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The Nesbitt Homestead Murders | Hood River, Oregon · PNW Haunts & Homicides

0:01
Speaker 1: Sometime in late nineteen hundred, Louisa and Alma Nesbit disappeared.
0:06
Speaker 1: Their absence was discovered not through a dramatic event, but
0:09
Speaker 1: through silence, the absence of routine activity that normally defined
0:14
Speaker 1: life on a homestead. No one saw smoke from their chimney,
0:19
Speaker 1: no one saw them in town, no one observed movement
0:22
Speaker 1: around their property. Eventually, neighbors began investigating. What they found
0:28
Speaker 1: raised alarm. Their home and land appeared abandoned. Daily life
0:34
Speaker 1: had stopped abruptly. Hi, Cassie, Hi, Caitlin, Hi, creepy people. Hello,
0:45
Speaker 1: This is PNW Hansen Homicides, where we chat about true crime,
0:50
Speaker 1: the paranormal and all things spooky in the Pacific Northwest
0:54
Speaker 1: or the pan w if Yon knife nasty and has
1:02
Speaker 1: been well established. Clearly you must be. I smell it
1:09
Speaker 1: from here. I smell you're nasty from here. Oh boy, okay,
1:14
Speaker 1: I don't know that we had to associate like a
1:16
Speaker 1: smelliness with it, but I didn't. It was a bad smell.
1:20
Speaker 1: Nasty means great. Okay, all right, that's part. That's the
1:25
Speaker 1: that's the lore we want to go with. All right.
1:30
Speaker 1: We also do a little taro reading at the end
1:32
Speaker 1: of every episode for a little bit of deeper insight
1:36
Speaker 1: into our topic, just a yes, well that we do
1:41
Speaker 1: for yeah, because we're fun witches.
1:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, and which is not a bad word.
1:49
Speaker 1: Correct. Today I'm feeling very much like a task master
1:54
Speaker 1: witch because we're trying to pre record a little bit
1:58
Speaker 1: because next weekend I'm on a pilgrimage to procure my puppy.
2:07
Speaker 2: I want to squeal so bad, but I know nobody
2:09
Speaker 2: wants that another years. Yeah, probably not, probably not, But
2:15
Speaker 2: you can imagine the squealing, the internal squealing that's happening
2:19
Speaker 2: right now.
2:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, just you fill in the blank. I'm sure
2:24
Speaker 1: we've squealed before when we hadn't thought better of it. So, yeah,
2:29
Speaker 1: that's true.
2:30
Speaker 2: I've probably got something to work with. I'm so excited,
2:36
Speaker 2: I know, all right.
2:39
Speaker 1: In rural Oregon at the turn of the twentieth century,
2:42
Speaker 1: in many regards, there was a certain quiet, uneasy tension,
2:48
Speaker 1: the sense that people depended on one another that also
2:52
Speaker 1: feared one another. The Hood River Valley was still a
2:55
Speaker 1: developing agricultural community, more frontier than town, while the Columbia
3:01
Speaker 1: River Gorge had long served as a transportation corridor. But
3:06
Speaker 1: orchards now were beginning to spread across the hillside. Timber
3:11
Speaker 1: stands pressed against newly cleared homesteads coming on up.
3:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, woodn't fruit wooden freeze. I think of orchards. That's
3:23
Speaker 2: like fruit, right, Yeah, if it could be anything.
3:26
Speaker 1: No, orchards, Yeah, I think orchards specifically, like A refers
3:34
Speaker 1: to fruit trees. I could be rong, okay, cool, I
3:38
Speaker 1: don't know. The roads were rough and farms were distant
3:42
Speaker 1: from one another. Many residents were homesteaders or small farmers,
3:47
Speaker 1: trying to build stable lives from rugged land. Families relied
3:51
Speaker 1: heavily on routine tending livestock, cutting wood, hauling water, and
3:56
Speaker 1: preparing food stores to survive the winter month. Because and
4:01
Speaker 1: I don't think about this nearly enough when we talk
4:05
Speaker 1: about different points in history. They didn't have refrigerators. Yeah,
4:14
Speaker 1: meal prepping is already enough of a challenge for me.
4:20
Speaker 1: I can't really wrap my head around. Like they had
4:24
Speaker 1: to make jerky. Yeah, I remember reading about this in
4:27
Speaker 1: Little House on the Prairie that like you ate a
4:29
Speaker 1: lot of jerky meat, Yeah, a lot of jerky. Or
4:33
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like dried fruit and things
4:36
Speaker 1: like that, or canning depending on you know what it was.
4:40
Speaker 1: Sounds like an absolute nightmare, like what happens when you
4:43
Speaker 1: just you know, it's like Thursday and you just want
4:47
Speaker 1: it to be Taco Tuesday. But there's going to kill
4:52
Speaker 1: a cow. Yeah, there's nothing freus. News traveled slowly unless
4:57
Speaker 1: something serious happened, and when it did, everyone knew. In
5:02
Speaker 1: the winter of nineteen hundred, something serious did happen when
5:06
Speaker 1: two women vanished from their homestead. Their absence would ignite
5:11
Speaker 1: suspicion and divide a community. Louisa Nesbitt and her daughter
5:16
Speaker 1: Alma lived together on a homestead in the Hood River area.
5:19
Speaker 1: Like many rural women of the era, their lives revolved
5:23
Speaker 1: around domestic labor, farm maintenance, and survival work that rarely
5:29
Speaker 1: entered official records, but to find frontier existence. Child wives, yeah,
5:35
Speaker 1: the og Yeah. Their household was small but stable, and
5:40
Speaker 1: they were part of the loose social network that connected
5:44
Speaker 1: rural communities in the valley. Nothing about their lives suggested
5:48
Speaker 1: violence or danger, I guess, other than you know, just
5:52
Speaker 1: being in the middle of nowhere where anybody could happen
5:55
Speaker 1: upon your little lovely homestead any given moment, even in
6:01
Speaker 1: the wild. Wow list right, Yeah, quite literally. In frontier communities,
6:07
Speaker 1: relationships between neighbors could be complicated. Land disputes, financial struggles,
6:13
Speaker 1: and personal conflicts were not uncommon, especially in areas where
6:17
Speaker 1: legal boundaries and property lines were still being formalized, because
6:22
Speaker 1: this is when you could just be like, I got
6:23
Speaker 1: a dollar and I want those ones, all those acres.
6:27
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, you could have it, as long as you
6:30
Speaker 2: didn't live there originally, right.
6:32
Speaker 1: Right, right, yeah, that little mitigating circumstance, if you will.
6:36
Speaker 1: Sometime in late nineteen hundred, Luisa and Alma Nesbit disappeared.
6:42
Speaker 1: Their absence was discovered not through a dramatic event, but
6:45
Speaker 1: through silence, the absence of routine activity that normally defined
6:50
Speaker 1: life on a homestead. No one saw smoke from their chimney,
6:54
Speaker 1: no one saw them in town, no one observed movement
6:58
Speaker 1: around their property. Eventually, neighbors began investigating what they found
7:04
Speaker 1: raised alarm. Their home and land appeared abandoned. Daily life
7:10
Speaker 1: had stopped abruptly. Signs suggested that women had not left voluntarily,
7:16
Speaker 1: though nothing immediately confirmed any kind of violence. In an
7:22
Speaker 1: era without modern investigative tools, disappearance alone could quickly become
7:27
Speaker 1: evidence of wrongdoing suspicion began to grow.
7:32
Speaker 2: You sure they didn't just run away, right, Yeah, they
7:36
Speaker 2: just decided, you know what, it's just really not for me. No,
7:40
Speaker 2: But like when you have your own your own land
7:42
Speaker 2: and house, and seems odd.
