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The Hammersmith Ghost Murder · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: In the winter of eighteen o three, a London neighborhood
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: was gripped by fear as reports of a ghostly figure
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: haunting the streets of Hammersmith spread like wildfire. But when
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a man with a gun ran into the specter in
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the streets, the line between folklore and tragedy vanished in
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a single fatal shot. This is the true story of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the Hammersmith Ghost Murder, where panic and superstition, plus a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: deadly mistake all collided in one of Britain's strangest legal cases.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingram.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: A true crime podcast. The following podcast and material intended
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Wicked and Grim.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm naked today.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that sounds not okay.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Why I'm in my own home. Why can't be naked?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but just like sitting here recording a podcast, buckus.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I'm done with nude. I don't have headphones. I feel
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: naked and broke his headphones. Yeah, so I got to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: buy some new headphones. It feels weird, does.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Feel really weird? I know I've recorded a couple, not
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: for breaking them, but because I just had a shower
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and then I didn't want to dent my hair from
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the top of my headphones, so brutal.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: It it feels different when you're not wearing headphones.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: It doesn't feel quite as legit or professional, really, I
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: think is something.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It doesn't And for me a big thing is if
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I have the headphones on, I can really understand when
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: we're overlapping each other in a conversation.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Helps focus in on that. And when I don't have
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the headphones, you and I can talk to each other
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and we can overlap and understand each other easy, but
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: it doesn't betray the same way in audio, and it's
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: harder to differentiate.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: So yeah, well hopefully, I mean I'm more in mine.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Hopefully I'm catching things, but I don't quite have the
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: ear as you do for this.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Is that the right term? I don't know.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I don't even know.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But we have a really interesting case for you guys today.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: This is a paranormal case about a ghost and then
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it transitions into a murder, so you get a ghost
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: story and a murder story all wrapped up in one.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Sounds very intriguing.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Plus it's in the eighteen hundreds.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's crazy.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: What more could you ask for it this case.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Early eighteen hundred.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, literally has everything you could ask for. Like,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know why this isn't a movie or something yet,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: because it's it's quite the story.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Well, let's make it a movie.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Let's make it a movie. Let's do it. Let's just
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: start filming it. Someone quickly give us a budget of
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: several million dollars so we can make this movie.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you probably need about them. I have no idea
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: how much you need to make a movie, but people
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: probably do it for less. But then you can tell.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you generally can tell, that's for sure. And especially
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I mean if we're gonna do this and if we're
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: gonna have Chris Hemsworth be the main character, oh my god,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: which we can't do it without obviously.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's our ticket of fame to meet him.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean, picture like eighteen hundreds, like
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: streets outside of London and you have like a rugged
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: ghost spectral thing happening, and someone's out in the streets
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: with a gun hunting the ghost, obviously shirtless, and it's
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Chris Hemsworth.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Obviously shirtless, obvious.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: JESU tell me you wouldn't watch that movie. I'm a dude, No, homo,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I'd still watch that movie.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I'd watch that movie. I watched out of that movie exactly.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Call Chris Hemsworth, get him on this now. See, we
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: need to make this happen. Anyways, let's get going. In
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the early winter of eighteen oh three in Hammersmith, a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: quiet village just outside of London, and the streets were
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: colder than usual, just not from the chill, but also
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: from fear. Now. At the time, Hammersmith felt more like
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: a countryside than a city. Its narrow lanes were lined
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: with hedgerows and scattered cottages, and at night, the only
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: light came from the lanterns or whale oil lamps without
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: gaslight er police patrols. Darkness held power, and that December
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the dark seemed to be hiding something more than just
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the silence.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, darkness held power. Yeah that's a good line, thank you.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: That might be one of our best lines. So ah, yeah,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: that just blew me away. Well done.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Now imagine Chris Hemsworth, shirtless, walking through the dark with
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: oil lamps going glistening off his bottom.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, oil up, body, he is brutal ware going with this.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: That's my last reference of Chris Hemsworth. I'm done. I'm
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: done until maybe at the very end, but probably not now.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Rumors began to swirl through the tavern and the homes.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: People spoke of a tall, pale figure drifting through the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: village after sundown, sometimes wrapped in a white cloak, and
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: others said to have maybe horns or glowing eyes as well.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: The stories varied, but the message was always the same.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: There was something or someone haunting the churchyard at night.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Some villagers claimed it was the ghost of a man
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: who had taken his own life the year before. He
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: was buried improperly in the churchyard of Saint Paul's, just
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: off Black Lion Lane Now. At the time, it was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: widely believed that those who died by suicide shouldn't be
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: buried in consecrated ground, so doing so people feared would
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: keep their souls restless and even dangerous. It didn't take
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: long for superstition to turn into obsession, and by mid December,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: locals were claiming that the ghost had attacked people. He
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: had chased them right through the night and even scared
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a pregnant woman to death. Panic set in, and the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: lines between myth and reality were blurring each more every night.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: In an era where people were fearing the supernatural just
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: as much as actual crime, it wasn't hard to believe
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: something otherworldly might be walking in those streets that time.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: But what no one in Hammersmith realized was that their
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: ghost story, real or imagined, was about to lead to
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a very real death, also a dramatic murder trial, and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a legal dilemma that would haunt British law for nearly
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: two hundred years. So that's our intro to the story.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Now, in the early eighteen hundreds, Hammersmith wasn't yet part
