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[Assistant] John, uh, Joan often was pretty upset and lamented that John hardly knew their son.


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[Assistant] And never really made any attempt to engage in the typical father-son activities like camping or sports or...


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[Assistant] It is. To not make an effort. And that's the thing, her complaints about


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[Assistant] To accommodate his interests and his tastes.


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[Assistant] The family was struggling with finances, even at that level. Because he was going so hard. Because he was going so hard on his own shit, not even like pouring it into a little boot there.


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[Assistant] But the most important thing to John in his own eyes was to build a music room in the house where he could retreat. It's like, what are you fucking retreating from? Retreating from what man? You don't see your kid. You don't see your kid ever. He just wanted to retreat to play or listen to music.


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[Assistant] And after contracting with Houston based engineer Louis or Louis Earth.


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[Assistant] John told the man, since I was a little boy, it has been my dream to build such a room. Money's no object. The only goal is perfection.


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[Assistant] It's like, money is an object. You have a fucking family to provide for and you're spending all of this money. It's an object, man. Now, years later.


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[Assistant] Uh, Louis recalled his initial conversation with John, noting that the man was not just insistent, but he said he actually seemed possessed. Whoa. Like he was like, he was so obsessed about this room. Really intense about this.


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[Assistant] Not only did the music room dig the hills deeper into debt,


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[Assistant] But it also gave John one more place where he could escape his family, which he did not need. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Joan demanded that he take a few days off and drive with her to pick up boot from summer camp.


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[Assistant] Where he'd been, uh, for four weeks. He went to like a little, a little program. Yeah. John agreed to take the trip, but neither of them knew that it would be a trip that only further complicated things in their marriage.


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[Assistant] So here Joan is being like, can you actually show up for once? Yeah. And then the one time this motherfucker does show up, it changes everything. What happened? In a bad way.


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[Assistant] It was at Camp Rio Vista that John first met a woman named Anne Kurth.


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[Assistant] One afternoon, as John was sitting with the other families in the mess hall for lunch,


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[Assistant] He just leaned over and introduced himself to Miss Anne there and her son, who were seated right by him.


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[Assistant] Oh, come on. And when they return to Houston a few days later...


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[Assistant] And knew that John was married. To a society woman, no less. But she figured she would entertain the little fantasy for a little while longer before ultimately shutting it down for the sake of, uh, decency and decorum. And come on.


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[Assistant] What the fuck. Both of you. What the fuck. But the problem was, she liked the attention. Oh, fuck off. And more than that, she really liked John Hill. Well, he's married. Uh huh. Uh huh.


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[Assistant] The afternoon photo sharing was soon followed by a lunch. Then another lunch.


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[Assistant] And before long, Anne and John were engaged in exactly the kind of relationship that Anne said she had planned to avoid from the start. Please, Anne. Yeah, bitch please.


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[Assistant] After a few weeks of clandestine meetings, I love the word clandestine. Yeah, it makes it sound so much nicer than it actually is. I know, secret.


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[Assistant] Asshole meetings. Bullshit. Betrayal.


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[Assistant] Not your fucking kid though. So after a few weeks of those secret meetings, John was upfront with Ann about his intentions. She later recalled, he informed me that from this moment on, I was to consider my time fully taken up by Dr. John Hill. I'm sorry, what? He was like, you're mine.


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[Assistant] I want you marked territory. This is really gross. Agreed. This is really gross. Yeah. Well, Ann was like, okay, what about your wife? John said-


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[Assistant] And he was quote, trapped in a marriage he had to get out of.


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[Assistant] Over the years, he said they drifted apart, they were living two separate lives, they had very different interests, different goals, you know, she wanted to raise their kid, he didn't. And by the end of summer,


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[Assistant] Though John and Anne had become lovers, and now he had to figure out


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[Assistant] Now one fall day, Joan returned home from a horse show to find a note. I repeat.


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[Assistant] I do hate you. I'll post it. Oh my god, I can't. Same level. That's fucked up. Same level. That is. So obviously fucking enraged, Joan called the surgical practice over and over and over and over again.


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[Assistant] But her husband never returned her calls. Her husband and the father of her child. Correct. Never returned her calls.


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[Assistant] Ash is going to stand for this. That night she went to her parents, she told them what happened, and Ash's instinct, this man's, this man's is a fajah. His instinct was to hire a private detective to find all the information he possibly could to destroy his son-in-law. And you know what?


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[Assistant] And in the two weeks that followed, she told everybody about what her husband had done, how he simply walked out on her and boot.


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[Assistant] Like that would be... Which I have Tom Petty tattooed on my body. Yeah, like fuck that, you're gone. Literally done.


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[Assistant] Can you walk out on your wife and your child? And then the worst part of this, and I feel like you'll agree, the worst part of this to me is finally after the word had spread all around Houston,


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[Assistant] This is just hot girl shit. With her best friend waiting just around the corner, Joan and John met at a downtown restaurant. She had her BFF right there.


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[Assistant] And they met to discuss their marriage in the future. It did not take more than a few minutes for this conversation, uh, to turn into a shouting match. And John just got up and left.


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[Assistant] Can't take the heat. Can't. So when Joan returned to where her friend was waiting, the two women jumped in their car and followed John.


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[Assistant] And the woman that they could now see was in his vehicle with him.


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[Assistant] This is so gross. He brought his mistress to a meeting to discuss his marriage. It was like, wait in the car while I figure this out.


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[Assistant] This is so icky. I know, it's giving, if you're watching Real Housewives of Miami right now, that's what it's giving my baby Lisa.


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[Assistant] This is just really gross. It's horrible. Like I feel for Joan so hard here. I do too. Like this is just really gross. You will feel for Joan for the rest of ever. Yeaah. Like, I really do.


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[Assistant] So after a slow motion car chase back to John's office, Joan confronted John and Anne, the woman who was in the car.


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[Assistant] Demanding to know whether they were having an affair. Now this is where shit gets wild as fuck.


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[Assistant] To her absolute astonishment, John lied and told his wife, quote, he was having an affair with this woman's husband and that he was being blackmailed.


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[Assistant] Couldn't tell ya. That is the strangest lie I have ever heard. I don't know if it was because Ann was right there, like...


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[Assistant] Either way, you're having an affair. Why are you lying about the person you're having an affair with? I don't know.


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[Assistant] He was being like, oh, like there's something wrong with me and like she'll forgive me for this.


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[Assistant] I don't know about that logic. That logic is ridiculous, but that's the only thing that I can see as to why he would have done that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. So Joan was uh, stunned by this news and also found it very hard to believe. And then she became even more suspicious when just a few weeks later anonymous notes started arriving in the mail telling her


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[Assistant] Her husband was having an affair, but with Anne. Yeah. And that Anne was only one of several women that he'd been cheating with. Oh god.


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[Assistant] This guy seems to have all the time. Suddenly all his time is just open.


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[Assistant] So by then he was more or less living in Anne's house and had cut off all communication with Joan. I take back my original.


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[Assistant] And when I say my opinion of John is like I'm not sure about him, I'm sure about the fact that he's an asshole. Like I'm sure about this. I'm just not sure about a later part and we'll get there.


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[Assistant] Which is how she learned for real, like 100% solid proof that he and Anne were having an affair.


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[Assistant] And that he was living with Anne. She didn't even know where he was living, cause he just left.


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[Assistant] Now, throughout the fall of, uh, 1968, the Hills' marriage had, uh, devolved into a strange dance of jealous stalking, John's attempts to get, or excuse me, Joan's attempts to get incriminating information on her husband, and- And it's just divorce. Just a whole bunch of nasty.


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[Assistant] You know, it's fine. Guy sucks. It's something. But instead of just, you know, getting divorced.


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[Assistant] They drove, uh, Joan drove around Ann Curt's neighborhood, started shopping where Ann shopped, followed John regularly, in the hopes that she would catch him in the midst of the affair.


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[Assistant] By the end of the year, private detectives had confirmed that John had taken his own bachelor apartment.


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[Assistant] Which signaled to Joan that their separation was definitely permanent.


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[Assistant] At just 37 years old, she was about to become a divorcee for the third time.


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[Assistant] And so she was just going through it at this point. I think this is when she


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[Assistant] So she could, I think before she was feeling like vindictive and she wanted to get some kind of...


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[Assistant] She called John and she pleaded for him to return, saying that she wanted to work through their differences, like she wanted to give this a fighting chance, you know?


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[Assistant] But he explained that he was too wrapped up with Anne and he couldn't see how he could just walk away.


