Deep Dive
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This is exactly right. Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand in
In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s
while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.
You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.
Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.
Lady to Lady here to tell you we are celebrating our 600th episode. We commemorate every 100th show with the iconic actor and our dear friend, French Stewart. French, French, French, French, French, French, French, French. I'm French Stewart. And this time we took him to Las Vegas, baby. Tune in to hear about all the antics and make sure to check out more episodes. We've got literally 600 to choose from.
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I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪
Hello, Kate. How are you? Hey, Paul. How are you? I'm doing really good. Okay. I need you to look to the right and please give our anxious listeners an update on your fish. Not a long update. Well, it can be long, I guess, if you want. They love your fish. And you told me something was going on in the little ecosystem that you've built, right? Oh, yeah. You know, over the past, I don't know, at this point, you know, maybe four months, I
I ended up having some sort of disease get into my tank. Oh, no. Lost a fair number of fish, which was devastating. But it's stabilized. I medicated it. I've got a few newer fish in there. I've got a...
A blue hippo tang, which is for, if you don't know, that's Dory from The Finding Nemo. And just a beautiful fish. And then I've got a fox face, another beautiful fish.
And I'm going to slowly start restocking it. I have to be much more diligent to make sure I don't get another devastating disease into the tank. What happens? How does that even happen if it's a closed system, right? Well, it's a closed system until I add something new, you know, and this is where, you know, I'm going to have, you know, for those people out there that are true hobbyists, I'm probably going to get slapped a little bit, you know, technically, you know,
when you get a new fish, you should quarantine that fish to make sure it doesn't have a disease before you add it into the tank. And I got kind of lazy and I added a new fish in and it, I'm pretty sure, brought a disease into the tank. And so...
Lesson learned. Yeah. But no, right now, the fish that are in there, you know, they still have my yellow Watchman Gobi pistol shrimp pair. I've got a firefish. I've got a Diamond Gobi that goes around sifting the sand. He's my bone collector. He grabs all the shells and puts them around his house. Yeah.
You know, I've got a six-line wrasse, which I love, you know, and of course the fox face and the dory fish. So they're doing good. Did your serial killer clownfish survive or no? No, no. And this may sound bad.
But in many ways, now that he's not in the tank, and I probably should say she because I'm pretty sure serial killer clown was a female. Because, you know, the clownfish are all born male. And then the ones that become dominant turn female. Of course. And yes, of course.
But the fact that that clownfish isn't in my tank, it's now back to being a peaceful tank. The lobster is doing well. Happy, out and about? No, these reef lobsters are very shy, but is much more willing to come out when food is put into the tank. You know, and I've got this fire shrimp that will come out as well and
dance around a bit, and I still have an emerald crab that, you know, maybe once a month I see. Oh, God, this tank is huge. Well, I'm sorry about the... I mean, the loss of any animal is really sad, but it is interesting how things have dramatically changed when you remove your aggressors from the tank. So I guess that's a lesson learned, or would you ever get any clownfish again? I, you know...
I would be hesitant just because of the experience with that one clownfish. You know, you want to be very diligent about what fish you put in to make sure they're compatible with the other fish as well as with the invertebrates, as well as with the coral. You know, so I'm going to be taking my time and making sure that I do things, you know, the right way.
Well, best of luck to you. I can't wait for updates on the fish as our listeners feel the same way I do. They love the updates. This moves us into a story that I think is fascinating because we get to the crime and we get to
to the killer pretty quickly. It's the unraveling of the motive that I think is really interesting. So another, we're talking about the serial killer clownfish, and, you know, we're looking for the origin of where all of that...
instinct comes from. And that's the mystery we have here is what ends up happening with this person. So I'm going to take you back, Paul. Get ready. We're going back to 1890 and we're going to Akron, New York. So get ready. I'm going to set the scene. Okay. Okay. Halloween night.
Which seems very spooky and ominous. It's really not. In 1890, it doesn't really, it's not really observed in western New York at this time. So when I say Halloween night, really it's October 31st. So no trick-or-treaters out and about. No.
No, no trick-or-treaters out and about. Christmas is just kind of catching on during this time period also. So, yeah, no trick-or-treaters. It does happen to just be October 31st. Okay. And this is in a small town, Akron, New York. Two little girls...
go missing. This is a good caveat. It's always upsetting to talk about the deaths of children. There doesn't appear to be any sexual assault happen here, but still, you know, I just want to warn people if this is an episode you need to zoom through or skip over. Let's get into this story. The two little girls who are missing are named Nellie Mae Connors, she is 10, and Delilah Brown, who is 6.
