Transcript of Episode 517: The Black ... | Happy Scribe (2024)

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You're.

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Listening to a Morbid network podcast. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

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And I'm Elena.

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And this is Morbid.

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This is Morbid and, oh boy, is it a dozy that I have for you today.

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You always get this certain look in your eyes when you're about to really f*ck.

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Me up. This story is just...

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I.

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Have...

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Oh, even Mikey is making a face. He's like...

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I mean, Dave, when we were talking about it was like, why is this not its own movie series? It's a wild tale.

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Oh, no. There's so much to it. I'm nervous. And a lot of mystery, but it's just really intense.

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I.

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Think you need to buckle up for it. Hold on to your butts. Hold on to those butts. But before we get into it, I just want to say we got to go on stage with Padmeets Worlds.

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It was the coolest thing I think we've ever gotten to do.

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We got to hang out with Topanga, Eric, and Sean from Boymeets Worlds. And Harley. And f*cking Harley Keiner.

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And they are just the nicest people.

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I'm telling you, that whole thing? We say it all the time. We're like, You always get scared. You're like, don't meet your heroes. Don't do it because they can disappoint you and it's like- Meet your heroes. I'm just always scared because I'm like, I just really hope this doesn't look like... Just blow up in our faces. I'm telling you guys, it's Danielle Fishel, Will Fridell, Ryder-Strong, and Danny McNulty as Harley Keiner. I'm telling you, they were the sweetest people.

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Truly.

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I'm 37 years old. You guys know how many times I referenced like, Sabrinah, the teenage witch in boy meets the world. It's always those two. Yeah, it's always those that just I go right back to because they were literally my adolescence. Walking into a room and seeing.

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Just the squad.

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Sean, Hunter, Topanga, and Eric just.

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Sitting there.

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You acted cool. Thank you for saying that because inside of my body was a f*cking fright.

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See, I know that because I know you, but if you didn't know you, I don't think you could tell. They all give a really good handshake.

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They do. They give a strong handshake and they look you in.

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The eye. Yes, Papa always taught me you give a strong handshake because nobody likes.

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A little... Nobody likes a little fishing- Blue handshake. -nobody likes a little sloppy-fish handshake. I was so.

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Impressed by all their handshakes.

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Yeah, they're just really kind people.

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They're hilarious.

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So funny. Very welcoming. It was a lot of fun. Sitting on a couch next to Eric, I was like, I don't know. Just unreal. What the f*ck happened here?

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Will invited us.

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To ice cream. He did. I'm still not over any of this. We're going. We're going.

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Will, if you're walking, Sammy, hey.

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Hey. Also, hey to your wife, Sue, because she was awesome. Sue, we love Sue. She was so sweet.

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But this is a Swag, too. I loved her outfit.

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Yeah, they were great. This is all also to say the only reason we are able to do this stuff is because you guys listen to this show. Which is still wild.

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Thanks for that. Thank you a lot.

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Because that was a really.

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Cool experience. Weirdos Making.

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Dreams come true. I only had it because of you guys, so appreciate.

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And- Appreciate. -shall we tell them how it made us feel on stage?

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It made us feel some type of way. It made.

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Us feel like maybe we wanted to.

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Do a show. Like a hometown show.

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A hometown show, not a tour.

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Yeah, I was going.

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To say like- We will not tour. I'm about to be a wedded woman, and you have 70 kids.

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I have three, but it's similar. Honestly, it.

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Feels like three kids and two dogs equates to 70 children.

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You know what? Correct. It does. Yes, you were right.

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The first time. Trust me, I've been here.

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But, yeah, I think we want to do a hometown show. We got the bug. Next year, so we'll keep you guys updated on that.

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Definitely next.

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Year at some point. It was just really fun to- I have to sneeze. -go out there.

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I wanted to.

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Warn you. I appreciate that. I have to sneeze. Yeah, it was just really fun. But thanks to Padmeet's worlds. Thanks to all of them and thanks to you guys, and Thanks to everybody. That was an awesome experience, and again, you guys are the best. You guys are the tee*ts. Now, I'm going to ruin your life with this story. I'm sorry.

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That.

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I'm taking you here.

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You should get a shirt that says that. I'm going to ruin your life with this story, so I'm sorry. Because the amount of times you've said that to me in my life, even about things that we don't talk about on the show, you're like, I got a story that's.

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Going to ruin your life. I have a fact that's going to... If I have to know it, you have to know it now. I do that to John daily.

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Did I ever tell you guys about the time that Elena looked at me and she goes, The sun could have exploded eight minutes ago, and we wouldn't know.

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If.

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The sun explodes, we won't know for eight minutes, and I'm not going to.

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Be alone in knowing that.

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No, now you all.

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Know that. Love you. But anyway. You're also going to have to know about the horrific case of O. C. Sneed. Okay. This is an older one, but I promise you it's not lacking in drama. The death of O. C. Sneed in East Orange, New Jersey, what's up, New Jersey? It was an undeniable tragedy, but her death was really only the beginning of what would become one of the early 20th century's truly most captivated crime stories. Oh, man. It's pulled directly out of the pages of some classic Southern Gothic horror novel. Got a lot of elements. Like any good Gothic horror story, trial that followed was also full of unbelievable twists and ended up culminating in a pretty shocking conclusion. Really? Yeah.

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I feel like we've had a few cases where there's been gnarly.

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Trials lately. Yeah, usually a lot of times the older cases have some.

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Wily trials. Yeah, because I feel like different things were admissible back then and they tried to get away with different kinds of.

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f*ck sh*t. Exactly. They had to change laws and sh*t. Yeah. All right. Let's first begin with Oce. Who is Ocee's need? Tell me. Now, like many aspects of this story, Ocee's date of birth and several other details about her are shrouded in a little bit of mystery. The 1900s of it all. Yeah. She was born in New York, New York in September of 1885. I don't know exactly what date it was. We couldn't find one. Potentially, a Virgo. Exactly. We couldn't find one that we felt comfortable being like this is definitely her birthday. Her name was Oceana Wardlaw Martin.

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That's a.

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Really pretty name. I know Oceana. Yeah. Yeah, that's gorge. She was the daughter of Caroline Wardlaw and Colonel Robert Maxwell Martin, who was a very celebrated Confederate veteran of the American Civil War. Now, from the perspective of his Confederate peers, got to be clear about that. Let's be clear. Robert Martin was a war hero. Again, remember, perspective is everything. He served in many key battles in the war. He was severely wounded while saving the life of General John Hunt Morgan, but managed to survive and went on to lead the Confederate plot to burn New York City.

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Oh.

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Fun. When their attempt to burn New York City ultimately failed. Yeah, it didn't work out. I don't know if you guys know it, but New York City is still there. Still standing. He led an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Vice President Andrew Johnson.

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He.

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For that, was eventually captured and imprisoned, and he was released from prison when the war ended. He turned and moved back to the South, where he made and lost a fortune in the tobacco industry. Real interesting fella, this one. I guess so. Now, it was during this post-war period that he met and married Caroline Wardlaw. Now, Robert still had a fortune. He ended up making it back. He was never in dire straits here. Robert supervised the construction of a large mansion in Wilder Park, Kentucky. In the early 1880s, tragedy struck because the family mansion burned to the ground under suspicious circ*mstances. That's ironic. Yeah, I know. The couple lived for a short amount of time in a much smaller house on the grounds of the mansion, but that quickly became a little unsustainable following the birth of the couple's first child. Okay. So, Robert relocated the family to New York City, and Caroline gave birth to Oce, Oceana, in the fall of 1885.

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What a weird thing to go live in the city that you plan to burn down.

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Yes, it's a little strange. Yes, that is a little strange. There was a brief period of success and calm for the family until about 1900 when tragedy struck again. Oh, no. That's when Robert's son died from brain fever, encephalitis. That's what they used to call encephalitis. He died after... He had encephalitis, and that's what he died from. But it was after a particularly bad fall down the stairs in their home in New York.

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Do you think that could have had something to do with it?

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People don't know what happened there.

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Okay. Can you also remind me what encephalitis.

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Is, please? It's like inflammation of the brain. Oh, okay. That's why they call it brain fever. Got you. Like the fire that destroyed the family home in Kentucky before, the circ*mstances under which the Robert's son died were somewhat suspicious. Okay.

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I'm catching on to a theme.

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Here, if you will. What's more suspicious was the speed at which his father collected a payout from the $22,000 life insurance policy.

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Damn, and.

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That's $22,000 back then. It was also when they could use money. They could have.

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Used money. It came in interesting timing.

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Yeah, which it seems like insurance policies in this story come at... Man, they just come at the right time.

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Dude, insurance.

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Policies, they freak me out. They're always on time.

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-they freak me out.

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Now, that $22,000 life insurance policy now would be $700,000. Holy sh*t. -so sizable.

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I mean, even just $22,000 is sizable.

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Well, yeah, but like $700,000. That's on another level, baby. There's a lot there. Now, despite this, and it all just went to plan, despite this, the insurance payout allowed the family to move to a much nicer home on Fifth Avenue, actually. Imagine that. Oh, Fifth Avenue. Silver linings, I guess. Unfortunately, the excitement of the new home wouldn't last long.

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Before tragedy.

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Struck again. Because only a few months after moving in, neighbors heard a commotion coming from the Martin House, and they ran over to see what was happening and found Robert had suffered a paralytic stroke and was being attended by a rather stern-looking Caroline, his wife, who immediately told her historical daughter, Oce, not to speak.

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Okay, so was that like a stroke or was that something else?

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You can't see me, but I'm shrugging.

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She's the shrug emoji.

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I don't know. Robert did hold on for a little while and ended up living for a short period of time in very bad health and then finally ended up succumbing and dying on January 12th, 1901.

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It's just weird that she told her daughter not to say anything because what would she have to say if he was just having a stroke?