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[Assistant] And your child. Like to be told. Wow. I can't just walk away from this woman after this man has walked out on you and your baby.


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[Assistant] That's really disgusting. That's fuuuuck. That's honestly despicable. It is. Now, Joan's doorbell rang one day in November.


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[Assistant] And she answered it to find a lawyer standing before her with a divorce citation. She was being served papers.


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[Assistant] The document alleged that despite John's attempts at civility, his wife's behavior had led to irreconcilable differences, and that he was seeking to end the marriage.


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[Assistant] So Ash was like, nope, I'm gonna take care of this, like, this is not happening.


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[Assistant] She become reconciled with him and forgive his transgressions.


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[Assistant] Correct. I can neither confirm nor deny. Many people believe that Ash did have something to do with it. Okay. But no one knows for sure. Nobody can prove it. But people thought so.


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[Assistant] Either way though, Joan was happy to have avoided this great embarrassment that she thought a third divorce would be. And what everybody would have shamed her for.


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[Assistant] Everything that happened notwithstanding, she was pleased that John was going to end his relationship with Anne and finally come home.


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[Assistant] 100% did lead John Hill to sign this letter, so obviously, allegedly prepared by his father. Allegedly.


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[Assistant] But in doing so, he put himself in an unexpectedly difficult position. He had agreed to return home to Joan, but


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[Assistant] And those working in his surgical practice for information about his finances and his whereabouts. So now he's just doing the same thing to Anne that he did to Joan? Exactly. Jesus. Exactly.


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[Assistant] And because she's like, you know, trying to track him down all the time, the implication was either that she intended to sue him, or she was hoping to get him out of his marriage. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And to make matters worse, Ash Robinson intended to make sure that his son-in-law lived up to his end of whatever bargain the two men had allegedly struck.


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[Assistant] Allegedly. And allegedly. And while John attempted to manage uh,


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[Assistant] Manage, I say, quote unquote, two perilous relationships. He was constantly followed.


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[Assistant] Now, whether for the sake of everybody's safety or some other reason, John made the decision to move back home with Joan at the end of the year. I hate this. It's a lot.


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[Assistant] So in the first months of 1969, Joan tried to make several changes and what she saw as self-improvements aimed at keeping John happy. Like she was just trying to do anything she possibly could to save her marriage. Yea, there's nothing like getting cheated on. Yea.


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[Assistant] After everything that had happened, Anne was growing tiresome of the affair and started demanding that John decide between his wife or her. It's like Christ on a cracker.


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[Assistant] To add insult to injury, at the same time, John's music room was finally completed with a final price tag of just over $100,000. This music room cost more than their entire house.


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[Assistant] This one room inside of their home was more expensive than their entire home. And it's like what? And it's just for him! So he's just getting a fun present?


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[Assistant] He gets a fun reward after everything? Yes.


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[Assistant] And the room was, uh, exactly as he envisioned it. Oh good. And it gave him a reason to stay home with Joan, but uh,


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[Assistant] There was just too much resentment. Yeah, like what? Between the two of them. No way. For that marriage to ever survive.


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[Assistant] Had Joan not come down with what appeared to be a serious case of the flu in early March.


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[Assistant] Around the 15th of March, her friends became rather concerned about her health.


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[Assistant] She'd been sleeping a lot more than usual. She didn't really seem to have any energy for even the most basic social functions. According to Joan, she and John got in a fight over dinner the previous evening.


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[Assistant] And after struggling to fall asleep, he gave her a tranquilizer, which made her exceedingly tired. Joan's two friends became more alarmed the next day when they stopped by to check on her and learned that she had spent all day vomiting.


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[Assistant] That afternoon when the maid went to check on her after John had left for work.


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[Assistant] He's like leaving while his wife is in this condition and they're trying to figure out their marriage.


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[Assistant] There were signs around the room that she had tried to make it to the bathroom, but was too weak to even get there. Oh my god, that breaks my heart. It's horrific.


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[Assistant] The next day, Rhea Robinson, Joan's mother, stopped by to visit her daughter, and that's when she learned the condition that Joan was in. She had no idea.


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[Assistant] Like that's such a bummer. Absolutely fucked. So, Raya was horrified, absolutely horrified at the state that she found her daughter in, and demanded to know why John hadn't called an ambulance. Cause like you said, he's a doctor. He's a doctor. He should know this isn't okay. Yea, like plastic surgeon or like not, like you went through all your residency, you're a doctor.


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[Assistant] And she was told by John that he was quote, making arrangements for Joan to go to Sharpstown hospital.


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[Assistant] I mean, I don't think it's that hard to make arrangements here.


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[Assistant] Now, at the time, because obviously she was so distracted by the state that her daughter was in, it didn't occur to Rhea that Sharpstown Hospital was twice as far away as the Texas Medical Center, like she should have just been brought there.


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[Assistant] And at the time, it also didn't strike her as strange that under the obviously dire circumstances, John was prioritizing Joan being treated like a queen, but not treating her like one himself. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. And it's like, no, she doesn't need to be treated like a queen. She needs to be treated, period. Like she just needs to be treated. Yeah. So after some brief argument between Ash and John, the three, Rhea, John, and Ash, managed to get Joan into the car.


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[Assistant] And it was a much further away hospital than the one that they could have gone to.


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[Assistant] Joan was admitted to Sharpstown Hospital on March 18, 1969, for what doctors immediately assumed was a severe case of the flu.


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[Assistant] But that would be debated upon for years to come.


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[Assistant] At first, John's tone and that of the doctor he had asked to provide care for his wife was casual, and it hardly fit the situation at hand. It was only when one of the nurses checked Joan's blood pressure that they realized the grave danger she was in.


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[Assistant] Her blood pressure, I don't know a lot about it, I know you will, was 60 over 40.


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[Assistant] Oh, a hundred percent. As a doctor, he should have seen that something was dire. Amiss here. Yeah. Damn. Blood pressure 60 over 40. She actually should have been in shock and basically on the verge of death.


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[Assistant] Based on the symptoms she and John had reported, the doctor assumed that she had contracted some kind of food poisoning or maybe a bacterial infection, which could possibly explain the wide range of symptoms she had described.


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[Assistant] The attending doctors attempted to get Joan's blood pressure up while they waited on lab results from blood and fecal samples.


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[Assistant] But within just six hours after being admitted, Joan's kidneys started to fail.


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[Assistant] Now, by 8pm that night, doctors diagnosed her with kidney failure.


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[Assistant] So instead, they wanted to attempt, uhm, uh,


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[Assistant] But the problem was that the physicians wanted John's approval before beginning the procedure and he was nowhere to be found.


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[Assistant] Sometime in the middle of the night, she yelled out her husband's name and he woke up just in time to see, and this is very, uh, graphic.


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[Assistant] The hemorrhage had been very, very severe, and despite their best efforts to stabilize her.


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[Assistant] Joan Robinson Hill died in the early morning hours of March 19th, 1969.


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[Assistant] Like, and they were just about to do a life-saving procedure.


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[Assistant] Immediately following her death, John's reaction seemed quote unquote normal. We talk about this a lot, but it seemed quote unquote normal for a man who had just lost his wife. He wailed, he sobbed loudly, screaming no over and over and over.


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[Assistant] But his hospital staff tried to comfort him. Several did find it odd that


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[Assistant] Rather than call Joan's parents, John's first reaction was to call his own mother and a friend of his, Dr. Jim Oates, who lived just a few miles away.


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[Assistant] When Dr. Jim and Dottie Oates arrived at the hospital, they were both shocked to find that nobody had even washed the body yet, and that Joan was still covered in blood.


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[Assistant] So Dottie began washing Joan as carefully as she could.


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[Assistant] While John walked in and out of the room frequently interrupting her.


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[Assistant] When Dr. Bartonot informed John that the coroner must be called, he acknowledged what the man was saying, but immediately instructed Dr. Oates to call a funeral home.


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[Assistant] And have them come claim Joan's body to prepare for her burial as soon as possible.


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[Assistant] Then let it happen. Why would you ever step in between them? And you're a doctor, you know that.


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[Assistant] So the doctor managed to reach the coroner sometime between 4 and 6 am.


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[Assistant] But by then, the body had already been illegally removed from the hospital and taken to the funeral home to be prepared.


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[Assistant] The coroner would make his way to the funeral home intending to do the autopsy there. Yeah. But by the time he arrived, the embalming process had already been completed. Are you shitting me? And the technician at that point was moving on to the cosmetic procedures.


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[Assistant] Now despite the embalming process already having begun, the coroner stopped the procedure and began his autopsy.


