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I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson.

I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st-century lens.

Some are solved, and some are cold.

Very cold.

This is Buried Bones.

Hey, Kate, how are you?

I'm great, Paul.

How are you?

I am doing really good.

I have a big sports story for you.

Oh.

Not really.

It's big for our family.

One of my girls, Quinn, is a big athlete.

She loves basically every sport.

We are not a basketball family.

Okay.

We just, you know, I played soccer.

Quinn plays volleyball.

She's great at volleyball.

You know, we've We've done a lot of different sports.

Basketball has never been one of them.

Did your kids ever play basketball or did you ever play basketball?

And no tall, short jokes, whatever you're about to say.

Not being qualified to play basketball because of your height.

Yeah, you know, during, I would say, like the sixth to eighth grade, basketball is my favorite sport.

Okay.

I was out in San Antonio and there was a basketball hoop out there on the street.

And I would go and do like 100 layups with my right hand, 100 layups with my left hand, you know, and a lot of pickup games and then never played it after that.

You know, so I have experience with basketball.

I kind of wish I had done it in high school.

You know, instead,

ended up playing football and my body just did not hold up very well to football.

So football ruined you essentially for other sports as well.

Yes.

That pretty much, I had my junior year during Hell Week, you know, a helmet-to-helmet collision, you know, the pickle hole

and ended up getting a pretty significant concussion.

Oh, I still get what I call my concussion headache today, which is right here.

It's just a weird thing.

And in hindsight, I am very happy that I did not continue to play football.

Cause then, you know, what kind of injuries or even concussive effects would I have now that I'm getting older?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, how awful, awful, awful.

And your kids did not play in high school, I assume.

No, you know, my older kids, they both played volleyball.

My oldest daughter played water polo.

My younger kids just never took up sports.

They just were not interested in it.

Okay.

Well, I have one kid like that.

And then Quinn, who will play anything?

So Quinn got talked into playing basketball because she's friends with these two seniors who are wonderful.

And they're on the basketball team.

And they said, you know, you need to come play basketball.

So she said, okay, I've never played before.

We'll go to the park and shoot hoops a little bit, but neither of us, I mean, I'm not good.

So she's not, she's not particularly good either.

So she is petrified to play.

I think it was the second game.

I was sitting there watching her, and I was talking to one of the other parents, and I saw her sitting next to the head coach, listening to him really intently.

And he had a notepad.

And I asked one of the parents who's really into basketball, I said, what's happening?

And she said,

the coach is teaching your kid how to play right before she goes on because she didn't know the difference, Paul, between offense and defense in terms of basketball.

She didn't understand.

Yeah.

So I said to her, I gave her the sagest advice I could come up with, which is when in doubt, steal the ball.

Don't touch the person, but steal the ball and get it to somebody who can shoot.

Because I think it's unrealistic for her to think that she's going to be shooting three-pointers immediately.

We have to kind of build up to that.

And the coach agreed with my technique.

And so we said, that's a good idea.

So she's playing.

She's playing.

She's doing what I'm saying.

She's not really stealing the ball, but when she does get the ball, she's feeding it to the right people.

So there's three seconds left, and we are just getting killed.

Like, it's pretty awful.

I think it's like 10 to 48 or something.

Okay.

Yeah.

It was really bad, but she's just happy to be on the court and just trying to figure out the way this game works.

And all of her friends said she's doing a good job.

So she's on the court.

There's three seconds left.

There's somebody, I don't remember the technical term.

What is it?

when you get the ball and you go, you know, across the line and then you like throw it in.

You do like a chest throw or or whatever, in, and then the person on your team can throw and could shoot.

What is that?

What does that mean?

You're taking an inbound or something like that?

Inbound pass.

Yeah, for sure.

I think that's what you're talking about.

Yeah.

So her teammates on the sideline with the ball, and their team is crowded up.

The kids who are on the court, they're all crowded up.

There's three seconds left.

And the girl looks at Quinn, her teammate, and starts.

And I'm going, oh, God, Quinn's going to get the ball.

And there's three seconds left.

Maybe she can turn and shoot and salvage something from this terrible game.

So the clock starts.

The girl has the ball.

She looks at Quinn.

She passes Quinn the ball and Quinn ducks.

Of course she does.

I've never seen that happen before.

And the buzzer, it was so dramatic.

And then the buzzer goes off and I started laughing.

And luckily her coach laughed too.

You know, I mean, we're like a smart art school.

The sports is not their big priority.

We love sports, but you know, we give that same kind of energy to like the art shows and the bands that they have.

So

luckily, nobody really ribbed her too much about it.

But oh my gosh, I mean, when she did that, I just thought, that's my kid, boy.

She just, and then she said, she got into the car and she said, Paul, she said, it's three seconds.

What am I supposed to do?

Was I really supposed to take a shot?

And I said, yes, you were.

That's what you were supposed to do.

It was take a shot.

For her, though, you know, that's a tough position to be put in.

I know.

And she said, well, I didn't think she was throwing it to me at all.

And I said, okay, well, I understand that.

But when you talk,

I thought that was funny.

It was a very typical kind of Quinn story.

That was lovely.

No.

Yeah.

And yeah, I would say like basketball, the worst injury I ever got from basketball was the ball to the nose.

Oh, that hurts so bad.

You know, it bangs off the rim and now it hits you square in the face.

You're done at that point.

Fortunately, I never broke my nose as a result, but I had that happen several times.

Yeah.

I had a couple of bad injuries with soccer.

I mean, I felt like, you know, I had a separated shoulder and broken ankle, broken foot, things like that.

But

yeah, I don't know.

Quinn, she's gotten better for sure.

But when she ducked, I just thought that's, she's comic relief, I think, for

sports teams that we're with.

Is she going to be continuing to play?

Is this something that's ongoing then?

