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The-BIZARRE-case-of-The-Hammersmith-Ghost · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: second graphic novel, Where Nightmares Live, is out right now
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Speaker 1: follow along, and remember your nightmares are waiting. Today's story
0:31
Speaker 1: is a good old fashioned ghost story. But before we
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Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. On the night of January third,
1:22
Speaker 1: eighteen oh four, a twenty two year old man named
1:24
Speaker 1: Thomas Millwood sat inside of a local pub in Hammersmith, England,
1:28
Speaker 1: feeling totally annoyed. Now, normally, Thomas was a very upbeat
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Speaker 1: and social person. He worked as a bricklayer and basically
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Speaker 1: every day after work he would meet up with his
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Speaker 1: friends at this pub. They would have some drinks and
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Speaker 1: share stories and laugh. It would be a great time.
1:43
Speaker 1: But tonight it was like everything annoyed Thomas, especially his friends.
1:49
Speaker 1: And as his friends droned on and on about the
1:52
Speaker 1: current drama going on in their town, Thomas finally had
1:55
Speaker 1: just had enough, and before he could stop himself, he
1:58
Speaker 1: stood up and slammed his mug down on the table.
2:01
Speaker 1: And right away Thomas knew he had overdone it because
2:04
Speaker 1: immediately the pub went deadly silent. His friends all stopped,
2:07
Speaker 1: everybody's looking over at Thomas, and Thomas kind of muttered
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Speaker 1: an apology and then quickly grabbed his coat. He stood
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Speaker 1: up and just began walking like he was going to
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Speaker 1: leave the pub, and the pub again is totally silent
2:17
Speaker 1: as he's walking, and then right as he's about to
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Speaker 1: go out the door, his friends broke the tense silence
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Speaker 1: in the pub and they called out to him and said, hey,
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Speaker 1: be careful out there, and Thomas just looked at his
2:28
Speaker 1: friends and kind of rolled his eyes and said, yeah, okay,
2:31
Speaker 1: and then he went outside. Thomas decided he would walk
2:34
Speaker 1: to his parents' house, which was not far away, and
2:36
Speaker 1: he would just sip by the fire and warm up
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Speaker 1: for a bit before he had to go back out
2:40
Speaker 1: later that night to meet up with his wife. His
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Speaker 1: wife worked long hours and she often worked late, and
2:46
Speaker 1: when she worked late, Thomas would meet her at work
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Speaker 1: and escort her back home. And that's what he was
2:50
Speaker 1: doing tonight, And so Thomas began walking down Black Lion Lane,
2:54
Speaker 1: and per usual, Thomas was basically one of the only
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Speaker 1: people outside. Hammersmith used to be this very friend and
3:00
Speaker 1: bustling place. It was home to forty five thousand people.
3:03
Speaker 1: It was located right on the outskirts of London, and
3:06
Speaker 1: lots of rich people liked to go there to vacation.
3:08
Speaker 1: But recently there had been a string of all these
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Speaker 1: increasingly bizarre sightings or attacks as people were calling them,
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Speaker 1: in Hammersmith, and it had all the residents completely on edge,
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Speaker 1: to the point where people were not going outside. Now,
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Speaker 1: Thomas thought it was totally ridiculous and thought people were
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Speaker 1: completely overreacting, and so he had been doing his best
3:28
Speaker 1: to ignore the drama going on in town, but it
3:32
Speaker 1: was getting harder and harder to do that. As Thomas
3:34
Speaker 1: rounded a corner, he nearly walked into two men that
3:38
Speaker 1: were walking the other direction, and when Thomas looked up
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Speaker 1: to say he was sorry, one of the men screamed,
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Speaker 1: get back, and he was holding a club in his hand,
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Speaker 1: and the other guy had a pistol in his waist
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Speaker 1: and he had his hand on the pistol grip. Thomas
3:50
Speaker 1: instinctively threw his hands up to show he was not
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Speaker 1: a threat, at which point the man lowered his club
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Speaker 1: and the other guy took his hand off his pistol,
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Speaker 1: and one of them said to Thomas, hey, it's dangerous
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Speaker 1: to be out here alone. You should not be out
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Speaker 1: here by yourself, and then before Thomas could say anything
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Speaker 1: to them, they quickly walked past him and disappeared around
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Speaker 1: the corner. By now, Thomas was only a few houses
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Speaker 1: away from his parents' house, and so he just kind
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Speaker 1: of brushed off the incident and sped walked his way
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Speaker 1: to his parents' house, kind of cursing the two men
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Speaker 1: under his breath for they're ridiculous warning about how dangerous
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Speaker 1: it was out here. A minute later, Thomas arrived at
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Speaker 1: his parents' house and he walked up to the door,
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Speaker 1: and normally his parents would keep the door unlocked, but
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Speaker 1: when he tried it, it was locked. And then a
4:31
Speaker 1: second later he heard his sister Anne inside the house
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Speaker 1: coming to the door, and she called out through the door,
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Speaker 1: who's there? And Thomas is like, it's me and but
