The Horrifying & Disturbing Case Of Florence Maybrick

Brief Case

Was Florence Maybrick the wife of Jack the Ripper and responsible for his downfall?  Please remember to subscribe and hit the bell icon as well as leave a like and a comment for more videos every week!  Brief Case is a True Crime Channel focusing on old or lost cases that have been forgotten to history. If you have any recommendations for future cases that you would like to bring to light, feel free to reach out to me to: briefcaseuk@gmail.com  Music by CO.AG Music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZB4l43iTw&t=105s Music by Myuu -https://www.youtube.com/user/myuuji Music by Kevin Macleod - https://incompetech.com  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/  #florencemaybrick #TrueCrime #BriefCase

Transcript

00:07Today we will start our story in the USA before going to England, so sit back as we go to

00:18the

00:18late 19th century. Florence Elizabeth Chandler was born on the 3rd of September 1862 in the

00:28port city of Mobile in Alabama. Her father was named William George Chandler and was a partner

00:34in a bank. He was well respected in the city and had also served as its mayor. When she was

00:41very

00:41young her father died and her mother named Caroline married a German baron who had been an officer in

00:48the German army. Florence received a good education and was known to be a charming attractive young

00:55lady. She was adventurous and high spirited and very popular amongst her peers. On the 12th of March 1880

01:04along with her aunt she boarded the steamship the SS Baltic which was travelling from New York to Paris

01:12via Liverpool. They had planned to visit the great cities of Europe and the continent's most fashionable

01:18coastal resorts. The voyage to Liverpool took six days in which time the attractive young lady was

01:26noticed by most of the other passengers one of whom was a well-known cotton merchant James Maybrick.

01:35James was born and raised in Liverpool. He was a son of an engraver and had grown from his humble

01:41upbringing to be the owner of his own cotton trading business. He was born on October 24th 1838 so was

01:5024 years older than Florence but he wasted no time in informing the young impressionable lady he had

01:56opened an office in Norfolk Virginia and now spends his time between the USA and England building up his

02:03business. Florence seemed fascinated by his story and in what could be considered an impetuous decision

02:10she decided to disembark the ship at Liverpool and not continue with her planned trip to Paris.

02:16James however did not tell the young lady everything about himself and kept a dark secret from her.

02:23He did reveal that he had caught malaria in Virginia in the 1870s and made a full recovery but he

02:30did not

02:30add that following his treatment he was now addicted to medicines which contained substances such as

02:38strychnine, phosphoric acids and arsenic. He also didn't tell her that he had a mistress named Sarah

02:45Anne Robertson who he supported financially and who he would frequently visit when he had business

02:52meetings in the Whitechapel area of London. With her he had five illegitimate children. On the 7th of July 1881

03:01Florence and James married at the St James Church in the Piccadilly area of London. Soon after

03:07they returned to Virginia where James spent his time building up his cotton business. The marriage

03:13seemed to be happy and Florence gave birth to two children. Then in 1884 the couple returned to

03:21Liverpool and set up home at the very impressive Battlecrease House very close to the River Mersey.

03:28Life in England was very different for Florence. She had been raised by a wealthy mother and had been used

03:35to

03:35a very social and affluent lifestyle. Now she was living in one of Europe's fastest growing cities.

03:41It was industrial and fast-paced and she didn't know many people. Her social calendar was rarely full

03:48and her husband also spent many days away on business trips. Florence started to feel isolated.

03:55In 1887 James told his wife that the business was not doing very well

04:01and she would have to make changes to her spending habits. This was something somewhat alien to her

04:07as she had been used to spending money whenever she needed so decided to just borrow it by using her

04:14fine jewellery as collateral. But she started to get into debt. She was careful to hide these debts from

04:20her husband but as the debts mounted she started to worry. She confided in her mother by writing to her.

04:28She wrote that every time there was a knock at the door she feared that it was someone arriving to

04:33collect a debt. However, financial difficulties were not the only thing to concern her in 1887.

04:40As her son contracted scarlet fever and worried for their daughter's health they sent her away so as

04:47not to catch the disease. Florence's son survived but a few months later her brother named Holbrook died in

04:54Paris and the cause of his death was given as consumption. Florence continued to feel alone.