The seniors are making her, so yes.

I think.

So then we ended up playing a team where it was reversed.

I mean, we really like ended up stomping this team, and they were great sports about it.

She ended up scoring, and I kind of think she's like, that's great.

And I told my friend, I said, this is like Vegas.

You know, she hit the jackpot one time and hopefully she'll continue to go back, but there's no guarantee depending on the team.

So, you know, she'll try any sport essentially, but she's excited.

Her sister is doing rock climbing.

She's in a rock climbing club.

So, yeah.

Okay.

One of the things that my kiddos love is we spend a part of our summer in London every year and they do all kinds of activities outside.

And we are, for this story, going to be in London, 1922 London.

So you and I get to go back to London where we were.

That's great.

You know, I've gotten to know London a little bit better since you and I met up there.

And you were with me when the hotel caught fire, right?

That was dramatic.

I don't know.

Was it that dramatic?

I can't remember.

Was it really, I guess it was.

It was, you had the fire engines coming.

They had their homeland, the equivalent of their homeland security people showing up, you know, and it's like, are we dealing with a terrorist act here?

You know, which over in London, that's something.

But then we all end up heading to a bar and waiting the fire out.

It was a pub, but yes, that's exactly what we did.

Same thing.

Speaking of which, I got my bourbon for this episode.

Oh, you did.

You did.

You're American bourbon for this very British story, I think.

Yeah, they need to have more bourbon over in London.

There's too much scotch.

I can't even get into the difference because I'm clueless about the difference and frankly not that interested.

Yeah, if you don't like bourbon, you would struggle with scotch in all likelihood.

I struggle with all hard liquor.

They're not my friends for sure.

Okay, well, I'm going to get a cider and we're going to head to London and let me set the scene.

We are in 1922, UK.

And this is a story about a couple and their relationship and kind of what ends up happening and the police really trying to piece some things together.

It's just after midnight.

It's Wednesday, October 4th, 1922.

And there's a young married couple named Edith and Percy Thompson.

You gotta love a good Percy.

We don't get a lot of Percy's here in the United States, I think, right?

No.

You know, I can think of

one football player, Minnesota Viking, Percy Harvin.

Okay.

That's probably the only Percy.

No, I can think of somebody in high school.

I think I was also Percy.

Okay.

Very old school name.

Well, at least in the the United States, I think it would be.

So Edith and Percy are walking home from a train station to their house in the London suburb of Ilford after an evening out at the theater.

You know, they're pretty close in age.

Edith is 28 and Percy is 33.

So getting right to the incident here, witnesses hear a woman scream.

And she says, according to some witnesses, she says, oh dear, what should I do?

My husband has fallen and cut his head.

And they also then hear the sound of vomiting.

If we take this at face value, I don't think we've talked about this before.

What happens to your body to trigger vomiting when you've had some kind of a head injury?

What is that exactly?

You're really testing my medical knowledge on this question.

I think, you know, when you start talking about, you know, that nauseous feeling, I think there's a lot of things that could cause that.

You know, first, of course, maybe a brain injury, a traumatic brain injury.

Okay.

But also, you know, there's weird things like with the cranial nerves, like there's a vagal nerve reflex where you can have all sorts of different types of reactions to injury, whether it be like to your neck.

And that's something where the medical evaluation would have to consider all sorts of different things for this symptom.

You know, if it's, if it truly is a result of this traumatic, you know, this fall where it's at least significant enough that there's a laceration on the scalp and you've got, you know, this vomiting that's occurring pretty quickly afterwards.

This October, we're doing something very different.

We'll be recording Buried Bones live at sea.

That's right.

Kate and I will both be part of the first ever True Crime Podcast Voyage, hosted by Virgin Voyages and iHeart Podcasts.

This is five nights of mystery, luxury, and Halloween fun, sailing to the Dominican Republic and Bimini Bahamas, adults only.

No kids, no stress.

Expect a live podcast recording of buried bones, crime-themed trivia, behind-the-scenes sessions with iHeart hosts, and yes, plenty of surprises.

And it's all wrapped in the full Virgin Voyages experience.

20-plus eateries, Michelin star chef-curated menus, luxe staterooms, Wi-Fi, and entertainment included.

It's not just a cruise.

It's a celebration of thoughtful, true crime storytelling, storytelling, and we want you to join us.

Book your cabin now at virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

That's virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

We'll see you on board.

This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor.

IQ Bar is the better-for-you plant-protein-based snack made with brain-boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash.

The ultimate sampler Pack is a great way to try all IQ bar products and flavors.

You get nine IQ bars, eight IQ Mix sticks, and four IQ Joe sticks.

All IQ bar products are entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners.

With over 20,000 five-star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot with IQ bars, brain and body boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees.

I always feel like I have to have something to perk me up in the afternoon.

IQ bars are really convenient and they taste great.

And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ products, plus get free shipping.

To get your 20% off, just text bones to 64,000.

Text Bones to 64,000.

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Okay, so sorry for testing your medical knowledge, Paul.

We'll see what comes of this, though.

Yeah, I understand.

And, you know, so they hear the sound of vomiting.

Edith rushes to find some people to come to help, and she finds two people who have also been walking back from this train around midnight.

She says, come quickly.

She says her husband's blood is all over her, and they get back to Percy.

He's laying on the ground.

He is bleeding heavily.

And one of them runs to get a nearby doctor.

So the street is very dark, so I would assume no street lights.

One of the people who has come back to help strikes a match, and the only thing they can really see is that Percy looks dead, and there's a large amount of blood on the ground around him.

A doctor gets to the scene about 12:40 a.m.

So this is, you know, 30, 40 minutes afterwards.

And he says, this is interesting.

Percy has appeared to be dead for about 10 minutes.

So I looked it up.