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Speaker 1: apparently that was not enough, and Anne called through the door, well,
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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's really you, so back up
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Speaker 1: so I can see you through the people. Thomas rolled
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Speaker 1: his eyes, but he did with his sister asked. He
4:49
Speaker 1: stepped back and allowed her to see his whole person
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Speaker 1: through the peepole, at which point he heard Anne fumbling
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Speaker 1: with the lock. The door was unlocked. She opened it up.
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Speaker 1: Thomas stepped inside, and his sister immediately shut and locked
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Speaker 1: the door behind him, and her first question to Thomas was, well,
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Speaker 1: did you see it? Thomas immediately wished he had not
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Speaker 1: come to his parents' house to avoid talking about the
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Speaker 1: stupid topic. But he realized that if he had gone
5:14
Speaker 1: back to his house, he likely would have gotten the
5:16
Speaker 1: same question from his mother in law, who lived with
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Speaker 1: him and his wife, because actually it didn't really seem
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Speaker 1: to matter where you went in Hammersmith or who you
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Speaker 1: talked to, because the conversation was always going to be
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Speaker 1: the same. It was going to be about these attacks
5:28
Speaker 1: because the people of Hammersmith were absolutely convinced these attacks
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Speaker 1: were being committed by a ghost. It all started about
5:36
Speaker 1: two months earlier when somebody spotted this mysterious figure lurking
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Speaker 1: in the church cemetery, and Thomas thought, really the hysteria
5:44
Speaker 1: should have stopped right then and there, because only a
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Speaker 1: couple of days after the sighting it was figured out
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Speaker 1: that the figure was actually just the butcher's son and
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Speaker 1: he was just dressing up in women's clothes walking around
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Speaker 1: in the cemetery to scare his friends. It was a prank,
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Speaker 1: that was it. But the hysteria in town did not
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Speaker 1: go away, because a week after this first weird sighting,
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Speaker 1: there was another sighting in the cemetery. A local chimney
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Speaker 1: sweep said he saw someone walking around in the cemetery
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Speaker 1: who disappeared into the ground. Now, admittedly a lot of
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Speaker 1: people in Hammersmith when they heard about this second sighting
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Speaker 1: they did kind of brush it off as just hysteria.
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Speaker 1: But it was after this second sighting that the so
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Speaker 1: called attacks began in town. Late one night, a local
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Speaker 1: resident was walking past the cemetery when something came up
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Speaker 1: behind them and began choking them, and this resident was
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Speaker 1: able to break free and run away to safety, but
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Speaker 1: they turned and got a look at whatever was attacking them,
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Speaker 1: and they described it as a phantom. Shortly after that,
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Speaker 1: a local carriage driver was going past the cemetery when
6:47
Speaker 1: they got out for some reason, and then this creature
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Speaker 1: with horns on its head came charging out and confronted
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Speaker 1: the carriage driver, who apparently just turned and ran away,
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Speaker 1: abandoning his eight horses and sixteen passengers. And by late
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Speaker 1: December there had been so many more of these strange
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Speaker 1: attacks and weird sightings in town that basically everybody in
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Speaker 1: Hammersmith saved for Basically, Thomas was totally gripped by fear,
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Speaker 1: and as terror kind of spread across town, Thomas had
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Speaker 1: attempted to convince his wife and mother in law and
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Speaker 1: his family that there was just no way this was
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Speaker 1: a real ghost. This is people's paranoia and their imaginations
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Speaker 1: running wild, that's all this is. But Thomas's theory was
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Speaker 1: really put into question when just a few days earlier,
7:32
Speaker 1: so a few days before he stormed out of the
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Speaker 1: pub because he was so annoyed, somebody had died following
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Speaker 1: one of these attacks. A pregnant woman had died. The
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Speaker 1: woman had been walking alone near the church cemetery at
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Speaker 1: about ten pm at night when something in the cemetery
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Speaker 1: had rose up out of the ground, rushed over to
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Speaker 1: her and grabbed onto her. And she barely had time
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Speaker 1: to kind of turn and look, and she saw this
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Speaker 1: kind of white flowing robe and a long pointed white hat,
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Speaker 1: and that was all she remembered, because then she passed out.