7:45
Speaker 1: The thing about it is, it's it's it's one thing
7:49
Speaker 1: to run away when there's a possibility of just catching
7:54
Speaker 1: an uber and going wherever you want from there, when
7:59
Speaker 1: you're literally hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from
8:04
Speaker 1: you know, members of your family or you know, civilization,
8:09
Speaker 1: it seems a little bit less likely. And here's the
8:13
Speaker 1: thing too, Like a lot of what I read talked
8:16
Speaker 1: about just how much Alma in particular had really romanticized
8:23
Speaker 1: coming out west, and how excited she was at the
8:28
Speaker 1: idea the possibility of like interacting with natives in the area,
8:34
Speaker 1: even like everything about like the Frontier and the wild
8:37
Speaker 1: West was really just like fascinating to her. She just
8:43
Speaker 1: was so excited to get out here. Wow. So the
8:47
Speaker 1: idea of abandoning everything that she had tried to build
8:51
Speaker 1: out here with her mother just doesn't It doesn't really
8:56
Speaker 1: track attention soon turned toward and neighboring man as it does.
9:04
Speaker 1: Initially nothing about Williams publicly marked him as dangerous. He
9:08
Speaker 1: was simply part of the community. That perception would change quickly.
9:14
Speaker 1: His proximity to the Nesbit property made him impossible to ignore,
9:20
Speaker 1: but as it happens, proximity was far from his only
9:23
Speaker 1: tie to the Nesbit women. H Oh, yeah, it's not
9:27
Speaker 1: great scandal. Born January seventeenth, eighteen fifty seven in Sambra, Ontario,
9:36
Speaker 1: Daniel Norman Williams was hardly a gentleman, even by the
9:39
Speaker 1: standard of the era. Pretty low. Yeah, the bar was
9:45
Speaker 1: truly in free fall through all nine circles of Hell.
9:49
Speaker 1: You said it way better than me. Yeah, well I
9:53
Speaker 1: had some time to think about it, so.
9:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, you did write this.
9:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, truly my least favorite Canadian. That's hard to do,
10:01
Speaker 1: you know, but every once in a while you find
10:04
Speaker 1: a you find one that ego I don't know. I
10:06
Speaker 1: don't know about him. I don't know about a boot
10:10
Speaker 1: about a boot. I feel like it's whenever I hear
10:15
Speaker 1: someone from Canada talking and like you pick up the accent,
10:18
Speaker 1: they're never actually saying a boot. It's a little bit
10:22
Speaker 1: softer than that.
10:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's not offend our friend Clint from Canada
10:28
Speaker 2: by trying to do his accent well.
10:32
Speaker 1: And I think of Alicia too. I'm like, uh, Alisha,
10:37
Speaker 1: you're you're a pod bffe so Eddie, who's all better
10:45
Speaker 1: muzzle this lady before she In eighteen ninety four, he
10:50
Speaker 1: was released from a Nebraska penitentiary after serving three years
10:55
Speaker 1: for assaulting and nearly killing his sister in law. That
11:00
Speaker 1: he ended up in Colwell, Iowa, where he met his
11:05
Speaker 1: lovely lady. And I just damn, it just would have
11:10
Speaker 1: been so much better off never meeting a man, you
11:13
Speaker 1: know usually yeahh then thirty one year old Almond Nesbit. Whoo,
11:21
Speaker 1: that's that's their little meet cute.
11:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet he didn't tell her about how he
11:28
Speaker 2: assaulted his sister in law.
11:30
Speaker 1: You know, I have to imagine probably not. I'm gonna
11:32
Speaker 1: go with no.
11:34
Speaker 2: Did it say why he did? Which would he? She like,
11:37
Speaker 2: wasn't into sleeping with him because it's like her brother in.
11:39
Speaker 1: Law or what? You know, It's unclear. It's unclear. Actually
11:44
Speaker 1: I didn't really find anything like. That's a pretty good guest. Yeah,
11:47
Speaker 1: I feel like that, you know, given the time and
11:51
Speaker 1: and just the madness of it all. But Alma joined
11:58
Speaker 1: Williams fur their West in Oregon in eighteen ninety nine.
12:02
Speaker 1: There the pair claimed adjoining homestead claims about twenty miles
12:07
Speaker 1: outside of the river.
12:08
Speaker 2: Can we unjoin?
12:09
Speaker 1: Please? Right, I'd like to consciously unadjoin. On July twenty fifth,
12:21
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine, they were secretly married in Vancouver, Washington.
12:26
Speaker 1: Why was it a secret? Put a pin in that? Okay.
12:31
Speaker 1: At the time, neighboring Washington State's marriage laws were apparently
12:35
Speaker 1: less restrictive, which was handy seeing as mister Williams was
12:39
Speaker 1: apparently already married to an Oregon woman in Defer, shortly
12:46
Speaker 1: before Alma joined him in Oregon. So they meet after
12:51
Speaker 1: he's released from prison, and they're like, oh, love you
12:54
Speaker 1: so much, and he takes off for Oregon. She joins
12:58
Speaker 1: him out there in I don't know, it's it's unclear
13:02
Speaker 1: the exact amount of time, but it's like, I think
13:05
Speaker 1: roughly maybe a year maybe a little bit less that
13:09
Speaker 1: they are separated and he literally marries some other broad Wow,
13:14
Speaker 1: which kind of rude. Couldn't get officially divorced or I
13:19
Speaker 1: don't think that he was really concerned about bothering with that.
13:24
Speaker 1: I you know, I just I think that he had
13:27
Speaker 1: so many other things.
13:28
Speaker 2: That he was worried about.
13:31
Speaker 1: By October, her mother, Louisa, then in her late sixties,
13:35
Speaker 1: had joined Alma in Oregon. On March eighth, nineteen hundred,
13:40
Speaker 1: it was a stormy night as the trio boarded a
13:43
Speaker 1: Portland train for Hood River. Upon arrival that evening, Williams
13:48
Speaker 1: rented a wagon and two horse team from the Fashion
13:51
Speaker 1: Livery Stables. It sounds so fancy, It sounds so fancy,
13:57
Speaker 1: so fancy, but it's me, you said, Just to be clear,
14:01
Speaker 1: it's it's just stables. That's just where you rent your horses,
14:05
Speaker 1: and and the buggies for the horses anyway, and then
14:08
Speaker 1: they headed to their homestead. That was the last time
14:12
Speaker 1: either woman was seen alive. But the fashion Stables were
14:16
Speaker 1: sounding so good. I know, it was really sounding promising.
14:21
Speaker 1: Months later, but long before the fate of the Nesbit
14:24
Speaker 1: women would come to light, Williams encountered some issues within
14:31
Speaker 1: his plot, because of course there's there's a plot afoot,
14:35
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Well, I mean a man was involved, so
14:38
Speaker 1: you knew it was gonna get mad.
14:40
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean it's a good plot, Yeah, yeah, no, they
14:44
Speaker 2: just always be plotting, right, And you know how they
14:46
Speaker 2: say like and the plot thickens.
14:49
Speaker 1: It's like it actually kept getting thinner.
14:54
Speaker 2: And the plot limpens.
14:57
Speaker 1: Like literally the plot was mortally wounded. You see, marriage
15:05
Speaker 1: did not give him the right to Almah's land, given
15:08
Speaker 1: the era. I honestly found that surprising because I just
15:12
Speaker 1: I would have assumed their marriage would have automatically made
15:15
Speaker 1: him the default owner of any of her worldly holdings. Yeah, historically,
15:22
Speaker 1: that's been my understanding of how things work. Maybe she
15:25
Speaker 1: had a prenup. Yeah, yeah, maybe since the marriage was secret.
15:32
Speaker 1: I you know, I tend to doubt it, but anything's possible.
15:36
Speaker 1: So I just it's very strange because I feel like
15:40
Speaker 1: that's the logic behind a lot of fathers being adamantly
15:43
Speaker 1: opposed to, you know, certain matches for their daughters, because
15:47
Speaker 1: the justification is that, like, this is the person that's
15:50
Speaker 1: gonna have to take care of you. Anything that you
15:53
Speaker 1: inherit from me, that becomes his property. H Yeah. So
15:59
Speaker 1: I don't know why in this situation, you know, he
16:04
Speaker 1: wasn't automatically like the you.
16:07
Speaker 2: Know, maybe because they weren't married in Oregon. I don't know,
16:11
Speaker 2: maybe that's it.
16:13
Speaker 1: I have no idea, and I just I just you know,
16:16
Speaker 1: I was like, listen, there's a lot here. That's probably
16:20
Speaker 1: not the thread that I'm gonna pull at this time.
16:24
Speaker 2: But you can only own one of your wife's properties.
