Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So today we are going to talk about a very controversial trial. If you have ever been frustrated by the criminal justice system, this is not going to help, but it may at least offer the knowledge that the problems that many people experience in that system, and how biased and unfair it can be, particularly to people who are not wealthy, have always been around. This is the story of a poisoning and a trial and a whole lot of bias in that trial. We are talking about Eliza Fenning, who worked as a cook in a London household until she found herself in the middle of a very serious poisoning accusation. So Elizabeth Fenning, who went by Eliza, was born on June tenth, seventeen ninety three to William and Mary Fenning. William was a soldier and was stationed on the Caribbean island of Dominica. That's where Eliza was born. The Fennings had nine other children in addition to Eliza, but she was the only one of the ten to survive to adulthood. In the late seventeen nineties, William's regiment moved to Dublin, and then in eighteen o two he was discharged and the family moved to London. William got a job selling potatoes, Mary worked as an upholsterer, and Eliza started working when she was fourteen. In March of eighteen fifteen, so at the age of twenty one, Eliza was working as a cook in the home of Robert Gregson Turner. She had not been there long. Her higher date was January thirtieth of that year. Robert Turner is described as a law stationer, and while some accounts of this whole story have kind of misinterpreted this to suggest that he practiced law, it actually means that he sold and provided the kinds of supplies that legal offices and lawyers would need, like the various forms and log books, etc. Robert and his wife Charlotte Turner lived at number sixty eight Chancery Lane, with a housemaid named Sarah Pierre, two apprentices named Roger Gadsden and Thomas King. Robert's father, or Labar Turner, was Robert's business partner, and he was often in the home as well as were two part time clerks, and this was overall a very young household. Robert was only twenty four, Charlotte was twenty three, and those two apprentices were just eighteen and sixteen. That misinterpretation amuses me a little bit, because to me, it's very obvious that a law stationer who would be someone who sells supplies or law. On March twenty first, Eliza prepared dinner for the turn nurse that included Roger, Charlotte and Orlabar, and according to Orlabar's account, they had rump steak, potatoes and yeast dumplings. Before dinner was over, Charlotte Turner excused herself to her room, where she experienced what she told her husband and father in law was a quote violent sickness. Robert and Orlabar were soon very sick as well. The father in law stated later that he quote vomited dreadfully. A Princess Gadsden and Eliza were also sick. The family's doctor, Henry Ogilvie, was called to help. He arrived at five o'clock and several hours later, at around eight thirty pm, he asked a colleague, surgeon John Marshall, to also come and give an opinion. Marshall believed Robert Turner might actually die. All of the affected members of the household were prescribed fluids in great quantities in the hopes that what the doctor believed to be poisoned would be flushed out of their systems, and over the course of several days they did all improve. But from the very first or Labar suspected that Eliza had poisoned them all. Eliza was arrested on March twenty third, which was a Thursday. Police officer William Thistleton found her still quite sick when he arrived to take her into custody. That day, she was charged with attempted murder. She was held in an infirmary ward at Clarkenwell Prison for four days before being brought before the Hatton Garden Magistrates to determine if her case would go to trial. Witness testimony was included. Roger Gadsden, one of Turner's apprentices, stated that he had wandered into the kitchen where Eliza was as the dinner was being cleared. He had seen the dumplings and had tried to take some and as a quick aside, here there are lots of foods that are called dumplings in different cultures and even different regions within the same culture. So just so you understand, the dumplings that we're talking about here are a type traditionally made with flower and wit, kind of formed into little a dough that's then cut into little pieces their seasonings, and then those pieces are poached in a stalker a stew. But though Gadsden thought these dumplings looked appealing, according to his testimony, Eliza tried to shoo him away from them, saying that they were cold and heavy, But he did eat some and he became ill, just as the Turners had. But Eliza also ate some of those leftover dumplings, and she also, as we mentioned, got sick. Oral of our Turner was suspicious of the fact that everyone got sick, so he searched the house for arsenic. He did not find any, but there actually was some in the house, and that was not unusual for any household at the time. Arsenic was the primary way to handle rats and mice. The parcel of arsenic in the Turner home was kept in an office drawer, and it was there to make sure that none of his documents got gnawed on by unwanted pests. Yeah, we'll talk about whether that arsenic was there or not in just a bit. But according to or Labar Turner, he examined the pan where the dumplings had been mixed and he found what he thought was a suspicious powder on the bottom when questioned about this dish in court. And we're using some various terms interchangeably throughout this, in terms of dish, pan and bowl, because they all get used interchangeably, and it's unclear exactly what the actual vessel was. But just so you know, but when she was questioned about this dish, Eliza stated she had been the only one to mix the dumplings in it. Or Labar kept the dish and its contents so that it could be examined by the two doctors, John Marshall and Ogilvie. When John Marshall arrived at the Turner house after being called the day of the poisonings, he found Eliza conscious but quite limp, on the stairs. She said she had been vomiting a great deal. Marshall checked on all the sick family members, as well as Eliza and Gadsden, and determined that they had likely all been poisoned, and he also determined that there was indeed arsenic in the bottom of the pan that Eliza had been using. If you knew anything about poisoning history, you know that that was not an exact science in terms of identifying arsenic at this point. So just remember that as we go through this well, by having made dumplings, I'm like, could it have been flower? It will come up on the stand. The Charlotte Turner gave testimony that made it clear she believed that Eliza had poisoned the family. She told the court that three weeks before the arsenic in the dumplings, as it was believed, she and Eliza had gotten into an argument. Charlotte stated that Eliza had some quote indelicacy in her conduct and she was thinking of firing her, but took pity on her. In the weeks between the argument and the poisoning, Ali, she said, had been telling Missus Turner that she made wonderful dumplings and that the Turners must allow her to make some for dinner. On Monday, March twentieth, Eliza told Charlotte that she had received an order of yeast from the brewer, which she had procured so she could make dumplings for dinner the following night. Charlotte also stated that she had seen the dumpling dough and thought that it looked suspicious, describing it as flat, black and heavy. Sarah Pierre, the housemaid, was also called and she stated that she heard Eliza say after her argument with Missus Turner that she would quote never like them anymore. With all this testimony, prosecutors got their committal. Eliza was given three choices. She could be set free on bail with two sureties each in the amount of fifty dollars, She could do a year of incarceration at Clarkenwell, or she could stand trial. She opted for the trial because she didn't want to burden her parents financially and she thought it would be the fastest solution. Her trial bait was set for April eleventh at the Old Bailey. Yes, so all of this testiment, why we've talked about up to this point, is essentially her arraignment. Some of it will repeat a little bit when we get to the trial, but just fy so you don't become confused. During all of this, Eliza had a sweetheart, a young man named Edward. We don't have a lot of information about him beyond that, but we do know that Eliza wrote him letters while she was in custody. The first of these explains her situation, as well as a degree of embarrassment about the whole thing. She wrote quote, Dear Edward, you may be truly surprised at me for not writing or sending to you, But no doubt you have heard what has happened to me. For I now lay ill in the infirmary, sick ward at the New Clarkenwell Prison, for on last Tuesday week I had some yeast dumplings to make, and there was something