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"The Sinners All Bow" with Kate Winkler Dawson · PNW Haunts & Homicides

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  Speaker 1: We are, we Are. We are Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate,
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  Speaker 1: we Are Cultivate.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Your Crime, where we discuss the funny, strange,
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  Speaker 2: and obscure crimes of yesteryear. I'm your host, Lindsay Valenti,
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  Speaker 2: and with me today instead of my sister is author
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  Speaker 2: and podcaster Kate Winkler Dawson. Kate is a seasoned documentary
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  Speaker 2: producer and podcaster who's hit podcasts Tenfold More Wicked, Wicked Words,
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  Speaker 2: and Buried Bones appear on the Exactly Right Network. She
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  Speaker 2: is the author of Death and the Air, American Sherlock
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  Speaker 2: and All That Is Wicked, and is a professor of
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  Speaker 2: journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Today, Kate
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  Speaker 2: is joining us to discuss her latest book, The Sinner's
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  Speaker 2: All Bow, which is set to be released January seventh.
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  Speaker 2: Acclaimed journalist, podcaster, and true crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson
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  Speaker 2: tells the true story of the scandalous murder investigation that
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  Speaker 2: became the inspiration for both Nathaniel Hawthorns, The Scarlet Letter,
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  Speaker 2: and the first true crime book published in America. On
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  Speaker 2: a cold winter day in eighteen thirty two, Sarah Maria
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  Speaker 2: Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a
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  Speaker 2: small New England town. When her troubled past and a
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  Speaker 2: secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister refriend f from Avery
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  Speaker 2: was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah's death a suicide
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  Speaker 2: or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story,
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  Speaker 2: victorian writer Catherine read Arnold Williams threw herself into the
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  Speaker 2: investigation as the trial was unfolding, and wrote what many
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  Speaker 2: claim to be the first American true crime narrative, Fall River.
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  Speaker 2: The murder divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's The
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  Speaker 2: Scarlet Letter. But the Reverend was not convicted, and questions
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  Speaker 2: linger to this day about what really led to Sarah
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  Speaker 2: Cornell's death until now. In The Sinner's Albaugh, acclaimed true
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  Speaker 2: crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to
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  Speaker 2: nineteenth century small town America, emboldened to finish the work
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  Speaker 2: Williams started nearly two centuries before, using modern investigative advancements,
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  Speaker 2: including forensic not analysis and criminal profiling, which was invented
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  Speaker 2: fifty five years later, with Jack the Ripper, Dawston fills
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  Speaker 2: in the gaps of Williams's research to find the truth
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  Speaker 2: and bring justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to
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  Speaker 2: our past as well as our present, anchored by three
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  Speaker 2: women who subverted the script they were given. So, Kate,
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  Speaker 2: welcome to the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: So before we kind of dive into the book, what
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  Speaker 2: got you into writing?
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  Speaker 1: Oh boy, I think in high school I had an
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  Speaker 1: English teacher who thought I was a pretty good writer,
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  Speaker 1: and I didn't know what kind of writing I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to do, and she did something really interesting. Well, I've
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  Speaker 1: told this story enough where I really should reach out
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  Speaker 1: to miss Darrell and tell her thank you for this.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I keep talking about her. Jane Darrell in Austin,
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  Speaker 1: she decided that everybody in all of her ninth grade
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: students needed to learn how to interview for a job
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  Speaker 1: like an internship or anything McDonald's wherever you wanted to be.
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  Speaker 1: So she brought in all of these people who were
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  Speaker 1: in the professional world who were friends of hers, and
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  Speaker 1: one of them was a guy who managed a radio
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  Speaker 1: station here in Austin, and so he did a fake
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  Speaker 1: interview with me to you know, be an intern, and
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  Speaker 1: then at the end of the interview, I guess he
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  Speaker 1: thought I did a good job, and he said, do
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  Speaker 1: you want to like actual job as an intern at
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  Speaker 1: my radio station?
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  Speaker 2: For sure?
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  Speaker 1: And so then I ended up shifting over to television.
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  Speaker 1: And then I almost like, I almost had no choice
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  Speaker 1: but to write news because at fifteen, you know, in sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: I was hired as an editor at the ABC station here.
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  Speaker 1: At that age, I was so used to being told
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  Speaker 1: what to do still by my parents, Oh right, right,
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  Speaker 1: journalism okay, and Harry go, I'm gonna write journalism now.
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  Speaker 1: So it was so I was pretty like pitcheonholed from
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  Speaker 1: the very beginning, and then of course I loved it,
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  Speaker 1: thank goodness. So Ketch, that's the lesson for any of
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  Speaker 1: your listeners who you know, have kids. It's like, man,
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  Speaker 1: catch them early, try to get them. Trying to get
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  Speaker 1: my girls to do that. Figure out now, because that's
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  Speaker 1: what keeps you out of trouble in high school. Kept
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  Speaker 1: me out of trouble because I just said, I definitely
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  Speaker 1: want to do this. I'm not going to screw it
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  Speaker 1: up by doing something stupid exactly.
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  Speaker 2: That's The struggle I have with my sixteen year old
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  Speaker 2: is she doesn't know what she wants to do either,
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  Speaker 2: and it's hopefully she'll figure it out sooner rather than later.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know, So what inspired you to investigate
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  Speaker 2: the focus of the story, which is the case of
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  Speaker 2: Sarah Maria Cornell.