16:28
Speaker 1: Well, actually that you know, it's funny you say that.
16:32
Speaker 1: It's funny, you say, oh, bad luck for Williams. But
16:36
Speaker 1: worse still was the fact that his house and barn
16:40
Speaker 1: had both been mistakenly built on almost land.
16:44
Speaker 2: Claim mistakenly huh hmm, interesting.
16:49
Speaker 1: Which I don't I don't know how you. I don't
16:51
Speaker 1: know how you do that.
16:52
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, because he thought he would just own it.
16:55
Speaker 2: So he was like, well, I'll put it anywhere I want, right, you.
16:58
Speaker 1: Know, maybe maybe I I just feel like it's really
17:04
Speaker 1: interesting to watch really devious and yet terribly mediocre or
17:12
Speaker 1: underperforming men not have you know, the follow through to
17:19
Speaker 1: just like, I mean, maybe you should just at least
17:21
Speaker 1: make sure that like your house is actually your house
17:24
Speaker 1: because you built it on your land. Yeah, big strong
17:28
Speaker 1: man built couch. He just a hat rack. Seriously. I
17:34
Speaker 1: just was like, you cannot make this up. You are
17:37
Speaker 1: so dumb. Oh AnyWho. Still, he was determined to take
17:43
Speaker 1: these lemons and make himself some lemonade, so he forged
17:48
Speaker 1: almost signature on the required relinquishment document before presenting it
17:53
Speaker 1: to the Land Office on June twenty third, nineteen hundred.
17:57
Speaker 1: The clerk, however, was not fooled by the apparently obvious
18:01
Speaker 1: forgery because I guess they weren't born yesterday, and as
18:09
Speaker 1: a result, the federal court issued an indictment for Williams
18:13
Speaker 1: based on the forgery.
18:14
Speaker 2: Oh shit, Yeah, I wonder how they knew, Like, did
18:18
Speaker 2: he just completely not even try to change his handwriting or.
18:22
Speaker 1: I you know, I guess from from everything that I read,
18:27
Speaker 1: it was it was him apparently making a good faith
18:31
Speaker 1: attempt at forging her signature, which honestly makes it worse. Like,
18:36
Speaker 1: so you were trying and it just turned out that badly? Wow, Okay,
18:44
Speaker 1: where to begin with that? Just be better?
18:47
Speaker 2: You know. I bet he tried a bunch of times
18:49
Speaker 2: and like kept scribbling it out right, I don't you know.
18:53
Speaker 1: I think he had spent some time practicing it before
18:56
Speaker 1: he actually completed this signature on the form. It was
19:00
Speaker 1: on the back of the paper. I don't think it
19:04
Speaker 1: was that obvious, but it does it Like it just
19:08
Speaker 1: begs so many questions. Yeah, and I'm just really picturing
19:12
Speaker 1: all of like it's a very three stooges, and he's
19:15
Speaker 1: all three of them in my mind.
19:20
Speaker 2: No.
19:20
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess for somebody that actually has a
19:24
Speaker 1: homestead and they have like a land claim, they actually
19:29
Speaker 1: have a signature of record from the Yeah, so they
19:35
Speaker 1: were able to compare it and they were like, well,
19:37
Speaker 1: this is very clearly fake. This is this is na
19:42
Speaker 1: her signature.
19:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, good.
19:44
Speaker 1: Luck doing that today because mine.
19:46
Speaker 2: Is just like we're I don't think signatures mean shit today, really,
19:50
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know some people actually try.
19:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like at this point I would almost
19:57
Speaker 1: rather do like an electronic sickn nature for any type
20:02
Speaker 1: of legal document, because they're typically like there's like a
20:07
Speaker 1: little watermark and it shows like date time, you know.
20:11
Speaker 1: It does like the little curly cute letters for you,
20:14
Speaker 1: you know, the cursive, but it also it spells out
20:18
Speaker 1: you know, your full you know, first and last, you know,
20:22
Speaker 1: legal name, And I just feel like it just feels
20:25
Speaker 1: more legit for a lot of things. But they didn't
20:28
Speaker 1: ask me back then, and they're not asking me now.
20:32
Speaker 1: Just my two cents. This alone didn't offer any immediate
20:37
Speaker 1: answers regarding the disappearance of Alma and Louisa. But you
20:42
Speaker 1: know what they say about patients being a virtue, But
20:45
Speaker 1: it's a virtue, I guess, yeah. Fucking annoying as shit,
20:50
Speaker 1: but that's that's what they say. So in early nineteen
20:54
Speaker 1: oh four, George Nesbitt arrived in Oregon to investigate the
20:59
Speaker 1: disappearance of his mother and sister. He had stayed in
21:03
Speaker 1: contact with the women through numerous letters that sent frequently
21:08
Speaker 1: back and forth. Then in March of nineteen hundred, he
21:12
Speaker 1: had received what would be the final letter. It had
21:16
Speaker 1: been written from a rooming house on Grand Avenue in
21:20
Speaker 1: Portland and stated they were returning home to Iowa, though
21:25
Speaker 1: no reason was given for their departure from the homestead.
21:29
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit of a mystery in terms
21:32
Speaker 1: of why they were deciding to return home. They certainly
21:38
Speaker 1: were not just running away, yeah, but they had decided
21:43
Speaker 1: to leave. So, I mean, she married this man in secret.
21:48
Speaker 1: They have these adjoining plots, and they've built a home
21:52
Speaker 1: and a life apparently not living together but whatever, and
21:57
Speaker 1: then decides, I, you know, we're not going to stay weird. Weird.
22:04
Speaker 1: There's a number of reasons why that could be. I
22:06
Speaker 1: feel like it's because of this man. Yeah, I do
22:09
Speaker 1: have some follow up questions for the man. Yeah. When
22:14
Speaker 1: he arrived in Hode River, he was directed to the
22:17
Speaker 1: fashion Livery Stables and arranged with the proprietor Bert Straanahan
22:23
Speaker 1: for a horse and buggy to take him to do
22:26
Speaker 1: a little prospecting and prospecting, like at least in kind
22:32
Speaker 1: of this time period. Typically it refers to like prospecting,
22:37
Speaker 1: like you know, they're they're panning for gold, is kind
22:40
Speaker 1: of the that's the thing, That's what.
22:42
Speaker 2: I thought, Yeah, which is odd.
22:46
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just his excuse to like go look around.
22:49
Speaker 1: I don't know, interesting what a pinon? That? So many pins? Well? Right,
22:55
Speaker 1: I know what is this pinterest? While Stranahan found this
23:01
Speaker 1: odd as he'd never heard of any gold in the
23:04
Speaker 1: Ranching Valley, he obliged the man that had introduced himself
23:08
Speaker 1: as mister Jackson. So this is George Nesbit saying hello,
23:14
Speaker 1: I am mister Jackson, and I will be prospecting in
23:18
Speaker 1: a place where historically gold has not frequently been discovered.
23:22
Speaker 1: Did he say, mister Jackson, if you're nasty, No, I
23:28
Speaker 1: think he said, Amphaie. When he ventured onto the property
23:36
Speaker 1: formerly occupied by Norman Williams. He quickly began working digging
23:41
Speaker 1: near the clearly abandoned house and barn. Eventually he moved
23:46
Speaker 1: on to the henhouse. There he discovered bloody gunnysacks, long
23:52
Speaker 1: strands of silver hair still attached.
23:55
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't like that. Did miss have gray hair?
24:03
Speaker 1: However? Did you know?
24:05
Speaker 2: I just put yeah, I put blood and hair together,
24:08
Speaker 2: and yeah, blood and hair and missing people together.
24:14
Speaker 1: It was after this discovery that George finally leveled with
24:18
Speaker 1: Bert about his real identity and why he had come
24:21
Speaker 1: to Hood River, because I think at that point he,
24:25
Speaker 1: I guess figured the jig was up, even though it
24:28
Speaker 1: was never really up. Yeah, it was never up and running,
24:31
Speaker 1: and now it was coming down. The time was up,
24:36
Speaker 1: that all of that was over it did it?
24:40
Speaker 2: Is smart of him, though, not to say why he
24:42
Speaker 2: was really there, because then you know, news will travel,
24:45
Speaker 2: someone sniffing around and then they'll clean up all the evidence.