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: of the sprawling metropolis of London. It was a semi
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: rural type village tucked along the north banks of the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: River Thames, with open fields, narrow footpaths, and just enough
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: development to hint at a city that it would eventually become.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: At the center of the village stood at Saint Paul's Church,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: surrounded by a quiet graveyard, and this is where that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: ghost story began, or at least where it was most
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: often said to be seen. The first reported sighting came
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: in November of eighteen oh three, locals began whispering of
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a strange, white clad figure that appeared after nightfall. According
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: to some accounts, it floated, Others said it walked silently
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: through the mist. People claimed the ghosts would spring out
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: from behind gravestones, chase passers by, or simply stand there
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: in the darkness, just watching and waiting.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Gosh, that's creepy, yeah, no kidding.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Descriptions were not exactly consistent. Some said the figure was
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: covered in a white shroud like a burial cloth. Others
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: swore yes, large horns or big glassy eyes, or it
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: wore a cloak made of calf skin. A few thought
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: it was seven feet tall, unnaturally silent, and capable of
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: vanishing in an instant. Now, whatever it was, it scared
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: people badly enough to avoid certain roads altogether after dusk,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: and that's where, hey, the darkness has its power, right.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: The villagers soon settled into a theory the ghost was
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the restless spirit of a man who died by suicide
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the year before. He'd been buried in the churchyard. Against
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: custom and belief at the time in the early nineteenth century,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: many people believed that such a burial would actually leave
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the deceased soul trapped and condemned to wander for all eternity. Stories,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of course, piled up quickly. One Brewer's assistant, Thomas Groom,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: told of walking through the churchyard at night when something
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: lunged at him from behind a tombstone. It grabbed him
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: by the throat and spun him around, and when he
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: threw a punch, she felt it hit something soft like
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a great coat quote unquote, but he saw no one there.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: In another case, a pregnant woman reportedly fainted after the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: ghost wrapped its arms around her. She was found hours later,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: still unconscious and died not long after the encounter.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Really, so she could have had a heart attack.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Or something ain't Potentially, yes, though it's impossible to confirm
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the story, it only added fuel to the hysteria. I mean,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you can't necessarily say that this woman who's found unconscious
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: encountered the ghost because she wasn't conscious to say that
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: she did or did not, right, she could.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Have just said had something wrong with her that night.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: She may have just yeah, she may have just been
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: walking home and just had a heart attack. And then
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: with all the ghost hysteria, someone's like she obviously encountered
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the ghost, and then that word spreads like wildfire, and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you have a pregnant woman who just got attacked and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: killed by a ghost.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Or I mean, yeah, something could have even gone wrong
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: with her pregnancy or something.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Who knows. Yeah, but one way or another, it was
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: just hysteria and this was just fuel for that fire.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Then came the stagecoach incident. One night, a carriage driver
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: hauling sixteen passengers saw a ghostly figure rise from the roadside.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: In a panic, he abandoned the horses, the wagon, and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: every single passenger on board, and he just sprinted away
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: into the night.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't laugh, but was that you.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Me in a past life?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe?
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Now the horses were found still, just standing in place, untouched,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: just not knowing what's going on. Right, there's like, okay,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: buddy just ran off. What do we do now?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And I feel like horses a lot get spooked too, right,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: They can get spooped.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they're giant, is what horses are. So now,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: by late December of eighteen oh three, Hammersmith had crossed
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a threshold from a worried curiosity to a full blown
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: ghost panic. What had started as a whisper and an
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: eerie sighting became a village wide obsession. The stories were
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: growing darker and the fear more intense. People weren't just
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: avoiding the churchyard. Instead, they were now arming themselves with superstition, hearsay,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and in some cases, yes, even weapons. Now, there was no
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: official police force in London at the time. This was
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: decades before Robert Peel's Metropolan Police, so law enforcement came
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: in the form of night watchmen, volunteer patrols, and the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: occasional constable. With villagers reporting attacks by a ghost. Even
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the authorities weren't sure how they should respond to the situation.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: They did what they could, though. They started patrolling the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: streets at night in shifts, hoping to catch whoever was
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: behind the hauntings, or maybe whatever was behind the hunts.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: But patrolling nineteenth century Hammersmith wasn't easy. The village was
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: full of narrow, twisting paths and dark hedgerows, making it
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: nearly impossible to cover every single route in or out,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and with the sheer number of ghost stories now floating around,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it was hard to tell which sightings were actually credible
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: and which were simply fear. Taking over One of the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: men involved in the patrols was William Girdler, a local
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: night watchman. On the night of December twenty ninth, Girdler
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: reported seeing the figure himself. He described chasing a white
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: cloaked form through the churchyard, only for it to tear
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: off the sheet and disappear into the night.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: He actually chased this thing. Hey, but I guess that's
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: what he was there.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: For exactly now, left behind there was a tablecloth dropped
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: during that escape.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Huh wild Yeah.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: It was the first solid proof that at least some
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of the ghost sightings were the work of a person
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in disguise. Literally, have someone classic Charlie Brown sheet draped
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: over him, left exactly, and it's hey, this is a tablecloth,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: like you know, like we know someone in the village
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: who's making these or something like that. Like this is
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: an actual tablecloth. Someone had it draped over him. That
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: was a person. They ripped it off and they ran.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Now this only added to the confusion. Though if the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: ghost was just a prankster, it was no longer harmless fun.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: It was at this point dangerous, especially now that citizens
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: were arming themselves in hopes of catching it. Rumors spread
