The Ogress of Reading: The Serial Killer Who Murdered Babies for Money

Hey true weirdos just a minute before we get started and thank you so much for listening We are very proud of our brand new website true weird stuff Calm it has all kinds of great stuff You are gonna want to check this out And if we could just remind you to subscribe rate and review on whatever platform you listen to this podcast And thank you again You Mrs. Dyer was generally reputed to be very pious Over the door of her home was a figure of Christ Beneath which was the inscription?

suffer the little children to come unto me and Forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven Well it was a fact that the little children who suffered to come unto mrs. Dyer Certainly found their way to the kingdom of heaven and quickly it has been proven that since Christmas 30 children were entrusted to mrs. Dyer's keeping and only four are living the others have Vanished Mrs. Dyer was a respectable woman a nurse What is this talk of missing children this?

Slander of a kindly lady who opened her home to unwed mothers those poor things so overwhelmed by their Circumstances for a fee mrs. Dyer would even care for the babies herself until a suitable adoption could be arranged such a good person such a generous and compassionate soul or so she seemed until the day of package was fished out of the River Thames the body of an infant girl a tragic and terrible discovery and the beginning of the end for one of Great Britain's most shocking serial murder cases The old baby farmer the wretched miss Dyer at the old Bailey her wages is paid In times long ago, we'd have made a big fire and roasted so nicely that wicked old jade Weird stuff Baby farm what a whimsical mental picture that conjures Rose and rose chubby-cheeked infants little faces turned toward the Sun Nurtured and tended to like the most precious of crops Wholesome and sweet as a bedtime story Baby farming was the name given the practice of taking in and caring for infants in exchange for payment It was more than babysitting But in most cases less than adopting kind of like foster care for profit minus any real supervision or oversight Baby farms were at their peak during the 19th and early 20th centuries in the United Kingdom Women were in desperate need of child care for all the usual reasons Poverty required them to work and there was no such thing yet as daycare Then there were the babies born to unmarried women The stigma of illegitimacy was enough all by itself to drive a woman to place her child with a baby farmer in such Establishments, there are terrible risks Sometimes a mother comes with a child and says she is going away and is willing to pay a lump sum For taking care of the child The bargain is concluded and immediately out becomes the interest of the baby farmer that it should die Which sounds very dramatic This is unfortunate, but it's also true Baby farms also operated in the United States. There were hundreds in Philadelphia alone An agent of the Society to Protect Children from Cruelty C.G. Watson reported that many of Philly's baby farms had negotiated a special partnership with the local funeral homes In many of the baby farms in the city Undertakers were employed to take charge of the remains at a cost of eight dollars of which some four dollars was Refunded if the coffin was reused. The ultimate disposition of the bodies is a mystery. Let's translate that into modern speech Undertakers charged the baby farmers the equivalent of two hundred and ninety two dollars and seventy six cents to take care of each tiny corpse They kicked back about a hundred and forty six bucks if you reuse the coffin That little detail tells you what?

It tells you that whatever they did with the body. It wasn't laid to rest in that coffin So what did they do with all of those dead babies? It's a mystery Baby farms sprang up in response to a need for child care a need that had only grown more intense with the passage in Great Britain of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1934 in a nutshell that basically denied the poor the right to subsistence It was a law based in part on ideas promoted by the English economist Thomas Malthus who considered any aid to the poor as self-defeating and English philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham who believed that people are basically lazy and Excessively fond of pleasure and would happily accept a meager handout over working for a decent living So the poor law amendment set out to address that by restricting all aid to workhouses and By making the workhouses which is sometimes called poor houses So brutal and wretched that only the most desperate would even apply Plus there was a catch The workhouses were strictly segregated the elderly and disabled in one Children in another Able-bodied men in one able-bodied women in another which meant that families would be split up married couples separated children taken from parents All of which was designed to deter the poor from applying for any help at all The Poor Law Amendment Act paid special attention to one category of aid recipient Mothers of illegitimate children It was decided not only that these women should receive less support The state would also no longer try to identify the child's father for the purposes of recovering any funds paid out to support the child The language of the law is formal and flowery but the intent was crystal clear an Illegitimate child was entirely the fault and Responsibility of the mother the effect has been to promote Bastardy to make want of chastity on the woman's part the shortest road to obtaining either a husband or a competent maintenance and to encourage extortion and perjury there was no support of any kind for unmarried mothers and No accountability at all for the man who fathered these unwanted babies Far from fixing the problem the removal of all financial obligation from fathers merely condemned unmarried mothers to an impossible situation forced out of employment and Barred from the workhouse a single mother could either prostitute herself Starve or else make an angel of her baby Baby farmers offered a last hope for a desperate minority Sometimes the choices made by the people of the past are just bewildering But there's nothing bewildering about the explosion of baby farming in that era Desperate people will make desperate choices and a mother unable to feed her child or herself backed into an impossible corner You can see how these women wanted to believe the warm and cheerful ads that ran in newspapers Because baby farmers were so careful to present themselves as the most loving and the best solution To a most heartbreaking problem in reality few women were truly

Blind to the reality of their offspring's fate once they had been farmed out Kansas City, Missouri 1896 healthy infant wanted immediately a good home amid wealth will be provided Bristol England 1889 wanted by respectable persons young infant for adoption small premium provided Belfast Ireland November 1900 infant wanted for adoption by respectable couple state age Subtle careful language if you didn't know what you were saying, you wouldn't know that these classified ads were often Not in every instance, of course thinly veiled pitches for the buying and selling of children human trafficking Bad as that is there was something worse Not every baby farmer made their living selling the babies in their care some found another easier and far more lucrative way of going about it a peculiar thing about the business is its insurance aspect of The hundreds of baby farms in existence. Not one is without insurance on each inmate For example in the house of mrs. Rivers the insurance company accepts five cents per week for each risk guaranteeing to pay a death benefit of $15 each risk Was a baby The math is dark and terrible You see where this is going many baby farmers made their living by Murder Amelia Dyer after I got a baby something seemed to say in my ears get rid of it Amelia's early life sounds like the stuff of Victorian era fiction She was the fifth of six children Her father was a shoemaker her mother an invalid driven mad by typhus and prone to violent fits Amelia's two sisters died in childhood. And then when Amelia was just 11, she lost her mother, too The girl ended up living with an aunt for a brief period and then took an apprenticeship as a corset maker By the time her father died Amelia was 22 years old and on her own in the world She married an older man so much older that both lied on their marriage certificate Amelia added six years to her age and her new husband 59 year old George Thomas shaved a whopping 11 years off his Was it love?

