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The Bermondsey Horror
86 Plays2 years ago
First episodes, love triangles, and a murder--oh my!
Join co-hosts Kayley and Siera as they dive into the case of the Bermondsey horror. In the first episode of the True Crime and Punishment podcast, we'll take a look into 1800s London. Marie de Roux, a Swiss maid looking for a way to pull herself up in the world, meets two eligible bachelors. Patrick O'Connor, a wealthy Irish man nearly twice her age, and Fredrick George Manning, a railway guard waiting on his inheritance. Of the three, one will die by violent hands, and two will die by the hangman's noose. Who will Marie marry? Who will she maim?
Sources:
https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/in-depth-history/bermondsey-horror-maria-manning-frederick/
The Woman who Murdered Black Satin by Albert Borowitz
https://thecrimewire.com/multifarious/The-Bermondsey-Horror
https://www.theministryofhistory.co.uk/short-histories-blog/bermondsey-horror
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Transcript
Introduction to True Crime and Punishment
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, I'm Kaylee. And I'm Sierra. And this is True Crime and Punishment. We are two friends who are using our professional writing degrees to research the motivation, perpetration, and investigation of various true crime cases.
Overview of the Bermondsey Horror
00:00:14
Speaker
Today, Kaylee will be walking us through the Bermondsey Horror. The Bermondsey Horror, also known as the Victorian Love Triangle murders. And as with any good love triangle, you know that means we're going to have three key people involved in this case.
Marie Dérou's Arrival and Aspirations
00:00:26
Speaker
The first of which is a woman named Marie Dérou. Marie was born in Switzerland. She was a Swiss domestic servant. Marie emigrated to England where she was a maid to the rich Lady Blantyre, who was the daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland. Not much is known about her history before she moved to England. We just know that she was a Swiss domestic servant who moved to England for hopes of a better shot at making money. We also know that it was in the service of her Lady Blantyre that Marie became interested in the finer things of life. The idea of living in poverty was just an unthinkable horror.
A Love Triangle with Patrick O'Connor
00:00:56
Speaker
because Marie she was a servant but while she was a servant she was a lady's maid which within the hierarchy of society and servitude in the 1850s this position would have given her some historical clout amongst other servants they wouldn't have mixed quite as freely because she was an elevated servant it was in 1846 while in the service of her lady that Marie met a man the second figure in our story Patrick O'Connor she met him on a boat trip to Boulogne which is a city in France and I did google how to pronounce that because I am a dumb American don't know how to pronounce French
00:01:25
Speaker
Patrick O'Connor was 50. Oh, how old was Marie at the time? She was in her early 20s. Oh, okay.
00:01:36
Speaker
He was a wealthy man. He made his money as both a money lender and as a customs officer. So he got his money for his money lending businesses as a customs officer. So he would give the go ahead for things to come through on boats. And if you had the right amount of money, just about anything you wanted to get the go ahead from good old Patrick O'Connor. If you get what I mean. A bit shady.
00:01:58
Speaker
Just a bit. So he had a smuggling scheme, but then he turned it into his official money lending business, which is where he continued to make money. Maria was charmed by Patrick because who wouldn't be charmed by a rich Irishman? Did I mention that he was Irish? No, you didn't. That makes more sense. Money and an accent, oh my. She was, of course, charmed by Patrick.
00:02:19
Speaker
And this is kind of impressive because she was used to seeing so much opulence in her service to Lady Blantyre. If you want to get an idea of how rich Lady Blantyre was, Queen Victoria frequently visited her home.
00:02:33
Speaker
So like the literal Queen would show up you have to know that you're like comfortably opulent, you know So Marie was charmed by Patrick because who wouldn't be charmed by him She suggested that they see each other the next time they were both in London because remember they were on that boat trip to France and she worked in London O'Connor promised that he'd take her out to a meal when next he was in London and the two went their separate ways and
00:02:55
Speaker
It suggested that they had seen each other previously in society. They had run in similar circles, but they weren't quite on the edge of flirting quite yet. So Patrick promised to take her out to a meal, you know, date stuff. However, Patrick would not make it back to England until about 1847.
