Red Barn Murder

Marissa and Matt talk about the Red Barn Murder, an infamous crime from 1827 England. And the trial's tale became a book bound in a very unique type of leather...

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Rosenbloom, Megan. 2021. DARK ARCHIVES : A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human... Skin. S.L.: Picador.

“The Anthropodermic Book Project.” n.d. The Anthropodermic Book Project. Accessed September 13, 2021. https://anthropodermicbooks.org/.

“Display Song.” n.d. Www.joe-Offer.com. Accessed September 13, 2021. http://www.joe-offer.com/folkinfo/songs/122.html?fbclid=IwAR0SmOZ1_-Vwv2SDDTCOkccHt6c3erNeJ3hNNE34LXqdrxagGk5n1Z9VKtA.
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Transcript

Matthew: 0:00

macabrepedia deals with dark subject matter that may not be suitable for all audiences listener discretion is advised.

Marissa: 0:17

Come all you bold, young, thoughtless men a warning take by me and think of my unhappy fate to be hanged upon the tree. My name is William quarter the truth I do declare, I accorded Maria Martin most beautiful and fair. I promised her I'd marry her all in one certain day. Instead of that I was resolved to take her life away. I went into her father's house upon the 18th day of May. Oh, come My dears, Tria, and we'll fix the wedding day. If you will meet me at the Red Barn as sure as I have life. I will take you down to Ipswich Town and they're making my wife he straight went home and pets just go on his pick axe and a spade. He went into the red barn and there he dug her grave with heart so like she thought no harm to meet him. She did go. He murdered her all in the barn and he laid her body low and all things being silent. They could not take no rest, which appeared in her mother's house when suckled on her breast. Her mother had a dreadful dream. She dreamed it three nights over, she dreamed let our dear daughter lay beneath the red barn floor. They sent her father to the barn, and in the ground he thrust and there he found his daughter dear, lay mingling with the dust. Come all you young, thoughtless men, some pity book on me. On Monday, next will be my last to be hanged upon the tree. Join us as we add another entry into this our macabrepedia.

Matthew: 1:46

Hello and welcome to macabrepedia a marriage of true crime and the truly bizarre. I'm one of your hosts Matthew. And I'm Marissa. And today we will be focusing on

Marissa: 1:59

today we'll be talking about the Red Barn murder. Ooh, yes. So if you visit polston, which is a small town in Suffolk, England, that even now has a population of just 851. As of 2011, you may hear a tune that tells the story of a gruesome murder that took place within the town in May of 1828. At landmark long ago, called the Red Barn. And that's what you heard just now in our cold open. Sometimes it's set to music. It's actually really nice. Maria Martin lived in pulsated, England with her father and her stepmother, who was just actually one year older than she was. Maria was pretty young and popular with the men. She'd actually been involved with two men before she met William quarter. And she'd gotten pregnant by both. So I just 24 years old. She'd already given birth to the child of quarters older brother, but it had died. And then she had also given birth to the child of a wealthy man who actually sent Maria money for him quarterly. But neither of these men actually proposed marriage to Maria. So she's still looking around. And that was when Maria met William, and she fell pregnant for a third time first with William. So what we've got here is we've got Maria main player. She dated some other guys. She's had a couple of kids. So she's a single mom, the first kid died. The second one's still alive, she's getting money. And she just got pregnant by William. So she's going to have a kid with William. And they're involved, he promises that he's going to marry her. But then when the child is born, it dies just two weeks after it was born. So sad time, but William still insisted that he wanted to marry Maria. Part of this may have been because having a child out of wedlock was actually illegal at the time, and the punishment was public whipping. So there was a rumor going around, or at least according to William, there was a rumor going around that Maria was going to be arrested

Matthew: 3:57

and then flogged. Yeah, public

Marissa: 3:59

whipping. This is according to William the rumor, but it was actually illegal. So Maria left with her lover, William quarter on May 18 1827. They were supposed to be going to Ipswich to get eloped. And Ipswich was actually about 15 miles away so they'd be making their way there as quickly as they could. Maria her stepmother was there when William came by and that she and she said that he upset Maria by telling her this rumor that she was going to get arrested because she was having sex outside of marriage and she was pregnant and she had a kid out of wedlock and he told her that there were people coming to arrest her and told her not to mess he told actually and who's Maria stepmother? He told her not to mess with the gun he had because it was loaded. So this is all she was talking to. This was a detail and remembers Okay,

Matthew: 4:50

so an was an was at was with the both of them at the same time and was like

Marissa: 4:55

yes at Maria and and and Thomas house. Oh, Okay, so it's where Maria lives and Williams come to get her to take her away. And Anna's there, it's her house. So she's there while this is happening,

Matthew: 5:08

okay, and then Whose gun is it?