The 1920s, they just said rigor and body temperature were used to determine the time of death.

10 minutes seems pretty specific.

How would he know that?

Is that based on body temperature?

What is that?

No.

10 minutes, there isn't going to be anything that would indicate that short duration of time.

There's just no way that doctor would be able to say he's been dead 10 minutes.

You know, of course, back in the day, you know, liver temperature would be used, you know, but that's also been shown to be completely unreliable because there's so many variables that impact how fast a body cools.

And then rigor takes longer for rigor to form than 10 minutes.

You're talking on the order of several hours, and that's in the smaller muscles, and then it progresses into the larger muscles of the body.

So I...

Yeah, I'm a little bit confused as to how this doctor is saying he's been dead 10 minutes.

Yeah, it's really odd.

But he confirms he's dead.

Okay.

So at 12.50, 10 minutes after that, Percy's body has been taken to the Ilford mortuary in an ambulance, and Edith is brought down to the the police station.

And the reason she's brought down is, and she's hysterical, by the way, the reason she's brought down to the police station is that when an ambulance comes and they start to look at Percy's body, it looks like there are cuts and not I just fell down and gashed my head cuts, like actual cuts on his body.

Okay.

Which is alarming, of course, to

the doctors with the ambulance and then the police show up.

So, I have more information about that.

We just know we have an hysterical wife who is saying her husband fell and hit his head, and then you've got a dead man who has been taken, and he's in his early 30s.

So, the cuts, you want information about the cuts once they get all his clothes off and start examining him?

Yeah, are these cuts to his head?

You know, part of in listening to this is

when you start dealing with like paramedics.

You know, they're not forensic pathologists.

And of course, they've got exposure to a wide variety of different, you know, types of injuries.

But are they truly assessing the nature of this injure?

Oftentimes people will think somebody has been cut.

And it's actually a laceration from a blow.

It's the skin has been split.

A pathologist knows how to diagnose the differences between an incision and a a laceration.

So, if these cuts are just about Percy's head, I would go, well, are they lacerations?

And do you have multiple blows occurring to his head?

But now, if you have what appear to be cuts to other parts of the body, that's inconsistent with what Edith said happened.

We'll talk about inconsistencies.

Let's go through this.

So, I had said before, the doctor had said about 15 cuts on his body.

Okay.

So, when his clothes were removed, the coroner says that all but three of the cuts are superficial.

So most of the superficial cuts were on his face and on his torso.

There are three deep cuts.

And here they are, right?

There's a cut measuring three and one-quarter inches long on the inside of his forearm.

There's a stab wound at the back of the neck, two inches deep and one and a quarter inch wide, which was toward the side ending near the right ear.

And there's a stab wound on the right side of the throat, which was one inch long and two and a quarter inches deep.

This cut penetrated both the carotid artery and the jugular vein.

So those are his injuries.

What do you think?

Homicide.

Is that your expert opinion?

Homicide?

You know, the 12, roughly 12 superficial cuts to the face and torso, you know, it appears that would tend to suggest that you have a sharp-edged weapon.

And the superficial nature, I'm not sure why those are just superficial,

unless there's actually, I could see a struggle between Percy and the offender.

And the knife is just not getting close enough to cause deeper cuts to the face or torso area.

The deep and very long incision to his forearm, that is entirely consistent with a type of defensive injury as Percy's trying to ward off a knife, unless the knife just happens to cut, you know, just randomly hit his forearm.

But then when you have the stab to the back of the neck and the stab to the right throat, you know, obviously this is a, in all likelihood, an intentional act to kill.

Edith's story is completely wrong, just completely wrong.

So what the hell's going on?

Well, let me tell you, before you get all on top of Edith here, let me tell you more information about the blood.

Boy, you target people so early, Poles.

Poor Edith.

Okay, let me tell you what the police, they go back after they get all this information.

They go back to the crime scene because we have real police officers, thank goodness, in London in 1922.

We're not talking about like the Bow Street Runners or this is not that long ago.

So we have an organized police force, the Metropolitan Police.

So they go back to the street corner to figure out what happened.

I can't emphasize this enough.

It's very dark.

You know, there's just no lamps anywhere.

It's three in the morning, and they they can see now using torches, flashlights, that the coverage of the bleeding, there's a trail of blood about 44 feet long.

I mean, I know I talk to you sometimes about distance and me being confused by distance, but 44 feet seems like a long distance to me from the street corner up the road.

So Percy's got some significant bleeding injuries, the forearm and the neck wounds, right?

And the superficial cuts may or may not be significantly bleeding.

So is this, you know, Percy after being stabbed, stumbling and falling?

Is this the offender during a stabbing, cutting himself and, you know, running away?

So that's, you know, what I'm tossing around in my head right now and waiting to hear more information about this.

It looks like he's trying to get home because the end of this trail is about 100 yards from his house, which is at 41 Kensington Gardens.

It's a Victorian townhouse.

So what what they're saying is that there's this trail 44 feet long from the street corner up the road, and it starts and stops, pooling about every three feet.

So I think exactly what you're talking about.

Then at the end of the trail, there's a big puddle, and that's where they think.

he was stabbed in the throat.

So tell me if this is something they could really know.

They said it looks like the blood spurted out in a six-foot arc, six feet.

And then nearby at the garden wall, he was found slumped against there's more blood, including a puddle, which is the vomiting that they think people heard after the cut to his throat began to fill his stomach with blood.

Okay.

Does that all make sense to you, six-foot arc?

Gosh.

Yeah, you know, there's because you have the stab wound that goes through the carotid artery, when the heart is still beating, of course, there's pressure within the arterial system.

And when there is a cut, a breach in an artery, if circumstances are right, when the heart beats the next time, the blood, instead of going through the artery, sprays out of the artery.

And so this is what we call an arterial spurt.