convenience All we know is that Amelia and George had a baby a little girl. They named Ellen Amelia who had trained as a nurse before becoming pregnant stopped working to care for the child and then in 1869 George Thomas died Which was neither particularly tragic nor Unexpected what with the man having blown well past the average life expectancy of the time But his death did create a problem for his widow Amelia needed to provide for herself and her daughter Opportunities to earn a living for a single mother in Victorian England were limited and grim but Amelia Dyer had something of great value going for her a Home One that she soon opened to young women who'd met with misfortune as they used to say back then fallen women unmarried pregnant with few to no options Abortion was illegal Abandonment of an infant was a crime punished harshly often by death There were none of the so-called baby Moses laws in place like we have now in the u.s No way for a woman to safely surrender an infant into the care of the state When we talk about sky-high infant mortality rates in the Victorian era We think that has everything to do with public health and hygiene access to prenatal care adequate nutrition those sorts of things What we don't like to think about are the other factors involved like the way that Coroners in the Victorian era couldn't distinguish between stillbirth and deliberate suffocation at birth That practice was sometimes called stifling Victorian midwives Intimately aware of the hardships facing these mothers would often help them and the lives of their newborns An act they considered merciful and not a crime And since we're being honest those midwives also had families to provide for didn't they hungry children of their own to feed Money was money and it's always so much easier to talk ourselves Down most any slippery moral slope than we ever want to admit For those who just couldn't quite bring themselves to commit infanticide murder There was another solution Women like Amelia Dyer provided it for a fee. They would take in these poor babies these unwanted infants Feed and clothe them care for them until a more permanent loving adoption could be arranged Baby farming was a cottage industry Completely unregulated and while there were ethical baby farmers who did try to nurture the infants in their care It was just so easy for the unscrupulous to set up shop babies became commodities Their very lives dependent on the flow of regular payments to their minders Human babies don't just benefit from warmth and loving contact. They need it in order to survive Neglect was rampant in the baby farms and medical attention was all but non-existent for these children in many cases Death was the most likely outcome. Anyway all the baby farmer had to do to speed that along was nothing Literally, it was easy to let a baby die Starvation was a common method and as an added benefit It didn't leave the kind of marks a more Violent solution might Amelia Dyer presented herself as compassionate and capable and Was she ever?

capable not since the terrible murders in Whitechapel has London been so shocked and Interested as it has been during the last few weeks By the wholesale murder of infant children for which Amanda Dyer is now awaiting trial terrible murders Whitechapel The infamous Jack the Ripper killings if the police are justified in assuming as they do That many of the children whose bodies have been taken from the river or who are still mysteriously Missing met death at the hands of the notorious baby farmer Then the woman is a murderous hundreds of times over and stands in the front rank of the unique criminals of the age Well, that's all off in the future because right now in 1872 Amelia remarried He was a brewery worker named William Dyer and though Amelia ultimately left the marriage it did produce two children Whom Amelia mothered under the same roof where she looked after the babies of others Dyer maximized her profits by slowly starving her little charges muting them with daily doses of the liquid opiate laudanum known colloquially as the quietness because it stifles both the baby's appetite and its cries It wasn't uncommon for Amelia to receive as many as six new infants a day into her care No one thought that strange the neighbors knew that Amelia had such a heart for children knew she'd been trained as a nurse When they looked at Amelia Dyer, they saw a heavyset middle-aged woman a respectable matron That was all the disguise. She needed But in time the doctor became suspicious It was 1879 and this physician. Dr. Jay Milne had been called to Amelia's home to certify the death of yet another infant He was troubled by just how many babies seemed to die under Amelia's care Even taking into account the impoverished circumstances. These children were born into It didn't quite make sense After one of Amelia's infants a girl died in his office Dr. Milne went to the police this death numbered five within 12 to 18 months Ellen Thomas the child of Amelia's first marriage lived with her mother and helped care for the babies Ellen declared that six was the largest number at one time that they'd ever hosted She said the children were fed boiled bread corn flour and condensed milk She insisted that her mother was kind to every child At bedtime she did admit that Amelia did dose the youngest of them with Godfrey's cordial That was a patent medicine a very popular mother's helper. That was basically tincture of opium and a sweet syrup It was marketed as a way to quiet a fussy child and it definitely worked But mother doesn't give it to the older children swore Ellen. It's just that without Godfrey's cordial Mother can get no rest from the little ones Amelia Dyer stood trial for that in 1879 the coroner in summing up made some very strong remarks on the enormity of the case and stated that Amelia Dyer's establishment was simply an infant's hell a curse to the country and a disgrace to Civilization and the coroner was frustrated and furious by the way the trial played out There was a lack of evidence to connect mrs. Dyer completely with the death of the child He said that he had no moral doubt that this child and others were hurried into their graves by

improper food and Drugging it was a close call the jury didn't convict her for murder But she was sentenced to six months hard labor for the neglect of an infant When she reentered society a million knew that changes would have to be made by this point Amelia had made a great show of attempting suicide by laudanum overdose a Show of attempting to take her own life Because as Amelia put it I'm all but a doctor Myself doctor or not Amelia Dyer knew just how to calculate a dose Unfortunately, she also acquired a taste for alcohol and opiates and soon began abusing both She'd also discovered a convenient way to safely disappear from scrutiny Amelia had a knack for being confined to an insane asylum. Just when her absence might be most convenient She'd learned from her arrest and trial that having doctors produce death certificates Simply too risky too much trouble that didn't stop her from killing babies She simply started disposing of the bodies herself Which turned out to be surprisingly easy and besides these were the illegitimate children of poor and shamed women children without birth certificates children who didn't officially exist children who wouldn't be missed and Amelia had learned something else She'd need to stay on the move. It was the only way to manage the problem of curious neighbors in 1895 Amelia set up shop in the village of Caversham, which was perched across from the River Thames With her was daughter Marianne son-in-law Arthur Palmer and Jane Smith who was called granny Amelia had found Jane in a workhouse and convinced her to pose as her mother The idea was to present a Reassuringly wholesome family image to the women whose babies they hope to profit from and another move this time to Reading a Much larger town an easier place to hide in plain sight In January 1896 a young woman named Evelina Marmon found herself in a predicament She had a job barmaid she also had a brand-new baby and no husband She was 25 years old and scanning the newspapers in hopes of finding a temporary home for her newborn Doris Evelina intended to raise her child. She just needed to get back to earning a living She placed an ad in the Bristol Times and Mirror it read want it respectable woman to take a young child And of all the luck There it was sitting right next to her ad one from a Mrs. Harding Married couple with no family would adopt a healthy child nice country home terms ten pounds Evelina responded and in just a few days received a letter from Mrs. Harding who was actually Amelia Dyer I Should be glad to have a dear baby girl One I could bring up and call my own We are plain homely people in fairly good circumstances I don't want a child for money's sake but the company and home comfort I Am my husband are dearly fond of children. I have no child of my own a Good home and a mother's love it felt like the answer to all of Evelina's prayers with one small hitch She'd hoped to pay weekly for her baby's care. The sum of ten pounds was a fortune