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[Assistant] What? He took requisite tissue samples and other biological samples. I guess he's just trying at that point to get anything. Well, and I think at that point he's like, I don't need my fucking license stripped away from me for not doing an autopsy.


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[Assistant] Like, you're doing what you can do at this point. And I think that's what it was. He's trying to follow the law. Exactly. So he took requisite, uh, requisite, excuse me, tissue samples and other biological samples that could possibly help identify the cause of death.


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[Assistant] But as far as he could tell from his examination there was nothing to indicate what caused Joan to decline so quickly.


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[Assistant] It was a matter of days. He thought it could have been a cause of acute pancreatitis, which could have accounted for a lot of her symptoms, but there were still other symptoms that didn't quite fit.


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[Assistant] Now, nevertheless, pancreatitis was listed as Joan's cause of death, and the funeral was scheduled for March 21st, 1969.


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[Assistant] But, in the days that followed, questions and rumors began circulating among Joan and John's social circles.


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[Assistant] The top two questions on everybody's lips were,


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[Assistant] Not have recognized the signs of pancreatitis. That's what's fuckin' me up. And two, why hadn't he taken her to the hospital sooner? Exactly.


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[Assistant] Ash Robinson had his own questions and suspicions. I am positive of that. Rather than direct them at John, he instead went to the district attorney's office the day of his daughter's funeral. News of Joan's death had been in all the papers, and all of the papers were citing pancreatitis as the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Ash explained to the assistant district attorney, I.D. McMaster,


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[Assistant] That he had reason to believe John was responsible for his daughter's death, and he cited the following as evidence.


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[Assistant] He said number one, Joan had been perfectly healthy up to that point. Number two, she only became ill after eating food and taking medication that was given to her by Joan. Number three,


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[Assistant] She was obviously very, very sick in the days leading up to her death and John didn't take her to a hospital or allow anyone in the house to come see her. That's weird. According to him.


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[Assistant] Number four, he promised to take her to Sharpstown Hospital because she was going to receive the best care possible there. But when they arrived, the hospital had no ICU available for her. Like no, no bed available in the ICU. And again, like I just noted earlier, they lacked several of the machines and services that Joe needed.


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[Assistant] And finally, he said he consulted with several area physicians who claimed many of Joan's symptoms did not sound like symptoms of pancreatitis. I mean, I don't blame Ash. That's a daughter.


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[Assistant] Crazy divorce, like I'm not saying John did this one way or the other, but if that was my child and there was all of the circumstances surrounding this strange, sudden death, absolutely, you'd question it.


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[Assistant] So McMaster, the district attorney there, listened patiently while Ash spoke, and while he was speaking,


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[Assistant] He assumed that the man was still lost in his grief and just needed to get these accusations out of his symptoms.


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[Assistant] System. System. All of his systems. All of them. But with each point Ash's theory got maybe not stronger, but certainly more plausible to the man. It's interesting at the very least. Yeaah. And the assistant DA there knew, sorry I said the DA, he's the assistant DA, he knew that when someone as wealthy and powerful as Ash Robinson spoke,


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[Assistant] He was at the very least to be afforded the courtesy of being taken seriously so he did.


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[Assistant] But by the end of the conversation, McMaster said, you know what, I'm going to look into this.


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[Assistant] But that was not enough for Ash Robinson. He insisted that they needed to get somebody to the funeral home that day to stop his daughter's body from being put into the ground beyond reach. He was like, I don't know, we're not looking into this, we're doing something about this.


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[Assistant] Knowing this would likely be impossible, McMaster nonetheless said he would do his best.


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[Assistant] So he reached out to Dr. Josef Jahimczyk. I'm doing my best with that pronunciation. I did look it up.


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[Assistant] Uh, he was the well-respected coroner of Harris County and McMaster explained everything about the situation to him.


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[Assistant] At first, Yahimcheh couldn't believe what he was hearing. How was he supposed to stop a funeral right as it was beginning and demand to re-examine the body? That's a big ask. But he knew that McMaster wasn't going to ask this if he didn't think it was important, so he made his way down to the funeral home where he started reviewing the evidence and preparing to examine the body.


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[Assistant] This is honestly one of the most wild things I've ever heard. As far as he could tell,


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[Assistant] Not that it would have mattered much because the samples were taken after the involving process had begun which is likely why they were discarded. Probably. So after talking with the coroner and reviewing the documentation,


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[Assistant] He decided that there was no need to remove the body from the casket or disrupt the funeral.


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[Assistant] And he said, I think I can make a determination from the notes and the samples that are still available.


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[Assistant] You gotta go on with this funeral. People are upstairs. Yeah, like, like he's just trying to talk about pressure. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Now while the Harris County Coroner reviewed the case, Ash started gathering evidence he believed would prove John guilty of murder.


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[Assistant] Most significant, he believed, were the reports from the maid and the butler, Effie and Archie Green, a married couple.


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[Assistant] Efi Green explained how she had found Joan on the morning that she was taken to the hospital. Oh, that awful way she found her. Right. And how she had seen John give Joan pills. And she too suspected he was responsible for her death. Damn. For Joan's death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she also gave Ash a bottle of pills that she claimed John had given her for her own headaches and told the man that just after John had given her the bottle, Boot told her,


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[Assistant] Effy, don't take those pills. You'll go to sleep like my mother did and never wake up. Oh my god. And boot was little at that point.


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[Assistant] Oh, boo. I don't know if he really said that, but that's what Effie claims.


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[Assistant] Heartbreaking. True or not, that's a heartbreaking sentence. Yes.


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[Assistant] The evidence was curious to say the least, but McMaster couldn't get around the fact that...


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[Assistant] This is just kind of like his opinion. He was like, if, if you guys are so frightened by John Hill and you think he's a murderer, why are you still employed by him?


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[Assistant] But a week or so later, Dr. Yiham Chick presented his report to the district attorney's office, much to the disappointment of Ash Robinson. No. I know.


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[Assistant] After conducting his own tests on the tissue samples, the doctor concluded that Joan had not died from pancreatitis, but


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[Assistant] The blood test conducted upon Joan's arrival at the hospital ruled out any bacterial infection.


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[Assistant] And the toxicology report showed no evidence of poison.


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[Assistant] But it had been taken after embalming, so it was possible that it could have been corrupted. But to his best, you know...


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[Assistant] The results of the second autopsy were just as crushing for Ash Robinson, who still believed that John was responsible for his daughter's death. So he was not done yet.


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[Assistant] He's a dad. He's a dad. He assembled a panel of doctors to review the findings, including Grady Hallman, one of John Hill's closest friends. Which I was like, interesting that you would put him on the panel. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Yeah, maybe it was. So the panel was immediately skeptical of the findings, with one of the physicians saying, I will stake my reputation that she did not have hepatitis. In addition to the fact that Joan had none of the telltale signs of hepatitis, like jaundice, they all noted that hepatitis is almost never fatal within the first few days of symptoms. So they were like, I don't think so. They were like, this is pretty wild. Now, encouraged by the opinion of his assembled panel,


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[Assistant] Ash was hell-bent on seeing that John was brought to justice one way or another. And to aid in this pursuit, he hired former district attorney Frank Briscoe.


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[Assistant] A man known for meticulous research and an impressive number of wins under his belt. That spring, Briscoe went to Dr. Jahem Csik to pose some hypothetical questions.


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[Assistant] He wondered, was it possible for somebody to inject another person with hepatitis?


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[Assistant] Or could someone inject another person with a bacteria that could cause hepatitis? Whoa.


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[Assistant] Now, Jahim Csik acknowledged that when it came to such things, pretty much anything was possible, but those scenarios were highly improbable.


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[Assistant] Joan likely contracted the hepatitis from eating shellfish on a recent trip to Mexico City.


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[Assistant] But then a whole panel of doctors disagreed with that.


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[Assistant] It's just, honestly, at this point, it's just a bunch of doctors disagreeing with each other.


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[Assistant] Whatever information Briscoe was after, Jahemchik clearly wasn't gonna change his opinion on the cause of death. He said she died of hepatitis. Yeah. Like, I believe it. Yeah. I'm not saying I believe it, he's saying he believes it. He's saying that.


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[Assistant] In late May, another surprising piece of news came the Robinson's way though.


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[Assistant] Just under three months after his wife's death, John married Anne.


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[Assistant] John Hill and Ann Kurth were married. You've gotta be shitting me. No, it gets worse. Are you fucking kidding me? The news reached Ash by way of a gossip columnist. That's how he found out.


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[Assistant] This turn of events actually could be valuable should the case make its way to a grand jury. That doesn't look good. Doesn't look good.