And, you know, Akron, as I had mentioned before, is a small town. It's east of Buffalo. In 1890, Buffalo is a bustling metropolis, and it's close to the Erie Canal, but Akron is a tiny little place and very small. These are hometown girls. They're friends. In the wee hours of the morning, people are searching now. They have been concerned all night because they were missing, and now they've been searching, and they go down to a creek.
And it's called Murder Creek for various reasons, mostly going back to battles involving indigenous people. I think the fear probably was that they got lost, they ran away, and that, you know, they maybe had fallen into the creek or gotten hurt or something. And just to clarify, Nellie and Delilah are together when they go missing. Correct.
10-year-old and a 6-year-old, yep, in this small town. So they're searching all over the place. The parents are very upset, of course, and they make a discovery. I just want to get to this quickly. They find Nellie's body below the New York Central Railroad trestle, which is a bridge for freight trains. The trestle is about 50 feet above where Nellie is found.
And according to the newspapers, her body is cruelly bruised and her brains have been dashed out from striking the stone abuntment. And this sounds like a terrible scene and probably a really awful accident. So Nellie is the 10-year-old.
it sounds like could have fallen from this bridge for freight trains and caused this kind of injury. That's what it sounds like right now. Yeah. But, you know, that's where the autopsy can possibly show, you know, is this blunt force trauma from impact from a fall? Or do you have...
blunt force trauma from some other object striking Nellie from different directions that possibly would indicate, you know, that somebody caused these injuries to her. And then hid her body underneath this bridge, right? Yes.
So they're looking for Delilah while they're recovering Nellie's body, and she is alive, which is amazing because she's in the creek. Her arms and her legs are broken. It is cold. She is breathing painfully, and she is gravely injured.
Now, they went missing, you know, Halloween night. This is in the morning. So she has been in the creek water this whole time, but she's alive. And, you know, they start to rescue her, essentially. So arms and legs broken and bruised and all of that sounds like either another fall or an intentional injury to a second little girl. Yeah, you know, and I haven't had...
a homicide case and where all four limbs are broken. You know, this right now sounds like possibly, you know, she's bracing for impact from a fall.
with their arms and legs, and they get broken from the fall. But again, we have to see what the pathologist says. 50 feet, is that... That's a long way, right? 50 feet would be a long way to fall, especially for two little girls, if that's what happened. 50 feet is a very...
significant fall. You think about the room that you're sitting in right now. The ceiling that you look up at is typically eight feet tall, right? Roughly. So imagine five times that height and impacting, if you fall and you impact on concrete,
You know, that is often fatal. Well, we have a pretty good answer about what happened. And so I told you we were not going to take long to get to the suspect, the offender in this case. When they pull her from the creek, Delilah, the six-year-old, says, when they say, what happened? Delilah says, quote, Sarah was smart to throw us from the bridge.
It's cryptic and weird, and we know who Sarah is. I was going to ask, who's Sarah? Yeah, we know who Sarah is. This is what ends up happening. They are both thrown from this bridge that is 50 feet above the surface below. And this bridge is a railroad trestle. Yes. Okay, so with that type of statement, I'm thinking, you know, from a little girl saying it, you know, who knows exactly what her perception and her meaning of that statement is.
But were they out on this railroad trestle and a train is coming? And now I'm assuming Sarah is going to be either same age or maybe an older individual to save them. It's like, get out of the way of the train. You know, maybe it's just and Sarah.
recognizes, oh, no, and she runs home. But interesting statement. It is. So we, of course, need to identify who Sarah is. She actually goes by Sadie, but her name is Sarah McMullen. But everyone calls her Sadie. She is older. You're right. She's 17.
She used to be a housekeeper and a nanny in Delilah's house. Now, we are certain that Sadie did this because there were witnesses that she was with the girls. Of course, Delilah is putting her there. It's the why, I think, because the why is very, very confusing in this case. And we have more details because we do have witnesses that placed her with the girls. So do you want me to talk about Sadie and her relationship in this world?
Or do you want me to talk about the details of what happened with her leading up to this? Like, actually, what happened on October 31st? My process is I always start, you know, with the autopsy, with the crime scene. I'm assuming at this point that the autopsy has shown that the injuries to Nellie and Delilah are from impact from a fall. Okay, so with that, now it's...
Going to what happened at the crime scene. So I now am working with, okay, I've got two girls that have fallen off of this railroad trestle. One is killed upon impact. The other is able to survive. Is there anything to indicate that Sarah went down to where the girls' bodies were at?