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What would she have to say? I wonder. Me as well. Following Robert's death, Caroline packed up her daughter and moved them both back to her hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. That's where Caroline's sister, Virginia, was actually in charge of the Murfreesboro Sole Female College, where Caroline's other sisters, she had two sisters, Mary, was a member of the faculty. Cool. So Virginia is the President of the school. Mary is part of the faculty. Caroline hadn't let them know that she was coming, but they took her in right away and they found her job as the school's new bookkeeper. So they're all working at this school together. Now it seems by all accounts that Virginia and Mary's existence at the school before this were fairly normal. Uh-oh. Sewell Female College was touted as providing, quote, a traditional southern education for women in cultural studies and social grace. Oh, social grace. Now, Virginia was named President of the school in 1892, and the school really thrived under her leadership and became very highly acclaimed. She was well respected. She ran the program with discipline, with honor. According to all who knew her at the time, she was brought into this position because of the respect people had for her.

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Now, Virginia had spent her adult life as what people called a spinster and focused on her responsibilities at school. That was what she really focused on. Aka a boss bitch. Yeah.

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For now.

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I was just.

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Going to say. I don't know anything else. I don't know what happens.

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Yeah, okay. I get it. Mary had raised two sons, and then when they had grown and married, she joined the faculty at school. Everybody seemed like they had taken a good path. Again, seemed to be killing it. Then Caroline arrives.

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Okay, Caroline seems to be.

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The issue here. The arrival of Caroline was like a weird reset button, and no one really understood why. Again, everything seemed to be going pretty chill. People said the sisters, like Mary and Virginia, could be like, I just said Virginia. You did. I didn't mean to say that. Virginia. They seemed, they were a little strange, but relatively, they weren't problematic or anything. They were just living or existing. But Mary and Virginia completely changed when Caroline showed up. The three sisters began dressing in all black together. What? And wearing heavy black veils all the time.

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What the f*ck?

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Just out.

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Of nowhere. Just all of a sudden we're.

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Like, Coving. She showed up and they were just like, boom, literally. Like, A-H-S-S-S-S-Train of the Supreme Witch. She's the Supreme Witch. What the f*ck? People were curious about this.

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One might be.

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More curious, though, was the very marked change in their behavior. They were once known to keep very ordinary schedules. They were a president of a female college and a part of the faculty after all. It's not like they were doing these crazy things. But the Sisters now had a habit of going out very late at night in the middle of the night and more disturbingly, began entering students' homes or rooms as they slept to just stand and stare at them.

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No, shut the f*ck up. I'm not kidding. Why? This is not real. This is real. What the f*ck?

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They would literally break into students' rooms while they were sleeping and stand and stare at them.

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For why? I do.

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Not know.

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What the f*ck?

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There's some weird cult thing happening here. Something's going on. Because they also hired a driver to drop them off at Evergreen Cemetery every evening where they were said to carry on with strange rituals and chanting.

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Honestly, f*cking metal as f*ck if you take the B and E out of it. Yeah, exactly.

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That's what I said. I was like, Up to this point, take the B and E out of it. I'm like, Go off, Queens. This is cool. But man, do they take it somewhere. Oh, God. People saw them dancing around graves and all manner of odd behavior. Later you'll see the behavior gets even stranger. They would move people out of classrooms and into other classrooms and move them back. They were just being weird.

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It's strange. It's never explained why they did this. No. What?

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Well, and the thing is, in 1904, the obvious and very dramatic and strange change in Marion Virginia's behavior was very unsettling to the students of Sole Female College, who had known them forever.

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Right, as.

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Pretty normal beings. As pretty normal people. As pretty normal and very disciplined and respectful people. One account said the frightened students started to leave the school and it wasn't long before the school was in chaos and the Black Sisters, as they were known to be called, were asked to leave.

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Why they were asked to leave. Because they lost money. The school is losing money left and right. Students were literally leaving the school because of their behavior.

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They're waking up in the middle of the night to these three crucku nut ladies at the foot of.

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Their bed. They're being bein'ed by the Supreme Witch in her coven in the middle of the night. That's a lot to handle. I might leave, too. There were also rumors that Caroline was maybe pocketing some money from the school, allegedly. She's not around anymore. No, she is not. Now, fortunately, the sister's great aunt, Oceana Polack, who Oceana is named after, needed help at Montgomery Female College in Virginia. Okay. So she looked at this whole them leaving in disgrace thing as.

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Like, It's fine. So she.

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Invited them all to join her at the school. She's like, You're just cookie. Yeah, it's okay. They just don't get you. I love how chic you are. Now, when Virginia came to run the program, it was like she fell back into her old ways, her old ways of teaching, her old ways of running things. Everything was great. Virginia was back. She was like, Oh, I know, I'm cookie, but I'm back. Okay. It felt like, okay, the school was a boarding school, and one program described it as the remarkable purity and healthfulness of the atmosphere rendered the location peculiarly eligible for a seat of learning. Hot, so I guess it's a.

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Great place to learn. Sounds great.

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But, Mary came after Virginia. She joined the faculty and everything was still okay. They seemed to fall back into their old things.

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Seems like Caroline is the common.

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Denominator here. Then Caroline joined.

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I'm sorry. All I can think of is the outcaste song Caroline.

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Caroline. That's literally like she joins and it's like, Oh, sh*t. f*ck. The thing is Caroline joined with Ocey, her daughter. Okay. Things f*cked up again. What power did this woman have over her sisters? I don't know. She is the supreme. I think she might be because apparently Caroline was in charge of administration. She was put right in charge of administration. That's a thought. She messed with the curriculum immediately, and this is when she began the strange behavior of moving students from classroom to classroom during the day. For no reason. Like just ripping them out of a classroom, putting them in another, then moving them back. She was just doing weird stuff. She would put several padlocks on random doors. What? It made people very unnerved and unsettled because they're like, What the f*ck is behind that door? Why are there three padlocks on it? What the f*ck? Then they were doing the same peekaboo routine with the sisters in the residence halls.

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They're breaking in?

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Yeah, Alex is doing the same.

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Like, I'm just looking in on you. What the.

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f*ck, ladies? Why? I hate it. Everybody just fell back into the old, like strange sh*t.

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I need an answer.

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You won't get one. I need. I require one. I also required one, but I wasn't given one.

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Like, why the.

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f*ck did- History will not give me an answer. God damn. Caroline is OS's mom, Mary and Virginia's sister. She's the problem. Got you. It's her. She's the problem. She's the problem. It's her. So Caroline ended up visiting Mary's son, John Sneed.

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Who.

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Was her nephew.

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Oh, the look in your eye tells me we're in danger. Oh, God, I'm so upset. Your weird face right now, I'm so nervous.

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Reports say she, quote-unquote, caused trouble and, quote-unquote, interfered in John's marriage.

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That just means that she didn't like his wife and she said, Get out of here, right? Totally. Nothing else.

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Happened, right? What happened here? I don't know. Do you know? What does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean? There are even reports that John told the neighbors, and I quote, that he wouldn't let her wreck his home. Okay. I don't know if you've ever heard of the term home wrecker. I sure have. I'm sorry, what?

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Oh, no.

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There's a lot of when you read about this particular time in this story, nothing's outwardly said, but it's all said. Well, because they didn't say sh*t like that back then.

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It's there. Was she trying to wreck the home and he wouldn't let her?

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She was interfering. While she was interfering and not wrecking her nephew's home, Chris, she was trying to convince him to come teach at Montgomery Female College in Virginia with all of them and leave his wife. . He refused at first. He was like, No.

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I'm not.

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Going to run away with my aunt. Stop. I don't like it. I'm not going to do that. But she returned a couple of weeks later and interfered again. This time, her interference convinced him to leave his f*cking wife, Anna.

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She read a Cosmo article.

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Come with her. And he did. He came with her and left Anna, just abandoned her.

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You know what? Anna was better off.

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Yeah, apparently Anna had struggled, though, I guess. Like, she had some... She really did a number.

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Yeah, I would probably have struggled, too, if my man left.

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Me for his aunt. Yeah, it really did a number. Curiously, though, John became seriously injured on the way back to Virginia. Oh, no. He fell or was pushed- That's strange. -from the train as it approached Rowanoke. Oh, Rowanoke. He survived. But weeks later, he was found almost drowned in a cistern on the school's campus by his Aunt Virginia. Why is he having so many accidents? His Aunt Virginia was like, Oh, don't worry. He was checking the water supply for the school. Oops, don't worry that he fell in there in the went over and I'm the one who found him. Yeah, don't worry about that. He managed to survive that.

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How does Mary feel about all this? Isn't that her kid?

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I don't think any of them are Mother of the Year, I would say. But he managed to survive that. Then one week later, he was found on fire in his bed.

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What the f*ck is.

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Happening here? This man was on fire in his bed. He was dosed with kerocene. Oh, my God. But they claimed it was an accident. And who found him? Who found him? Caroline, of course. It was his aunts, of course. How do.

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You accidentally douse someone in karycine? You don't.

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Yeah.

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Where are we? Where are we.

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Is correct. I don't know.

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I've quite literally never heard a tale such as this.

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This.

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Is for real. This is for real. This is.

[00:26:54]

Not legend. No, there's newspapers to back this up. There's trials to back this up. I would also like to put this out here. I had never heard of this case. Then one Mikey- You found this? -was the one to bring this up. I said.

[00:27:10]

Holy sh*t. Yeah. Where the f*ck did you find this?

[00:27:15]

In the depths of hell.

[00:27:16]

I was going to say he said in hell.

[00:27:19]

In.

[00:27:19]

Hell.

[00:27:19]

In Hades. What the f*ck? It is a tale that just keeps you guessing until the very end. But I want answers.

[00:27:31]

-to the very end. I need concrete answers.

[00:27:33]

Unfortunately, in the beginning, it's wild and cookie, and it starts getting really dark, and then it gets dark at the end. In the beginning, you're like, What is happening? Then at the end, you're like, What the f*ck happened? You're just like, Oh, God. Keep going. Yeah, keep going. His aunts are the one who call that in. Now, remember, he fell from a train approaching Rowanoke that Caroline was on. Weird. He almost drowned in a cistern on campus where Virginia found him. Coincidence. Then he was lit on fire with kerosene in his bed. And Caroline found him. His aunts were the ones who found him. And Caroline found him. Like Virginia and Caroline.

[00:28:09]

Interesting that.

[00:28:10]

Mary is never around. Mary is just like, whoopsie. Now, following his death, the sisters, all three of them, collected an insurance payout.

[00:28:18]

Those bitches love insurance.