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: even faster. Some believed the ghosts could breathe fire, had claws,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: or moved without touching the ground. Others were convinced there
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: were multiple people dressing up as ghosts and they were
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the source. Each and every new account added layers and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: layers of panic. By the time the calendar turned to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: January eighteen oh four, Hammersmith was a village living on
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: high alert. The ghost wasn't just a curiosity anymore. It
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: was a serious public threat, and people were growing desperate
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to put a stop to it. Seemed like everyone had
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a story. Some had seen the ghosts with their own eyes,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Others knew someone who had chased it or been chased
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: by it, and a few claimed they've even lost loved
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: ones in the frights from it. Whether it was real
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: or imagined, the fear felt real enough to shape daily
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: life here. Families refused to go out after sunset. Roads
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: at once bustled with evening foot traffic now stood silent
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and empty. Even the taverns had started to clear out
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: earlier than usual, and yet the ghosts kept appearing, or
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: at least someone pretending to be did. The white figure
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: was said to stalk the area near Black Lion lane
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: close to the churchyard late at night. That made it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: the hotspot for citizen patrols, men from the community, some
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: armed with pistols, others with clubs or shotguns. They took
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: turns walking the village, hoping to catch the ghosts in
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the act. The patrols weren't organized or trained. These were
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: civilians acting on fear and frustration, and they weren't always
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: coordinated with each other either. The lack of structure would
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: soon prove to be a serious problem. Still, some seemed
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: genuinely motivated to by desire to protect the village. One
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of them Francis Smith, the twenty nine year old excise officer,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: essentially a government tax collector. He wasn't a soldier or
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a constable, but he felt responsible for his neighborhood safety.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: He thought that someone could be dressing up and terrorizing people,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: especially when someone believed a woman had already died and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: on fright right. That enraged him. Others in the village
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: were beginning to believe that the ghost was, yes, a prankster.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It was shifting more this way, perhaps a local with
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: a grudge or a sense of cruel humor. But even then,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the line between superstition and reality was still blurred. The
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: people of Hammersmith weren't just dealing with a physical threat.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: They are reacting to a community wide delusion built on
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: fear and superstition fan by rumor, and now given the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: weight of real danger.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of on the page where I think there's
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of people that could just be dressing up
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: and kind of like playing on this a little bit,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: having fun.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: You know, Well, definitely, I mean if you look back,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like that sort of thing happened not too long ago
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: with the whole like clown sightings that were going on,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Like I think that was pre COVID or maybe like
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: twenty or seventeen.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: I forgot about that.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Like there was a hysteria because like there was a
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: clown sighting or two, and it was like obviously it's
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: a person, right, but it's like this person seems very
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: aggressive and malice intent, right, And then all of a sudden,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: more and more people started dressing up with this clown
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: doing this and pranking people. Yeah, so okay, is this
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the same sort of situation? But that also you need
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: to ask yourself, Okay, what started this?
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something did for sure?
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, was it a peron in a sheet that started it?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Or was there an actual specter that started this, because
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: remember there are accounts of people saying that there was
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: something that disappeared or this one individual, like I said,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: is the specter wrapped its arms around him and he
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: hit it with his fists and he felt it like
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: he was hitting a great coats But then there was
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: nothing there. So you have ghostly stories and encounters, and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: you also have more real reality human stories and encounters.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean the one person that was wearing
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: the sheet and then it got taken off or he
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: let it drop and then looked to just disappear, like
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: he could have just been wearing dark clothes, right and
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: then just like yeah, disappeared in the night. It's hard
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: to see someone wearing all black or like all white.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: True, And I mean in that same sense too, if
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: you're a hundred yards away you see this ghost in
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a graveyard, right, and all of a sudden you see
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: it disappear. Maybe that's someone in dark clothes and all
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: you see is the white sheet dropped to the ground,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and that's quote unquote disappearing.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I don't disagree that there was something that
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: started this, and you know, Yeah.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: There needed to be a spark that started the fuck yeah,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and what was that? It's hard to say. Now, some
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: stopped waiting for a solution and started taking matters into
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: their own hands. And that's exactly what Francis Smith decided
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to do. On the evening of January third, eighteen oh four,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Francis Smith left his home in Hammersmith with a loaded
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: shotgun in hand and a plan in mind. He was
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: going to patrol the streets and, if possible, put an
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: end to the so called Ghost's reign of terror once
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and for all. Now, Smith wasn't a soldier or part
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: of any official militia. He was a civilian, an excise
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: officer responsible for collecting taxes on goods like alcohol. By
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: most accounts, he was an honest and respectable man, not
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: known for violence or even reckless behavior. Like many in Hammersmith.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: He simply just had enough now. Earlier that evening, Smith
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: had reportedly spent some time at a local tavern, the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: White Heart Inn, possibly to gather his courage. It's unclear
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: how much he drank, but by the time he headed
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: out he was tense and determined and carrying a Blunderbuss
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: style shotgun, a powerful short barreled weapon loaded with lead shot.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Around ten thirty pm, while walking along Black Lion Lane,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Smith encountered William Girdler, the same watchman who had chased
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the ghost just days prior. Now, Smith told Girdler he
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: planned to hunt the ghost that night, and Girdler agreed
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: to meet up with him after finishing his patrol and
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: calling the hour at eleven pm. The two men even
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: devised a password exchange, a call in response of who
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: comes there and friend advance friend, so they wouldn't mistake
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: each other in the dark.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Right they're taking this real seriously?
