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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 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, Paul.

Hey, Kate.

How's it going?

This is a momentous day because this is our anniversary.

Can you believe it?

Did I forget something here?

Uh-oh, I'm in trouble, aren't I?

Your poor wife, you are.

This is our 100th episode.

Can you believe it?

A buried bones, 100th.

Wow.

How's that possible?

It's gone by quick now that I think about it.

I think it's gone by really quickly, and it is due all to my brilliance and your charm, or it could be my charm and your brilliance.

I'm not really sure which one it is.

I think it's your charm and your brilliance, and I just kind of show up.

That's an excellent, very husband answer, I think.

Props to your wife.

So listen, I know you didn't give me a gift because I can tell you didn't give me a gift.

So I have a suggestion.

I went to specialspeeches.com, which is the one of the only places that I feel like gave me a reliable answer.

I asked, what is the 100th wedding anniversary gift?

And I know this is not 100 years for us, 100 episodes.

You know, I'm just trying to figure it out.

And they said, it's a 10-carat diamond.

Wow.

10 carats.

You know, how much time do you need to get that together?

Good God.

But we've been together for a long time and it's been just a great 100 episodes.

And I'm here for a thousand more as far as I'm concerned.

And so are you, I'm assuming.

Absolutely.

This has just been,

this has been such a breath of fresh air over the last hundred episodes, you know, getting to talk to you and hear the cases and, you know, meeting our listeners, you know, and I've been out and about on various conferences and stuff and how much they enjoy the episodes.

So, yep, I'm looking forward to the next hundred episodes.

Well, happy anniversary, Paul, before we jump into this next one.

No, happy anniversary back at you.

Okay, let's go ahead and set the scene.

This is a murder mystery.

I say this with all our stories, but this is a mystery truly.

You know, you have a bunch of people at a dinner party and somebody ends up dead.

And we have to figure out what happened.

And we don't have a lot of those.

Have you ever done one of those murder mystery weekends?

I really want to do that one time.

You know, it almost sounds like the board game clue, right?

It is.

You know, the lights go out, somebody screams, and lights come back on and somebody's dead.

Yep.

Yep.

There's a doctor.

There's, you know, like a boarder.

There are a bunch of young women.

There's like a nurse.

There's a little boy.

There's all these multiple rooms.

A very specific murder weapon, though.

So let's go ahead and jump into this for our 100th.

Of course, you know, I'm trying to bring you a murder mystery.

And this one comes from a listener.

We love our listeners.

This is set in 1891.

It's in Wisconsin, in Richland Center, Wisconsin.

I can't remember if we've done, I feel like we probably have done a Wisconsin one before, but I just wouldn't be able to remember what that is.

Not that I recall.

Listeners, once you've done 100 episodes,

they start to run together.

The states do, at least.

The states start to run together for me.

Okay, so this is Wisconsin.

Richland Center is about 50 miles from Wisconsin Dells, which is now a popular tourist destination known as the water park capital of the world.

My kids would go there in a millisecond.

They're into water parks.

They would go in December if I let them.

Yeah, that's the way kids are.

Your kids like the water parks, too?

You know, they do.

They haven't gone that much.

When I was growing up, I would go to the water park.

It was insane.

I remember in San Antonio, there was a really, really cool water park there.

Yep.

Well, this is now a very popular area.

This was sort of,

you know, where we're talking about, which is close to turn of the century.

This is, you know, now a place that it's certainly not rural, but, you know, it's not Milwaukee or anything.

And I don't think the place plays as much into this as maybe the time period.

So let me tell you about the characters.

We have a young woman who is 23 years old.

Her name is Ella.

I'll remember that because I have an Ella, Ella Molly, and she has a younger sister named Lily.

And Ella Molly is really well known.

They both are young, attractive women, we say, that kind of will come into play later.

She has a really busy social life.

And she and her younger sister are invited to a dinner party at a local physician's house.

This is a guy named Dr.

George Mitchell.

So he's a country doctor, very well liked.

He is a widower.

He had a wife named Minnie Mitchell, who died in March of 1890.

So this is not even a year ago that his wife died.

They had a 10-year-old son.

His name is Freddie.

And the complications were, and this will be interesting to talk to you about, many died from complications from what started with after childbirth.

So she gave birth to a little girl named Lottie, and she had been ill ever since.

So in my experience with stories in the 1800s, they had called that childbed fever.

You know, this is, I'm presuming, a bacterial infection.

She was sick for a couple of months.

She just was not right.

And she died.

And this was fairly common in this time period.

Yeah.

You know, I've gone to some of these old cemeteries and you see, of course, you know, gravestones with newborns on there.

But then every now and then you see the mom.

And obviously childbirth is very traumatic to the body.

And I could imagine, yeah, something happened where she got an infection, probably went sepsis and, you know, passed away.

That's sad.

One of the things that I had read when I was doing research was that it was often caused by doctors not washing their hands

before delivery.

That makes sense.

Yep, for sure.

Gosh.

Well, there are a lot of quirky things in this story that I'll say, did you know that this happened in the 1800s?

And I'll be interested to hear what you say.

So Minnie died and Dr.

Mitchell's on his own.

He has been for almost a year.

He has this 10-year-old.

And then, you know, I immediately thought, how is he handling a newborn baby who would have been almost a year old, about a year at this point?

And the baby went to go live with her sister, with the mom's sister, with Minnie's sister, which was completely normal.

You know, a single man not able to handle a baby.

And even though he had money, I didn't get the impression that he was excessively wealthy.

He's a country doctor.

So that would have been normal.

It still startles me a little bit to hear men giving over children because, you know, they just simply can't handle it.

