what?
Let me give you a fun fact.
Please do that away.
Please do during the run of the golden girls.
Yeah, they dug into more than a hundred cheesecakes.
That is a fun fact.
Yeah, i love the golden girls.
Yeah, I love it.
Beautiful.
In fact, when Dorothy says do you know how many problems we solved over a cheesecake at this kitchen table?
Over 100.
And she says 147, Rose.
She was pretty close.
That's a lot.
That's a lot of problems solved over cheesecake.
Yeah.
Me, myself, not a cheesecake fan.
I love cheesecake personally, but not a cheesecake girlie.
I also love Dorothy.
I love Dorothy.
You are Dorothy.
I love that.
I'm like a mixture of Rose...
I'm like a mixture of Rose and Blanche.
And you're kind of a mixture of Dorothy and Sophia.
Yeah, I think so too.
We make up the Golden Girls.
We are the Golden Girls.
Well, people, with that fun fact, we leave you.
But we do hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird.
But definitely not as weird as Lizzie Halliday because, holy fuck, that's a level of weirdness I hope to never achieve.
Don't do it.
It wouldn't be an achievement even.
It's true.
Bye.
Bye.
