Transcript of Phantom Stalkers: The Halifax Slasher and The Hammersmith Ghost

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna and this is Morbid. I was just telling Alayna it was really hard not telling the story for 4 episodes and now I have to tell the story and I'm like nervous.

Yeah, she said it's been hard.

It's been really hard for me. Like, she doesn't, she doesn't understand.

I don't.

She You just told that story for 4 weeks.

I did. And like, so I don't know what it feels like to not tell a story.

Yeah, that's— you don't, you don't know the hard part.

I don't.

I'm just kidding. I'm just joking. What's up guys?

Oh man, it's this, this fucking Mercury retrograde.

Mercury retrograde is kicking us in the ballsack.

And I hear from the people who look at the comments that some of you are also feeling this Mercury retrograde.

Yeah, everybody is. I went to a witchy store today and the girly there, she said, this one sucks.

She did say that.

She said— she actually said everything sucks right now.

She did. She said, doesn't the entire world suck right now?

I'm so bummed because I had to take a little break from my astrology class just because this summer— this summer has been so busy.

Yeah, the summer can honestly go fuck itself. And wow. Yeah.

And I like— I'm not even disagreeing, I was just flabbergasted by that. Oh wow, she, she put her whole pussy into that.

Yeah.

But, um, What was I even gonna say? You shocked me in my core. Sorry, I shocked you. What are you doing?

I'm—

are you purchasing your village? I think I started before Big Red was ready and I saw her just quietly booping on her computer over there. I said, what are you doing? She said, I'm purchasing it.

I'm purchasing an addition to my Halloween village.

It's, it's valid. I need it. I love that as you were doing that you said Summer can go fuck itself.

Yeah, that's it.

Summer can go fuck itself. I'm adding to my Halloween village.

As I'm buying a movie store for my Halloween village, I said Summer can go fuck itself.

I feel like you're gonna need one, a new spot, and another table for your house. Yeah, I got quite a lot of movies. Your Halloween village is getting as big as your house. It's crazy.

But you know what? It's been rough. There's been some stuff that keeps happening. Yeah. I'm rhyming. And one of my doggies, Blanche, is sick right now. Yeah.

And she's like sick sick.

She's like sick sick. She's in the animal hospital right now. So everybody send good vibes.

Everyone pour one out for Blanche.

She would love it. But I said, you know what I need? I need that video store for my Halloween village because that's gonna make me happy.

I get it. I like usually like fucks with summer, like not heavy, but I fucks with summer. I'm not really fucking with summer this summer. Yeah, it's too busy, it's too hot. I don't like it. I fucking hate getting dressed in the summer.

Fucking hate.

Like, I can't even tell you how much I have a personal battle every single day. I'm like, what do I wear?

Yeah, this summer can get so fucked. Yeah, like, fuck you, summer.

I think a lot of people feel that way. I feel like collectively, me, you, and the listener, we want fall.

Yeah, because this is bullshit.

Let's hope that summer wraps it up pretty soon.

Like, wrap it up, summer.

Early August, it's a wrap.

Yeah, I'm good. I am done-ski. I am fully in Halloween mode, obviously, because I'm buying spooky things for my Halloween village.

Oh yeah.

I, I'm done with this.

Oh, that makes me wonder if— I guarantee you Anthropologie has their Halloween stuff out, right?

Probably.

Oh, I gotta check out that place.

I got— you gotta check out, you know, those glasses that they have? Oh, the little, the little like, like pumpkin glasses?

Yes, yes, yes. And they have bats, like freaking bats and stuff.

Freaking bats.

Oh, Drew's gonna be like, Ash, Yeah. And I'm gonna be like, I got a Halloween palette delivered.

He'll be like, uh-oh.

And then I'll do the same thing for Christmas.

Hell yeah.

And that's a little about us.

Yeah.

All right. So let's get into it. I have some, I kind of put together like a little bit of a different episode because I felt like we needed something. I don't want to say light because this one still involves a mboita.

No, it's just less intense, I guess.

Less intense. So my first one is probably something that we've all heard of and actually We recorded with Aaron Mankey yesterday and he weirdly foreshadowed this. Yes. We were like very in tune with each other.

Yeah.

He also foreshadowed something else I have on my list. I can't remember what it was.

Mm-hmm.

But I was like, wait, I literally just put that down.

Yeah. It was a great episode, by the way. You're gonna love that episode.

Oh, so good.

It'll be a bonus episode.

Yeah. I think it'll come out like some Friday in July. There's only a couple of weeks.

Some Friday. Pick a Friday in July.

31st.

Yeah. There you go.

Listen to Aidan.

He's got it. So let's—

so we're going to talk about the Hammersmith Ghost, which, uh, which, uh, Erin kind of foreshadowed. And then we're going to talk a little bit about like mass hysteria and the, um, Halifax Slasher.

Ooh.

Have you heard of either of those?

I have. Okay, cool.

So let's get into it. The Hammersmith Ghost. In December 1803, while a lot of Europe was still focused on the Napoleonic War, I think it's called, The people of Hammersmith, which was a very small village on the outskirts of London.

Hammersmith. Hammersmith.

I just want to go, hammer time.

Hammer time.

Well, they were preoccupied not with hammer time, but with an invasion of a different kind. The villagers believed that something that— this thing that was terrorizing their village was a ghost.

Obviously.

And it was, quote, covered in a white shroud, confronting travelers, and in some cases, physically attacking them.

Yeah.

A specter just punching you in the face.

Yeah. Just being a dick. Kinda. Mm-hmm.

So the Hammersmith Ghost, as the specter became known, was reported to have been seen primarily in the local churchyard. But some reports also claimed they encountered it in the streets and the laneways around the church.

Encountered it in the streets.

In these streets around the church.

Ah.

Now, according to the reports, the ghost appeared as soon as the church bell struck 1 AM. At which time the, quote, specter seemed to flit along the fields adjacent to Black Lion Lane.

Just let it flit.

Let it flit.

Let it flit. I've never been one to stop someone when they're flitting.

Flit and let flit.

Yeah. Live and let live.

Flit and let flit.