equivalent to nearly $4,000 today Mrs. Harding though would not be budged Evelina was desperate and with no other options arranged to meet with mrs. Harding in a week It was a heartbreaking scene Evelina clinging to the infant a small box of carefully folded baby clothing at her feet Mrs. Harding arms outstretched for both baby and money Grease-stricken Evelina insisted on accompanying the woman to the rail station Riding along with them until the next station before choking back her sobs and turning toward home It was a week before the letter arrived Assuring Evelina that baby Doris was settling in Beautifully to her new life in the bustling town of Reading the dear child is well, the letter was a lie Amelia Dyer didn't return to ready with baby Doris Instead she went to London to her own 23 year old daughter Polly As for the baby She never had a chance to settle in or not once in London Amelia reached for a spool of the white edging tape used by dressmakers of the day She carefully wound the tape twice around Doris's neck tied a knot and pulled However much we might wish it or hope for it No Death wasn't immediate. I used to like to watch them with the tape around their neck, but it was soon all over with them Amelia and her daughter wrapped the body in a napkin That's how small Doris was that a napkin was sufficient for her funeral shroud then Setting the corpse aside the pair rummaged through the box of clothing that Evelina had so carefully packed tiny fawn-colored dresses a brand new box of powder with a fluffy fresh puff They kept the best items and piled the rest to be taken to the pawnbroker It had been such a long day train travel with an infant and another baby was scheduled to be dropped off in the morning Leaving the bundle that had so recently been Evelina's precious infant daughter in the darkened kitchen The two women went to bed Little Harold sergeant he was called Harry arrived the next morning Wednesday, April 1st 1896 Flush cheeks and dimpled hands. He was 13 months old Bright eyed and curious. There's a good lad. There was a bit of a hiccup in the process for Harry when Amelia realized that they'd used all their dressmaking tape strangling Doris Not to worry though Amelia simply unwound the tape from the neck of the murdered infant girl and looped it twice around Harry's neck Then she tied it off in a jaunty little bow waste not want not The very next day Amelia tucked both bodies into an old carpet bag Stuffing as many bricks in with the dead infants as the bag would hold Amelia toted it to a bit of an isolated spot She knew near her the clappers bridge and then forced the bag through the railings of a fence that ran beside the river Thames With little noise or splash the weighted bag swiftly disappeared from view a Local man witnessed this an engineer named John Collar It was only later when Amelia's face was splashed across the press though That the man realized what he'd seen that night

He even spoke to Amelia wishing her a good evening Amelia didn't respond Since the river Thames had silently accepted Amelia Dyer's grim offerings in the past. She had no reason for concern Even the encounter with John Toler didn't disturb her a woman had every right to be out and about on the public streets There was something though that Amelia didn't know just three days before she dispatched Doris and Harry to their watery grave a Bargeman on the Thames had snagged a parcel bobbing on the surface He peeled the soaked paper back and found it was horror that he was holding the bloated corpse of an infant girl That child was later identified as Helena Fry Perhaps Amelia had grown complacent or lazy She'd failed to sufficiently weigh down Helena's little body Beyond that she'd wrapped the child in paper that still had a mailing label on it It took Redding police detective constable Anderson performing a Microscopic analysis of that label the ink faded to nearly nothing by its time in the Thames To make out a name and an address And that's what led police to the home of Amelia Dyer They were dealing now not just with a baby farmer, but potentially with a killer The police immediately placed Amelia under surveillance and launched a quiet investigation their intelligence indicated the Dyer would flee immediately if she became Suspicious, so the officers sent a young woman as a decoy to inquire About Dyer services and arrange a meeting when Amelia opened her front door on April 3rd to greet her new client She was shocked instead to find herself face to face with a pair of Redding police officers detective constable Anderson and sergeant James Based on their investigation. They expected to find a house full of babies But the rooms behind that front door Were silent and and the smell no make that the stench wafting through that open door was unmistakable to the two cops It was the smell of decomposing flesh Both Amelia Dyer and her son-in-law Arthur Ernest Palmer were immediately arrested Beginning on April 10th searchers dragged the river pulling up six more bodies of children Including the carpet bag that contained the remains of Doris Marmon and Harry sergeant both bodies dressed only in a diaper What police found in the home?

piles of letters from desperate mothers stacks of pawn tickets for children's items mountains of baby clothing Suggested that the actual number of Amelia's victims Wasn't the seven bodies found The actual number was more likely to be in the dozens and possibly in the hundreds The white tape that's how you could tell it was one of mine The trial of Amelia Dyer began in May 1896 she would be tried alone for her crimes She provided the authorities with a written confession that exonerated her son-in-law to the chief superintendent of police Sir, will you kindly grant me the favor of presenting this to the magistrates?

I have made this statement out for I may not have the opportunity. I Must relieve my mind. I Do know and feel my days are numbered on this earth But I do feel that it is an awful thing drawing innocent people into trouble I Do know I have to answer before my maker in heaven for the awful crimes I have committed but as God Almighty is judged in heaven as on earth Neither my daughter Mary Ann Palmer nor her husband Arthur Ernest Palmer I do most solemnly declare neither of them had anything at all to do with it They never knew I contemplated doing such a thing until it was too late I Am speaking the truth as I hope to be forgiven. I Myself must stand before my maker in heaven to give an answer for it all witness my hand Amelia Dyer a confession accompanied by an insanity plea Something the prosecution had little patience for Pointing out that Amelia had a history of losing her mind at only the most convenient times Like when she was facing trouble or accountability When Amelia Dyer appeared in court at the Old Bailey on May 22nd 1896 She had only confessed to a single murder the strangling of baby Doris Marmon Now remember the woman named Jane Smith who posed as granny to help Amelia maintain the fiction of being a wholesome family Keen on simply helping young women who found themselves in trouble She took the stand Saying that she had lived in many places with Amelia Jane Smith said to her positive knowledge Amelia received a number of children in some instances She had taken them away on the pretext of going to London and had returned alone Moreover the old lady swore that on the 31st of March. She saw mrs.