But thinking about the times, you know, I'm always sort of not surprised, but still a little like, oh, gosh, I I can't believe that.

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, 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.

That's B-O-N-E-S to $64,000.

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So, Dr.

Mitchell, before his wife Minnie died, they brought in a boarder.

And, you know, she was somebody who they were planning to help take care of the baby a little bit and just sort of clean up.

They actually have a decent amount of people around.

And I'll tell you about that in a minute.

So her name is Rosa Zaldowski.

She's 24 and she's really good friends with Ella and Lily.

So Rosa has a friend who's getting engaged that they all know, and they want to have a little dinner party.

And she goes to Dr.

Mitchell and says, Can I throw this party at your house?

And he says, Fine.

I'll be working, but I'll be coming back at some point.

And she says, Okay.

So she arranges to have some people come over.

All of these are young women who know each other from church.

Ella and Lily don't go to the same church, but Ella plays the organ on Sundays at this church where all of these other women are.

So that's how everybody knows each other.

It's just a bunch of young women who are coming over for this fun little dinner party, which is nice.

So the doctor says, sure, you know, clean up and all that stuff.

Rosa had been with the Mitchells, just for context, about three years in 1888.

And the doctor and the wife took her in and she first worked around the house.

And then she started working at a millinery.

Do you know what that is?

Is that like a mill of some sort?

It's a hat-making shop.

Oh.

Millinery.

So she starts working there.

I think she's still doing stuff around the house, but that becomes her full-time job.

She had moved from a farm about 10 miles away.

Her family's still on the farm, Rosa's family, but she moves to Richland Center in Wisconsin and the family relocates to Missouri.

So she's really part of Mitchell's, Dr.

Mitchell's family.

On Wednesday, as planned, Rosa, you know, reminds everybody, come over and, you know, we'll have dinner and then we can all go to church afterwards.

She wants to serve oysters, which would have been, you know, a really kind of like a delicacy in the 1800s, just like they are now.

Rosa had gone out earlier that day to get some oysters and had gone to another shop and she bought some chocolate creams for dessert.

The chocolate creams was interesting.

I was thinking that it was sort of like an egg cream, but it wasn't in this case.

This is like a truffle-like confectionery, like there's cream inside of a chocolate shell, kind of like a ganache, which sounds delicious to me, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be on any of your menus.

It's

a lot of sugar and a lot of chocolate.

It sounds good to me.

Yeah, it's not nothing that I'd be eating right now, but it definitely would be good.

I don't deny that.

Okay, good.

So there are six women at this dinner party, including Rosa and the Molly sisters.

And during the party, Freddie's around.

He's 10.

There's a housekeeper named Anna McLaren.

And there's another one who they call Grandma Handy.

And these are all people who are in the house.

So you've got, you know, these six people, plus you've got a kid and two housekeepers who are in the house.

And Dr.

Mitchell is away, but just for a little bit.

So Rosa serves oyster soup for dinner.

And then she serves some oranges.

And then they have cake for dessert.

There were two cakes, one that Lily had made, and the other was baked by another party guest.

So they're all eating and Dr.

Mitchell comes home after dinner is served.

So in the middle of dinner, Rosa says she does not feel well and she goes upstairs to her room and she lays down.

And it sounds like she's complaining of stomach pains.

She feels really sick.

There's a party guest who goes up to check on her and she's on her bed.

She's really complaining about her stomach.

The other guests are concerned and sad about Rosa, but they keep eating.

I'm not sure I would be eating an oyster soup.

after that just because I can, you know, I mean, you can imagine if you have bad oysters, I would assume that that would give you a lot of nausea.

And could that kill you, that kind of thing?

Well, I think it depends on, you know, the bacteria.

You know,

some of this, the food poisoning, the bacteria ends up affecting the upper GI tract.

And that's the type of food poisoning that you get pretty quickly.

after you ingest the food versus other types of bacteria end up colonizing your colon and it takes several days before that happens.

That's like that E.

coli 0157.

It can take a few days before you actually start developing symptoms.

Well, we don't know what's happening with Rosa yet.

We just know that she has a really bad upset stomach.

So, there's a guest who goes upstairs, as I mentioned, and checks on Rosa.

And Rosa asks for Ella, her friend, to come upstairs.

Ella comes upstairs.

She checks on her.

They both come back downstairs.

As soon as Rosa kind of hits the bottom step, she vomits into a basin and decides she needs to lie down.

So this is pretty instant.

You know, this is in the middle of a dinner, definitely less than an hour after eating this oyster soup and the oranges for dinner.

I think they've also gotten to dessert at this point.

She's laying on this lounger and everybody is, you know, concerned about her.

But essentially they clear out.

They just said, well, you know, they need to go to church.

And she says, it's okay.

Don't worry.

So the women pack up and they start to go to church.

And I don't know where Dr.

Mitchell is right now.

No one else is really around.

So Freddie, it sounds like is upstairs.

It sounds like the other two housekeepers are upstairs.

So it's really just Rosa.

And at this point, Ella and Lily are staying behind.

They don't plan to go to church.

It's not their church.

So Rosa gets herself up and she says, you know, at about eight o'clock, okay, I probably need to go rest.

And she says goodbye and hands them some leftovers if they want any.

And as they walk home, after Rosa goes upstairs, as they walk home, Ella starts to feel sick.

Okay.

So I have a pretty good physical description of what Ella is telling her sister she's feeling.

But as of right now, you know, this could be what?

Food poisoning, any of this stuff, the major indigestion.

Would it happen that quickly?

Like in the middle of dinner, if you're eating oysters or something that's gone bad?