You should be flitting around. It should be flitting around. As long as you two do not flit into each other, then let it happen.

Maybe that's a meet cute when you flit into each other.

Whoa.

That also sounds like a euphemism. So it kind of does.

It kind of does.

It really does. Now, why it appeared, why it first appeared, and what the fuck it wanted, it was a mystery. You know, that's the whole point.

That's it.

I'm like, don't ask me because I don't know. But many villagers believed it was the spirit of a villager who had taken his own life the previous year by slitting his throat.

Oh.

And he had not been at peace in the graveyard, they thought. And that's why he was flitting about, terrorizing everyone. Now, like most legends, descriptions of the Hammersmith Ghost are pretty vague and varied, but most agreed the spirit was large, white, and menacing.

Hmm.

America. I was just gonna say that. That's exactly how I would describe America.

That should be our new—

Large, white, and menacing.

That's truly just like—

That's essentially our tagline. If we were Real Housewives, I'm large, I'm white, and I'm medicine. And this is my town. This is my country.

This is my world.

Get me out of here. In one case, the ghost attacked a wagon carrying 16 people through the village. Holy shit. What the fuck is this, the Oregon Trail?

He's not flitting anymore.

Now, the team of 8 not only attacked these 16 people, but also the team of 8 horses pulling the cart.

Oh, don't attack the horses.

Yeah, that's fucked.

I draw the line.

That I— yeah, everybody has a line, you know. The appearance of the ghost on that night scared the coach driver so badly that he, quote, took to his heels and left the wagon and horses so precipitously that the whole were greatly endangered.

Holy shit.

So he just left him horses.

He just left those horses.

That's fucked up.

He took on a heel. Yeah.

A few nights later, an unnamed pregnant woman was walking by the churchyard around 10 PM when she saw what she described as a tall white figure rise from the tombstones. Oh, you ain't never want to see that when you pass a 10 PM cemetery or any later cemetery.

Yeah, if it's after 10 PM, it's okay.

No, no, not even then.

Not at 10 PM.

No, not at 10 PM, not at 11 PM.

Don't want that.

Even during the day, I don't really want to see that.

Not really.

Keep that away from me. She tried to run, but the specter caught her by the arm and she fainted.

Oh.

Hours later, she was discovered just laying in the road by some villagers who luckily carried her home and put her to bed. But a few days later, it was reported that she died from fright.

Oh my God.

Isn't that insane and very tragic?

Yeah.

So by the end of the year, the ghost had become such a menace that the villagers rallied, determined to do something about these attacks, which were becoming alarmingly frequent. So for several nights in a row, the men in the village sat out after midnight, laying in wait and hoping to catch the ghost. But it always seemed like the spirit was expecting them. And he was, quote, always sure of being on that path, which was unguarded.

And also, I'm like, can we be so for real for a minute, guys?

What are you going to do? You going to shoot a ghost?

That's like, what are you going to do?

Their plan was to shoot the ghost.

Yeah, let's be real.

They were going to shoot the ghost. Yeah, that's what they wanted to do.

All right, give it a shot.

I don't know what else you do, I guess.

That's the thing. I don't really know.

Yeah.

What else are you going to just be like, you see them and you're like, stop that.

Well, here's the thing, we didn't like witches back then. I'd contact a witch. Yeah, but you don't have that option when you, when you just got a bad history of hangings.

You fucked up that relationship.

So that's the thing, that's why we don't burn bridges.

Yeah, you can't call me now that you need me. No.

Yeah, and Etsy wasn't a thing yet, so you're fucked.

Wow.

Now, one night, just a few, uh, just after the New Year, one of the patrolling villagers claimed to have seen the spirit down on one of the lanes. And literally broke into a full-blown sprint chasing after him.

Whoa.

Which like, baby, is a spirit.

Yeah.

Can probably go in the wall if it wants to.

He can do whatever he wants.

It was during that pursuit though that the villager claimed to have seen the supposed ghost remove a sheet or large tablecloth that was covering him in order to better make his escape.

Hmm.

At which point I would say, do we think that this is a ghost or do we think this is a man?

I was going to say, you know, to me, That seems a little weird.

Like, we are but men.

Rock. Rock.

Now, the not-so-supernatural assailant managed to get away, but the incident was evidence of what many villagers in the village had come to expect. And this is why they were ready with guns. They said the Hammersmith Ghost was no ghost at all, but a man in a crude costume.

Oh.

Now, this seemed obviously like the most rational and likely explanation.

Yes.

But there were a lot of superstitious— that's hard to say. Villagers that rejected that theory, choosing to believe that it wasn't a man but in fact a ghost.

I mean, I like that better.

More fun in my opinion.

Yeah.

But we had, we had two different camps here. So for two nights, the men of Hammersmith, who believed that this was actually a man, armed themselves and patrolled the village, determined to catch whoever it was that was posing as the ghost and terrorizing everybody. I guess their enthusiasm and determination made up for the fact that None of them were trained in tracking or capturing criminals. I also don't know where the local police were at this point in time.

I was going to say.

Maybe they didn't have that yet.

They were off.

It's like the very early 1800s.

I don't know.

I don't know their life. But the fact remained that the village was on edge and everybody was a little jumpy.

Hmm.

Foreshadowing.

Uh-oh.

So in the late hours of January 3rd, 1804, a local bricklayer, Thomas Millwood, left his home and he headed to the home of a friend where his wife had been working all day. She was like a domestic worker.

Okay.

That night he was dressed in his typical work clothes, quote, impeccably laundered white linen trousers, a white flannel waistcoat, a white apron, and white shoes. Oh yeah. He was a tall man dressed in stark white clothing down to his shoes. So his appearance was, um, I don't know if you picked up on this, remarkably similar to the descriptions of the Hammersmith Ghost.

Sure was.

In fact, twice in the previous week, members of the village patrol had mistaken him for the spirit and tried to capture him, luckily before shooting. After the second incident, his wife insisted that he start wearing a large dark coat when he was out in public.

I was going to say, don't wear white anymore.