I can just tell you now, Sarah is from their world. She is known. They went with her. On the day of October 31st, when this happens, before that, Sadie had been acting strangely. She spent the first part of the day with the Browns, and the Browns were Delilah's father and, you know, other family members,
Delilah's dad was a widower, and he owned a saloon in town. Sadie had originally been hired as help for
when Simon's wife went ill and then she died. And then she stayed on to help with the housework until Simon's sister moved in. And then Sadie had to find another job. She became a servant in a household in Buffalo. She came back to visit the family. The rumor was that she was infatuated with Delilah's dad, who was Sadie's former boss, Simon Brown. So,
Sadie comes back to visit. And on that day, October 31st, the day the girls go missing, people say, when they're interviewed by investigators, that Sadie had been acting very strangely. She had been with the family, with Delilah's family, in the first part of the day. They still had a close relationship. And
And Nellie, the other little girl, and Delilah were such good friends. You know, Nellie was at the house all the time. Nellie was there. Sadie played parlor games with the two girls and then said, let's go on a walk. So acting strangely, not yet, but they say later in the day, things took a weird turn. She first took the girls to the general store to buy butter. But instead of buying the butter, she got into a huge argument with the shopkeeper, which he remembered.
And she slams a quarter on the counter before walking out of the store with no butter. Marin, the researcher, said this is akin to leaving a $10 bill on the counter these days and just walking out with nothing. And I'm assuming since she's a servant, she doesn't have a lot of money to begin with.
So things are getting kind of weird already. So in this situation, in my opinion, what we're looking at is kind of premeditation. Is this someone who we are going to see as having some sort of a psychological breakdown resulting in what she does?
Or is this a planned-out murderer because she's in love with one of the girl's fathers and something happens? She thinks that this is justified in some reason. I think that's kind of what we're trying to look at here. Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand.
In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s
while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club.
There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.
Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android. You know, in terms of Sadie, there's multiple avenues that possibly could be occurring. You know, is she taking these girls out on a walk already with the intent of
to kill them and has preplanned this? If so, when did she make that decision? Was that decision made that day or had that decision been made prior to that day? Or was this a spontaneous act? You know, when we start saying that she's acting, Sadie's acting strangely,
Well, that could mean a lot. It's like, well, what exactly is that? Is she showing some form of psychosis where she is having this mental break? Or the strange behavior is she is already thinking about what she's going to do. And so her mental state is kind of distracted, if you will, from normal interactions.
She's agitated, it sounds like, at the general store. You know, and is that just because she's in that ramp-up process behaviorally to where she knows she's going to be committing this double homicide? Those are all good questions. And her background, I think, is also pretty interesting, too. So let's see. I'm jumping – I'm going to jump around a little bit because we have witnesses who say some stuff. Okay.
There's an 11-year-old boy named Daniel Flynn. He says that about 8 o'clock on October 31st, so this is nighttime, right? He saw Sadie walking with the two girls. She was walking between them, holding each of their hands, and she was walking very fast in the direction of the railroad trestle. He says that not long after that,
Sadie returned by herself, walking fast, holding hands. Girls are coming along. They trust her. So again, you and I are trying to figure out, as a judge will pretty soon, what was this woman thinking? Is this some mental illness, mental breakdown, or was this preplanned and now she's executing it? Sure. Yeah. And this is where
Of course, the interview of Sadie is going to be key. She's denying all of it. She said, you're all crazy. I haven't done anything. Okay. And she will continue to deny it throughout all of this. So we don't get anything out of Sadie. Let's get to what Delilah says, which is Delilah says, and just as a reminder, Nellie is the little girl who died. Nellie is 10 and Delilah is six. So this is a six-year-old.
who, thank goodness, recovers. It takes a long time, but she does recover. So we have a 10-year-old who's dead and a 6-year-old who I'm sure has injuries that are never going to go away after this.
She says that Sadie grabbed them and held their hands, just like the little boy said, took them towards the trestle, which spans Murder Creek. It seemed clear to both girls what she was going to try to do because she starts sort of wrestling with them to try to get them off the bridge. She struggled with both of them. They fought back, but she managed to throw both of them into the creek.
Then, of course, Delilah has no clue what happened after that. She's got two broken arms, two broken legs, and Nellie is dead. So what ends up happening is Sadie then goes back to Simon's house, the father, Delilah's father's house, and Delilah's aunt Hannah was there. Sadie had barely walked through the door when she turned around and left again. She then went to a nearby, much lower bridge,
which was right behind the father's saloon, and she jumped into the water from the bridge. Simon and another guy saw her and yanked her out of the water, but she kept screaming to put her back in. Now this sounds like a psychological break to me, but I don't know. This could be an act. It almost sounds like it was an attempt at suicide. Hmm.
but was that staging? You know, she has already thrown the two little girls off the railroad trestle, and now she's jumping into a body of water and trying to prevent people from rescuing her. I mean, that, again, we don't know Sadie's internal thoughts. You know, maybe she truly had such remorse from having what, in her mind, she killed Nellie and Delilah both, and now she's going, I can't live with what I've done anymore.