in which I cannot answer for, And they made four of us, including myself, dangerously ill. As an side, there were actually five, but I'm not sure why she maybe didn't count Gadsden, I don't know. And because I made them, they suspect me that I have put something in them, which I assure you I am innocent of. But I expect I shall be cleared on Thursday. If in case I can't attend, I shall never be right or happy again to think I was ever in prison. Eliza's mother visited her several times a day in the infirmary to help take care of her, and as it fell to the Fennings to pay the prison to cover the costs of Eliza's incarceration, they had to sell a lot of their possessions to do so. We'll get into the particulars of Eliza Fenning's trial after we pause for a sponsor break. Mister John Kearney, King's counsel, was the prosecutor in Eliza's case, and a barrister named Peter Ali was her defense. Charlotte Turner was once again called to testify, and she was asked about that time that she had scolded Eliza. She was asked, quote, what was the reason that you reproved her? Charlotte's answer was, quote, I observed her one night go into the young men's room partly undressed. I said it was very indecent of her to go into the young men's room undressed. Charlotte Turner also stated that after this, Eliza was generally sullen and disrespectful. She also stated that even though she did not like to trouble the brewer for yeast, preferring to get ready made dough from the baker, Eliza had gone ahead and gotten the yeast from him anyway. Charlotte also stated that she had instructed Eliza how to make the dumplings, and also to make a beefsteak pie for the apprentices to have for dinner that same day. Missus Turner also told the court that Sarah Pierre had been busy on March twenty first and had not been in the kitchen with Eliza. She also said that though the dough for the dumplings had been set in its pan before the fire to rise, it never did. Of Eliza's dough, Charlotte said, quote, I observed it never did rise. I took off the cloth and looked at it. My observation was it had not risen, and it was in a very singular position, in which position it remained until it was divided into dumplings. It was not put into the pan as I have seen dough. Its shape was singular. It retained that shape till the last. I am confident it never was meddled with after it had been put there. Just the longest way to say, the dough looked weird to me. Yeah. Charlotte then described for the court the way that she had begun to feel sick after eating just a small piece of dumpling. She estimated she had only eaten a quarter of one. She described being quote affected in the stomach, very faint, and an extreme burning pain which increased with every minute she was She told the court surprise that no one came to check on her, but then when she made her way downstairs about half an hour after she had retired, she found that her husband and father in law were also quite sick. When or Labar Turner was brought to the stand as a witness, he stated he had become sick within three minutes of eating Eliza's dumplings. He said that he barely made it into the yard before throwing up, and that quote I felt considerable heat across my stomach and chest and pain. He said he had not seen Eliza eat any of the dumplings, and he immediately suspected arsenic. He mentioned that they kept arsenic in the house and that Eliza would have had access to it. He also stated that the last time he recalled seeing the arsenic in the office drawer was on March seventh. Or Labar Turner also asked Eliza what prejudicial ingredients she had put into the dumplings, and she stated that she thought it had not been the dumplings, but a pail of milk brought in by Sarah Peer that had made them all sick. Milk had been used in the sauce, yes, and that sauce was not made by Eliza. We'll get to that. When called as a witness, Roger Gadsden also gave the March seventh eight as the last time that he had seen the Arsenic in the office. Gadsden also repeated the story about Eliza urging him not to eat the dumplings, and that he had eaten what he described as a walnut size amount with sauce. He stated quote, in consequence of the distress the family were in, I was sent off to Missus Turner, the mother. I was very sick going and coming back. I thought I should die. He also told the court that Eliza had made dumplings for the household staff the night before she made them for the Turners, and that they had been quite different and no one had gotten sick. The Missus Turner, Gadsden was mentioning here was Margaret Turner, Roger's mother and Orlabar's wife. She stated that immediately she went to the house and found everyone Ill, including Eliza, immediately thought it must be the dumplings. But she told the court that Eliza told her quote, not the dumplings, but the milk. Ma'am. Eliza said that Roger Gadsden hadn't had much dumpling at all, but quote had licked up three parts of a boat of sauce with a bit of bread. That sauce had been mixed not by Eliza but by Charlotte Turner. Seems like there was a bit of friction between Eliza and Sarah. Eliza made clear that Sarah had been the one to bring the milk. So after this sauce issue was brought up, other members of the household were asked before the judge whether they had eaten any of the sauce. Robert Turner said that he had not eaten any sauce, but he did have dumplings. Sarah Peer, who had not eaten the dumplings but had eaten some of the beefsteak pie that had a crust that had been made with the very same flour, had not gotten sick. One of the pieces of evidence introduced into the trial was the family's table from the dinner in question. The knives and forks had tarnished. They were described as being black or turning black, and John Marshall testified that arsenic could cause that, but Marshall had also searched for scientific proof. He cut open the remaining dumplings and found what he described as white particles throughout. He put a portion on a polished coin and then set that coin on a knife blade to hold it over a candle flame. It smelled of garlic when he did this, and left a white residue on the metal after burning, both of which Marshall said were signs of arsenic. He performed additional tests, burning the white powder that he found in the dumplings, and once again found that they smelled of garlic and left the white residue. Eliza's barrister, Peter Alley, was to be frank kind of a dud. He didn't ask many questions of the witnesses or try to reframe anything they said with a simple explanation, or point out any discrepancies that came up between their arraignment hearing. In the trial, Eliza was put on the stand to defend herself. She told the judge and jury quote, I'm truly innocent of the whole charge. As God is my witness. I am innocent. Indeed I am. I liked my place. I was very comfortable. As to my master saying I did not assist him, I was too ill. I had no concern with the drawer at all. When I wanted a piece of paper, I always asked for it. Eliza defended herself against all of the accusations and claims that were made against her, even the claim that she had been partly undressed in the room of the apprentices, which is what had led to Charlotte's scolding of her several weeks before the poisonings. Her explanation there was that she had needed a light in the night and had gone to their room still dressed, and that the boys, as she called them, had tried to take liberties with her, so she had called for Missus Turner. But by the time Charlotte Turner got to the hall, Eliza was back in her own room and had started to undress there, and Missus Turner made assumptions. Yeah, there are some discrepancies in various statements, even that Charlotte Turner gave that sometimes she claimed she had seen Eliza in her own room and other times she said that she had seen her undressed in the apprentices room, so there's some inconsistency. As for the day that the fateful dinner was cooked, there was, according to Eliza, a period she was out of the kitchen because Charlotte Turner had sent her to the butcher. That was part of telling her to make a beefsteak pie. And Eliza stated that she had seen Thomas King, that is the other apprentice that we haven't really talked about much yet, leave the kitchen, but he had not answered her when she asked why he was there, and he just left. The defense then had five character witnesses testify to Eliza's good nature, but when one of them stated that Eliza had told him just a few days before, in March twenty first, that she was quite happy with her work and her employers, that testimony was struck down by the judge is inadmissible. Similarly, a written statement from Eliza's father, William Fenning, was not allowed to be introduced to the court. It stated that he had stopped by the Turner home on March twenty first, the day of the poisonings, to say hello to his daughter, but was told by Sarah Peer that Eliza was out on an errand, and reality Eliza was there, had already