24:48
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, like he has no idea who he can
24:51
Speaker 1: trust here. I mean, his freaking sister and mom are missing.
24:57
Speaker 1: They yeah, I mean, on the face of it, I
25:01
Speaker 1: was kind of like, why did he give a fake
25:03
Speaker 1: name and why was he so secretive about it? But
25:06
Speaker 1: it makes complete sense. He's obvious than what's his bud? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
25:11
Speaker 1: Norman Hill. Based on examination of the gunnysack evidence by
25:17
Speaker 1: a surprising future key expert witness, the Wasco County Grand
25:23
Speaker 1: Jury issued an indictment against Williams for first degree murder.
25:29
Speaker 1: He was arrested in Bellingham, Washington, where he had been
25:33
Speaker 1: working at a sawmill and living with yet another new woman. Oh,
25:39
Speaker 1: my goodness, can't keep it in his pants. This man,
25:42
Speaker 1: I literally my exact thought, cannot keep it in his parents,
25:47
Speaker 1: this one just He was escorted back to Hood River,
25:52
Speaker 1: where he tried to explain that he had driven both
25:54
Speaker 1: women to the train station on the morning of March ninth,
25:58
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, and he had nothing to do with their
26:02
Speaker 1: unexplained disappearance.
26:05
Speaker 2: I mean, they could have gotten picked up by somebody else,
26:07
Speaker 2: but yeah.
26:10
Speaker 1: However, by this time, it was reportedly revealed that he
26:14
Speaker 1: was still married to a wife in Nebraska, and that
26:17
Speaker 1: at least two of his six wives had died of
26:21
Speaker 1: some manner of poison. No, some sources said three of
26:28
Speaker 1: his previous wives.
26:30
Speaker 2: Oh.
26:31
Speaker 1: He was held in the Wasco County jail on a
26:34
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars bond, which is equivalent to over three
26:38
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty thousand dollars today. It's a pretty good amount.
26:43
Speaker 1: This is a good amount. It's a good amount. It's
26:46
Speaker 1: an amount that says we would prefer for you to
26:49
Speaker 1: stay here. Yeah, actually, don't worry. We're going to take
26:53
Speaker 1: care of your accommodations and your meals. The case quickly
26:57
Speaker 1: became entangled with a legal con that would define its legacy.
27:02
Speaker 1: Corpus delicti. The Latin phrase means body of the crime,
27:08
Speaker 1: and in legal terms, it refers to the requirement the
27:11
Speaker 1: prosecutors prove a crime actually occurred before someone can be
27:16
Speaker 1: convicted of committing it. Okay, I mean makes sense. Yeah,
27:22
Speaker 1: necessary and reasonable as this standard is within the legal system,
27:27
Speaker 1: it's also the reason the phrase no body, no crime
27:31
Speaker 1: exists in the public consciousness, and you know, is a
27:36
Speaker 1: I have to imagine. I know of at least one song,
27:40
Speaker 1: but I'm sure there are many others by missus Taylor Swift. Yes,
27:45
Speaker 1: although if you think about it, I think Dixie Chicks
27:49
Speaker 1: Earle had to die. I feel like it kind of
27:52
Speaker 1: it doesn't come out and say no body, no crime
27:55
Speaker 1: like in those specific words, but they let them real, well,
27:59
Speaker 1: but it's there. Yeah. Of course, strictly speaking, it's not
28:04
Speaker 1: exactly accurate to say nobody, no crime, right, but certainly
28:10
Speaker 1: no body. Homicides present unique challenges even today, and certainly
28:15
Speaker 1: at that point in history, you weren't getting a lot
28:18
Speaker 1: of murder convictions when they didn't have a body, because
28:23
Speaker 1: it is so plausible, especially back then, so like you
28:27
Speaker 1: can be like, oh, let's just jump on Facebook and
28:29
Speaker 1: see maybe you know, yeah, hit her up and see
28:33
Speaker 1: if she just moved back home. Traditionally, murder cases relied
28:38
Speaker 1: heavily on the discovery of a victim's body. Without it,
28:41
Speaker 1: proving death could be extremely difficult. The Nesbit case forced
28:46
Speaker 1: Oregon courts to confront a difficult question. Could someone be
28:51
Speaker 1: convicted of murder when the victims had never been found?
28:56
Speaker 1: Prosecutors believed the answer was yes. Deputy disc Attorney Fred
29:01
Speaker 1: Wilson and George Nesbitt continued working to gather additional evidence
29:06
Speaker 1: and witness statements for the case. They returned to the
29:10
Speaker 1: rooming house on Grand in Portland, where the women had
29:13
Speaker 1: stayed and their last letter to George had been written.
29:18
Speaker 1: Now at this point, Fred Wilson was acting as a detective.
29:26
Speaker 1: I don't know that he had officially been named the
29:29
Speaker 1: deputy district attorney yet, but either way, this guy's all
29:33
Speaker 1: over the place. He's like, I'm a lawyer, I'm a detective.
29:37
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, jack of all trades and seems
29:40
Speaker 1: like kind of a master of all of them.
29:43
Speaker 2: I feel like they probably didn't have enough people, like
29:45
Speaker 2: one person had to do multiple jobs.
29:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean maybe maybe. Yeah. I like to envision it,
29:54
Speaker 1: and this is probably just a little bit like applying
29:57
Speaker 1: too much of a modern lens. I like to think
30:00
Speaker 1: of it as like kind of like that guy in
30:04
Speaker 1: Law and Order SBU who was working as a detective
30:08
Speaker 1: and then he was going to like law school at night,
30:11
Speaker 1: and then he becomes one of the prosecutors. Oh, that's
30:16
Speaker 1: what I'm picturing, Like, that's Fred Wilson for me forever. Now,
30:20
Speaker 1: So what are you gonna do? The owner, Henry D. Winters,
30:25
Speaker 1: kept and retained very detailed records, which I have to
30:30
Speaker 1: say just doesn't seem like something that would be common
30:33
Speaker 1: for the time. So thank goodness, yeah, but thank goodness,
30:38
Speaker 1: George was able to identify almost signature on the register
30:43
Speaker 1: for the date of their stay, verifying this detail in
30:46
Speaker 1: the timeline, so they knew specifically this is where their
30:51
Speaker 1: last letter was sent from. We know that, like they
30:55
Speaker 1: definitely did make it to this rooming house. They stayed
30:59
Speaker 1: there and then speaking to mister Winters, the pair learned
31:05
Speaker 1: more to bolster the case against Williams. He recalled not
31:09
Speaker 1: only both women very well, but that a man had
31:13
Speaker 1: called on them in the parlor. I mean that is
31:17
Speaker 1: scandalous where a heated discussion about land had taken place,
31:22
Speaker 1: and it's so specific. He's a little eavesdropper right. Well,
31:27
Speaker 1: I mean he's like sitting at the front desk, which
31:30
Speaker 1: is like, you know, presumably ten feet from the palla.
31:34
Speaker 2: So I like to picture him like at the door
31:37
Speaker 2: with a glass.
31:41
Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, like in a rooming house
31:43
Speaker 1: like this, the parlor would be you know, it's a
31:45
Speaker 1: it's a common area. Yeah, And I kind of like
31:50
Speaker 1: to picture him more so being like, these are two
31:53
Speaker 1: unaccompanied women and I'm hearing this man having like heated
31:58
Speaker 1: discussion with them, and he's like keeping it ear, you know,
32:02
Speaker 1: like not to the door with a glass, but like
32:05
Speaker 1: just keeping an ear, you know, keeping an eye on
32:07
Speaker 1: what's going. Yeah, like thinking like, well, this is very
32:10
Speaker 1: improper and just you know, making sure he doesn't need
32:13
Speaker 1: to go bust in there and bust some hats or something. Next,
32:20
Speaker 1: the pair located a Hood River laborer named j. R.
32:24
Speaker 1: Reese that had previously done work for Norman Williams in
32:29
Speaker 1: April of nineteen hundred, roughly a month after the Nesbit
32:33
Speaker 1: women's sudden disappearance. He'd been clearing brush and stumps on
32:38
Speaker 1: the property that he would later return to the property
32:42
Speaker 1: to see. And this is, as he described, the goddamnedest
32:48
Speaker 1: pile of stuff you ever see, being burned in what
32:52
Speaker 1: the prosecution would eventually argue was being utilized as a
32:58
Speaker 1: funeral pyre.