Marissa: 5:10

It's Williams gun. Anne's house. He's taking it with him to go pick up Maria. So William has the gun. He's gone to get his lover Maria and sees it. And William made an offhand comment that it was loaded. Don't mess with it.

Matthew: 5:24

Okay. I mean, I assume well, I guess it was it was probably a rifle. Right? I'm just thinking it's not like he's got like a It's not like in his pocket or something. And she's like getting handsy with him or anything, right.

Marissa: 5:35

I'm sure it was. It was probably obvious could have been a revolver. But it was it was probably obvious for this to come up.

Matthew: 5:40

Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking must have been a rifle had been a rifle so that he would have

Marissa: 5:44

even a pistol was pretty big. I'll just say it's something that'll

Matthew: 5:47

tell somebody not to mess with, with with a gun that's strapped to your hip. You tell him not to mess with your gun that is like out somewhere. I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. This is an unusual comment to just be like, oh, yeah, I totally remember. He was like, Oh, Maria. Don't mess with my loading. I

Marissa: 6:05

don't know why somebody was trying to mess with the gun. Or if they were trying to mess with, I think it's

Matthew: 6:09

gonna come out that there's gonna be a gun shot at some point. And it's gonna be like, Oh, I mean, I'm just assuming that's an unusual. Go ahead.

Marissa: 6:18

Get ahead of yourself here.

Matthew: 6:19

No, I'm just saying it's an unusual thing to state that I'm trying to say. The only reason that it should be stated is if it's like a rifle, like he would set it somewhere obvious

Marissa: 6:29

thing that it was just a sheet that someone could see it, even if it was just on his hip or whatever. Like, like I said, a pistol was pretty big at the time. They're not necessarily tiny so. So anyway, Maria and William left from her home in Paul stead, which is where Maria grew up and where her father and stepmother lived. They both left from her home, and Maria dressed as a man to disguise herself on the road. Now, why did she do this? Because according to William, there was a rumor that she was going to get arrested. So she was trying to disguise ourselves that nobody would see her on the road and arrestor

Matthew: 7:03

she has a kid out of wedlock like living child.

Marissa: 7:08

I don't know where the child is in all this.

Matthew: 7:10

Well, yeah, that's also good bring up there too. But what I'm saying is it's like it's not hard to prove that she She's fucking out of wedlock. She's got

Marissa: 7:20

she's got a kid and she's not married. She's never been married.

Matthew: 7:23

Yeah. So like, Why are they after? Whatever stupid rumor anyway, all

Marissa: 7:27

running away. Like I said, According to William, this is the rumor.

Matthew: 7:31

Oh, trust is William guy. All right, so

Marissa: 7:34

she did dress like a man. She wore men's clothing clothings and a man's hat. But she still kept on her earrings. For some reason, the small combs in her hair, and she also had a green handkerchief that she had around her neck. Never trust. Never trust a handkerchief. Just like our orange wolf story. So no a Maria left her home where she was supposed to meet up with William at the Red Barn. So they were going to go she was going to go from her house to meet up with him at the Red Barn and they were going to go to Ipswich from there. She was never seen alive again. A neighbor swore that she saw William later that day, carrying a pickaxe on his shoulder walking away from the Red Barn. Of course, when questioned, William said that it could not have been him, because he and Maria were well on their way down the road at that point. Fast forward to 11 months later, and nobody heard from Maria. Except for William. This was odd because Maria, which was unusual for a farmer's daughter at the time could read and write. So her family was pretty worried that they had not received a letter from her or anything. And what quarter was asked he made up excuses. Her mail must have gotten lost. She's injured her writing hand. She's been busy. And other one was my favorite. She's had she had a growth on her hand,

Matthew: 8:48

injured her writing hand. Yeah, man.