eaten the foul dumplings and was sick at the time. Eliza wanted to have Thomas King brought to the stand, but the court was only willing to produce Roger Gadsden. The trial, the verdict, and the sentence all took place on the same day. When all of the testimony was done and the judge began to address the jurors, Eliza's barrister just got up and left. He didn't even stick around. The jury deliberated for mere moments before returning a guilty verdict, and Eliza was sentenced to death. It wasn't until Friday, April fourteenth that the sentence was formally issued. That's because the session of the court would record all sentences from the week on the same day, so that Friday, Eliza and fourteen other people who had been tried that week formally received their sentences. Eliza waited in Newgate Prison, hoping that her verdict could be overturned. When it seemed that no reprieve was coming, Eliza wrote to Edward, telling him that she was making her peace with God and that arrangements were to be made for Edward to visit, but Eliza also wrote him that she wanted him to find someone else, quote when I am no more. Perhaps having taken her words too hastily to heart, Edward was a no show. When his May fourth visitation day came, Eliza wrote to him again, this time clearly hurt to have been a band. Meanwhile, the entire case had become the main focus of all of England, it seemed, as her trial was reported on the papers. The way the entire thing had been handled came under suspicion. Sir John Sylvester, the judge in the case, was known to form opinions on defendants and then steer the proceedings in the way he chose. The fact that the Turners worked in legal circles led people to question whether things had been slanted against Eliza from the beginning. There were also detractors who believed the testimony of the Turners and their apprentice Gadsden, and thought that Eliza was a cold blooded killer thwarted only by the work of surgeon John Marshall. As for Eliza's own illness, the explanation that kind of went around these circles was that she must have poisoned herself just a little to try to avoid suspicion. We'll talk more about how people debated Elia's innocence or guilts, and how pleased for a pre were made both by her and on her behalf after we hear from the sponsors that keep stuffy miss in history class going. Soon reporters were clamoring to meet with Eliza so that they could share with readers how innocent or guilty she seemed to them, although most really did seem to find her to be very unlikely of attempting to murder anyone. Pamphlets were written pointing out the various holes in the case. Why would a poisoner take the poison herself, Why would she not wash the pan that the poison had been mixed in, Why would she have opted to go to trial confident that it would be the fastest way to put the matter behind her, And why was any positive testimony about Eliza not admitted in court? Why was Thomas King not called similarly? Why not Sergeant Ogilvie, who was with the family and Eliza for several hours before getting John Marshall involved in an effort to bolster an appeals case, a medic named Thomas William Windsborough performed his own experiments with arsenic to show that it would not blacken knives in the way that had been claimed in the court. Wansborough wrote up his results and sent them to the Secretary of State, Lord Sidmus. As spring stretched into early summer, Eliza wrote to the Secretary of State herself, begging him to intervene. She also wrote to the High Chancellor of Great Britain, Lord Eldon, similarly requesting his help and pointing out inconsistencies in the testimony of Charlotte Turner and the huge gap in the record that resulted in not calling Thomas King to the stand. She wrote to the Turners and asked them to save her life. She wrote to the examine Or to thank the press for their kindness to her, and to assert her innocence publicly one more time. The Turners did visit Eliza in prison at Eliza's request. She also told them that she wanted Thomas King to come with them, and it seemed that they believed she was going to confess, but she did the opposite and once again proclaimed her innocence unwavering. It kind of seemed like she was hoping that having all of them there together might prompt someone to actually confess, because she told them that she hoped the real culprit would be identified. There was a lot of public support for Eliza, and quite a few prominent people tried to advocate on her behalf. A banker named Corbin Lloyd went to Sir John Sylvester to beg for her execution to be held off until additional investigations could be completed. There just was not enough evidence to conclusively prove her guilt in the eyes of Lloyd and many others, but Sylvester was really having none of it. A bookseller named J. M. Richardson's similarly worked to get the attention of Lord Sidmouth and Sir John Sylvester after a visitor to his home told him that a member of the Turner household had been seen in a moment of seeming public madness, threatening to poison his entire household. That particular piece of information went from what seemed like a hazy sort of rumor to a very clear picture when a mister Gibson, who worked at Corbin and Company, chemist and druggist, went on record with details about very unsettling statements made in his place of work by Robert Turner. Gibson recounted the following quote about the month of September or October last, to the best of my recollection, mister Turner Junior called at our house, and, appearing in a wild and deranged state. I invited him into a back room, where I detained him, whilst mister Crockford went to his father's. In this interval, mister Turner Junior used the most violent and incoherent expressions, such as, my dear Gibson, do for God's sake, get me secured and confined. For if I am at liberty, I shall do some mischief. I shall destroy myself and my wife. I must and shall do it. Something from above tells me I must do it, and unless I am prevented, I shall certainly do it. Gibson also stated that he had, after Eliza's arrest, gone to Orlabar Turner and asked him not to proceed in trying to have Eliza prosecuted. Part of the reason was that he believed if she was executed and Robert was allowed to walk freely in the world, Robert posed a very great danger, but once again there was no shift in their position on this matter. Thomas Winsborough appealed directly to the Turners, showing them the experiments he had done that called John Marshall's scientific evidence. It's a question. Allegedly, the family seemed almost on the verge of considering signing a reprieve request, but then Marshall and Sylvester, who arrived at the Turner home as Winsborough was planning his efforts, dismissed all of it. They suggested to the Turners that if they signed any document helping Fenning, it would cast doubt on their family. Additionally, Sylvester told men who spoke out in support of Eliza Fenning they were only doing it because she was young and pretty. None of their efforts made a difference. Yeah, there's some speculation about how magically John Marshall and Sylvester just churned up at the house while someone was refuting Marshall's evidence, and their suspicion that someone else in the household went and told them that he was there, but we don't know for sure. The judge reported the pending cases to the Prince Regent on July twentieth, with recommendations for the carrying out of the sentences. The Prince Regent was George the Fourth, who ruled as regent from eighteen eleven to eighteen twenty after King George the Third was deemed mentally unstable. George the Fourth was crowned as king in eighteen twenty when George the Third died. So this step of the judge reporting to the Prince Regent is sort of like checking in to see if any of the sentenced would be pardoned or given a stay of execution. But no such grace was given, and the execution list was approved by the Prince Regent. On July twenty sixth, eighteen fifteen, just three short months after the whole ordeal began, Eliza Fennings stood on the hangman's scaffold. Despite the fact that it was a rainy day, A large crowd had turned out to watch this horrific spectacle. One of the last things Eliza did was whisper into the ear of the chaplain who stood next to her, which a number of witnesses believed to be a last minute confession. It was not. She had turned to the religious leader to assert one more time that she was innocent. She had chosen a white muslin dress as a symbol of her innocence, and according to witness accounts, her last words were I am innocent. Eliza was buried on July thirty first at George the Murder Church in the churchyard. Her parents had to pay fourteen shilling sixpence in executioner's fees before their daughter's body was released to them for burial. While Eliza had been laid out for visitation prior to being interred, a number of visitors, seeing how poor her parents were and how they had been completely taxed by this whole