Marissa takes us through the hollows (hollers) of the Virginias as we continue chugging along tracing back a couple of the earliest murders associated with "The Man From the Train" by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James.
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Ref:
James, B., & James, R. M. C. (2017). The man from the train: The solving of a century-old serial killer mystery. Scribner.
The laurel creek murders. Geocities Archive Geocities Mirror / The 90s Archive (1990s 2000s nineties) / The Early web. (n.d.). Retrieved May 8, 2022, from http://www.oocities.org/rmbaker66/jstsmrdr.html?fbclid=IwAR2fL21YnM1s3VVxrVXN2CBg0xWLaNYZgP8txGOJx-O3FZ5hH3RZusVolsE
Marissa takes us through the hollows (hollers) of the Virginias as we continue chugging along tracing back a couple of the earliest murders associated with "The Man From the Train" by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James.
Twitter & Facebook: @macabrepedia
Instagram: @macabrepediapod
Email us at: macabrepediapod@gmail.com
Ref:
James, B., & James, R. M. C. (2017). The man from the train: The solving of a century-old serial killer mystery. Scribner.
The laurel creek murders. Geocities Archive Geocities Mirror / The 90s Archive (1990s 2000s nineties) / The Early web. (n.d.). Retrieved May 8, 2022, from http://www.oocities.org/rmbaker66/jstsmrdr.html?fbclid=IwAR2fL21YnM1s3VVxrVXN2CBg0xWLaNYZgP8txGOJx-O3FZ5hH3RZusVolsE
Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matters and may not be suitable for all audiences listener discretion is advised.
Marissa:Nestled in the mountains of Appalachia, there lurks a dark history. The beautiful lands belies terrible crimes, one of which took place in Hurley, Virginia in 1909. Perhaps one of the earliest man from the train murders. The man from the train often strikes on the weekend in a town that has a railroad track running through the town, or along its edge. These houses have no dogs to alert the family. Usually the house is isolated near the edge of town, and often with a family of five. There is sometimes a barn to hide in until nightfall when the family fall asleep, and an axe may be laying in a woodpile outside. Many of these qualifiers line up with other man from the train murderers. But as this is an early murder, you can see some flaws and mistakes before he perfected his technique. If this was him, today, we take you into the hollers a century ago to begin in County, Virginia. Join us as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia
Matthew:Hello, and welcome to Macabrepedia America true crime and truly bizarre we are your hosts, Matthew and Marissa. And today Marissa will be leading this story as the stories that we are touching on today are from her neck of the woods. The deep woods that mountain the hill woods.
Marissa:Yeah, not not that close, but not far. I know people from these places growing up for sure. I've actually never been to Harley myself, but it's not far from where I thought Hurley was in McDowell County. It is not it's in mechanic County. It's actually the seat at Buchanan County. Yeah, it's closer to Kentucky and then West Virginia, it's in that little triangle. If you look at Virginia, it has those two peaks, big peak and little peak, little peak is where Hurley's
Matthew:that's not too far from grandi, right?
Marissa:No, it's close. It's close to Grande.
Matthew:So this is a very isolated region of the country. Yes.
Marissa:The population today is actually just sort of 2500 people. So it's quite small. It's rural, even now. And it was more even more so then. It's 100 and almost 10 years more than 110 years ago. I mean, it's a while ago, so. But you know what we are sort of talking about where I'm from, because the police detective agency that was involved in this case is from Bluefield, West Virginia, and Bluefield is from where I'm from so Bluefield, Virginia, Virginia,
Matthew:it's the same. It's one town now there are two blue fields, that it is one town that has been separated between two states, it is one, it is one little spot, when you don't know when you cross over. There's no difference. There's a sign. You notice because the gas prices change that too. Yeah. But yeah, so kind of going on that detective agency thing before we get too into this. One, we, obviously in true crime, we talk about police and law enforcement and detectives and investigators, we use these terms somewhat interchangeably. And we have a a patron on Patreon, who is a police officer, I'm sorry, he is a state highway patrolman, is what he is, if, since we have to be pretty specific, I'm sure he's gonna He's gonna He's gonna message me and be like, actually, but, but I often, particularly me, I often will will use all those terms interchangeably. They're not. Okay. So I might say police or law enforcement or detective, but they're all very, very different. So and then we're back in this time. Right. So with the in regards to our stories, there's a lot of questions that often come up because people have this this view that the police of the 18th 1800s, mid 1800s up till the night in the 19, early 1900s are the same as if they weren't now they're not at all they're completely different. Law
Marissa:enforcement has changed a lot.