Marriage to Frederick Manning
00:03:15
Speaker
That's when he looked Maria up again and said, hey, I want to take you out to dinner.
00:03:19
Speaker
But at that point, Marie had already found another guy. Oh dear. Here's our third figure in our love triangle. Frederick George Manning was a guard for the Great Western Railway. Well, he was for a time at least. He was eventually dismissed from his job under suspicion of involvement in some robberies. While he didn't get convicted of said robberies, he was close enough to them that when his name came up, he was dismissed from his work.
00:03:48
Speaker
But this didn't matter to Frederick. He made some money as a guard for this great western railway, but the real money he was said to inherit would come when his mother passed away. He was said to inherit a great fortune. So now Marie has two guys in her circle, both of whom are interested in her to some degree, and eventually Manning would ask to marry her. But she had a choice to make. She didn't want to remain in poverty. Marie had to consider which man would be best able to provide her with a comfortably opulent lifestyle she felt that she deserved. O'Connor was already wealthy.
00:04:18
Speaker
but there was this heavy drinking in the 20-year age gap between them that had to be considered. He had also dragged his feet in asking her to marry him. According to some sources, he hadn't asked her at all. He just kind of strung the pretty Swiss maid along. Manning was closer to Maria's age, but also closer to her in wealth. But that was no matter, considering he had money to inherit as soon as his mother passed away. His lot in life would soon be remedied and he would be a wealthy man as well. He was also easier to manipulate
00:04:48
Speaker
in O'Connor, something that Marie certainly would have seen as an advantage. So what's a girl to do? You got two options. Tough choice. Tough choice. You can pick the wealthy, or you can pick the soon to be wealthy. Marie chose Frederick.
The Inheritance Deception
00:05:05
Speaker
Marie and Frederick were married in May of 1847. However, soon after, Marie found that Frederick had been lying about his upcoming fortune.
00:05:16
Speaker
Oh no. There was no inheritance. None. His father had passed away and left him a sum of about 400 pounds, but there was no great money to be had when his mother passed away as well. Marie had picked the wrong man. Oh dear. But soon after, O'Connor wrote Marie, admitting his love, promising that he would love her and that he had been set to marry her but had not acted quickly enough.
00:05:44
Speaker
Wait, not acted quickly enough. So does that mean that he was aware that at this time she was a married woman? Yes, he knew. So here she was, a broke husband and a rich man who was definitely still interested in her. So Marie soon began an affair. Marie at this point is married to Frederick George Manning while still continuing her relationship with Patrick O'Connor.
Affair and Business Failure
00:06:10
Speaker
That's not going to go terribly wrong at any point, right? Of course not.
00:06:14
Speaker
The Mannings eventually bought an inn in Taunton called the White Heart. While they lived in Taunton, it was said that Marie would go to stay with Patrick several times. And it was a well-known thing that Marie Manning and Patrick O'Connor had something going on. But it's Victorian England. What are you going to do? It would also seem that good old Frederick over here didn't have too much of an issue with this because it was reported that he took up with multiple women in town. Oh.
00:06:44
Speaker
So eventually, after a while, the Mannings living in Taunton, they had to sell the White Heart Inn. After they had to sell their inn, it was said that there had been suspicion of a robbery. And it was also thought that Marie had essentially ratted out a couple of guys. And so she was a rat. No one wanted to stay at her hotel anymore. So the Mannings had to sell the White Heart.
00:07:12
Speaker
And then they bought a house on Miniver Place in Bermondsey in Southeast London. Oh, Bermondsey? Where have we heard that before?
Contemplating the Affair's End
00:07:23
Speaker
So at this point, Marie has been married to Manning and is also carrying out an affair with O'Connor. But she decides that she needs to pick one man. She should have decided that a bit sooner, I think. I would say so. But entering the bonds of holy matrimony, I feel like you should decide on that one guy probably. But who knows?