Marissa: 8:52

All sorts of reasons, right?

Matthew: 8:55

But so this guy's like, so is William Wright doing this correspondence via letter? Or is he like, is he showing back up in town?

Marissa: 9:03

Well, people did see him in town, but never explicitly says that. Maria's father and stepmother saw him. So I think he must have written to them because one of the neighbors actually told them that she had seen William nearby at his mother's house, doing yard work. So where was Maria?

Matthew: 9:24

Also if this population is 800 and this is now whatever? Yeah, yeah, but tiny this is like 40 People like you can't this is not a crowd to hide. No, no tiny

Marissa: 9:35

tiny town. Yeah. Like that's why he's

Matthew: 9:38

kicking around around the place. You see him all the damn time. There's nothing there. Apparently there's not that many faces.

Marissa: 9:45

Yeah, so just you know, suspicious. Of course, nobody's seen her. No one's heard from her like what the hell William? And Martin who again Maria stepmother tells her husband Thomas, which is Maria's father. she'd been having some dreams about Maria. She told him that she'd had the same dream twice before. Before she had it her third time and she said that she had dreams about more refining Maria dead and buried in the Red Barn, about half a mile from their house. She told her husband that she didn't want to bring it up because it seems superstitious. But after the dream came back, she decided

Matthew: 10:22

to tell him right and on the wall

Marissa: 10:26

and told her husband Thomas that quote, I think we're I in your place, I would go and examine the Red Barn. I very frequently dreamed about Maria. And twice before Christmas, I dreamed that Maria was murdered and buried in the red barn. So this red barn was a landmark building and pole stead. It was named for its unique red brick roof. Of course, it was red. It had been used as a randy boy rendezvous point for Maria and William as I said she was supposed to meet him before they went Ipswich. So Thomas, Ray's father, who was a mold catcher by trade and mold, didn't even know there was a thing but yes, man, literally caught moles for a living.

Matthew: 11:05

Yeah. Oh, man. There's some great occupations. Oh, yeah. Bone rubber. Yeah. Oh, man. There's some good good Victorian era employment opportunities.

Marissa: 11:16

Yes, but he is a mole catcher. He grabbed his mole Spud, which is what his tool was called, as a sharp metal spayed like tool that he used to kill moles in the ground by just like jotting it into the ground. And he headed to the Red Barn. He started poking around inside with his mole spotted and then he noticed an area on the floor where the ground was softer, had been recently been covered up by the corn harvest. He dug, not even dug I think he was just like poking into the ground, and he brought up a chunk of a decomposing corpse. He dug a little bit more and he found the corpse of his daughter, with her green kerchief still tied around her neck. Her combs in her earring she left in on that day were still on her body and littered among the decomposition in the dirt. When he saw these, Thomas stopped digging, and he went home to find his wife. And he asked her to recall what Maria had been wearing when she left with William and said that she'd been wearing a handkerchief around her neck hair combs and her earrings. Thomas asked her if she could recall what color the handkerchief was. She thought for a moment. She said it was green. So Thomas called upon the authorities. It was an you think it was it was

Matthew: 12:29

an Oh, I just haven't remote. She's gonna be dead of a gunshot wound that and just happens to remember the guy say, Oh, don't mess with my gun.

Marissa: 12:38

You know? That's that's not how it turns out. Spoiler alert, but you know what that is? That struck me as odd too. I mean, how many psychics I mean, does it really it almost never happens when a psychic like has a dream and actually finds a dead body like you have to know something

Matthew: 12:54

guilt. She had a guilt and then to say yeah,

Marissa: 12:57

but go ahead. Yeah, I'm not trying to like

Matthew: 13:01

throw shade on and I'm not trying

Marissa: 13:03

to throw shade on psychics and shit, but Oh, no, no,

Matthew: 13:06

but No, she's not. She's no psychic. She's She's a guilty murderer, who was like, Oh, maybe I shouldn't kill. She's

Marissa: 13:14

claiming to be a psychic. She just says oh, I had a dream. Dreams and it just happened to be in the red barn. Yeah, come on. But anyway, we're gonna base our speculation because this is let's go ahead.