No, but that night he must have forgotten it. So as he was walking down Black Lion Lane toward his destination to just— he was literally going to pick up his wife to walk her home before he went to work.

Oh man.

And as he was walking to do that, he was spotted by Francis Smith, a customs officer from the village. Smith had joined the Hammersmith Ghost Patrol only a few days earlier and quickly became frustrated by the group's quote-unquote inability to catch the ghost. So he went out alone that evening, determined to be a hero and put an end to all this.

Oh boy.

So lying in wait, Smith spotted Millwood coming down the lane. And given his all-white outfit, immediately assumed that Millwood was the Hammersmith Ghost. Of course. Later during his trial— that tells you how this goes—

uh-oh.

Francis Smith told the judge he stepped out of his hiding spot and loudly announced himself twice, both times demanding the figure stop. When Millwood apparently didn't heed Smith's demands or respond in any way, he said he became frightened and started to fire in Millwood's direction.

Oh boy.

One bullet struck Millwood in the mouth and exited out the back of his neck.

Oh man.

After the gun was fired and the figure dropped to the ground, Francis Smith ran toward the center of town to get the other members of the patrol. A few days later, a coroner's inquest was convened to determine the facts in the shooting, and among the first to testify was Thomas Millwood's sister Anne, who was at the home of a friend on Black Lion Lane when the shooting took place.

Oh man.

So she was like right there.

Yeah.

According to her, she was inside when she heard a voice outside, uh, outside on the lane shout, 'Damn you! Who are you? Stand, else I'll shoot you!' Oh no. And then she heard a loud bang.

Yeah.

She ran to the door and stood on some bricks in order to get a better look, but by the time she was able to see out the window, Thomas Millwood, her brother, was already on the ground. Having seen him just hours earlier, she swore that he was sober on this evening, and she had never known him to have masqueraded as the Hammersmith Ghost.

Yeah.

Now, according to one witness, John Locke, who Smith immediately reported the shooting to, Francis Smith appeared to genuinely believe that he had shot the ghost when he went to go and get everybody. It was only when he returned to the scene and, and inspected the body that the severity of this situation occurred to him.

Yeah.

Upon learning that it was Thomas Millwood he had just shot and not the Hammersmith Ghost, he became visibly upset and he insisted that he didn't mean to kill anybody. According to Locke, Smith claimed he had spoken twice but received no answer, and the night was very dark.

Oh, that's really sad. It is.

So after hearing the testimony from witnesses and reviewing all the evidence, the coroner concluded that regardless of whether or not he recognized his target, Francis Smith had willfully shot and killed Thomas Millwood.

Yeah, he was trying to kill a ghost.

He was, but he killed a man. Now, so the jury returned a verdict of willful murder, and that was what he would be tried for. Just one week later, Francis Smith's trial began at the Old Bailey.

The Old Bailey. We've seen that a few times.

I know, many times. Yeah, he was tried for the willful murder of Thomas Millwood. The testimony and evidence presented at trial was pretty similar to what was presented during the coroner's inquest, but there were some who wished to add to their previous testimony.

Oh, excuse choose you.

I know. They said, but wait, there's more. John Locke, for example, wanted to stress the fact that upon learning he had killed Thomas Millwood, Francis Smith was deeply distraught, and he did want to turn himself into the authorities. And Locke said it was only on his own advice that Smith went home and waited until the next morning to speak to the constable.

Oh damn.

So I guess we found the police.

Yeah, there they are. Where have they been?

I don't know.

Hey guys, nice of you to arrive.

Here they are now. But I was like Why would you tell a courtroom that you yourself were like, nah, don't report the murder. Yeah. Sleep on it.

He was like, this is probably fine. La quoi? That's how you know the time period because he's like, this is fine.

Yeah. Just get a good night's sleep.

Nobody's going to think twice about this.

Report the murder once you're rested.

Yeah, I told him just sleep on it. Catch some sheep. Sleep on it, see how you feel.

I was just going to say catch some sheep.

Catch some sheep. That's not how that works.

That's hard to say. Catch some sheep.

Yeah.

Shh, shh, shh. I'm keeping it a surprise, I told you. Yeah. Sorry. Sounded like a drunk lady. Truth. Locke also testified though that while most of the village had been alarmed about the supposed Hammersmith Ghost, Francis Smith in particular had been more alarmed than most people.

Mm-hmm.

Smith's friend and neighbor William Girdler, who he had seen earlier that evening, gave similar testimony, stressing that the night in question had been extremely dark and Smith had been in a highly agitated state.

Probably not a good time to take out a gun though.

Definitely not, you know, but like nobody was thinking about that back then.

You just not—

you always had your gun.

Always.

Both, uh, both men and several others wanted the jury to know that Francis Smith was exceedingly mild and generous and he was very much liked in the neighborhood. They could not see him acting maliciously on purpose.

Okay.

Now as far as the matter of the ghost was concerned, the quote-unquote ghost, few if any of the villagers thought Thomas Millwood was the perpetrator of the Hammersmith ghost hoax. Like people who believed that it was somebody masquerading.

They didn't think it was him. No, just going around trying to do this.

No, according to testimony provided by Anne Millwood, on the evening of his death, her brother had put on his work clothes and, like I said, gone to the Black Lion Lane to walk his wife home after her shift. Yeah, and was then just gonna go to work. She couldn't explain why her brother didn't stop when Smith demanded for him to, but she assured the jury that Thomas had not been drinking that evening. Like some rumor-spreading bitch-ass villagers had suggested. Wow, the rumor mill was alive and well even back then.

Truly, people be peoplein'.

Gonna people, you change it.

Also, sorry, they're gonna people.

Why'd you get crazy?

You know why I got crazy with it? Because my brain was somewhere else. I was thinking about in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the original one, when she gets— she has to do like witch community service, and one of them is she has to work at the rumor mill. And she has to churn out rumors for mortals.

Wow, that's like one of the earliest episodes.