You know, I'm not sure.

You know, this seems like it is awfully quick, especially if it's a bacterial type of issue.

Maybe it's more of a poison, you know, that could impact things pretty quickly.

So I don't know at this point.

But I was wondering if it's only Rosa, then I would question what the source of the ingestion was or what the source of the illness was.

Now that Ella is starting to feel something, then yeah, maybe, you know, the common food that they've been eating could be a source.

Okay.

It is happening quickly, though, and we are a murder show.

So let me remind you of that, Paul.

We do talk about murder an awful lot on this show.

I don't want to spoil things.

Understood.

Okay.

So let me give you a physical description of what's happening with Ella.

She says she has a sensation in her feet, but she says, I need to keep going.

I don't know if she means a tingling in her feet.

She feels something and she now and then says pretty quickly, it's going all over me.

And before she and her sister get home, Ella collapses on the ground.

Ella and her sister are both crying out for help.

Lily does not appear to have any symptoms so far.

And some bystanders help them get to the rest of the way home, but Ella doesn't want anybody touching her.

And eventually, once they get her in the house, while she is being carried in the house, she starts convulsing and she bites her tongue so hard that it bleeds.

I'm assuming now this sounds like poison, definitely.

Yeah, I am moved off any food poisoning.

This really does sound like a poison that is now systemic within Ella.

And wondering, did Rosa have the same symptoms?

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 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.

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We don't have a ton of information about the symptoms that Rosa had.

And the reason is, just as of far as right now, is that Ella was really the main person who spoke to her.

So, you know, she was definitely complaining about a hurt stomach.

And of course, she vomited.

And we have more information about what happens with Rosa.

There are two doctors who come.

One is Dr.

Mitchell, you know, whose party she had just come from.

And then other guys named Dr.

Haskell, they both look at Ella, who is now full-on convulsing, and they can't seem to get the convulsions under control, and they cannot figure out the cause.

How do you get convulsions under control?

Is it with a medicine?

Well, I think in this day and age, yeah.

If they have an antagonist to whatever the toxin is, then possibly they would be able to provide that to the patient.

But back in the 1890s, I'm not sure what they would have given.

I'm kind of curious because I'm sure that they probably had anticonvulsance.

And I'm just looking at this reference book that was written.

It's on toxicology and written back in 1892.

So it is contemporaneous to

this case.

We haven't gotten this book, I think, since the very beginning.

Maybe the first, actually, I think, Paul, the last time you looked at this book was episode number one.

I think this was our first episode.

That is true.

Right?

Because it was William Rice.

That's the last time you looked at this book.

Well, look at that.

100 episodes later, and I'm pulling the book out again.

You're still pulling your book from 1892 out.

Okay, so page 139, convulsives.

Let's see what they say here.

In this textbook, which is called The Essentials of Forensic Medicine, Toxicology, and Hygiene, written in 1892, it does have a section in here about convulsives.

And the first convulsive is poisoning by Nux vomica, Nux vomica seeds, and the symptoms are the same as those caused by strychnine.

Strychnine, which is an alkaloid.

So, you know, back in 1892, they were very well aware of some of these compounds that were causing convulsions.

And obviously, these compounds can be fatal.

You know, so treatment for some of these convulsives is stomach pump, the use of charcoal.

Chloroform should be administered to overcome the trismus, which I'm not sure what that is.

Numerous remedies have been advocated: opium, morphine, nicotine, tannin, prosic acid.

It's like this hodgepodge of various compounds.

I'm not sure they're actually making the person better or not by adding all of that.

Well, I can tell you trismus is the restriction of the range of motion of the jaw.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, initially described in the setting of tetanus, it currently refers to restricted mouth opening due to any etiology.

Etiology, is that right?

Yeah.

So all of that is to say they have some wacky ways of stopping convulsions.

Is that right?

It seems like, yeah,

they have a variety of compounds that they could administer.

And it seems like these compounds would have been hit or miss, you know, in terms of being effective.

Well, you hit on one already.

So she eventually does have her convulsions slowed down, but her breathing is very labored.

She's conscious, but she can only give some partial responses to questions and doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense in general.

A third doctor comes to Ella's bedside at five in the morning, and his name is Dr.

Ludwig, and he's been called by the other two doctors who sound like they're panicking.

When he gets there, he sees that Ella's eyes are bloodshot.

And the other two doctors said they gave her chloroform.

She's been given chloroform as an anesthetic.

And this was a thing.

And they stopped doing it because it caused liver failure and some cardiac problems.

Nope, for sure.

So she was given chloroform, and you had just mentioned chloroform.

Yeah, yeah.

Chloroform, you know, we've used it in the lab back in the day.

You know, it's a solvent and it's a very toxic solvent.

You know, of course, everybody thinks of chloroform, you know, from the movies where you have a handkerchief that's been soaked in chloroform and it's put over the person's mouth and they immediately pass out.

Well, it really doesn't work like that, or at least not that quickly.

But it is.

something that I've used personally in terms of within a lab environment.

So I am familiar with it.

Sometimes with these old stories, we get descriptions.

I know it's not as technical as you want but we do get the doctors giving us descriptions that i think can lead you to an impression of what the symptoms are this might be one of them ella has three fits of convulsions while this doctor ludwick is there and he says her tongue looks really swollen it looks to him like she has had typhoid fever for about two weeks but ella was healthy just hours ago so does that tell you anything he said just swollen swollen tongue no not that i can think of off the top of my head but it's interesting.

She dies at seven in the morning.

This is 11 hours after leaving Dr.

Mitchell's house.

She dies with her back arched in a convulsion, which sounds awful.