Matthew:Right. So going so we're going to kind of touch on a brief history of law enforcement in the in America. So not even Yeah, in the colonies of America even because if you go all the way back to like the 1660s into the 1700s. The first kind of group that would later kind of become police officers were Slavery Rounders, they would go and they would find runaway slaves. That was their main, their main goal was they were there to not keep the peace in any other way really, they were just supposed to go out and recapture runaway slaves. So at this time, they were more of like vigilante groups more so than like a police force, but they would eventually kind of evolve into what would later become detective agencies. Now, if you go to like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, at this time, in those places where the population was increasing, and urbanization was happening, keeping the peace was more important, became more important to the to the to the everyday life of people. When you have vagrants and, you know, public drunkenness and
Marissa:something that's changing that fast also, there's gonna be a lot of disruption,
Matthew:right. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of immigrants coming in. There's a lot of all kinds of stuff happening. So then we're still we're still in like the 1700s at this point. But that was when like Philadelphia, Boston, New York, they started to do nightwatchman, and de Watchmen, now they, these people were beat cops, kind of, they would patrol areas just kind of be Neighborhood Watch, they're just volunteers. Some of them were doing this as like community service. So rather than like having to pay a fine or something, they would have to volunteer for the Nightwatch kind of do this. So in the very early stages of police, forcing, police enforcement, law enforcement, whatever was, it was very much, you only stopped the stuff that was happening directly in front of you, like vagrancy, or just public indecency of some form. This again, we're still kind of if you go back to our topics on mental health, and stuff like that, if you were behaving oddly, to the cultural norm, that would be a grounds for them to scoop you up and move you along, or something like that, but they didn't really have any real real power. Going forward into the 1830s. Late 1830s 1838 is when Boston Massachusetts first has like the first municipal police force that kind of comes into play. This is like regulated we we follow these rules, we have these things. And this is where people start, this is where the the the professional police officer starts to start to take shape. There. This is where career paths and stuff could kind of kind of start to come together in this still very small groups that were partially volunteers, but then they also had their core police force, I was on this later New York in the 1840s, again, kind of Philadelphia, etcetera, etcetera. In the south, it takes, it's still kind of has this very this being post Civil War, it still has a very, it still has a racial tint to it. Where there this is, you know, Jim Crow laws, stuff like this, where the police force. And again, this is not like, we shouldn't like the police. This is that's not what I'm saying. But just historically, say speaking, that the the law enforcement of those times were predominantly focused on keeping black people down, like trying to make sure that you tried to arrest them, in certain ways. Because they, because Because where slavery was no longer illegal, renting prisoners was
Marissa:well, racism was still very much a thing. At the time, it was like crazy. Yeah, it's very, very scary in the South. I mean, it's not like people wanted to give up that way of life and a lot of
Matthew:sure instances, so but this isn't we're not gonna get a civil war race right now. But
Marissa:you know, that's important. Yes,
Matthew:it is super. But also, let's not pretend like it again, this is this is not racism is does not stop at the Mason Dixon. No, no, like, it's all over the place. It was different. It is it is, while they were more openly doing this kind of stuff. And this goes on for years and years and years. So skipping ahead a little bit further. In the in the era that we're dealing with, with man on the train, this is pre 1919, where police became even more like unified. And this is where this is the start of prohibition. 1919 So this was when police became like, against organized crime, and started doing this now, corruption was absolutely rampant. So I mean, like, if you think about prohibition, you think of like the cops getting bought off and stuff. The police at this time, very, very much the they were taking they were taking cuts and to leave people alone and They were paid partially by kind of, you know, just corrupt practices at this time. It's not until like the 1950s, that the paramilitary aspect of the police force that we see in the US now kind of comes into play where you actually see like real career, this like respectable kind of face coming forward with us. And this, this doesn't happen till the 1950s. That's where the police that you would recognize today kind of originated from. So with. So that's when the police force starts happening in the 1950s and stuff that's a whole nother. We'll talk about that, but kind of tying it back into Hurley. And what we're dealing with here and the Bluefield detective agency which was actually Baldwin felts Detective Agency located in Bluefield, Virginia, West Virginia rather they were kind of still they weren't they weren't they weren't the they weren't rounding up slaves or anything but what these guys were still like in the pockets of they were hired to be union busters to get to go to coal mines and drag people from their from their call call their their mind mind
Marissa:company. I mentioned it to somebody this past weekend who lives in the area and he was like, Oh yeah, they used to go in and drag people out of their homes that were owned by the coal mines because they wanted them gone it was like that was part of what they
Matthew:did they tried to go on strike you're considered abandoning your job. But everything you own you bought at the at the cost or the mind store
Marissa:16 tons. What do you get another day older and deeper in debt?
Matthew:Yeah. So so yeah. So that that goes into there too. So when we say detective, these are not like police force detectives, these are these are like these are hot for hires. These are more like your private detectives
Marissa:are like witches, I swear I was reading about the Witcher Yes, what they did, and the people in the town would collect, like a bounty or reward for The Witcher or for the sorry for the detective. And they would pay that for them to catch the criminal. So a lot of times, sorry, I'll let you get back to that vote. A lot of times, they wouldn't necessarily pick the right guy, because they were incentivized to pick somebody. So what did happen? That's
Matthew:exactly what I'm what I'm trying to get to, when I say like they wanted a conviction so that they could get paid. This takes into account the undercurrent of corruption with those people who are trying to find them because there is a reward and getting the reward for police of this time. They weren't professional police officers, some most of the time. These were like vigilante style police officers, bounty hunters, right. So these are the when I say like the police want to reward. I'm using the word police so that the general listener understands that it's somebody playing a part in law enforcement, right, the detectives, like we've talked about in Wilkerson with, with him going around and trying to with the Valeska stuff, he was trying to find somebody to blame. So he could get this massive reward, but he was also drumming up all these other finances and all this stuff. And he always the detectives could collect the rewards. And sometimes they would try to free somebody who was already convicted so that they could drum up a reward. So then they could go get somebody else and drag him in. And so so all this stuff has to play in the back of your minds throughout this the narratives that were spinning here. When you think about the police, like how did why did the police let so many people go through them and go through the crime scene. Because who they don't care that much.
Marissa:We're mostly talking about us police officers, we
Matthew:should say this is America. But this is America. This is the all musical reference, tossing a coin to your Witcher. So I know it's a we. But yeah, so it's like why why would they let these people go and mess around with the evidence and all this stuff? Because you could be like, Hey, police officer X. How about I give you a nickel and you let me wheel that X? Sure. Or a bloody penny or a bloody Penny. But anyways, that's just kind of kind of shining a bit of a light on it. Like you can't Don't don't view the police force of 19 not oh nine where this crime happens, right? Don't take don't view them through the lens of 2022 police officers because it's it's
Marissa:very different. It's different. And these guys in particular the Baldwin felts detective agency, we may touch on them again with a later story, but they were involved in a lot of
Unknown:things. Oh, yeah, like a battle versus the Pinkertons which are like the train Matewan massacre. Well,
Matthew:we might just turn this into Macabrepedia Appalachia edition.