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: They definitely are. Now it's worth remember how dark the
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: streets of Hammersmith were at the time. There were no
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: street lights, the sky was moonless, the narrow lanes were
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: lined with hedges and stone walls, making visibility close to
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: zero in that setting. With his nerves frayed and his
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: weapon ready and a drink or two in his system,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Smith continued on alone. It was just past eleven pm
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: on January third, eighteen oh four, when Francis Smith, still
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: patrolling that black lined lane, saw something or someone emerge
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: from the darkness ahead of him. What he saw match
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the ghost stories perfectly, a figure dressed entirely in white,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: moving through the gloom. What he didn't know was that
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: figure wasn't a ghost. It was Thomas Millwood, a twenty
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: nine year old bricklayer, returning home after visiting his parents
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and sister. He was dressed as bricklayers typically were at
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the time, in white linen trousers, a white flannel waistcoat,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and a white apron, his standard work attire. This wasn't
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the first time Millwood had been mistaken for the ghost either.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Days earlier, he'd been confronted by a man and two
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: women riding in a carriage who shouted that he looked
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: like the infamous apparition. According to his wife and sister,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Millwood had even joked about it afterwards, but refused suggestions
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: to wear a coat over his work clothes.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: That night. Yeah this is not going to end well.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Smith spotted Millwood from across the narrow lane in
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the pitch black night, and with adrenaline running high already,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Smith believed he had finally found the ghost he was
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: searching for. Without taking time to confirm who or what
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: he was looking at, Smith raised his shotgun and shouted quote,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: damn you, who are you? And what are you? Damn you?
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I'll shoot. Then almost immediately after, he pulled the trigger
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and fired.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Oh no.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: The shot hit Thomas Millwood in the lower left jaw,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: shattering bone, severing part of his spine, and in instantly
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: dropping him to the ground. He died right there where
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: he fell.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Holy shits.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Inside the nearby house, Milwood's sister Anne had just seen
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: him off.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Oh like, he was just leaving the house of the family.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Just leaving.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Oh no.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: From her window, she heard the confrontation, the shout from
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the blast. She rushed outside to find her brother motionless
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: in the street, blood spreading across his white clothes.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Oh no, that is terrible.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Smith remained at the scene, stunned, shakened, and pale.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: A few others arrived, including watchman William Girdler, and neighbors
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: John Locke and George Stow. Smith admitted to what he
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: had done, but he said he hadn't meant to kill
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a man. He truly believed he had shot a ghost.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Now Thomas Millwood, the man whose life was cut short
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: in a case of mistaken identity. He wasn't some shadowy
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: figure or town outsider. Milwood was a local, born and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: raised in Hammersmith, and he was dead.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Twenty nine year old. Yeah huh, but I mean, gosh,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: what is he thinking. He probably knew that these people
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: were doing a watch, right.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but he probably never thought he would have been shot.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, well, no, this is no reason that the
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: guy like, that's not good that the guy shot him.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: He should have definitely, you know, maybe gone a little
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: closer and ensured that this was like a bad figure
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it could.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Have also just been as simple as that guy wearing
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: a dark coat or something exactly. Ah.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Now, Like many tradesmen at the time, no Wood wore
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a very distinctive uniform that unfortunately played a central role
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in his death. His white linen trousers, waistcoat and apron
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: were typically the standard workwear for bricklayers in the early
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. These garments were easy to bleach and wash,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and after a day spent working with mortar and brick dust,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: it was, you know, wash it and good to go again.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: But at night, under poor lighting, they made him look
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: early similar to the ghost that people were talking about.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: This wasn't lost on his family. Milwood's wife and sister
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: had both warned him, as I mentioned, wear a cloak,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: oat or something. He did shit. His wife even testified
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: later that Thomas had previously frightened a group of people
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: by accident, the same ones we mentioned, and she pleaded
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: with him to change his appearance to avoid trouble, but
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: he was confident there was nothing to worry about. On
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the night of January third, he left his parents home
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: on Black Lion Lane and stepped out into the cold,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: dressed as the usual, you know, just all in white.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: It was only a short walk from his home, just
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: down the lane. He likely didn't see Francis Smith until
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: it was too late, or if he did, he had
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: no reason to suspect that the men was pointing a
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: loaded shotgun at him. Either. Melwood didn't provoke Smith, he
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: made no threats, he carried no weapon, and as far
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: as witnesses, Cautel didn't even have time to respond to
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Smith's shouting before the trigger was pulled. The shooting stunned
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the small community of Hammersmith. Francis Smith visibly shaken. He
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: stayed at that scene. He didn't run, he didn't flee.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: He stayed nearby in shock, clearly of what just happened,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and when local watchman William Girdler arrived moments later, Smith
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: confessed everything that he'd done. His exact words weren't recorded,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: but multiple witnesses described him as agitated, pale, and very remorseful.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Shortly after the shootings, Millwood's body was carried to the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: nearby Black Lion Pub, where it was laid out on