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  Speaker 1: You know, my other books have been very male centric,
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  Speaker 1: which is sort of odd for me because I really
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  Speaker 1: do gravitate towards female centric stories. But these three the
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  Speaker 1: first three books, Looney Tune, serial Killer, Stuck in a
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  Speaker 1: Fog was my first book. The second one was about
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  Speaker 1: a forensic scientist, American Sherlock, and then the third one
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  Speaker 1: was about you know, Edward Rulov, who was a genius
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  Speaker 1: but not at getting away with crimes. So for this
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  Speaker 1: fourth book, I thought, I really need a woman at
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  Speaker 1: the center of it. And I write an awful lot
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  Speaker 1: about men killing women. And I had a listener when
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  Speaker 1: I was when I had Tenfold the podcast Tenfold More Wicked,
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  Speaker 1: I had a listener reach out to me and said,
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  Speaker 1: you need to look at the Haystack murders, and so
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  Speaker 1: I googled it and I found Sarah's story That is
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  Speaker 1: not the Haystack murder she was talking about, there's a
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  Speaker 1: completely different haystack murder that happened one hundred years later
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  Speaker 1: in Kansas. I think. So, you know, I I when
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  Speaker 1: I read Sarah Cornell's story and I just sort of
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  Speaker 1: realized how similar it is to stories today. I mean, really,
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  Speaker 1: if you break down her story, she is a woman
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  Speaker 1: who you know, is pregnant and she wants to do
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  Speaker 1: what's best for her child, and she is demanding rights,
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  Speaker 1: and then she ends up dead. And we know that
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  Speaker 1: women are out their most vulnerable when they're pregnant. Statistically,
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  Speaker 1: they just are vulnerable for being murdered. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: when I read that story on the podcast that I
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  Speaker 1: have with Paul Holes, buried Bones, we talk about it
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  Speaker 1: all the time. Man, this just seems like this could
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  Speaker 1: have happened last week. This would have happened to a
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  Speaker 1: modern day woman. Absolutely, So to show that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: as as a story of the Sarah Maria Cornell being
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  Speaker 1: the inspiration of course for hester Prnne with the Scarlet letter,
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  Speaker 1: and how much that resonates in. What to me was
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  Speaker 1: terrifying about that story was, you know, I'm looking for heroes,
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  Speaker 1: and I love looking for women heroes. In these stories,
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  Speaker 1: and I found them with the women who recognized that
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  Speaker 1: she had not taken her life most likely that she had,
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  Speaker 1: you know, had violence put upon her. But then the
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  Speaker 1: villains of the story, really the villains, the true villains
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  Speaker 1: to me, were women, and the awful people who took
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  Speaker 1: the stand us destroyed her character for you know, the
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  Speaker 1: sake of protecting a really sleazy guy. So there was
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  Speaker 1: a real for me, a real mixed bag. I was
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  Speaker 1: so proud of some of the women in the story
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  Speaker 1: and completely disgusted by other women.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly as I was reading the book and you're discussing
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  Speaker 2: the trial and like the testimonies and stuff, I physically
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  Speaker 2: went like throughout the book, just like so disgusted with
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  Speaker 2: some of the things these women were saying about her,
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  Speaker 2: And I'm like, why, you know, So it's.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you saw in the
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  Speaker 1: book that I interviewed a woman who an attorney who
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  Speaker 1: represents victims of sexual harassment, and she read the whole
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  Speaker 1: transcript of everything that the defense said about Sarah Mario Cornell. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: she's a slut, she's a thief, she can't be trusted,
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  Speaker 1: she was miserable, she set him up and took her
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  Speaker 1: own life to frame him. And you know, the attorney
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  Speaker 1: in the book said, I mean this is sort of
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  Speaker 1: like flowery eight, you know, nineteenth century language. But this
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  Speaker 1: is this is absolutely something that would come out of,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a court case today. It wouldn't be allowed
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  Speaker 1: into most courts. But that is the thought process that
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  Speaker 1: is used by the defense that she deserved it or
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  Speaker 1: she was vindictive defense.
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  Speaker 2: In the book, you note that your co author is
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  Speaker 2: a woman named Catherine Read Arnold Williams. Can you tell
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  Speaker 2: us a little more about her and kind of the
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  Speaker 2: part she plays in this story as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's interesting to have this kind of a
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  Speaker 1: co author. She's a single mom poet turned journalist and
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  Speaker 1: you know, making her own way kind of through this world,
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  Speaker 1: trying to raise her daughter, you know, by selling books
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  Speaker 1: and doing a great job. And she hears about the
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  Speaker 1: story of Sarah Maria Cornell and decides that she wants
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  Speaker 1: to write a book about it, and she has all
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  Speaker 1: of this amazing access and I you know, I read
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  Speaker 1: her book about the story in the trial, and I
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  Speaker 1: thought this would be a fantastic co author. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the trick is that she's been dead for
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years. Yeah, she wrote she wrote
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  Speaker 1: the country's first true crime book, to me, which is
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  Speaker 1: a stunning revelation for me to have because you know,
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  Speaker 1: I think conventional wisdom is that Capodi wrote kind of
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  Speaker 1: the first mainstream you know, in Cold Blood, which I
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  Speaker 1: have a whole issue with. And then you know, really
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  Speaker 1: crime historians know about Edmund Pearson, who I adored, who wrote,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in the nineteen twenties, and he wrote throughe
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  Speaker 1: crime books. He really, to me, was sort of that
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  Speaker 1: the beginning of that genre. But Catherine Williams decides in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three that she's going to take up this case.