00:07:44
Speaker
But better late than never, she's still making a choice, so what does she choose? Well, Marie decides that she and Patrick need to part ways, but she finds herself unwilling to part with Patrick's money. Ah, that was always his most attractive feature. Besides the accent, of course. Of course. So it's also, I found this a little strange while doing my research, it seems that Manning was aware of the affair and he was also comfortable without Connor being in their home.
00:08:11
Speaker
Because you know what? The Manning's invited O'Connor over for dinner on August 8th in 1849.
O'Connor's Disappearance
00:08:20
Speaker
Now this is two years after the Mannings were married.
00:08:24
Speaker
And of course, O'Connor was delighted. He said, of course, I'll come, I'll be there. But that night he surprised the mannings because he bought a man by the name of Pierce Walsh along with him to dinner. They had just celebrated a big business win that day. And so he was going to dinner as a celebration. He invited Pierce Walsh to come along with him. Now this upset Marie just a little bit. She was kind of hoping for some alone time with Connor. So she kind of pulled him aside and said, hey,
00:08:49
Speaker
I was really hoping you would come alone, because I wanted to spend some time with you. Just you, not this pretty small guy. Just you and my husband. And my husband. So could you come back to dinner tomorrow night? But please, come alone. And O'Connor said, of course, I'll come back tomorrow night.
00:09:12
Speaker
Now, let's skip ahead to the morning after August 9th. That's the second day that Patrick was said to be having dinner with the Mannings. That evening, Marie Manning had gone down to Patrick's home on the 9th and collected a few items and called after O'Connor, which was strange because he was supposed to be having dinner at the Mannings house. She came by again the next day, called after Patrick and he was not there.
00:09:35
Speaker
It wasn't until three days after his death that some of O'Connor's colleagues showed up to the Manning's house trying to figure out where O'Connor had gone. He hadn't showed up for work. That had been strange. He was a very business minded man. He was very professional in his business dealings. He would not have missed work or a meeting that was important as the one that he missed was. So his colleagues went to his home where his housekeeper told them
00:09:57
Speaker
Oh, Marie Manning was here last night and the night before calling after him as well. And I've not seen O'Connor since the first night that Marie came calling after him. He was supposed to go to dinner at the Manning's house. O'Connor's colleagues thought, okay, well, we'll go call at the Manning's. It's a well-known secret that O'Connor and Marie have something going on.
00:10:19
Speaker
So they thought maybe he's still there. Maybe he stayed the night. Maybe he stayed a couple of nights. Maybe he fell ill at dinner and just didn't come home. And maybe Marie coming by the house was a distraction to pick up clothes or something like that. Who knows? So they can go and they talk to Marie and she says, I haven't seen Patrick. He was supposed to be here for dinner on the 9th, but he never came. So I went to his house to make sure he was okay.
00:10:48
Speaker
And then I went back again the next day and he wasn't home then either. And so O'Connor's colleagues say, well, all right, thank you so much for telling us we're going to keep looking for him. And they think this is very odd. So what do they do? They go to the police and they tell the police of the happenings and that they couldn't find Patrick O'Connor.
00:11:11
Speaker
And so the next day, the police show up at the Manning's home. Marie tells them the same thing, that Patrick had been invited to dinner and he had not shown up that night and she hasn't seen him since. When they asked after her husband, she said that Frederick was at church and they would be going out that evening and neither would be available to speak to the police should they arrive to their home. Oh, interesting thing to tell the police. And like, yeah, my husband's not here and we're not going to be here later, so don't show up again.
00:11:40
Speaker
police leave and they do intend to call again because they need to speak to Frederick Manning. They need to speak to Marie Manning and just see what's going on. However, soon after Marie Manning is seen leaving the home with a lot of luggage. Oh, that's a little odd. No one's seen Frederick in a
Discovery of the Crime
00:11:59
Speaker
few days, so now we can't find Patrick, we can't find Frederick, and then Marie leaves.