32:59
Speaker 2: No.
33:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. They also spoke to one of Almah's acquaintances, Missus Riggs,
33:09
Speaker 1: who would say she'd been surprised, given their friendly relationship,
33:13
Speaker 1: that Almah hadn't said goodbye to her before leaving, though
33:17
Speaker 1: she hadn't really dwelled on it initially. She's like, well,
33:20
Speaker 1: you know, people live their lives. Yeah, But she'd spoken
33:24
Speaker 1: to Williams multiple times since the women's apparent departure and
33:29
Speaker 1: he'd confirmed they were well. They were doing fine, according
33:35
Speaker 1: to letters he stated he'd received from the Nesbit women.
33:40
Speaker 1: Since I smell a lie or show us the letters, Yeah, Like,
33:47
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be great evidence against or you know, to
33:50
Speaker 1: prove that you didn't kill them, right, You're like, they're
33:54
Speaker 1: super duper alive. They wrote me these letters.
33:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then if you don't have them, it's like, oh, okay,
34:00
Speaker 2: obviously you were lying for some reason because you wanted
34:03
Speaker 2: people to think they were Okay.
34:05
Speaker 1: You mean those made up letters that never existed.
34:09
Speaker 2: Hi?
34:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Y. While Williams was in custody,
34:15
Speaker 1: Detective Fred Wilson or you know, DDA whatever, he's wearing
34:20
Speaker 1: a lot of hats, Okay, he visited him and questioned
34:24
Speaker 1: him about the bloody burlap that had been recovered from
34:27
Speaker 1: the homestead. Williams explained that it was a mayor's blood.
34:33
Speaker 1: She had birthed a cult, nothing nefarious. He also detailed
34:40
Speaker 1: that prior to construction of the henhouse, an outhouse had
34:44
Speaker 1: stood on that part of the property. However, both other
34:48
Speaker 1: workers from the Bellingham Sawmill and Missus Riggs provided details
34:53
Speaker 1: contradicting his story. The cult was born at the sawmill,
35:00
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles away and also obviously much later. Wow,
35:05
Speaker 1: they were like there was no cult born when he
35:09
Speaker 1: was living on that property. H Additionally, missus Riggs could
35:13
Speaker 1: confirm that no outhouse building had existed in the spot
35:17
Speaker 1: prior to the hen house. It's such a weird thing
35:22
Speaker 1: to lie about in the first place.
35:24
Speaker 2: Is it, Like, because then they might there might be
35:27
Speaker 2: like period blood there and that would make sense.
35:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even think that he was
35:32
Speaker 1: going for that. I think what he was trying to
35:35
Speaker 1: argue is that like, oh, you know, when that was
35:38
Speaker 1: an outhouse building, you know that just that that burlab
35:43
Speaker 1: it just got like shoved in there, and then later
35:46
Speaker 1: you know, it was like reconstructed as a hen house.
35:49
Speaker 1: And I so that's how that ended up there. Okay,
35:52
Speaker 1: that's very odd. It's just why why why why? He's
35:58
Speaker 1: not smart? No, oh, he's really not, smark.
36:02
Speaker 2: He does not think through his stories, which is like
36:04
Speaker 2: a good thing, I guess, But yeah, I mean, stay
36:07
Speaker 2: stupid forever. Though Norman Williams was arrested in connection with
36:12
Speaker 2: the forgery, he was also eventually charged with the murders
36:16
Speaker 2: of Louisa and Alma.
36:18
Speaker 1: Nesbit because duh. The trial commenced at the Wasco County
36:24
Speaker 1: Courthouse on May twenty fourth, nineteen oh four, relying heavily
36:28
Speaker 1: on circumstantial evidence and testimony from community members. And to
36:34
Speaker 1: be fair, a lot of what we've talked about is,
36:38
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of based on eyewitness testimony, like
36:41
Speaker 1: these third parties whose memories can be unreliable, and you know,
36:47
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence can you know, still be evidence, but like
36:51
Speaker 1: you gotta really stack it up, right, I mean, reporters
36:57
Speaker 1: and sketch artists came from neighboring cities Portland, Seattle, Spokane,
37:02
Speaker 1: even as far as San Francisco. Kind of a big deal.
37:06
Speaker 1: Newspaper coverage detailed the immense crowd gathered in and around
37:10
Speaker 1: the courthouse for the Great Homestead Murder's case. Fred Wilson
37:17
Speaker 1: gave the opening statement to the jury, now acting as
37:20
Speaker 1: prosecutor after having previously worked the case as a detective.
37:25
Speaker 1: Lovable you, little night school graduate.
37:29
Speaker 2: You but he really knows the ins and outs of
37:32
Speaker 2: the case. So it's kind of good.
37:34
Speaker 1: Nobody knows it better than him, I feel like, right,
37:37
Speaker 1: so what the hell? The prosecution argued that the women's disappearance,
37:43
Speaker 1: combined with William's actions and statements, demonstrated that murder had occurred.
37:49
Speaker 1: In contrast, the defense emphasized the absence of bodies and
37:54
Speaker 1: the possibility that the women had simply left the area.
37:58
Speaker 1: Henry E. McGinn, arguably Oregon's most highly regarded criminal lawyer
38:05
Speaker 1: at the time, represented Williams and did not put him
38:09
Speaker 1: on the stat on the stand, instead relying solely on
38:14
Speaker 1: corpus delicti to free his client.
38:17
Speaker 2: They probably didn't want to put him on the stand
38:19
Speaker 2: because he's a fucking idiot.
38:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he kind of seems like he could
38:23
Speaker 1: be a little bit of a loose cannon. And in general,
38:26
Speaker 1: they they do say it is unwise to go up
38:32
Speaker 1: to the stand when you know, yeah, I mean, but
38:36
Speaker 1: you know, do what you will. It's just your life
38:39
Speaker 1: on the line, you know what I mean. Like, yeah,
38:42
Speaker 1: historically it's a mistake. But after all, this tension between
38:48
Speaker 1: suspicion and proof has to find many a courtroom proceeding.
38:54
Speaker 1: The testimony of H. D. Langele Bert Stranahan's former partner
38:59
Speaker 1: in the fashion Livery Stables, proved critical to the prosecution's case.
39:05
Speaker 1: He testified that he had seen Williams driving into Hood
39:09
Speaker 1: River alone at approximately eight point thirty on the morning
39:14
Speaker 1: of March ninth, by the Parkdale Road, the same one
39:17
Speaker 1: he had taken out of Hood River the evening prior.
39:21
Speaker 1: The prosecution proffered a blackboard to present a hand drawn
39:26
Speaker 1: chalk map of Hood River to show that Williams could
39:29
Speaker 1: not have driven to the Hood River Railroad station without
39:34
Speaker 1: first having passed the fashion Livery stables. Ah. Additionally, the
39:41
Speaker 1: chief train dispatcher for the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company
39:47
Speaker 1: testified that the only westbound train to pass through Hood
39:50
Speaker 1: River on the morning of March ninth, nineteen hundred, had
39:54
Speaker 1: done so hours prior to Langle witnessing Williams driving into town.
40:01
Speaker 1: The prosecution stated that William's assertion that he had driven
40:05
Speaker 1: the women to the train station was therefore patently false.
40:09
Speaker 2: What a dumb dumb If you.
40:11
Speaker 1: Were driving them to the train station, why didn't we
40:14
Speaker 1: see them? And why wouldn't you have delivered them to
40:16
Speaker 1: the train station in time to take said train?
40:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know those women, they always be taken forever
40:23
Speaker 2: to get ready.
40:26
Speaker 1: Five more minutes. The most surprising witness testified just prior
40:33
Speaker 1: to the state resting a literal woman, doctor l Victoria Hampton.
40:41
Speaker 1: She was a young chemist and microscopist in Portland, Women
40:46
Speaker 1: in Stem for reals Ease, Women in Stem in the
40:51
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundred love It.
40:52
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay trailblazers.