Dyer take out the incriminating carpet bag, which appeared to be very full Though with what she was utterly unable to say Even Amelia's own family who also testified against her voiced their suspicions about Just what Amelia was doing with the children in her care Marianne Palmer's testimony about her mother was particularly damning Describing the events of March 31st. Mrs. Palmer stated that her mother Mrs. Dyer came to the house a woman was with her and handed her the carpet bag Palmer went indoors Leaving her mother at the door with a baby in her arms, which she said she was holding for a mrs.

Harris Palmer described later entering the sitting room just as her mother was sliding the carpet bag under the couch There was a brown paper parcel on the couch about two feet long Palmer estimated she saw nothing more of the baby that her mother had brought into the house The next day at noon Mr. And Mrs. Sargent arrived toting baby Harry. They signed a piece of paper paid Amelia Dyer and Surrender the child to her. Oh the baby wailed at being parted from his mother The sergeants left their sobbing boy in Amelia's arms As the door closed behind them Amelia said if it keeps whining like this I shall not stick it for long Palmer then recounted the odd evening that followed When it was time to put baby Harry down for the night Amelia called out to her daughter. Don't come in for a few minutes Those few minutes were the last of little Harry's life I unlocked the door and I laid the little boy on the sofa and I wrapped him up in my large Flatshore and made it appear as though he was asleep when Palmer re-entered the sitting room She moved toward the couch where the baby was resting Amelia pushed her away After supper Amelia returned to the sitting room locking the door behind her Palmer asked her mother why?

Whatever did she have in there? Nothing particular. I just don't want anyone going into the room on the witness stand Palmer recounted how her mother slept that night in the sitting room It was also odd The next morning there was no sign of baby Harry. The baby is alright Don't worry about him. Mrs. Palmer saw a parcel under the couch tied up in a napkin It was in the shape of a child's head Amelia announced that she was in need of a brick and then declared she'd go fetch one herself as Palmer readied herself to accompany her mother to the train station She noticed that the parcel was gone. The brick was gone and the carpet bag was packed Palmer said she asked Amelia what the neighbors would think after seeing her arrive with a baby. That'd be Doris And leaving without one. You can very well make some excuse. I'm sure Before you get to feeling too sorry for Marianne Palmer and her husband You should know that Arthur Palmer pleaded guilty in a case of child abandonment He and his wife had a little baby farm operation of their own They'd taken in a four-year-old girl named Queenie Baker The couple was running a scam buying things on credit and then dodging the bills They bolted from the apartment. They'd shared with Queenie leaving the child wandering the streets Cold hungry and terrified for this crime Arthur Palmer was sentenced to three months hard labor The man sounds completely awful But his mother-in-law was very fond of Arthur Palmer. My poor dear Arthur Oh how my heart aches for you and my dear Polly. Polly, Amelia's pet name for her daughter Marianne I am sending this to you to tell you I have eased my mind and made a full statement I have told them the truth and nothing but the truth as I hope to be forgiven God Almighty is my judge and I dare not go into his presence with a lie. I Hope and pray God will forgive me. I Know I have done this dreadful crime and she'll have to answer for it I hope God will give you grace and strength to bear this heavy trial God bless you my dear boy from your broken-hearted mother Amelia wept in court as her letters were read aloud and as prison matron Ellen Gibbs testified To having warned Amelia that letters of this sort read like guilty pleas. I wish to plead guilty They cannot charge me with anything more than I have done another letter written by Amelia Presumably to her own defense of time was published in a newspaper called the Weekly Dispatch in reference to my defense I'm afraid there is not any chance of saving my life Unless you please upon the case of insanity She described being an inmate of the Gloucester Asylum six years earlier in 1890 all the time I have been here. I have not been well, I Have not been accountable for my actions. I tried to drown myself But I was rescued and taken to hospital My mother died at Fox Asylum at the early age of 45 years She described the written statement She provided to the police stating that her son-in-law Arthur had no involvement in any of her crimes. I alone am guilty Mrs. Dean the attendant who had charge of me will tell you that my mind is unhinged in Fact I have been bad in my head all the time Some days not so bad as others. I Do know this I should certainly kill myself if only I had the opportunity

It Took the jury four and a half minutes to find Amelia Dyer guilty of the murder of baby Helena Fry Despite the fact that she was linked to at least seven other corpses that have been pulled from the river one murder conviction It's so many dead children Still the logic of the day was similar to what we see in modern serial murder cases The guilty can only be executed once She would pay with her life for all of her crimes Even if only Helena Fry's name beyond the death warrant Amelia Dyer was sentenced to hang on June 10th 1896 In her cell at Newgate Prison Amelia filled page after page with what she called her my last and true Confession on the night before her execution the prison chaplain visited her in her cell Asking if she had anything she wished to confess before departing this world Amelia gestured at the five notebooks. She'd filled Isn't this?

enough Wednesday June 10th 1896 the convict seemed in a dazed Condition and had to be supported by the executioner James Billington performed the operation of pinioning her arms This was done in a cell a few paces from the scaffold the distance to be Traversed to the drop was only a few yards the female officials proceeded with the wretched woman as far as the door of the scaffolds shed and Bidding her farewell their gruesome duty ended Huge crowds had assembled outside Newgate prison It was a festive atmosphere The dreadful baby killer would die this morning the woman they were calling the ogres of Reading the weather was as grim as the occasion an unrelenting downpour the drench the spectators Amelia Dyer was 57 years old and the executioner called out her weight to establish the drop 15 stone 210 pounds the convict was placed beneath the beam and the noose and cap were adjusted by Billington the convict meanwhile supported by the wardens The hangman pulled the lever The Drop fell without any hitch and the wretched woman died instantly In 50 years only six women have been executed at Newgate prison Amelia was in notorious company Her body swung from the gallows just six years after the execution of Mary Eleanor Wheeler aka Mary Percy Aka the women many believed might be the real Jack the Ripper We told her story in the truer stuff episode called Jill the Ripper Like Wheeler and the women executed before her Amelia's body was cut down and buried in an unmarked grave inside Newgate prison The seven small bodies police had been able to retrieve What unspeakable sorrow?