[00:28:19]

Which they had taken out. So strange. Now, in 1906, around the time of John Sneeds's unexpected and very tragic death. Because he died after the fire, obviously. He sure did. Caroline paid a visit to his brother, Fletcher, her other nephew. Stop. I love the name, Fletcher. He was still living in Tennessee. He shouldn't stay there. Again, this is Mary's other son, her other nephew. Caroline explained that there would be some family property near Chattanooga that needed looking after and asked whether Fletcher would be willing to pay a visit to the property. But Fletcher's wife was like- I heard about you. Well, and she was like, Okay. But she was like, You can go, but I want to make sure we're in constant contact.

[00:29:03]

Yeah, because I heard.

[00:29:05]

About this girl. Because I heard about what's happening here. I heard about Auntie over here. She attempted to contact him on the phone a few weeks later, and Caroline answered and told her, No, he can't come to the phone right now. She was like, What the f*ck do you mean he can't come to the phone right now? She was like, He's sick. She was like, Well, I want to talk to him. She was like, Too sick to talk. She was like, The f*ck do you mean too sick to talk? She was like, I don't know, bitch. Then she hung up the phone. Direct. That's quotes. Literally like the transcript. She was like, I don't know about that. She contacts again and she's like, How's he doing? Can I talk to him? She's like, No. Still can't talk to him. Still too sick. Then she's like, You know what? I'll send him home in a few weeks when he's better.

[00:29:47]

A few weeks.

[00:29:48]

So in a few weeks had come and gone with no word from Fletcher. Call the police. Fletcher's wife set out for Chattanooga. She said, I'm coming. I'm coming for you, baby. Oh, my God. Now, when she arrived at the boarding house that he had supposedly been staying at, the woman there told her that Fletcher had indeed been there. But then he had been moved to another house by Caroline.

[00:30:15]

Caroline loves moving people places.

[00:30:17]

Moved him to another house. So, Fletcher's wife follows. She f*cking Sherlockh homes it.

[00:30:24]

Good for.

[00:30:24]

This girly. She detective Abberline's this. Love it. Like, she follows Caroline's trail, always a few steps behind, but following her. She's like, I'm going to find my husband. But eventually she ran out of Leeds. No. And she couldn't find him. Without any information regarding her husband's whereabouts and seemingly no f*cking way to find him and he didn't exist anymore, she was granted a divorce because she was like, he.

[00:30:51]

Abandoned me. She didn't.

[00:30:52]

Involve the police? I guess she was like, There's nothing to really... Because she was just like, I guess Caroline later was just like, Yeah, he just left. What? And it's like, No, he didn't. What? No, he did not.

[00:31:04]

Why is Caroline.

[00:31:05]

This? I do not know. But she couldn't find him because he was already on his way to rejoin the sisters in Virginia with Caroline.

[00:31:16]

He fell in love with Auntie?

[00:31:19]

I don't know. I don't know what's.

[00:31:21]

Happening there. I'm so deeply upset by this.

[00:31:23]

But she was convincing him. Now, once there, Caroline began encouraging a romance between Fletcher and OD. Cousins. Her daughter, they are first cousins.

[00:31:33]

Oh, that's hateous. That's illegal in many, many places.

[00:31:35]

Let me.

[00:31:36]

Just.

[00:31:37]

Back it up. Go ahead. She goes after interfering in her first nephew's marriage. Coach, convincing him, bambooling him into following her. Bambozzling. She tries to kill him twice. f*ck. Then eventually they succeed and light him on fire in his bed, collect that insurance payment. She goes to the other nephew, Mary's other son. Mary's just letting this all happen. That's the thing.

[00:32:04]

I'm like, Mary, how many.

[00:32:05]

Sons you got? Goes to her other son, convincing him to come back to the Virginia with her. Then ice is out his wife, pretends that Fletcher just up and was sick, first of all, too sick to talk, and then just abandoned her and who knows where he went. Instead, she takes Fletcher back to the school in Virginia with her and then encourages O. C. And to get married, first cousins.

[00:32:32]

It seems as though there was already something romantic happening between.

[00:32:35]

Caroline and Fletcher. There's something weird happening there. I don't know what. I don't know. I wasn't there. This is not a movie. This is not a movie.

[00:32:41]

This is not a movie. This is real life. You know in Bluey when they go, For real life. For real life.

[00:32:46]

That's how I feel. I felt that the entire time I read this story, I said, For real life. Every five seconds. It is, For real life. What the f*ck? We need the Bluey clip that says, For real life.

[00:32:58]

Don't your kids have a toy that says it? To go find it. I can't go find it. That's true.

[00:33:02]

That's happening. Now she's encouraging Oce and Fletcher to get married. She's like, First cousins, I never heard of them. Then before long, the two, Fletcher and Oce were married in a secret ceremony because they had to make it secret. Because that's not legal. They were in Christianburg, Virginia. They had to make it secret because they are first cousins. Is there even anywhere that you can marry your first cousin? Not sure, but I don't want to go.

[00:33:28]

I'm not going to go where it is. Remember that true life.

[00:33:31]

Yes. Oh, my God. Anyways. It's very upsetting. People were already suspicious of this trio of wild women.

[00:33:38]

This trio of incest- Of.

[00:33:41]

Wily women. When this happened, they had to do it in secret because it was just really going to... I'm like, What was your end game here? But when they first arrived at the Montgomery female college, things at the school, like I said, had seemed stable and well managed. Yeah, they were fine. But just as it had been at Sewell Family College, it didn't take long for Caroline's influence to cause even more problems there.

[00:34:04]

Well, because they're still going into the rooms and doing the.

[00:34:07]

Weird sh*t.

[00:34:07]

Still doing all the things.

[00:34:09]

-padlocking the doors. Not long after they arrived, rumors began spreading around town about their weird behavior, about them holding midnight rituals in the cemeteries around. There were rumors about a, quote-unquote, illegitimate baby that was born at the school that disappeared. What? They believed something might have happened. What? That those are rumors, but these are the things people were talking about. This is one of.

[00:34:34]

Those things where it's like, Oh, the rumor is all true.

[00:34:36]

It's really scary. Oh, my God. Within two years of their arriving there and all this crazy, strange behavior, the Sisters, again, had started to frighten students. Yeah, I would be frightened. Students were dropping out again because they were like, I'm not going to the school. This is too bad for me. f*ck this school. By 1908, the school had to close.

[00:34:54]

They had to close?

[00:34:56]

They had to close.

[00:34:57]

Why didn't anybody intervene.

[00:34:58]

Before that? I do not... I don't know. But having once again found themselves in dire financial straits. They had to kill someone. Yeah, the sisters. Well, first they tried to sell off the school's minor assets. Okay. Like five pianos, a church organ, rosewood wardrobes, and the school itself.

[00:35:17]

Do they.

[00:35:18]

Even own it? Here's the thing. There's no evidence to indicate that they had any ownership. What the f*ck? What the property?

[00:35:27]

We didn't just sell it. They're like, Do you have the deed? They're like, f*ck that. They were.

[00:35:34]

Like, Hey, you want this building?

[00:35:36]

Oh, my God. Who are these women?

[00:35:40]

Who raised.

[00:35:41]

These women? Are these Lucifer's children? I think it's.

[00:35:45]

Like a confidence thing. If you just walk up to a building and you're like, Hey, you want this?

[00:35:51]

They hired a real estate agent and everything. It comes time to sign the paperwork. They're like, What paperwork? They're like.

[00:35:59]

What the f*ck? Take the building. Give us the money. Just take the building. Give me the check. Take the building.

[00:36:03]

It sounds like weird, Tommy Haverford vibes.

[00:36:05]

It's so strange. What? But they sold the school to a man named Sidney Sheltman, who was.

[00:36:17]

So confused. Sidney was so confused.

[00:36:22]

It's.

[00:36:22]

So wild. He's like, You own this place?

[00:36:24]

They're like, Nah, you do. Oh, man, it's wild. When the school was abandoned, because it was abandoned at the time, even when he bought it, it became a popular spot for vandals and older boys on marauding expeditions. Now, they tore through the halls and classrooms, took everything out of there. The whole place had been destroyed. In the meantime, the sisters were like, What can we do next? We can woo some older men into marriage. That's true. And get some money. They weren't gaining any traction on that front because...

[00:36:55]

They didn't.

[00:36:55]

Have the lyrics. They're a little strange. I feel like their message might be weird.

[00:37:01]

Guys love... Guys love a little.

[00:37:04]

You know what I'm saying?

[00:37:06]

I feel like maybe they were approaching it the wrong way, I guess. They were too woo.

[00:37:11]

Can I look them up and see what they look like?

[00:37:13]

Yeah, I think so. I think a lot of the rumors that were swirling about them were keeping people's distance away from them.

[00:37:20]

Well, and the fact that any man in a five-foot radius of them, like weirdly got kerasene dosed all over them probably.

[00:37:26]

Didn't help. They had creditors growing impatient, not being paid, and they were going to be taking legal action against them at this point. The sisters and Fletcher and Oce began leaving town anytime something like this would happen. They went off in the direction of New York, and they didn't all go at once. They went one after the other, so not to arouse suspicions. All righty. Now, they were trying to put some space. Fletcher and Oce were trying to put space between themselves and their aunts and her mother. They settled in East Orange, New Jersey in 1908, and by some accounts, they were happy. I don't want to know about that. O. C. Is so pretty, though. I know. I don't know what has happened. It's upsetting. It's like.

[00:38:13]

Oh, my God. This rendition of Caroline.

[00:38:16]

This just.

[00:38:20]

Sent me. Stop it. That's why they weren't having luck with the men's baby. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's so terrifying. Oh, my God.

[00:38:33]

Oh, my God.

[00:38:35]

There's a lot to unpack. I'm so upset. I'm so- So, Ben. Virginia is fine. Up until this point, we've had some tragedies. We've had some deaths that have been very sad and very scary. Correct. But it's about to get real dark.

[00:38:52]

Okay, let me just breathe.

[00:38:53]

This is all wacky crazy, but then it gets like, oh. All of a sudden you're just going to go, Oh, and it gets real.