Look at you, it is—

you have such an interesting brain. Yeah, the way it works, the way that it can relate back to Sabrina or Gilmore Girls in an instant. It's true, I respect it. Now, other members of Thomas Millwood's family also testified, telling the jury that Thomas already had two run-ins, like I said, with the local patrols because of his outfit. In the first instance, he was dressed in his work clothes when one man shouted, "There goes the ghost!" Thomas quickly replied, "I am no more a ghost than yourself. Do you want to puncho the head?" And I respect that.

I love that a lot.

You want to puncho the head?

You want to puncho the head? I don't. That sounds like something Poppa would say. I mean, me? I don't.

Sounds like something Poppa would say in traffic.

Yeah, absolutely. That's something he would say. Anytime.

You want to punch through the head?

Yeah, truly.

Now, after the second accusation that he was the ghost, like we said, his wife suggested that he wear a heavy coat to avoid any more misidentifications, but he insisted there was little danger, and he was kind of inconsistent in covering up his work clothes. He was like, I don't really want to, because he's like, this is stupid.

You should know that I'm not the ghost.

You should know I am buttman. Yeah. Now, after all the testimony had been given, the judge asked whether Francis Smith had anything to say on his own behalf. At first he declined, saying that he wished to leave his defense to his lawyer. But this is wild. The judge reminded him that his lawyer was only allowed to interview witnesses, not speak on his client's behalf.

Oh, dang.

So if he had anything he wanted to say, he would have to say it himself. Oh, isn't that so interesting to see how that worked so differently back then?

Yeah.

So Smith thought for a moment and then he addressed the court saying, when he went out from home, it was with very good intention, an intention of finding out the person who had alarmed the neighborhood by assuming a supernatural appearance. And then he reiterated what he told the constable. When Thomas Millwood failed to respond after he called out twice, Smith became, quote, very much frightened and knew not what he did. Although he didn't deny that he fired the shots that killed Thomas Millwood, he insisted he did not do so with the intention of killing somebody, and he did have a lot of remorse.

Okay.

Which is just like, it's interesting to think of his headspace because that's a wild defense. Like, if I heard that now, I'd be like, are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, but you think about like the panic of the time.

Yeah, it makes sense for back then that they truly thought that a ghost was terrorizing their community.

Yeah, like, and he was one of the people I think that did think it was a ghost. Yeah, it sounds like it makes sense. Now, after both sides rested their cases, the judge turned his attention to the jury. The accused, he reminded them, was indicted for the murder of Thomas Millwood, a crime that generally, though not always, required the prosecution to provide evidence of malice, uh, propens. If the jury believed such a cause had been made, then they had a responsibility to find him guilty of murder. The judge did remind them, though, that they were allowed to take the accused's state of mind into consideration as a mitigating factor with regard to intent.

He was, he was wild.

And he was, you know, and the judge reminded the jury of that.

He was crashing out. You have to take that into consideration.

He's crashing out now, that's for sure.

Yeah.

If the jury had found the defense argument that Smith shot in self-defense a compelling one, then they could acquit him of the charge. That's what they were told.

That would have sucked. Yeah, like, I don't think— I don't think he, like, truly meant to do what he did, like, for it all to shake out the way that it did. No, but he did kill someone.

Exactly.

So I think we need to take that into consideration.

Yeah, we very much do.

Reckless.

On paper, it was pretty simple. If Smith fired out of malice, that's murder. If he fired out of mortal fear, that's self-defense. But the problem was, as far as the judge and the jury could tell, his actions didn't really fall into either category.

They really didn't.

He himself testified that at no time did Thomas Millwood give any indication he was going to attack him. So he wasn't necessarily acting in self-defense.

Yeah.

And Thomas just simply failed to stop walking when Smith called out to him, and he didn't have to stop walking.

Well, that's the thing, walking— no one has an obligation to stop walking when some stranger tells them to stop walking.

No.

So that doesn't fit.

There's nothing there.

Yeah.

So based on the evidence and the testimony, the jury returned with a verdict of manslaughter. Okay, a far less serious charge than murder, obviously. But unfortunately, the 3-justice panel could not accept this jury's decision. Oh, the evidence, as far as they could see it, did not support their— support the lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of self-defense. Millwood wasn't doing anything that warranted being shot, like we just said. And as the justices pointed out, even if he had been the Hammersmith Ghost The ghost crimes, quote, amounted only to misdemeanor of nuisance that would not have attracted a capital punishment.

That was the other thing. I was like, even if he really thought it was the ghost, the ghost has not really, like, fucked anyone up.

He's just scaring people.

He's just freaking people out.

Yeah, exactly.

That's not a crime.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, so you can't just go around shooting people because they freak people out.

And they're annoying.

And they're annoying.

Yeah, people would get shot a lot if that was the case. And they're walking.

And you tell them to stop.

Right. So taking all that into consideration, they were only left with one option. They really didn't have any other choice but to find Francis Smith guilty of murder.

Yeah.

In the wake of the verdict, he was sentenced to death by hanging.

Oh.

After which his body was to be drawn and quartered. Oh, it's the 1800s.

Holy shit.

So like, that feels like a lot.

That feels like a lot.

You know. Now the trial and the conviction quickly became a source of considerable publicity in nearby London.

And remember, Gary Ridgway is still sitting Yes. In prison. And look what he did. And this guy did this and is going to be hanged and drawn and quartered.

I was going to say, we gave Gary a plea deal.

We're a little off balance here. Yeah.

Now, so the trial and the conviction, like I said, quickly became a source of considerable publicity in nearby London, as much for the supposed supernatural aspect of the story as the legal complications. Prosecution of a crime was typically a pretty straightforward endeavor back then. A person was either guilty or not guilty, and it was up to the Crown's prosecutors to prove if they weren't. But the Smith case added this element of complication that they really hadn't ever seen before in British courts, and it raised several questions about the limits of self-defense in cases where somebody kills another person or causes their death. These questions would be some of the most difficult challenges that the British legal system would have to grapple with for really more than a century. Now the complexities of the case and the legal system's just inability to accommodate circumstances like the one that we have here was particularly maddening for the judge, Lord Chief, uh, Baron MacDonald. I don't know why, that's just like a really funny name to me.

Lord Chief Baron MacDonald.

It just reminds me of Old MacDonald.

