0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: a laboratory at Guy's Hospital, London. 0:07 [SPEAKER_00]: December 18, 55. 0:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Alfred Swain Taylor stood before a workbench, covered with glass jars. 0:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Beakers lined the shelves, the smell of chemicals, sulfuric acid, copper sulfate, the sharp tang of reagents hung in the air. 0:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The greatest toxicologist in England had received specimens from a country town called Rougley, 0:41 [SPEAKER_00]: The local physician who signed the death certificate was now a murder suspect. 0:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Taylor examined the contents methodically, the stomach, the intestines, the blood, he applied every test in his considerable arsenal, test he had pioneered himself, tests that had convicted murderers and freed the innocent. 1:12 [SPEAKER_00]: But of strict name, Poison that matched cooks symptoms perfectly. 1:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The poison that would have caused those terrible convulsions, he found nothing. 1:24 [SPEAKER_00]: The greatest forensic scientist in England faced an impossible question. 1:29 [SPEAKER_00]: How do you prove a man was poisoned when you cannot find the poison? 1:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello friend, welcome to foul play. 1:41 [SPEAKER_00]: In the last episode we watched William Palmer, methodically poisoned his friend over six days. 1:48 [SPEAKER_00]: We saw him travel to London, collect cooks or racing winnings, forged checks and cooks 1:58 [SPEAKER_00]: We saw John Parsons cook die in convulsions, screaming murder while Palmer stood, watching at the bedside. 2:07 [SPEAKER_00]: We saw Palmer search the dead man's pockets, before the body was cold. 2:13 [SPEAKER_00]: But Palmer had assumed no one would question a physician's diagnosis. 2:18 [SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't know that cook's stepfather was already demanding answers. 2:23 [SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't know that the coming weeks would bring an investigation that would change British law forever. 2:34 [SPEAKER_01]: William's Steven had arrived in Rougeley a grieving stepfather. 2:38 [SPEAKER_01]: He left having set a machinery of justice in motion that Palmer could not stop. 2:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Steven's demanded to know what had happened to Cook's racing winnings. 2:47 [SPEAKER_01]: He demanded to see the betting books. 2:49 [SPEAKER_01]: He demanded an explanation for why a 28-year-old man with no history of heart trouble, a died of a pop-lexi, in the middle of the night. 2:58 [SPEAKER_01]: The local authorities listened, an inquest was ordered, and the specimens from Cook's bodies were sent to London. 3:06 [SPEAKER_01]: To the laboratory of the most famous toxicologist in England. 3:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Alfred Swain Taylor had built his reputation on precision. 3:15 [SPEAKER_01]: He had pioneered the March test for detecting arsenic, a breakthrough that had revolutionized the investigation of poisoning cases, 3:23 [SPEAKER_01]: His textbook on medical jury's prudence was the standard reference for every physician and lawyer in England. 3:29 [SPEAKER_01]: When Taylor testified, jury's believed him. 3:33 [SPEAKER_01]: The specimens arrived at Guy's Hospital in early December. 3:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Jars containing Cook's stomach, his intestines, samples of his blood. 3:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor examined them systematically applying every test Victorian science could offer. 3:48 [SPEAKER_01]: He tested for strict need using the standard methods of the era. 3:52 [SPEAKER_01]: He applied chemical reagents. 3:55 [SPEAKER_01]: He observed reactions. 3:56 [SPEAKER_01]: He documented everything with the meticulous care that had made his reputation. 4:01 [SPEAKER_01]: He found nothing. 4:03 [SPEAKER_01]: No strict need, nor to trace. 4:06 [SPEAKER_01]: He did find antimony, a different poison entirely, evidence perhaps that Palmer had administered multiple substances over time, perhaps to weaken cook before the final dose, perhaps to confuse any later analysis. 4:22 [SPEAKER_01]: But of the poison that matched cook symptoms, the strickening that would have caused those terrible convulsions, that characteristic arching of the spine, there was no chemical 4:33 [SPEAKER_01]: This matters because strictening metabolizes rapidly in the body, unlike arsenic which accumulates in hair and fingernails, strictening attacks the nervous system and disperses quickly, a carefully calibrated lethal dose, administered by someone who understood pharmacology, might leave minimal residue, palm hurtrained at some 5:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So Taylor approached the question from a different direction. 