Marissa:I will back to Hurley. So we're talking about the night of September 21 1909 Six people were murdered that night in a cabin in Hurley, Virginia. This is in Buchanan County. Their cabin was set on fire. These six people were Betty justice also earning was Elizabeth but most people, Betty or Aunt Betty, her daughter Lydia meadows and husband George Meadows. And three children will Noah and Lafayette. These kids were all young they were less than 10 years old. found outside the cabin. Georgia school was crushed in and he had two gunshots to his torso. With his head almost cut off. He was found half dressed clutching a pencil. Inside Betty justice. Betty was found with her head detached and far away from her body within the bird cabin.
Matthew:Does it sound that the blunt end of an axe to me? Well,
Marissa:she had some some blunt injuries also. Her daughter while it was definitely a sharpen for them for the decapitation. Yeah, yeah, but her daughter and George's wife, Lydia Meadows had also been murdered by an axe as well as two of her three children. A relative
Matthew:Lily three children, because the third child wasn't there. They were there was a survivor.
Marissa:No, no, no, the third child was there inside a buddy justice. I'll get to that. Oh,
Matthew:I know. Yeah. The third child. Yeah. So this is a terrible story. Yes, it is. Because I mean, it's, it's,
Marissa:it's truly terrible. Yeah. A relative Lily justice. She lived in a cabin that was just 300 yards away. She was down the hall or a little bit. She had heard two gunshots and saw the orange glow of the cabin on fire which made her go investigate. And she can see the bodies of Aunt Betty Lydia and two of the boys and the flames. But Lafayette was found outside still alive. He was picked up and carried away from the burning cabin. But then when the person who found him who was another neighbor, Matt Baker, left him to go find help. He crawled back into the fire. Yeah,
Matthew:that kid was born without self preservation mechanisms.
Marissa:He was he was young. I'm sure he just wanted to get back to his family. Yeah,
Matthew:amassed terrible and tragic and scary situation. And that's not to
Marissa:me. Yeah. Another account though, said that he was found in within the door of the cabin. Maybe he crawled back in another one didn't mention him at all. But two or three accounts said that he was at least you know, by the doors. How old was he? I don't I don't know. But he was he was quite young. I mean, he might have been a four year old but don't quote me on that.
Matthew:Right. So he probably was walking in if it was a bunch of smoke and stuff like he doesn't know to stay underneath it. So a quick inhale of the burning you know could have done a lot of damage to as long as and then even if he because he's not you don't think of somebody like walking into open flames and just be like, Well, you got this get real hot and I'm blistering and what I know it probably the camera they're not the chemicals but the pollutants in the in the smoke problem
Marissa:might have just made him kind of delirious. Yeah, doing all kinds of stuff. Just might have wanted his mom. Yeah, no,
Matthew:I think there's a certain level of pain that's gonna make you stop trying to crawl. Yeah,
Marissa:I don't know. I don't want to speculate on that. Because it's, it's so sad. Yeah,
Matthew:no, this is terrible. A couple of days later,
Marissa:two days later, actually, they got some bloodhounds out and they followed a scent from the scene. And they actually had hundreds of men following this these bloodhounds. So it was a mob following along. The major employer of the area of Ritter lumber mill actually shut down so that its workers could participate in this hunt for the killer. The dogs followed the trail along the mountains of Hurley all day. Finally ending up at the cabin of Silas Blankenship around the cabin, the bloodhounds went to the site of three men who were digging potatoes in their in their field. They were just digging up potatoes. These guys are just digging up dinner and they turned around to see bang, bloodhounds and an angry mob at their heels. So what they did was the Blankenship men, who was Silas and his sons. They saw this and they turned tail and ran back into the cabin. They bolted the doors, and they poked shotguns out of these slits in the wall. And they they should have done that. I'm glad they did it because like the mob was very unruly. The Blankenship men promised that they would blow the heads off of anyone who got close to the cabin. And this ended up in a six hour standoff. Many men in the mob wanted to set the cabin on fire. But luckily I guess they were convinced otherwise they didn't. The Commonwealth attorney his aim was scores. He went to the scene with some special deputies and they were able to convince the blanket ships to come outside promising safe pass passage to jail. So we'll get arrested but we'll get there safely. The mob left satisfied with this
Matthew:and this kind of goes like I said with the other like sometimes you have to arrest people for their own safety sometime.
Marissa:Yes. Oh in this is definitely one of those cases the blanket ships surrendered. Though there was some concern that local farmers would rush the jail the United Press reported the next day that quote, the farmers of mccannon and just adjoining counties are gathering at Hurley and it's believed that they will attack the jail and Lynch the suspects.
Matthew:Yeah. Which, again, the whole like, arresting for their own safety stuff because this a scene similar to this happens to a couple of people in the North Carolina stuff to
Marissa:these men, Blankenship and his two sons, they were arrested and they were charged with murder on the simple evidence of bloodhounds going to their house. This is another example of how it's very different. You won't be arrested because bloodhounds went to your house.
Matthew:So they are pulling bloodhounds all the way up to the Valeska stuff. Yeah, they're, they're not really that reliable.