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Speaker 1: Then she woke up again, and she was in somebody's
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Speaker 1: house and her neighbors were all around her. They had
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Speaker 1: found her passed out in the cemetery and carried her there.
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Speaker 1: And so she comes too, and she's only able to
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Speaker 1: choke out the story of what happened to her the
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Speaker 1: ghost attack before she died. And so following this pregnant
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Speaker 1: woman's death, the town of Hammersmith offered a reward for
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Speaker 1: anybody who could capture or kill the ghost, which was
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Speaker 1: now being dubbed the Hammersmith Ghost. The night watchmen began
8:28
Speaker 1: doing extra patrols. In fact, those two men that Thomas
8:31
Speaker 1: had turned the corner and bumped into. One guy had
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Speaker 1: the club, the other guy had a gun. Those guys
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Speaker 1: were on their own patrol and so the ghost and
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Speaker 1: had to capture or kill. It was basically the only
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Speaker 1: thing people in Hammersmith wanted to talk about, and it
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Speaker 1: totally annoyed Thomas. It was what was being talked about
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Speaker 1: at the pub by his friends. When he got so
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Speaker 1: mad he slammed the cup down and left the pub.
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Speaker 1: To Thomas, the idea of capturing or killing a ghost
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Speaker 1: made no sense because a ghost is not real. Now
8:59
Speaker 1: by this point point, the butcher's son had come out
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Speaker 1: and said, look, I didn't do any of these other attacks.
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Speaker 1: That's not me. I only did the first one, and
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Speaker 1: he had an alibi to prove it. But to Thomas,
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Speaker 1: this didn't rule out that the ghost was not a person.
9:14
Speaker 1: To Thomas, he just felt like, okay, then there's somebody
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Speaker 1: else in town that's just copying the butcher Son's prank,
9:20
Speaker 1: except obviously they've taken the pranks too far because they've
9:23
Speaker 1: gotten someone killed. At about ten pm, Thomas was inside
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Speaker 1: of his parents' house, sitting by the fire, just kind
9:29
Speaker 1: of beginning to doze off, and as he sat there,
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Speaker 1: he thought to himself how little he wanted to go
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Speaker 1: out into the freezing cold night to go walk with
9:37
Speaker 1: his wife all the way back home. He'd much rather
9:39
Speaker 1: just stay here and sleep for the night and let
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Speaker 1: his wife walk home on her own. But when he
9:44
Speaker 1: floated this idea to his sister Anne, who was standing nearby,
9:47
Speaker 1: she exploded on him and was like, are you kidding me?
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Speaker 1: You're gonna let your wife walk home alone in this environment,
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Speaker 1: She's going to be the next victim of the Hammersmith ghost.
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Speaker 1: Get out there and protect your wife. Thomas was like, okay, okay, hey,
10:00
Speaker 1: and he got up, He grabbed his jacket and he
10:02
Speaker 1: walked outside. As soon as Thomas was outside, he was
10:05
Speaker 1: feeling so annoyed at the current situation that he found
10:09
Speaker 1: himself thinking, you know what if I run into that
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Speaker 1: stupid Hammersmith ghost, the person disguised as a ghost, I'm
10:16
Speaker 1: gonna bum rush them and beat them up and it
10:19
Speaker 1: will prove to the entire town that there was never
10:21
Speaker 1: any ghost. It was just a person the whole time.