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[Assistant] So Briscoe was like, honestly, I'm so sorry that like you're going through this, this is terrible, but like this could be good for our case.


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[Assistant] What do you think that's gonna look like, you two? Like, come on, you two. Jesus.


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[Assistant] Now in fact, less than a year earlier, John had provided Joan with a document swearing he would give up his mistress and commit to working on the marriage. So the news of this marriage, this new one, not only meant that John had, you know, uh, not given up his relationship with Anne,


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[Assistant] And potentially could have been seeking another way out of the marriage, which like I said, is


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[Assistant] Helpful to a potential case. Of course. So with Briscoe's help...


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[Assistant] Ash took the new information to ID McMaster, hoping that the assistant district attorney would reconsider taking the case to a grand jury.


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[Assistant] And as luck would have it, something about the story had been nagging at McMaster since he was first approached by Ash a few months earlier. And actually, McMaster was


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[Assistant] That if Joan had died from hepatitis someone would have noticed the signs of the illness far sooner and treatment would have been possible.


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[Assistant] But based on what McMaster had told him, it did not sound like Joan died from hepatitis.


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[Assistant] So for McMaster, who had big political ambitions and sensed a big opportunity in the case, the news of John's marriage to Anne and this conversation that he had with this expert strengthened the case against Hill.


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[Assistant] The assistant district attorney started building his case against John Hill for the murder of his wife. Holy shit. And that


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[Assistant] Poor Ash. Poor all of these people. Just so many people involved.


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[Assistant] This story is about to take a fucking turn. Okay. So, with that being said, we hope that you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But I'm so weird that you do.


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[Assistant] What the fuck is wrong with Amy's dad? I'm gonna go on the record and say, sir, what the fuck is wrong with you?


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[Assistant] It's Listener Tales. So it's brought to you by you for you from you and all about you, and it's Lucy motherfuckin' Goosey up in here. It is Lucy, and it is very goosey.


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[Assistant] You were like, where are we? I thought you were going, awww. I was like, what? No, no, no, I said, bring it back, and then I went.


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[Assistant] And still they wouldn't fit cuz their softball's fucking huge. Yep. On your groin? Yeah.


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[Assistant] Some stuff from the abscess. No, no, no, she said, leader of loose, yellow, purelescence. Wait, were you gonna skip over the whole thing?


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[Assistant] Sweet smell. That's how I felt about my onion rings today. Yea, they were sickly sweet. No, I got Sonic onion rings and why do they make them taste like cake? I don't like it.


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[Assistant] I don't think that's a kicker. I don't think anybody told you what a kicker was.


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[Assistant] Have you ever been in a house where somebody has smoked like that? It's crazy what it does to the walls.


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[Assistant] Things come out of the walls? Like things? Or people? Several things. Ghosts? Yeah. Or things? I hate it.


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[Assistant] Bye! Heidi. Oh you know what, Heidi? This house does have creepy vibes just looking at it. Shit went down. You see it? Shit went down. Yeah.


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[Assistant] It's sad because it's like a cute house in a way. That's how I pictured the house. But it feels, it's actually not how I pictured it, that's funny. See, that's how I pictured it.


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[Assistant] Uhm, well my next one is called, uh, Listener Tale, My Haunted Ass Baby. That's amazing. So it says, hello, attached as a potipha about my haunted ass baby. Also attached are some pictures of my family and haunted baby as a baby.


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[Assistant] This holiday pic is so cute. You're so cute. Oh my god, your kids are so cute. I don't know what this is, this other photo yet, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid. Okay, hello my spooky friends. Alina and Ash, how tickled I was to have discovered your podcast by random once-sweltering South Carolina evening. Sounds delightful. Wow, you guys are great writers. We are.


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[Assistant] My name is Casey, I'm 32, happily married to my man of 14 years, Eli, and we have three children. I was blessed with all boys. We've got Lane,


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[Assistant] Pronounced as Lane, but my husband was really into World of Warcraft at the time and insisted on spelling it with two L's because that was the name of the realm that he played in. Eye roll.


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[Assistant] And Lane is a really cool name. I like the name Lane a lot. Well that was fucking terrifying that that just happened. What fell?


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[Assistant] They are 12, 6, and 2. I love them with all my heart. Oh, me too.


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[Assistant] I feel that in my bones. I just want to hug you. You're a great human and I love you. I had never felt the fold until I held my first son in my arms. Yup, this is it. This is what I meant to do. Oh my god, Casey, high five. I love you so much. You fucking rule. Oh my god, more baby pictures and I'm so excited. You see the Froot Loops. Oh my god. Obsessed.


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[Assistant] Alright, so first we have Lain. He doesn't give me haunted vibes.


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[Assistant] No, Lane is just a little, little poopy. Lane is just like, I wanna smush Lane's cheeks. The picture we see is just like this beautiful little baby in a little basket. And he has a lamb. And he has a lamb. And then there's Watson with a cool sick ass shark hat and matching shark shorts.


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[Assistant] No, it's just vibes. It's the vibes I feel. It's just vibes. I'm going Ellis. I'm going with Watson. Alright, let's go. Let's go. Do you get any creepy vibes from them? Yeah, I didn't either, but that middle one.


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[Assistant] So Walton was born January 9th 2017. We got a cappy.


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[Assistant] I had a fast and easy labor. Eight hours. How fast? So quick.


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[Assistant] He was born after four pushes with the most perfect round head, uh, at nine pounds even. Damn mama. That's wild. Good job.


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[Assistant] So when he was about a week old, I got up after feeding around 2.30am and went into the kitchen to wash the bottle, where I found our side by side refrigerator. Why'd the fuck open?


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[Assistant] Thinking it may have been my six-year-old Lane, I closed the fridge and went to his room prepared to scold, and found a little angel sleeping in his bed with no snacks to be seen anywhere near him, not nair-


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[Assistant] Not near a crumb of the lip or sticky jello fingers. So I chalked it up to being weird happening. Maybe my husband accidentally left it open on one of his late night food bingers after smoking his devil's lettuce because anxiety. Although after questioning him about it, he denied this claim.


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[Assistant] And we were just lounging around. Toys were scattered all over, as they do. I roll.


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[Assistant] I noticed this, uh, I noticed that one of his RC cars was lit up, which was weird because I had recently removed the batteries because things with noise get on my nerves.


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[Assistant] I had to break the news to Lane and just tell him that it was broken. Slaps hand. Bad mom. No way. But I'd be damned if this thing wasn't lit the hell up.


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[Assistant] I got up to check it and remove said batteries again, thinking my husband banded against me and put them back in to gain parenting points with Lane.


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[Assistant] As I bent down to pick it up, that thing drove across my living room into the dining room. I looked at Lane.


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[Assistant] And he looked at me. I looked lame. And he looked at me. He did not have the controller.


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[Assistant] I did not have the controller. Who has the controller? The spirits.


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[Assistant] I posted a picture on my Facebook one day of Watson. He's always had these huge blue silver eyes that look too big for his head. I love them. Me too. My great aunt commented on this particular picture of him.


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[Assistant] I should point out that this great aunt was very spiritual, practiced white magic, and once had a ghost friend that she claimed was a Cherokee native that followed her everywhere. I love this aunt. I do too. I wanna be this aunt.


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[Assistant] She was very eclectic and I always enjoyed interactions with her and hearing her stories. She posted that Watson's eyes were beautiful and that he can see more than we can. Ooh, that's cool.


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[Assistant] When Watson was about five months old, it had been brought to my attention.


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[Assistant] Like that band? Yeah. I'm listening to it, but I don't hear snoring. What I do hear is what sounds like something sitting down on my bed, and an aggressive, breathy sounding whisper says, Watson. No.


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[Assistant] I don't fuck with that. Nooo. I would throw hands with a spirit if they said my kid's name like that. Oh, I'd be like, I'm gonna fuck you up! Yeah, like, don't say my kid's name. Ooh, I don't like it.


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[Assistant] Excuse me, we set up a meeting with the medium and she came to the conclusion that Watson did attract spirits.


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[Assistant] This made me feel lots better about it, but we had a stern talk to the ghostie after that, that there will be no talking to the baby.


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[Assistant] I didn't have any other issues as far as that was concerned. Still, the occasional toy, the occasional cabinet, that was old news at this point.


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[Assistant] Flash forward to a few months later, Watson's now walking. Watson is adjusting to sleeping in his own room and it is not going great. Ooh, I feel that. I mean, damn, it was worse than when he was a newborn.