I mean, that sounds like tetanus.

Strychnine, right?

Strychnine.

So you have this,

in terms of, yeah, the muscles end up just completely flexing.

And that would be horrific, you know, because it's almost like your whole body is within one big cramp.

Okay, so we have Ella has died.

Sounds like she's ingested a poison, something along the lines of strychnine.

What's going on with Rosa?

Rosa is slowly recovering and does not feel well one little bit.

Going back to Ella, just briefly, Dr.

Haskell says, you know, he thinks this is strychnine.

He says, you know, it's odorless.

It has a bitter taste, though, and it attacks, of course, the nervous system.

And he says he's seen the arching of the back as a common sign for strychnine poisoning.

So if you're thinking about suspects, aren't you thinking, you know, Dr.

Mitchell, whose house this party has been thrown in, would be a suspect.

A doctor would absolutely have access, easy access to strychnine.

Yeah, for sure.

But, you know, now when we start timelining this out, you have Dr.

Mitchell is not present at the beginning of the party.

He comes home after the party has started.

You know, part of the question that I have is the onset of strychnine symptoms.

If these symptoms take a few hours, could there have been an exposure to strychnine with Ella earlier in the day, you know, a few hours prior to the party?

Or do these symptoms manifest themselves very quickly?

And is this something that Ella and Rosa had been exposed to while the party was going on?

And did Ella just happen to have the larger dose, so to speak?

And maybe Rosa was more accidental with whatever the, you know, the source of this, this toxin was?

Well, let's take one thing at a time.

You know, Dr.

Mitchell being in the house, he comes after dinner has been served, but we don't know if they've gone back for seconds.

We don't know, you know, there are not people paying attention necessarily to the plates on the table.

He was there before the cake was served, and Lily made the cake, and another guest made the cake also.

So there's kind of

a lot of possibilities.

There's also a little 10-year-old boy, you know, popping around, maybe curious about, you know, the boarders dinner party and you've got these two housekeepers.

There's an awful lot of people in this house.

So while I'm not saying Dr.

Mitchell's the one who did this, I am saying there might have been opportunity to, you know, give any of these women some poison.

I don't know why, but the opportunity could have been there for sure.

Okay.

And then, of course, it's like, well, how, how is the poison being administered?

If it is through the food that the entire group is eating,

then with something like strychnine, I think everybody would be exhibiting some level of symptoms, depending on how much is ingested and, of course, their own personal sensitivity and response.

So, if these other individuals that are eating the same food stuff aren't exhibiting any symptoms, then I start to wonder: okay, maybe Ella and/or Rosa were specifically targeted and the administration was more direct to them in some manner, whether their drink was laced, whether some object that only they would have touched or Ella, if she's the primary target, would typically have interacted with.

So the offender would be trying to just specifically dose Ella through some mechanism.

And Rosa just happens to also interact or ingest, you know, whatever was initially thought to be targeted towards Ella.

That's my thought right now.

Yeah.

And right now, if we are investigators, we don't know enough about the relationships between any of these people, including Dr.

Mitchell,

whose wife had died, you know, a year earlier.

We don't know enough about the relationships just yet.

The coroner has an inquest and they determine that they need an autopsy, no kidding.

So they take Ella's stomach and remove it.

And the DA and the coroner together personally deliver it to a lab in Chicago for an analyst by a chemist at Rush Medical College.

They could do this in 1891.

There was some toxicology.

The chemist finds strychnine in her stomach, and he says it is three-eighths of a grain, and a half a grain is considered a fatal dose.

So this is slightly less, but this is all that he gets out of her stomach.

There could have been more in there.

So that is what ends up happening.

So it's definitely strychnine.

Right.

And since it's within stomach contents and this was orally ingested, you know, so what did Ella ingest that the others didn't, except for maybe Rosa?

Well, let's keep going here.

Ella is buried a couple of days later.

Rosa, who is the other victim, has totally recovered and she attends the funeral.

She collapses.

She is incredibly upset.

She has to be taken home by sleigh.

I thought that was an interesting little comment.

I mean, it's winter in Wisconsin.

So, of course, they have sleighs.

And Dr.

Mitchell is there too.

So we have a, in my opinion, a host of suspects here, but you're right.

It's like, how do everybody else except for these two women get away with not being sick?

And we have to figure out what they individually have had that the other people hadn't.

So let's talk about the investigation.

They, of course, do exactly what they're supposed to do.

They're talking to everybody in Ella's inner circle, including Lily.

They look at Lily.

Lily was the one there with her.

They talked to everybody at the dinner party.

They talked to Dr.

Mitchell and they talked to Rosa.

and they start asking things, you know, I mean, does she have any enemies?

And when they get to the question, did anything happen that was a little strange?

There is some anecdotal evidence of some strange things happening.

And they start focusing in on somebody who was very close to Ella, someone who they believe had a motive once they started talking to people in town.

And the rumor mill starts churning and they start looking at another young woman and they start looking at Rosa.

Oh, that's interesting.

The two women that are at the party that are exhibiting symptoms, Ella is the one targeted.

She receives the fatal dose of strychnine.

But I could see where Rosa, if she's the one administering and having to handle the strychnine ahead of time, trying to take care not to poison herself, but somehow ends up getting a smaller dose of strychnine.

I kind of like that scenario.

Here's my question for you, Paul.

They never collect the vomit.

That was the first thing I thought of.

Well, let's go get the vomit that she supposedly had in the basin.

I mean, it wouldn't have been something flushed.

It would have been probably, you know, something that was laying around.

I mean, a basin.

So I guess it had been washed out, maybe.