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  Speaker 1: She was so disgusted with the way that Sarah Maria
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  Speaker 1: Cornell was being treated after she died. I mean, quite frankly,
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  Speaker 1: she hated the Methodists. The Methodists were wild and out
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  Speaker 1: of control, and Catherine Williams was a very conventional Christian woman,
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  Speaker 1: very conservative, and so it was an it's an interesting
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  Speaker 1: juxtaposition for her to take up a case of a
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  Speaker 1: woman who you know, is being framed as promiscuous and
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  Speaker 1: deserve to be you know, to die is unusual. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: Catherine Williams came from a very very well known family,
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  Speaker 1: the Arnold family. Yep, so you know, to kind of
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  Speaker 1: have her as this co author where I was able
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  Speaker 1: to use all of her materials. She has an archive
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  Speaker 1: at Brown University. I've read. I met her descendant. It
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  Speaker 1: was her great granddaughter, a great great granddaughter who was
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  Speaker 1: just amazing and gave me, you know, access to letters
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  Speaker 1: I had never I had never even heard of before.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, the flip side of that is is
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  Speaker 1: I have all this modern technology. I had access to
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  Speaker 1: prosecutor notes that she had not. She had died by
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  Speaker 1: the time the notes from the prosecutor were released, so
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  Speaker 1: I had information she didn't have.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting and I have to like go back and
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  Speaker 2: put on the lens of what it was like in
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  Speaker 2: history at that time, because as soon as I read
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  Speaker 2: about the Methodist I was like Methodists, like, they're really
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  Speaker 2: not that crazy, Like I was raised Methodist and I
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  Speaker 2: was like, well what, I was like, what they just
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  Speaker 2: sing a lot?
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  Speaker 1: And then I no, I'm reading this story. I was.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, apparently they were much more wild and
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  Speaker 2: crazy back back in the day. But you know, so
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  Speaker 2: it was even for me. I was like I can't
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  Speaker 2: even like fathom this weird sub sect.
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  Speaker 1: Like which as there would have would.
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  Speaker 2: Have been super shocking coming from like a Puritan lens
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  Speaker 2: as well. So it's so it's like night and day.
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  Speaker 1: Somebody asked me what was the most surprising part of
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  Speaker 1: the book, and I said, I mean that the Methodist
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  Speaker 1: who drink rape juice had these tent revivals where there
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  Speaker 1: was literally something called a tent baby because people got
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  Speaker 1: pregnant so often they called them tent babies. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: I just it's so hard for me to believe that
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  Speaker 1: they were as evangelical as they were. I will say this,
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  Speaker 1: this was really funny. I should give this, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I thought about I talked to this woman who interviewed
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  Speaker 1: me this morning, and she said that she had known
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: American sign language and she said the sign for American
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  Speaker 1: sign language for Methodists is rubbing your hands together. And
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  Speaker 1: she said, I never understood the significance of it. The
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  Speaker 1: significances of it was she said it was meant to
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  Speaker 1: show great enthusiasm. It's a very old sign. And so
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  Speaker 1: she said, that explains it. Your book explains why great enthusiasm,
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  Speaker 1: because she said modern Methodists, I'm not quite sure that enthusiastic,
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  Speaker 1: but she said they were obviously in the eighteen hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: and she said that the sign is a very old sign.
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  Speaker 1: So it's funny you don't understand the origin of certain
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  Speaker 1: phrases and everything. But she said, now that makes sense
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  Speaker 1: because I did not think they were enthusiastic, but apparently
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  Speaker 1: they were.
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  Speaker 2: Way back in the day. They were ragers.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently, Yeah, shocking, Yeah, and it horrified Catherine Williams, who
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  Speaker 1: was just a very staunch Episcopalian, you know, quiet and demure,
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  Speaker 1: and to have all of these people out there, you know,
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  Speaker 1: women passed out and speaking, and I know she was
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  Speaker 1: horrified by speaking in tongue, speaking in tongues. And I
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: didn't even think that would be just all of this.
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  Speaker 1: The description's crazy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it comes to cross as very sort of what
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: today we would label us, almost like Pentecostal, as far
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  Speaker 2: as like denominations and so yeah, like even me reading
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  Speaker 2: the book, I was like, that's not all at all
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  Speaker 2: what Methodists are like today.
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  Speaker 1: Like you know the way that Catherine described a tent
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  Speaker 1: revival that she went to, you know, before Sarah had
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  Speaker 1: been found, before she started on the book, and she
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  Speaker 1: the way she was describing it with like people around
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  Speaker 1: the fire, it's been almost pagan like. It wasn't a
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  Speaker 1: pagan thing, and I just thought, man, she's got to
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  Speaker 1: be this has to be overblown. But then I started
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  Speaker 1: reading other accounts of these tent revivals, and they would
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  Speaker 1: mix with the bath with the crazy Baptists, those wild Baptists,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, so I'm not sure that was what
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  Speaker 1: John Wesley intended when he came to America, you know,
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  Speaker 1: fifty to seventy years earlier. I think that they had
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  Speaker 1: gotten pretty wild. But so, you know, the the kind
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  Speaker 1: of centerpiece of that story is this fight between the
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  Speaker 1: Methodists who were trying to protect a minister, one of
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  Speaker 1: their ministers, who's being accused of something terrible and the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Fall you know, the Fall River the factory owners who
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: were predominantly Congregationalist, conservative, mainstream Protestants who just said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we can't have these men from the Methodist churches preying
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  Speaker 1: on our young girls who were working in the factories.
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  Speaker 1: And so, you know, ef Avery, the minister and Sarah
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  Speaker 1: Cornell became avatars for these different religions, and I just
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  Speaker 1: had no clue how threatened churches can be religious movements
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  Speaker 1: can be I just I didn't understand, and then I
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: find out that the Methodist ministers were being tarred and feathered,
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  Speaker 1: and just they were very threatened. The mainstream Protestants were
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: very threatened.