Matthew: 13:29

I think may even been a team effort.

Marissa: 13:32

Okay, we're keep going on Okay.

Matthew: 13:34

With dad Shut up.

Marissa: 13:37

The police came and they tried to make sense of what they saw. Now, like I said, it was a very tiny town. Not a lot happened there. So they really didn't have the best tools. You know, it was tiny town. They just weren't used to having a murderer everyday. A surgeon from the area came by and he noted the state of her body while she was still on the barn. And then they lifted her out and they put her on a door and transported her to a nearby pub. The COC in Yeah. It was noted that her rotting hand fell off when they went to move her so she was in advanced state of decomposition at this point.

Matthew: 14:10

You're in a barn he decided to go to a restaurant with the body like I think the bar that many options this is the barn is a pretty good place to do it I think

Marissa: 14:23

I think they just wanted to have like a bunch of

Matthew: 14:26

people they want to have a bunch of people come look at this freakin bodies. They were like kick bringing it into the pub.

Marissa: 14:33

Look, I don't know the the logic behind taking it to the pub. But this is what happened. They also determined that there was a wound on her face that might have been a gunshot wound and other wounds that showed signs of stabbing choking or dragging. Because of this evidence and what they were told by her family and everyone nearby. Police then set out to find William quarter immediately. And you know what, it did not take long for an officer to find him. William quarter was at his family's house in London with his new wife

Matthew: 15:01

Oh, that's nice. No,

Marissa: 15:02

that's nice. Moved on pretty quick there. All the time. He's been telling Murray, his dad and stepmom that, oh, she's right here. We're off. We're engaged. We're married, whatever. She's happy. We're happy.

Matthew: 15:17

Got the pendulum swinging back to William at this point.

Marissa: 15:21

Yeah. So quarter had actually placed several Lonely Heart ads in the newspaper and had met his wife through one of those when she has sent a reply. Just a little detail there. But the officer who found him asked William three times if he knew anyone by the name of Maria Martin. He asked him three times, but each time William denied knowing anyone by that name. Come on now.

Matthew: 15:45

Like, well, your mom knows her.

Marissa: 15:48

Of course, there was evidence, of course that he did. So it wasn't long before William quarter was arrested for the crime of murdering Maria. Because Come on. Yeah. Oh, I don't know who that is.

Matthew: 15:58

I don't even know the name. You can't deny it when the cop just has a knock on your door and be like, Hey, do you know this person from that small town that used to live in? He's like, Huh,

Marissa: 16:09

well, he said he didn't know the name at all. I know. I'm on

Matthew: 16:13

but they're just so that they just happen to have this police officers going door to door knocking and just be asking random people come on. You can't deny they could have been like, what? Yeah, why? What's going on? Well, he was in

Marissa: 16:24

London. But yeah, they they they sought him out because they knew he knew her.

Matthew: 16:29

Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. But if you're in a big city, if you're in New York City, and somebody from Bluefield, West Virginia, goes missing. That's the town she's from

Marissa: 16:39

Virginia, Bluefield, Virginia, whatever

Matthew: 16:42

this is, this is this story has Appalachia written all over it? This whole situation? You've got this this small somebody goes missing in the smallest town that you're from and you're in the equivalent of like New York City or Boston or something and knock on your door and ask if you know that person? You say yes, yeah, because they're knocking on your door for a reason reason.

Marissa: 17:06

That's stupid. That's real dumb as

Matthew: 17:08

he should have never let and talk him into it.

Marissa: 17:11

Okay, let's keep moving. Some are what we know Victorian society at this point. It should be no surprise the story took off. Yeah, yeah. So the salacious story of a single mother who was lured away from her home by a young man who promised to marry her before she was found dead under the floor of their last reported meeting spot, not to mention that the body was supposedly been found because of her stepmothers dreams. Come on. Like it's just it's quite the story. So the story was turned into songs. You know, as I read at the beginning of this, and it became the the hot topic of the moment, a preacher preached to a crowd of 5000 near the red barn. And this is a tiny town, so

Matthew: 17:49

they came from out of town. Yeah.