10:24
Speaker 1: And so Thomas began walking briskly down the road. He
10:27
Speaker 1: turned onto Black Lion Lane, and immediately he saw this
10:31
Speaker 1: big bush off to the side of the road on
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Speaker 1: the sidewalk, and he could have sworn behind this bush
10:36
Speaker 1: there was something or someone crouched down like they were
10:39
Speaker 1: trying to hide. And so Thomas stopped and he squinted
10:42
Speaker 1: in the direction of this bush, and then at some
10:44
Speaker 1: point he saw a movement enough to confirm to him
10:47
Speaker 1: that that must be a person back there. And suddenly
10:50
Speaker 1: it clicked for Thomas, that must be the person pretending
10:54
Speaker 1: to be this ghost. That's the prankster slash murderer. There
10:57
Speaker 1: they are, And so, without any hesitation, Thomas balled up
11:01
Speaker 1: his fists and just started sprinting towards this person. At
11:05
Speaker 1: virtually the exact same time, and Thomas's sister was still
11:09
Speaker 1: in their parents' house, and she was looking out the
11:11
Speaker 1: window kind of roughly in the direction that Thomas had gone,
11:14
Speaker 1: and she heard this loud scream that sounded like a man.
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Speaker 1: Now she couldn't see her brother but she's thinking, you know,
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Speaker 1: oh my god, it's coming roughly from the area where
11:23
Speaker 1: he went. What if he's getting attacked by the ghost,
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Speaker 1: And so she bolted outside. Just a couple of minutes
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Speaker 1: after that, a big posse of men came tumbling out
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Speaker 1: of that pub where Thomas had been drinking earlier that
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Speaker 1: night and got really mad and slammed his cup down.
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Speaker 1: So they come stumbling out of the pub, and they
11:39
Speaker 1: were being led not by the night watchman, who was
11:42
Speaker 1: amongst the posse, but instead they were being led by
11:45
Speaker 1: the town's tax collector, a man named Francis Smith, who
11:48
Speaker 1: looked totally disheveled and out of breath and did not
11:51
Speaker 1: look like the type of guy who would be leading
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Speaker 1: a big posse. But here we were. He was leading
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Speaker 1: this posse, and he took them down the road and
11:58
Speaker 1: they turned the corner onto Black Lion Lane, and as
12:01
Speaker 1: soon as they looked down that same road that Thomas
12:04
Speaker 1: had been on and then seen the person in the bush,
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Speaker 1: the posse they stopped because they saw a body in
12:09
Speaker 1: the middle of the road and it didn't appear to
12:11
Speaker 1: be moving, and then crouched over the body was this
12:15
Speaker 1: dark figure that was kind of hunched over this body,
12:18
Speaker 1: and the figure turned and it looked at the posse
12:21
Speaker 1: and let out this unbelievable scream, and the posse just
12:25
Speaker 1: kind of backed up and didn't know what to do.
12:27
Speaker 1: But then the night watchman broke ranks and just began
12:30
Speaker 1: sprinting at the creature that was perched over the body,
12:34
Speaker 1: and the watchman tackled the creature onto the ground and
12:37
Speaker 1: kind of pinned it there. At the same time, the
12:39
Speaker 1: rest of the posse, seeing an opening, rushed over to
12:42
Speaker 1: the body in the road to see if maybe they
12:44
Speaker 1: were alive and if maybe they could help this person.