00:12:05
Speaker
So the police are watching the home because they think something strange has happened. And one day they see a man walking up to the Manning's home and they stop him and they ask who he is, what's going on, thinking that perhaps this is Frederick Manning. However, the man says, I'm not Frederick Manning. I'm going up to their home because I bought all the furniture inside the home from Frederick Manning. Oh.
00:12:26
Speaker
So the police decide that something obviously gone wrong, something bad has happened, and so they decide to search the manning's home. So they rip apart the house, they don't find anything in the house, they certainly don't find Patrick O'Connor. They go to the back garden and they start digging up the garden to try and find evidence of what happened to both the manning's and Patrick O'Connor.
00:12:46
Speaker
After a thorough search turned up nothing, officers decided to do basically one last sweep through the home to see if they can find anything. And an officer sees that two of the flagstones in the kitchen look like they had been recently cleaned and there was some sort of substance between them. Wow, that's a very technical detail to notice.
00:13:11
Speaker
like oh these flagstones look new and there's something there let's let's look at that so they decided to dig up the flagstones to see what what's underneath um i don't know what they expected to find but what they ended up finding was after digging about a foot down they found a body of a man
00:13:27
Speaker
The man had been shot, stripped, covered in quicklime, and buried beneath the flagstones in the kitchen. Using dental records, they were able to identify the man as Patrick O'Connor. Oh, the look of the Irish was not with him. Not that day. So now the search for Patrick O'Connor was off, and the search for the mannings was on.
00:13:51
Speaker
Marie had run after speaking to police, taking with her all this luggage. Now, remember when I said that Marie had shown up at Patrick's house that night and the night after trying to figure out where he was since he hadn't shown up for dinner? Yes. Turns out, Sticky Fingers Marie was in there digging through his important documents and finding out his railway shares and a couple other important things. She had stolen them the first night and then come back the next night because she decided she had not taken enough.
00:14:21
Speaker
So O'Connor's colleagues and his cousin were able to look through and say, his railway shares are missing, this is missing. Some big ticket items are gone. Marie had run with the railway shares and police tracked her to London Bridge Station. There investigators found some of her luggage had been abandoned.
00:14:39
Speaker
Inside her luggage, they found Marie's bloodstained clothes, letters to and from Patrick, and some documents from Patrick's home. So that's proving that something had happened and that she'd clearly been in Patrick's home and taken some things. Not to be rude, but I feel like if you have bloodstained clothes, you should maybe burn those instead of leaving them in a public place. I mean, I guess please leave them in a public place so that you get caught, but still.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah, you'll find very quickly that the Mannings were not very smart in how they ran. I mean, I guess they thought that if they just covered a body in quicklime and hit him beneath the flagstones in the kitchen, you know, no one could figure out who it is.
00:15:23
Speaker
Not to be on a tangent, but what does Quicklime do? Quicklime is like a chemical compound. The Mannings used it because they thought it would help decompose his body faster. But in reality, it's known for taking moisture out of the air and out of things. So it actually preserved his body. But it's used for some different things. But it's like a drying agent. Oh, OK. Got you.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah, good question. Thank you. We've used it to kill lice in our basement before. Anyway, moving on.
00:15:54
Speaker
So they found those at London Station where they've been abandoned. I'm not sure if they just didn't make her connecting train and she didn't want to come back for them. Or she was like, if I leave these here, no one will know that they're mine, despite the fact my name is on everything. I can't comment on that because, you know, this happens so long ago. It's not like I can ask the Mannings what they were thinking. But they were able to track Marie from London Station to Houston Station, where she traveled to Edinburgh, first class.
00:16:22
Speaker
Of course, because why not be a little bit more conspicuous while you run? Oh yeah, yeah. Let's not be settled on anything. First class, probably with Patrick's money. While in Edinburgh, Marie was trying to convert the stocks and share sheets stolen from Patrick to cash so she could flee the country. However, part of the shares had been reported as stolen because remember his colleagues and cousin were able to say what was missing. And stockbrokers contacted the police after these
00:16:49
Speaker
stocks that have been flagged as stolen showed up in their stores. So the police had not said why they were looking for those shares, I don't believe, based on the sources I saw. But they had known that they'd been stolen. So when they heard that a woman was trying to sell them, they thought that's Marie Manning. And off to Edinburgh, they were. So those police officers had to do a bit of traveling, like crossing away from their from their territory. Yeah, actually, they've been alerted by Telegraph.