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  Speaker 2: You also note, as you kind of mentioned already, the
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: connection between Sarah Maria Cornell and Hester. Pret Now can
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: you dive into the similarities between Sarah Hester and Nathaniel
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Hawthorne's take on everything in The Scarlet Letter?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I read The Scarlet Letter in high school,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: like I'm pretty sure most of America did, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: I found it to be very dense and difficul and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: difficult to get through. Yes, but I think the spirit
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: of the story was fascinating, And you know, I think
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that one of the reasons why this book, of all
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the books I've written, this is my fourth, this has
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: been my favorite. Done to my editor, but this is
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: my favorite because the feeling that I get of discussed
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: of like a Sarah Worthing, who is one of the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: women who sat on the stand and I think lied
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: frankly about Sarah having an affair with her brother in law.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, just coming up with all of these terrible
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  Speaker 1: things that were never proven. Just to get just get
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  Speaker 1: this guy out of trouble, this Methodist minister out of trouble.
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  Speaker 1: All of that echoes through the Scarlet Letter clearly, which
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: was written about eighteen years or so after No scarl
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: he was in written in eighteen fifty. So yeah, almost
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: twenty years later, Nathaniel Hawthorne was in Salem and he
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: went to this fantastic Wax Museum and there was a
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  Speaker 1: depiction of true crime of the day and there was
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: a depiction of the Minister kind of like lording over
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  Speaker 1: in a figure that was supposed to be Sarah Maria Cornell.
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  Speaker 1: And Hawthorne commented on it, and he was a huge
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: fan of newspapers and of true crime in general. So
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  Speaker 1: you know the parallels between hester Prinne I mean being
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  Speaker 1: just ultimately shamed by the matrons of the town and
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  Speaker 1: Sarah the same thing happening to her, you know the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: minute of course, the Minister, I mean, the main character
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  Speaker 1: aside from hester prinn is the Minister. And you know
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  Speaker 1: we have the minister in our story. They meet in forests,
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  Speaker 1: both of them, which you know, not to get too
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: much into it, but the I would say one of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the things that is the most upsetting that I think
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: has been misreported about Sarah's story is, you know, she
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: is pregnant when she dies, and it is often said
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  Speaker 1: I think that she had an affair with the Methodist minister,
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  Speaker 1: and there's no evidence that they had had a consensual relationship.
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  Speaker 1: There is evidence that he sexually assaulted her, and that's
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  Speaker 1: how she ended up pregnant. So you know, the scene
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  Speaker 1: in the forest to me is very important, you know,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and then there are this is a retreat that that
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  Speaker 1: Hester Prynne and the minister have in the Scarlet Letter
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  Speaker 1: is in the forest. Of course, there's the water theme.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, Sarah works on the water, she's on factories.
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  Speaker 1: So I think a lot of this is a woman
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: trying to do what's best for her child, and that is,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: for me, the centerpoint of this story is Sarah Maria
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Cornell saying, my child deserves better. I'm keeping her where
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put her in like a daycare system, and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: still work in the factory and you know, making demands
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: and then she's dead, and so I think you see
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that kind of parallel and Scarlet Letter demands and you know,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: pride and like fighting for something even though it would
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: be in some ways easier to kind of you know,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: go back into the recesses. And that's not what either
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: of these women chose. And also what's wonderful about both
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: of the women are both Sarah Maria Cornell and hester
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Print are gifted at you know, like weaving and selling.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, these are you know, at crafting, and they
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: use them to help other people. So, you know, they
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: talk about hester Print kind of you know, helping people
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: in the town, even though they kind of they won't
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: even really acknowledge her publicly, but they're grateful for her help.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: And Sarah Maria Cornell had helped what had been kicked
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: out of a house because people thought she was promiscuous.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And yet a woman became sick in the house and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Sarah volunteered to take care of her even though she
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: was getting booted out of this house, and the woman
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: who owned the house, who was kicking her out said
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: it was just the most generous thing she had ever seen.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: She's her out and then she regretted it later on.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But that's what I mean. I mean, she was an
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: autoistic woman. She gave a lot of money to the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Methodist church, you know, to a church that ultimately turned
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: on her.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So in the book, you set out to decide through
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: a modern lens if Sarah committed suicide or if she
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: was murdered. And given that the death took place in
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: eighteen thirty two, can you share with our listeners kind
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: of what types of forensic tools were available at that
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: time well, which was pretty much nothing.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Admitted you know. My second book, my second book, American Sherlock,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: was set in the nineteen twenties, and I thought it
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: was pretty slim pickings back then. I mean yeah, back
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: one hundred years more. So there was no fingerprinting. What
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: they did was actually I thought an innovative, if not incorrect.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: There were very little, for very few forensic things available,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and even fewer forensic clues available in this situation. So
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: when she is found hanging from a haystack poll by
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: John Durfy, immediately the men look at the knots that
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: were tied. It was assumed that she had taken her
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: own life. And there was a square knot, which is
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the only knot I can tie, at the top of
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: connecting the rope to the haystack pole. But then around
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: her neck was a clove hitch knot which your listeners
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: might have remembered. That is the knot that Dennis Raider
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: would use sometimes was a clove hitch btk. So the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: argument for murder was that you cannot tie a clove
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: hitch knot yourself. You have to use like both hands,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: and you have to have a certain amount of strength.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And I spoke to a forensic not expert as well
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: as Paul Hols, and they both said that's bs. Paul said,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I've seen people you know who have just it has
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: spontaneously turned into a cloth hitch not. It's not hard. Yeah,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: So they are hinging this entire case on the idea
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that she could not have done this herself, she had
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to have had somebody else do it to her, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: that was incorrect. You know, there was a rudimentary handwriting analysis.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of this is that, you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: why who brought Sarah Cornell to this farm December nineteenth,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two when it was twenty something degrees outside
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and freezing and she's by herself. And there are letters
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that she kept that show somebody said, come to this place,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: we need to talk, presumably the father of the child.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And so you know these were anonymous letters. They tried
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to compare them to efform Avery, and nobody came to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a definitive conclusion. And so I part of the investigation