But the real horror to be reckoned with was the actual number of Amelia Dyer's victims Some estimates are as high as 400 babies starved or strangled tossed into the river children disposed of like garbage Disappearing beneath the dark currents of the Thames as though they'd never lived The truth is most of them never did These children never had the chance in The years following the arrest and conviction of Amelia Dyer the British Parliament got busy passing laws to protect children One year after Amelia was hanged the Infant Life Protection Act was passed That was followed in 1908 by the Children's Act These laws require that authorities be notified within 48 hours of any change in custody Or of the death of a child aged seven years or younger Then Parliament had a look at the laws around Fostering and adopting children and realized that oops. These are gonna need to be much tougher It's thanks to these new and strengthened laws around child welfare That the whole baby farm concept became a relic of the past Amelia Dyer isn't officially Credited as Britain's most prolific serial killer that dishonor belongs to a man named. Dr. Harold Shipman aka Dr. Death Shipman murdered an estimated 250 victims over the course of 30 years He targeted the opposite end of the life cycle from Amelia Selecting as his victims the vulnerable elderly patients who trusted him with their care But Amelia did get a little something that Shipman could never For a time Amelia like Mary Percy was suspected by some to be the fiendish Jack the Ripper for the kind of people that Amelia Dyer and Harold Shipman were being mistaken for one of the most diabolical serial murderers in history Which surely have to be just the most enormous compliment yet in so many ways Amelia Dyer was much crueler than the Ripper Yes, the Ripper stalked the people of Whitechapel and bathed the streets in blood The Ripper never pretended to be anything other than a monster But Amelia hid her true nature her twisted violence behind a mask of kindness of compassion She offered hope to mothers Desperate to see their children provided for safe and even loved mothers who sacrificed and suffered and hoped above all That they had done the right thing the unselfish thing The only thing they believed they could do to keep their babies alive Amelia understood these women She understood their circumstances She knew what to say and how to say it and we know this Because we have some of the letters dangling those false promises and Amelia's own handwriting I am sure God will bless you for letting me have that dear child. I Have prayed and asked the Almighty months past to give me some nice little child It seems now my prayer is answered Such a godly woman. She would have you know religious devotion Always was Amelia's favorite costume one thing. I promise you truthfully. I will take the baby and trust to Providence if it lives if it lives if it lives I Will do my duty by it as long as it lives It shall not be any further trouble or expense to you in any way Neither will I ever mention whose child it is No one shall ever know. I promise you

The offspring of love Ruin and seduction to these baby farmers too often must go and then like those found drowned at Reading the number that's murdered We never shall know Next time on true weird stuff Humanity loves a hermit. We'd love the idea of some wise Guru off in the woods or a cave or a mountaintop Dispensing wisdom if you're only lucky enough to find the hermit But hermits come in a lot of different flavors and you'd be surprised how similar they can be You know like Henry David Thoreau and the Unabomber The hermit on the next true weird stuff our voice talents on this episode or Kary "Doc" Bowser Charly King and Don Morgan Sherry with with a lot of these stories there are always Circumstances which lay the groundwork that make this a fertile ground for these horrific crimes. Oh Like she You know, she's not the only baby farm baby trafficking story. We've told on true weird stuff We told the Georgia state the Georgia tan Story the social worker in America that was involved in an enormous baby trafficking operation These people these are predatory entrepreneurs who sees a moment in time to meet an unmet need and The fact that they're meeting it with violence and depravity It's they're still meeting what they perceive as an unmet need. So Amelia Dyer Whatever else you want to say about Amelia Dyer. She was a predator and a killer. She took pleasure in The in killing these children. She got off on it, right?

So she probably would have found a category of victims if the baby farming Situation hadn't fallen into her lap. I think she would have ultimately fulfilled her destiny One way or the other but she was sort of uniquely positioned in exactly the right time in place To have a nearly unlimited supply of victims and the odds of getting caught So low in fact, she got caught because she got sloppy Mm-hmm. Yeah Exactly what happened and they really do think that authorities really do believe that there were hundreds of victims of Amelia Dyer and They were only able to find seven bodies and they got a murder conviction for just one hell in a fry Right, and we and like I said in the episode we see this a lot in modern trials You'll have someone who's killed nine people, right?

But prosecution has enough juice to convict them for one right and and and they they go to prison for the rest of their Lives no chance of parole or their executor or whatever and and you say to yourself But what about the other families of those other victims? Well, they have to accept the same Difficult bargain that Amelia's other victims family members had to accept which is we can't hang her twice And if we can get her off the street and get justice, you'll have to accept that But I think it must be frustrating and I hope to never know myself what it feels like To see someone who has taken the life of your loved one Convicted but not for that crime and and that you have to somehow That has to be enough. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like yeah, imagine how difficult that would be. Well, you know The story that you told in particular about Doris and her mother and her mother's Situation. I think that really spells out what a lot of these situations were like and I like that you took that and you said Okay, here's the you know, the kind of example with this You have to wonder what the mother felt like after she realized what had occurred with her daughter Doris Could you ever reach a point where you could forgive yourself for something I mean it would be so Horrifying to think about that If we if we start at the beginning of this story There there are some there's some dynamics in this story that are have not changed much since the 1890s and One of them is whose fault was the existence of these children. Mm-hmm Whose responsibility was the existence of these children? They actually in the poor law. They actually codified into law that Men's sperm could just be sprayed freely in all directions and there'd be no accountability For the men who fathered these children that hasn't changed much Honestly, and I know it pisses some people off for me to say that like oh, it's not all men Well, fuck. Oh, I didn't say it was all men. I'm just saying if this is a simple this was codified into law in Great Britain at this time and They placed so many restrictions on aid that they What were these women supposed to do max? Let me ask. Let me start there. Let me ask you that What were these women supposed to do?

I mean, they're not but they're gonna be separated from their spouses or children if they go into a workhouse They they are not eligible for any aid of any kind in any direction and the father of that baby is not accountable or on the hook for any support or Acknowledgement, what were they supposed to do? Which is why I was glad you told that particular story about Doris's mother because you realize the desperation of the situation you're backed into an absolute corner and there is nothing that there's nothing else to do and when you see a little opening and You see a little light and you go. Oh, here's a situation where I can take this child here and it costs a certain much But you know, you probably run this through your mind all kinds of ways. What is going to be best for the child and of course You know, she took advantage of this situation with Amelia took advantage of these situation with all of these people and I mean so Can we talk about her the setup the family all of that stuff because yeah That's kind of an interesting part of this because it's obvious that Amelia is a sociopath a psychopath She had plenty of help. She did have plenty of help So there's the woman who was playing the part of her mother who testified to Jane Smith Sting Smith was that it? Anyhow, Jane? Yeah Testified against her at trial, but certainly there was deception going on with that All right Let's let's not act like all these people that were living in that house didn't know something at least a little Something about what was going on at that time So to your point max, um, there's no shortage of terrible people in this story and Amelia Dyer had Plentiful help and support in what she did. So I think that I think that this is a story about desperate people in desperate circumstances Doing what they feel they have to to survive. I think that's true of Evelina Doris's mother who searched high and low for the right placement for her baby girl and You know the ad that she responded to was false. It was a fake name. It was all a lie It was a predator honey trap, right placed by Amelia Dyer The mothers were desperate Amelia was a killer But also had to provide for herself when she became widowed. She was orphaned first and then widowed so she was desperate Her the children she raised in her home Were desperate for their own safety, right and their own continued sustenance Jane Smith was desperate Everywhere you look in this story is desperation The desperation of poverty and the desperation of no options Now that doesn't I'm not in any way justifying what Amelia or her Accomplices did but you can really see the backdrop of this is desperation and a lot of a lot of crimes against children Derived from that kind of Poverty I'm not talking about, you know, like people abducting children I'm talking about neglect and abandonment poor nutrition Failure to access medical care. A lot of that stuff is driven by poverty so Amelia raised her Her children she had children by two separate husbands. She raised those children in this environment and You know what it's like for kids with a toxic or abusive parent that's a whole separate Set of factors and dynamics all by itself, right? Right. The son-in-law was clearly and these were not good people Marianne may not have strangled a baby herself, but these were not good people. She and her husband Arthur were