[00:39:02]

So Ocey and Fletcher are living in Orange, New Jersey. Yes, New Jersey. And the aunts are still in the south?

[00:39:09]

Yes. They're making their way to New York because they're trying to get away from the creditors that are now after them. But they're doing it one after the other. Yeah, okay. Got it. Up until this point, this would just be a wacky, cookie, at times, tragic story. Definitely. But then now it's just like, Oh, man.

[00:39:26]

It's about to go down.

[00:39:27]

And it's still wacky. They are the wacky humans. Yeah, you can't take that out of it. But you can't take the wacky out of them. But unfortunately, again, Fletcher and Oce are first cousins. You don't have to tell me three times. I'm going to keep reminding you that. You don't have to. A few months later, Oce gave birth to a baby girl. They named Mary, after Fletcher's mom.

[00:39:52]

And.

[00:39:53]

Her aunt. Yep, but the child, unfortunately, died shortly after she was born.

[00:39:57]

That's really sad. I'm sure there were.

[00:39:59]

Some complications. Things only got worse when Virginia, Mary, and Caroline showed up at OC and Fletcher's doorstep in early 1909.

[00:40:06]

I would say, We don't have anything for you.

[00:40:08]

They were out of money and they said, Hi, we're here. Their arrival reminded Fletcher of the last time the sisters had found themselves in financial trouble. I don't know if you can remember that time. It coincided with the mysterious and very brutal death of his brother, John. Yes. And an insurance payout came after that very conveniently for the sisters. You know what? It solved all their problems at the time. Sure did. Yeah. So Fletcher saw this and said, Oh, hi. I'm getting out of here. Aunties and mom and said, f*ck this. He fled the country to Canada. No, he didn't. In March 1909. But did he leave OSI? He left OSI. That's your wife, cousin. That's your wife, cousin.

[00:40:53]

You don't just abandon your wife, cousin. That's your wife, cousin. You don't do that.

[00:40:58]

Well, and what's sad is that O-C had not had a chance to tell him that she was pregnant again. Oh, God. Now, she's abandoned by her husband at this point. Cousin. Cousin. And left in the care of three people who had always treated her like sh*t.

[00:41:17]

Oh, they weren't.

[00:41:18]

Nice to her? Because they were never nice to her. A lot of people thought that they were jealous of her. Well, she's really pretty. Her mother and her aunts were jealous of her. I bet they were. They had always treated her like sh*t. So her mental health began to decline in the spring. When she's pregnant. And her physical needs are increasing because of the pregnancy, which makes it even worse. To make it even worse, the sisters had taken Ocee out of the comfort of her home that she had with Fletcher and brought her back to Brooklyn to live with them in some sparsely furnished building.

[00:41:49]

They had created their.

[00:41:51]

Own space. Yeah, and aware that they... Luckily, they were aware that they lacked any knowledge or resources to provide any basic level of care for a pregnant woman or really anyone else for that matter because they are wild. The sisters did call a doctor, Dr. William Pettit, who started treating OSI that spring. Okay, well, that's good. Now, OSI does die, obviously, at the end of this. We talked about that in the beginning. I literally forgot that. After her death later, Dr. Pettit would recall the incredibly strange experience of arriving at the Sneed House that spring. Oh, no. Now, at the time, only Virginia and Mary were living in the house with Oce, not her mother, Caroline.

[00:42:36]

Sus.

[00:42:37]

But he said at the time, a third woman who he believed to be Oce's mother would occasionally stop by and check on her. Yeah. He said all these women must have slept on the floor for the only cot in the house on the second floor was occupied by the ailing niece. Okay. He said aside from meager furnishings in Ocee's room, the house was pretty much empty of anything else, which only made everything even stranger. Right.

[00:43:04]

He's like, You're bringing a baby into the house? Yeah, like, What the f*ck? What are.

[00:43:08]

We going to do with the baby? Dr. Pettit also found the three sisters' behavior really strange and off-putting. What were they doing? After he initially evaluated OSI, who appeared very frail and very depressed. Pettit diagnosed her as suffering from general weakness, the result of lack of nutrition and proper care. That's not good.

[00:43:26]

Because if she's malnourished and the.

[00:43:29]

Baby is. What he had prescribed for her was fresh air, a restorative diet, and medicine.

[00:43:35]

He.

[00:43:36]

Was like, This will improve her. But upon a follow-up visit, he found that the women had made no effort to provide even one of those things to her. When he asked why they hadn't made even the slightest effort to do any of his recommendations, one of the women, he said later he believed it was Virginia, told the doctor they couldn't afford the medicine due to all their money going to the high premiums they were paying in insurance. What? That doesn't even make any sense. During this period, Oce was dealing with the emotional pain of losing her husband and also losing a daughter. Yeah. And the physical pain of a very difficult pregnancy, of which she is malnourished.

[00:44:15]

And sick. Oh, man.

[00:44:17]

And also living with three women who are jealous of her and have been her whole life and have treated her like sh*t. That's a thing. It's for all of these reasons, all those stressors that she's under that she probably... This is why she probably didn't have any idea, that after Fletcher left, the sisters had taken out three life insurance policies on Oce, with equitable life insurance society, each in the amount of $7,500.

[00:44:40]

How did they get three out on her? No idea. Because nobody double checked it? Damn.

[00:44:46]

I have no idea, but it's wild. Now, a few months later, in late spring, Dr. Pettit became concerned about Oce's declining health and her ability to even give birth to a baby successfully.

[00:44:58]

Yeah, because she's so.

[00:44:58]

Weak at this point. Pettit was on hand to guide OSI through the process of giving birth to her baby in the home. It was on August first, 1909. She gave birth to a baby boy who she named David Polack's Need. Unfortunately, the labor process was very difficult and the baby was born sickly. When Pettit told the two aunts that Ocey actually might need a very risky postnatal operation that could prove fatal for her, he said he was very surprised and very disgusted with how the women reacted. He said they were fairly jumped at the idea.

[00:45:35]

Because they.

[00:45:35]

Wanted her to.

[00:45:36]

Pass because they wanted to pass that.

[00:45:38]

Now, despite David, the little baby's poor health at the time of his birth, Dr. Pettit and Ocee were both confident that with the right diet, right care, he would survive and eventually thrive. That's great. But that would require the sisters to provide- Anything? -any support that they clearly were not capable of, including spending money on the baby's care. Instead, over the objections of Pettit and OSI, they, Fed the baby condensed milk and other foods at variance with those Dr. Pettit specified. Oh, my God. Weeks later, David was still in poor health and was taken to St. Christopher's Hospital by Virginia and Mary, who returned home a short time later to inform OSI that the baby had died. Though it would later be learned that was a lie. They just got rid of him. They had simply left David at St. Christopher's.

[00:46:29]

Honestly, in a horrible way, that was probably the best thing.

[00:46:33]

For that baby. It's so horrible to do to OSI.

[00:46:35]

But for OSI, that's like.

[00:46:37]

You just kidnapped her baby. Yeah, and then told her she had died. Like, wow. Now, in the wake of what she believed was another child's death. Yeah. She's going to lose it. She's going to see declined, mentally, physically. At his insistence, the sisters allowed Pettit to perform the postnatal surgery on OC. But when he attempted to return a little time later, to remove the stitches and do some aftercare because she managed to get through it. The sisters refused to let him inside the house, but they did allow periodic visits from a nurse. Okay. Just a week or so later, Pettit returned to the house when he learned that Virginia had dismissed the nurse, wouldn't allow her back. His attempts to reach the women went unanswered.

[00:47:22]

My God. I'm like, Can you involve the police?

[00:47:26]

Well, yeah. Don't worry, he does. Okay, good. Because from the moment he had been summon to treat her in the first place, he was very uncomfortable with those three women. He said they made him feel very unwelcome. Each visit he went to that house, he was more and more unwelcome, more unnerved. He said it wasn't just bad attitudes and weird behavior, which they had that troubled him. But he said the fact that the women were intentionally treating Oce poorly and seemed to care very little whether she lived or died. On one particular visit, Pettit recalled Virginia showing him Oce's will.

[00:48:04]

That's.

[00:48:04]

Strange. In it, Oce had left the majority of her stuff to her grandmother, leaving aside $1,000 to pay Pettit for his services. So she had put in her will, I want him paid for what he's done for me. Like, just in case. Now the doctor was like, Oh, that's far too much for what I've provided. You don't need to give me that much. Also, she's alive. But more importantly, he was like, This is weird and suspicious that you're showing me this. Like, Why do you have her will? What are you doing? I don't get it. He reported the treatment of OSI and this whole thing to the police. Good. Later, he recalled that officers, quote, made a routine inquiry, and it led nowhere. This is also the police failed on an epic level here. Now, it was his suspicions that led the doctor to take extreme measures upon his last visit to the house. After knocking and ringing the bell several times and not getting an answer, Dr. Pettit became concerned for OSI's safety, and he went into the house through an open front window. I love this man.

[00:49:06]

I love this doctor. This man is for.

[00:49:07]

The win. He reached the girl's bedroom, and he said he was shocked to find her, quote, Nearly starved with no food in the house. In spite her serious condition, he said that OSI was so happy to see him and said she wanted to talk to him about something important. But before she could say anything, one of the sisters came in the room and forced Pettit out of the room.

[00:49:28]

I wish he could have rescued her and.

[00:49:30]

Taken him with her. They said they were willing to placate him by being like, Fine, we'll have food delivered to the house for. Wow. Like, what the f*ck? They were like, You need to leave now and don't come back or we're calling the police. He was like, Osi isdanger. Like, she's going to die. I'm going to report it again. He reported to the police again and was like, You need to f*cking do something about this. Seriously. The police went, Brooklyn Police, checked on the women, found no evidence of anyone having committed a crime. They said, There's nothing we can do.

[00:50:01]

What?

[00:50:03]

Yeah, failures. Huge failures. Like, shame. Truly. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[00:50:19]

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It is the holiday season, and I am so overwhelmed with the amount of people that I have to buy presents for because my family is a present-given family. I love that about us. But whether or not your family gives gifts during the holidays, you get to define how you give to yourself. The holidays are a great time to do that. Whether it's starting therapy, going easier on yourself during those tough moments, or treating yourself to a complete day of rest, remember to give yourself some love this holiday season. And if you're thinking about benefiting from therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. And all you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. I think therapy is a great thing to start this time of year because not only is it going to help you get through the overwhelming holiday season, it's also going to get you through that period of time where the holidays are over and you maybe feel a little bit blue about that.