I like that.

But like Lord McChief. Lord Chief, I was gonna say.

Lord McChief.

Had a courtroom.

Yeah, he did.

So like many people in the courtroom, Lord McChief McDonald was sympathetic to the plight of the accused, but he was also bound by the law and couldn't ignore that it was his responsibility to apply the law as it was rather than what he wanted it to be.

Mm-hmm.

After Smith's sentencing, he did take the case to the king though, who had the power to commute the sentence. And in the end, Francis Smith was spared the death sentence and instead served 1 year of hard labor.

Okay.

Now, despite the unfortunate outcome for everybody involved, there was one silver lining. The death of Thomas Millwood and the conviction of Francis Smith caused the real Hammersmith Ghost, a local shoemaker named John Graham, to come forward and confessed.

Oh damn.

And confess, excuse me. According to Graham, he donned the white sheet and played the role of the Hammersmith Ghost to get back at his apprentices after they told his children scary ghost stories.

That's actually really funny.

Like, it's without context, it's really funny.

That's the thing, without context, that is funny.

I was like, oh, but like, your choice to do so, but like, really caused everyone to wild out.

But well, that's the thing, like, Dad, when you saw everything starting to go willy-nilly, yeah, maybe you should have come out and been like, before this gets any crazier Yeah, before these men were just trying to scare my apprentices. Like, exactly.

Damn. So his confession should have put the legend of the Hammersmith Ghost to rest, but the reports continued for more than a few decades.

Damn.

Yeah, everybody was just really into it.

You don't want to let go of a ghost story.

Listen, I don't either. I hate when ghost stories get disproved.

No, I hate it.

I usually— they don't end in the murder of an innocent man, so— no, even worse, you know. So the Hammersmith Ghost is a very solid example of mass psychogenic illness, also known as mass hysteria. In the case of the Hammersmith Ghost, the threat and the supposed supernatural danger might have been fake, but the perpetrator was all too real. In the next case though, we have a phantom stalker on the streets of England. And it wasn't just the threat that was entirely fictional, but the perpetrator himself actually never existed either.

Wow. Yeah, we have some hysteria.

We have some hysteria. Welcome. So the story of the Halifax— you can leave that in— the story of the Halifax Slasher. Say that 3 times fast.

Halifax Slasher. Halifax Slasher.

That's not fast. You took the longest pause.

Halifax Slasher. Halifax Slasher. Halifax Slasher.

I'm gonna punch you. I'm gonna punch you over the head.

That is hard to say though. I had to think it through.

Halifax Slasher. I can't do it.

Slasher.

I'm gonna punch you over the head.

Over the head.

So it begins on the evening of November 16th, 1938. 21-year-old Mary Gludhill was walking home and claimed a man she'd never seen before leaped out of the shadows and swung what looked to Mary to be like a small mallet.

Oh, fuck that.

Yeah, I'm not trying to run into that on my way home. So Mary put up her arm to protect herself.

Yeah.

And when her attacker brought the hammer down, it struck her on the wrist, breaking her skin.

Oh, shit. Yeah.

Rather than raise the hammer for a second blow, though, the man just simply ran off.

What an asshole.

Weird.

Yeah.

That same evening, in another part of town, Gertrude Watts, a young woman from Ripperton— Ripperton, Ripperton, Ripperoni— reported a very similar assault to the police.

That's fucked up.

Both women provided pretty vague descriptions of the man who had hit them with a mallet. Neither got a very good look at him during the attack, and they couldn't remember anything more than just generalities about—

yeah, he's— they were like, it's a man from the 1930s.

He's a man.

I know that.

Got a mustache.

Yep.

And a mallet. And he hit me. Yep.

The end. There he is.

But there is one thing that they all— they both remembered, and it was that the attacker had bright buckles on his shoes. They both said so.

Okay.

The attack seemed like two possibly related petty crimes, but being that they were relatively minor in terms of injury— like, it sucked, but they didn't need surgery or anything— they didn't raise any alarm bells right away. 5 days later, though, another report of an assault came into the Halifax Police, and it seemed like a pattern was taking shape. This time, 21-year-old Mary Sutcliffe was walking home on Allerton Street when a man stepped out from under a street lamp and swung some sort of tool. Some claims report that it was a hammer, while others say that it was a sharp instrument. But he swung that tool in her direction. Instinctively, Mary threw her hand up to guard her face, and she too was struck on the wrist, and she sustained— sustained—

sustained—

she sustained a minor— oh my God. Oh my God. Ah, put it in the outtakes.

Sustained a minor.

Like, why do I just want to be a full-on Irish lad today?

Damn, you're like the Berries and Cream guy.

That lady told us we were beautiful Irish people and I just really leaned in.

You did.

So Mary threw up her hand to guard her face, obviously, and she too was struck on the wrist, sustaining a minor injury in the process that actually did go on to require several stitches.

Oh, fuck.

Later that same evening, another young woman, Josephine Stebbings, reported that she had also been attacked in a similar manner.

Everyone watch your wrists.

Yeah, hide your wrists, hide your phalanges. It was announced— it was the announcement of the third attack that put the residents of Halifax very much on edge. Yeah, 10 years earlier, in the winter of 1927, there was a series of attacks in Halifax very similar to the ones that were being reported by these young women. That February, several women started reporting that they'd been attacked by a man wielding a razor.

Oh yeah, I remember reading about this.

I hadn't heard of this before, but he just cut the fabric of their dresses.

Yeah.

One woman's skin was grazed by the razor, but it seemed like the attacker's objective was just to destroy the clothing, not to harm the victims. A few days later, Halifax Police arrested 26-year-old James Leonard, a married laborer who was living only temporarily in the city. And while transporting him to the holding cells, one of the officers witnessed him trying to get rid of something in his pocket. And when they searched him, they literally found him with the very razor blade he was using to slash at the women on the street.

They were really, uh, really out here doing a good job back then. It was tough that as they were bringing him to the holding cell, meaning they have already arrested him and you would think searched his person, They're like, oh, you have the weapon in question right here?

Check you out, brother.

That's good.

Like, maybe we should have searched you really.