Or she goes back and the father that she's infatuated with doesn't seem to be giving her the attention she wants. And now she's going out either truly wanting why bother living or she wants attention to herself and is getting that attention by this ruse of attempting suicide. Or she's setting up a mental defense because she knows she will be the prime suspect in
in what happened to Nellie and Delilah. It's very disturbing because, you know,
you know, as soon as she gets pulled out of the water, she is brought in by Simon and laid on the couch, and she's soaking wet. It's 8 o'clock, and this is when Simon, Delilah's dad, say, where are Delilah and Nellie? Where did they go? And they ask Sadie where the girls went since she said, hey, why don't you guys go on a walk with me? And she says, was Delilah with me? And then she touches her head and says she
She wants to know why her hair is wet. And this sends, of course, you can imagine the family's into a panic, and that's when the search really kicks in, and they find the girls the next morning. So is this her not remembering if this really is some sort of a break, or what does that represent? Yeah, that's where now it's really trying to evaluate her psychological state,
And part of that evaluation is going to be taking a look at her behaviors, her actions leading up to this moment in time.
Is she showing proper cognition? You know, is she, like with the homicide, you know, she is purposely leading Nellie and Delilah out to this railroad trestle that is at a substantial height. Yet she herself goes to a much lower bridge to throw herself into the river. Why doesn't she go back to the railroad trestle?
Right? So that's showing, well, she's recognizing possibly that that lower bridge is something that she can jump off of and survive. And that's telling me, that's informing me that, you know, she's thinking this out. If she was truly in a mental break, a psychosis right now, my question is, well, why didn't she just throw herself off of that railroad trestle after she threw herself
Nellie and Delilah, you know, it was this she eliminating these two girls that obviously get Delilah's father's attention. And she's going, I want all that attention. And so I'm going to get rid of these two girls. So now Simon, Delilah's father, all his attention is focused on me.
And if you'll remember where that bridge, the lower bridge is located, it's right behind Simon's saloon. And he's the one that finds her, right? Yep. It is actually sounds to me like she is setting this up for him to rescue her. Hmm.
And then I don't know what happens after that. Her actions are very confusing, and I have more details also. Well, it sounds to me she is trying to get his attention. Well, she got it. So let's talk about a potential kind of change. I don't know if we want to call it a trigger. Hannah Brown, who is Simon Brown's sister, Delilah's aunt, says, yes, Sadie was being strange that day. And
She says that day Sadie had gotten a letter at their house because she had just changed jobs not too long ago. I guess she was still getting mail there at the Browns. Sadie got a letter that she found very, very upsetting. It turns out that a maid from a different household where Sadie had worked in Buffalo was accusing Sadie of stealing jewelry. And Sadie was completely freaked out. What does that connect with the most about
the premeditated murder aspect of this or the mental break aspect of this? I think at this point, I can't say for sure if this letter is causing her to have a mental break, is something where now it changes circumstances in her life where she feels compelled to commit, in her mind, this double homicide of Nellie and Delilah. For me, it's just, it's a stressor. And that's all I can label it as right now.
I'm guessing you're right because it sounds like Sadie wrote to her aunt on the same day that she threw the girls off the bridge. And listen to this letter. It sounds like it lines up with what your first theory was about Simon Brown. Dear Aunt, when you get this, I will be far from the earth. I am sick and tired of living. And as I told you, my last hope is come at last, which means it's gone.
"I am thankful to die. People rebuke me for things that I am not guilty of." I'm assuming the theft of the jewelry. "And as I have no one to love me, I can go in peace. My heart I leave in Akron with the one I always spoke to you of, as he seems not to care for me." Yeah. This is where here we have Sadie, and she really wants Simon's attention.
And whether or not this her jumping off of the bridge behind his saloon
was truly a suicide attempt. I mean, this letter to her aunt sounds like a suicide letter. I would be evaluating, you know, this bridge. Would a person jumping off that bridge expect to die or drown, you know, if the water's deep enough? Or was this truly just a ruse to make it look like she's attempting suicide so she gets Simon's attention? Yeah.
