00:07Today we are going to the 19th century to look at the crimes of Lizzie Halliday to sit back
00:16as we go to the USA. Lizzie Halliday was born in 1859 in the small town of Antrim which at
00:26the
00:26time of her birth was in the northeastern part of the country of Ireland. She was one of ten children
00:33and when she was very young her family travelled across the Atlantic to start a new life in the
00:40USA. They settled in New York City but when Lizzie was a teenager she left and went to work in
00:47Pennsylvania. This would be a new start for her as her reputation and violent behaviour were well
00:54known in New York and living with such a large family in impoverished conditions in the 19th
01:01century wasn't easy. While in Pennsylvania she met a man named Charles Hopkins and they were married in
01:081879. They had one son together but soon after they married Charles died of what was later determined
01:17to be natural causes. Lizzie knew that life would be easier as a married woman. She had a son to
01:24look
01:24after and she was young so decided to find another husband. It didn't take long for her to marry an
01:31ex-army
01:32officer named Artemis Brewster who came from Greenwich Village in Washington County. Their marriage however
01:39was not a particularly good one and Lizzie constantly mistreated her husband. The unfortunate
01:45man suddenly died within a year of their marriage and this time the cause of death was registered as
01:51unknown. Lizzie decided to marry again so married George Smith who had been an army comrade of her late
01:58second husband. Shortly after they married she tried to poison George by putting arsenic in his tea.
02:06Fortunately George survived this attempt on his life but while he was recovering Lizzie gathered
02:12all the couple's money and left the marital home and went to live with a man named Hiram Parkinson
02:18who was many years her senior. It is not known if she married Hiram but just three weeks after they
02:26ran off together the elderly gentleman vanished without a trace. Lizzie then went to Vermont where she
02:33married Charles Playstill but strangely only two weeks after the wedding she disappeared.
02:41In 1888 Lizzie went with her son to Newburgh in New York State where she lodged with the McQuellen family
02:49who were known to her from her days back in Ireland. Later she went to Philadelphia where she set up
02:56a shop but
02:57unfortunately it burnt down and Lizzie immediately applied for the insurance payout. The police
03:04investigated the incident and she was charged with arson and trying to defraud an insurance company.
03:11Lizzie was taken to court, found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison at the Eastern State Penitentiary.
03:21She was released in 1890 and found work as a housekeeper for an elderly widow named Paul Halliday,
03:28a Union Army veteran who lived on a farm in Sullivan County, New York. He was at least 40 years
03:35older than
03:36Lizzie and had already raised five children, four of whom had moved away but the fifth child, a boy called
03:43John, still lived at home. The lonely gentleman soon fell for his young housekeeper and the unlikely
03:49couple were married meaning Lizzie became Mrs. Halliday. On the 6th of May 1891 part of the family's
03:58farmhouse caught fire and was destroyed but most of the house was saved. Three weeks later on May 26th,
04:06Lizzie burned down one of the large barns on the farm while her disabled stepson John was in it
04:12and unable to escape, he died in the fire. The neighbors thought that she had deliberately started the fire to
04:19kill him
04:19or had murdered him in the barn and set fire to it to hide her crime.
04:24Once the barn had burned down, she drove all of her husband's workhorses to the town of Newborough where she
04:30sold them.
04:31This time Lizzie was arrested and the authorities, believing her to be insane, committed her to the Middletown Asylum.
04:39The staff there found it difficult to control her so she was transferred to the Auburn Asylum where her violent
04:46behavior continued and she was again transferred for a third time, this time to the Matiawan Asylum.
04:54Lizzie however showed a marked improvement in her mental health once the case against her was dropped
04:59and the doctors declared her to be sane and she was released and returned to the farm.
05:06Her neighbors at the farm did not like her and kept their distance but they were always aware of the
05:12movements to and from the farm. It soon became apparent that Paul Halliday had not been seen around
05:19the farm for several days. Fearing the worst, a group of neighbors asked Lizzie where her husband was
05:25to which she replied he had gone to Blumenberg to do some masonry work. The neighbors did not believe
05:32this so contacted the police. Armed with a search warrant, the authorities arrived at the property
05:38and hoped they could find what had happened to Mr Halliday. Inside the house they found a bloodstained
05:45carpet, a gun cartridge and some rope. They continued looking and left the house and went to the barn.