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[Assistant] As I'm dusting the mantle, I notice something on the mirror. It's kinda waxy, like one of those crayons you get with your easter egg dye kits. I see a W, and then an A, and then a T S O N.


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[Assistant] Something slash someone has written my baby's name on this fucking mirror. Nope.


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[Assistant] I'm freaked the fuck out. I call my husband at work and demand to know if he did it. Why would I do that, Casey?


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[Assistant] He's right. He'd never do anything like that. I called Tulane, who's only six, and asked if he did it. The kid barely knows how to spell his own name, so of course he denied it. Plus, he would never have been able to reach out there, uh, uh, up there. Talk about freaky.


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[Assistant] Watson has told me that he used to see monsters in his room, and that's why he would cry. He's also told me that I'm not his real mom, and that his real mom died in 1984, but he still loves me. Oh wow. And then she went, okay child, thanks for that. Okay child. Oh my god.


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[Assistant] I'll attach pictures of the mirror for you guys as well as a video I took of him where you can clearly see an orb fly from his head.


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[Assistant] I wish I still had the recording of the whisper, but apparently the app deletes sound bites after 28 days and I didn't know that at the time. Sad face. Thank you for taking the time to read about my spooky boy. I hope I did a good job writing all of this out. Ya did. Writing was never my thing and will continue to not be my thing.


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[Assistant] Lots of love to you guys. I will be tickled pink if you choose to read this on your podcast. Love and light always, Casey.


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[Assistant] And it says Watson for sure. Oh yea, you can see that clear as day.


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[Assistant] Let me see if this orb is flying from this baby's head. Heh, him's got a jump-a-lean. Him's got a jump-a-lean.


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[Assistant] It literally flies out of his head in a way. That's wild. Damn. I've actually never seen anything like that.


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[Assistant] Watson. It literally comes like straight out of his head. He is so cute. I, that was such, such a wild


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[Assistant] Yeah, girl. We're gonna get real morbid today.


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[Assistant] What the fuck? Did she say that like the- the book said she had-


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[Assistant] Well, and one would think that also you wouldn't steal her things and make her into tea cakes and soap. Thank you. One thinks a lot.


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[Assistant] And, and trying to say like, she was so sweet, like that has a double meaning. You know what you did there. Oh yea. That's fucking atrocious.


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[Assistant] And then the whole like washing Giuseppe with the soap. And making him eat the tea. And even she eat the fucking tea cakes. It's bonkers. It's on another level.


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[Assistant] So, holy shit. Yup. You just really sent me with that one. That was what I intended to do, so I'm glad. Wow.


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[Assistant] Yeah, like I went into this, I think, like in a pretty happy mood and then I looked back over this case and I said, oof, this is going to be a rough one.


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[Assistant] This one's a little different today though. Okay. So I'm going, I, this is shocking and very out of character of me, but we're going back to the 1800s. That's not different. Uhm, I love to be there. I just do.


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[Assistant] Which sounds like it's gonna be like fun and whimsical and that like something will go awry and that's where it will get bad. But really the whole thing just goes awry. There's no whimsy involved in this. At all.


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[Assistant] There's not. No whims. But you know what? We're going to get through it together because this is a rough one and it's an important one to tell.


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[Assistant] But I think the story gets twisted a lot to like be something it's not, and it's like, no, I think like...


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[Assistant] This is a story, like I said, of a truly heinous and senseless act of brutality and eventually murder.


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[Assistant] But again, full of fairies and fae folk and magic at the same time, but none of it is whimsical.


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[Assistant] Rollercoaster ride. So the question here is was Bridget Cleary really murdered out of fear of witches, fairies, or other, you know, fantasy monsters? No. Or...


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[Assistant] Did her husband simply convince himself of this in order to commit murder for a more mundane reason would you say? Yes. Yes.


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[Assistant] I was going to say, you don't have the information, but I like your answer. Yeah. Uh, so let's talk about Bridget first. Bridget Boland was born in, and I'm going to do, I looked up these pronunciations because Irish towns are who-boy. Beautiful, beautiful sounding, but they don't sound the way they look. Uh, so she was born in Bally Vadley. Okay. County Tipperary. Okay.


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[Assistant] I'm so sorry, everybody. This is like my ancestral background, but I don't know what to do. Uh, she was born on February 19th, 1869. A Pisces. There you go. She was the youngest born to Patrick Boland and Bridget Keating. I want you to remember their names, especially Patrick Boland.


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[Assistant] Does that sound familiar or no? No, just remember the name. Got it. Uh, Baby Bridget.


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[Assistant] I did, Rural Juror, I was able to say it, yes. Uh, Bally Vadley was only a little under 300 acres, which in the late 19th century had just nine houses and had a population of 31 people. Wow, that's different.


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[Assistant] Sadly, this was actually around a quarter of what it had been before the famine of 1845 to 49.


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[Assistant] Now, given the time period in the very rural environment, I keep saying it right. Look at you. So I'm going to keep saying it. It's really hard to say in my opinion.


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[Assistant] Little is known about Bridget's family or her early life, you know, like we can only get so much from it. Everyone was focused on the potato of it all. Yeah, exactly. But according to Angela Bork,


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[Assistant] Who wrote the book The Burning of Bri- The Burning of Bridget Cleary. Oh! Yeah, a true story.


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[Assistant] That's a little spoiler alert for you. Uh, but it's a, I recommend that book. It's fascinating. Um, she claims that the family lived in a tiny wood mud walled thatched cabin across the street from Patrick Boland's sister, Mary Kennedy. Remember that name too. That is Bridget's aunt.


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[Assistant] Uhm, as the youngest in the family, Bork notes that Bridget was more likely to be indulged with education than her brothers were. Because they were, they kind of had to be relied upon to be help with like the farming, with all the tasks of the day, you know what I mean?


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[Assistant] Strong reading and writing skills, which was also kind of different for women at the time.


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[Assistant] And as she grew older, her education would come to include, again, what were considered women's skills of the time, like embroidery, needlework, the really important things. But at the time, they were important because that's how she could make a living.


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[Assistant] Cause as an adult, she made her income as a milliner, which she made hats for women. Oh, cool.


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[Assistant] Uhm, there's also sources that say she was, call her a seamstress, but I think it was probably around the same kind of thing. She was making, fixing and creating clothing and hats and all that good stuff. She was a multi-faceted girly. Exactly. And not only that, she's a young adult now. She would use some of her income to send her father to help with his expenses.


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[Assistant] So she was out here making her own money through her own educational skills and sending that money to her father. Wow. Independent lady.


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[Assistant] Uh, but in the timeline and the reasons are unclear, but by the time she reached her late teens or early twenties, um, Bridget's mother had passed away. And some of her siblings, a lot of them actually had either died or emigrated in search of work. So she was kind of, I don't know how her mother died, but, um, she was kind of left with her father.


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[Assistant] And they were really the only remaining members of the family in that area.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it was really sad. It just kind of like family just dispersed in different ways.


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[Assistant] Despite being very successful as a seamstress slash milliner, people in the area often spoke of Bridget being, quote, a bit queer, which means she didn't fit in. Because, you know, they basically kind of thought she seemed a little superior.


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[Assistant] Oh, don't finish. Oh no, I was just going to say like, don't be so, you know, don't be so outward with your success.


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[Assistant] Like you had to. Yeah, so she was working as an apprentice at the market in the nearby town of Clonmel. I think it is Clonmel. Uh, this is when Bridget met her future husband, Michael Cleary. I don't like him. Uh, he was a local cooper and nearly 10 years older than her.


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[Assistant] He was already, yeaah, so he was already established as a tradesman and they began, you know.


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[Assistant] Cording each other, I suppose. And they ended up marrying like a short time later because you know, 1800s of it all.


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[Assistant] In hindsight, people looked back at this relationship and were like,


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[Assistant] They were a little of a strange pairing. Like it didn't make a lot of sense. Yea, it didn't make a lot of sense. Not just because of the age gap, which wasn't that big of a deal back then. Right. It was, and you know, depending on the age grouping, it's always like different. Yea, yea.


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[Assistant] He was very like understated, he was very quiet. Modest. Very modest, and she was kind of the total opposite, which you could say could be like a nice balance and maybe it would work. But maybe not back then. It did not.


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[Assistant] This also didn't really help Bridget's whole, like, she's a bit queer thing, you know? Like, people would look at her and be like, ugh, and they were like, oh, and this is weird too, that she's doing this.


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[Assistant] And then the way they went about things in their relationship, which shouldn't be anybody else's business, to be quite honest, but again, there's only like 30 people in this town, so it's everyone's business apparently.