And so this arcing pattern might suggest that that's what that is.

It also could be something like with this forearm injury.

If he's got the significant bleeding from his forearm, him moving his arm is going to cause a cast off, what we call a cast off pattern.

And that also could potentially look like this arced pattern, just depending on his movement.

This October, we're doing something very different.

We'll be recording Buried Bones live at sea.

That's right.

Kate and I will both be part of the first ever True Crime Podcast Voyage, hosted by Virgin Voyages and iHeart Podcasts.

This is five nights of mystery, luxury, and Halloween fun, sailing to the Dominican Republic and Bimini Bahamas, adults only.

No kids, no stress.

Expect a live podcast recording of buried bones, crime-themed trivia, behind-the-scenes sessions with iHeart hosts, and yes, plenty of surprises.

And it's all wrapped in the full Virgin Voyages experience.

20-plus eateries, Michelin star chef-curated menus, Lux staterooms, Wi-Fi, and entertainment included.

It's not just a cruise.

It's a celebration of thoughtful true crime storytelling, and we we want you to join us.

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That's virginvoyages.com slash true crime.

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Well, I mean, this just sounds like a nightmare.

They say the attack began at Belgrave Road, which is where they were.

And, you know, like I said, it was about, ended about 100 yards from the house.

They said that the couple had followed Belgrave Road from the train station, and then they were about to turn on to Kensington Gardens.

So again, really dark area.

And the house is in an area that has front gardens, which I love.

They have little walls.

Some of them have hedges, great places to hide.

And the hedges have little cutouts so that you can kind of like somebody could squat down.

And it looks like, well, the police are saying whoever attacked Percy waited in one of these little sort of like alcove cutout things at a house on Belgrave Road and then attacked him there.

So then the police, of course, want to talk to Edith.

So now we have to figure out if Edith's story makes sense.

Well, he didn't fall down and hit his head.

No, he didn't.

But it's dark, Paul.

Maybe she doesn't know.

Maybe, I mean, you know, it's pitch black, they said.

Supposedly they're walking together, right?

Now, stabbings can be shockingly fast in terms of the amount of time it takes takes to commit.

And, you know, when people often see numerous stab wounds, they're thinking this was a prolonged attack.

Well, just watch a jail shanking.

You know, the surveillance cameras pick up the victim being approached.

And next thing you know, 10 stab wounds are done in a blink of an eye.

Oh, my gosh.

I think about Edith's statement.

It's like, well, is it possible that, you know, at a certain point, you know, an offender could have come up and very quickly attack Percy with a knife and Edith not be aware that this is happening.

I wouldn't rule out that possibility considering how you've stated that this is a very dark alley.

And then Percy, the blood trail with, you know, in all likelihood, after this arced pattern, you're going to have a lot of drip pattern.

And then you say there's small blood pools.

This is when he's pausing.

And now you have bleeding injuries that are stationary over this location for a period of time because he's suffered a mortal injury, right?

He is slowly bleeding out as he's struggling to get home.

How does Edith not really observe that aspect of Percy's movements?

Now, at the very end, if he collapses, then her statement of, yeah, he fell down and hit his head is possibly an accurate statement.

You mentioned at the beginning that there was vomiting.

Was that Percy vomiting or was that Edith vomiting?

Well, the police think it's him because there's blood all in it, but I don't know.

We'll see if we get more information about that.

So they were saying blood was going, seeping into his stomach and that was causing his vomiting.

Oh, gosh, this just seems awful.

What some of these victims experience is horrific in terms of lungs filling up with blood.

Every time they're trying to breathe, they're expiring blood and they're trying to suck in air and they can't, you know, it's imagine how miserable that would be in the last moments of your life.

It's awful.

Well, let me tell you as we continue on.

So this is Edith.

This is Edith's story.

Hang on tight.

It's interesting.

So the very early morning hours, the police take her to her house and they want to get her story about what she saw that night.

She appears really shaken.

She's dazed.

Her clothing is caked with blood.

It's all over her, all over her handbag, all over the contents inside the handbag, which the police look inside, you know, just in case, but there's nothing in there.

But everything in there has blood all over.

So Edith says to the officer who walks her initially to the house, they're going to blame me for this.

Duh.

I would think, yes, of course they're going to blame you.

You're the only person in your story.

It doesn't make any sense.

But she says that immediately.

And then she talks about what her side of the story is.

So what do you think so far?

Well, I think because the just the huge inconsistency between what she said happened and what they're finding truly happened to Percy.

It's now they have to get to the bottom of why is she so wrong?

You know, and is this an intentional thing that she's saying to mislead police?

Or is there a true explanation for how wrong she is?

You know, and that's what you have to kind of tease out from her statements.

Okay.

So she's covered in blood.

Everything that she has is covered in blood.

She says they're going to blame me for this.

She says to the officer walking her home, we were just coming home from the theater and walking along.

My husband said, oh, then fell against me.

I said, bear up, thinking that he had had one of his attacks.

She says that he has heart issues.

Okay.

And I don't know if that's an arrhythmia or what that means, but sometimes he'll sort of like, you know, freeze up or fall, but he always recovers.

And she basically said, suck it up.

It's fine.

She said that we walked a little further.

He fell against the wall and slid to the ground.

She said that he would recover from these little attacks without getting any medical attention from a doctor.

But of course, the police in their head say this makes no sense.

And the officer doesn't say anything and just listens to her essentially because they know there's blood everywhere.

So there's more suspicion, of course, around Edith.

And she makes another statement.

And this is one where she's now picking up on the fact that the bleeding is an important part of this story and she needs to address the bleeding.

She says, we were coming along Belgrave Road just past the corner of Inslee Gardens and I heard him say, oh, and he fell against me.

I put out my arms to save him and found blood, which I thought was coming from his mouth.