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: a table. A surgeon named mister Flower was called in
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to examine his remains. His report was grim. The shot
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: had entered his lower left jaw, shattered bone, and passed
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: through the vertebrae of his neck, injuring the spinal marrow.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Death would have been instantaneous.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, oh man, I mean it makes like it's his
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: right to wear what he wants. But then especially if
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: he's out and a boat at night, you know, yeah,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: just at night, maybe just put something else on.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: This is terrible. This is so sad.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: It puts him in the way of danger for sure.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: But it's not his fault.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not saying it is his fault in any way,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: but like I guess, it just could have been preventable. Oh,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, that one guy. He's a
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: murderer now he is.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, Smith did not resist. When local constables arrived,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: he surrendered himself voluntarily and was taken into custody. News
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: of the shooting spread quickly through Hammersmith, a community already
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: on edge from weeks of ghostly sightings. They now had
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: to confront a far more tangible horror. A man had
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: been killed not by a spirit but basically just by fear,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and the public's reaction was conflicted. On one hand, many
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: saw Smith as a man who had been simply, you know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: swept up in panic, that had been hold taking hold
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of the whole village. He had no known history of violence,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: he had turned himself in, he was cooperative and deeply remorseful.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, he had armed himself with this gun,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: going out looking for a confrontation, which is exactly what
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: he found. The next step was, of course inevitable. Smith
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: would be tried for murder. The trial began on January thirteenth,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: eighteen oh four, just ten days after the shooting. It
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: took place at Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: quickly drew public attention. The facts weren't in question. Smith
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: had openly admitted to firing the fatal shot. The only
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: real issue was what the law made of it. Smith
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: entered a plea of not guilty, arguing that the killing
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: had been a tragic mistake. He believed he was shooting
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: a ghost and not a man. Witnesses testified to what
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: had happened on the night of the shooting, and Millwood,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Thomas's sister gave a heartbreaking account watching her brother walk
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: out into the dark street, only to hear Smith shout
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and fire and leave him dead in seconds. Smith's own
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: statements were also shared in the court. He admitted he
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: yelled at the figure and given it time before firing.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: While some described his behavior as impulsive, others, especially the defense,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: emphasized that Smith had been frightened, caught up in the
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: hysteria of ghost panic, and acted under a mistaken belief
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: that he was confronting something supernatural.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I'm doubting that he gave much time after shouting.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: By all accounts, he did not. It was he shouted
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and pulled the trigger at the same time.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: A number of character witnesses spoke up for Smith, calling
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: him mild mannered, responsible, and deeply regretful, but none of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: this swayed the most important figure in the room, Lord,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Chief Baron, Sir Archibald McDonald. That is a name and title.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: He was the presiding judge, so I'll call him Judge McDonald.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Judge McDonald was blunt.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: In his view.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Smith had intentionally fired a loaded weapon at another person,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: and whatever his belief, it didn't matter to quote him
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: all killing whatever amounts to murder unless justified by law
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: or in self defense. He told the jury, even if
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the figure had turned out to be someone pretending to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: be a ghost, that still wouldn't justify shooting them. Pretending
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to be a ghost while irritating and irresponsible was not
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a capital crime. The law was clear Smith had acted
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: outside of it. Jud MacDonald also told the jury that
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: quote malice was not required for a murder conviction. Intent
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to kill or intent to do grievous harm was enough,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and Smith, he argued, had made the deliberate decision to shoot,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and that in itself is murder. After an hour of deliberation,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the jury turned with a verdict of manslaughter, a lesser
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: charge that acknowledged rum doing but not full intent. Yeah,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the court however, wasn't having it. Uh Oh, Judge McDonald
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: rejected the verdict outright.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I didn't see that coming.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, quote, the court cannot receive such a verdict. He
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: reminded the jury to choose either murder or acquittal, nothing
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: in between.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Huh. But the manslaughter kind of makes sense though, so
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: that okay.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, it makes sense for nowadays. You're also thinking, not
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: thinking that this case is early eighteen hundred. Yeah, true, true,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: So face with no other option. The jury returned with
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: a new verdict guilty of murder, and Judge McDonald handed
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: down the sentence death by hanging.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, I don't know why. I didn't think
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: that was gonna happen either. Holy shit.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Once again, you're talking eighteen hundreds.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yep. Dang.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: So even those who agreed with Francis Smith had broken
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the law were unnerved by severity of the punishment here.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: He wasn't a violent man, he hadn't acted at a cruelty,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: your personal malice. He had made a terrible mistake born
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: out of fear, superstition, mass hysteria, whatever you want to
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: call it. And now for that mistake, he was going
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to be executed.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: But that mistake did cost another man his life.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: It did, yes, And this is where it's that blurred line.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: So where do you draw this line?