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I did was I hired a modern handwriting expert to
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: compare them, and so, you know, I think that they
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: were so limited it made the case really really difficult
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to tackle because there were no witnesses. There were witnesses
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: in that you know, there were people that saw a lanky,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: tall guy which you know, matched Ephraim's description, but nobody
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: knew him, so nobody could say ever Avery was there
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: with her. I saw them together. They could just kind
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of offer vague assurances and there was not very much else.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: He had, like the dumbest alibi ever, which I describe
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: as like a walk about, you know, on a tiny
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: island where nobody he knew really was there and he
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: just had allows the It's like a oh, yeah, I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: was asleep. I was at home by myself watching TV alibi.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I mean I think that they were
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: very limited, very very limited at the time, and the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: defense knew that, and they were able to leverage Sarah
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: had made some mistakes in the past, and they were
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: able to really really exploit those mistakes to turn this
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: on her character, not on his character.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: As we've kind of discussed already, Sarah's death comes at
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: an interesting time in history when millwork was becoming more
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: common for young women. And not only that, but there
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: was this religious movement that was creating some waves. So
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: can you illustrate for our listeners some of them the
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: unique elements of this case that sort of made it
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: so popular to mainstream media if you will.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, I think the religious aspect of it
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: was crazy. So there there's often it is said that
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Eform Avery was the first minister put on trial for murder,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: which is not true. Somebody actually countered that years ago
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times. There was somebody and who
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: was like four months before or something. I certainly from
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Avery was the more high profile case. To have a
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: minister not only beyond trial for anything, but let alone
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: murder in the United States in the eighteen thirties was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: pretty remarkable to have a Methodist minister, you know, a
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: minister within a religion that was so threatening that they
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: were being tored and feathered by people who were threatened
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: by this new fangled religion. So there's that there is
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a beautiful thirty year old girl, who young woman who
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you know, had a troubled past, who men just fell
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: in love with. She was, you know, described as beautiful,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and so there's that sort of idea that she is
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the fallen woman. And is he this lascivious, awful, you know,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: religious man who you know, a wolf in sheep's clothing
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: or was she this vindictive, slutty woman who was willing
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: to take her own life just to get back at
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: him for And now we'll just say because you know,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: she had made some mistakes that followed her and she
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: wanted to join a new Methodist church, but she had
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to have a certificate of good standing, and you know,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: afrol mavery have refused her. He said, I don't think
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you're a good person. He at first said okay, I'll
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: do it. Then she confessed all her sins on paper
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to him, and then he used it to sexually assault her.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But you know, in the meantime, when he said I'm
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: not going to give you this certificate of good standing,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I don't really care what you say. That is what
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the people who stand behind him, his you know, supporters
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: say that's what triggered her, was that she was never
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: going to get into a Methodist church. She was not
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: going to help her because she was a slut, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: that was that. So, you know, you have these two
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: plausible narratives happening. You know, you have a vindictive woman
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: attacking a guy who did nothing wrong except had some standards.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And then you have, you know, on the flip side
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of a disgusting, horrible, you know, man who was using
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the pulpit as a way to seduce and it ultimately
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: ended up, you know, sexually assaulting a young woman who
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: then felt so threatened that he had to murder her.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So there you go. I mean, there's two compelling stories.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: So what media then or now would not want to
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: report on that story?
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly in the book you highlight when Catherine and your
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: co author, when her biases are coming through in her work,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: which is faul River. So how difficult was it during
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the process of sort of compiling Sarah Maria Cornell's story
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: to bat this in order to stay true to a
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: neutral journalistic viewpoint.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I mean it was awful. I had I have a
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: hard enough time policing myself and I had to police
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: another person, and then I was telling somebody else I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: don't know if people know this, but because I've worked
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundred so much. In the eighteen hundreds,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: you would have not just one trial transcript, but like
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: nine different versions. You would have all of these trial
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: reporters come because they would then turn around and print
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: them and sell them, so they were highly motivated. You
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: could have gone out and made your own trial transcript
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: and have you know, paid a publisher, and then you
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: could have sold it. But the problem with that is
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: is each one of these trial reporters had their own slant.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: They were either hired by the defense or hired by
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor. I mean, the newspapers would hire them. So
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: not only do I have to police myself, which is
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: hard enough, then Catherine, then on top of that all
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of these numbnut reporters who all had inconsistencies, so then
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I had to figure out who's the most accurate out
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: of all of it. So it was very difficult. And also,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I have a true crime podcast class that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I teach at the University of Texas and I tell them,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you know, we have to think about motivation when you
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: hear a crappy podcast, and I mean crappy as in
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: they don't care about the victim. They're glorifying the killer.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: You know, they're saying, they're they're giving details that don't
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: need to be given, that are violent or disrespectful, They're
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: retraumatizing family members. You have to think, why are they
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: doing that? That's one of the first things I think,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: why are they doing that? So when when I started
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: seeing inconsistencies with Catherine and her reporting, not that it
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't accurate, but she was taking facts and sort of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: like mushing them to make them into the narrative that
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: she wanted. You know, Sarah Maria went to her doctor
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: and she was interested in terminating the pregnancy. At first,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: she had several questions about it. He said she was
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: considering it. Catherine really skipped over that. I mean, she
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: did not acknowledge it even for a second. Really. I
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: think she said basically maybe she half thought about it,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: but then realized that would be like an abomination or something.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: That's not what she said. She was scared of dying
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: during the procedure. And then she revealed to her doctor