Was there any, did she wipe her mouth on a towel?

Can they test it?

They had done none of that.

There is no way to prove that Rosa had any kind of strychnine in her system.

Could she have made herself throw up?

fairly easily walking down the stairs with Ella or no?

Well, you know, sure, Rosa is vomiting, vomiting, but I don't think that that necessarily means that she orally ingested, even if it was accidental.

I would have to take a look at: is there the possibility of transdermal absorption of strychnine?

If it's in a powder form, could you accidentally inhale it if you get some of the powder wafting up into the air?

Of course, the scenario that you brought up, like if she's washed, you know, after she handles strychnine and she's washing her hands or handling a towel and then wipes her mouth or something, maybe is that just just enough, you know, where you have this oral absorption to cause the symptoms, but it's a non-fatal dose.

So, yeah, I think, you know, the vomit, of course, from a forensic standpoint, to try to determine why Rosa was feeling symptoms would have been critical.

Because in essence, her stomach is self-pumping itself.

And so the evidence is going to be in that, what was it, a basin or an urn that she threw up in?

And that's gone.

Yeah, obviously she could have been making up her symptoms symptoms and then made herself throw up, I guess.

Sure.

Coming down the stairs.

So here is some, I think, would be soft evidence and then a little bit harder evidence.

So the weird circumstantial evidence is that we are now finding out some things.

Rosa had visited Ella at work.

She worked at a store as a cashier.

She visited her that day three times.

Rosa invited Ella and her sister to a party, right?

The party that night.

The second time, she asks Ella if she likes raw oysters.

Ella says, uh, no, but that Rosa, you know, you give them to everybody else.

It doesn't matter to me.

I'll just eat the oranges and the cake, and that's it.

Ella said to a coworker that was really weird.

She thought that was strange.

And remember, Rosa made oyster soup because presumably, if she's guilty, she knew that Ella would not eat raw oysters.

Yeah, but I'm having a problem that if the strychnine is being put into the stock supply of the oyster soup, that everybody is going to be having a problem with the strychnine exposure.

So, somehow, if Rosa is the one that's responsible, she is able to target Ella, who orally ingests strychnine, through some mechanism.

Maybe it was, if Ella's the only one eating oranges, you know, maybe it was an orange that was laced with strychnine.

So, that's that's where I kind of move away from the oyster soup, unless Rosa is the one dishing out the soup and has an opportunity in Ella's bowl to put the strychnine.

I'm picturing this as a formal dinner party.

Maybe she even hands dishes of the soup from the kitchen to the housekeepers and have them serve these women.

That was not mentioned anywhere, but I could absolutely see formally everybody sitting down and Rosa going in and out of the kitchen, serving two bowls at a time and being able to sprinkle strychnine specifically in Ella's soup.

But I don't know.

You're right.

So we still are trying to figure that part out.

And so are investigators.

So, you know, police keep trying to figure out what's going on.

And they ask Lily, give us a better timeline because their belief and kind of what I was looking up, you can tell me what you think.

What I just read for strychnine on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says exposures to high levels of strychnine may result in respiratory failure leading to death and brain death within 15 to 30 minutes.

Wow.

And seizures can start within 15 minutes.

This is not a 15-minute dinner party, Paul.

I mean, this is something happened as people were leaving and they were on their walk home.

I mean, this had to have started on the walk home is when the seizures started.

Right.

And so the exposure is happening in all likelihood within a half an hour of Ella leaving the house, right?

Yep.

So we've got Rosa coming down the stairs.

She feels okay.

And this is, I'm telling, don't blame me.

I'm telling you, the investigators are getting this in real time here.

And Rosa is saying goodbye to the sisters.

And they are walking out the door.

And she stops them and says, wait a second, I have kind of a party gift for the two of you.

And it is those chocolate creams.

Oh, yeah.

And she hands them each a bag.

And Ella bites into one and says it's bitter.

And Lily says, don't worry about it.

This tastes good to me.

And then within about 20 minutes, it starts to happen.

And that's when investigators go, oh, gosh.

Okay.

Let's take her in immediately.

yeah we've got a uh a lover's triangle and a jealous woman okay is that that's your prediction that's what we think is happening that's that's my theory right now if if if everything is as as you've laid it out and rosa pre-plans poisoning ella Rosa lives with Dr.

Mitchell,

but I think Dr.

Mitchell may be having some sort of relationship with Ella and Rosa also has feelings for Dr.

Mitchell and now she's taken out her competition.

That is my prediction on this right now.

Ding, ding, ding for you, Paul.

Luckily, it's my next line.

Police say she's jealous.

And I mean, this story gets weirder as we go on here, but the newspaper reports this, that Rosa wanted to marry Dr.

Mitchell.

She's known him for three years.

and that he had recently been paying a lot of attention to Ella.

There is zero sign that either of these women slept with him, which would have been surprising for me if that had happened.

We don't know if Ella returned his affections.

We don't know what the affections actually were.

It's the perception Rosa wanted to be with Dr.

Mitchell.

And she thought that eliminating, this is what the police are saying, is she thought that eliminating Ella would have been the way to do it.

Right.

And that's a very important point when you mentioned the term perception.

You know, we talk about motive.

And during an investigation, you can't find, you know, just like you said, there didn't appear to be any type of relationship between Dr.

Mitchell and Ella, but it's all how the offender is perceiving things.

There may not have been anything going on, but maybe the way Dr.

Mitchell, you know, looked at Ella at a certain time, Rosa interprets that as, you know, some sort of romantic gesture.

And so in her head, she is now jealous.

You know, so it's always, you always have to think about these things from the offender's perspective.