Running a baby farming operation and he went to he did hard labor for it, right? These aren't good people Jane Smith She met Jane was in a workhouse a poor house when Amelia found her Jane was ready to do whatever For a roof over her head and enough food on In her tummy so you can see desperate desperate desperate But unlike Amelia Dyer these people knew right from wrong Amelia may have known right from wrong and didn't care. Mm-hmm Because she was a Predator and children were her chosen victims So do you think what the police did is like many times that they do in court cases now?

They made a little deal with the devil. They said we need to get Amelia and in order to get Amelia Let's not charge these other people who can testify and get her against her. So we make sure she's put away I wonder if that's not what happened here because I can hardly believe that these people had no idea What was going on? Well, I mean Marianne Palmer's own testimony, which is what helped convict her mother Made it crystal clear Marianne knew She knew without knowing that her mother had killed baby Harry and stuffed him under the couch She she could see it. She knew it the behave everything was right there. She didn't witness the actual crime You know, she couldn't say from a position of eyewitness certainty what had happened But she knew in the same way you would know if this was your mother But this token she didn't do anything to stop her, you know, she didn't go to the authorities She didn't try to physically stop her or anything like that No, she didn't and I I think you're right. Although it's not I mean, you know, I Couldn't I couldn't lay my hands on procedural constable notes, but I think you're right. I think I think the determination was to Get Amelia Dyer off the streets at any at any cost and So, you know for the cops and the public it wasn't a bad trade-off George Palmer did do time Mm-hmm, and nobody thought I mean Jane was barely considered a human being at that time an old poor woman Yeah, we've been up to no good. Like she was barely human to the people of the day and the real Attention was on Amelia and it was interesting how they stopped fishing bodies out of the river after Amelia was hanged Because there was no question There was no question of what she was doing now She wasn't the only baby farmer who was killing babies the industry these children Boy, the infant mortality rate was high Well, that was something else and we just talked about this in a recent episode Because if you go into if you go into old cemeteries like we do You see that there's a lot of family plots and it's not unusual for them to have at least two children who died somewhere around Childbirth if not in the first year, so I guess it wasn't unusual that babies died But that doctor along the way he knew something was fishy there. He knew something was up If you think about the episode we did called the Angel Makers of nagri even the Hungarian village, right How strange it was when the law finally realized that they had a serial killer in their midst a midwife another woman posing as someone who cared about Mothers and their babies, right?

It wasn't until the law finally turned its attention to that town nagri That they noticed something very strange At a period in history in deeply Catholic country. There's no contraception. It doesn't exist. I've got the rhythm method That's it and some condoms made out of like a pig bladder. Okay, no birth control Deeply Catholic country all these one-child families. That's weird. And then it turned out that Those families that only have one child There was a lot of babies a lot of a lot of babies dying shortly after being born a lot of stifling Lot of hands cupped over tiny noses and mouths Because they couldn't risk losing their land holdings to multiple heirs. That's what drove that in nagri So there's nothing unusual or Really all that shocking About a pocket of high child mortality that turns out to be foul play Because throughout human history, that's what people have done When they have no other way to manage How many mouths they have to feed and it's a pattern in history that we see over and over again and as we head into the winter of 2026 in the USA and Talk of the banning of contraception. It's a pattern. We'll see again We just will um, one of the things that I thought was interesting and I thought about John Wayne Gacy He was the the man who killed all the young men up in Chicago years ago and then was sentenced to death He was put to death but the police were in the house and when his furnace came on all of a sudden because he had buried all these young Across face of his home. They could smell that smell and I thought it was interesting. I Could have thought about that as these men arrived at the house. They smelled that smell There's one thing that law enforcement knows they know that smell They know that smell and you think that was invented with like, I don't know Hill Street Blues. Uh-huh. No, uh-uh It's an ancient human skill and the police They knew they clocked it immediately And they looked at each other because they knew and here's the thing they didn't wonder Oh What kind of bodies are in this house?

Because Amelia was not the first baby farmer with a mysteriously high rate of infant mortality It was like max kind of like okay, let me think of it of an illegal activity today that we all sort of know Okay. All right If you live in a state where cannabis isn't legal You probably know people that that smoke or consume marijuana products, right and they buy them from somebody, right?

They are that is illegal. They are committing illegal. They're doing an illegal activity And you know what? They know we all know it It doesn't become news until they're busted with 118 pounds and hefty bags in their rec room, right? That's right. Okay So now now that is and marijuana is a you know, not even anywhere close to the baby farm situation But it was the closest thing I could think of right off the top of my head I mean a legal activity that we're all participating in and watching our friends and family participate in and Like I would no more report my nephew for smoking weed than I would set my own head on fire, right?

during big Amelia Dyer's day Everybody knew Everybody knew about the baby farms the ads were looking for babies Looking to buy babies were all over the legitimate and press People it was it was a fact of life the way like a home daycare is a fact of life now You got a house down the street. The lady has daycare kids in her in her home, right?

fact of life and it You didn't pay attention to it until they fished a baby out of the river. Do you see how that was? so when those cops smelled that They knew right away what was going on in Amelia's house. They they knew she was a baby farmer They knew that there were children Checking in but not checking out like the Hotel, California The neighbors had things to say but until they smelled the smell they were able to look the other way Until there was proof of a crime. There was no crime. Mm-hmm And that's how that went down and this Amelia Dyer was operating in the same part of the world at roughly The same time as Jack the Ripper, right? Those folks had a lot on their hands and on their plates they did poor desperate Overcrowded Insufficiently policed. Oh my god. It was the perfect was a breeding ground for a serial killer, right?

was and so so when Amelia gets caught and She's on trial On the one hand so she was very good at being able to Project an image and the image was kindly Compassionate loves children and everybody seemed to buy it. I Says God Almighty can judge me and blah blah blah blah blah. She's not saying it because she's worried about God she's saying it because she knows that's what you believe and You that she wants you to believe that about her. Do you see what I mean?