And it's interesting because it sounds to me like it's Simon, but there are other theories about who this love is that she's talking about. She ends the letter to her aunt by saying that she wants to be buried near the one that she loves. And she signs it, you're no more niece.
And so people, of course, are gleaning from this letter that Sadie was in love with Simon Brown. But there are other accounts that say she was seeing a man in Buffalo and was dismayed when he didn't write to her while she was in Akron. And other people say that Simon Brown's unmarried brother was involved in a romance, that she potentially wanted to be involved with this, you know, Simon Brown's unmarried brother, right?
But there's so much muck to get through. Other people say Simon was actually engaged to Nellie's mom, which would have then made them step-siblings, which would have been very sweet.
So, you know, all of this is to say that Sadie says, you're all nuts. I didn't write this letter. This doesn't look like my handwriting. I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't do anything, you know, and doesn't explain why she ended up in the water jumping off of a bridge. She's just denying all of it. I know there's these other potential love interests involved.
But she's killing Nellie and Simon's daughter, Delilah. Yep. There, right there, is that...
relationship focus as far as I'm concerned. And so for me, I believe that Simon is the one she's writing about in that suicide letter. I think that's probably the case, too. I mean, she chooses to do it then. And also, she says to her aunt, bury me next to the one I love in Akron. If this is a Buffalo guy that she's seeing, that doesn't make any sense. Right.
Well, and that kind of struck me, too, because, you know, Simon's still alive. How does she know where Simon's going to be buried? Was she thinking, you know, he doesn't love me, so I'm going to take out the entire family? Was she planning on killing him? Everything about Sadie McMullin is confusing. And then we have some medical experts who are really interesting. And actually, I had been skimming through when you and I were talking. I had been skimming through a journal, which I read...
Entirely too much from the 1800s, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. And when a case pops up in this journal, it's for a reason. It's something that is interesting that happened with that case. And so I think you'll see that coming up because this is sort of, you know, we will get into a world that I had to touch on when I write about the 1800s, but it's still a mystery for me.
So Sadie said, "Forget it. You're not pinning this on me. I'm pleading not guilty," which she did. She's arraigned in January, so this is two months after this happens. And Delilah, who had survived, was ready to go to court. I mean, she, the six-year-old, wanted to see everything that was going to happen. As I said, Sadie pleads not guilty. After this, her lawyer, who is a guy named Edward Hayes, tells the press, "I don't think anybody can entertain doubts as to her insanity."
And I don't believe any jury will be willing in the face of the evidence I will introduce to declare that she plotted and executed this deed in a sane moment. So, of course, he's going for an insanity defense here. Right.
which even in the 1800s was a high bar, probably even higher than it is today. So she really has to demonstrate some things in order for her to be put in a mental health institution, would be the nice way of saying it in the 1800s, rather than going to prison. Sure. And now it's really assessing what I was talking about before. Is she showing steps? Is she taking steps that require...
thought, forethought in order to get Nellie and Delilah out to that railroad trestle? You know, how is she moving through the day to get up to that point?
That's the interesting thing. You know, she's showing some agitation at the general store, but that doesn't mean that she's mentally incompetent. She's not knowing what she's doing. You know, the fact that she's holding Nellie and Delilah's hands, walking towards the railroad trestle, and we have Delilah's statement saying she wrestled
and was able to get both of them tossed off the trestle. You know, there is a functioning cognition that appears to be going on with Sadie. So I'm right now...
leaning towards, you know, I don't think she's, you know, in this psychosis, you know, where she is not knowing what she's doing. She's not knowing right from wrong, which is often, you know, part of the bar that has to be crossed in order to say somebody is insane to stay on trial is they did not know what they were doing was, you know, was wrong. It
She wrote that letter that day to her aunt, right? The suicide letter? Sounds like it. I think it was received a day or two later, though, because I don't believe her aunt was in Akron, so... Okay, but Sadie's denying that she wrote that letter and the handwriting doesn't look like hers. And, of course, I'd be interested in seeing what kind of evaluation was done to try to determine who authored that letter.
Yeah. And let me set the scene for this because the media, I think, does, as always, play a part in here. So the trial begins March 5th, 1891, and the newspapers describe her as pretty and pale, slender, self-possessed, and
and dressed with simple taste, with her luxuriant brown hair flowing loosely over her shoulders. Sounds like a nice country girl, the way they're describing her, which is, you know, that really does play into the sympathy part of this, especially when you're pursuing an insanity defense, right? Well, for sure. You know, and she, as a defendant,
is a sympathetic figure. She doesn't look like the boogeyman, right? You know, so of course, that's going to make it harder for the prosecution to be able to convince a, you know, members of the jury that she is capable of this horrible crime.