00:17:19
Speaker
Um, it was like a fairly new invention. It was invented in May. It was like May 24th, 1844. And I believe it was one of the first times that they telegraph really helped solve a long distance case like this. That's really cool. Yeah, it was really cool. So the police had a suspicion that it was Marie Manning and they found her in Edinburgh a week after she'd left Bermondsey.
Arrest of Marie and Frederick Manning
00:17:42
Speaker
So and then it took three days to extradite her back to London. So they were working. That was another cool thing is a lot of times if you have any interest in true crime, you see that police departments don't always work the best together. And in this case, they did. There was good communication, good follow through. So they took it took three days to extradite her back to London. So all in all, Marie Manning was on the run for about 10 days or seven days and then three days. But she was out of Vermont for 10 days. So next, the police had to find Frederick Manning.
00:18:11
Speaker
Marie had taken off the shares so Frederick had just sold all the furniture in the house and cut and run. Another thing that I saw noted a lot that I thought was really interesting was Frederick was often said to be a very average looking man.
00:18:26
Speaker
So this poor, basic, well not poor, he's a terrible person. This basic man led to many, since he looks so common, many false reports have been given across the continent. So people were saying he's probably in Edinburgh, he's in London, he's here, he's there. Because I believe he was like a shortish, but not freakishly short man, brown hair, average build, average looking. So he was just basically average, because he was hard to find.
00:18:53
Speaker
But on August 28th, two weeks after the police had begun investigating, they finally received a solid lead. The way they found Frederick was actually somewhat by chance. He had been recognized on a steamship going to Jersey. The person who recognized him was the sister of someone who owned a home where Frederick had stayed. OK. That is a random connection. It really is. So she recognized him. She was not aware of the murder of Patrick O'Connor at this time.
00:19:21
Speaker
But once she was, she was able to tell police that Frederick had been on this steamship going to Jersey. So police, they're not too hopeful that he'll still be in Jersey, because why would he still be in Jersey? It's been two weeks. However, police found him after searching Jersey for a few days, and they took him into custody on August 30th, nine days after his wife.
00:19:46
Speaker
Another thing to note is when Marie was taken into custody, she was calm, collected, and silent. She had nothing to say to officers and nothing to say to anyone else. Frederick, however, was delighted to find that Marie had been arrested and was quick to say that Marie alone had been the perpetrator of this murder.
00:20:07
Speaker
He just threw her under the bus. Directly under that bus. Now, onto the trial. The Mannings were tried together, though Marie's lawyer tried to attempt to get her her own trial. I found this quote, but in those days, a wife could not be charged an accessory after the fact for a murder committed by her husband. It was presumed that the wife's first loyalty had to be to her spouse. So the trial would need to show that she had knowledge that her husband had planned the crime and that she directly took part in it.
00:20:35
Speaker
Or that she'd acted on her own initiative or had attempted to make a profit from this crime. So proving that would be the focus of her solo trial as opposed to with the joint trial, it would be focused on the fact that she and her husband had committed a murder.
00:20:55
Speaker
The lawyer was unsuccessful to get her her own trial. One thing the lawyer tried to get Marie her own trial was to say that Marie was a Swiss domestic servant. She was not a English citizen by birth, so therefore she would need a jury of half foreigners and half native people. However, the judge ruled that she was married to an English citizen, therefore she herself was an English citizen. So they were tried together.
00:21:24
Speaker
In the trial, it was discovered that the Mannings had purchased a shoal and that lime that was mentioned earlier a few days before the murder. Interesting timing.