process, gave her father money as they passed through. As Eliza's body was carried from her parents house to her final resting site, a crowd of thousands is said to have formed behind the processional. After Eliza's death, her entire story continued to play out in the press, with journalists speculating about whether she had or hadn't done it, and there were plenty of people who held her case up as an example of the problems with Britain's legal system. Writer John Watkins became deeply invested in the story and what he believed, as many did, was a miscarriage of justice. He made the case that there was no way the amount of arsenic the doctor had claimed to have found in the bowl was plausible. There was only a tiny amount of dough residue left in the bowl, but it had produced a half teaspoon of arsenic per the doctor's estimation. A half teaspoon sounds like a very little amount, but just a few grains of arsenic are enough to kill a person, So if there had been a half teaspoon in the leftover dish residue, Watkins calculated that there would have been about eighteen hundred grains of arsenic in the dumplings that were consumed. Everyone involved should have been dead and would not have been able to recover. No matter how much fluid was prescribed. Just a bite of a dumpling would have easily killed multiple people. So things just did not add up. Watkins asserted that the arsenic had to have been added after the dough was made, suggesting that someone other than Eliza had sprinkled the arsenic on the dough after she had mixed the ingredients. For a brief moment in eighteen twenty nine, seemed that the truth of what had happened at sixty eight Chancery Lane had at last come to light. A pamphlet published that year by the firm of Cowie and Strange was titled Circumstantial Evidence The Extraordinary Case of Eliza Fenning, who was executed in eighteen fifteen for attempting to poison the family of Erlabar Turner by mixing arsenic in yeast dumplings, with a statement of facts since developed tending to prove her innocence of the crime. This pamphlet was sold for a penny, and in its introduction states quote years passed away without there appearing to be any reason to doubt the justice of the verdict. But fresh interest has been lately given to the subject by a report that has been circulated, charging another with the dreadful deed. So the pamphlet goes on to state that quote. Within the last few weeks a paragraph has appeared in many of the newspapers stating that the son of mister Turner had died lately in the hospital after confessing that he had mixed the poison in the food prepared by Eliza Fenning, and was consequently guilty of the offense for which she suffered but it also states that no one can verify this information. While this story started to appear in other papers as well, in June of eighteen twenty nine that Essex Herald printed a note that this information was false and that Robert Turner was in fact still alive. While Eliza's story is one that evidences biases of class and a very broken justice system, one of the results is that it actually got a lot more people thinking about the criminal justice system and about what would eventually be called forensic science. In eighteen twenty eight, John Gordon Smith, a former Army surgeon, became the first professor of Medical Jurisprudence at the University of London. That was the beginning of forensics education in the country, and he used Eliza's case in lectures and provided demonstrations that showed that so called expert testimony was not always correct. The blackened cutlery issue with something Gordon Smith was particularly interested in. He used knives soaked in different substances as examples for his class. One that he had soaked in arsenic for ten hours showed no signs of discoloration, but one that he had set in pickled walnuts for the same period did indeed turn black. The frustrating story of Eliza Femming. I have much less frustrating and delightful listener mail oh good. As you may recall, on a recent episode, I had mentioned that I had run into one of our listeners at my specialty vet, Tabitha, and I said, Tabitha resend that because I cannot find it. I don't know if it just went into the ether or what, but she did resend it done as an update, her kiddie's doing very well, and she also mentions that she makes one of the drinks on Criminalia regularly and people love it, which makes me very happy in my dark little heart. But her initial email reads hello ladies. Over the holidays, I was talking on my eighty five and a half year old aunt in law and she was reminiscing about her childhood cat, Totem, adopted in nineteen forty two, whose tail looked like a Totem pole. She told me how very many kittens Totem had, all of which were adopted out to other families. We were contrasting this idea with our neighborhood Mama Cat, who has gifted the neighborhood and my house with many lovely kittens, but we are trying to catch her to retire her kitten making days. So far we have only caught and spay, neutered, released, or adopted some of her kittens. Then we started wondering at what point in the USA people switched from simply expecting kittens to spaying and neutering their cats. I feel like all my life, from the seventies until now, there has been a campaign to spay neuter your pets. Obviously, it used to be different when who figured out how to spain, neuter or pets safely. I've heard mention of horses being a gelding in old novels, but never other animals being retired from reproduction in ways other than isolation. This seemed like a research topic you might enjoy looking into. And then Tabitha shared beautiful pictures of her kiddies who are just adorable, and I did get to meet her one of her kiddies while we were at the vet together, so I'm so glad that he's doing well and all of these kiddies are beautiful. One thing I wanted to mention I didn't go into researching all of the neutering stuff, but I did specifically want to look at because I can answer it pretty quickly. Trap neuter release programs or you'll sometimes also see them as trap neuter return programs or TNVR, which is trap neuter vaccinate programs, which basically, for anyone that doesn't know what that is, if you're somewhere where there is a population of feral cats, it's like cats that are not ever really going to socialize to be somebody's pet. A lot of people have started these efforts to capture those cats, get them spade or neutered, get them vaccinated if possible, and then they release them again. And in some places this is a really good like rodent control approach. There are lots of companies that will do this with animals on their property, etc. There are lots of people that just do like grassroots efforts. But it's a cool thing, and it actually has not been around all that long, so I know there are people that will argue about it and don't like these programs. I am obviously not one of them, but just step YI. This started actually in Great Britain in the nineteen fifties, where they realize that if they culled a feral population like if you kill the cats that are there that you think are a nuisance, or if you just had them carted away, other cats just move in. But if you fix them, they'll stay in their territory. They have population roll and as we said, they'll get rid of rodents and other pests. So great Britain did this in the fifties, Denmark started doing it in the nineteen seventies, and then somewhere in the late seventies or early eighties, it's estimated, people started trying it here in the US, although it really didn't become a big thing in the US until the nineteen nineties, and now it is really common in a lot of particuliarly a lot of cities in the US, but all over. I'm a big fan of the t in Our program. Have tried to do my best to help some of those out now and again. One of my favorite cats in the world is a t in Our failure who my dear friend took pity on when she was kind of getting mistreated by other cats, took her inside. She didn't wanted to be touched by anybody until she hit about fourteen, and then she wanted to be hugged and petted by every single person she met. We don't know what happened there, but she's a diet our cat's mother was a TNR. I don't think they that was necessarily where they were planning to go with her at the shelter, but she was clearly not thriving in the shelter and as a result, her kittens were not thriving in the shelter, and so she was returned back to her feral community. And now you have the babies now have so they're very spoiled at love. They're very spoiled. Anyway, that was probably a long listener mail segment. I feel very strong about trabue release programs. So thanks for coming along for the ride if you stuck around for it. And again, Tabitha, thank you for resending that email. If you would like to email us about this or something else, you can do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on Instagram, Twitter, basically all the all of the interweb socials as