40:55
Speaker 1: Her testimony was critical to the case establishing the George
41:00
Speaker 1: had discovered on the homestead was indeed human hair attached
41:04
Speaker 1: to the bloody gunny sack, because of course, if you're
41:07
Speaker 1: identifying blood hair, there's always the possibility that it's animal.
41:13
Speaker 1: And his story was that it came from a horse,
41:17
Speaker 1: but not only making a human right, yeah, but not
41:22
Speaker 1: only was it human. She testified that it belonged to
41:26
Speaker 1: Alma Nesbit.
41:28
Speaker 2: So wow, that's crazy that they could figure that out
41:33
Speaker 2: back then, and it was a woman who did it.
41:35
Speaker 1: Right. Her determination was based on a brand new German
41:40
Speaker 1: serum test discovered just a year prior, So this is like,
41:45
Speaker 1: whoa science?
41:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he probably didn't even know they could figure
41:50
Speaker 2: that kind of shit out because he's dumb. For one,
41:52
Speaker 2: he probably doesn't keep up on German news.
41:56
Speaker 1: Or science.
41:57
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I have to imagine nobody, just
42:05
Speaker 3: like in the general populace, was aware that that is
42:08
Speaker 3: something they could even like determine with any certainty.
42:11
Speaker 2: So it's wild it's wild, the wild, wildwidth.
42:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was interesting because her testimony was that, you know,
42:21
Speaker 1: what was found on the gunnysack belonged to Almah, but
42:24
Speaker 1: she was the daughter. So some of the source material
42:29
Speaker 1: focused on the long strands of silver hair which would
42:32
Speaker 1: have come from the mother, But there were you know,
42:36
Speaker 1: articles and things that talked about there also being brown
42:41
Speaker 1: hair that was entangled in there. So in any case,
42:46
Speaker 1: I don't know how they felt like they could really
42:50
Speaker 1: determine that it belonged to a specific person. That part
42:55
Speaker 1: is a little bit dubious to me, because the serum
42:57
Speaker 1: test is really just telling them like, this is human
43:00
Speaker 1: not animal. But huh, I'm gonna give them a pass
43:04
Speaker 1: because I feel like he like literally handed them a
43:09
Speaker 1: slam dunk. It was, I mean, calm on, I mean
43:14
Speaker 1: just so much of his whole story was just so
43:17
Speaker 1: clearly nonsense. It was like, listen, if you're gonna tell
43:21
Speaker 1: us a story, as the audience, we have to be
43:24
Speaker 1: prepared sometimes to suspend our disbelief to a degree. I'm
43:30
Speaker 1: not a magician, though. These are all just like made up.
43:35
Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous.
43:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he seemed to have gotten away with it,
43:39
Speaker 2: like quite a few timesh or possibly so he probably
43:43
Speaker 2: just didn't even He's like, who's even paying attention? Right?
43:47
Speaker 1: Trust me, I've already gotten away with killing quite a
43:51
Speaker 1: few broads, okay, And the last time they caught me
43:55
Speaker 1: try and I got put away for about fifteen seconds. Oh,
44:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure it sticks. The prosecution's theory of
44:05
Speaker 1: the case was that Williams was simply an opportunist and
44:09
Speaker 1: polygamist whose marriage to Alma was motivated not by affection
44:14
Speaker 1: for her, but by the desire to lay claim on
44:17
Speaker 1: her land. Jurors were asked to decide whether the evidence
44:22
Speaker 1: presented was sufficient to conclude not only that the Nesbits
44:26
Speaker 1: were dead, but that Williams had killed them. It was
44:30
Speaker 1: an enormous decision, and in the end they reached a
44:34
Speaker 1: verdict in less than four hours. When the jury comes
44:39
Speaker 1: back that quickly, it's almost never good for the defendant.
44:43
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say.
44:44
Speaker 2: Okay, I was like, you seem happy, but I am sorry.
44:47
Speaker 1: I know it's very scary because it definitely like you
44:49
Speaker 1: could see this going either way for sure, But yeah,
44:53
Speaker 1: usually a quick turnaround means a conviction. It's not scientific,
44:57
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think I've heard so many many
45:00
Speaker 1: different lawyers and prosecutors talk about that. How like they
45:05
Speaker 1: start to get a sense of like what people are
45:08
Speaker 1: thinking and debating in the jury room based on like
45:10
Speaker 1: how long it's taking, and so they yeah, it's really interesting.
45:15
Speaker 1: Like the psychology of it is is fascinating. Public executions
45:19
Speaker 1: were not unheard of in early Oregon, though they were
45:23
Speaker 1: already becoming less common by the early twentieth century. On
45:28
Speaker 1: July twenty first, nineteen oh five, at forty eight years old,
45:32
Speaker 1: Daniel Norman Williams was the sixty sixth and last man
45:38
Speaker 1: publicly hanged in Oregon. Ooh, the sixty sixth in the
45:45
Speaker 1: sixth month of the year.
45:47
Speaker 2: Oh dude, you know this is so weird, Okay because
45:52
Speaker 2: my episode is like early nineteen hundreds and there's like
45:57
Speaker 2: a six to sixty sixth element in it too.
46:00
Speaker 1: Uh, it like doesn't connect.
46:02
Speaker 2: With the nineteen hundred's part, but like it's still in
46:05
Speaker 2: my episode, so it's kind of weird.
46:07
Speaker 1: I didn't even really think about this six sixty six
46:09
Speaker 1: until you said, woo, that's crazy. The execution marked the
46:17
Speaker 1: end of the legal case, but not the end of
46:19
Speaker 1: the story. Even after the sentence was carried out, the
46:22
Speaker 1: central mystery remained unsolved. The bodies of Louisa and Almond
46:27
Speaker 1: Nesbit were never found because he burned them like a
46:31
Speaker 1: I mean if that's a lot harder to do than
46:33
Speaker 1: people realize. So that is one thing that kind of
46:37
Speaker 1: bothers me about the case, is that, like, I mean,
46:41
Speaker 1: the amount of heat that's required to actually like successfully
46:48
Speaker 1: like burn a body beyond recognition. And who knows, maybe
46:52
Speaker 1: he burned them to a certain point and realized, oh wait,
46:55
Speaker 1: I don't have like a proper crematorium. Now I'm just
46:58
Speaker 1: gonna bury the bodies somewhere, and they just were never
47:02
Speaker 1: just go who there's how could how could we ever know?
47:07
Speaker 1: But without bodies, uncertainty survives the story of Alma and
47:12
Speaker 1: Louisa Nesbit still lingers in hood Rivers Historical Memory, part tragedy,
47:18
Speaker 1: part legal landmark, and part unanswered question, part asshole. Oh
47:24
Speaker 1: there's a lot of vast holdery. Yeah, it's just.
47:29
Speaker 2: Oh, I still I keep thinking, like, just thank goodness
47:34
Speaker 2: they had a family member who cared that much about it,
47:36
Speaker 2: I know, like travel and search for them.
47:39
Speaker 1: I mean, especially back then, because it's like to go
47:43
Speaker 1: the distance from you know Iowa or I presume he
47:47
Speaker 1: was still in Iowa. But to travel that distance, I
47:52
Speaker 1: mean you had to do that by train that you know.
47:55
Speaker 1: I don't know how long it took to travel by
47:58
Speaker 1: train from Iowa to Oregon, but I think I would imagine,
48:01
Speaker 1: you know, maybe a day or two, like a minute. Yeah,
48:05
Speaker 1: It's it's not like, oh, I'll just hop in my
48:07
Speaker 1: car and six hours later I'm there, or hop on
48:10
Speaker 1: a plane and you know, three or four hours later
48:13
Speaker 1: I'm there. It's it's a lot. And knowing that, like
48:17
Speaker 1: he's basically gonna have to be like the untrained detective.
48:21
Speaker 1: Like he came. He came with receipts and to collect
48:26
Speaker 1: more receipts, and he was like see all of these receipts,
48:29
Speaker 1: and he did the damn thing, like he was literally
48:33
Speaker 1: like unpaid law enforcement. Yeah. I hope he lived a
48:38
Speaker 1: happy life.
48:38
Speaker 2: I mean, that's so hard to say, or you know,
48:41
Speaker 2: you can't. I know, it doesn't never go away, we
48:44
Speaker 2: know that, but yeah, I just hope he had a
48:46
Speaker 2: good life after that.