00:21:34
Speaker
Throughout this trial, we got a few more details of what was speculated to have happened to Patrick O'Connor. It is widely speculated that O'Connor got up to wash his hands before the meal and that it's believed that Marie shot him in the head at close range. But the shot did not kill him. The bullet fractured his skull and went under his skin before ending just above his eyebrow.
00:21:55
Speaker
Oh my goodness. But again, this did not kill him, so I'm sure that panicked the mannings. And then it's also believed that Frederick took some sort of implement, whether it be the crowbar or some sort of pipe and beat O'Connor over the head several times.
The Trial and Blame Game
00:22:10
Speaker
But again, the mannings basically blamed each other so we don't have a solid story of what happened, but that is the most widely believed, but that is the most widely believed story.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yikes. So, all this evidence was given, and the jury took 45 minutes to reach a verdict, and they decided that the Mannings were guilty of the murder of Patrick O'Connor. Now, it was Frederick's turn to be silent. He said nothing as the verdict was read. However, Marie erupted, claiming that the courts did her wrong because she was foreign. She hadn't had a fair trial. This was unfair, blah, blah, and I will say that the news outlets
00:22:48
Speaker
automatically painted Marie as the person behind the entire thing and that poor weak-minded Frederick had just been drug along. Poor Frederick. He's so average. He's so weak-minded. He definitely didn't beat a man in the skull several times. Of course not. Or help her bury him, I'm sure. I'm sure he did nothing.
00:23:07
Speaker
I'm sure she did that all by herself. There's also an attempt to say that Marie had that Frederick had killed O'Connor when Marie went to call on O'Connor, but that was proven false that they tried to hit she wouldn't have had enough time to go down there and then come back and assist in the murder of him.
00:23:27
Speaker
so that she was aware, but she had not acted. But that was also proven to be incorrect. She could have done both. And it's believed that she went down to get his belongings after they'd already killed O'Connor. They were guilty of murder, and the court's judgment was execution. With any court trial, especially with any execution verdict, you have the right to appeal. Only Marie tried to appeal. Just like when he was silent in the courtroom, Frederick just accepted the fact that this was his end.
00:23:58
Speaker
reappealed on the grounds that she was not legally married. Mary said she wasn't legally married to Manning because he was previously married before and that the woman was still alive and therefore she was in a bigamous marriage, which was not legally binding, which meant that had that been true, the judge's previous decision to say that you're married to an English man, which means you get a full English jury. So she's saying, I'm not legally married to this guy because it's a bigamous marriage.
00:24:26
Speaker
Therefore, I should have gotten my trial with half foreign people and half English people. That turned out to be false. There was no other wife. He was not in a big of a marriage. They were legally married. And so her guilty verdict and execution was appellate.
00:24:47
Speaker
Now we're going to move to the execution. It was just before 9 o'clock Tuesday, November 13, 1849. 30,000 people gathered to watch the Mannings be executed. 30,000?
00:24:59
Speaker
30,000 people were buying seats on rooftops. They were buying room at windows to lean out and be able to see the crowd was just a crush of people waiting to see the mannings be executed. This had been a massive story. Husband and wife kill wife's lover. It had been everywhere. Marie Manning was pretty much universally hated because they saw her as this seductress, this temptress who had dragged Patrick O'Connor down and had brow beaten her poor husband and then killed her lover for his money.
00:25:27
Speaker
which she had killed her lover for his money, but yes. Is there a reason they were targeting Marie more than Frederick? Why not hold them both accountable? I would say it's probably because she's a woman and not to get to whatever, but she was a woman who had committed a heinous act in a time where literally the law stated that a woman's first loyalty should be to her husband. So if her husband committed a murder and she covered it up,
00:25:56
Speaker
She couldn't be expected to have had any say in that because she was to submit to her husband. So the fact that a woman had committed a murder was just a huge story. It was just something that people were so interested in. It's like the gossip column of today. But I generally do believe that it was because she was a woman who committed a murder in a time where people thought that women would not be violent as a man would be violent.