Well, let's keep going with this.

You know, I have said this a million times.

People kill for the same reason hundreds of years ago as they do now.

Jealousy is what we're talking about here.

But the police have said, this is what we think happened.

This is why we think Ella was targeted.

We think that Rosa faked all of her own illness and she put, you know, strychnine in the chocolates, which are now long gone.

But the police are saying we have another concern, which is they find out from Dr.

Mitchell that Rosa was the primary caregiver of his wife.

And he did not think anything weird about his wife's death nine months earlier after she gave birth to the baby.

But now they think something weird happened and they're going to exhume Minnie Mitchell's body because they think Rosa is attached to it.

Okay.

Well, then that tells me that when Minnie died, that possibly whatever post-death medical oversight was inadequate, right?

Probably no autopsy, maybe

just

a medical doctor signing off on a death certificate, saying, Yep, you know what, sepsis, whatever the diagnosis was.

But could there have been the administration?

We see

caregivers who have prolonged exposure to patients can chronically dose toxins at low levels without causing, you know, causing the dramatic symptoms.

And so, like with Minnie, that's where I would expect something like arsenic, right?

Low dose of arson over time.

But I am curious to see, you know, where this leads, you know, with whatever they find during the exhumation.

And then if there's any more information about the symptoms that Minnie was exhibiting that led up to her death.

Fever, you know, having problems breathing, not feeling well for a couple of months.

I mean, just sort of suffering through.

The doctors, including her husband, said this is sort of textbook, whatever you would call that, a bacterial infection after having problems after childbirth.

So those were the symptoms.

What can we expect after nine months?

She's been underground for nine months.

There's a chance she had been embalmed because embalming really started in the Civil War time period, but I don't have that information.

And she wasn't autopsied, I'm assuming.

Now, not initially, but she has been been now.

Yeah.

So at least, you know, when she's going into the ground, when she's buried, you know, her body is intact.

Whereas a body that's been autopsied has obviously been opened up, the organs have been removed.

There's been a lot of disruption.

In this scenario, my expectation that if you are dealing with a toxin that is metallic-based, you know, most certainly that would be present in the tissues, you know, strychnine, you know, these alkaloids, you know, there's probably going to be a diminished level just because it's an organic compound.

And just through decomposition that's occurring, even with bodies that are embalmed, these organic compounds will diminish over time, but it's possible that they could persist.

But I think I would be going after where the primary

concentrations would have been, you know, whether the stomach contents, liver.

you know, if it's oral ingestion of toxins, you know, everything passes initially through the liver.

Is there evidence of some sort of toxin, you know, that has had an ill effect on her liver and so on and so forth.

And this is where, you know, I start getting way out of my wheelhouse in terms of, you know, various toxins have target organs, target tissues.

And so this is where relying upon a toxicologist, you know, to determine, okay, this is the type of samples I need from this body to comprehensively determine whether or not there is something like strychnine present.

Well, let me tell you what they find and kind of an odd explanation that you've already talked about.

Minnie Mitchell is exhumed, and they look at her stomach, and they find the presence of strychnine.

So that's, I guess, the good news.

Here's the confusing news, Paul.

You used this phrase already.

Her husband testified that he was medicating her when she was sick with that word you said, that phrase you said, nux vomica, which is a medicine derived from strychnine that they used for a lot of things.

Incidentally, it has also been used to treat erectile dysfunction.

More you know.

At the time, or currently?

No, currently, I believe.

Okay.

I mean, don't do it.

Don't do this at home, kids.

But he was treating her with it.

I don't have any information on how much.

And of course, I mean, I don't think once her body's been in the ground for that long, I'm not sure any measurement would be accurate after nine months anyway, but it's there.

But he said, well, I gave her some of it.

Yeah.

Well, and I think, you know, when you start talking about quantifying the amount of toxin in the 1890s, you know, I know with Ella, the Chicago toxicologist said like three grains, right?

Or three eighths of a grain, right?

Yeah.

That's probably a very, very rough estimate.

But with some, somebody like Minnie, you know, now I think what they're doing is they're likely doing crystal tests where now

with certain reagents, if you have a crystal that forms in the presence of strychnine, it tells you, yep, it's positive for strychnine, strychnine, but they can't tell you exactly, well, how much strychnine is present in these stomach contents.

It's just that it's positive.

That would be my guess.

And any estimation that the toxicologist is doing is going to be very, very rough at best.

Well, thank goodness.

I mean, I'm not defending Rosa because I don't know about her guilt or innocence yet, but they initially charged her with Minnie's murder, but then they dropped the charges.

I mean, I think even they in 1891 now, that's not enough evidence, especially if you've got the doctor saying, well, I did give her strychnine to treat her.

So, you know, if we move back over to Ella for a minute.

They start saying, okay, well, where, if this is Rosa and not the doctor or someone else, where is she getting strychnine from?

Which, you know, throw a rock and you could hit strychnine in a product.

Of course, in the 1800s, they find it in the house.

It's in a cabinet that anybody, including the 10-year-old kid, could reach.

And it is in a bottle with a regular cork.

anybody could open it up it's clearly marked and they're using it as rat poison i talk about rough on rats this is not rough on rats so rough on rats in the 1800s has come up in so many of my stories that was a mixture of arsenic and coal but strychnine is another version of rough on rats and so they had it there this is not hidden under her bed you know it's there and anybody could have grabbed it so far Sure.

So it's, you know, the, if you want to call it the murder weapon is freely accessible.

You know, I think it is, you know, it is stunning when you, when you start thinking about, you know, here you have this very lethal toxin that is just basically available that anybody could access.