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[00:51:27]

By fall of 1909, the sisters found themselves again needing money, their regular position in life, with creditors beginning to call on them regularly. In late October, the sisters were no longer able to hold these creditors off, so they resorted to their typical strategy, picking up and moving before the creditors could find them and get what they needed. Now, when the doctor learned that the Brooklyn police had been unable to do anything, Dr. Pettit returned to the home again himself. Hell, yeah. To check on OC because he was going to go in there and he was like, I don't know what I was going to do, but I was going back myself because no one was doing anything. He found it completely abandoned. Oh, no. He didn't know where she went.

[00:52:14]

That's terrible. That was it. That's terrible. He was probably so, so worried.

[00:52:17]

Now, on November 29th, 1909, only the next month, police in East Orange, New Jersey, received a call from, quote, An elderly woman with a southern accent explaining that an accident had occurred at 89 North 14th Street, and they needed a coroner.

[00:52:33]

Huh.

[00:52:35]

The assistant county physician, Dr. Herbert Simmons, went three blocks to the address, and he was greeted at the door by Virginia, who was dressed in the typical black attire with the black veil. They're so weird. She let them through the house, and Simmons noted that the building seemed to have no heat or furniture and appeared as though no one had lived there in a long time. They reached the bathroom, and Virginia just points at the bathtub where he sees the nude emaciated body of OSI laying beneath just a few inches of water. Oh, God. Now, Simmons, now this is the county physician, Dr. Simmons, he scanned the scene for any information that might be useful and found a pile of clothing with what appeared to be a very neatly written suicide note attached to it. The note said, Last year, my little daughter died. Others near and dear have gone before. I have been prostrated with illness for a long time. When you read this, I will have committed suicide. Do not grieve me. Rejoice with me that death brings a blessed relief from pain and suffering greater than I can bear. O-w-m's need.

[00:53:43]

Doubt it.

[00:53:44]

Now, Virginia explained to the doctor that Oce had lost her daughter the previous year and her son had been placed in the hospital four months earlier. Then she said she had also become a widow seven months prior. Right. Right?

[00:54:00]

No.

[00:54:01]

Not that we know of. Okay. Virginia told the man that she shared the house on 14th Street with her niece, giving the impression that it was just Virginia and Oce. Yeah. And that they had recently moved in. Now, as an agent of the coroner's office, Dr. Simmons had seen a lot of dead bodies, and he had seen a lot of scenes. He said something's not right here.

[00:54:21]

Well, the fact that she's emaciated is.

[00:54:23]

One thing. For one thing, Ocey had been dead in the bathroom in the only bathroom in this place for at least 24 hours.

[00:54:31]

So immediately that's Sus.

[00:54:33]

Virginia saying she just discovered the body. She just had an accident. That's the only bathroom. For 24 hours there's been a dead body in the bathroom, and you didn't know? There was also the house itself. She's saying that they moved in weeks earlier, but the house was virtually empty. It appeared like no one had been living there for years. He was very suspicious of Virginia, and he was like, something's up here. Simmons stopped at the nearest phone. He could find a place to call to Sergeant William O'Neal of the East Orange Police and explained everything that he found, all his thoughts, and noted all his suspicions to them. Now, knowing that Simmons was definitely not the type of man to jump to conclusions, he was a trustworthy guy. He'd been to a lot of these scenes. He wouldn't be bringing them out if he didn't need to. Sergeant O'Neal took this very seriously and immediately went to the house. Good. Now, Sergeant O'Neal arrived at the house around 6:00 PM in Virginia, opened the door, and she demanded immediately to know what business he had there. O'neal explained that he had been ordered to inspect the premises.

[00:55:35]

So Virginia reluctantly let him inside and brought him to the bathroom. She's like, There she is. Like, she showed. Now, after reading the note, O'Neal asked Virginia to show him the rest of the house, starting with the attic. Going room by room, he was struck by how empty this house felt. He said, Not just empty in the sense, he's like, It was empty. There was nothing in there. But he was like, It felt. It felt empty. Like no love, no happiness. There was a palpable feeling to this house. In fact, he said the only sign that anyone actually lived there was found in what he assumed to be O. C. 'S former bedroom on a small table next to a cot was a locket bearing the photo of a baby on one side and a lock of hair on the other. That's so sad. Besides it was a small strip of paper that read Lock of David Sneed's first hair, August 18th, '09.

[00:56:25]

That's the.

[00:56:26]

Saddest thing ever. Now, Virginia followed O'Neal quietly from room to room, and she was using a gas lamp. If you can just picture this. Oh, she's so scary. Wearing her full attire with the black veil.

[00:56:39]

He was probably like, Where the.

[00:56:41]

f*ck am I? This is a house of horrors. Now, there were a few pieces of broken furniture or what maybe could have been personal items scattered about, but it looked more like it was long ago. Somebody had lived there. When they'd finished going through the whole thing, O'Neal began to question Virginia about why they'd moved to East Orange and why she'd only noticed her niece was dead a few hours earlier when it's the only bathroom in the f*cking house. The woman was short with the sergeant and gave him very simple, very direct answers, but also making it very clear that his presence was not f*cking wanted in that house. Now, if Virginia thought she could simply call the coroner, be like, Hey, sorry, I have a dead body here. Can you go ahead and grab that? And thought she was just going to be done with the whole thing after that?

[00:57:27]

Which she definitely did.

[00:57:29]

She must have been pretty surprised when Sergeant O'Neal explained that she was going to have to come with him to the station to answer some more questions. Finally. Virginia went. She grabbed a small bag, some belongings, and went out of the house. Now at the East Orange Police Department, she went through a whole interview, and this time she was interviewed by police chief, James Bell. Now, to Bell, the entire... This was all f*cked. This was all suspicious.

[00:57:53]

Well, she's sitting there in her.

[00:57:54]

f*cking black veil. He said that Virginia seemed to have an answer for everything. She had a quick answer for everything, but it still didn't explain what happened in the house. Because he was like, she herself was very poised, very polished, but O'Neal had described them living in squatter. Right. It just didn't match up. There was also the manner of the whole thing. Like, if they're claiming this is suicide, how could Oce had managed to hold herself underwater long enough to drown herself, especially in such a frail and fragile state. Again, your body is going to want to take yourself and sit up. Yeah. And she's not strong enough to keep herself underwater. These are all unanswered questions, and they're nagging him. Bell booked Virginia as a material witness that evening, and she was taken to Essex County Jail. Rottrow. Now, the following day, November 30th, an autopsy was performed on OSI, and it confirmed that the cause of death was drowning, but it also raised a few more questions. The medical examiner noted that OSI was emaciated to the last degree, like that of a person suffering from starvation, and she only weighed 80 pounds at the time of.

[00:59:05]

Her death. It's such a haunting picture to think of her being discovered in the bathtub in.

[00:59:10]

That state. In that state, investigators wondered whether she, again, would have had the strength to do this, but also had the strength to write a clear and concise suicide note with a steady hand. Yeah, no way. It was very steady. There was no— Shakiness to it. There's no way. No, while the corner examined the body, investigators with the East Orange Police started tracing the two women's movements from the moment they arrived in the city a few weeks earlier. They managed to track down a cab driver who had taken them from the train station to the house, but also took Virginia to see a local doctor by the name of Charles Teeter. When they interviewed Dr. Teeter, he said Virginia had shown up at his house at a late hour on the evening of November 24th. Okay, not long ago. And asked that he accompany her back to the house to provide a health certificate for OSI.

[01:00:02]

A health certificate?

[01:00:04]

Now, although he initially protested, it was clear she wasn't going to take no for an answer, so he agreed to go with her. Now, at the house, the doctor examined OSI and noted that she was incredibly frail and appeared to have bronchitis. But otherwise, he was like, Okay, that's really all I have to say about it. To Bell and O'Neal, the request for the health certificate for OSI only made Virginia seem more suspicious. What is that? I've never heard of that. It could be for insurance reasons.

[01:00:29]

Okay. It's just like almost like a.

[01:00:32]

Physical - Yeah. Now, in just a few days, their investigation had turned up several people who interacted with Virginia in and around East Orange, and always in the context of her asking questions about medical treatment and local doctors, which seemed in keeping with the situation at the house. But when they checked the registers of local hotels in New York City, they were surprised to find that Virginia was staying in several of the city's fanciest hotels in recent recent months had been dining at high end restaurants. There's like, Wait a second. This woman is living in expensive hotels and leaving this this sick, frail niece alone in an empty place. In this abandoned house. What the f*ck? Shut up cold, broken house in New Jersey.

[01:01:20]

How is she even living in these expensive hotels with no money?

[01:01:22]

Because she was using the insurance money that she got before. I'm sure she's scamming some sh*t. There's tons of fraud charges that come up. Wow. Eventually, Bellin O'Neal's search led them to a house in Brooklyn that the neighbors had taken to calling the House of mystery. They called it this.

[01:01:39]

They called it this. Oh, my God. It reminds me of that TikTok you did with your kids. They're like.

[01:01:42]

The Ball of mystery. Mystery. House. My They called this house the House of mystery because the three women in black who occupied it were very strange and had a lot of strange behavior. According to the neighbors on both sides of this house, they'd often heard strange noises and banging coming from the house all hours of the night.

[01:02:02]

What are they doing?

[01:02:04]

The windows had been blacked out. Stop. Stop it. The yard was so overgrown that nobody could see inside.

[01:02:11]

Are they witches?

[01:02:14]

They're bad witches. Some sh*t is going down there. Like dork-sided witches. Dork-sided. Not white witches. It's given sinister vibe. Like white magic. Yeah, like sinister vibe. Oh, my God. Now, once the investigators had located the janitor responsible for managing the the because they used to have certain, like a super almost. They got inside of it, and they found that this place was as bleak and empty as the one in East Orange. They were about to leave, but then they were approached by a reporter from the New York World who'd been put on the story by one of his New Jersey Jersey was like, Heard all about this.