I tried to help him up.

He staggered for several yards toward Kensington Gardens and then fell against the wall and slid down.

He did not speak to me.

I cannot say if I spoke to him.

I felt him and found his clothing wet with blood.

He never moved after he fell.

And then she says, we had no quarrel on the way.

We were quite happy together.

Immediately, I saw blood.

I ran across the street to the doctors.

I appealed to a lady and a gentleman who were passing, and the gentleman also went to the doctors.

The doctor came and told me my husband was dead.

Just before he fell down, I was walking on his right-hand side on the inside of the pavement nearest the wall.

We were side by side.

I did not see anybody about at the time.

My husband and I were talking about going to a dance.

All of that information, kind of all in one statement, which again seems odd.

What do you think about all that?

Well, believe it or not,

I can see where some of what Edith is saying could line up.

Really?

Percy walking and he goes, oh, you know, is he being stabbed in the neck, right?

Most people.

Well, I shouldn't say most people, you know, I actually talked to a stabbing victim who was a friend of my first wife, and he had been out walking and got basically robbed and stabbed.

He had no idea he had been stabbed.

Oh, yeah.

He said it felt like punches.

And this has to do with your internal organs.

The pain nerves aren't set up to register like cutting injuries.

They're set up to register like expansion.

Yeah.

You know, that's why when you get really bloated, it can really hurt.

So Percy could have been stabbed in the neck, not realize he had been stabbed, but he's, you know, receiving what would ultimately be a fatal injury with the jugular and carotid being severed on one side of his neck.

That aspect, if it truly is just somebody pops out from the shadows and stabs Percy and somehow Edith doesn't see that,

that is, I think, plausible.

But Percy has...

12 superficial incisive injuries to his face and torso.

You know, he has a large incisive injury to his forearm.

You know, it seems like there's a little bit more prolonged interaction between the stabber and Percy

that I still have a hard time seeing Edith not, you know, at least observing some aspect of that interaction.

That's going to be important for us to establish with this story, I think.

How much do we think that Edith knew?

So you're saying that there is some sort of like possibility that Edith might not know what's going on.

You're saying that her story is more plausible than it was before, but we're not saying we believe her 100%, right?

Yeah, I'm still struggling to correlate Edith's lack of observing Percy having an interaction with somebody that is stabbing him for the amount of injuries that he has.

Yeah, 15.

And part of Edith's statement is, you know, she's talking about at certain points, like Percy ends up slumping down.

You know, is that location consistent with the blood trails?

You know, because she's not going to know the blood patterns at this scene.

You know, she may observe blood, but she doesn't have the expertise to actually know what the blood patterns mean.

So, you know, she's saying Percy slumps down at a certain location.

Okay, now do I have a drip pattern there?

Do I have pooled blood at that location?

That would support, it would corroborate Edith's statement.

Doesn't sound like they followed through with that type of assessment.

Edith having blood all over her, as well as on items within her purse, is that what you had indicated?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, of course, now there has to be a question as to, okay, how did she interact with Percy after he's received bleeding injuries?

Is there, you know, because a loved one, you're going to go up and you're possibly going to be touching, hugging, you know, blood is on your hands.

You're diving into your purse to see if there's anything that

could help

the situation.

That's where doing a proper interview is so critical.

Does she have an explanation for the types of blood patterns and the locations of the blood patterns that are on her person?

Well, there's more information, so let's go through it.

Of course, there is.

Okay.

Now the police who have talked to Edith and gotten her wacky story want to go back to the scene.

Now that the sun is up and they can actually see, as the sun rises on Wednesday, the press, of course, descends and we have a contaminated area, I'm sure.

I don't think they had yellow tape at that point.

They are looking at the bloody pavement on Belgrave Road, and the investigators really start looking more at the Thompsons and who they are.

So, this is what we know.

Edith had grown up in East London, in the suburbs of East London, and she is the oldest of five children.

After school, she moved to London to work for a wholesale hat shop called Carlton and Pryor.

Eventually, she rose to the ranks to become the chief buyer at the company, which is a huge deal.

In 1916, she marries Percy and they buy a house in the London suburb of Ilford.

And Edith keeps working and she actually makes more money than Percy does.

This is kind of unconventional, but this is, you know, the way women in the 1920s, you know, are starting to move forward in careers.

She likes to go out to London's hotels and dance halls, and, you know, she likes to spend money, and she likes to spend evenings at the theater and the cinema.

This is a couple who was close to a young man named Fred Bywaters.

He's 20, and he had been a schoolmate of one of Edith's younger siblings.

So Fred is 20, and Edith is 28.

Percy is 33, just so we know where everybody's ages are here.

These three people become friends, but Fred had become close with Percy and Edith and had spent some time living with them.

And I'm sure Percy must have looked at him as sort of like a little brother.

And Percy's brother is the one who actually tells police that they need to talk to Fred to get some more information.

You probably know where this is heading because, you know, you have a couple and an attractive young woman and a, you know, younger man who moves in.

I feel like we've done this story four or five different times.

Police find out fairly quickly that Edith and and Fred have been sleeping together, and they have been for a couple of years, from when Fred was 18 and Edith was in her mid-20s.

And when police search the room that Fred used to live in, they find a love letter from Edith.

They essentially, you know, start putting some pieces together here.

And again, I'm sure you know where this is heading.

The accusations that, you know, Fred and/or Edith did this to get Percy out of the picture and why.

And that is one question: if that is the case, who who knew what and who did what in a couple who is under suspicion at this point well it's naturally something that has to be looked into you know because we have seen these lover triangles that is a motive for homicide but there's plenty of you know these scenarios where you never have any type of issue you know but you just have to explore fred where was fred that night you know because as i was listening you know, and evaluating the information out at the crime scene, I was thinking, yeah, this sounds like potentially an ambush on Percy.