Marissa:They can help. But yeah, they should not be the only evidence. But the blanket ships were innocent. They had alibis for the murders, and they had a good reputation in the community, even though that seems to have gone out the window when people thought they were the murderers, which is kind of crazy, but it did. The governor of Virginia at the time Claude Swanson offered a $250 reward for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the murderer or murderers. They started to go about the process of collecting money to pay the detectives to find the murderers, the murderers, which is why I said it sort of reminds me of The Witcher because everybody's contributing to pile on your detective. Yeah, so it would have cost about two to 25 2020 $500 at the time, before the reward was collected and offered a man was arrested. Howard little was a very tall man, surprisingly, because his name was little well, not surprisingly, but ironically. Yeah. He's tall man. He had once worked as a US Marshal in Kentucky. And then he had since moved to Virginia, where he was a foreman of a lumber mill. Importantly, he had actually been convicted of a murder 20 years earlier while working as a US Marshal. He so he had apparently killed this man's name was Jacob Kinney in Pike County, Kentucky, which is not that far from Hurley It's It's not far at all. It was an 1892. So at the time, he was 20 years old, and it was like a fight over a woman. It always is. Yeah, Pike County just across the border in Kentucky from Hurley, Virginia. He had confessed even he had said that, yes, he did it. He was convicted of that murder and given a license, but had been paroled by the Kentucky Governor. Also at the time, it's important to note that Pike County is where all the Hatfields and McCoys stuff took place around that time. So it was very much a the feel of the entire area at the time. There were a lot of murders, a lot of feud and yeah, I mean, the authors of the man on the train point this out is from That's what I said, man. The man from the train. Happy. Yep. They point out that in this light period of lawlessness almost in with the Hatfield and McCoys in Pike County, he might have just gotten caught up in everything, and killed the guy because everybody was killing everybody type thing. But I don't know. He seems like he seemed like a smart and capable man. He's only obvious failing being that he had a mistress. He was married with four kids. But he had been carrying on with a married woman. He and this woman, Mary Stacy, we're planning to skip town together apparently.
Matthew:And also just kind of because you said that he was a former US Marshal. Another form of law enforcement. Right. That was like federal government's, like warrant Thurs they would go and deliver warrants and stuff. Yeah.
Marissa:I mean, law enforcement at the time is a bit more complicated than what we've said, but But what we're dealing with mostly is this detective agency, so, but how our littles wife found out about this, oh, they're gonna skip town. It's not good enough for the wife. She does not like that at all. Obviously, she went to the police a day or two after the murder, and she told them that she had suspicions about Howard. He was involved in the murders. He'd been away from the house that night, and he had a cut on his leg and blood on his pants. And he had also recently borrowed a revolver from a friend. And she also swore that she could show police where Howard had hidden away money that he had stolen from Aunt Betty. I mean,
Matthew:so he came in with a bunch of money, a revolver and a bloody lead.
Marissa:Oh, and a lamp, but I'll get to that in a second. I mean, the money never turned up. So she said she could show them where he had hidden it and she never did. So at that part of it is just maybe just made up to get her husband in trouble. On this evidence, Howard was arrested by Detective Lee felts up the felts detective. Hey, there he is. Baldwin felts detective agency and held For a week and Welch, West Virginia, which is about 37 miles west of Hurley, Detective felts thought that Howard little could have committed the murder single handedly since he was a big man. George Meadows had his skull crushed in with an axe and his throat cut so deeply that his head was nearly decapitated. He'd also been shot twice, and according to his wife, Howard little had just borrowed a revolver. So, you know, he was shot. He has a gun, George Meadows had already been buried, so Lee felt exhume the body and had the bullets removed. He then compared them they said that they could fit the revolver that Howard had. Of note though, this is not the same as modern day ballistics techniques. It was really just that the bullet could have fit in the revolver chamber. Yeah. Same caliber, same caliber, same size, same weight, but that's enough. Little was taken to the jail in Grundy, Virginia, which is 16 miles from Hurley. So really not far. Apparently, lynching was a major fear with these guys, because they moved him to a jail in Lebanon, or Lebanon, Lebanon, Virginia. I'm trying to think of how I hear people pronounce it. Lebanon, the way it's felt no matter what. Now people say Lebanon, I think looking at you Hurrican Yeah, Hurrican. But they went to Lebanon, which is 55 miles south of Hurley. But between Grundy and Lebanon is a place called Honegger. Virginia. Also no Honegger when people found out that little was going to be moved between the gels, a mob of about 100 people gathered in Honecker, because it was between the places intending to intercept the police officer and take our little. Yeah. Yeah, they even cut the telephone lines between Grundy in Honecker trying to keep people from finding out what they were doing, and try not to alert the police. But the officers somehow figured out what was up and instead they moved Howard across the mountains, using horses and mules. Wow. Yes. I know. That's pretty cool. They arrived safely in Lebanon, and the governor agreed to provide troops to protect little. I mean, I can imagine knowing a lot of the people from the area that they just they got caught up in this and they just wanted to protect their neighbors. They were they shouldn't have done it. But that's probably what they were thinking.
Matthew:I mean, if you're if you're in with the people of Appalachia, you're in there good people have a hard to roll deep if you're in what
Marissa:you're in, you're in Yeah.
Matthew:But but at the same time, stupid spreads real quick, when you're when there's tight when they're tight. People like that. So I mean, if it's if one of them, one of them I know. I know that he did it, then everybody's gonna say let's go. I know.
Marissa:They'll go along with you for sure. Because it's it's a camaraderie, but it can't get out of hand for sure.
Unknown:Yeah. And luckily, those people moving him are like, stupid runs deep brown here and let's we're not taking the road. There's no way they're gonna get us.
Marissa:But they Yeah, they did. They found out so they were able to to get there safely. So at least there was that. So this this really was a real threat. If they had called him a few months after the meadows, Justice murders. Another unrelated incident happened. Were one of George Meadows neighbors, and his brother in law. His name was Samuel Baker. So this guy's in Georgia, his brother in law. He was murdered. The attacker, or at least the one who paid the price was named Harry Pennington. He was a good friend of Howard little, he'd been defending him rigor vigorously. And he attacked the bakers because he blamed them and he was drunk. Moonshine does or whatever it was, does not help.
Unknown:Look at you throwing out them cultural stereotypes. Oh, I shouldn't said as far to say you can still see where the stills are burning sometimes in the hills. I know. It is not unusual to when you're out there on a hike to find a steal with some bullet holes in it.