48:47
Speaker 1: You know, nothing else crazy happened. God, I know, like
48:50
Speaker 1: this man has just already been through entirely too much,
48:54
Speaker 1: thank you, But yeah, I don't. I don't have more
49:00
Speaker 1: more about George. I didn't see that there was anything
49:04
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, really follow up about him
49:08
Speaker 1: and like what his life was like after all of this.
49:13
Speaker 1: That's probably good.
49:15
Speaker 2: That like reporters weren't bothering the show.
49:18
Speaker 1: I mean, in a way, I do think that sometimes
49:22
Speaker 1: it's healthier for the narrative and and truly for the
49:26
Speaker 1: for the real life events to be that you know,
49:30
Speaker 1: there's a verdict in this case and that's the end
49:34
Speaker 1: of this of the story. You know, like he is
49:37
Speaker 1: a victim of these crimes, but like his role is done,
49:41
Speaker 1: like I mean, and he did all the heavy liftings
49:43
Speaker 1: so he could use it, he could use a little rest,
49:46
Speaker 1: if I'm being honest, I think that's one area where
49:50
Speaker 1: in more modern times, probably a lot of people that
49:55
Speaker 1: that's where a lot of the suffering comes from, right,
49:58
Speaker 1: I mean, I think kind of either whether you're related
50:01
Speaker 1: to the victim or the perpetrator, it's just that it's
50:04
Speaker 1: like this never leaves you, like it just follows you.
50:09
Speaker 1: So I mean, hopefully, hopefully he went on to have
50:12
Speaker 1: a long and happy life that you know, did not
50:16
Speaker 1: get him into the papers, unless that was something he wanted,
50:19
Speaker 1: like a birth announcement or you know people announced like
50:24
Speaker 1: when they got engaged and married and things like that.
50:27
Speaker 1: You know, hopefully somebody wrote him a really fucking awesome
50:32
Speaker 1: oh bit, you know.
50:33
Speaker 2: But other than that, do you think he's dead by now?
50:37
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. I know, I'm just kidding. I want
50:43
Speaker 2: to think he lived forever.
50:48
Speaker 1: Okay, So here's the dilemma now, is that, as you're
50:52
Speaker 1: asking that, I thought I could just sneakily put on
50:55
Speaker 1: some chapstick and my face is Oh, at least you
51:03
Speaker 1: weren't picking your nose, so we can leave it exactly exactly.
51:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything too weird. That's so funny, you guys.
51:12
Speaker 1: We are human. We do occasionally have to like chapstick,
51:17
Speaker 1: drink some water. I'm forever doing my eye drops, hope.
51:21
Speaker 1: I don't think we've ever left in any of the
51:23
Speaker 1: eye drop shots because those are disturbing. Probably probably not, Maybe,
51:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. We gotta ask Taylor. I don't think
51:31
Speaker 1: i've ever She's like, what, I don't cut anything out?
51:36
Speaker 2: Can you imagine it would be terrible? We know she doesn't.
51:39
Speaker 2: She works hard. I know, I know, well do you
51:42
Speaker 2: think Tara.
51:43
Speaker 1: Would give us some answers. You know, it just might.
51:46
Speaker 1: It just might. I was gonna say, I do have
51:50
Speaker 1: somebody that was involved in this case that we're probably
51:56
Speaker 1: gonna have to talk about again. What listen in old
52:00
Speaker 1: timey newspapers and the things you can find, And I
52:05
Speaker 1: was like, wait, isn't he the is it the detective lawyer?
52:10
Speaker 2: Die?
52:10
Speaker 1: Guys? Honestly, if we like revisit the area like in
52:16
Speaker 1: this time period again, I would not be surprised if
52:19
Speaker 1: he came up again. That's not what I have in mind.
52:22
Speaker 1: I did come across something. I'm okay, it could end
52:25
Speaker 1: up being like a bonus. I'm not sure yet because
52:28
Speaker 1: I have to I have to dig into it and
52:30
Speaker 1: see what I can find. But wowsers, what a time like.
52:36
Speaker 1: They didn't call it the wild West for nothing? Yeah, okay, truly.
52:42
Speaker 2: Wow?
52:46
Speaker 1: Okay, what Deck or you us? I'm just a PNW one.
52:51
Speaker 2: You don't have a trad wife, Deck. You have a
52:53
Speaker 2: fifties housewife?
52:54
Speaker 1: Deck? I do. Yeah, yeah, we've got the housewife one
52:58
Speaker 1: that didn't really feel like totally different.
53:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
53:00
Speaker 1: I didn't really feel totally on brand, just because also
53:04
Speaker 1: she was like a secret wife.
53:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I hope I didn't do shit for him. Honestly,
53:10
Speaker 2: I hope she didn't do his laundry churn, his butter dishes, nothing.
53:15
Speaker 1: His literal or metaphorical butter. Okay, I'm gonna lay them out.
53:24
Speaker 1: I've got them in just like the slightest like arch
53:28
Speaker 1: shape in front of me, Like I didn't just lay
53:32
Speaker 1: them out totally flat and straight.
53:35
Speaker 2: So just run your fingers over him and maybe I'll
53:39
Speaker 2: say one to stop. Okay, do one handed so you
53:42
Speaker 2: don't get confused.
53:44
Speaker 1: Okay, stop ew Okay. So we have the King of Pentacles. Okay,
53:54
Speaker 1: but we drew it in the reverse. Oh. I feel
53:58
Speaker 1: like this is like for me, the visual of this
54:01
Speaker 1: is like very of frontier time.
54:05
Speaker 2: Right uh huh, like wilderness. And I also feel like
54:09
Speaker 2: that's kind of like what he thought of himself to be.
54:11
Speaker 2: Oh my god, he was just turn upside down.
54:14
Speaker 1: He was the worst for real, for real though, that
54:17
Speaker 1: was that's so funny. I feel like in a flash,
54:20
Speaker 1: that's sort of like where my brain went. So King
54:25
Speaker 1: of Pentacles our keywords are security, material success, pragmatism, stability, strength,
54:34
Speaker 1: and worldly power. It's kind of the vibes I was
54:37
Speaker 1: getting from that. Yeah, for sure. In many decks, this
54:43
Speaker 1: king sits on a throne and wears rich garments and
54:46
Speaker 1: a crown. Sometimes he appears with a bull, symbol of strength, virility,
54:52
Speaker 1: and tenacity, and also dumb assory stubborn. Yeah. In a reading,
55:01
Speaker 1: he may represent an actual person, in which case he's
55:05
Speaker 1: usually a mature man who exercises worldly power and authority.
55:10
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what the reverse Yes, I
55:12
Speaker 1: was gonna say, which I think is why we drew
55:13
Speaker 1: it in reverse. When reversed, the King of Pentacles indicates sluggishness, delays,
55:22
Speaker 1: and or obstacles to material success. Hmmm. Probably because you
55:27
Speaker 1: don't understand the law or how literally anything works. Sometimes
55:34
Speaker 1: it shows low energy or insecurity. You feel stuck, but
55:38
Speaker 1: you don't have the drive to get out of your rut.
55:41
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna take her land.
55:43
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I mean wow, I don't know, Caitlin
55:47
Speaker 2: an insecure man? To me, I feel like he wouldn't
55:50
Speaker 2: have six wives.
55:52
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly who has six wives? Okay, you're
55:58
Speaker 1: gonna absolutely shit. Okay. In the reverse interpretation, if the
56:04
Speaker 1: card represents an actual person, he may be mercenary, course, dull, witted,
56:12
Speaker 1: or even corrupt.
56:15
Speaker 2: What's mercenary mean? I feel like I ask you this
56:17
Speaker 2: a lot, but I forget.
56:18
Speaker 1: I you know, in terms of like an adjective, I
56:22
Speaker 1: feel like I struggle to describe that. So I'm gonna
56:26
Speaker 1: look like I know that, like a mercenary like in
56:31
Speaker 1: a wartime, is like somebody, it's like a paid soldier. Basically,
56:36
Speaker 1: oh yeah, oh my god, okay. So, as an adjective,
56:41
Speaker 1: mercenary describes a person, action or motive driven solely by
56:45
Speaker 1: a desire for money or material gain, often disregarding ethics, loyalty,
56:51
Speaker 1: or integrity.