It was like is there anything else? She's well, I've got the five notebooks. They're like I've really come clean here, you know And the whole idea that she doesn't want her daughter to be involved with this either I Don't buy that At all at all. No, I I don't think I think there were only a couple of things that Amelia said And they and every all of the dialogue that Amelia had in this episode is all historically her words Okay, I think the only thing she really said that was true was about the white tape how it never lasted long Enough, you know like the strangling just was over so quickly. I Think that I think everything else was some some BS self-justification and self-pity You know and think about that It does seem and you reference this before that she not only was she doing this She really was enjoying doing this. This wasn't just about I'm getting some money and I'm gonna pawn some stuff And that's how I'm getting by She really seemed to delight in what she was doing. That is the really creepy part about this I think that's the hard thing for us as humans to reckon with There there are crimes of passion And and of extreme violence that are bewildering to us, right but the most bewildering of all is the Sadistic killer who derives pleasure from their victims suffering and that's Amelia You know like I um, I think that Chris Watts the Colorado man who murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters and stuffed his baby daughters into a an oil tank I think he is Subhuman I I can't understand that man at all But I think that his motives were just so coldly selfish I don't think he got pleasure from the crime in the way that Amelia did Mm-hmm, because if I think for Amelia, it was it was a crime that the pleasure was from the control And and and exercising the of the most helpless Among us, you know an infant and being able to exercise life-and-death control I think she got so much pleasure out of that in a way that Other killers who are every bit as awful and guilty That's not their motive and I I think we have a hard time as humans with that one You know, there's the spree killer. There's the lone gunman from a tower killer. There's the the Jeffrey Dahmer sort of perverse torture drug cannibal killer And then there's somebody like Amelia Dyer For whom the pleasure is it's like it's like it's almost sexual You know, there's the build-up and the release and it never lasted quite long enough to suit her. It's crazy I only go sense. I almost get the feeling So she had she had her addictions to the alcohol and the opiates Yeah, I wonder if she became addicted to whatever weird Endorphin rush that she was getting from this and that that's part of it that it was its own little addiction. I Feel like that's a fair guess given the number of victims I Mean in the hun in the hundreds, that's what law enforcement believes in the hundreds. You're It's more to it than just pawning baby clothes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree with you there. They're really because I think about

You know, um, I've got a dog that's had some distress here in the last couple days with its Internal You know and I'm worried sick about this dog and making sure that the dog is Comfortable and getting the dog the medication and making sure all of that stuff happens because I don't want to see this poor Helpless creature who the universe is entrusted to me is taken care of. Do you know what I mean?

I don't have children So this is as close as I can get and I think about how much effort that I put into that and I think about How she was so cavalier with these human lives It's just it's mind-boggling I You know One of the scenes in this Episode like you've really had a hard time with Evelina and baby doors. Yeah, that's the part of this that really that's the one That's gonna haunt you But let me remind you that baby Harry was 13 months old and he was brought to him a year by his mother and father and they were Desperately poor and they need it. They need it help with childcare so that they could put food on the table so they they answer this ad and You know, there were hundreds of ads and they just got terribly unlucky that that was the one they answered They could have easily answered another baby farmer ad and the story and history would be very different So you don't you've never had kids so you don't understand what a 13 month old is. Do you know a 13 month old is not the same thing as a 13 day old or 13 week old a 13 month old is well on its way to being a toddler like so for example, my daughter Olivia who you know She walked at 10 months and was talking in complete paragraphs by a year Little fat feet little dimpled cheeks Little little, you know babies that age have like a little belly like a little beer belly kind of situation and they walk like Frankenstein, okay Harry had he had the chubbiest cheeks He had sparkling eyes He was curious and bright at 13 months old. Harry wasn't an infant. Harry was a child And when his parents gave him to Amelia, he lost it Crying screaming reaching for them. I need you to understand what their hearts what they were feeling as they backed out of that house Leaving their child because they didn't think they had any other option and as soon as the door is closed What does Amelia say if this keeps up? I'm not gonna be able to stick it out Mm-hmm those people Harry's parents may not have even made it back to their own lodgings Before their son was murdered You know This was a long time ago But at the same time it's not that long ago and it's it doesn't change the horrific nature of it The fact that it was a long time ago We knew that we certainly knew that this was really wrong back then It was a long time ago and and yet not and I would argue Like if I got invited to one of those parties where you have to show up with a PowerPoint I would make the case that Amelia Dyer was more of a fiend than Jack the Ripper By far, oh, yeah By a country mile, but the other thing that I want to say cuz y'all y'all you know that like I'm also a social worker and I'm extremely interested in policies that impact children women and children both today and in the past and it's something that It's just a passion mm-hmm and So when when I look at a story like Amelia Dyer, I'm seeing something that happened a long time ago but I'm seeing all the infrastructure and seeds for things that are happening today and for a return of some of these atrocities because that the underlying circumstances that make an Amelia Dyer possible are all of the things we talked about in the beginning about the poor law and their

punitive Restrictions on aid and the Punitive treatment of the mother as though she'd somehow impregnated herself with a magical wish, you know so when we when we have that when we have that kind of Legal and social infrastructure. We we have fertile ground for atrocity because human beings When pushed to their very limits and backed into the tightest corners human beings have a way of reacting that is shocking sometimes and then I say During that time. There were a lot of women who were getting impregnated who?

Were not consenting to the act, but they had but because they had no recourse There was nothing else they could do. So I mean it was it was the worst of situations To be to truly be an advocate for children To be pro-life is to recognize that children are born to mothers and fathers And that in order to provide and protect for children, we have to really think about providing and protecting Parents and families, don't we? Yeah and and the other thing is it Robust widely available safe contraception is a good thing for children and families Because what are we doing?