However, somebody like Rosa would most certainly be aware of how toxic it is,

though probably doesn't have any experience in terms of utilizing it, you know, in order to kill somebody.

You know, so this is where now she's making, if she's the one that's making these chocolate creams.

Well, she bought them and then she added it in theory.

But just to Ella's poll, because she must have really given them their own little goodie bag, because Lily ate one and said, this is fine.

What are you complaining about?

Well, yeah, the bitter taste is the giveaway.

It just seems obvious to me.

You know, the bitter tasting chocolate cream, which should be chocolatey and sweet.

You know, Ella is immediately going, this doesn't taste right.

So, you know, I'm completely on board.

That's how Ella ingested the strychnine.

And if Rosa is the one giving it to her and her sister at the same time, that's definitely looking targeted.

There's pre-planning.

If we talk this out, if you really think about this, so I was thinking bitter.

Why would she not put it in the oysters?

But I think Rosa needed her out of the house and on her way home for this to work.

And so kind of just shoving some chocolates at her and saying, hey, why don't you try one of these was a good way.

Or she even better would have waited till she got home and tried one one at home.

I mean, the further away that she got from Rosa, the better it would have been for Rosa, I thought.

But I was thinking, serve it with something spicy.

Why are you giving her the opportunity to complain about how bitter this is in some really sweet chocolate?

Rosa may be completely oblivious to how the strychnine would alter the taste, right?

She just knows, hey, this rat poison is available.

I'm going to give it to Ella.

Yep.

Not knowing it's a very bitter-tasting substance.

So this all happens in January.

She goes on trial trial in June.

They have to get a change of venue because so many people in this area know about this case and they're convinced of Rosa's guilt, which I have to say is sort of surprising.

I mean, I've been dealing with female poisoners over the 1800s, early 1900s.

And even though I know it's poison is supposed to be a lady's choice of weapon, I still have found that sort of over a broad survey of the stories that I've done, that people are still disbelieving that women would do this in this time period specifically.

Of course, I'm not surprised women do anything now, but in this time period, be quiet, Paul.

But in this time period, you know, people were shocked and they were not.

Boy, they just thought she was guilty.

And they said, we've got to change the venue.

Yeah, well, you know, and at least all the circumstances that you've laid out to me and some of the objective evidence, Ella's stomach contents with the strychnine in there, you know, this really does seem to point at Rosa for sure.

Now, I'm going to be shocked if you send me on a whole 180-degree

tangent from that,

like you have a tendency to do.

Watch it, buddy.

I think I'm on board with everybody that's following the trial back in the 1890s is that, yeah, it appears that Rosa was jealous of Ella and the attention Dr.

Mitchell was giving Ella and decided to off her competitor.

So just like the hordes of people who aren't even letting this poor poor woman go on trial yet, you're jumping on board with her guilt.

I am too, in a way.

You're jumping on board.

Okay.

And women are very capable of committing homicide in a wide variety of ways.

Yep.

Thanks for that.

The courtroom is packed to suffocation.

This is a, you know, not surprising at all, true crime lovers in the 1800s.

There is some interesting witness testimony that I have to ask you about.

Anna, who is the housekeeper in the Mitchell house, she testifies.

It sounds like Rosa wanted to testify and her attorneys very smartly shut that down.

So Anna gets on the stand and she says that after she heard that Ella had died, but before Rosa was charged, which was just maybe a two-week period, Rosa had gone to Anna and said, do you think that murderers can be redeemed?

And she also said that Anna was praying that day, heard her praying that day, which I guess sounded really unusual.

Is this admissible in court?

Really?

I mean, does this really have anything to do with the case?

Well, admissibility, you know, here you have Anna is hearing directly from Rosa.

You know, so this isn't Anna hearing it secondhand.

She's hearing it directly.

So I think I would argue, you know, that this is

admissible because Anna is a witness, primary witness to that statement.

I'm sure there could be arguments made, you know, to try to prevent that statement from being admitted into court in terms of relevance.

You know, I could see where the defense would object to relevance because it's not Rosa making

an explicit statement, I murdered Ella.

Am I redeemable?

It's more of this vague question.

You know, and I think that that's where you'd have the prosecutor and the defense making arguments in front of a judge as to whether or not the jury would hear that.

But I think, at least, because it's a primary statement from Rosa to Anna, it's not secondhand.

I think at least there is the possibility that is admissible.

Well, the defense goes to trying to show who has access to the poison.

It looks like everybody does.

And even Freddie has seen his dad put poison on top of cheese to kill these rats.

And then you've got the prosecutor, on the other hand, really wanting to nail down the motive.

So here are what witnesses say.

Witnesses say that Rosa said that Minnie had said to her, essentially, Rosa, if I die, then I think you should marry my husband.

Witnesses also testify that Dr.

Mitchell remarrying was a popular topic of conversation around the women, among the women in town because he was a handsome, somewhat wealthy guy.

So she is already around town saying that Minnie said that, you know, when she dies, that I should be gifted her husband, essentially, which just sounds delusional.

Well, yeah.

And are these witnesses saying that they actually saw and heard Minnie tell Rosa this or they're hearing this from Rosa?

This is Rosa.

Yeah.

So this is, this is Rosa.

She's got a fantasy life in her head.

She's also laying the groundwork for, you know, down the road, what her plans are.

You know, she's hoping that her and Dr.

Mitchell are going to become a couple.

And that all just further underscores the motive of why Ella gets targeted by Rosa if Rosa is perceiving Ella as now gaining Dr.

Mitchell's attention and affection.

Yeah, and it gets a little worse because we have other people chiming in.

There's another doctor who testifies who's a friend of Dr.