But with Edith's inconsistent statements to what happened, suggests that this may be something that she arranged.

Or, well, actually, that's where she understood what was likely going to happen.

And that is going to be a big question because the death penalty is in play here in the UK in this time period.

So that'll be important.

We have had a couple of different stories involving couples.

One in particular, I remember a couple, it was a man and a woman having an affair.

Do you remember this?

And the intended victim had been, he was a real jerk.

He was like the head of a gambling hall.

And he had already been shot twice in the past.

You know, I think he still had a bullet in his body.

People had been trying to kill him and he finally dies, but they could not figure out who did it.

It was like she poisoned him and the lover shot him or beat him with a baton.

I can't remember which one.

And they could not prove which were the, what was the thing that killed him.

And so both of them essentially got like attempted murder and didn't serve very much time at all.

So I find that confusing.

I guess that is you actually have to know who actually did the killing, killing to charge with first-degree murder.

I didn't think that was the case.

So that was a big eye roll.

Well,

because, because, you know, this is now getting to where, you know, when you start getting into kind of the weeds on the elements of the crime and different DAs, some DAs are much more aggressive than others in terms of I can prove this case.

You know, now when you have a scenario where let's say you have two

that you think are involved, but you don't know which one actually inflicted the fatal injuries, I can see where there would be a DA that will go, yeah, I'm charging both of them.

You know, there's enough proof for both of them.

And possibly another DA going, but keep investigating.

You know, it's not clear.

I want something clear, you know, to take in front of a jury.

Well, I can tell you the police in London in 1922 are very alarmed by the discovery of Fred.

The way this goes is in the intervening two years when Fred and Edith started to have an affair.

It sounds like Percy doesn't know.

Fred rented a room from them.

He was in between jobs as a storekeeper on ships.

Sometime in the year leading up to Percy's murder, Percy had evicted Fred

because he suspected that Fred and Edith were having an affair.

Fred says when the police interviewed him that on at least one occasion, Percy had hit Edith in front of Fred.

And despite this, Fred and Edith continued to see each other at hotels after Fred was evicted.

And police get get a lot of this information also from the tenants.

So there's a female tenant who moved into the extra room once Fred moved out.

And she confirmed this.

She said, Yeah, Percy hit Edith, and there was definitely arguments over Fred.

So the police track Fred down, and he is, as I said, he worked as a storekeeper on ships.

So he's at a job.

He has a job on the SS Morea, which is a ship he's supposed to be on, and it's going to set sail pretty much now.

And it's docked at Tilbury, which is at the mouth of the Thames River.

They find a lockbox in his cabin, and there's love letters.

So here's kind of the question that we have.

I think it's pretty clear that somebody killed Percy Thompson.

I think it's clear that it's probably either Edith or Fred or both.

Do we agree on that so far?

I think that's the most likely scenario.

Yes.

So the question will be important in that what evidence do we have, like real evidence going forward, that both were involved because they're both being focused on at this point.

And, you know, there are a lot of rumblings about wrongful convictions.

And I'll tell you that this case is one of the cases that potentially led to the abolishment of the death penalty in the UK.

Okay.

So we'll see.

Okay, so they find this lockbox.

There are love letters in the lockbox.

And it sounds like Edith in one of these letters is alluding to an attempted attempted poisoning of Percy.

She said in a kind of an accusatory manner, it says, sounds like to Fred, she writes, Fred, you said it was enough for an elephant, meaning to kill an elephant.

I tell, I mean, I say this all the time.

Being a poisoner is not that easy.

You really have to know what you're

shaking your head.

You have to know what you're doing.

I mean, not anybody.

So she said, basically, you know, you messed up your dosage.

It didn't work.

It sounds like they've been plotting, or at least she's been plotting this.

Yeah, this is obviously a major clue, you know, in terms of pointing the finger at both Edith and Fred in terms of what happened to Percy that night.

I'm kind of wondering, is there a life insurance policy on Percy?

I have not seen that, that there is a life insurance policy, but it does sound like as things kind of go forward, she is pretty miserable with him and wants to be out of that relationship.

Not that I have seen, no, but that's definitely a possibility.

They find also in this cabin that fred's overcoat is there and it is also caked with blood it's not a rocket science to figure out it i'm sure it's percy's blood so this is more hard evidence so fred is clearly at least there if not the one holding this knife i assume right yeah you know so of course in this day and age we have to show that that's percy's blood yeah was fred given an opportunity to explain where that blood came from and typically they'll make up something you know i ran over an animal or, you know, I'm a butcher, something like that.

I'm a butcher.

The butchers.

So I'm assuming if that, if Fred has a coat that has Percy's blood on it, then Fred is out there at the homicide scene.

Yeah.

And likely is the one that is got the knife.

Yep.

Okay.

Now this is interesting.

And you have to tell me the morals about this.

Okay.

So it's now Thursday, late Thursday, and Edith is already being held in the matrons quarters of a local jail where all the ladies are.

And Fred is brought to the same building.

The police decide to walk them past each other to see how they're going to react.

And Edith says, Why did he do it?

I didn't want him to do it.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

What can I do?

I must tell the truth,

for Fred.

It sounds like she didn't make a big turn on him.

She's conniving.

Oh, my God.

That's why, you know, the police did that, is they recognized, you know, they've got two people.

And now it's, well, how loyal are these two people to each other?

And it turns out Edith jumped on the opportunity to start pointing a finger.

Okay, well, listen to this.

So she said, yes, I saw him attack Percy.

I did not want him to do it, but she also didn't want to implicate him.

And that's why, you know, she didn't say something further.

This seems risky, though, because why believe her?

I guess they'll look at the evidence, but I know it's sort of like the first one who puts their hand up gets the deal, but this still seems pretty risky.