05:01Her husband was spending more and more time in London and it later became known to her that James had

05:07a

05:08mistress in Whitechapel to whom he paid the sum of a hundred pounds a year and who he had been

05:14visiting

05:14and financially supporting for over 20 years. Florence confronted her husband about his infidelity

05:21but perhaps because of his financial problems or perhaps because he had little regard for his wife

05:27he made light of the issue and told her she had other things to concern herself with.

05:32In the spring of 1888 Florence now fed up with feeling totally betrayed was courted by a young cotton

05:39broker named Alfred Brearley. He was a family friend and conducted business with her husband James.

05:46Over the previous two years affection had been a stranger to Florence. She was now 27 years old and

05:54living away from her homeland so the advances made by Alfred were reciprocated and the two of them would

06:01meet whenever they could. But Florence did not remain discreet and in mid-March 1889 booked a hotel room

06:09in London for her and Alfred and for some strange reason made the reservation in the name of Mr.

06:15and Mrs. Thomas Maybrick which were the names of her brother and sister-in-law. Gossip and rumour were very

06:22much part of life in Victorian Britain so it was no surprise that on the 29th of March 1889 things

06:29came to a

06:30head when James discovered his wife's infidelity. They had gone to the famous horse race, the Grand

06:37National at Aintree Racecourse and the couple began to argue. When they returned home they had another

06:44very big argument which was only stopped when the servants and the local doctor intervened. After the

06:50couple had calmed down they agreed that James would pay off his wife's debts and Florence would break off

06:56her relationship with Alfred. It was however clear to everyone that the couple no longer got on.

07:05They continued to live together. Divorce was not common at the time with only five couples in every

07:11thousand getting one. Florence was also aware that divorce would mean she would be left with nothing

07:17and would have no option but to leave her children and go back to America with her mother. She would

07:24have to make the marriage work but James was still addicted to his medications and continued to work long

07:30hours and traveled frequently to London. In mid-April 1889 Florence purchased some fly papers. These were

07:40common at the time and flies would land on them and die. Florence however did not use them to trap

07:46flies

07:46and instead she soaked them in a bowl. She told her housekeeper named Alice Yap that she was soaking

07:54them to extract the arsenic as it would help her improve her complexion. It was difficult to obtain

08:00arsenic at the time and soaking flypaper was a common practice. James continued to self-medicate and over the

08:07years his reliance on medication had only increased. Then on the 27th of April he became quite ill. A doctor

08:15was called and diagnosed severe dyspepsia. He prescribed a cyanide based medicine but as his condition worsened,

08:23Florence employed a nurse to care for him. On the 7th of May Florence received a letter from Alfred

08:30Brearley telling her that he was going to live overseas. This greatly distressed her so she

08:36immediately wrote back to him. She gave the letter to the housekeeper to post but the housekeeper decided

08:42not to post it. Instead she passed it on to James's brother. James's condition didn't improve and he spent most

08:50of

08:50his time in bed. Everyone was very concerned about him and no one could understand why he was taking so

08:57long to get better. On the 9th of May Florence removed a bottle of tonic named Valentine's meat

09:03juice. This was a common pick-me-up in the 19th century. She left the room and returned a few

09:10minutes

09:10later and placed the innocent looking bottle by her husband's bedside. The nurse however had grown

09:16suspicious of Florence so removed it and gave it to James's brother. He sent it to be examined and it

09:24was found to contain half a grain of arsenic. The following day, May the 10th, Florence poured her

09:31husband's medicine into a large bottle. When she was questioned on why she was doing this, she said that

09:37it was easier to stir. Again the medicine was removed and analysed but the results showed that nothing had been

09:44added. The family and the nurse had grown very suspicious of Florence. They searched the house

09:51and found large amounts of arsenic. The amount Florence would have generated from the fly paper

09:57was very small in comparison. The next day, May the 11th, James Maybrick died.

10:06A post-mortem was held and arsenic was found in the deceased body but it was concluded that there was

10:12not enough to actually cause death. It was however confirmed that he had died due to a prolonged period

10:19of poisoning. On the 18th of May, Florence was arrested and taken to the Walton jail. Again she

10:26was completely alone. She was never really liked by her husband's friends and now that her relationship

10:32with Alfred Brearley had been made public, they seemed keen to witness her downfall. She was questioned

10:38extensively by the police and they decided to charge her with the murder of her husband, James Maybrick.