missed in History. And if you would like to subscribe to the podcast and you haven't, I promise it's the easiest thing ever. You can just do that on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So today we are going to talk about a very controversial trial. If you have ever been frustrated by the criminal justice system, this is not going to help, but it may at least offer the knowledge that the problems that many people experience in that system, and how biased and unfair it can be, particularly to people who are not wealthy, have always been around. This is the story of a poisoning and a trial and a whole lot of bias in that trial. We are talking about Eliza Fenning, who worked as a cook in a London household until she found herself in the middle of a very serious poisoning accusation. So Elizabeth Fenning, who went by Eliza, was born on June tenth, seventeen ninety three to William and Mary Fenning. William was a soldier and was stationed on the Caribbean island of Dominica. That's where Eliza was born. The Fennings had nine other children in addition to Eliza, but she was the only one of the ten to survive to adulthood. In the late seventeen nineties, William's regiment moved to Dublin, and then in eighteen o two he was discharged and the family moved to London. William got a job selling potatoes, Mary worked as an upholsterer, and Eliza started working when she was fourteen. In March of eighteen fifteen, so at the age of twenty one, Eliza was working as a cook in the home of Robert Gregson Turner. She had not been there long. Her higher date was January thirtieth of that year. Robert Turner is described as a law stationer, and while some accounts of this whole story have kind of misinterpreted this to suggest that he practiced law, it actually means that he sold and provided the kinds of supplies that legal offices and lawyers would need, like the various forms and log books, etc. Robert and his wife Charlotte Turner lived at number sixty eight Chancery Lane, with a housemaid named Sarah Pierre, two apprentices named Roger Gadsden and Thomas King. Robert's father, or Labar Turner, was Robert's business partner, and he was often in the home as well as were two part time clerks, and this was overall a very young household. Robert was only twenty four, Charlotte was twenty three, and those two apprentices were just eighteen and sixteen. That misinterpretation amuses me a little bit, because to me, it's very obvious that a law stationer who would be someone who sells supplies or law. On March twenty first, Eliza prepared dinner for the turn nurse that included Roger, Charlotte and Orlabar, and according to Orlabar's account, they had rump steak, potatoes and yeast dumplings. Before dinner was over, Charlotte Turner excused herself to her room, where she experienced what she told her husband and father in law was a quote violent sickness. Robert and Orlabar were soon very sick as well. The father in law stated later that he quote vomited dreadfully. A Princess Gadsden and Eliza were also sick. The family's doctor, Henry Ogilvie, was called to help. He arrived at five o'clock and several hours later, at around eight thirty pm, he asked a colleague, surgeon John Marshall, to also come and give an opinion. Marshall believed Robert Turner might actually die. All of the affected members of the household were prescribed fluids in great quantities in the hopes that what the doctor believed to be poisoned would be flushed out of their systems, and over the course of several days they did all improve. But from the very first or Labar suspected that Eliza had poisoned them all. Eliza was arrested on March twenty third, which was a Thursday. Police officer William Thistleton found her still quite sick when he arrived to take her into custody. That day, she was charged with attempted murder. She was held in an infirmary ward at Clarkenwell Prison for four days before being brought before the Hatton Garden Magistrates to determine if her case would go to trial. Witness testimony was included. Roger Gadsden, one of Turner's apprentices, stated that he had wandered into the kitchen where Eliza was as the dinner was being cleared. He had seen the dumplings and had tried to take some and as a quick aside, here there are lots of foods that are called dumplings in different cultures and even different regions within the same culture. So just so you understand, the dumplings that we're talking about here are a type traditionally made with flower and wit, kind of formed into little a dough that's then cut into little pieces their seasonings, and then those pieces are poached in a stalker a stew. But though Gadsden thought these dumplings looked appealing, according to his testimony, Eliza tried to shoo him away from them, saying that they were cold and heavy, But he did eat some and he became ill, just as the Turners had. But Eliza also ate some of those leftover dumplings, and she also, as we mentioned, got sick. Oral of our Turner was suspicious of the fact that everyone got sick, so he searched the house for arsenic. He did not find any, but there actually was some in the house, and that was not unusual for any household at the time. Arsenic was the primary way to handle rats and mice. The parcel of arsenic in the Turner home was kept in an office drawer, and it was there to make sure that none of his documents got gnawed on by unwanted pests. Yeah, we'll talk about whether that arsenic was there or not in just a bit. But according to or Labar Turner, he examined the pan where the dumplings had been mixed and he found what he thought was a suspicious powder on the bottom when questioned about this dish in court. And we're using some various terms interchangeably throughout this, in terms of dish, pan and bowl, because they all get used interchangeably, and it's unclear exactly what the actual vessel was. But just so you know, but when she was questioned about this dish, Eliza stated she had been the only one to mix the dumplings in it. Or Labar kept the dish and its contents so that it could be examined by the two doctors, John Marshall and Ogilvie. When John Marshall arrived at the Turner house after being called the day of the poisonings, he found Eliza conscious but quite limp, on the stairs. She said she had been vomiting a great deal. Marshall checked on all the sick family members, as well as Eliza and Gadsden, and determined that they had likely all been poisoned, and he also determined that there was indeed arsenic in the bottom of the pan that Eliza had been using. If you knew anything about poisoning history, you know that that was not an exact science in terms of identifying arsenic at this point. So just remember that as we go through this well, by having made dumplings, I'm like, could it have been flower? It will come up on the stand. The Charlotte Turner gave testimony that made it clear she believed that Eliza had poisoned the family. She told the court that three weeks before the arsenic in the dumplings, as it was believed, she and Eliza had gotten into an argument. Charlotte stated that Eliza had some quote indelicacy in her conduct and she was thinking of firing her, but took pity on her. In the weeks between the argument and the poisoning, Ali, she said, had been telling Missus Turner that she made wonderful dumplings and that the Turners must allow her to make some for dinner. On Monday, March twentieth, Eliza told Charlotte that she had received an order of yeast from the brewer, which she had procured so she could make dumplings for dinner the following night. Charlotte also stated that she had seen the dumpling dough and thought that it looked suspicious, describing it as flat, black and heavy. Sarah Pierre, the housemaid, was also called and she stated that she heard Eliza say after her argument with Missus Turner that she would quote never like them anymore. With all this testimony, prosecutors got their committal. Eliza was given three choices. She could be set free on bail with two sureties each in the amount of fifty dollars, She could do a year of incarceration at Clarkenwell, or she could stand trial. She opted for the trial because she didn't want to burden her parents financially and she thought it would be the fastest solution. Her trial bait was set for April eleventh at the Old Bailey. Yes, so all of this testiment, why we've talked about up to this point, is essentially her arraignment. Some of it will repeat a little bit when we get to the trial, but just fy so you don't become confused. During all of this, Eliza had a sweetheart, a young man named Edward. We don't have a lot of information about him beyond that, but we do know that Eliza wrote him letters while she was in custody. The first of these explains her situation, as well as a degree of embarrassment about the whole thing. She wrote quote, Dear Edward, you may be truly surprised at me for not writing or sending to you, But no doubt you have heard what has happened to me. For I now lay