12:46
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, when they got to the body, they could
12:50
Speaker 1: tell this person was dead. The posse believed they had
12:53
Speaker 1: just discovered the latest victim of the Hammersmith Ghost, and
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Speaker 1: the Hammersmith Ghost themselves creature that the watchman tackled onto
13:01
Speaker 1: the ground, but they were wrong. When Thomas had rounded
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Speaker 1: the corner onto Black Lion Lane and he looked into
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Speaker 1: that bush and he saw that figure moving around. It
13:10
Speaker 1: really was a person. It was not a ghost. It
13:13
Speaker 1: was a human being. It was Francis Smith, the town's
13:16
Speaker 1: tax collector, and he was hiding behind the bush. However,
13:20
Speaker 1: Francis was not hiding behind the bush because he was
13:23
Speaker 1: pretending to be the Hammersmith Ghost like Thomas was assuming,
13:26
Speaker 1: which is why he ran after him. Instead, Francis was
13:30
Speaker 1: hiding behind that bush because he was basically laying in
13:33
Speaker 1: wait for the Hammersmith Ghost. He was hoping the ghost
13:37
Speaker 1: would walk past him and he could run out and
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Speaker 1: capture or kill this thing and get the reward. Basically,
13:43
Speaker 1: Francis was doing the same thing Thomas was doing. The
13:46
Speaker 1: only difference was Francis actually believed in the ghost and
13:50
Speaker 1: Thomas did not. And it was just Thomas's bad luck
13:53
Speaker 1: that that night he had chosen to wear his all
13:56
Speaker 1: white work clothes, which to Francis, who's hiding the bush,
14:00
Speaker 1: terrified and waiting for the ghost, you know, he sees
14:03
Speaker 1: Thomas in these white clothes and he was absolutely convinced
14:07
Speaker 1: he was the Hammersmith Ghost. And so when the two
14:09
Speaker 1: men spotted each other, they both attacked, except Francis had
14:13
Speaker 1: a rifle, and so when Thomas ran up to him
14:15
Speaker 1: to basically punch him in the face, Francis just raised
14:18
Speaker 1: his gun and fired, and the bullet hit Thomas directly
14:22
Speaker 1: in the face, which killed him instantly. But after shooting
14:25
Speaker 1: and killing Thomas, Francis had no idea that it was
14:29
Speaker 1: a real person. He was so jacked up on adrenaline
14:32
Speaker 1: that he did think he shot the ghost, but didn't
14:34
Speaker 1: know if the ghost was actually dead or not, and
14:36
Speaker 1: he didn't want to be alone when he checked, so
14:39
Speaker 1: he just turned and ran to the pub, gathered up
14:42
Speaker 1: the posse and said, hey, I got the ghost. Come on,
14:44
Speaker 1: and they all ran back to Black Lion Lane. And
14:46
Speaker 1: when they got there, Thomas's sister Anne, who heard that scream,
14:50
Speaker 1: She had made it to her brother's body, and she
14:53
Speaker 1: was the creature, crouched over him, screaming out of grief.
14:57
Speaker 1: That's all she was doing. She had just found her
14:59
Speaker 1: dead brother and was reacting to it when the watchman
15:02
Speaker 1: tackled her to the ground. But luckily, the posse quickly
15:06
Speaker 1: realized this is not a ghost, this is Thomas and
15:08
Speaker 1: his sister, and so his sister was not harmed, and
15:11
Speaker 1: so on January eleventh, eighteen oh four, Francis Smith was
15:15
Speaker 1: found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but five
15:18
Speaker 1: weeks later, the King of England would pardon Francis and
15:21
Speaker 1: shorten his sentence to just one year the Hammersmith Ghost
15:24
Speaker 1: incident was debated for more than one hundred and fifty years,
15:27
Speaker 1: and ultimately it led to a modern day ruling that
15:31
Speaker 1: says a person is allowed to use self defense if
15:34
Speaker 1: they truly and reasonably believe they're in danger, even if
15:38
Speaker 1: they are wrong about the danger they face. The true
15:40
Speaker 1: identity of the Hammersmith Ghost not the very first one,
15:44
Speaker 1: which we know was the butcher's son, but all the
15:46
Speaker 1: other instances, all the other attacks. While it would turn
15:50
Speaker 1: out it was the town shoemaker who would confess to
15:53
Speaker 1: his crime. Following Thomas's murder, he would tell people that
15:56
Speaker 1: the only reason he did it was to get revenge
15:58
Speaker 1: on his apprentices, who he had really badly scared his
16:01
Speaker 1: children by telling them ghost stories. Thank you so much
16:11
Speaker 1: for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's
16:13
Speaker 1: episode in the comments. And remember we have hundreds of
16:17
Speaker 1: videos for you to binge right now. But if you're
16:19
Speaker 1: looking for a recommendation for me of that one video
16:22
Speaker 1: that's worth your time, well it's this one right here,
16:26
Speaker 1: So give it a watch, all right, Until next time,
16:29
Speaker 1: see ya,