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that the minister who had gotten her pregnant had said,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: please take this oil of tansy. You can you know,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: terminate the pregnancy that way. But he said, well, the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: doctor said that dose is going to kill you. He's
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: trying to kill you. Yeah. So but the way that
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Catherine framed that was not there was no consideration at
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: all about terminating the pregnancy because that would have not
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: been appropriate for Sarah in eighteen thirty two. And Catherine
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: was motivated, very highly motivated, as a lot of people were,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to frame her as a martyr in a way perfect. Sure,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: she stole several different things. Catherine conflated them into like
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: one or two events and that's it. But there were
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: more than one or two events, and so she was
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: very very careful to show that Sarah is is I
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: call it the perfect victim, you know that she and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: because she really wanted to nail the Methodists and especially
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: ef Avery. But when she did that to me, she
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: became an unreliable co author. She just did I I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: had a flip and go, who wants to do that?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want to go double check my author? Yeah,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and I have to because I didn't trust her. By
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the middle of the book, I couldn't trust her.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of the perfect segue. So how difficult
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: was it to research this case. Piggybacking off, that would
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: be like how long did it take you to work
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: on it, like confer with other experts and authors on
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: the case, as well as sort of like verify the
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: accuracy of the information, Like I'm a I'm picturing this
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: was a very long and involved process.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say the research for me was a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: couple of years. But it's very deceiving with me because
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I get bored with one book, you know, like I'm
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: revising it or I'm reading over the paper or something,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and then I decide I want to find the next book.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: And so it's receiving because there's all this crossover. And
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: then I had a friend of mine, Bill Brands, who
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: is a fan of hb Ransey's a fantastic nonfiction historian,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and he always said to me, you need to start
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: writing as soon as possible. And he said, I know
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: you want to do all this research. He's like, I
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: could research till the cows come home, but you have
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to start immediately. And so took it took a long time,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and Catherine didn't make it easy. On the other hand,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: she made it very easy because she had done so
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: much work. She had you know, collected these letters and
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: transcribed me. And she was accurate with her transcriptions of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Sarah's letters from what I could tell. She had done
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: interviews with Sarah's family, which obviously I couldn't do one
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years later, although I did interview Sarah's
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: family modern family now. So there's there's a lot of
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: stuff that she made things easier on me and than harder.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: At the same time, the trial transcripts were rough. I
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: mean to have that many different variations and to kind
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: of just go, okay, what's the most accurate, saying there's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: a guy named David Casserman who wrote Full River Outrage,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: which is an excellent book, very good book on this case.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: And so I actually had to trust him when he
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: would say, you know, I would read in his book
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and he would say, so, there are gazillion trial transcripts,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: here's the one I think is the most accurate. And
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: then I would say, I think he's right, and so
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: that's the one I would lean to. So it was
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: a collaborative effort. I would say, so.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: The book and it's pacing does an amazing job like
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: laying down the groundwork ahead of the murder trial. That
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: took place in eighteen thirty three, and given the breadth
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: of witnesses that were called over the span at the trial,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: how does it compare to a trial that you would
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: see today.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's there were a lot of witnesses,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and actually I think the sad fact was Catherine pointed
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: this out and then I had to verify and she
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: was right. I think the defense literally called twice as
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: many witnesses as the prosecutor did, and she describes the prosecutor,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and then I did research and she was pretty accurate
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: with this too. It's just sort of this guy. I
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: think he died shortly after the trial. He was pretty
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: sickly to begin with. He was Albert Green. Maybe he
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: was pretty sick to begin with. And then you know,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the Methodist Conference had hired these dynamo like states or
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: US congressman senators to represent Afro avery. So you know,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I think that that part of the trial was longer
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: than I had expected. Usually trials in the eighteen hundreds
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: went on like a nanosecond. They were like two days
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: if that. Yes, yes, so this was very long because
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: it was so controversial. I mean, it was this minister
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and this quote unquote factory girl, and they represented two
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: parts of society that were on the rise, and it
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: was scary fall you know, factory girls on the rise
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: was scary. I mean, it was independence with women. It
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: scared the crap out of a lot of men. And
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: then the Methodist scared the crap out of the mainstream Protestants.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: So it was all. It was all very traumatizing for
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of very traditional people in New England.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: And when it comes to cases involving sexual assault survivors,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: how does her trial compare to others of its?
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Like today, when I talked to Sharon Vinnick, who was
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the woman I interviewed. She was a sexual harassment attorney,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and she said, you know, she wrote through the trial
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: transcripts and said, well, this is exactly what they would say. Now.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: She said, however, this would not get into trial, all
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: of this stuff. She's just slit this and all of that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't get into trial. But you know, because there
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: are so many laws. But she said, then it does
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: slip in somehow. But this was so blatant. You know,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: what Sarah the prosecutor was trying to defend against was
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: so blatant. You know, she slept with her brother in law,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: she stole all of this stuff, She acted like she
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: was insane, She had numerous venereal diseases, none of which
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: were confirmed. So, you know, really just systematically, if this
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: were happening today, a judge would strike most of this
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: stuff down as not consequential and inadmissible. And I will say,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: even you know, Catherine Williams brings up some several really
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: nasty stories about efhrom Avery that I'm sure we're discovered
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: before trial. They're not entered into evidence because they're not consequential.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And then I kind of thought, why are her stories
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: about venereal diseases consequential in this trial? But efform Avery's
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: stories about being a complete jerk and you know, really
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: vilifying this poor woman in his other church and humiliating her,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: How is that not consequential? So it's interesting to compare
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: those cases to today.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, can you explain to our listeners how Sarah's life
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: may have gone differently in the same sort of vein
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: as how Hester Prynne is portrayed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's book.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Did you kind of make that comparison a little bit
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: towards the end?