Marissa:I've never found a still with bullet holes in it yet.
Unknown:I'll show you where there.
Matthew:Because that's what happens when people would go up there and they'd ruin their ship.
Marissa:They would they'd ruin their stills for sure. Yeah. But we'll get into that later. He attacked the bakers because he blamed them and he was drunk. Doesn't say what he was on. Could have been moonshine, which is you know, I believe in the other stuff on average. You're not? You're not Yes,
Unknown:I am. It's true.
Marissa:Now, I mean, it isn't. Moonshine is definitely the stereotypical drink for alcoholic drink. I know plenty people who've made moonshine and real moonshine That's not legal. Too strong. But yeah, who knows? I don't know what he's drunk on. But he was drunk and he attacked and he killed the Samuel and he actually injured Samuels wife. So because of those people got really upset. He was strung up by 100 men and his body was hung from a steam pipe in the middle of town, his body riddled with bullets. So it was a real possibility that that Howard little could have been lynched for sure. So seven weeks after the crime in November of 1909, Howard's indicted. The trial took place in Grundy, Virginia, which as I mentioned, is the county seat at Buchanan County. It started on November 25. The first witness was the son of Betty. His name was Senate justice. He had worked with Howard little at the Ritter Lumber Company. I get the impression Howard was a boss. Yeah, so maybe, I don't know. I didn't like his boss. It didn't seem like it was the best testimony. But he claimed the Howard had asked him frequently how much money his mother had. Yeah, another witness said that little said that she shouldn't keep money like that in the cabin because somebody could rob her murder the family and set the house on fire. This Yeah, this witness is not named.
Matthew:Witness should be questioned.
Marissa:Well, it was not uncommon. There were so many witnesses filtering to the courtroom that the reporters didn't get all their names. But yeah, that was funny that,
Matthew:yeah, but we're just saying, if you're that specific, man, keep money like that. So
Unknown:you shoot your husband twice in the chest, drag your children around and let your house on fire. If you're not careful with
Marissa:that one of your children survive just enough to walk back into the house.
Matthew:Too much.
Marissa:So remember, Mary Stacy, the woman that he's having an affair with? Yes. So she testified that he had given her $20 The day before the murder, to buy clothes and to get ready to leave town. He had told her that he would be ready when he gets some money out of the bank. Which is not incriminating, really,
Unknown:but it's you know, as if you're gonna leave town that's
Marissa:money in the bank. Right. Another witness was Mary Lee, Mary Lee, was probably the most important witness in this trial. She was the she lived with Howard and his wife. She was possibly a governess or housekeeper. And she was, like, close friends confidants with Howard's wife. And again, let's remember Howard turned him in, or Howard's wife turned him in. She's not a big fan of Howard. She's telling Mary, all this stuff. So Mary's not a great witness for Howard. She testified that Mrs. little hat also important, sorry, but Mrs. Little did not testify. Possibly because at the time it was very much understood that the wife should not be forced to testify against
Matthew:you legally cannot I don't think well, if I
Marissa:again, the wording was that I read was that you can they could not be coerced into testifying.
Matthew:Okay. But I thought I was under the impression that you legally could not. I don't
Marissa:think you can now, but perhaps well, I don't know. It doesn't matter. But
Matthew:what was Clementine? Oh, they were common law, man. Good. Bye.
Marissa:Yeah. So Mrs. Little did not testify that this woman Mary did. She said that Mrs. Little said that Howard had been gone from the house and out of the murders and a lamp had been left burning. Why is this important? The detailed drain that's No, it's not the same. But the detail is important because the wife had left it burning before she went to bed. And Howard would have presumably put it out before he went to bed if he had come home that night. That's the that's the implication
Matthew:pretty frickin Rocky. piece of evidence there.
Marissa:No, I know. I agree with that. Mary said that she'd woke at 6am and she sounds she had seen Howard asleep on the couch. There was a lantern that did not belong to them on the table and his jacket was wet hanging up to dry lay like it had been washed. She said that he started to fall in lantern with a file. And he did not reply when she asked him why he was doing that. He then went out to work around the house and he came back a few hours later to ask for bandages. Having a cut on his leg. Mary said the wound looks older and dried up when he did that. As if it was much clearer as if it was older. But let's
Matthew:have blood drawn depending on how bad it
Marissa:depending on how bad the cut was.
Matthew:We don't really know. It could have been so dry that he didn't need bandages.
Marissa:Also reading this. It was talking about this this wet jacket the jacket was wet hanging up like it had been washed. And the man from the train authors point out that Do you know how much blood you get if you're murdering a whole family with an X? Also, this is a wool jacket you think you can get blood out of that easily? I don't think so. So that is probably not the best evidence with the jacket for sure. Mary also said that Howard seemed very restless the day after the murders. He would wake up in the middle of the night for days even and have long conversations with his wife in the bedroom. I don't know why that's relevant, but he would. The lantern was maybe his downfall in that in the penny. The police found it in the barn outside of the house insisting that it was hidden. I mean, whether it was hidden or not in the barn. It didn't look good. It was hidden the lantern that did not belong to Howard. Okay. They found the lantern in the barn and they said that he must have been trying to hide it is a
Matthew:lantern or a lamp. But that So, you've been saying lantern. So it's a lantern on a lamp.
Marissa:It's a lantern. Yeah,
Matthew:but I mean, okay, so that's why I was asking if it's a lantern or a lamp. A lamp you wouldn't generally have in a barn. A lantern you would it's bigger can be carried around. It's better against wind and stuff like that. You know what I mean? Like you would? You would it's safer to have in a barn and was willing. It just doesn't. It seems really weird to be like, Oh, we found a lantern in your barn. No shit. We're also gonna keep a lantern. You know, you don't walk around your house with a lantern and you walk around your house with a lamp, you walk around your barn and in between with a lantern. Whatever.
