A Good Night For a Murder

For the first episode of the new year, I want to get back to the show’s roots with a classic Victorian murder case, where some very interesting investigation methods were deployed. This is the story of Sarah Jane Roberts.

To accompany episode 46, The Last Thing Sarah Jane Roberts Saw, which was about the unsolved murder of domestic servant Sarah Jane Roberts and the use of retinal optography to solve her case. I am going to tell you about some more cases where forensic retinal optography was deployed, and if it ever actually worked.

This is a special bonus episode to celebrate Christmas the Victorian way. In the winter and especially during the Christmas season, Victorian’s enjoyed gathering with the family around the fire at night and telling ghost stories. So tonight, I am going to tell you, in my own words, one of my favorite Victorian era ghost stories. This story was first published in in 1902 by W. W. Jacobs. It is called “The Monkey’s Paw.”

Similar to the regular episode and bonus content earlier this month where I covered a handful of Victorian Christmas true crime stories in one episode, this is also going to be a compilation episode. Since Victorians loved telling ghost stories at Christmas, in this episode I’m going to cover 6 of the most haunted Victorian houses. We’ll be visiting 3 houses in the US, and 3 in the UK.

To accompany episode 45 where I covered four stories of Victorian Christmastime true crime, I have three more stories of Victorian era holiday murder cases for you.

This is the Christmas episode! Nothing says holly and jolly like the Victorian macabre after all. Tonight, as my holiday season gift to you, I don’t have one story to tell you, I have FOUR Victorian era Christmastime murders to share with you. And they get crazier as we go. So be sure to stick around and listen to all four.

I invited a guest on the podcast to talk about something I find super interesting, which is cemeteries and gravestone conservation.

We talked about what a grave conservator does, how to get in to the line of work, things you should and should not do as an aspiring grave conservator, views on cemeteries and mourning then and now, mourning traditions we think should come back, has she ever encountered anything spooky? And, bonus stones!

This is my conversation with Rachel from Epoch Preservation.

Earlier this month, I covered the Radium Girls on the regular feed, then the Matchstick Girls as bonus content here on Patreon. In keeping with that theme, tonight’s Good Night Snack is about another brave set of women that sacrificed their well-being and often their lives in the interest of progress. This is the story of the Canary Girls.

This is a bonus content episode available exclusively on Patreon. To accompany episode 44 about The Radium Girls, I am going to tell you about another landmark story of women banning together to fight for workplace rights.

This is the story of the matchstick girls.