That's great.

So upon hearing the charges against Leonard, the judge proclaimed the man's actions to be the vilest and meanest trick played against the women of Halifax. And he sentenced them.

He appreciates fashion.

He does. It's the vilest, meanest trick.

He said, that's actually so fucked up of you.

Yeah.

That's actually really fucked up.

I actually appreciate how much he thought of this. Yeah, good for him. He sentenced Leonard to 1 year of hard labor, which when you think about the fact that Francis Smith was also sentenced to 1 year of hard labor and that this man who cut a couple dresses was sentenced to that, like, you really gotta sit with that.

We gotta figure stuff out.

Yeah, we should. We did eventually, like, a little bit. A little bit, but we're still working on it.

I sure are.

Imagine if, like, today there was just a man going around cutting people's dresses.

I mean, that's fucked up. It is scary and weird.

I don't like it.

Yeah.

What was the motive?

To be a dick. I guess so.

To be vile and mean.

Yeah.

Well, the new attacks in 1938 brought the previous wave of terror to the front of everybody's minds and made residents wonder, had James Leonard come back?

Oh my goodness.

Or worse, was somebody copying his attacks but with more malicious intentions, actually wanting to hurt people this time? Concern grew greater when on November 24th, Clay Aspinall, caretaker of the local Sunday school, reported that he was leaving the school that afternoon when he was set upon by a man matching the description of Mary Sutcliffe's attacker, which again was vague. Yeah, the man was carrying some sort of metal tool and swung it toward the caretaker, who instinctively threw up his arms to protect his face.

Thank goodness they all did that.

Everybody's got cat-like reflexes. Roxy like a puma. Do you remember that? It's from Drake and Josh. I'm surprised I never made you watch that.

That was out of my time.

Yeah, it was. Well, in doing so and being like a puma, he managed to spare himself all but a scratch on the forehead. And the man just ran across the lawn of the school, jumped a fence, and disappeared into the woods. Agile.

Like, what is he getting out of this?

Malice.

Yeah. I guess. I suppose.

Loves a mean trick.

Yeah.

So in making the report, Aspinall reported that the man was about 30, 5 foot 9 in height, hair inclined to be ginger. Stoops a little, wearing a fawn raincoat.

I like describing it as his hair was inclined to be ginger, like it wanted to be. It had aspirations to be ginger, like it was working hard towards the goal of being ginger.

It's like, good for it. It's like a blonde trying to achieve strawberry blonde.

It's tough.

They're trying, you know. I love that a lot. The report of the attack on Clay Aspinall set off panic around Halifax because also now a man has been attacked.

So now no one's safe.

And now we really have to worry, you know.

Yeah, women are always getting attacked, so we're just used to that, right? But men now are like, wait a second. Yeah, we're not—

we have to do something.

Shit, we gotta fix this.

My God.

Yeah.

Now whether it was Joseph Leonard who had come back to play more mean tricks or someone else, obviously there was a maniac on the loose of the streets of the town. And he wasn't content with, content with just slashing the fabric of ladies' dresses. He wanted to do real harm.

He was swinging mallets at people.

He wanted to injure your wrists.

Yeah.

Now the police in Halifax mobilized in hopes of catching the attacker.

It's about time.

But the evidence was scarce. I said it correctly. Did you hear that, Deb Deb? Because I always say scarce, and I have forever, and Debbie and Alina were like, that's not how you say it.

It's true. And it's It's not.

I know it's not. And I wanted to continue to say scarce, but now I can't.

Yeah.

Cause you've ruined it for me.

I'm sure some people will back you, so don't worry.

I don't think they will. It's just, it's simply not.

It's just not the way you say it.

It's a, it's, I think it's nicer. Scarse.

Yeah. I see. I don't like, it's harsh.

Well, yeah.

Cause it sounds like harsh.

Scarcity is pretty harsh.

Scarse.

It's a more airy feel to it. You know, you're just like trying to make scarcity better.

Yeah. All right. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Evidence was scarce. Scarece.

Scarece.

And witnesses were limited to the victims alone. So in announcing the attack in Aspinall, they also announced a £10 reward for any information that led to the arrest. But literally all that did was trigger an endless stream of dead-end leads.

Oh, of course it did.

By November 26th, more reports of attacks began coming in. There was Alex MacDonald who— or Alice, excuse me, MacDonald— was attacked in Asheville Gardens— they're not mine— by a man with a razor who wore shoes with bright metal buckles.

Oh, the buckles.

He could be the one. Later that night, Percy Waddington was attacked from behind on Lower Edge Road by a man with a razor who cut Percy's hand in the struggle.

Fuck that.

A short time later, Mrs. Annie Cannon was attacked on Thackeray Street, about a mile from the center of Halifax.

Not to be confused with Thackeray Binks.

Not to be confused. According to Annie, she'd just been walking home when an unknown assailant— I always have trouble saying that word too, assailant.

Assailant.

Yeah, I like to add a Y to it, and I'm going to continue to.

I'll allow you to do that.

The assailant jumped out of the dark and struck at her with a partially concealed weapon, slashing her jumper.

Not her jumper.

So it's like, okay, so first he wanted to injure your wrists, and he was doing that, and then he escalated to slashing jumpers and dresses.

Fucked up.

In the days that followed, more attacks were reported, and public anxiety continued to grow. I'd be stressed.

I'd be shitting myself.

Yeah, now there's nearly a dozen reports of attacks and the public was on the brink of hysteria.

When does this end?

Well, the local police reported that the— they reported their theory that the, quote, slashing is the work not of a maniac but of some persons or person reveling in the publicity and public hysteria they were creating.

Isn't that kind of a maniac though?

Yes.

Like, I don't, I don't think like a sane person is excited to be causing a ton of public outcry. Yeah, like, I feel like you have to be a little bit of a maniac to be like— at least to be, one, hurting people intentionally.

Yeah.

And two, causing people to freak out and be worried.

I think the police basically were like, it's not a maniac, just shut up and calm down.

Yeah, they were like, don't worry about it, it's just, it's just some silly goose who thinks it's really fun that everybody's getting upset. Yeah, like, that doesn't make it better.