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that, you know, Hawthorne maybe had hoped
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that Sarah's life could have turned out like Hester Prinz,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: where she in Hester Prynne's own way, you know, gains
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: independence and certainly self respect, and takes control of her
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: own narrative, certainly more than probably the matrons in her
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: town of their own narratives. Sarah Prinn doesn't Hester Prynne,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a man telling her, you know what to do,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and so she's raising her daughter Pearl. And I think
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that that was his hope for Sarah. I don't think
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: that he ever thought there. You have to be logical
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: about the time period you're living in, right, and there
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: there would not be a way for him to have
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: a totally absolved Hester of all of this and then
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: going on and having a perfect life and marrying this
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: perfect man, a rich man, and everything would be sort
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: of dismissed. That's not reality for Jacksony in America, but
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: for someone like Sarah Maria Cornell, she really had visions
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: of putting the baby to daycare during her work as
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: a factory worker. I mean, she really was planning for
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the future, and that's what led her to her death,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: was making a demand and saying, you know, we have
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the brother in law, her sister, and her doctor and
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: an attorney all saying you must get child support from him.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: You have to get child support. And the attorney said
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you need to move to his state to get child support.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So she was protecting her own child when she died.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: How important was it for you to share Sarah's story?
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly important because you know, Sarah Maria
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Cornell is women today, I mean, you are there is.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: It is a fact that pregnant women are at a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: greater danger of being murdered than women who aren't, and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: we certainly know now that Indigenous women are at higher
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: risk than most other women are. So I think that
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: one of the things I love so much about true
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: crime is that you are forced, very much forced to
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: talk about issues that people don't want to talk about.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You know, we talk about domestic violence, we talk about
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: mental illness, we talk about you know, personality disorders, you
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: talk about gun control, you talk about all of these
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: different things. Women who are marginalized, women who are victimized,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: women who are survivors, And so I think that was
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: really important our audience, yours in mind, our podcast audience,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: as you know, is probably eighty percent women, and they
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: are pretty much all, as far as I can tell,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent advocates, and many of them themselves or survivors,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and they really want these stories to be told with respect.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: They don't want the killers glorified in any way. And
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: we are at this inflection point in true crime where
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of like content creators who don't
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: know what they're doing and who do everything wrong. And
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you know, my true crime podcast class listens to some
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: of the podcasts that I say, okay, let's listen to
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: one of these episodes, and they just walk away and go,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: this is gross, And I said, that's why we're listening
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to it. You need to know not what kind of podcast,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: what kind of TV series you don't want to support,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: because it just is not good. These are real people,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: even my people from you know, the eighteen hundred, seventeen hundreds,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: people still care about them.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: So I didn't write this question down, but I really
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: want to ask it. Do you think had the Matrons
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: not spoken up, had John Durfy not spoken up, do
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: you think we would even know about Sarah today?
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Nope, it would have been a suicide. She was in
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the ground. I mean, you know, they disinterred her twice.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: She's in her second burial spot now because because these women,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: again people I count as the heroes, because these women
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: saw what they described as rash violence on her and
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: said this is wrong. And then you know, John Durfy,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the owner of the farm, retrieves her belongings from Missus
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Hathaway's boarding house and finds that ominous note which essentially
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: says if I'm missing, talked to Reverend eff Or Mavery
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: and you know, which is a note that echoes through
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: mysteries and thrillers for you know, throughout time. You know,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: if I go missing, call my husband. He's the one
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: who did it, you know. So I know, I think
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I think it really was the matrons who who saw her.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And of course these days it would have been you know,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: a pathologist or medical examiner or artici who whoever is
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: in charge of which which would have could have been
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: a man, absolutely, But in the eighteen hundreds, when you
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: have a coroner's jury and they're all men, they're not
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: going to take her dress off. I mean, they didn't
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: notice anything. She was fully clothed in a bonnet and clash,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and I mean she you know, they it would have
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: been in their eyes inappropriate to examine her. They assumed
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: it was a suicide. Her personal physician was there and
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: said she was pregnant. She was really upset about it.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: This is a suicide. And so that's the way this
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: went down. And man, does that happen now?