Marissa: 17:51

And he condemned William for his actions. William quarter became known as a quarter the murderer, and plays were performed, depicting the murder and the drama, all while William quarter was sitting in prison, awaiting his trial.

Matthew: 18:10

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Marissa: 19:15

As a reminder, if you have a podcast or if you're thinking of starting one, we do have affiliate links in the description for the podcasting host that we here at macabrepedia use, and that is Buzzsprout Buzzsprout gets your show listed in every major podcast platform. You'll get a great looking podcast website, audio players that you can embed in other websites, detailed analytics to see just how people are listening tools to promote your episodes and so much more. Follow the link in the show notes to let Buzzsprout know that we sent you and then also we'll get you a $20 amazon gift card you sign up for a paid plan and it helps to support our show. And now back to the Red Barn murder. The trial began In on August 7 1828, there was so much interest in it. Tickets were required because of this level of interest unprecedented. At this time, women were not allowed to be in court. So they were actually hugging the windows outside as they were crowding in so they could see inside, and they actually broke some of the panes of glass. Yeah. So some of the crowd, onlookers climbed ladders and still on the roofs nearby to get a better look inside of the prisoner. The weight of these people on the roof, many of them women, threatened to collapse the roof of the courthouse. There were that many people. So they decided to allow women to come into the courtroom, so they wouldn't, you know, get the roof claps on them. The crowd was pretty unruly, and they even snatched the wigs off a few of the court officials when they tried to make their way to the crowd is to get into the courtroom. One official even lost his gown. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. So anyway, the prosecution, they brought all of their evidence on the first day of the trial. The counts against quarter were red. They included stabbing, shooting and strangulation. 10 counts and all. A model of the red barn was actually made and placed in the courtroom for everyone to see. I don't think it was probably made to scale. Someone just probably made a red barn. That's my guess. I don't know. It's probably just the visual of having this little red barn. The evidence added up Maria's stepmother and had been there when the lovers and make plans to elope and meet the red barn. And she testified this quarter had said that there was a rumor that we would be arrested but the Constable of the area denied ever telling quarter this

Matthew: 21:41

Yeah, cuz obvious that she was.

Marissa: 21:44

I mean, come on. This was her third kid out of wedlock. If it was gonna be arrested. You think they would have arrested her before this, but maybe not. I mean, point point is like there was not a warrant out for her arrest. And he made her believe that it was that there was and so she got all panicky and she decided to meet up with him. Keep going. This is what happens. So, quarter hadn't been consistent with this story. This whole thing about Maria's whereabouts. He told a neighbor that she was done having kids when she had inquired after her. And when the neighbor pointed out that she was still pretty young. He insisted Yeah, but she's never gonna have any more she's done. Which Why would you say that? If you're supposedly married to this woman, why would you she clearly fertile she's had three kids like,

Matthew: 22:31

never survive. Maybe she's one of them. And where's he he's friggin so I don't even know where this dude like the the wealthy guy take him.

Marissa: 22:40

I don't know where this dad, the child of the wealthy guy must have taken I mean, child mortality was kind of a big thing. Even then. So yeah. But what but it's just it was a suspicious thing to say. Um, I

Matthew: 22:51

can think of different conversations where that comes up. It's not as I mean, you have multiple miscarriages, she was 24. You have multiple miscarriages and

Marissa: 23:03

miscarriages. I'm pretty sure they weren't. They were both of them were born and then died as young.

Matthew: 23:07

Maybe you're just not really wanting to see more more your kids die.

Marissa: 23:12

That's okay. I understand that. Like, it's a suspicious thing to say when someone asks,

Matthew: 23:18

you notice this very murderer was very dismissive.

Marissa: 23:22

Like clearly he knew she was dead. It's kind of what I'm getting from this. Like, he just dismissed it as Yeah, well, she's never gonna have kids. We're done. That's never gonna happen.

Matthew: 23:30

Yeah, I'm just saying that you can make that come up in normal conversation. But yes, if you're talking to a murderer, that becomes very suspicious, but you don't realize you're talking to a murder. It's just like, hey, man, how come you don't have any kids? And we decided not to have kids. It's not that weird.