[01:02:49]

Because you knew this was going to get.

[01:02:50]

Reported on. The reporter is like, Wait a second, why are you guys leaving? Don't you notice those small spots of what looks like blood on the floor by the door? I looked at the the I was like, Hey, guys. Hey, investigators. Did you notice that? They follow the faint trail through the hall and up the stairs into one of the bedrooms, but it just led nowhere. What? Meanwhile, the reporter on the first floor opened the oven in the kitchen and discovered a mass of yellow hair. Wrapped up in its center were two irregularly shaped bones. One resembled a femur and the other other resembled a and they were small.

[01:03:33]

What?

[01:03:35]

They said you could see nose bones and the socket of an eye.

[01:03:39]

This is like a.

[01:03:40]

A skull? It appeared to be.

[01:03:43]

What the f*ck? Obviously, this this isn't because we.

[01:03:46]

Have her body.

[01:03:47]

Now- What the f*ck is.

[01:03:48]

Going on? They asked the janitor, What the f*ck has been going on in this? What's going on? The janitor explained that that and her husband had moved into that house about a year and a half earlier and then then were joined, remember, the two older older always dressed in black. A few months later, a third woman who was also dressed in black came to live with them, Caroline. Caroline. The janitor didn't know much else, but he did mention that that husband eventually left and the women were constantly behind on the rent. When Fletcher Fletcher when they showed up, was like, No, I'm not dying. He left for Canada. They moved into that house and turned it into whatever f*cking bullsh*t. While Oce is living there, they turned it into that. Then they ripped ripped out of the house, made her live in that abandoned place while they kept living in that house.

[01:04:40]

They didn't live in the house with.

[01:04:42]

With in- They were just keeping her in a house by herself, ailing and sick and unable to move and starving her.

[01:04:50]

That was the whole time that she was pregnant?

[01:04:52]

Pregnant? Reports had said they had been starving Oce, essentially, since she was born. What? That girl had never been adequately taken care of. What the f*ck? Yeah. The janitor says when when husband eventually left, the women were always behind on the rent, and then they would suddenly come into a large sum of money right before they were about to be evicted. What the f*ck? They were doing some more sh*t.

[01:05:18]

Yeah, they were. Who the f*ck is the skull in the oven?

[01:05:20]

Well, the house in Brooklyn and the information given by the janitor eventually led them to Dr. Dr. Pettit. My my God. Filled in a lot of the gaps here. Pettit explained that he had been on hand when Oce gave birth to her second child, and from that point forward, he said, I just couldn't stop thinking about her. I was so worried for her safety. I tried to help her. My concerns grew and grew. He said, At no time was I able to find out from Mrs. Sneed anything about herself, meaning meaning He had never found anything about about out from herself.

[01:05:52]

Well, because they.

[01:05:53]

Were always lingering. He said, Every time I asked a question, one of the older women was always ready to give up an answer. Mrs. Sneed Sneed seemed to talk. He said he tried to follow up several times until one day he arrived at the house in Brooklyn and it was abandoned, which he was presumably when they moved OSI to East Orange. Now, Dr. Pettit's nurse, Elizabeth Moag, told a similar story. She said she'd been assigned to care for OSI after the baby was born and the surgical procedure had been performed. But she said it was so difficult to take care of her because the sisters were constantly hovering over her. She said, Whenever I I wherever I went, one of them kept tagging after me. I was not alone with Mrs. Need for a single moment. Mrs. Need seemed afraid of someone or something.

[01:06:38]

The air of her being afraid, being followed by these women, and then you add on their appearance to it, and.

[01:06:46]

They're- Terrifying.

[01:06:47]

-like black veils and all all.

[01:06:48]

The time. And just silently following you. Oh, I hate it. Now, Bell and O'Neal explained what they'd found at the house in Brooklyn, and we're like, What the f*ck is... Do you have any idea what that could be? And asked for Pettit to come with him to look at it. Pettit agreed, and it didn't take long before they figured out what happened there. It's not the baby, right? Not what happened there, but what that was. Now, according to Dr. Pettit, the stains in the hall, he said he didn't think they were blood. Okay. He thought they were tobacco juice. He said, said, left by a careless worker. Oh, okay. He's like, That's why there's no end with a crime scene. The bones in the oven were bizarre, but he said he didn't believe they were human. He thought they were animal bones. But he said, said, don't know why they're in the oven. There's also a mass of hair that he was like, I don't know what that is. Did he think it was human hair? He couldn't tell. He was like, I don't know. But he's like, I think some of these are are so I'm assuming they're animal bones.

[01:07:47]

What the f*ck. Dr. Pettit tried to clear up some mysteries and did a couple, but it didn't stop the New York World News publishing a ton of sensational stories about this. I mean, how do you not in this f*cking case? They called the Brooklyn House a baby farm, which they didn't really have a lot to go on on that. They did mention the occult overtones of the whole thing. Thanks to the information provided by neighbors in in and especially that of Dr. Pettit and his nurse, a picture was beginning to emerge for the detectives. It was clear that three women had been abusing OSI, and by all accounts, she seemed terrified of them. But what they couldn't couldn't figure was why they had done this. They were like, This is like a long process, and it didn't take them long to figure out a motive. During an interview with William Fee, a Brooklyn attorney, it was revealed that the lawyer had been recommended to Virginia by someone she'd met at church, and she'd summon him to the house just a few months before before death.

[01:08:52]

I can't believe Virginia was at church.

[01:08:54]

Yeah. Now, according to Fee, Virginia had wanted him to help help write a new will. This was before before died. Virginia produced the old will completed by by just a few months earlier and explained they wanted to write a new one because the previous version didn't make any provisions for OSI's baby. Now, OSI is only like, I think she was only 20, I want to say she was between 23 and 26.

[01:09:20]

Yeah, and she also was told that her baby died, which like that.

[01:09:23]

Is why. Well, Fee thought that the explanation was like, whatever. He's like, okay, sure. Yeah. But he did think it was strange that the details of the new will were all being dictated by Virginia, not Ocey. Yeah. Now, according to Fee, on that day, Virginia was in the company of Caroline, Ocey's mother. The girl appeared to be very on the verge of death at the time, and Fee was really moved by the sad story that the sisters were spinning to him. Right. He agreed to write the new will because he thought that she's dying. This is what he said. This is her mother and her aunts. Right. Now, in the new will, O. C. Apparently declared that all her deaths should be paid out of her estate and that her son should inherit $500. That the rest was to be left to her grandmother, Martha. That was her original thing. With new evidence in hand, Chief Bell paid a visit to Virginia in her cell at Essex County Jail and interrogated her about the will. Virginia flatly denied the accusations of neglect and any insinuation that she would conspire to kill her for any inheritance.

[01:10:31]

I mean. Bell hoped that the woman would crack when presented with the evidence, but he had underestimated how much she would... He had underestimated her will. Yeah, I will say, and you will find out what I mean by that in a minute. Okay. He was just about to give up when O'Neal entered his office and presented him with documented evidence and witnessed testimony confirming medical neglect and all evidence of maltreatment and malnourishment of OSI. Yeah. So all the evidence was there. He didn't need the confession. And Bell said, At first, I believe Mrs. Need attempted to take a bath, was discovered in the tub by her murderer and held underwater until drowned. Makes sense. But after careful examination of the evidence, which directly contradicted Virginia's story, he believed OSI had never intended to take a bath, but had instead been placed in the tub, was too to fight fight and was held under a few inches of water by Virginia. Jesus Christ. Until she drowned. So she literally carried her, dragged her into the bath and drowned her. This is one.

[01:11:39]

Of the.

[01:11:40]

Most darkest. Based on the information collected at this point, Bell made the decision to charge Virginia with the murder of O. C. Sneed.

[01:11:48]

Yeah, rightfully so, it sounds.

[01:11:49]

The news of Virginia's arrest made readers go crazy all over the East Coast. They had been following all the sensational stories coming out of here. Honestly, the news of her behavior and the way she dressed only made it even more more Of course. Law enforcement were talking also about how strange and uncooperative Virginia was being. Police Commissioner Sharp said in a statement to the press, I tried to question her, but she bluntly told me that she saw no reason why she should answer my questions. In his assessment of Virginia, Sharp described her as cool, calm and resourceful and cunning.

[01:12:26]

Now.

[01:12:27]

In an attempt to get back at the negative portrayals of Virginia, Mary Sneed, the other idiot here, granted an interview with several reporters reporters saying pride should be laid laid and the public should learn the truth about the the in in Tell us. Mary said, In the hope of lightening the burden of an innocent woman, speaking of Virginia, I will tell all I know. But hardly she she told- said nothing. She told nothing. In fact, she flat out refused to address any questions regarding the family's financial history and the fact that Virginia had not only taken three life insurance policies out on on just before her death, but had also had her will changed. She wouldn't talk about any of that. Instead, Mary told some some of the sob story of family tragedy and misfortune that more or less upheld the lies the women had told told including that her husband was almost certainly dead, Fletcher.

[01:13:24]

Which he's not.

[01:13:25]

He's just just killing Also, that's Mary's son.

[01:13:27]

Yeah.

[01:13:27]

As for for death, death, Mary that it was suicide, motivated by profound loss and her declining health. I don't know about that. Now, as news of the story spread, people in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Tennessee came forward to tell their tales of the sisters. A former student at the Nashville Female School where Mary was once employed, described her as being, quote, regarded by all pupils as being queer. Now, queer meaning strange back then. In Christianburg, Virginia, one resident described the as, quote, crazy, eccentric, and exceedingly smart. Which is scary.

[01:14:04]

Exceedingly smart and ties with all of that is horrible.

[01:14:07]

Now, reporters followed every lead in the story, and they began reporting on all the mysterious aspects of the women's lives, including all the things we had talked about before, the weird standing over people's beds at night, the Bionese, the cemetery things, having one driver to bring them to the cemetery all the time.

[01:14:23]

I forgot that they had a f*cking driver to bring them to the cemetery.

[01:14:26]

They started piecing together a story that included a large amount of fraud, very disturbing behavior, and a few suspicious deaths and a lot of insurance sh*t. There was the tragic death of Caroline's first child after falling down a flight of of stairs. Unexpected early death of Robert Martin, her husband. John Sneeds multiple brushes with death before dying by being lit on fire in his bed. I know. Did the police ever.