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sitting here being like, yeah, manslaughter, that
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: makes sense. And then he just goes to jail. I
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: do think he needs to pay some consequences, agreed, But
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: then back then too gosh to be hung. Oh I
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: don't know. Now I'm really really torn.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Well you might appreciate what comes next. Public reaction was swift.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Many believed the punishment didn't fit the circumstances. There was
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: a growing sense that Smith wasn't a cold blooded killer,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: but rather a man swept up in a collective panic, trying,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: however misguidedly, to protect his neighbors. Even the judge, Lord
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Chief Baron MacDonald appeared to understand the gravity of what
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: had happened. After sentencing Smith, he referred to the case
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to the King for consideration, who signaling that he didn't
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: personally believe this should have ended in the gallows. Behind
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the scenes, Smith's reporters worked quickly filing appeals and requesting clemency,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and within a matter of days, the Crown responded, Okay, just.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Wait, I'm confused he was kind of the one that
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: sort of sent it to the gallows? Is he not?
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, because he's gone by the book. Okay, he's saying
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: it's he killed a man. It's either he's guilty of
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: murdering him or he's not guilty of murdering him. Okay, Okay,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: he murdered him. Okay, you murdered him, then.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: This is the punishment.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: This is the punishment.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: But even the judge is like, this doesn't seem right,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: so he passes it on to the king to be like,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: what do you think.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: We need like a higher opinion here.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: We need someone to oversee this. So it was just
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: three weeks after the shooting on January twenty fifth, eighteen
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: oh four, King George the Third issued a royal pardon.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: The death sentence was commuted to a far less severe punishment,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: one year of hard labor.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Oh so, yes, he was.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Guilty of murder, but he was no longer being sentenced
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: to the gallows. He was sentenced to one year of
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: hard labor.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Huh, what the shit is hard labor? Exactly? Because I
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: kind of like this, this is like actually getting shit
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: done for the community, right, instead of him just sitting
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: in jail for a year doing buck all like he's
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: gonna get things done. Yeah, huh, okay, I don't mind that.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: And honestly they'll probably use his knowledge, you know, and
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: his trade to you be okay, go build some shit.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah for free, get to work exactly.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: So it was still a sentence and Smith serve it.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: But it was also a clear acknowledgment by the Crown
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that the court had been placed in an impossible situation.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: The law as it stood hadn't accounted for a case
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: like this one where belief, however rational, had played such
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: a central role in someone's actions. Now, not long after
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the shooting, and once the story had made its way
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: into newspapers across London, the truth about the Hammersmith Ghost
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: began to surface, and it turned out the ghost probably
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't a ghost at all. In fact, it wasn't even
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: one person.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, it was just numerous people playing tricks.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: The first major clue came from a local man named
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: John Graham, a shoemaker an occasional singer at the Hammersmith Church.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Even after the incident, Graham came forward and admitted that
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: he had dressed up as a ghost using a white
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: sheet with the intention of frightening his apprentices. Now, according
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: to Graham, the young men had been scaring his children
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: with ghost stories, and he wanted to teach them a lesson.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: So it's like, you're scaring my kid with ghost stories,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna scare you with a ghost story sort of thing.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: He didn't expect the entire village to go into a panic,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and he certainly didn't anticipate that somewhood would be killed
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: as a result. But while Graham's confession explained one part
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: of the mystery, it didn't account for all the reported encounters.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: There'd been multiple sightings stretching across weeks. Witnesses had described
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: wildly different versions of the ghosts. Some said it was
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: covered in white shroud Others described horns, glass eyes, or
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: even calf skin garments. This led many to believe that
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: more than one person may have been dressing up to
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: impersonate the ghost. Some were likely copycats, taking advantage of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: the legend or playing pranks simply to start chaos. Others
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: may have been mistaken identities, like Thomas Millwood.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Himself, but it could also just be stories escalating to right.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Exactly definitely, and in many cases with mass hysteria. It's
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: also likely that some of the sightings never even happened
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: at all. Kind of like what you were alluding to,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: you know, right, people were on edge, anxious and prime
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: to believe. In an age before electric light, television or
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: even you know, regular policing, stories had power, and fear
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: could be contagious and disease. So while John Graham might
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: have started it, the full truth of the Hammersmith Ghost
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: may never be known. Whether it was a prank gone
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: too far, multiple impersonators, or the wild imagination of a
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: frightened public, the result was the same. A man had
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: lost his life and another's life was changed forever. Now,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the case of Francis Smith didn't just grip the public.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: It also left an enduring mark in the British legal system.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: At the time of his trial in eighteen oh four,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: there was no legal protection for someone acting under a
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: mistaken belief, even if that belief was sincere. Smith believed
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: he was shooting at a ghost, not a person, but
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: under law as it stood, that did not matter. The
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: court had no legal grounds to accept his intentions as
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a mitigating factor. As far as the judge was concerned,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Smith had fired a loaded weapon at human being and