Marissa: 23:47

It was probably not something that was that suspicious? Suspicious at the time. But once he was arrested for murder, I was like, that was really weird. Yeah, it's always suspicious

Matthew: 23:57

when you're like, oh, he met cuz she's not. And

Marissa: 24:01

she probably just thought it was weird at the time. Yeah. Okay. So He also denied ever knowing Maria to the constable, as I said, they also found a French passport and quarter's house, which possibly meant that he was planning to flee to France. Lots of things, right. This is a few months, right. They left in May, a love a month. So like April ish. The trial is in August of next year, the following year. So

Matthew: 24:26

I'm just saying he was 11 months after she had said that she was leaving with him. And he ends up married. Not long after

Marissa: 24:40

the second day of the trial quarters defense tried to say that he was unfairly treated by the press saying that he'd been treated as, quote, the most depraved inhuman monsters. Yeah, that's kind of what they do, though. Yeah, that is what they do. So he swore that Maria had shot herself after they had an argument. It's not fun. It's not funny, but it's come on. It's online. Yeah, so he said that he said that that she had shot herself, and he had buried her as he admitted burying her. But he said it was because he had panicked. Because of all the numerous injuries that were seen all over her body, the prosecution poked holes in that immediately. The jury debated for only about 30 minutes before finding William quarter guilty of the murder of Maria Martin, the Lord Chief Baron pronounced the sentence, quote, William quarter had now becomes my most painful but necessary duty to announce to you the approaching end of your mortal career, nothing remains now for me to do but to pass upon you the awful sentence of the law. That sentence is that you'll be taking back to the prison from whence you came, and that you will be taken from thence on Monday next to a place of execution, and that you there be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body shall afterwards be dissected and atomized and may the Lord God Almighty, of His infinite goodness, have mercy on your soul. During this whole thing, William shook violently while the sentence was being read. And he actually had to be carried back to his cell sobbing. So August 11 1828, William was to be hanged. Normally, the condemned would be hung on a nearby hanging tree, but it was too far away for William to have to walk there through the crowd. Because it was just, you know, crazy crowd. So they constructed a place to hang him, they burn a hole through the side of the jail, through the side of the jail, and like built a platform there. So he really just had to walk outside. Oh, yeah. Yeah. While this was being done, quarter actually wrote out his confession, where he admitted to killing Maria and burying her in the red barn. And he claimed that he and Maria had argued, possibly about their dead child, and he had accidentally shot her. As he stood in front of the crowd about to be hanged. He said to them, I am guilty. My sentence is just, I deserve my fate. And may God have mercy upon me. And then he was hanged and laughed for an hour before his body was taken back to the prison. The crowd took what they could as souvenirs, including part of the hanging rope. People would also go to the red barn and disassemble it taking souvenirs. About seriously about 200,000 people are said to have visited the red barn in that year alone. Wow. Yeah. So the wood was sold as shoe boxes, or tiny little toothpicks.

Matthew: 27:27

Yeah, that's McCobb

Marissa: 27:29

very much. So there is a bit of a twist here with the story, not just the gruesome murder. So as I read, he was sentenced to also be an atomized or dissected,

Matthew: 27:43

which was that was kind of the only way to get a body at that time for anatomy, right? So condemned person

Marissa: 27:51

it was Brent is really common at the time, the body was cut open and exposed, and it would then be set out for the public to see and gawk at it. Eventually, people associated dissection with criminals so strongly that it was really difficult to convince anyone to willingly donate their body to science. Yeah, so Dr. George creed, who was the county surgeon took William quarters body. An hour after he died, he was doing his autopsy, and he peeled back part of his skin to expose the muscles. And then after that, this was not the this is not the full autopsy, he just did like part of that just to explode, expose part of his body. And actually, the source I read made a point of saying that William quarter still had his pants on. So I guess a lot of them didn't. You know, there's the point of part part of it, I think, is to embarrass or not to embarrass, but what's the word to not dishonor the corpse but to humiliate is definitely to humiliate you. They set that out, they left it there, it was left all day for the public to see before the medical professionals took it away. Then they made death masks of it. So a callback to death masks, and they made some casts of his head for phonology purposes. The Hangman that actually took his fine clothing for himself. So yeah, I think that was pretty common

Matthew: 29:12

perks. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think I think like, Hey, man, go hey, yeah, Hangman, they were kind of shunned by society. But for the most part, I think they had kind of a lot of say, and some of that stuff. They were the ones who people would go to to get the blood and stuff from the from the Hanged person.