10:45The trial of Florence Maybrick took place at Liverpool St George's Hall. Florence's mother

10:52employed a very well known and successful barrister to defend her, named Sir Charles Russell. The medical

10:58evidence was confusing and somewhat contradictory. The defence tried to outline that there was a very low

11:05amount of arsenic found in James's body so it could not confidently be presumed that this had caused

11:11his death. But there was a flypaper and a bottle of meat juice that had been contaminated with arsenic.

11:18This evidence, coupled with her problematic marriage and her well known relationship with Alfred Brearley,

11:24meant that the prosecution reminded the court of how Florence could have benefited from the death

11:31of her husband. The jury was also never totally informed about the extent of James's addiction to

11:37arsenic and strychnine. Florence decided to enter the dock in her own defence. She tried to defend the

11:44soaking of the flypaper by saying that she had lost her prescription for her arsenic-based face cream,

11:50and she told the court that the reason that arsenic was discovered in the meat juice was because her

11:56husband had implored her to add it, as he firmly believed that it helped him feel better. However, any sympathy

12:03that she may have received from the all-male jury was soon forgotten when she admitted to her relationship

12:09with Alfred. The judge was an elderly gentleman named James Fitz-James Stephen. When he summed up the case, he

12:17said to the

12:18jury, you must consider that it is a horrible and dreadful thought that a woman should be plotting

12:24the death of her husband in order that she might be left at liberty to follow her own degrading vices.

12:31When the jury were eventually sent out to consider the case, it only took them 35 minutes to find Florence

12:39Maybrick guilty of murder, and the judge sentenced her to death. The case had been reported in both Britain

12:47America, and for the next few days, the verdict was a topic of conversation on both sides of the Atlantic.

12:54Some believed Florence to be guilty, others argued that she was innocent, and had only been found guilty

13:01by a jury of 12 men, as she had admitted to her infidelity. Her defence team petitioned the Home

13:07Secretary to commute the sentence, and eventually, just four days before her scheduled execution date,

13:13Florence Maybrick's sentence was changed to life in prison. It was later reduced further to 15 years.

13:23Florence was released from prison in 1904, and after spending a short time in a convent in the coastal

13:30town of Truro, she returned to America. She wrote a book about her life, called My Lost 15 Years,

13:37and travelled around America giving lectures. She never saw either of her children again. Florence died,

13:45poor and alone, in 1941, aged 79. But the story doesn't end there.

13:55In 1992, a 19th century diary emerged, allegedly written by Jack the Ripper, and although the diary's

14:03author does not actually identify himself by name. It is quite obvious from various personal references,

14:10but it was written by James Maybrick. In the diary, the writer states that after he had seen his wife

14:16with another man in the Whitechapel area of Liverpool, he was so enraged that he went to the Whitechapel

14:21district of London, an area which he knew well, and committed the Whitechapel murders.

14:28Some people think that the diary is genuine, and that James Maybrick is in fact Jack the Ripper.

14:34Others are more sceptical, saying that he was never ever considered a suspect until the diary emerged,

14:41and that there is no scientific evidence to prove that the diary is genuine. They also say that it is

14:47not clear if James had known about his wife's adultery until 1889, and point out that nothing is written

14:55in the diary that could have not been found by reading about the Whitechapel murders in the

14:59newspapers. A year after the diary emerged, a gold watch was found, with the initials of Jack the Ripper's

15:07five victims scratched inside, together with the signature of James Maybrick, and the words,

15:14I am Jack. The watch has been subjected to scientific analysis, and the scratches have been found to be

15:21compatible with the period 1888 to 1889, but these results are disputed. Many people also consider

15:30that the watch appearing so soon after the diary is somewhat suspicious, and remind us that even if

15:36the watch and the diary can be dated back to 1888, it does not mean that they are written by

15:42or owned

15:43by Jack the Ripper, as there were many frauds and hoaxes associated with the late 19th century.

15:52Hello everyone, and thank you so much for listening. As per usual, please leave any comments or feedback you

15:58might have, and please let me know if you think that James Maybrick may have been Jack the Ripper.

16:04And I will see you in the next briefcase.

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