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[Assistant] Uh, but you know, they're married now. Yeah. And Bridget and Michael spent the first few years of their lives not living together.


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[Assistant] And you know, Michael would, she lived at her parents house with her father and he would visit her on the weekends, like stay at the house on the weekends.


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[Assistant] But Angela Bork, who I just named that book that everybody should read, said in those days, it was definitely, cause I was like, I don't know, was that not weird back then? I don't know what was weird back then, but it was unusual for them to live apart from each other. Like that wasn't an unusual thing. Especially if they were relatively financially stable, which they were.


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[Assistant] So they were like, I don't, she's like, I don't really know what that was about. Uhm, but she says that Bridget may have had to nurse her mother at the time before she had passed away. Because we don't know the timeline of her death exactly. It gets put into different years. So this could have been during this beginning of their marriage could have been when she was dealing with her sick mother.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, it would make a lot of sense at the beginning, she just wants to stay in the house, he's gonna visit, she's gonna take care of her mom until she eventually died, which we don't know when. Right.


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[Assistant] But again, while it's entirely possible that there's a very simple and normal explanation for this, rumors, of course, went quickly through the small town.


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[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. And there were many people who would later speculate that Michael had been having an affair with Bridget's cousin, Joanna Burke. Damn. All of these names are going to come back later, by the way.


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[Assistant] That she was involved with a local emergency man named William Simpson.


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[Assistant] You know, it did sound exciting, but I looked it up. Apparently an emergency man is a guy called in by farmers to help save dying crops. Exciting.


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[Assistant] Uh, but Michael Cleary would later tell reporters that he thought Bridget was having an affair with a local farmer named Patrick Power.


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[Assistant] So there's a lot of just scandalous, like desperate housewives kind of thing going on here. Like this is Wisteria Lane, is that what it's called? Yea, it is.


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[Assistant] Fair. There it is. Now, in the small village of Valley Vadley and nearby Conmel, I think it's Conmel. I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong. You're like my people, so I love you. Uh, Bridget's socioeconomic status, her youth and her perceived arrogance.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so Bork suggests the independence and economic prosperity enjoyed by Bridget and, you know,


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[Assistant] This emergency man, William Simpson, also did well in his business. They thought this could have been a jealousy thing that they paired the two of them together. Like they were both doing alright.


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[Assistant] They were both pretty open about doing all right. They had, they were arrogant.


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[Assistant] People didn't like it, so they decided to fuck with him because he was also married. So they decided to be like, well, you two are fucking. Like, that's obvious. And it's like, no, I think they were just like both doing okay. Yeah. And maybe they talked every once in a while and were like, you still doing okay? That's awesome.


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[Assistant] Now, on the other hand, it's also possible the rumors of Michael and Bridget's infidelity were kind of true.


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[Assistant] So, it sounds like he sucked. So, I mean, you know, yeah, it wasn't great. I don't think their marriage was.


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[Assistant] Was super awesome. Yeah, I don't think it was on any round to be quite honest. It was in a swamp. But following her death, a lot was made of the fact that


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[Assistant] They were married for eight years at that time and they never had any children. Now, now we would just go.


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[Assistant] Angela Bork points out in her book that


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[Assistant] Uhm, that the church's influence on Irish life at the time.


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[Assistant] Made it that it's unlikely that they were childless by choice.


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[Assistant] Because at that time that wasn't a common thing to do, to become childless by choice.


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[Assistant] So there might have been a biological or a medical reason for this, but people looked at it as something's wrong here.


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[Assistant] Now, and so there's like a lot of layers to this that just make it more complicated than just like, wow, you know, fairies. Like it's like, no, there was a lot going on here.


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[Assistant] But in his testimony in court, Michael Cleary described his relationship to his wife saying, we were not great at all.


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[Assistant] Uhm, in, like, in, you know, Irish parlance at the time, this means that not only did they not get along, but they were not in love with each other.


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[Assistant] It's pretty evident from Michael's testimony that there was a lot of bitterness between them. Uhm, it doesn't seem like Michael liked the fact that she was


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[Assistant] Yeah, and there was a lot of mistrust between the two of them. Because the town was always talking. Exactly.


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[Assistant] Uhm, there was also a lot, this complicated matters too, that Bridget was surrounded by family in the village.


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[Assistant] In a culture, especially at the time that encouraged large, close-knit families, this lack...


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[Assistant] It was definitely a powerless thing and he did not do well with feeling powerless. And he didn't look at it like, hey, I've become part of this family, so I should just...


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[Assistant] Be part of this family. He took it, I think with him it was a lot of, he didn't handle feeling powerless well.


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[Assistant] Also, you're like wait a second, uh, but also this entire family and support system for Bridget,


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[Assistant] Exactly. Now, and people could see that there was like anger and bitterness, especially in Michael. It wasn't outward, but they could just sense it when they were around them.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and because of this, he was definitely more susceptible to some influence of the outside nature. Especially, yeaah, like it was, he was definitely looking for ways out of this and he wasn't looking for like a, a regular way out of this for sure.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's like, and it's like dude, I think you both would have been fine if you both just went your separate ways here, like you would have survived the society issues, like, we didn't need to go here. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, on the afternoon of March 4th, 1895, Bridget walked home from her Bally-Vadely home, about two miles to Kiln-a-mana? Hold on. Kiln-a-mana. Kiln-a-mana? Kiln-a-mana. I'm going to go with that. Kiln-a-mana.


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[Assistant] Uh, she had gone to the house to deliver eggs and get payment from previously delivered eggs because she's a business woman and you didn't pay me last time on collecting these eggs.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and Bridget was apparently, because remember, Bridget's not one for, to be very conservatively dressed. She was underdressed for the weather. So by the time she got back home, she was very cold, shivering, like very much out of chill.


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[Assistant] Uhm, even sitting by the fireplace, it didn't do anything to warm her up. And according to Angela Bork,


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[Assistant] Uh, the next day, Bridget woke with quote, a violent headache and had fits of shivering and wasn't able to get out of bed.


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[Assistant] In the days after this, uh, the weather got warmer, but you know, the, I think it was like just damp, like the earth was damp, which is not great when you're not feeling great.


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[Assistant] And so it kind of made her worse and especially if she had pneumonia or bronchitis or something like that, it probably made it worse. So she was in bed for like the entire week after that.


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[Assistant] During this time, especially in rural communities, people would come to your bedside. People, you know, all the time. Like it was, you were not going to be alone in bed.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and so she's bedridden and she got a ton of visitors and they came by to kinda help around the house, help with the cooking.


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[Assistant] You know, just to offer well wishes, just that kind of thing. She's got a lot of loved ones around her.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and one of those visitors was Jack Dunn. Her father's cousin.


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[Assistant] So, and this was also the man who she had gone to visit on the day she got ill.


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[Assistant] Exactly. Now, of course at this time, uhm,


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[Assistant] And this time in this place, like rural places like this, they were a little slower to embrace scientific and technological changes. Yeah. More than like, you know, they're urban countrymen.


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[Assistant] So, but by this, but honestly, even by those standards, Jack Dunn was an outlier here. Like, he was even further back in the evolution of like, believing in science and technology.


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[Assistant] So he was, as he's described in the book, a man who might have commanded respect in an earlier generation.


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[Assistant] Or a more remote place, but who had become marginalized and isolated in an increasingly modern society.


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[Assistant] So he's a guy who believes in all the folklore and he's, you know, the, um, the folk medicine and all that and he's staying very hard into that and not moving with the times. So people were starting to see him as kind of like, oh, that's Jack Dunn. Jack the quack.


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[Assistant] Uh, so a report in the cork examiner.


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[Assistant] He is learned apparently in incantations, charms and spells and can tell ghost stories and fairy tales. He is the, he is the very Shinachi of ancient Ireland. Now I found out that that is what is referred to as just like a teller of old tales or legends. A Shinachi? Yea.


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[Assistant] Jack, I was like, you had promise in the beginning, but oof.


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[Assistant] Truly was a very rigid representation of cultural heritage and traditions that had all but died out after the famine.


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[Assistant] Uh, because before the famine, folktales and superstition were treated very seriously. Much more seriously than they were after.


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[Assistant] Uhm, as is pointed out in the book, uhm, in another time,


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[Assistant] He again would be kind of an authority figure in the community, and he probably was at one point, but by the late 1800s,


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[Assistant] So he was kind of thirsting for that time when he was the authority on things. Look upon me again, Jack the Black. And there was also, so the other thing that made him a target for mockery at this time was he held a genuine belief in fairies and their influence over humans. Jack and his wife apparently lived near what he referred to as a fairy fort. Uh, that's a real thing.