Marissa: 29:33

Yeah, actually, I said earlier, they took parts of like the the rope, the hangman's rope. The Hanged man took a good chunk of that because someone or the somebody actually traveled to try to get a piece of this rope from the hangman and the hangman was like knots. I've got his mind. He wouldn't give it up so anonymous and medical students dissected his body the next day, and it was likely at this point that a large piece of his skin was taken off Dr. Creed took quarters Hart to make an anatomical wet specimen of it. And a skeleton was actually articulated to be displayed in the hospital. And his skeleton was on display until 2004. Oh, wow, that's awesome. Yeah, and the bones were then removed and cremated. And that's a long time. He also used this piece of skin, they took away from quarter to bind a book that was about the trial of quarter.

Matthew: 30:28

That is poetic. Yes, this

Marissa: 30:30

book ended up in the personal collection of Dr. Creed, until it was given to a fellow doctor, and then eventually to a museum. And you can still see it. It's now at Moises Hall Museum and Bury St. Edward Suffolk. This book is called the trial at length of William quarter convicted of the murder of Maria Martin

Matthew: 30:51

made of his own mage,

Marissa: 30:52

it's bound in his own skin. Yes, that's awesome. The actually, you know, I was looking up this because I was going to do an episode on books bound and human skin. And there's a project where they take books that are bound in human skin or said to be bound in human skin, and they test them. And it was something like, and the reason that they test these is either, there's either got to be some kind of lore around it, like, you know, a librarian is like, oh, people I work with I've said for years, this is bound on human skin, and we don't, you know, test it. Yes, or the other one will be sometimes there's actually like an inscription or something written in pencil or something inside the book that says this book is down in human skin, if that's the case, they will test that.

Matthew: 31:37

So I should just go to the library. Every leather bound book,

Marissa: 31:42

everything that looks old, don't do that

Matthew: 31:44

this is a scam, do not do this. There's actually a company that you can get your skin like made into stuff that you can actually like nowadays, you can do that, like you can get like if you had like a prominent tattoo or something like that, and your family wanted it, they do have the there is a company that you can have come in and either I don't think they actually harvest it themselves, I think you actually have to have the mortician actually do that which I think is actually illegal most places. But if you can get the skin, it's not illegal to put it into a picture frame.

Marissa: 32:18

It's a thing people do. This project is called the anthropomorphic book project. And they focus on anthropomorphic, Biblio, Plett, Biblio PEGI or books bound in human skin, and they have identified 50 confirmed 18 To be human testing, or in process 31. And they've proven that 13 of them are not human flesh. It's it's this whole thing. So it's kind of crazy, still means

Matthew: 32:47

that if it says human flesh, there's a pretty good, pretty good chance that it is, if the book says it's in human flesh.

Marissa: 32:53

I mean, that's still not that many. But yeah, there's always a possibility. This is anthropomorphic, books.org, the pub slash in nearby where Maria's body was taken, which is the COC and it's still in operation, believe it or not, I mean, it's England. There's a bunch of old stuff still in operation.

Matthew: 33:09

But there's another an apartment partnership with balls.

Marissa: 33:14

Oh, my God. You're talking balls. look on his face like

Matthew: 33:17

talk talking balls in.

Marissa: 33:19

She's so funny. The reason I mentioned that Maria stepmother and was only one year older than her is that there was a rumor and everywhere that I read said this was only rumor very unsubstantiated, probably just gossip Maria stepmother and was only one year older than Maria was. So the rumor was that she was having an affair with William quarter.

Matthew: 33:40

I mean, that's how small towns work though.

Marissa: 33:43

There's always gonna be a rumor.

Matthew: 33:44

Well, not only that, but you know, the pool is not very big for affairs. So but yeah, I mean, that tracks I mean, like I said, she seemed to be a little too, too in tuned with small things that she remembered from that moment. I told you. I mean, I think I think there's a good chance that it was a it was a group effort to get her out of the picture.

Marissa: 34:08

I mean, I definitely found it a bit suspicious when I read that they found the body because she dreamed about it.