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was miserable. Oh yeah, he talked about suicide. Yeah,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: but did he do it this time? Did the guy
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: kill himself this time? Is that what happened? And you know, so,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I think without these women intervening yet, this would have
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: not been a story.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I kind of want to go back to John Durfy,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: to him going and taking the time to actually get
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: her belongings to kind of see if there were any
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: other clues or anything in there, without really really realizing
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: himself that he was going and getting clues. Probably no. Yeah,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: do you think to some extent, given that she copied
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: down some of the notes that she received from Ephraim,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: do you think maybe in the back of her mind
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: she worried that this was going to be the outcome
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: of this meeting, that she was going to be attacked.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I don't think she thought that I think that she
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: they said that missus Hathaway and her daughter. She said
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: she was in a great mood because she thought she
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: was going to get money and this would be settled.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: You know, when she left, I don't think she thought
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: she was going to her death. I had another interviewer
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: asked me, say, man, doctor Wilbur, what terrible advice, you know,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: saying meet up with him to get money. And I said, well,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: doctor Wilbur said meet up with him. Don't go by yourself.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: If you're going to do that, take a man with you.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: So I don't think she thought, like many women don't
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: think that he was capable of murder. And I think
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: that she copied those notes as insurance policies. That was
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: very smart and I don't remember if I put this
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: in the book, but the handwriting analysis, it was interesting
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: because you know, she Sarah copied over one of his
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: letters and she was trying to the handwriting expert was
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: trying to compare Sarah's handwriting to Effra Avery's handwriting because
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the idea was that the defense said, oh, well, she
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: wrote all the anonymous letters herself. She was excellent at
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: mimicking other people's handwriting. And she said, I've never had
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: an example like this where I could compare the anonymous
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: note the notes handwriting to Sarah's handwriting word for word,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: because she copied the note word for word. And she said,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: clearly she did not write that note. It's clear she
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: didn't do it that somebody else did. So it's interesting
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: how smart she was. She was very, very smart about
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: these insurance policies, you know. And she does mention his
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: name later on. So I think that there was a lot,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness for letters. I worry about people fifty to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: one hundred years from now who want to do true crime,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: and what are they going to do without all of
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: these letters. I guess they can petition for emails. I
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: don't know. I guess what's text messages? Yeah, I mean
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: letters say so much, you know.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Yep. And you did mention that in the book, by
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: the way.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Oh good.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: So is there anything else regarding the sentaers all about
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: that I may have missed that you like to share
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: with our listeners as we're kind of winding down the interview.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: No, I think you know, As I said, the most
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: important thing for me was to tell the stories of
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: these powerful women. I don't always agree with them. So,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that my co author, Katherine Reid
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Arnold Williams, I feel like her heart was in the
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: right place, but I definitely think she got she was
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: she was manipulating the storyline, and I really wanted to
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: correct that. But I think that, you know, you have
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: the inspiration of these women, and I think you see
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: that as a writer, I see things where I you know,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I admire Katherine. She was the made main breadwinner of
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: her house. I am in mind she's raising, you know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: a young girl. I have two kids. She's really kind
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: of hitting her stride in midlife, so am I. So
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I really admire a lot about her. And then I
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: could see the way that she looked at someone like
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Sarah Maria Cornell, because Katherine Williams made a terrible decision
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: with whom she married. She made a bad decision. Sarah
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Maria Cornell's mother made a terrible decision about who she married,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: and that that's why Sarah was in the position she
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: was in. Her family got kicked out, you know, of
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: their very wealthy family, the Cornell family, and then Sarah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: you know, arguably made a bad decision by continuing, unfortunately
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: to go back to you never want to blame the victim,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: but boys, she you know, I wish somebody had advised
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: her to stop trusting him, and you know, he was
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: excellent at manipulating her. And so I felt like there
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: were women in this story who I looked at with
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of admiration, including Sarah Maria Cornell. But I
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and then you just think, oh my gosh, like jod
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: if just one thing had changed, if something were different,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: they would be in a completely different position, you know.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: But it's it's a I think, a wonderful book. I
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: really I love it. I loved writing it. It was wonderful.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I had a hard time putting it down. There were
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: times when I was like, I need to go to bed,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I need to stop reading this for today and just
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: pick it up tomorrow. But yeah, I would kind of
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: echo that sentiment that to me, it read like a
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: classic case of narcissistic manipulation, where it's he's like tease
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: in her back, trying to spin this narrative where he
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: he's going to take care of her. You know, she
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: just has to do this. But make sure you don't
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: share share these letters with anybody, like to yourself, you know,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: and it's just I pictured so many stories that you
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: hear today of domestic abuse survivors and things of that nature,
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: where I was just like, man like, if if only
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: she may have said something or like ask somebody to
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: go with her.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: You know, just yeah, But I mean.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Would we even be talking about it?
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: You know, she was not. I mean, look at this,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I mean, look at the story.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: My kid's watching the story of Gabby Patito right now.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: It feels very much like Gabby but trusting the wrong person,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: you know. But I mean, Gabby Patito has amazing parents
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and they didn't know, they didn't know. How can we?
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: How can we or how could I expect Sarah Cornell
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: to pick up on anything from that guy, you know,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: when he had manipulated so many other people. So it
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: is it's a really hard story in a lot of ways,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: because she had an incredibly difficult life. She was doing
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: the best she could. She was a wonderful person, and
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: you know, ultimately ends up dying by herself, you know,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: be in the cold alone on a farm for hours
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: before somebody finally found her. And then you know, whether
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: she received justices is you know, arguable at this point.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't have any more questions, but I would
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: like to thank you for joining me today and before
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: we go, can you tell our listeners where they can
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: buy the book and if there's anything else that you'd
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: like them to know about you and your future books
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: that are going to be coming out.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: No, I think you can buy books wherever you buy books,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I love shopping shopping local, but you know,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: everybody has their choices there. It's an audiobook. I read
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the audiobook in case people prefer audio. Moving forward, I'm
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: definitely experimenting with fiction a little bit more. I adore
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: nonfiction and I won't stop doing nonfiction, but you know,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I like to branch out. Storytelling for me is the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: most important thing. The mode actually doesn't matter in some ways.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: It's more of like, can I get a story out
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: that moves you and makes you think?
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Yep?
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: You know, so that's the goal.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Well, on that note, as always, I'm Lindsey and we'll
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: see you next time with another tale as old as Crime.