She doesn't know what Fred's going to say.

Maybe Fred's going to deny.

Who knows?

You know, it just seems risky to me.

Well,

she's trying to preempt Fred.

You know, when she sees that Fred is now, you know, essentially, if he's being taken into this

ward area, she sees that he's with law enforcement.

What's he saying to law enforcement?

You know, she's now, her wheels are spinning spinning going, uh-oh, he's going to dime me out.

I better front information that minimizes my role in the homicide and maximizes Fred's role, you know, and so now this is self-preservation.

But just because she's the first one to offer information, that's not like, okay, well, she's going to get the deal.

You know, now you take that information and now you're telling Fred, Edith has just dimed you out.

What do you have to say?

And see what he says, you know, and

this is that classic,

oh, the movie LA Confidential, where they have

two different suspects and two different interview rooms.

And I think it's Russell Crowe going back and forth, or one of the investigators going back and forth.

And in essence, playing each guy off of each other.

And then next thing you know, somebody's actually telling the truth.

And

that's what I think these investigators.

were starting the process.

And at least right now in the case, Edith is the one that took the bait.

Well, let's see if Edith's telling the truth.

You know, Fred is surprised to see her.

Edith says what she says.

Fred had initially said, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I didn't have any part of this.

They tell him, you know, that Edith had said, I didn't want him to do it.

This is what Fred says.

Fred says, I killed him.

And he says.

Edith had nothing to do with it.

Oh, I put some veracity on that.

Okay.

You know, now part of the concern, let's say Fred is in love with Edith.

And he's 20, Paul, just to remind you.

So this is where, you know, he is letting his emotions kind of dictate protecting Edith.

So that would be my concern.

But the fact that Fred is fronting, I did it.

I put some weight on that.

Okay.

Because he could have just denied, denied, or he could have said, she asked me to do this.

And the fact that he didn't say, she asked me to do this, it's like, okay, well,

he's putting himself into this homicide.

It's just now, is he protecting Edith because of his romantic relationship with her?

Or is he telling the truth?

And he just acted alone and decided to eliminate the husband so he could have Edith all to himself.

Well, this is the mystery.

It is not who killed him necessarily.

It's does Edith know what happened?

So this is the statement.

It's not too long, but but I'm going to read the whole thing.

Fred says, I wish to make a voluntary statement.

Mrs.

Edith Thompson was not aware of my movements on Tuesday, 3rd October.

I left Maynor Park.

So now I need you to make sure everything he's saying lines up with the evidence, Paul.

I left Maynor Park at 11 p.m.

and proceeded to Ilford.

I waited for Mrs.

Thompson and her husband.

When near Insleigh Gardens, I pushed her to one side, also pushing him further up the street.

I said to him, you have got to separate from your wife.

He said, no.

I said, you will have to.

We struggled.

I took my knife from my pocket and we fought and he got the worst of it.

Mrs.

Thompson must have been spellbound for I saw nothing of her during the fight.

I ran away through Inslay Gardens, through Wanstead, Leightonston, Stratford, got a taxi at Stratford to Aldgate, walked from there to Finchurch Street, got another taxi to Thornton Heath, then walked to Upper Norwood, arriving home about 3 a.m.

The reason I fought with Thompson was because he never acted like a man to his wife.

He always seemed several degrees lower than a snake.

I loved her, and I could not go on seeing her leading that life.

I did not intend to kill him.

I only meant to injure him.

I gave him an opportunity of standing up to me as a man, man, but he wouldn't.

I have had the knife some time.

It was a sheath knife.

I threw it down a drain when I was running through In Slay Gardens.

And that is his statement.

What do you think?

Does it ring true to you?

I call bullshit.

Oh, okay.

First, kind of dissecting the statement.

You know, he's, in essence, pushing Edith away, minimizing her involvement in the homicide.

And now he is confronting Percy, and he's bringing up an excuse as to why he feels he has to confront Percy to give Percy an opportunity to be a man.

You know, so it's such a self-serving, look at me.

I'm the man in this scenario.

Now, this whole thing about his escape path and everything else, that could be accurate.

But part of assessing what Fred is doing here is, well, we have to take a look at the totality of the information that we have.

And we have evidence that Edith and Fred conspired to poison Percy.

Edith was fully aware.

She's like the one that is actually administering the poison.

Sounds like Fred's the one that told her this is what is going to work to kill your husband.

So you have a prior act that the two were involved with.

Then we have Percy and Edith walking home, right?

They get off the train and they're walking home.

And now I start to question as to, well, did Fred know that ahead of time?

How did he know that ahead of time?

Did Edith tell him this is where we're going to be at?

And it just so happens that Fred finds what sounds like the perfect location to be able to jump out and ambush Percy.

I think you're right, Paul, because Percy knew Fred, obviously.

They had lived in the same you know apartment.

So I guess you could say Fred was maybe stalking him and Edith didn't know, but he would have been spotted.

I mean, he's 20.

He's not some CIA agent.

He would have been spotted.

So, yes, I think you're probably right.

Yeah.

You know, and then, you know, part of what I'm kind of curious about, you know, how Fred is saying that him and Percy got into a physical fight, you know, and that Percy got the worst of it.

Well, was there any injuries on Fred?

Right.

And do we have any information on that?

It doesn't sound like there's nothing significant on Fred.

You know, then I'm like, you know what?

You've got a stab to the back of the neck.

You got a stab to the neck.

This

sounds more akin to more of an ambush style attack.

Fred lies in wait.

You got the little cubbies, if you will, along this route that the original investigators said the offender likely waited in one of these cubbies.

And he jumps out, stabs Percy.

And he probably runs off very quickly after that.

And then Edith comes up with, initially, husband you know, fell down and his, hit his head, and that's why he's dead, possibly being naive

to the types of physical evidence that law enforcement can use to discern, oh, no, this isn't a accident.

