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Amelia Dyer: The Baby Farmer · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion is advised. This is Tendredd murdered in eighteen thirty seven. Amelia Dyer
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was born in Bristol, UK. She was an intelligent child who loved to
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read and write, but her childhood, as you're going to hear, was
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not an easy one. Her older sister, sarah Anne, died at the
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age of six, and when her mother gave birth to another child, the
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little girl was named sarah Anne and her memory. Unfortunately, the second sarah
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Anne also passed away after catching typhus fever. Amelia's mother was not in a
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very good position to be caring for her children. Her diagnosis caused her to
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suffer from violent outbursts of rage, as well as uncontrolled symptoms of mental illness.
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From a young age, Amelia was forced to act as her mother's caregiver,
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and then, when she was a preteen, her mother passed away.
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Amelia was then sent to live with one of her aunts and become the apprentice
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to a local corset maker. When Amelia was twenty four years old, she
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met a much older man, fifty nine year old George Thomas. They decided
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to get married and both lied about their age when filling in their details on
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their marriage certificate, Amelia pretended to be six years older and George pretended to
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be eleven years younger. On paper, their age gap didn't look very alarming,
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but in reality, George was old enough to be her grandfather. Amelia
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originally trained to work as a nurse, but after George passed away in eighteen
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sixty nine, she needed better money, and she needed it quickly. On
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the advice of a friend, she turned to a different career, baby farming.
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At the time, baby farming was the term used after the incredibly unethical
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process of taking babies who had been orphaned or birthed by single mothers in exchange
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for a cash payment. The problem with baby farming was obvious. Even though
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some baby farmers took regular payments from the child's birth parents, many of them
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chose to only accept large upfront payments before the baby was permanently transferred into their
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care. In this case, there was no financial reason for the farmers to
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treat the child well. Many baby farmers would neglect the adopted infants, starving
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them to save money. When the infants died, the corners would report that
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the cause of death had been due to birth defect or lack of breast milk
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instead of starvation due to neglect. It was pretty easy for baby farmers to
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silence the cries of a neglected baby. Over the counter syrups containing opium or
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alcohol were marketed towards frustrated mothers. These cough syrups were strong enough to kill
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an infant by overdose, and the ones that contained opium also acted as a
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hunger suppressant. When single mothers who had given their babies up for adoption came
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in to check on them, they often saw signs of neglect, but because
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the stigma surrounding single motherhood, there were too ashamed press charges or report the
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baby farm to the police. At first, it's possible Amelia grew genuinely tired
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of trying to care for the babies that she adopted as well as her two
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own children, but it's equally possible that she was neglecting them from the start,
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and multiple of the babies Amelia adopted passed away. Investigation into the deaths
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of the babies led to Amelia being charged with child neglect and sentenced to six
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months of hard labor, but after her labor was completed, Amelia was free
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to go back to baby farming. The second time around, Amelia's attitude was
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completely different. She felt that she had tried her best to care for the
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babies and had been punished for it. Now she saw no reason to care
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for them at all. She gained the trust of young single mothers, treating
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them kindly and promising to love and take care of their newborns as if they
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were her own children. She painted a picture of herself as a maternal woman
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who loved children and wanted to help them. After accepting their payments, she'd
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neglected the babies, depriving them of food on purpose until they were starved to
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death, but this method took too much time. She knew that if babies
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died quicker, she'd be able to replace them with new ones and accumulate even
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more money. She also realized the error of her ways in the past,
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and not in a good way. When she'd asked before the local doctor to
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certify the deaths of the infants, he'd become suspicious of the sheer amount of
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deaths that were occurring under her care. This is likely where she started to
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brutally murder each child that was entrusted in her care, strangling them to death
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and then dumping their corpses to avoid detection. Somehow, she was allowed to
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continue adopting hundreds of children, despite her previous conviction for neglect and multiple episodes
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of mental instability that led to her spending time in numerous asylums throughout her adult
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life. It was the thirtieth of March eighteen ninety six when a baby's remains
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were found in a bag floating down London's River Thames. It was a little
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girl identified as Helena Fry. The paper that had been used to wrap the
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body contained a barely legible address, the home of Amelia Dyer, who had
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been making a living as a baby farmer for almost three decades while repeatedly moving
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locations and going in and out of psychiatric care. The police raided Amelia's home.
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As soon as they walked through the door, they smelled an overpowering odor
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of decomposition, but the search didn't uncover any human remains. What they did
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find was evidence of how many children had passed through Amelia's care over the years,
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advertisements, unanswered letters from single mothers who had given their children, and
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telegrams about the adoption of infants. From this evidence alone, investigators guests that
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around twenty babies had been given to amel in the past few months. They
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also uncovered something that would become more significant later in the investigation, large quantities
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of edging tape. On the fourth of April, Amelia Dyer was placed under
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arrest for murder. Initially, her son in law, Arthur, was arrested
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as an accessory to murder, but those charges were later dropped. Allegedly,
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at least one of Amelia's adult daughters was also aware of her mother's activities,
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but Amelia insisted that this was not the case. Amelia might have been a
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lot of things, but she definitely was not a snitche Investigators dredged the Thames
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and uncovered the remains of six more infants. They were all called in the
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same way by strangulation with the same type of white measuring tape. Later on,
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Amelia admitted to the police that the measuring tape quote was how you could
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tell it was one of mine. One of the babies was identified as Doris
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Marmon, whose mother had given her to Amelia less than two weeks before her
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body was found. In the advertisement that Doris's mother had responded to, Amelia
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had written quote I don't want a child for money's sake, but for the
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company and home comfort. I and my husband are dearly fond of children.