Marissa:We neither use lamps, nor lanterns, so you don't use lamps. Not that sort of lamp. 20 or more people testified that it was the lantern of a neighbor of the meadows family, but it had been borrowed by George Meadows who had it the night of the murders
Matthew:loan and loan and all their shit out.
Marissa:Yeah, I was quoting that close neighborhood.
Matthew:Yeah, no. Can I borrow your terms? Yeah,
Marissa:absolutely. Why not? Still happens like it still seems pretty
Matthew:weird to be like, Hey, can I have all of your stuff? Can I have a ski mask? a machete? So some chloroform? A rope? It's like sure take it all. Can I have your gun now? Come on, man. Like are you doing are you doing murder Dexter? What are you doing? Calm down. The same? seems a little weird can borrow your revolver in a lantern. Everybody in Appalachia has a gun.
Marissa:Now they don't Yes, they
Unknown:do. Well, how the hell are you gonna eat? These people are hunting people.
Matthew:This is 1900 19 109 in a smallest town like
Marissa:heroics, a revolver though they would have had a rifle or something to go high.
Matthew:No, that's what I'm saying. I don't know. That's a weapon.
Marissa:Yeah, but I don't know. Okay, I don't know. So George had a lantern night of the murders and they said that Howard litter was trying to file blood off the lantern makes no sense to me. Why would you try to file blood off the lantern but okay. Even if it's dried, you can still just wipe it off. Well, I don't know. Unless it's like into the grooves but you still wipe it off? I don't know. So the morning after the murders occurred. A man his name. His name was French. He said he sold Howard Lidl a newspaper and Howard had paid with a bloody Penny. Okay, French saved that Penny and it was used as evidence in a trial. I don't know. It's not like they could tell it was, you know, a Meadows or anything but it was used as evidence.
Matthew:He had a wound on his leg blood into his pocket. That's where he kept his pennies. I don't know.
Marissa:But throughout all of this, Howard Liddell insisted that he was innocent. He never took the stand. And the defense seemed to be leaning more on trying to tear tear down the prosecution's case, rather than offering defense. Howard offered nothing for what for where he was, and I did the murders, even under possible torture. Not sure if he was or not, but One source said that he was tortured. Remember, when he confessed and was convicted to a murder 20 years earlier? At the time, he had been held in jail with three men who had been charged with robbing and murdering an old woman after which they set fire to her house. Which, you know, sort of seems to play along with,
Matthew:you know, that he learned their thing from from them.
Marissa:I'm not saying that, but it is possibility. Okay. It's only relevant because they they did Robin murder a woman and then they set it on fire that's similar to that.
Matthew:No, but you said it was three people that he was in. I'm asking. So you're set. You're trying to tie that to this story by saying that that's where he got the idea. Yeah, he
Marissa:met people who did exactly, almost exactly this. They followed him. No, he got the idea. After three days, the jury went out and deliberated for just 20 minutes before they found him guilty. He was immediately sentenced and taken to Richmond, Virginia under heavy guard, and he was set to be executed on January 7 1910. The New York Times set up the trial, quote, The only motive which can now be conceived by the authorities is that of robbery. They believe Liddell sought to obtain the money which he thought was in the house, amounting to $1,300. And that murder and arson followed but since the crime was committed, none of the money has been found. You know also a read that allegedly Betty Justice had almost $2,500 hidden away at her property including a few 100 and metal milk Pell that was under the hearth of her house. So like a couple 100 bucks under the horse hit on the hard 100 bucks. At the time a little was granted a reprieve for one month by the governor to appeal his case. But the higher courts agreed with the verdict. So Howard Liddell was executed on February 11 1910. He was executed via electric chair in Richmond, Virginia, and he went to his death calm and dignified He insisted that he was innocent up until the end and he was buried in McDowell County, West Virginia. In his family cemetery. On Betty Justice's grave marker, though it has a little bit it has a different date for sure. But it says quote between the hours of nine and 10pm at the log cabin approximately 300 yards from the present location. Six people were brutally murdered. The motive was was robbery. Elizabeth justice her daughter Lydia Meadows Lydia's three children will know in Lafayette Meadows were killed and remained in the cabin as it was set ablaze. Lydia's husband George was shot shot twice, and he died in front of the cabin on November 27 2009. Howard Liddell was convicted of first degree murder, and on January 7 1910, in Richmond, Virginia, he was put to death by electrocution in accordance with the court sentence
Unknown:that's on her. Yes, it is. Yes, it is something like six feet,
Marissa:not done. It is believed that after committing these acts of brutality, Howard little fled up the hollow just to the right of his monument to his home. He was later apprehended. legitimately, this is all I saw it. I've seen a picture. It's very big. Wow. Yeah. So the Norfolk and Western Railroad actually runs through Hurley and the meadows justice house was within a mile of the tracks. Not that far. The authors of The Man from the train believe that Howard little was an innocent man, and that this was actually the man from the train. Partly because the case against Howard is, you know, not that great to say the least, and partly because it seems to be connected to another murder, six weeks and 80 miles away in Beckley, West Virginia. Since George Meadows was found outside he may have heard the dogs barking and this is the speculation from these daughters of man from the train. He may have heard the dogs barking and went out to investigate and the man from the train would have been hiding an outbuilding or field and waited for him to come out. And then meadow seems seems to have come out after being awoken because he came out with one shoe on and one suspender of his overalls fasten, so it looks like he was just barely I don't know about the shoe.
Matthew:Yeah, one time seems a little bit weird.