ill in the infirmary, sick ward at the New Clarkenwell Prison, for on last Tuesday week I had some yeast dumplings to make, and there was something in which I cannot answer for, And they made four of us, including myself, dangerously ill. As an side, there were actually five, but I'm not sure why she maybe didn't count Gadsden, I don't know. And because I made them, they suspect me that I have put something in them, which I assure you I am innocent of. But I expect I shall be cleared on Thursday. If in case I can't attend, I shall never be right or happy again to think I was ever in prison. Eliza's mother visited her several times a day in the infirmary to help take care of her, and as it fell to the Fennings to pay the prison to cover the costs of Eliza's incarceration, they had to sell a lot of their possessions to do so. We'll get into the particulars of Eliza Fenning's trial after we pause for a sponsor break. Mister John Kearney, King's counsel, was the prosecutor in Eliza's case, and a barrister named Peter Ali was her defense. Charlotte Turner was once again called to testify, and she was asked about that time that she had scolded Eliza. She was asked, quote, what was the reason that you reproved her? Charlotte's answer was, quote, I observed her one night go into the young men's room partly undressed. I said it was very indecent of her to go into the young men's room undressed. Charlotte Turner also stated that after this, Eliza was generally sullen and disrespectful. She also stated that even though she did not like to trouble the brewer for yeast, preferring to get ready made dough from the baker, Eliza had gone ahead and gotten the yeast from him anyway. Charlotte also stated that she had instructed Eliza how to make the dumplings, and also to make a beefsteak pie for the apprentices to have for dinner that same day. Missus Turner also told the court that Sarah Pierre had been busy on March twenty first and had not been in the kitchen with Eliza. She also said that though the dough for the dumplings had been set in its pan before the fire to rise, it never did. Of Eliza's dough, Charlotte said, quote, I observed it never did rise. I took off the cloth and looked at it. My observation was it had not risen, and it was in a very singular position, in which position it remained until it was divided into dumplings. It was not put into the pan as I have seen dough. Its shape was singular. It retained that shape till the last. I am confident it never was meddled with after it had been put there. Just the longest way to say, the dough looked weird to me. Yeah. Charlotte then described for the court the way that she had begun to feel sick after eating just a small piece of dumpling. She estimated she had only eaten a quarter of one. She described being quote affected in the stomach, very faint, and an extreme burning pain which increased with every minute she was She told the court surprise that no one came to check on her, but then when she made her way downstairs about half an hour after she had retired, she found that her husband and father in law were also quite sick. When or Labar Turner was brought to the stand as a witness, he stated he had become sick within three minutes of eating Eliza's dumplings. He said that he barely made it into the yard before throwing up, and that quote I felt considerable heat across my stomach and chest and pain. He said he had not seen Eliza eat any of the dumplings, and he immediately suspected arsenic. He mentioned that they kept arsenic in the house and that Eliza would have had access to it. He also stated that the last time he recalled seeing the arsenic in the office drawer was on March seventh. Or Labar Turner also asked Eliza what prejudicial ingredients she had put into the dumplings, and she stated that she thought it had not been the dumplings, but a pail of milk brought in by Sarah Peer that had made them all sick. Milk had been used in the sauce, yes, and that sauce was not made by Eliza. We'll get to that. When called as a witness, Roger Gadsden also gave the March seventh eight as the last time that he had seen the Arsenic in the office. Gadsden also repeated the story about Eliza urging him not to eat the dumplings, and that he had eaten what he described as a walnut size amount with sauce. He stated quote, in consequence of the distress the family were in, I was sent off to Missus Turner, the mother. I was very sick going and coming back. I thought I should die. He also told the court that Eliza had made dumplings for the household staff the night before she made them for the Turners, and that they had been quite different and no one had gotten sick. The Missus Turner, Gadsden was mentioning here was Margaret Turner, Roger's mother and Orlabar's wife. She stated that immediately she went to the house and found everyone Ill, including Eliza, immediately thought it must be the dumplings. But she told the court that Eliza told her quote, not the dumplings, but the milk. Ma'am. Eliza said that Roger Gadsden hadn't had much dumpling at all, but quote had licked up three parts of a boat of sauce with a bit of bread. That sauce had been mixed not by Eliza but by Charlotte Turner. Seems like there was a bit of friction between Eliza and Sarah. Eliza made clear that Sarah had been the one to bring the milk. So after this sauce issue was brought up, other members of the household were asked before the judge whether they had eaten any of the sauce. Robert Turner said that he had not eaten any sauce, but he did have dumplings. Sarah Peer, who had not eaten the dumplings but had eaten some of the beefsteak pie that had a crust that had been made with the very same flour, had not gotten sick. One of the pieces of evidence introduced into the trial was the family's table from the dinner in question. The knives and forks had tarnished. They were described as being black or turning black, and John Marshall testified that arsenic could cause that, but Marshall had also searched for scientific proof. He cut open the remaining dumplings and found what he described as white particles throughout. He put a portion on a polished coin and then set that coin on a knife blade to hold it over a candle flame. It smelled of garlic when he did this, and left a white residue on the metal after burning, both of which Marshall said were signs of arsenic. He performed additional tests, burning the white powder that he found in the dumplings, and once again found that they smelled of garlic and left the white residue. Eliza's barrister, Peter Alley, was to be frank kind of a dud. He didn't ask many questions of the witnesses or try to reframe anything they said with a simple explanation, or point out any discrepancies that came up between their arraignment hearing. In the trial, Eliza was put on the stand to defend herself. She told the judge and jury quote, I'm truly innocent of the whole charge. As God is my witness. I am innocent. Indeed I am. I liked my place. I was very comfortable. As to my master saying I did not assist him, I was too ill. I had no concern with the drawer at all. When I wanted a piece of paper, I always asked for it. Eliza defended herself against all of the accusations and claims that were made against her, even the claim that she had been partly undressed in the room of the apprentices, which is what had led to Charlotte's scolding of her several weeks before the poisonings. Her explanation there was that she had needed a light in the night and had gone to their room still dressed, and that the boys, as she called them, had tried to take liberties with her, so she had called for Missus Turner. But by the time Charlotte Turner got to the hall, Eliza was back in her own room and had started to undress there, and Missus Turner made assumptions. Yeah, there are some discrepancies in various statements, even that Charlotte Turner gave that sometimes she claimed she had seen Eliza in her own room and other times she said that she had seen her undressed in the apprentices room, so there's some inconsistency. As for the day that the fateful dinner was cooked, there was, according to Eliza, a period she was out of the kitchen because Charlotte Turner had sent her to the butcher. That was part of telling her to make a beefsteak pie. And Eliza stated that she had seen Thomas King, that is the other apprentice that we haven't really talked about much yet, leave the kitchen, but he had not answered her when she asked why he was there, and he just left. The defense then had five character witnesses testify to Eliza's good nature, but when one of them stated that Eliza had told him just a few days before, in March twenty first, that she was quite happy with her work and her employers, that testimony was struck down by the judge is inadmissible. Similarly, a written statement from Eliza's father, William Fenning, was not allowed to be introduced to the court. It stated that he had stopped by the Turner home on March twenty first, the day of