5:05 [SPEAKER_01]: If chemistry failed, what did the symptoms reveal? 5:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Cuts convulsions have been titanic, every muscle seizing at once. 5:14 [SPEAKER_01]: His spine had arch backwards in the characteristic curve, called opostotonous. 5:20 [SPEAKER_01]: His consciousness had remained intact until the final moments. 5:24 [SPEAKER_01]: His death had come from respiratory paralysis as his chest muscles froze. 5:29 [SPEAKER_01]: No other poison produced this exact constellation of symptoms. 5:33 [SPEAKER_01]: No natural disease matched the progression. 5:36 [SPEAKER_01]: No other explanation fitted the evidence. 5:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor reached his conclusion. 5:41 [SPEAKER_01]: John Parsons' cook had died of strident poisoning. 5:46 [SPEAKER_01]: But the absence of chemical traces did not change the diagnosis. 5:50 [SPEAKER_01]: The body itself told the truth. 5:54 [SPEAKER_00]: While Taylor examined the evidence in London, William Palmer moved desperately to protect himself, each attempt more reckless than the last. 6:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Letters were dangerous. 6:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Cook had written to friends in his family in his final days. 6:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Letters that might contain accusations, warnings, evidence. 6:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Those Letters needed to disappear. 6:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer offered money. 6:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Cheshire refused. 6:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Then Palmer made a bolder move. 6:35 [SPEAKER_00]: He wrote directly to the coroner, 6:39 [SPEAKER_00]: A death certificate already said, Apoplexi, surely the inquest would confirm natural causes, surely the matter could be closed quietly. 6:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer enclosed ten pounds with his letter, a substantial sum, more than a working man earned in a month, a transparent bribe, 7:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The letter was intercepted by authorities. 7:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The bribery attempt was documented. 7:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer's desperation was now a matter of official record. 7:14 [SPEAKER_00]: More evidence emerged daily. 7:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Forged checks in Cook's name traced back to Palmer's handwriting. 7:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Letters intercepted before they could reach Cook's family. 7:29 [SPEAKER_00]: racing winnings that had vanished into Palmer's accounts, the pattern of suspicious deaths surrounding every one of Palmer's financial troubles. 7:42 [SPEAKER_01]: The home secretary himself took notice of the case. 7:45 [SPEAKER_01]: He ordered excumations. 7:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer's wife Anne, dead 15 months earlier, a life ensured for 13,000 pounds. 7:58 [SPEAKER_01]: When they opened her coffin, the investigators found her body remarkably preserved. 8:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Two preserved for cholera, which typically causes rapid decomposition. 8:08 [SPEAKER_01]: The original physician who had signed Anne's death certificate would accept it parma's diagnosis without question. 8:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Now changed his mind. 8:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Ebelief Shee had been poisoned. 8:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Harmer's brother Walter, dead three months before Cook, also heavily ensured, also examined by William Palmer himself. 8:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Walter's body had decomposed too badly for meaning for analysis, but the coroner's jury had heard enough. 8:35 [SPEAKER_01]: December 15th, 1855, the coroner's inquest delivered its verdict on John Parson Cook's death. 8:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer was arrested immediately, but a new problem emerged, one so unprecedented that it required Parliament itself to intervene. 8:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Rougeley had already convicted him, local newspapers had published detailed accounts of his alleged crimes, the poisoned wife, the poison brother, the poisoned friend. 9:06 [SPEAKER_01]: The town's folk who had trusted him as their physician now called him monster, demon, the worst murderer in English history. 9:14 [SPEAKER_01]: No jury drawn from Staffordshire could possibly be impartial. 9:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Every potential juror had already read the accusations. 9:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Every potential juror had already formed an opinion. 9:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer's legal team petitioned for a change of venue. 9:29 [SPEAKER_01]: The prosecution agreed, a fair trial was impossible anywhere near-rugely. 9:34 [SPEAKER_01]: But English law provided no mechanism for moving a murder trial. 9:39 [SPEAKER_01]: The old Bailey heard London cases. 9:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Counties sees his heard county cases, there was no provision for exceptions, only Parliament can act. 9:48 [SPEAKER_01]: The Central Criminal Court Act of 1856 passed specifically for this case. 9:54 [SPEAKER_01]: It would forever be known as Parma's Act. 9:57 [SPEAKER_01]: For the first time in British legal history, Parliament intervened to enable a single criminal prosecution. 10:04 [SPEAKER_01]: The irony was complete. 10:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer's infony had created the law that law now enabled his conviction. 10:12 [SPEAKER_01]: The trial was scheduled for May 1856, the venue, the Old Bailey London. 10:20 [SPEAKER_01]: The old Bailey London made the 14th, 1856. 10:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Every seat in the gallery filled before dawn. 10:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Spectators are queued through the night for admission. 10:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Reporters from every major newspaper crammed into the press gallery, their pencils ready. 10:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Outside crowds gathered in the street, hoping to glimpse the most notorious prisoner in England. 10:41 [SPEAKER_01]: William Palmer stood in the dock, the surgeon from Rougeley, the gambler who had lost everything, the man accused of poisoning his friend for racing winnings. 10:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Times newspaper alone would devote more than 50 articles to the proceedings. 10:58 [SPEAKER_01]: The case gripped British attention for the first six months of 1856, with an intensity that would not be matched until Jack the Ripper murders three decades later. 11:09 [SPEAKER_01]: The 12 days the finest legal mines in England debated a question never before asked in a British courtroom. 11:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Can you convict a man of poison murder when you cannot find a poison? 11:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Attorney General Sir Alex Coburn led the prosecution. 11:26 [SPEAKER_01]: He was considered the most brilliant advocate of his generation. 11:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Elecoin, methodical, devastating and cross-examination. 11:33 [SPEAKER_01]: He's opening words at the time for everything that followed. 11:38 [SPEAKER_01]: A physician's knowledge co-bone argued, had been turned to murder. 11:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer had used his medical training, not to heal, but to kill. 11:48 [SPEAKER_01]: His expertise in poisons made him extraordinarily dangerous. 11:52 [SPEAKER_01]: That same expertise made proving his guilt extraordinarily difficult. 11:57 [SPEAKER_01]: The prosecution had no confession, no witness is to the actual poisoning and a toxicology report that found the wrong poison entirely. 12:07 [SPEAKER_01]: What they had instead was a mountain of circumstantial evidence. 12:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Charles Newton, the medical student who had sold Palmer the strickening, took the witness stand. 12:21 [SPEAKER_00]: He described the transaction in precise detail. 12:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer, requesting three grains, claiming it was for dosing stray dogs, naming a horse called doctor that didn't exist. 12:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Newton had recorded everything in the poison register, the date, the quantity, the purchasers name, the stated purpose, everything Palmer had said was now evidence. 12:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Elizabeth Mills, the chamber maid at the Talbot arms, described John Parsons' cook's final hours, the screaming that echoed through the end. 13:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The body arct backward with such force that only his heels and head touched the mattress, cooked calling out murder, while Palmer stood motionless at the 13:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Mills also described tasting Cook's broth earlier that week. 13:22 [SPEAKER_00]: How she had fallen violently ill, the same symptoms, the same sudden onset, how she had recovered, only because she had tasted once, while Cook had received dose after dose. 13:37 [SPEAKER_00]: The financial evidence was damning beyond dispute. 13:41 [SPEAKER_00]: forced checks and cooks name, in Palmer's handwriting, racing weddings that had flowed directly into Palmer's accounts, life insurance policies, on Palmer's wife and brother, both now dead and her circumstances that no one believed were natural. 14:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Hawkeburn built his case, peace by peace, witness by witness, Palmer had motive, crushing death that demanded immediate payment. 14:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer had opportunity, sold access to cooks food in medicine for six days. 14:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer had purchased the poison, three grains of strengthening documented in the register, and everyone who might have testified to Palmer's innocence was already dead. 14:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Alfred Swain Taylor walked to the witness box, carrying the weight of the prosecutions entire case on his shoulders. 14:47 [SPEAKER_00]: England's foremost toxicologist, pioneer of the March test, author of the standard textbook on medical jurisprudence, no scientist in the country commanded 15:04 [SPEAKER_00]: and he had found no strict name in John Parsons' cook's body. 15:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Taylor admitted this immediately, without evasion. 15:13 [SPEAKER_00]: He had examined the stomach, the intestines, the blood. 15:18 [SPEAKER_00]: He had applied every test available to Victorian science. 15:23 [SPEAKER_00]: The poison that should have been there, the poison that should have explained to the symptoms, 15:32 [SPEAKER_00]: So Taylor took a different approach. 15:35 [SPEAKER_00]: If chemistry failed to reveal the truth, what did the body itself reveal? 15:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Cook's convulsions had been to Tannick. 15:46 [SPEAKER_00]: His spine had arct and opissed a tonus. 15:49 [SPEAKER_00]: His consciousness had remained intact until death. 15:54 [SPEAKER_00]: His lungs had failed as every muscle in his body seized simultaneously. 16:00 [SPEAKER_00]: the appearances in this case, Taylor told the jury, were such as a my opinion to justify the conclusion that the deceased died from tetanus, produced by some irritant poison, probably strickening. 16:15 [SPEAKER_00]: It must have been a difficult argument to make. 16:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Taylor's entire reputation rested on science, on chemistry, on measurable, demonstrable, proof. 16:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Now he asked 12 men to convict, based on what a dying man's body had looked like, on symptoms witnessed by a chambermaid, not on evidence from a laboratory. 16:43 [SPEAKER_00]: But Taylor understood something, the defense would spend days trying to obscure. 16:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Strictening metabolizes rapidly. 16:52 [SPEAKER_00]: A carefully calibrated lethal dose, administered by a physician, who understood exactly how much would kill, might leave minimal chemical residue. 17:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The absence of poison in the body did not mean the absence of poison. 17:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Sergeant Xi rose from the defense with the straightforward strategy. 17:14 [SPEAKER_00]: If he could not prove Palmer innocent, he would prove Taylor Wrong. 17:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The prosecution had called 17 medical witnesses. 17:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The defense called 30. 17:28 [SPEAKER_00]: For days, the courtroom became a battleground over Victorian toxicology itself. 17:35 [SPEAKER_00]: She had one devastating question for Taylor. 17:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Had the great toxicologist ever actually witnessed a human being die from stricken poisoning? 17:50 [SPEAKER_00]: His conclusions about strict means of facts came from animal experiments, from medical literature, from second-hand accounts and other trials. 18:01 [SPEAKER_00]: He had never watched a person die from the poison he claimed had killed Cook. 18:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Never, she declared to the jury, where circumstances more favorable for the detection of the poison, and yet none was found. 18:19 [SPEAKER_00]: The defense experts wind up to attack Taylor's methodology. 18:25 [SPEAKER_00]: his tests were inadequate, his equipment outdated, his conclusions were speculation, dressed as science. 18:35 [SPEAKER_00]: One expert argued, cook symptoms could have been caused by tetanus, from an infected wound, another suggested epilepsy, a third proposed that cook's existing health problems, his quote, delicate constitution, 18:56 [SPEAKER_00]: But the prosecution had one devastating counter to every defense witness. 19:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Jeremiah Smith, a friend of Palmer's, took the stand for the defense. 19:09 [SPEAKER_00]: He insisted he had no knowledge of Palmer taking out life insurance on his brother, Walter. 