56:52
Speaker 2: That's literally the perfect word for him. It so is
56:57
Speaker 2: also dull witted.
56:58
Speaker 1: Oh my god, just you cannot make this shut up.
57:02
Speaker 1: It characterizes behavior that is greedy, grasping, or profit oriented. Hmm.
57:09
Speaker 2: I'm glad I asked what it meant, because that definition.
57:16
Speaker 1: Lost her. I the combination of dull, witted and mercenary.
57:27
Speaker 1: I mean it just oh chef's kiss. Yeah, it just
57:33
Speaker 1: it doesn't get better than that. Oh what was the
57:35
Speaker 1: last word? One was course, Yes, mercenary, course, dull witted,
57:40
Speaker 1: or even corrupt. Well, I'm obviously it follows he tried
57:45
Speaker 1: to forge a signature, so like right, my god. No, honestly,
57:50
Speaker 1: each of these like has a very specific application, Like
57:54
Speaker 1: you might think that, well, it feels a little bit redundant. No, no,
57:58
Speaker 1: it's not. No, No, They're all accurate and important in
58:03
Speaker 1: their own way. In a reading about money, your finances
58:07
Speaker 1: are stagnant, you might even incur losses, perhaps because you're
58:12
Speaker 1: stuck in old patterns and have resisted making changes. You're
58:16
Speaker 1: worried about money and or don't handle your resource as well,
58:19
Speaker 1: which I have to assume is yeah, that feels right.
58:24
Speaker 2: And stuck in his old ways of killing his wives
58:27
Speaker 2: for their possessions, just.
58:30
Speaker 1: All the murdering.
58:31
Speaker 2: God, thank God for the last one who, like he
58:35
Speaker 2: didn't get to take advantage of or do something worse to.
58:39
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, it's unclear which of the
58:42
Speaker 1: wives fell victims other than Alma. It's yeah, I just.
58:47
Speaker 2: Like to assume they got him before he did anything
58:49
Speaker 2: to the last lady he was with.
58:51
Speaker 1: I know well, and I have honestly, I feel like
58:56
Speaker 1: her chances are not great, just because she was actually
59:01
Speaker 1: in Oregon and it was such a short time turnaround,
59:05
Speaker 1: and we know he poisoned multiple wives. I feel like Yeah,
59:10
Speaker 1: it feels as though there's a pretty high likelihood that
59:14
Speaker 1: maybe she was one of them that didn't make it. No,
59:19
Speaker 1: in my mind, no, she was saved. Although to be fair,
59:23
Speaker 1: if she had been killed prior to Alma arriving in Oregon,
59:31
Speaker 1: I mean, espouse's death doesn't necessarily nullify your marriage, but
59:37
Speaker 1: it would, like I feel like that would have been
59:40
Speaker 1: more of a point of it wouldn't matter that he
59:44
Speaker 1: had married that woman as much if she was deceased,
59:48
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Sounds awful to say, because that
59:51
Speaker 1: makes it sound like, oh, it doesn't matter. But I'm
59:54
Speaker 1: just saying, like, if it's a you know, a deceased part,
59:58
Speaker 1: very suspicious. Ye.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was thinking of the woman. You said
1:00:03
Speaker 2: he was already with another woman.
1:00:07
Speaker 1: In Bellingham.
1:00:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's who I was thinking of. Like I hope,
1:00:11
Speaker 2: oh he got caught before, yes, he could do anything
1:00:14
Speaker 2: to her.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean I think she was saved by
1:00:18
Speaker 1: the literal bell in Bellingham.
1:00:24
Speaker 2: I can't imagine though, like, oh my god, like who
1:00:27
Speaker 2: was I with?
1:00:28
Speaker 1: What did I escape?
1:00:30
Speaker 2: I know, like what almost happened to me?
1:00:34
Speaker 1: I mean, very very scary for that woman, Like that
1:00:40
Speaker 1: was very much, very possibly almost you. If the rating
1:00:46
Speaker 1: is about your job, the king reversed may mean you're
1:00:50
Speaker 1: bored with your work but can't find something better. Perhaps
1:00:53
Speaker 1: you've sacrificed your passion for security or your job maybe
1:00:57
Speaker 1: in jeopardy, and you feel insecure. In a reading about love,
1:01:02
Speaker 1: a relationship may offer stability, but little excitement or romance.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: Routine or responsibility may drain your vitality. Perhaps you feel
1:01:12
Speaker 1: stuck in a relationship for financial reasons. Yeah, And I
1:01:18
Speaker 1: just I feel like the thing that sticks out to
1:01:21
Speaker 1: me here too, is that it says routine or responsibility
1:01:25
Speaker 1: may drain your vitality. And so much of what I
1:01:28
Speaker 1: focused on early on is just kind of like the
1:01:32
Speaker 1: I mean it's definitely it's routine, but it's also just
1:01:35
Speaker 1: like it's the drudgery of the responsibility and the burden
1:01:40
Speaker 1: of homesteadying in this like very rural and yeah, you
1:01:45
Speaker 1: know you're you're just barely at the edges of the
1:01:49
Speaker 1: wilderness in hood River in like this point in history.
1:01:53
Speaker 1: It's like this is like barely a little town. Yeah,
1:01:59
Speaker 1: that to me, like that that that's another major linkage.
1:02:04
Speaker 1: Oh man, is that it? Yeah?
1:02:07
Speaker 2: That be that I mean, it was enough it was like,
1:02:11
Speaker 2: oh it was honny, Yeah, it was right.
1:02:14
Speaker 1: They own the night. Wow, so funny.
1:02:17
Speaker 2: I hope someday that they find some bones and they
1:02:22
Speaker 2: are able to miraculously figure out who it is.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: Honestly, that that would be really cool. And I feel
1:02:30
Speaker 1: I feel like with genetic genealogy, like that's something that's like,
1:02:34
Speaker 1: it's very it's very much possible these days. Yeah, so
1:02:39
Speaker 1: I think it's entirely possible that at some point, you know,
1:02:42
Speaker 1: their remains could be discovered and you know, maybe they
1:02:46
Speaker 1: can be interred in a more respectful I have to
1:02:50
Speaker 1: imagine a more respectful way than whatever Norman did with them.
1:02:56
Speaker 2: Norman Baits, I know, such a creat name, and I
1:03:01
Speaker 2: just he probably killed his mom too, wouldn't surprise me.
1:03:06
Speaker 2: But I have no evidence of that. Sorry, tell you
1:03:08
Speaker 2: Normans out there, it's only creepy if you're a murderer.
1:03:11
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you see, it's it's the murdering that really
1:03:15
Speaker 1: gets us upset, which I feel like is fair, you know,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: I think, so, don't at me if you disagree.
1:03:22
Speaker 2: If you're not upset by murder, we don't want you around.
1:03:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not interested in a discourse about that.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: With you.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: Sorry, please meet the country the world, Please go into space.
1:03:35
Speaker 1: Thank you? Yeah, you and Elon just go ahead and
1:03:38
Speaker 1: get on his rocket. Oh man, well, have a creepy day.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: We'll see you next Thursday day, nasty Thursday.
1:03:50
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
1:03:55
Speaker 2: Every time you say Nesbit, all I can think of
1:03:58
Speaker 2: is toy story when buzz light Ear is Missus Nesbit,
1:04:03
Speaker 2: when he goes crazy, you remember that.
1:04:06
Speaker 1: Totally Missus Nesbit. I just keep thinking about Nina Nesbit
1:04:16
Speaker 1: and that's all I got. I don't know who that is. Yeah,
1:04:21
Speaker 1: she's one of my favorite singers.
1:04:24
Speaker 2: Oh that would also remind me of missus Nesbit.
1:04:28
Speaker 1: I just it's missus Nesbit. It's just it's it's always
1:04:32
Speaker 1: that for you, all day long. Okay, buzz Lightear losing
1:04:35
Speaker 1: a ship, that's what it is. Well fair enough. You know,
1:04:40
Speaker 1: we can't help the associations that we make in our brains.
1:04:43
Speaker 1: Really can't