So the trial goes on. Delilah does not testify, thank goodness, but she is there and wants to see all of it. Her father, Simon, does testify. And this, again, goes to your suspicion, which I think is right, that this is the man that Sadie was focused on. Bless the newspapers of the 1800s. I love the way they wrote. They say that when Simon took the stand, Sadie's demeanor changed dramatically.
They describe a pallor and a parting of the lips. Did she blow him a kiss? I mean, what? Maren, I like when Maren says stuff like this. She says they just generally went all in on the idea that Sadie is in love with Simon, which I think we both believe that Simon is the man. There's too much connecting him to this case for it to not be Simon is the main focus here. Yeah.
Yeah, and does Simon testify about his interactions with Sadie that day? No, I mean, he describes yanking her out of the water. Yeah. And the fact that she sounded really odd, you know, like, why is my hair wet? Is Delilah actually with me? But he was not talking about her acting oddly throughout the day, just that part, I think, because she was occupying the girls. He, I'm sure, was doing man stuff, 19th century man stuff, right?
You know, he was not around. What? Do you need to know what that is? Probably chopping wood and killing grizzly bears. Yeah.
No, that was just a funny way to put it. But yeah, I know what you mean. He was not hanging out in the parlor watching her play parlor games with him, I think. So the first interaction I'm assuming really he had, because it sounded like her behavior was sort of devolving over the day. Maybe she made some kind of a decision in her mind and then that's what happened. Let me tell you the stakes just real quick and then you can give me any further thoughts you have.
If she is considered sane and she's convicted, she will be the first woman ever to be executed in the electric chair. Oh. Which had been just introduced to New York two months earlier. And let me tell you, things did not go well with the electric chair for the first couple of years. It was not a good situation. So there is a lot riding on this trial for Sadie McMullin.
No, for sure. She most certainly must have been informed, "Hey, you know, you're looking at a death sentence, and this is the way that the state is now executing." So I could see where the stakes are very high. You know, just still, I'm very curious. When Sadie got back into town, you know, I'd be very curious to know what kinds of interactions Simon and Sadie had.
Is there a possible precipitating event where Simon ignored Sadie or scolded her? Something like that, you know, which now she's taking that out on Nellie and Delilah. Yeah.
It could be. I mean, she was a nanny. It could be that he just assumed she was going to hang out with the kids and he didn't need to spend time with her. If the rumor is true that he and Eliza, who was Nellie's mom, were actually involved... Now, Eliza said that's not true. She told the coroner that, but...
If it is true, it doesn't really matter, right? If it was true, it just matters what Sadie thinks. It's within the offender's perception, always is. You know, there's the facts, but how does the offender know? How does the offender feel? What does the offender perceive are the facts? You know, that's the critical thing. Well, hang on tight because we're about to take a pretty big left turn here with this case.
So we need to talk about Sadie because people do talk about her background here, and it's important. So she had a very sad, difficult life before she wound up in Akron. She was born in Chicago. Her parents were described as austere and ill-tempered.
Her father was probably an alcoholic. Her mother died when she was young. Now, this is in your wheelhouse. Purportedly, she died of fright after an encounter with a bear. That's a heart attack, right? That's not funny, Paul. Based on your poor wife's and your dog's experience with a bear. Yeah.
Well, I've had my encounters with bears, too. Oh, gosh. Okay, so how old was mom when she had the encounter with the bear? You know, we don't know. It just said her mother died when she was young. So I would guess the mom's probably pretty young. I mean, you can't even think 40s, I would guess. But Sadie's young. So now, you know, it tells me a little bit about...
upbringing. She doesn't have that maternal figure after a certain young age, whatever age that was. Father sounds like maybe abusive, you know, so this is part of that, you know, the formative aspect. Now, you know, we've seen, I mean, it's like the Netflix show Mindhunter, right? That study of
serial predators, you know, I've got the academic texts, you know, sexual homicide patterns and motives. You know, that's part of what they were looking at was the family dynamics in these offenders' upbringing. And they saw sort of this kind of pattern, you know, the overbearing mother, the abusive father,
But it's like many people have that in their upbringing and don't become killers. Right.
But at the same time, the defense could use that and say, well, look at poor Sadie. You know, because of the way she was brought up, this is why she has this mental issue. I think what the defense is really going to hit on is what happens next. So her father sounds terrible. She pretty much ran the household. And remember, this is all happening present day when she's 17. This is not an older woman. She's a teenager. Her dad worked a lot of jobs around the Midwest and
And when she was 12, they went from Missouri to Akron, New York, mostly on foot. So they spent a lot of nights sleeping outside. And this is sort of the beginning of when Sadie started having seizures. And everybody confirms she had seizures, where she would have spells of, quote, losing time. The defense put a neurologist on the stand, William Krause.