19:15 [SPEAKER_00]: He swore it under oath. 19:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The defense is credibility collapsed in that moment. 19:30 [SPEAKER_00]: If their witnesses would lie about insurance forms, what else would they lie about? 19:39 [SPEAKER_01]: May the 27th, 1856, after 12 days of testimony, thousands of pages of evidence and arguments that had filled every newspaper in England, the jury retired to consider their verdict. 19:53 [SPEAKER_01]: 82 minutes later, they returned, guilty. 19:57 [SPEAKER_01]: The courtroom erupted, Palmer gripped the rail of the dock his knuckles' white. 20:03 [SPEAKER_01]: He had been so confident throughout the trial. 20:05 [SPEAKER_01]: The science was on his side, how could they convict him for poison that wasn't there? 20:11 [SPEAKER_01]: But the jury had believed Taylor. 20:12 [SPEAKER_01]: They had accepted that a body tells the truth through symptoms as clearly as through chemistry. 20:18 [SPEAKER_01]: They had looked at the mountain of circumstantial evidence at Palmer's behaviour, at the pattern of deaths surrounding him, at his desperate attempts to bribe the coroner, and they had decided. 20:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Lord Chief Justice Campbell pronounced sentence, death by hanging. 20:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer protested his innocence, he demanded an appeal. 20:40 [SPEAKER_01]: He wrote letters to newspapers declaring that justice had failed him. 20:44 [SPEAKER_01]: The appeal was denied. 20:46 [SPEAKER_01]: The execution was scheduled for June 14, 1856 at Stafford Prison. 20:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Railway companies announced special excursion tickets from across the Midlands, 30,000 people were expected. 21:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Benders prepared food and souvenirs to sell to the crowds. 21:04 [SPEAKER_01]: William Palmer's execution would be the spectacle of the season. 21:10 [SPEAKER_00]: June 14th, 1856, at a clock in the morning, 30,000 people packed the streets around Stafford Prison, filling every available space with a view of the gallows. 21:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Contemporary accounts describe the scene in vivid detail, factory workers who were given the day off, families with children, wasted onto shoulders, street enders, selling meat pies in ginger beer. 21:43 [SPEAKER_00]: The atmosphere was carnival rather than somber, a public holiday with death at its centerpiece, 21:52 [SPEAKER_00]: William Palmer walked from his cell to the scaffold, with a calm that witnesses found unsettling. 22:00 [SPEAKER_00]: He wore a black suit. 22:02 [SPEAKER_00]: His step was steady. 22:05 [SPEAKER_00]: If he felt fear, he did not show it. 22:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The hangman waiting on the platform was George Smith, known locally as the Dudley Higler, 22:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Years earlier, when Smith himself had been a prisoner, convicted of horse theft, Palmer had set as magistrate at his trial. 22:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The irony was complete. 22:31 [SPEAKER_00]: The man Palmer had once judged from the bench, would now place the news around his neck. 22:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer examined the gallows carefully. 22:42 [SPEAKER_00]: He tested the trap door with his foot. 22:45 [SPEAKER_00]: He turned to Smith with a question that would be quoted in newspapers across England. 22:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Are you sure it's safe? 22:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Was it gallows humor, genuine anxiety, or something else entirely? 23:02 [SPEAKER_00]: One final performance for the $30,000 watching. 23:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Witnesses couldn't decide then. 23:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Historians still debate it today. 23:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer's final statement went to the prison chaplain, an official declaration carefully composed. 23:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I am innocent of poisoning cook by strictening. 23:27 [SPEAKER_00]: The careful phrasing echoed throughout the crowd, not innocent of poisoning, not innocent of murder, just innocent of poisoning cook by strickening, was this a final confession, admitting to Antimone, the other poison Taylor had found, while denying the one he couldn't prove. 23:51 [SPEAKER_00]: or the desperate parsing of a man who believed even at the end, that technicality could save him. 24:00 [SPEAKER_00]: The hood was placed over his head. 24:02 [SPEAKER_00]: The news was tightened around his neck. 24:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The trap fell. 24:09 [SPEAKER_00]: At eight o'clock on a June morning, before 30,000 witnesses, William Palmer was dead. 24:19 [SPEAKER_00]: The rope was cut into pieces and sold for half a crown each. 24:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer's clothes were auctioned to collectors. 