00:26:21
Speaker
All these people gathered to watch the manings be executed. Frederick was the first to be brought to the gallows. It's reported that he had to be assisted up the stairs. Marie soon followed, walking steadily. She was wearing a black satin dress and a black veil.
00:26:36
Speaker
Now, there are some reports that say that Marie Manning and Frederick Manning reached over and shared a final kiss before they were executed by hanging.
Execution and Public Reaction
00:26:45
Speaker
I do not believe that to be true, and I'll tell you why in a second. But the Mannings were then hung. It's reported that Frederick died instantly, but Marie struggled for a few seconds before she stopped moving entirely.
00:26:59
Speaker
in a fair bit of irony. Their bodies were then displayed in caskets that were lined with quicklime, just like the makeshift tomb they had created for Patrick O'Connor. Was that because that was normal procedure or did the coroner do that or whoever it was as just like for the eye procedure? It helps with smell as well because it takes some of that moisture out of the air.
00:27:22
Speaker
But the Times reported that in an instant, Calcraft, which is the executioner, withdrew the bolt, the drop fell, and the sentence of the law was fulfilled. Frederick died almost without a struggle while Maria writhed for some seconds. Their bodies were left to hang for the customary hour before they were taken down in the evening and buried in the precincts of Gao.
00:27:46
Speaker
So they also, their bodies were left to hang there for an hour. This quote does refer to her as Maria. She is also known as Maria or Maria. She changed her name to Maria so that English people have a better time, or at least your time pronouncing it. But a lot of sources still refer to her as Maria, which is what I chose to refer to her as throughout this. So another big portion of this case is that there was that massive public execution.
00:28:16
Speaker
like so many people in that crowd. There were two famous authors, the first of which was Herman Melville. Melville? What was an American doing over there? I don't know, but he he paid half a crown to witness the execution. I believe he was on a rooftop. Yeah, he was on a rooftop overlooking the execution. He wrote in his diary for that day that the man and wife were hung side by side, still unreconciled to each other. What a change from the time they stood up to be married together.
00:28:47
Speaker
Now, it's Melville's quote that makes me think that them saying, oh, they shared a kiss before they died was not true, because I feel like Melville would have noted that instead of saying that they were unreconciled to each other. Yeah, Ryder definitely would have put some tragic romantic twist on that, I'm sure. Of course, of course. Across the pond. Across the pond.
00:29:12
Speaker
Um, you also find, if you look into this case, you'll find a lot of misinformation out there. If you find any information about Marie's life from pre-Swiss domestic servant in England days, that all comes from a source that has been proven to be not credible.
Literary Reflections and Debate
00:29:26
Speaker
It's kind of made up. So the kiss is also from there. So some of that information, you know, be careful when you look in your sources, but, um, another famous author that was there was Charles Dickens. Oh, of course.
00:29:41
Speaker
And Dickens is famously against public execution. He finds it to be morally degrading to a society. And he wrote that it's very long, but
00:29:58
Speaker
He said, I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of an immense crowd collected at the execution this morning could be imagined by no man and can be presented in no heat and land under the sun. The horrors of the gibbet and the crime which brought the wretched murders to it faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing looks and language of the assembled spectators.
00:30:18
Speaker
And this crowd went crazy. I believe a woman was killed in the crush of the crowd and a couple men were injured. There were so many people there. It's actually reported as being between 30,000 and 15,000 people. Oh my goodness. And it was an event. There were people selling snacks. There were people selling spots on rooftops as her mobile got to see. And it was just, it was
00:30:42
Speaker
It was not just a punishment for a crime, it was entertainment. And if you want to read an excellent book on this topic, The Woman Who Murdered Black Satin by Albert Barowitz, he has a very detailed write up of this case. It's called The Woman Who Murdered Black Satin because when Marie was hung in Black Satin, it actually is reported to have gone out of vogue for a few years after that because that's how famous this case in trial was.
00:31:13
Speaker
But that is the case of the Vermonzi horror, also known as the Victorian love triangle murders. Murder. What are your thoughts, Sierra? Well, talking about the authors, because you mentioned how Dickens was so against the death penalty, it also reminded me of Victor Hugo. He wrote a short story, The Last Days of a Condemned Man, which was also talking about how public execution became such a spectacle.