Mitchell's.

And this doctor says, now, I don't know how long they're waiting after Minnie dies to say stuff like this, but this friend of his says, I think you should consider Ella as another wife for you.

She's a nice woman.

I think you'd be a good match.

Rosa hears this.

She goes to this doctor friend and says, Hey,

would you recommend me instead of Ella?

No word on what his response was to that.

I'm sure it was bug off.

But this is about six months before Ella was poisoned.

So she's seeing now Dr.

Mitchell paying more attention to Ella.

Again, I have not heard one thing, Paul, that says that Ella was at all interested in this man.

Nothing.

Sure.

But Rosa is, again, she has her, she has this fantasy.

And if

something is interrupting that fantasy from her perception, that's what gives her the motive to go after Ella.

Yeah.

You know, I did this story for Tenfold.

I think it was season four of Tenfold More Wicked about Clara Phillips, who was a woman in L.A.

in the 1920s.

And her husband was, I believe, a philanderer.

I mean, he was sleeping with people.

And she was fixated on one woman named Alberta Meadows.

And she was convinced that they were sleeping together.

And it turns out they really weren't.

Clara was so focused on this woman that she draws her into

a rural part of L.A.

and beats her to death with a hammer.

And she's covered in blood.

And she comes home and she says to her husband as she takes off these bloody driving gloves, I have taken care of our problem.

And now I'm going to cook you the best dinner of your life.

I mean, eliminating the problem.

That is cold-blooded too, right?

Yeah.

Well, Rosa is denying all of this.

She doesn't take the stand.

She, you know, seems like this mysterious woman.

She is found guilty, thankfully, and sentenced to prison in 1891.

Okay.

So a good thing happens.

However, there are people in the Richland Center community who are saying this woman got a raw deal.

There's no real evidence.

It's anecdotal.

Nobody saw her do it.

And we think it's the rumor mill.

We think it's because she really liked Dr.

Mitchell.

And people thought that was maybe inappropriate, or she wasn't good enough for Dr.

Mitchell because she was a boarder.

And other people could have done it, including Dr.

Mitchell.

So they start circulating a petition.

The case is appealed to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

The judge declines to overturn the conviction, but she's in prison for six years, and she is granted a pardon by the governor of Wisconsin on the last day of his term, and she's released.

Well, okay.

Why is he granting her a pardon?

Did she have attorneys that were pursuing that with him?

I believe so, friends of hers.

And I think he just thought there was not enough evidence.

And of course, she's a woman.

He grants her a pardon.

She moves to Oklahoma to be with her family who had relocated again.

And the speculation, she really liked Wisconsin, but the speculation is she wanted to get out of Dodge because they could have always anytime charged her with the murder of Minnie Mitchell, which I'm sure George Mitchell would have enjoyed, you know, having that taken care of also.

So she is gone.

We don't know anything else.

We don't know if she poisoned other people.

We don't know what kind of life she led after this, but we know that somebody who most certainly murdered a young woman in an incredibly painful way, incredibly painful, only served six years, less than six years.

Yeah, you know, and I'm just kind of going over the case in my head.

You know, it is a circumstantial case for sure.

And I can see where under appeal, Rosa's attorneys could be making some very valid statements about the inadequacy of the people's case.

You know, so in some ways, from a legal standpoint, I'm not having too much.

problem with the idea that maybe

the conviction wasn't as strong as what it it should have been.

However, I think I am convinced that Rosa is Ella's killer.

You know, so that's just part of those, you know, it's like from the investigative side, yeah, Rosa's the killer.

But legally, is it a strong case?

At least during our discussions, I don't think it's as strong of a case as what it could have been.

I agree.

And let's hope she never offered anyone else any chocolates after this because how awful I think for Dr.

Mitchell then to go on.

He's got two kids with no mom, four women he showed no interest in, and a young woman and her sister, and just really over one person's just sort of delusions.

I found this to be a sad case, but really compelling.

I mean, I love a good dinner party.

Somebody ends up murdered, who did it, kind of case.

I wish that there was a little bit more at the end of this of justice for Ella Molly, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, but also when you start talking about this type of case back in the the 1890s, you know, it's really, really tough to have that solid objective physical evidence because they just didn't have the technology back then.

Yeah.

I'm just glad they had toxicology or at least this level of toxicology.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's something that as I

have looked at, in particular, this textbook I have from the 1890s, I'm...

quite frankly blown away about how sophisticated they were, you know, well before, you know, the modern technology that we have today with the instrumentation and the computers and our ability to really detect all sorts of drugs and toxins.

So it always impresses me, you know, when we talk about some of these old cases with those people that have developed expertise, you know, whether it be, you know, a crime scene investigator from way back when or an investigator or a pathologist and seeing how the ones that really were good, they were good.

They just didn't have the tools that we have today.

Yeah.

And then I always like it when we talk about something like, you know, from American Sherlock Edward Oscar Heinrich firing, you know, a bullet into paraffin wax.

And you saying, well, I did that in the 70s or whenever it was that you did it.

You're saying I'm doing that in the 70s.

I think you just put about 30 years on my age.

Sorry about that.

You said you've done that.

That kind of technique you had learned a long time ago, that kind of technique before.

And I think that's, you know, I mean, I think that's great that sometimes things, it's just a good old-fashioned police work and forensic work that can catch some of these people.

So we're off next week, but the following week, I'll have another mystery for you to help me solve.

All right.

I'm looking forward to it.

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 Toliday.

Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel.

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

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

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod.

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

And Paul's best-selling memoir, memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

Old cases, new waters.

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.

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We'll see you on the ship.

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