05:52There they noticed that new hay had been stacked against the wall. They started to remove it,
05:58thinking that Paul Halliday might be underneath. But what they found was not what they were expecting.
06:05Under the hay they found the bodies of Mrs Margaret McQuellam and her daughter Sarah.
06:11This was a family that Lizzie had stayed with in Newburgh in 1888. It later emerged that Lizzie had hired
06:18Sarah, the daughter, to work as a housekeeper at the farm. Both mother and daughter had had their
06:25hands tied across their chests and their feet and knees bound with ropes. The police then noticed the
06:32smell coming from under the floorboards in the kitchen of the house, so they took them up and
06:37unearthed the body of Paul Halliday. He had a fractured skull and had three bullet wounds in his chest.
06:44Lizzie was questioned, but she acted very strangely, refusing to answer any questions
06:50and speaking over the investigating officers. She kept on making irrelevant comments and at one point
06:57ripped off her blouse in an act some thought of faking insanity, but the debate on her mental state
07:03continued. While in custody she refused to cooperate with the police and tried to set fire to the bed in
07:10her cell. It was decided that she would need to be restrained 24 hours a day, so was bound in
07:16chains
07:16and kept locked up in the cell. The press found the whole story fascinating and Lizzie became headline news.
07:27The trial of Lizzie Halliday started on the 21st of June 1894. The case against her was only
07:35circumstantial but the evidence was strong. Her attorney did little to challenge the testimony
07:41of prosecution witnesses as he was confident that Lizzie would be acquitted on the grounds of insanity.
07:47Several doctors from the asylums where Lizzie had previously spent time testified that she was insane.
07:54The prosecution however presented their own evidence to try and prove that she was perfectly sane
07:59and witnesses came forward to testify that in their opinion her whole insanity thing was just an act.
08:07After deliberation the jury found for the prosecution and Lizzie was found guilty of murder.
08:13She was the first female to be sentenced to die in the electric chair and it caused a sensation.
08:20When leaving court surrounded by reporters she attacked one of the officers assigned to escort her back to prison.
08:28His name was Harrison Beecher and Lizzie bit him on the hand.
08:33The hand became infected and Sheriff Beecher died from the wound.
08:38Many people still considered Lizzie to be insane and a commission was set up to determine her mental state
08:46and it was agreed by medical professionals that she was indeed insane and her sentence was commuted to life in
08:54prison.
08:56Lizzie was sent to the Matawan State Asylum where she continued her strange and violent ways.
09:02She attempted to escape and assaulted the guards.
09:06By 1906, 12 years since Lizzie was found guilty, she had become a trusted patient at the asylum.
09:13This was largely due to a young nurse named Nellie Wicks who had helped Lizzie to take responsibility
09:19and Lizzie became greatly attached to her.
09:22When Miss Wicks informed the prisoners that she was leaving to take up a regular nursing position,
09:28the news very much upset Lizzie and she threatened to kill the nurse if she tried to leave.
09:34The threat was not taken seriously but on September 27th 1906,
09:40Lizzie followed Miss Wicks into the dressing room, locked the door and began stabbing her with a pair of scissors.
09:47Miss Wicks died two hours later.
09:51When asked why she had committed the murder, Lizzie replied,
09:55because she tried to leave me.
09:58Elizabeth Margaret Halliday stayed at the asylum until her death on the 28th of June 1918
10:03and was buried in an unmarked grave in the grounds of the Matawan State Hospital.
10:10Some historians believe that Lizzie Halliday was Jack the Ripper.
10:15Investigations have apparently proved that she was in Europe at the time of the Whitechapel murders
10:20and it is reported that she often referred to the murders when she was talking to the guards.
10:27Hello everyone, thank you so much for listening.
10:30As per usual, please leave a comment or any feedback that you may have
10:36and let me know if you think that maybe Lizzie Halliday was Jack the Ripper.
10:41And I will see you in the next brief case.
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