He had examined Sadie a couple of days after the murder. She was in jail, and he says it is epilepsy, which was considered a mental illness in the 1800s. And at the trial, he reads aloud this paper that he had written, which detailed Sadie's childhood and this condition.
He says that in some forms of epilepsy, a person can be in a state of what he calls double consciousness for days at a time. This is a state where he thinks Sadie was when she killed Nellie and tried to kill Delilah. So Krauss says that she was acting automatically without consciousness.
real consciousness of what she was doing. He says it's really common with people with a specific form of epilepsy. And in this state, you know, a person wouldn't have any memories of these kinds of past events. So automatic, you know, this is just something she did in a fog. Have you heard of this before? No. Yeah, this is a new one for me. Yeah.
She enters in this, I guess, mental zone that epileptics can sometimes involuntarily go and then purposely take two young girls by the hand out to a railroad trestle, throw them off, go back to the house, and then go to a bridge and throw that off.
The memory side, I don't know, but it sounds like she is still showing a level of cognitive ability. He said she wrote the letter in an automatic state. That's why she wrote in a different sort of hand, you know? And I will say, Paul, in one of our cases with Oscar Heinrich, where the killer turns out to be someone with
schizophrenia, he wrote a letter in a handwriting that it didn't match the exemplar of the man's handwriting. And he also wrote beautifully in one hand and did block letters in another. And it was all so bizarre. And Heinrich just said he was in a certain state of mind. It's unpredictable. But Krauss is pretty convinced that this is what's going on with her. And then we have the dad take the stand and explains everything.
some really, really sad, weird stuff that happened with her delusions when she was a kid.
Like what kind of delusions? Well, okay, let's start with something unpleasant. The family members testify that she had a history of singing in her sleep, which is not the unpleasant part. There is a family history of what they call hereditary sin and morbid propensities that spring from congenital marriage. They say that Sadie's grandparents were first cousins, and this caused some big genetic issues down the line.
Is that even an argument in any way today? Well, we know when you have close relatives have kids, have offspring, they have a higher, they have higher risk for some genetic conditions, for sure. You know, and I'm sure some of these genetic conditions could potentially result in, you know, different types of behaviors. Well, let me tell you what the dad says. And we're going to couch this by saying this is her dad. He was a crappy dad.
And we don't know what he's trying to do, if he's trying to save her on the stand. I mean, Lord knows how many families have tried to do that. Sure. But if we believe him, he is the one with the very most amount of context to her mental health going back years. So Sadie's dad says that her mom, before she died of fright, had bad spells, which probably just means, you know, some mental health issues, and talks about her having been frightened to death with that encounter with the bear. And Sadie saw that.
the encounter, she eventually will talk about that, that that was one of the times when she felt like, you know, she remembered it, but it was one of the more traumatizing times in her life. He said that her first epileptic seizure had been when she was a small child in Chicago and she had seen some dogs attacking some rats and that was traumatizing. He said over the years, Sadie sometimes threatened to drown herself.
And he said she would show up at home soaking wet, and she was clueless about where she was. He said this was a thing for her. She takes the stand, and she says, of course, I was absolutely traumatized by seeing my mom die of fright, wailing.
when there's a bear there. She also talks about some of the other delusions that she had from childhood. One that was a little disturbing, too, was that she had a delusion that she was growing uncontrollably bigger. She couldn't stop growing. She said, "I have zero memory from what happened on the 31st. The last thing I remember is leaving the store without butter. And then the next thing is I'm on the couch soaking wet in Simon's house." She doesn't remember writing the letter.
And the prosecutor just essentially said, you know, here are the events. Do you remember each one? And she says no to the events that happened on October 31st.
And that is a summary of the trial. You've got the dad saying she has this history and she's saying, I don't remember anything. And then the prosecutor is just kind of confirming she doesn't know anything. So it's an interesting trial, three days long. Yeah. You know, and of course, she's talking about or the defense is putting on her history, right? Trying to show she has this in her past, right?
But you have to show her mental state at the time of the crime, you know? And this is where I go back to my argument based on her actions. Is this somebody who looks like they are moving through the world without any type of conscious thought? Or does this look like somebody who is moving towards committing this homicide, right?
And is demonstrating that type of cognitive thought. That's where I'm really struggling with this idea that she was mentally insane at the time she committed this homicide. I think she's showing the necessary wherewithal in order to be able to get those two girls out to the railroad trestle.