the poisonings, to say hello to his daughter, but was told by Sarah Peer that Eliza was out on an errand, and reality Eliza was there, had already eaten the foul dumplings and was sick at the time. Eliza wanted to have Thomas King brought to the stand, but the court was only willing to produce Roger Gadsden. The trial, the verdict, and the sentence all took place on the same day. When all of the testimony was done and the judge began to address the jurors, Eliza's barrister just got up and left. He didn't even stick around. The jury deliberated for mere moments before returning a guilty verdict, and Eliza was sentenced to death. It wasn't until Friday, April fourteenth that the sentence was formally issued. That's because the session of the court would record all sentences from the week on the same day, so that Friday, Eliza and fourteen other people who had been tried that week formally received their sentences. Eliza waited in Newgate Prison, hoping that her verdict could be overturned. When it seemed that no reprieve was coming, Eliza wrote to Edward, telling him that she was making her peace with God and that arrangements were to be made for Edward to visit, but Eliza also wrote him that she wanted him to find someone else, quote when I am no more. Perhaps having taken her words too hastily to heart, Edward was a no show. When his May fourth visitation day came, Eliza wrote to him again, this time clearly hurt to have been a band. Meanwhile, the entire case had become the main focus of all of England, it seemed, as her trial was reported on the papers. The way the entire thing had been handled came under suspicion. Sir John Sylvester, the judge in the case, was known to form opinions on defendants and then steer the proceedings in the way he chose. The fact that the Turners worked in legal circles led people to question whether things had been slanted against Eliza from the beginning. There were also detractors who believed the testimony of the Turners and their apprentice Gadsden, and thought that Eliza was a cold blooded killer thwarted only by the work of surgeon John Marshall. As for Eliza's own illness, the explanation that kind of went around these circles was that she must have poisoned herself just a little to try to avoid suspicion. We'll talk more about how people debated Elia's innocence or guilts, and how pleased for a pre were made both by her and on her behalf after we hear from the sponsors that keep stuffy miss in history class going. Soon reporters were clamoring to meet with Eliza so that they could share with readers how innocent or guilty she seemed to them, although most really did seem to find her to be very unlikely of attempting to murder anyone. Pamphlets were written pointing out the various holes in the case. Why would a poisoner take the poison herself, Why would she not wash the pan that the poison had been mixed in, Why would she have opted to go to trial confident that it would be the fastest way to put the matter behind her, And why was any positive testimony about Eliza not admitted in court? Why was Thomas King not called similarly? Why not Sergeant Ogilvie, who was with the family and Eliza for several hours before getting John Marshall involved in an effort to bolster an appeals case, a medic named Thomas William Windsborough performed his own experiments with arsenic to show that it would not blacken knives in the way that had been claimed in the court. Wansborough wrote up his results and sent them to the Secretary of State, Lord Sidmus. As spring stretched into early summer, Eliza wrote to the Secretary of State herself, begging him to intervene. She also wrote to the High Chancellor of Great Britain, Lord Eldon, similarly requesting his help and pointing out inconsistencies in the testimony of Charlotte Turner and the huge gap in the record that resulted in not calling Thomas King to the stand. She wrote to the Turners and asked them to save her life. She wrote to the examine Or to thank the press for their kindness to her, and to assert her innocence publicly one more time. The Turners did visit Eliza in prison at Eliza's request. She also told them that she wanted Thomas King to come with them, and it seemed that they believed she was going to confess, but she did the opposite and once again proclaimed her innocence unwavering. It kind of seemed like she was hoping that having all of them there together might prompt someone to actually confess, because she told them that she hoped the real culprit would be identified. There was a lot of public support for Eliza, and quite a few prominent people tried to advocate on her behalf. A banker named Corbin Lloyd went to Sir John Sylvester to beg for her execution to be held off until additional investigations could be completed. There just was not enough evidence to conclusively prove her guilt in the eyes of Lloyd and many others, but Sylvester was really having none of it. A bookseller named J. M. Richardson's similarly worked to get the attention of Lord Sidmouth and Sir John Sylvester after a visitor to his home told him that a member of the Turner household had been seen in a moment of seeming public madness, threatening to poison his entire household. That particular piece of information went from what seemed like a hazy sort of rumor to a very clear picture when a mister Gibson, who worked at Corbin and Company, chemist and druggist, went on record with details about very unsettling statements made in his place of work by Robert Turner. Gibson recounted the following quote about the month of September or October last, to the best of my recollection, mister Turner Junior called at our house, and, appearing in a wild and deranged state. I invited him into a back room, where I detained him, whilst mister Crockford went to his father's. In this interval, mister Turner Junior used the most violent and incoherent expressions, such as, my dear Gibson, do for God's sake, get me secured and confined. For if I am at liberty, I shall do some mischief. I shall destroy myself and my wife. I must and shall do it. Something from above tells me I must do it, and unless I am prevented, I shall certainly do it. Gibson also stated that he had, after Eliza's arrest, gone to Orlabar Turner and asked him not to proceed in trying to have Eliza prosecuted. Part of the reason was that he believed if she was executed and Robert was allowed to walk freely in the world, Robert posed a very great danger, but once again there was no shift in their position on this matter. Thomas Winsborough appealed directly to the Turners, showing them the experiments he had done that called John Marshall's scientific evidence. It's a question. Allegedly, the family seemed almost on the verge of considering signing a reprieve request, but then Marshall and Sylvester, who arrived at the Turner home as Winsborough was planning his efforts, dismissed all of it. They suggested to the Turners that if they signed any document helping Fenning, it would cast doubt on their family. Additionally, Sylvester told men who spoke out in support of Eliza Fenning they were only doing it because she was young and pretty. None of their efforts made a difference. Yeah, there's some speculation about how magically John Marshall and Sylvester just churned up at the house while someone was refuting Marshall's evidence, and their suspicion that someone else in the household went and told them that he was there, but we don't know for sure. The judge reported the pending cases to the Prince Regent on July twentieth, with recommendations for the carrying out of the sentences. The Prince Regent was George the Fourth, who ruled as regent from eighteen eleven to eighteen twenty after King George the Third was deemed mentally unstable. George the Fourth was crowned as king in eighteen twenty when George the Third died. So this step of the judge reporting to the Prince Regent is sort of like checking in to see if any of the sentenced would be pardoned or given a stay of execution. But no such grace was given, and the execution list was approved by the Prince Regent. On July twenty sixth, eighteen fifteen, just three short months after the whole ordeal began, Eliza Fennings stood on the hangman's scaffold. Despite the fact that it was a rainy day, A large crowd had turned out to watch this horrific spectacle. One of the last things Eliza did was whisper into the ear of the chaplain who stood next to her, which a number of witnesses believed to be a last minute confession. It was not. She had turned to the religious leader to assert one more time that she was innocent. She had chosen a white muslin dress as a symbol of her innocence, and according to witness accounts, her last words were I am innocent. Eliza was buried on July thirty first at George the Murder Church in the churchyard. Her parents had to pay fourteen shilling sixpence in executioner's fees before their daughter's body was released to them for burial. While Eliza had been laid out for