24:29 [SPEAKER_00]: His death mask was made and displayed in exhibitions. 24:34 [SPEAKER_00]: His mother informed of the execution, responded with words that captured something essential about the case. 24:43 [SPEAKER_00]: They have hanged my saintly Billy. 24:46 [SPEAKER_00]: how could she believe it, how could any mother believe her son was a serial poisoner? 24:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Charles Dickens followed the trial closely, the greatest novelist in England, fascinated by the greatest criminal case of his era. 25:03 [SPEAKER_00]: His verdict on William Palmer was characteristically direct, the greatest villain that ever stood in the old Bailey, 25:13 [SPEAKER_00]: high praise in its way for a man who had turned murder into methodology. 25:20 [SPEAKER_00]: How many diploma actually kill the conservative estimate is 4. 25:26 [SPEAKER_00]: John Parsons Cook, his wife Anne, his brother Walter, and at least one creditor who died 25:38 [SPEAKER_00]: The higher estimates suggest 13 or more, including four of his own infant children in his mother-in-law. 25:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Every death brought him money or relief. 25:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Every death came suddenly. 25:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Every death was attributed to natural causes by the physician standing at the bedside. 26:01 [SPEAKER_00]: We will never know the true number. 26:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer took his secrets to the grave, hidden behind that careful final statement, innocent of poisoning cook by strickening, a lawyer's answer from a surgeon's mouth. 26:20 [SPEAKER_01]: his legacy outlasted his infamy. 26:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Palmer's act remained British law for decades, enabling venue changes when local prejudice made fair trial impossible. 26:30 [SPEAKER_01]: A mechanism for justice that may never have existed without one murderous surgeon from Rougeley. 26:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor's testimony established a principle that reverberates through forensic science to this day, symptoms constitute evidence, body-speak even when chemistry fails. 26:48 [SPEAKER_01]: The absence of a poison in the laboratory does not mean the absence of poisoning in the victim. 26:54 [SPEAKER_01]: The town of Rougeley petitioned to change its name after the trial. 26:58 [SPEAKER_01]: The petition was denied. 27:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Residents suggested name in the town after the Prime Minister instead. 27:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Lord Palmerston reportedly declined the honour. 27:09 [SPEAKER_01]: He had no wish to have his name associated with such circumstances. 27:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Rougeley kept its name and its history. 27:19 [SPEAKER_00]: John Parsons cook was 28 years old when he died screaming in room 10 at the Talbot arms. 27:27 [SPEAKER_00]: He never practiced the law he had trained for. 27:29 [SPEAKER_00]: He never married. 27:32 [SPEAKER_00]: He never had children. 27:34 [SPEAKER_00]: He spent his inheritance on horses and racing in the thrill of the track. 27:41 [SPEAKER_00]: He trusted the wrong friend. 27:44 [SPEAKER_00]: His stepfather, William Stevens, lived another decade, airing the weight of a verdict that could never bring his boy back. 27:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Stevens had demanded justice, he had fought for it, he had received it. 28:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Whether that brought him peace, the historical record does not say. 28:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Palmer's last words were precise. 28:09 [SPEAKER_00]: I am innocent of poisoning cook by strictening, not innocent of murder, not innocent of poisoning, just strictening. 28:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Was this the final confession of a guilty man admitting to one poison while denying another, 28:32 [SPEAKER_00]: After three episodes, what do you believe? 28:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Did Victorian justice get it right? 28:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Where did circumstances convict a man? 28:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The evidence couldn't quite touch. 28:46 [SPEAKER_00]: The jury decided in 82 minutes. 28:49 [SPEAKER_00]: History has debated for nearly two decades. 28:53 [SPEAKER_00]: That concludes our series on William Palmer, the Rougalee Poisoner. 29:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining us. 29:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, good night, friend.
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