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: that is murder, simple as that, but legal scholars, judges,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and philosophers continue to debate the case for decades from here,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: asking the central question should someone be held fully responsible
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: for their actions if they genuinely believed they were preventing
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: harm or acting in self defense, even if they were mistaken.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: This question lingered in British law until it was finally
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: addressed nearly one hundred and eighty years later. Well, it
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: came up and was addressed in the case of R V.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Williams Gladstone in nineteen eighty four. In this case, a
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: man named Gladstone Williams saw what he believed was an
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: assault in progress, a man dragging a youth down the street.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Thinking he was defending that victim, Williams intervened and attacked
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the man who was dragging the youth. But the man
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: he hit wasn't an attacker. Instead, he was a good
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: samaritan restraining a suspected thief.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Williams was arrested and charged with assault, but at his trial,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the court ruled that if a person acts under a
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: mistaken belief that their actions are necessary to prevent a
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: crime or defend someone, and if the belief is honestly held,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: then they should not be automatically criminally liable even if
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the belief is mistaken. This marked a major shift in
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: English law and effectively addressed the question raised by the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Hammersmith Ghost case nearly two centuries earlier. The principal established
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: in the rv. Williams case was eventually written into statue
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act in two thousand
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: and eight, which formally recognized that self defense could include
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: honest but mistaken beliefs as long as the belief was
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: genuine Others. Had that law existed in eighteen oh four,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Francis Smith may never have been convicted of murder in
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the first place.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: I think it's got to be different though. The one
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: was an attack, right, I'm assuming the person he attacked
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: ends up being okay, yeah, But this other one's murder.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: It's it's it's two different spectrums, in my opinion.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Two different spectrums, but it's the same principle. The result
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: is different, but the same principle occurred in between.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So if if this guy attacked him and he ended
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: up dying, it was the same scenario, Like you still
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: need to figure out how to handle that situation.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Hmm. That is tough because yeah, I feel like most
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: people would see something like that and think, you know,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: the person dragging the other person, you know they weren't okay, Yeah,
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: so oh that is so tough.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I've even seen some like TikTok reels and instagram
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: stuff on like small movie set, small productions, indie films, right,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and it's like they're in a street. There's like a
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: camera and like a boom operator. There's like three or
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: four crew members working on this, and they have two
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: actors in the street. They're running down a sidewalk and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: it's like a woman being assaulted by a man sort
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: of thing, and someone in the background like runs in
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: to help defend and it's like the crew is like whoa, stop, stop,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: like we're filming something, and it's like oh shit, okay,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: like you know, okay, because it's a misunderstood situation.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: But you I mean, you don't want to change that
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: right where people don't try it and go and help.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: No, definitely not. But if it ends up getting to
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the point where they do go and help, but it
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: goes too far under a misunderstanding, it needs, those people
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: need to be protected. Yeah, right, because it's clearly a misunderstanding. Yeah,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: but that also brings in the oh, I totally misunderstood
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: those situation.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: I know. I was just thinking that, I'm gosh, people
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: could get away with things that they just were quick
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: on their feet and came up with a freaking story.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's got to be genuine. As long as
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: you can prove genuine and non genuine.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: I guess now.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: The Hammersmith Ghost Case remains one of the strangest and
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: most enduring tales in British legal and paranormal history. It's
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: a story that blends ghost lore and a courtroom drama,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: plus a chilling reminder of how fear, superstition, and a
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: rumor can spiral into real world tragedy. For the people
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of Hammersmith in eighteen oh three and eighteen oh four,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the ghost wasn't just a campfire tale. It was a living,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: breathing threat. Women fainted, locals refused to quote. At night,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: men formed armed patrols, and one of those men, fueled
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: by fear and alcohol, killed an innocent person, Thomas Millwood.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: The victim was just trying to walk home in his
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: work clothes. His death was not just a personal loss
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: for his family, it became a symbol of what happens
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: when fear overrides all reason. And while Francis Smith escaped
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: the gallows thanks to a royal pardon, which that in
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: itself is super rare, the Hammersmith ghost hell was retold
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: in newspapers, pamphlets and books for generations, and in the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: decades that followed. London would go on to be haunted
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: by other supposed apparitions, including springhel Jack, a leaping, fire
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: breathing figure also said to terrorize women in the eighteen thirties.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Even in the twentieth century, the ghost of Hammersmith remains
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: part of the local lore. In nineteen fifty five, exactly
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years after the shooting, a ghost
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: hunter's gap or a group of ghost hunters gathered at
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Saint Paul's churchyard, hoping to catch a glimpse of the
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: specter that had once caused so much chaos. Some claim
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: to see a white figure float amongst the tombstones, Others
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: predictably saw nothing. The Black Lion Pub, where Thomas Millwood's
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: body was brought back to still stands today and some
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: say his ghost remains there, still restless, like the legend