And they basically were like, listen, they're enjoying that you're acting so crazy, so calma.

You know what? We all want a little whimsy in our lives. Who are we to stop this person? This isn't their version of whimsy.

Okay, so just chill.

So everybody just chill out. Just eat a Moon Pie.

Quit murder. Quit slashing people.

Quit getting upset that you're being slashed.

They didn't have Moon Pies back then, so maybe that's why they were so pissed off.

That was the problem.

I'd be pissed off. That was a problem. Who invented Moon Pies? Look that up. Fun fact of the episode.

Yeah.

Now, one Halifax police officer went a step further, though, and told a reporter I should think there are about 3 persons committing these offenses. Which wouldn't make me feel better. No.

Now I feel outnumbered.

I love that. Exactly. I love that they're like, calm down. And then they're like, it's actually fucking 3 of them.

Calm the fuck down. It's just a group of people doing this. Okay.

Oh, awesome.

So it's many maniacs. Ope. Yeah.

As the police attempted to hunt down the slasher and/or slashers, Reports of attacks from nearby towns then started to roll in. Oh no. At the same time, victims in Halifax continued reporting their own interactions with the slasher or slashers. On the night of November 27th, Lily Woodhead was attacked by a man in an alley who jumped a large wall and fled the scene immediately after striking her. And then there was Beatrice Sorrell, a 19-year-old whose attack resulted in several stitches.

Ooh.

She said, I was passing a dark yard when suddenly I saw an arm come out and felt a blow.

I hate that a lot.

I do too. I also hate that they needed stitches. Now, the growing number of attacks prompted the local authorities to mobilize groups of local Boy Scouts.

They're always using the Boy Scouts.

Isn't it weird that like these vastly different cases have that in common? Yeah, you're Richard, uh, what's his fucking name?

Gary Ridgway.

Why did I just call him Richard?

Ridgway, I guess. Maybe that's why I'm giving it to you. Thank you. Yeah, they use Boy Scouts to go look for for remains.

Yeah.

And then they just are sending out Boy Scouts to stop like a full— a raving maniac or three slicing at people.

Yeah, I'm like, what if they slice up the Boy Scouts? What if they escalate?

Yeah.

So they sent them out to keep watch, and the local police officers started interviewing any men who were deemed suspicious, which probably was a lot of men back then. Probably. If I had to interview any man that I deemed suspicious, it would be a busy day.

Yeah.

The biggest problem, of course, was that investigators had few details beyond the very vague descriptions of the Slasher's height and the shoes that he wore. And the few suspects that they did have didn't match any of those details. Some victims said he was ordinary or handsome. Others said— told police his teeth were rotten and that he had a horrible grin.

Oh.

By the end of November, the attacks had increased and spread outside of Halifax and were now being reported in surrounding towns as well. On November 28th, 18-year-old Winifred Walsh was walking in Lancashire when she was grabbed by the arm by a man who dragged her into a backyard and inflicted a 5-inch slash on her arm before just releasing her and running away.

Winnie Walsh. Winnie Walsh. That's fucked up. A 5-inch slash.

That's big. The spreads of the attack only increased public panic, obviously. One reporter wrote, movies and churches are shy of patronage. Shops close at dusk. One employer instructed women employees not to leave their home until called for by a truck. I've never been called for by a truck. I was gonna say. I just picture Tow Mater outside everyone's doors.

Just be like, I'm here.

It's me, Tow Mater. I'm here to bring you to work.

You're being called for.

Like, what?

Like, what does that mean?

Call, I guess like they send— Called for by a truck. Called for by a truck.

I don't know.

You stay in your home until a truck calls you. I'd be like, okay. Oh, it's me, the truck. I guess they sent like, I don't know, maybe there was like a lot of people in the trucks and they were like, hey, we're here to pick you up for work. Or maybe it was Tow Mater, who am I to say? We just brought him back for a fix army man. With the number of attacks now reaching 20, local police reached out to the detectives of Scotland Yard.

Oh, get them on the case.

We got Scotland Yard on the case. They sent one of their investigators to aid in the hunt.

Scotland Yard was like, this sounds dumb.

They said, this is tomfoolery, you can have one of our men.

They said, you know what, everyone stay in their house until the truck calls you. That's, that's how we'll basically fuck off.

Yeah, this was not sufficient for the townsfolk who, after nearly 2 weeks of ongoing attacks, decided to take the law into their own hands. I can't believe— I don't either.

They're upset it's happening in their little bubble.

Yeah, and you're only getting one Scotland Yard guy. Yeah. Over the course of 2 days, more than 5,000 locals turned out to the streets with one Scotland Yard detective.

One guy in a mustache.

Literally was like, here I am. And they were searching for the slasher. While most were law-abiding and sincerely did want to increase public safety, many had given into their fears and were acting very recklessly.

Because people go to people.

Of course. By the end of the month, the press was reporting that, quote, A few young men had been badly knocked about by crowds in mistake for the slasher.

Ornor.

Ornor. They punched him over the head. Many other men had similar less violent interactions with the mobs who just chased them down the streets and inside their house.

Yeah, until the truck called them.

Yeah, exactly. I love that. By November 30th, the attacks had started to slow, presumably due to the presence of the Scotland Yard detective.

The single Scotland Yard detective.

And the presence of the British Legion members. Who would come to Halifax to escort women on their errands. Oh, that's nice. For the first time in weeks, the public started to wonder, maybe had the Slasher been frightened away for good?

They thought that in the Gary Ridgway case. They did.

Why did that? But that was real.

Yeah.

By December 1st, a handful of reports of supposedly recent attacks did come into the police, but the police declined to file the reports, saying that the attacks had not been substantiated to their satisfaction.

Oh.

Without the constant threat of a new slashing victim or roving mobs to deal with, investigators on the trail of the Halifax Slasher were finally able to take a step back and evaluate the case objectively for the first time.

Uh-oh.