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I have no child of my own. A child with me will have a
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good home and a mother's love. Despite Doris's mother wanting to pay in regular
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installments, hoping that she would one day be reunited with her baby when the
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circumstances were better, Amelia had insisted on a one off payment. She had
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killed Doris shortly after being paid, then dumped her in the Thames. Amelia's
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crimes had generated a huge amount of public outrage. The trial was sensational,
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and crowds gathered to hear the verdict. It took the jury less than five
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minutes to make up their decision. So many babies had been given to Amelia
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and then seemingly vanished altogether. It was estimated that she might have killed as
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many as four hundred babies during her thirty year career. Impossibly even more than
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that. This number, if it had been proven, would make her one
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of the most prolific serial killers in the history of the world. After the
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public uproar that Amelia's trial had caused, it was clear that something needed to
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change. It had been way too easy for Amelia to get away with not
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just one murder, but hundreds. The laws regarding child protection and adoption were
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made stricter, and the recently formed National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of
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Children became well known across the country. On the tenth of June, Amelia's
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execution date arrived. She stepped up to the scaffold. Her executioner, James
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Billington, asked her if she had any last words. Quote, I have
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nothing to say, Amelia responded, before she was hanged to death. After
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her conviction, the public gave Amelia the nickname the Ogress of Reading. Over
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the next few years, she became the subject of a ballad by the same
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name, The Old Baby Farmer, the wretched dire at the Old Bailey.
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Her wages is paid in times long ago. We'd make a big friar and
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roasted so nicely that wicked old jade. That is ten minute murder for today,
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brief and binge able true crime. I'm Joe, I'm the host,
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and thank you for listening today, and thank you to the person that submitted
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that story idea to ten minute murder. By the way if you have one,
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Joe at ten minute Murder dot com, that's where you can send it.
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I don't get to talk about these historic cases very often, and I
9:39
will. I know what you're thinking. Have you talked about H. H.
9:43
Holmes or Jack the Ripper? No, haven't done those stories. I
9:46
will do them. I promise I will do them. Those have been emailed
9:50
to me multiple times. They're on the list, but I don't want to
9:52
do them the way that everyone else would do them. But I'm trying to
9:54
make it more interesting than just the plain ol. Here are the facts of
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everything you've ever heard a million times. I don't want to do that,
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all right, So our question for today is actually multiple. It's kind of
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a novel. Laurie from Ocala, Florida. You wrote me a novel,
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Laurie, So I'm going to do my best. I'm going to edit it,
10:13
by the way, because there's a lot here and the podcast is only
10:16
so long. Here it is, Hi, Joe, I have some questions
10:18
for you to answer the podcast. I hate the sound of my own voice,
10:22
and most people seem to not like to hear their voices on a recording.
10:26
Do you like the sound of your voice or does it make you cringe
10:28
as well? And the answer is it's all right. I guess it could
10:33
be worse, it could be better. I don't think very many people like
10:37
to hear their own voice on a recording, but I've been doing it for
10:41
so long that at this point it doesn't bother me anymore. I sound how
10:43
I sound, and I can't do anything about it. Okay, Part two,
10:46
I'm running out of true crime shows and movies. What are your recommendations?
10:52
Very recently, as in today, I watched Killers Caught on Camera,
10:56
but I'm only like two episodes into that. It's on TV and it's not
11:00
bad. And another one that I watched I think I posted on social media
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about it, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. Now one's not a murder
11:09
case, but it's guess true crime, and it's very weird, very strange.
11:13
I'm not going to spoil it for you in case you're gonna watch it,
11:16
but there is one person in there. He's a guy that makes the
11:20
show nearly unwatchable. I don't know if it's an act or that's who he
11:26
really is, but if you've seen this, you know exactly who I'm talking
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about. But it's so weird and strange, all right. And the last
11:33
question, I love what you do, and I've always loved anything crime.
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I used to work at a domestic violent shelter for women and children because I
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wanted to help people. Have you ever worked in any humanitarian type jobs or
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crime related jobs? And that answer is no. I guess you can't really
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call it a job if you're just volunteering your time. But I've done that.
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I've volunteered at multiple charities, and I've set on boards for a couple
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of different charities where we're doing humanitarian type things. But I'm not getting paid
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to do that, so that's not what I would consider a job, But
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I do volunteer for charities and crime related jobs. No, I've worked in
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the news world before. I've done news reporting on the radio, and I've
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done behind the scenes things at news TV stations, but I've never worked in
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crime. We reported crime, but I didn't work with like law enforcement or
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anything like that. But if it counts, I wanted to be Foxmolder when
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I was a kid, and that probably doesn't count, all right. Thank
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you Laurie from Ocala, Florida. By the way, if this is your
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