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[Assistant] And he was frequently heard to say, quote, he heard the fairies outside his house every night and that sometimes they played hurling matches there.


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[Assistant] A fairy fort was apparently a prehistoric or pre-Christian dwelling of some sort that had kind of been like taken over by nature. And so it looked very super high fantasy and looks like a place fairies would live.


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[Assistant] I don't know about it. I'm gonna sit over here with my no knowledge of fae or faerie from the only thing I know is what we talked about in our episode that we did. So I also know not to fuck with it even if it's not real, so.


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[Assistant] Here I am. I don't know anything. I'm just out here reporting this. Yup. Uh, but he truly believed in this and that fairy fort was, was very real and that's what it was. Again, it sounds awesome. I'm into this. Sounds awesome until it's not, I feel. Exactly. Now, again,


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[Assistant] Much of Ireland at this time was embracing the modern era, so this was...


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[Assistant] This was weird to everybody. They were like, you need to chill out.


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[Assistant] But a belief in fairies was also at the time kind of a means of explaining some part of life that didn't make logical sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If this man, if a random man like your neighbor was known to have walked with a limp for his entire life and then all of a sudden he's gone for a short period of time and he comes back and he doesn't have that limp anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, he did not. They most likely would have said there had to be some magical explanation for this, which again, I don't know. I wasn't in the 1800s. Could have been.


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[Assistant] But in Jack Dunn's experience, Bridget Cleary had always been very well put together. She was a merchant, she was a seamstress, a business woman. She was independent, she was confident, she was together. So to see her so unwell and so, quote unquote, weak and bedridden and unkempt in her bed as well,


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[Assistant] Uhm, particularly after she had been near his fairy fort in his home, had sat outside next to it. For a while. It made him very stressed out and he apparently cried out when he saw her, that is not Bridgette Boland. What? So, like, sir.


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[Assistant] Now if this were other, anyone else there that had said that,


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[Assistant] They probably would have interpreted that as just like a way to say she looks very ill. Like that's not her, that looks so wow. Like she didn't seem like herself. But coming from Jack?


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[Assistant] They're like, oh shit, that's not Bridge? It was interpreted to mean, that is not Bridget Cleary. That is not Bridget Boland.


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[Assistant] And it's this moment that likely started to seal.


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[Assistant] The deal here. Because even though he wasn't looked at as an authority anymore.


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[Assistant] Him saying that with such like conviction, I think at least set a couple of people, if not one in particular, Michael Cleary.


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[Assistant] Uhm, into a little bit of a tizzy, because he already had some thoughts, I feel.


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[Assistant] Quote, Dunn's remarks set all the fairy machinery in motion. So they fully were like,


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[Assistant] It's him. He did it. But it's like, let's not take all the, all the stuff off of the person who actually does it, and we'll get there.


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[Assistant] So, to a lot of people, Bridget was fucking sick. She had bronchitis, she had pneumonia, she was just sick. That was it. But, Jack Dunn was like, nope, there is clear evidence here that she is a changeling.


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[Assistant] Which is a human-like creature that's left behind by fairies after they stole the actual person.


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[Assistant] And well, here's the thing, to anybody around who, he was not the last person there to believe this stuff. It's not like it was totally gone and everybody was like, oh yeah, that's all bullshit. Why do we ever believe that in the beginning? Like this is...


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[Assistant] Through generations, people believed this stuff, they still do today.


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[Assistant] So it's like, there were people there that still at least kind of believed in this, and if he's sitting here going, I'm the authority on this, here's the evidence to suggest it, you're swaying


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[Assistant] Uhm, like for example, Bridget and Michael Cleary had experienced, uhm,


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[Assistant] Uhm, and this was after her being at the fairy fort. So this indicated that she had maybe traded her health for wealth. No, I think she was wealthy before even. I think so too.


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[Assistant] Now also, they'd been married for eight years, they were remaining childless, so some people thought that that meant she had exchanged her ability to bear children for economic prosperity. Yea, as one does, totally. And finally, Jack Dunn said several times that the creature in the bed had one leg that was longer than the other. Remember, the creature in the bed is Bridgibolan.


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[Assistant] You absolutely can, but he said this was proof that Bridget had been changed after her interaction with the fairies.


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[Assistant] She's a witch! She's a witch! And while Jack Dunn ranted about, you know, she's a changeling, other members of the community were expressing serious concerns for her actual health.


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[Assistant] But several days passed and Dr. Kreen did not respond, did not come to the home. Cause he was busy with the poor and the destitute. Probably, so Michael Cleary went to go get him.


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[Assistant] So a few days later, Michael returned again in hopes of finding the doctor, but he still couldn't find him.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, William Simpson, the guy that she was supposed to be having an affair with, the emergency man?


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[Assistant] Uhm, he sent one of his maids, cause remember we're not porn destitute here, his maids to Drangon to fetch Father Con Ryan. Uhm, and he did this, which


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[Assistant] It kind of implicates that she was close to death and needed last rites.


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[Assistant] Like why else, you know, or at least needed a priest there to perform some sort of. If needed.


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[Assistant] Stuff, so like this, this would implicate that, but that really wasn't the case. Now on March 13th,


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[Assistant] Now, in his testimony later, that he gave to the coroner later,


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[Assistant] Uh, Kreen said, I found her suffering sir, simply from nervous excitement and slight bronchitis. Okay.


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[Assistant] So Dr. Kreen prescribed medication for Bridget, but he never followed up after the visit. That's poor Dr. Chip. So he also didn't know if the prescription ever got filled or if it was given to her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, as far as he knew and what he told the courts, he said Bridget was perfectly healthy. She had a body of good physique and well nourished. The only thing I can say is that she was awfully nervous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he keeps saying that, she was very anxious, very nervous. Probably because everyone's saying she's a fucking fairy. Well, when you hear what happens to her later, I'm like, yeah, probably.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it's most likely that Bridget had probably caught like a nasty cold.


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[Assistant] On or around the time she was visiting Jack Dunn's house, cause like, she probably didn't get it there, she was probably just developing it, and I'm sure the cold didn't help the dampness and all that. And that probably developed into bronchitis, which likely went into pneumonia. That's like, pneumonia will knock you on your ass.


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[Assistant] Later in fact, uhm, a post-mortem examination.


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[Assistant] Said the coroner reported that the only evidence of illness was that her lungs were slightly congested. So it does indicate that.


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[Assistant] Also, I guess what, what they were trying to say too was they were like, okay, so she has congested lungs, but there was all these other like symptoms that were coming out.


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[Assistant] So what they're trying to do is kind of like be polite about it, but like Dr. Kreen essentially wrote in his report when he saw her,


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[Assistant] That basically whatever illness was plaguing her was likely something, you know, in the chest area.


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[Assistant] It likely could have also been like slightly psychological in nature. Cause he was pointing to her.


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[Assistant] Her anxiety, you know, that kind of thing that maybe she was suffering from some of that as well. Maybe whatever.


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[Assistant] So I think he was pointing a little to that, that like there was some psychological stuff happening here. Uhm, but they don't say it outright. Okay.


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[Assistant] Now given the autopsy results, it's entirely possible that Kreen's assessment was accurate. Uhm, and it actually seemed at the time that she was close to considering Jack Dunn's claims of like the changeling thing with seriousness.


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[Assistant] That leads me to believe that there's definitely some psychological stuff going on right now. Uh, because she told her cousin Johanna, that it all started when she quote, took like a trembling coming by Kilnumanna.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, meaning that she kind of believes she caught a chill down by the fairy fort. Okay. So, she was at least...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mentioning that she was near a fairy fort when this happened.


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[Assistant] If we really think about it, like if we take a step back, it's like, okay, yeaah.


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[Assistant] I think, what I think happened was she was probably developing a cold anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was down there, it was damp, she sat out there, tits out.


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[Assistant] And she probably caught like a little more of a chill.


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[Assistant] It probably developed into bronchitis, pneumonia. It was making her stressed out. She's hearing Jack Dunn say that she's a changeling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's seeing all these people questioning whether she's really Bridget Boland laying in this bed, which is probably stressing her the fuck out.


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[Assistant] Now, it was unfortunately clear that after a week of being sick and the fairy talk on top of it, there was beginning to be that psychological toll.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, she said, she told her aunt Mary Kennedy, I'm very bad. And she said, he's making, he, and she's referring to Michael Cleary, he's making a fairy of me now in an emergency.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He thought to burn me about three months ago, but if I had my mother, I would not be this way.