[01:14:52]

Investigate that?

[01:14:53]

No, they said, in fact, they could smell kerosene and nobody thought it was suspicious. What the f*ck? They said it was an accident. Accident. Then finally, drowning. All of these things were followed by large insurance payouts that were received just in the nick of time to avoid financial ruin. Right. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From From Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and and walking through the forensic evidence and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. With over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the the app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[01:16:14]

You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining joining WNDY Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of of WNDY's American scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history, presidential lies, corruption corruption sports, corporate fraud. Our newest season looks at Aaron Hernandez, a rising pro football star who shocked the sports world when he was arrested for a brutal murder in 2013. Fans, media, and Hernandez's own family couldn't understand how a beloved and respected player for the New England Patriots with a a million dollar contract could commit such a heinous crime. But there had been warning signs all along the way, and they pointed to a much larger health crisis among current and former NFL players. Follow American scandal on the the app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge American scandal Aaron Hernandez early and ad-free right now on WNDYRY+. In an effort to combat the growing amount of strange stories in the press, Virginia's lawyer, Franklin Fort, presented the press with two unmailed letters that Virginia supposedly had written to family members. In each letter, Virginia is expressing her deepest sympathies for the recent losses. There were statements like, What a flood tide of loving sympathy slows to you this beautiful, beautiful, sabbath afternoon, I would love to hold you, dear head, on my lap and run my fingers through your hair and so charm away brainworry.

[01:17:45]

People talked so wild back then.

[01:17:48]

I thought just like feeding her.

[01:17:50]

Her. That might have worked out. Intention was to demonstrate that Virginia was far from this bizarre bizarre spinster had been portrayed as the press. I don't know. That no woman who writes such letters would commit murder. Totally. Totally. Now, despite what seemed like a a rock way to influence the press, the public perception of Virginia, Fort simply couldn't hold back the constant sensational news coverage because she was weird. Wild. Moreover, the more the press learned about the family through their investigations and the police, the more it began to look as though Virginia was not the only only involved in all this.

[01:18:30]

Yeah. I'm also like, where the f*ck is Caroline? Because Mary is out here talking to the press. Where's Caroline about her only child.

[01:18:36]

Now dying? As the new year rolls over, the prosecutor's office had begun to put together a theory as to the events leading up to and resulting in OSI's death. They They that all four women had been living in the house in Brooklyn when they concocted a scheme to kill OSI and collect on the insurance money. Now, according to the prosecutor, one old woman hired the unfurnished house in East Orange. Another took the poor girl there, and a third planned her murder. They rented that house in East Orange, brought OSI there and left her there, let her her there for a while, and planned her entire murder, and then told the police, We are living here together, even though they're not. Now, by dividing up the tasks, because one of them hired the house, one of them brought her there, one of them planned the murder. By dividing up those tasks, the women had hoped to avoid suspicion. I don't know why they would have gone through all the lengths to bring her to East Orange when they could have just committed this crime in New York. I don't know.

[01:19:45]

I wonder if they thought maybe her traveling in such a frail state would just end up with her death. Maybe.

[01:19:51]

But even then, it's like that would have been great for them.

[01:19:57]

Oh.

[01:19:57]

Yeah, actually. Either way, so it's like, it just doesn't make it... Why wouldn't you just do it?

[01:20:06]

Yeah.

[01:20:07]

Why did you bring her somewhere else and evolve another place and.

[01:20:11]

Even now- Oh, that's what.

[01:20:12]

I meant by that. You meant going from Brooklyn to East Orange. Sorry, I was thinking the other way around. No, that's okay. You are correct. That is also a good point. But even investigators now, they're like, I still don't get why they didn't just like... Because you didn't really need anything to happen. You had already done the starvation and the poor poor treatment the withholding medical treatment from her. At this point, it looks like what they did was they just dragged her to a bathtub and drowned her. They could have done that.

[01:20:40]

They could have done that all along. But maybe the financial thing was heating up at that point. They were like, Okay, she's not going to die soon enough from starvation, so we need.

[01:20:49]

To speed this along. But that's what I mean. They could have just drowned her in the house that they already had.

[01:20:53]

It.

[01:20:54]

Doesn't make sense. I don't know. But what's also unknown to investigators at this this point the whereabouts of, like you were were Caroline.

[01:21:02]

Yeah, where is she?

[01:21:04]

They believe she was obviously an active participant in her own daughter's death. Now, despite her absence or perhaps because of it, the press was able to paint a picture of Caroline as a ringleader among the sisters.

[01:21:16]

It sounds like she is, because again, they they were.

[01:21:19]

Normal before. Until her arrival, the sisters' lives seemed pretty functional. Odd, a little bit, but functional.

[01:21:27]

Yeah, I mean, she was the President of the school.

[01:21:29]

The other one worked there, sure. But once Caroline entered the picture, her manipulation and overbearing personality completely changed Virginia and Mary. According to LuAnne Rife, the newspapers described Caroline as an intelligent and highly emotional woman, perhaps with mental illness, who manipulated her family. Definitely. Yeah. She was a horder. She clung on to everything she owned rather than sell them even when she was financially desperate. Desperate. And importantly, she lacked any real human connection, even the closest members of her family, her husband, her son, and her daughter, she had no connection to them.

[01:22:05]

It sounds like she has more of a connection to.

[01:22:07]

Her sisters. Yeah. This was a strange little thing. By mid-December, Caroline had been located in New York City, and she was registered at a hotel as Mrs. Maybrook.

[01:22:18]

Mrs. Maybrook.

[01:22:20]

Now, remember the case of Florence Maybrook? Yeah. James Maybrook? Yeah. Who some people believe to be Jack the Ripper? He's not. Get this. Florence Maybrook's daughter was named Caroline. Wait, what? Caroline, our bad Caroline, is living in New York City in a hotel under the name Mrs. Maybrook. Florence Maybrook was married to James Maybrook and was accused of poisoning him. Her daughter's name was Caroline.

[01:22:57]

Okay.

[01:22:58]

I don't know what the connection is there, but Mrs. Maybrook is a strange name to pick. Yeah. And the fact that the Caroline is going under Mrs. Maybrook and the real Mrs. Maybrook has a daughter named Caroline is a little strange.

[01:23:13]

That is. It was heavily reported.

[01:23:17]

Even in the- Oh, yeah. People thought he was Jack the Ripper. Right. What the f*ck? It was like a big deal because they thought that Florence had murdered him.

[01:23:27]

Right. Sorry, was that in the States States or no? No. They thought he was Jack the the Ripper, so was in Europe, and it.

[01:23:32]

Was reported over here. Okay. Yeah.

[01:23:34]

Sorry, that was like a lot.

[01:23:36]

What? Yeah. It's just a weird... I was like, What is this? I tried to find any other connections there, but I was like, I couldn't find. And then what's weird, too, is I think it was a big deal, the Florence Maybrook stuff, because Florence Maybrook was from Alabama. Oh, and they're from the south as well. She's from the south. That was definitely reported over here because it was like an American woman. But yeah, yeah, that's... f*ck. There's a weird interconnection here that I can't quite put my finger on, but weird, very coincidental.

[01:24:19]

Yeah, and it's also if she did do that on purpose, which to me, it sounds like she did. That's a weird f*cking thing to do on purpose because people are going to want to... You're trying to float below the but you're picking that as a cover name? Yeah.

[01:24:33]

I don't know. What? It's very strange.

[01:24:35]

Do you think she just thought it was.

[01:24:37]

Like- Funny? Yeah. Or like she just did it to be like, I don't know. Because they love that spooky persona. They've They've out Maybe it was just like- Their black dress with the black veil. Right. So maybe it's just part of the whole like- It sounds.

[01:24:51]

Very mental illness.

[01:24:52]

Very strange. It sounds like she was...

[01:24:55]

There's definitely something there. Well, when I saw Mrs. Maybrook, I was like, Mrs. Maybrook? I was like, Oh, Florence Maybrook, Maybrook, James I started thinking about about it, and I was like, Huh. I was like, Wait, Florence was from the United States. I was like, Wait, she was from the South. Wait a second. I started looking into it again, just being refreshing. Then I was like, Holy sh*t, her daughter's name was Caroline.

[01:25:16]

I feel like that's too weird to be a coincidence.

[01:25:19]

Right?

[01:25:19]

I think, yeah. Too many connections there. But anyway. That was my little sad track.

[01:25:24]

Florence ended up getting out of jail eventually and then moving back to the the.

[01:25:29]

States, right? Yeah. Ended up living like...

[01:25:31]

Like a quaint life.

[01:25:32]

A pretty quiet life.

[01:25:33]

Life. Yeah.

[01:25:36]

Now, Caroline was under surveillance by New Jersey authorities until they had justification to arrest her.

[01:25:42]

We love a.

[01:25:43]

Surveillance moment. Moment. Right. Evidence finally came in the form of several letters written by Caroline that Chief Bell believed bore a remarkable resemblance to the handwriting in OSI's suicide note. She wrote her daughter's suicide note. Note. She wrote her suicide note. Finally, by the end of December, Mary, Mary, and Caroline were taken into custody by New York authorities and held for the murder of OSI. On December 22nd, a grand jury indicted all three women for first-degree murder. At this time, prosecutor Wilber Mott began drawing up the papers to have Mary and Caroline extradited to New Jersey to stand trial. The most compelling piece of evidence presented to the grand jury, according to the press, was more than 50 suicide notes discovered in Caroline Martin's New York York room. Room.

[01:26:34]

So kept writing them over and over and over.

[01:26:36]

Over She was practicing. What the f*ck? That's her daughter. Her child.

[01:26:42]

I mean, she was already starving her, so I don't know if I'm shocked.

[01:26:44]

But still. That's f*cked. Now, while all three women continue to be held in prison pending trial, investigators in East Orange kept turning up evidence in the case that strongly supported the theory that that death was a murder. In addition to the the insurance taken out on her life and other evidence of conspiracy. When he first searched the house, Sergeant O'Neal had found a glass by the bathtub that contained a small amount of liquid. When the autopsy was conducted, a small amount of that same liquid was discovered in in stomach. Stomach. It took a long time for the analysis to be completed, but in mid-January, the results came back and found that that liquid was morphine. The discovery of the morphine answered the nagging question of how had managed to drown in such a shallow amount of of water, since the body would instinctively fight to stay alive. With this news, so they had sedated her because that's easy.

[01:27:41]

That was probably how they even got her into the.

[01:27:42]

Bath in the first place. Now, with this new new the prosecutor announced their belief that the women had been administering the morphine for several days and that when she was put in the bathtub, bathtub, was unconscious of what was was occurring, I guess is the only blessing here that she didn't know what was happening. Now, they built their case against the three sisters, and the prosecutor announced the trial would begin April 1910, but things started to fall apart because a ton of things delayed the trial. First, the sister's elderly mother mother followed by the unfortunate death of of son, David, at St. Christopher's Hospital. Then in the spring, it became clear to authorities that Virginia's health had started to take a turn for the worse.

[01:28:28]

Worse. And in custody, right? Right?

[01:28:30]

Okay. They discovered she was starving herself.

[01:28:33]

What? That is so just dark.

[01:28:38]

Macabre. Yeah. In August, the prosecutor announced it is feared Virginia Wardlaw may not live to be brought to trial. By the summer, she had been removed from the House of Corrections and taken to a hospital. She was frequently unconscious, required oxygen, and a few days later, on August 12th, she had died from starvation. Jesus. She had starved herself to death in custody.

[01:29:01]

That is wild because that takes a long time. Yeah.

[01:29:05]

Now, prison officials had tried to give her enough food. They were serving her her food she just wouldn't eat. They were serving her food just wouldn't eat. They said she had intentionally killed killed and they said, quote, having starved herself to avoid being placed on trial. Wow. Now, things became even more complicated a month later in late September, when Franklin Franklin produced a document signed by two psychiatrists that declared Caroline Caroline insane. I mean, we knew that. He said, The defense argued this is a case of whether a woman should be confined in a jail or in an asylum. We have carefully considered all the details of the case, and with the relatives of Mrs. Martin, and with the relatives of Mrs. Martin, believe that she is not now in her right mind. The request for a new hearing on Caroline's sanity conflicted with the schedule for the acting judge, so the case was transferred to another judge, Judge J. 10-eck, and and scheduled early August. Now, when it finally went underway, Caroline's behavior, whether real or an act to bolster this claim, as people do believe it was, did little to contradict the ways in which she had been portrayed in the press.

[01:30:16]

At one point, while a former representative from Ward Law College was testifying about how Caroline had negatively affected the school and its finances, Caroline jumped out of her seat and shouted, I never said a thing he is is telling, then was ordered to sit down by the courtroom. Caroline would continue to have outbursts over and over. She would challenge any and all testimony given. When Caroline's brother, Reverend Albert Wardlaw, was called to the stand, he testified that Caroline had always been controlling, manipulative, and strange. We heard that. He said, She directed both my school and daily life in New York. He said of his earlier experience with his sister that... He said that he told the court that around 1890 or 1891, he noticed a marked change in his sister's behavior. Huh. She was irrational, bizarre, and very quick to anger. At one point, she said to him that she was, quote, equal to her creator and called herself Salvator. What? Albert Wardlaw's testimony was interrupted again by Caroline outbursting, and the judge had to call a recess. Now, throughout the trial, Caroline was was to lift her veil a lot because she was wearing her veil.

[01:31:32]

Basically, she would lift her veil subtly during one of her outbursts to evaluate the judge's.

[01:31:40]

Reaction.

[01:31:41]

Gaging how far she could carry it or to act out. This is very clear that she's doing it on purpose. She would look at him and be like and see how far she could take it. Am I going to get away? After multiple outbursts in the courtroom, the sanity hearing finally concluded in late November, and the judge concluded Mrs. Mrs. Is sane within the meaning of the statute, competent to advise counsel and assist in the preparation of defense.

[01:32:06]

That's the thing.

[01:32:07]

If.

[01:32:08]

You can sit there and jump up in an.

[01:32:10]

Outburst to everything- And be looking to see how far you can take it? Then hello. Hello. So, a formal declaration of insanity to shield her, Caroline's lawyers encouraged her to plead guilty to a lesser charge. Smart. On November ninth, 1911, she pleaded no contest to a charge of manslaughter. But when the plea agreement for manslaughter was read in court, she interrupted the prosecutor and said, Involuntary manslaughter, please, sir.

[01:32:36]

You can't just change the charge that you're.

[01:32:38]

Pleading to. The prosecutor raised his voice and said, manslaughter, madam. Madam. So exchange brought on another aggressive outburst from Caroline, but the judge had had f*cking enough of this and was like, We're going to get delayed again. He literally yelled at Carolyn, This is not the time for you to talk. She She just back in her chair.

[01:33:01]

Oh, man.

[01:33:02]

Now, Caroline Martin was sentenced to seven years in the state penitentiary for women and began serving her term February eighth, 1911.

[01:33:12]

Seven years?

[01:33:14]

After a little more than a year in prison, officials noted that Caroline was doing very poorly and her mental health had declined considerably. In May 1912, she was declared insane and transferred to the New Jersey State Hospital for the insane to finish out her sentence. On June 10th, 1913, only the next year, Caroline Martin died from heart disease at the age of 67. Now, because the law didn't allow for co-conspirators to manslaughter, the joint indictment of Caroline and Mary had to be severed. As a result, the prosecutor had to drop the accessory charge against Mary's need, and she was free to go.

[01:33:54]

She just walked.

[01:33:55]

With her husband and one of her sons dead and Fletcher living in Canada, Mary's only option was to move to Colorado, where she went to live with a third son that no one knew about. What the f*ck? Mary resurfaced in 1930 when a number of diamonds were discovered in an unclaimed bank vault in Murphy'sville, Tennessee.

[01:34:16]

This would be the way that this.

[01:34:18]

f*cking thing ends. Now, according to Mary, quote, Ms. Virginia. Yeah, here's the start. Ms. Virginia Wardlaw's diamonds were lost or stolen from Sewell College, and and believed them to be the same diamonds found in the vault. No. As the only living sister, Mary claimed herself the heir to her sister's estate. Those aren't hers. Hers. Attempted to claim the the No, baby, no. It's unclear whether she was successful. Really? At the time, she was known to be, quote, a church worker living in Oakland, California. Mary Sneed died in 1937.

[01:34:53]

Wow, 1937.

[01:34:55]

That's something. And that's the end of the story.

[01:34:58]

What the the f*cking dude. That is, first of all, one of the darkest tales that you've ever told. I shouldn't say tales because it's true. Secondly, what the.

[01:35:09]

f*cking f*cking What the f*cking f*ck is is.

[01:35:12]

Holy sh*t. That's one of the the.

[01:35:15]

The fact that Ocee was wrapped up in this- I know, because it sounds like she was just like a sweet girl. -is so sad. Sad. Yeah, and just wanted a happy, normal life. It pisses me.

[01:35:23]

Off that Fletcher was like, Oh, I'm not going to die. Let me get out of here.

[01:35:26]

It's like, f*ck you, Fletcher. Take her with you. Yeah, Jesus. God damn. Damn. If had to get married. You agreed to get married. Yeah, you.

[01:35:33]

Must have loved her in.

[01:35:34]

Some capacity. Also, your first cousin, get her out of there. Right. Jesus, if you're worried about these women and what they did to your brother, you should be worried about what's going to happen to your family member. Exactly. Wow. He just runs up to Canada. I'm like, nice, Fletcher.

[01:35:50]

That's the thing. It's like, take her to Canada with you.

[01:35:52]

Jesus Christ. That feels very much like a Fletcher thing to do, though. I know you like that name, but it feels like a Fletcher thing to do. You're not wrong. I I think.

[01:36:00]

The guy's name and something borrowed who cheats on his woman.

[01:36:03]

I'm like, I think you might be right.

[01:36:05]

Yeah, I'm not going to name my kid Fletcher. Sorry to.

[01:36:07]

All the Fletchers out there. Sorry to all the Fletch. It's a cool name. It is a cool name. I'm not going to to lie. It is a cool name. I don't know something about it. Fletch. Wow. Wow. So is the story story.

[01:36:16]

Of-.

[01:36:17]

Bananas. Bananas. -the, Black Sisters, because that's what they were called, and the murder of O. C. Sneed.

[01:36:24]

That, I just can't even stop saying how wild that was. I've never heard heard anything that.

[01:36:30]

That. Me out, my friend.

[01:36:32]

For real. Mikey just found that.

[01:36:34]

That the the of hell. Yeah, Mikey just found it and was like, You should look at this story. I was like, Are you f*cking kidding me? Where the hell did this come from? I had your name written all over it. How did I miss it? I was like, like, never came across this. That's wild. Crazy. I just had a driver to f*cking...

[01:36:45]

You want to do that when we're old? Let's hire a driver.

[01:36:48]

Drive us to the graveyard.

[01:36:49]

We won't dance around. I'm just like, Headstones.

[01:36:52]

Though, that's f*cked up. Up. It's disrespectful.

[01:36:54]

That's super disrespectful. He can.

[01:36:55]

Drive us somewhere else. I do love a graveyard, though I'd love to walk around a graveyard.

[01:36:59]

Let's Let's dress all black when we're older. Not murder anybody. Just get a four.

[01:37:03]

For four. A four for four.

[01:37:04]

We're going to back. There's a lot of souls happening today. I had a weird accent on my.

[01:37:08]

Fall out there. Yeah, fall.

[01:37:10]

Earlier I said insanity.

[01:37:11]

She did.

[01:37:12]

I don't know.

[01:37:13]

I don't know.

[01:37:13]

Well, we hope you keep listening.

[01:37:15]

And we hope you keep. It's weird.

[01:37:17]

But not so weird that you hire a driver to bring you to the cemetery in the middle of the night and you dance around graves and then you wake up in the middle of the night to people standing over your bed. Not so weird that you kill your own daughter by starvation and then write all the suicide notes for her because, wow, that's like super f*cked up.

[01:37:38]

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to more of it early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app app today. You can listen to Ad-free with with and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at at com/survey.