00:31:37
Speaker
And it is really sad because obviously Murray Manning and Frederick George Manning, they obviously killed a man. They did wrong. What they did did deserve punishment, but that doesn't mean that everybody should have rejoiced at their deaths. Like we meet out justice because it's right, not because it's enjoyable to punish someone for that.
00:31:56
Speaker
Right and then another thing Dickens does find it abhorrent but he was there and he did base a book character off of Marie Manning. If you've ever read um Bleak House
00:32:08
Speaker
lady deadlocks maid, Mademoiselle Hortense. She is a character that hates her employer and she thinks that she's above her job as a servant. She's really comfortable. She wants that wealthy, opulent life like Marie did. And in that book, spoiler for Bleak House, the Mademoiselle Hortense commits a murder. And so that's based directly off Marie Manning.
00:32:35
Speaker
So even though he was very against the murder, he still used their trial and the outcome to kind of influence his own work. Well, not really the trial, I guess, just the action, the act itself. Yeah, just the action. But I'm not saying that he was insincere in his dislike. I just see that there's always going to be an interest in things like that. That's true. It's kind of like the whole true crime as a genre.
00:33:00
Speaker
We acknowledge that it's really awful, but there's still something about the stories that we find gripping and captivating.
00:33:07
Speaker
And Marie Manning, despite the fact that she was very cold and she was very aggressive at the end of her trial, she was terrified to die. The night before her execution, she attempted to commit suicide by strangling herself to death by strangling herself with her own hands. And it was unsuccessful. She was stopped.
00:33:34
Speaker
And Dickens also writes about the fear in her eyes and how, see, now Mrs. Manning's last moments clearly explain, or rather indisputably prove, the benefit in which society practically derives from public execution. As for a few fleeting moments, she stood with bandaged eyes beneath the gibbet. How unanswerably did the pictures mute, mutely expel the terror, which the wicked very naturally have been publicly hanging with the scum and refuse, refuse of society.
00:34:00
Speaker
So she's reported as looking scared. It's the last moments of someone's life. So it's interesting to see it be such a spectacle. But death, terrorism, and dark tourism have always been a big thing.
00:34:14
Speaker
the Manning murders. It's also a good show of how it was published before the execution and after the execution that Marie Manning was always seen as the main villain.
Moral Discussion on Public Executions
00:34:25
Speaker
And it is, I don't know, it's a crazy case. There's a lot of interesting details out there about this case that poor Patrick O'Connor didn't deserve to die, obviously.
00:34:36
Speaker
It's also, I don't know, I think one of the cool aspects is you see the there's been such a cultural impact because of this from Dickens being very outspoken about public execution and about morality. Because the Manning is it was like one of the first executions of a husband and wife to take place in Britain since like the 1700s. So it wasn't a common fate. I think sometimes we think back on Victorian and prior to that England was just like they were just hanging everybody for everything out there.
00:35:06
Speaker
But this was definitely like a big case in society. Well, that's sad. It is sad. I mean, I always feel like, oh, yeah, it's sad. Of course it's sad. It involves death. But not only do the Mannings affect the life of Patrick O'Connor and his loved ones, they had a effect in their death on so many people.
00:35:30
Speaker
that it was morally degrading to more than just Patrick O'Connor. And I think it's cool that Dickens was to use modern vernacular, calling that out as he saw it. Yeah. And to just speak out against that, to use a bad situation and say, yeah, this is bad for them, but it's also bad for everybody else. Yeah. Is there anything else you think we should discuss? I don't think so. I think I heard it. OK. So join us next week. We'll be going back across the pond, and Sierra will be talking us through the Peppelman case.
00:36:00
Speaker
it'll hit a little bit closer to home. It's a little bit more recent as well. And yeah, I think it will be an interesting time. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening and join us next week so we can talk at you again. Talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.