Although the initial reports made by Mary Gledhill, Gertrude Watts, and Mary Sutcliffe had been substantiated and were deemed legitimate, the other reports were far less reliable and kind of just unbelievable. Among the more challenging aspects of the case was the distance between the locations where the attacks were reported. In one instance, uh, police in Lancashire might have— might receive a report of a slashing at 6:10 PM, and then the police in Halifax, many miles away, would also get a report just a few minutes later. And it would have been impossible for one man, or really even three, to get across town so quickly.

Yeah.

With or without a car. Of course, it was possible that the attacks could have been committed by several men, like I said.

Yeah.

But given the depraved personality required to commit these acts, it did seem kind of unlikely.

It is.

It's not— in my opinion, it's not that unlikely. Like, men are nuts.

Well, and now we've seen so many cases where, like, two people get together and, like, the Hillside Strangler, the Stranglers, you know, like, um, Otis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas hung out for a little while.

Leopold and Loeb.

Yeah. Like, we see, like, couples who get together and do this shit.

Yeah.

So there— it is a possibility that there's several fucked up individuals.

I think it's just weird because even in those cases, like, they were working together.

Yeah.

In this case, they'd just be like, let's split up and go hit people. That's the thing.

Like, I'm just failing to see the, the real reason for this.

Yeah, I don't get them. Yeah, the MO would be—

they're not getting anything.

Like, they're not stealing money unless they're like coming back together and being like, how many wrists did you hit?

Yeah, that's the thing. Are they like meeting back up at the end of the night and being like Were they doing tags? Did you pop anyone on the wrist tonight?

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah.

But then there was the near total lack of evidence, witnesses, and sometimes injuries. If somebody was being attacked by a razor, you would expect them to have some injury to their hands or arms, even like defensive wounds.

Yeah.

So with the benefit, like I said, of objectivity, it was beginning to look to the Halifax investigators like the hysteria surrounding the mysterious and terrifying Halifax Slasher might just be that.

Damn.

Hysteria. In a statement to the press on December 2nd, Halifax Chief Constable told reporters, no one was charged with any offense concerning the present situation, and there never was, nor was there likely to be, any real danger to the general public.

Wow.

By the end of the day, investigators were speaking in more certain terms. Detective Sergeant, uh, Harry Studdard of the Scotland Yard told the press, certainly 15 persons did actually receive slashes. But the police are now satisfied that no one who has been termed the Slasher was concerned. So he was like, yeah, people did get cuts, but there was not a Slasher.

Huh. Weird, right? I'm like, those statements seem to be conflicting, fighting each other a little bit in my brain. You'll see. Okay.

But it seems that by exposing the Halifax Slasher as nothing more than a myth perpetuated by publicists hysteria and wild imaginations, investigators in Halifax and those at Scotland Yard took away the power that the story had over the public. And by the end of the first week of December, there were no new verified slashing attacks.

Interesting.

And those that were reported were deemed hoaxes. In one case, a teenage girl in Halifax was arrested for providing a false report, uh, after she was found to have tied herself up and torn her clothing in order to create the impression that she had been a victim of the Slasher.

Whoa.

Decades later, when he was asked about the Halifax Slasher, medical sociologist and professional skeptic Dr. Robert Bartholomew concluded, quote, most of the supposed sightings amounted to a figment of the panicked public's imagination, with most of those who had been wounded eventually admitting to having self-inflicted the injuries due to nerves or to make boyfriends feel guilty after an argument.

Whoa. Rough. Damn.

Rough.

Effective.

Whoa.

Yikes. Like, you really did it. You made everybody feel bad after that.

You done did it.

Holy shit.

Detectives escorting you to do your shit.

Yeah. You brought one single detective from Scotland Yard in.

Hey, it doesn't seem like they're willing to give much. So that's a big deal. Throughout the first weeks of December, after the hysteria died down, Several young people started confessing to their friends, parents, or even the authorities that they either faked the attacks for attention or faked the attacks to get themselves out of trouble.

That's actually so sad. It is sad. Like, that's wildly sad.

Yeah, I think I'm— it's very similar to the Salem Witch Trials. I think life was fucking boring back then.

Sure is.

You had to create your own shit.

Yep.

But in the end, their hoaxes backfired. Many of those who orchestrated slasher hoaxes were brought up on charges of mischief. And admonished, obviously, for their contributions, not just to public anxieties, but also to the economic harm done by the curfews, the fear, the one Scotland Yard detective.

Yeah.

Resources.

Put a lot of resources here.

But that was that. Holy shit. It was never real to begin with.

That was it. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. Those are really interesting cases.

I think.

Just because it's a bunch of people believing something. That is unbelievable for us to think about.

And also just getting so reckless in both stories.

Groupthink is a hell of a thing.

It sure is.

Yeah.

So do you have a fun fact for us that makes us feel better about groupthink?

I do. The moon pie was invented in 1917 by Earl Mitchell. He was a traveling salesman for the Chattanooga Bakery in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

They could have had a Moon Pie. So they actually could have had a Moon Pie and quit slashing people, and they should have had it, or pretending to be slashed.

Yeah, we were out here saying that's the problem, they didn't have Moon Pies. They did have Moon Pies.

Wow.

Well, maybe not say that.

Maybe they were— maybe they were only in Tennessee.

I was just gonna say, we're in— we're here, they're there.

Wow, even back then, was there like crazy shit in Moon Pies that Europe said no thank you to? Maybe they were like—

Europe was like, you guys are crazy.

They're like, there's like 45 ingredients on this that like we will literally not allow.

Moonpies for life.

I wonder if you can get a Moonpie in Europe. Let us know.

Yeah. Europeans. Let us know if you can get a Moonpie. Period. Yeah.

All right. Well, guys, this one was just like a fun, loosey-goosey one to be silly after.

Yeah. Really intense.

After Gary.

Dark and rough. Yeah.

I got to get Gary out of my head.

Yeah. Gary's got to go.

So that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you start slashing yourself to like get out of work or something. No, create public hysteria.

Absolutely not.

The hash slinging, the slash slinging, a hash slinging slasher. She has no idea what I was just talking about.

Maybe I won't even tell her. It's SpongeBob. Oh yes, yeah, see, I know.