Marissa:Do you overalls I get. Yeah, yeah, it was reported that Meadows was hit from behind with an axe so the man from the train would have snuck up behind him and hit him. After he attended to the people inside the house, murdering them, he went back outside and he saw George was still alive and attempting to write a message with a pencil on his hand because he was found with a pencil in his hand. And then the murderer put two bullets in him, hit him in the throat with the axe, almost decapitating him and then picked up the lantern and pistol and left. Yeah, he headed to the railroad station where he left carrying the lantern all this way until he got back to the railroad line, where he set it down. How we're little came along a little while later, after trusting with his married lover Mary Stacy and then he sees this lantern burning in the middle of the road as he walks home. It's still burning system randomly. It's kind of creepy. I think about it, but he picks it up and then he goes home with the lantern.
Matthew:Yeah, we pick it up, give a couple shots. Hey, yeah, everybody out there,
Marissa:well, freelancer. This eventually contributed to his conviction. The Baldwin felts detective agency had to convict somebody. And Howard was convenient, and it seemed to fit. Howard had no real alibi, and he stumbled home late with a lantern that George Meadows had had. But Howard, he had a pretty good life. He had a good job why for kids and mistress on the side? He does he doesn't see dream. Well. He really doesn't seem to have a motive. I mean, I guess he you could say that he wanted money to escape with his mistress but I mean,
Matthew:if he's planning on skipping town, command a quick murder will be any little bit of murder on the side.
Marissa:Yeah, I mean, it's it's possible it was him. I'm not saying it wasn't. But I'm not that far later. That long way, but no.
Unknown:Not that long after. Not that long after you go.
Marissa:We go to Beckley, West Virginia. Buckley is about 80 miles from Hurley, Virginia. And so we're going to be on Halloween night. This is just a month and a few days. I think it's a month and 10 days after the Hurley murder, so it's not long at all. And it's not far either. So actually for a month, the hood family was murdered. Train tracks were all over the area. It's as Logan's turnpike where they lived in Beckley. The hoods were on good terms with all of their neighbors. George Washington hood was a former Union soldier and was in his 80s So he was an octogenarian. He was originally from North Carolina, but he had lived in Logan's turnpike on and off since the Civil War ended. So for a long time, it's like 50 years at this point. He lives with his two sons, Roy and Winfield, a daughter Imelda and Imelda, his daughter, Emma, mother and daughter, were baptized on Sunday, October 30. First, the day of the murders.
Unknown:Interesting think I didn't know, I guess. Buzzer beater.
Marissa:Yeah. So Imelda had a suitor named Mike Farrell and they were going to get married in December. However, Mike was possibly a drunk and didn't show up at the baptism like he said he would. And Winfield and Walter both were on dates that night. But when they returned that night, the house was engulfed in flames. They tried desperately to get into the restaurant that was below this apartment. The apartment was like second level above a restaurant. They tried to get into there, but they could not the flames were just really hot. They couldn't get in. The roof collapsed and the house continued to burn. And hundreds of people were outside watching. But nobody was screaming inside. Because they were already dead.
Matthew:Okay, we know why, how we know that they're already dead.
Marissa:So the next morning they were able to enter. Roy was found with a bullet in his head. But they couldn't tell as much about Imelda and Emma as their head, their heads in the bodies were largely disintegrated because of the flames and everything. The remains of a melden mo were stacked. And it was determined that George had his head bashed in and his throat cut.
Matthew:Yeah, well, that kind of gets back to that the through line of posing the bodies if they're stacked. Yeah, there's also some other ones that we might touch on that that also have stacked bodies.
Marissa:They can also smell gasoline.
Matthew:Yeah, yeah. Also, people think that fire destroys a lot of evidence. It does it actually. Like it also preserves some evidence, particularly nowadays. So it's, yeah, it's hardly worth doing it just seems. I mean, I guess.
Marissa:I mean, it's not going to cover a bullet hole.
Matthew:Yeah, I mean, it doesn't really it doesn't really cover up bashing somebody's skull, anything like that. Yes. Yeah. If you're not, whatever.
Marissa:So it was speculated because of the smell that maybe somebody left a lamp burning and forgotten about exploding and blocking the exit. But also some thought that the murderer had poured an accelerant onto the bodies to speed up the fire, which seems more likely to meet your mike Farrell, who was unveiled his love. He was arrested along with three other men and an abandoned railroad railroad lumberyard. The men were all separated. They were sent to different jails and Beckley and Bluefield again to avoid a mob related crime. They were examined and giving a quote, sweating. Yeah, by the police.
Matthew:They give you the boot medium style. Yeah, get the shit out of you.
Marissa:They all gave alibis that checked out though, so they were all released. There was a woman named Elizabeth Blake who was an issue an invalid. She was living in about 120 miles from Beckley the time she was known as a psychic and it was not uncommon to include this investigation investigations at the time of spiritualism. Yeah, so the detectives actually met with her several times. And She invoked the ghost of George hood, who said that the murders were committed by a white man in a mask and three black men. But when they asked for names, the spirit became uncommunicative. Yeah, no, shucks. But the hood family murders were never solved. The man from the train authors is actually speculate that if Howard little hadn't been arrested so quickly, they might have connected the murders because this is only a month in some days apart. And they are pretty much axe murderers and like houses on fire. It's very similar and not far apart. It seems like they should be connected. But investigators were invested in the belief that Howard Liddell had committed the meadows justice murders, and was therefore in jail at the time of the hood murders, and couldn't have done it. So they're like, well, that couldn't have been connected, then.
Matthew:Yeah, I mean, that you'd be amazed at what you can miss if you already have the narrative in your head as to how you want it to look?
Marissa:Absolutely. The truth was that this sort of crime was incredibly rare. Only two happens in the country in 1909. And they were within 80 miles of each other. Not to mention the fact that the families were murdered with an X in the middle of the night, and that these occurred close to each other and within a few weeks, and the houses were set on fire.