This is actual homicide.

He's got stab wounds, right?

So

I'm not buying Fred's statement.

I think he is trying to protect Edith and he's trying to, you know, in essence, maximize his role.

And again, 20-year-old 20-year-old in love with the older woman.

You know, I think that's what's going on.

Well, you know, is there enough evidence?

He's confessed she hasn't.

Is there enough evidence to convict her of murder, which is a capital crime in England right now?

Is there enough evidence for her?

I'm going through my head trying to think about the various bits of information.

There's definitely, I think, proof that Edith was lying.

She changes her statement from the early statement about Percy falling down to she's now seeing Percy being attacked.

You know, I think it really does come down to whether or not there is sufficient evidence that would support that she arranged this homicide.

She was an accessory to this homicide.

Fred's the killer.

He's the one wielding the knife.

But did Edith provide the information to Fred?

Did she ask Fred to do this?

And that one, I think, is a much tougher sell with the information at hand.

And this is where, you know, those previous letters,

the poisoning attempt, you know,

is there a possibility, if that was even admissible, to be able to get the jury to convict her for some charge?

Yeah.

You know,

almost like a murder for hire type of scenario.

Yeah.

Well, listen, 1922, the police charge them both with first-degree murder, and they are both convicted and sentenced to death.

Fred is stoic, and he never implicates her, and she collapses, and they are both hanged in January of 1923.

A woman hanged over what I consider to be pretty shoddy evidence.

I mean, I know there's stuff there, and I know there's a there there, but I don't know.

I mean, put her in life in prison.

I don't know.

And this case makes me uncomfortable.

And it is one of the reasons it's an important case in the UK because of the question of whether or not this woman should have been executed when there's a big question mark about whether she was involved at all.

I think she probably was.

I think you think she probably was.

But legally, is she responsible?

I don't know.

Yeah, I think, you know, when she is not the one who's actually committing the murder

and she's just asking for it to happen and possibly leading Percy to his death.

You know, there is criminal culpability there, but is it at the level of first-degree murder with special circumstances?

I'm not sure that there's a case there.

I don't either.

I mean, I think it's right, and we don't talk about the death penalty and our feelings about it, but

what a story.

I know that it seemed like it was going to be pretty clear-cut from the beginning, but the thing I think about with these kinds of stories are, you you know, there's a difference between what you know and what we can prove.

And it makes me uncomfortable when there are cases where, you know, you're so certain that somebody's guilty and you know there's not enough evidence and they still get convicted.

And it's like, well, okay, you know, am I going to get convicted on shoddy evidence when I didn't do anything wrong?

How many murderers have been let free?

Or how many innocent people have been convicted when they shouldn't have been?

And I think this is one of those cases where I just kind of go, gosh, I mean, I need her to be punished because I really do feel like she was involved.

It just sounds like it.

But

executing someone on evidence like that just made me uncomfortable.

And I like to make you uncomfortable, Paul.

So I wanted to see how you were going to react to this.

Yeah, I don't feel uncomfortable in terms of the deployment of the death penalty.

It's so swift in this case.

Yeah.

And I...

personally do not feel that the evidence adds up to where she could even be charged with murder.

No.

You know, so that's where I think the sentencing is way off base with Edith.

I do believe she is involved based on the totality of the information provided.

It does, I can see where this case would be something where people would question the use of the death penalty and sometimes maybe the overuse of it.

And you can have just over time.

You know, and we've seen with exonerations that have occurred with DNA, where you see truly innocent people convicted of of really horrific crimes and even sentenced to death.

And sometimes

you have very, very skilled prosecutors that can take circumstantial evidence and get a jury of 12 to convict, even when the case is weak.

But then that person is now convicted of...

you know, first-degree murder with the, you know, the special cirque eligible for death.

And it is scary, you know, from that perspective.

We know that we've had innocent people executed in this country.

And over in the UK, at some point, legislators over there recognize,

you know what, we probably have to adjust our sentencing structure to prevent people from being overcharged and losing their life.

Absolutely.

Well, Paul, I think you should go and enjoy your bourbon, not scotch for sure, because you hate scotch.

I bet you'd drink it if there was nothing else.

I can do a pour of scotch.

I like it.

I like the peaty, you know.

I don't know what that means, but I'm assuming it's something that you enjoy.

So that's good.

Scotch has like a smoky and peaty because it, you know, it uses, I think it's the peat out there.

And so it's a distinct flavor, but it's a very strong flavor.

So I can do a single pour, but I have to go back to my bourbon.

We'll go back to your bourbon.

And you might need a double for next week, but I'll give you a warning beforehand.

Okay.

Well, as always, I'm looking forward to it.

See you later.

All right.

Take care.

This has been an Exactly Right Production.

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buried bones sources.

Our senior producer is Alexis Emorosi.

Research by Maren McClashin, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel.

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked: A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Deco the Criminal Mind, is available now.

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We're taking buried bones on a cruise.

This October, we're setting sail with Virgin Voyages on the first ever true crime podcast cruise, and we want you to join us.

We've got five nights of events, meetups, and mystery on board, plus a live taping of buried bones that you won't want to miss.

This is an all-inclusive experience.

No kids, no stress.

Join the true crime experience to the Dominican Republic and Bippini, Bahamas.

Book now at virginvoyages.com slash true crime.

That's virginvoyages.com slash true crime.

We'll see you on the ship.

Ah, smart water.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Wow, that's really good water.

With electrolytes for taste?

It's the kind of water that says, I have my life together.

I'm still pretending the laundry on the chair is part of the decor.

Yet, here you are, are, making excellent hydration choices.

I do feel more sophisticated.

That's called having a taste for taste.

Huh, a taste for taste.

I like that.

Smartwater, for those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

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