visitation prior to being interred, a number of visitors, seeing how poor her parents were and how they had been completely taxed by this whole process, gave her father money as they passed through. As Eliza's body was carried from her parents house to her final resting site, a crowd of thousands is said to have formed behind the processional. After Eliza's death, her entire story continued to play out in the press, with journalists speculating about whether she had or hadn't done it, and there were plenty of people who held her case up as an example of the problems with Britain's legal system. Writer John Watkins became deeply invested in the story and what he believed, as many did, was a miscarriage of justice. He made the case that there was no way the amount of arsenic the doctor had claimed to have found in the bowl was plausible. There was only a tiny amount of dough residue left in the bowl, but it had produced a half teaspoon of arsenic per the doctor's estimation. A half teaspoon sounds like a very little amount, but just a few grains of arsenic are enough to kill a person, So if there had been a half teaspoon in the leftover dish residue, Watkins calculated that there would have been about eighteen hundred grains of arsenic in the dumplings that were consumed. Everyone involved should have been dead and would not have been able to recover. No matter how much fluid was prescribed. Just a bite of a dumpling would have easily killed multiple people. So things just did not add up. Watkins asserted that the arsenic had to have been added after the dough was made, suggesting that someone other than Eliza had sprinkled the arsenic on the dough after she had mixed the ingredients. For a brief moment in eighteen twenty nine, seemed that the truth of what had happened at sixty eight Chancery Lane had at last come to light. A pamphlet published that year by the firm of Cowie and Strange was titled Circumstantial Evidence The Extraordinary Case of Eliza Fenning, who was executed in eighteen fifteen for attempting to poison the family of Erlabar Turner by mixing arsenic in yeast dumplings, with a statement of facts since developed tending to prove her innocence of the crime. This pamphlet was sold for a penny, and in its introduction states quote years passed away without there appearing to be any reason to doubt the justice of the verdict. But fresh interest has been lately given to the subject by a report that has been circulated, charging another with the dreadful deed. So the pamphlet goes on to state that quote. Within the last few weeks a paragraph has appeared in many of the newspapers stating that the son of mister Turner had died lately in the hospital after confessing that he had mixed the poison in the food prepared by Eliza Fenning, and was consequently guilty of the offense for which she suffered but it also states that no one can verify this information. While this story started to appear in other papers as well, in June of eighteen twenty nine that Essex Herald printed a note that this information was false and that Robert Turner was in fact still alive. While Eliza's story is one that evidences biases of class and a very broken justice system, one of the results is that it actually got a lot more people thinking about the criminal justice system and about what would eventually be called forensic science. In eighteen twenty eight, John Gordon Smith, a former Army surgeon, became the first professor of Medical Jurisprudence at the University of London. That was the beginning of forensics education in the country, and he used Eliza's case in lectures and provided demonstrations that showed that so called expert testimony was not always correct. The blackened cutlery issue with something Gordon Smith was particularly interested in. He used knives soaked in different substances as examples for his class. One that he had soaked in arsenic for ten hours showed no signs of discoloration, but one that he had set in pickled walnuts for the same period did indeed turn black. The frustrating story of Eliza Femming. I have much less frustrating and delightful listener mail oh good. As you may recall, on a recent episode, I had mentioned that I had run into one of our listeners at my specialty vet, Tabitha, and I said, Tabitha resend that because I cannot find it. I don't know if it just went into the ether or what, but she did resend it done as an update, her kiddie's doing very well, and she also mentions that she makes one of the drinks on Criminalia regularly and people love it, which makes me very happy in my dark little heart. But her initial email reads hello ladies. Over the holidays, I was talking on my eighty five and a half year old aunt in law and she was reminiscing about her childhood cat, Totem, adopted in nineteen forty two, whose tail looked like a Totem pole. She told me how very many kittens Totem had, all of which were adopted out to other families. We were contrasting this idea with our neighborhood Mama Cat, who has gifted the neighborhood and my house with many lovely kittens, but we are trying to catch her to retire her kitten making days. So far we have only caught and spay, neutered, released, or adopted some of her kittens. Then we started wondering at what point in the USA people switched from simply expecting kittens to spaying and neutering their cats. I feel like all my life, from the seventies until now, there has been a campaign to spay neuter your pets. Obviously, it used to be different when who figured out how to spain, neuter or pets safely. I've heard mention of horses being a gelding in old novels, but never other animals being retired from reproduction in ways other than isolation. This seemed like a research topic you might enjoy looking into. And then Tabitha shared beautiful pictures of her kiddies who are just adorable, and I did get to meet her one of her kiddies while we were at the vet together, so I'm so glad that he's doing well and all of these kiddies are beautiful. One thing I wanted to mention I didn't go into researching all of the neutering stuff, but I did specifically want to look at because I can answer it pretty quickly. Trap neuter release programs or you'll sometimes also see them as trap neuter return programs or TNVR, which is trap neuter vaccinate programs, which basically, for anyone that doesn't know what that is, if you're somewhere where there is a population of feral cats, it's like cats that are not ever really going to socialize to be somebody's pet. A lot of people have started these efforts to capture those cats, get them spade or neutered, get them vaccinated if possible, and then they release them again. And in some places this is a really good like rodent control approach. There are lots of companies that will do this with animals on their property, etc. There are lots of people that just do like grassroots efforts. But it's a cool thing, and it actually has not been around all that long, so I know there are people that will argue about it and don't like these programs. I am obviously not one of them, but just step YI. This started actually in Great Britain in the nineteen fifties, where they realize that if they culled a feral population like if you kill the cats that are there that you think are a nuisance, or if you just had them carted away, other cats just move in. But if you fix them, they'll stay in their territory. They have population roll and as we said, they'll get rid of rodents and other pests. So great Britain did this in the fifties, Denmark started doing it in the nineteen seventies, and then somewhere in the late seventies or early eighties, it's estimated, people started trying it here in the US, although it really didn't become a big thing in the US until the nineteen nineties, and now it is really common in a lot of particuliarly a lot of cities in the US, but all over. I'm a big fan of the t in Our program. Have tried to do my best to help some of those out now and again. One of my favorite cats in the world is a t in Our failure who my dear friend took pity on when she was kind of getting mistreated by other cats, took her inside. She didn't wanted to be touched by anybody until she hit about fourteen, and then she wanted to be hugged and petted by every single person she met. We don't know what happened there, but she's a diet our cat's mother was a TNR. I don't think they that was necessarily where they were planning to go with her at the shelter, but she was clearly not thriving in the shelter and as a result, her kittens were not thriving in the shelter, and so she was returned back to her feral community. And now you have the babies now have so they're very spoiled at love. They're very spoiled. Anyway, that was probably a long listener mail segment. I feel very strong about trabue release programs. So thanks for coming along for the ride if you stuck around for it. And again, Tabitha, thank you for resending that email. 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