She's probably not tossing them off the trestle at the same time. She has to toss one off and then get the other one off. You know, so she's having to do purposeful acts. Now, whether or not she remembers, it's interesting that she doesn't remember committing these homicides. But then I've got cases in which the offenders who we know committed the homicides, that's what they say in their interview. Mm-hmm.
I remember meeting the woman, but I don't remember killing her. You know, it's this minimizing, right? They may...
kind of give statements showing that, yeah, you'd say that these are admissions to committing the crime, but they just coincidentally can't remember the actual act of committing the crime. And that's where, okay, you know, in most of those instances, I think they're lying. With Sadie, I think she's possibly lying, you know, but I'm a little bit unsure. But I, right now, I think, no, you know what?
She hasn't reached the bar, from my perspective, where she's mentally incompetent to stand trial. Well, she reached the bar for the jury in her case. Yeah.
Three-day trial. They find her not guilty due to insanity. She is committed to the Buffalo State Hospital, and she is there for three years under the care of Dr. Krause, who wrote this wonderful, really in-depth piece, who said, "She is not responsible. She has epilepsy. She has seizures. She doesn't remember things. I can tell you that. I've examined her. I'm treating her."
She's discharged after three years. We don't know really what happens to her after that. There are some newspaper reports that say, listen to this, that say she got married right after being discharged. Okay.
Okay. Dr. Krause, the man who went to bat for her, you know, who treated her for three years, when he found out that she got married right after she was discharged, he said, I don't think this is a very good idea. I don't think that was a good idea at all for her to do that. Gosh.
Is she going to go back into this unconscious zone and kill somebody else? Right. And, you know, when it's all said and done, you're looking at a little girl who I'm sure has extensive injuries, broken arms and broken legs, and how those would have been treated in 1890. I'm sure she would have had problems walking or doing multiple things, you know, or doing anything over her lifetime. And then Nellie, who was dead. Yeah. Just so much. What happens with...
the mind and what we believe and what we learned over, you know, the decades and the centuries about the way the mind works. It's still so mysterious. And it is like a case by case basis. You know, if you read articles about Aaron Hernandez and why he committed his crimes and does it have to do with football and with the multiple injuries? And there's just so much out there that I'm sure it's confusing to juries. But I'm sure that this jury looked at this pretty young petite girl and
with a history of seizures, whether her dad is telling the truth or not, and the man in the three-piece suit, who is a neurologist, saying this isn't her fault.
and said she shouldn't be executed because that was really their only other choice. There was probably no in-between. Well, and I think it's, I mean, she's 17, you know, so during this era, it sounds like they didn't differentiate her as a juvenile versus adult for trial purposes. No. So she was tried as an adult.
I also think, I mean, she's a teenager and we know the teenage brains are still forming, right? You know, and some of the actions, you know, my suspicion is that she was heartbroken,
because she's recognizing that she probably would never be able to have her love Simon. She wants his attention. Maybe she has angst against Nellie and Delilah, you know, or in her mind, you know, she wants to eliminate the girls that are competing for Simon's attention. You know, I kind of go towards that. You know, this is, I'm looking at this more from a traditional perspective.
What would Sadie's motive be to commit, you know, to kill Nellie and Delilah? The mental competency side, again, the mind is fascinating. The brain is fascinating. And I'm sure there's going to be so many psychiatrists and psychologists that have studied this subject.
epileptic state over the last, you know, what is it now, a century, 130 years since this case happened, you know, and maybe there is a pattern there that I've never heard of, you know, and I most certainly in my case work, I've never run across a case in which this was something that was being offered as a defense. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I know that her neurologist thought getting married was not a great idea. So, you know, I wish we knew what happened a little bit more. I certainly wish we knew a little bit more about what happened with the Brown family and with Nellie's family because it's such a sad ending story.
But I am always interested in messy cases, and this was a messy case. We've had cases where we have killers that are just bastards and it's straightforward, and we're just kind of looking at motive and criminal profiling and we know what's happening. This is a little bit different, you know, and the law and how we prosecute people and, you know, put people in prison, how long, where they go, how they get treated has so much nuance, and I think it's important to talk about all of that.
So thank you for going on the journey to 1890, dipping into the 1800s just so briefly, and then we'll pop back out another time. No, really appreciate it. As always, you did a great job talking about the case and telling the story. So I'm looking forward to the next one. I'll see you next week. Sounds good.
This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbonessources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashan, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.
Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladay. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel. Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Daniel Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at BuriedBonesPod.
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.