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: that took his life.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: In all this case, it's more than just a ghost,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: ghost hail mixed with tragedy. It forces us to ask
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: some difficult questions. How do we handle fear, how do
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: we balance justice and human error? And how do we
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: protect against from harm not just from threats outside of us,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: but from the ones we create ourselves. Even in the end,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: it may or may not have been a ghost that
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: haunted Hammersmith, but it was certainly fear, and fear, when
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: left unchecked, can be the deadliest spirit of all.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Dunt dunt dum.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: And that's when Chris Hemsworth walked.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Out, Oh my god, no, oh wow.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: And that's the tale of the Hammersmith Ghost Murder.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: That is quite a tale.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I love this story so much.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Huh, holy shit. It's it's wild, it's all over the place.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: It is, it has literally everything in it.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: It should definitely be a movie. I do agree with that.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: It's got paranormal it's got impersonations. You know, it's got
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: chaos being cause, it's got fear, it's got a murder,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it's got a quittle it's got a like.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: It could be a series for God's really, like honestly,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: not even a few episodes.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Sorry, it wasn't technically acquittal. He got murdered. It was
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: just a sentencing changed. I should clarify that. But it
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: went to the fucking crown to have the sentencing changed. Yeah,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: like this, you could not write a better fucking story,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, Like my heart goes out to
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the guy who lost his life like that is absolutely
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: horrible that Thomas Millwood had to get shot like that.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Well, and the fact too that it was like right
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: there with his sister basically, you know, seeing the aftermath
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: of that instantly frig so.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as soon as I found out about this tale,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I knew I had to cover it right away. I
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: was like, damn son, this is this is wow.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you did a good job. This definitely seems like
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: a ben tail.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I think the only way I could have
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: told this better is if it was involving Chris Hemsworth
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: on the silver screen.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. Get in contact with him.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: It's getting caught. He why not, let's do it?
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: How old is he? No?
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: I have no idea, huh, because, yeah, maybe we should
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: do his brother not him. Maybe He's like, maybe I
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: have no idea.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I sound like I'm a Chris Hemsworth fan.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: You sound like you're obsessed with him.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I'm honestly not even that obsessed. He's just a really
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: good looking man. I'm not even gonna lie he is.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: You can't deny it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: No, Yeah, I mean both both of them. Are they
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: good genes? I guess.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: And we know he looks good with his long thor hair.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: So you put him in a ponytail at this time,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: put him in some eighteen hundred's clothes and some loafers
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: walking down the street with a shotgun in his arm
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: and no shirt.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I almost think, I don't know, I almost envisioned him
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: a little bit more of the guy that gets shot,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: though he could be for some reason.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Oh what if it was Liam and Chris Hemsworth one
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: of the brothers shoots the other brother.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Oh they looked too much the same. They look like twins.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: That's the only way you could make the story better
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: for a silver screenwriting is if the guy patrolling is
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: on his way home after patrolling, and then he finally
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: sees the figure and he shoots it and it's actually
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: his brother he shot, who is just leaving, who was
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: visiting his family.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: We would know though that his brother dresses this way
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: and stuff, and this guy knew.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: That Bricklayers dressed that way.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and we don't exactly know how many Yeah,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: you know, Bevy's he he had. True, but there's a courage, right.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: There's also the time variance as well. How long how
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: much time had passed between pulling trigger and when drinking
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: in the pub, So how much did he sober up
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: and metabolize that I'll call in a system.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I still love that idea that of well,
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I think they do have that actually in some prisons
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: and stuff where they do like community type work.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they do. Like it's usually like trash clean up
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: and that sort of story.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Or like I think ours they build up. I've heard
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: of that they build like picnic tables and stuff, yeah,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: or things like that.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: So they do.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: But I kind of love that idea of like pay
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: it in labor.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Put them to work. Anyways, Hopefully you guys enjoyed that story.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: This is definitely one of the favorites that I think
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: we've ever produced. For me, I'm in love with this story.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: If I haven't told you already, I will tell you again.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I love this story. You sure do so hopefully you
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: liked it. If you want to check out the links
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: for our podcasts, they're all in the description down below.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Just check it out. You got website, Instagram, Facebook, do
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: all the good stuffs down there, Patreon, merch you can
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: go check it out. If you want to support the show.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Patreon's a great way of doing it, and so is
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: giving us a rating. We're an indie podcast, produced, host hosted, written,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: all of it done by ourselves, and a good rating
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: goes a long way, so we'd really appreciate it. But
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: of course, be honest, rate us what you think we
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: were worth. I think we're worth five, but you may
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: think different.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: I agree, yeap created in our a little tiny ome.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so thank you for being here, and until next time,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: stay wicked.