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[Assistant] And don't worry, I'm going to explain to you what she probably meant by that. Okay. Because when I first read it, I was like, come again. So Bridget wasn't referring to Jack Dunn, she's referring to Michael Cleary when she says he. And that's her husband. Yeah. Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And according to Angela Bork, to make a fairy of someone actually could also mean to isolate.


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[Assistant] Okay, uhm, so this is kind of implying that under the growing influence of Jack Dunn, Michael Cleary was starting to isolate his wife and blow her illness way out of proportion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Had dealt with an argument or crisis like this.


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[Assistant] Okay. So that there was some shit that was happening before this, that she was kind of... She doesn't actually mean burn her? No, they think, at least that's what the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what like is thought to be what she meant by that. That's interesting because from the name of the book it sounds like he does burn her. Thank you. Because then that's the thing, like nobody knows if that's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think she's just saying if my mom was here, like, she wouldn't let this happen. Yea, like, I think that's part of it. Which is really sad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically, the distress and emotional stress that was referenced by Dr. Kreen was the result of Bridget's belief that Michael's behavior had some sort of nefarious intent, that this wasn't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Possibly tried to get rid of her. That is a possibility. Like who knows if it means exactly that. That's terrifying. So Michael Cleary left the house shortly after Dr. Crean and he was still away that afternoon when Father Ryan actually ended up coming to the house and he got back just as Father Ryan was leaving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now according to Cleary's testimony, he went by Father Ryan as he was leaving.


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[Assistant] And this is when he was informed that Bridget was very weak and that the priest had already prepared her for death by giving her her last rites. Wow. So this is like shocking, like they're like shit. And in the days following,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but Bork explains in her book that as a Catholic priest who took his vows very seriously, Father Ryan's vow of celibacy, quote, forbade him to have any more dealings than necessary with women.


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[Assistant] So it's unlikely that he spent even more than 20 minutes with her. And was probably in very poor lighting.


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[Assistant] Others were around. Everyone's in an emotional heightened state. So.


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[Assistant] While Cleary reported Father Ryan as having made dire predictions about Bridget's impending death.


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[Assistant] He never considered her to be dangerously ill. Instead, he likely administered last rites as a precautionary measure in case it did progress and he couldn't get back there in time. And he wasn't going to want to have to come back because she's a woman. Exactly. He's like, I don't want to spend any more time with women than I have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he probably did it like, just in case, she seemed pretty fuckin' sick right now, so like, I'm just gonna do it so that it's there. But Michael Cleary took it as like, she's dying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when Dr. Kreen and Father Ryan saw Bridgette Cleary that day, cause it was on the same day that they saw him, both men recalled her being way more emotionally upset and agitated than physically ill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Killing her. Yeah. And this was supported later by testimony from friends and family who visited that same day. That it was way more emotionally upset than physically upset.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and while both men did what they could for Bridget, Kreen gave the prescription and told them to fill it and give it to her. And Ryan did the last rites and prayers and all that good stuff. Which probably upset her even more if she's thinking that she's feeling better than this priest is giving her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it was kind of like, it was just kind of Dr. Kreen saying, yeah, it seems like it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could just have taken Dr. Kreen's word for it, but like, who am I?


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[Assistant] Uhm, but Michael Cleary took it as like, this is very ambiguous. So he looked over to Jack Dunn and was like, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fae it is. That seems more likely. Or did it just seem simpler?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now while most of those who saw Bridget in the days just before her death remarked on, again, her agitated emotional state, far fewer seemed to notice Michael Cleary, who was deteriorating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Into like, a madman, in the, at this time. Like he was becoming more and more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wild, with his thoughts, with his actions. Cause he's hanging out with the quack jack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he wasn't looking, and it soon became clear that he was not going to look to traditional medicine to help his wife. He was not going to fill that prescription. He was not going to get further medicine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, and then fortunately the premature last rites reading by Father Ryan further put that in.


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[Assistant] And again, they were on the same day, so they're back to back things on the same day, which just sent him into a different realm. A tizzy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, acting under Jack Dunn's influence, Michael Cleary went to the market and fettered to get several herbs that he thought would improve her condition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, after Dr. Kreen and Father Ryan had left, Dunn had chastised Michael for waiting so long to take action. He was like, I can't believe you even had these two men in here. Like, why are you having a medical doctor in here? He doesn't know anything about Faye. And why did you have Father Ryan in here? He doesn't know shit about Faye either. Like, you're taking, you're not taking the right action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Yeah. He said, it is not your wife in there. This is the eighth day and you had a right to have gone to Ganey on the fifth day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'll tell you who that is. So, he's making reference to Dennis Gainey, who is a local farmer and herb doctor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Had a very strong belief in fairies and folklore, just as strong as Jack Dunn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so later that evening they went, got the herbs from him and they gave Bridget the first dose of those herbs. And I'm going to explain to you in a little bit how they gave her those herbs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, the following day, the herbs didn't seem to have any effect on Bridget's health. They weren't helping her, which, wow. Uh, but Dun and Cleary were going to go ahead with their full plan. They were not willing to accept this. And that afternoon, Jack Dunn, Michael Cleary, and two other young men gathered in Bridget's room with a glass of milk. They put the herbs in there, they mixed them up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So well done is essentially admitting he and the three other men violently forced Bridget to drink the liquid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's just minimizing it into like, it was tough on her, but she took it. And it's like you poured it down her throat, you piece of shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because as they were forcing her to drink this milk with herbs in it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] William Simpson, who she was accused of having the affair with, the emergency man, and his wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As well as Joanna Burke and her mother. Told ya. They all came to the Cleary's front door and were coming to visit Bridget.


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[Assistant] But Michael Cleary refused to open the door at the time so they could just hear what was going on inside.


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[Assistant] And from the bedroom, they could hear a man's voice shouting, take that, you rap.


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[Assistant] And then they were banging on the door being like, let us in. No one was coming, so they just could stay out there and try to get in the house. But they were hearing the whole thing.


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[Assistant] And they said a moment or two later they heard another man shouting, take it you old bitch or I'll kill you. Oh my god. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And this is, when they stepped in they were like, what the fuck? And they said as soon as they stepped in they heard another man shout, away she go, away she go.


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[Assistant] And later, William Simpson would tell the court that Cleary had claimed the house was full of fairies and that he had only opened the door to force the fairies out, not to let them in.


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[Assistant] He said he found the men aggressively restraining Bridget who was struggling and Jack Dunn was pouring the hot milk and herb mixture down her throat.


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[Assistant] So the Simpsons would later learn that this was actually the third time that they had administered the herb mixture in this way. This was the third time they had forced it down her throat.


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[Assistant] Oh, and it gets worse because during, uhm, when was it, the, I think it was during the second time, the time before this one, uh, she had actually sustained a burn on her forehead because Jack Dunne struck her with a hot fireplace poker in order to force her to drink the mixture.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Also remember, these are her family members.


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[Assistant] Now throughout the force-feeding of the herb mixture, the men gathered around the bed were repeatedly shouting at her, Are you Bridget Boland, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of God?


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[Assistant] And when she wouldn't or should I say couldn't answer them because remember they're forcing hot milk with herbs down her throat and hitting her in the head with hot pokers.


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[Assistant] Dunn was heard to say, make down a good fire and we will make her answer. Oh my god. Now finally when the fire was burning, the men, and it was burning low, the men got Bridget off the bed and carried her towards the fire.


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[Assistant] Now she has been abused, but she is fully conscious and aware of what's happening, so she started to yell for them to give her a chance.


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[Assistant] Because I'm sure she's like, just, I don't even know what you want from me, like just let, like put me down.


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[Assistant] And the men just ignored her and placed her body on the grate above the fire, at the kitchen fire.


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[Assistant] And William Simpson later told the court, she gave no evidence of being in pain. She did not scream. And it's like probably because she was in shock, I would assume.


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[Assistant] Now, she's crumpled up on the grate over the fire. And her father is there, by the way. And her father looks at her and says, are you Bridget Boland, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of God? And this is when she spoke and she said, I am Dada.


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[Assistant] I am the father of Pat Boland in the name of God. I am the daughter of Pat Boland in the name of God. And after about 10 minutes, they removed her from the grate and put her back in bed.


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[Assistant] It's important to note that among the things that made this story so fucking shocking to the public was that during this whole thing,


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[Assistant] There were like 9 to 13 people in the house who witnessed and participated in all of this. And at no time did anyone do anything to stop it.


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[Assistant] And William Simpson later told the court they were satisfied that they had their own, which implies that they believe their actions were successful and that they had magically returned Bridget to her body.