Matthew: 34:15

I'm not saying you also knew that that was a rendezvous point, but still like she

Marissa: 34:19

did but she dreamed that the body was under the like, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think you've lost

Matthew: 34:26

especially it really seems like you he could have I don't know maybe she's like some kind of mastermind and she had she told him to do it there something out and there's there's all kinds of stupid that could happen there. Like I'm sure that there was other places you could have there could have been a tree could have put her under somewhere. Not put her inside of a building. I mean, I get the idea of like having it where, you know,

Marissa: 34:49

the corn harvest was on top of where she was where she was buried, so I guess maybe there was like a built in camouflage for some of the year but like, I don't know, never to see Everybody public

Matthew: 35:00

use frickin place and why would you? Why would you risk it? You just take her out? Oh, we're leaving. We got to run away, run, run, run, run, run. And now you did. It also seems a little suspicious to choke wounds and signs of a struggle and then and then a gunshot wound. I don't know.

Marissa: 35:21

That seems like it went down quite like he said. But

Matthew: 35:24

yeah, I'm just saying seems like he could have just popped there with it with a gun and we just called it called it good. Nin said strangling her and punching her and dragging her around. Come on now.

Marissa: 35:35

But that was the rumor. There's also just getting into the the supernatural area. But also there was an urban legend that his skull was taken that you know, William quarter skull, after we he was executed his skull was taken by a doctor in Suffolk, about 50 years actually after he died. So not immediately after he was murdered or not. Not immediately after it was executed. After the doctor took it home, he supposedly started to see ghosts and hearing voices. I heard a loud noise one night downstairs and it went down there. And he found that the cabinet where he'd been keeping the skull had been opened on its own. And the box that the skull was in was smashed. And the skull somehow was on the other side of the room. Oh, creepy. I mean, it's an urban legend, but supposedly He then gave it to his friend who buried it and nothing else supernatural happen. I don't know if this means that the skeleton that was on display was sand skull or if this is just complete hokum, but who knows? Who knows? But that is the red barn murder and the sad murder of Maria Martin by her lover, William quarter. Seems like an unfortunately common theme. Oh, yeah. All through time. Of course. Yes. Right now,

Matthew: 36:53

everybody. Yeah. Yeah. That's a number one reason to kill somebody is well, Target, I guess is his

Marissa: 37:01

spouse slash partner, romantic partner.

Matthew: 37:04

Yeah, it definitely has. Has that kind of sex involved.

Marissa: 37:08

The high emotions,

Matthew: 37:10

though. Wishing you'd not done it. Not had sex with that person. So you'd rather just you know, wipe them off the planet?

Marissa: 37:18

Yeah, I just didn't have I mean, he didn't have that strong of a motive.

Matthew: 37:24

He had no motive.

Marissa: 37:25

I mean, because at the time, he could have just left. He's man he could have just left and she would have just been there. She hadn't had a kid by him either like the kid or she did but like the kid died. So really, he wasn't tied to her at all. Yeah, at all. I don't understand.

Matthew: 37:40

And probably did play a part in it. I'm just saying it just seems a little seems a little weird. I mean, like that he didn't he wasn't trying to escape nothing. No, that's what I don't know.

Marissa: 37:50

That's wild SAP small town gossip. I

Matthew: 37:52

guess. What that see how that worked out for him. Yeah.

Marissa: 37:57

But the sound cool. Oh, Joe. Sounds cool. That's about all I got. Anyway, thank you for joining us.

Matthew: 38:06

As always, thank you for listening and joining us as we took a took another trip down the murders of the Victorian era. If you want to give us any feedback, or reach out to us, you can find us on Twitter and Facebook at macabrepedia.

Marissa: 38:26

We're also on Instagram and the copper pedia pod. And if you want to just reach out to us and give us a metal question or something on email, we are at macabrepediapod@email.com.

Matthew: 38:37

And we also have begun uploading our episodes to our new macabrepedia YouTube channel. If you wanted to utilize that method to listen you can feel free to do so. But as always, if you are listening to us on Apple podcast, please leave us a review and a comment. We do read those and if you do so we will shout you out in the upcoming episodes. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for listening and join us next week as we add another entry into this our macabrepedia