When we bring a child into the world that we then turn around and strangle because we can't feed it. Mm-hmm Well and this idea that we're making little angels for Jesus Which is how a lot of these baby farmers justified like can I tell you Philadelphia was a seething hotbed of this bullshit? They had there was so much corruption in the insurance and funeral industries in Philly along with these baby farming outlets This was Amelia Dyer's story. So I tried not to let myself get too sidetracked by that But I wanted to point out that that we have no business feeling superior because this was happening here, too at the same time So this was John List's resolution for killing his family was the fact that he was sending him all to heaven and yeah You know, well, what a great guy he was to make sure that they were all gonna get to heaven It was the only way that was gonna happen I I am such a believer in that people in people people's right and autonomy to live and Believe and worship and all of that as they see fit and that is not my business But at the same time, you know got let me get my social worker hat on top of my tinfoil hat and tell you That if you genuinely care about children families and the good of society You make it possible for children to be born into safe homes where they're properly fed nurtured and cared for loved and held and and given opportunities for Self-actualization and all of that stuff and that doesn't happen that doesn't happen when we use the law as a cudgel as a hammer on on Vulnerable Populations like infants born into poverty and yeah, I mean we just go on forever and just I Don't I can't and this is the kind of conversation?

I don't even understand why this pisses you off Like I don't understand why this is something that would piss you off but based on my email. This is really pissing I was just glad that you got to mention. Dr. Harold Shipman Was one of my favorite serial killer, I know it's dark and weird He but he was one of my favorite serial killers I'm England. Yeah, we may get to him. It was it's interesting. You know the way he and Amelia bookend the UK's Violent Crime Hall of Fame. Yeah, Amelia with the new the babies and Shipman, dr. Death with the elderly, but it shows you again that Predators are opportunistic, right? Like I want you to think about let's go now to the tundra and Let's pretend we're coyotes or wolves and we're following a herd of elk Which one do we target?

Do we target the big strong bull no Do we target the yearlings peak physical condition? No What are we going for we're going for the young We're going for the old and we're going for the sick and disabled because they're they're at the back of the pack, right? They're easy to pick off Predators are always always Opportunistic because why work any harder than you have to for a meal, right?

Makes sense. Yeah Human predators are no different Human predators are opportunistic. That's why they prey on people on the margins. That's why they prey on children and the elderly Because why would you work any harder than you have to do for a meal mind? Why did why did that guy up in the Long Island killer? Why was John? Yeah Yeah, why was he working on says you Rex you remember why why was he picking on sex workers?

The easy-to-pick-off people that were there were gone, I don't know they were they were missing for months at a time anyhow They were on drugs. They were yeah, there you go. Um Recent true weird stuff episode the only house of horrors, which the Philadelphia police are still unraveling Who were the who were the missing women in that case?

They were all drug addicts vulnerable women who that were taken with addiction with that. Yeah, and that's a section. Yeah Yeah, Jeffrey Dahmer's victims were they the president of the Rotary Club no, no human predators are every bit as opportunistic as any wolf or coyote or bear or any other predator in the wild and Amelia Dyer was an opportunistic predator and in some ways. Oh my god. It was almost like an embarrassing amount of Success for Amelia. Mm-hmm, because if there was one thing that was in vast unmonitored supply in that part of the world at that time It was babies and those babies were not born in hospitals. They were not documented or registered. These were home births Like a lot of y'all who go do your genealogy you go back far enough and you can't find birth certificates sometimes Yeah, because great-great-grandma was born in a cottage in Cork Ireland and there's no there's no legal documentation a lot of the babies that fell into these baby farms were undocumented little individuals Who came into the world?

Took a breath and it was extinguished and they were gone before they even had a chance to register that they were here Opportunistic predators and You know, it's just human nature That where there's an unmet need somebody will show up to meet it and you better hope you better hope that it's a good person with good motive showing up to meet it because It could just as easily be an opportunistic predator So I want to thank Charly King for taking on the role of Amelia Dyer. She's so talented We're so lucky to have her. Mmm And she really is British it's not just her doing an accent she's really from England It's so funny Everybody that does voices for us and and people that would like to they all say the same thing They're like I would like to do this, but I want to play somebody really really really bad And We try to we try to periodically interrupt the murder and mayhem here at true weird stuff with something wholesome Like an amusement park ride, right?

Although thanks to Six Flags in Georgia They're not as wholesome as you think and I do believe we're gonna have a deadly amusement park episode and you're not too distant future because the truth about So just as a fun fact as we leave this episode, you know, there's really no Regulation on amusement parks. Did you know that? I didn't know that. No, they're kind of self-regulated they're self-regulated because Six Flags, Georgia is about to discover a Mistake can be very very very very costly Not only did a man lose his life on the Goliath roller coaster But all the people that Witnessed it the teenage employees running the ride. There's trauma in every direction and I there I read an article about the amusement park industry and one lawyer who does a lot of litigation in that space said You couldn't pay me to get on those rides. I would never I Would never and that gave me something to think about I guess I do love a roller coaster I guess Sherry the idea of riding on a roller coaster on top of the stratosphere in Las Vegas when I got up there I went I don't think this looks like a good idea. So I guess I'm not so stupid after I have to tell you your family doesn't you are the smart one in your family. It's just it was never recognized So yeah And I know this is like stories like this are hard to hear they're hard to tell I love babies and children But you know what?

the reason we have to tell Amelia's story we have to dust this off and bring it back into the moment is because the factors that enabled this can enable this again and And we're supposed to want to learn from our mistakes so that we don't keep making them and the other thing is There is another Amelia Dyer out there right now Working some kind of something and it might not just be with babies But it's some kind of something right now because there's another horrific person out there So I think dusting this off also keeps us awake to what's around us right now Just always have to know that That you have to remember that there are among us and I don't know what percentage of the population it is I I think it's probably I hope it's very low But there are wolves amongst us There are wolves who are scanning the environment Looking for an easy meal and you just don't want to find yourself on their plate Um, so for next for our next episode of true weird stuff, um Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber He's getting a little bit of a historic glow up these days on social media as People a new generation of people are reading the Unabomber's manifesto and going. Um, excuse me I'm not sure Ted Kaczynski was wrong about technology and The Internet and all sorts of things. So Kaczynski was a hermit, but why?

Was it the result of some MK ultra CIA? Experimentation that he participated on while a student at Harvard We've got the deets on that next week. We've got we've got From the mouth of the people that were there on that next week But it's possible that the Unabomber has more in common with the most famous hermit that all of us learned about in school And that'd be Henry David Thoreau over there on Walden Pond We're gonna take a look at the hermit on the next true weird stuff And if you listen to us on Apple podcast hit the plus button in the top right corner And now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered and we really appreciate it If you subscribe rate and review true weird stuff hit our website True weird stuff calm for show notes and photos and videos when we have it and bonus content Everything true weird is waiting for you at true weird stuff calm and follow true weird stuff on Instagram True weird stuff is a Now! Media production Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia The show is written and hosted by me Sheri Lynch along with my deeply weird director max Our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr original graphics by Kevin Nash original artworks by Olivia Axland true weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and copyright 2026 Now! Media all rights reserved all wrongs remembered You