Matthew:Oh, yeah. No, that was definitely seem connected. Again, I don't think that the authors of the man on the Train man from the train, okay. Yeah, I caught myself to the man that I don't think you know, what the author's from the man from the train? I don't. I don't think that all of the ones that they put together are necessarily connected. I mean, even the authors or like some of these are like, certainly not, probably not, probably, definitely, you know, so they have their range to those two seem to be ready. Pretty much almost like Colorado Springs like connected like It's pretty freakin
Marissa:Yeah. These are put into probably are definitely for sure. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, there are other there are even others in the area different points like Radford, Virginia. But these two, especially, you know, they're pretty close to each other in both time and distance. So kind of important to put them together I think. Yeah.
Matthew:And Mo. I mean, certainly, the man from the train wasn't really somebody who often used guns, but it doesn't. It doesn't seem like it would be a bad idea for a backup plan. Yeah, I mean, walking around with a with a gun. I don't know what the gun laws were at the time, but probably pretty light. So I mean, walking around with a gun, probably not that big of a deal to see somebody open carry. So it's mean, you pick up the axe there, you do what you got to do, do what you can do there. Somebody wakes up, Pat. Moving on. Yeah, that's also we're going to with him coming out of the house, and having to take care of the guy outside. Which Sir, there are a handful throughout the man on the train that that don't happen in a house with sleeping people.
Marissa:Also note of note, though, these were the first two that they really can attribute to Him. So this is a little different, perhaps because he was still perfecting, what eventually would become?
Matthew:Yeah, and one of the things that we had heard in some of the interviews that the authors had put out there was that one of their the ways that they did their research was find the ones that are connected. And you'll if you keep going back far enough, you'll see where the the the culprit was making mistakes. Oh, yeah. And that's where that's where you kind of get to some of the other ones where it connects back to Paul Mueller. In Massachusetts, I think, are we doing that one next?
Marissa:You tell me, we'll figure it
Matthew:out. Maybe two more episodes. But the but yeah, I think if you really want to see the thing that the murderer that looks just like the rest of these, with some mistakes. befores Absolutely. And there's just there's so many that are there's so many similarities, but also, it's just so it on the law of averages as far as breaking into a house at night and killing people. Like, a lot of them can easily be explained as coincidental. Like, oh, he targeted a family that had children. Lots of people had children, you know, if you're living in a house somewhere, you're more than likely you're going to find a house that has children in it, you know,
Marissa:and more than two, and generally that, that
Matthew:quite a few kids, you know, but anyways, the I digress. So in our next episode, we will be discussing two of the murders that are almost certainly not connected to this particular man from the train. That would be the X Men of New Orleans and the hint hint or chi Feck murders. And now it's time for Matthews. McCobb minute. Did you know that Mount Everest has one of the lowest populations and the highest amount of human trash, including bodies, including bought well, that Well, I wasn't referring to corpses as human trash. That's actually one of them, has one of the highest amounts of litter because of the fact that it's so hard to get up there. People take all their supplies. And as they use their supplies, they just dropped them.
Marissa:Well. That's why the bodies are still there. It's so hard to get them back down.
Matthew:It's very, very difficult to get stuff down. Well, it's pretty hard to get up to, but
Marissa:more it's not worth it to bring it back down. Right.
Matthew:Yeah. You're willing to risk your life to get to the top to see the highest peak in the world. Yes. You're probably not willing to collect a bunch of trash on your way back down.
Marissa:Well, because it's it's dangerous to spend
Matthew:dangerous coming down than it is going.
Marissa:Yes. And that's that's why the bodies, a lot of them are still up there because it's so dangerous for these people to be collected because it's not worth other people's lives to bring the body back down.
Matthew:Yeah. And there's some people that have been on Everest. Their corpses are used as landmarks.
Marissa:Yeah, green boots. I don't know if he's still there, though. I know a few of them. They've pushed over like an edge. So they're not as in view now. They haven't brought them down but they've pushed them out of the way.
Matthew:Let's throw them over a cliff. Yeah, out of respect. But yeah, so the the government of A government of Nepal will say, had to they cleared 11 tons of trash off of Everest recently. And they require a $4,000 deposit for people going up the traversing to the to the her summiting Everest, that $4,000 deposit they can get returned if they bring back 18 pounds of generated garbage.
Marissa:No way. Wow, that's one way to do it. Yeah,
Matthew:but you know people do they budget that $4,000 into their trip up to Everest, and they just give them the $4,000 and then they just don't take any trash back. I mean, I,
Marissa:I away, Nepal wins.
Matthew:Yeah, but Everest loses because Everest is just a fucking dumpster. No,
Marissa:no, no, it's it's something people go up at? No. Yeah. Now
Matthew:it's like, like if you've ever like, back in like the 1930s when people were like mountaineering and stuff like that, even prior to that, I think I don't remember the first first summiting was, but like, that was like a huge undertaking crazy expedition, they would take all this time to go up there and plot and plan all these things. And and now if he like there's like trains of people just walking up to the top and you get a few seconds out there, then you turn back around and three seconds out there and turn around. Anyways, it's full of trash and corpses, because it's hard to get back down. That was Matthews, McCobb minute. And now, back to the ending of our show. Thank you for listening to another episode. If you have any questions, concerns, comments or something that needs a little bit of clarity as far as when I say police, you know, reach out on Twitter, or Facebook at Macabrepedia. This is the part where Marissa starts talking.
Marissa:I was thinking also Instagram Macabrepediapod. And thank you to everybody who has rated us and everything and if you have not yet done so please go over to wherever you listen to Spotify, pod catcher, Apple podcasts, anything like that. And read rate us and leave comment
Matthew:please. And if you feel so inclined, feel free to reach out on Patreon throw us $5 Get a bit of bonus content, including a discord a couple extra episodes and you can do Gmail, Gmail, I did not. And then there's
Marissa:gmail.com
Matthew:Thank you as always, and join us next week as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia